Web Hosting

Whether your website is set up for business, to promote an organization, or for individual or personal use, one of the first steps to take is to have your site customized to fit the needs of your intended audience, customers, members, or fans, so that they can to buy from you, sign up with your organization, or learn more about your talent in a given area though a personal website.  Whether you do all this, or pay someone to do it for you, all of the above leads to the creation of different files and pieces of data that will eventually come to represent the makeup of your website.

Depending on the type of website you choose and in order to present your web location information on the World-Wide-Web your next step will be to find a source that will share your website information with the world.  That is what web hosting is; finding an Internet Service Provider (or ISP) that can host the website you have just built by storing all of the files and other necessary data associated with your website, while at the same time making your website available to your intended audience 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The collection of files and data that make up your site is also usually what determines the price you will pay for web hosting services. Individual web pages are usually offered for free and require little file, or data storage space. Organizational website requirements are a little more complicated due to records that need to be stored; things like membership, accounting and non-profit data (if applicable) for income in the form of a subscription, or donation needs to be recorded and along with any services you will provide (newsletter, regular updates or other unique information) for your website audience.

Business websites can be complicated because of sales records, inventory of incoming and outgoing stock item, record keeping, returns, coupons, keeping track of different methods of payment sources and more. Most business websites are not included in the Free Website range, and the ones that are will usually be severely limited in their business operation scope. However most of the above mentioned services do come already built into some website templates. Once you have decided on the type of website you, your business, or organization will need you’re ready to go ISP hunting, provided your ISP isn’t already part of your website package.

So how many different ISPs are there? As of December back in 2012 I had read about twenty different Internet Service Providers. More recently Askville, by Amazon, says there are anywhere from 3500 to 4000 ISPs in the United States.

As for which ISP is best for you, that will depend on how you answered the above (what kind of website do I want) question? Some ISPs offer themselves for free, even helping you get setup up for free and in no time your website is up and running on the Information Super Highway and headed for search engine land. But that’s another article just be aware that there are probably as many different search engines out there in cyber space as there ISPs. Staying on topic, some IPSs are free, free ISPs usually have advertisers as sponsors, meaning you have no choice but to put up with the advertisements shown on your free website.

Then there is what I call free, with a small fee; ISPs that charge a small subscription fee for virtually unlimited internet access. It’s been my experience that a free IPS for a business website usually means that your website access may not be limited, but your storage space is. Of course for a small fee you can have your storage space or other restriction expanded too. I have seen many different limiting factors that include everything from the lack of data storage space to the inability to place associate ads on your website, unless you’re willing to pay another small fee, or move on up to paying for a higher subscription level.

While it’s true that nothing much beats FREE, I think the paid ISP services are better if you’re taking a business website. Mainly because you have more control, and as I already implied, the size and type of website that you have is what usually dictates your true website expense. A lot of the ISPs I know of have even figured out a sweet spot between their newbie single page personal website user, and their blow the doors off full-fledged Fortune Five-Hundred website user. A sweet spot where small business can not only thrive but grow due to the non-restrictions and internet access offered, at what I would consider a good price, (less than one-hundred dollars a year) along with some pretty neat, and very much appreciated 24/7 Technical Support; which will come in handy if your website will require ASP.Net, Cold-fusion, PHP, or Java script.

Website hosting basically means you are leasing the necessary space on an ISP’s computer server to store your website data, and to connect your website to the internet. One of the big issues with ISPs is the protection of your website data transmission and keeping it secure with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) which means, over a span of time moving from one system (HTTP) to another (HTTPS) to better protect your data information, especially if your website deals with the maintaining of personal data such as membership and personal data.

I started with Yahoo as my ISP back in 2007 and had few complaints the thing I liked most about Yahoo was the technical service. Back then my job in science and engineering made my work, and awake-hours crazy so I never really knew at what hour of the day, night, or weekend, I might find myself in front of my computer screen piecing together my first website. It felt really good, and was also really helpful to be able to pick up the phone at any time to get the technical help I needed to understand and work with my ISP choice.

Since that time I have worked with many different ISPs and have amassed a knowledge of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, so-to-speak. Recently Yahoo has changed its name, at least where their ISP service is concerned, and became Aabaco; the change is still too new for me to give an accurate account of the new management changes, except to say there are some, so stay tuned!

Back on topic, try to have as many of your ducks in a row before you go ISP shopping, what I mean is know the kind of website you want, and the name, one of the shockers for me when creating my first website was that after working on, honing, and sharpening the name I wanted to call my web business I was rejected early in the process, several time, because the name I chose to use was no longer unique. Only about two million people before me had come up with the same idea for that domain name.

The computer of course tried to help by making several suggesting on how I might change the name by adding numbers before, or after it and eventually I did settle on one of the numbered versions, but it just wasn’t the same. I got over it and at the same time became a little wiser about domain name selection when setting up a website. Anyway it helps to have a couple alternative version of your intended website domain name, just in case.

Choosing the right residential or business ISP package will help with your near and long term plans for you website. Only you, or your webmaster, (the person that takes care of your website for you) will know if your needs will include an application development platform, or whether you’re okay for the long run with just a few pages for your website or will you need a little headroom to grow.  Some homework and hopefully this article should help. Or at the very least arm you with some questions for the ISP you choose. As with just about any other business venture, you pay for what you don’t know, one way or the other. The more you know and understand about website hosting the better your ISP choice.

The Internet in the U.S.

Trusted ISP

Responsive Website Design

Before I get started with today’s blog entry (about website responsive design) I wanted to take a moment to say that this blog was started by me to share some of the most basis information about starting, promoting, and maintaining a website, even though I am not a computer professional most of the information I share is from experience and articles I have read from computer professionals. If you are a computer programming professional though, this blog is not for you, but I can use your help.

If on the other hand you sometimes find yourself in quiet celebration for having mastered yet another feature of your Windows operating system, (known by the pros as the OS) and if you know, or understand very little HTML code, welcome to my world. Much of my online website experience comes from operating my own website for the past few years, which is only about $999,800.00 short of being a million dollar website.

But  I have to admit that some of the website tips, and lessons, I have passed on, and plan to pass on in the future have been very helpful to me, so by sharing perhaps some of the articles I have done, and plan to do on the subject of “making your own website” will prove helpful to you too. It would really be nice if you let me know when something does work for you, so don’t be afraid to leave a note or say hello, now on to today’s information about responsive website design.

RWD stands for Responsive Web Design which means basically that a website with responsive design can be view on several different platforms (laptop, desktop, cell phone, tablet) equally, or with just enough alteration to still give a visitor to your website the most complete view of your web-page content. So a responsive design simply allows your website content can be view comfortably on many different viewing devices.

A long time ago in the ancient days of website design, I’m talking at least seven or eight years ago, in computer years. The website design templates I had to choose from did not include responsiveness. You’re probably smiling if you’re a computer programmer because responsive website design was probably taught in Kindergarten-computer-programming. I don’t know that for sure of course, but what I do know is that the world of computer programming looks a whole lot different to a non-computer programmer, like me.

With the display screen devices available for me back then the only futuristic change I heard people talking about were the new laptop computers which by-the-way, at that point in time, was still in my future. Today computer display screens can be found on jewelry, mobile phones, tablets thought by some to one-day make laptops go extinct. In the future who knows there may even be clothing or hats that can also display a webpage the possibilities boggles my mind anyway. Anyway, back on topic, if responsive design is the key to making my webpage content look good on any device understanding something about responsive website design will be beneficial, in my opinion.

So if you don’t have a website yet, responsive website design is definitely something you want to put on your new website checklist. If you already have a website that is already up and running without responsive website design, you might want to consider an overhaul of your website, either self-administered (done by you) or done professionally by an experience website builder you heir for the job. Having your website content able to be accessed and viewed favorable on all the different internet viewing platforms available now, and in the future, is a challenge that will keep your website user friendly in the eyes of the search engines, and your customers/clients.

The time is fast approaching when web design and responsive web design merge into the same thing, a website with responsiveness built in, so that in the future the responsive design question will no longer be an issue. For those of you who use WordPress you probably already know about the responsive website templates WordPress has to offer. I’m sure there are other examples besides WordPress but my experience has been with the WordPress website and blog templates.

If you chose to build your website from the ground up, a while ago, and are seriously thinking about not converting your non-responsive website to the more mobile friendly version, another important reason to reconsider is that Google (often referred to by me as the major search engine) now counts website responsiveness as a positive elevation factor in its rakings process. In other words: responsive website design is bumped up a little higher in Google’s rankings, compared to a non-responsive website design, because now-days more than half of internet traffic is mobile phone traffic, and responsive website design helps make your website mobile friendly.

So at the end of the day, or in this case the end of this article, how many of the website viewing platforms out there does your website respond well to? In my case I can say---most, and that I am working on making the answer to the responsive design question; all of my websites have responsive design. Because not only do I want to rank well in search engine land, I also want my website to be view favorable on Large, Medium, Small, and Micro screens.

Deep Links

When it comes to a user’s experience on your website you want to make that interaction as non-challenging as possible. If a user is pointed directly to the product or service information on your website that they came there for you are more likely to sell that product or service, not to mention earn a smile from a customer, so let me take you directly to the point of this article.

The Deep Links, or Deep-linking, is the process of linking your website user directly to the item they are searching for on your site. If a link to your site takes a user to your homepage, and your homepage is not well organized or easy to follow, website visitor could be detoured to one of the gazillion other placed on the internet that offer the same item or service they came hoping to find on your website. A deep link takes the user past the homepage and directly to the item/service a shopper, or potential client, is looking for at that moment.

Example, here is the link to GK Home & Garden websites that, let’s say, I was attracted to this site for the microwave cooking set I saw in an ad for their website. The deep link would take me directly to the microwave cookware webpage on the GK Home & Garden website, by-passing the homepage. Not exploring deep links means you could be passing up a great way to enrich your website visitor’s search-experience on your site. Seems to me deep links can be a real time saver. If you’re like me, kind of just starting out and still learning about the care and feeding of your website you might want to file this deep link information away to be put to use later.

Even a little research, if this topic interests you, might help fill in any information I miss. I did learn that a links to specific product on your website, other than your homepage, are viewed positively by the major search engine. You can also make your deep link even more desirable by having good content associated with the item or service on the page your web-visitor lands on. The more descriptive and informative you can be about your product or service the better. A good product or service description should leave your web visitor thinking how can I buy, or signup? And not questions like, how big is it really, what does it weigh, or what other services are included?

So if you have products for sale then in addition to a picture of the item, and a price, the best description of that product you can come up with, including any experience you might have had with a particular product, is valuable.  The more descriptive you can be about whatever it is your website sells, or promotes, the better the chance of building trust with your customer and helping them make a decision at that moment based on what they read in your product, or service, description.

   

So again, what exactly is a deep link?

Answer: A way to identify a specific piece of content, product, service or functionality on your website to visitors that is intended to improve the experience for first-time and return visitors to your website. That way someone looking for square-blue-widgets is taken directly to the page on your website that shows and tells about---square-blue-widgets.

Deep links can be a useful marketing tool however a word of caution. One of the drawbacks to using deep links is that by bypassing the homepage to go directly to a search target valuable advertisement and other offers on the homepage could go unseen, or un-clicked on. (For those familiar with affiliates) The main idea is that some thought should be given to the use of deep links on your site. Meaning if there are things you really do want visitors to see on your homepage then some consideration should be given to how to route site visitors back to your homepage to view ads, or special offers, or care should be used when choosing which items you want to deep link to.

I would imagine that a website that is well setup and organized so that a visitor to your homepage is given the choice to explore your homepage or go directly to the item they are looking for would be the best case. In other words that would be the ideal website setup. The reality though, when it comes to your homepage setup, can be altogether different; so for those of you who already have a “website homepage” to worry about you might want to be aware of the above and make sure your homepage is easy to navigate when it comes to directing web searcher around your website.

If, however, you happen to be a seller of square-blue-widgets, or want people to go directly to the signup page for your service-orientated-website, deep Link it! Use the URL for the page, even better, use the URL of the item on that page and take your web-shopper straight to what your website has to offer.

Members only website

A membership website is a great way to create an online community that is attracted to your website content, or service. A good membership website offers content of value to its memberships that is interesting and valuable enough to keep them coming back for more. Membership websites can be setup to accept money on a long term basis (usually until your subscriber is ready to call it quits) or on a short term basis lasting one, two, or six months, you make that call.  A membership website also provides some open content to non-members so that perspective members can sample some of your product, or the information you offer before they join.

It helps to have a niche that you are passionate about to start a membership website but not all membership websites require a specific niche. What I mean is if, for example, your membership website is more of the project management type; where the members you are concerned about most are those associated with a project then that's a little different from what I am trying to share about a member's site. So just in case you’re thinking---Huh! “Niches? We don’t need any stinkin’ niches.” You are probably already aware of the fact that a niche ideas, to kickoff your members only website, is not always necessary, okay with that said!

  

If what you have to offer is your own unique method of discovery, for example: how you use a metal detector, operate a garage sale or if you excel at antique shopping and tips for finding hidden in plain site antique treasures. If you have handcrafting, cooking, crocheting, or gardening tips and secrets to share put your experiences to work and attract a group of internet visitors interested enough in what you have to offer to sign on and become a member of your site. You will of course find many other examples of membership websites but my point is, choosing to share a talent or information you already have, about a particular product or service, is all you really need.

The following are some membership website ideas that I have learned about, who knows you might find a Publisher type membership website. The Publisher version of membership website is usually on-going and in the form of a magazine, or newsletter, that provides ongoing useful information weekly, or monthly. Useful information for people interested in your particular niche or subject. If you have created an E-Book for your subject you can sell, or offer your e-book in parts, to members that sign up. In the case of e-books or other downloadable digital material you can setup a protected download feature to prevent unauthorized download of digital material available only to registered members.

There are Instructional or Educational Membership websites that distribute materials of interest to students, teacher, and other members in the teaching/learning field. Some of these membership websites include entire packages of information like course material offered and distributable to registered members after each stage of the lesson package is completed. The membership fee allows them to participate in an online training session to achieve certain preset goals before being allowed to progress on to the next level and eventually completion of the course. Membership websites in the educational category are usually intended for a membership to last until course material is complete, however, a good reference site and regularly updated material could increase not only the value of the information your membership site distributes; it could also result in extended memberships and member referrals to your website.

Another form of membership website is a Coaching Website, where coaching information is shared with those who sign up for your insight, coaching inspiration, and expertise: be it physical exercise, sales, sports, real estate, or treasure hunting; if you enjoy coaching make your membership website all about your passion to attract and inspire clients.  Health and wellbeing, midwife, pet training and animal care are just a few of the niches with the potential to attract like-minded people looking for a little coaching inspiration to help accomplish their goal. Here too you can offer different membership plans such as a one month membership, two month, or six month memberships for anyone shy of a long term commitment.

There are of course more types of membership business models than listed here. Membership website examples are often limited only by the imagination. If you’re thinking about having your own website capable of generating both income and the personal satisfaction that comes with sharing your valuable insight and experience with those looking for exactly what your membership website offers you could be on the right track. Membership websites have an extra added bit of attractiveness too: a membership website has the potential of not only generating online income but recurring income; cash for your business on a predetermined regular basis; money that can allow you to build some stability into your online business.

The potential to grow and expand your business and income, on a regular basis, are just a couple of the reasons I like the idea of a membership website. If this type website holds any interest for you, whatever your niche, physical fitness, holistic diet and cleansing, or sharing your daily stock market picks, it shouldn’t take much exploration to determine if a membership website will work for you.

Monetization

How to make money with your Website!

If you have a non-business website that is set up mainly to promote “you,” your skill set, or an organization, or if you have been attracted to one of the many free websites available in cyber-space the word monetization may not be relevant for your website, especially since most free websites that I have found draw their monetization line right where their paid services begin. If on the other hand the only reason for you being interested in a website is to generate some income from your website, and make some money, the word monetization will surely come up someday. 

Monetization (to monetizing your website or blog) simply means offering an online service or product that visitors to your website will pay for.  When I setup my Gifts website years ago, the only monetization I was aware of was the money from the items my website sold online.  Being a novice then my sales started off slow and over the years began to pick up as I began to learn more and more about operating a website. Along the way the word monetization kept popping up in articles I would read, and videotaped tutorials that I watched.

I soon realized that the people sending out this word “monetization” were opening my eyes to the many other ways my website could be generating income, in addition to the products I had for sale, and to be honest some of the income streams ideas, the force was sending my way, I had not considered before. So with my interest in exploring other ways of generating income to my website on alert. I did some research and over time learned that there were several other income sources available to my niche that I was missing out on. Not all of these other income sources I found were a fit but I latched on to and decided to develop the ones that were. 

So if you’ve heard the word monetization and wondered exactly what that word meant, with regard to your website, here are a few pros and cons about monetizing your web presents to boost your website income.

The first, and in my opinion the best, way to monetize your website was exactly how I got started, having a product (preferably your own) to offer for sale. Your own brand of whatever it is you create, be it your own product, service or CD, DVD, instruction, recipes, or book (especially an E-Book) is one of the best ways to generate income, and standout in the cyberspace universe.  Second to your very own unique creation to market is manufactured products from wholesalers, or service providers which, in the hand of a good salesperson, (you) can be just as profitable for your website. In my opinion if you have a website you need to be into sales.

The second way of generating income or monetizing your website is sponsorship. Seeking the support of sponsors in your chosen niche, for example: let’s say you operated a boating website, approaching a fishing store, or boating repair shop to see if they would pay to have their business mentioned, or featured on your website, or in one of your store videos. If the price is right and you can show some solid results most businesses will send some of their advertisement-budget-dollars to you for that kind of advertisement. I would recommend this method of monetization for those with a little sales experience. Mainly because you will be selling yourself and your business, when you make personal contact, and it helps to be as business like as you can when approaching another business.

In addition to having a good website, one that will attract enough traffic to impress a prospective client, you should also have your analytics (analytical data) in order. What I mean by this is you should be able to also present some analytical data such as, how many people visit your site in a day, along with some geographical information that will help a prospective sponsor understand how many new customers they might be able to add by partnering with you.

Affiliate marketing is my third suggestion. The way Affiliate marketing works is you sign up with an Affiliate, a company that offers you the opportunity to place their advertisement code on your website; and who is willing to pay you a commission for each item sold as a result of their ad being seen on your website. There are, what I think of as, Affiliate Clearing Houses setup like: Link Share, and Commission Junction to name just a couple, that handle hundreds of affiliates and allow you to select from a large number of businesses looking for website owners to show their advertisements.

The problem I found with most affiliate programs is that they are usually confusing and heavily weighted in favor of the affiliate. Most offer something call cookies, associated with their ad code, you place on your website. The cookies have a shelf life, in most cases they expire in 30 days, after that time expires if the ad remains on your website you will not be paid from that moment on and the affiliate gets free advertisement on your website unless their ad is removed. I know the solution seems simply, when the cookie expires, paste another 30 day cookie-filled-ad on your site, but trying to keep track can time consuming since in order for you to make any money a sale from the affiliate ad on your site, must take place within the 30 period. This period varies so be sure to read the cookie part of the contract.

Where most independent affiliates (for want of a better word) or the Affiliate companies you approach on your own will usually pay you in CPC (cost per click) or every time someone click on that affiliate ad you are paid a few cents per click. There is also something called CPM, (click per1000) meaning that you get paid one agreed upon amount  for every 1000-clicks on a particular affiliate ad; usually available from independent affiliates you can find. Commission Junction and Link Share did not offer the same opportunity. With the affiliate program if you don’t read the contract carefully you could end up making little to no money and in the long run providing tons of free advertisement to the affiliate, or as I like to put it, you could end up with negative monetization.

The fourth way to monetize your website is the best (easiest) I’ve found so far. Google AdSense is a program where you allow advertiser to put their advertisement on your website and you get paid CPC style. Every time a visitor to your website clicks on your Google AdSense ad you are paid a few pennies per click. The amount you are paid depends on the Google algorithm that determines then calculates how much you are paid; as far as I can see, you get paid based on the relevance and popularity of your subject matter to your niche. Let’s say your site niche is flowers, you have no control over the type of ads Google will place on your site though AdSense. About the only thing you do know is that your AdSense ad will in some way be related to flowers.

That was only an example of course,  the point I’m trying to make is unlike the affiliate program, were  choose the kind of ads you want to put on your website, be they related to your niche or not,  Google AdSense makes that decision for you. In this case the pay could be unremarkable for a very low traffic website and Google AdSense makes you to clear a $100.00 dollar hurdle meaning  your AdSense account much reach at least $100.00 bucks (the spendable kind) before you get paid. I used Google AdSense so let me say that pennies can add up and oft-time is better than the flow of zero into your business account. Keep in mind here too that I am talking only about supplemental form of income for your website, not a main sources of income.

Monetization method number five is paid memberships. The paid membership approach is where you provide a product(s) or service customers are willing to pay you for on a regular basses. A subscription, to timely and useful information with a system setup that can bill a customer each month for as long as they wish to continue your service or product, while offering enough free stuff to entice and maintain regular subscribers.  I plan to write more about the paid membership method in the near future so if this topic interest you, be sure to stay tuned. All of the above are ways you can monetize your website or blog and hopefully, depending on your niche, turn your website into a money maker that will sustain not only your website operation but you in general.

A sixth and final method of monetizing your website is to simply offer other businesses the opportunity to advertise on your website. Here, however, just like mentioned in the sponsorship monetization method stats and analytic data will be useful. Prospective advertisers on your website will want to know who and just how many new clients their paying for ad space on your website will bring to them, and even though you might not have an answer to that question without your own algorithm you should at least be able to share favorable stats and analytics that will help you seal the deal, honesty is the key.

How much to charge for your advertisement service is something you will need to work out. I simply took a look at what it was costing me to operate my website and tried to figure out an advertisement fee that made it so, if I didn’t make any money, I didn’t really lose any either. In business you can only walk that line for so long though. Monetization is a step you can take along the way when it comes to establishing and operating a successful website.