Mystic Toad Press Blog

The Basics:

Web hosting offers you the opportunity to put your web site online, when you think about it; it’s the only way you can do it. No matter how large or small in content your web site happens to be it has to go onto a web server. A web server is simply a larger and much more powerful computer than your own. Your internet content simply sits on this server for people to access and view your information. The web servers are stored within data centers, all you are simply doing is renting some space on the server.

Why use a web hosting service:

Firstly it’s very affordable. Web hosting companies will look after and update all software required to maintain your site, they will also add all security patches making sure your content is safe from hackers/viruses and unwanted spam. Once you register your domain name (web site name) you have to have it hosted for the public to view your information. If you run into any difficulties you will have a full technical support team to help you out. To host your own will cost too much on hardware, bandwidth and ongoing software updates.

I hear of shared web hosting - What is it?

When shopping around for a web host company you will find that many are offering shared web hosting. Shared web hosting is simply a server that has a number of different web sites sitting on it simultaneously. You will be allocated a certain amount of disk space on the server and this may allow you to have a number of web sites hosted on the one server. Shared web hosting is a very secure service even though you could be sharing the server with many different companies. No other company will have access to your files. Many people think that using a shared service will make the web site act very slowly, this is totally incorrect, the information will be displayed and downloaded equally as fast as if it where on the server on it’s own. Web host companies offer shared hosting simply to use up all the space on the server, there is no benefit to you or them having empty hard disk space.

What makes a good web host site?

If you have developed a web site for business opportunity or to sell merchandise online you need reliability. Downtime costs you money so the less downtime you experience the better chance of making money. You need to compile a list of questions to ask the web host company when it comes to hosting your site. You need a guarantee response time if the unthinkable should happen and the site goes offline. You need 24 hour access to your files with 24 hour support if you intend selling products online, most of your sales could be made in the evening or night time so you have to have support for any issues that could arise. Statistics are also important; you need to know how many unique hits (people visiting your site) you are getting so you can see the trend of people just visiting to those who are buying. Some web host companies offer very substantial stats while others can be less informative, you should ask for a demonstration.

Word of mouth is a great way to hear as to who is a good host and a bad host. If you know somebody in a similar position to you, ask their opinion from their experience. There are plenty of good honest web host companies out there but like every market there are a few bad apples. Ask the questions and make sure you are confident with the replies before you join up.

Will it matter if I host my web site in my own country or in another?

Generally speaking no. If you are happy with your questions answered and the company have 24 hour support to allow for time differences you should have the same level service as if the web host company was based just down the road. Some people think that by hosting their website outside of their registered country they will lose their domain identity, this is false e.g. if I was based in Ireland and I had a computer website it would be something like www.computerparts.ie The .ie is the identity of Ireland but if I wanted this site hosted in the US I would still keep the .ie, there is no need to change to .com. That’s the great thing about web hosting, the world is your oyster and you can shop online globally until your are truly happy with the service.

About the Author
Declan Tobin is a successful freelance writer providing advice to consumers on purchasing a variety of
Affordable Web Hosting and
Cheap web hosting, and more! His numerous articles provide a wonderfully researched resource of interesting and relevant information.

If you are a member of or in charge of a club or user group and you don’t have a website, you are missing out on many benefits!

First, if you have and hand out information pamphlets and brochures, you obviously need people to hand them out. If your material is on the web, you have a permanent delivery method that is handing out your info 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Second, The information contained within your brochure is bound to change from time to time. That would mean having to scrap all your inventory and re-print everything whenever something changes. With a website, you can have shorter print runs and your web version is very easily updated whenever it needs to be.

Third, You can add extras to it. You don’t have to have just a static page, but you can if you want to. But you could also add feedback and survey forms, add community forums, picture galleries and share other files and updates between members.

Fourth, It is a reliable contact point. Including a form and/or publicity officer’s email address means that whenever someone is interested in contacting your group (for example, if you are in a computer user group and some member of the public is interested in donating some hardware or software), the information is always available, always current and always convenient.

Fifth, It shows you’re up to date. Many may not want to show off technologically, but it’s fun to have it there anyway. It’s fun to show off and you can demonstrate your excellent design and organisational skills using it.

So whether you’re a non-profit, social or church group, you can always benefit somehow with a website. They don’t have to be expensive and they can be put up much quickly than you might think.

Martin is the author of “How To Get Your Website Up for Free”. He is available for writing assignments of any size and can be contacted via his website at http://www.martincoleman.com

I ask myself that question about once a month.My website looks fine to me, but what are otherpeople seeing? And what are the Search Enginesseeing? Here’s a checklist of 10 ways to optimizeyour website for peak performance:

1. Browser Compatibility

The first thing is to look at your website throughother people’s browsers. I do this regularly and I’vesometimes been shocked at what I saw!

ANYBROWSERhttp://www.anybrowser.com

2. Broken Links

About 5% of all links on the Internet are broken. Asite that contains broken links gives a bad impressionto visitors and is a frequent cause of lost sales.Also, the major Search Engines and Directories will notlist your page if it contains any broken links or missingimages.

Here are some free link validators:

LINK SCANhttp://www.elsop.com/linkscan/quickcheck.html

NET MECHANIChttp://www.netmechanic.com/maintain.htm

WEBSITE GARAGE DEADLINK CHECKhttp://websitegarage.netscape.com/O=wsg/tuneup_plus/index.html

3. Web Safe Colors

Are the colors on your web site displaying properly onother people’s browsers? You may have a beautifulshade of lilac on your index page but it could lookvery strange on someone else’s computer.

There are only 216 colors that you can safely use onthe Web. These colors display solid and consistent onany computer monitor or web browser that is able todisplay at least 8-bit color.

The Web Safe Palette contains six groups of colorswith 36 colors per group. These 216 web safe colorscan have any combination of the following RGB (RedGreen Blue) values: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255 (eachRGB value must be divisible by 51).

Here’s a good palette of web safe colors:

WEB-SOURCE SAFE COLORShttp://www.web-source.net/216_color_chart.htm

4. ALT Tags

ALT Tags allow you to give an alternative to peoplewho have the ‘view images’ function turned off intheir browser. Let’s say the navigation system on yourwebsite is a series of buttons that link to otherpages on your site. If you don’t have ALT Tags, peoplewho have the ‘view images’ function turned off willbe unable to navigate through your site - in placeof your button they will just see an empty space.

But an ALT Tag allows you to tell those people whatthat button does. For example, if the button is a linkto your ‘Site Map’ you could insert the following ALTTag:

ALT Tags also allow you to raise your keyword density.For every image that is not hyperlinked you couldinsert your main keywords. For example:

5. Meta Tags

Meta Tags are so important they deserve a wholearticle on their own. The most important Meta Tags arethe Title Tag, the Keywords Tag and the Description Tag.

The Title Tag should be no more than 64 characters(longer than that and it will be cut off in someSearch Engines).

The Keyword Tag should contain about 5 to 10 keywordsthat appear on your page. Never include words that donot appear on that page - in some Search Engines your websitewill be penalized for this. Do not repeat the same keyword - this is called ‘keyword stuffing’ and is also frowned upon bythe Search Engines.

Separate your keywords with spaces (not commas). Thisallows the Search Engines to combine your keywords into phrases,for people who do ‘phrase searching’.

The Description Tag should be no more than 200 characters.Include as many of your keywords as you can. Remember also thatyour Description Tag must be enticing - it must make peoplewant to visit your site.

Here are some programs that will generate your MetaTags for you:

WEBSITE GARAGEhttp://websitegarage.netscape.com/turbocharge/metatag/

META MEDIChttp://www.northernwebs.com/set/setsimjr.html

MULTI-META-MAKERhttp://www.multimeta.com/tools/multimetamaker.html

6. Load Time

A slow-loading index page is one of the main reasonsfor lost sales. The generally accepted maximum timefor a page to load is around 15 seconds. Here is afree service that tells you how long your web pagetakes to load:

NETMECHANIChttp://www.netmechanic.com/cobrands/FutureQuest/load_check.htm

Your pages should be no more than about 30Kb in size. To calculate the size of your web page, highlight theHTML document and then click on ‘File’ and’Properties’ and note down the file size. Then do thesame for any graphics you have on that page. Then addthose figures together to get your page size.

If your page is less than 30Kb and takes more than 15seconds to load, the problem is most likely with yourweb host. The solution is to change web host. Here are2 services that will check the speed of your web host’sserver and compare it with other web hosts:

HOST COMPAREhttp://www.hostcompare.com/testtools.htm

CNET WEBSERVICEShttp://webservices.cnet.com/ping/

7. GIF (or JPEG) Cruncher

Shrinking the size of your images is one of the bestways to get a faster-loading web page. You can usuallyreduce a GIF or JPEG image by 40% to 50% withoutlosing any significant definition or sharpness.

SPINWAVEhttp://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html

8. HTML Optimizer

Another way to make your page load faster is tocompress (or optimize) your HTML code. An HTMLOptimizer removes all blank spaces in your HTML codeand also removes certain unnecessary tags.

On average, an HTML optimizer will reduce the size ofyour page by 15% to 20%. That percentage may not seemmuch, but the saving in load time is much higher, asyour visitor’s browser will parse your page much moreefficiently.

A word of caution: in most HTML Optimizers you willfind an ‘Options’ menu that tells the program toignore certain parts of your code. Make sure yourOptimizer does not compress embedded script tags - ifthey get compressed, the script will usually not work.

ADVANCED HTML OPTIMIZERhttp://www.pcbit.com/htmlopt/

9. WIDTH, HEIGHT and BORDER Tags

The WIDTH, HEIGHT and BORDER attributes are essentialfor each image that you have on your website. When youhyperlink an image, always make sure that the BORDERattribute is set to zero (BORDER=0). If you don’t dothis, your hyperlinked image will have an ugly blueborder around it.

The WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes allow your page toload faster, as the browser knows in advance howmuch space the image requires. To find out the widthand height of any image, just double click on theimage file. This will automatically open ‘MicrosoftPhoto Editor’ - your image will appear, with the widthand height of your image (in pixels) displayed on thetool bar.

10. HTML Validator

Always check the validity of your HTML. Some SearchEngines give lower rankings to pages that have poorquality HTML (such as incorrect nesting of elements).

Here are some free online validators:

HTML HELPhttp://www.htmlhelp.org/tools/validator/

BOBBYhttp://www.cast.org/bobby/

WATSONhttp://watson.addy.com/

————————————————————
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
————————————————————

Many businesses want a simple website where they tell people what their business is about, some information on the products they offer and a means of contacting them.

However, content is vital in the growth of your Internet presence. Information is your asset and all you need to produce it is the knowledge you attain over time.

For some, they simply don’t know where to start. Here are some things to consider that could lead you to providing great content and a value-adding website.

1. Write what you know

Knowledge is power. Post articles to your website that show that you are well informed in your industry. If you can position yourself as an expert in your industry you can boost perceived credibility of your business on the whole.

2. Entertain

Everyone likes to be entertained.
For example, if you are marketing African tours, you might publish photo galleries or post stories on the African people, travel tips, the climate, etc.

3. About Your Business

Are people interested in the current happenings in your business? Post news items on your website. Eg. “New branches Country Wide”

4. About Your Product

What do your customers often ask you about? What are their uncertainties? If you offer a “complex” product, which requires much learning on the part of the consumer, a website is a great place to teach them! This in mind, you might not want to be too technical in your copy - tell them about the benefits, not the features.
A great way to clarify uncertainties is to publish a “Frequently Asked Questions” or a “Q&A” section.

5. Back to the Plan

Take a look at your marketing and / or business plan - what goals are you trying to achieve and how are you trying to position yourself in the market place?

6. Watch your competition

6.1. What are competitors offering through their website that you are not?

6.1.1. Determine why they publish this content, then think of ways that you can improve it and use it on your website. Don’t copy - enhance.

6.2. What are you offering on your website that competitors are not
This raises two questions:

6.2.1. Is the information you offer really satisfying? Does it need to be there?

6.2.2. And, if the information does give you a kind of competitive advantage, how can you capitalize on that?

7. User Behaviour

Consider your Internet market - what do they do on the Internet.

7.1. Do they like to communicate with other Internet users about your industry? Consider having a forum on your website where you can allow website visitors to do this

7.2. What websites do they visit and what kind of information might they be looking for on those websites? If this kind of information is consistent with your industry and the product / service you are marketing, try to offer this kind of information on your website

John Simms is an Internet Marketer for Eiledon Solutions, a South African company based in Cape Town offering website development and related Internet Marketing services.

Well, there is no doubt that the Internet is back and bigger than ever. Everyone is getting in on the action, from businesses to individuals. If you have something to say or a product to advertise, the World Wide Web is the place to do it. The problem is, most people lack the basic skills required to begin their own web page, something that is necessary if you really want maximum exposure for yourself. There are several ways around your computer illiteracy that will help you to begin the web site you have dreamed of launching as a platform for your ideas.

The easiest way to get your web site under way if you are computer illiterate is to hire someone to do the set up for you. Many computer savvy individuals will scoff at this notion, but that is the point- they are computer savvy, and you are not. Time is money, so the odds are that you will actually save money by hiring someone to set up your site for you by cutting out the tremendous amount of time it takes to get all the bugs ironed out of your site and get it up and running.

If you are an individual who feels you have the time to spare to get your web site up and running, then you may want to try and set up your web site yourself. In order to do this, you will need to master the basic tools of web design- HTML and FTP.

FTP is an abbreviation which stands for File Transfer Protocol. This protocol is commonly used for exchanging files over the Internet, using a server computer and a client computer. The protocol is an open standard, which allows anyone to create FTP server or client software.

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. This language is now considered an Internet standard when it comes to structuring information on a web page- it is the equivalent of the Microsoft Works toolbar, and allows users to italicize or bold their text, link to another page or another article on their own page, create paragraphs, and many other functions. HTML application codes can be found all over the Internet, so don’t worry if you have never heard of this before. A simple search will allow you to find a site which you can download the basic HTML formats from.

Another solution for the computer illiterate in order to enable them to design their own site is to take a course or a few courses in web design. Like many other applications, web design can be an easy concept to master once you achieve the right instruction and practice. There are courses available through most community colleges and universities, and there are even cheaper ones available over the Internet. If you have a friend who is familiar with computer systems, they will also be able to assist you with your web design.

Willie Reynolds maintains a website with free web design training.

Importance of Audience Analysis

As I mentioned in an earlier article, audience analysis must be
your first and formost objective if you want to have a
successful website. Unless you know who is visiting your website
your efforts will be less successful than if the site is focused
on a particular audience. If the webmaster is to be successful
in producing an effective website he/she must proceed
systematically.

Analyzing the Audience

The webmaster should analyze his prospective audience in light
of the message he is attempting to convey. You must be concerned
with the range of ages represented in your visitors, the
education and experience of this audience and their knowledge
and opinions on your main theme. You must adapt your website as
specifically as possible to the audience that you are trying to
reach. You will need more than a superficial knowledge of your
target audience. What are their interests, are they educated or
uneducated, are they experienced or inexperienced, what are
their opinions and prejudices and what is their economic and
social level.

The webmaster should never fail to consider the emotional state
of his audience. Establish a common ground of feeling. You must
analyze and utilize their motives and interests if you are to
relate what you have to say to their habits of thought and
feeling. To do this you must know as much as possible about the
behavior and needs of the people who will be visiting your
website.

Often, the subject of your website will give you a hint as to
the character of your visitors. If they are interested enough to
visit your website then you can expect that they have an
interest in what you have to offer. Understand your audience in
terms of the trends of the day as revealed through newspapers,
magazines, broadcasts, the movies and web surfing. Compare the
customs, standards, traditions and manners that you possess with
that of your target audience and create a common ground with
them.

Define and Refine

There are 4 steps, that if followed, will define your target
audience and refine your site to meet their interests. They are;

1) Investigation - Consider the purpose of the website,
the layout that best projects the idea that you wish to convey
and characteristics of your prospective audience. List possible
topics and select the one best suited to all aspects of the
situation: your interests and qualifications, the requirements
necessary to promote your ideas, the necessary content to
accomplish this and the expectations and characteristics of the
audience.

2) Organization - The next step for the webmaster is to
determine the structure of the website. The webmaster must
decide the logical requirements of the subject matter and the
most appropriate way to adapt it to the prospective audience.
Only after a webmaster has selected the topic, has analyzed the
particular audience, and has collected the proper content will
they be equipped to plan the structure of the website.

3) Method of Expression - The third step in building an
audience friendly website is to express the thought in a way
that will communicate to your audience exactly what you intend.
The central theme should be easy to follow, the vocabulary must
be suited to the understanding of the audience and be
interesting enough to hold the attention of your visitors.

4) Mastery of the Content - You must master the content
of your website and present a logical sequence of ideas leading
to a particular goal. Set up your website in such a way that
there is a smooth progression from one idea to another. Make
clear the exact meaning of what you are saying each step of the
way.

You should be able to find several indispensable facts about SEO
in the following paragraphs. If there’s at least one fact you
didn’t know before, imagine the difference it might make.

View the source of each and every page: is there JavaScript and
CSS on the page? Remember that spiders may not index pages that
have more than 10k or so of JavaScript or CSS embedded in them.
Spiders don’t enjoy getting tangled up in JavaScript. So as a
general rule you should avoid putting out prompts and alerts
using JavaScript every time that a page loads. Because of this
rule, it is also wise to avoid link partners who do so on the
pages that they link to you from. If anything looks fishy, it
probably is.

CSS won’t give you many problems. If you are going to use CSS,
it is best to link to it from another source. Create a separate
CSS page and use the tag to work it into the head of your HTML.
This method will keep your file size down considerably, and
since you will probably be using the same CSS on several pages,
decrease your bandwidth usage. Normally a large quantity of CSS
within the document isn’t indicative of any suspicious behavior
on the part of the linker. If you feel that you are, indeed,
suffering from the fact that the site uses such an excessive
proportion of CSS on the page itself, suggest to the webmaster
that he/she may want to create an external CSS document and link
to it in his/her header.

Check that you’re still on the domain you clicked on a link to,
and you haven’t moved to another site or a subdomain. Some
people will move you to another domain while telling that’s
their site and your link is there, relying on you not checking
the address bar. This trick is all too common and happens to
folks who are new to SEO every single day. This sad fact will
continue until people begin to catch it every time.

If you don’t have accurate details regarding SEO, then you might
make a bad choice on the subject. Don’t let that happen: keep
reading.

If the domain has changed, delete your backlink to the site in
question immediately and then email the webmaster with your
complaint. If the webmaster does not fix the problem you may
even want to request that they remove the link as the site may
wind up discredited as a link farm or some such thing that you
do not want to be associated with for fear of being banned from
many popular search engines with technology used to combat link
farms.

On a related subject, when you check your back links, make sure
that these links appear in legitimate places. If the site is
completely dedicated to linking to other sites and doesn’t seem
to be a directory or something similar you will want to get your
link removed as soon as possible. There is no time when one link
is worth the risk of being permanently banned from any popular
search engine. Aside from the traffic that you will lose from
that one search engine, you may wind up “red flagged” so to
speak. It seems to be common practice among search engines that
if one finds faulty activity the rest seem to find out soon
afterwards.

Overall, if it seems dodgy, leave it alone. It’s better to
sacrifice one link in caution than to destroy your site’s
rankings by accepting one you’re not sure of. There are hundreds
of situations aside from link farms that can and will give you
trouble. It would be impossible to list every scam as there are
people who make their living (or seem to anyway) in creating and
executing these scams. Whenever there is a new form of “SEO”
technology that “can’t fail,” you should watch out because it is
almost guaranteed to blow up in your face. The only truly
powerful and guaranteed method of SEO is to make your site
valuable to your visitors and then let it fall where it may in
the realm of the search engine.

It is difficult, after you have optimized your pages and
submitted them to search engines and directories, to sit back
and wait, but there is not much that can be done aside from
attempting to accumulate links from good, solid places. The work
that you have done is bound to pay off sooner or later as long
as you stay honest. When it comes to the world of SEO, honesty
is, indeed, the best policy.

When word gets around about your command of SEO facts, others
who need to know about SEO will start to actively seek you out.

Remember those times when typewriters were the only remedy for
printing letters and other information materials? It was mainly
used in school projects and office reports. People never felt
the difficulty and hassle it causes because it was the only
available instrument. For multiple jobs, mimeographing was used
to create multiple pages like newsletters, test papers, bulletin
and other paper works.

Now, you can keep your typewriter or leave it on the side
because a new breakthrough such as digital printing will end
your days of pushing hard on the typewriter keys. Isn’t it great
and relieving? Digital printings make use of printers and it has
brought too much advantage to the users. It is a method of
printing materials either black or white and color prints which
is designed and enhanced in the computer.

Digital printing covers printing colorful images and other
patterns for use. It uses ink jet which is known for quality
digital prints. Inkjets are widely used because it can print
multiple pages at a lesser time span. It lessens the time frame
for a single work to be done.

Images are clearly printed with the use of inkjet printers.
Images which are ready or pictures can be quickly scanned in the
computer and saves it as an image file. Once images are saved in
the computer, you can edit the images with colors and other
effects with the use of appropriate software. Shading is a
property that digital printing offers. You just need a magic
touch with the help of the mouse and you can have your images
edited and finally printed obtaining its right colors.

Digital printing produces clean and clear printed outputs. It is
captures the right images which is exactly equivalent to the
images seen on the monitor just after editing. It is precise and
accurate and the edges and sharpness is captured normally.

Flexibility is another advantage of digital printing. You can
simply save your files in another format and open it on other
kinds of software that suits the quality for printing. So you
won’t have to worry if your files are on a different format or
if it is still in the older version.

Digital printing is highly environment friendly because of its
water-based property. It does not require too much washing and
water as well.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit
http://www.digitalprintingcompany.com

Nothing aggravates me more than finding myself at a website that
has absolutely no content. Well, I say no content, but what I
mean is no content other than advertising. While advertising may
be a person’s only reason for maintaining a website, how
effective is that advertising going to be without content?
Though many of us feel like some television stations are only
advertising, the truth is they prove that content, even just a
little, is necessary to attract viewers. So, we have learned the
answer to the web content question, “When?” The answer is always.

Where to put your web
content is a great question. There are many items that are
included in most websites such as navigational links, titles,
graphics, and advertising to name a few. With all of these
elements, web content usually gets thrown into the mix where
ever it can find a place. The top half of a web page is first
place your reader is going to be looking. In some cases, it may
be the only place they look before moving on to another site.
While graphics may be used to catch a person’s eye, you will
also want to put some content in the line of sight and it will
need to be the most important content you have.

Now, many web masters are still debating the “Why?” These
individuals place web content on their pages but it isn’t
quality web content. They sucker someone into writing 100
articles in two nights for only $200 and they think that they
pulled one over the poor writer. However, it is really the other
way around. Quality web content attracts quality web audiences
while trash just collects trash. It is hard to get people
interested in products that are displayed on site that doesn’t
make sense. In fact, I have encountered some sites that were
just too much work to read. They had way too many typos, but it
was the construction that made them difficult to read.

So, how do you find quality content? Well, there are many sites
that offer it for free. You see, many people submit articles in order to get
their products out there. This may be accomplished by adding a
link in the content or on the site that they submit the content
to. However, many of these article submission sites will not
take blatant advertising articles. In fact, many only accept
articles that impart some knowledge to the reader.

Another way to find web content is to purchase re-print
articles. Many authors are willing to sell their reprints for a
lot cheaper than original content. Though it may not be the
first time the content has been used, it may be the first time
it was published on the web. In fact, if you are only interested
in articles that have never been published to the web, you can
state your preference upfront.

The last option is to simple buy an article from one of the many
web content marketplaces. This is great time to purchase
articles as they are not very expensive. Many web content
providers have so much staff that finding someone that is an
expert on your topic will not be hard to do.