Selling With Your Own Web Site

Many people have their own product, a book, a CD, a craft, or other product that they would like to sell with their own Web site, but they can’t find simple instructions on how to get started. In this article, I’m going to explain how to sell your product with your own Web site. It boils down to four steps.

1. Find a Web server

You need to put your Web site on a computer that is running a Web server program and is connected to the Internet. There are three choices:

Your own server. This requires you to be, or to hire, a system administrator responsible for system maintenance, software updates, backups, and security. This also requires a high-speed communications link to the Internet. This is practical only for large organizations.

Your ISP (Internet Service Provider). Along with a broadband or dial-up connection to the Internet, many ISPs also provide you with a small amount of personal Web space. There are several problems with using this Web space, even for a small business Web site. The storage space and monthly transfer allowance is too small, and if you decide to change ISP, you lose your email address and you need to move your Web site.

A Web host provider. There are many companies that sell Web site space on their servers. These companies offer three grades of service:

Free hosting. The hosting service makes money from banner ads that they display on your Web site. Sometimes the storage space is too small and the monthly transfer allowance is usually limited.

Shared hosting. Your Web site shares a server with many other Web sites. Some hosting providers put too many Web sites on each server, or someone else’s Web site monopolizes the servers processor or bandwidth. This slows down your Web site.

Dedicated hosting. The hosting provider sets up a separate server for your Web site alone. Whereas shared hosting can be acquired for as little as $5 per month, dedicated hosting cost hundreds of dollars per month.

Recommendation:

Most small businesses can’t afford a dedicated server. You can use your ISP’s webspace or a free host for learning purposes, but usually only shared or dedicated hosting lets you use your own domain name. You will want to register and promote your own domain name, not put a lot of effort into promoting a domain name provided by a free host.

There are many Web host directories that let users rate web host providers. Visit several of these directories and choose a web host provider with a good rating. The most important specification to look for in a Web host provider is “up time”. They should have a 99.9% up time guarantee.

2.Design and Build your Web site

A Web site is nothing more than a collection of webpages. Webpages are very similar to documents that you would create in a word processor. A word processor, like Microsoft Word for example, uses invisible “tags” to layout the page. Whereas Word uses “Rich Text File (RTF) tags, a webpage uses Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) tags. But the concept is the same.

You never actually see or deal with the tags in a word processor document. Many people use a web page design application that lets them avoid dealing with html tags on a webpage. But most serious webpage design requires you to deal with html code directly. There are three reasons why you would need to deal with the html code directly.

Your web page design application refuses to format the webpage exactly the way you want it.

There is an error on your webpage.

Most word processor documents are static. A webpage usually contains powerful little programs called “scripts” that work with the html tags on the page.

Recommendation: Before venturing into creating your own Web site, spend a few weeks experimenting with html tags to create webpages by hand. You don’t need a Web server to test your webpages. You can load them directly into your Web browser. In your learning, focus on linking pages together that reside in different folders. This is where most beginners have a problem.

The first step in building your Web site is to create or choose a template. As I mentioned earlier, a Web site is nothing more than a collection of webpages. But all webpages for a Web site should have the same basic layout, color scheme, and navigation elements.

There are thousands of free and pay templates available on the Web. Actually, every Web site is a template that you can explore by selecting View | Source in your Web browser’s menu. The most import thing about selecting a template is that you are comfortable with it. If the template uses complex code, the chances of getting an error occurring are high, and you may not be able to fix it.

Recommendation: Select a template you like, but don’t use it directly. From the html coding that you learned by following my previous recommendation, hand code a similar template. Now you will have a template you understand and are comfortable modifying and fixing if it becomes necessary.

Generally, you will create webpages on your local computer and upload them to your Web site, usually using FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Most web designers keep a local copy of their entire Web site on their local computer. Here they can test a webpage before uploading it to the live Web site. If your design uses active servers pages (ASP), you may want to install a Web server on your local computer for testing purposes.

3.Set up E-commerce E-commerce involves setting up shopping cart software and a means of accepting credit card payments. There are three possible ways to set up e-commerce:

Set up shopping cart software and a secure order form on your Web site. Then process the orders using your regular off-line bank processing service. This is good for people whose Web site is an extension of their off-line business. But setting this up from scratch for a Web only business may be too costly.

There are many companies on the Web that will set you up with a merchant account. This service may or may not include a shopping cart. In either case, before the user enters their credit card information, they are transferred to the secure server of the merchant account. Setup costs for a merchant account can run into hundreds of dollars. In addition, there are transaction fees and monthly fees.

Many small businesses use online payment services. Most online payment services can provide you with a shopping cart, but in many cases, all you need is to place some html code provided by the online payment service on your Web site.

When your customer clicks on a “Buy” button on your Web site, they are transferred to the web site of the online payment service where they enter their credit card information. You receive an email notification when a transaction is completed.

Online payment services don’t charge for setup or monthly fees, but the transaction fees are similar to a merchant account. Fees run about $0.35 and 2.5% per transaction. After a delay to prevent charge backs losses, you can login to the online payment services Web site and transfer the payment into your bank account.

The oldest and largest online payment service is PayPal which processes over 600,000 transactions per day.

4.Promote Your Web site

Unless someone makes a lucky guess as to the URL (Uniform Resource Locater) or address of your Web site, you will receive no visitors. Simply placing your Web site on the Internet does not result in traffic. You need to promote your Web site. There are many ways to promote your Web site, some free and some pay, some very effective, some a total waste of time. Below are the main methods of generating traffic.

Advertising. You can purchase advertising on Web sites that do have traffic. You can also purchase advertising in newsletters or e-zines. Don’t assume that the Web site with the most traffic or the newsletter with the most subscribers is the best value. The secret to successful advertising is testing. Test different advertisements in different locations.

Pay per click. Almost all search engines will let you purchase search words. When a search engine user enters a search for a word that you purchased, a link to your Web site will be returned at the top of the results. Sometimes you “bid” on a search term. In that case, when a user of the search engine enters a word that you placed a bid for, a link to your Web site will be returned in the results below all Web sits that bid more money.

Traffic Exchange. A traffic exchange is a Web site where you login and click to visit other people’s Web sites. For each Web site that you visit, you receive a credit. You can exchange your credits for visits to your Web site. If you don’t feel like making the effort to visit other people’s Web sites, you can purchase visits to your Web site. The quality of traffic from traffic exchanges varies between very poor to totally useless.

Search engines. You can submit your the address of your Web site to most search engines for free. After you submit your Web site information, the search engine will scan or “spider” your Web site with a program called a “robot”. The robot will provide information that allows the search engine to list your Web site in their database, and rank it for relevancy. When a user of the search engine enters a search for a word related to the content on your Web site, a link to your Web site will be returned in the results at a position depending upon the relevancy of your webpage.

Link popularity. Different search engines use different methods to rank the relevancy of a webpage. One method uses the number of links on the Web that point to the webpage. To take advantage of this, you need to get links to your Web site posted in as many places on the Web as possible. One method to accomplish this is to write articles related to the topic of your Web site and make them available for people to post on their Web site for free.

Web presence. To get traffic to your Web site, people have to know you are out there and what you have to offer. Getting involved and contributing useful information in online forums and message boards is one way to establish your presence on the Web. People reading your messages may put information about you on their Web site. Another advantage of this method is that it keeps you in touch with what’s going on in the areas related to the topic of your Web site.

Selling your product with your own Web site boils down to the four steps explained in this article. This article is in no way comprehensive. Complete details about each one of these steps would to fill entire books. This article gives you a general overview and enough information to get you started.

Copyright(C) 2004 Bucaro TecHelp.

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

Tips For Comparing Web Hosting Providers

Web hosting providers offer a vital service to those who wish to open their own website. This service allows information from individuals and businesses to be accessed by Internet users.

Web hosts enable anyone with a computer to create a website and make their information available to those interested. The hosts do not author the website but project it onto the Web for you. They are a big help to people with a limited budget or technology who want their own website.

Compare Web Hosting Providers

When you are ready to choose a web hosting provider, it is good to compare services and features to find the best one for your site. There are many aspects to consider in choosing the one that will best serve you. Services are offered to the consumer in multiple formats according to the user’s needs.

Free Web Hosting

If you are a hobbyist, or someone interested in posting personal information, you probably don’t need a lot of web space or extra features. There are free hosting services provided for the smaller sites. This gives individuals the opportunity to use hosting services without an expensive financial commitment. Some services offer 20 to 40 megabytes of storage space. These are only meant for personal use.

With a free web hosting provider, your site will be listed with others in a web community or large server. It is usually filed by sub-category with pop-up or banner advertisements along with other sponsors included by the host. Usually, web design options are limited with free services. Because they do not charge, technical support is not assured and personalized domain names are not offered. There are some higher quality web hosting providers that will offer better packages.

Budget Hosting

For the more complex sites and ecommerce hosting, there are web hosting providers to offer all manner of services. There are budget hosts that provide more affordable hosting but also with a possibility of slower and less efficient service. Because of the high volume of customers on the server access is determined by a first-come, first-serve basis. This can result in competition causing delays because of the high server load.

Prices range widely for web hosting providers, along with the services they offer. If you want cheap hosting then expect to find lower quality service. There will be fewer options to choose from. This may be acceptable for a person with a non-mission or personal site. A better plan should be considered for business and ecommerce, where service is vital.

Better Services

If you are expecting high traffic on your site, look to the web hosting providers that will give you all the features you need. For an online store, you will need quality features listing your products in a catalog, offering a shopping cart and credit card services. For other businesses, you will need a domain name and links to make your site available to consumers.

Many of the web hosting providers will offer plans using PHP and supporting MySQL, which enable dynamic functions. Some of the smaller plans start with one gigabyte of space for photos and personal entries. A larger package might be five gigabytes to add blogs and other features to add depth to your site.

Choose Carefully

When looking for a web hosting provider, it really does pay to shop around. Decide beforehand what you want in your site. Then find the host that has all the features you want. There are many resources to help you locate the one that is right for you.

Web Hosting Service Provider – Your Choice is Critical

Following on from a previous article on web hosting I thought I’d delve a little deeper into the potential affect of choosing a web hosting service provider abroad and how it might affect your business. Now I believe if you’re operating a global internet network marketing business you should if at all possible plump for a generic top level domain (TLD) for example a.com and for many reasons, primarily cost and service, I believe moving your web hosting to the US would be a very good move, honestly do your research into the companies and deals on offer, you’ll soon see what I mean.

Now some people may be put off by hosting their sites in another country or continent and this may in some way affect their search engine rankings, or at least skew them in some way but to be honest most marketers online are now operating internet or network marketing businesses globally therefore cancelling this potential negative affect.

I think the thing that makes more difference is your choice of top level domain (TLD). If you are just doing business in the UK then it makes a great deal of sense to use a country code top level domain cc-TLD e.g..co.uk or.org.uk and if your business is primarily in the UK, then it makes a lot of sense to use a.co.uk as there is an option in Google to view pages solely from the UK, the search engine then promptly omits all domains out side of this country code. Research has shown that in the UK this is very common practise, therefore it is vital that you rank well in this striped down search result especially if you rely on business predominantly from the UK, so in this case it makes sense to use a cc-TLD like.co.uk.

Another point worth mentioning again, if your business is local e.g. UK only, try to host in the UK. I don’t know if there is direct evidence of this but it makes a lot of sense. If your IP address is located in your country of business then this may affect how well or even whether you’re ranked at all in your actual country of business. This can be an issue certainly in Europe as one of the biggest hosting providers in the UK actually hosts in Germany and funnily enough I ranked right up toward the top of Google.de with a.co.uk I can only assume that the origin of the IP address must have had some affect.

So to be certain it might make a lot of sense, particularly if you are using a.com and really want to rank well within the UK to opt for a hosting service that can guarantee a UK origin for it’s IP address.

Best Web Site Hosting – What to Look Out For

The search for the best website hosting is very easy nowadays, thanks to the Internet. Once you have chosen to seek a host for your website it is very easy, especially because there are many alternatives out there on the market. The irony alone, careful you need to have a little 'more is the fact that the website claims to offer the best provider>Hosting services. Therefore, before you make the ultimate decision, you must put some factors in to consideration. However, you should never be afraid or worried because there are genuine providers who can boast of being the Best Web Site Hosting providers.

The first issue to consider when choosing the Best Web Site Hosting service is whether the provider is capable of accommodating all the essential things that you need. The provider should have all the necessary tools to make it possible for your website to have multiple email addresses as well as the capacity to hold different scripts. Similarly, any provider who proclaims to offer the Best Web Site Hosting services should also make services such as the presence of shopping carts and secure servers available all around the clock.

The other factors to consider before you can brand a web host provider as the Best Web Site Hosting server is the cost. With the increase in such servers in the recent past, you should not just enter into a deal without prior comparison of prices. There are extremely many Best Web Site Hosting servers who perform the task perfectly at reasonable prices. However, this does not mean that you compromise the quality of your website for the price, but rather, the two factors should complement each other perfectly. Acquiring the Best Web Site Hosting provider should not only be a concern for those conducting online businesses, but to all people who own websites.

However, if you are developing a personal website and you do not have the funds to finance the services that web host servers provide, then you can always do without these services. The same case applies to all people who conduct affiliate marketing as well as blogging. All providers of web host services that are serious and not the mediocre ones should put some several factors into consideration. They should work towards the attainment of optimal results for their customers for them to survive and remain relevant in the increased cut throat competition.

Factors such as increase in the connection speed, compatibility to upgrades as well as bandwidth capacity are issues that they should consider with a lot of seriousness. A website that generates maximum traffic for the purpose of search engine optimization is the one that is under a perfect web host. These factors should integrate perfectly for maximum profits especially if your website is for online marketing purposes. Once you acquire the Best Web Site Hosting provider, you should move ahead to create several links in other websites for your business to reach a wide audience.

Selecting a Best Website Hosting Service Provider

There are a lot of distinct joint hosting companies on internet nowadays. Although getting the best website hosting service is not an easy job. It takes endurance and plenty of market research to land on a page of a wonderful hosting service. There are a lot of companies declaring to give the best hosting service on internet, however just some of them fit the bill. There are though, a lot of things that one must bear in mind while looking for as well as Choosing the best web hosting.

If you're in business online, the features that you should always look at is server uptime. is the attribute that makes the place before the best possible uptime for your website. A web hosting providers with superior uptime request must measure this. Although such claims should be reviewed before taking the final decision about hosting. You must be sure that youhave got all the bases snowy while you are on web hosting service. Until you understand that the hosted commute server leave boost your efficiency whilst streamlining your communicating, you will see the pauperization good off to benefit awareness for the ripe true hearted to converse on with them.

Web hosting is fundamentally ‘dealing’ place as well as application from hosting. There are some alternatives when it comes to the hosting service. You are capable to do this yourself by purchasing your personal computer, and choosing a web hosting. Purchasing a computer for you would be a major expenditure however the hosting service would save your money and time. Bandwidth and disk space form the 2 of the most significant constituents of web hosting service. The disk space is the amount of space which would be given to you at time of signing up with bandwidth and hosting is a measure of how much traffic your web site or blog can handle. In case there is less bandwidth assigned, the web site could be down if the clicks and traffic is increased outside a limit. If you want or expect enormous amounts of interchange to your web site, you must make sure you have sufficient amount of bandwidth and disk space to avoid troubles of crashing from power.

Business website hosting and Ecommerce hosting is also provided by best web hosting services. It is a solution package which is offered by several hosting in order that the companies could carry on their online business. A great e-commerce hosting plan comprises all different add-ons like an online payment access solution, online payment modes, shopping cart software and online consumer accounts and, in a few cases, also a merchant account online. These options and solutions could be optimized according to business requirements of the clients and the customers.

Web Hosting Review Sites Can Help You Decide

If you are trying to find a good web hosting provider then you should try a web hosting review site. These kind of websites allow real people to submit reviews and opinions of the host they use.

For example: A user who has tried just host and is not so keen on the service may find our website in the search engines and then submit their personal opinions of just host and why this company has let them down in any way. You can then read this real review and it will help you decide on which is the best web hosting company for your specific needs.

You will find package prices, an over view of the actual company as well as many real reviews from real people who have actually used the services listed. Hostgator seems to be the most popular these days which is why you may find this company at the top of the table on many sites.

Some review sites are not so real. Some may insert fake reviews on the site to make it look popular, so you must be very careful who you deal with it. Use a reliable web site hosting always write, and you will not have trouble finding the best company for your host.

All features, control panels and advice on the best sites for reviews and gives you an easy way to find the top providers, without registration and find out. Join a community ofwebsite hosting users and you will soon find your way.

Low Cost Web Hosting Providers

A web host is the server or computer where the websites store files, graphics and essential data. The web host provider acts as the site for a collection of web sites all over the world. All the web-hosting client does is upload the websites to the common web server. This web server is maintained by the Internet service provider, which ensures fast and constant access to the Internet. This World Wide Web, which is a collection of sites, can be accessed by anyone through the network.

There are many companies that provide web-hosting services. Many providers offer an extensive range of the virtual hosting plans to meet personal or professional needs of the client. Low cost web hosting service does not mean cheap hardware.

A professional web-hosting provider needs to be of a high Quality custom server. This ensures that the site is hosted on hardware that provides a fast and unwavering performance. The host must ensure that the bandwidth providers are connected to different servers. So even if a connection is down, other host connections required for? S Website. This ensures that the site until the host is minimal.

A web host is to ensurehonest and truthful hosting service to all its customers. Good web hosts ensure that they do not oversell their bandwidth and clutter up the same server with a large number of accounts.

Low cost web hosting is a service provided by the web host for a specific fee and to the agency to host their website on the host?s server. It is advisable to ensure that the quality and performance of the host server should not be affected by the low price quoted and that there is no compromise on hardware quality.

Cheap Web Site Hosting Provider

If you're an accessible website hosting provider to make sure you know what you are getting before buying. There are many guests including the online service for about $ 5 to $ 8 per month. But there are others that have skimp on services, and give you so they can be competitive on-line and offer reasonable price. Again I say, "You know what you need and what you get in advance, before you buy."

Here are some examplesof what you may need now or in the future for your website to be hosted properly:

Plenty Of Disk Space

Disk space is the amount of space a company gives you to store your content for the monthly subscription price they charge.

How much will you need? Are you planning a lot of content on your site? Content such as articles, pictures, product reviews, numerous blog posts, mailing lists, videos, audios, email accounts, etc.

There are many cheap web site hosting providers that offer unlimited disk space. Just do a little comparison shopping to find one that fits your needs.

How Much Band Width Will You Need?

Band Width is used every time a page loads on your site. And the more graphics, pictures, etc. you have on the page that loads, the more band width you will need. The more visitors you have…the more band width you will need.

In the beginning while you are building the traffic to your site maybe you won’t need much. But what about a year from now when you have done some SEO to your site. How many visitors will you be getting to your site then? How many extra pictures, videos, graphics, etc. will you have added by that time. All things to consider upfront before you choose the best cheap web site hosting provider for your needs.

Multiple Domain Hosting

Maybe at this point in your quest to get your web site up and running you are only planning on having one web site. But what if you become wildly successful with your first site? Do you think you may build another? If so can you host another domain through that same cheap web site hosting provider and use the same disk space and band width you are already paying for? There are many companies on line that will let you do this. And yes for the same 5 to 8 bucks you are already paying…you don’t have to pay more and your next site can be right there with your first. No need for another account and another monthly subscription.

Best Web Site Hosting – What to look for

The search for the best website hosting is very easy nowadays, thanks to the Internet. Once you choose Go in search of a host for your website it is very easy, especially because there are many alternatives out there on the market. The irony alone requires careful that you have a little 'more is the fact that the website claims to offer the best providerServices> Hosting. So before you make the final decision, you need to put some factors into consideration. However, you should never fear or concern, because there are hosting providers site real provider, which boasts the best Web.

The first question that the choice of the best hosting site is that the supplier has a capacity of essential things that all Need. The supplier should have all the tools needed to make your site can e-mail that has multiple addresses and the ability to maintain various scripts. Similarly, a provider, has announced to offer the best watch website hosting service to ensure services are available to understand how the presence of shopping trolleys and servers around.

Other factors to consider before you can bookmark a website> Best Web Site Host Provider Hosting Server is cost. With the increase of these servers in the recent past, you should not just walk into a business without comparing prices. There are many websites the best hosting servers, the task of perfectly reasonable prices. However, this does not mean that the quality of your website for the price of compromise, but rather should integrate the two factorsperfectly. The acquisition of Best Web Site Hosting Providers not only that the company should have a concern about the implementation of the line, but for all people who own websites.

However, if you develop a website are personal and do not have the resources to finance services, the web host server, then do all they can, without these services. The same case applies to all people, affiliate marketing and blogging behavior.All providers of Web hosting services, consideration should be to put the mediocre and some are not serious factors. It is necessary for optimal results for their clients who work for them to survive and remain relevant in the cut throat competition increases.

Factors such as increasing the connection speed, compatibility with upgrades and the ability of bandwidth issues that are accepted with great care. A websitegenerate maximum traffic for search engine optimization is what the guest is in a perfect web. These factors should fit perfectly for maximum profits, especially if the site for online marketing is yours. Once purchased the best website hosting provider, you should go forward to establish business relations with many other websites for the public to reach, to provide broad.

Google Web Hosting No More

If you carry out a search for Google Web Hosting you will realize that Google Page Creator is not accepting any new sign-ups. Instead, focus is now more on Google Sites, which has many of the Page Creator options. Newer features such as site level headers, site level navigation are available. You also have the choice of who edits and who sees your site.

If you do have a Page Creator account you can continue with it until such time when Google Sites will take over and your web pages will be shifted to it. You may also manually shift you pages to another service provider or to Google Sites at any time.

If you want to use Google Web Hosting – go to sites.google.com and sign in with your Gmail account. All you do is give your site a name it will end up looking like sites.google.com/site/your site name. Then you enter a short description Click on your site if you want it to be public or private. Then select the model, enter the code and capcha Walla you have created your website.

With the new Google Web Hosting You can also use Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.

Deposit into your site is up to 100MB. If you use Google Apps, the storage quota is going to happen for your website at a domain level and then each domain that you have received, maintained 10GBStorage. Bandwidth is unlimited.

Another good thing with Google Web Hosting is that unlike other free hosting sites they do not put advertisements on your site. Some disadvantages though, it does not support PHP, it has no cPanel and no databases.

Google Web Hosting is free of charge and therefore has its limitations. Sometimes it may not be a good idea to go with free hosting if you are serious about a website for business.