Web Hosting Fan

Building a website by yourself is a very difficult task. So difficult in fact that it is rarely done. If you do decide to build the website without assistance, unless you have extensive experience in website design, and you’re an excellent author at the same time, then chances are your site will be mediocre at best. Cooperation and collaboration is standard in the website creation industry. There are very few people that can establish a professional website without at least seeking the knowledge of another person before hand.

When you work on a site building project with multiple users, having the ability to set restrictions and delegate website duties is imperative. You’ll need to be able to run the operation with precision and authority, in order to same yourself time and frustration. To do this you’ll need a good content management system. Selecting the right open source content management system be a difficult task in and of itself. To make the task easier on yourself, perform the following steps.

Assess Your Needs

The first step is to find out what kind of features you’ll need in a content management system. Will you be delegating work to authors? Will you be working with multiple programmers and designers? If so then you’ll definitely need a secure administrative interface that will give you the ability to designate certain tasks to each of your team members. Write down what kind of features that will be most essential and then you can begin the search.

Look For Compatibility

It is important to remember what kind of operating system you’re using and remember that not all content management systems are compatible with all operating systems. You’ll also need to remember what kind of operating system your sever operates on. It is also important to note which programming language your site uses. The most combination that you will find is PHP language and MySQL databases, being run on an Apache servers. If you don;t want to go through the hassle of finding a compatible content management system, then you may want to find a host that has these features, which most content management systems will be compatible with.

Compile a list of Suitable CMS

Now that you know exactly what you’re looking for it is time to compile a list that will narrow your options and make the final decision easier for you. Open a word processor  or pull out a sheet of paper and a pen and get ready to do some web searching. Finding the top content management systems will not be as hard as you would think. There are many review sites that have already compiled long lists of all of the top content management systems for you. All you have to do is eliminate the content management systems that are not compatible with the needs we assessed above.

Narrow Your Options

Now that you have a large list of CMS to choose from, all that is left to do is to narrow the list down to one CMS. One by one, check of each one as being compatible or not compatible. When you’re finished you should have a list of about 3-5 content management systems. Next visit each one of their websites and test their support team. The final decision will come down to reliability and cost efficiency.

In Scottsdale, Arizona, one of the best places to work since 2004 and repeating for the sixth year in a row is GoDaddy.com.  Business Journal ranked the Internet’s largest combined domain registrar and web hosting provider among the “Valley’s Best Places to Work”.

GoDaddy.com

Proclaimed the world’s number one domain name registrar by Name Intelligence, GoDaddy.com provides services and products enabling businesses and individuals to create and maintain an online  presence.  The company provides domain name registration covering a large number of suffixes (.com, .net, .org and many others), web site design, web hosting and many other on-the-fly services.  Customers with GoDaddy.com may purchase SSL certificates, domains by proxy and privacy registration, e-commerce hosted web sites, fully designed and software installed blog web sites, and even podcasting and online photography web hosted accounts are made available.  With over 38 million domain names under its belt, GoDaddy.com estimates a domain is either newly established, renewed or transferred every second.

Rated

Quantum Market Research compiles data on companies being rated for the yearly “Valley’s Best Places to Work” honor.  The ranking is based on surveys completed by GoDaddy.com employees which measure retention rates, the effectiveness of the managerial team, efficiency of work teams, company and employee goal alignments, trust levels of employees in their co-workers and senior staff as well as other performance-based criteria.

Success

With over 2,400 employees, GoDaddy.com has its work cut out for them keeping everyone happy and enjoying their work with the company.  The company does this very adeptly with incentives and prizes being given to its top performers.  Mortgages paid for a year, new cars and motorcycles purchased, all expenses paid vacations, and chances to step inside the GoDaddy.com “cash-blowing machine” are just a few of the ways employees are rewarded.

It seems there is no stopping the success of the top domain name registrar either.  Even in the economic times being felt the world over, GoDaddy.com has seen increased growth and a 22% revenue gain over the course of the year.  The company has recently thrown a no-expenses spared holiday party in downtown Phoenix, Arizona to celebrate and further reward its employees.  As GoDaddy.com has offices not only in Arizona but Iowa, Colorado, Washington DC and the Netherlands, all out of the area employees were flown in and given hotel accommodations – again, all on the company’s dime.

Honors

GoDaddy.com’s CEO and Founder, Bob Parsons, has stated he learned quite some time ago that employees that are happy create customers that are happy.  Bob has always desired that the company be a fun, rewarding place and offers an employment package matched by very few other companies in the same class.  It is this attitude that has garnered GoDaddy.com many other honors including CNN Money’s list ranking for Best Perks, Arizona Business Leader of the Year and the Alfred P. Sloan award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility on three separate occasions.

Currently the company has more than one hundred jobs available for the taking.  With as much as GoDaddy.com gives to its employees, it is hard to imagine these jobs staying open for very long.

Social bookmarking has become one of the best ways for website owners to draw attention to their site exponentially. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of social bookmarking; think Digg or Twitter. Any social site that users can place a link to a certain page on is considered a social bookmarking site. People use these sites to share information or media that they find to be useful or entertaining with their friends and family. These sites make browsing the web a fun and exciting experience because people can find out what is new and interesting without trying to find it themselves. By placing your site on a social bookmarking site, you’ll not only receive direct attention to your site immediately, but you’ll also receive search engine optimization benefits as well.

The Connection Between SEO and Social Bookmarking

Proper search engine optimization requires the use of many methods combined in a collective effort to bring as much traffic to the site as possible. The more traffic your site gets, the more popular it appears to be form the perspective of a search engine. Therefore website popularity is almost like a snowball effect, as the popularity builds the page rank rises and it becomes a progressive traffic generating cycle. Social bookmarking lets you expose your site to a wide group of people, many of which run their own blogs, which are indexed in the search engines just as regular websites are. If someone links to your site on their blog, they are creating what is called a backlink for your site. The more live backlinks your site has on the internet, the more popular it appears to be, and the more favoritism it will receive from the search engines. Perhaps the most important connection between search engine optimization and social bookmarking is that your site can receive popularity before it is ever indexed in the search engines, which ironically is an excellent way to get your site indexed!

Utilizing the Full Power of Social Bookmarking

Since there are so many social bookmarking sites online, it would be foolish to target only one of them. However submitting your link to each one manually can be a time intensive process. Fortunately there are ways to accomplish this without wasting time completing repetitive menial tasks. You have two options; you can outsource the work to another person, or you can use an application that will complete the task for you with very minimal input. The first option is almost self-explanatory – simply hire a freelancer, tell him to sign up to as many social bookmarking sites as you’d like, and then tell them to make a post about your site. You can also pay many freelancers a few pennies each to visit your site and vote it up using the social bookmarking buttons on your site. The second option is a bit more tricky but costs less and is equally effective if done correctly. Simply find an application, or have one made that will complete the aforementioned task automatically. You can find out about applications like these at online forums or by doing a simple web search.

Final Thoughts

While social bookmarking sites are a great way to market your site, they are also inundated with other marketers and spammers, so it is important to remember that this is a numbers game. The more amount of work you put int, the more results you’ll see. The key to improving search engine optimization with social bookmarking is consistency.

A fantastic option for brand new small businesses attempting to establish their online presence is the utilization of drag-and-drop web site creation.  While there are numerous offline program solutions in this regard, the number of online services offering this along with web hosting is a bit on the smaller side.  One web site that offers both easy to use web site creation using drag-and-drop features along with full-blown web site hosting is SnapPages.

Creation

Founded in 2007, SnapPages was created with one main purpose – an easy to use web site creation program that utilizes online applications.  The creators of SnapPages felt that many new web site owners often shied away from using some really great web site applications due to the complexity and often high learning curve.  By implementing a drag-and-drop user interface, a lot of frustration and confusion has been eliminated for SnapPages customers.

Account types

The web site company offers two accounts – free and Pro.  Upon signing up for free, customers can immediately begin to create a full web site catered to their particular needs.  The built-in Website Manager allows customers to quickly create and edit their web site pages without the need for any coding or design experience.

Templates

Given a choice of several themes, SnapPages customers can create web pages by choosing pre-made template pages or completely creating new pages from scratch.  All page layouts can be altered – allowing for different view types on different pages, if needed.  The entire design of a web site can be changed by clicking a mouse.  Photos, flash billboards, and videos are easily embedded by dragging and dropping the appropriate tool.

Other tools

Beyond web site and page creation, SnapPages offers photo organization, an online calendar, and the ability to set up private areas for family and friends.  The showcase area of SnapPages gives customers a good view of exactly what can be accomplished by using their service.

Support

The web site offers some great support as well.  The Help Center houses a user forum, FAQs, bug reporting, video tutorials and a ticketed support system.  Support tickets are answered in a timely manner (24-48 hours) and are attended to in a very business-like but personable manner.

Features

Personal free accounts come with 5 custom pages, 1 gigabyte of storage, photo gallery, calendars, contact forms, a personalized sub-domain, and customizable themes.  For $8 a month, customers can upgrade to Pro accounts.  Pro accounts include all of the free account features plus quite a lot more – HTML/Javascript snippets, 3D photo galleries, access to premium themes, custom branding, custom domain name, and SEO and analytical integration.  Additionally, each Pro account receives a bump up to 10 gigabytes of total allowed storage.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to a great online web site creation tool that doubles as a web hosting provider, SnapPages fits the bill rather nicely.  Quickly create a beautiful, full-featured web site in minutes with no fuss and no muss thanks to SnapPages.

Understanding your website’s traffic is a crucial part of enhancing your search engine optimization efforts.  Knowing where most of your website’s traffic is originating from will allow you to place more emphasis on that traffic stream. For example if you know that most of your traffic is coming from YouTube, then you may want to increase your video marketing efforts. Likewise, you can focus more on the weaker sources of traffic to improve your overall outreach. Any online business owner should be well aware of their website’s traffic stats if they want their visitor base to grow.  Many people opt to use expensive softwares to analyze stats. However this is not necessary, as most of the analytics needed can be found within your control panel which is provided by your web hosting provider.

cPanel Web Analytics

Since cPanel is by fare the most widely-used control panel around, we’ll use it as our primary example of how a control panel can provide all of the website traffic statistics needed. cPanel includes three analytic tools; Analog, AwStats and Webalizer.  When you first discover these tools they can be a bit difficult to use, however as you begin to explore the various features, you’ll soon learn just how simple they are to use. To help you get started using these tools we have included a quick overview of each one.

Analog

Out of the three tools offered by cPanel, Analog is the most advanced. The analytic results offered by Analog are presented in text from, instead of in graphs. However, all of the information you’ll need to improve your website’s traffic flow can be found in Analog. Although this tool has a relatively steep learning curve, learning to use it will improve your site’s performance greatly.

AwStats and Webalizer

The second most advanced tool offered by control panel is AwStats. Although it provides detailed analytical information, it also presents this information in easy to understand charts and graphs. With AwStats, you can analyze statistics concerning email, media viewing and even File Transfer Protocol.  This tool also let’s you create scheduled and requested  reports via it’s simple user interface. You should use AwStats to setup weekly reports of your website’s traffic, and use Analog to analyze your daily traffic.

Webalizer provides statistical analysis on a monthly basis, giving you a broader understanding of your site’s long term stats. Like AwStats, Webalizer also presents information in very simple graphs and charts that anyone can understand. Although the stats provided by Webalizer are basic, they provide great insight to your site’s progression. I would not recommend using Webalizer as your sole means of understanding your website’s traffic though. It is best to use all three of these tools in combination to achieve optimal results.

It is important to note that all of these programs are included free with cPanel, and many other control panels include similar tools. You should remember this before you make the decision to purchase expensive web analytics software unnecessarily.

Having a useful content management system is a great way to boost the productivity of your online business. Once you become familiar with the administrative interface you can gain supreme control over your entire website, accomplishing tasks in minutes that could normally take hours. You can update your site every day in just a few short clicks, and you can even assign tasks to your workers form within the main interface of your content management system. Using one of these systems as-is is a great way to increase your efforts towards building a successful website, however adding web applications to an already qualified content management system is a sure way to boost productivity beyond comparison.

Creating a Website on Autopilot

Creating and maintaining a website without a good content management system can be a hassle. However simply using a content management system with the included features is not enough to completely streamline website management. There are actually ways to setup a website, put in a few hours of work and let the content management do the rest. By installing highly capable web applications, users can gather content form website automatically via RSS feeds, spin the content automatically, add related pictures, video, or audio to the post and schedule daily postings at any desired frequency. All of this can be done by setting a few preferences and inputting a few RSS feeds into the right web application. To make sure your content management system will be able to accomplish tasks like this, it is important to find out what the most popular web applications are for any prospective content management systems.

Marketing with Web Applications

Content management web applications not only help you build and maintain your website, but they’ll also assist you in marketing your website to a larger audience by automatically handling SEO and viral marketing tasks. For example, there are social bookmarking web applications that will automatically submit every post on your website to a wide selection of social bookmarking sites as soon as they’re posted. There are also web applications that will spin content to be as search engine optimized as possible.

Enhancing Appearance with Web Applications

The right web applications will also help you enhance the appearance of your website by making the changing of templates and other design factors simple and quick. In fact, there are many web applications that are specifically created to automatically improve the appearance appeal of your website. Some applications can even schedule template changes for you, to create the most diverse experience possible for your website’s visitors. There are also applications that automate the tedious tasks involved with adjusting template attributes such as font size, color, and style. Using these kinds of applications is a good way to save time and money on the design of your website.

Final Thoughts

While having a content management system that doesn’t include any web applications may suffice for many online business owners, having the right web applications will undoubtedly boost anyone’s productivity. In the world of online business, productivity is the single most important factor.

The internet is teeming with thousands of hackers that are constantly searching for any weaknesses that they can exploit. Aside from monetary motivation, these hackers may also want to defame your website, just for fun! Any online business owner should be aware of the practices of these hackers, especially if they engage in ecommerce practices directly through their website. Protecting the privacy of your customers is of the utmost importance and most webmasters realize this and take the necessary precautions to do so. However, many webmasters and online business owners don’t realize that protecting the privacy of their business is just as important. The information found in this article could save you form a lot of financial and personal distress ion the future.

Protecting More than Your Assets

I am sure by now you are aware of the financial risks that are so common on the internet. However many people overlook the villains that are not seeking your money, but are driven by a darker motivation. These people are called online predators, and they seek to exploit and take advantage of any private information they can. Many of them socialize in chat rooms, looking for vulnerable and gullible people that they can take advantage of. In fact there are many crimes each year committed by people that met and seduced their victims online. The problem is, these predators can find you and your family a lot easier than you think ,and they don’t have to do it in a chat room!

Should This Information Be Public?

If you have never heard  of the WHOIS database, then now is the time to become familiar with it. When you register your domain, all of the information about your domain such as the name of the domain owner, and the address, are recorded in the WHOIS database. This information can be researched for free by anyone whom so desires. That means that anyone can find your address whether it be business or home, which obviously presents a real threat, especially if you have known enemies. Even if you don’t have enemies now, it is all to easy to find them online. If you run an online business, it would not be unrealistic for a dissatisfied customer to look up your information to slander or harass you, as this has occurred in the past. Some advertising agencies will use information to place annoying marketing calls to your registered number. Do you really want this kind of information to be public?

Protecting Yourself With Private Domain Registration

If you have come to the conclusion that you would lie all of this information to be hidden form the public, then you may want to register your domain as a private domain. Private domains will still receive all of the publicity and popularity of a regular domain, except the only difference is that your information is not put in the WHOIS database. Once you have made the decision to do so, registering a private domain is actually quite simple, simply check the option at checkout when you;re buying your domain name. If you’re having trouble locating this option, then you may want to contact customer service for assistance.

The art of search engine optimization is made to seem like rocket science by many SEO “experts”. However, the truth is search engine optimization can be learned by anyone with an hour or two of extra time per day. Successful search engine optimization can be achieved by focusing on only two aspects of page ranking; high quality backlinks and correct keyword usage. To master the two aforementioned attributes all that is needed is  bit of persistence and the following knowledge.

Domain Name Keyword Usage

One of the easiest ways to gain page ranking for your site is to choose a domain name that is close to or identical to the targeted keyword.  For example, if your targeted keyword is “ basketball goals,” then it seems the best name you could possibly have would be basketballgoals.com. However many SEO experts note that search engines give credit to sites with dashes between words, so if your primary option was taken, you could also choose the domain name basketball-goals.com instead. The most important thing to remember is that your sites name should be memorable.

Keyword Density

As mentioned earlier, keywords are one of the most important factors of search engine optimization.  However, the way the keywords are sued are just as important as the keywords themselves. Keywords should be used at a density of 3-5% of the total content. Keyword optimization is best achieved when the keyword is used in the beginning of the text, in the middle and within the last twenty five words of the content on the page. Keywords should also be used strategically within the design of the website, as in title tags, meta tags and anchor texts.

Simple HTML Coding

Search engines index the internet using crawlers, which comb your website for content. These crawlers do a good job of indexing text coded in basic HTML format but cannot effectively index Flash and Javascript content. Therefore, keeping your site encoded with simple text initially will let your site receive a higher page ranking.

Optimizing URL Extensions and Linking

Using keywords in URL extensions is also a good way to target search engine queries. Make sure you separate the extensions with dashes as we mentioned earlier. You also want to get a lot of incoming links from other websites, particularly sites that are authoritative in your niche. However before you being searching for backlink opportunities from other websites, it is a good idea to link your site together internally. The more internal links you have pointing towards your homepage, the better your chances are of the homepage showing up in search engine queries. Using a site map to index your internal links is a good way to optimize your site as well. It is important to submit your site map to Google once you have finished making it.

Ecommerce has its ups and downs just like most other things in life. Knowing the ropes will help ensure that you experience more ups than downs when it comes to your ecommerce endeavors. Let’s take a look at a few common problems experienced by those who sell products and services via the internet:

1. Customers can’t figure out how to pay— Is your checkout process confusing or complicated? Low-cost website hosting plans sometimes come with limitations that are hard for the not-so-tech-savvy entrepreneur to overcome. These limitations sometimes contribute to a poor buyer checkout process. As one frustrated buyer puts it, “I finally gave up on contributing to my favorite charity online because it’s just too hard to give them money!” If your website technology limits you, do a simple fix like placing a shopping cart icon or a “buy” link on essential pages. You could also include a text box or quick audio or video that walks a visitor through the buying process.
2. Your buying process is too long. A checkout process that seems to take forever is as disastrous as one that confuses the buyer. Visitors expect to fully complete the checkout process within one to two minutes of their start time. If your checkout process is more like an inquisition, you’re bound to have more visitors who abort the buying process than those who complete it. The person who is buying a one-time gift may not want to become a “member” or receive emails from you for the next two years. Give them the quick checkout option. If they love what you offer, they’ll be back.
3. Your shopping cart doesn’t provide enough payment options. You could be losing sales if you only allow your buyers to pay one way. Study the buying trends of your market so that you’ll know what buying terms and methods suit them best. It won’t benefit you very much to limit your payment method to American Express cards if you serve a market that primarily uses Visa and MasterCard debit cards. You’re better off providing your visitors with more than one way to complete their order.
4. Your purchase confirmation process is generic or incomplete. Your “thank you” page or confirmation email should be detailed enough that the buyer will not feel the need to call you right away. You will also want to do everything you can to eliminate the fear that they have just become a victim of fraud. It’s easy to know if you’ve made this mistake. Take a look at the number of canceled or disputed transactions you have.  Disputes from unhappy customers could jeopardize your status with your payment processor. An easy ecommerce rule to remember is “tell them what they’re buying and then tell them what they bought.” This way you can be certain that they understand what they get for the money. If you are selling a seminar or digital media, be sure to provide additional details that clearly explain what the buyer can expect or will want to do next.
5. Broken links – Nobody likes to click on a link and have it go nowhere. Worse yet is the experience of clicking on a link and being taken to the wrong place. Take a moment to test and then re-test every page or link you publish. If you communicate via email frequently, set up a test account on every major email account client so that you have a chance to see what your list sees. An email that looks great on Cox may not look so good to an AOL recipient. Knowing this in advance will allow you to choose a format that works well for all email clients.

The world of ecommerce can be fun and exciting when you know what to do. Making the time to take note of what is working for the ecommerce veterans in your industry, may be just what you need to keep your head in the game

The best way to know how ones online business is doing is by allowing customers to leave feedback.  Many businesses are incorporating blogs into their web sites to not only disseminate information but to also engage with their customers.  While the gain is knowledge in what works and what needs to be fixed, the downside is the opening up of the floodgates known as spamming and trolling.

Spam

Spam is defined at the sending of unsolicited bulk messages.  This form of abuse can take place in a forum, Usenet newsgroup, wiki, instant messaging program, e-mail or blog.  The messages sent usually have no tie-in or bearing on the conversation at the time and quite often are used to sell a product or service.  The costs of such unrequested messaging is one that is borne by the web site owners and ISPs (Internet Service Providers).  Fortunately, the growing trend has been to prosecute those found guilty of spamming online entities.

Troll

In the same vein but not for the same reasons, trolls are those who actively participate in online conversations with the sole purpose of creating controversy.  Trolls will purposely leave off-topic and inflammatory comments in the hopes of invoking an emotional response and thereby completely disrupting the conversation.  In its most basic form, trolling is simply a form of harassment.

Prevention

For the prevention of e-mail spam, many experts suggest a number of tips.  The first of these is creating an alias email address that can be replaced when needed.  This e-mail address can be listed out on public web sites and, should it become compromised, tossed and replaced with a new alias.  Never use the “unsubscribe” link that is quite often offered within spam e-mails.  These links are used to authenticate e-mail addresses and will ensure further spam will ensue.

To effectively prevent spam or trolls from infiltrating a web site, many web site software programs used for online communications will often come equipped with spam filtering or “comment jailing”.  A great example is WordPress.  This blogging program will allow web site owners to set all comments to being placed in a monitoring pool.  Once the owner has perused the comments recently left, they can be either approved or be marked as spam.  WordPress also allows web site owners to see the IP addresses used by spammers – great for reporting issues to ISPs should the need arise.

“Do not feed the trolls” is a phrase often used when faced with trolling behavior.  Basically, if the troll is ignored, they will eventually give up and move on.  However, if the behavior is having a negative effect on a web site and needs to be placed under control immediately, the use of post or comment moderating that is standard with most blog, bulletin board and other online communications programs should allow a web site owner to quickly and efficiently get things back under control.

Final Thoughts

The bottom line is that with a business web site that is geared toward communicating with its customers, spam and trolling will occur.  A bit of prevention and a lot of monitoring will go a long way to ensuring the issues do not get out of hand.