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Adding A Regional Component To You Web Site

09 2007 Thursday

By Rusty Ford in Webmasters

What is a regional web site?

A regional web page is one that focuses in on a specific area such as a city, county, state, country or area of the world. You do not have to have a regional web site to add a regional component to your site. There are two types of sites I am going to talk about. First is the regional site itself and then a web site with a regional section in it. If you already have a web site and want to expand the content and the audience then adding the regional section is a great option for you.

Building a regional web site.

Regional web sites are becoming more popular. Five years ago if you built a site about the community you live in there was a good chance you were one of only one or two sites to do so. Obviously if you were only one of two web sites for a community then you were at the top of any search for information about that community. It is not as easy now. This is still the case for many smaller towns and counties. But there is much more competition for larger more populated areas. Don’t just rule out larger areas because if done right then you can still do great in these areas as well.

The first thing to do is decide on the area you want to build a page about. A good place to start is where you live or your favorite vacation spots. This is a good choice because you are already familiar with the area. I will share two things the site will need. The first is more important and the second will bring in more traffic.

Next you need to list the things that make the community you chose unique. It is especially good to find the lesser-known unique things about your community. This can include historical places, unique places and fun places. It can even include the best places to kiss. It can have reviews of local restaurants and business, a history of the community, little know facts about the community and any other things that make your community unique and special.

This is important because most community sites are just a group of links pages about the area. This is part of doing it right. When your page is unique and full of quality content it is easier to get good quality links to your site. Many people forget about this and concentrate on make pages about the key words that people search for. When this happens you end up with a site that nobody wants to link to and nobody wants to spend time looking at the different pages of your web site. Quality is always at the top of the agenda. The goal of any web site should be to be the best web site on the internet about your particular topic. You decide which is better to have 1000 visitors who visit your site a day who average looking at 2 pages or 300 visitors a day who average 10. In the long run when you have hundred of well-ranked sites linked to you then you will get the thousands of visitors who visit many pages on your site.

After you have the above and have a quality site for your community then it is time to start looking at keywords. This is what brings people to your site. A good tool for finding out what people are searching for is Overtures Keyword Selector Tool.

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Type in the name of the community in the search box and click the arrow. It will give you a list of how many times that a term has been searched for in Overture the previous month. I will also list all the phrases that were searched for using that term. This way you know what people are looking for when they search for something in your community. Now you can take the information in this book and apply it to making pages based on these keywords. Remember that with every page you build quality is the key. You want your site to be better than any other site about your community. For an example of how to use this tool try this link.

http://arthritis-symptom.com/adsense/keyword-selector-tool.htm

As an example if people are searching for museums in your community do not just make a link page to the museums web sites. Rather list every museum in the area and add a paragraph or two for each. You can also make a page about every museum and have an index page called museums in your community that link to all the museum pages you have built. If you have 10 museums in your community people will visit most or all of the museum pages. Be sure to add a short description on the museums in your community page.

Adding a regional section to your web site.

This is an idea that has become very popular in the last few years. As the internet continues to grow it is becoming harder to be at the top of the search engines for the most popular terms. So one of the things you can do is to make regional pages for your products or information. I stumbled on this by accident years ago. As I have mentioned I have a very large arthritis web site. As a service to my visitors I decided to add a section to the web site that listed had a page in for every state that listed arthritis resources in that state. It quickly became one of the most popular sections of my site especially in the search engines.

This can be done for any product or service that is not specific to a community. For example I knew a guy who was representative for a Satellite TV system company. He could sell a system anywhere in the country. Once he made the sale the company arranged for the system to be installed. So he built a page for Satellite TV for every city in America. He did this because he found out that many people were searching for Satellite TVs in their communities. He had about pages for over 500 different cities.

This worked well for a while, but he had a problem. Basically every page in his site was the same. The only difference was the name of the city and state. The search engines now frown on this. He tried to fix this by adding unique information about each city. He finally gave up on this and redid the site under a new domain name. Once a search engine punishes you it is hard to get back in their good graces.

So if you are going to do this for a product or service you need to make every page unique. As mentioned above, quality always is important and you can no longer cheat the search engines. So do not take the easy way. Take the time to make every page one that the search engines and your visitors will be proud of.

This can also be done as a service. One of the most popular sites on the internet is topix.net. They have the largest news network that includes news for almost every city and town in America. This can be done for almost any service from adoption to zoos. Some subjects have way too much competition and companies that are spending too much money for you to compete with. Regional travel and legal sites are examples of these. Even though there is a ton of competition for some types of regional sites there are still literally thousands of different topics and services that do not have too much competition.

Author: Rusty Ford Editor http://arthritis-symptom.com/

Eye Tracking, Statistical Analysis and Site Success

09 2007 Wednesday

By Dave Davies in Webmasters

What Is Eye Tracking?
How a subject views a book page, a store display, an advertisement or other visual stimuli is measured using sophisticated tools that track eye scan, also called eye movement. These tools measure which design elements capture visitors’ attention and which don’t.

Eye tracking is used in virtually every kind of marketing – TV ads, billboards, product packaging and web sites – to determine what works and what doesn’t with consumers.

What Does a Visitor See on Your Site?
The layout of a site page is scanned differently by each visitor based on individual perception, interest, need, age, education level, computer monitor, browser settings and other variables that can be tracked in empirical, eye tracking studies.

The results of numerous eye tracking studies have been quantified, enabling web site designers and owners to optimize site pages for maximum impact and “stickiness.”

Single- and Multi-Variant Testing
Single-variant testing involves changing one site element and measuring the impact on conversion rate, for instance. Multi-variant testing employs a series of simple A/B comparisons conducted simultaneously or sequentially depending on what’s being tested.

Using statistical analysis, and eye tracking data across broad-spectrum demographics provides numerical sums based on number of observations and length of observations of different elements on any site page. That’s something you want to know. What captures the attention of site visitors? What is ignored?

Single-variant testing is the simplest to initiate and track. However it’s time-consuming and may lead to unsubstantiated conclusions. Multi-variant testing is a more efficient means of determining which site appearances and features deliver optimum results, i.e. the highest conversion rate.

However, multi-variant testing is more complex than changing a single variable and waiting to gather the A/B test results. It could take months to optimize a site for conversion. Further, single-variant testing often requires the tester to make certain assumptions that may or may not be true.

For example, a change in type font shows a boost in conversion ratio. Is it logical to assume the change in font style is responsible for the improvement? No. In fact, this fallacy is called “post hoc ergo propter hoc” in the world of statistical analysis. Roughly translated, it means “after this therefore because of this.”

Simply because something occurs (an improvement in conversion rate, for example) after a single-variable change has been made (the change in font) does not mean that the improvement in conversion rate is due to the font change. The improvement could be based on another factor entirely.

Planning Your Test Model
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

If you blindly (or wildly) change design elements without a thought to site improvements, all you’ve done is collect a lot of data. In order to determine which changes to a site improve conversion rates, it’s important to first define what you’re looking for – your test metric. What site element or elements will be compared?

Next, in order to develop useful data, you must determine how you’ll measure and compare functionality. What methodology or “conventions” will you employ to determine a reliable outcome?

And finally, you must be able to develop a strategy that optimizes site success, however that success is defined by you. Here’s an example.

Let’s say you want to determine which checkout software is better for your bottom line. Before you can conduct your test, you must first create a test metric – a measurement that defines the term “better” in your query.

Which checkout software is better?
You might determine the test metric to simply be the number of visitors who convert. That’s easy to measure, but it may not provide the complete picture. Perhaps a more useful measurement of which checkout software is better is the dollar amount each visitor spends. Or the number of repeat buyers you see. An increase in the number of page views, number of unique visitors or a jump in bandwidth, indicating an increase in downloads from your site – all of these are reasonable test metrics depending on your mission.

This leads to the next step in developing accurate statistical analyses: how will comparisons between the A/B elements be measured or quantified. What test “conventions” or methods will be employed? Will you count all site visitors in the study – even those that bounce – or will you limit the test pool to those who actually put something in their cart? Or actually reach the checkout but abandon the shopping cart? Or actually complete a transaction? Determining the methodology of your single-variant or multi-variant testing prevents jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions.

And finally, what steps can be taken based on the test results you develop? If you can’t answer this last question, why are you going to all the trouble to conduct the test and collate the data? If you get result Y, what can you do with that information versus result Z? This is where statistical analysis is turned into a practical, organized strategy for improving conversion ratios.

Once the test metric(s) and conventions are established, you run an A/B comparison test using the two different checkout models.

Checkout A requires two clicks to complete a transaction. Checkout B requires six clicks to complete the same transaction. Your test results reveal that the more complicated checkout model leads to a higher percentage of shopping cart abandonment’s. So can you assume that checkout Software A is better than Software B?

If your test metric was a simple count of software usability, Software A is the clear winner. But what if your test metric was to determine which checkout software led to the highest “per visitor” purchase amounts? And test results reveal that checkout Software B delivers fewer purchases but purchases of higher value. In this case, Software B would be the better choice. That’s why it’s essential to determine each test’s metrics and conventions.

Measurement Tools

There are a lot of software packages to help in gathering test data. One, called Crazy Egg provides different GUIs of site activity – an overlay view, a list summary and even a heat map showing what’s hot and what’s not on your site.

Easy and effective analysis
Another popular conversion rate analysis software is Click Density, which provides real-time visitor data to help improve everything from content architecture to link placements.

Click Tale tracks every movement of visitors as they move through your site. This data is then translated into animated graphics to help you understand visitor behaviors from the time they arrive until they leave.

Finally, consider using Google Analytics – the simplest statistical analysis tool available. And it’s free. Google Analytics provides snapshot views of your site’s activity, allowing you to perform tests and analyze data in seconds instead of spending hours poring through report after report.

The point is this: to improve site conversion rates requires an understanding of eye tracking and statistical analysis to produce a useful optimization strategy. The hit-or-miss approach is simply too time consuming. So, if statistical analysis makes you light-headed, hire a professional who can design and validate test metrics and translate those findings into actionable strategies.

That’s how you improve site performance systemically and efficiently.

Author: Dave Davies is the owner of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning. He has been optimizing and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you may have about your website and how to get it into the top positions on the major search engines.

25 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

09 2007 Thursday

By Frederick Townes in Webmasters

Site owners spend so much time and money on search engine optimization that they often leave conversion optimization to chance. They’re happy with a 1% - 2% conversion rate, the typical rate for smaller sites. Converting visitors to buyers is part science, part art. No one formula fits all sites but here are 25 tips that will boost conversion rates on most commercial sites.

Keep it simple. The simpler it is for visitors to complete a purchase the more purchases (and fewer shopping cart abandonments) you’ll see. Make it simple to find the product and go through the checkout process.
Provide complete contact information including a telephone number. Buyers want to know you’re real and they want to know how to reach you in case of a problem.
Provide encouragement throughout the checkout process. The best way to do this is to let buyers know what stage of checkout they’ve reached, and to provide them with highlighted signage to let them know what to do next.
Use product pictures in shopping carts. This reminds visitors what’s in their carts. It also reinforces, in the visitor’s mind, the reason(s) for the purchase.
Link back to the product page. After an item has been placed in the shopping cart, the visitor should be able to click on the item and be directed back to the product page in a new window for example. This makes buying comparisons easier and ensures the visitor has the right item for his/her needs without leaving the shopping cart.
Don’t keep shipping costs a secret. Nothing kills a conversion faster than a $19.95 shipping and handling charge on a $10 item. Provide shipping cost information on the first page of the checkout.
Is it backordered? The visitor finally reaches the end of the checkout only to discover that the item isn’t in stock. Do you think they’ll come back when the item comes in? They won’t.
Provide complete product information including sizes, colors, styles and other product descriptors. This will cut down on product returns because buyers will know what they’re actually purchasing. Avoid hyping products for the same reason
Keep terms of service (TOS) simple and unambiguous. What’s your guarantee? What’s your return policy? Eliminate the boilerplate and give them the facts.
Provide a menu of payment gateways. Not all buyers want to pay by credit card. Some don’t even have a credit card. Buyers should be given the option to pay by debit card, personal check (snail mail), PayPal and other similar services, bank transfer and, if the want to stop by to pick it up, you’ll even take cash.
Never blame the buyer. When a potential buyer clicks on the wrong link, or forgets to enter all data fields, put up a message explaining the problem and how to fix it. The customer is always right and it’s always your fault. Period.
Offer gift cards. Some buyers just don’t know what to buy as a gift. A gift card solves the problem.
Use real testimonials. If you’re doing it right, you’ve gotten good feedback from some buyers. Ask permission to use their testimonials. Don’t use fake testimonials signed by Diane E., California. It’s an obvious fake testimonial.
Provide a customer service line. Outsource it if it isn’t part of the budget but buyers want to know there’s help in setting it up, whatever “it” is.
Avoid distracting links. If your home page is crammed with PPC ads and links to other sites, it’s distracting and you’ll see a lot more bounces (visitors who never get past the home page).
Offer incentives. Free shipping encourages buyers. So do upgrades, i.e. “Spend at least $50 and receive 10% off your entire purchase.” Some buyers will do the math and figure out they’re getting something for half price.
Welcome repeat visitors by name. Your customer data base is filled with solid gold information including names, purchase amounts, items purchased and so on. First, welcome a return buyer by name. Then, offer suggestions for purchase based on individual buying histories. (See Amazon.com for examples of using data base information to boost conversion ratios.)
Provide a currency converter. Not all buyers will be using your country’s currency. Make it easy to convert from euros to drachmas to dollars.
Offer a free newsletter. Your regular buyers will appreciate it when they’re notified ahead of time of upcoming specials, new product launches and other site related information.
Add a forum. This is a great way for buyers to share information, make recommendations and complain. It’s also a great way for you to handle complaints quickly, with the resolution posted right there on the complaint thread.
Provide informational content on your site. This establishes your credentials and credibility as an authority, whether you’re selling kayaks or bake ware.
Learn from your competitors. Visit the sites of more-established competitors to see what they’re doing to convert. How is the homepage designed? Navigation? Checkout? You can’t copyright an idea so you might as well “borrow” from the best.
Improve site stickiness. In other words, give buyers a reason to return. Some suggestions? The Sale of the Day, Tip of the Day, Your Horoscope, This Day in History, etc. This keeps your site green and visitors returning.
Let buyers post product reviews. Nothing sells better than a positive review from another buyer. Of course, the converse is true, too. Nothing will kill a sale faster than a bad review. And if a product receives lots of bad reviews, drop it from your product line.
Target your site’s skin to your demographic. If you’re selling collectible knives, your site should have a certain “look” and that look doesn’t include pastels and prissy type. Big, bold and manly – that’s the way to go. On the other hand, if you’re selling needlepoint patterns, a nice pastel background with little flowers works perfectly.

Search engine optimization is designed to attract search engine spiders. It’s also intended to ensure that your site is accurately and completely optimized. But, once traffic arrives on site, conversion optimization takes over.

Keep it simple. Keep it easy. Keep it honest. Not only will you see a boost in conversion ratio, you’ll also see a nice pop in return buyers. And they’re the best buyers any web site owner could ask for.

Author: Frederick Townes is the owner of W3 EDGE, a Boston-based web design company. W3 EDGE focuses on creating a high converting rate for your business. While getting your website found through high rankings is important, having a website that converts is the key to your success online. W3 EDGE undertands that and focuses their energy on presenting your message in a way that the search engines, AND THE VISITORS will enjoy.

Harnessing The Power Of Expired Domain Names

09 2007 Wednesday

By Richard Weber in Webmasters

In short, expired domain names are a GOLDMINE. Better yet, they are a goldmine on autopilot because making money with expired domain names does not really require any active work.

First of all, for those of you who may not know exactly what a domain name is, whenever you see YourWebsite.com or YourBlog.net, that is a domain name. In order to get a domain name for a website or a blog you need to register it with an appropriate company called a ‘domain name registrar.’

Domain names are pretty cheap (about 8 bucks a pop or so), and there are tens of thousands registered every single day.

When you register a domain name, this is not a permanent thing. Rather, you will register a domain name for a certain period of time, anywhere from one ot ten years usually.

Most people choose to register a domain name for only one year at a time, and in this case the domain name must be constantly renewed in order for the owner to keep it. Many times, when a domain name is approaching its expiration date, the owner will simply choose not to renew it.

How You Can Cash In On The Expired Domain Name Trend

So that is all well and good, but WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MAKING MONEY??

Here is where the cool part comes in:

Every year or few years, the owner of a domain name must pay a registration fee or else the domain name itself will be back in the marketplace where anybody can buy it.

There are many reasons why an owner of a domain name would not renew it, including that they simply did not realize it was going to expire, they got sidetracked with other business ventures, or they simply decided that they did not want it anymore.

But the kicker is, when the domain name expires, there is still alot of traffic being directed to that site because of the previous owners promotion methods!

If you can redirect this traffic to your own site (especially if the topic of the website on the expired domain name was similar to your own website’s topic), you have a stream of new visitors coming to your website every day that is totally on autopilot.

If, as an individual or even a small business, you set out to acquire some expiring domain names for yourself, you would have a very difficult time going about this. It requires a sizeable amount of capital to be able to get into the expired domain name game an a large scale, and it is only on a large scale that you have massive success.

This is just a simple principle from Economics 101, people! ECONOMIES OF SCALE, which means the little guy doesn’t stand a chance. It’s the same reason that nobody can compete with Wal-Mart, because they have such a huge amount of working capital.

But, like the title of this section suggests, there IS a great way for the little guy to cash in on expired domain name traffic. There are a few companies out there that buy up expired domain names on a massive scale, which over time means that they have a continuous stream of TENS OF THOUSANDS of daily visitors which they can redirect to anywhere on the web they wish.

But instead of keeping this goldmine of traffic to themselves, they will allow anybody to submit their own website address and have some traffic redirected their way, which is very affordable and efficient for the little guy with a small budget.

This can be a great option for anybody who has a quality website but lacks a steady stream of visitors, as this is among the cheaper yet still effective of all marketing options.

Picking A Good Company To Get Traffic From

I will say right now up front that it IS possible to be scammed in this arena. Be on the lookout for unscrupulous companies who pander to the hopes and dreams of aspiring internet marketers, and then run away with their cash.

What is it that differentiates a legitimate company from a scam in this area? One thing is that a legitimate company will always have testimonials from customers about their service, and a scam will not.

A legit company will also be very upfront about what their entire operation is, and they will explain it in terms that even an internet newbie can understand. A scam company will take the approach of providing little quality information, perpetuating the illusion that they know a lot about this industry and you should just trust them on this point and hand over your credit card info.

Basically, if you have spent a decent amount of time surfing the web, you will have developed an intuitive sense of when a site ‘just doesn’t feel right.’ So if you feel any internal alarms going off, simply click off the site and make sure you don’t give them your money. Most likely there will be absolutely no return on investment.

Author: Richard Weber Author for http://www.FiveStepProfits.com. Find the one Expired Domain Name company we recommend in Step Four of our Five Step Profit Plan.

5 Ways to Prepare Your Website for Universal Search

09 2007 Tuesday

By Tony D. Baker in Webmasters

The way Google handles search is changing. You may not have heard of universal search yet, but it is going to affect the way your website and your company show up in search engine results, at least for Google. You may have noticed that pictures, videos and even press releases are showing up alongside websites in regular search engine results.

You need to develop a strategy to meet these changing search conditions, and that means optimizing more than just your website landing page. Images, videos and articles are all parts of your site that could be working harder for your company. Here are five tips to help universal search work for you.

Stop the presses

Make sure your press releases and company news are getting into Google News and Yahoo News. If you’re not doing press releases, you should seriously consider it. Press releases will give you one more chance of showing up in the search engine results beyond your web page. Press releases also give people looking for information about your company the chance to see you in the best light. If you play your cards right, you might get some publicity out of the deal as well.

This is the perfect chance to one-up the competition and highlight your company as an industry leader. Even if you think you have no news, you can comment on industry trends or recent studies relating to your business. The more you get your name out there, the more results you will ultimately see.

Don’t overlook images

Images are already starting to show up in search results based on text around them and the description text in the HTML image tags. It’s not difficult to get images onto your site. You can include pictures of past projects, process illustrations, graphs and charts related to your business or industry. A little creativity in this aspect of your website can pay off with your images showing up in Google search results.

Once you have the images in place on your website, make sure the search engines can find them. Pay attention to your image ALT tags, captions and surrounding text so your images show up. Always be sure to have keyword-rich descriptions with your images and use descriptive names for your files as well.

Capitalize on video content

Presentations, training videos, interviews and commercials could all be working harder for your company. Don’t let these just sit on the server when they could be showing up in search engine results and providing even more results for your site.

Consider creating a multimedia page where customers can view these and where search engine spiders can locate them. Again, be sure to have keyword-rich titles and descriptions so search engine spiders will know what they are seeing. You might also consider distributing your videos to YouTube for extra exposure and another chance to show up in the search engine results.

Make sure search engines can get to your content

Do you know if your site is easily accessible by search engine spiders? Flash-heavy sites, improper redirects and broken links can thwart your best SEO efforts. Remember, search engine spiders see your website differently than a normal user. They are looking for content and links, and it is in your best interest to be sure they can navigate your site with ease.

Above all, spiders need clear text links. Uploading a new page to your web server, while personally gratifying, may as well be invisible if you do not provide links from your main site. If you don’t lay down a clear link path throughout your site, search engines may never find your content. Site maps are an essential tool for making your content search-engine friendly. Make sure yours is updated regularly and submitted to Google with the proper formatting.

Don’t ruin your hard work

While it’s important to prepare for the future, don’t overlook the basics. Keyword-rich text and title still matter for your web pages. Quality links to your site are still essential SEO components. Just because you’ve discovered new Internet toys doesn’t mean that you should turn away from the tried-and-true methods. Use both for maximum results.

By taking the time to ensure every aspect of your website is ready for universal search, you maximize your chances of getting your name in front of potential clients and customers. Follow these tips and jump to the front of the search engine multimedia race.

Author: President and founder of Xeal Inc., Tony D. Baker is Oklahoma’s leading Internet marketing expert with over 10 years of Internet marketing experience. You can catch Tony on the Xeal Radio Show on Sunday nights on 1170 KFAQ Tulsa or visit www.Xeal.com to sign up for a free website analysis on Xeal’s Weekly Webinar.

3 Ways To Backup Your Website

08 2007 Thursday

By Max Adams in Webmasters

Data loss is the worst nightmare of people who own precious computer files, whether he is a website administrator or just a simple e-mail user. Sometimes, just one wrong push of a button can make all your files instantly vanish without a trace. Unless you have a magic wand that can make those files reappear, regular backing up of files is really a must. This duty of saving data to another storage device should be the routine of all webmasters. Having a backup of all your website files is extremely important because it gives you peace of mind in case accidental loss of data occurs.

Backup simply refers to a copy of existing files on a separate storage device to preserve data in case the original has been damaged or deleted. You need a duplicate of all your files so that if your hosting company suddenly shuts down or closes your account, your data is still safe and secure. Even if you have a reliable web host, there is also a need for you to backup because computer systems can be so unpredictable. One time their servers have your files and the next time, they are gone.

So, if you are really serious about keeping your website alive, don’t take for granted the importance of having a backup. It is 100% possible, easy, and you can even do it in a number of ways.

1. Backing Up With cPanel

Every time you log in to your hosting account, you are usually greeted by a page-like interface that contains all tools you need to manage your website. This web-based interface is called a control panel. Now, there is a special kind of control panel called cPanel. It is currently the most preferred web based control panel today because of the utmost convenience it offers.

To perform full backup using cPanel, you just have to find and click the Backup icon on the main interface. Find Generate / Download a Full Backup and click again. Go to the Home Directory in Backup Destination and supply an authentic email address, no need to fill in the other fields. After that, select Generate Backup. When you successfully managed to do all of these, all you have to is wait for the e-mail that tells you that all your files are ready for FTP download. You can either save the entire file in your own hard drive or in another server if you have one.

2. Backing Up Using Online Storage

Your server is already an online storage, but if you want to be more secure about your files, get another. If you have the money, you can always buy an additional hosting plan, maybe just a basic one. However, this is not a good option for those who have limited financial resources. If you are one these people, sign up to a free online storage service instead. This option, however, is only recommended to owners of personal websites that do not have too much files.

3. Backing Up Databases Using phpMyAdmin

Databases are the most common repository of important records. If you are running MySQL, the most widely used database program today, it is most likely that you have phpMyAdmin. A tool written in the php programming language, phpMyAdmin is used to effectively manage your MySQL database.

To make a backup of your database content, just log-in to your phpMyAdmin account. On the main interface, you will see the Export link. Click it. You will then be taken to the list of all your databases. If you want to save them all, just click the “Select All” option. Tick the Save As check box and click Go. A pop-up window will appear. It will prompt you to provide a name for the backup file and the location where you would like to put it. Click OK. Congratulations! You already have backup copy of your database!

Author: Max Adams is the owner of Web Hosting Daily (http://webhosting.infospotters.com/). Our duty is to find you a web host that offers maximum security, reliability, and stability at a price that will surely fit your budget.

Web Hosting Options : 5 Critical Things

08 2007 Thursday

By Mario Lerma in Webmasters

So how do you go about choosing a web host? Pull one out of a hat! Not really! Unless, of course, you’re a magician and can pull out the right one! Hey, who knows maybe with a little practice! Just kidding!

Now for those of you who aren’t Merlin the magician, the task is made even harder due to the fact there are so many website hosting companies. I mean, there’re a bunch of them and they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. It’s pretty safe to say most people don’t even know where to begin.

And just where do you begin? Well, faced with so many choices you need an efficient way to narrow down the field. The best way, I’ve found, is to start searching based on RECOMMENDATIONS and EXPERIENCE! So ask or look for recommendations from people you trust and find out what experiences they’ve had with the web site host.

Once you’ve built a small list, say 10-12, you’re after quality not quantity, put them through the tests. Here’re the 5 critical things you must look for!

1. World-Class Service. This is Numero Uno for a very good reason. Picture this scenario: It’s 3 a.m. and you’re in a bind. You’ve run into a technical problem! And it must be fixed pronto! Now answer these two questions: Do you know where your support is? How accessible are they?

Your answers are crucial because you need quick and easy ways of getting a hold of your customer service or technical support people anytime of the day or night. Even at 3 a.m.! This means your web hosting company must guarantee telephone and email support 24/7/365.

And not only round the clock support but your web hosting provider must be staffed by knowledgeable and helpful people. It’s not going to do you any good at all to get incredible response time if they aren’t able to fix the problem. In other words, they’ve got to know what they’re doing!

Live chat service adds another way for you to get a hold of your support team. The more ways the better!

Stay away from web hosts who provide support only through email. You could be waiting days for a response. You can’t afford to wait! You want prompt answers to your questions and technical problems fixed quickly! Your business and livelihood depend on it!

Even though email support is the preferred method for resolving technical problems you still want to be able to get on the telephone and chew on someone’s ear if the situation calls for it.

When it comes to technical support, experience really matters! I mean with a capital “E.” So find out if they have actual experienced systems administrators on board. They’re the one’s responsible for making sure all the different components of a computer system fit together and work properly. This is extremely important!

2. Hacker safe. Hackers are intruders who would like nothing more than to get their rotten hands on your information and do nasty things to it. So your web site hosting company must provide you with top-notch security. They should have all the important security issues covered, especially what hackers are up to, and God knows, they’re always up to something.

So you know what this means, don’t you? Yes, firewalls should be running all the time to protect your web site from hackers. A firewall is a security device, (it can be either software or hardware), basically acting like a barrier to secure your server from possible hacker attack. Make sure they have the latest software installed and top of the line computers, too.

OK, now what’s the bottom line here? For your peace of mind, your web host better know how to protect their system! And your website from unauthorized access!

3. Click away! This is what your customers are doing when they get tired of waiting for your web page to download. They aren’t going to wait forever. In fact, your customer is only one click away from going to your competitor’s web site. So having quick loading web pages is extremely important!

Another key factor is your web host has to get consistently reliable connection times to ALL your customers. What I mean is your customer may have to wait 5 seconds to download a web page one time and then wait longer to download the same page another time. So what’s the crux of the matter? Your customers won’t wait so your website hosting company has to download fast!

In turn, fast download time is affected by how good the connection is your web host has to the Internet. So if your web hosting company has a poor connection to the Internet then you’ve got a major problem on your hands in getting consistent and reliable connection times.

Here’s a simple formula for you to remember: Long download times = click aways! Click aways = lost customers! Lost customers = lost sales!

It impacts your bottom line! Your livelihood! You can’t afford it!

4. Backbone, baby! No, I’m not talking about intestinal fortitude. I mean Internet backbone or fiber optic networks. Your web host should be “multi-homed” or connected to multiple backbone carriers.

Each connection or line coming into the data center from the backbone carrier must be separate. This way if one backbone carrier goes down your host will maintain connectivity to the Internet and your customers will still be able to access your web site. Most web hosts don’t have this continuous service capability. Level of connectivity is one of the most important aspects to consider.

Being a “multi-homed” web host has its benefits because the router, a computer switching program, is able to monitor each link and identify the best one to use to get your data to its destination by the most efficient path possible. The bottom line: Fast web page download speed! Allright!

Be certain to look for a web host with at least a T1 connection going to the main backbone carriers. A T3 connection or faster is better yet. T1 and T3 are high capacity phone lines capable of transferring data at high speeds.

5. Stability. Make absolutely sure the web hosting company is stable and secure. The last thing you want to happen is for your web host to go belly up or go out of business. Cover yourself and ask some key questions. How long have they been in business? How many owners have they had? Is it making money and cash-flow positive from hosting-generated sales? In other words, is it financially sound?

To recap, rely on recommendations and experience. Put these recommendations through the tests and find a web host you feel comfortable with.

Author: Mario Lerma is an article author. He specializes in the web hosting area and has been a successful Internet marketer since 1999. If you’re looking for a web host or aren’t happy with the service your current one is giving you, send an email to = = > mailto:information@accountablewebhosting.com

A Hosting Provider Is Your Business Life Source - What You Need To Know

08 2007 Tuesday

By Mike Flynn in Webmasters

verviewAvoid being caught with a “Sorry For Any Inconvenience” staring at you from the monster on your monitor.

Imagine you are very excited about finishing your first website. You upload it to a web hosting service, but to your dismal demise, your website is not showing on your screen.

Your website is your identity and an efficiently working website is extremely necessary step along your road to riches. Choosing a reliable hosting provider is your first major step towards internet marketing success.

Whether the hosting provider is the most expensive or the least expensive, the company must have all the information documented and in detail about their web hosting plans and other related services. Don’t overlook the fact that being the most expensive or the least expensive does not mean the best.

It is worth knowing that there are, also, free web hosting providers. Free web hosting services are suitable for personal web pages, but inadvisable for commercial purposes.

Robert Fritz said, “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise”. Don’t compromise in selecting your web hosting provider.

If you are building an e-commerce site, choose a hosting service that will ensure that your site runs efficiently and can perform the necessary functions to promote your site. You will not receive a guaranteed minimum uptime of 99% or higher with free web hosting. If your web hosting provider’s server goes down, the injurious impact on your business is immeasurable.

Secrets of Selecting A Web Hosting Provider

To compile your list of web hosting providers, you first search for unbiased reviews. Best place to obtain a third party review is to check the latest reviews on forums. A web hosting provider should be a registered company and not an individual; check the BBB (Better Business Bureau).

Now, that you have established your list, gather these important details about each company:

Has the provider been in business for 3 or more years;
Is the provider incorporated, have a logo, physical address and phone number (preferably a 1-800 number);
Does the provider have leading edge technology and works with a professional website designer;
Does the provider have a reliable server with sufficient back up; that is, it has 24/7 monitoring capable of handling any emergency;
Does the provider have 24/7 client support both by email and phone;
Does the provider offer a money back guarantee, especially if you choose to switch companies;
Does the provider guarantee 99.5% or higher uptime;
Does the web hosting package offer 2 mega bites of band width or more which is enough for minisites unless you intend on having a lot of downloads of software, audio or video;
Does the provider offer sufficient disk space; 5 mega bites is ample for a minisite unless you have a lot of pictures, videos or mp3;
Does the provider offer email accounts; for a mini site 10 is usually enough;
Does the web hosting package include PHP, Perl, Cgi-bin, SSL, MySQL, and Shopping Cart. If not what is the added monthly cost for these additional programming languages;
Does the provider offer both Windows 2000 and Linux server. Linux is cheaper and if you are not running Microsoft SQL server database, or Microsoft Active Server pages, then Linux server will almost certainly be fine;
Does the provider provide multiple domains or sub domains;
Does the provider offer a free domain;
Does the provider offer web design tools as well as the right to become an affiliate;
Does the provider offer various packages and are these packages competitive.

Keep in mind that having capable 24/7 support and a completely reliable provider is more important than saving a few dollars per month.

The Success Package You Need

Most economical plans include PHP and ASP. PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor and defined as a programming language that allows web developers to create dynamic content that interacts with databases. Since PHP scripts sit inside HTML documents, you do not need a special editor to create pages, but your server and package that you choose must support and include PHP.

This scripting language is sufficient for building basic mini sites. ASP stands for Active Server Pages and is technology that enables you to make dynamic and interactive web pages. It uses server-side scripting to dynamically produce web pages that are not affected by the type of browser the web site visitor is using.

The default scripting language used for ASP is VBScript, but you can also use JavaScript. ASP runs best on Windows 2000/XPPro and NT4. When you compare PHP with ASP you find the following:

PHP has inbuilt features as email from a web page and FTP;
ASP requires additional components to provide same;
To run ASP programs you need IIS installed on a Windows platform server, it’s not free;
PHP programs run on Linux, which is free;
PHP generally uses MySQL, which is usually free;
ASP requires purchase of MySQL;
PHP runs on various platforms as, Linux, Windows, Unix and Solaris;
ASP runs on Windows platforms;
PHP runs faster than ASP;
For most mini sites you will find that PHP is suffice.

If you plan on collecting data from your visitors, having a CGI-Bin is useful. CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface. It is a directory of a web server where you can store programs.

CGI is an interface of data exchange through which sending and receiving of data between the browser and programs residing in the server is organized. Normally, it is used to run Post Scripts.

Depending on what type of e-commerce site you run will depend on the package you want to purchase.

Your Competitive Web Hosting Providers

When choosing a web hosting provider, “You are the person who has to decide. Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside; You are the person who makes up your mind. Whether you’ll lead or will linger behind. Whether you’ll try for the goal that’s afar. Or just be contented to stay where you are”.

GoogleCashReview and EZMoneyMakingMinisite are serviced by Godaddy and RichJerkPower is provided by MidPhase. Both providers offer reasonably price competitive packages. The economy plan offered by Godaddy.com gives you the choice between using PHP or ASP with either Windows platform or Linux platform.

With Godaddy you can upgrade to the delux plan with either ASP or CGI. You can upgrade further to either PHP/PERL or ASP/Windows.

To put the above in perspective, both companies meet the secrets of selecting a web hosting provider, offer the success package you need, support and include excellent features, and are competitive web hosting providers.

Author: Mike Flynn is an internet marketer, author of articles, publisher of Mike’ Newsmail Tips, and runs three websites dedicated to providing helpful hints and tips and advice on profit pulling products and much more.

The Top 10 Tools for Monitoring the Success Your Website

07 2007 Tuesday

By Steven Snell in Webmasters

One of the most important aspects of running a website is monitoring the site and its progress. By monitoring your website you will be able to see how it is performing and how it can be improved. This article covers 10 free tools that can help you to optimize your site for maximum results.

1 – Google Analytics

Google Analytics has become the preferred option among free statistics programs. Like any other stats program, Google Analytics provides data on the number of visitors, and page views, referral sources, entry and exit pages, and more. Unlike most other programs, Google Analytics includes the ability to track and monitor pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Other useful information includes the geographic location of your visitors, their internet connection speed, and their screen resolutions. You can sign up for Google Analytics at http://bizsolutions.google.com/services/.

2 – Google Webmaster Tools

Want to know how the largest search engine in the world sees your website? Google’s Webmaster Tools will give you loads of information such as the pages that are indexed, errors found by the Googlebot (dead links), your search engine rankings for specific search phrases, your anchor text on inbound links, internal and external link data, and robots.txt and sitemap data.

By knowing how Google sees your site you will find some basic items that you’ll need to change in order to reach your maximum potential in search engine traffic. You can sign up for Google Webmaster Tools at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/.

3 – SEOmoz’s Page Strength Tool

SEOmoz is one of the leading search engine optimization (SEO) firms and their website provides a wealth of information through their blog, articles and tools. Their Page Strength Tool shows you the “relative importance and visibility” and the “potential strength and ability of a page to rank in the search engines.” SEOmoz provides a quick way to get a basic look at the strength of your page. The Page Strength Tool can be used at www.seomoz.org/page-strength.

4 – Sitening.com’s SEO Analyzer

Sitening is another leading SEO firm with several valuable tools on their website. The SEO Analyzer differs from SEOmoz’s Page Strength Tool in that it checks the internal structure of your site to determine how well it is constructed (in terms of search engine optimization). The structure of a website is the framework for a good SEO campaign, and Sitening.com’s SEO Analyzer will help you to build the right framework. Sitening.com’s SEO Analyzer can be found at www.sitening.com/seo-tools/seo-analyzer/.

5 – Mike’s Marketing Tools

MikesMarketingTools.com has two tools that every webmaster should use regularly. The Search Engine Rankings Tool will show you where your site ranks in several of the top search engines for a specific word or phrase. You can save time by using this tool instead of visiting each search engine and clicking through the search engine results pages to find your website.

The Link Popularity Tool will quickly show you how many inbound links each search engine recognizes for your site. Inbound links are a major factor in search engine rankings and each search engine recognizes a different number of links. From this tool you can also click through to see the specific pages that are linking to you. To use these tools visit www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/free-marketing-tools.html.

6 – Summit Media’s Spider Simulator

The spider simulator shows you “how a search engine reacts to your pages and what can be done to boost your usability.” Search engine spiders see web pages much differently than human visitors do. A page may look attractive and well-designed to a human visitor, but a search engine spider may not be able to find what it is looking for. This page is a great tool to assure you that your site is built for maximum search engine results. The spider simulator can be used at http://tools.summitmedia.co.uk/spider/.

7 – SelfSEO Page Speed Checker

Your average website visitor will have a very short attention span. To have the best chance of making a positive first impression on new visitors your page must load quickly enough that they do not leave right away. SelfSEO has a Page Speed Tool that shows you how long your page takes to load. The tool allows you to enter multiple pages to check at one time. It is a good idea to compare the load time of your page against pages from several other websites. Try entering your homepage and the homepage of several of your competitors. If your page loads considerably slower than the others try to make the file smaller by reducing the number and size of images or by cleaning up the coding. The Page Speed Tool can be used at www.selfseo.com/website_speed_test.php.

8 – Dead Links Checker

Having dead links on your website can frustrate visitors and damage your search engine rankings. However, checking all the links on your site manually is not realistic. Fortunately there are a number of tools online that will automate the process. The W3 Link Checker will crawl through your pages and report which links are broken. To use this tool visit http://validator.w3.org/checklink.

9 – GoogleRankings.com

GoogleRankings.com will show you which words and phrases appear most frequently on your website throughout the text of the page, title, headings and meta tags. This is a useful tool to be certain that your pages are optimized for the words and phrases that you are targeting.

10 – FeedBurner

If you publish a blog FeedBurner’s service is a must have. Feedburner will provide you with statistics regarding your blog’s feed and you can give our readers the option to subscribe by email instead of RSS. There are a number of other features that you can read about at www.FeedBurner.com. With FeedBurner you can always see how many subscribers you have and how many of them are clicking through from your feed to your site.

Author: Steven Snell is a web designer for Vandelay Website Design. Steven regularly writes new articles on the topics of design, blogging, marketing and eearch engine optimization. His articles can be read on the blog at www.vandelaydesign.com.

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