Hedging Your Bets Against Bad Web Hosting!

Posted on June 20, 2010 by

There will come a time if you are handling a lot of websites that you’ll come across bad web hosting. If it’s any comfort, (and it won’t be!) you aren’t alone! Almost anyone who’s done this awhile has a horror story they can relate about a bad web hosting experience. Many times it is an isolated incident, others it may even be the client’s fault, but from time to time, a web hosting company really fouls things up for its clients. Here are a few things to keep in mind so that if and when that does happen, you’ll be prepared for it!

Make A Backup of Your Site or Blog – This should go without saying, but apparently it doesn’t. It is crucial when you are either switching hosts or initiating web hosting services. Things can go wrong, and sometimes no matter who is to blame you need that extra layer of protection a backup will afford. Also, even when you’ve had your hosting for awhile, make it a practice to perform regular backups. You’ll need them if you decide to leave for whatever reason.

Do Your Homework – There is a wealth of information out there about nearly every web hosting company in business today. In fact, if you can’t find out anything about them in a search, that would be your first red flag! Look objectively; any web host will have some negative flame throwers out there. Get a feel for what the general feeling is regarding the company, and go from there. Look on forums, social networks, and business networks as well. Don’t forget to seek personal recommendations. Avoid basing your decision merely on the lowest price offer.

Pay Month to Month – At least in the beginning. While this will usually cost a few dollars more, it makes things far simpler if you decide that you and your new host need to part ways. Getting them to return the unused portion of a year-long hosting agreement could be problematic.  A word about guarantees: hope you don’t need one. No, seriously; get one if you can, and pray you never need to use it! They can run anywhere from 30-90 days, and that should be enough time to determine if this host is right for you.

Have a Disaster Plan in Place – Even if it’s only in your mind, know where and what you would do if the worst happened. It likely won’t, at least to that degree, but if you’re depending on your site for all or part of your income, an insurance plan is a good idea! A secondary hosting company, with backups in hand will be a great help if your host fails catastrophically.

Making sure these items are at least thought about and considered will pay off handsomely when you most need it. Let’s hope you never need it!

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How To Use FTP For Your Web Hosting Accounts

Posted on June 20, 2010 by

One of the scarier elements for beginning webmasters is being faced with the dreaded acronym FTP in regards to their web hosting accounts. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, which simply means the method by which files are transmitted over the Web. It involves the transfer of files over a TCP/IP based network, such as the  Internet.

The actual transfer is not nearly as fearsome as you may think, and in fact may be mastered in a day. Let’s look at some of what’s involved with using FTP to upload files from your computer to your web hosting account.

The primary reason FTP exists is to aid in the transfer of this content a great deal more swiftly than you would be able to do manually. Especially with today’s heavy graphic and multimedia content, it would take roughly forever. Enter the FTP client!

The good news is that it doesn’t even have to cost you anything. There are several good free FTP solutions, such as the popular FileZilla, which do just as good a job as many of the paid applications.   There are some extra bells and whistles on the paid tools, but for the most part you won’t need them.

Using the FTP client is relatively straightforward. The interface opens with basically two windows, the left one open to your computer’s files, and the right one connects to your web hosting account where it accesses the web site’s folders and files. There are usually a top and a bottom screen for each location, the top one containing only folders, and when highlighted, the bottom screen shows the folders within, thus making it possible to put files and folders exactly where you need them to be for your site to operate properly.

To transfer a folder or file, you simply highlight it, and use one of the transfer controls to move it to the highlighted location on your web host. You can also move files in bulk by holding down your control key to select more than one file or folder. You can also drag and drop these folders or files into the appropriate location, though this can be a bit tricky at times, and you may end up having to go in and fix things afterward.

This upload process also works well in reverse. This means that it is entirely possible (and recommended!) to back up your site onto your home or office computer. How many times have we heard the horror story from a web hosting company after a crash, saying that the backups were not done or are corrupted? It’s always a good idea to download your site’s important files to your computer to have a physical backup in your possession.

FTP is neither to be dreaded nor avoided. It is a useful time saving tool that makes the transfer of files a simple and easy to do procedure. Fear not!

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Tips to Selecting a Web Editor

Posted on June 20, 2010 by

Web Editors are actually the tools of trade in the web business, enabling web authors to manifest their creativity in the form of beautiful websites and more. Web editors can be compared to the workshop of the internet and when it comes to this essential tool, any web designer knows what a good tool is worth.

If you’re an aspiring web designer looking for insight or an established expert in the web business seeking inspiration then you’ve comes to the right place, here I’ll show you what makes for a good web editor and also show you examples of HTML editors in the market.

If you’re new to the industry, I’ll start by informing you that HTML editors are categorized into two that is a) “What You See is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) editor and text editor.

Here are the benefits of both.

Text Editor

Flexibility – Once you learn how to write HTML with a text editor, you become conversant with the limitation of HTML. This means you’re no longer limited by the functions of the editor.

Portability – If you write HTML on a text editor, it’s easier for you to make changes anywhere you can access your pages. Most text editors are standardized across platforms, and if you use Notepad, that is available on all Windows machines.

Clean HTML – HTML editors usually add strange codes, tags, and attributes into the HTML. These can slow down the page download by adding superfluous characters, make your site only visible by one browser, and add unnecessary tags. Coding HTML in a text editor ensures that you only use HTML tags that you intend to use.

WYSIWYG Editor

Ease of use – With a WYSIWYG editor, you can get up and running in no time. Majority of these editors work like word processors, it significantly reduces the learning curve.

Speed – Unless you’re an established guru in the industry, most WYSIWYG editors help you design web pages faster.

HTML Validation – Using WYSIWYG editor guarantees you clean code that will work with most browsers.

Other Features – Many WYSIWYG editor offer extra features that greatly increase productivity such as link checking; spell checkers, document weighting, JavaScript functions, DHTML tips, and more.

Below are some good candidates for each category above.

WYSIWYG/HTML Editors

Dreamweaver

This is a great WYSIWYG/HTML Editor that offers plenty of extensions and features. A great tool for a seasoned web designer, its drawbacks include memory hogging and complexity that makes it unsuitable for beginners.

FrontPage

Originally from Microsoft, this web editor is very easy to use and any user familiar with Microsoft program will be instantly at home with this program. Its graphical rendering help you see how your site is progressing and makes it easier maintaining pars of it on the go. The only problem with FrontPage is that when you use if you’re often limited to servers that support it’s extensions.

Text Editors

HomeSite

This is a very fancy HTML text editor. It has all the features of a good text editor plus extras like HTML validation, link checking, document weight, project management, and HTML help with tag tips and tag completion. You see the HTML you write, with a lot of good assistance to make sure it’s high quality. It assumes knowledge of HTML.

Other are:

* Notepad

* Vi

Sammy Kirkland in web programming and design. If you’d like to know more about our services, please visit our custom ecommerce design page and our wonderful zen cart website design page.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sammy_Kirkland

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How to Earn Money With Top Online Money-Making Opportunities

Posted on June 20, 2010 by

It is a well-known fact that affiliate marketing and multilevel marketing are among the top money-making opportunities available on the internet today. The RetireYoung.info website is an example of a site that uses these two marketing methods to generate a huge income each month. This article will try to find out how you can make money with these two marketing techniques.

Affiliate marketing involves promoting a company and its products using your own website. Several methods are used in affiliate marketing, such as pay-per-click, pay-per-sale, etc. As an affiliate you have to find ways so that more visitors will go to your site and these visitors will proceed to the site that you are advertising. Most affiliate programs run on autopilot so you do not have to do much once it has been set up.

If you sign up with a multilevel marketing (MLM) or network marketing company, you will receive commissions from the sale you generate. The multilevel marketing company that you join should have excellent products that you can sell online.

In MLM or networking, it is very important to recruit new members who will serve as your sales force or down line. Typically, you will receive commissions based on your sales plus the sales of your down line. With a bigger sales force, you will be able to earn more money.

You can start selling at once as soon as you have set up your website. For this, you will need to make an investment for the website. It is also necessary to do some heavy marketing to sell the products successfully. You will also have to promote the company so that you will be able to recruit new members. For some companies, a minimal monthly sales or purchase is required to continue to be a member.

You will discover that you have to make some kind of investment to start your business. You will have to spend money to obtain a website, maintain it, and promote the products.

It is always a good idea to use as many methods of making money as possible. In fact, affiliate marketing and network marketing make a good combination because you can advertise the company whose products you sell. You will be able to make money from advertising income as well as commissions from your sales and the sales of your down line.

P.S. Want to learn more about RetireYoung.info Reviews? Discover the truth in a candid and no-nonsense look at RetireYoung.info Review. Click the link!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Calven_O’Reiley

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1000+ visitors a day

Posted on June 5, 2010 by

• Get a blog and place it on your site. People will want to come back to your site to see what the latest news and updates are.

• Patients is the key, after all if you are smart enough to take your own time and search for articles like this one and you are determined to get 1000+ visitors a day then in time the money will eventually be rolling in and that is what the main point is!

• Sending your articles to social networking sites for example Facebook or twitter is a good way to add to your 1000 a day as it is one place that hundreds of users can see. You can create fan pages and fan pages are an excellent way to promote your site and not only are they excellent but they are free! Rewording your descriptions in your articles is an effective way to gain traffic as Google or other search engines will pick up your articles even if they have different descriptions that are not 100% relevant to the article.

• Write 2 – 3 articles or posts daily, the more you make the more then the more your website is being advertised. If you have 100 friends on Facebook and write a status update then chances are at least 10 out of that 100 will click on your link if you post one. It is that simple; the more you write the more incoming traffic you have.

• You should avoid things such as pay per click as you will be throwing out money gaining people to come to your site before you are even sure if your site will make you money. You should stick to the social networking sites and free ways of generating traffic to ensure your site will make money and when you are certain it will then don’t be shy in going for a pay per click option. Getting your 1000 per day is easily manageable without paying money to do so and you should stick to the free ways before spending money before you make any.

See some inspirational stories that have kept me going and also grab some free ebooks at http://www.150k-income.com.

Lee Grint – Internet Entrepreneur and Wealth Coach, Helping Others to Achieve Their Goals

http://www.150k-income.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lee_Grint

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Web Hosting Video Blogs – What You Need To Know!

Posted on June 5, 2010 by

So you’re thinking about hosting video blogs, and you need to understand what type of web hosting you need to choose. This is a smart question to ask, as there are some considerations that can both save you money and be much more efficient at the same time. Let’s take a quick look at what some of these concerns are, and how you deal with them.

The first and most important questions you need to ask yourself is what type of video blog (vlog) you will be creating. If you are using video only, then you would be wise to at least take a look at using a dedicated video sharing site, such as YouTube, Revver, HowCast, dailyMotion, Metacafe and any of several hundred more. There is a top tier to these, and the aforementioned, along with perhaps a dozen more get a lot more attention, and have many more bells and whistles available to you to use on the video “channel” you create.

There are several advantages to using these sites. Not only do they make the process of uploading and hosting your videos easy, they are free, and they already have a traffic base; that is, people are coming there every day to view videos. That would not be the case with your own site, at least initially.

There are many things to look at when choosing among these sites as well. What is their file storage limit? What video formats do they support? Which format do they play in? What is the quality of the compression done on a particular site? Who are they appealing to (site demographics)? These and other questions should shape your choice of a video sharing site to host your video blog.

If you intend to use text, photos and other media along with your videos, you should consider using a self-hosted WordPress blog instead. WordPress through the use of its plugins, gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to the utilization of your videos and content in general. The reason I emphasize self-hosted versus a web 2.0 property like WordPress.com, or Blogger.com, is that you’ll be far more able to control the content, as well as the fact that you own the site, and are not subject to the whims of those sites, who will delete your blog at the first hint of anything they don’t like.

You can easily embed videos on your WordPress blog, and use them in exactly the same way you would on a video sharing site. Any of the major web hosting providers offer WordPress as a blogging platform. Make sure that you keep your blog updated to the latest version, and have a handle on the comments placed thereon, as video comments can sometimes bring along epics you’d rather not have shown on your site. Since you are the Sheriff here, it’s your job to police this, not YouTubes.

Web hosting video blogs is a fun and potentially effective way to create a better visitor experience as well as increase your blog’s popularity. Make your choices and start hosting video today!

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Comparing Making Money Online Versus Offline

Posted on June 5, 2010 by

Most people know the traditional ways of making money offline and that there are at least as many ways to make money online but there are some key differences that will help you choose which way is right for you.

To make money online can seem daunting when you first get going but these fears are usually due to lack of knowledge. Some of the simplest ways to make money online are by selling items on eBay, selling stuff in advertising places like Craigslist or your local newspaper if they have online options. Other ways are through marketing your own or other people’s products.

Benefits to making money online are:

- Our place of work is open for business 24/7 so we can work when we want and for as long as we want.

- Many of our regular duties can be run on auto-pilot leaving us with more time for family, social and leisure activities.

- Being in control of how much money you make (you aren’t limited by the wages somebody else is willing to pay you for your effort).

It would be irresponsible not to mention that there are many ‘Get-Rich-Quick’ schemes on the Internet. Ironically these are typically other people that are relatively new to making money online trying to sell their half baked ideas.

Working to make money offline doesn’t require any more creativity than online though it may require more physical work. Services are probably the easiest to get started since you can clean yards, houses or computers if you have the technical knowledge. Medical billing is growing field that has allowed people to work from home in recent years.

Benefits of making money offline are:

- It’s easier to spot and avoid scams

- Finding people buy from you is usually as easy as walking next door

- Cash in hand can be much more comforting

Both methods of making money require minimizing your expenses and maximizing your profits. In order to be successful, requires commitment and a positive attitude right from the start.

Trying to figure out which way is best for you can seem overwhelming but you can get free help that will assist you in your decision process. http://www.genuinewaystomakemoney.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Elisa_Navarette

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How to Use Keywords in Your Content to Help Your Site Rank

Posted on June 3, 2010 by

Understanding how to use keywords in your web page’s content will help you in getting your site to rank higher in the search engines. Chances are, if you haven’t done any keyword research or optimization following, you aren’t ranking very well to begin with. There are many aspects to this subject: let’s examine some of them and how you can implement them!

Do Your Research! – The first step when putting up anything that you want to be found in the Web is to do some basic keyword research. This is a topic worthy of a much lengthier treatment, so I’ll just sketch out some broad guidelines here.

- Think like a searcher. What would you type in to find you?

- Use the Google Adwords Tool as a starting place for research.

- Find out how competitive your terms are (in general terms) by typing terms you find into a Google search box in “quotes”. This will tell you in rough terms how many sites are optimizing that term. Less than 50,000 is a good number to shoot for.

- Use some of the popular “spy” tools out there (like Spyfu!) to see what keywords your competitors are using.

- Start with a smaller list, say 10-20 keyword phrases to begin with, and eventually keep adding to that list, as your site grows.

- When starting out, try to find “long tail” keyword phrases; that is, phrases that have a decent amount of search volume but are not overly competitive.

What Do I Do Now?

Once you’ve come up with some keyword phrases you want to run with, you need to know how to best use them in your content. Here are a few ways that are essential.

- Use keywords in your title tags.

- Use them in titles of posts and articles.

- Sprinkle them throughout your articles and posts, shooting for about 1% keyword density. There is a lot of debate about how much is too much. Write naturally. If it comes up more than that, don’t sweat it. You need to write content geared to the readers!

- Employ your keywords in URLs whenever possible. This is not always practical, but helpful when you can.

- Use them in site or blog categories.

- Make sure to use them as anchor text, both within your site and in incoming links to your site.

- Put them as tags in your content, and in videos that are either on your site or link to your site’s pages.

- By all means, use your keywords in any linking campaigns you are running to your site. He who has the most relevant incoming links wins!

Making sure you employ as many of these “best practices” as possible will give you a fighting chance at ranking for keywords you’d like to be found for. When the search engines get an idea what you’re all about, and you start getting incoming keyword links to your pages, rankings will follow!

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How To Get Your Web Pages Indexed Fast

Posted on June 3, 2010 by

Getting your web pages indexed quickly is something of the Holy Grail of a webmasters existence. A never ending quest with a fabulous reward attached to it. A high ranking in the search engines is something to be coveted, and can lead to many good things for you and your website or blog. But first things first: you need to get your pages indexed before they will begin to rank. Let’s look at some of the factors that go into getting web pages indexed, and how you can affect those.

Don’t Add It! - Google likes to find your pages naturally; that is, through a search. This flies in the face of their own service where you can add your URL directly into Google for consideration. My experience is that pages seem to rank better and faster when they are left for GoogleBot to discover.

Have An XML Sitemap – Having a current and functioning XML sitemap on your blog or site will make it easy for the search engines to find your site. And don’t think that Yahoo or Bing don’t make use of a Google XML sitemap: they do! While they may not digest all of it in one sitting, having your sitemap available is a best practice.

Utilize RSS Feeds – Make sure that your pages have RSS feeds, and that you know what to do with them. Making them available on your pages for your visitors is a great thing to do, while an even better idea is to submit your RSS feed URLs to the RSS feed aggregators for inclusion. There are more than 50 of these aggregators out there, and they are crawled several times a day by Google and Yahoo. Once this task is done, it does not have to be re-done. Your feed is in there forever (theoretically) . People have had pages indexed in hours using this method.

Get Some Good Backlinks – Acquire a few juicy backlinks to your site, particularly for your chosen keywords, and you will be found quickly. Links are the currency of the Web, and if sites are spending this currency on you… search engines notice! These links can come from article directories, web 2.0 site and other authoritative sites. This one requires very little work.

Get Some Social Love! - Get your site social bookmarked at some of the more popular social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Mr. Wong, Mixx and several other popular sites. These sites are crawled by Google constantly, and links to your site will be found.

Ping Your Pages – A ping is little more than an electronic notification that a page is new (or updated) and is available for viewing by the engines. If you have a WordPress blog it has the ability to ping each post or page you create. (It is somewhat unreliable; be sure to check.) Another option is a few of the free ping services out there like Pingomatic, and Ping.FM

Use Sound Internal Linking Structure – This means that making sure the pages on your site link to each other in a sound fashion. This will go a long way to getting more of your site indexed, if the search engine robots can easily find the links on the page.

Using these few best practices will usually ensure that your web pages are indexed quickly and efficiently. You’ve done your part; now you want the world to see!

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What Does Unlimited Web Hosting Really Mean?

Posted on June 3, 2010 by

Unlimited web hosting. What does that phrase even mean? It has taken on a kind of shady, hyped type of meaning over the last few years. It has been used in relation to the number of domains you can host on an account, the web space you are allotted, as well as theweb space you are allowed to consume each month. The truth is, there is usually no hard and fast answer that’s entirely true for any of these scenarios. Let’s take a look at each, and what it has come to signify for them.

Unlimited Domains – You will often see “unlimited” in informational boxes and promotional material advertising a web host’s offerings. This is an attempt to get you to believe that you can host as many domains on this account as you’d like. The truth is, that you are limited by other variables as well, such as web space and bandwidth, (which we’ll get into in a moment!) and do not actually have the ability to do what they are suggesting. Not only that, many times these “unlimited” domains turn out to be “add-on domains”, which are little more than glorified subdomains in the eyes of the search engines, and not truly stand-alone domain names, with their own unique web credentials! Ways around this include opting for a reseller account, (which gives you far more options) or having your own dedicated server, where you are less limited also.

Unlimited Web Space – While this is often advertised as a feature, they are hoping that you’ll never be prosperous enough to test this one, or that if you are, you’ll have already voluntarily opted for a more robust account. There obviously is a limit on space. Get too near to what they consider the breaking point for that price level, and you’ll be asked to upgrade.

Unlimited Bandwidth – This one is likely the most ludicrous of the three. Of course there is a limit! Any site on a shared server that is utilizing more than their fair (paltry) share of the server is likely to find their domain “throttled”. This is the practice of limiting server resources so as to “balance the load” among all the other sites on the server. You’ll then politely be asked to switch to a plan that is more suitable for a site with all your traffic! (By the way, that’s not a bad idea anyway; it’s just the way it is done at this level that we find unseemly!)

Best practice when it comes to issues like hosting multiple domains, web space used, and bandwidth is to try and anticipate your site’s needs in advance, as far as that is possible. Many times a site becomes popular out of nowhere, and no one could have guessed. Other times, a blog post or video goes viral. There’s no way to know when that will happen.

However, as much as it is within your control, try and budget for as much web hosting power as you can. If you know you have promotion hitting, or a product launch coming up, you’ll want to look into this issue. If you are truly taking steps to build your traffic and business, you want to be ready for that day when it comes!

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