I will identify 6 major areas of concern, in hopes that even a small percentage of these website owners will come across this document at the right time, which is BEFORE they begin to develop their website.

1) Domain name registration & hosting. Make sure that when you register your websites address that you register it for at least 5 years. Sites that register their site for a short amount of time send up a red flag at Google, who end up thinking that site site has been registered short-term in the hopes of helping another website, that is owned by the same person/company, to rank well by linking to it. When choosing your domain name, do not choose a URL that is riddled with hyphens between all your keywords. It is more important that you target this to your visitors than to the search engines.

2) Creating static URLs. This is one of the most overlooked yet important things that you can do to ensure that your SEO campaign is a success. By eliminating dynamic parameters within your websites URLs, you are ensuring that search engine bots will have no problems indexing all of your pages. Creating static URLs can be accomplished by using the mod rewrite command in the .htaccess file in the root folder of your server. Here is an example of a dynamic URL (which you want to avoid), and a static URL (which you want):

Dynamic: http://www.yoursite.com/listings.php?ref=22
Static: http://www.yoursite.com/listings/22.html

Make sure that any potential programmer or designer that you hire understands that this will be a full requirement of the job.

3) Editing the head tag. There are three areas in the head tag that you will want to be able to either edit yourself or have your SEO edit. They are the page title, the description meta tag and the keywords meta tag. Having control over these for each of your top level pages (all the pages linked to from your home page), will be critical to your websites success in the search engines. You definitely do not want these to be the same on every page (they must be unique and reflect the nature of the content on the given page). For other pages that will be created in high volumes, you will want to make sure that there is a variable string (your web designer/programmer will understand what this is) in place for each of the three areas in question, so that they will automatically be filled with content that is the right length and reflects the content on the given page.

Again, make sure that your designer/programmer understands that this is a requirement of the job.

4) Clean, simple code. Ideally you want to define all aesthetic properties that different types of text on your site are going to have in a separate CSS file. This means that you want to avoid using as many tags as possible, especially font, size and color tags. You also want to avoid creating PHP scripts that are either two long, and contain a lot of unnecessary steps, or ones that rely heavily on javascript. It is best to avoid using javascript as much as possible.

Remember, the most important thing your site can be doing is making it easy for search engine bots to easy scroll through the code of your website and follow all the links that it finds. When there is unnecessary code and script on your site, it makes it a lot harder for them, thus hurting your SEO campaign.

Make sure that whoever is helping you build your site understands that there job is to output the cleanest, simplest code possible. If you have any questions about this or dont understand it, it is best to talk to an SEO expert about it, to ensure that it is done properly.

5) Ensuring that visible written content is editable. The writing within the body of your site is one of the most important areas for you or your Optimizer to help your site increase its rankings. Ensuring that either of you can edit it at your own convenience is extremely critical to the entire SEO campaign. This because from time to time search engine algorithms will change, and that might mean that a strategy that was implemented in the past might not suffice, so you must be able to change it to keep up with the most up to date SEO techniques.

6) Site structure. Considering the nature of PHP, your site will most likely (and should) be created by a series of includes that puts all of the pieces of a given page together. You want to ensure that the layout and placement of graphics and navigational links within these includes is strategically correct. Remember, you dont want to have to pay someone to go back and redo this, so it is critical to get it right the first time.

If you are unfamiliar with a lot of the information that I presented in this article, it is probably in your best interest to at the very least, consult with an SEO or SEO company during the entire design process. A good SEO will be very comfortable working with you and your design team to ensure that the end product will be one that will last you a long time, and will go a long way in helping your site generate revenue online.

Building A New Website In PHP is a post from: Online Marketing Web

First well describe what dropshipping is and how it can be useful for a home based business. Dropshipping uses three entities: you, the customer, and the dropshipper. You advertise products that the dropshipper offers, and when customers would like to buy the product, they contact your. This can be done through traditional means such as newspaper or the more current trend with mediums such as web sites or auction sites. You never actually purchase the inventory until the customer pays you for it. This gives you the capital to buy the product and take your cut of the profits before the dropshipper. Once the dropshipper receives the order, they ship the product directly to your customer, with your return address listed. The customer thinks you shipped the item and usually has no idea the item was dropshipped.

Now that you have a better understanding of what dropshipping is, the tips below will help you avoid some of the pitfalls that usually occur when using dropshipping in your home based business.

Check the Inventory

You definitely dont want to sell a product from a dropshipper only to find out the dropshipper doesnt have the item in stock. This is one of the most common problems in the dropshipping business. Some dropshippers use an available stock field in their product description allowing you to see how many items they have available for immediate delivery.

Careful With Shipping

Most people new to the dropshipping business dont think much about shipping costs and how it can cut into their profits. Remember your shipping charges and be sure to pass them on the your customer. Some use a flat rate shipping charge that can cover most and provide a small profit when more shipping charges are collected and not used.

Dropshipping Charges

Different dropship companies have different fees for dropshipping. Each individual item may have a dropshipping charge even if the order is for more than one item. Others charge a monthly or annual fee. Its important to know the fees associated with using each dropshipper.

Saturation

When choosing a dropshipper, you dont want to choose a dropshipper that has a saturated market. The supply and demand principle is still true even in the online world. If hundreds of people are selling the exact same product as you, youll need some sort of incentive for them to buy from you. Or find a niche dropshipper that can provide unique products at good prices.

Beware the middleman

Finding dropshipper that provide the products you want to sell maybe your biggest challenge. There are plenty of middlemen just waiting to soak up all your profits. Most true wholesale dropshippers will require a tax id. They are inexpensive to obtain and can help lead your home based business to success. Dropship directories such as http://www.public-wholesale.net and http://www.buywholesaledirectory.com can provide you with lists of dropshippers for free.

5 Tips For A Dropshipping Home Business is a post from: Online Marketing Web

Build your Website Traffic by e-fuzion is a post from: Online Marketing Web

1. To get the plan moving, start with the section that is easiest for you, or of most interest. If you are enthused about the technical superiority of your product, write the product attributes section first. If marketing is your forte, then work on promotion. Many people like to start by writing the history of the company, or how they got the original vision to start the business (possibly because most people enjoy talking about themselves). When you begin to see words on the page, you will get a feeling of making progress, and then you can proceed to the more difficult parts of the plan with less trepidation.

2. People often underestimate the effort and energy it takes to write a business plan. They try to write it at night or when everything else at work is finished, in other words, when they are mentally and sometimes physically exhausted. A better approach is to write the plan when you have energy available to put into it: go in early and think and write for an hour before the phones start ringing.

3. Business plans are essentially works of fiction–documents that talk about what you imagine or hope may occur in the future, not what has already occurred. This type of writing is difficult for everyone. You’ve heard of “writer’s block”. The problems you are having keeping the words flowing are precisely the ones faced by the great writers, except many of them have to keep going because the publisher has given them a unreachable deadline and they’ve already spent their advance, but you of course, have allowed plenty of time to finish the Business Plan–so there’s no reason to feel pressured. Right?

If you feel blocked, don’t worry. It’s all part of the process. The key is not to quit. Put a few words down on the paper, then a few more. Jot down concepts rather than trying to do complete sentences.

4. You may think the first draft of your plan will undoubtedly resemble incoherent ramblings–jumbled stream-of-semi-consciousness ideas that look nothing like what you had hoped it would. Don’t be disappointed or frustrated. Just put the draft away for a few days, come back to it fresh, and begin revising and rewriting. Magically, after several more revisions, the ideas will all come together and the language of the plan will flow.

5. A good mental exercise to use when writing the Plan is to imagine that you are telling the story of your company to a good friend. Don’t get too wrapped up in the formality of the language, or the seriousness of the project, or the need to impress. Just talk. Express your hopes and dreams for the business. Why it is important to you personally to succeed.

5 Tips For A Better Business Plan is a post from: Online Marketing Web

In fact, there is a general fear of reciprocal linking to websites who inadvertently link to a “bad neighborhood” with penalties or page rank zero, passing on problems to you. Use your common sense. Is this a website you would want to visit or your visitors would want to visit? If the answer is no or you can’t tell what the subject of the site is, make a note of it and keep looking. A website full of links with little content doesn’t “make sense” because what benefit is it to you or your visitors? Of course you are going to link to your partners in business or maybe the small website that is doing a bang up job of selling widgets and providing widget information.
The idea of acquiring link popularity by linking back and forth to other sites to boost your popularity artificially is a popular method. But is it of value to your website? Ask yourself: Would you link to this site if link popularity in the search engines didn’t matter? Would your visitor care about this link or find it helpful? Does the website have good content? Is this an opportunity for you to publicize your website by being listed there? Will this link cause you to spend a great deal of time worrying about it?
Is the link “just a link” or do you want a link from any site whose visitors care about what you have to say

It makes sense to list your website in the search engines and directories. In fact, one-way linking, such as listing your site in directories, is a good way to improve your link popularity naturally. Well, you say to yourself, of course I’ve done that. Besides the major directories, what else is out there? You’d be surprised at the amount of good secondary and specialty directories that drive traffic. Some even specialize in a topic – maybe your topic. If you have a product to sell, look at who your competitor is linking to. Search for directories and business sites on your topic. Look for websites that talk about the widgets you sell and see if they accept submissions to their directory listings in the category for widgets. Do they accept original articles, product reviews, press releases or white papers about widgets? If so, submit your topical articles and watch your link popularity rise naturally. With your good content on other websites as well as archived on your own website, there you have it, links pointing back to your website.

Finally, enhance content stick-ness and optimize your web pages using proper keywords in your site to develop your website so once your visitors arrive, they will want to stay. The World Wide Web uses linking to connect us all. By using hard work to create a quality website and common sense when linking you can stop worrying and start succeeding in internet marketing attempt.

Build Your Website to Be Seen is a post from: Online Marketing Web

Perhaps this is the reason why more and more people are succumbing to one of the most popular businesses around affiliate marketing. It is because in this business, there are no bosses to order the employees around. There are no deadlines to meet and no clutter of work do to. One only needs to be equipped with the tools needed to succeed in a business such as this, and he is bound to get what his heart ultimately desires.

Just what are the things needed to be able to succeed in affiliate marketing? What must one have within himself to be able to do well in this industry? There is a lot of competition involved in affiliate marketing, and to be able to rise above the norm, one must be equipped with just the right stuff necessary to propel him forward. There are five things one must ultimately possess if he wants to achieve the glory he is yearning for in this business, and these five things are a must for him to possess to be able to stand out among the rest.

The very first quality one must possess if he wants to try his hand in affiliate marketing is the willingness to learn and be trained. Treading through unfamiliar territory is scary stuff if one is not properly equipped, and he might get lost amidst a jungle of the unknown. Learning the tricks of the trade is also an important aspect of the game, and ones willingness to know it all will give him far better advantages in the business than he could ever imagine.

The second quality one must possess is the willingness to invest time and effort even if direct results do not seem at all apparent. Although several months may pass without good news, it is important for one who has his foot in the industry to hold on and wait. It is this quality which would save him from giving up after investing a lot of himself in the business.

The third quality one must possess is self-determination. If one wants to conquer the affiliate marketing world, he must have the ability to push himself ahead. Never having to say die is a quality each and every affiliate marketer should possess, and the ability to motivate oneself into scaling greater heights is an ability which would actually take an affiliate marketer there.

The fourth quality one must possess is discipline. If one knows how to teach himself to work everyday with all the energy he can muster, then he is close to achieving what he has set his heart to having in the first place.

The fifth and last quality one must possess is optimism. Negative attitudes and hearsays should not discourage an affiliate marketer from pursuing what he has to in order to make life better for himself and for everyone concerned. Neither should anyone influence his attitude toward the business, because once in it, it is a must for him to be the captain of his ship and the master of his soul.

The ingredients to success in a business such as affiliate marketing are diverse and manifold, but the most important thing one needs to be able to make it big lies in himself alone. It is he who has the capacity to do everything to be able to realize his prospects, and the desire which fuels his heart in doing so is the gasoline which should keep the engine going.

Affiliate marketing is all about putting ones fate into his own hands. The right attitude is the key to being able to steer ones ship into that part of the ocean where a certain kind of serenity can be found, one that permeates the atmosphere as the ship sails calmly on.

5 Things You Must Have To Succeed In Affiliate Marketing is a post from: Online Marketing Web

Build You Expression True through SEO is a post from: Online Marketing Web

1. Reliability
There is nothing more important than reliability when it comes to selecting a web hosting company. There are a number of things that can go wrong within an internet based business and it is assuring to know that your web host is there for you. Prior to selecting a company, take the time to look at the percentage of time their server is working properly. If the server tends to be down 15% of the time or more, this kills valuable time that you could be working.

2. Contact info
Part of a web hosting company being reliable is also them being available. If your server goes down, you want to know that you can get a hold of the company as soon as possible. The best way to check on the support personnel is to call them up prior to agreeing to anything to test them out.

3. Domain name
With thousands of internet based businesses on the web and millions of web addresses already taken, it can be difficult coming up with an original domain name. However, every web host should be able to provide you with one for a reasonable price. Check into the support they give you for finding a quality domain name and the prices each company charges for a domain name.

4. CGI access
Depending on the type of internet based business you have, you may want to or need to run your own programs. In order to do this, you must have CGI access. Not every web host offers this, and not every company offers the same capabilities for their CGI access. When researching into a web hosting company, check to make sure they offer CGI access that allows you to read, write, and execute on your server.

5. POP account
Having a POP account is vital for your business because of the protection that it offers. A POP account gives you password-protected access to mail that is sent through your website email address.

There are several things you want to look into prior to selecting a web hosting company. The more questions you can come up with to ask the company and the more research you put into your decision, the better off you will be.

5 Things To Look For In A Promising Web Host is a post from: Online Marketing Web

One of the most crucial responsibilities of a website owner is to check for broken links to his website. Broken links can be considered as one of the worst things that can happen to a website. A lot of not so good perceptions and negative effects arise from having a site that is riddled with broken links.

In fact, broken links are plaguing so many websites that it is being considered as a serious problem on the web. Many reasons can be cited for the spread of broken hyperlinks, the general causes of broken links include: Websites not being maintained with the appropriate degree of dedication, the architecture of the website and how information is placed within the site constantly changes, and the large incidence of websites that are closing down.

Hyperlinks are a very important component of websites because it aids in the navigation around the webpages and points to directions outside of the site. A website without links is like a ton of documents that are piled one on top of the other with no rhyme or reason and no intelligent way for you to get to the information that you need.

Link management is a very important and absolutely essential part of maintaining a website. As previously mentioned, broken links bring with it very negative perceptions about the website and these can have very detrimental effects on the traffic generated by the website.

From a technical perspective, broken links can stop search engine robots dead in its tracks, effectively preventing it from completely mapping out a website for submission to search engines. In addition, a website that is riddled with numerous broken hyperlinks gives visitors the idea that the site is unprofessional and that the website owner or owners have a dubious reputation very costly image problems that are hard to change once it is established. Moreover, visitors who encounter many difficulties in a website will most likely not go back for a return visit, this is almost tantamount to losing prospective clients. They will be turned off because they wont get the page that they are looking for, thinking that it is not really in the site when in reality the page is there only that an error in coding made the page inaccessible.

With internet users becoming more and more sophisticated as time goes by, it will take website owners more effort to entice these users to visit their websites and broken hyperlinks will not help this very difficult process in any way.

Website owners and webmasters should be very aware of the bad effects of having broken links in their websites. They should diligently weed out and fix any broken links. Fortunately, there are now a growing number of handy utilities that can help webmasters located broken links. With these utilities, managing a website becomes relatively easier.

For example, xml-sitemaps.com has programmed a standalone script that will not only create sitemaps but also looks for broken links in a website and then informs webmasters or website owners what links they are and to which pages the links are associated with. This automation of the task of checking broken links is a great time saver for webmasters and website owners.

Broken Links Are Bad News For Webmasters is a post from: Online Marketing Web

So, I’ve put together five points that, hopefully, someone else can learn from and avoid having to test themselves.

1) Google is the 800 pound gorilla. This is something I learned when I was mostly using pay per click advertising. Google is so far ahead in terms of technology and usability. Other search engines not only missed the boat, they fell in the water and drowned. Yahoo! is coming around but how many years did it take? Google is where it’s at. So, get over your love of Yahoo!, MSN, and AskJeeves. Join the gorilla.

2) Be patient So simple yet so profound. I see it time and again. People, especially new internet marketers, get dollar signs stuck in their eyes. They bite off on all the garbage that says you can get millions of visitors with no money and no effort. I bought off on it too. And it worked, for a few months. Trying to start a business online will try your soul like nothing else. The only way to have patience is to set goals, way out goals, and move towards them. There’s no more free lunch on the internet

3) Nobody owes you anything We get upset. We cry and scream. We think we’ve been treated unfairly. We’re doing good and then, wammo! We get hit with an update which knocks us out. Someone posts an ugly comment about our business. We get accused of all sorts of stuff. Some of it true. Most of it false. But we have to keep perspective. Nobody, not even the search engines, owe us anything. Think about it. Search engines are a free service. How many daily newspapers let businesses advertise for free? That’s essentially what you’re getting, free advertising.

4) You have to prove yourself This goes back to patience. When you’re just starting out, no matter how great you think you really are, you still have to prove yourself. You have to go out just like everyone else, toot your own horn, give away free advice, and basically do it all for no money. How do you earn trust? By being trustworthy. Very few bootstrap startups are successful from day one. Set goals, keep your perspective, and never give up.

5) Spammers still make money I never officially considered myself a spammer. But, I did use a few spammy techniques to get search traffic. What you have to realize is that there will always be spammers. If people are still making money by sending spam email, they still make money by spamming the search engines. Yes, it’s getting harder but it’s not impossible. But, don’t fall to that temptation. Spamming as a business is a lot of work. Why not focus on what you really want to do and not worry about the search engines? Trust me, you’ll rest a lot easier.

While these ideas certainly don’t cover every “I wish I knew” scenario, they should give you a head start on where you should be directing your time and money. Two valuable resources that can never be recovered once spent.

5 Things I Wish My Dad Told Me About Search Engines is a post from: Online Marketing Web