Total Web Solutions

Web Hosting Basics

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:10:00 +0000

If you have decided you or your company is in need of a website, you will have to purchase web hosting services from a hosting company. There are many different web-hosting companies to choose from, and they can easily be found on the internet. If you do a quick search for them in any search engine, you will find that there are almost too many to count. Choosing the company that is right for you can be a harrowing experience, but there are really only a few basic things to consider.

The first factor to consider when choosing a web hosting company is how much space they will give you for your account. If you merely want a single page on the Internet with little or no graphics, you can get by with purchasing an account with the smallest amount of space available. However, if you are planning to create a full e-commerce site with multiple pages and order forms, you will need to make sure you have enough server space to support your entire operation.

Before you sign your web-hosting contract, you will first have to choose and purchase a domain name. Though many of the names you might want are already taken, you can often find one that suits your needs, especially if you get creative with it. For instance, if your business is called Cards For You and that domain name is already taken, you might consider choosing More Cards For You or Cards For You Today. The possibilities are endless, and with a little thought you will be able to think of a snappy domain name.

You can often purchase a domain name through your web hosting company, or you can purchase it through a private domain name retailer. These companies are very easy to find. Often times, if you type the domain name you want into a search engine, a domain name seller will pop up if the name is not already taken. You can purchase a domain name for a year at a time, or for several years, depending on how much you want to invest at the get-go.

Once you have a domain name, you will of course have to create a website to put on the Internet. There are many do-it-yourself web design programs that are fairly user friendly. Software like FrontPage makes web design a cut and paste, fill in the blank soft of affair. However, if you would like a more professional look, you can use programs like Dreamweaver or Image Ready to make your sites. There are always freelance web designers looking for work who are ready to take on your cause if you are not savvy enough to do it yourself.

Web hosting companies give passwords to allow you access your space on their servers. You can upload files and pages using their own interface programs, or you can utilize the upload tools built in to your web design program. Once you upload a page, it is important to make sure it looks correct on a variety of different web browsers. Because each browser interprets information differently, you may run into trouble if you build a site while only previewing it in Internet Explorer. There are often compatibility issues between Safari and Mozilla browsers that distort site tables and images.

However, once you work out the kinks and create an excellent site, all you have to do is pay your web hosting bills, and your site will be available for the whole world to see. Web hosting companies usually offer options regarding payment plans. You can pay for a year at a time, or you can monthly or quarterly to maintain your place on the World Wide Web.

About the author:
Sintilia Miecevole has many years experience on the internet. Be sure to visit for expert information on hosting, providers, host finders, resources, reviews, reliability and much more. To find the right web hosting plan to meet your business and ecommerce needs click on

How to Choose a Right Web Hosting Service?

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:07:00 +0000

Indeed, choosing a right web hosting service for your website is not an easy task especially when there are thousands of web hosting providers all offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important to know few major considerations even before you start your web hosting search. Below are three major criteria for web host seeker:

Web hosting features requirement

This is probably the most important consideration to start finding a host for your site. You need to decide the technical requirements for your website, this including:

a) Server platform and hardware requirements
If you plan to set up a website that uses programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database, in this case, you will need to find a web hosting service that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers.

Likewise, if you plan to use programming languages such as Perl, CGI, SSI, PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that support Unix/Linux platform should be sufficient to meet your hosting requirements. Once you have these server platform and hardware requirements in mind, you can decide the best web hosting plans for your need. For more information, you can read "How to select a web server and server platform?"

b) Disk space & Bandwidth requirement
Here is another technical requirement that you need to consider before selecting a web hosting plan, i.e. disk space and bandwidth. If you intend to publish a website that does not have a lot of contents (meaning, web pages), then the disk space requirement may not be a big concern to you. In general, a disk space with 200MB to 500MB should be enough to meet your hosting requirement. In contrast, if you plan to host a website with enormous amount of graphic pictures, mp3 or video files, then you should consider a web hosting plan that provide huge disk space, for example, 500 MB to 1,000 MB.

Similarly, the bandwidth requirement will depend on your site traffic estimation. Obviously, a website that expect to attract high traffic will consume the monthly bandwidth allowance very fast. If so, you will need to find one web hosting service that offer huge bandwidth with 40 GB to 100 GB per month. Depending upon your website requirement, choosing a web hosting service that provide sufficient amount of disk space and bandwidth is crucial consideration to prevent paying extra costs in the future should you overuse the monthly disk space and bandwidth allowance.

c) Other hosting features
While the above requirements are utmost important, there are other hosting features that you have to consider too. Can web hosting provider support video clips on your website, if you have? Is the web hosting service compatible with Dreamweaver or FrontPage web authoring tool? Do you plan to set up a virtual store online? Can the host support the e-commerce features without adding extra cost to your monthly payments? On top of that, you may also want to find out the number of email accounts provided, number of FTP accounts, web statistic software (analyze your web traffic), type of control panel supported (manage your web hosting account), database and scripting languages supported and etc.

Reliability and scalability

A first-class web hosting provider offers reliable server uptime and fast Internet connection. You should only choose a web hosting service that guarantee at least 99% server uptime with high-speed Internet backbones using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per second) or above instead of T1 or T3 lines. A reliable web hosting provider usually invests heavily on their data center infrastructure with high performance servers, high speed multiple backbones providers with fail-over redundancy, backup power generators and firewall software protection in place to ensure they meet the uptime guarantee specified in the terms of service.

Similarly, you should choose a web hosting service with hardware facilities that designed for scalability, so that they can grow with your business. For example, if you need to increase more disk space, bandwidth or number of mySQL databases, you should be able to upgrade as needed without any problems.

Customer service and support

The last major consideration in choosing a web hosting service is to find a web hosting providers that offers excellent customer service and support. You should always search for a web hosting provider that offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week technical support that fielded with highly experience technicians, so that any web hosting problems will be resolved within a reasonable amount of time. You may also want to consider to test how responsive is their customer support by sending few inquiry emails to the web hosting provider. In general, any response in less than 24 hours is considered acceptable. It is a sign of poor customer support if they take more than one day to response.

In addition, a web hosting provider with excellent support should also provide multiple support channels, such as toll-free phone support, 24/7 email support, live chat, online knowledgebase, Interactive flash tutorials and FAQ.

Above are few major considerations before you choose your web hosting service. In addition, how long has the web hosting provider in business and the number of customers that they currently have are also a good indication of the quality of their hosting products as well as the stability of the company. Even though cost of the web hosting service is also important but it should not be your major consideration. Because the price of a web hosting service has been declining over the years due to competition, as a result, the price of most of the web hosting services offering quality hosting features has been converging to less than US$10 per month. If you can't afford less than $10 per month, you probably isn't in the online business for the long haul. Therefore, price should not be a major deciding factor.

On the other hand, it is more important to ensure the web hosting service that you choose is able to meet your website hosting requirements, guarantee your website is always accessible with satisfying speed, provide scalability to grow and expand your website as well as offer excellent customer supports. Depending on your web hosting requirement, you can take advantage of our site, Cheap Web Hosting Review to find the recommended web hosting services that can match the three major criteria above. Good luck to your search.

Andrew Loh is the owner of Web Hosting Services, a website that provides complete and detail reviews on web hosting services. You can visit his website at:http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com/

Email Etiquette – More Than Just Manners

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:33:00 +0000

We all understand the importance of good “people skills” when it comes to our interpersonal communication – it helps us get the results we need. Our communication determines the opinion others have of us – knowledgeable or ignorant, pleasant or rude, professional or immature. Most of the time this is in face-to-face or telephone conversations where we have some control over the impression we make on others.

When it comes to netiquette (Network Etiquette), it’s not as easy to control how others perceive us, and yet it’s even more important. Why? Because what you write and how you use email can affect whether your email gets delivered, read, or responded to – and what that response is! In addition, there are numerous “technology traps” that are easy to fall into. Have you ever seen someone accidentally send an angry or sensitive response to a huge group of people by using the ”Reply All” key?

And before you say to yourself "I already know" and stop reading this article, realize that every single one of us could benefit from a few simple reminders on the proper use of email, not just from a personal view but also from a business standpoint. If you're doing business on the internet – and using email to communicate with your customers – then this article is a must read for you! You may already know many of these tips, but even the most experienced user will find a few rules you were not aware of or have fallen into the habit of breaking.

Think, write, and think again.
Email is a static, one-way channel – unlike live communication, there’s no way to get immediate feedback (from facial expressions or voice responses) to know if we are being effective or even understood. So think twice before hitting the send key. Is there ANY chance that the recipient might misinterpret what you want them to understand? Do your thoughts come across as abrupt or angry? Could this email accidentally affect your reputation? The hastily written word may lack feelings and the true emotion you intended. You might be smiling as you type, but your note could come across as sarcastic or mean-spirited. Remember – there’s a person on the other end, not just a computer.

Use a meaningful subject line.
This is the first thing your reader will see, so use the space to help them understand the contents of the email even before they open it. Using the same rule from above, type in a subject that relates to the message you're sending, rather than leaving the subject blank. Without a subject line your note will probably be seen as another piece of junk mail – not everyone will recognize who you are just from your email address. Many internet service providers (ISP’s) filter out suspicious looking email, and a blank subject is a big red flag. Also, try to avoid generic words like "Hi" or "Check This Out" to avoid having the recipients spam or virus software delete your message!

The beginning, and the end.
Always use a salutation, even if it’s short. Start your message with "Hi", or "Hello", or "Dear", whatever works best for the intended recipient, and whatever reflects your personality. Think about this: when you call someone on the telephone, don't you say "Hello" before telling them what you want? Email messages should be no different. At a minimum, address the email to the person.

Don't forget the end of your message too! Always sign your messages with your name, and say "Thank You", or "Sincerely", or something else appropriate. You can even setup a signature in your email program that will automatically display your information at the bottom of every email message you send. For directions, use your email programs help file and do a search for signature.

Protect your recipient’s identity – use “To:”, “CC:” and “BC:” properly.
There are a few simple netiquette rules for using the address fields in email.

If your email is being sent to just one person or email address, place it in the "To:" field. This should be the person who is responsible for sending you a reply.

When your email is being sent to more than one person and all the recipients truly need to know who else is receiving it, put all the addresses in the “CC:” field.

For email sent to multiple recipients who have no real reason to know the names and email addresses of everyone else to whom it is being sent, put all the addresses in the “BCC:” field.

(Some email software requires at least one address to be placed in the “To:” field. Put your own email address in the “To:” section if this is required.)

By default, not every email program has the BCC field available for viewing. If you cannot see the Bcc field in your program, check your programs help file for directions.

Give memory a helping hand.
When replying to emails, include a copy of the prior notes you’ve traded with the person on the topic, don't just send a new one. I may receive 50 emails a day that need a reply and it’s not always possible to remember every single 'conversation' with every single person. Please don’t make your reader go looking through their ‘sent items’ folder or email ‘recycle bin’ to refresh their memory!

Use the ‘Read Receipt’ sparingly.
In some cases, it's crucial for both parties to know that a message was received. However, in normal day-to-day activities you should not request a read receipt for every single message you send. It's annoying to the recipient to have to click that pop up box every time they get your email. And it is an invasion of privacy. Don't forget – just because they have received it doesn't mean they have necessarily read it, so receiving a read receipt doesn't actually prove anything other than that the message was received. And for day to day communications, is that really necessary?

URGENT!
The boy who cried wolf. Do not send all your messages as URGENT, or HIGH PRIORITY. If your recipients keep receiving messages marked that way, then eventually the red exclamation point loses it's effectiveness – except to reinforce how important YOU think you are. Reserve these messages for those that are of utmost importance!

Avoid special formatting.
For your day-to-day messages, don't use colored email backgrounds, colored fonts, special fonts, images or other "pretty" type of formatting to your messages. Keep them clean – this makes it easier for the intended recipient to read them and reply. It's best to send messages in plain text to ensure everyone will be able to read them, since not everyone has their email set to receive html emails. You would be amazed at how bad your note may look to someone viewing their email on a handheld device or an older computer. By keeping your emails clean, they will also load much faster for the recipient!

Don’t SHOUT!
If you type in all capital letters, your reader will see this as yelling, or they will think that you were just too lazy to use proper text formatting. It’s also hard on the eyes – did you know that it takes longer to read something written in all caps than it does to read something that is properly formatted?

Proof, spell-check, and use proper formatting.
Poor writing skills are a direct reflection on you! And the reader never forgets the person who writes an undecipherable message. Spell checking will prevent most misspelled words, but you should always proof your email in case you've written the incorrect word (that was spelled correctly). For example, month and moth, where and were, all look correct to a spell-check program. Use proper capitalization, punctuation and formatting. Break your paragraphs when the subject changes, or if they become too long. Don't use excessive formatting (too much bold, too many exclamation points and question marks, etc.) Too much of anything will make your message harder to read. You want to make your message easily readable, as well as understandable. Proofread it to ensure it make sense, and never assume the reader knows what you mean, always spell it out for them. The time it takes to proof and spell check is minimal compared to the lasting impression you will make if you don't take the time.

Take the time to send a reply.
Even when someone emails you something that doesn't need a direct response, follow up with them in a timely manner just to let them know you received their message. It’s amazing how often people will ask for advice, and not even reply with a short “Thank you” when they receive their answer. A simple message telling the sender is sufficient. And this lets them know you did receive it, that it didn't just get stuck in cyberspace somewhere.

If they didn't request it, don't send it!
No matter what you think may be acceptable, you cannot email someone about your product/service without their permission. Unless they request that you send them an email, or you have previously done business with them, then it is illegal to send them an email, period. Any recipient can easily forward your email to their ISP and report you for sending unsolicited email messages (SPAM).

This report would result in the immediate removal of all your websites/email address from most servers. You would then join a list of “prohibited senders” meaning that servers would not allow any messages attached to your domain name to be received by their customers - the people you are sending your messages to.

You might be thinking, “but I get emails every day about products/services that I didn't request information about.” Sending unsolicited email messages (SPAM), is kind of like speeding. Lot's of people do it, but it is against the law, and no matter how long you may get away with it, you are bound to get caught!

Compress, Compress, Compress!
If you are sending an email with several large attachments, it is often better to send them in a few separate emails, so that you don’t send a document that is too large to even open. Or, you can try compressing your messages into a zipped file. It doesn’t reduce the size of images or pictures very much, but it works great for text, spreadsheet and program files. This is very easy to do, and will make your file size much smaller, and make the recipient much happier. Check out www.winzip.com (for those on pc).

Hoaxes as helpful hints.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Do not forward everything that gets sent to you. We've all seen them – the chain-letter emails that promise if you forward to x number of people you'll get paid, or you'll win something, or you will be lucky forever. It's all a hoax, a scam, and the only result is huge numbers of email transmissions that slow down servers all across the country. If you receive one of these emails from a friend, reply to them (in a very nice way) and explain to them why this isn't true, or ask them to stop forwarding them to you.

Virus, or virus advice?
Many viruses are spread by email masquerading as warnings about – a virus! If someone forwards you a virus warning, which usually contains instructions for removing a virus from your computer... check google.com for that virus BEFORE doing anything. Chances are, it's also a hoax, and if you do remove that "bad file" from your computer, you're actually removing a necessary component crucial to your system!

Wow, that was a lot of information to take in at one time, but I congratulate you for sticking it out and reading the entire article. Please share it with your family, friends and colleagues.

About the author:
Angela Nielsen is President of NIC Media Group, an award-winning web development company located in San Diego, California. To find out more about Angela Nielsen, and NIC Media, visit or call them direct at 888 NIC Media. Copyright 2005 by Angela Nielsen and NIC Media Group.

Why Thunderbird is the Best Email Client for your Family or Office

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:32:00 +0000

Nowadays, most of us have so many email addresses, it's hard jusy to keep track of our own, let alone manage those of our family and colleagues as well. Throw newsgroup sunscriptions and multiple storage folders into the mix as well, and it's a management nightmare.

Mozilla Thunderbird, my email client of choice, solves this problem effectively and easily with Profiles.

How do Thunderbird Profiles work?

Thunderbird allows multiple users to set up the email client to suit their own specific needs and tastes, from Themes and Extensions to Email accounts, Inboxes and Newsgroup subscriptions.
Upon startup of Thunderbird, you are able to choose which user profile you would like to use.
So, you can now have a profile for yourself, one for your partner, and even one for the kids (allowing you to increase Thunderbirds's spam and security measures).
Each profile is independent of the others, so it's like having a new installation for each user.

How do I activate Thunderbird Profiles?

1. Firstly, find the Thunderbird shortcut on your desktop (or create one from the .exe file).
2. Right-click it, and select properties.
3. Lastly, in the Target box, add ' -p' without the apostrophes to the end of the target line (so that it reads something like 'C:\Program Files\Mozilla\Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe -p'), and click OK.

Now when you start Thunderbird through this shortcut you will be prompted with the Profiles Manager box (as long as you do not already have Thunderbird open). It's all self-explanatory from thereon.

For faster start-up, I advise that you keep two shortcuts on your desktop - one to load up Thunderbird as normal, and this new one to execute only when you want to change profile.

About the author:
Rob Barrett is a professional web designer based in Dorset, England.
To read more free articles on Web Design and Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird, visit:

Choosing Your Web Hosting Reseller Software

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:31:00 +0000

As a web host reseller, one of your most important business decisions is your choice of web hosting control panel software. The web hosting software you use will save or cost you time, money, and frustration.

What reseller control panel features will reduce your workload? What hosting software programs are integrated with the reseller control panel or work with it? What website control panel features will your clients like?

In this article, we’ve compared four quality web hosting reseller software programs:

• Alabanza
• cPanel
• H-Sphere
• Plesk

All of these reseller control panels come with control panels for your clients. They all have numerous features — advanced email management, web statistics, pre-installed scripts, multi-language support, and more. They all work on Linux platforms, while H-Sphere and Plesk also work with Windows. According to the cPanel website, a Windows version of cPanel is in development.

Other features that set these control panels apart are their degree of automation, the number of features and ease of use for the end user, and the features and ease of use for you, the reseller.
Alabanza

When you become an Alabanza reseller, you don’t just have a reseller account — you lease a dedicated server from Alabanza. Alabanza owns the control panel the server, and you resell directly for Alabanza. If you lease a dedicated Alabanza server, you can create your own reseller accounts. However, only you can set up hosting plans; resellers below you will be limited to hosting plans that you create.

Alabanza offers resellers a high degree of automation with its Domain System Manager (DSM), which can significantly reduce overhead and time spent on routine tasks:

• Account creation
• Billing and invoice management
• Credit card processing
• Domain registration
• Email notifications
• Ordering fraud protection

Even novices can sell hosting with this level of automation.

DSM also integrates with bulkregister.com for domain name registration. It does not easily integrate with other domain registrars, though.

A key Alabanza feature that resellers can offer their clients is the Xpress Product Suite, which provides web development and email management tools. The Xpress Product Suite includes SiteXpress, a website-building program that features over 300 templates and requires no web design skills.

cPanel

For resellers and end users, cPanel is known for its ease of use and range of features. cPanel’s collection of over 50 pre-installed scripts and Fantastico auto installer help clients set up their sites with little web development knowledge.

A basic cPanel reseller account comes with two separate programs for resellers to manage their business:

• WHM (Web Host Manager) is used to create accounts and packages, add and suspend sites, modify passwords, view bandwidth usage, park domains, install SSL certificates, and perform other administrative functions.
• From the reseller’s cPanel control panel, a drop-down menu takes the reseller to the control panels for each of the sites on the reseller account, including the reseller’s site.

With the addition of an optional program, WHM AutoPilot, you can automate account creation and suspension, email notifications, and other tasks. WHM AutoPilot also integrates with common payment gateways and has a helpdesk, an invoice module, and other tools.
H-Sphere

H-Sphere is designed for both Linux and Windows platforms. Moreover, resellers can set up plans for both Linux and Windows and administer sites on different servers from the same control panel. The control panel, actually a separate server, also provides administrative access to the integrated helpdesk.

The H-Sphere control panel server automates account configuration, credit card processing, domain registration, and email notifications. It also includes a built-in billing module and supports over 20 payment gateways.

From the reseller’s point of view, H-Sphere has a higher learning curve than most other control panels because of its numerous features. For example, when setting up a new plan, the administrator has two pages of features to choose from, including setup and monthly pricing for optional services.

Beginning webmasters may find H-Sphere too complicated for their needs. More advanced users, however, appreciate the features and control that H-Sphere offers the end user. A key feature is the ability to have control over separate domains with multi-domain hosting.

H-Sphere comes with the website builder SiteStudio, which guides users through a variety of style choices and stores content separately from the layout. No HTML or FTP knowledge is required.
Plesk

Plesk is known for its stability and security. Resellers and end users like its simple navigation, its clean interface, and its professional appearance. It comes in versions for both Linux and Windows platforms.

With Plesk, all users use the same control panel but with different levels of control:

• Server administrator
• Client / reseller
• Domain owner
• Mail user

Each level of the control panel gives the user control of that level and the level(s) below it. Email users, for example, can log into their mail user control panel to change their password, add autoresponders, and change other personal settings without having access to the domain owner control panel.

Plesk handles SpamAssassin at the mailbox level rather than at the domain level.
This feature enables users to whitelist or blacklist email for each email address, allowing each email user to have individual settings.

SWsoft, the company behind Plesk, also offers SiteBuilder, a five-step website builder using pre-built templates. SiteBuilder has over 300 templates in different categories to choose from, and users can publish their sites without any HTML or FTP knowledge.

If your Plesk reseller account is with a web host that offers HSPcomplete, you will have some automation available with your account, such as credit card charges and email notification.

About the author:
About the author: Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc. http://www.websitesource.com. Her established writing skills coupled with experience in the website hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years.

Email Communication Is Dying. What's Next?

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:31:00 +0000

Currently there are 3 main types of broadcast Internet messaging systems that you can use to deliver newsletters, e-zines and other informational materials to your customers.

I'm not going to cover here internal or intranet messaging systems, the main focus of this article is on the virtual world outside your local/corporate network.

The main Internet Broadcasting Systems are:

- Email broadcasts that are sent through sender's ISP and received with the email client of your customer (such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Web Mail systems, etc.)

- RSS Feeds delivered through web-based RSS Aggregators.

- Completely customizable and personalized multi-media messages that are sent through RSS Channels and received with branded RSS Readers (such as Private Mail Reader and Feed Demon).

E-mail communications used to be a very efficient way to deliver information to your prospects and customers. This was working well until we got spammers - thousands of unethical people trashing your inboxes with annoying junk offers without any permission on your part. Nobody really wanted these products, ISP customers were irritated with email-boxes full of irrelevant content, to say the least.

Big and small ISP companies (Internet Service Providers) responded by developing anti-spam filters and society at large was forced to work out a set of anti-spam laws regulating the use of e-mails.

So legitimate internet marketers had to accommodate themselves to these unpleasant changes by implementing various forms of opt-in verifications. In other words, now the customers have to confirm in some way that they give you permission to send them e-mails.

And you inevitably loose a percentage of your customers who for some reasons doesn't want to go through the opt-in process.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Anti-spam filters are now so tight, that they easily throw in the bulk folder even legitimate e-mails. How it could happen? Well, you may accidentally use some of the "bad words" - such as "free", "buy", "purchase", etc (there are hundreds of "spam words" and the list grows every day). You know very well what happen to the bulk folder emails - they are as good as trash. Chances that recipient will ever read bulk emails are slim to none.

You also loose some of your readers when you try to enhance their experience by sending emails in html format (which would allow you to add colors, and pictures to your email, use different fonts, etc).

You might want to go even further and insert audio or video streams into your emails to give your readers the opportunity to better comprehend the featured topic.

You might want to do other neat things....

Well, don't bother. Sorry to disappoint you, but your efforts will be in vain. Major ISPs consider html to be the format for commercial emails and as such it triggers spam filters almost automatically.

Some analytic companies estimate that you can easily fail to reach as much as 70% of your customers in the nearest future. According to Doubleclick, one of the e-mail delivery leaders, the average rate of opened e-mails in 4th Quarter of 2004 declined 11.4% from Q4 2003, and is now only 32.6%.

Very bright picture, isn't it?

Luckily, there is a solution, and it comes in a form of RSS technology (Really Simple Syndication).

To put it simply, RSS Feeds are the streams of information presented in xml format. This syndication allows webmasters to find the feeds of interest written by other authors and easily place them on their own web sites (with authors permission, of course). The Big Benefit is that this information is automatically updated every time when the particular RSS feed is updated.

In case of RSS aggregators, readers simply subscribe to the feeds and read them through web-based user interfaces (one of the popular RSS aggregators, for example, is My Yahoo - find the RSS Feeds of your choices, add them to your My Yahoo page - and you will receive the update on what is new on these feeds and will be able to read it in user-friendly format (you don't have to learn xml). Each time you go to MY Yahoo you will be informed which of these feeds were updated in the last 3 days.

And finally, there is a third option - RSS Readers. It gives readers the ability not to worry about the information of their choice being blocked by ISP anti-spam filters. They can simply download RSS Feed Reader and enjoy the benefits of private media-rich environment from your computer!

You don't have to go to any websites to get these data and you're not forced to receive this information, you decide where and when to receive it. (Whereas with e-mails you're facing the fact that anybody could send them to your mailing address).

There are a many good RSS readers out there. Some are free, other offer free trial. The most well-known is FeedDemon (has free trial), then goes SharpReader, NewsCrawler, Awasu, PMR etc.

Now it's your turn to explore the benefits of RSS technology. Use RSS messaging system of your choice and stay ahead of your competitors!

About the author:
Oleg Ilin, the president of 1EzHost L.L.C.- custom web design and development company, invites you to visit and get your unique and result-driven website done by professionals. Free gift for you: 2 valuable internet marketing e-books:

How Not To Get Web Design Work

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:30:00 +0000

I get the occasional web design lead from my website. I wanted to find a company I could pass these onto. So I put an ad on a freelance site. It specified the programming qualifications needed, stated that the successful candidate should have good English, and was for companies only.

The replies I got were enlightening. So much so, I made a list of things applicants did wrong. Here it is.

I should point out I was initially prepared to give everyone a fair go. After the first twenty-odd emails, my attitude changed. I was looking for reasons to delete applicants. I only needed one successful one; with 100 replies it was getting to be a headache, so I decided a brutal approach was needed.

1. Failed to read the spec.

Many applicants couldn't write properly in the English language. Many were individuals only. Result: instant deletion.

2. Failed to address the spec's criteria.

Applicants bragged about how great they were. Many copy-and-pasted standard marketing guff about 'solutions' and 'partnerships' into their emails.

To engage anyone's interest about a proposal you need to talk less about yourself and more about the benefits to *them* of using you. One of the first things I learnt about applying for jobs is you need to show how you meet the criteria in the job description; see if you can find the employer's wavelength.

3. Lots of jargon.

You quickly tune this out. Anyone dealing with web companies probably gets a lot of this. Applicants should talk to the client about *the client's* site and *their* needs, and avoid techno-babble.

Write an application letter. Leave it for a while, then edit it. Brutally. Short punchy sentences, no guff. Talking convincingly about how you can make the client money would be an attention-getter.

4a. 'Coming soon' client-listing pages.

You say you've done work for lots of clients, then put up a 'coming soon' sign on the web page where your client list is supposed to be. Hmmmm.

4b. 'Under construction' pages on your company web site.

This looks bad; something you'd see on an amateur's site. Another reason to bin your application.

4c. Only put up pictures of sites you've done, rather than links to the actual sites.

I'd have liked to see some working example sites. Pictures can be faked, and they don't show background programming.

4e. No mention of your main web site URL.

Let us guess where your own site is (if you have one). It's more fun! I tried guessing from the email address. After a while I didn't bother.

4f. No hyperlinks at all.

Just a short email spiel saying "I am great designer, hire me". Next!

5. Using Yahoo.com or Hotmail.com for your email address.

A pro designer shouldn't use a freebie email address service. Basic web hosting costs $5 a month these days.

I can conceive that a web designer might use a freebie account for some special purpose, but your own domain name is a basic advert that goes out in each email you send.

6. Bad spelling and grammar.

Western civilisation is doomed, if using SMS jargon becomes the standard way to write to people. It doesn't impress old frts lik me, fr strtrs :( Especially if you're looking for work where good spelling and grammar are important.

7. Front-loading Flash designs.

I admit it, I don't like Flash. I especially don't like it when it loads slowly on my broadband connection. I suppose it might impress an ignorant client, who doesn't know the economic consequences of having a Flash-heavy site.

8. Don't phone the employer up.

Unless they say 'canvassing will disqualify', 'phoning the employer is a good idea. Why? Because geeks are famously introverted and tongue-tied, supposedly. So if a web site designer can communicate clearly over the telephone, that, coupled with a good application, puts you streets ahead of the email-only applicant.

No need to jabber. A polite enquiry to establish contact will do. "Just checking you've got my CV", that sort of thing.

9. Keep yourself mysterious.

Emails are impersonal. Anything that can establish you as a human being, a person, a potential ally and friend, is good. It'll make you more memorable. No need to jump out of a giant cake, 'though!

However, you have to fulfil all the other criteria as well. However great a guy you are, if you're a Unix man and they want Windows, forget it.

10. Leaving unclear phone messages.

One chap left a phone message, in which he mentioned his site, twice, but not his 'phone number. His pronunciation was bad, so I guess I'll never know how good he was.

11. Too far away.

Most replies were from India, Ukraine, Romania etc. Anyone who was closer to home (the UK) stood out. I mention it simply as a winnowing criterion.

Also, I needed someone who could land contracts from UK residents; good English, written and oral, was important.

12. Give your rates per hour.

Forget that. You're not a lawyer. Web design jobs can be clearly defined, in terms of time, work and software required. A definite price can be agreed on in advance. It's called a contract. Otherwise, you leave the client open to escalating bills, and yourself to mission-creep.

13. Delay applying.

The first few applications were more scrutinised. After that, fatigue set in. After one hundred, only an applicant who seems a real prospect would be given more than five seconds' scrutiny.

About the author:
T. O' Donnell ( ) is an ecommerce consultant and curmudgeon living in London, UK. His latest project is an ebook on conservatories, available at T. O' Donnell freeware may be downloaded at

How to register your domain

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:29:00 +0000

When you launch a new website you must register a unique domain name with an authorized registrar. When the internet was first starting, all domain names and IP addresses were registered through one organization, Internic. Eventually Network Solutions took over the role as “keeper” of the internet domain names. Today, there are hundreds of websites where you can register your domain name but Network Solutions still maintains the main database of domain names. Some websites charge as little as $2.95 per year for your domain name while others charge as much as $35 per year for the exact same service. Some even offer one year free if you register your domain name with them and host your website on their servers. Why pay $35 when you can register your domain name for much less at another website?
So why does Network Solutions charge $35 a year if they are the keeper of the database and their resellers charge a fraction or even nothing? Who knows and who cares! Register your domain with one of the cheaper providers and you'll be fine. A word caution - be care who you choose to host your website. Getting a free year of your domain name isn't worth it if your webhost is unreliable and your website is down more than it's up.
You pay for your domain name on a yearly basis. It's a separate charge from your webhosting bill. When you register your domain name choose the autorenewal option if it's available. This way your domain name will not expire if you forget to renew it. If your domain name expires, it's free for anyone else to register so you need to stay on top of when it's expiring. Also registering your domain name for a 3 to 5 year term will often save you money. For example, godaddy.com charges $8.95 a year for your domain name but only $7.25 a year if you register for a 5 year term.
When you register your domain you can create different contact names. The three contacts are Administrator, Technical and Billing. Most of the time the same person is all 3 contacts. If you web designer registers your domain name for you, make sure you are designated as the Administrative contact. This gives you control over the domain name and you must be notified if someone is trying to make changes to your record. If you aren't one of the contacts then someone can transfer ownership of the domain name without your permission.
To see a record of your domain name, go to www.networksolutions.com and use their WHOIS utility which is located in the bottom left corner of their home page. Simply enter your domain name and click Search. You'll see the complete record of your domain name, where it's registered and where your website is hosted. For a complete video of how to use WHOIS, visit www.valiss.com/video/whois/whois.html.
When you register your domain name you'll have to the option of making it a private registration. I highly recommend paying the additional fee to make your information private. If you leave your registration public anyone can look up your domain information which includes your home or business address and your email address. Many spammers scan public domain registration records to find valid email addresses to spam.
I always use a yahoo or hotmail email account when registering my domains. This way if spammers to find my email address, I can just get a new “throwaway” email address and I won't receive spam at my primary email address.
Always make sure your domain record remains locked. Locking your domain name is a feature implemented a few years ago. When you want to transfer your domain name to a different registrar you must unlock it. Once it's unlocked the new registrar can “pull” your domain name from your current registrar. Once the transfer is complete, the domain name will be locked to prevent anyone else from “pulling” your domain away from you.

About the author:
Ted Prodromou spent over 25 years in the computer industry working for IBM, Digital, and Cellular One. Today he's the owner of Valiss IT, a consulting firm that provides personalized web design and small business marketing solutions. Visit for lots of free “how to” articles about marketing your business online.

Website Buying Guide Checklist

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:29:00 +0000

Can you really get a website even without knowing anything about code, and without paying a fortune? Find out.

The days when websites were primarily distinguished by their code are long gone. Nowadays, the web is a true publishing medium that favors well thought-out ideas. You can get a professional-looking website online in minutes with many website building services and software. But what should you look for? What are the features you really need and which are just clutter?

Content Editing

Some website authoring software packages only allow you to entire plain, unformatted text. Some of them allow you to entire HTML tags. Others provide a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") interface with options for font, links, and image insertion much like a word processor's. Some will allow you to use more than one, or even all of these options so you have a choice on how you want to format your text.

Template Designs

Every website builder ever invented came with at least one or two templates for creating the graphical look of a website, so you don't have to design the look of the site yourself. But some packages have very large libraries of templates, some have only a few. Some will let you mix and match elements of the design templates, while others will lock you in to one setup.

Ecommerce Functions

Many ready-to-go websites created by website builder software feature built-in shopping carts. Some even come with credit card processing. This is of course necessary if you're going to be selling stuff direct online. But if you're not going to be selling anything, ecommerce functionalities may just complicate the administration of the site and pad the price for the software or service.

Blogging Functions

Blogs are "web logs," but blogging software involves more than just a simple online journal. Blogging technology allows you to send your new posts directly to subscribers via RSS, without them having to visit your site or receive an email from you. Still, unless you plan on updating your site regularly (at least once a month), your website's blog will just gather cobwebs.

Email

Some hosted web authoring systems provide email accounts at no additional charge, while others do charge separately. Some web builder systems even come with modules for creating email newsletters.

Support

It is very likely that you will encounter a technical difficulty at some point while owning your website. Make sure you know in advance of paying whether the company provides only paid support, and if any included support is over email, a web ticketing system, or the telephone.

Photo and Image Management

For many, if not most, people who want personal websites, displaying pictures online is a primary motivation, if not the only motivation. If you want to display pictures on your website, make sure to choose a website builder system that makes it easy to upload and publish images.

Renting vs. Owning

You can buy website authoring software upfront for a flat fee, or you can "rent;" i.e., pay a company every month to use a hosted service. The choice is up to you, but remember that the hosted service will likely charge you much more in the end: averaging around $20/month, hosted the typical hosted website builder will cost you $240/year--far more than most desktop software.

In short, you don't need to know how a website is coded to make one, any more than a book author needs to know about printing ink. Don't burden yourself with learning how to do web design. Having fun with your website starts with choosing a website builder software that will make it fun.

About the author:
Joel Walsh recommends you check out this article on your website! Requirement: live link for above URL/web address w/ link text/anchor text: "web authoring software" OR leave this bracketed message intact.]

10 Tips For Web Success

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:28:00 +0000

The webmaster's biggest job is to get their traffic up and keep customers/visitors coming back. Building the site is one thing, but simply building and posting a website does not guarantee traffic. In fact, a website could be beautiful and an example of all the latest technology and still not attract a single visitor if not promoted correctly. Here are 10 tips to guide you to success with your website.

(1) The internet is a new medium.
At least compared to print, it is. A website is a waste if it simply re-hashes something which could easily be put into print. Don't have the site be just an online brochure. Put up features which take advantage of the internet as a medium of communication. Filter information for them. Provide search capability. Provide interactivity with features like forums, quizzes and tools. Web visitors like to interact.

(2) Treat the Customer's Time as Valuable.
When a person visits your website, you have their attention for that point in time. You either need to use it or you will lose it - fast. Most visitors have short attention spans, what you need to design your site homepage so that it grabs their attention and provides what they are looking for right away. Its like walking into a restaurant. If you walk in and just stand there and nobody comes to greet you, you might wonder what is happening. But, if the hostess comes and greets you right away and walks you to a table, then you will be there for awhile and eat. The same analogy goes for websites. Don't overcomplicate your website homepage. Best results will be obtained if you make it very clear where to click to find what they need.

(3) Design the site for customers, not the company.
Your site needs to satisfy the needs of customers, not the company. So, don't post content which is not really useful to the site's customer. And avoid over-flattering marketing hype about the company. It inflates the ego of the company more than it helps your customer.

(4) Involve the Visitor.
Keep the visitor involved and make them feel like a valuable contributor. Actively ask for the feedback and suggestions. Ask for communication from your visitors and answer that communication swiftly. When getting that communication, capture their email address. This will allow you to communicate with them long after they have moved on and forgotten about you.

(5) Keep it Current.
You need to have content on your website which is timely and relevant to the customer's life. Posting month-old news is not interesting. Posting dry product information which never changes is not interesting. Yes, you need to have product information and other information on your site that won't change much, but you can also post more timely content. You can, for example, post content about how your products can be used in certain situations in life. Provide tips and techniques - things which are immediately applicable and solve a problem.

(6) Pay Attention to Form/Design.
Some sites simply over-do it on the eye-candy. Big graphics just for the sake of graphics often impress the site's designer more than the visitor. Do not use graphics that are large and purposeless. Remember, some visitors may still be accessing your website via dial-up. Your site needs to load up quickly for all users. A slow website will cause your users to leave quickly. Also, pay attention to graphic and design size. Many web designers operate on fairly large screen resolutions and sometimes forget that even though a graphic looks great to you, it will appear enormous to somebody on a smaller resolution. On the flip side, don't go too light on graphics. A site which is poorly designed and using the default font and no color is not very aesthetically pleasing. Any web visitor, whether they admit it or not, judges your company by your website unless they have something else to go on. A well-designed site communicates professionalism. A poor design makes the site seem like an afterthought.

(7) Promote.
When a visitor communicates to you via email, it is best to use a web form. not only will this keep your email address from being picked up by spammers, it will also allow you to ask your customers for their email address and then store that address for later use. Employ the "push/pull" marketing strategy. A visitor coming to your website is the pull, but later you want to push content back to them in the form of a newsletter or other promotional material. Start a mailing list and use it. Invite visitors to sign up. Promotion makes or breaks a business, and as long as you respect the ethical considerations of your mailing list, you should use it.

(8) Don't Operate in a Cocoon.
The internet is a medium which is shared by millions. When you set up your website, don't operate as if you are a self-contained island. Get out there and keep in tune with what is happening on other websites related to your own. Participate in forums. Post links to other websites and ask for a link in return. Form partnerships with other sites if it is appropriate. When it comes to communication, people like personal contacts. Hiding behind general email address like "sales" and "info" is OK as long as there is a way to also email you directly. A company site which allows email direct to the management is good. Just remember how much you hate calling a company and getting stuck in their phone system. Sometimes you just want to talk to somebody. Give your visitors that ability.

(9) Have a Plan to Attract Repeat Traffic.
Use newsletters, out-going email, contests, forums, clubs, auctions - anything that will cause people to return to your website. When posting links to other websites, don't just send your visitors somewhere else. They may never return. Provide them an exit page. Give them a pop-up when they try to leave your site. Or at the very least make external links open in a new window.

(10) Track Your Visitors
Pay attention to your site's statistics and react accordingly. What are people reading? How are they finding you? Do they just come and leave right from your homepage? How long as they are on your website? Do they return? This data is immensely valuable in fine-tuning your website based on customer needs and wants. Remember, the biggest mistake of any webmaster is designing the site for what THEY want. A successful website is designed for the target audience, not to impress the site's owner.

About the author:
David Risley is a web developer and founder of PC Media, Inc. (http://www.pcmedianet.com). Specializes in PHP/MySQL development, consulting and internet business management. He is also the founder of PC Mechanic (http://www.pcmech.com), a large website delivering do-it-yourself computer information to thousands of users every day.

Steps to becoming a web host reseller

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:28:00 +0000

You’ve decided to get a reseller web hosting account to resell web space. What now? Here’s a step-by-step guide.

1. Choose the platform you want to use.

More open source software programs are available for Linux than for Windows, which makes Linux less expensive. While most programs (Perl, PHP, Flash, etc.) run on both platforms, a few run on only Windows or Linux. A site that requires ASP or MS Access, for example, requires a Windows platform.

2. Choose the control panel you want to use.

Control panels for websites range from very basic to loaded with features. As a reseller, you’ll also have a control panel for you to set up and control hosting accounts.

In Choosing Your Hosting Automation Software, we compare several control panels, all of which offer good features for web host resellers.

3. Choose your web host.

The web host company that you choose for your reseller account is a key decision — your business success depends on the quality of your host. Factors to consider when choosing a web host for a reseller account:

The platform and control panel

Account features

The company’s reputation — search for online reviews by clients

The record of server uptime

The level of support — how fast does tech support respond to support requests, especially time-sensitive ones?

Flexibility — does the web host have packages that allow you to upgrade when your needs increase? Will they customize plans if necessary?

How long the web host has been in business — while a new web host may be very good, many web hosting businesses fail within the first year

Price — consider what is included in the price

Get Started with reseller hosting. http://www.websitesource.com

4. Set up your hosting plans and prices

Divide your bandwidth by your disk space to find out the ratio of bandwidth to disk space that you can offer. Take into account any ratios that differ if you upgrade to a larger package, and then base your packages on that ratio.

For pricing, consider what competitors charge, but also factor in any additional services you’ll be offering.

5. Develop a business website

You have three main choices for website development:

Create a website using an existing website template http://www.websitesource.com/clientarea/reseller_website_templates.shtml

Hire a designer or a design company to design your site for you http://design.websitesource.com/design/elements_custom-work.php

If you have web design skills, design your site yourself

Include all the information that clients will want to know about your services and company.

6. Make your site e-commerce ready

To be able to accept payments for hosting accounts, you’ll to set up:

An SSL certificate

A merchant account

A payment gateway

7. Set up a helpdesk

A helpdesk allows clients to contact you with support requests and you to track and respond to those requests.

8. Set up billing

With an automated billing system, clients are billed and payments are registered with little effort on your part. Most billing software licenses are priced per month or per year, with some billing software companies offering prices for lifetime licenses.

Some popular billing and payment processing systems:

Modernbill http://www.modernbill.com/

ClientExec http://www.clientexec.com/

WHM.Autopilot http://www.whmautopilot.com/

Whois.Cart http://www.whoiscart.net/

When you choose a billing software program, check if it’s compatible with your server platform and if support is included.

9. Create a welcome email

After you set up hosting accounts for your clients, you’ll need to send them a welcome email. Include in this email:

A confirmation of the plan details

The nameserver names

A username and temporary password

A link to the control panel

Links to your knowledge base / FAQ and to your helpdesk

10. Market your website

Submit your site to search engines. Tell your family, friends, and business acquaintances about your website. Include a link to it in your signature line in outgoing emails. But don’t stop there — market your website http://www.marketingcontrolpanel.com via incoming links, advertising, newsletters, and special offers.

About the author:
About the author: Chris K. is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc. http://www.websitesource.com. His established writing skills coupled with experience in the web hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years.

Choosing A Web Designer: A Plan To Guide You Through The Minefield

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:27:00 +0000

Choosing a web designer can seem like a daunting task. They come in all shapes and sizes – from freelancers working at home to glossy new media agencies, and there is as much variation in prices and service as there is in size.

So how do you choose the right one for your business?

Select Your Marketplace

Firstly, decide what market your would like to select from: local , national or overseas.

If you would feel more comfortable meeting your designer, and running through your project face to face (maybe it’s the kind of project that needs to “evolve”) ,and your ethos is “quality of service” rather than “Pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” then a local web designer is for you. They can usually provide better back up, and be able to meet face to face to discuss your project and iron out any problems should they occur.

If you are a bit more budget conscious, then it makes sense to select from a “wider pool”. Getting quotes from designers across your country will usually obtain a more competitive quote. What you lose in face-to-face service is made up for in cost savings, and all but the largest web projects can usually be sorted out via telephone and email these days.

For the extremely cost conscious and value for money orientated (some would even say “brave”!) there is the overseas market. If you know exactly what you are looking for and can explain your project thoroughly and clearly in writing, then there are huge savings to be made. But what you save in price is invariably countered by having to do a little more work on your side – particularly when it comes to communication!

Finding Web Designers

To find a list of local web designers consult your Yellow Pages (or equivalent) or do a web search for “web designer “ “your area”. Looking further a field, you can do a web search or check out directories such as www.recommended-web-designers.co.uk . For overseas designers, go to web sites such as www.elance.com or www.rentacoder.com, the latter offering the benefit of escrow and arbitration services.

Draw up a shortlist

Draw up a shortlist of 3 or 4 designers to speak to. You can do this by visiting their websites, getting a feel for the type and size of business they are and looking at their online portfolio. Then call them – ask them questions about the type of clients they work for, timeframes and any other technical questions you have. Get a feel for how they communicate – whether they are on the same wavelength as you.

If you opted to go overseas, the websites already mentioned have ratings systems which can help you decide, and you can also send and receive private messages to ask questions.

Get Quotes

Once you have your shortlist, you can get quotes. For a straightforward website this can be a simple fixed price – for a more complicated project that is likely to evolve, you may just want to get a budget price at this stage, and then pin down details and a fixed price with your preferred bidder later. Always specify your expected timeframe for completion when obtaining quotes as this can affect prices.

Get References

Once you have your preferred bidder, get references. Any established web designer will be able to provide details of satisfied clients. Email them and ask if they were happy with the service received, if the job was completed on time, how unforeseen problems were dealt with etc.

Remember to trust your instincts: If you are not entirely happy with the references you obtain, walk away and select another designer.

Appoint your web designer

You now have a fixed price, references, and confirmed timescale for your project. Now appoint your designer!

Most have standard agreements –read them carefully, and if in doubt get your legal adviser to look them over. Make sure timescales and project milestones are specified, as well as payment terms. Find out how alterations to your project are dealt with – in terms of cost and delays – and how disputes if they arise would be settled.

Finally, when you are completely happy, sign on the dotted line and look forward to a productive working relationship with your web designer!

© 2005 Robin Porter.

About the author:
Robin Porter has been CEO of of London based web designer Arpey Internet (http://www.arpey.co.uk) for over six years.

Reselling Domain Names

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:26:00 +0000

You offer web hosting services. Or web design services. Or both. When your clients need domain names for their websites, do you want to send them to another site, possibly to a competitor, to register one?

Of course not. That's part of why domain name registration is a popular service to offer. Reselling domain names provides an additional service to attract and keep clients as well as another source of recurring revenue. You can offer domain name registrations on their own or bundled with other services you provide.

Features of domain name reseller programs

When you are a domain name reseller, your clients register domain names using the service accessed through your domain name reseller account. The domain name company bills you, and you bill your clients. Or possibly the domain company handles the billing.

You decide on the retail pricing, and you market your services. The wholesale prices you pay before you add your markup depend on your sales volume and on the domain name reseller program you choose.

All of the domain name reseller companies compared in this article offer a reseller API (Application Programming Interface), which enables you to use the features provided with the domain reseller program. When your clients register domain names or update records at your site, the API communicates with the domain name reseller program system. With an API at your website, you keep the appearance and branding of your site when you resell domain names.

Two of the domain name companies compared here offer website creation tools for resellers, which means that you can be in the business of reselling domain names within minutes of having your account set up.

Many domain name reseller programs require the domain name reseller to pay and regularly top up a deposit for domain names. By doing this, the domain name reseller is paying for the domains in advance while making a profit from them when they're registered.

Domain name companies compared

The starting prices listed are the highest current wholesale prices for .com domains. Some other extensions may be higher, and the prices typically decrease with volume pricing.

See the company websites for more details about what each domain name reseller program offers.

BulkRegister

BulkRegister's Domain Pilot tool allows domain name resellers to provide their clients with a unique URL and access code to make changes to the Whois data for their domains. Resellers can control which of the fields to provide their clients with access to. Registration can be automated or manual.

Resellers become BulkRegister members and are invited to take part in discussions about product ideas, upgrades, and updates. A $50 Overture advertising credit comes with the first year of membership.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: $99
- Deposit required: No
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $12
- Website creation tool for resellers: No
- SSL certificate: Yes

eNom

If you resell domain names through eNom, you choose between two eNom tools:

- Automated Registration Software (API), which allows your clients to register and manage their domains through your site
- PDQ, a site that you customize and eNom manages — they handle the billing, and you earn commissions

As an eNom domain name reseller, you can also offer your clients web hosting, web monitoring, SSL certificates, and other eNom products as a reseller.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: $99 if you use the PDQ website tool
- Deposit required: Starts at $199 for 199 eNom points
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $9.95
- Website creation tool for resellers: Yes
- SSL certificate: No

Tucows

A website builder, blogware, SSL certificates, and email services are among the services you can resell as well as domain names.

- Setup fee: $95
- Annual fee: No
- Deposit required: No minimum payment, but they recommend prepaying one month of credit in advance
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $9.85
- Website creation tool for resellers: No
- SSL certificate: No

Wild West Domains

Owned by The Go Daddy Group, Inc., Wild West Domains offers several reseller packages. They also offer other products to resell in addition to domain names, including hosting, website builders, email plans, SSL certificates, and merchant accounts.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: Starting at $99; $249 with the API
- Deposit required: No
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $7.75
- Website creation tool for resellers: Yes
- SSL certificate: Yes

About the author:
Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com

Web Hosting & Web Development: Unravel the Technobabble and Create a Great Site

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:26:00 +0000

If you’ve ever browsed the World Wide Web and wondered how you could stake your claim on the Internet, like the millions of others that have done so already, then web hosting can provide you with the services to do just that. The Internet is a great way of sharing information and it is possible for you to take a portion of the web and make it your own. This article introduces the term “web hosting” and provides some useful tips for web development once you’ve obtained some web space.

What is the World Wide Web?
The “World Wide Web” is the network of computers from all over the world that communicate with each other using the HTTP protocol, a language that allows the transmission of web documents. Be careful as this term is not synonymous with the “Internet” because it is defined as a network of networks, where the computers communicate with protocols other than HTTP. The web is what you see on your Internet browser, the web pages complete with graphics, sound and other information. All this has got to come from somewhere, and this is where web hosting comes in.

Web Hosting
The information that you see from your web browser is contained in web pages. These web pages are kept on computers called web servers. Web hosting is about the storage of the web pages so that people can access them. It is possible to host your own websites yourself but the reasons stopping most people doing this is that there are issues to consider with having the right hardware and software to successfully host your web pages. Your web pages will take a certain amount of space, users will need to download each page to view them and your Internet connection needs to be fast to offer good performance to your viewers. Using specialised companies that offer web hosting capabilities on their web servers will take most of these worries away from you but you will need to choose wisely and weigh up the costs and your needs. In addition to having access to a web server, you will also need to register a domain name (for a cost) that uniquely identifies your website.

What Web Hosting Can Do For You
The most basic service that web hosting offers is that it exposes your web pages for others to see. The other services are: email capabilities that allow for email to be received and sent from your server; database capabilities that allow for large amounts of information to be updated and accessed on the web; and dynamic content which allows for users to interact with the web pages you’ve made.

Website Development
Poorly designed websites will most likely turn away users and harm the credibility of the information it contains. Thought should be put in on the way it looks and the way you intend your users to interact with the content. It is also recommended for more complex websites, a structured development process should be followed. Here is a guide to the logical steps of web development:
· Requirements Analysis: What is the purpose of the website? What content should it contain?
· Design: How should the pages be linked? What structure should they take? How should the pages interact with the user?
· Implementation: This step is the actual coding of the websites in accordance to the previous websites.
· Testing: Does the website do what it should?
· Maintenance: Is the information on the website up-to-date?

Some useful hints for web development below are taken from software quality aspects but they apply to the development of websites as well. They are described in terms of web development:

Reliability: Is the website reliable? Do faults allow for the system to continue running?
Robustness: How does the website respond to incorrect input?
Performance: How fast does the web page respond to user’s actions? Is it efficient in processing requests and inputs?
Usability: Is the website easy to navigate and understand?
Maintainability: Is the website easy to change? Can new functionality be added?
Portability: What software requirements does the website require? Will this limit the amount of potential users?
Understandability: How well do you understand the website you’ve developed?

When designing your website, keep these quality aspects in mind as they will help you develop pages worth visiting. How to choose the way to host your website is half of the problem, the other half is to create a website that people would want to visit and come back to. Knowledge of producing a good design can help you get the most out of your creations.

About the author:
William Ly
M6.Net

Cheap Webhosting - Is It For You

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:25:00 +0000

There's an old adage which states that "You get what you pay for".

In most areas of life, and business, this holds true. Not necessarily so, however, in the webhosting industry. Often, you pay too much, and don't get what you pay for.

Several weeks ago I got a call from a web designer friend of mine.

"John," He said "You won't believe this".

He went on to tell me about a Plastic Surgeon he was redesigning a website for. This client was paying $600.00 per month for his webhosting account.

"The incredible thing is" He related, "I can't get the current host to return my phone calls or emails".

After looking at this clients needs, I was shocked to find that there was nothing special about his site that justified his being on anything other than a basic shared webhosting plan. We quoted him a monthly rate of under five dollars.

In this case, the client was being raped by an unscrupulous host who was not only overcharging him, but not even providing the basic support he needed.

This is an extreme example, no doubt, but it all to often characterizes the poor deal which most website owners fall into.

Several years ago, there was no such thing as a webhosting industry. Nearly all websites were hosted by local ISP's. The average monthly cost for hosting a website was $20.00 per month. Often, if you called the ISP with a technical question, they would tell you to buy a book or take a class.

Around 1996, we saw the emergence of a few "webhosting" companies. These were companies which were strictly committed to hosting websites. Using the economy of scale, they were able to offer incredibly useful webhosting packages for around $10.00 per month. What's more, some of these companies provided useful tech support which was geared towards meeting a website owners needs.

Fast forward to 2005 and we now see the emergence of a new type of web host - the cheap webhosting provider. These are companies which offer hosting for less than $5.00 per month.

Generally, cheap webhosting providers are newer companies. There's a reason for this. It's extremely difficult for the older companies to lower their prices when they already have a large customer base which pays higher prices. They'd be slashing their gross, and most companies just can't afford that.

So how do cheap webhosting providers offer such a low price to begin with?

Part of it is that servers, hard drive space and bandwidth are much, much less expensive than they were several years ago. Cheap webhosting providers capitalize on this.

Another part is that cheap hosting providers use a different business model than the older providers. Webhosting is a very competitive business. Until recently, web hosts attempted to compete by providing the most tools and features. The problem with this model is that not everyone needs everything. Most web hosts provide free backup services to all of their clients. Backups are costly, and not everyone needs or wants them, but everyone pays for them because they're built into the cost of the package.

A cheap webhosting provider, on the other hand, might give you the basic features that everyone uses, but offer weekly backups as an available add on feature, putting the cost of backing up websites on only those customers who want that service.

This all sounds great, I know, but what about service? Will I get competent and fast customer support from a company which charges me $4.00 per month?

The answer, surprisingly, is usually yes.

Obviously, not all cheap webhosting providers will give you great service. But not all expensive webhosting providers will give good service either. Our Plastic Surgeon friend couldn't get his $600.00 host to return his emails.

But, with a cheaper provider, the key for the providers success is customer retention. A savvy web host will endeavor to please his existing clients by providing the best support possible.

About the author:
John Pierce is a technology writer and the Customer Service Manager for Gold Zero Web Hosting - -and the Webmaster for Cheap Webhosting Info Guide -

Fast Web Design For The Skint Webmaster

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:25:00 +0000

About two years ago, I had a go at commercial web site design. I put a medium-sized ad in a London classified ad paper. Nothing fancy: "Web designer seeks work ..." etc. This was expensive, about £500 for a month's run.

Got a few replies. Lesson number one: advertise where clients of the calibre you want will see it. The clients I got thought £300 was a lot for a web site. They didn't want to pay web hosting. They wanted a lot of bang for their buck. 'Mission creep' was a term I grew to know and loathe.

This set me thinking: how could I give these people all they could ever want, but not spend a lot of time and money? Lately, I realised how.

So how can you get a full featured site up in a day? Easy (ish!).

1. Mambo Content Management System http://www.mambo.com

I wish I'd found this software a couple of years ago. It's freeware. The default set-up allows people without web design skills to update the site. It has a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) option. This adds HTMLArea code to text input form fields. Each HTML code input box becomes a mini HTML editor.

If you can use Microsoft Word, you can add formatted HTML code to the site.

To get it running you need to know how to install MySQL databases, or have PHPMyAdmin as part of your web-hosting package.

You can add articles, edit them, send emails to members, and be contacted by users.

The only criticisms I have of this software are:

1. The admin interface is confusing. It's all there, just finding and using it is the problem!

2. You need to search around template sites to find ones suited to your site purpose. I wanted simple, clean, business ones. Most of those available seem to have a fat graphic which covers half the screen. There are more restrained ones out there.

These are minor gripes, compared to the relief of finding what is essentially a web site in a box. It can be installed in an hour, once you get familiar with it.

To add ecommerce to your site:

Oscommerce Shopping Cart http://www.oscommerce.com

Again, this is a full-featured, freeware software. You can add lots of freeware 'plug-ins' to it, to get a professional shopping cart.

Therein lies the danger. Some of these plug-ins require altering or overwriting the default cart files. When you try to upgrade the cart version later, you may 'break' it, by overwriting a plug-in, thus creating errors.

The trick here is to only install plug-ins that add files (rather than overwrite them) or that require minor alterations to existing files.

What I do is download all the versions of the plug-in type I need e.g. a WYSIWYG editor. I then choose the one which has the least files, or which creates a new directory for its files. If it requires that important files be overwritten, or is complex, I chuck it.

Mambo and Oscommerce. Don't try to integrate them! Hyperlink from one to the other. I've tried integrations of other softwares, like PhpBB and PhpNuke. Fine, when it works, but when you upgrade one or the other, arrgh!

*Keep databases separate*. If one goes skew-whiff, then at least the other will still work. Same goes for adding chat rooms and the like. If they're all running off the one database, and that database becomes corrupted ...

It may offend your sense of tidiness for your visitors to have to sign up twice at your site, but you'll thank me for this sage advice later. Remember KISS is the basic rule of computing (Keep It Simple, Stupid!).

About the author:
T. O' Donnell ( ) is an ecommerce consultant and curmudgeon living in London, UK. His latest project is an ebook on conservatories, available at T. O' Donnell freeware may be downloaded at

The Internet Marketers Answer to Frontpage and Dreamweaver

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:24:00 +0000

Leading Web site design packages have a serious contender called XSitePro, a new software package geared toward the rapidly expanding world of Internet marketing.

XSitePro is a new web site design package that creates entire web sites, not just individual pages, with ease.

Unlike leading web design programs, XSitePro approaches the whole process of site design from an online marketer's perspective, incorporating easy-to-use features that differentiate XSitePro from other site design software.

"We are confident that XSitePro offers the alternative to Microsoft's FrontPage and Macromedia's Dreamweaver that Internet marketers and other web designers are looking for," says Paul Smithson, president and CEO, of Intellimon Ltd. "Our customers can create professional Web sites in a fraction of the time it would take them using other web design software."

XSitePro users don't need to know how to write code to create a professional quality web site. Anyone who has word processing skills can create web pages using the built-in "What you see is what you get" page editor.

Users will also find that XSitePro is a great program for keeping their web sites updated after they have been created. Using the page layout feature it is possible to change the whole style of a site in minutes rather than days. You no longer have to settle with existing designs, or be intimidated by the workload of redesigning your sites.

"It is refreshing to see the product designed from the ground up for marketers," says Ed Keay-Smith of AdWords Marketing. "I love the built in automation of affiliate and Google AdWords links…I have now chosen to use XSite Pro over FrontPage as my major money making website builder."

Here are just a few of the great features that this software offers:

-Add Google AdSense ads with just two clicks of the mouse, adding extra income streams with little effort.

-Hide unattractive page urls by creating redirect pages that automatically forward visitors to alternative locations.

-Include navigation menus that automatically update themselves whenever new pages are added.

- Use the 130,000 word built-in spell-checker to guarantee spelling mistakes do not occur on any pages.

-Split long documents into multiple pages that include complete page navigation menus.

-Keep track of all of the essential information regarding web hosting, which means users will never forget any important information such as usernames, passwords, mail server details, etc.

-Export sites into other Web design programs, such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver.

XSitePro also assists users with optimizing their Web sites for the search engines. Users can designate keywords that are automatically added to the meta tags of every new Web site or Web page created. They can also measure if they have used keywords the correct number of times on each page and quickly make corrections so that they maximize the chance of ranking well in search engines.

You don't need to worry about backing up your data either as the software can back-up all your web site work to a single file in just one mouse click.

In my opinion XSitePro is definitely one of the most exciting software packages to have been released in recent years.

You can find out more XsitePro by visiting their web site at http://www.xsitepro.com

# # #

© Michael Jones. This article can be reprinted, used in newsletters or on web pages as long as it is credited to Michael Jones, it appears in its entirety and the resource box below is included.

About the author:
Michael Jones has been reviewing the latest releases for computer magazines since the early 1980s. His specialties are CAD, web design, and expert systems. Michael can be contacted by email on michael1jones@hotmail.com

Build websites easier with premade templates

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:23:00 +0000

To most people the process of building a web site remains somewhat of a mystery. This confusion probably stems from the fact that there is a cornucopia of web sites on the Internet. Even with wide variety of sites, every single one can be divided into two sections: front-end and back-end.

The front-end is the first thing that it is designed. It encompasses the look and feel of a web site. This is probably the most established part of the web site production process. Design has been around since Guttenberg printed his first bible. Much of what has been used in print media (especially art magazines) has transferred to the web.

Most well thought out web sites start off with sketches on paper. We like using the big huge box of crayons, the one with the crayon sharpener built in. Most of the colors in the "big box" are pleasing to the eye and are web friendly. If you use begin paying attention to sites you'll notice that only a few colors are actually used, 256 to be exact. Only about 100 of those won't give you a headache when you look at them. On request we will give these early designs to a client that wants to control the look and feel of their site. The site, of course, never ends up looking like the early designs. The same idea and concept is there but because of restrictions colors and whole images are lost.

This brings us to the next part of the front-end, the actual site creation. This is what many people view as the most important, which is what separates a professional looking site from an amateur one.

The images are created using products from across the board. Mainly, designers stick to industry standards like Photoshop and Illustrator. After getting the basic image in terms of proportions and size the designer should create the static HTML page.

This is the basic page you would see if you viewed the page source. This is one of the most rewarding, most hated and most tedious part of the web design process. Each browser displays a page differently. Since most users either use Internet Explorer 4+ or Netscape 4.5 we cater to those two. Sometimes we build a different site for each, trying to maintain the same layout.

That concludes the front-end section. Personal sites and some small business sites stop here. While this maybe acceptable today, tomorrow any web site hoping to attract and keep visitors is going to have a strong back-end.

There are many sites and website designers that offer premade templates, these have the entire graphical layout that a page needs.

For those with little or no experience with website design software, templates have quickly become a practical solution to professional website design. Most of the top end sites offer a huge selection of very impressive, easy-to-edit website templates. All you have to do is check your email containing the link to download the .zip file. The html in these templates is compatible with Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft Frontpage. The major advantage is the price, they run anywhere from $20 to $70. Another great advantage is you don't have to hire a web designer, who usually takes 1 to 2 weeks to produce a page of such high quality. Webmasters, either novice or expert, can easily save thousands of dollars on design fees by using website templates.

There are also some exception sites, such as http://www.web-site-templates.org
that provide packages of templates at one price, instead of providing a different price for each template.

About the author:
Alexandru Marias is an IT student mentaining software sites like: , ,

90s Web Design: A Nostalgic Look Back

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:22:00 +0000

A nostalgic look back at 90s web design, and a warning to anyone whose website is an accidental anachronism.

Remember the days when every PC was beige, every website had a little Netscape icon on the homepage, Geocities and Tripod hosted just about every single personal homepage, and "Google" was just a funny-sounding word?

The mid-late 1990s were the playful childhood of the worldwide web, a time of great expectations for the future and pretty low standards for the present. Those were the days when doing a web search meant poring through several pages of listings rather than glancing at the first three results--but at least relatively few of those websites were unabashedly profit-driven.

Hallmarks of 1990s Web Design

Of course, when someone says that a website looks like it came from 1996, it's no compliment. You start to imagine loud background images, and little "email me" mailboxes with letters going in and out in an endless loop. Amateurish, silly, unprofessional, conceited, and unusable are all adjectives that pretty well describe how most websites were made just ten years ago.

Why were websites so bad back then?

Knowledge. Few people knew how to build a good website back then, before authorities like Jakob Nielsen starting evangelizing their studies of web user behavior.

Difficulty. In those days, there weren't abundant software and templates that could produce a visually pleasing, easy-to-use website in 10 minutes. Instead, you either hand-coded your site in Notepad or used FrontPage.

Giddiness. When a new toy came out, whether it was JavaScript, Java, Frames, animated Gifs, or Flash, it was simply crammed into an already overstuffed toy box of a website, regardless of whether it served any purpose.

Browsing through the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine, it's hard not to feel a twinge of nostalgia for a simpler time when we were all beginners at this. Still, one of the best reasons for looking at 90s website design is to avoid repeating history's web design mistakes. This would be a useful exercise for the tragic number of today's personal homepages and even small business websites that are accidentally retro.

Splash Pages

Sometime around 1998, websites all over the internet discovered Flash, the software that allowed for easy animation of images on a website. Suddenly you could no longer visit half the pages on the web without sitting through at least thirty seconds of a logo revolving, glinting, sliding, or bouncing across the screen.

Flash "splash pages," as these opening animations were called, became the internet's version of vacation pictures. Everyone loved to display Flash on their site, and everyone hated to have to sit through someone else's Flash presentation.

Of all the thousands of splash pages made in the 1990s and the few still made today, hardly any ever communicated any useful information or provided any entertainment. They were monuments to the egos of the websites' owners. Still, today, when so many business website owners are working so hard to wring every last bit of effectiveness out of their sites, it's almost charming to think of a business owner actually putting ego well ahead of the profit to have been derived from all the visitors who hit the "back" button rather than sit through an animated logo.

Text Troubles

"Welcome to…" Every single website homepage in 1996 had to have the word "welcome" somewhere, often in the largest headline. After all, isn't saying "welcome" more vital than saying what the web page is all about in the first place?

Background images. Remember all those people who had their kids' pictures tiled in the background of every page? Remember how much fun it was trying to guess what the words were in the sections where the font color and the color of the image were the same?

Dark background, light text. My favorite was orange font on purple background, though the ubiquitous yellow white text on blue, green or red was nice, too. Of course, anyone who will make their text harder to read with a silly gimmick is just paying you the courtesy of letting you know they couldn't possibly have written anything worth reading.

Entire paragraphs of text centered. After all, haven't millennia of flush-left margins just made our eyes lazy?

"This Site Is Best Viewed in Netscape 4.666, 1,000x3300 resolution." It was always so cute when site owners actually imagined anyone but their mothers would care enough to change their browser set up to look at some random person's website.

All-image no-text publishing. Some of the worst websites would actually do the world the service of putting all their text in image format so that no search engine would ever find them. What sacrifice!

Hyperactive Pages

TV-envy was a common psychological malady in 1990s web design. Since streaming video and even Flash were still in their infancy, web designers settled for simply making the elements on their pages move like Mexican jumping beans.

Animated Gifs

In 1996, just before the dawn of Flash, animated gifs were in full swing, dancing, sliding, and scrolling their way across the retinas of web surfers trying to read the text on the page.

Scrolling Text

Just in case you were having a too easy time tuning out all the dancing graphics on the page, an ambitious mid-1990s web designer had a simple but powerful trick for giving you a headache: scrolling text. Through the magic of JavaScript, website owners could achieve the perfect combination of too fast to read comfortably and too slow to read quickly.

For a while, a business owner could even separate the serious from the wannabe prospects based just on how (un)professional their business websites looked. Sadly, the development of template-based website authoring software means that even someone with no taste or sense whatsoever can make websites that look as good as the most biggest-budget design of five years ago.

Of course, there are still some websites whose owners seem to be trying to spark a resurgence in animated gifs, background images, and ugly text. 'll just have to trust that everyone is laughing with them, not at them.

About the author:
If you want to avoid these mistakes in your website Joel Walsh recommends you check out this article on your website!Requirement:live link for above URL/web address w/ link text/anchor text:"web authoring software" OR leave this bracketed message]

The Five Steps of E-Commerce

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:21:00 +0000

You set up a retail business, you advertise in your local newspaper, you get customers coming into your store, and you receive payment at the cash register. Create an online store, and...how do you get customers? How do you receive payment? The concept is the same, but the steps are different.

Step 1: Create your website

If you don’t have web design skills, you can hire a qualified web designer to create a website for you, or you can use an online site builder. Think of it as hiring an architect and an interior decorator compared to setting up shop in an existing store.

Using a web designer

With the services of a web designer, you can have a unique website template and website customized to your specific needs. A web development team can also add features such as Flash headers or any programming needed for your site. If your company image is critical, a custom-designed site that conveys the right professional image is a must.

Using an online site builder

An online site builder is the budget way to go. With site builder programs such as Site Studio, your website can be online within minutes. A step-by-step menu allows you to choose a layout and colors, and then add a site description, a logo, and content. Your template may not be unique, but your content will.

Step 2: Set up an e-commerce store

Your customers will browse at your website, select some items, and then pay for them. When you set up an e-commerce shopping cart, you’re providing a way for your customers to bring their purchases to the cash register. The program you choose will allow you to enter your products in the database and allow shoppers to choose products when they click on “Add to cart” or something similar.

Two well-known shopping carts, osCommerce and Miva Merchant, both allow you to do these tasks:

Add, edit, and delete product categories and other information

Set tax rates and charge tax

Receive payment via numerous online and offline payment processing methods

Bill customers

And much more

osCommerce

osCommerce is an open source program. Store owners can set up their online stores using osCommerce with no costs involved. For small stores, it has all the features you need for an online store. Drawbacks of osCommerce are that customization is not easy, and online stores using osCommerce tend to look similar.

Miva Merchant

While Miva Merchant carries a price tag of $995, some web hosts offer Miva Merchant licenses with their hosting plans. If you choose Miva as your shopping cart, be sure to host your site with a host that provides Miva support. Its learning curve is steep, and it requires the support of people who know how to work with it.

With the price and the steep learning curve, you get more features, and you can customize the program more. Add-in modules can be bought that perform a number of tasks. In addition, a strong support community is available in the Miva user group forums.

Step 3: Get a merchant account and payment gateway

When customers arrive at the checkout counter, you need a way for their payments to be transferred from their credit card accounts to your bank account. The method you choose may depend on your sales volume.

For high-volume sales, an e-commerce merchant account plus a payment gateway will meet your needs. A merchant account provider authorizes the transfer of payments to your account, and a payment gateway transfers the information from your customers’ financial institutions to yours.

Most merchant accounts have setup fees, transaction fees, monthly fees, and statement fees. The transaction fees are less than what you’d pay using a third party credit card processor such as PayPal. With all the fees, however, the overall cost is typically lower only if your monthly sales volume is over about a thousand dollars.

For medium and low volume sales, PayQuake and PayPal are viable options.

PayQuake

PayQuake offers three merchant account types to choose from. Although they all require payment gateways, the two smaller plans have no monthly minimums. You can upgrade to a higher or lower plan if your needs change.

PayPal

PayPal has become a household name. Customers can send payment through PayPal via credit card or via money that they transfer into their PayPal account. While the fees per transaction are higher than with merchant accounts, there are no setup or monthly fees, and you don’t need a payment gateway. You pay only when you have financial transactions.

Fore more details about these options, see WebSite Source Hosting Solutions: E-Commerce.

Step 4: Create a secure payment environment

A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate enables you to receive credit card information securely from your customers. When a payment page is using SSL data to encrypt data, a small image of a lock appears at the bottom right of the screen.

Some web hosts offer SSL certificates as part of their hosting packages. If your web host package doesn’t include SSL certificates, you can purchase one separately.

With PayPal, no SSL certificate is required.

Step 5: Generate traffic

Your products are on display in your newly designed store, your shopping cart is set up and ready to use, and you have everything in place to be able to receive payments securely. Now all you need are customers.

This is where marketing comes in.

Submit your site to search engines.

Advertise your site.

Keep your company name in front of your customers with a regular email newsletter.

Add more content to your website to keep it fresh.

Monitor your website traffic to see where it’s coming from and how you can increase traffic for key content areas.

For related information, see these pages:

Do-It-Yourself Search Engine Optimization

Promote Your Domain

About the author:
Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com with experience in the website hosting industry.

SEO Content Distribution Linking For Newbies

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:21:00 +0000

The new buzz on the internet is all about getting one-way links by distributing content to other sites in exchange for backlinks. As with every other SEO or website promotion technique ever devised, there are plenty of newbie myths about it that can ruin your chance for success before you even start.

Newbie Myth 1: The "Duplicate content penalty."

Some webmasters worry that if the content on their sites is suddenly on hundreds of other sites, search engines will inflict a "duplicate content penalty." Why is this concern unjustified?

* If this were true, every major newspaper and news portal website would now be de-indexed from the search engines, since they all carry "duplicate content" from the news wires such as

Reuters and the Associated Press.

* Thousands of self-promoting internet gurus have proven that distributing content is an effective method of improving search engine rank.

* Even more thousands of content websites have proven that republishing this content does not carry any search engine penalty.

True, the first website to publish an article often seems to be favored by search engines, ranking higher for the same content in searches than higher-PageRank pages with the same content. But the "duplicate" pages do show up in the search engine results, even if lower than the original site. Meanwhile, the reprint content has no effect on the ranking of a site's other pages.

The only duplicate content penalty is for duplication of content across pages of a single website. Meanwhile, there is a sort of "copyright theft" penalty, whereby someone who copies content without permission can be manually removed from search engine indexes out of respect for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But that penalty is only for flagrant theft, not minor mistakes in attributing reprint content.

Newbie Myth 2: The goal is to get in article clearinghouse websites.

There are over 100 popular, high-traffic websites that act as clearinghouses for content made available for redistribution. These websites include isnare.com, amazines.com, and goarticles.com.

Many novice content-distributors are upset when the article clearinghouse websites, with tens of thousands of articles each with a backlink, pass negligible PageRank. But the point of distributing content to those websites is for other website owners to find your content and put it on their websites--not to get a backlink directly from the clearinghouse website (though this is sometimes an unexpected bonus).

Plus, to maximize PageRank-passing links, you also have to submit articles to website owners individually. It's not a small amount of work. But there's no substitute for a polite, individually crafted email recommending a website owner complement his or her existing articles with one you've written.

Myth 3: Any content will do.

Reality: It should be obvious that many website owners, jealous of their link popularity, will only republish exceptionally high - quality content. For articles, this means a unique point of view and solid information that cannot be found just anywhere, ideally presented in compelling language in a web-optimized format by a professional published writer. You can conduct a content distribution campaign with bad content, but you'll be handicapping yourself from the start.

Myth 4: Distributing content is easy. Just hit "send."

Reality: Content distribution campaign requires skillful planning to target publisher websites effectively.

This is essentially a four-step process.

1. You must identify the categories of websites most likely to republish your articles. These categories range from the very broad, such as internet, business, and family, and can go as narrow as family-friendly internet businesses.

It's a careful balance: you need to make your target category narrowly relevant to maximize the value of the link and your chances of getting your article accepted for publication. But if you target too narrow a category, you'll lower the maximum number of links you can hope to get.

For instance, a website on web content writing has to target its content distribution to more than just sites focusing on web content. There are only so many websites devoted to web content as a topic of interest, and besides, many such websites would be competitors. Distribution should target broadly relevant categories, such as web design, webmaster issues, writing, marketing, business, website promotion, and SEO. Yet some broadly related categories, such as internet or publishing, are not relevant enough to yield good results.

2. To maximize success, you must have articles custom-created for each major category you want to submit to. "Incorporating Content in Web Design" and "Marketing with Content" would be possible titles for a web content-writing website owner targeting web design and marketing websites, respectively. An article about web design won't appeal as strongly to marketers, or vice versa, so simply submitting to websites having to do with "the web" would not be as effective.

3. For maximum success, articles custom-written for a category then often have to be refined for sub-categories. For instance, "Incorporating Content in Web Design" becomes "Incorporating Content into Flash Web Design," or "Incorporating Content into Accessible Web Design." Sometimes the refinement is just a "find and replace" of one keyword for another, sometimes just in the title. Sometimes, entire paragraphs have to reworded or removed.

4. Once you've identified sub-categories of websites, you still have to be able to meet the requirements of individual websites. Some sites only publish articles up to 500 words, some only do how-to articles. Owners of high-ranking websites can afford to be choosey. To really maximize results within a sub-category, you need at least three different articles of varying lengths and focus specifically geared toward that sub-category.

In the end, distributing content for website promotion and inbound links is a marvelously effective way of promoting a website. But it's not magic beans. Like anything else having to do with achieving success on the web, it takes hard work and knowledge to be successful.

About the author:
Joel Walsh is the owner of UpMarket Content, offering a fully managed content distribution campaign guaranteed to get you at least one hundred one-way inbound links for every three pages of content: [requested HTML anchor/link text: website promotion content distribution

Web Analytics - Getting it Right

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:20:00 +0000

Understanding and using web analytics.

In recent years, website marketers were concerned with increasing ¡®hits¡¯ and the ¡®stickiness¡¯ of their sites. They were concerned with increasing page views and the amount of time spent on the site. This is definitely a hold over from the paper based businesses of the past, and has proved to not be of much use in the fast moving internet world.

As a result, hits and views are no longer considered useful metrics for evaluating website success. They simply don¡¯t provide the right kind of information needed by online marketers. Now they look at conversions, drop-out rates, return on investment and revenue per visitor.

Internet marketers of today want to make more money. To do this, they must understand their visitors, their motives, where they came from, what they were looking for, and how they found the site. And most important of all: what made them make the decision to buy or what made them abandon the purchase.

In order to accomplish this, they need a powerful new set of analysis tools; tools that are fast, accurate and easy to use. And most important, these tools must be able to measure performance over time. That is, the marketer needs to be able to set a baseline for any metric and then measure a percentage of increase or decrease at a later time. And the time frame needs to be long enough to show meaningful results ¨C usually 30 days or more.

Here are a few common problems solved by the proper use of web analytics:

Good traffic, but a high Bounce Rate

A ¡®Bounce¡¯ is a visitor who comes to your site and leaves without looking at any other pages. The number of bounces is compared to those who visit more than one page to give a ¡®Bounce Rate¡¯. All websites have a bounce rate. Whether it is high or not is relative to the site. Only numbers taken over a period of time will show an average for any particular site.

There are two main problems that lead to a high bounce rate: Attracting the wrong kind of traffic and not giving the visitor what they were looking for.

To identify the first case, open the New Visitors report. This report should contain a list of unique, first-time visitors. The report should also show the first page visited and where they came from. The origin may be empty, due to a number of reasons outside the control of the analytics package. Select a visitor that came from a search engine. Now ¡®Drill Down¡¯ by clicking on the selected line and opening a detail view of this visitor. The detail page will show the search term used to find your site.

Was the search term relative to the subject matter of the landing page? Were they only looking for something free? Looking at a number of search terms will reveal if the wrong kind of traffic is coming in.

If the search terms are appropriate, then the searches are driving qualified traffic to the site. If this is the case, the high bounce rate is due to the page content not properly addressing the visitor expectations.

High Drop-Out Rate

According to Jupiter Research, 71 percent of sites do not analyze customer drop-out rates, even though 66 percent of consumers reported having abandoned a purchase while on a website.

The drop-out rate will show an increase, or hopefully, a decrease with time. A properly designed buying process will capture personal contact information before continuing with the checkout process. This contact information can be used to contact the lost sale and discuss the reasons.

The Drop-Out report should show the visitor, the product and date and time of sale. Select one line in the report and drill down to view the contact information, if available. Call or email the visitor to learn the reasons for abandoning the sale.

Also, the internet marketer should discuss the buying process with current customers. This is an excellent method of increasing customer loyalty. It also provides an opportunity to gather testimonials. Most buyers will have visited several times before they bought. Ask why they didn¡¯t buy the first time they visited the site. Also, ask why they came back and what motivated them to buy.

Poor Return On Investment

Probably the most difficult challenge faced by internet marketers is controlling costs. Traffic acquisition can be an expensive proposition, so it is important to get the most out of every click.

The best marketing reports reveal where the money comes from, who the money comes from, and what marketers can do to improve revenues. Marketers can use this information to increase advertisements on sites that reach the most interested parties, provide a better selection of products for different types of visitors, or offer better service to their most valuable visitors.

The marketing reports should show sales grouped by campaign or affiliate. At a minimum, they should show units of sales by product and product options, and preferably revenue.

Compare advertising costs with revenues to identify the most profitable campaigns. Often the marketer will find that one campaign may bring in more visitors, but conversion is low, whereas another might bring in fewer, but more qualified visitors who purchase more.

The use of A/B testing to increase pulling power of ads is vital to keeping ad costs down and attracting qualified visitors. Here, the marketer will find it easy to measure changes and evaluate overall performance. Instead of taking months to identify and understand the effect of a change, it will often show in hours or a few days. This agility means that even smaller e-commerce sites can succeed on limited budgets.

Path Analysis / Clickstream Analysis ¨C Understanding visitors

Not really a problem, but vital to keeping a healthy web business running smoothly. The marketer is also able to identify new trends and opportunities by evaluating the visitors¡¯ interest in various content available on the site.

The ideal path through the site should go from the landing page to the products page to the orders page, from there to the checkout and finally to a ¡®Thank You¡¯ page.

Deviations might include paths to tutorials, articles and other information pages, but these should be kept to a minimum and always lead back to the main path.

Again, the marketer can select a particular visitor, buyer or drop-out and then drill down to the detail page to reveal every page visited and path taken, as well as the amount of time spent viewing each page. Knowing how long it takes to actually read the page will reveal the amount of interest in the subject matter. Combining this information with keyword searches will reveal how appropriate the content of each page is to the visitor¡¯s interests.

In Summary

The value of the analysis far exceeds the nominal cost of the web analytics service. Indeed, it may spell the difference between success and failure. Good web analytics packages can be hard to find, but need not be expensive. Increasingly, more and more comprehensive reports are available at better prices.

To be effective, the marketer must understand what to look for and how to apply the knowledge revealed by the analysis. The learning curve is not steep, and the rewards can be significant.

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About the author

WG Moore is a web analytics specialist with over 20 years of hardware, software and web development experience. Visit http://www.webstatsgold.com for more articles and information on web analytics. You may contact him at will@webstatsgold.com

Copyright 2005 by WG Moore

Permission is granted for this article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for in ezines, newsletters, websites, to offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and the resource box below is included.

About the author:
WG Moore is a web analytics specialist with over 20 years of hardware, software and web development experience. Visit for more articles and information on web analytics. You may contact him at will@webstatsgold.com

Web Site Analysis - A Study in Damage Control

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Web Site Analysis
A Study in Damage Control

By WG Moore

In my last article, ‘Web Analytics – Getting It Right’, I discussed some of the powerful ways that web site statistics can be used to improve an ecommerce business. That article was about success. This article shows that no matter how hard you try, you can still get it wrong. This is a story about failure.

It is often difficult and embarrassing to admit failure and sometimes it is even difficult to see it, even when it is right in front of us. But only by examining our failures can we hope to improve and progress. Hopefully, this article will help others avoid the same mistakes we made.

Keep in mind that web analytics is not always about counting traffic. In fact, that is usually only a small part of it. It is mostly about offering better products and services, improving the website and making each visit to our website a more pleasant experience. It is also about building customer loyalty and confidence.

This incident started when we received a request to cancel web site tracking service for an account. This happens occasionally, but of course, a cancellation is never a welcome sight. Try as we might, we cannot please everyone. So we learn to accept these things; it is just business.

However, it is our policy to investigate every cancellation and try to determine what went wrong. Once someone has decided to cancel, there is nothing that can be done about it. It is too late. Any damage has already been done. We know that we cannot recover a lost account, but we always try to learn something that will help prevent such things happening in future.

The first thing we did that morning was to close the account as requested and issue a credit. We then wrote to the web site owner and informed them that their request had been taken care of. We made no excuses nor did we try to recover the account. But we did ask for help in understanding why they were unsatisfied. We asked a few simple questions as to the reasons for the cancellation and what we could do to improve the service. Our request went unanswered.

Next, we looked up the account details to see what we could learn. We were shocked! This account had been open less than 24 hours! Not even one full day. To be honest, this stung. It was almost personal, a real slap in the face. It was not so much that we had lost an account, but that it happened so quickly. Such a thing had never happened before, so it was a rude awakening.

Once we located the account, we were able to ‘drill down’ to see every aspect of our client’s visits to our web site.

The original visit came from someone searching for a way to monitor traffic on multiple websites. This was indicated by the keywords used in searching the web. In the one day that we did business, they made three visits, looked at 96 pages and spent an average of 14 minutes and 7 seconds on each visit. The average of 26 seconds per page is a bit long, but the 96 pages visited are what really caught our eye.

Bear in mind that that was not 96 different pages, but simply 96 page visits. Some pages were visited several times. Our visitor detail page lists each page in chronological order as it occurs. This lets us see exactly what visitors find of interest and gives us some idea of what is going on in their minds at the time. Keywords and on-page links tell us what subjects were important.

In this case, our visitor went directly to the products page to see what we had to offer. They next looked at the pricing page to see if it was affordable. They returned to the products page using a link that discussed our risk-free, money back guarantee. So we know this was an important consideration.

They then started the purchasing process, but changed their mind and went back to the pricing page for another look. From there, they returned to the buying process via a link that talked about a special offer we had at the time. So now we also knew that the offer had appeal.

In fact, our guest made three attempts at buying the product before finally completing the sale. The very fact that they did buy on the first visit is also a bit unusual. Most people shop around and come back several times before buying. But there was not enough time between visits for this to have been the case. But then again, perhaps they had been shopping around before coming to our site. So this alone was not given much weight. It was just something we noted.

Next, our new client followed the usual procedures: going to the login, changing the default password, setting up the account and looking at the reports. From here, the first signs of confusion and uncertainty begin to show.

Our client next went back to the products and pricing pages. Since no links were used from these pages, we are not sure what they were looking for. But they again returned and logged in and tried to look at statistics. A few minutes later, they returned again to the product and pricing pages for another look.

Finally we began to get a hint of what was wrong. Our client now went to the tutorials and features pages, examining at length an article on analyzing the website data. Then back again to the statistics analysis. So now we begin to see that our client was unsure of exactly how to go about gathering and using the information from their website.

From here their confusion seems to increase. They went again to account setup and then to the help pages. They repeated this process several times over the remainder of the last two visits. Finally, they gave up and cancelled the account.

Our next step was to examine our late client’s site setup parameters. We found that certain fields were not set up correctly, confirming our growing suspicions that our instructions were not clear enough. By looking at the pages visited and examining the subject matter of those pages and links, we know that our visitor became frustrated at not being able to see statistics being gathered in real time from their site.

And the most telling feature of all came from examining the client’s web pages. They had never installed the tracking code on the pages so that statistics could be gathered in the first place! And indeed, there were no records from this account in the database.

This made it obvious that although we had sent them the tracking code to be placed on their web pages, we failed to provide guidance that showed exactly how and where to install the code. We failed to explain its importance and how it worked. This was a very basic and stupid mistake.

Most of our clients are pretty tech-savvy, and since we had never had a problem like this before, we had forgotten that not all of our customers are technically proficient. As if that were not bad enough, our whole business was supposed to be focused on the small web sites. It should be obvious that these people were not likely to be technical people.

So what did we learn from all this? First and foremost, our communications were bad. This client never asked for help. But then, no one should have to ask. We should have offered it right from the first, along with an easy link to reach us. We should have made our introduction more personal, giving a sense of friendliness and concern.

We also learned that our tutorials did not answer our client’s questions. Neither did our help files.

Now we have had to re-think our entire presentation and procedures. We have begun a process of updating and rewriting our tutorials and help files, adding video demonstrations and more graphics and examples. We have added help notices in our introductory email to new clients.

Even though it was only one customer out of many, it was a very important customer. They all are, as this quote from Brent Oxley of Hostgator shows:

“One unhappy customer is worth the weight of 1,000 satisfied customers in terms of how they can affect future business, so we strive to keep as many people happy as we can. We may receive 500 letters of praise in a month, but it is that one letter of dissatisfaction that keeps us up at night wondering how we can make things better.”

The process of updating our site is still in progress. It is not an easy job. Some items have been completed, but it will take some time to get around to them all. A website is a constant process of change and improvement. Nothing stays the same for long in the internet world. We made the mistake of getting too complacent. It took a harsh reminder from a dissatisfied client to set us straight.

It is too late to bring that customer back. They are gone forever. But perhaps we can prevent such a thing from happening again. Perhaps you can use our failure to build on your success. I hope so.

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About the author

WG Moore is a web analytics specialist with over 20 years of hardware, software and web development experience. Visit http://www.webstatsgold.com for more articles and information on web analytics. You may contact him at will@webstatsgold.com

Copyright 2005 by WG Moore

Permission is granted for this article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for in ezines, newsletters, websites, to offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and this resource box is included.

About the author:
WG Moore is a web analytics specialist with over 20 years of hardware, software and web development experience. Visit for more articles and information on web analytics. You may contact him at will@webstatsgold.com

Breaking the Myth about Page Rank (PR)

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:18:00 +0000

The most difficult challenge most web designers face is getting traffic to your site. There are plenty of companies who promise to send traffic your way. Sadly, most of this traffic is not qualified. Yes, your hit counter will move higher, however, if its not qualified, you may find you have unhappy visitors to your site. Unhappy visitors will not click on your ads or purchase your products.

Once you have optimized your site, consider submitting it to every search engine. If you want to get spidered quicker in Google, have a web page with a PR of 4 or higher point to your site. Your site will be spidered within a couple of days!

One myth I would like to bust is that PR is a measure of a web site. Its not. I receive countless emails offering a reciprocal link with their PR5 or PR6 site. Unless my link is appearing on the main page, or a page that has PR6, I am not getting a share of PR6. Most likely, my link will appear on a page that has a PR2!

Page rank is Google's ranking of that specific page's relevance. Just because the main page has a PR of 4, does not make every page on the site a PR4. Beware of sites who claim that they will exchange links with you and its to your benefit since they have a PR5 or PR6. Where is your link appearing? If its on a page that has a PR of 4 or 5 or 6, great!

Reciprocal linking, if done properly, will ensure that your keywords are at the top of the search engine. If you have a popular keyword, you ll need to have more back links. Pick your link partners properly, and ensure that they are linking to your keyword.

For example: if your site is www.joesdinner.com, consider sending out requests to relevant higher ranking pages to start with, followed by lower ranking pages and ask web designers to link back in a manner so that your url is a hyperlink for your keyword, not your site url or site name.

Presuming their keyword is "best dining in new york", having links pointing to your site with an anchor tag incorporating your keywords will improve your search engine rankings dramatically.

Once you have established a collection of sites pointing to your site using your keywords, you will start receiving reciprocal link exchanges from other sites. This is where you can start to be particular.

If you want to maintain an effective PR and attract better sites for linking, follow these tips:

a) Is it indexed?
While their site may be indexed, the page where they are placing your link, is it at least indexed by google? If you type in allinurl:www.sitename.com/links/right_here.html and there are no results, consider declining their offer. If the page your link appears on has not been indexed, there is no benefit whatsoever to you. If your pages have PR, they may consider placing your link on another page. If the page your link appears on is indexed, but does not have PR, consider accepting their offer. While the page today may not have PR, it will in time.

b) How many neighbours?
The value of the page rank is shared with each of the links on that page. If you are splitting that PR with several other sites, your share of PR will be small, which doesnt help you. Reconsider accepting any link exchanges if your site is 1 of more than 30 - 40 sites that will appear on that page, unless its a very high PR. Further, if there are too many links on that page, Google may consider the page to be part of a link farm, which may end up penalizing your site.

c) Is it relevant?
Google is big on relavancy. Ensure your links pages are relevant. If you operate a site about golf, having links from cooking sites will not help you establish your page rank. It may cost you more than you get in return.

How to Find Good PR sites:

a) Do a search for them by typing in your keyword and start asking for reciprocal link exchanges. Take a look at their PR and go from there. Remember, its the number of sites that backlink to you that matters, not strictly the PR of the page. I would rather have 50 pages that have a PR1 pointing to my site, than to have 5 sites that have a PR5. Of course, if you can get 50 pages that have a PR5 pointing to your site, you are laughing!

b) Take a look at your existing link partners and check out their links pages. Its clear the people appearing on those links pages are interested in reciprocating.

c) Purchase software that will help find quality link partners.

It is important to attract higher PR sites when you are on a reciprocal link campaign. However, its not the most important thing when it comes to search engine rankings. Its the backlinks that point back at you that are key. The more of those, the better off you will be for your keyword.

Remember: every page starts off as a PR0. Just because its new doesnt mean it wont get a higher PR once google gets around to assessing a score. If the page your site appears on is indexed, and its a relevant site of quality, consider exchanging links. You'll grow a large list of link partners in a short period of time, and increase your search engine rankings in the process.

About the author:
Christopher Smith has been helping people make money through Google Adsense by providing them with the Top Paying Adsense Keywords for his visitors to Adsense Heaven.

Five effective ways of making money out of web templates

noreply@blogger.com (Shahzad Riaz) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:17:00 +0000

Web templates are the in-thing now-a-days and most of them are selling like hot cakes resulting into huge profits for web template providers. You too can cash-in on this web template craze and make money. Discussed in this article are five effective ways of making money out of web templates.

Five effective ways to make money out of web templates

1.) Creating turnkey pages from web templates

Turnkey websites are the hottest resource on the internet. If you are a web designer, web hosting company or simply own a website you can make good money by creating turnkey websites from readymade web templates.

What are turn key websites?

Turnkey websites are completely functional websites having relevant content, domain names and hosting. Depending on the type, turnkey websites can have shopping carts, interactive scripts, graphics forms, forums, live chats etc. All that a buyer needs to do is buy the website and he is ready to do business.

What you need to do?

In order to set up a turn key website business, you need to do the following;

1) Purchase professional looking web templates with resell rights or join a template membership program

2.) Modify the web templates by adding relevant content, links, images and graphics

3.) Purchase domain names and hosting accounts

4) Host the completed web templates as websites

5) Advertise/promote your websites for sale/rent by SEO and Email marketing

What will be your ROI?
You ROI Will surely be very high. This is because of the fact that the retail value of turnkey websites is around $200 - $500 per website and can also go higher based on the website quality. You can also go for renting your websites instead of selling them. As you will be purchasing web-templates for a cheaper cost your ROI will be higher. The best way to go about it is by joining membership programs that will give you access to a host of http://www.buytemplates.netweb templates at a low one time cost. Also make sure to host your sites with hosting service providers who offer unlimited domain name hosting. One good example of a turnkey website service is ready-set-web.com.
2.) Joining an affiliate program
Affiliate programs are quite popular over the net. If you have a well ranking website with a good traffic margin then you can very well join an affiliate program offered by many if not all web template providers. All that you need to do is promote their templates and you can make easy money in the form of commissions.
What you need to do?
In order to join an affiliate program you need to register yourself for the program. As soon as the registration process is over you will receive a link or banner advert that you can place on your website at strategic places. In case your website visitor clicks the banner and makes the purchase you get a part of the commission. Commissions can range from 2% to 10% of the actual sales proceeds. Most companies use tracking software programs or individual services like clicksgalore, commission junction etc. for tracking sales.

Some good web template providers who offer affiliate programs are buytemplates.net, templatehunter.com, templatemagic.net and webzonetemplates.com Before joining an affiliate program make sure that the template provider offers allied/complimentary services like web hosting, search engine optimization, content insertion, domain name registration, template customization etc. In fact the more the complimentary services offered the better will be your returns.

3.) Reselling/redistributing web templates

If you own a website that attracts good traffic or is likely to attract traffic in the future, you can go for purchasing templates as a bulk and reselling them. To get redistribution rights all that you need to do is purchase reseller templates that many web template providers offer today. Some good web template vendors who offer reseller templates are http://www.buytemplates.net , http://www.templatemagic.net and freewebsitetemplates.com. Purchasing reseller templates on your own and reselling them can fetch you more returns than by joining an affiliate program.

What you need to do?

All that you need to do is purchase web templates that come with resell rights. You can then modify the templates and sell them to potential customers with non-exclusive rights. You certainly need not be a html pro to start this business; instead you can partner with template providers who offer related services like template customization, hosting, SEO etc. and earn good commissions by referring your customers to them.

4.) Joining Referral based programs

Referral programs are very unlike affiliate programs in the sense that they do not involve you to place links or banner ads on your site. This is basically a word of mouth program and requires you to promote products by word-of-mouth. In case a customer referred by you joins a membership program or buys a web template and refers your name in the referral section, you get a commission. But such referral programs are offered by very few template vendors today.

5.) Web designing with web templates

If you are a professional web designer you can earn higher returns by making use of web templates. Firstly you can satisfy your clients with the speed at which you complete the work and at the same time get more ROI as the readymade website templates are way cheap. All that you need to do is buy exclusive templates and resell them after making modifications. One way to go about it is by joining membership programs offered by web template providers. This will give you access to a host of web templates at a one time cost. Most web designers can almost double their profits, take care of multiple projects and also retain customers by making use of this technique. Also web designers can attract new customers by lowering their service charges.

So what if you can’t make web templates on your own, you can still cash in on web templates by making use of these sales techniques.

About the author:
is a quality web portal that offers high quality professional XP icons. Their high quality application icons come at extremely affordable prices and can be used for web designing, software applications and print media