Moving from Shared to VPS Hosting

By admin On March 24th, 2010

Shared hosting and Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting differ significantly considering their purposes and what they offer. Average small business or individual customers often choose shared hosting for their first sites because of its inexpensiveness. Still it cannot be compared as it comes to the level of service and reliability with VPS hosting, even if it is a budget vps server. Particular steps have to be taken in order to upgrade smoothly to VPS hosting. The discussion that follows will explore the steps and tips to make your move from shared to VPS hosting easier.

 

1. Copying the files from your old website to a backup file is one of the easier steps. Don’t forget to make at least one copy of your website files beforehand. Most individuals will store their files on the web server they are hosted with; however, it makes more sense to have the web server copy and a backup not associated with the host. This way you will have all your files at hand and won’t have to download them from the server when changing host. The files will be sent directly to your computer.

2. Do not terminate your old shared hosting service until you have loaded the files onto the VPS hosting site. If you do, you will automatically lose access to the web server and the files on it. So make sure you have tested your new site before getting rid of the old one

3. The next step in the process is to upload your saved files to the new cheap VPS host. You should look through your files and decide which are really important and which are not. Often times we have old files or old versions of files, so you may not need all the information you copied.

 

4. Once the files are uploaded to the cheap VPS server you need to check your internal links. It should be the same for any site you launch. For simple navigation, it is important that the internal links work in all browsers. By testing the links you can find and fix any of the links which were broken in the transfer.

 

5. Update the DNS records for your domain name if you have one. You should wait with it until you have fully checked your new VPS server and made sure that everything is working. It may be as simple as telling the registrar that your site is with a new company. This process can be complicated if you have to change registrars. Even more trouble may be caused by switching from name based systems to dedicated IP systems. It is possible that you will get a new IP address.

If you follow those steps, you should have no problem moving from a shared to a cheap VPS host. You will lose a few of your visitors during the move due to the switch from one host to another, with website testing. The steps above will help you minimize this loss. Still, if everything is done correctly, nobody may even notice a slightest change.

The Most Significant Part Of Most Businesses: Marketing

By admin On March 21st, 2010

Many businesses have greatly benefitted from the internet . The internet is very interactive and it gives immediate response to the customer obtaining their feedbacks. It helps in improving the overall quality of the business . Business has got good scope due the internet and because of this communication has become much easier. This kind of marketing strategy involves creative as well as technical aspects like design and development.

Communication is a very important aspect of marketing.Communication is all about passing a message that you intend to deliver and marketing is the process of getting that message across to the customer. This is the reason why you should integrate communication into your marketing strategies. So to conclude we can say that communication is necessary to establish a good rapport with clients so that they understand all the features and benefits of the product.

We should keep updating ourselves with new ideas to get people’s attention. We should emphasize the heading and the lines we write in the beginning as this plays a major role in drawing people’s attention.In case the heading is not good enough, the customers will not be attracted and they will not pay heed to the product. Hence we should begin in an admirable manner to attract the customer’s attention towards our product.

Online marketing is also known as internet marketing, e marketing and web marketing. There are a number of ways to promote products online.The internet is used by millions of people every day hence it is the perfect medium to promote products and services. Internet marketing has merged technical and creative aspects of marketing in order to effectively market products.

Adding a web banner is one of the ways to attract customers to your website which will help them buy your products
Adding banner to your site helps you to attract customers and also buy products. In this form of marketing we try and embed the advertisement on the web page, this can be done by creating image files and inserting them to various web pages. We have to make sure we place these ads only in good sites that have high traffic. There are plenty of internet marketers who have made lots of money by posting such ads in high ranking sites such promotions are called is known as Cost per Click. In this type of marketing the affiliate get paid for total number of clicks made by the customer. The web banner leads the user to the web page where the details of the products are stored, so it brings more customers to the website.

There are quite a few advantages of using Internet marketing. The following are some of them: (1.)The products can be accessible whenever required throughout the day/night. Additionally it does not have any geographical hindrance, as it is available on world wide web. (2.)It almost costs nil to advertise online, rather than sending postal letters and subscriptions which would comparatively cost more. (3.)The online subscriptions can be updated immediately and sent . The customers will come to know about the offers early, and this will lure the customers towards our website. Once the customer visits the websites, they can browse through the products and services which are offered. (4.)Legal Information can be exchanged on the internet through emails.

Additional Resources:
Affiliate Millionaire Review
Affiliate Millionaire

Search Engine Optimization Methods

By admin On March 17th, 2010

Do you wish to have more users visiting your webpage’s? Through search engines, higher number of people will be driven to your website. The SEO should be an important part of the online marketing strategy designed by you. While designing a search engine marketing plan, you must make use of those strategies that will be more advantageous as compared to others. The strategies which should be included in the marketing policy are discussed below. Should you be concerned with developing your internet profit creating activities, and want to become a lot better online professional, then a gadget which I should recommend you to check out is The Best Spinner.

The foremost thing people get started with for SEO building inbound links and submissions. However they fail to understand that they are missing out on a very significant aspect of SEO. The main elements is the website optimization and inside links which needs to be pad attention too. You also need to concentrate on the website link and pages. It is very crucial that you make use of keywords in headline and page title for gaining quality results. It is important that you concentrate on your site initially for SEO plan.

Offsite optimization is a must if you want to start with link building and this procedure includes submitting links to the search engines as well as the online directories. Also make sure you submit sitemaps because only then your web pages would be correctly indexed. Making use of related keywords and also placing the site under the correct group are the major points of consideration.

Article submission is the next important factor that can be helpful. A lot of people say that this is one SEO tool which is really very easy to practice but then the benefits that are gained form this cannot just be overlooked. You can get good quality back link to your site with this because majority of the articles submitted by you will be related to your site. Publishing a few press releases at regular intervals can also be a great option as they have the abilities to generate good traffic.

Another way through which you can gain traffic to your site and earn huge is by becoming a member of the forum or blog related to your offerings. In these sites you will be able to post comments and your link. In case you are a regular visitor of these sites large number of audiences will be attracted. The links that are shown on these sites are very important. On an alternative note, if you would like to improve any online marketing plans so that you can attain substantial changes in money, then I would absolutely advise you to check The Best Spinner Bonus, a revolutionary emerging product!

Internet Marketing Today

By admin On March 17th, 2010

The internet has grown a lot over the past few years. All over the world people use the internet to search for whatever they are looking for. Some people use it to search for new products while others use the internet to find out the latest news. But whatever the need be, the internet has the information that you are looking for. The massive growth of the internet has opened up new business opportunities for many. A brand new course by Andrew Fox is coming to the internet on February 23rd, so don’t miss it! These online businesses can be done by almost anyone who has a computer and a connection to the internet. A good example of online business is Internet Marketing.

Internet marketing in true sense means marketing of products and services online. The internet is the right place where you can market the services by saving time. Many people log in to the internet to get some information or the other; hence it is the right medium to market the products through internet. But it is not as effortless as it sounds. You should be well aware of the recent technologies and methods in the market to promote you products and get good business online. So it is better to have through knowledge about the product before we market it.

Internet marketing is not an easy way to make lots of money online in a short period of time. It requires a lot of knowledge about the various marketing strategies as well as the techniques used to target your sites to the right audience who would be interested in your product. Many income opportunities await you in the field of internet marketing. It is always better to learn a few good marketing techniques before starting to market products online. By buying a book or tutorial about internet marketing, you will be able to learn the latest techniques involved in marketing products online.

Always make sure that you buy products online only from a reputed site. This is because some sites contains false information about the product. This is done so that customers would be interested in buying the product. That s why it is advised to first read many reviews about the product and only then take a decision to buy or not to buy.

The 1st step towards promoting your product is creation of a site. You can attract the customers by adding good quality content and by designing the site in a attractive way. Your content must speak about your product and services. If you want to learn how to be a successful internet marketer take a look at this Affiliate Millionaire page. You can attract the customer by making your site interesting and you can do this by adding images, videos and banners. You can also include a video in your site to explain more about your product or service..

The internet has opened the scope for new businesses and many people have started to realize the potential of such businesses. You must note that success can only be achieved by working hard and not black hat methods.

Selling Websites: 3 Useful Tips for Making the Most Profit

By admin On March 15th, 2010

Selling the site is the income generating aspect of flipping websites. For those who have worked hard to find a great deal on a site and turn it into a profitable and desirable website, the last thing you want to do is hurt your chances of selling it by creating a sub-par listing. Too many site-flippers don’t take the time to build a successful listing and may hurt their final profits. If you know what potential buyers are looking for in a site, you can tailor your listing to really grab their attention. Standing out from the crowd is the best way to get your listing noticed and boost your sale.

Use a Great Title

Your listing title is your first and perhaps best chance to shine among a horde of other sites for sale. Let’s face it. A site listing for “Website about Losing Weight” would hardly get a second glance from possible buyers, just because they really can’t see anything new there. However, if you have something like “Website Shedding Light on Groundbreaking New Weight Loss Techniques,” you sure have a better chance of standing out from the rest of the pack. In addition, the site sounds like something that was created with a lot of energy and creativity put into it. Buyers would want to believe that some of that enthusiasm would show on the site.

Emphasize Your Site’s Strong Points

Buyers aren’t interested in hearing about your personal information or what inspired you to use the color scheme on the front page. It’s not personal, it’s just business. They want to hear how much traffic the site gets, where it ranks on search engines and how much it makes in a month. The details in the sale listing are where you load the potential buyer up on exactly what they want to know without forcing them to sift through a bunch of other information. It’s okay to be short and concise here. While your title needs to be flashy, the details of the sale can be as simple as a few bullet points.

Provide the Proof

If you say that your site is earning this much or that it gets this number of visitors per day, be ready to provide evidence supporting such claims. Another thing that you can do to actually show a potential buyer how great your site is, is to show off the site itself. Photos containing the layout and design of your website will be pretty useful but a video presentation of you navigating around the site and exploring its various features and functions should be even more effective. Videos are hosted for free so you should maximize this chance for your advantage.

These three tips are not groundbreaking information. In fact, they may appear to be pretty standard stuff. But you might be surprised how many people put all the effort into buying a site for a great price and getting it optimized without making their sale listing as attractive as it should be. If you go the extra mile to make your listing appealing when selling websites you will notice more potential buyers and, thus, a higher potential sale price.

Web Hosting, Data Transfer And Bandwidth

By admin On March 10th, 2010

For anyone that has ever been in need of web hosting or has used it, then data transfer and bandwidth are likely to be familiar terms. Many people assume that these things are the same but this is an incorrect assumption. However it is a common mistake that people make.

 

What Is Meant By Bandwidth?


Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transferred at any one time. The reason that this is an important issue is because website owners want their site to be able to load quickly for the visitor.

 

What is Data Transfer?


The amount of data being transferred at any one time is what is meant by data transfer. This might sound exactly the same thing but there is a slight difference that you should be aware of. If you use a bus journey as an example then the bandwidth would refer to the amount of people that the bus can actually hold at any one time, whereas the data transfer would refer to the amount of people who are actually on the bus on any one time.

 

How will this Influence my Site?


It is important to know what your data transfer and bandwidth requirements are when you are looking for a web host. Not having enough bandwidth will mean that your web pages will take too long to load. Inadequate amounts of data transfer will mean that your visitors will have to wait their turn before downloading this data. This will be a problem if many people want to use your website at the same time.

 

Choosing the right web hosting can make a huge difference to the success of your web site. Think about the amount of bandwidth and data transfer on offer as it should be a part of your considerations when choosing the best one for your needs.

 

When you decide to go into internet marketing, you should make sure that you have hosting sorted out. But the world of web hosting can be confusing. For instance, you could find reseller web hosting or even linux web hosting on your travels.

Marketing Automation Software - Taking Care of Your Complex Business …

By admin On March 9th, 2010

Online business can turn into a difficult task if you are unable to get enough sales each month. If it isn’t your website that is resulting in losses, it could be something else. Are you sure the email campaign you started a few months back worked out really well? Did each and every person receive the mail into their inbox and not their junk folder? This can be questionable. Most emails get filtered and this would have resulted in your email ending up as Spam. What can you do to stop this? The answer may lie in getting marketing automation software.

In the past where segmenting the customers, integrating customer data and managing campaigns were done manually, today we see businessmen opting for marketing automation software because it does the work for you instead of the other way around.

For instance, if you manage a marketing campaign, the marketing automation software will draft the initial offers, gather and sort out the responses from potential clients, send them reminders and also prompt you for follow-ups. In addition, it will also collect survey information. The vital information gathered from it can then be used in targeting key clients. Now isn’t that simply great?

Customers needs and wants can differ from one another. Sending out the same email may create problems or losses in sales in the long run. A marketing automation software will assist in segmenting the customers and send out emails to a selected crowd. Keeping track of customers is also another great feature of this software.

Most of the marketing automation software is designed for small businesses. Generating leads, acquiring repeat sales and generating a high income are some of the objectives that small business owners strive to achieve. This can be done by the usage of marketing automation software as there is no labor cost at all for the whole process. Most software’s would combine CRM, email marketing and other important factors.

In order to turn a lead into an actual sale, it is necessary that you have a database that helps you keep in touch with them. Storing their information means the system you use has to be secure. What’s best about most of the marketing automation software we see in the market today is that these come with a reliable database system. It facilitates in accessing and analyzing the customer information if and when you need it. This will help in creating a lasting relationship with the client.

6 Advantages To Buying An Existing Online Small Business

By admin On March 7th, 2010

If you have a small amount of venture capitol, you should check into buying an Online small business website rather than building one from the ground up. This article will look at the pros and cons of purchasing an already established Internet business.

 

Below are 6 items to think about if you are thinking about buying an existing Online small business website.

 

1.  If you purchase an existing online business, all of the setup work will already be finished for you. Stuff like your website, email address, domain name, and possibly a blog will previously be in place for you.

 

2.  From the onset, you can focus all of your energy on driving traffic to your website. Given that traffic is the more important aspect of any online business, you should be able to work this characteristic right away devoid of any distractions.

 

Now keep in mind that the business website you decide to acquire, may or may not previously possess high traffic. Furthermore, even if the business website has consistent traffic, you will have to continue with your traffic growing labors. Sorry to say, there is no such thing as a free lunch in this business.

 

3.  If you purchase an existing Internet small business website, the website will previously have back links, traffic, page rank and a customer base. It is likely as well that the business website will already be making a profit.

 

4.  The branding could already be in place for an existing Internet business website. You can, of course, expand upon the brand name that has been shaped for you.

 

Several individuals will put their photo on their home page and landing pages. If you would like your new web business to be branded around yourself, then you may need to modify the existing graphics to reflect this, and a photo of yourself is a ideal spot to begin.

 

5.  Online businesses are quite cheap to buy, especially when compared to a traditional business. The cost ranges from a few dollars to a few thousands of dollars. If you would like to test out out various Online businesses for sale, go to businessforsale.com and check out the listings.

 

6.  While you are considering an Internet business acquisition, it is a good idea to join one or more discussion forums which have the identical theme as the business to be bought. You can then make a forum post stating that you are interested in buying a business website and afterward merely wait for the replies. Lots of Internet businesses have been purchased in this method.

 

These are six items to think with regards to whenever you are considering buying an existing Online small business. For a number of people, starting a business website from the ground up is the approach to proceed, particularly if you have extra time to take this type of thing on. Several individuals, on the other hand, are now finding that buying an existing online business website is an exceptional option.

 

Learn more about opening your own Internet business here: Work From Home

 

Additionally, check out John Baril’s online training blog at: Marketing Promotion

 

To earn cash right away, go to John Baril’s internet survey web site at: Money Surveys

Top 20 SEO requirements for scoping your eCommerce platform

By admin On March 6th, 2010

Having spent the last 6 years Client side as Head of eCommerce and agency side managing digital marketing teams, one constant has been confusion in new platform builds over what a “search engine friendly” website actually is.

eCommerce solution providers advertise optimised platforms and Clients demand search engine friendly sites; do both mean the same thing? Rarely. Client side eCommerce managers can confuse technical and content optimisation, leading to miss-matches between expectation and delivery. A technically optimised web platform does not necessarily mean that keyword planning and meta content optimisation have been carried out.

This blog provides a tick list of the core elements that you should specify in any RFP or ITT when scoping a new eCommerce platform. They act as a starting point for SEO dialogue, enabling you to push vendors on specific areas of optimisation expertise. Please note the list is not in any order of priority.

  1. 301 redirects to preserve search engine rankings
  2. Avoiding duplicate content and use of the canonical tag where relevant
  3. Dynamically generate search engine friendly URLs for product and content pages e.g. www.yoursite.com/category-name/product-name instead of www.yoursite.com/productdetails.aspx?pid=037012&cid=144&language=en-GB
  4. Ability to specify / edit URLs for individual pages via CMS – important for campaign landing pages and microsites
  5. Support for linking of product pages and content pages to improve internal linking – should be delivered via the Catalogue Management tool or CMS
  6. CSS absolute positioning for text links on product list pages to ensure the first link for each product is keyword rich
  7. Dynamic XML sitemap that is submitted on a regular basis
  8. HTML sitemap that is auto generated based on your catalogue and site structure
  9. Support for rich snippets within platform – encoding of data in RDF format e.g. customer ratings & reviews
  10. Custom 404 error page and automated report to flag error pages so your internal team can take action (you can achieve this through a separate monitoring tool such as Indiabook)
  11. Robots.txt file is provided and you can access and edit when required
  12. Core provision for meta content (title, description, keywords) that is auto generated when you load new products and content pages and can also be edited easily from within the CMS
  13. Text links in navigation not images; if coders are using sIFR (flash replacements) push them for clarification on how this is being done to ensure it complies with accessibility standards
  14. Keyword optimised H tags within html for headings – structure for use of H1 to H6 to provide a relevant hierarchy of content
  15. Ensuring flash objects are search engine friendly
  16. Ensuring pdf content is readable e.g. captions for images, document meta data
  17. Graceful degradation – when elements like JavaScript are disabled in the browser, key content is still visible to search engine spiders/bots as well as to visitors
  18. RSS feeds to support product and news announcements e.g. deal of the day
  19. Page load time to meet agreed threshold but make sure you define how load speed is measured e.g. after all page elements have loaded – this factor will be included in Google’s algorithm in 2010
  20. Social media content such as blogs are hosted on your primary website domain using an SEO friendly blog engine (e.g. Wordpress is better than Blogger) – blogs usually sit on a sub-domain such as blog.yoursite.com to ensure you benefit from the search engine juice.

It is essential that your site specific SEO requirements are accurately documented during your project scoping phase to ensure you evaluate the relative optimisation strengths of potential vendors.

Please note that this checklist does not attempt to tackle bespoke areas of website optimisation that relate to business specific commercial goals. You may have more detailed needs for elements such as Google Sitemap (e.g. separate news sitemap) that will need thorough mapping. My recommendation is to make sure you have the essentials covered and then work with an SEO specialist (in-house or outsourced) to overlay the detail.

I would welcome comments and recommendations based on your own experience. Is there anything you think missing from this list?

Late Hotel Rooms – An Ecommerce Business Close to Failure?

By admin On March 6th, 2010

Will the internet die under the strain of the ecommerce boom?

The huge increase in internet usage over the last few years has not only revolved around social networking but also around online commerce. The volume of people using Google was surpassed by the number of people using Facebook during the run up to Christmas in 2009/10. So what does this tell us for the future of building a business on the internet?

Let’s take an example: The online hotel booking business is huge. It naturally lends itself to an internet based platform and many of us will have noted the demise of the local travel agent in our local market town. It is the fact that late hotel rooms can be booked from anywhere at any time using a minimum of fuss. The hotels can be assessed, viewed and booked all in a couple of minutes. But it is the increasing dependence on these online booking systems that is beginning to cause problems for the industry as a whole.

As users of the internet become more used to using these late hotel room search facilities they also become more impatient. As we know, the risks of using credit cards online have always existed and to be honest have not really diminished despite the best efforts of the credit card industry. This puts a huge amount of pressure on these late hotel room booking websites to accept credit card payments, pre-check them against fraudulent use, accept them and take a payment all in a couple of seconds.

As all online merchants know, a proportion of all online sales are fraudulent and result in charge backs; charge backs result in penalties both to the credit card issuer and to the online store operator. In fact, if too many charge backs occur in a short period of time, the card companies increase the length of time that they hold on to the clients money.

What does all this mean to the online hotel booking industry?

It has huge implications, because if the online companies cannot guarantee that they will be in receipt of payment long after the customer has purchased and utilised a night’s accommodation then the whole system will begin to collapse. Does this mean we will see the return of the local travel agent? I don’t think so because they will still suffer the same issues, and most probably would be using the same booking systems anyway. What it does mean is that customers will face ever more stringent security tests as they go through the online booking process.

Already the MasterCard system will often produce a pop up window demanding extra information relating to secure passwords over and above the usual request for the csv number from the back of the card. This puts extra strain on late hotel room booking websites as they have to be built in such a way as to receive all this data securely. It is a mad world of security that is still so easily corrupted by fraudulent use.

Ultimately the online ecommerce industry will have to find a way of accepting payment that cannot be used fraudulently. Is this possible? I don’t know, but what I do know is that I am now getting on a flight to London and I haven’t booked my flight! Anyone know a good site to get a late hotel room deal?