How Search Engines Work

Business owners consistently hear about how they need to optimize their website. Well, what does actually mean? Here is an attempt at explaining the process in the least technical way I can. This will be a little over-simplified but you should have a pretty good idea of what this is all about by the time you are done reading.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of creating a website that will actually show up when someone uses a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing to find your products or services. The work required to do this is generally split into two parts. The first part consists of work that needs to be done on the actual pages of your website. Some of the things that need to be worked on are the text, page titles, page descriptions and file names of your pages. The second part is work that needs to be done off of your website. This primarily includes getting websites with similar content to link back to you.

How Do Search Engines Work?

There are a variety of factors that play into how web pages are ranked when someone types something into a search engine. Here is a simplified explanation of the process.

Step 1: Someone types the service they are looking for into a search engine.

In this example we are looking for a plumber in Boston.

Step 2: The search engine will analyze the words that were typed in.

In this case the words are “plumber”, “in” and “boston”.

Step 3: The search engine will match what was typed in with all of the web pages it has indexed that contain the words “plumber”, “in” and “boston” as well as the complete phrase “plumber in boston”.

The search engine will give priority to the phrase “plumber in boston” and then look for individual instances of the words “plumber” and “boston” appearing on the same page throughout all of the web pages it is aware of. Not only does it scan the text that appears on the website but it will also scan the text in the Meta Tags. The Meta Tags include information such as the title of the web page and a description. There could be millions of different web pages that match depending on the search term used.

Step 4: The search engine will also take into consideration how many other different web pages are linking to those pages.

Links coming from pages with similar content, phrases and words are given more weight than pages that have nothing in common with the page they are linking to.

Step 5: The names of the files the web designer used to build those pages will also be taken into consideration.

Including the names of your services and location in names of the files used to build your website can help to improve your search engine ranking.

Step 6: The search engine displays a list of results.

The search results are generally based on a combination of the search phrase used, text matches to that search phrase on websites, links to those websites from websites with similar content and the names of the files used to build those websites.

There are obviously other factors taken into consideration such as how long the website has been online, how often it is updated, if it includes a site map, how quickly it loads and so on. But for the most part, this should give you a pretty good starting point as to understanding how search engines work and why optimizing your website may be a good idea. If you have spent a good deal of money on your website and no one can find then what was the point of spending the money in the first place?

This article about how search engines work comes to us courtesy of  CheapAssWebsite.com home of the cheap website.

Tips When Shopping For Ecommerce Development

You’ve decided to hire a professional for ecommerce development and have begun the processes of getting bids. The problem is that you are getting bids everywhere from $500 to $5000 and you don’t have any clue as to what you actually need. Can you get away with a $500 ecommerce website or do you have to go all out and get the $5000 one. What’s the difference? Is there a difference? These are questions that business owners deal with all the time when it comes to ecommerce development. What is too much and what is not enough?

Before you begin this journey you need to determine one thing up front. How are you going to get paid? Are you going to accept credit cards? Are you going to accept Paypal? Are you going to have people mail you checks? This is the first question you need to have answered before you even pick up the phone to call a web designer because this will play a factor in who you hire for your ecommerce development and what sort of options you will need with your ecommerce software.

Here is a a bare bones list of what you need to run an ecommerce store that accepts credit cards.

If you decide to go with Paypal as your payment solution then the rest of this article doesn’t really pertain to you. Click this link to read some of the benefits and drawbacks of using Paypal.

First – You’ll Need a Payment Gateway

The proper way of setting up an ecommerce store is to accept credit card through what is known as a payment gateway. This is not a merchant account. Many people confuse merchant accounts with payment gateways but they are not the same. Merchant account services act, for the most part, as a liaison between your business bank account and the payment gateway. When a customer orders a product from your online business their card is processed via the payment gateway. The money is then moved over to the merchant account service. The merchant account service then moves those newly captured funds to your business bank account.

Payment gateways allow online merchants such as ecommerce store owners or auction sellers to accept credit card payments over the Internet. They authorize the cardholder s credit that is, they check to ensure that the customer has enough money on their credit card to cover the charges. They then place a hold on that amount so the buyer can t turn around and spend that same money elsewhere before it gets transferred to the retailer s merchant account. Banks describes this as the technology necessary to consummate a payment transaction.

Second – You Need a Domain Name

You will need to purchase a domain name for your website. This is the part that comes after the “www” such as www.yourwebsitehere.com. Domain names are billed annually and a .com name can be purchased for $9.99 or even less if you shop around.

Third – You Have Put Your Store Somewhere and That is Known as Web Hosting

When you have an ecommerce website built you need to put it somewhere and that is where website hosting comes in. This is paid for in advance by the year. So if you purchase a $6.08 per month plan your initial bill will be for $72.96. This will keep your ecommerce website online for 1 year. There are different price plans based on how much space you will need for your website, how many emails you want associated with your account and how much security you want added your ecommerce website.

Fourth – You Need to Prove Your Website is Secure With an SSL Certificate

If you are planning on accepting credit cards or any personal information on your ecommerce website then you will need to purchase a SSL Certificate. This is proof to your customers that your ecommerce website is secure and that the likely hood of their personal information getting into the wrong hands is minimal.

Fifth – Ecommerce Software

Something needs to run your online store and that something is ecommerce software. This is where the cost starts to fluctuate based on whom you hire to build your store. There are plenty of free ecommerce software solutions out there. That’s right, they are free to download and use as you wish. Open source ecommerce software such as osCommerce and Zen Cart are very popular.

Here at Digi Donkey we use Kryptronic Click Cart Pro software for ecommerce development. It costs $199 but we have specialized in this software so that our ecommerce websites can be built quickly. This software has an easy to learn user control panel. There are plenty of free ecommerce solutions out there but we have found that the learning curve for most non-tech users is so high that it is not worth using it since our customers still ended up having to call us to make all of their edits and changes for them. Plus, Kryptronic has great customer support which is nonexistent with the free ecommerce software that is out there.

You will most likely be at the mercy of your web designer as to which ecommerce software is used for your online store. You definatelty want them using software they are familiar with so that your site is built as quickly (economically) as possible. Just make sure that if they are using licensed software to build your ecommerce site you own the license. The software needs to be registered to you so that you own it.

Sixth – Pictures and Words

Believe it or not this is probably one of the most left out aspects when people come to us for ecommerce development. The business owner has 5,000 products they are wanting to sell without any pictures or product descriptions and they want us to contact their supplier to get that information for them. This is one of those requests than can cost you a lot of money. You really should have your photos and words ready before you hire a web designer. What you’ll need written are these basic things; categories, category descriptions, product descriptions, product options, pricing, your return policy, your privacy policy, your terms of use and a home page greeting. Now there is plenty of more that you’ll need but these are the basics. If you are not good with words then hire a writer . If you don’t know of a writer only then ask your web designer, they probably work with one.

You’ll also need to have pictures of all your products on a CD, DVD or flash drive. The chances of someone buying something online they can’t look at are slim to none. If you are selling 10,000 items then you need 10,000 pictures of those items. Many times we have had clients ask us to go online and download the pictures for them. I’ll tell you now, that is a horrible idea. You need to get your own pictures before hiring the web designer.  Having them do it is going to cost you a ton of money. Now if you have it budgeted and really don’t have the time to do it fine but don’t get upset with your web designer when they hand you an invoice for 80 hours of downloading photos at $50 – $100 per hour before they have even started on building your ecommerce site.

And Finally – Website Design

You are obviously hiring someone because you can’t do this yourself so you will need to pay someone to put all this stuff together for you. This is where the cost really fluctuates. The best advice I can give is for you to do your homework and get a lot of bids. If you are looking at spending serious money on ecommerce development I would even suggest hiring a consultant to go over the bids with you. Dropping a couple hundred dollars on someone who knows more  about this stuff than you to go through the bids you get may save you thousands of dollars.

For any competent web designer the actual set up of your ecommerce website shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. That is getting the server and database set up, installing the software, turning on your SSL certificate and getting it to the point where you can start adding in your categories and products.  The real cost is in the customization of the site and plugging in all your categories, products and options. The more you have your designer do, the more it will cast you. You will most likely need your designer to customize the look of the site for you but beyond that you should be able to take over from there if you want to. Adding in the information to an ecommerce site is usually as easy as filling in a form. If it isn’t then you are using the wrong software.

Make sure you keep all these things in mind when shopping for ecommerce development. What you don’t know will cost you.

How to Be the Best Social Media Douche Bag Ever

Being a great social media douche bag is obviously something a lot of people are interested in becoming.  There are plenty of  social media experts, webinars, seminars, guides, blogs, Twitter tools and other sources of information out there that will teach you how to be the best, or biggest, social media douche bag you can be. Social media douche baggery has even become a business for some and the great thing is that some of these people don’t even need to know what they are talking about in order to get other people to fork over money to them. As far as this writer can tell, becoming a “social media expert” requires 1 of 3 things: the ability to create a Facebook account, the ability to create a Twitter account or the ability to create a social bookmarking account, like Digg or something. Then – POW! Another social media expert is born.

Here are some tips on becoming the best social media douche bag ever.

1. Keep all of your personal friends and family informed about every sale, offer and promotion your business is having. There is nothing people like more than being sold to. Especially from friends and family members.
2. Remember to post the exact same message multiple times a day to all of your social networks. This way you can keep your important information fresh in everyone s mind 24 hours a day.
3. Keep everyone you know informed about how you are doing when playing online video games and ask them to join you. As a matter of fact, please send me all your email addresses so that I can let you all know every time I kick the crap out of my kids while playing Wii Resort because I know you all really care about that.
4. Pay for a system that will get you tens of thousands of more followers on Twitter. There is nothing better than an automated system to get you tens of thousands of more people that have no interest in what you have to say to spam to.
5. SELL, SELL, SELL! All anyone really cares about is what you are selling so ask for the sale in every update,  tweet, message or post. Remember to never offer any valuable information because that would take away the focus from you.
6. Hire someone else and have them pretend to be you. Nobody knows you better than someone else. This is  especially true when it comes to your business. So hire yourself a social media expert to run everything for you. Most “social media experts” have social media douche baggery down to a science already.
7. Remember, spamming really does work. Look no further than the penis enlargement industry as proof.
8. One way communication is key. All that really matters is what you have to say so never respond to messages from people within your social media circle. Just make sure they get your message loud, clear and often.
9. Trick people into thinking your more popular by creating multiple fake user accounts. There is nothing better than tricking your online friends into thinking you are as cool as Ashton Kutcher by creating multiple user accounts and linking them all together for your own personal network of fake social media douche bags. Your online friends will ask themselves, “Who knew that so many other people were interested in making grout?”.
10. Keep all your business associates updated on what’s happening in your personal life throughout the day. Believe it or not, the people you do business with really do love hearing about how you just dropped the kids off at school, how smart they are, how you got over an infection, how your spouse has been and all the other fascinating details of your life.

Just remember that if you are going to use social media for your business it’s best to try to create a community around your services where you can not only educate people about what you do, but also communicate with them too. It’s not just a one-way street where all you do is post, post, post. You also have to be willing and able to interact with people.

In a nutshell, look at social media like an ad in the yellow pages (remember those). If all you did was place the ad and then never answer the phone the ad wouldn’t do you much good would it. After all, if all you’re going to do it put it out there and then never respond what’s the point of putting it out there in the first place. Posting your message all over your social networks and never interacting with the people who actually take the time to read your stuff is a waste of your time. If you are paying someone to do it for you then you are wasting your money too. Make sure you have someone, preferably an employee or yourself, responding to your friends, followers, fans or whatever in a timely manner. A third party (social media expert) may not have the ability to answer questions about your services as professionally as you could so why pay them to do it? You may need help planning and setting up a social media campaign. That’s okay, but running and monitoring it really needs to be done by you or someone within your organization to keep it genuine and real. It is networking after all.

Some Tips When Shopping For A Cheap Website.

Business owners need to be careful when shopping for a cheap website because as the saying goes, “You get what you pay for”.  The biggest mistake most people make is going with a web designer who does not have the required experience. Many cost conscious business owners end up hiring the kid next door or their brother-in-law because they know how to put together a rudimentary website and get it online. Then, once the business owner asks them to add in something more advanced like a contact form, rotating images or e-commerce functionality they can’t get the person on the phone and they are left with a half built website that generates zero business.

The other issue is often quality. More often than not, the business owner will end up with a cheap website that looks like it was put together by a 5^th grader.  This does them no good, especially if image is important to their business. Remember, a website is often the first impression a prospective client will get when shopping for your services. If your website looks cheap, then how does that make you look?

You can get a cheap website that looks professional and works the way you need it to if you ask the right questions before hiring a web designer.

Here are some tips:

• When the web designer shows you their portfolio, ask how much each of the websites cost to make. Many times you will be lured in by an awesome looking portfolio only to find out that not one of the samples they show you is the actual “cheap” price.
• Make sure that the “cheap price” includes the amount of pages you will need. Many web design companies promote $99 or $199 websites but those are for 1 page websites only.
• If you have a particular website in mind that you’d like to pattern your website from, ask how long it would take to build it. Then get the hourly rate. Many times what you want, or need, for your business doesn’t fit into a cheap website. You may be asked to scale back. That’s okay as long as you don’t scale back so much that you end up with something that does your business no good.
• Don’t kid yourself thinking that you will get a full blown e-commerce website where you can take credit cards, control inventory and offered discount codes for a couple hundred bucks. E-commerce websites need to be secure and have to give you the ability to easily add products, shipping calculations, affiliate programs and such. You can have a reasonably priced e-commerce website built but it obviously can’t be built as cheaply as a 5 page informational website.
• Make sure that the web designer has the technical ability to enhance your website in the future as your business grows. If they are willing to build you a cheap website then they may not have the skills or know how to build you a more advanced website when the time comes for that.

You can find a cheap website as long as you take your time to ask the right questions. There are plenty of professional web design companies that offer cheap websites out there. Just take your time to find a cheap website that is the right one for you.

Is Affordable Custom Website Design Out There?

I have been building websites for 15 years and here is a little secret, affordable custom website design is out there. You don’t have to purchase a template to save your company money.

I have had many business owners walk through my door with a template website totally unhappy with the money they had previously spent. “I don’t like how it looks”, or, “it’s too hard to customize” are usually the major complaints.  When I ask why they are using a template the answer usually is either, “It was cheap”, or, “It came free with my hosting”.  They wanted affordable custom website design but didn’t look long enough to find it.

The major drawback of using a template is usually the fact that, while you can edit the content, you can’t (or it’s extremely difficult) to edit the overall look and feel of the website. You may be able to change out the banner or change the color scheme but you don’t have overall control of the website. Another issue is that many times certain widgets or traffic building tools won’t work because of the limitations of the template or limitations imposed by the hosting company. An example of this is the free websites offered by WordPress.com. This is a great free tool for blogging but using it as a business website can be frustrating due to the restrictions they put on the free accounts they offer. Many social media widgets and other tools won’t work due to the fact that Javascript is disabled for security.

If content management is important to your business then you have the major free template driven sites like Joomla or Drupal to choose from. The major issue with these CMS systems is that they can be extremely expensive to customize and it is not something than the average business owner can do on their own because of the programming skills required for customization. They may be free to download, but it will most likely cost you a grand or so to get it to look the way you want it to unless you go with one of the stock templates that come with the site. But then again, you are stuck with a design that may not match what you are looking for.

If your budget does not afford you the ability to get the website you want and you have to scale back to get you business online make sure that the web designer you choose has the technical ability to be able to enhance your website when you are ready to do so. Some times, companies that offer affordable website design may not have the technical know how to create more advanced websites. Do your homework.

Your best bet is to find a website design firm that offers affordable custom website design that fits into your budget. You may have to make several phone calls and visit many websites to do so but it’s worth it to put in the research. There are plenty of companies out there that offer affordable custom website design and will build you a professional looking custom website for a few hundred dollars. Some will even build you one that you can update yourself. You just have to have patience when searching. You may even want to speak with an Internet consultant when gathering bids to make sure that you don’t end up paying for something you don’t need.

20 Things To Know About Using Social Media For Your Business

These are the Twenty Things that everybody needs to know about Social Media and how they can use Social Media for their business. A lot of Hype has been created around this topic and we want own clients to understand what exactly it means to them.

(1) Don’t Believe the Hype

Our professional opinions are based on our expertise, experience and education. We are not here to repeat what others have to say. We are here to give you the facts not feed you fiction.

(2) It’s Not Cheap Advertising

It is wrong to believe that Social Media is nothing but a cheap channel to spam out a sales pitch. Social Networks are not a place for an infomercial or “Guerrilla Marketing”. Social Networks are not “the new” late night television, they are a new way to communicate with people.

(3) It’s Not Just Numbers

Social Media is not about building large numbers or friends, fans or followers that do not know who you are or do not care about what you have to say. Sending out information to large numbers of people that do not care what you have to say is spam. If you annoy them enough they may even look to see who is spamming them. This is not the way to build traffic to your website, because the only thing that they will remember is to buy elsewhere.

(4) It’s Not Just About You

If you make it just about you, only you are going to want to hear it. It’s easy to spot someone that doesn’t say anything with out posting a link to their website or starts every message with “My new Blog Post”. Words “I” or “Me” from your Social Media vocabulary or else you will create a personal brand that nobody will ever want to buy.

(5) You’re Not a Movie Star

How celebrities and major corporations are using Social Media has very little to do with what is going to work for you. Do not make the mistake of comparing yourself to a super model,  celebrity or professional athlete.  Social Media has nothing to do with who they are or why people are interested in them.

(6) Have Realistic Objectives

You need to know what your objectives are before you even think of starting a Social Media Marketing Campaign and if you are going to be able to realize those objectives for the type of business that you are in.

(7) Develop A Game Plan

An effective Game Plan will create the buzz for your business. Social Media gives you the ability to keep in touch with your loyal customers and to reach out to new ones around the world.

(8) Know Your Marketplace

You need to know your marketplace and why your customers buy from you. The Internet is a global marketplace and people can buy from you from all over the world.

(9) Give It Time

You need to remember that Social Media Marketing is a long term strategy, not a way to become an “Internet Millionaire” overnight.

(10) Treat People As Friends

Talk to people like they are your friends. Abrasive tone, SHOUTING, and pushy sales pitches are not what your friends want to hear. You are not writing copy for an infomercial.

(11) Build A Community

Use your Social Network to build a community around your business and reward your customers for their loyal patronage. Building a community online is how you bring people into your business, because they want to bring their business to you.

(12) Understand the “Vibe”

Every Social Network has a different Vibe and that vibe is created by the people that use the network, not the people that operate the network. For example automatically posting messages from another network is considered to be an acceptable practice on Twitter, but would be considered spamming somewhere else.

(13) Do Something Interesting

Always offer something that people are going to want or else they are not going to be part of your online business community. When you give people the opportunity to do something fun, they are going to bring your business into their circle of friends.

(14) You Must Participate

Internet Communities are about people and you are going to have to be there to carry on a two way conversation or people are just going to blow you off. One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they join as many networks as they can find and never become a part of the community. “Auto-blogging” services like Ping.fm can give people the idea that spamming out a sales pitch to as many social networks is going to build traffic to their website. What they don’t realize is that traffic is not converting to actual sales. because people are just looking at their site in contempt.

(15) Encourage Cooperation

People will remember that you helped them and they will come back when they need your services. When you let people ask questions and answer them promptly they will know that someone is listing to what they say. Community pages should always include postings from fans to encourage cooperation between the people in you community.

(16) Build Relationships

Social Networks allow you to meet people around the world and in time you will be able to make friends them. These friendships may also lead to trust based relationships in business with people that you would not have to opportunity to meet otherwise. People that are experienced in business networking understand how this works on the local level, when they join Chambers of Commerce and other networking organizations.

(17) Think Business

Don’t say things that are going to offend the people that paying you money or challenge their political views or religious beliefs. One of things that makes America great is that people have the right to have different views on everything. It’s not your business to try to change what people believe and the only thing you are going to make them believe is they need to do business else where.

(18) Protect Your Reputation

Reputation is the key component in Social Media, the way you deliver your message and the frequency that you deliver it is going to directly impact your reputation.

(19) Never SPAM Your Friends

Friends don’t what to read spam or care about the latest trends in Social Media. Computer programs that send messages over the Internet that nobody wants are spamming. There are places on Social Networks to advertise and build lists of people that want to know about your business. For example, when people join a page on FaceBook they know that they are going to receive messages from the people that run the page.

(20) You’re Not Fooling Anyone

Just be yourself and treat people like your friends and everyone is going to like you. Pretending to offer sage advice only to lure people into some get rich quick website is going to get you nowhere fast. An excellent example is the “Thank Your For Following Me” message on Twitter, that is always generated by a computer program. A tool that will only build traffic to your website from contemptible people or people with contempt for you.

The Wrong Way to Do Social Networking

There are many ways to implement a social networking marketing campaign, but not all of them are equally effective. Here are some typical missteps:

read more | digg story

Is Twitter Right For Your Business?

Twitter has made the news again with the recent Ashton Kutcher vs CNN race to 1 million followers. Now that piece of pulp news has given ammunition to all the so-called social media “experts” riding Twitters jock. I’m going to borrow a line from Chuck D and Flava Flav and caution some of you business owners out there, “Don’t believe the hype”.

Your local ad agency, web guy or God forbid “social media expert” may be trying to use this as an example as to why your business should start tweeting. They may even show you examples of various tweeters with thousands of followers trying to convince you that that kind of audience is waiting for your message. After all, what business owner wouldn’t like to have tens of thousands of people to market to on a regular business.

I’ve read some recent blog postings from “social media experts” hailing this event as proof that Twitter can be used to reach a huge audience for business. The scary thing is that I believe some of these “experts” actually have people paying them money for this kind of advice. Someone needs to step up and drop some common sense on the public.

I guess I’ll have to do it.

First thing I have to say is this. Twitter can be useful tool for some businesses. That’s “some” businesses, not all of them.  Another thing is the fact that Ashton Kutcher and CNN have some things going for them that 99.9% of the business owners out there reading this probably don’t have. Fame, popularity and the ability to get their message to the masses through TV and radio for free.

People, if you’re not an “A” list celebrity or a huge corporate entity with a zillion media outlets to promote through then you may need to scale back your Twitter expectations just a little bit.

Here are just a few things you need to ask yourself when considering using Twitter as a tool in your overall marketing scheme.

Do to have time to do this right?

Using Twitter for business works best when you stay consistent. Can you post messages and check responses multiple times per day? Can you do it once a day or once a week. The more you post using Twitter the better the chances are of someone finding one of your tweets interesting and following you. If they follow you, then they are at least interested in something you had to say and maybe, just maybe, they’ll become a client or refer someone to you.

Do you have someone to do this for you?

If you don’t have time but see value to your business ask yourself this question. Are you willing to pay someone to keep up with this for you or are you willing to add tweeting to an existing employees workload. Again, consistency is key. Someone needs to be blasting out messages and responding to your followers in a timely manner.

Are you willing to pay someone to show you how to do it?

There are strategies you can use to promote your business through Twitter. Do you know them? If not, are you willing to attend a seminar or workshop to learn them? Are you willing to pay a marketing specialist or consultant to put together a marketing plan for you. Just because it’s free and 16 year olds are tweeting it doesn’t mean you should just start blasting out messages without knowing what you are actually doing. Just as quick as you can get your business message out a bad rep can be spread by becoming too spamming or self serving in your tweets. The goal is for people to like your tweets – not be repulsed by them.

Will using Twitter bring in actual business or just waste your time?

If you don’t know, you better ask somebody. Some people will immediately see the benefit Twitter can bring to their business others, not so much. Like I said before, it’s not for everyone.

Jayme Ward is the owner of Digi Donkey, an Internet consulting firm located in Historic Cocoa Village, Florida. He is also the creator of the Cheap Ass Website.

Basic Information About Website Hosting

A website hosting company provides a place where the files used to build your website are kept so that they can be viewed and accessed by people on the Internet. Your files are kept on a web server. This is a basically special type of hard drive that has software running on it so that it is accessible to people surfing the Internet. Think of it like a folder on your computer where you keep pictures. If you want to look at the pictures you have to open the folder to see them. A web hosting service provides the ability for people to see your pages by clicking on your URL. Your URL is directed to a folder on the web server that contains all the files needed for your website to work. When the web designer finishes building your website they will upload all the files to your web server and then your website will be viewable to the world.

There are two main types of web servers that can host websites and they are Linux servers and Windows servers. If you are setting up your hosting account yourself yourself, ask your web designer which type of server you’ll need to run your website. Sometimes it can be a hassle having to switch over from one type to the other which in turn could end up costing you more money. They both basically do the same things but certain e-commerce shopping carts, websites, CMS systems and other software will only run on one or the other.

The three most relevant types of web hosting for most businesses learning about the Internet for the first time are shared hosting, dedicated hosting and self hosting.

Shared hosting involves putting your website on the same part of a web server with other people’s websites.  The equipment and server are owned and managed by the web host provider, with technicians on hand to monitor and manage the servers. This is a popular option because it is inexpensive and gives you many of the benefits that dedicated hosting provides. The drawback is that you will have limited access to the server which means you may not be able to run many of the applications you see on other websites. This is a good option if you just want to have basic website.

Dedicated hosting allows you to rent an entire web server yourself and have access to all its resources to host one or more websites. The website hosting company typically does not take responsibility for anything other than the hosting operations. Setting up files, databases, permissions and other technical things may (depending on the company) be your or your web designer’s responsibility. Most web hosting companies provide built in tools to make doing these things easier but the learning curve can be steep. This option is good for larger websites and ones used for e-commerce. If security is important then dedicated hosting is what you need. The cost can be a little bit more than shared hosting but there are many web hosting companies out there where there is no difference.

Self hosting is when you host the website yourself on your own web server. To do this you’ll need the proper hardware, software, technical skill and Internet connection. This option gives you complete control and responsibility over everything. Hosting your own web server will normally require a specialized Internet connection depending on your particular needs. Before going this route you’ll want to speak to an Internet consultant or IT person to get all the particulars.

When you sign up for web hosting you will given a login and password to your account so remember to write this information down and keep it somewhere you won’t lose it. You may even be able to sign up for hosting when you purchase your domain name. Speak to your web designer before doing this if you are not sure as to what you are doing or what type of hosting you need. If you don’t have anyone to consult with when you buy your domain name then purchase the hosting at a later time. It won’t cost you anymore to do so as hosting can always be added to your account later on.

Jayme Ward is the owner of Digi Donkey, an Internet consulting service located in Historic Cocoa Village, Florida. He is also the creator of the one and only  Cheap Ass Website.

SEO Explained

According to the bastion of knowledge known as Wikipedia, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it “ranks,” the more searchers will visit that site.

Now I’ll attempt to explain what SEO is for people who don’t know an algorithm from an enema.

The search engines use an algorithm to determine the placement of a website when someone types in a search phrase for content contained on that website. Here is an extremely over-simplified example. Someone types “plumber Boston” into Google’s search box. What happens then is Google displays all of the websites that have the words “plumber” and “Boston” in them. Now if one website has more instances of the words “plumber” and “Boston” in it than another then, in theory, it will rank higher. Google knows which websites have these words because is has indexed all the websites that are out there and it has given relevance to each and every one based on certain criteria. This is predominately based on two things: the text on the website and how many other websites with similar content have linked to the website. There are other things that factor in too like how long the website has been online, the names of the files used to build the website, the frequency of updates, the title and description meta tags, the domain name and the technical makeup of the website.

What it boils down to is this. If you want someone to find your business by typing in “pool company Phoenix” then you better have the words “pool company Phoenix” sprinkled throughout your website. An even better way to do this is to use proper phrases throughout your website’s content. Instead of “pool company Phoenix”, since that isn’t really proper grammar, you could use “pool company in Phoenix” such as “Are you looking for the best pool company in Phoenix?” and “If you need a pool company in Phoenix then ABC Pools is the place for you.” That will increase the chances of your website being listed higher when someone searches for “pool company in Phoenix”.

Now if two or more websites have the exact same amount of instances of the phrase “pool company in Phoenix” then the amount of incoming links will factor in. An incoming link is another website linking to your website. Google factors in how many websites link to your website when ranking pages. It doesn’t appear at the time of this writing that the other search engines place as heavy an emphasis on incoming links as Google. It helps out even more if the links are coming from websites with similar content. Links from other pool company websites, websites about pools, pool suppliers and directory listings under the category of anything pool related would help your website out more than links from flower shops.

It can take up to 3-4 months for a brand new website to show up in the search engine rankings. If your website is built properly it should start showing up in various searches during that time frame. You can test this yourself by typing in various word combinations related to your products, services and service area. Your placement will be determined by your website’s content, incoming links and how much competition there is for the keywords used for the search. If you are one of only 5 roofers with websites in your area then your website should show up within the first 1 or 2 pages or so if someone types in the word “roofers” and a city or town in your service area, for example “roofer Bay City, MI”. If it doesn’t, then you need to make sure that your website has enough mentions of the words “roofer” and “Bay City, MI” in the text because the search engines have not deemed your website relevant for that particular search phrase.

I hope this sheds a little light on the subject for you. If you want more information on how to not get screwed when hiring someone do SEO work for you then click here to read this previous post.

Jayme Ward is the owner of Digi Donkey, an Internet consulting firm located in Historic Cocoa Village, FL.  He can also hook you up with a Cheap Ass Website.