Archive for January, 2009
How to Build a Website
January 16th, 2009 | Author: Dr Smiley
When it comes to building a website there is a lot to think about. Not just the technical stuff, but the purpose of your website and what you want from it.
Depending on what the purpose of your website is going to be will depend a lot on what you need to know how to do.
I won’t be going into a lot of detail here on domain registration or hosting, that is another topic all in itself.
What I want to discuss today is the development of a website.
There are tools you are going to have to have to do this, you will need a way to create or edit HTML code, you will need a way to upload these files to your hosting account, and you will need some way to capture a visitors information, and you might even need some way to accept payments online from your website.
None of these are hard to do once you understand their process, but it’s that learning curve most do not take the time to learn properly. They want to have a website up right now and that is possible with some of the software out there today and templates. But one thing I definitely learned, the hard way, sooner or later knowing just the basics to HTML coding and how a website works, is a life saver.
Okay you have your domain name registered and you have your hosting setup, now what?
Get yourself a way to edit or create HTML coding, an HTML editor, such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver or a free editor. There are hundreds out there, so do a search on your favorite search engine and see what is out there. Play around with some of the free ones to get a feel for them to see which one you are most comfortable with.
Now you are going to need a way to sending what you create in your editor to your host, this is called File Transfer Protocol or FTP. There are tons out there so do a search with your favorite search engine, most of these are free to use. Get to understand it and how it works before you begin. This shouldn’t take you very long, most are pretty easy to understand and have tutorials to help you get started.
The first thing you need to decide right now is whether or not you are going to put graphics on your website. This is an ongoing battle of whether graphics help or not, you will need to decide this for yourself and determine if your market is accepting with this. Testing is the best policy here. If you do decide you want graphics then, consider outsourcing this to a professional.
What is the purpose of your website? Are you going to just be collecting names and email addresses to build that list? Are you selling your own product or an affiliate product? These questions need to be answered so you know what type of website you are creating.
If you want to do both, then you will need 2 different websites. This doesn’t mean you need to register 2 different domain names, just 2 different sites. If you are collecting names and email addresses, do not put anything else on this page! If you are selling a product that is all you want there, do not attempt to get them to opt into something also!
Let’s build a website.
Since there are a variety of different types of websites, from squeeze pages, salespages, and information websites, I can’t possible walk you through each one here. But here are the main components of a basic website you should always have in place.
1. Your title of your website – use the code <Title> where you would replace the word Title with your website title. Should be keywords or keyword phrases
2. Your description – use the code <meta descriptionimg>description </meta description> again try to use keywords and keyword phrases
3. Your keywords – use the code <meta keywords>keywords separated with commas</meta> list your keywords using commas, do not stuff this with lots of keywords, keep to only 5 or so keywords.
4. The main body of your website – use the code <body>insert your copy here with any graphics you are going to use using code to define each part</body>
5. For any images you are using use the code <img src=”location of image”>
6. To define your text use the code <font> you can add words after font to define size, color, and family style. Make sure to always close your codes </>
7. To make words or a word clickable by your visitors, use the code <a href=”URL Link”>This is a clickable link</a> now the words This is a clickable link can be clicked by your visitors.
8. Want your text or image to be centered on the page use the code <center></center>
9. For headlines on a page you want to use the code <h1></h1> there are different numbers to place after the h depending on how big or small you want the text to be. The most commonly used numbers are 1 and 2.
10. To make a one line break in between lines use the code </br>
11. To make a new paragraph use the code <p>
These are just some of the basic HTML codes used in a basic website, there are hundreds more that can be used. Learning these will definitely get you started at understanding how a website is built and why it does things.
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What is an Affiliate?
January 15th, 2009 | Author: Dr Smiley
If you have been online any length of time, I’m sure you’ve heard the term Affiliate. So just what does this mean and what does it mean to you?
An Affiliate is someone who helps promote a product or service for someone else. The affiliate will earn a share of the monies acquired when someone takes action.
When you sign up as an affiliate you will be given a website to send others too, in return for part of money earned. The amount you earn is totally up to the owner of the website.
To sign up is easy and costs you nothing. The idea behind being an affiliate is to make money, so you want to drive as much traffic as you to your affiliate ID, without crossing the lines of Spamming and/or other ways that are found to be unfavorable by the general internet community.
Being an affiliate is a great way to start out online and learn your way around marketing. You don’t need to have your own website or product. By using someone elses website to sell their product or service, you can get started faster.
Now what does this have to do with you? A lot!
Just like affiliates merchants enjoy having affiliates promote their products or services, as this is a win-win situation. A merchant will pay the affiliate after a sale is made, so this will entice the affiliate to make more sales to earn more commissions.
You can generate more sales by putting your links on your own website/blog, using what the merchant has supplied for you. You can capture a visitors information for yourself to build your list for future use. By you doing a little research and finding the right keywords for a given product or service and targeting that keyword, you can do very well in being an affiliate.
Make sure to use specific keywords that relate to what you’re advertising. Generally you want to stay focused within a niche or interest group to increase your sales potential. In other words, you don’t want to have many different affiliate links to variety of completely different markets on your website.
There are a lot of places today that offer affiliate programs for their products and/or services, you can find many of them by typing in your keyword+affiliate into any search engine. You can also find services that will assist you at finding products both for online and offline, by checking out places like Clickbank.com and PayDot.com and CJ.com (known as Commission Junction)
The best thing you can do right now is find some affiliate programs within your market or niche and see what is available, and get started!
What Are Blogs?
January 13th, 2009 | Author: Dr Smiley
The word blog comes from the term weblog, web and log. It is a place anyone can post their comments, articles, videos, and just about anything at all.
The idea behind blogs has been around for a very long time, better known as CMS (Content Management System) but these systems were very difficult for most folks to use and set up. They took a big learning curve and most didn’t want to go through this.
Blogs are chronological diaries; starting with the newest post of the day showing first. Many bloggers post at least once a day and some post multiple times a day. Each post usually has a “permalink” (a URL which always links to the post), but the blog itself has a constant URL, and the content of that URL is always changing.
Blogs are also a type of social interaction, with comments being left and a group of readers springing up around them. This can make marketing efforts far more personal and accessible to potential customers.
With blogs it is much easier and faster to get set up and going and anyone can do this.
Blogs can and are being used for many different things today. Teenagers are even getting in on this concept since it is so easy to set up and start using immediately.
Today marketers online have found that having a blog helps them with their promotions and building a following of loyal followers. Their income increases and they build respect within their market.
As a marketer should you have a blog? YES!!
If you are just starting out and building a list, I would highly recommend that you start out with a simple blog with an op-in form on it. You do not have to start out with a website and the hassles and costs of building a website.
Another good reason why a marketer should use a blog is for search engines. Search engines such as Google love blogs as they are updated frequently with good content. But don’t get carried away and update your blog all day long, Google will slap you for that. Making one post a day is enough to get your blog noticed and ranked by Google.
Bogs may also use a “TrackBack” system that allows the visitor to see who has written the original post and any other entry concerning it.
I would not recommend your blog be your main focus, unless you totally understand how they work and how to add plug ins and other resources into them. The use of blogs for online marketing is best used as a tool to bring in visitors and give them good quality content so they will return often and check out other posts and click on some of your links.
