Site Promotion

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Site Promotion This is an ongoing task. Besides getting listed in the Search Engines and Directories you still need to use other methods to get your site noticed. Placing ads, swapping links with quality and related sites, and joining good click for hit programs are additional measures you can take to improve your sites visibility. It also helps to find some good software that will aid you in these tasks.

A good site to help you find sites where you can submit free ads and start promoting your site is AdFree. Link Exchange programs are a good way to help your site get higher rankings in the Search Engines (Google, etc.) A site that you approve puts a link to your website on their site and you return the favor by putting a link to their site on your site. I recommend that you only add "quality" links and links that are related to your sites's purpose to your site. Some places to start are: SiteSell Value Exchange Link Partners

Need some help finding quality sites to exchange links with or sites that are linking to your competition ? Arelis a software product provided by Axandra has a decent free version that helps make the job a little easier. Besides their free trial version, they also have 3 pay versions-Standard-Professional-Business with additional features that make the job even easier. Arelis Link Finder While visiting the Axandra web site be sure to get your free Link Popularity E-book.

Another useful software product provided by Axandra is Internet Business Promoter. IBP is the award-winning web site promotion software tool that helps you to get more customers and more sales with high search engine rankings. Optimize your web pages for a high search engine ranking and track your progress over time. Get more customers and more sales. Internet Business Promoter makes it easy for you. The Lite edition is freeware IBP Site Promoter

Other useful sites to help you promote your site are: NetMechanic Power Tools for Your Web Site help drive traffic to your site and keep it there with three simple steps. Improve Your Site Promote Your Site Monitor Your Site If you take your Web promotion seriously, Web CEO is the solution for you. With Web CEO you will be able to: research your keywords optimize your site for high rankings in search engines submit your URLs to search engines check your rankings with search engines analyze your visitors with live traffic analysis pinpoint broken links and other errors on your site edit your Web pages in the WYSIWYG mode upload HTML and other files to your server monitor your website to know if it is up or down Wordtracker Target the wrong keywords and all your efforts will be in vain. Wordtracker compiles a database of terms that people search for. You enter some keywords, and are told how often people search for them, and also tell you how many competing sites use those keywords. Wordtracker helps you find all keyword combinations that bear any relation to your business or service - many of which you might never have considered. Investigate this handy service Wordtracker or get their free ebook on how to find and properly use keywords. Free Keyword Ebook In this 75 page publication, WordTracker creates a fictional company called Virginia Veg, and then asks a panel of keyword experts to answer a number of questions that face the fake company's CEO, Susan Webster. Dealing with a real world situation, you can easily snag a number of techniques to improve your keyword research, convert more traffic, understand your customer's real motivations, find the size of your market, discovering the most important sites in your marketplace, gleen some knowledge from the top 1,000 words report, incorporating keywords into your content and copy and learn how an ad agency uses keyword research to position a client. BuildTraffic.com has all kinds of free tools to help you check such things as your site's rankings in search engines. Good Keywords is free software for finding the perfect set of keywords for your web pages. Knowing the right keywords to target is very important because your site should provide what people are searching for. Dr. Watson is a free service to analyze your web page on the Internet. You give it the URL of your page and Watson will get a copy of it directly from the web server. Watson can also check out many other aspects of your site, including link validity, download speed, search engine compatibility, and link popularity. Dr Watson I normally wouldn't recommend a click-for-hits program because I don't feel that the time invested is worth the benefits derived. The one exception that I have run across is Traffic Swarm -check them out.

Link Popularity

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Link Popularity Link popularity is a measure that tells how many other sites provide a link to your site from theirs. How do you know if you've been successful with promoting your site and your link exchanges ? Software and sights with online link checkers provide you with the answer.

Download this free software to check and compare your link popularity with your competition. Link Popularity Check is a freeware program that checks the link popularity status of your web site on several search engines and compares it to other web sites on the Internet (for example your competitors). Link Popularity Check is completely safe to install on your system. It will not change the system registry and it will not make any unauthorized connections from your system. The software also includes an uninstaller. This is a tool you can't afford to be without. Link Popularity Check Want to check your link popularity on line ? Use this free tool supplied by MarketLeap. A code will be displayed on the screen to guard against spamming. Enter the code displayed to get your free results. Other free on line tools provided are Search Engine Saturation and Keyword Verification. Enter your URL here: (ex: www.yourdomain.com) Enter 1 comparison URL here: Search Engine Marketing Tools

Link Checker

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Link Checker When your site is visited you want to make the visit as "hassle free" as possible. You want to eliminate Broken Links where your visitors click on links on your site that end up with error messages and page not found. If your site contains many links this could be quite a project individually checking all your links on a routine schedule. Thank goodness there's software that will check your web site and do the job for you.

Are you annoyed when you click on a link and end up on an error page ? Well you're not alone. Check you site periodically for broken links with this free easy to use software provided by Xenu.

Web Page Software

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Web Page Software How do you go about making a web site ? Just like a carpenter needs some knowledge and his tools to do his work, anyone wanting to create a web page or site also needs a little knowledge and tools to properly do the job. Some of the tools are a good editor (kinda like a word processing program), templates, graphic programs, scripts, and button makers to name a few. The knowledge comes from doing a little studying. If you want to find out what you need and how to build a website check out my free on line tutorial So, you want to build a Website!l or download the tutorial as a free ebook.

If you want to design and build your own Web Sites, you need Web Page Creation Software (Editors). Some very nice and free editors are: EZ Pad     Easy HTML     Arachnophilia     1st Page Namus 6     Web Dwarf-WYSIWYG     Selida-WYSIWYG and HTML Just looking for a very basic and simple editor ? Get the free version of NoteTab the ultimate free Notepad replacement and a handy HTML editor. There are also two inexpensive paid versions that offer additional features. When you reach the site click on the Products Menu in order to get the free version or learn more about the paid versions. If you tried and liked Web Dwarf check out Web Weaver EZ made by the same outfit. Web Weaver EZ is text-based HTML editor that makes it easy for anyone to create great-looking, professional Web pages. Includes free Javascripts. Try the free trial version!

You also need to learn a little HTML (Language for creating web sites). I recommend you start out with Joe Barta's Site to begin learning about HTML. He provides a great free beginning tutorial and sample lessons of his more advanced tutorials. If you find the tutorials and other information on his site useful you can gain full access to all the information contained on his site for a small one time membership fee. Joe's free beginning HTML tutorial PageTutor. If you want to learn from the convenience of your own computer download his beginning tutorial and learn at your own pace Download Joe's Tutorial. Other good sites for learning HTML and building web sites are: Web Monkey-Beginners e-learningcenter HTML Goodies     Davesite W3Schools     HTML Help Extropia     WebAlley WebPagesThatSuck I used these sites to educate myself. I'm still no expert but they did help me attain the status of the old cartoon character Yogi Bear-smarter than the average bear . JimWorld offers free quality website templates and very good tutorials to help get you started designing super web pages and sites. JimWorld WebDesignHelper a UK site is an excellent site that provides free quality web page templates to help you get started designing your own site. WebDesignHelper Want a very nice free e-book on how to create web pages written by a self taught webmaster ? Download Momp's Basic HTML and do a little studying at your own pace. And finally, a must have reference by Web Design Insight Express. I recommend you download this help file and refer to it often. Web Design Insights

Scripts are nothing more than small programs that perform specific tasks such as maintaining links to others, running a bulletin board or chat room, or maintaing subscriptions to your news letter. You do not have to learn any programming to be able to use scripts on your site.

A site that offers very good free scripts, tutorials, and lots of other good tools is BigNoseBird ! I use their Tell a Friend ! script on my site.

Another nice Tell a Friend script you can easily add to your web site-just by cutting and pasting is free at BuzzSpread. Click below to see BuzzSpreads Tell a Friend in action. A couple of additional excellent sites that provides all kinds of useful scripts are HotScripts and CGI Extremes.

Three more sites dedicated to providing quality information and tools regarding web sites and/or operating a business on the internet are WebSource, SearchBliss, and WebPage-Tools.

In order to determine how well your site is performing you need a counter that tracks the visitors to your site. I use Extreme Tracking's, SiteMeter's and LevelTenDesign's free counters and site statistics on my site.

I "fibbed" a little bit earlier. Nowadays, YOU can create simple websites without learning about all the dirty details. I still recommend that you educate yourself at least a little bit. Almost all the hosting services, including Bean Counter Hosting, now provide software called Site Studio or something similar that allows you to just fill in the blanks and create a basic web presence. If you have a limited budget or you're not able or don't want to spend the time to learn the details of building a web site, you don't have an excuse for not putting your business on the web.

Get Paid

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Get Paid We all love to sell and get paid for our services and/or products. The internet offers many sites that allow a business to get set up for processing credit cards. For those starting out services such as PayPal and StormPay provide some help.

OK, I've seen a lot of stuff to use for creating a working web site but how do I get paid and set up an online store for my services or products ? I thought you'd never ask. Register for a free StormPay, PayPal, or Electronic Transfer account and begin accepting payments and credit cards on your website in just minutes! Other useful e-commerce links and free online store resources are also listed. Set Up your online store and Enable your site to accept credit cards . StormPay PayPal Charge.Com osCommerce ZenCart phpShop myMarket Mal's e-commerce Shopping Cart For Paypal

Books & Tutorials

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Books & Tutorials

Sitesell.com , developed by medical doctor Ken Evoy, is one of the best sites I have found for information and products about starting and/or promoting an internet business. All the products and services are quality products and services with an affordable price. Many are even free ! You may even become an affiliate and receive discounts on their products and/or promote and sell their products from your web site. Sitesell is your one stop site for all the information, products, and tools needed for a successful internet business. Worth your time to get some excellent free e-books - SiteSell.

Logos & Art

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Logos, Pictures, and Art Just like a good glass of wine sets off a good meal, good graphics add a little touch to a web site. I've had a difficult time finding nice clipart and graphics. Finding nice free clipart is even more of a challenge. You're probably better off paying a little for your art work.

Some recommended sites to at least get you started: Free clipart by BizArt and WebPlaces Excellent Free Business Photo Gallery-get some nice pictures to give your site a professional look from 27 Stars. Free Logo Designs and Banners are offered by CoolArchive, AdDesigner, and 3D Textmaker-Animation Factory.

Create professional Logos with The Logo Creator by LaughingBird Software. Download the trial version and see how easily you can create your own professional looking logos. Need some buttons for your website ? Check out these good online tools: FreeButtons     Grsites

Free 3-D Text Maker Use this free tool to create nice 3-D headings for your web pages. Check out other useful web site tools provided by Xara.

GOgraph.com is a great starting point for all your image searching. The collection includes animated GIFs, clip art, icons, photos, wallpaper, and various web page interfaces such as buttons, bars, bullets, arrows, and backgrounds. A whole bunch of wonderful image editing tools are also available on GOgraph.com. The tutorials alone make it well worth a visit! GoGraph

Needing to clean up or optimize a GIF image ? Try Out GifWork's free online tool. Spinwave also provides a free tool (cruncher) for optimizing your gif and jpg images. GIFCruncher Free GIF Optimizer - Save up to 90% Browse to select a GIF from your hard drive. Then click Crunch from Disk: To receive the GC newsletter, enter email (confidential): JPEGCruncher Free JPEG Optimizer - Save up to 90% Browse to select an image from your hard drive. Then click Crunch from Disk: To receive the JC newsletter, enter email (confidential):

Thanks to Ron Leishman for the Great Cartoons provided by Toon-A-Day. Looking for cartoons to spruce up your site ? Ron supplies them for a about a dime a day. Free 10 day trial. Toon-A-Day

Auto Responder

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Auto Responder Having trouble making sales ? Need to automate your sales promotion program(s) or newsletter ? That's just what an auto-responder is for. How many times does a sale close the first time presented ? An auto-responder can handle the initial contact and all the followup.

Automate the mundane tasks while still keeping the personal touch in your business. A nice free auto-responder with no third part advertising is provided by freeautobot:

One more free auto-responder that advertises your site.

Domain Names

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Domain Name A good name for your site is part of the recipe to a succesful web site. Your domain name is your identity on the internet. This is one of the first tasks that need to be done when you have decided to get or build a web site. In the past and currently still at some providers, the cost of a name was around $35.00 per year. As the business has become more competitive you can now purchase a domain name for $10.00 or less. a year.

In my opinion, having your own domain name for a businees site is an absolute necessity. A "no brainer" decision. For a cost of less than $10.00, how can you not afford to get your own unique name ? Check on the availabilty of the name you would like to have at Bean Counter Hosting.

Very Reasonable Domain Name Registrations-$8.95 a year provided by GoDaddy. Stop Paying unnecessary high rates ! GoDaddy Domain Names

Site Hosting

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Site Hosting

Bean Counter Hosting Needing a reliable host but on a tight budget ? Already have a hosting service but paying too much ? Unless your like the old cigarette commercial where you'd "rather fight than switch", Web Hosting by Bean Counter is your solution. Now offering "Dirt Cheap" $4.95 /month Web Hosting loaded with services aimed at small businesses and Domain Names for $6.99. *15000 MB Hosting *300 GB Transfer *100 POP3 accounts *100 Email aliases *10 SubDomains *FTP account *FREE Site Studio *Front Page Extensions *Web Based File Manager *Unlimited Mailing Lists *Perl support *PHP support *POP3 server *Free Setup *1 MySQL database * Money Back Guarantee Find out what all this "Gibberish" means.       and more ..... Bean Counter-Dirt Cheap Hosting

Extra Features Web Hosting Bean Counter Hosting's features are more than adequate for most business web sites; however, if you need any features we don't offer another excellent hosting choice is iPowerWeb. All hosting services are not created equal. Monitor your site in order to be sure that your site is accessible. SiteProbe is a free tool that monitors the status of your website and hosting service hourly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. SiteProbe

If your wanting a personal or hobby web site, the free hosting services are great. I do, however, recommend that business sites use a professional hosting service in order to avoid having uncontrolled advertising and other limitations placed on the use of their site. Good sites to get Free Hosting For Your Web Site (Most Have Advertising and Limitations) are: * FreeWebs (No Advertising) *Web1000 (No Advertising) FreeYellow Yahoo Zero Catch NetFirms VirtualAve Tripod DreamWater TopCities FreeCyberZone FreeWebPages

FTP-File Transfers

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FTP FTP stands for file transfer protocal. This is just the rules that need to be followed when transferring data from and to computers. The tool that takes care of following the rules for us is known as a FTP Program. This tool allows us to "publish" our web site on the internet.

I got my site designed so how do I get my pages on the Internet ? Most web hosting services and many webpage editors have a program that allows you to transfer your web pages from your computer to your site and vice versa. In addition FTP programs (programs used to transfer files) are also available that you can download and use. Five free nice such programs are: Free FTP-great for beginners FTPThing RightFTP AceFTP3 FTP Works

E-Mail Accounts

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Free E-Mail With the amount of spamming and junk mail currently going on having a few free e-mail accounts is not a bad idea. They also help out those with free web sites where an e-mail account is not provided.

Looking for additional free e-mail addresses ? Check out the following sites: MSN Yahoo Eudora Softhome Lycos ZZN MyRealBox HotPop MailCity

Free Site Content

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Site Content Why will people visit your site ? The only reason is that you are providing something they want or need. Just like a retail business has to have location, location, location in order to be successful your site must have content,content, and more content. Bye the way, the content better be good or they won't be back.

What do you mean by sticky ? You need to have good content on your web site in order to encourage your visitors to return. Find out what sticky is all about with this free e-book. Make Your Site Sticky Looking for some free content to add to your site to encourage your visitors to return ? Add such things as jokes, tips, news, and weather to your site by visiting FreeSticky and FindSticky. For you brick and mortar businesses add a free map and directions to your business MapQuest