Finding the right software to help you with the creation, organization and maintenance of your website(s) can be difficult, especially when you have several online business to manage, and all of them have different needs. Many times there are no all-inclusive solutions that will automatically solve all of your problems, so you’ll instead have to resort to using many different solutions at once. However, this can be very confusing unless your organization skills are impeccable, and even then it is undoubtedly time consuming. Unless you are willing to settle for less, the only way around this kind of problem is to have your own solution developed.

How Much Will It Cost?

The answer to this question depends entirely upon what it is you’re trying to do with your web hosting software, and who you hire to help you with it. You may be able to save some money if you have some experience with developing software yourself, as you could then work in conjunction with another more experienced developer and pool your intelligence to save time and resources. If you have no experience, and you are not connected with any web developers, you’re probably thinking you’re going to have to pay several thousand dollars to have the software developed.

The fact is, there are so many programmers and web developers that are desperate for work, it is extremely easy to find one that will work with you to create a customized solution for very little money. In fact, the solution you develop will often be cheaper than paying for a third party solution repeatedly, especially if you have many websites, since you’ll have unlimited access to your own solution, and you’ll be able to resell it.

How Do I Find a Cheap and Reliable Web Developer?

If you want to find a good web developer, then you’ll need to sign up for several freelancing websites and place ads stating what it is you want in a web developer. The wise thing to do would be to hire several web developers, and assign each one a role in developing the software, as this would ultimately save you the most money. Once you have signed up to the freelancing sites, you can browse through the services section and become affiliated with many competent web developers that are looking for work. If you can find just five good web developers, and pay each one a total of $300 for the project, then you would only have to spend around $1500 for your own custom software that is capable of managing all of your websites.

The reason why this can be done so inexpensively, is because there is no need to pioneer anything that hasn’t been done before. In other words, there are no revolutionary challenges required to build such a software since there are so many other content management systems and control panels to draw information from. If you assign each developer a simple task, then you’ll be able to save money and get the software built faster.

eBay has long been known as a premier eCommerce site online, dominating the online auction world since the early 2000’s. In the past decade eBay has quickly grown form one mans; dream to an online auction empire, with tens of thousands of sellers, and millions of buyers, eBay is the largest marketplace online. In fact, there is seemingly no market that hasn’t been touched by eBay! With so many products and services, it seems as if it was only a matter of time before eBay ventured into the web hosting industry. Well not too long ago, they decided to just that -with ProStores.

What Is ProStores?

Ebay’s ProStores is a unique eCommerce solution that let’s you host your eBay store, or any kind of online venue, on your own website with a variety of ecommerce tools. Before offering the ProStores service, eBay offered online stores through stores.ebay.com, however after purchasing the website development software site Kurant.com, and the ecommerce super site shopping.com, eBay then decided to venture into the web hosting industry with it’s very own web hosting solution – ProStores.

What is Special About ProStores?

One of the most interesting aspects of eBay’s ProStores web hosting is the fact that you can host about 10,000 products on your site and uploading your product descriptions is as easy as creating an eBay auction. You can also automatically link your eBay auctions to your eBay ProStores account with ease. This makes creating online catalogs extremely simple, and you can even add special fields to your online catalogs that will help your customers find your products effectively. Your site visitors can easily browse your product selection using the included search function that is similar to a compact version of the eBay search function. The checkout process is also automated by an included shopping cart that lets you easily integrate your merchant account and checkout details. Customers that shop with you through your online ProStores account will feel completely secure as they’ll be using an SSL certificate that is posted on your site for their confidence.

What Kind of Support Is Offered by eBay ProStores?

eBay ProStores offers industry leading support for their eCommerce solutions. It is this support that has lead eBay itself into becoming the largest online auction site in the world. eBay makes using their ecommerce solution super simple by providing a host of setup help wizards that walk you through the process of using every aspect of the hosting solution. You can also instantly contact support at any time of the day using the simple icons that are located in your user control panel. The core of any successful eCommerce solution is competent and readily available support, and judging by the success of eBay ProStores, I think it is safe to say they offer excellent customer support.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a way to set up your online store rather than simply hosting auctions all the time on eBay, then you may want to consider having an eBay ProStores account. By having an account with ProStores you’ll be able to safely and easily link all of your eBay auctions with your online store automatically.

It looks like there may be trouble in paradise. The relationship between Google and China seems to have hit a speed bump and may completely disintegrate altogether. China’s communist views are the heart of the issue. A country reputed for dictating to and oppressing its people, China values censorship over free speech and control over human rights. This not only doesn’t sit well with most Americans; it’s become a thorn in Google’s side.

Google Takes a Stand

In the aftermath of an investigation due to hacking and snooping by the Chinese government, Google is responding to China’s demand that the search engine filter and remove links they find to be offensive or against their agenda. Basically, the Chinese government wants to call the shots and wants to keep it’s citizens reliant on and believing in them without the influence of outside sources that will bring doubt into their minds and make them see the light.

Too bad for China. They’re looking in the wrong direction if they want help from America, let alone one of America’s biggest corporations, to achieve their quest for turning people from human beings into robots with little thought of their own. Americans won’t stand for it, and neither will Google.

A Question of Human Rights

In a country like the U.S, where human rights and freedom of speech are viewed as the most valued of ideals, it’s appalling to see what China is doing. It’s nearly beyond comprehension to imagine living in a place where every thought and action is not owned by the individual, but by the government, under the guise of “what’s best for the people.” Let that happen in America, and our government would have a case of mass hysteria on it’s hands. It just wouldn’t fly here.

That’s probably why Google has vowed to stop censoring search results in China and is now threatening to pull out of the country altogether. Google is still considering their next move and is still upset by what they see as a threat to the company. This is a situation that is not likely to end with happy faces all around. China is sure to lose.

It seems that the Chinese government has become accustomed to success and has taken it for granted for far too long. In a day and age where technology means everything and Google is leading the way all over the world, how will this affect China? Not having the support of Google or access to the company’s products is sure to have some impact on China, it’s government and the function of commerce.

The Future of China

While it’s sad to see a country so lost in an oppressive way of thinking they call progress and a real shame to see them lose a valuable tool of technology, the Chinese government only has themselves to blame. Google’s not at fault. Their an American company sticking to American values. Kudos to them! Still, the whole situation leaves one to ponder what the future might bring for China.

Will losing Google now open their eyes and eventually lead to their adopting of a more progressive and people-centered government? Will they someday follow the example America has set before them? Only time will tell. For now, China will simply have to live with the consequences of their actions.

Control panels handle many tasks on a daily basis, and are even called the backbone of a website by many people. Most website owners know that a good control panel can simplify the site building and maintenance process, which increases productivity, but one advantageous aspect of a good control panel that is not commonly mentioned is the traffic analysis tools it provides. At first glance, traffic analysis and traffic generation appear to be two completely different subjects. However, the two are very closely related, as the results of traffic generation techniques can be greatly improved by the insight provided by traffic analysis. Since cPanel is the most commonly used control panel, it is only befitting to discuss the traffic analysis tools provided within this popular control panel, and how they can improve traffic generation.

Using Complex traffic Analysis Tools

The cPanel control panel comes with three incredibly useful traffic analysis tools; Webalizer, Awstats and Analog. All of these tools provide a different level of insight and can be used in various situations accordingly. The Analog tool is the hard est to use but provides the most comprehensive overview of website traffic analysis. Analog bears it’s name because it presents information in text format rather than images or graphs. If you can learn how to use Analog, then you won’t have any need for the other two tools provided in cPanel.

Using Basic Traffic Analysis Tools

If you are not interested in surpassing the steep learning curve for Analog, then you may want to try a simpler solution such as Awstats. Awstats is relatively easy to use and lets you schedule comprehensive analytical reports for maximum productivity. This tool is perfect for webmasters that are experimenting with more immediate forms of traffic generation such as social bookmarking. The final tool, Webalizer provides detailed traffic reports on a monthly basis via graphs. Although the reports are infrequent they provide great insight to the long term progress of your website.

Using the Analytical Data to Generate Traffic

Once you have learned how to use the tools mentioned above, you may wonder how you’re going to use the data to generate traffic. The answer is actually quite simple; you are going to remove most of the error from “trial and error!” Virtually all traffic generating techniques require patience, including search engine optimization. The problem is, it can be hard to find out what works and what doesn’t. Which could cause you to waste tie promoting methods that are ineffective. In order to get the best results possible out of your efforts, you’ll need to know how much traffic is coming in and where it is coming from. Once you have this information you can use it to scale up and create a formula that consistently brings your website the desired amount of traffic.

If you’ve been studying search engine optimization recently, then you probably know that having a lot of backlinks for your site is one of the best ways to improve your site’s search engine rankings. If you’re not familiar with backlinks – a backlink is a link to your site from another website. When a site places a link to your site on one of their web pages, it is indexed by the search engine as a backlink to your site. The more backlinks you have, the more popular your site appears to be in the search engines.  Therefore backlink building is one of the fundamental aspects of search engine optimization, and it should practiced by anyone trying to bring more traffic to their website.

Building Backlinks

There are many ways to get backlinks for your site, and most of them are time consuming and bring very little results, despite an inordinate amount of work. If you want to be successful building backlinks, then you’ll need to focus on quality instead of quantity. It would be better to have 10 backlinks on sites that are relevant to your niche and receive a lot of traffic, than to have a large volume of backlinks from sites that are completely irrelevant and/or low in traffic. If you want to reach success with your backlinks, then you’ll need to make them manually instead of trying all of the shortcuts that will only result in low quality backlinks which will not significantly improve your search engine ranking. When it comes to building backlinks you have two main options – you can seek the help and permission of other site owners by doing link exchanges, social bookmarking and advertising, or you can build the links yourself.

Paid Linls

A good way to build your backlink count is to offer other site owners a position on your site in exchange for a position on your site. This way both parties benefit and both parties save time and money. Try to find sites that are relevant to your site and then contact the owner and ask them if they would like to do a link exchange with you. Usually the site owner will not hesitate to put your link on their website, as long as your site is clean and does not appear to violate Google’s terms of service. Many times site owners do not want their link placed on a site that could be conducting illegal or immoral activity, and just as you would like quality backlinks, so would they.

Building Link Farms

Perhaps the best way to build a solid network of links that would be most beneficial to you would be to have a network of websites that all link to each other, with one main website being the focus. These are called link farms, and they are the most profitable form of backlink building. The reason why link farms are far more profitable than any other form of backlink building is because you are the only person benefiting. Since all of the sites belong to you, you’ll be maximizing your chances of keeping visitors viewing your web pages. Instead of clicking away to another website, your visitors will be traveling through a maze of your own websites, not only giving you a substantial amount of quality backlinks, but also maximizing the profit made from each visitor.

Warning: Before building a link farm you should know that Google does not like link networks from the same IP address. In other words, you’ll need to make sure each site is hosted by a different IP address. One of the ways you can do this is to build blogs and micro sites on web 2.0 properties like Squidoo or Hubpages. There are tons of these sites online, and each one is hosted by an IP address that is different from your site. You could also purchase Class C IP addresses from your hosting company in some instances to have all of your own websites hosted on different IP addresses.

In the past, building websites required advanced skills in internet technology and various programming languages. Webmasters needed to be well-versed in HTML, PHP, CSS, and other programming fields, in order to create even a relatively simple website. Many times website owners would have to pay web developers a hefty fee to set up their website for them, and in many cases this still happens today. However, as the the internet has become more user-friendly, and with the advent of web 2.0, website owners can now use what are called CMS (Content Management Systems) to build, organize and maintain their websites. Some of these content management system let users upload preset themes that can be customized easily within a user-friendly interface. One of the most popular content management systems available is WordPress.

What is WordPress?

Although WordPress is actually a blogging platform, it is commonly used to create static web pages and complete websites. WordPress is basically a website administrative interface that lets you control every aspect of the site using tools that even the most novice users can utilize. These tools let you post text, images and any other kind of media quickly and easily without having any programming knowledge whatsoever. WordPress is updated on a regular basis you don’t have to worry about it becoming obsolete at all. WordPress can be installed by a complete novice using tools provided by your web host such as Fantastico or Simple Script.

Wordpress Plugins

One of the most appealing aspects of WordPress is it’s expandability. By using a vast array of plugins, users can do just about anything they desire with ease. New plugins are being created everyday, and they can be installed in less than one minute by even the most inexperienced webmaster. Once installed the plugin resides in the left side of the WordPress interface in the navigational bar, where you can easily adjust the plugin settings and control every aspect of your site’s functionality. Using plugins like the All-in-One SEO pack, you can even automatically optimize your site’s pages for the search engines.

Creating Static Web Pages with WordPress

Since WordPress was originally a blogging platform, creating a regular website can present some challenges to the novice user. The main problem is that the latest post will always be displayed at the top of the main page, which makes it hard to design a website as you would like it. Every time you add a new post, the order of your content will be disrupted since the latest post will be displayed at the top of the front page. This obviously is not desired if you want to have your content arranged a certain way. So how do you fix it? Well the answer is actually quite simple – use a plugin! There is a plugin called StickyOrderer that will let you organize your posts in the fashion want them, and you can do this on every page of your site! Using this plugin alone you can create well organized websites, instead of scattered blogs.

If you want to be successful in selling goods or services online then you will wan to purchase a merchant account. Merchant accounts link your customer’s funds to your bank account safely, allowing you to accept payments from all kinds of credit card and payment services such as PayPal. Without a merchant account, many customer’s will not trust your site enough to even pull out their credit card! Applying for a merchant account is a relatively simple process, and it can be done from the comfort of your own home in a matter of minutes.

You have two options concerning merchant accounts; paid or free. Obviously a paid merchant account would be optimal. However if you are unable to meet the requirements of a paid merchant account, then you may need to apply for a free merchant account instead. Before you settle for a free merchant account. There are some factors that should be considered.

Are Free Merchant Accounts Free?

Although there is no setup or approval fee associated with free merchant accounts, it is important to note that there are transaction fees, and these fees are generally higher than those associated with paid merchant accounts. Therefore, while these services are convenient for people who are unable to get a paid merchant account, in the long run they are anything but free. It should also be noted that most free merchant account providers will only offer their services to be people that sell products. Meaning you cannot sell services using a free merchant account. You may also need to adhere to certain stipulations and regulations. For example, you may be required sell a certain amount within a certain time period to keep your merchant account active.

Free Merchant Account Policies

Free merchant account providers are used to dealing with people that may have bad credit or may be considered untrustworthy by paid merchant services. Therefore it is deemed necessary to impose stricter policies to protect themselves an customers from fraudulent activity. These policies are very important because they provide basis to keep your funds in reserve for a certain period of time to prevent fraud on your behalf.

This means you will have to wait longer for your funds, and in some cases the merchant account provider may issue refunds to unsatisfied customers without your consent. This has been a problem for many honest merchants, because scam artists know that free merchant account providers are quick to issue refunds no question asked. In many cases the scam artist will receive the products and then receive the refund after they have already received the order items! This is why it is crucial to be sure you are familiar with the policies of your merchant account before hand, so you can take the necessary precautions to protect yourself from fraud.

When Should You Use a Free Merchant Account?

There are many reasons why one would consider using a free merchant account. The most obvious reason being inability to get accepted for a paid merchant account. After all, a free merchant account is better than no merchant account! Even free merchant accounts give you the ability to calculate taxes, shipping charges, and to accept credit card payments.

Domain names are by far one of the most important aspects of the website industry. Without the right domain name, even the most advanced website will fail to produce results. Web surfers tend to prefer websites that have catchy, easy-to-remember domain names that pertain to a particular keyword or phrase. However this does not mean that a domains value arises from these attributes. In fact the value of a domain really has very little to do with these features. Domain name value is a very complex issue and it should be noted that the real value of a domain can only be decided by the buyer of the domain. As always, what one person may regard as useless, another may find to be priceless. Although there is no way to place an exact value on a domain, there are ways to boost the value of your domain.

Search Engine Optimization

Perhaps the single most important aspect of your domain in regards to value will be it’s search engine ranking It is an undeniable fact that websites that are ranked higher in the search engines, generally tend to sell for more money. The reason for this is obvious. In fact, even domains with terrible names can sell for a good price if they have a solid search engine ranking. One of the most important search engine optimization attributes in regards to domain value is the amount of incoming links your website has. Incoming links, also known as backlinks, are links placed on other websites that lead to your website. Generally the more backlinks your site has the more traffic it will receive. Potential domain buyers are looking for domains that can be acquired and then monetized with as little effort as possible, so high traffic means high value in the domain game.

Domain Age

The age of the domain will also play a tremendous deciding factor in it’s overall value. The older a domain is, the more valuable it is considered. This is because older domains have an established web presence, which means they have had a longer time period to gather traffic enhancing attributes such as backlinks, search engine ranking, and overall popularity and recognition. Newer domains are considered relatively useless because they lack these qualities and are essentially bare projects that would need larger investments to grow. Although this is true in most cases, there are some cases when the name of a domain alone can cause it to sell for a high price. For example, you may own a domain name that matches a popular phrase or slang. Even though the domain name may be brand new and the domain itself is completely blank, the name alone could inspire a more fortunate buyer to spend an exuberant amount of cash for the name alone.

Name Value

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of your domain’s values is it’s name. So, what makes a domain name valuable? Names that are short tend to be more valuable, and names with four letters or less or considered the most valuable. Names that are popular keywords carry a lot of value as well, however any key phrases that contain hyphens should be avoided. Site names with hyphens generally hold a lower value. The extension of your domain name also matters as well, as .com domains tend to sell for more.

You may be familiar with the more commonly used software, such as control panels, and content management systems. However, many people don’t realize that these site management tools are expandable in a practically infinite nature. The functionality and features of both control panels and content management systems can be greatly enhanced with the use of web applications. Web applications let you modify an already fully functional site administration software, and transform it into a solution that is capable of carrying out brilliant automated tasks and improving the overall appearance and functionality of your website.

Using Web Applications to Improve Content

Perhaps the most basic advantage offered by web applications is the ability to automate or simplify content creation, uploading, organization and editing. There are a literally hundreds of content-oriented web applications available that can be installed to your control panel within a few short steps, especially if you have cPanel with Fantastico. By optimizing your site’s content automatically, you’ll be boosting the productivity of your online business and saving employee cost by cutting out unnecessary outsourcing. In fact, with the right web applications, you can manage literally hundreds of websites easily within the same user interface. If you did need to outsource work, it would be minimal, and you may only need to contract a developer temporarily to create a new web application that you can use to boost productivity even more!

Using Web Applications to Enhance Your Site’s Design

You can also use web applications to change, create, organize and find templates and themes for you web pages. In fact, you can even eliminate the need for a web designer altogether! Some web applications will remove the complex HTML editing that is usually associated with site design, and will let you complete the site customization process with an automated system that inputs HTML coding for you based on your preferences. You can even set up cron jobs and have the applications complete tasks automatically on a scheduled basis, which allows you to focus on more important aspects of your online business while the software works for you.

Using Web Applications to Generate Traffic

Of course, while the above to advantages of web applications will most definitely contribute to a busier website, you can also generate traffic with certain web application regardless of your site’s appearance or relevance! Perhaps the most beneficial use of web applications would be their ability to market to a wide audience through social networks and RSS feeds. There are web applications available that will actually submit every post on your website to multiple social bookmarking sites simultaneously. There are also applications that will post comments on related blogs and attract visitors in this fashion. With so many ways to generate traffic using web applications, it would be impossible to mention all of them.

Conclusion

Although it may take a little bit of experience to master all of the web applications at your disposal, usually the most novice website owners can learn the functions of these programs with ease. In fact, most web applications are designed specifically with the novice user in mind. If you are having trouble managing your website efficiently, you may want to consider installing a few useful web applications to help you out.

There are many types of web hosting services available, with each one presenting a solution for a specific situation. With so many choices, one may become overwhelmed while trying to find one that will best accommodate their needs.

The main types of web hosting are dedicated hosting, shared hosting, and VPS hosting. Dedicated hosting provides a dedicated IP address and in some cases a dedicated server for maximum performance. Many companies delegate a certain amount of server resources to the customer to give them all of the performance they need to run their online business.

Shared hosting gives users a server that is shared amongst the customers of the web hosting company. This type of web hosting solution generally has less to offer than dedicated hosting, but is also cheaper.

The third kind of hosting is VPS( Virtual Private Server) hosting. VPS hosting offers the best of both worlds, giving the user optimal performance as well as reliability.   VMware hosting is a kind of VPS hosting that provides all of the necessary resources in a virtualized fashion. The following benefits make VMware a suitable solution for many web hosts.

Flexibility

Aside from being a purely virtual solution, VMware can be used in conjunction with physical servers to offer the user even more resources. Since the server is virtualized, all of the data can be monitored from a centralized location and the chances of data loss is low considering the information is hosted on a virtualized server. Since you’ll able to utilize the resources of a physical server in a virtualized solution, you’ll be able to save time and and money by preventing the startup costs that are associated with physicals server setup.

Security and Reliability

Having secure data is perhaps the most important aspect of a web hosting plan. By using VMware hosting you can have your data available at all times, and back it up with ease, which completely prevent all forms of data loss. This means that regardless of the situation, you can rest assured that your websites data is safe with VMware web hosting.

Functionality

Since the server resources provide by VMware are virtually unlimited, users can enjoy premium functionality at a reduced price. Users can also enjoy increased ease of use, since installing web applications is much easier. Instead of worrying about setting up applications on a physical server, the entire process can be managed online in a user-friendly interface.

Price

Since no physical hardware is required, a VMware hosting plan is usually much cheaper than its conventional counterparts. In fact many people consider VMware hosting to be the most cost effective hosting solution available. VMware is perfect for users that are looking for a low cost solution that provides optimal functionality, reliability, simplicity, and support. By utilizing VMware, users have the opportunity to host their website with very little effort, for a fraction of the cost of hosting a physical server. At the same time they have access to the resources of a physical server, and they have the option of using a physical server in conjunction with their VMware hosting plan.