 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Shopping Mall
Christian
Use these services to get your web business noticed, give your current business an internet presence, or to improve the internet presence you already have. Most of these services have either free trials or free memberships. However, the maximum potential is found in their paid memberships. Most of them have affiliate programs. In fact, because of these affiliate programs, I only ask one thing in return for benefiting from the information here... should you decide to use the paid version of the services below, please purchase by clicking through from this website! That is my only fee for making this information available!
There are many more website services than these. I have provided links only to services and solutions that I have chosen (or would choose) for myself. I haven't found solutions to everything, but as I do, I will add them here. If you have found solutions to areas not covered here (or better solutions than I have so far), please let me know so I can check them out!
Manage your Website
Click here if you don't program
Enhance your Site with Free Scripts
Manage your Newsletter
Create your own Opt-In Mailing list
Create and Mail a Periodic Newsletter
Manage your Ad Campaigns
Track your Ads and their Effectiveness
Manage your Traffic
Get yourself listed in the search engines
Manage your money
Automated Payer and Seller Accounts
Manage your website
Get your own domain - Use 000domains.com to research unused domain names, and then buy the ones you want. In fact, you can use this handy form to check on any .com, .net, or .org domain right now. However, for .biz or .info domains, you'll need to go to 000domains.com.
| |||
|---|---|---|---|
If you like the look and feel of this website, I have a confession to make... I didn't design it. It's a free template I found on FreeSiteTemplates.com. If you don't like those, try FreeWebTemplates.com. They not only have free templates, but they also have links to many other websites containing both free and for-fee templates.
Enhance your Site with Free Scripts
You can find scripts to do just about anything you can think of. In fact, not much programming knowledge is usually required. This page has been enhanced with free scripts I've found on the following websites: JavaScript Kit, Dynamic Drive. Besides what I've used here, there are scripts for password protection, searching, frames, etc.
Manage your Newsletter
Create your own Opt-In Mailing list
Why You Need a Mailing List
If you want to keep your customers and your potential customers, it's best to email them information or ezines or specials or updates on a periodic basis. But, how do you get the email addresses of people who haven't bought from you yet? More to the point, how do you make sure that such email isn't spam?
Opt-In Mailing Lists
The only way of creating your own non-spam mailing list is creating an "opt-in" list, which means you only have the email address because the owner of the email gave it to you (i.e., they opted in). And, the most affective way of creating your an "opt-in" mailing list is a popup window. Promise the visitor something immediately upon entering your website and they're more likely to give you their email address than if it's just part of your webpage.
Creating an Opt-In Pop-up Window
There are several options for creating a popup window. One option is to write one yourself (or pay someone to write it). Another option is to use a web-service that hosts and maintains the popup window for you (such as MarketingPopup.com). I tried this hosted popup service and found that it slowed down my load time tremendously, probably because the window was loading from another website. So, any programmed popup window should be hosted with your website. I've seen some pretty nice ones, and they are definitely effective.
Confirmation Boxes
Another alternative to programming your own popup window is using a confirmation box. Click here to see an example. Notice that the visitor doesn't have to enter an email address. By pressing OK, his default email program will open, with a message all ready to go. This has several advantages. 1)No typing, so user is more likely to take action. 2)Email address can't be mistyped or falsified - you'll only get valid email addresses. 3)Clicker's remorse is less likely, because after pressing OK, the visitor still has to hit the send button in his email. 4)You can see a 200% increase in email submissions over regular popup windows.
Paid and Free Solutions
Opt-In Automator is a confirmation-based solution that I believe is worth the money charged. However, Opt-In Automator requires that you have complete access to your page's HTML code. If you don't have edit-access to your page's code (like I don't for my furniture website), possibly because you fill out templates, then you can use my free solution below. Just fill out the form and click on Create Script. Then, insert the Popup-Script code anywhere in your website's template. (On most template-based and fill-in-the-blank type editors, see if it has a script element. If it doesn't, pasting in the generated code as a text element should work just fine. If you're dubious, try it. However, if you're using a full blown editor, make sure you're in HTML mode, and not graphical mode.)
The difference between the free solution and Opt-In Automator is the visitor-frustration factor. Opt-In Automator includes cookie code that keeps track of whether a particular user has pressed OK within a specified number of days. This way, someone who has already subscribed to your ezine or entered your contest doesn't get asked to do so over and over again. That is definitely worth the price charged for Opt-In Automator. However, if using or purchasing Opt-In Automator is not an option for you (or you don't mind having your visitors see your confirmation box on every visit), then my free solution should work just fine, with little to no impact on load time.
|
Insert script anywhere in your webpage |
|
| Popup Script: | |
|
|
|
Most people who give you their email address aren't going to buy from you on the first visit. You need to keep getting their attention. You need to send them a newsletter (or ezine).
I have found all sorts of web services that specialize in this area. However, they almost all fall short of what I need. I need a service that can host my list for me and provide me with tools to create a professional looking newsletter. So far, ConstantContact.com is the best service I have found to meet my needs.
I've found plenty of services that will manage email lists for you. Some are free but put unwanted ads at the top of your emails (Yahoo! Groups among others).
Some won't allow you to easily host your pre-existing list with their service... I found one service that was going to force my whole list to to opt-in all over again! I understand that they don't want spamming, but don't punish those of who've already obtained our list quite legitimately!
Other services only allow textual messages. However, html emails are much more likely to keep people's attention... but I don't want to spend the time creating html emails.
ConstantContact.com has html templates I can use. I can customize them if I choose or use them as is. That was the clincher for me. Plus, I get automatic tracking, the ability to schedule my emails to go out on certain days, and the ability to simply add and remove names from my list at will. Of course, I only add names who have opted in other ways (I recommend you do the same or risk getting banned from your service... or even your ISP!) There's more to the service than that, but those are the features that got me. I highly recommend it!
Manage your ad Campaigns
Track your Ads and their Effectiveness
The most expensive ads are ads that don't work. So, how can you track which ads are the most effective? One way is to keep track of every ad you've placed, and log into each of your accounts periodically. However, that gets tedious after a while. I hate logging into Overture to track my pay per click ads, then Google. Then I have to log into all of my classified ad services, banner ad services, my pop-under service, and my links-page service. Finally, I have to log into my host-server to see which pages are the most effective, once someone actually finds my site. There's not enough time to track everything, and I just keep paying for all of the services, regardless of its relative effectiveness.
AdMinder is a service that can track all of your URLs from all of your services, in one convenient location (note that while AdMinder can tell you which pages were visited from PPC ads, it can't tell you what was searched on). Then, by comparing which campaigns are the most effective, you can then make intelligent decisions about which campaigns to continue and which to end. Don't just settle for being profitable. Stick with what's most profitable.
Manage your traffic
Trading
links is vital for your traffic, for two reasons. One reason is
because the search engines are paying a lot of attention to how popular
your link is now. For example, the more links Google finds pointing
at your website, the higher your site will rank in Google's search
results. In fact some sites that used to find themselves ranking
pretty well because of their rich content and finely tuned meta-data are
suddenly seeing themselves pushed down the rankings because other less
"relevant" sites have more links pointing at them. I guess the
theory is that if no one else finds your website worth pointing at, it's
probably not as desirable to the searcher. Either that, or they just
don't like people figuring out how to play their game. In any case,
links to your website are vital.
Now, suppose someone links to your website that Google doesn't know about. Will that help your ranking? Not a single bit... unless you tell Google about that website, which you can do by linking back to it. This is called "trading links" or "trading reciprocal links". Now, when Google spiders your website, it will find your link to the website, and their link back to you!
Does this mean that relevancy is no longer important? Not at all. For one thing, a lot of search engines still focus on content and meta-data as their primary ranking criteria. But more than that, sites like Google that place a premium on link popularity actually rank the relevancy of the links pointing to you, in comparison to your site, for the purpose of weighting the quality of links to you versus to other sites meeting the same search criteria. For example, a link between two furniture sites will help both more than a reciprocal link between a furniture site and a bookstore site. Of course a link between a furniture site and a bookstore (two shopping sites) would help both more than a link between the furniture site and fishing bulletin board. So, you need to find sites that are comparable to you, yet aren't in direct competition with you.
Links4Trade is a service I use for one of my websites. I give them a description of my website and the kind of sites I want to trade links with. They in turn maintain my links page for me. Because of the level of membership I have, they automatically find me other sites in the service who match my criteria, and whose criteria I match in turn. As soon as the trade is confirmed, we show up on each other's links page. They'll find up to 400 links for me. Now, if you don't want to pay so much, you can do the trading yourself. It's a powerful tool.
Recall up above I said that there were two benefits to reciprocal linking. We've only discussed one. What's the other? Well, suppose you use Links4Trade, and they find you 400 links to trade. Well, now you have 400 relevant websites with a link pointing back at you for their visitors to find! Not only will your traffic increase because of better visibility in the search engines, but because of better visibility, period! Naturally, you'll be pointing back at those other sites as well. But, if you pick your trades carefully, then they won't be sites in competition with you, and they won't steal your business.
In my opinion, the best way to get yourself listed in the search engines is by Inktomi (Note: I purchase my Inktomi listings through INeedHits.com) and DMOZ. DMOZ is free. Inktomi is not. These are NOT search engine submission services. Search engine submission services can get you listed in the most popular search engines, but they can also get you barred. I submitted my website once with a service that submits to 80 search engines. What I got was a slew of emails from FFA (free-for-all) websites thanking me for entering my link. If a website doesn't tell you where it's going to submit you to, then don't use it! Sites like Google will often disqualify you from their listings if they find you listed in a bunch of FFAs. Since link popularity is so important, FFAs are considered spamming, because such links are not relevant... they're cheating. In any case, your link only remains on the FFA site until it gets bumped off, which is often within a few days. Then what have you gained? Nothing... but now a bunch of opportunists have gained your email address!
The reason I like Inktomi and DMOZ is because the big search engines go out of their way to include these services' results as their own! Inktomi's results show up in MSN, AOL, Overture, and HotBot. DMOZ's results show up in AllTheWeb, AltaVista, Deja, Google, HotBot, Lycos, NorthernLight, and Yahoo. Do you really need to be listed anywhere else? Actually, I am exaggerating a little. You should still submit your website to these search engines separately. Some will just refer you to DMOZ or Inktomi because that is their primary source for search results. However, sites like Yahoo and Google only use DMOZ (or Inktomi) to complement their own directory-listing-based search results.
Now, if you haven't already clicked on Inktomi, you should know that Inktomi doesn't actually sell you listings. They have venders, and the venders sell you your listings. The vender I use is INeedHits.com. You'll notice that INeedHits.com has a lot of other services as well, including mass submissions to search engines. Just be careful. Like I said above, if you don't know where your site is going to be submitted to, DON'T USE THE SERVICE OR YOU RISK GETTING LABELED A SPAMMER!
Manage your money
Automated Payer and Seller Accounts
These types of accounts all allow you to sell products via credit card. However, some offer you additional services, such as the ability to purchase without entering your credit card for every single purchase, or the ability to manage your affiliate account. These are all services I currently use in one capacity or another.
Outdoor-Patio-Furniture.biz Convert Files
© Copyright 2002. Abound Enterprises. All rights reserved.