Reinventing Your Homepage

Everyone struggles to make their sites appealing. Nonetheless, only a few has discovered the formula behind pretty and serviceable site.

Some sites need little alterations but some need total overhauling. The latter, being the most taxing than the former, has to start off on the right foot. What does it take to have tempting and pleasurable sites?

First, a site must have focus or concentration leading to a goal. Be sure not to leave the site wanting in details. Say everything that needs to be said. The contents must be material to the site?s objectives. Place in graphics that are valuable to the site. Bear in mind that the color, design and layout must agree to what you are saying. However, do not give beyond what is expected. Overdoing it invites confusion by reason of smorgasbord of links and all sorts.

Focus means organization of ideas and graphics. The more organized the homepage is, the better.

Another attribute of a good homepage is empathy. Marketing involves not just logic but a greater doze of matters of the heart. Persuasion is the key to a successful marketing strategy thus, this is also vital in websites most especially to homepages since they are primarily used to market products and services.

When visitors come to a certain site, their expectation is to be served and get solutions or answers. Therefore, your site must cater to the individual needs of these visitors. That way they can be satisfied and comfortable with your site. This will further build trust and loyalty between visitors and your site. This trust can yield you visitors and probable purchasers.

To empathize, you have to know first the possible reasons why visitors come to your site. Next, the class of visitors and level of knowledge they have in connection to your product and services. Be sure to answer all the doubts in their minds as well as needs, feelings and habits because that will affect the decisions they will be making.

The third thing to consider ? is the ?call to action?. This is the most important yet the most neglected attribute of a site. Without this, your site will be wasted.

Visitors want to know the action plan and they should get what they are supposed to do. The action plan can be getting information, buying the product, signing up for a service and the likes. Give a strong, persuasive and clear action plan to get the results you desire.

Reinvent and invigorate you homepage by making it stunning and functional!

Best Tools To Make A Podcast

Podcasting presents a great opportunity for both large and small companies to get more exposure. A recent report by eMarketer said that the podcast audience in the United States will reach 10 million in 2006 and increase to 50 million by 2010. With this kind of growth you just can’t afford to ignore podcasting as a marketing avenue.

But the question is “just exactly how do you create a podcast?”

There are literally hundreds of ways to create a podcast and with so many choices it can be confusing.

For beginners the easiest way to create a podcast is to join either Odeo.com or Evoca.com. Both sites give you the ability to create a podcast and make them available to a web community. Of course for greater control and distribution for your podcast, its better to create your podcast with your own equipment.

The first piece of hardware you need is a microphone. It?s important not to go cheap with this. A poor quality microphone will produce an inferior sound and make you sound unprofessional. You can find high quality headsets with microphones for only 20 or 30 bucks at your local Radio Shack or Circuit City.

Next you need software. Audacity is a free software program for recording that is hands down the most popular and the most used for the do-it-yourself podcaster. You will also need an MP3 encoder to convert your audio file into an MP3. The LAME MP3 encoder is popular and iTunes for Mac and PC can convert recordings into MP3 for free. Using these resources will get you going without spending much money.

Now if you?re looking to get the highest quality equipment for podcasting there are more choices. I would suggest using a Sennheiser e845 supercardioid microphone, connected through an M-Audio FireWire Solo Mobile Audio Interface, using Sony Sound Forge for the software.

Now if you need to record telephone interviews and make it into a podcast there are a few options. The first option is a mix and mash solution with Skype to initiate the call and Audio Hijack Pro to record the session. Another option is to use JK Audio Inline Patch to record the interview directly to your computer, use a Plantronic DSP microphone headset to record your voice, using Audacity to process the audio files, and then Audio Acrobat for the listen lines.

Clearly there a many ways to create a podcast. Make sure to use one of the options that I covered and you will be set to go in no time.

You will also find that a great deal of practice is important. Once you have your podcast sound smooth and professional, you will create content that others will like well enough to pass it along to friends and family.

Website Basics – Factors Influencing Your Website’s Success

Website Basics – Factors Influencing Your Website’s Success

An online presence is very important for any type of business: it’s probably the most cost-effective type of advertising available today. Numerous small firms use the web to sell their products and services while many companies don’t really see the web as a marketplace (yet they do have a website that plays the role of an “online business card”). No matter what you want to do, inform your clients or sell products online, you need to know a few “website basics” in order to be successful.

Basically there are two major types of websites: informative and commercial. If you are just starting out, depending on the nature of your business, you will either plan an informative website meant to attract and encourage clients to inquire your services or you will develop a commercial website that will sell your products online. Some entrepreneurs create websites that are both informative and commercial, especially when they want to promote products that are new on the market or that could bring important benefits to the users. All in all, the Web is a market and a website… your most important online marketing tool. You can achieve online success respecting the following five factors:

1) Register your domain. As a matter of fact, you should first pick a name for your domain. This name should be closely related to your business and easy to remember. Avoid long, difficult domain names such as: allideasforpartydesignuk.com or names that say nothing about your business such as frght88.net.

2) Chose your hosting company. “Free hosting” is not an option for serious online businesses. There are many companies offering cheap web hosting services. But if you are serious about online business you should choose a reliable hosting company, one that offers 24 hour support and has a good reputation. Probably such a company will be a little bit more expensive than others, but what are a few bucks when we are talking website accessibility and security?

3) Website design comes after you’ve developed a business plan and a corporate identity standard with clear visual identity guidelines. You’ll design your website according to these documents. If you hire a professional, make sure he or she will design your website respecting your visual identity guidelines, the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) standards and create the search engine optimized pages. For more information on this topic, please review: Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. (http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html)

4) Promoting your website requires a long-term marketing plan. You should take in consideration all probable online marketing possibilities: from basic web submission to pay per click, submission in paid directories, press releases and article submissions, blogging and posting in forums, opt-in email marketing and so on.

5) Last, but not least, think web maintenance. You’ll need to keep your website actual, or else you’ll lose important points in the SERP and your visitors will consider it irrelevant, uninteresting and not worth another visit.

Well, these are most important factors influencing your online success. Each factor has its importance and will play a major role to determine your website’s visibility and usability. But remember: these are basic factors. Creating a successful website is a far more complex task than just registering the right domain name, choosing a reliable host and creating a pretty layout. After you master the basics you should focus on in-depth website analysis to determine whether your goals will be achieved or not and concentrate on marketing, advertising and customer support.

Remember: competition doesn’t sleep. There are no guarantees that you’ll be successful, unless you work for your success.

What is PageRank?

What is Pagerank? – Pagerank is based on how many links to one website. PageRank is a value that represents how important a page is on the web. Robots or Spiders figures that when one page links to another page, it is casting a vote for the other page. Also the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote is. It matters because it is one of the most important factors that determines a page’s ranking in the search results but It isn’t the only factor that Search engines uses to rank pages. Not all links are counted by Search engines. .Some links can cause a site to be penalized by Search engines.

Internal linking – Internal linking also plays a factor in the Page Rank of the pages within a site. The linking structure within the site should follow the themed approach to internal linking, which stresses importance on minimizing linking between 2nd and 3rd level directories and pages. Example – The homepage has a PageRank of 5. You link your homepage that has a PageRank of 5, to other web pages on your site, which will in turn have a PR of 3 or 4. Now, you link all of the secondary pages that have a PR of 4 to the tertiary pages that will in turn have a PR of 3.

External Linking – External linking is the biggest factor in determining a web sites PageRank. Increasing your PageRank is very difficult, but important. The actual amount of effect that Search engines PageRank has on the ranking of a website or web pages is debated, but what we do know is that a web page’s PR does play a big role in Google’s indexing and Google’s ranking. The higher a web page’s PageRank, the more frequently it will be crawled and refreshed. While in most cases, a higher PR will accompany a higher-ranking site; it is not always the case. PageRank is a pretty complex mathematical calculation, but can be broken down into a simple version. PageRank is Google’s scoring of Page 1. This scoring is based on the links that point to Page 1, and certain variables within the pages that the links come from. 1 link from Page 2 is held as a vote for Page 1, and if Page 2 has a high PageRank, this will is taken into account and will have a positive effect when calculating the Page Rank of Page 1. If Page 2, 3, and 4, all link to Page 1, but Page 2, 3, and 4 all have a PageRank of 3, then this will be taken into account when calculating the web page’s PageRank. In the second situation, the pages with low PageRank’s that link to Page 1 will not affect Page 1’s PageRank in a negative effect, but also will not affect it in a positive way.

Web Design & Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Myths ? Revealed

Why are there so many Web Design and Search Engine Optimisation myths on the internet? The following article exposes some of the most common SEO myths effecting web design and looks at the reasons why they have become widely accepted as the truth by many web designers and Webmasters.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a complex and diverse topic that?s both never constant and constantly changing. There are hundreds of myths about SEO, some were once true but no longer apply (outdated information), while others were simply never true to begin with (disinformation).

The large amount of different opinions and tactics used by both Web Designers and SEO Consultants (which can be completely contrasting) has also helped to create myths. Combine this with the large number of web forums and blogs that allow people to share their views, and you have the perfect environment for not only creating myths but for them to spread like a viral epidemic. Here are some of the most common myths explained.

Myth Name: Build it and they will come

Myth Description: The belief that a website will receive large quantities of targeted traffic as soon as it goes online.

Truth: The biggest myth I still come across most days is the aptly named ?build it and they will come myth?. The cause of the myth is a combination of outdated information, a non realistic, over optimistic site owner or a lack of understanding of the web. Back in the old days of the internet you could ?build a site and they would come?, just by submitting to the main search engines of the day (to a degree). This was largely due to the lack of web sites around at the time, meaning top positions were that much easier to secure.

Nowadays a site must be advertised just like any business. A good analogy is your site is shop and a search engine is a high-street. The only problem is your shop is not on the high-street, so some kind of sign is required to inform passers by where you are and what you do.

Myth Name: Search Engine Submission Myths

Myth Description: The belief that a website needs to submit every page to the search engines. The belief that regular or monthly submissions will result in better search engine rankings. The belief that a website needs to keep on submitting to search engines or they will forget about the site. The belief that if a website submits to thousands of search engines its traffic levels will go through the roof.

Truth: While some of these myths used to have a bit of truth to them, nowadays search engine submission is not required at all. The myths have been caused mainly by companies who provide submission services. This is because it?s financially in their interest for people to believe the myths are true.

It doesn?t hurt to submit to the major search engines but indexing can be achieved simply by getting links to a site (as long as the page where the link is on is known to the search engines).

There is also no point at all submitting to thousands of search engines. There are only a handful of search engines that people actually use. Many of the other search engines have been created to obtain the submitters email address which is then added to email lists (which spammers will pay money for).

Myth Name: Meta Tag Optimisation

Myth Description: The belief that search engine optimisation is just about Meta tags.

Truth: Meta tags used to be very important to rankings until search engines became more complex. While some Meta tags are still important like the description and title tags which most search engines will display on their results (so they can influence click through rates drastically). Most tags like the keyword tag are obsolete.

I believe the cause of this myth is twofold. One, because it?s outdated information (to a degree) and two, because people want to believe there?s a secret magic formula that only SEO?s know about. That way a lack of rankings is not their fault, plus it keeps the conspiracy theorists happy.

Myth Name: Ethical Search Engine Optimisation

Myth Description: The belief that there are two types of SEO, black hat and white hat (the old good verses evil).

Truth: Quite simple this one but nearly always over looked. Any attempt to alter the search engines results and obtain more traffic is against most search engines guidelines. While there are tactics that may get you banned and others that may not or are not widely known about (yet), all of them are trying to influence the results and therefore are against the guidelines. SEO is neither black nor white, but many shades of grey. Just try to know what you?re doing and more importantly the associated risks.

Myth Name: Google?s PageRank (PR) is the most important aspect of a sites ability to rank

Myth Description: Self explanatory this one, the belief that PR is a god like entity we must all worship in order to obtain rankings.

Truth: It is widely believed by expert SEO?s and even been stated by Google Guy (a Google employee) that the PR we see on the toolbar is out of date as soon as we get to see it. Google update PR constantly but only update the toolbar PR now and then. PR is also only one part of a complex ranking system. How big a percentage it plays in rankings, only Google knows.

One thing for sure, it doesn?t matter how good your PR is on the toolbar, it?s not going to get you anymore traffic from Yahoo or MSN (you heard it here first).

There are many more web design myths about SEO, most of which can be spotted if you read between the lines and think about whether it would make sense for a search engine. One of the most important parts of SEO is finding a reliable source of information. If you want to learn more, a good place to start is one of the numerous SEO Forums on the web.

How to Seize Design Essentials?

Design is a world of both art and science. It needs skill and technology in order to succeed. In addition, you can achieve success in this field if you are knowledgeable of the important basics of design. Design is a process. It has to be purposeful, arty and informational. You need to be meticulous with its essentials. Design essentials include color, fonts, shape, texture, dynamism, animation, photography and the principles of using artwork.

You are what colors you use. If you do not want to be misinterpreted, then be cautious when choosing your colors because colors represent changeable characters and identities. It is sometimes relative to culture, age, gender and the likes.

Font is as equally important as other essentials. The advisable size of a point ranges from 10-12, less or more than that can be disastrous and may be hard to read. If you are not sure of what font to use, stick to conventional fonts like Times New Roman and Arial.

Shape gives contour to your work of art. It gives an aura of formality, trickiness, femininity or masculinity of a given art. Bear in mind though that simplicity must be upheld. Being simple is still attractive.

Texture creates the feel of your masterpiece. At the very onset, you can feel the warmth, cheerfulness or gloom of a site. It tells whether the appearance is boring or not. Be aware though that viewers are easily devastated so as much as possible create a pleasant site. Not only pleasant to the eyes but to all our senses to make a good impression.

Dynamism means lively, energetic and functional. Your site must cater to the needs of the viewers. It must not only be pretty but ?meaty? as well. It must be informative and gives the visitors what they want.

Animation is the effects using moving images to convey a message. They can be very entertaining on the part of the visitors. If you have it in your site, you can be assured that your visitors will not be bored because they need not read the content. The image will just convey the message to them.

Photography is another essential element. They say that picture paints a thousand words so if you don?t want to narrate use pictures to do it for you. You need not go into details when you have photographs to discuss the matter that easy.

Above anything else use the principles of using artwork at your own advantage. You can experiment though, because art is all about expression and idiosyncrasy.

Design is a visual language. Thus, you must aim for comprehension. To achieve this you must be clear, concise and functional in presenting your design.

Web Based Application Development, Software Development Resources

Hi All!

The World Wide Web (WWW) has changed how today’s businesses communicate. WWW is not anymore only used to get and disseminate information but employed as a tool for performance. Today’s websites are not just static pages but interactive tools that enhance your business capabilities in real time. These responsive sites are powered by the web-based applications that are capable of responding and interacting with the user and allow skimming the information that is relevant and is up to date.

To be more precise, a web-based applications is the one that uses a website as a front end and you can access this website viz application from any computer connected to the internet. The web applications is delivered to users from a web server. The most common web applications you must be using almost everyday is an e-mail like hotmail, yahoo etc. Other web-based applications that are used frequently to interact with clients, partners and other businesses are:

Custom Relationship Management

End-to-end web based recruitment

Online customer support software

Online data collection, analysis and reporting

Online quote software

Online product database development

Online ordering systems

Personalization of web page content

SMS messaging integration

Secure client areas

Secure areas to allow collaboration with business partners

Web Content Management Systems

Web based applications are all about convenience and getting the combined power of desktop and server applications with the accessibility of 24 hrs, anywhere and anytime.

Let’s see how they become the most strategic business tools: No installation and maintenance of the software: These web applications run on a web server, which you can access through internet. You don’t have the hassles of installing and configuring a program. So, one does not need to worry about the maintenance and troubleshooting or on heavy backups on the disk space.

Cost effective: Since you are running the program from someone else’s computer and no license and space management on your disk is required, so save heavily.

Latest updates available: Since someone else is hosting the program and maintaining it remotely for you, so whenever there are latest updates you just need to click on your web browser as usual and avail the latest features of a web application.

Readily available data: To access your data you just need to be connected to internet through your PC, which is no more a novelty. So, wherever you are, you can get connected to your data anytime. So the accessibility to your data is 24×7.

Multiple platforms: Almost all the web based applications are suitable for every web browser like Internet Explorer, Netscape etc or whichever operating system you have on your PC. The web application will always look and function uniformly.

Hope you guys will find the above article resourceful.

Adsense or Yahoo Publisher?

Lately many of my customers have been asking me this question:

“Which program is better? Adsense or Yahoo Publisher?”

It sounds simple, but the answer is not. The reason being is that both programs work well, but both also have different places when considering whether or not to use them for a specific website.

Here’s why.

Adsense has been around for a while now, and at the moment has the lion’s share of the market in the PPC (Pay Per Click) game. But anyone who has been promoting them on their websites will tell you that the payouts have also gotten gradually smaller as time has gone on. Why? Well it’s easy, they are still the best game in town, so they aren’t worried about losing their publishers to another PPC.

But then came Yahoo Publisher. Which unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past ten years, you already know the name, and know how big that company is. And with the purchase of Overture, Yahoo is coming into the game well equipped and ready for a fight.

So, what’s the difference between the two?

Here is what I’ve been able to learn from my own websites. Yahoo, overall, is paying more per click then Adsense. But before you jump from this article and start changing your code, read on a bit more.

Yahoo Publisher seems to be paying more then Adsense on similar content, BUT… Their ads are not nearly as contextually targeted as Adsense. So this can present a problem for website owners. For example, if you have a website that it’s primary topic is ‘HOME MORTGAGES’, Adsense will display ads that only link to mortgage sites. But that’s not true with Yahoo Publisher. Yahoo Publisher might display some mortgage ads, but also might display a Payday Loan ad (BTW if you need a payday loan, check out this page http://www.thegiftedone.com ), Vonage ads (Vonage must pay them some big money, as they seem to be the default when the script doesn’t know what to do), or some other ad that does not relate to the content of your website.

How do you choose which program is right for your site? This depends on the site itself and the type of surfers that frequent it. If you have a site that is highly targeted for a certain keyword, then I would suggest you stay with Adsense. This will keep the ads focused and targeted to your customers, presenting them with content that they will click. If they came to read about cooking recipes, they probably won?t click the Vonage ad. Here?s an example of a content targeted website: http://voip.magicanswers.com

However, if your site is more of a surfer hangout, where people go when they are bored, or if your site covers a multitude of topics, then you might be better off loading it up with Yahoo Publisher ads. This type of surfer is more likely to click an ad that?s off topic, which in turn would pay you better.

At this point what it comes down to is the click thru ratio. If monitored closely, you can determine what your surfers like and what they don?t like. What they click and what they don?t click. If one program is not performing well for you, then try the other.

I?m sure that as time goes on, Yahoo Publisher will become more targeted, and surely will be more competitive. With Google?s Adsense as an adversary they have quite a fight on their hands.

My advice to you is this. If you have one website, then optimize your PPC links for YOUR website surfers. If you have many, optimize each site accordingly, but do take the time to test each program. Find out which one will pay you more. Whether you own a giant corporation with hundreds of websites, or a home based business branching out to the internet, the bottom line is always the bottom line. Which comes down to the paycheck. A simple test might lead you to more money, which is always the goal.

Till next time,

Chuck Crawford http://www.magicanswers.com

About Your Web Design? – Panic No More!

The Net is bombarded with different kinds of websites. When you visit from one website to another, you can?t help but compare. In some instances, you do not even have time to compare, involuntarily, you are clicking away from the site. If you wondered what was lacking in those sites that you disregarded, or what was common with those sites you well-liked, well the answer will be just as easy as clicking away. It?s the web design. It catches the initial attention. If it is successful in doing so, then the visitor can prolong the visit. If it doesn?t, in a matter of 5 seconds your prospective client will easily turn away from you.

The key element in achieving a ?marketable? website is planning. Studying what is essential and applying it is indispensable. Working with a power team composed of a skilled web designer and writer is a good initial step. During the planning stage tell them what you envision your website to be then they will advise you on how you as a team will accomplish it. In connection with design, layout, color, logo and the design per se should be taken into consideration. It must complement to the personality of the company or business. Same with the design, the content?s pictures, text and information must be needed by the design and vice versa. Bear in mind that these elements must work as a team. They must not drag the other element down because it also entails the downfall of the whole.

For a web design to be amazing it has to be eye-catching, functional and practical. Flashy websites are useless if they don?t have the information that the visitors want. Visitors will also be easily bored by lousy content. Another instance is when pictures, graphics, and flashy texts are put altogether in a page which results to an overwhelming eyesore! To be guided, the website must exude total equilibrium, so to speak. A balance between all its elements, that way, no overlapping and no lacking will exist and the full advantage will fall to all parties involved.

As a web principle, web sites are intended to be read, if not the message won?t get through. Another, we should maintain the website?s attractive, neat and engrossing environment but it doesn?t mean to say that it should be boring! There are many tools available to create flashing and twirling effects. Whistles and bells are also favorable options. However, overdoing it makes it hard for the visitors to read and to follow. Refinement and sensibility as well as simplicity are still the best standards of web design!

PHP and Cookies; a Good Mix!

Introduction

Cookies have long been used in PHP scripts, and are a very useful function. But what exactly are cookies? Maybe you have used then, but you still don’t know exactly what they are. Or you are completely new to cookies? It doesn’t matter, because in this tutorial I will show you exactly what cookies are, and what they are used for.

Cookies in a nutshell

Cookies are small pieces of information that is stored on the computer of your visitors. Each browser handles it differently, but most simply store the information in a small text file. Internet Explorer has a special folder, which can be found in your C:Windows or C:WindowsSystem32 folder. You can delete all your cookies, by going to the Options and ‘Clearing Cookies’ or deleting them by hand. I don’t recommend this though.

Almost every website uses cookies. If you go to Amazon.com, you will get several cookies. The same goes for CNN.com. Even Google uses cookies! They are extremely useful for (temporarily) storing information. For example, if you have a login system for your visitors, you could save their userid and password (very heavily encrypted!) so they are automatically logged in the next time they visit your website.

Or you could remember their last visit, and highlight everything that is new. And that’s just the beginning.

Using Cookies

Using cookies in PHP is extremely easy. In fact, there is nothing to it, because of PHP’s inbuilt setcookie() function (http://php.net/setcookie). Have a look at the documentation, and then try the following example:

<?php

// Set a cookie
// Cookie name: name
// Cookie value: Dennis Pallett
// Cookie expire: in 24 hours

setcookie ('name', 'Dennis Pallett', time() + (60*60*24));
?>

If you run the code above, then a cookie will be set. That’s all. The cookie name and value are pretty obvious. The cookie expire is when the cookie expires, or goes away. Simply use the time() function (http://php.net/time) and add the number of seconds you want to have the cookie available to it. In the example I added 60*60*24=86400 seconds, or 24 hours.

If you have looked at the documentation, you probably noticed there are additional arguments. As the documentation says, the path is to limit a cookie to a specific path on your web server. This is often used when you run multiple instances of the same script in separate directories. You can safely omit this argument when it doesn’t matter if the cookie is available site-wide.

There is also the domain argument. This can be used to limit the cookie to a specific sub-domain, e.g. test.example.com. You can also safely ignore this argument, or set it to .example.com (note the beginning period, this is essential!).

Finally, there is also the secure argument. This argument is only used for cookies that are sent over a secure HTTPS connection (SSL). Just ignore this argument, unless you’re working with a secure connection.

One thing that should be mentioned is that cookies must be set, before you display any HTML/text. It’s probably best if you turn on output buffering by putting ob_start() (http://php.net/ob_start) at the top of your page.

Now that you have set a cookie, you probably want to retrieve the value as well. After all, that is the whole point of using cookies. Thankfully, as PHP is ever so easy, you can retrieve the same way as you retrieve a GET value. See the following example to retrieve the value of the previous example:

<?php
echo 'Your name is ' . $_COOKIE['name'];
?>

This should print "Your name is Dennis Pallett". There’s nothing more to it. It’s just that easy!

Finally, one thing you probably want to do as well is remove cookies. This is as easy as setting them. Simply change the value of the cookie to FALSE, and change the expire date to -3000 seconds. See the following example:

<?php
setcookie ('name', FALSE, time()-1000);
?>

Checking if cookies are enabled

Before you start using cookies, you must make sure your visitor has cookies enabled. This can be done with a simply PHP checking script. Unfortunately, the PHP page needs to reload to check for cookies. But this can be done very transparently, and your visitor should hardly notice anything.

The following example will first set a test cookie, then reload the page, and finally check whether cookies are enabled.

<?php
error_reporting (E_ALL ^ E_WARNING ^ E_NOTICE);

// Check if cookie has been set or not
if ($_GET['set'] != 'yes') {
	// Set cookie
	setcookie ('test', 'test', time() + 60);

	// Reload page
	header ("Location: checkcookies.php?set=yes");
} else {
	// Check if cookie exists
	if (!empty($_COOKIE['test'])) {
		echo "Cookies are enabled on your browser";
	} else {
		echo "Cookies are <b>NOT</b> enabled on your browser";
	}
}
?>

Run the code above, and see what the output is. Check if cookies are enabled in your browser. If they’re not enabled, then you can enable them by going to your browser’s options. Unfortunately, this is different from each browser, so I can’t give you exact instructions. But Google can.

Storing Arrays

One feature of cookies that is often missed in articles is the ability to story arrays. Cookies can be used to store multi-dimensional arrays, which can be extremely useful to store data.

Consider the following code;

<?php
setcookie ("name[first]", "Dennis", time() + (60*60*24));
setcookie ("name[last]", "Pallett", time() + (60*60*24));
?>

You can then display these two cookies using the following code:

<?php
echo "First Name: " . $_COOKIE['name']['first'];
echo "<br />Last Name: " . $_COOKIE['name']['last'];
?>

The cookie ‘name’ is an array, and has multiple values. You can even go deeper and have multi-dimensional arrays, e.g. $_COOKIE['name']['test']['something']['value']. You could store whole arrays of data in cookies. But beware that you don’t store too much data, there are certain size limits to cookies.

In Conclusion…

Cookies are really versatile, and can be used for a lot of different purposes. Many websites use cookies, and cookies can really make your website more personalized. Using cookies in PHP isn’t hard at all, and you should be able to use them without any difficulty.

Before actively using cookies in your website, you must check whether the visitor has enabled them in their browser. If they don’t have cookies enabled, you must either redirect to a non-cookies version of your website, or you can make sure your website also works without cookies.

You can download a sample script at http://www.phpit.net/demo/php%20and%20cookies/logger.zip, where cookies are used in a (somewhat) practical way. In this example, there is a logging module, called log.php and a display module, called history.php. Basically, you include the log.php in other PHP pages, and then you can view history.php to lookup all the pages you have viewed and how often. The example uses arrays, and stores them in cookies.

The examples in this article can be downloaded at http://www.phpit.net/demo/php%20and%20cookies/examples.zip.

If you have a really unique practical way of using cookies, please let me know at dennis [AT] nocertainty [DOT] com. I’d really like to hear about interesting ways of using cookies.

Unlimited Wealth Creation Through Reseller Hosting

Web hosting can be an exciting business start up for aspiring entrepreneurs. All you have to do to set up your business is become a hosting reseller, i.e., provide hosting facilities to website owners. Here as a business owner, you are buying space from a big hosting company, and redistributing the hosting space to other website owners.

Resellers are nothing but entrepreneurs acting as middlemen, offering you hosting services by leasing time and space from another Web host’s server rather than owning their own. Most of the times, the quality of services offered by resellers are so good that consumers do not even have the idea that they are dealing with resellers who do not have servers of their own. Resellers, since they can pick and choose their servers, are basically in a position to provide the customers with the best of services.

Reseller hosting business can be quite a profit making venture once you understand the figures and profit margins involved. Let us go through them. One can buy around 1000 MB space from a major web host at a cost of $25 per month. This 1000 MB space that you now own can in turn be redistributed to site owners who need space for uploading their site. Here you can give about 25 MB space for around $5 per month. Which means your monthly income comes to around $200 when you sell 40 hosting packages. Want more. some hosts allow you to oversell the space and do not charge you extra unless the actual usage of your account exceeds 1000MB. It is seen that a typical user uses less than half of the allotted web space. which means you can double or even triple sell your quota and make unlimited wealth.

And mind well, this income is residual income. It will keep coming to you month after month, year after year. You do the work once. and get paid for it over and over. All you are doing is buying space from a major web hosting company and becoming a reseller host. Your efforts are focused towards selling hosting space and the rest is handled by your web host. Some of them even handle customer service to your customers for a nominal fee. which makes it even easier for you.

If this is not enough. you can earn additional residual incomes by adding recruiting more resellers through you. By doing this you will earn regular commissions on their monthly sales. isn’t this smart business. The profit margins in the business of reseller hosting is quite good and you can start on this exciting business venture even if you do not have the required expertise and access to funds for setting up the required infrastructure. Strange as it might sound, there are also times where a reseller can also be more scalable than a typical hosting firm. A true Web host is limited by its hardware; if a client suddenly requires an upgrade the host is not prepared for, the only way the host will be able to satisfy the customer is by upgrading its hardware – expensive and time consuming for both sides. The reseller host, however, can simply choose to locate with a different Web host that will better suit the customer’s needs.

Happy Wealth Creation!!!

Using Web Design and Internet Marketing for a Better Business

The web is so popular because it is interactive and very user-friendly. Interactivity is the ability of a web to send back information or talk back to the server from which the pages originated. For example, you can do on-line banking and then you can pay your bills, transfer funds or get account balances. Other pages contained interactive form in which they can ask questions, conduct surveys, collect data, and even do home shopping.

A typical web page is like a magazine page, it contains text and pictures. However, most of today?s web pages also include sound animation and video clips and most important of all, links to other web pages, which boosts its fun factor to another level.

If you are part of the business communities, you can use the web for marketing sales and even customer service. Thousands of large corporations and small entrepreneur advertise new products, post a catalog of products for sale, announces job vacancies, company newsletter and offer home-shopping facilities.

Countless internet companies have failed because of their poor website design. Many visitors head right back to the search engines to find another company that sells similar products because of the unappealing web page. Nobody knows better than you that dozens of competitors are just waiting for your customers to land on their sites if you own Internet business.

Therefore, sloppy and ugly website designs can often damage a company’s online image and drive your customers away! These days, even the novice internet user has high expectations for their website as it should be. Unfortunately most are outdated static websites, with plain designs and poor graphics stuck in boring boxy templates!

Indeed, trying to squeeze everything onto the home page is one of the most common mistakes made by amateur web designers. It is because they are afraid that if visitors cannot see something on the first page, they will automatically assume it is not available on the home page, they will automatically assume it is not available.

In this case, all the products should be made accessible from the front page because it is very important. Web page should not have too much content on it. It should have enough white space to give visitor?s eyes a break.

A great commercial website must be highly navigable and easy on the eyes. It should make everything accessible by categorizing its products and providing its customers with a tab for each category. If you are not an expert web designer, you can hire a freelance designer or an established company with a successful track record.

In order to produce a website that is attractive and informative, you must come out and explain further your vision of your company?s website so that it could represent your company to the fullest. Hence, both you and your customers will benefit from professional website design.

You should be careful and very specific about what type of website design you have for your site so that you can attract more customers. Take a moment to consider what you really want out of the Internet.

If you are designing your website for the first time, and on a low budget, you’re probably on the lookout for free website content. These can include visitor stats, design templates, flash animation clips, and guest books. They can enhance any site, and the designer does not need to know an excessive amount of computer and HTML programming. Where else can you find all these help but in the internet itself.

Take the time to do your research and prepare your website to be the focal point of your business. This will come back in profit sooner than you may think.

A Corporate Web Site At An Affordable Price

To have a web site which is flexible, professional in design, can have additional functionality added in wherever is needed, is compliant in web development standards and can be controlled by the owner is no longer a corporate reality but is an affordable reality.

By using open source software the cost of such an affordable website has dramatically reduced. Open source software is free, built by an ethically sound and forward thinking community determined to better the functionality of the Internet. Whilst it is free, one should always try help those helping you by donating to open source software so that everybody benefits.

Just because the software is free, this does not mean that the website is free, the web site designer must still have knowledge of the website system and will be able to add a design and functionality tailored to your requirements. Building a website to deliver what you need is never an easy task.

The benefits of using open source software included affordable design changes without disturbing the content. Regular upgrades to improve the speed and security of the web site, additional modules allow a plug in mechanism for additional functionality to improve the use of the website, web site portability, reduced bespoke programming costs and probably most importantly, a support network which can aide in system issues and troubleshooting.

Easy Design Changes

Most open source software systems provide compliant website standards, this invariably means that the content is separated from the presentation giving two main benefits. The first of these is that the web site can provide slick content to be provided to the search engines and secondly since the design is independent of the content then the design of the whole site can be changed more affordably.

Regular upgrades

These open source software systems just grow from strength to strength, the development team expands, new ideas come into play and the software evolves version after version.

Support forums

Support forums of all levels up for the more popular open source solutions and communities develop within them. Whether you want to know how to do something in an administration panel, need help on best practices or require technical information on coding, more often than not, there is an answer for you on one of the many forums by people willing to share information and help you.

Additional functionality

The core functionality of many of the open source software systems is probably more than most people require. But a huge benefit Is the ability to add additional functionality. If there’s something your website needs to do, very likely the more popular open source software has a configurable module or component of some sort with the ability to do it. If it does not then a bespoke coder will be able to do it at an affordable cost, as it is just one part of the site integrating into the central system not a rewrite of everything.

Web site Portability

Being able to move a website between one website company and another without loss of support or “the getting to know the code” time is an excellent facility to have. Because the open source software is known to many of the web design companies, taking a new web site on board would be no problem.

For now and for the future why have the bespoke built web site at a large cost and even larger support costs, as opposed to an affordable flexible system which gives you the power to use the best minds of the Internet at an affordable price, with corporate functionality.

Create An Effective Website Color Scheme

One of the hardest parts in web design is creating a unique, effective color scheme. Not only will your site’s colors give it personality, it will create a lasting impression on your visitors.

Contrast

Pick colors that provide enough contrast to make your text stand out. Stay away from using light on light or dark on dark. Remember your emphasis is on getting your message read. An unread message is a useless message.

Keep It Simple

Choose 3 or 4 colors for your site, and use only those colors (or shades of those colors). Decide ahead of time which colors you’re going to use, and stick to it.

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are opposite each other on a color wheel. The 3 most common sets are:

* red and green

* blue and orange

* yellow and purple.

These colors work surprisingly well together.

Complementary colors also are a good way to pick colors that will be easily readable against a certain background: look for the exact opposite color to maximise readability.

Analog Colors

Another approach: Pick one main color, and choose colors near it on the color wheel to support it. Red, for example, goes well with its analog colors, orange and yellow. If overdone, this can make your site look too bright, but in moderation the results can look good. It’s no coincidence that these combinations often occur in nature.

Chromatic Colors

Another method, chromatic colors use different shades and hues of 1 color for your entire design — nothing else except black and white. For example, you might use light blue, bright blue and dark blue together. This creates a sleek and professional look.

Take Colors From Nature

Lack of ideas for a color scheme? Go for a walk outside. Take a look at plants, landscapes, and animals. Nature knows how to use colors — learn from it.

Color Blindness

Try to make sure that your design uses color to make itself aesthetically pleasing, but doesn’t rely on the color scheme for anything essential. Statistics show that perhaps 10% of the web users are at least partially color blind, so make sure they can at least read your text.

Essential SEO Copywriting 1 – 6

An article named “Essential SEO Copywriting” should begin, I guess, with a definition of SEO copywriting – as a starter for our short trip through the “mysteries” of this issue… Let’s try: SEO copywriting makes a text (article, web page etc.) readable and likable for human visitors as well as for search engines, by providing valuable information in a coherent manner, structured around well-chosen keywords that are relevant for a specific topic.

.. Did I lose you? Just choose the keywords / keyphrases that are relevant for your topics and write a SEO-wise copy around them. This will help you getting high rankings in search engine results while still making a pleasant reading for your human visitors. Let’s get into details and see how SEO copywriting should be completed.

1. Select your relevant keywords (keystrings)

How many keywords for a web page? There are a lot of SEO copywriting expert opinions here. I would say that it is better to have one or (maximum) two primary keystrings plus 3 – 6 secondary keywords. Be creative and keep in mind that you can have a complex keyphrase covering several alternatives. For example, “essential SEO copywriting” covers 3 other keystrings: “essential SEO”, “essential copywriting” and “SEO copywriting”, all related to the topic of this article / web page.

2. Keywords in META TAGS, targeted and concise

For this article the TITLE TAG is, obviously, “Essential SEO Copywriting”. The DESCRIPTION is “Essential SEO copywriting: learn how to write a SEO-wise copy around relevant keywords for high rankings and traffic on your web site” and includes the title. The KEYWORDS META TAG is: “essential seo copywriting, copy, keywords, seo-wise, high rankings”.

Keep your title / description / keywords META TAG to maximum 60 / 200 / 1000 characters each. DO NOT repeat a distinct keyword more than 3 times in any of your meta tags!

3. SEO copywriting – for humans

Include valuable and viable information in your SEO-wise copy. Write it in a coherent and easy-readable manner. DO NOT make it a meaningless list of keywords – search engines will penalize it and this isn’t SEO copywriting. Check spelling and grammar. Write at least 500 words in the body text of each web page. If we are talking about an expert article, keep the copy around 800 words, structured in smaller sections for easy reading. Give a short subtitle to each section and include here some of the targeted keywords. Keep always in mind who will read your copy: search engine robots AND human visitors (readers).

4. Optimize the keyword density of the copy

Let’s assume that you are writing a SEO-wise expert article, in order to promote your business (website). SEO copywriting specialists would say that you must achieve, for the targeted keywords, an optimal density between 2% and 7%. For example, if your keystring is “essential seo copywriting” and you have it repeated 25 times in an 1000 words article, it’s density will be 2.5% – within the optimal keywords density range.

DO NOT forget that the text of the article will be placed on a page that will probably enclose also: a script (HTML / CSS), in-site navigation links, outbound links, copyright information, advertising of some sort and/or other type of content. Under these circumstances, the 2.5% initial keywords density may fall below the optimal threshold. So my advice is: try achieving in your article, at least for the primary keywords, a density around 3-5%. DO NOT stuff the copy with keywords, though – it may become unpleasantly unreadable for your visitors.

Make sure to place the main keywords at the beginning, middle and end of the copy.

5. HTML text formatting of your SEO-wise copy

All SEO copywriting specialists concur: increase the importance (for search engines and readers) of your body-text-embedded keywords by using the HTML text formatting tags. Use (heading 1) tag for your page’s title, (heading 2) tag for the subtitles, (bold) and (italic) tags to emphasize the keywords scattered around the copy (DO NOT overuse these tags, though).

6. SEO copywriting for the entire website

We have examined the essential seo copywriting topics for one web page. If we are talking about writing the SEO-wise copy for an entire website, then there are some additional rules to follow:

– DO NOT use image buttons for in-site navigation. Whenever you have on page “A” a link pointing to page “B” of your site, use a text link with the primary keywords of page “B” as anchor text. For example, on my homepage (http://www.ewolwe.com), the anchor text of the link pointing to this article is “Essential SEO Copywriting”. Use the same rule for the anchor text of links placed on other sites (domains) that point to pages on your website.

– use your primary keywords in the URL of the web page (e.g. essential_seo_copywriting.htm)

– whenever you have a picture on a page, include that page’s keywords in the “ALT” tag of the image.

Each section of this article will be detailed in 6 new articles, which will try to cover, in deeper details, the topic of essential seo copywriting. Read more to learn more and good luck to you all!

Search Engine Optimisation ? Myths, Risks and Pitfalls

From my experience, people who try to increase the flow of organic traffic to their websites domain will at some point attempt a whole bunch of ?optimisation techniques? without knowing if any of it really has had, or is having, any effect at all. Some of the SEO techniques I have seen people attempt are, whilst quite useless, based on a good idea. Other methods continually amaze me. Perhaps people that try such things have heard spurious rumours of how to get their site into Google?s top ten listings from certain forums. Incidentally they are probably at such a point of desperation that they are willing to try anything to gain just ten more visits.

I am regularly inundated with the same questions such as: Is it worth submitting my site to 300 search engines? Will I get penalised for cross linking my sites? Should I pay to have high ranking sites link to mine? And what exactly does Google page rank do, if anything!?

Questions such as these have driven me into despair and consequently writing this article during which i will attempt to explain definitively the more common SEO myths, risks and pitfalls. In this article we will examine some of the more common beliefs.

Before we get to the list it is worth noting that I have not written it in a particular order and at times I have explained the topic the myth concerns before answering the question.

Link Building

Q)Will the more links that point to my website increase my sites placement in search engines?

It will help your website as far as the major search engines are concerned. The most popular search engines use the number of links aimed towards a website as an important factor in determining the sites placement. They look for your link to be coming from sites with; high traffic, quality content and a high page rank, amongst other things. Do no cross link, do not spam your address in forums and on social networks and do not put it on irrelevant sites, or even those that seem slightly dodgy. Take your time, aim for directories that are related to your website, aim for directories with page rank 3+ or aim for blogs or similar sites that are relevant to your content.

Q)Is it worth me buying a place on a high ranking directory?

So the idea with this is that, say, a directory has a Google page rank of 7 and is very popular. Any site on it will be getting a big rub off via a higher spot on search engine rankings. However the catch is the directory charges ?50 a month for your listing. Is it worth it when there are so many free directories out there?

Personally I think it is worth it, as long as the site holds its high rank and doesn’t have thousands of listings competing with yours on it. The added bonus with pay for listings is that they usually review and include your site very quickly (24hours), which by itself may be worth paying for. And if you could buy 10 spots on decent directories your site will most likely become highly ranked on search engine results.

There are problems with this though. Firstly, it is said to be against Google?s terms of service ? paying to get a higher listing on Google?s organic results. (Google want their results to show the best and most relevant websites, not those with the most money behind them) They are however, unlikely to be too bothered even if they do find out.

The next problem is the cost. For a small company or personal website it is too expensive to pay monthly for many directories to list them, and possibly not worth it. Lastly, it is not guaranteed to help your website. It should, but does not always. I have paid for listings before and noticed very little difference, whilst other times it has made a huge contribution to my sites ranking. So it may be a risk, but it can pay off extremely well.

Q)Will submitting a video about my site or product to places such as Youtube be of benefit to me?

A recent link building trend has been to submit a short video describing the webmasters site or the service it provides, to as many video submission sites as possible. The theory behind this being that search engines give more weight in their results to pages with videos. So if your site or product has a video on Youtube, when that product is searched for on the web that video will often come up in the top ten results. If this video has a link to your site in it, under it or as nearby as you can put it, it should be good news for you and your site. People find the video as it is ranked so highly in the results, watch the video, like what they see and then visit your site to perhaps purchase what they saw.

Does it work? At the time of writing, yes it does and it is probably worth doing. Make a video, even if it is just text, sound or a power point presentation, and then submit it to as many video and social networking sites as possible. People will find it and it will hopefully persuade them to visit your site. The only real problem with this being that the search engines will not like all of the ?video spam? now being posted on the internet and are likely to change (lower) the priority of videos in their results.

Google Page Rank

Q)Will having a higher Google page rank increase the number of visitors to my site?

Before we can answer that we will have to look at what exactly Google page rank is. Google page rank is a spurious form of measurement for site popularity that the company introduced fairly recently. It is unknown to everyone, except possibly Google, how exactly it ranks sites. It is assumed however that its ranks depend upon on a mixture of traffic a site receives, external links pointing towards it and the content it contains. New websites may not have a page rank for many months. It is also possible to have a very successful website with thousands of visitors and sales and still not being ranked highly, if at all. This is because Google only ranks pages once every few months, probably around once every four-five months. So if you start your website and straight off advertise heavily you might recieve a high volume of traffic but it may still take months for Google to look at your site and rank it accordingly. Also, as a sites rank is dependent on more than just traffic l!

evels, in that scenario your site may still be ranked lowly once it is eventually seen.

To see a websites Google page rank you can download the Google toolbar and then once it is installed right click on it and select show page rank.

So back to the myth ? Does having a higher Google page rank mean more visits to your site? Well, yes and no. No, because it alone doesn’t actually have any effect on search placement, and as such won?t increase traffic. Yes, because indirectly it will benefit your site. If you have a high page rank Google will prioritise your site and check back often to see if anything has changed, such as content, giving you a good chance to increase your standing with the search engine. Another benefit is that both people and sites are more willing to trust websites that have a high Google rank. For example, if you are submitting your site to directories you will want to submit it to a high Google rank directory as Google will check them more regularly and take more notice of them and their content (which will be your link). So indirectly, a high Google rank should mean more visits for your site.

Buying in Traffic

Q)Is it worth me buying 10000 hits for ???/$$$?

OK, we have all seen the adverts in our email promising thousands of targeted visits for an amazingly cheap cost. And at one point or another we have all been depressed enough to be tempted by them. But just say no.

The idea is, for say 100 pounds (or 200 dollars), a traffic company will direct ten thousand or so visitors to your site who are actually interested in your content. It sounds great and some companies will actually provide what they say as far as traffic to your site is concerned. However I have never found one where the traffic is actually targeted and people even bother to look around my sites. Often it turns out to be a robot that is obviously not going to look or buy anything from me. If not it may be that thousands of unfortunate people have had a dozen pop up windows attack them as they bravely try to fight them off. I may be generalising slightly with this, but usually the people that are directed or redirected to your website will want nothing more than to close it down.

It could possibly work for you if your site instantly captures people and most of your money is made off advertising that these people quickly click on before closing you down. However do not attempt to use bought traffic whilst using Google Adsense on your site as it is against their rules and your account might be terminated without warning. Another possible benefit is that some search engines rank sites based on incoming traffic, thus 10000 more hits by anybody may actually boost your rankings. However, this is unlikely to fool search engines such as Google or Yahoo!.

Cross Linking

Q)What is Cross Linking?

Cross linking is a webmaster practice whereby a person owns many domains, uploads an identical site to each and then heavily links each domain to the others. For example, person A registers lotsofhits,com, but is not getting enough traffic. To fool the search engines into thinking it is a popular website he registers a hundred more domains, so each will have different web addresses but all have the duplicate page content of lotsofhits,com, and all of them link to one another. This in theory should boost the pages rank, as Google, along with other search engines, determine the importance of a site based on links from outside websites pointing to it(along with a few other things). It would also mean that there are a hundred more sites on the web that sell the same product as lotsofhits, com that could all possibly be found.

Q)Will Cross Linking my site(s) be penalised by search engines?

This is not a myth – search engines often penalise or even temporarily ban sites that Cross Link. If Google detect completely duplicate content on even just two sites that link to each other, then they will at least lower your page and result rankings, if not ban both sites.

Q)I heard cross linking is fine as long as the sites do not have completely duplicate content. Is there any truth in this?

If you are determined to Cross Link the safest way would be to own two or three domains that link to each other but each of which have completely unique content and link to other sites as well as one another. It is hardly worth creating two or more unique sites for the sole purpose of cross linking and I would not recommend doing so anyway.

SEO Software

Q.Is it true that there is no point in doing any manual search engine optimisation or search/site submissions when you can buy software that will do it all for you?

There is a little truth behind this, but not much. Whilst certain software might make for an excellent tool in assisting your SEO campaign, in the end there you will find there is no substitute for hard work. For example you can download a program that will submit your site automatically to 10000 search engines or put a link to you web page on 50 other sites. The problems there being: only four major search engines exist and between them they take over 80% of all search engine traffic. Those search engines will find your site automatically and rank it according to, amongst other things, relevant and unique content ? making the 10000 search engine submission promise redundant (even if it were true).

There are good tools available that will track your visitors (Google analytics), tell you how your site could be made more search engine friendly and software that even tracks how each of your keywords are ranked in major search engines. However, if you are purchasing such software, try to find a trustworthy independent review first so that you are sure you are not getting ripped off. Also try to make sure that any software you use does not go against Google?s terms of service.

So, whilst certain software can and will be useful to you, there is no replacement for hard work and unique content and regular updates. The search engine rankings should then take care of themselves.

Free Web Design Advice

In this article I will give advice and tips of where to find a low cost website design company and also about the best ways of producing a cool website.

How many people or companies are advertising their services for web design?

The answer is a great deal. They surely can not all be asking for huge sums of money to build and design quality websites. There must be some who offer cheap, affordable websites.

If you think about a company or person who is just starting out, they have not got a very large portfolio of previous work and clients to show, and in this situation are likely in these early days to offer you a competitive rate. Once they become more established they will then no doubt increase their prices.

To find these companies which are just starting out, I would advise looking on auction websites like ebay, looking in Yellow Pages, looking in newspapers such as a paper we have here in the Midlands called bargain pages. Looking on the internet on search engines and asking family and friends is also other avenues to explore.

Once you have found a company you need to think about the content for your website, the colours and also about graphics. Do you want it have flash design? These are all things to think about.

You then need to think about hosting, who will host your website? It may be worth asking the web designer if they can recommend a host.

Then once you have had your site built you need to promote it. Building up a regular and constant stream of backward links is very important as this will result in your website obtaining a higher page rank and more visitors.

Guide to Internet Business – Website Setup

After planning the design and content of your website, it’s time to actually physically set up your website. This is the step where you put all your designs and plans into action, creating a website that will attract visitors and earn income.

a) WEBHOSTING

A webhost is a company that stores the pages and pictures and other files of your website. When a person visits your website, they will request these files from your webhost’s server so they can view the website. When choosing a webhost, be careful to choose one that is reliable. After all, if your webhost has problems for any reason, people won’t be able to visit your website, and you won’t be earning any money.

In addition, different webhosts have varying services and tools that they offer. Some of the more important points to consider when choosing a webhost are as follows:

• SPACE AND BANDWIDTH – Space refers to how much file storage space is available for your website. For a standard website with about 20 pages with graphics, 30MB is plenty. Online stores might require more space depending on how many products and pictures you have. Bandwidth refers to how many files can be downloaded and viewed by visitors per month. A normal website with reasonable traffic (200 visitors a day) will need about 2GB bandwidth. Again, if you own a business with lots of products and webpages, you might need more bandwidth.
• DOMAINS AND SUBDOMAINS – Usually, webhosting accounts are charged per domain, with $10 per domain being a reasonable price. However, you can buy larger hosting packages that allow you to host multiple domains and websites on the same account. Subdomains are just different sections of your website’s domain, with 5 subdomains the rough standard. You will need to make sure how many domains your account entitles you for, in order to calculate which is the better webhosting package.
• EMAILS AND AUTORESPONDERS – Emails are the various email addresses that visitors can write to you. Most websites will use about 2 or 3 emails (maybe a webmaster email and a support email). Autoresponders are email addresses that will reply someone with an automatic email. You will only need autoresponders if you are on vacation and wish to leave an automated reply in case anybody emails you.
• SCRIPTS – If you want to add extra functionality (such as forums or polls), you will need to be able to run scripts. Make sure your webhost allows you to run scripts for your website. The more common scripts are Java, PHP, Perl and CGI.

There are a number of companies out there that offer free webhosting, but they usually have severe limitations, and might place their own ads on your website. If you are serious in building your internet business, it is recommended to sign up for a proper webhosting service. We recommend HostGator, which provides different levels of webhosting depending on your requirements and budget, with various useful tools as well. In any case, you shouldn’t be paying more than $10 a month per domain for basic webhosting services.

b) PROGRAMMING

Some people with sufficient HTML knowledge use word processing programs to directly code the HTML for their websites. For the rest of us who don’t have such skill, we recommend one of the popular graphical programs like Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage. These programs allow you to create your webpages with mouse clicks with little need for knowledge in HTML.

If you want to make your website look like another website, you can “copy” their HTML and modify it to fit your website. In Internet Explorer, click the “View” menu, then click the “Source” option. This will show you the HTML code for the website. You will need some HTML knowledge to make sense of this and use it on your website.

If you need more information and examples on the many things that HTML can do, you can visit the online tutorial at W3Schools.

c) FILE ORGANIZATION AND TRANSFER

Once you have your webhosting set up and your webpages completed, you need to transfer the completed pages to your webhosting server. If you are using a graphical program like Dreamweaver to work on your webpages, you can configure Dreamweaver to transfer the files for you.

If you are doing it manually, you need to transfer the files via FTP. Your webhost will provide you with an FTP server, with a user id and password for you to access your account on the webhost. Once you connect to the account via FTP, you will be able to upload (transfer files from your computer to the server) or download (transfer files from the server to your computer) or modify files as required.

You can FTP to the server using your computer’s Windows Explorer, by entering the FTP server’s address in your explorer’s Address Toolbar. Or you can use specialized FTP programs such as AceFTP.

d) ADDITIONAL SCRIPTS

If you want to add extra functionality to your website, such as polls, newsletter subscription forms and other interactive programs, you will need to install scripts onto your website.

If you are looking for scripts to create a newsletter mailing list, do note that some webhosting services also provide mailing list scripts. If your webhost doesn’t provide it, BigNoseBird has a good email list management software.

For other scripts and functionality, you can check out the popular scripts at websites such as BigNoseBird and HotScripts.

When you’ve finished setting up your website and getting it launched, the next step will be to start looking at the various means to attract visitors at:

http://www.onlinebiz-help.com/step4.html

How to Create a Useful, Popular Website

In this free email course, I’ll tell you everything I know about setting up your website and placing it highly in the search engines.

Everything I tell you will also be free. You’ll spend some time, but you won’t spend your money.

Your two goals, useful and popular, are related. Search engines can bring you a lot of first-time users, but quality will keep them coming back.

How technical will I get?

Well, you have two choices. Learn HTML, or use some free software that lets you create a site without learning HTML.

If you choose the latter option, writing the site isn’t much different than creating a Power Point presentation or a word processor document.

I’ll address both options. Plusses, minuses, how-to. So whether you’re a computer geek like me or a technophobe like most of my family, I’ll tell you how it’s done.

So don’t let the possibility of technical language stop you.

** GETTING STARTED **

First, decide what you want on your site. I do this with pen and paper. What menu options, what graphics, what sounds (if any). How much stuff to put on each page, because I want each page to be “the right size.”

Every graphic (including your background) and every sound takes time to load when someone visits your site. Text (including links) is fast. No page should be larger than 64 Kb, and that size means HTML plus graphics, sounds, etc.

I always try to strike a balance between speed and appearance. If it isn’t necessary, it probably shouldn’t be there. Only you know what “necessary” means.

I also draw a “flow chart” for navigation, and refer to it as I plan and again as I create. If it looks way too complicated when it’s done, I’ll create a special page called “Site Map” to help users navigate the site.

In my case:

Index (my home page) leads to:

FreeBooksOnTheNet

BookReview

Bookstores (which leads to OnLineFictionBooks)

Etc.

I always ensure that a “Tier 3″ page like OnLineFictionBooks leads back to the Tier 2 page that leads to it (Bookstores). A Tier 4 page should lead back to the appropriate Tier 3 and Tier 2 pages. Etc. All my pages lead back to Index, which is the only Tier 1 page.

Whenever someone visits your site, their browser automatically looks for a file called INDEX.HTML (or INDEX.HTM for files written with Microsoft.) That’s what makes it the Tier 1 page.

If the user’s browser doesn’t find Index, you don’t have a website. So your home page will be called INDEX.HTML (or INDEX.HTM). You can call the other files anything you want, as long as the file extension is HTML or HTM.

A link to a Site Map on your front page that lists all your pages, regardless of what tier it’s on, is convenient for users and it ensures that Search Engine spiders find all your pages.

Throughout this lesson, I’m going to assume you’re not using Microsoft and call everything an HTML file. (Files that end with HTM, the Microsoft default, are also HTML files.)

As you work, put all your website files (HTML, graphics, sounds) into the same directory. And, remember where it is! If you like, you can give that directory some subdirectories and sort things a bit, but I never do this.

I mention file locations because this, too, is part of your planning.

Your planning stage might take longer than actually writing your website. But for me, writing pages with no plan never works.

So plan!

** DO YOU WANT TO LEARN HTML? **

Once you have a plan for your website, all that remains is writing it, uploading it, and helping people find it.

The big question is, can you learn HTML? If so, do you want to?

If you can and want to learn HTML, you can make your website do anything you want it to. Otherwise, you may find your options limited.

I’ll admit that I’ve only written one page without using HTML. Not one site — one page. I learned HTML for my job, then maintained my employer’s site for two years. All in HTML. The power of HTML impresses me. But, learning it isn’t mandatory.

So, how to decide…

Here’s a list of sites that will teach you HTML. Look them over and decide if learning this language is for you.

Interactive HTML Tutorial

http://freereads.topcities.com/freebooksonthenet.html

This is the site where I give away about a dozen free ebooks and link to thousands more.

Writing HTML Tutorial

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/

HTML Goodies

http://htmlgoodies.earthweb.com/

HTML: An Interactive Tutorial for Beginners

http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/

HTML Primer

http://www.htmlprimer.com/

Webmonkey

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/

Your homework — forgive me, I’m a teacher — is to refine your plan. Also, think about the “learning HTML” issue a bit more if you need to.

** HTML OR NOT HTML? **

So now you have a plan for your website, and you think you’ve decided whether or not to use HTML. It’s time to do the work and make your site a reality.

First I’ll show you how to write a website without learning HTML. Then I’ll show you how to write a website after learning HTML.

** WRITING A WEBSITE WITHOUT USING HTML **

The title is a lie. All websites use HTML. But you can get the computer to write the HTML without learning it yourself.

If you choose to do that, here are five possible methods:

(1) Netscape 6.2 is a free program. If you don’t have it, you can download a copy from http://www.netscape.com.

Choose FILE, then EDIT PAGE. Now you can design a web page by clicking menus and dragging things around the screen. There’s really no HTML function it can’t do.

Once you’re done, you can look at your HTML files using Netscape Navigator and/or Internet Explorer. Once you know they’re perfect, you can upload them.

(2) If your computer has Microsoft Power Point already installed, you can use it to write a website.

Use it like you normally would, and create a Power Point file that looks just like you want your web page to look. When you’re done, click FILE and SAVE AS WEB PAGE.

You can use your browser (Internet Explorer and/or Netscape Navigator) to see how it will look before you upload it.

(3) You can use Microsoft Word. (I haven’t investigated whether or not it will add backgrounds.)

Just open Word and create a document like you always do. BUT, when it comes time to save it, Choose FILE, then SAVE AS, then under “Save As Type” choose WEB PAGE.

Again, you can use your browser(s) to see how it will look before you upload it.

(4) Almost every free web host has a series of “templates” that allow you to set up a web page in minutes.

http://www.bravenet.com may have the best.

http://www.topcities.com is also very easy to use, but they only have two templates.

If you can’t find a template at either place that is close enough to what you want to use, you can go to any search engine and look for “free web hosting.”

If you just can’t find a template that’s close enough to perfect for you, maybe you can set something up with a template anyway and learn enough HTML to change it later.

After the “Writing A Website Using HTML” section of this lesson is a section on “Choosing A Hosting Service.” If you’re going to use a template, you might want to look at that now. Or you might just want to go to Bravenet or Topcities and be done with it.

(5) Buy Microsoft FrontPage. I’ve never used it, nor will I. I like having control of my HTML, and no website generator (including the four above) will give me that. But I do know some folks who use it, and they strongly endorse it. One of them even knows how to write in HTML.

But before you buy any program, ask yourself if you think it’ll ever pay for itself. Meaning, are you selling stuff? If you are, can you sell enough to get your money back in profit? If you can’t, do you care?

** WRITING A WEBSITE USING HTML **

If you’re going to write HTML, I salute you. Three choices are:

(1) You can use Notepad or a similar text editor. Not a Word processor! Save the text file with the extension HTML, not the default TXT extension, and your browser will recognize it at as an HTML page.

(2) Many free web hosting services have on-line editors that serve a similar purpose, but I prefer to do my writing off-line because it’s faster. And, if you’re paying an hourly rate for your Internet access, off-line is cheaper.

(3) I used Notepad for many months, but then I found a better way. It’s called CSE HTML VALIDATOR LITE. Imagine Notepad with the ability to open five pages at a time, and the power to validate your HTML code (making sure it’s right) before you upload it. That’s CSE HTML VALIDATOR LITE, and it’s free at http://www.htmlvalidator.com.

If you have no need to validate your code — changing contact information or background colors, for example — I recommend Edit Pad. It’s also free, and it’s like Notepad with the ability to open multiple pages. HTML Validator Lite limits you to five, but Edit Pad is unlimited. http://www.editpadpro.com/

Once you’ve written the code, preview it with your browser(s) before you upload it. It might not be quite right. It rarely is for me on the first try.

** WHERE TO GET SOUNDS & GRAPHICS **

I’m guessing you have some photos of yourself, friends, family, pets, school, whatever. That’s probably why you’re setting up your website.

But what about backgrounds? What about music?

Whenever you visit a website, if you see any UNCOPYRIGHTED art you like, just right click it and choose “Save Target As.” Then you’ve got it.

As for music, I don’t put MP3s on-line because:

• The files are quite large
• I never know which are copyrighted and which aren’t

So on one of my sites, I have MIDIs. All public domain, meaning you can take them and use them yourself. Just right click and choose “Save Target As.”

OR, you can just go to any search engine and type “free wallpaper” or “free background” to get some artwork, or “free MIDI” to get some free music. Right click, Save Target As.

It’s that simple.

** CHOOSING A HOSTING SERVICE **

If you wrote your site using a template or an on-line HTML editor from one of the free hosting services, this step’s done. But you still need to download all those files as backups. Sometimes free hosting services vanish suddenly, and you DON’T want to lose your whole site that way! So keep reading!

If you wrote your site on your own system, you need to get it onto the Internet now.

First you need to choose a web hosting service. A free one, definitely. It’s always possible to start with a freebie and move to a paid provider later, but I haven’t left the freebies and I’ve been at this for years.

There are a lot of freebies out there. If you don’t believe it, go to any search engine and type “free web hosting.” I have no idea what you’re looking for in your free provider, but I can tell you what I looked for in mine.

* Lots of storage space. Thanks to all the photos and music, my largest site takes 12 Mb. Since you have all your files in a single directory, look at how large that is. Open Windows Explorer, find the folder, and right-click it to look at the properties. How much do you think it’ll grow? Pick a server with AT LEAST 20 Mb.

* No popup ads. This is a BIG deal to me. All free hosting sites have ads, but you’ll note that Topcities doesn’t use popups. Just a banner at the top of all my pages. I can live with that. My no-popup rule knocks Tripod and Angelfire out of the running.

* Accessibility from anywhere in the world. This knocks out very popular freebies like Freeservers (formerly my favorite) and Yahoo Geocities. Oh, and Tripod again. China doesn’t like them, and I live in China.

So now, your assignment is simple. Decide where you’re going to put your new website. I chose http://www.topcities.com but you don’t have to.

Once you’ve made a decision, you’ll have to apply for an account and fill out some information about yourself, including the name you want for your site.

Usually the web host will send you an email to confirm your address. You respond to it, and you have access. Then it’s just a matter of sending your files.

** UPLOADING YOUR FILES **

For the beginners… Upload means to send files to another computer. Download means to take files from another computer.

(If your files exist on a server but not on your own hard drive, you’ll be downloading!)

Some web host providers have excellent file transfer abilities built right in. Topcities is especially strong in this regard. Or, you may need an FTP server program.

FTP simply means “File Transfer Protocol.” In short, a way for your computer to talk to the one your hosting service is using.

You can pick up a free FTP program at http://www.ipswitch.com/. Drop down to the bottom left and click Try WS_FTP Pro. It’s a stripped-down version of the commercial version, but it’ll do everything you need and it never expires.

Depending on the speed of your connection and the sizes of your files, this step can be very quick or very slow. But either way, you don’t have to do much work. Just click a few buttons and let ‘er rip!

(Now might be a good time for a refill on the beverage of your choice. I know I had a few as I wrote this lesson.)

Once you transfer all your files, you have a website. Your hosting service will tell you the URL (address). Make sure it works, surf it a bit, and just enjoy the fruits of your labor. Then tell your friends and take a break!

Congratulations! You’re a webmaster now!

** FINE TUNING & SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT **

Hello, webmaster!

That’s right, you’re a webmaster. You’ve got a website.

But, you probably want to improve it, and you probably want people to know how to find it.

This is the final lesson, and probably the one you’ll keep referring to. Fortunately all its resources are online, so you can just bookmark a few pages and go to them as necessary.

Now that you have a website up and running, you might want to look at Is Your Website Unfriendly? (http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz/HTMLtips.html)

If you’re programming in HTML, Web Colour Codes (http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz/colors.html) is an easy way to find the six-digit hex code for whatever color you may be seeking. This is especially useful for background colors, as fast good-looking graphics can be hard to find.

After you’ve uploaded your web pages, running a diagnostic Will tell you how long it takes them to load at various modem speeds, how compatible they are with older browsers, how to improve problem areas, if you have busted links, etc. These are all free.

Speaking of busted links, download Xenu. I have over 1000 outgoing links on one of my websites, and it checks them all automatically. I manually check the ones it claims are busted.

You can find my complete list of diagnostic tools at: http://freereads.topcities.com/bookpromo.html

That page also contains a few more goodies you might want to use. Software & Graphics, and CGI Scripts.

Speaking of CGI scripts, visit http://www.bravenet.com if you haven’t already. (This won’t work in China.)

Scripts are defined as things where the user can send info back to your website. Guestbooks, feedback forms, newsletter subscriptions, chat rooms, games, you name it. Things HTML just can’t do.

Bravenet lets you use their scripts, free. You just copy and paste a small bit of HTML code into your site and they handle the rest. It’s worth a look, AFTER you use the scripts that your free web host gives you.

http://freereads.topcities.com/websitenewsletter.html contains my analysis of Search Engine placement. It’ll take you some time to go through all that.

I recommend running the diagnostics before you submit to the Search Engines, because some Search Engines penalize or even ban pages with badly-written HTML.

Then, swing by The Web Marketing Checklist at http://www.webmarketingtoday.com/articles/checklist.htm to make sure you’ve done everything you’re supposed to.

http://freereads.topcities.com/freebooksonthenet.html contains a large selection of free ebooks. Many are about website and newsletter promotion.

Have you subscribed to my free newsletter yet? It’s called Mad About Books, but it covers more than that. As I discover new ways to improve and promote my websites and newsletter, I include them in my newsletter.

Good luck with your new website!

Best regards,

Michael LaRocca

http://freereads.topcities.com/archive.html

Michael LaRocca’s website at http://freereads.topcities.com was chosen by WRITER’S DIGEST as one of The 101 Best Websites For Writers in 2001 and 2002. He published two novels in 2002 and has two more scheduled for publication in 2004. He also works as an editor for an e-publisher. He teaches English at a university in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, China, and publishes the free weekly newsletter Mad About Books.

Copyright 2004, Michael LaRocca

Meta Search: Internet Search Engine Directory

With the billions of web pages on the Internet, how do you drill down to find the pages that are most relevant to your search? Although most people use one of the “Big Three” search engines – and sometimes only the “Big One” – all search engines are not created equal. Depending on the type of information you’re seeking, you may have more success searching via an Internet search engine directory or one of the many specialized types of search engines.

Here are a few of the types of specialty search engines that can help you retrieve the specific information you’re seeking, without the static of irrelevant pages and links:

Articles: If you’re looking for articles to reprint – often free of charge – there are a number of search engines that can serve your needs. These engines can also generate source information from previously published articles.

Audio: There are a number of search engines that specialize in searching for audio files. Whether you’re looking for MP3 files, podcasts, or other audio formats, these search engines allow you to specify the type of audio file you’re seeking.

Bittorrent: Bittorrent search engines look for results within torrents, which are groups of people sharing the same files and information.

Blogs: Looking for a specific blog, or a blog on a certain topic? Blog search engines narrow their quests to blog entries, so you can find the opinion you’re looking for.

Community Search: Community search engines return results from within the local area that you specify.

Images: If a picture is worth a thousand words, an image search engine is worth hundreds of thousands. With an image search engine, you can cut to the chase and retrieve images in a variety of file formats.

Internet Search Engine Directory: Search directories typically pull information from more than a dozen search engines and present results in topic categories. By comparing findings among search engines, an Internet search engine directory typically returns higher quality and more relevant results.

Meta Search Engines: A meta search engine takes relevant results from dozens of general search engines and ranks pages by their standing among the source search engines.

News Search: There are a variety of news search engines, some of which return relevant page listings and others of which use interesting new technologies to graphically represent the importance of each news item.

Reference Search: It’s sometimes difficult to sort out truth from fiction on the Web, so reference search engines are handy when you need to cite a reputable source for the information you’re seeking.

Shopping Comparison Search: When you know what you want to buy, but want to find the best price available, you can use a shopping comparison search site. Some sites include merchant rankings to help you discern the most reputable dealers.

Technology: If you’re a techie, or are in search of technology-related information, tech search engines will only look at material from sites that are exclusively tech-related.

Weather Search: Sometimes you need to do more than look out the window. Weather search engines can pull results, maps, and forecasts from virtually anywhere on the globe.

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