Talent Agency 411

So you’ve decided about your website design and now you are ready to have your website hosted!

When choosing the right web host, they are several factors to consider:

I. How often is the web server up?
II. Does the server provide SSL?
III. Does the server provide for server side scripting? (e.g PHP, ASP?)
IV. Free or paid?
V. What is the upload limit? What is the file limit?
VI. Customer support?
VII. Suggestions

Appendix A - Web host provider reviews

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I - How often is the web server up?

Once you’ve signed up with a web host provider, you don’t want your website to be down or taking forever to load. This can have a serious dent in traffic as it could turn off potential returning visitors.

Search engines also do not rank web pages that are always down well, so you should expect next to nothing traffic from Search Engines if your website is down most of the time or takes forever to load.

A good way to find out if a web server is up usually is to check out reviews by different persons who have already used the web host. I’ve included a link to a web host review website at the end of this article in Appendix A.

II - Does the Server provide SSL?

If your website is a hobby website, and you won’t be doing any transactions on your website, SSL protection is not needed.

However, if you plan to do any transactions in the future; its important that you choose a webhost which provides SSL protection upfront.

SSL is an encryption method which helps to encrypt any sensitive information like credit card info, names, etc

If you signed up with a web host who does not offer SSL protection; it’s usually more costly if you then decide to get it installed than if you signed up with a web host provider who already provides SSL protection for transactions.

Examples of web host providers who provide Automatic SSL do this are www.powweb.com and www.ipowerweb.com

III - Does the server provide for server side scripting? (e.g PHP, ASP?)

Most web host providers provide for server side scripting but it’s still important to make sure that they do.

Server side scripting allows the webmaster to create pages which change in realtime.

For example, if you are running a business, and you have all of your products stored in a database, a server side script will generate the pages that the customer sees according to which category/product the customer chooses.

If a web host provide does n provide functionality for server side scripting, it’s dated and you should stay far away from it www.powweb.com, www.ipowerweb.com and www.lunarpages.com all provide functionality for Server Side Scripting.

IV - Free? Paid? Which one?

Another important factor to consider is whether you want to sign up with for Free or Paid web hosting. Companies such as www.geocities.com, www.tripod.com, www.freeservers.com offer free hosting.

The main disadvantage with free hosting is that the hosters usually run ads on your home page;
some like in this example http://www.pac-dodger.tripod.com (see near the top)

I suggest a free hosting website if you budget is very tight and you don’t mind ads running on your website.

The paid option for website usually offers better customer support that free web hosting. Some packages are next to nothing.
I’ve found www.powweb.com to be exceptionally reasonable($7.77 a month last time I checked). Both www.ipowerweb.com and www.lunarpages.com are also top web host providers at great prices.

Lunarpages has a reputation of reliability and great customer service. Powweb has the reputation of being the largest and offering the best of every (most web space, most bandwith, etc). Ipowerweb is generally good.

V - What is the upload/bandwith limit? What is the file limit?

Upload and bandwidth limits are important if you are going to be hosting large image files or if you want to provide downloads to your users. If you are just making a simple hobby or business website, www.powweb.com, www.ipowerweb.com, and www.lunarpages.com can all handle your bandwidth requirements.

If you are looking for more space; I suggest www.powweb.com.

VI - Customer Support

Customer support is very important when signing up for a web host provider.

I’m an experienced webmaster, and on signing up with a web host provider I usually still have questions which need to be addressed.

Some web host providers even provide forums where customers like yourself can log in and post questions to other customers and web host staff.

I find this very valuable; the only place I’ve found this so far was www.powweb.com

VII - Suggestions

There are thousands of options to choose from but my top three are below:

I would suggest www.lunarpages.com if you are looking for great customer support.
If you need lots of webspace; consider www.powweb.com
If you want general all around good service, sign up with www.ipowerweb.com

Other GREAT solutions are:

Apollo hosting - www.apollohosting.com
ValueWeb - www.valueweb.com
Globat - globat.com

Appendix A

Great website for web host reviews. Reviews all web host providers listed in the article above
http://www.thehostplanet.com/reviews/reviews.html

Kevin Allman is a webmaster with over ten years Internet experience. He runs a Search Engine Optimization
website at http://www.pzeta.org/seo_global/ which contains many articles on how to optimize your website.

A dog is rumored to be man’s best friend. There are lots and lost of men. Sounds like a good subject for a site that will make us rich, Rich, RICH! Okay, I got a bit carried away.

First Steps To Starting A Site - An Example

I cried at the end of Old Yeller. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. Dogs to me are like family members. Losing one is brutal, but time spent with them over the years is wonderful. Most people feel this way about their dogs, which should tell you something.

If you are going to open a site about man’s best friend, it must have an emotional element. This can come in the form of pictures, personal stories and so on. Regardless, this is not the type of site were you want to stick up bland, academic information regarding pups. Such material should constitute part of the site, but should not be the overriding theme.

Dogs are insanely popular on the net. There are millions of searches a day for keywords related to pups. The first step to opening this site is figuring out what your niche will be. If you try to do a general site, it will be difficult because you will have serious problems providing enough content to cover every breed, issue, medical problem and so on. This will lead to dissatisfaction with visitors. If they can’t find what they want, they will not come back. Repeat visitors are a very important aspect of a successful site, so don’t bit off more than you can chew, pun intended.

To pick your niche, you just need to focus on what it really is you want to say or promote. You could pick a specific breed. Even better, you could pick a specific issue such as training or a type of dog accessory. By going niche, you have a far better chance of making a major impact and becoming known as an expert in that niche. This is the key to success for your site. Always focus on a niche and dominate it. If you are interested in multiple areas that do not mesh together well, open multiple sites.

Once you have the particular niche in mind, you want to research all the keyword phrases people are using to search for your niche. You do this for two reasons. First, it is going to tell you the exact phrases you should use in your marketing. Second, it is going to tell you if there is enough traffic to make opening a site for the niche a smart move. Without this information, you are just guessing.

Everyone has his or her favorite tool for research keyword phrases. Most offer free trials, so try them out and pick one that best fits you.

Once you have identified your niche and relevant keywords, it is simply time to start building the site. The actual design of the site is beyond this article, but you should use the keyword phrases throughout the site. You should add bulk to the site by writing articles about your specific area, publishing the same in article directories to build up your link count.

Put it all together, and pups will become both your best friend and a profit center.

Halstatt Pires is an internet marketing consultant with Marketing Titan. Visit us to read more Internet marketing articles on Internet business.

Many people ask the question of whether cookies are harmful for their computers. The answer is generally no, but it is not nearly as straightforward as it sounds. While cookies are often stored in text files, only used to track information that is already provided to various websites, and are set to expire in short periods of time, they can be used for malicious purposes in certain instances. You will need to work with cookies - however, if you know when to delete them and when not to, you can still enjoy the conveniences they provide. They think that keylogging their children’ online activity equals to spying and that such harsh supervision in not required for their beloved ones.

What you should install on your PC is Anti-Spyware software as it will locate and destroy any Spyware that if finds on your computer. There are also a number of programs that claim to be anti-spyware that do not work. Worse these programs actually add more spyware to your system. 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. Some people mistakenly assume that anti-virus software protects them from keyloggers and Spyware. That is why every computer owner needs winclear.

Protect With Winclear :Metacrawler Search History
If your account was compromised while AccSent was enabled, there is a high probability that you either have a security hole in your computer, which allowed hackers to take control of your computer or you have a Trojan virus, spyware or keylogger software installed on your computer because someone not only had access to your e-gold passphrase, they also had access to your email address password. 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:
Otherwise a hacker or identity thief only needs to discover one password and then try it out on some bank accounts email accounts web forums or anything else associated with your name. That is the reason why you need Winclear installed onto your computer. Keyloggers as it is clear from the name of the program log keystrokes –but that’s not all. Protect your computer security by using Winclear! More about Winclear here: Erase Data.

How many of the visitors to your web site take the action you want them to take? Whether you want them to buy something from you, sign up for your newsletter, enter your sweepstakes, or give you contact information to follow up on, you want them to do something. The percentage of visitors who actually do that something is called your “conversion rate.”

Many web site owners are great marketers. They know how to drive a ton of traffic to their site. When the results are less than what they had hoped for, they think the answer is to spend more time and money generating even greater traffic.

What they really need to be doing is improving their conversion rate.

Picture this: If you currently get one sale (or subscription, etc) for every 100 visitors to your site, you have a conversion rate of 1%. But what if I told you that by making a few changes to your site you could increase that to two sales per 100, and double your income without increasing your traffic?

The best part is that most often simple changes are all that are needed. Once you make those changes, you can forever “convert” a greater number of visitors without doing anything else different. So, without further ado, here are three changes you can make that will have the greatest likely impact on your conversion rate:

1. Make it easy on your visitor. She is there for information, and if you make it hard for her to get to it, she will leave. Don’t make her sit through a flash movie. Don’t make her click to another page. Don’t make your page so busy she can’t find what she’s looking for. Instead, treat her to a clean, fast loading page that guides her straight to the action you want her to take and lets her take it.

2. Make your copy persuasive. The words on your page are the most important, and most often overlooked, element in the conversion process. It is what you say to your visitor that will convince her to become your customer. Make those words as powerfully persuasive, benefit laden, and emotionally charged as you possibly can. Sell her on the action you want her to take.

3. Reverse the risk. People are nervous about buying online, or giving out their personal information. State your privacy policy right beside your subscription form. Spell out your money-back guarantee in your product description. Take all the risk away from what you want your visitor to do and she will be more likely to do it.

Making these simple changes can do wonders for your conversion rate. Once you have them in place, you can start enjoying your raise!

Lisa Packer, author of “How To Dramatically Increase Your Business… Without A Blockbuster Budget,” is an independant Copywriter and Marketing Consultant. For more helpful articles like this one, visit http://www.dramatic-copy.com

Web designing is a huge canvass especially made for designers. It takes artistic passion and outstanding diligence to come up with one superb web design.

What therefore is superb web design? Simply, it is a web design tat catches the attention of the target visitors. Nonetheless, it does not stop there. It lingers in a way that visitors keep coming for more.

A superb web design is both excellent in form and function. Form delves into the aesthetic side of the wed site. Principles of art and the innate skill of the designer are the keys to achieve its excellence.

On the other hand, function is the meat of the web site. Every visitor has his or her own purpose in visiting your page. Usually, the reason is to research or to be acquainted with your products and services. Function must be complete and fulfilling. If there is information that needs to be divulged, say it. But the more powerful way to say it is by touching the heart through persuasion.

To be specific, here are some of the rules of thumb in web design:

1. Do not center everything. The same will just result to a scattered and disorganized look. Try to maximize space. It is there to serve a function. Do not overlook that function.

2. Applying contrast can be your designing edge. Contrast can be applied with color, size, value and weight of an image. Contrast has something to do with the clearness, brightness and volume of an image, logo or graphics.

3. Sections must be separated. The contents must be easy to read. To distinguish one section from the other, you can use thin line, borders or light colors. Another option is to use blank ‘buffer zones’ which is somewhat similar to the concept of borders the only difference is that invisible lines are made to separate the parts of a page.

4. To make your page functional, make certain that the information is tight and full. Proofread, edit and edit more.

Excellent form plus function makes an excellent web site.

Please visit web site development services site at www.webdevelopmentpros.com/page/Website-Development.html for comments and inquiries regarding this article.

As long as I’ve been an SEO copywriter, I never knew that Google had its own trust factor with relation to site pages and their copy. Yet, a recent column in the Google Librarian Newsletter did a wonderful job of explaining what Google is looking for in the way of copy. These are practices I’ve preached with fervor for years. This information can help your copywriting become a trusted source for Google and potentially aid in increasing your rankings.

As I started reading the original issue of this newsletter, Matt Cutts began to explain that Google uses many factors (other than Page Rank) to evaluate and rank pages. Matt continues to describe the use of keywords and their relationships to other page factors.

For instance, let’s say one keyphrase you’re working with in your copy is “flat monitor.” I’ve preached for years that keyphrases work best when all the words remain in their exact order. That is, when you use the entire phrase “flat monitor” as opposed to only using the single words “flat” and “monitor” individually. Matt confirms this by saying relevance and trust might be increased in Google’s eyes when the words “flat” and “monitor” are used next to each other.

Why would it matter? Because “flat” can refer to practically anything. That word by itself could easily be used on a page that has absolutely nothing to do with monitors. While the word “monitor” can refer to a screen used with a computer, there are many different types of monitors. If the search query were specifically for “flat monitors,” pages about CRT monitors and other types would have little relevance and therefore wouldn’t be deemed trustworthy. “Monitor” can also mean to observe, which would be irrelevant to the search query used in our example. So, using the phrase as it was typed into the search engine is the most relevant application.

What else? Have your keyphrase in the title. While Matt doesn’t say this is a vital element, he does suggest that it “gives a hint” that the page would be more relevant, and therefore trustworthy, to the subject matter at hand than a document that does not include the keyphrase in the title.

Toward the end of the article, Matt refers to Google’s preference to choose the most trusted sites to include in their database. It’s in a subsequent issue of the Google Librarian Newsletter that Matt explains, in part, other ways Google evaluates trust.

The fonts used on the page and the placement of words on the page are included in assessing trust. Also, an examination of the text of other pages of the site is included. Of course, this is not the entire equation. As originally stated, Google uses many factors to determine the relevance and trust of copy. These are just a few.

But what about copy that isn’t trustworthy? What practices do you want to avoid? In a thread on Matt’s blog (from April 26th), Matt discusses penalties. During the thread, a segment of horrible text is shown as an example of how not to write SEO copy. Matt’s comments about the copy include mentions of these offenses: keyword stuffing, deliberate inclusion of misspelled words, gibberish text (the kind normally generated by automated copywriting programs), doorway pages and hidden text on the page. If you are currently practicing any of these techniques, you might want to seriously (and quickly) adjust your copywriting strategy.

The bottom line is that Google wants to include pages that are highly relevant. By writing your copy in such a way to highlight the relevant factors of the content for Google, you also contribute to your visitors’ experiences. It’s a win-win-win situation that benefits you, Google and those who come to your site.

by Karon Thackston © 2006, All Rights Reserved