Web Services and Tools

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It is a known fact that Google is one of the most important search engines on the Internet. To have your site displayed at the top of the search results, you need to improve your link popularity and you need to understand how Google measures the link popularity of your web site.

What makes a good Google Page Ranking?

Link popularity is the first aspect reviewed by the Google algorithm and is determined by the number of web sites that are linking to your web site. Search engines use the number of links to your web site as a measure of how important your web site is. The more links you have from other sites, the more important your web site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.

But this is not the only factor used to calculate your web site’s link popularity. Your web site is also examined against the relevance of the links your web site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has links from 4,000 other web sites, but those web sites have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm will take that into account, and the link popularity, or page rank score will not be very good.

This means that it is possible for a website with a relatively small number of relevant inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links.

You could try to build links to your web site by using link farms or FFA (Free For All) pages. Not only will this damage your search engine rankings, but your web site may get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Link farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are link directories. Search engines, such as Google, usually penalize web sites that have links coming from these sources.

So now we know that one factor that Google uses in their algorithm is the total number of sites linking to your web site. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, links from web sites that are relevant to the subject matter on your web sites rate higher than links that are not relevant.

Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a web site or page that text and content that relates to the text on your web site. The key terms or text that is relevant are considered keywords. For example, if your site is about weight loss, and another weight loss website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information or textual content (keywords) about weight loss is being discussed.

Google gives an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that helps to describe your web site. Anchor text is the text between the <a href=”"></a> tags. So if the link from another web site had the following link code <a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.com”>WEIGHT LOSS</a> the link text is “WEIGHT LOSS”. If there was a link from the blog on another web site about WEIGHT LOSS to your web site using that anchor text, your score would be higher.

Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword WEIGHT LOSS, Google considers that to be unusual. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to your topic, such as WEIGHT LOSS PLAN or DIET WEIGHT LOSS, etc.

It is not an easy task to increase the link popularity of your web site, but this bit of information should assist you in designing a site, and structuring your textual content to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site using relevant ANCHOR TEXT.

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Occasionally, we receive questions from our members about implementing technologies that are still new to them. The following post covers a topic on CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that we hope you find useful.

Martin from WealthyDragon writes “I know what CSS does and what it allows you to do, but I’ve never got to grips with actually using it. There are still murmurings in the forums that getting CSS to work in different browsers still causes headaches. So I don’t plan on using it until those wrinkles are easier to manage.”

“For example: what are the files that make up a page that uses CSS?
On pages that don’t use CSS, you have an HTML file, some image files and
whatever other files you need (e.g. audio files, etc.). What are the
files that make up a page that uses CSS?”

This is a problem many people have that already have their own websites, but want a better way to dress up their website. In the beginning, there were many problems related to cross-browser compatibility. But many of these have been worked out and the ones that remain are usually in the more advanced realm of using CSS. Those issues aside, let’s start with some basics.

First, CSS can be implemented right inside your HTML files. There is no need for any other files. Style attributes can also be used right inside your HTML tags as well. However, having a separate CSS file for your styles allows the same style sheet to be used for all of the pages on your web site. Have I confused you yet? Let’s look at each option:

Option 1 - Implementing CSS in your HTML files

There is an HTML tag named <STYLE>. By inserting a set of STYLE tags in your HTML file just after the BODY tag, you can define STLYE attributes for your web page. For example:

<STYLE>
body {
font-size: 11px;
font-weight: italic;
color: #FF0000;
}
</STYLE>

This is the style that will be applied to everything in between the <BODY> tags of the HTML file. It says that my text will be 11pixels in size, in Italics and the color Red. Every tag in the CSS file starts with the HTML tag (without the brackets) an opening ‘{’, the formatting commands and a closing ‘}’. Each formatting command is structured as ‘attribute: setting;’

Insert a STYLE section at the top of your page just after the BODY tag and change around some of the settings between the brackets (the ‘{’ and ‘}’ brackets). This is one of the best ways to learn how CSS works on your web page.

Option 2 - Style attributes within HTML tags

The second way of using STYLE tags is to put them right inside your HTML tags. For instance, we are all familiar with the tag to create a link so let’s use that one:

<a href=”myhomepage.html”>Text that links to my page</a>

This is the standard use of the tag, now lets add some formatting using the style attribute in the tag and some style sheet commands:

<a style=”font-weight:bold; font-variant:small-caps; font-size:12px;” href=”myhomepage.html”>Text that links to my page</a>

This should produce the following result:

Text that links to my page

This is the method I use when designing my websites until I get the desired look, and then I move everything into a style sheet file. Which brings us to option 3 …

Option 3 - Integrating CSS as a separate file

Having all of your styles in a separate file keeps the look and feel of your web pages standard across your entire website. Once you have all of your formatting done, you can save them into a file with the extension ‘.css’, such as ’style.css’. You then link to this file from your HTML files with the following command:

<link href=”style.css” rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css”>

This line should go just before the </HEAD> tag in your HTML file.

Summary

This is just the beginning, and by no means a comprehensive guide to CSS. But, if you are comfortable with using one or all of the options mentioned above, you are now ready to begin playing around with the different attributes of CSS to get your website looking its best.

There is a full reference on CSS tags and attributes here.

There is a CSS Cheat Sheet for your reference here.

Have fun!

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The contest is over and the winners have been announce. But it’s worth checking in on Novak’s blog as he may run the contest again. You can see the winners of the contest here.

We Won a Free Image ad!

Novak’s Blog just sent me some news about free 125×125 graphic and text-link ads on their main page at Novak’s blog. You can read the post about the competition and while you’re there make yourself laugh browsing through some interesting and funny pictures.

I really enjoy the series on “Moments Frozen in Time“, but they also have a series titled “Stumble on Sunday“. This site has a good PR (”page rank”) and is a good source for web site traffic for our Web Marketers looking for a chance to increase authority and visibility.

Enjoy the pictures!.

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What the heck is fring?!

First, the boring description … fring is a VoIP application that allows you to make calls, chat with your friend and view real-time presence of your contact, and that works anywhere in the world.

I know, “so what” you say. “I already have an application that does that”.

You’re probably right. But what if I said that fring is a mobile VoIP application for your mobile phone? What if I told you it uses your mobile phones wi-fi or mobile data plan to allow you to make VoIP calls and live chat? Interested yet?

What if I also told you that in addition to being able to perform all of these functions among fring users, you could also seamlessly integrate fring with your Skype, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Twitter, AIM and Yahoo! accounts? Ahhh, now I have your attention! For the more advanced technology crowd, you can even setup your own SIP account and use it through Fring.

We have been using fring for about 6 months now and we are well impressed with it’s features and performance. Initially, we had some issues with connectivity, but the latest version of fring uses Wispr technology to manage your access points and allow you to experience near seamless Wi-Fi roaming between access points and 3G networks. This was the deciding factor in making this a standard application on all of our corporate handsets. The roaming still isn’t as seamless as roaming between mobile cell sites, but once you setup the connections settings for the wi-fi access points you use, you won’t be able to notice the difference.

How does it work? The website has a good section on how fring works? There are also videos on the different fring features, fring ringtones (fringtones), and a fringME widget that web site owners can put on their website to let others see when they are online with quick “click to chat” and “click to find me” options. Unfortunately, the widget only works with a limited number of handsets that support GPS positioning.

We hope you enjoy this new web tool as much as we have.

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Running a successful business means that I am in a lot of meetings during the day, socializing in the evenings and rarely in front of my computer. When I am in front of the computer, it is usually spent catching up on the news items I’ve missed and clearing out the Inbox. But my biggest problem, is when I am in a meeting, it never fails, I need access to a file or “that email” so I have a reference point for discussion. Well, I found a solution …

This little application allows me to access the files and folders on my PC in the office (and at home), my Outlook folders (Inbox, calendar, etc.) , my Desktop search application (currently Google Desktop), and Skype remotely. And when I’m using a method of remote access, it is a secure method as well. It is available for both the PC and Mac platforms.

To get started, you need to go to the Soonr website, register and download the Soonr Desktop application. This application is a resident application that stays active on your PC and controls the access to the selected content on your PC.

Once you have the Soonr Desktop installed, configure the folders you want remote access to, and active the programs that you want to access as well with a user name and password. You can also configure your mobile device for remote access.

That’s it!

Now, as for remote access, I personally use a Nokia E65 equipped with Wi-Fi. I have activated access to my Outlook folders, a few folders where I store attachments, my folder for all of my pictures, and my MP3 files, and I have activated Google Desktop and Skype for remote access. So next time I am in a meeting and I need that attachment or email, I simply access my PC using my mobile phone. I have also been in a situation where I needed to access files or my calendar from another PC, and this works fine from the Soonr Web Login panel.

I actually have this installed on my Work PC, Home PC and my Laptop, so I can access files from any of my machines. Best of all, I can make Skype calls from my mobile phone. While this isn’t the only option for making free calls, it is a quick solution for contacting people that are online when I really need something.

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Seth Godin, founder of Squidoo and author of one of the more popular marketing blogs, has released a new eBook on getting traffic to your blog or company website.

This is an important update due to “the new playing field enforced by the search engines [that] is eliminating many of the shortcuts that used to be effective”, according to Seth’s blog post. I found this book to be valuable and I think those of you that are web marketers will enjoy it as well.

The eBook, titled Unique, Useful & Updated - Three Secrets to Web Traffic, is written using Squidoo lenses as a template, to help remove much of the superstition that surrounds page ranking.

You can read the post here and download the eBook, or you can simply click here to get the eBook.

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I feel compelled to write this post as I am in the process of promoting the WebSite Tonight®, online website builder as one of our premier products. I have used the product myself and gathered input from other blogs on this topic to assist those considering the purchase of a Website or an online website builder.

Product Overview

First a quick overview of the product so everyone knows what we are talking about. WebSite Tonight® uses over 800 templates to assist the user in creating their own web site by using a point and click method. No programming or technical experience is required or needed.

There are three plans available that offer free hosting and email. Users can add flash introductions from a library of more that 60 presentations. Music can be added to the flash introductions, and each account can add a Forum, RSS feeds, a guestbook and video uploads for adding videos or movies to your site.

One interesting feature is the ability to create web pages for mobile devices and combine them with with your podcasts.

Product Issues

For the absolute beginner, or a person with little or no technical knowledge, the product is a wonderful way to get a presence on the Internet. It’s fast , easy and simple to create a web site that looks good.

However, as with every new venture, problems may arise. One such user had used the product from another hosting provider and ran into troubles. So they asked their friendly web guru to help out.

Justin Chelf is a young, successful web entrepreneur that runs his own group of web sites. As a person who is more technical than most of his clients, he found the WebSite Tonight product rather limiting when it came time for him to make some minor modifications. You can read his post here.

It is important to note his comments, and being a concerned reseller, I called GoDaddy and checked this out with my own WebSite Tonight account. The limitations were correct, but not necessarily a bad thing for a beginner in the web site design arena.

After much discussion, they did offer to change my plan to a standard Hosting Plan, meaning that I could then keep the coding I had done already, but I now had to maintain and program the pages on my own computer first and then upload them to my web server. Not a problem at all, but this may be an issue for a beginner.

Buying Options

So, it is clear that before buying a WebSite Tonight account, you should weigh your options carefully. Questions to ask yourself might be:

• Do I want to customize the HTML code?
• Do I need to add Javascript code to my pages?
• Will I need professional assistance after I start?

There is good telephone support for the product if you should have problems, and you can change your plan later. The alternative option to WebSite Tonight is an Economy Hosting plan. Here is the cost options overview of the associated Economy packages:

The Deluxe and Premium Plans offer similar differences. Compare this list of features with what you expect out of a web site. If some of these items do not matter to you, and you really do not want to involve yourself with the technical aspects of web design, the WebSite Tonight option is probably you best choice.

However, if you want to understand how web pages work, and eventually understand more about web technology, the basic web hosting plan is you best option.

We hope this helps you in making the best web hosting choice for you.

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Today’s market for web hosting is competitive and confusing for the average Internet user, to say the least. How many of us have visited Web Hosting sites only to be bombarded with technical terms and specifications that we don’t understand? Let’s take a look at some of the features that you should be the most concerned with, what some of those technical terms mean and why they are important.

What kind of support can I expect?

This is by far the most important question you should ask when selecting a provider. Unfortunately, it is not usually the first question that comes to mind until we have a problem.

The first thing you should look for is a phone number that is obviously visible on the providers web site. Let’s use the following hosting provider as an example:

http://www.scgdmains.com

Click on this link and have a look at the home page. You can see in the upper right hand corner, there is a US based telephone number indication that this is the phone number you can call for support. But does this carry through to the rest of the site in case you get in trouble? Click on the ‘Web Hosting’ menu choice to go to a list of Hosting Plans offered.

Notice again in the header, just under the menu, in plain site, it the support number again. Notice though that it is a clickable link, so let’s click on it.

Now a page is loaded that provide the visitor with a complete listing of support options. Also notice on the right hand side a menu has been expanded under the heading of ‘Customer Support’ with some very valuable information. It shows you how long you can expect to wait for telephone support and again another expected response time for email support requests. Review the other information in the different tabs in the content area of the page as well. There is a truck load of options to help you find the solution to any problem you may encounter.

The Support features for this site are excellent and should be the level of support you should expect from any hosting provider. If you want to know how knowledgeable the people are on the other end of the phone, call the support line before you order and ask questions. Get an idea of how helpful they are, are they friendly, did they know what they were talking about … the list goes on and you probably have you own questions to ask.

Linux or Windows

This is an item that is probably not as critical as support, but may be important depending upon the additional applications you may want to have on your server. For instance, if you want to operate a blog, it is much easier to install a blog application under a Linux environment than in a Windows system.

Based on personal experience, Linux is a much more robust and reliable platform to operate a Web site from. However, Windows is not a bad choice and most Web Hosting providers have implemented the necessary security to ensure that a Windows server solution is just as reliable. Usually, the higher end hosting plans are only provided on Linux based platforms.

Hosting Plans

When you look at the plans on offer, there are a variety of features and pricing that can seem daunting. Usually, pricing is stated as a setup fee and a monthly fee. Many providers are willing to waive the setup fee if you sign-up for a full year of hosting. Let’s define the most basic categories for hosting plans. These include links so you can get an idea of the features you should expect at each level. Make sure you scroll down the page and click the tabs to compare plans so you can see the major differences:

• Basic Hosting
• Virtual Dedicated
• Dedicated

Basic hosting means that your web site files will be stored on a computer that is used by other people hosting their sites as well. If your site is small and you will not be generating traffic with hundreds of thousands of users, this is not a problem. You site should include space to store your pages, a few email accounts, FTP accounts, a few databases, and some freebies.

Virtual Dedicated means that your web server is probably sharing a computer with another web site, but not as many as under a basic plan. You would only want this level of server if you plan on having more than one domain name and multiple web sites. You could also resell part of your server to others on a monthly basis. This server acts like a dedicated computer and usually comes with additional security and management features.

A Dedicated server is a computer connected to the Internet dedicated solely for your use to do whatever you want with. Many people use this option if they want to host games or portals of some sort.

Disk Space and Bandwidth

Web hosting plans usually state the two specifications right up front. Let’s define these terms before we understand how much we need:

• Disk space - This is the amount of space that the provider has allocated for you to store your web site.
• Bandwidth or transfer - This is the maximum amount of data that can be transfered to and from your site by computers that visit your web site.

Now that we understand the basic definitions of each term, let’s take a look at the factors that impact each item and why this is important.

Factors that impact Disk Space

There are many factors that contribute to the storage meter applied to your hosting plan. These can include any or all of the following:

• Web pages
• Images and pictures
• Databases
• Additional applications (blogs, etc.)
• Email accounts

You should determine which of these items effects the amount of disk space you have been allocated. You can determine how much space you will need by how complicated your site will be. If you plan on storing a lot of web pages or pictures on your site, a very basic plan may not be enough. However, even the most basic packages will be sufficient for the needs of the beginner.

At scgdomains.com, the amount of disk space is allocated for the use of Web Pages and images only. There is additional space allocated for databases, email and applications.

The most basic packages usually offer about 5GB (gigabytes) of storage. If you look at the contents of the hard disk on your own computer, you can see that most of that space is occupied by system files. As a comparison, 5GB is equal to about 1000 MP3 music files. This amount is more than enough for a very basic site with one or two web pages and a blog.

On the average, you can get a reasonably priced hosting plan that offers 100 or 200GB of disk space.

Factors that effect Transfer limits

Any communications with your site that involves the transferring of data to or from your site is taken into account against your monthly transfer limits. Web sites that host very active forums or streaming content need loads of transfer bandwidth. On average, a web site will receive less than 100GB per month if they have a basic web site and low levels of visitors (less than 100 per day).

Email Accounts

The most basic hosting plans limit the number of email accounts you can setup and the total amount of storage than can be allocated to email. In today’s market, it is not unusual for a provider to offer you more than 100 email accounts under their most basic plan.

Features relating to email should also include a web based email system that allows you to access your email via a web browser in addition to your favorite email client.

Databases

This is usually another limit imposed by hosting providers. A database is an application that operates in the background to store data that will be accessed multiple times but with the option to format the data in a variety of presentation formats. Applications that use a database would be an online photo album, a membership list manager or a blog.

The most basic plans should offer you 5 to 10 databases and a database engine such as MS SQL or MySQL.

Additional Features

Every good hosting provider should give you freebies. These should be things that can really benefit your site the most such as Google Adwords credits, easy to install applications, a nice control panel for managing your site (like CPanel or Plesk), support for Frontpage, PHP, CGI, Java or Coldfusion, and a Statistics application to help you monitor your web site traffic.

A Simple, Quick Start Solution

But all of this may still not be enough to help you get started. You may just want a plan to help you get started quickly and help you design your own web site online. Well, an answer comes in a package called ‘Web Site Tonight‘.

With WebSite Tonight - and its more than 800 easy-to-use templates - you can build your own Web site even if you have no technical skills. Just open your Internet browser, select your images and type your text. Just like that, your site gets built or updated.

Take advantage of these favorite features and visitors will think your site was built by a professional!

• Flash Animation Introductions - Select from over 60 introductions in various categories.
• Music Upload - Add music to your Flash Intro or to a specific Web site page.
• Forum - Create a forum for visitors to post messages or engage in discussions
• RSS Feeds - Plug your site into various RSS (Real Simple Syndication) news feeds that keep your content fresh and visitors coming back for more.
• Guestbook - Add a guestbook to your site to see who’s been visiting!
• Video Uploads - Add movie and video files to your site.

Visit the site today and view the product tour to see how it works.

Thank you.

A Gift for You

As a gift for reading through this rather long post, I am offering a discount to those of you wish to use the services at scgdomains.com.

Click here to get your code.

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Many of us already understand the importance of having a domain name that correctly reflects to the visitor some idea of what our web site is about and/or the products we are offering. Selecting the right name is important for placement on search engines as well. Some questions to ask yourself about your current service provider are:

• If my name is not available, do I get a list of suggested alternatives?
• What other TLD’s (i.e. - .com, .net, .org, .info, etc.) are available?
• Do I get a discount for multiple year registration?
• Are there other promotions to reduce my cost?
• What do I do if the name is taken?

The Basics
A domain name is your website name, the name of your business, your pages, and you online. A domain name is the address where people from around the country or around the world can access you site. Consider your domain name similar to that of your name. What do people call you, how do they address your mail to send you postal mail? A domain name is similar to the address and name in that respect. A domain name could be any combination of letters, and numbers, and then it will be used in combination of .com, .net, .biz and more so that readers can be directed to the correct domain name.

There are many domain name registration services out there. But finding an online company to register your domain name and provide value or savings with additional services to benefit your business is the key.

Some offer free hosting with a domain name registration, others give you a cheap domain name when you buy a hosting package. But for now, the immediate value is in assisting you when selecting your domain name. Once you type in your desired name, the service should tell you if the name is available and provide you with a good list of other (intelligent) choices that might fit your needs.

You also might want to protect the name from your competitors. you wouldn’t want to set up a .COM name and find out your closest competitor registered a .NET and was generating more traffic for a similar product or service. So the service you use should tell you what other extensions (commonly called TLD’s for Top Level Domains) are available so you can protect your brand or identity. The registration provider should easily allow you to add these to you order effortlessly.

Your next choice should be in the number of years you want to own the name. The service provider may also offer discounts for multiple years. But, what if you do not know how successful this is going to be? Perhaps you only want to register for 1 year (the minimum in most cases) and then renew if the offering is successful. So you should consider how easily can you upgrade or renew the domain name?

If your offering is successful, you will also want to protect your domain name from those online thieves that may want to steal your name as soon as the registration period expires. So a service provider that offers domain locking and protection is essential if this is one of your concerns.

Other services for registering your domain name include Private Registration. This is important if you wish to protect the fact that you personally are the owner of the domain name. Spammers and hackers are excellent and crawling WHOIS database providers and collecting personal data and email addresses. With a Private Registration, your personal data is protected from those with prying eyes.

Alternatively, a web marketer could use this WHOIS data to increase their presence and exposure of their product. A Business Registration option would allow you to enter information about your business and advertise your product, complete with a business card and images or links to your web site.

In summary, there are many other services available to us to enhance our web business when it comes to domain name registration. Domain registration is an important step to setting up your business and selecting a provider that offers you the services to add value to your business is essential.

Eric Buckley is the founder of scgdomains.com, an affordable, full service web hosting and domain name registration provider.

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