5 Different Types of People Who Will Benefit From a Website

It's easier than ever to put up your own website. But who should be interested?

If by chance you are a:

-Owner of an existing business,
-You are planning to start a business,
-Work for someone else,
-Are a hobbyist,
-Or are opinionated about any subject

If any of these are true, you should strongly consider starting your own website.

Owners of a business: more people are coming online all the time, and therefore you are leaving money on the table if you are not online too.

You are setting up a business: do it correctly and include a website as part of your overall strategy right from the beginning.

You work for someone else. As an employee, you should be aware of the two different kinds of websites that might be helpful to you.

First, as an employee you should start a personal site in which you demonstrate your expertise. It doesn't matter what field: accounting, plumbing, remodeling; almost any field would work. A blog is perfect for this kind of site. When you go looking for another job in the future, you can point to your site as proof that you know your stuff.

Second, if you are employed by a medium to large size company, you can start a site dealing with some aspect of the company. One possibility would be to chronicle the history of the corporation. Work on it in your spare time (not "on the clock") and eventually let your superior know about your project. This will position you as a knowledgeable employee and set you apart from everyone else.

Hobbyists: if you are passionate about your hobby, start a site to tell the world about it. Thousands, probably millions, have done the same; why shouldn't you?

Social commentator: if you feel strongly for or against some topic, a website can help spread the word far and wide.

If you are in search of articles, tools and help for online marketing, or are in search of a Spokane Web Design firm, visit Web Sales Machine today for your free marketing checkup today and profit tomorrow!

Website Maintenance - 7 Tips For Maintaining and Updating Your Website

Maintenance is essential whether it applies to your car, your garden or your website. A successful website requires ongoing maintenance so it can attract, educate and expand its client base and generate revenue for your business. This means a website is never completely finished. It is a work in progress just like keeping your garden weed free and producing food for your dinner table.

Simply having a website is not enough. If you expect consumers to find your web site... and consistently return to your website, you must provide them with new and useful content to keep them engaged. You can accomplish this by providing useful tips and information about topics related to your business on your website. Write articles or manage a blog that focuses on topics you know a lot about that also relate to your business.

In today's world it is the norm that a prospective customer visits your website before contacting you. In many cases they will already have a good idea about your company, products, services and how it will serve their needs before you directly speak to them. It's imperative that you provide them with useful content that will help guide them to doing business with you. Ensure your website content is up-to-date and relevant by regularly maintaining your website.

Seven important benefits of website maintenance are:

• Ensures your website is up to date
• Keeps your customers updated with the latest information about your company
• Makes search engine spiders happy and increases your chances for higher search engine rankings
• Enhances your marketing and promotional actions
• Provides information about who's linking to your site
• Improves your company's brand image and aids in expansion
• Helps to solve and monitor possible operational problems and avoids potential catastrophes with clients

Seven useful tips for maintaining and keeping your website updated:
1. The main goal for maintaining your website is to keep your visitors coming back and attracting new consumers. If your site is not updated regularly, visitors will not bother to return. They need the latest and new information or resources to return back and find you. Hence, it is essential that you have fresh new content added regularly to your website.

2. Keeping track of your visitors' activity on your website is essential. Website traffic analysis and statistics will help you plan more systematically for future business offerings and online activities. Try and use these statistics to your advantage and improve the features and pages where consumers visit the most.

3. Create a forum which allows your visitors to interact with each other and meet new people. This is a great way to increase the popularity of your website.

4. Create an e-newsletter which should contain articles, tips and tricks. This allows you to tell your visitors what's new on your website, inform them about special deals, and any promotional, educational or newsworthy events.

5. Incoming links are very important for ranking higher in the search engine marketing game; therefore, try to build strong incoming links. Keep track of all these incoming links and check back on these links regularly to make sure they still have your link on their webpage especially if you have agreed to participate in a reciprocal link exchange program where you are linking back to their website. The Internet is constantly evolving; if you have outgoing links on your website to other sites and they no longer work, search engines will penalize you for broken links.

6. Provide a form where all web users have the opportunity to provide feedback and suggestions for your site. Accept any feedback you have received seriously and reply as soon as possible. Feedback given to you by your visitors will help you provide more targeted content and provide you with better ideas for improving your website.

7. In addition to your website content, the design of your website is very important. The most critical thing to keep in mind is to keep it simple, easy to use but appealing. Research other popular sites and high ranking competitor web sites for content and design ideas.

It's never a good idea to build your website and believe it's a finished product once you've decided to go live on the internet. Just having a website is not enough as the Internet is constantly evolving with new ideas and technology. So should your web site evolve to capture new traffic and provide a compelling reason for consumers to return to and patronize your business. Whether you take the time to regularly update and maintain your website yourself or seek the services of a professional web development company to do it for you, remember it's a vital part of being successful on the Internet. Best of luck!

Steve Kozyk

CEO/Founder ITegrity

SEO Web Development & Custom Web Site Design Company

http://www.itegritygroup.com

Modern Computer Networking and Its Importance For Business

Computer networking is the connecting of two or more computers that allows them to share resources. It can be done between computers in a home, in a business, across a corporation, and even internationally. It can equally be defined as a method of connecting two or more computer systems together including printers and other devices.

The benefits of networking are considerable, even on a network of only three systems. In computer networking there was never a truer statement than that this is a case of advantages experienced being far greater than the sum of the parts. PC networking is, as a consequence, a rapidly evolving discipline with many exciting opportunities. Challenges that arise in networking and particularly in the Internet tend to be truly global and have the potential to impact upon millions of users.

One huge and growing impact is Internet shopping. Shopping online has grown over the last 10 years to become a huge market, and if a sales business does not today incorporate this technology use they will fall behind their competitors.

But computer networking is also producing much more subtle uses within our societies. For example, Internet technologies can be deployed to favorably condition empathic response in those who have offended against community norms out of a lack of appreciation for the effects that their criminal behavior has on other people. In other words Internet linked devices can track home prisoners to maintain their behavior, in ways that 20 years ago had not even entered the heads of science-fiction writers, to the benefit of society as a whole.

Wireless Internet technology, is the development, also known as WiFi, which is really taking over the way people access the Internet and it has become widely popular in a very short space of time. One reason for this is it allows individuals to access the Internet via a network hot spots, while traveling without the use of cables or wires. In short it releases us from the tyranny of wires and plugs!

Wireless networks are now widely used including Internet-enabled mobile phones with cellular phone networks and, within buildings, wireless networks such as Bluetooth. These are in addition to the site networks used by academic institutions and large businesses. Wireless routers must be configured immediately for security right after you set up your network. It is important to emphasis that wireless can easily also mean insecure unless users are careful to set systems up correctly.

So, do this right away, as soon as you have got the device running. You need to set a new password for the router and limit access to only those computers on your wireless network.

Informally defined computer networking is the foundation of the Internet. The Internet itself is easier to understand when defined as the set of users, enterprises,and content providers that are interconnected by Internet Service Providers (ISP).

From an engineering standpoint, and please forgive me for being rather techie here; the Internet is the set of subnets, and aggregates of subnets, which share the registered IP address space and exchange information about the reachability of those IP addresses using the Border Gateway Protocol . Computer networks may also be classified according to the network layer at which they operate according to some basic reference models that are considered to be standards in the industry such as the seven layer OSI reference model and the five layer TCP/IP model.

Companies that use their own computer networks must administer complex systems which, once deployed, become vital tools for the continued efficiency of their operations. They employ administrators who focus primarily on the day-to-day operation of networks, while network engineers deal primarily with system upgrades, security testing, and so on.

Given the highly technological nature of computer networks you would have thought that just maintaining and developing these would be hard enough. However, companies also routinely face ongoing challenges with the fight against damaging software, such as malware such as worms, viruses, and spyware.

Computer networking has enabled people to work on the move, and take work home much more efficiently than has ever been possible before. Today's mobile workforce attach numerous devices to the corporate network that are hard to control from a security policy perspective. It is a common strand that companies that maximize the use of and benefits from the capacities and capabilities of their networks are able to gather, analyze, and disseminate critical marketing information quickly, which can give them an advantage over their competitors.

However, data loss and system downtime can bring any business to it's knees, so in this area to use the strictly cheapest systems and labor, may be a false economy of the first order. There are many highly trained staff who participate in Microsoft's certified computer networking courses and qualification. These specialists are more than able to protect your business network day and night. They deliver network support services which include data security, data backup and disaster recovery plans.

Steve Evans writes about computer and social networking at his popular blog "Fast Track Networking". To continue to his blog click the linked text which follows for Computer Networking.

About SaaS Pricing Models

In many industries the pricing models are as old as the industries itself, and the rules of the game were set a long time go and are well known by everyone. This is not the case of SaaS. Being a young software delivery model, the key factors of a good pricing strategy are not that clear.
It seems, just by taking a look at the pricing models of many SaaS offerings, that traditional licensing model of the on-premise software is not the best idea for OnDemand software.

Also, the traditional services (like consulting) model "I charge for the time you are using my resources (professionals) and their value (junior, senior, etc...)" doesn't seem to be the best way to approach the SaaS pricing problem (probably fits better when talking about cloud computing). We are not talking about traditional services, we are talking about pricing a subscription business.
In SaaS, the change from offering "products" to "services", from "acquire" to "subscribe" implies the need of defining the best way for charging for the solution offered.
So, any SaaS provider faces the problem of fixing the right price to its solution / services. There are many alternatives and factors that should be considered when dealing with this.

Most of the proposals out there use some (or all) of this ideas:
- Pay periodically: This means charging the customers on a regular basis (usually monthly).
- Pay for each user: Very widely used, from Salesforce to that new SaaS start-up that two college students just started.
- Pay for the resources: This usually means computing resources: CPU/hour, GB, Bandwith, etc... it is used very often in IaaS or PaaS.
- Pay for the features: So the customers pays just for the features in our solution they really need. Maybe new functionality or maybe simple using 'more' of the tool (for example more applications in a PaaS offering).
Each of this 'ideas' have its own pros and cons. For example, 'paying for each user' has the problem of generating fear in the customer about adopting the solutions widely, or 'pay for the resources' has the problem of the customers not knowing what they will pay the next month...
In one word, usually SaaS pricing models are more flexible than in the traditional license-based on-premise software, and mean less risk and a wiser spending. This can, though, lead to a problem of complexity that should be taken care of.
First, let's take a look about something one should always keep in mind, the goals that any pricing strategy for SaaS should pursue in order to sustain a profitable business model.
- Make it interesting for a new customer to start using the product. Having a free version, a trial version, or simply a 'pay-as-you-go' strategy starting low, usually solves this.
- Make the costs for the customer predictable. Everyone likes to know what to expect when talking about paying... some SaaS offering have this problem (specially those that have cost based pricing models). One should let the customer know, and decide what they want to spend. Though we should keep in mind the next goal.
- Try to increase the customer share once the customer is using the tool. This can be achieved in many different ways, most of them related to the 'pay-as-you-go' model (features, users, resources, etc...). The customer should feel that spending more really means extracting more value from the tool.
- Don't make the pricing model too complex. This is a problem very often found in SaaS offerings, and that can make the adoption of the tool by the market slower and harder. Let's keep in mind that many companies are not used to SaaS yet.
- Make sure that the customer does not abuse in the use of the solution. This can happen quite easily in solutions where lots of data are involved, like those that use video, business intelligence tools, etc... the provider should be protected against this.

So, how would this goals and the main ideas explained in the first post be applied when defining a SaaS pricing strategy?
Let's take a look at a real world example: coghead

Coghead is a very good, and quite veteran PaaS offering that distinguishes itself by giving the chance of developing an application on their platform mostly by visual "drag and drop" operations. They are well funded and should be considered as a strong competitor to companies like Intuit with quickbase or Salesforce's force platform.

So, let's analyze their pricing model without talking about money, we are interested in the model:
- They charge basicaly on three different concepts: users, records and file storage.
- They offer a free account with: 1 user, 2000 rows and 100MB of space.
- From there you have two options to scale: the workgroup bundles (with discounts) or the 'pay-as-you-go' more flexible depending on your needs.
- There are four different workgroup bundles: plus, pro, premium, business, each one with a fixed price for a certain number of users/records/space. Of course a bundle is cheaper than having the same amount of usage via 'pay-as-you-go'.
- The 'pay-as-you-go' model basically charges you for each user/10000 rows/1 GB you use.
You can take a deeper look at Coghead's pricing model here.
Let's talk now about how does this pricing model relates to the "model ideas" and goals we talked about:
- They, obviously have a periodic (monthly) payment. Something that makes perfect sense for a PaaS offering.
- They charge both for the users and for the resources used. This is very often used in PaaS offering, that can be very easily overused. Charging for number of rows or space is a way for Coghead to make sure nobody abuses the platform.
- They have some feature pricing also: Limited users and acces point for applications that wish to be public.
- They have both 'pay-as-you-go' and a 'package' alternatives.
So, they seem to use all of the ideas we talk about, this, of course brings a problem of complexity but gives the users a lot of flexibility.
And now the final question, does this pricing models achieve the goals we wrote about in this post?
- It is certainly atractive for a new customer/developer to start knowing/using the platform via the free basic account.
- About making the costs for the customer predictable: They offer this through their bundled-workgroup choices. You know what you pay for. This is not true in the 'pay-as-you-go' option, which is also more expensive, so their pricing model tends to bring customers to the 'workgroup'choices.
- Increase the customer share: This true for the 'pay-as-you-go' , but not so true for the 'workgroup' option, where de customer could hesitate before buying the next and more expensive bundle.
- Don't make the pricing too complex: We really think Coghead fails at this one, their pricing model is quite complex for the average user. We didn't even talked here about their partner offerings or the concepts behing the different kind of users. We asume that, for a PaaS offering whose customers are both business and technically skilled, complexity is not such a big problem.
- Avoid customer abuse: This is quite covered there is no easy way that a customer could make a very extensive use of the platform without paying for it. Maybe they could have a problem with bandwidth, something they don't charge for (they actually have limits at least for public/web users of an app).

We consider that the usual behaviour of a customer would be to:
1. Try the free account.
2. Go for the first bundle.
3. Then the second, third, and finally the 'business' option.
4. If the customer has further needs they wouldn't have any option but going for the quite unpredictable 'pay-as-you-go' model.
So, in the end, increasing the complexity of their pricing model by using most of the usuall ideas in SaaS pricing, (they made some changes recently) Coghead has been able to cover most of the goals. We think they have an strong pricing model (complexity is not such a big trouble for this kind of PaaS tool) that supporting their excelent flex-based tool, should help them in becoming a big player in the PaaS area.

TodoOndemand is a blog about SaaS, Cloud computing and OnDemand software. We focus on how the new SaaS software delivery models are changing the way we think about enterprise software.

Key Features of the Best Website Building Programs

The recently released version 2 of a very user-friendly website builder saw the unleashing of a myriad of powerful features designed by its developers. When looking for the right website building program for your purpose, it is important to understand that there are many features to look for beyond those designed to help users create a website. There is a host of new technical features which may not be immediately obvious to most users, but which are working in the background to make sure that your experience is streamlined.

The most successful examples of these features are characterized by their ease of use and very small learning curve.

The developers of the most up to date software have included in their design many of the techniques employed by the popular word processors.

Just Like a Word Processor

By far the most helpful of these features is the What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) method of web page design, a feature that ensures that what you see while you're designing your website is exactly what your visitors will see when they access your web page.

Safeguarding Your Work

Even with a program as streamlined and easy to use as this, building a website requires a sizable investment of time. The best website building program allows you to create in around 60 minutes what other website building programs take 4 hours to build. But that hour is an investment that you don't want to lose.

So, with that in mind, the developers of this new software created Backup and Restore features. The majority of Backup and Restore tools require a great deal of disk space. The reason for this is that in order to be sure that all of your work is saved, all of the files must be duplicated and kept.

Professional site-builders understand the importance of utilizing a cutting edge single-file backup procedure that not only saves every part of your website, and one that also saves that information on a much smaller amount of hard drive space. The better site building packages are including this feature as standard.

A built in reminder feature will also help you ensure your backups are kept completely up to date.

Other Handy Tools

Along with the features outlined above, the best website building package also comes equipped with powerful Global Settings. By using these features you can set up the software to work exactly the way that you want it to.

These settings include:

*Page Title Settings

*File Naming Settings

*Home Page Settings

*Folder Settings

*Spell Checker Settings

*Page Analysis Settings

*Scheduler Settings

So make sure the website building software package you choose is so feature-packed and user friendly. You owe it to yourself to take a very close look at before you decide on the program that is right for building your first, or next, website.

You've heard all the hype, now its time to get the facts on just why XSitePro's features are setting the standard for website building software.

Make a Website the Smart Way

In comparison to publishing on physical media, developing and then deploying a website will require very little by way of specialized skills and tools. While mass marketing of publications on physical media needs a major investment of money and time, publishing for a global audience over the Internet will require virtually no money and almost no time. Thus, website design and publication has given almost everybody with internet access their very own personal printing press.

The process of developing a website intended for publication is called 'web design'. In order to make a website, it's a good idea first to have in mind a clear subject for the site. If the site will be providing a service to you or to others, then it's wise also to bear in mind a clear concept of the functionality you would want the site to give. For instance, a subject for a website could be 'my trip to Hawaii'. A function for your site might be providing a journaling service so that you may keep your diary online.

There are many topics that you can create, the topics are virtually limitless when it comes to imagination. A website can provide virtually any information that is needed to spread out to the entire world. A website is a great form of inexpensive information that is service to all people who have access to the internet. Thanks to better programming tools, website features and functions are offering better flexibility and speed. Some functions are still not accessible to the average user when it comes to a personal website.

You should, therefore, pay particular attention to your site content and layout. You can add interactive functionality later if you want it and can incorporate it into your site. Make a website using carefully chosen content which you have collected into a single folder.

After the content has been collected, it is time to consider layout. The layout for a web site is very similar to any other document designed to be viewed by a large audience. To make a website, the layout should be well organized and logical, with all content easily accessible through a simple menu system, such as a list of links with headings.

Lastly, you will need web site design software tools to help you to translate your content folder and layout idea into a true website. A great place to begin is by using free software tools along with the website publication instructions most likely offered by your ISP. As an alternative, just look for phrases like 'how to make a website'.

In order to make a website, it's a good idea first to have in mind a clear subject for the site. If the site will be providing a service to you or to others, then it's wise also to bear in mind a clear concept of the functionality you would want the site to provide. For instance, a subject for a website could be 'my trip to Hawaii'. A function for your site might be providing a journaling service so that you may keep your diary online. When creating a website, the spectrum of possibility for content is virtually limitless, and only limited by imagination.

What is the Best Web Site Software? Find the Perfect Solution For Your Website Building

People who are eager to get a website up and running, often overlook web site software and subsequently experience a long wait for their finished products. Usually they have employed a web design firm, some of whom can take weeks to deliver you the final web design - unacceptable. In the fast-growing Internet market, there is a rush to get onboard and acquire a foothold in one of the many niche marketing areas that are available. Delays could potentially cost you some great and valuable opportunities.

Traditionally website design and web site building were done only by those who were proficient in programming, usually requiring professional training where programmers were taught all of the pertinent language and skills. For the uneducated in this area, the designing and web site building processes seemed overwhelming. This is still true for those who wish to do it all the hard way.

But now there is a new way for creating a website, and you can do it yourself. With the web site software that is currently available, the website of your dreams is just days away. It does not matter whether or not you know programming. You do not have to know how to program at all. You can be a total website development novice and still take advantage of all the software can offer you. If you can download a program, with a simple click or two you are well on your way to getting your newly created web site up and running. No design firms, no mile-long bills and no indefinite completion date.

When you choose to use a user-friendly web site building software package to create your unique website, you will be pleased with knowing that you are the engineer and the creativity is limited only by your own mind. The software is there simply to guide you through the entire creative process, and then act as your administrative assistant and tie it all up in a perfect package.

There will be a selection of web site design templates that are all made available to you for your use. Many of these same template formats will resemble other professionally designed sites you have visited in terms of their quality. You will also be led through a process in which you will choose the colors that will be used on your website. You can choose headers and arrange the sections on the page in the order that you wish. Content will also need to be added, and you can fill in the text yourself, whether through typing or cut and paste techniques. Your web site software is fully capable of integrating your pictures or photo illustrations into your site design, and you are in charge of designing how the product will look.

You can make your own website, and have your final product completed in just a few days with a little effort on your part. No one will be able to tell that you didn't have professional website designers do it for you. Why not be the genius at the wheel and master your own website for cheap?

One of the greatest benefits of using web site software is the money that is saved. Once you have this web site design program, you can use it again and again for as many websites as you need, and this is an advantage and bonus that everyone can recognize. It will literally pay for itself over and over again.

Interested in learning more about the best web site software you can get? Check out http://www.Gignoskein.com for more.

The Difference Between Web Design and Web Development

When you think about the difference between web design and web development you can compare it to the difference between architecture and construction. One deals with the appearance inclusive of the layout, colors, interaction between links etc related to a website or application while the other deals with the implementation or the "how" part of the process. This includes method of implementation and programming of the website or software.

When designing a website the designer must be very imaginative and creative. In addition it is necessary that the designer contact the client and fully understand what is required; the priorities and requirements. This will enable the designer to create a suitable design for the requirements. Colors also needs to be taken into careful consideration and also the appearance as it relates to the client's marketing needs and wishes they may have..

Consider web designing for the Coca Cola Company as an example. The designer would need to consider the color and as we all know the most dominant color of Coca Cola is red. So it would not be wise for the designer to hint at the company to put another color as the more dominant one when designing their web site. Also the company's lively and young image suggests a design that will closely match a youthful and vibrant look. This can be accomplished by adding videos, texts that has stars coming out from them and any additional graphic that will create a spark in a younger crowd.

Web development on the other hand involves implementing the design from the website design model.

The developers may need to perform a feasibility study with the designers in the initial phases of the website development. Sometimes the expectation of the designers is very high and often exceeds the limits of the technology available to the developers. Thus the developers may need to find the best way they can develop the website without interfering too much with the look and feel of the product.

As with our Coca Cola example; once the company accepts the design presented to them the designers will then present the model to the developers. The developers in turn will analyze the model and decide what is possible and what needs to be reconsidered or altered. Then an actual technical solution that best suits the design will be implemented. It is not necessary that the developers know why certain colors are preferred; they just need to follow the design specifications. However, the developer may call a meeting with the company and the designers to inform them about anything that is beyond the scope of their technology and decide on a more suitable way of developing their website.

To ensure quality work which is expected by all clients it is essential for web designers and web developers to work together. It is important to note though that both of them have different parts to play in the overall development of the website; one is focused on the appearance and the other on the foundation just like architect with its constructors.

Unique Content Management Software and Sales Manager Solutions.

Google Says Internet is a Cesspool, Why Would it Not Be?

Internet is a cesspool, quite so, there are many who are working hard to produce something worthwhile, and many who are simply trying to create valid and permanent links to increase visibility of their websites and also get them a good search engine ranking.

It is surprising, why internet would be converted into a cesspool, here quality is of utmost importance, plagiarism is booed on and there are check points for what your website actually contains. The reason for cesspool is a rampant advertising that is required for a website to make it to the top.

Creating permanent links is important because paid links are expensive. Google and Yahoo both run paid links which are exorbitantly expensive for those whose home currency is a dollar and also for those whose currency is not a dollar. Though PPC campaigns are fairly valued asking for links more than a thousand per day can actually empty a person's pocket.

This race to create permanent links through blogs and article directories would have lessened if the PPC campaigns were not so exorbitantly valued. Cheaper PPC campaigns would mean people using this means for finding website exposure rather than writing the same thing again and again and submitting it to hundreds of article directories on the Internet only to create links.

The above would have helped considerably in reducing the cesspool on the Internet. All those who can write for themselves are able to maintain some quality check, hiring a writer however, means they have to rely on the information provided by the writer rather than their own. If people who are hiring other writers had any other affordable means to reach their audience, the cesspool on the Internet would have decreased considerably.

Blogging forums do provide a way for the people who find writing difficult to reach online community, however, blogging is an art, quite difficult to master. Catching on your audience's vein and using this information to become their favorite has been the virtue of quite a few quality bloggers.

There are a valuable few who are trying to reach their audience by providing them the latest information and developments in the related area. Not everyone has the creativity therefore, it is obvious that there will be thousands of pages of information which is not needed, on the other hand there will he a paltry hundred pages of information which is most required.

All of us are equally guilty of adding stuff to the cesspool. However, if out of 100 articles one article is useful to the readers I would take it as my day has been made.

Website Development Search Engine Optimization, Keyword Tools, Internet Advertising, Web Content

Moving Pages on Your Server? - For SEO Use a 301 Redirect and .htaccess

Are you doing a major website redesign and moving some of your web pages around? A quick SEO (search engine optimization) tip you can use is to use a 301 redirect with htaccess to keep your page rank for that page. This kind of redirect will also make sure that the major search engines can still find your previously indexed content. Doing this will also ensure that the search engines can still find the pages with that have moved and should pass along your existing page rank.

Here is a good example of when I was ran up against this very problem. Recently I changed the location of some of the files on my website. I moved some of them into the old portfolio directory they were in to new and different location. Here is how I kept the search engines informed about this change.

Use you favorite text editor to create a file named .htaccess in the directory that contains your web pages. I use a program called pico on my server to do this, but any text editor should do the trick. If the .htaccess already exists then open it up and add this text to the bottom of the file:

redirect 301 /old-page.html http://www.yourserver.com/new-directory/new-file.html

Make sure to substitute your file names for "old-page.html" and "new-file.html", and edit your server name from "www.yourserver.com".

Depending on how often the search engines crawl your site your links should be updated to the the new location within a few days to a few weeks.

Daniel Catts is a web designer and web developer at http://www.dancatts.com

Strategies to Make Your Blog Web Site More Valuable

One of the main ways to increase sales is to put offers in various places that are normally overlooked by Internet marketers. One such place is the error page. Another is the thank you page or the order entry form. There are different ways to market people when they finally land on your site, but you want to add offers wherever you think they might be visible to people, so even the error page can be a good place to add an offer.

When your buyers see the trouble you've gone to in order to customize the site to add offers in places that can generate unexpected sales, they will be delighted and impressed. So, let's go through some of the details here.

An error page is the page people get when they type in a URL in your domain that doesn't exist. This can either be due to a misspelling or because you took the page down and people had the old page bookmarked. To add offers to the error page, also known as the 404 error page, you can use a plug-in too.

Download the 404 Error page plug-in available at askapache.com/404-google-WordPress-plugin.html and FTP it up to your site. You will want to put it into the same plugins folder you put the other plug-ins into before. Then, activate it the same way by getting it to turn green.

While you are in the admin area of your site, you will want to look for the option panel and select that. There will be a submenu entitled "AA Google 404."

You will want to insert the Google Search API key there. Hit the update button. Then go back to the main admin area and look up the Presentation > Theme Editor area. There should be a link there that will allow you to edit the 404 error page. Create a template for how you want the error page to look and add the code that tells it to add some offers.

Another thing that buyers like to see are site stats. You can offer these directly on the web site by installing the Cystats plugin. It is located at WordPress.org/extend/plugins/cystats. This nifty plug-in lets visitors to your site see the number of referring pages, most read categories, and even most read comments, and a whole lot more. It is a great way to prove that your site has readership and a high interest level.

By the way...do you want to learn exactly how to create a high income online business by meeting the needs of people in your niche through coaching, consulting, and teaching online classes?

Download my new recording: "How to Sell High Ticket Products Online" here: High Ticket Selling

Or...do you want to learn how to increase your online income by adding coaching, consulting, and online classes to your existing practice or business? Find out how here: Internet Marketing Coaching

Make Money With Website Customization Services

After you sell a web site, there are still other ways to make some extra income off the site. If you are particular crafty with web site programming, graphics design, or even freelance content writing, you can offer some of these services as "customization services."

Most of the time people want a turn-key web site they can start to make money from right away, but they also need to continuously update it and market it to make money. If they don't necessarily have the experience, they may turn to someone to put up their own logos, graphics, get new content up, or change the layout and design of the web site. They may want to add an eBay or CafePress store. There are endless ways that they can improve on an already made site, but they may not want to bother with doing the work themselves.

That's where you come in. If you have several contractors you trust who can do this sort of work, you can sell these services to your customers after the fact. Just let them know that you would be willing to do any customization work for them, should they decide they want additional features or custom graphic work to make the site more individual.

In essence, you're really only going to have market that offer in email a few times and then wait to see if they want it. As mentioned earlier, many will only buy a site that doesn't need a huge amount of customization, but some will buy a site that has everything except one or two features they want. Why not be the one to offer them that work? You can even give them a discount from the normal customization fee, if they buy the web site from you.

This can turn into a healthy stream of income, particularly if you are outsourcing the work, instead of doing it yourself. What you are basically doing is giving out referrals, finding some qualified but cheap labor, and then farming out the work to other people. You get to set the rate and you can figure out how much money you are making additional per hour. And, if your workers are in India, you can be sleeping in your bed while they're out there making money for you.

The customer doesn't have to know you've outsourced the work. You can be the project manager to make sure your client gets exactly what they want and that the workers are doing what they are supposed to do. Then, collect some monies up front (some people prefer 1/3 of the total estimated project costs) and wait for the workers to finish their job and present the final product to your client.

If you get very good people working for you, not only do you have ways to make good money with clients that you sell web sites to, but you can outsource some of the work you're doing to create web sites too. Anything that frees up your time so that you can market more and sell more offers is going to end up putting more money in your pocket than actually doing the work yourself. That's one way to leverage other people's time so that you create a system that can bring in money, whether you are lying on a beach in Hawaii or sitting at your desk in front of the computer.

By the way...do you want to learn exactly how to create a high income online business by meeting the needs of people in your niche through coaching, consulting, and teaching online classes?

Download my new recording: "How to Sell High Ticket Products Online" here: High Ticket Selling

Or...do you want to learn how to increase your online income by adding coaching, consulting, and online classes to your existing practice or business? Find out how here: Internet Marketing Coaching

Transferring Ownership of the Web Site When You Sell It

Transferring Ownership Of The Web Site

There are multiple steps to transferring a web site although the total process only has to take a half hour, if you did it all yourself. But, your buyer may want to do some of the work themselves or you may want to opt to have them do it, depending on if they are knowledgeable enough to complete these tasks. If not, you can do it yourself, but even though the process itself may take about a half hour, the total propagation of the site from one server to another may take several days. That's because the Internet is such a large entity that it has to update several servers that point the site to the new home in order for it to finally be transferred. But, here we'll go over the steps you need to take to transfer a web site you sell in detail.

Push The Domain To The Buyer

You are going to have to first push the ownership of the domain name to the buyer. This is done by having the customer sign up to the same registrar in which you registered the name. This is accomplished by setting up a free account where you can push that domain name to the new owner. There is typically no charge for pushing a domain name from one owner to another on the same registration service.

Each registrar may have different ways to do this, so you will need to check the registrar's website to find out how to do it for your particular domain name registrar. After the domain name has transferred ownership, then your buyer has to set the name servers to point to the new web host they want to use. If they're going to continue to host with you, then they won't need to change the name servers and you're basically done.

Transferring A Site From One Host To Another

If you have an experienced buyer, you don't have to move the site yourself. You can just give them the FTP information they need to log into the server it's already on and thus they can copy the site over to another host. You might want to give them a time deadline to do this in so that they don't wait forever to finish the transaction. Ten days is a good time limit.

The Experienced Buyer

On the other hand, if you have an inexperienced website buyer or you just don't want to give access to the FTP information so that there can be no problems with the new customer screwing up the site before it's transferred, then you can offer to move it yourself.
Here are the steps you will need to follow to move the files from your host server to another distinct hosting provider:

1. Log in to your web site server using your FTP program.

2. Go to the public_html directory where you should have installed most of the WordPress files. If you didn't follow our instructions to do this, then you will have to go to the directory which you did pick to install those files.

3. You are going to want to download everything that is necessary to run the web site on another server. Copy all those files to a folder on your desktop and save it.

4. Don't delete any files, folders, database, or anything while doing this process. If you miss something, you can always come back and find it later instead of wondering what happened and not being able to recreate a working setup.

5. In the folder you just created on your desktop, create a subfolder. Label it aaa_database for the name.

Copy The Databases Too

Next, you want to make sure that any databases associated with your web site are also transferred onto the new host. This will be a process of backing up the databases to the subfolder you just created called aaa_database. Then, from there, you will have everything you need in one folder to be able to successfully move all the files without missing anything.

To copy the databases, you have to follow these steps:

1. Log in to the Cpanel area on the server that is currently hosting the site.

2. You will see an option or icon that says, "MySQL databases." You will need to review each of the databases listed to see if they are part of the web site you wish to transfer or not.

3. Review the WordPress database information for this web site and make sure that you at least copy this one to the subfolder. Make a note of the user that is assigned to each database you are copying to your subfolder. Make note of any other databases that also need to be copied and backed up that are associated with this web site and their associated user.

4. At the bottom of the page, you will see another option that reads, "PHP My Admin."

5. After you are in this area, you will see a listing of databases and just select the one that you already know are needed for this web site installation to work correctly.

6. Then, you will want to choose the "export" column and SELECT ALL.

7. Then, choose SQL.

8. You will want to choose the next option that says, "Save as File."

9. Click, "GO."

10. Then save it to the subfolder you've created within the WordPress main folder, which is named aaa_database.

11. If you have more than one database you have to copy to the folder, than just repeat steps 5 through 10.

The Big Move

While that may seem like many, many, steps, once you get the hang of this you will find it actually only takes a few minutes to complete. All this work is necessary to make sure that you have a full copy of the website still hosted while you have a full copy in one folder on your desktop so that you can easily move it.

One thing that you will notice as you are downloading the database files is that they all will have the same prefix, and that prefix is the username you logged in with. So, if you have gone to your Cpanel and logged into the MySQL area with the username NANCYM, then the databases associated with that account would start with a prefix of NANCYM and then an underscore and the name of the database file. So, it would look something like NANCYM_mydatabasename.

Of course, just because you chose the username NANCYM for your account doesn't mean your buyer did too. In all likelihood, you can expect them to have a different username. You will need to know what that is so that you can rename all of the database names to change the prefix to the new username that is associated with your buyers Cpanel account and MySQL databases. Then, you will need to make sure that you import those databases into the area with that username.

Here are the steps to ensure that you will have harmony between the new customer account and the old databases when you move the information over, after you've already renamed the prefixes:

1. Ask your customer for the username and password for the Cpanel of their new hosting site.

2. Log into the customer's Cpanel to continue the process.

3. Get into their MySQL databases area.

4. You are going to want to create a database in their MySQL area that has exactly the same database name as the one on your hosting server.

5. You will also want to create the same database users and passwords that were available to your old database that was hosted on your site.

6. After you've created the user(s), you still need to attach the user(s) to the database with the exact same privileges as what they had on your hosting server. Most of the time this will be set to all privileges.

After you've done this preparatory work, you are ready to import the information into the new database that you've created.

1. Go back to the MySQL database page and find the PHP MyAdmin link at the bottom of the page.

2. Click on the PHP MyAdmin link.

3. Look for the database you just created. If it's not listed you may need to open the drop-down menu and look for it there.

4. Click on it to select it and open the database.

5. There will be an option to IMPORT. Select that.

6. It will ask you for the location of the file you are importing. In the "location of text file" option, click the BROWSE button and look for the database that you stored in the folder on your desktop.

7. Select that database file and choose GO.

Following these steps you can import any database necessary for the proper functioning of the site. First create a shell database that has the same users and privileges of the old hosted site and then import the information into that shell. It's actually a very simple process even though there appears to be many steps. It probably won't take more than a few minutes for each database you need to import.

Other Options To Activate

If your buyer just got any old host and didn't do any work to prepare that platform, you will need to check other things and activate them if they aren't already setup to go. If the site you created didn't have any of these options activated or being used, then you won't need to check them out on the new host site either. But, just in case you did fiddle with these and then need a reminder, here are a few things that some people forget to check or activate that can cause errors when running the web site later.

- Email
Did you have a bunch of auto responders, email addresses, and more set up to run some marketing on your web site. You had better make sure that you set up the accounts for your buyer too or that portion of the web site will fail to work and notify them of potential buyers or someone wanting to join their email list.

- Special Directories
Did you have other directories that were running special features on your site? Make sure those are also set up. If they were password protected, you will also have to make sure they are password protected on the new host too. And, they will have to be password protected with exactly the same username and passwords as you used on the old site, to be safe and make sure things continue to function.

- Redirect Pages
Some Internet marketers use redirect pages to be able to quickly change an affiliate offer, should it go sour or they find a better option for the same type of product and service they've advertised. In that case, they may have the affiliate offer go to a redirect page that has programming that then takes them to the affiliate offer.

When they want to change out ALL affiliate links, they don't have to go to every single page and manually change the code. They just change the redirect page to another offer and all their web pages are updated automatically this way. If you do have redirect pages on your site that server a highly needed function, you will need to make sure they are also set up on your new customer's site too. They will need to have exactly the same information as what you had in your old site.

- Special Jobs
Have you set up CRON jobs to run to do special things? You will need to program the same jobs to run automatically on the new server too.

Configure The New Site

So, you have done a lot of work, but you still haven't transferred all the files that you had in the public_html folder. Before you do that, however, you will have to change the basic configuration file that WordPress uses so that it reflects the new database names, usernames, and passwords. To change the configuration file before uploading your files, do the following steps:

1. Go to the WordPress files in the folder on your desktop.

2. Locate the file called wp-config.php. If you don't have the extensions listed, it might just show up as a wp-config filename.

3. Open in file in a text editor and change the database names, usernames, and password information.

4. Be sure you include the new prefix that is associated with your customer's Cpanel account and not the one you used for the old site.

5. Save the changes you made and close the file.

Upload Remaining Files

You're almost done, so don't fret. Again, this seems like a long chapter, and it is! But, the details take far longer to write in detail than they take to actually execute. Once you have the hang of this, you will be able to do this entire process in about half an hour. Of course, the site itself won't propagate through the Internet for at least three days.

To finish uploading the files, use the following steps:

1. Create an FTP connection to your customer's hosting server.

2. Connect to their public_html directory.

3. Upload everything in the public_html folder on your desktop except for the subfolder that contained your database. Those have already been imported.

That's it! You're done. All you need to do now is to test the site thoroughly before you inform your buyer that the transfer has been completed and it awaits further propagation through the Internet, which usually takes a period of three days. What that means is that when they type their domain name into the URL before the three days are up, the customer might not get their site up as expected. Just wait three days, then test the site again and make sure it comes up when you put in the proper URL.

Note: Please keep in mind, these steps are designed to help you, but they may not work exactly the same way for you, depending on your computer or hosting...

By the way...do you want to learn exactly how to create a high income online business by meeting the needs of people in your niche through coaching, consulting, and teaching online classes?

Download my new recording: "How to Sell High Ticket Products Online" here: High Ticket Selling

Or...do you want to learn how to increase your online income by adding coaching, consulting, and online classes to your existing practice or business? Find out how here: Internet Marketing Coaching

Some Thoughts on Website Flipping

One thing you do have to keep in mind is that the Internet is constantly evolving and your sites need to evolve with it too, to stay competitive. The Internet is just starting to recognize how to make money online from web sites. These practices can change very quickly. Once SEO was the only way to go, and then Google decided to weight real content more heavily. Some tricks like meta tag stuffing (considered "black hat" tricks) to increase search engine exposure might have worked once, but now Google ignores the meta tags. They are constantly changing their algorithm for ranking and placing web sites on result pages. If you don't keep up with the changes, you might end up having trouble selling sites that relied on old techniques and information. And, today's consumer is extremely savvy, so you need to be too.

One of the biggest changes in recent history is the advent of social networking sites. These sites are an excellent new form of Internet property that are highly desirable. If you can learn how to set up some of these sites and then flip them, you should have a steady income for quite some time, until the public tires of them or something new comes along.

It's also desirable to have more than one selling venue for your sites. While eBay is a really great place to sell your web sites, they can also change their policies to make it hard to continue your business. This happened with people selling information products online, when suddenly (quite overnight), eBay said these types of products could not longer be listed on auction and had to be put into classified ads, where they had far little exposure. The new policy only allowed the sale of physical items in auctions, so sellers of e-books and virtual reports, were left trying to change their entire business model so that they could still make a profit while providing an e-book on a physical product like a CD-ROM, to be able to list it in eBay's auction pages.

In order to keep something like that from hitting you in the face, check out other places to sell your web sites and explore these markets too. That way if one selling venue changes it's policy, you still have a way to continue your business model regardless of any new rules.

Other places to sell your site are webmaster forums, like DigitalPoint and Sitepoint. There are many new users that come in looking for web sites that can generate an income and are ready to go. Take a look at these too. They are a valuable source of information on what the public wants in a web site and what are the most popular features and criteria that make a web site more valuable. Have a look at the Resource section that follows, to find links to other places to explore this fascinating and profitable topic. There are so many helpful sites and aides out there for people getting into web site flipping that we just couldn't list them all. However, it is a great place to start to get a broad view of how to start to create a business that can generate not only instant sales, but also residual income for years to come.

So, don't be afraid to dip your toe! The world is waiting for you to take that first bold step into creating your own home business that can fulfill your income needs while giving you the thrill of discovering a whole new unexplored territory, the glorious World Wide Web.

By the way...do you want to learn exactly how to create a high income online business by meeting the needs of people in your niche through coaching, consulting, and teaching online classes?

Download my new recording: "How to Sell High Ticket Products Online" here: High Ticket Selling

Or...do you want to learn how to increase your online income by adding coaching, consulting, and online classes to your existing practice or business? Find out how here: Internet Marketing Coaching

How to Make More Money Selling Websites

You've been able to get a very good idea now of the mechanics and considerations necessary to flip a web site. However, a good business starts with some great strategies to make sure that you are headed towards the maximum profit you can get. For that, you want to plan out how you will conduct your business in such a fashion to generate the most interest and the highest bids.

We already talked a little bit about the creation of eBay listings, the pricing and the timing, in detail. But, what if you want to sell multiple sites every single week? Do you have a proper business process set up so that you know what to expect and when auctions are going to end? This is a business after all and the more disciplined you are with how you run the business, the better the odds that you will increase your profits. So, let's walk through a sample plan for selling multiple sites in one week.

The Plan

You will probably start slowly as you have to learn how to create web sites to sell before you actually list them. But, once you are actually in a good business flow, your goal should be to list up to eight websites a week. If you were to make between $200 to $300 on each, you can expect your income to be a minimum of $1600 per week up to $2400 per week. That's up to $124,800 per year!

Taking the information we discussed earlier, you are going to want to list those web sites at the most advantageous times to get either more bids or higher bids. Using Auctiva, You will want to schedule two websites each of these days during the week: Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. Why? Well, because if you start to list on those days then you can end them on days other than Tuesday, Friday, or Saturday. Each time you list two web sites, list one auction to end in the late morning hours and one to end in the evening hours, as previously discussed.

Next, you are going to want to pick the upgrades that can help your listing stand out and attract more attention. Don't overdo it, however, as it can eat into your profits. Instead, focus on the following upgrades and determine which sites you want to add more based on how popular you think it might be:

- Featured Plus
- Subtitle
- Gallery
- Bold
- Border
- Highlight

Don't forget to set a BIN price and a reserve price. The BIN price can be between $199 to $299. The reserve price should be high enough to make some money, but not as high as $199. You can set it between $79 and $100.

If you follow a set process, you can begin an assembly line production of quality web sites that you can flip to generate a great side income. It may take a while to get comfortable with all the things you need to know, but after that, you just keep building on your knowledgebase, adding new features and goodies to sites as you learn about what is more in demand.

By the way...do you want to learn exactly how to create a high income online business by meeting the needs of people in your niche through coaching, consulting, and teaching online classes?

Download my new recording: "How to Sell High Ticket Products Online" here: High Ticket Selling

Or...do you want to learn how to increase your online income by adding coaching, consulting, and online classes to your existing practice or business? Find out how here: Internet Marketing Coaching

Sean Mize teaches coaches, consultants, and small business owners how to package their knowledge and sell it in high priced coaching, consulting, and online class packages. Sean says "If you have an existing marketable service or skill that you can teach others, I can teach you to package it into a high-priced class or coaching program, guaranteed"