May 17th, 2008
Money is an issue. When you just start your site, you don’t want to spend any extra cash on the features you do not need at the moment. In this article we’ll try to help you and guide you on how to choose a website hosting plan which will yet fit all your needs.
Compare the features several website hosting providers offer and make sure you get as much as possible for every penny spent. Today there are many hosting providers available, so you are surely to find one to suit all your website may need.
First, analyze the traffic limits the providers under consideration offer. Sometimes an affordable website hosting plan offers more traffic than a more expensive one, but mostly often the situation is different.
Remember, that your site will grow someday and you certainly don’t want to go upgrade right after you have a considerable amount of visitors. Today there are enough opportunities to get good traffic allowances.
Second, find out everything about the disk space offer. Choose the plan that will fit your planned website, not the one you have right now. It is possible these days to find a hosting provider that gives you plenty of hard disk space even if you don’t pay very much.
Check the performance records of the providers. If outages are frequent and last for long periods of time, you better don’t buy from them, no matter how affordable their website hosting plans are. Nothing scares your customers and hurts your image more, than a message about your website being unavailable.
Consider a traffic statistics reporting feature. You’ll need one to track your traffic records, analyze them and then target your marketing campaign so that your site develops steadily. Most providers do have such a feature installed on every plan. If not, an email inquiry may help as some of them turn this function on when you demand it.
It would be smart to check for some special offers. Many providers offer additional bonuses to those who buy affordable website hosting plans from them. This can be a cheap domain registration and renewal opportunity, preinstalled scripts, additional hosting period and many more. Don’t fret to ask for a discount though almost every provider already runs some kind of a promotion. The rivalry in the segment is huge so the companies value each and every customer.
It goes without any doubt that there are still many aspects one should or could pay attention to when choosing an affordable website hosting plan for his website. But we have mentioned the most important ones. Make sure there’s enough space and traffic allowances for your site to grow. Setting up a good site today is not an easy task so you’ll want to be content about your hosting provider’s ability to handle the growth of your project.
Kevin Dark runs various businesses online including Affordable Website Hosting
Comments Off
May 12th, 2008
I recently talked to someone who was in the process of translating their current web site (which is now in English) into several additional languages so he could appeal to more potential customers worldwide. By using the existing domain name and simply “adding pages to the site” in other languages, he thought he could save some money by not having to purchase additional domain names. I proceeded to explain to my friend that his idea of translating the site into different languages was a good onebut trying to save money is a bad marketing decision altogether. Multilingual web sites and merely translating the existing site into other languages is not a good marketing decision. It’s more effective to use only one language per domain name and establish an online presence in the country where you intend to do business.
If you are going to translate an existing web site into another language or several languages, the recommended method is to use only one language per domain name. I suggest that you host the site in the appropriate country, as well (for example, use a .fr TLD for French and host it in France). If you can also set up a local office in that country, that would be ideal. When you set up a web site and domain name, you are setting up a businessand by establishing a presence in the country using that country’s native tongue is much more powerful than simply adding a few web pages to your existing web site.
One option is to use sub-domains on your existing domain name (e.g., francais.yourdomain.com). While using sub-domains separates the languages into different sections of your web site, they are ultimately a barrier when it comes to doing business online. If your business is located in the United States, someone from Germany or France may be leery of doing business with yousimply because your business is not located in their country. (The same thing happens when I buy things onlineI prefer to do business with someone located in the United States rather than someone in another country even though they speak my same language.)
Potential cost shouldn’t really be an issue or determining factor when it comes to translating and setting up new web sites. The cost of an additional domain name is minimal at this point, as buying a domain name is rather inexpensive. When choosing another domain name for a new/additional language, many people choose to use their current domain name and simply use another TLD. For example, if your main web site is in English on www.companyname.com and you’re translating your site into French, it would be appropriate to use www.companyname.fr. If for whatever reason it’s not available, then you might consider adding a hyphen or selecting something similar to your company name or perhaps even your main keyword in French. Typically, domain names containing keywords are still available in many country-specific TLDs. Still another option might be to select a domain name that includes your company name in addition to a keyword.
By setting up a new domain name and using one language for that whole site, you’re setting up the equivalent of a new internet business in that language. Other web sites will see your site as a separate web site from your other web sites in other languages. That’s a good thing, as that entitles you to additional directory listings in the country-specific Yahoo! Directory, DMOZ, and other influential web site directories in that language. In addition, other web sites in your industry that are in the same language will be more apt to link to your web site if it’s entirely in their language. For example, let’s say you sell red widgetsyou have a lot of links from other sites that talk about red widgets but they’re in English. With a new French site about red widgets, other French web sites that talk about red widgets will link to your French sitethey will probably not link to your site that is in English. In a time where links from other web sites are crucial for good organic search engine rankings, it is a good practice to remove any barriers such as language barriers that might stop another web site from linking to you.
Regional versions of certain major search engines tend to favor web sites that are in the same language and that are hosted in the same country. If someone uses www.Google.fr (Google France) to search in French, web sites that are in French and hosted in France are favored in the organic search results. Therefore, it is recommended that your French language web site use a .fr TLD and is hosted on a web server that is physically located in France. I realize that certain countries are preferred when it comes to web hosting, so for redundancy purposes it would make sense to host the site in the country firstand have backup servers in another country (you can specify several different nameservers when setting up the domain) if availability and bandwidth is an issue.
When doing the actual translating of your current web site, it’s best to use translators located in the country you’re targetingthey know the language best. If at all possible, if your company employs local salespeople or marketing staff in that country then you might consider having them write or translate the copy on the web sitethey know the product and any important selling points and local “slang” that is important to include. Also, they will know the major web portals in their country (where the web site should be listed) as well as the major keywords that the site should targettranslators from other countries might be able to translate the web site’s copy, but they may not be as familiar with the keywords that are important to include. Although computer-generated translation tools are available, do not use them to translate a web site from one language to anotherthe copy will not read well and visitors to the site will be turned off when they visit the site.
If you translate your web site into another language, you must be prepared to back up all the new business that the web site will generate. You must have someone available to speak that languageyour salespeople should be located in that country and be ready to work with any potential customers that visit your web site. Just because you translate your web site into another language doesn’t mean that you’re donebe prepared to continue to support it by adding content on a regular basis, getting links to the site from other web sites in the same language, and promoting it just like you would with any other web site.
On web sites that are translated into languages other than English, it’s important to include a local phone number. I’ve talked to many people over the years about web sites in languages other than English, and there seems to be a trendweb surfers in countries other than the United States and Canada do not trust web sites as much as Americans and Canadians do. For example, when buying something online, Americans and Canadians will buy online and enter their credit card information without ever talking to the someone at the business. However, visitors from other countries tend to want some sort of ‘personalized touch’ during the buying process. By adding a local contact phone number and address/location, you increase the chances that they will purchase online. For example, one retailer I talked to translated their web site into another language (the main site was in English). They couldn’t figure out why no one was buying anything online although they had a lot of visitors from their country (the new translated site was in French, hosted in France, and had a .fr TLD). The retailer added their phone number and local contact information in the footer of every page on the site. The phone immediately started to ring off the hook and they were able to help people purchase online while they were on the phone. In this particular case, the customers wanted a personalized touch, and adding the local contact information helped tremendously, especially because the company is a major American retailer doing business for the first time online in that country. The web site’s visitors wanted assurance that they were doing business with a local company.
Translating a web site into another language may sound easy–and it can be done without even knowing the other language. However, it’s not something to be taken lightlythere are a lot of other considerations if your online business in that language is going to be successful. It’s important to stay away from using automated tools to translate the site; rather, use local translators who fully understand the business in their country and make sure you have local sales staff to back up that business. You’re not just translating a web site into another languageyou’re establishing an online business in that language as well as a local presence in the country you’re targeting.
Bill Hartzer manages the Search Engine Marketing division of MarketNet, Inc., a leading full-service interactive design and development firm in Dallas, Texas. Hartzer recently joined MarketNet, where his vast experience significantly bolsters MarketNet’s already robust search engine marketing offerings.
Hartzer is a successful writer and search engine marketing expert. During the past fifteen years, some of his many accomplishments include:
* Search Engine Optimization Strategist, Intec Telecom Systems PLC
* Webmaster, Intec Telecom Systems PLC
* Founder, Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association
* Owner/Author, Corporate Web Site Marketing
* Administrator, Search Engine Forums
* Frequent Speaker, Search Engine Strategies Conferences
* Frequent Speaker, WebmasterWorld’s PubCon Search Engine and Internet Marketing Conference
Comments Off
May 11th, 2008
Spyware Doctor also has an OnGuard system that effectively immunizes and protects your system against hundreds of online privacy threats even while you work. The Spyware Doctor allows you to perform fast scanning and detection at Windows start-up so that you will be alerted with a list of the potential threats identified and provides spyware blocking features to give you continuous protection. Reporting and alerts are a must that way you can pinpoint the culprits and then have a talk with Bill about the reason his computer is always so slow - the spyware he keeps downloading.
Cyber criminals are online waiting for you and will take advantage of you and your unawareness of them. Don’t be a victim. Find and use the information that you have as a resource to stop criminals from taking your security blanket away from you. Find the right malware now and if you are having issues doing this then I have some quick and easy listed information below for you to find what you need. Data loggers, key loggers are just a few programs which harvest info from your computer. Winclear is the only program created specially to auto remove such spywares. Most anti-virus software does not adequately check for keyloggers and Spyware. That is why every computer owner needs winclear.
Protect With Winclear :Remove Dogpile Search History
Have you received any emails within the past few weeks, which appeared to come from e-gold requesting that you log into your account? Did the email contain a link or an attachment? Did you attempt to open the attachment? Winclear is the only software which is capable of removing keylogger programs. In addition bulky information such as IP addresses and browser preferences for a website can be stored in a cookie saving time when loading a website you often visit. Winclear has been the industry leader in fighting keyloggers for the last 8 years.
Winclear:
Find the right malware now and if you are having issues doing this then I have some quick and easy listed information below for you to find what you need. That is the reason why you need Winclear installed onto your computer. Different programs offer different features and some are more powerful than others but you should definitely be utilizing some type on your system. Protect your computer security by using Winclear! More about Winclear here: Computer Security.
Comments Off
May 4th, 2008
Every business needs to know how it is doing. That’s the idea behind exit surveys, customer feedback forms, suggestion boxes and other devices. Without feedback from the customer, monitoring inventory, expenses, revenue and other benchmarks, a business can take a quick slide down a slippery slope, without the owner ever seeing it coming - or being able to stop the slide.
Webmasters also have things they should be monitoring on their websites. Most of these can be classified as traffic related or server performance related. Here is my top ten list.
Traffic totals. You want to know how much traffic you are generating. If the line on the graph is heading down, you know you have to find out why.
Referrers. It’s not enough just to know how many visitors you are getting. You need to know where they are coming from. I discovered I was getting a lot of visitors from a Thanksgiving site. They were all being funneled into my Thanksgiving Happiness article. Suddenly I knew I should get more links from other Thanksgiving sites. Valuable information.
Searches. Much to my surprise, my happiness site started getting a ridiculous number of hits from the search for “hairdressers”. It just so happens I wrote a humor column on a hairdresser experience. I was surprised to see it getting so much traffic for such a generic, competitive search term. If that had been a term of a little more relevance for me, this information would have lead me to properly optimize the page and get even more traffic.
Pages viewed per visit. If people visit only one page per visit, you have some work to convince them to visit more pages, like those that make you money.
Pages visited. So you threw up on your site something cool as an add-on. How were you to know that other webmasters would link to it and send a whole bunch of traffic your way? Well, now you know, so add some copy to the page to pull visitors into the rest of your site.
Forms. Are they all functioning? A good website monitoring service can keep tabs on them for you. The last thing you want is to have lost hundreds or thousands of subscribers because a sign-up form stopped functioning
Shopping carts. Slow and complicated shopping carts are responsible for an estimated $25 billion in lost sales. Make sure yours is functioning properly. A good website monitoring service can watch this for you, too.
Download speed. Clear your cache and test your pages. Hmm. Maybe those images are a bit large. Time to compress them, or even remove some. Remember that some people are on a much slower connection than you are. I use a satellite connection sometimes, but when I don’t, my connection speed is 28K.
Server speed. Are there problems with server speed? Maybe not where you are, but on the other side of the world. Global website monitoring can alert you to a transatlantic connection problem, so you can take it up with your web hosting service.
Server accessibility. All the web hosts promise 99% accessibility. But is that for real? Who monitors them? By one estimate, 75% of inaccessibility is not on the hosting server, but rather on the Internet’s backbone network and in global routing. A global website monitoring service can help identify the problem, so that you can work with your web hosting company to resolve it before too many sales are lost.
Fun. If you are not having fun, audition for that drummer position in the local band. There is no point spending your life doing something that bores you. Webmastering should be fun.
About The Author
David Leonhardt is a freelance writer, and an online and offline publicity specialist. Contact him at:
mailto:info@thehappyguy.com
Executive class website monitoring:
http://www.dotcom-monitor.com
For free website monitoring, select “Lifetime Lite I” at:
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/SSL/Client_JoinForm.asp
Comments Off
April 22nd, 2008
SEO web design usually helps a site to maximize on traffic from
search engine queries. As the name suggests this is web design
with SEO (search engine optimization) very much in mind. It is
possible to get involved in numerous SEO activities without
paying attention to web design and end up in a situation where
your efforts are not as effective. SEO Web Design Will Impact On
The Duration Visitors Spend On The Site The duration that a
visitor will take at your site is critical and will usually have
a very high impact on the revenue and success of your web site.
SEO web design will usually have a high impact on this. The
longer a visitor stays at your site, the higher the chances of
them impacting on your revenue by either purchasing something or
clicking on one of your PPC ads displayed on your site. Once the
SEO activity has gotten a prospect to your site, the quality of
your web design will decide how long they spend and also whether
they will ever return again. Good SEO web design means that your
site will load swiftly on your visitor’s browsers. Good SEO web
design will also ensure that your site is easy to navigate and
finding stuff will be extremely easy. SEO Web Design Ensures
Repeat Visits A very important part of any SEO campaign is
maximizing on the number of repeat visits to a site. This is
very important in ensuring that one sustains the high and
increased numbers of visitors that they get from SEO activities.
Your SEO design should ensure that each visit is such a pleasure
that your visitors are much more likely to come back. In
addition your SEO web design should also include a system or
method of capturing email addresses of as many of your visitors
as possible so that you can send them follow-up emails later t
remind them about your existence and get them to return again
and again. All this should be done and executed as creatively as
possible. There is little doubt that good SEO web design is
critical to the success of any site.
Comments Off
April 21st, 2008
When you design a website, it’s easy to focus on what your
visitors are going to see. What you have to realise, though, is
that you’re going to have another kind of visitor with a
completely different agenda: they’re not going to be looking at
your pretty logo and they’re not going to be passing judgement
on your background colour. What they’re looking for is the
content and structure of your page.
They’re the search engine spiders, and they are in control of
probably the largest section of your traffic. You need to please
these spiders if you want your site to be successful. Here’s how.
Make Your Structure Clear
Resist the temptation to lay your page out in non-standard ways:
you want it to be very clear to the search engine where the
navigation is, where the content is, and where the headings are.
As a rule, put navigation first in your page. Always use the
heading tags (h1, h2, etc.) for headings and sub-headings.
Avoid using generic span and div tags and only making things
clear to the user through CSS font sizes: instead, use every
’semantic’ HTML tag that applies to your content. If you’re
quoting someone, use the blockquote tag; if you’re posting
program code, use the code tag. Search engines love this.
Keep Keywords Consistent
It’s not usually worth deliberately saturating your content with
keywords in hope of a higher search ranking - the engines have
pretty much wised up to this tactic - but do make sure that your
keywords appear consistently when they occur naturally. For
example, for these articles, I have stuck with ‘website’
throughout, as suddenly writing ‘web site’ instead would bring
down my rankings.
HTML and Javascript
It’s worth noting that search engines read HTML, but they don’t,
in general, read Javascript. That means that using Javascript to
insert text into your page is a bad idea if you want search
engines to see the text. On the other hand, you might want to
have just the text in HTML and insert all the other parts of the
page with Javascript: this will tend to make your page appear
more focused, although you should be careful not to insert
navigation links this way if you want the search engines to
follow them.
Use Meta Tags
Yes, meta tags are out of fashion, and search engines pay no
attention to them any more when it comes to ranking your site,
but they’re still important in one way: the meta description tag
is still often used to decide what text search engines’ users
see when they find your site in their results! This can be just
as important as the ranking itself - write something here that
will look useful to the searcher, and you’re more likely to get
them to click-through. Don’t forget that, while search engines
are just machines and algorithms, the end result of it all does
involve a human decision: to click, or not to click?
Avoid Splash Pages
You might think it’s a great idea to have a ’splash’ page
displaying a full-page version of your logo (or an ad) to every
user who arrives at your site, but search engines really hate
that. Using this trick will get you ranked far lower than you
would usually be, so you should avoid it - it’s annoying to
visitors anyway.
Include Alt Tags
Any time you use a graphic, include alt text for it - especially
if there is text in the graphic. Remember that, as far as search
engines are concerned, all your graphics might as well just be
big black boxes. Test by removing all your graphics and seeing
if your content remains relatively intact. If it doesn’t, then
you’ll be turning search engines away.
Finally, Write Great Content
The key with modern search engines (and, at the same time, the
thing you have least control over) is how many people decide to
link to your page from their page. How can you make more people
link to you? Make your content useful. Make it something they’ll
want to quote on their blogs. Content is more King than it’s
ever been, and the best way to design for search engines is to
make your content really s
Comments Off
April 18th, 2008
Digital photo printers come in variety shapes and sizes
nowadays. But whatever they may look like, they still do one
thing; they transform colored digital pictures into high-quality
photo prints while you sit back and wait. Thanks to the
inventors of digital camera, most printers are now affordable
and easy to use. Many of them do not even have to be connected
to a computer to print.
Before you indulge yourself into buying your own digital
printer, there are questions that needed answering first to
ensure that what printer you will be shopping for is the one
right for you.
Will the digital printer work with your camera?
Buy a digital printer with a media slot that has the same kind
of memory card your camera uses. Or a printer that connects
directly, using a cable of course, to your camera. A USB-capable
printer that connects to your computer is a nice option. The
process is fairly simple. You just have to drop the photos into
the hard drive, edit and print them from there.
What printing technology suit you best?
There are basically two kinds of technology that is inherent in
photo printers. Dye sublimation and inkjet. Both kinds can
produce brilliant images.
Some people believe that dye sublimation excels at continuous
tone printing. While others prefer the crisp colors, inexpensive
supplies and print flexibility of inkjet and bubble jet
printers. Whichever kind you choose, remember that optimizing a
printer for photo printing will do a much better job than
general use printer.
How much resolution do you need?
Take note that the higher the resolution, the crisper the print
result will be. For example, a 400 dpi resolution is finer than
a 300 dpi resolution.
Take note also that resolution cannot be compared between dye
sublimation and inkjet printers. The numbers of dpi required to
make the same quality photo print may vary depending on the
different aspects of the printers.
Does the printer have editing capabilities?
Some printers let you edit digital photos. This editing
capability can range from a few limited text messages and crop
sizes to a touch screen LCD that allows multiple picture editing
before printing.
The type you will use would depend if whether you want to do
some editing, in the first place. And if you do want, choose if
you rather do sophisticated editing on a computer or quick
adjustments from a printer. You choose. Your digital printer
will do it for you.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit
http://www.digitalprintingcompany.com
Comments Off
April 6th, 2008
Linknet Internet News Digest - December 23, 2005 - It looked
like Microsoft had a deal with AOL to replace Google as the AOL
search engine of record and provider of online advertising
services. This looked like a fantastic coup for Microsoft — one
that would make them a serious Google competitor on the search
engine and online advertising front. But that deal fell apart
last week and culminated in a phone call on December 16 in which
AOL told Microsoft the deal was off. Google sweetened their
offer and AOL went for it. Under the new deal, Google will pay
$1 billion for 5% of AOL — about twice the market value — and
will continue to share advertising revenue with AOL. The stakes
couldn’t have been much higher for both companies. AOL accounts
for about 11% of Google’s revenue, and to have lost to Microsoft
would have meant a significant shift in the search engine wars.
Microsoft would have gained overnight credibility for both its
search and advertising services. On the AOL side, this deal
stems recent criticism that the company is floundering with
nowhere to go. Not only does this represent a re-valuation of
AOL, but bolsters its efforts to diversify its services and move
towards being something other than just a glorified ISP. For
instance, Google has committed to promoting AOL’s services in
sponsored links, including a valuable collection of online
videos that have been languishing. As for Microsoft, it is back
to the drawing board. Time will tell whether the AOL deal helps
or hurts Google. But in the meantime Gates and company have been
effectively blocked from using AOL to help them cut Google down
to size. ==>Microsoft working on another deal? Meanwhile, in a
classic Microsoft move, the company let it be known they are in
discussions with another “tier 1 internet company” to form an
alliance to counter the Google/AOL deal. In his blog, Ian
McAllister, an MSN program manager wrote, “At the end of the
discussion one of the people I was meeting with threw out a
blanket offer to brainstorm other ways in which our companies
might work together,” McAllister wrote in the blog posting “He
then stated that his company was willing to entertain ideas for
working with Microsoft that would help our search and/or
advertising business, with one of the goals being to prevent
Google from dominating those spaces even more than they are
now.” Nobody is saying who this other company is, and what they
can bring to the table. Yahoo has been mentioned, but that is
unlikely since they have little to gain from helping Microsoft
win market share in an area in which they are so active. Some
industry analysts think it is likely the other company is a
large high-speed Internet connectivity provider such as Comcast
or AT&T Inc. Joe Wilcox, senior analyst with Jupiter Research
suggests this is the logical move for Microsoft. “Microsoft
would certainly benefit if say a Comcast or some other broadband
providers with popular portals chose MSN as the default search,”
according to Wilcox. These broadband providers are the very
companies that are eating away at AOL’s market share. As dial up
subscribers shift to broadband they ultimately end up with a
major provider like a cable company or telco. So it makes sense
for Microsoft to pursue alliances with these providers. Either
way, it is not wise to count Microsoft out just yet.
Comments Off
|
|
