We are now well ensconced in a time when the Web is riddled with graphics, animations, sounds, and videos, bringing about a necessity for superior internet access such as that which broadband can provide. The fact is that anything less than the speed supplied by a broadband cable has become inadequate for today’s Web users.

Of course, if you use the internet only once every so often, you wouldn’t be as heavily dependent upon high-speed internet access as is provided by broadband, however, if you’re a regular user, it’s virtually a necessity.

But wait a minute…even though you use the internet, it doesn’t mean you know exactly what this high focus form of internet access actually is. So lets start there. In essence, broadband is a very fast form of internet connection. Broadband Will provide you with a noticeably faster internet speed than a dial-up connection.

Broadband used to be a challenge only because of it’s limited availability, however, today there are many ways that you can have a much faster connection. The delivery methods of broadband have been expanded to the following types of broadband cable:

- Copper telephone wires
- Cable TV wires
- Radio microwaves from local base stations
- Satellite microwaves from geo-stationary satellites

Now lets look at why this faster style of internet access is actually better. The benefits of broadband actually include much more than faster downloads. Broadband is the connection that is always “on”. As soon as you start up your computer, it’s already connected to the internet. For anyone who has waited for a modem to dial up and connect, the advantage of this is quite apparent. Furthermore, broadband allows you to download movies, music, and web pages that were virtually inaccessible in practical terms when using dial-up.

But the benefits of broadband aren’t just felt by individual users. Businesses, governments, schools, and communities can all experience the superiority that broadband cables can provide.

Here are some examples of benefits for each of those types of organizations:

- Businesses will notice an increase in productivity when large data files transfer quickly and directly among local and head offices, no matter the distance between the locations. Moreover, with the popularity of net-meetings and videoconferencing, a face-to-face meeting becomes entirely possible without the travel costs.

- Schools can now offer equal opportunities to their students no matter their location or funding. A student in a remote community is now able to use a broadband connection to receive violin lessons from the same revered instructor as a student in a large city. Moreover, rural students can take virtual field trips and see the same fascinating and educational museums as city kids.

- Local governments are now enjoying broadband benefits that let them provide one-stop shopping for town business transactions, as well as licensing, permits, billing, and utility payments.

- Communities have been quick to jump on the broadband band wagon to promote their local historical and other various tourist attractions. No other marketing resource reaches as far and as effectively as the internet.

There are so many fantastic benefits to a high-speed, broadband internet connection, that it is becoming as “basic” a need as a computer in today’s society.

Dave Gonzalez

http://www.broadband-dsl-directory.com

In the world of highly developed and advanced technologies promotion, PR and advertising are to seek new methods that have to be side by side with progress to keep interest. With foundation of internet, advertising strategies underwent a real revolution, trying to capture all the opportunities to develop. Nowadays 40% of advertising materials are submitted in the Internet to attract possible customers. Web sites of big industrial corporations and small industries are constantly updated and content changed. Most of work done by adve rtising website copywriter is directed on sales of advertised product, service or information. This is where real business starts.

Nowadays people practically live in the Internet, distracted only by natural needs; they continuously spend time in the World Wide Web and live in their virtual world where they have several identities, all possibilities, friends and entertainment. Some of advertising is directed on such people. Attracted by fancy pop-ups, modern design and full information clients place orders online thinking about how rational and convenient this way is. Text written according to the rules of web copywriting attracts not only Internet obsessed individuals, but also businessmen and large companies that find it easy to use information and services placed online. The most important thing is to remember that they buy taking into consideration not features but benefits. To use all the modern ways and technologies, one must be a real professional in advertising and psychology. The task of a copywriter is to make a single page text more profitable than a 4×6 billboard downtown. Methods and technologies are numerous but everyone who works in this business is still learning for the strategy is rather young. Creating a “face” of a company is the main aim of a copywriter that works on promotion of a product or a service. Original, keyword rich, content can do more than any magazine article or a sticker. Copywriting is an all powerful marketing strategy that can fulfill advertising mission with 100% quality and efficiency. Advertising is the engine of trade and online trade is getting more and more popular among people nowadays. Major giants in trading world are using copywriting already and they take more and more space in the internet with their advertisements, texts, pop-ups and other things drawing attention of the clients. It is quite obvious that copywriting is a method of twenty first century and will be developing with time.

Identity Theft – The one most important thing you can do to protect yourself!

If your credit card is ever stolen, don’t panic. Immediately call the 3 national credit reporting organizations to place a fraud alert on your name and Social Security number. The alert tells every company that checks your credit (as the thief trys to use your credit card) knows your information was stolen, and they will contact you by phone to authorize new credit.

Why is this so important? By the time most people do this, days after the theft, all the damage had been done. Notifying these 3 national credit reporting organizations immediately, stops thieves dead in their tracks! Now, here are the critical numbers you will need to contact if your purse or wallet is stolen: (Print these phones numbers now and keep a copy in your coat pocket, suitcase or another safe place that you can find easily if your purse or wallet is stolen.) a.) Equifax: 1-800-525-6285 b.) Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742 c.) Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289 d.) Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271

Brought to you by www.Prepaid-Legal-Help-4U.com

As this year draws to a close, it also brings down the curtain on what we could effectively call the first Internet decade. While the Internet has been around for much longer than a decade, in many ways 1995 was the year when many of today’s biggest names on the Internet were founded. What a dynamic 10 years it has been for the Internet, comprising both the flight to stratospheric heights and the crash followed by a more cautious approach to get back on the feet. Thankfully, we seem to be running again…

However, this article is not about the impact the Internet has had on all aspects of our life–that is far too well documented already. Rather, I’d like to reiterate and highlight the striking parallel that the Internet has to some of the core values that American society cherishes (and I suspect, most of humankind does too)–freedom, democracy, and unlimited opportunity.

Isn’t that what the Internet is all about? Freedom to cut across geographic barriers and interact with people from any part of the world; the freedom and the democratic rights to voice opinions and comment on matters that affect you, and the unlimited professional and personal opportunities that emanate from the first two mentioned attributes.

Blogging is one example of how virtually anyone can become a writer, with the only obstacle to getting one’s thoughts published being one’s desire and willingness to write or voice an opinion. For that matter, consumers rate products and companies, complain about customer service levels, frustrated employees let out steam against employers–quite literally making an individual so much more powerful, because in the hyperlinked world of the Internet, the significance of “word of mouth” gets on to a completely different level.

On the positive side, the Internet makes a person altruistic: review a song or music you have heard, a movie you saw or a book you read, or you rate the quality of service by a service provider, and lo- you are helping another potential customer like you in their decision making process. Amazon.com and a website like epinions.com have epitomized the benefits and powers of consumer recommendation.

Likewise, there are business and social networking websites, that are just getting recognized for the value they deliver to the participants and the immense potential to marketers looking to target a fairly engaged and Internet-savvy audience.

The burden of responsibility Yet, with the freedom and democracy that empowers us with certain rights, comes the weight of ensuring that these rights are used responsibly. With the power to judge and rate that the Internet, and more specifically, sites such as the newly-launched Response Planet gives us, we almost become duty-bound to see that the power is used constructively.

Else, we run the risk of not trusting ourselves with the power of the tools we have at our disposal, and thereby failing to capitalize on the enormous opportunities offered by them. So, when we rate and post comments on sites that allow us to, there is an obligation to make a conscious effort not to be vicious or malicious. Or, as Google’s stated motto was, “Don’t be Evil”

The Domain Name System (DNS) enables people to navigate their way around the Internet. Every computer that is connected to the internet is identifiable by a string of numbers called an “IP address” (IP stands for “Internet Protocol”). As the internet developed so did the DNS, so that now a string of letters can correspond to a particular IP address. This means that instead of using a complicated sequence of numbers you can type www.adomianname.com, which is a lot easier to remember.

No matter what sort of site you are intending building, you should consider getting yourself a domain name. Your domain name is your personal web address and can reflect anything you desire, including your own name or the subject of your business.

There are several reasons why an internet business requires its own domain name including: * A domain name makes your site more credible and reliable * The URL of a domain name will never change even if you change you website hosting, so that customers are not needed to be informed should you change hosting. * Choosing a good domain name will make your site more memorable to your clients, so that people will recall your company easily which spells more profits. * Advertisers and sponsors are more likely to sponsor websites who have their own domain name. * Your won domain name allows you to set up various email addresses for specific uses, e.g. support@yourdomain.com and sales@yourdomain.com

The organization that is responsible for maintaining and co-ordinating the entire domain name system is called ICAAN. TO register any domain name you need to use an ICAAN accredited domain name registrar.

There are numerous domain name registrars and fees for domain registration vary from $8.95 to $35+. Some web hosting companies now offer a free domain name registration as part of their hosting packages.

Registering your domain name is essentially a four step process as follows:

Step 1: Carefully consider what domain name you would like, try to make your domain name as concise as possible and specific to the site you have in mind. Construct a list of alternative domain names, in order of preference. This is because with the huge number of websites in the Internet, some of your ideas for the ideal domain name might have already been taken already so the more names you can think of, the better.

When deciding on your domain name also consider the top level domain TLD) extension you want. The TLD is the .com part of the domain name domainname.com. There are a variety of domain extensions, and the one you wish to use may well affect the price you will have to pay.

The range of TLDs includes .com, .net, .org, .info and .name (used with a personal name e.g. JezLacey.name). None of these TLDs have specific requirements. In addition to these universal TLDs there is also .biz, which is for commercial and business use only. Finally, there are also country specific TLDs, which can only be used by persons who are citizens and residents of that country and by businesses and organizations present in that country where domain extension is applicable, example include .us (USA), .co.uk (UK) and .fr (France).

Step 2: Obtain the IP address or domain nameserver from your hosting company. A nameserver is a special type of domain that is used to identify a particular server. After registration you will need this information in order to set up your domain for use.

Step 3: Prepare for payment. The usual method of payment with domain registrars is via a credit card.

Step 4: Apply for your domain name. You can use your web hosting company to do this, or one of numerous accredited domain registrars. Good examples include enom.com, the ever popular GoDaddy.com, Dotster.com and many others.

When registering your domain name, ensure that you are the registered domain owner. This important because a web host can set themselves as the domain owner, and if they do, then you have no say in what happens to the domain name. For example, if you decide to transfer your domain to another registrar. For this reason you should also ensure both the technical and administrative contracts should be you.

When transferring a domain the new registrar will try contacting the domain owner first, then if that fails the administrative and then the technical contact. There have been cases where the web host has registered itself as the administrative and technical contact for a client. They can then make it difficult for clients to move to other registrars by pending the move or by even refusing. So, stay in better control and avoid this kind of situation.

With these guidelines, you are now well equipped to register your own domain name. As good domain names are getting more and more difficult to find, if you already have an idea for a great domain name, register them now before it’s too late.

Now that you see that articles are the number one way to promote your business, think again about how people can get them even more efficiently.

Knowing that your targeted potential customers go to Web site in their field, you’ll want your articles posted ready to show that you are the savvy expert in your topic. After you submit 30 or more, your articles will eventually put you in the top ten listings for search engines, as well as increase your own ezine subscribers from 10-25 per article submission.

Using autoresponders for each article submission allows automation to keep your word out in Cyberspace. People who visit the Web sites in your business topic as well as your own Web site who are looking for free information can get any article immediately by autoresponder. You don’t have to do a thing. You sell while you sleep. Your signature box or bio included with each submission and the autoresponder number makes it easy for these targeted potential customers to buy.

While some Web sites accept your articles without an autoresponder number, most sites and opt-in ezines want an autoresponder number for each article you submit. Visit a few sites in your business category to see how they operate.

A non-techie, I delegate the article autoresponders know how to my assistant. Ask your Web master or hosting company to assist you.

1. Check with your hosting company, such as Value Web to see how many autoresponders they include in their price. Value Web limits theirs to 500 with an 80-character limitation for title/subject line, and 8000 characters for body–around 1200 words. As your business grows and you use autoresponders for many other marketing campaigns, you may want to get a hosting company that has unlimited autoresponders. In 2004, I changed to a new host for this reason.

I personally have over 170 articles on autoresponders as of March 2005. You can build from just a few to 20, then 30 or more to help promote your business or products.

2. Ask your Web master to create autoresponder links for you.

My Web master has created “Book Coaching Utilities” on my Web site that include these important things to include for each submission:

He taught this to my computer assistant, and now we can submit with autoresponders conveniently in the home office.

-Category
-Title
-Date
-Keywords
-Description
-Autoresponder Number
-Word Count
-Article Body

Even if this is new information, stay open-minded and ask for help from techie people. Autoresponders really make your business grow.

Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people’s lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Judy is author of 10 eBooks including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast, Ten Non-Techie Ways to Market Your Book Online, The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Your Targeted Web Traffic, and Power Writing for Web Sites That Sell. She offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, “The BookCoach Says…,” “Business Tip of the Month,” blog Q & A at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 170 free articles.

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Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com.
Phone: 619/466-0622 — Orders: 866/200-9743

Good customer service just isn’t enough anymore in the marketplace in which we live. Times are changing and business owners are learning that they need to create such an awesome customer loyalty program that they are always at the forefront of their customers’ minds on a regular basis.

To compete in today’s global marketplace you need to stand out from the crowd – be better than your competitors, be faster than your competitors and, more importantly -

BE MORE MEMORABLE THAN YOUR COMPETITORS!

Your success in business depends upon your ability to change…plus your ability to capture the email addresses of your website visitors.

Customers in 2006 are more demanding, more intelligent, and have more choices than ever before when it comes to where they spend their money and how often they spend it. Wouldn’t you rather it was your business and not your competitor’s?

You need to work smarter, not harder, and devote your time and energy on the things that count….

Building greater customer loyalty that will grow your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week…even while you sleep.

Become important in your global marketplace and you will be rewarded by being at the forefront of your customers’ minds and receiving endless referrals to your business.

Create a memorable experience in the minds of your prospects and customers and you will benefit for a lifetime.

If you want to make a second, third, fifth and twelfth sale you must create an incredible customer service experience that your customers will talk about forever.

The quality of your customer service will be remembered long after the price they paid is forgotten.

If you want to drastically increase your number of visitors to customers and your customers to ongoing repeat customers you need to make contact with them as often as possible.

Marketing gurus tell us that if you are not in touch with your customers every six weeks they’re not really your customers, but people who your competitors are continually trying to lure away from you and your business.

WHOSE POCKETS DO YOU WANT YOUR CUSTOMERS TO FILL…YOURS OR YOUR COMPETITORS?

Create a point of difference that is so original that sets you apart from your competitors your customers wouldn’t dream of doing business with anyone else.

If your customers don’t see you as being different from your competition they will always make their buying decision based on price alone

Send The Right Message To Your Marketplace!

Follow up is one of the most critical elements of any business. It is vital to follow up at all times: your prospects, your customers, your affiliates.

Did you know on average it takes 7-12 follow ups for a person to buy from you so you MUST contact them regularly on an ongoing basis.

Look at these alarming statistics provided by the National Sales Association:

2% of sales are made on 1st contact.

3% of sales are made on 2nd contact.

5% of sales are made on 3rd contact.

10% of sales are made on 4th contact.

80% OF SALES ARE MADE ON 5TH-12TH CONTACT.

The difficulty is that the average internet marketer does not know how to use an autoreponder effectively. The most effective way how to use an autoresponder is to make sure it grows your bottom line.

The three effective ways to use an autoresponder in your follow up marketing are:

(1) PROSPECTS

Offer a free report, training course, ebook or newsletter so you can keep contact with those who don’t buy on the first visit.

(2) CUSTOMERS

By keeping in constant touch with your customers you’ll create so many happy and satisfied customers they will refer you to their friends. Happy customers are informed customers, less likely to ask for a refund and more likely to buy from you again.

(3) AFFILIATES

If you want income-producing affiliates you must give them the latest tips, techniques, training and motivation with constant follow up.

Once your business grows there’s no way you can follow up with your prospects, customers and affiliates by hand so you MUST set up your automated system from the beginning or as soon as you can. Every website owner must learn how to use an autoresponder. If you don’t, your competition is eating away at your profits.

*****ONCE IT’S SET UP IT RUNS WITH NO FURTHER INPUT FROM YOU*****

Thankfully in recent times companies have become aware of how important client follow up is and they have created autoresponders (automatic messages/emails) for this purpose to put your business on autopilot.

TIP: Avoid using free autoresponders as they usually include advertising for other people’s products (sidetracking people away from your offer and helping you to look unprofessional. Remember, in business how you are perceived by your customers means everything!)

Once your system is in place you fill it with the emails that will go out automatically once someone subscribes or is subscribed automatically!

SAMPLE FOR PROSPECTS:-

Message (1) Free information you promised (immediate delivery)

Message (2) More great information about the initial product (one day after message 1)

Message (3) Mix in information about your product with free information (one day after message 2)

Message (4) Start to sell your product while giving more information (one day after message 3)

Message (5) More free information and how they will benefit from buying your product or service (one day after message 4).

SAMPLE FOR CUSTOMERS:-

Message (1) Thank them for their order and let them know they can contact you if they need any help (immediate delivery)

Message (2) Thank them again and give them a free bonus (one day after message 1)

Message (3) Send a short note to say you are offering them another free bonus and ask how they are enjoying the product (seven days after message (2)

Message (4) Send a short note saying you hope they are enjoying the product and that you thought they might be interested a complimentary product….(seven days to one month after message (1)

Learning how to use an autoresponder in your business is absolutely critical to your success online. Many website visitors do not buy the first time around. They may be busy with other projects or have no money. If you don’t have an autoresponder, how many sales have your competitors had that should have been yours?

Copyright 2006 Karin Manning

Karin Manning is the author of The Ultimate Campfire Kitchen and Camping Guide and uses autoresponders every day to grow her business. To access your free one hour autoresponse seminar video today go straight to http://www.aweber.com/?211583

In many cases, when we log on to the internet, we are looking for something. While our individual needs may vary, they are usually satisfied with the same instrument, a search engine. In the United States alone, the top search engines pull in over 200+ million searches per day and over 6 Billion searches per month. With statistics like this, it would only make sense to optimize your site to be as search engine friendly as possible to get a bigger slice of the search engine pie.

Search engine optimization is the key to greater efficiency. And there are several ways in which it can be achieved without hiring an expert.

1. Do proper research and planning for the keywords you wish to target. You will want to be sure you are targeting the correct keywords. You want keywords that are highly targeted to your site. For example, say you have a site that sells supplies for indoor/outdoor signs. When planning your content, you may want to target the keywords ‘ink and sign making supplies’ or ‘wholesale ink and sign making supplies’, rather than ’sign ink’ or ’sign supplies’.

2. Target the proper niches within your category. Several search engines identify specific theme, or niche areas of websites. By targeting certain niches within your target category, you can gain top spot for top niche keywords. Many times your subpages will hold top rank for these excellent keywords. This is very important, using the above example, if you do not rank as well for ‘wholesale ink and sign making supplies’, one of your subpages may rank well for ‘felt pens’ or ‘jumbo refillable marker’.

3. Review your site navigation and content. Once the targeting category of the website has been planned it is important to review the structure and content itself. After all, once searchers find your site, you will want quality content to keep them interested, and easy to use navigation to help them through their purchase. Poor structure and content will inherently imply loss of efficiency in reaching out to your customers in general as well as through the search engines.

To improve navigation, a site map is of great help to both the customers and the search engines. A properly designed site map will allow the search engine spider to index your site efficiently, while allowing your customer to find the exact page/topic they are looking for. Be sure to design it with care.

Good content has to appeal to both the customer and search engines alike. This can be extremely difficult to balance, as it is nearly impossible to satisfy both 100% of the time. However, a good rule of thumb is to cater to the customers first, as they should be considered most important. If you get to #1 on Google, but your visitors are immediately turned away by poor content, site design, and layout, how many sales can you expect to get?

**While reviewing your content, keep an eye on your site’s ‘keyword weight’ and ‘keyword density’. If the ratios are too low you will not rank very well for your targeted keywords. However, if the ratios are too high, some search engines may view this as keyword stuffing and penalize your site for this.

An excellent way to monitor your site is with a program called WebCEO. There is a great free trial version with no time limit. Just search for WebCEO in any search engine for the free download. Using this program, you can do a full review of your site. I would recommend following the advice very closely, as I have used the trial version to get my site to top rankings on all major search engines.

4. Meta Tags. Your site’s meta tags are still an important part of your content. Although some search engines are placing less weight on these, I would still recommend optimizing your tags as they still hold some weight. You will want your keywords to appear at least once in your ‘title’ and ‘description’ tags, preferably at the beginning. I have found it to be just fine to make your title and description tags identical.

Same as with your content, with your meta tags you will want to cater to your customers first. Be sure your title is easy to read and demands action. Usually, your title tag will be what is displayed in the search engine result pages. Be sure your title attracts a click once a person reads it.

The description of your website, especially the description tag, is also important, as several search engines will refer to it. If you decide to make each unique, be sure to carefully maintain the balance between catering to the customers and catering to the search engines.

5. Be careful when you decide to use certain technologies on your website. You may not want to sacrifice your sites rankings to make your site prettier. Many technologies such as flash, allow a page to be clearly seen by a human eye while presenting a blank page to the search engine if it is not optimized properly. Be sure that the technology you decide to use does not harm your rankings in an indirect manner.

6. Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. You will want to conduct a search on the keywords you are targeting, and attempt to mimic the strategies used by the top ranking sites. You can view the source of many sites, allowing you a sneak peek at their title, description, and keyword meta tags. You can also use the WebCEO program to view other sites’ keyword weights and densities. There is no need to try to reinvent the wheel. Find what works, and copy it.

Here are more tips to tap into your sites’ potential:

7. Keep an eye on your customer feedback. When a customer makes a purchase on your site, ask them for their opinion or feedback. They may give you insight on another advertising angle you can use, or which advertising program is providing the best results and why. You will not believe the effectiveness of several ideas suggested by customers until you see it. This tip could improve your profit by as much as 50%.

8. Constantly review the stats of your website. Use a tracker to keep a detailed summary log of your customers. Some hosting companies include this along with their hosting package. You can also use a third party tracker such as Statcounter.com or Thecounter.com. Using a good tracker, you will be able to view how your customers find your site, what pages they visited, how long they stayed, the operating system they used, the time of day, and much, much more. Be sure to review the keywords they used, and your top referring sites, as this is very important information you need to know about your customers.

9. Review your advertising stats. Whenever you run an advertising campaign, it would make good sense to keep a detailed log of your results. You could create a spreadsheet to track information such as how much the campaign cost, start date, completion date, profit or loss, advertisement used, among other details.

10. Lastly, do not be satisfied after reaching a good position in the market. With some of the highest levels of competition in the history of the search engine optimization, and search engine’s constantly changing algorithms, you cannot afford to become complacent. The only way to stay ahead is to keep running harder than you ever have before.

After deciding what kind of internet business you want to do, it’s time to start planning the design and content of your business. Many people make the mistake of skipping this step, choosing instead to immediately start work on their website. However, a website is just a door into your internet business; and a door is pretty useless if there’s nothing beyond it. An internet business, like any other business, requires proper planning and design if it’s going to succeed.

a) Domain Name

A big part of your internet business is your domain name. A domain name is like the company name, or brand, of your business. This is the first thing a person will notice, whether they are typing your domain name into their browser, or clicking a link in the search engines.

It is advisable to choose a domain name that is short and memorable. A key part of branding is to make your name striking enough so that people will remember it long after they’ve visited your website. However, do make sure that the domain name is at least somehow related to the nature of your business.

b) Website Design

The next step will be to plan the design and the look and feel of your website. You will need to decide how you want your website to look like, and where to put your menu, header, footer, ads and your main text. When designing your menu and website navigation, do make it simple and intuitive. A simple navigation system will let people browse through your site without getting lost. For good examples, check out the major websites out there such as CNN and Amazon.

When allocating spaces for advertisements, don’t go overboard! People do not like visiting websites that are full of ads and popups. Be more conservative and discreet in your ad placement.

One good method is to draw the design of your website onto a piece of paper with color pencils or markers. This way, you can adjust the look and feel and correct any mistakes easily without having to go through programming changes on the computer. If you are having trouble with the design, you can take a look at various website templates. A good source of templates can be found at www.templatesbox.com. For more aesthetically-pleasing website designs (but with more complex programming required), you can find a lot of inspiration at www.csszengarden.com.

c) Website Layout and Structure

Next, you will need to determine how big your website will be. Online stores will be huge by default, since they will need at least one page per product being offered. In any case, think about what sections you want to have on your website, and how many pages per section. Try to structure the site so that visitors will not get lost or intimidated by it.

For websites larger than 10 pages, it is useful to have breadcrumbs, like the one near the top of this page (eg. HOME > SECTION > PAGE). This tells the visitor exactly where they are, and how to get back to where they were previously.

Also useful are search bars and sitemaps. Search bars, like the one on the top left of this page, allow users to quickly search for whatever they are looking for. You can get a free search bar at Digital Point. A sitemap is also important for users as well as search engine robots to find the pages on your site. A good sitemap to follow is Apple’s Sitemap. It is straightforward and contains all the information you require.

d) Content

When a typical user surfs the internet, they are generally looking for information. So to make your site useful and attract visitors, you will need to fill it with good content and information.

If you are not sure what type of content to fill your website with, explore your competitors’ websites, and try to get a feel of what type content works and what doesn’t. Pretend to be a potential customer, and see what parts of your competitors’ websites appeal to you, then base your own website on similar themes.

However, do not copy content from other websites: that’s called plagiarism. Try to fill your website with unique content based on your own knowledge and experience. Visitors will find that you are an expert in the subject and feel more trusting and inclined to buy from you.

e) Keyphrase Optimization

This step of the process is targeted to bring more visitors to your website via search engines. When users search the web for information, they will most likely do so at one of the many search engines around, such as Google, MSN, or Yahoo. When searching, they will enter certain keywords or keyphrases into the search engines to find what they are looking for.

One of the methods to getting your website more visible in the search engines is to optimize it for the keyphrases that visitors usually search for. Wordtracker is a very useful tool to learn which are the more popular keyphrases in your industry, and which ones have very little competition from other similar websites.

Once you know which keyphrases are good for your website, you can then optimize the website. With your content ready and separated into the relevant pages and sections on your website, it is recommended that you optimize each page for one or two relevant keyphrases. You can do so by repeating the keyphrases throughout the page (but don’t overdo it!). The “sweet spot” of how many repetitions is required, is still being discussed and analyzed by various experts; and an exact number or percentage is not known.

By optimizing each page for different keyphrases, you are “covering all your bases” to attract visitors who might use different phrases to reach you website. If you need further help on keyphrase optimization, you can check out SEOResearchLabs.

When you’ve finished planning the layout and design of your website, and prepared optimized content, you can proceed to the third step, actually setting up your website and putting your internet business on the web.

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The advent of Virtual Private Servers revolutionized the shared website hosting industry. Is a VPS right for any situation, and when does a fully dedicated machine become a must have? This article examines the issues.

Virtual Private Servers remain the latest innovation in the fairly stagnant, technologically speaking, sphere of website hosting. They represent a different way to break up a server and separate user accounts, providing higher levels of control and security that mimic what was previously available only to fully dedicated servers. They can provide solutions for websites regular shared hosting is not able to handle, but still cannot handle every situation. This article looks at what a VPS can do, and when it may be prudent to consider stepping up to a fully dedicated solution.

What is a Virtual Private Server?

First a brief overview of what, exactly a VPS is and why it is able to simulate a dedicated server environment when, in fact, multiple VPS hosting plans can reside on the same server. VPS works because of the way it partitions the user accounts on the server. If you think about how your home computer stores files, most likely you have a single hard drive which has “folders” or directories on it. Inside the folders/directories are individual files. These files are managed by the computer’s operating system, which may be Windows or Mac OS. In a regular shared hosting environment all the customer accounts are directories on the same “hard drive”, managed by the operating system and made available to the internet via an installed web server, such as Apache. All files in all accounts are managed by the same webserver, share the same applications, and generally compete for the server’s attention depending on the popularity of the hosted site.

In a VPS, the accounts are not hosted only in individual directories, but on individual disk drives. Think of a computer with multiple hard drives, or, more commonly, a hard drive and a CD-ROM drive; each one of these drives has its own system of folders/directories, completely separate from the other drive. Via a process called “partitioning” a single hard drive can be divided up into many smaller drives that the operating system sees as unique, separate entities. On a VPS system, individual accounts reside completely within these separate drives. Applications are installed to individual accounts and are not shared between a single group of accounts on one big drive. This provides not only additional security, but additional control, as users can be granted “root access” to their unique drive to install and configure their own environment without effecting the configuration of any other client.

This is how VPS mimics the functionality of dedicated server, by having each account reside on is own “drive”, which is roughly equivalent to the single drive that would be found in a basic dedicated server. Software on the VPS server manages the individual drives/accounts to assure the smooth functioning and availability of all accounts on the server. This environment is ideal for those looking for an environment that has root access but are not able to afford a completely dedicated solution. Larger, modern VPS accounts can handle sites that may have required a dedicated server only a few years ago.

Fully Dedicated Solutions

A fully dedicated server is a single machine leased to a single individual for exclusive use. Root access is generally a given in any dedicated environment, allowing the sever to be customized with applications that suit the user’s needs. It is this root functionality that VPS hosting provides, but does so on a server that is still “shared” by other users. A dedicated server is completely at the disposal of a single users, to administer as they see fit. Due to the exclusive nature of a dedicated server, they generally require a larger capital investment than regular shared or VPS hosting plans. Many companies will offer a managed dedicated server for an additional cost. This is an important consideration, as most “budget” or low cost dedicated servers are unmanaged, perhaps leaving out even rudimentary technical support. Those unfamiliar with managing a server should strongly consider managed solutions if shopping for dedicated servers.

Though large VPS accounts can take the place of some dedicated solutions, they cannot completely replace them. There are a variety of activities and applications that only a fully dedicated server can adequately handle, such as very large, high traffic databases, large media hosting, and processor intensive web applications. At a very basic level, even simple sites that achieve massive amounts of traffic could outpace a VPS’s ability to effectively host them. Mostly though, the combination of high traffic and highly processor intensive, scripted, database driven web applications remains the domain of a fully dedicated server. Some of the largest, most popular websites are hosted on more than one dedicated server in order to handle the load.

A good host will provide a smooth upgrade path between VPS and dedicated solutions. There are a variety of management systems, such as HSP by SWsoft, that can provision both VPS and dedicated servers, and move accounts between these 2 different types of server. This would allow individuals with growing websites to transition from a large VPS to a fully dedicated quickly and easily, without any interruption of service.

Conclusions

Today, VPS hosting can handle some of the duties formerly solely the realm of dedicated servers. They will never completely replace dedicated servers, though, for very high traffic, processor intensive sites. Customers looking for the economy of a VPS should ask their prospective hosting companies if there is a smooth, automated upgrade path between VPS and dedicated hosting. Ideally such a path will allow a successful website to grow and prosper without any interruptions for server changes and site moves.

About the Author:

Mr. Lester has served for 4 years as the webmaster for ApolloHosting.com and previously worked in the IT industry an additional 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, design, and search engine optimization. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers.

Established in 1999, Apollo prides itself on the highest levels of customer support.

Note: These articles are provided for general interest and content purposes only, and should not be construed as “support” materials. Apollo Hosting does not guarantee the information contained within. All articles are free to reprint so long as they remain unchanged, the “About the Author” section remains, all hyperlinks are preserved, and the rel=”nofollow” tag is not added to the hyperlinks.