Archive for May, 2011
May 31st, 2011 | 
Author: Dont Panic! Follow These Tips When Building Your Website
Does the idea of building a website for your Internet business plague you with endless worry and sleepless nights? Do you become overwhelmed with the whole process? Dont panic. Building your website is not as difficult as it may seem. Follow these steps to get your website up and running in no time flat.
First you need a domain name. Your domain name is like your street address on the Internet. A recommended resource is http://www.godaddy.com. They will help you find an available domain name for as little as 10. However dont buy anything else from http://www.godaddy.com because they will constantly barrage you with new offers. The price can add up quickly.
The next order of business is to find a hosting account. A hosting account actually posts your website on the Internet. A recommended hosting provider is http://www.frontierpowerhosting.com.
Caution Caution Caution! Make sure that you have your OWN unique IP address. This way you can avoid being lumped in with spammers. For example lets say your website shares an IP address with another Internet business. This other Internet business is a spammer. This website and any other websites associated with this IP address which includes your website will be shut down by Yahoo Earthlink etc. So you will be out of business even though you are an honest person. Therefore make sure you have your own unique IP address.
You have your domain name and hosting account. Now its time to build your website. You can build a website and write the copy by yourself even if you dont have web creating experience. One user friendly website creation program is MS FrontPage. Microsoft has recently come out with Expressions which is essentially an updated version of MS FrontPage. The programs work in a very similar manner. You can download a Beta version of Expressions at http://www.microsoft.com.
Another option for creating website copy is to hire a direct response copy writer to pen the copy. It can cost thousands of dollars to hire a top notch direct response copy writer but is well worth it because they have the ability to turn words into money and subscribers.
The next item on your list is to set up an Autoresponder. There are two types of Autoresponders. The first type is a regular Autoresponder that automatically sends a message to anyone that emails you. For example Outlook has an Out of Office Autoresponder.
The second type of Autoresponder is labeled a smart Autoresponder. A smart Autoresponder holds personal information from your subscriber list such as first name last name email address IP address and a time stamp of when the subscriber sent the email. Use a smart Autoresponder.
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Matt Bacak began investing his first earnings at the tender age of 12 a young businessman in the making. Now 15 years later Bacak survived failed businesses botched partnerships heavy credit card debt and bankruptcy all in preparation for the accomplishments he has achieved today as a wellestablished Internet millionaire and bestselling author.
For more information visit Bacak’s site at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com or sign up for his Powerful Promoting
Tips at http://www.promotingtips.com
Domain Names – To Hyphenate Or Not To Hyphenate
Picking out a great domain name is critical in the setting up of your online business. Domain names could be made up of the letters A through Z the numerals 0 through 9 and hyphens. But there is a debate on whether or not to use hyphens particularly if your domain name is made up of two or more words.
For instance you have set up a business selling patio furniture. However you found out that patiofurniture.com is already taken. Would it be a good idea to use a hyphen to make the domain name patiofurniture.com or should you just think of a totally new domain name?
Well it would still be advisable to come up with a domain name that has no hyphens. However there are some instances when there are exceptions to this.
Domain names that are hyphenated could be good if you really want specific words to be in your domain name but the combination without the hyphens is unavailable.
Also another situation that using a hyphen could be good is when the words which you are planning to include in your domain name would be easier to read with a hyphen. For example the domain name hotellighting.com would be harder to read compared to hotellighting.com. Though the hyphenated domain name is not a completely great domain name it does make it easier to read.
You could also consider the use of hyphens in domain names for SEO or search engine optimization. There are some who would advise that the use of hyphens actually helps search engines to be able to distinguish keywords better. This would be a good way for those webmasters that have the main goal of optimizing their website for maximum traffic coming from the natural rankings from search engines. The only drawback of this technique is that it might be different eventually as the search engines are regularly changing the search algorithms that they make use of.
About the writer: Do not waste your time with bad web hosting services. Go for trusted and reliable hosting providers bluehost or hostgator. Sign up today for one penny!
Does My Website Need A Cms?
A Content Management System or CMS for short is an administrative software system that allows its users often unskilled in HTML and web development to update edit and create new pages on their website.
- Does your web site contain a huge number of pages and corresponding level of difficulty in keeping track of all of them?
- Does your organization rely on constant and regular web site changes often with several people working on it?
- Do your web site contributors lack sufficient knowledge in HTML?
- Do you need to editorially review each new page before publication?
Can your company relate to any of the above scenarios? If so using a CMS will save a lot of time hassle and money in the long run.
Basic of a CMS
A typical CMS works like this
- A web design layout is designed and developed. Usually this entails a logo/banner at the top standard navigation menus across the top down the left side and/or at the foot of the page and a ‘blank’ area where content is inserted
- This layout format is then converted into a master template for all subsequent pages. During the process of this conversion the CMS admin backend is integrated and tested.
- Web content producers are given access and instructions on how to add text and images to web pages automatically. Most CMS are usually very intuitive and easy to operate.
- Each generated page is saved onto a database for future editing or deletion.
More elaborate CMS can perform unique functions such as archiving builtin search engines and mod rewrites but basic functionality is still related to easy creation and editing of web pages.
Types of CMS
Proprietary CMS
These systems are usually very expensive to purchase such as the 500000 and up Viggnette system. These high end systems however come loaded with full features and usually have excellent customer and technical support. Common uses of these systems involve very large organizations with departments that require unique functionality.
Open source
These systems are typically free and relatively easy to install. Some of the better known open source systems include Mambo and Drupal. Because of its open source nature however you will find a dearth of customer and technical support however there exists a huge following and forums dedicated to the popular systems. Customization capabilities vary from system to system. Be sure to do all the necessary research before deciding on one.
Custom CMS
These types of systems are usually preferred as they allow you to develop from scratch your preferred functionality. Debugging is also less of an issue as your web developer having written the codes can easily isolate and fix problems.
Bear in mind there are literally hundreds of CMS to choose from. Ranging in costs from free to over 500000. What you do need to do is firstly figuring out exactly what functionality your organization needs your development budget and finally find a system that suits those needs best.
The downside to installing a CMS is of course the amount of web development needed initially. While you are able to obtain free open source CMS programs you still need to hire someone experienced and capable enough to integrate it correctly. This initial expense however is usually a necessary evil and is justified as you avoid the need of hiring or outsourcing your webmastering needs down the road.
Search engine optimizing your CMS
If you do decide to install a CMS for your web site the following considerations should be applied.
Mod rewrites
This ensures that your dynamically generate URLs are search engine friendly as opposed to using long session ids and strings. The search engines bots will then have no difficulty in indexing and caching these pages.
Fields for title and meta data entry
Ideally you want to be able to insert your own title tags and meta tags. This applies to the alt tag code for all images as well. Using the correct keywords in these tags often provides a nice search engine rankings boost.
Sitemaps
All generated pages should be automatically inserted into your global sitemap. This allows the search engine bots to easily find and spider all new pages.
Ultimately a CMS is meant to make life easier not creating new rigid standards that require stop gap hacks or workaround solutions. Visualscope Studios has developed a custom CMS that can be suitably modified to meet your organizations’ needs.
About the writer: Boca Raton Website Design Boca Raton Graphic Design
