Web Business Resource

by Leonard Bartholomew

Are you looking for a way to reach a large number of people? Are you trying to share your knowledge with the world? Do you want to increase sales for your business? If you answered yes to any of these questions there are a few things that you can do in order to achieve your goals. But when it comes down to it there are not may options that are better than podcasting. With podcasting you have the ability to get in touch with a wide range of people without having to put out too much time or money. And on top of all of that podcasting is quite fun as well. So why do so many people pass this up?

If you are interested in podcasting you must first know what it is all about. Generally speaking, if you are a podcaster you will pretty much have your own radio show; except in a different format. With podcasting you have the ability to allow people to listen to your broadcast via streaming audio, or they can download it and listen on a mobile device. Either way can work to your advantage.

The biggest benefit of podcasting is that you will have the ability to get in touch with millions of people. Of course, you will have to build up your base of listeners for this to be possible, but all in all if you put the time forth you will be able to reap some rewards in the end. The best way to increase your listener base is to advertise your podcast to people who would be more interested. For instance, if your new podcast is going to concentrate on search engine optimization, get in touch with the people who would be more interested in this. If you already work in this industry chances are that you have some contacts who can serve as your initial base. Then when your podcast becomes more popular it will begin to spread among the industry.

Many people use podcasting as a simple way to relieve stress and have fun. After all, almost everybody has had dreams of being a radio show host. With podcasting you have the ability to do so without much trouble at all. This sure beats having to work your way to the top, and hoping to get a job at a radio station.

Overall, there are many ways that you can use podcasting to your advantage. When it comes down to it the benefits are nearly endless, and regardless of who you are there is a good chance that you can make podcasting suit your needs. So look into what podcasting is all about, and incorporate it into your life.

About the Author: Leonard Bartholomew, B.S. Computer Science. Internet marketing is a great challenge but it is time to move on. Leonard invites you to find out everything you need to know about podcasting.

by Talita Kindermann

The Basics Of Podcasting
A brief description of everything you need to know about Podcasting

Quick definitions
Put simply, ‘Podcasting’ is audio content that is distributed over the Internet. Think of it as radio on demand.

Where does the name come from?
The term ‘podcasting’ derived its name from a combination of Apple’s ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcasting’. Despite it’s name, you don’t need an iPod – any digital media player or audio enabled computer will do.

How does it work?
Podcasting involves the creation of ‘radio’ shows that can be downloaded and enjoyed through access to the Internet. You can listen to podcasts via a media player on your computer (such as RealPlayer or Windows Media Player) or you can upload them directly to your digital media device (such as an iPod) for enjoyment anytime and anywhere.

What’s so exciting about podcasting?
For those that listen to podcasts… What’s on the radio might not be what you want to hear at any given time, and most digital media devices don’t even have built-in radios. Welcome to podcasting. Listen to what you want, when you want, where you want.

For those that create podcasts… With little more than a computer, a microphone, and some freeware (or shareware), anyone can produce a podcast on any topic under the sun that could potentially be heard by thousands of people.

Why would I subscribe to a podcast?
The cutting edge of podcasting involves a set of rules known as RSS (Really Simple Syndication). RSS allows a podcast to be syndicated (distributed) instantly on the Internet for download and use by anyone who has an interest in listening to it. People can subscribe to podcasts and have them automatically downloaded to their computer or digital media device. The software that goes out and grabs the podcast for you is known as the aggregator. An aggregator scours the Web for the exact content (podcasts) you have told it to look for.

Although syndication is the most popular way of obtaining podcasts, some podcasts are available as one time downloads or as streaming content from a website.

How do you create a podcast?
For those who are interested, here is a brief overview of the steps involved to help you familiarise yourself with the process:

1. Create your audio content
2. Convert the file to MP3 format
3. Publish your mp3 to your web server
4. Create your podcast RSS news feed (Most podcasters use blogging programs to automatically generate news feeds).
5. Publish your podcast news feed to your web server

For podcasting resources, please read the full article here: http://www.kintek.com.au/podcasting.php

About the Author: Talita operates a family web development firm based in sunny Brisbane, Australia. She enjoys sharing her knowledge and expertise in web design, ecommerce, email marketing and search engine optimisation. Visit her business website, Kintek: www.kintek.com.au/

by Kathy Crawford

My husband and I had offline businesses for over 30 years when we decided that Internet Marketing was a business we wanted to get in to. We barely knew how to send an email but we were willing to learn.

You are bombarded daily with emails trying to sell you ebooks on how to make money on the web. Many of the emails tell you to find small niches to get your business going.

If you try to jump into the big markets or niches you will have a hard time making any money unless you really know what you are doing. A new person trying to compete in a broad market does not have much chance of success. With money and time you may succeed but it may just be better to find a few smaller niches to try at first.

On About.com, Susan Ward defines Internet Marketing as “the strategies that are used to market a product or service online, marketing strategies that include search engine optimization and search engine submission, copywriting that encourages site visitors to take action, web site design strategies, online promotions, reciprocal linking, and email marketing”. A new person coming online to start a business has little knowledge of what all of that statement actually means.

So how does a new person have any chance at success? Think smaller and think niche. If you can find a niche in something that you like, such as horse training or maybe even decorating, you will enjoy working on it a lot more.

You should get as much free information that you can find on the internet to get you started. Do a Google search for some of your ideas to see how many other people may already be in a particular market. You may surprise yourself and find a market you like that has less competition but at the same time one that has many searches.

You will have to invest some money and a lot of time to become successful with anything you decide to do with Internet Marketing. You need to be persistent and not give up. You may not make money right away but if you keep learning and applying what you learn you can become a success.

Success in any business, whether online or off, comes down to having the right product that people need and want. So remember, if you can find the right niche or niches you will be able to have an Internet Marketing business that will make you money.

About the Author: Kathy Crawford works fulltime making a living on the internet. For more info on Internet Marketing go to http://websitetraffic.infotipsite.com

by Greg Cryns

1. Set up your own forum at Ryze.com
2. Set up a Lens at Squidoo.com (very worthwhile)
3. Create MySpace, Yahoo, and MSN profiles
4. Use Instant Messaging for social networking
5. Set up a BLOG! Promote it on Technorati.com
6. Post comments on other blogs in your niche
7. Gather email addresses and send a bi-weekly newsletter
8. Write articles and post them in article directories.
9. Use eBay- the world’s largest store where all the people congregate
10. Get a Google Adwords account and learn to use it for profit
11. Promote your stuff at CraigsList
12. Host an online party
13. Make an RSS feed with your own articles
14. How about a PodCast?
15. Write an eBook and give it away for free with the link to your site in it
16. Offer a free eCourse (eBook)
17. Review (regularly) some products at Amazon
18. Review products and post them at epionions.com
19. Post a comment a day on your favorite business forum
20. Post your business at Wikipedia for your own town
21. Advertize in Ezines and on websites
22. Create folders at backflip.com
23. Make a video of yourself selling your product and post it at YouTube
24. Contribute to Yahoo Answers
25. Post your photos to Flickr.com
26. Make a Post at Digg.com showing your website address

Generally, there are many ways to promote your blog or website at little or no cost unless you count your labor as “cost”. Once you start to earn some big bucks you can then hire help at affordable outlays and do the things that you have learned to do to make you the most money.

For example, if you are blogging daily and you have a significant number of people in your blogging audience, it would be wise to have someone proofread your work for basic punctuation errors before you send it into the blog world. I think the idea of employing a virtual assistant is a no-brainer since they will usually work without demanding a minimum hours policy and you do not have to pay them expensive benefits.

About the Author: Learn about social networking at Greg’s Squidoo site, Greg’s Blog, and best advertising values.

by Alan Kintel

Domain names are definitely very important for website marketing and the promotion of your business. There are countless unknown junk websites, hosted by free web hosting services or Internet Service Providers, without their own domain names, which are just there but not doing any great business. And there are many well-known websites, commercially successful, whose very domain names rake in tons of money. It is likely that a few of the former variety are doing some profitable marketing, but the chances of successful marketing by those with their own domain names get multiplied. For some reason, over the years, people have developed a prejudice against websites that have not got their own domain names. Most of these cannot win any customers. With a professional look, which accompanies companies with own domain names, business naturally prospers.

To appreciate better how important domain names are for promoting business on the web, let us understand what domain names actually do rather than what they actually are. Every computer connected to the Internet is allotted a unique number, rather a unique string of numbers, called the Internet Protocol (IP) address, for its website identification. This number is not based on the geographical location of the computer, for one thing. For another, it is dependent on the web hosting companies that provide their service to the computer concerned. That is the number is changeable, not fixed forever. Unlike the IP addresses, domain names are easy on the mind and, once registered, remain unchanged. Domain names of prosperous companies have become Internet household names. If your website is successful, the popularity of your domain name grows, which in turn drives your business better.

Structure of a domain name

A domain name has at least two parts in its structure. Take hp.com as an example. The suffix (.com ) is known as the top level domain and the prefix (hp) the subordinate level domain. Top level domains indicate the areas of interest or activity of the websites registered under them. For instance, .edu is for websites related to education and .gov to government agencies and so on. So when you think of a domain name for your business, you will typically want it to be under a .com because it is the easiest to remember. However, with the incredible number of domain names out there, .biz, .tv, .us among others, have been introduced as new top level domains. What is most important is your choice of the subordinate level domain for your domain name.

Here comes the role the keywords play in your choice. If you know that search engines locate your website more easily when your domain name is keyword-related than otherwise, you will chose a domain name that earns your website a high page rank. Your business will thus succeed better if your domain name is more search engine friendly.

Make your domain name short, simple and sweet for making at once memorable and easily visible to search engines. Do not use spaces and symbols. They are not allowed. Only letters, numbers and dashes are permitted in domain names. Also, always remember to renew your domain name registration before the it expires.

About the Author: Alan Kintel is a writer that concentrates on helping people better themselves, for cutting edge information you NEED to know check out his website at http://someofthebest.info.

by Rajiv Sahadevan

What’s the basic of Search Engine Optimization? SEO is a big field and growing tremendously. Understanding SEO basics is essential for you as a web site owner. At times you can always do a bit of search engine yourself if you are a website owner. Knowing the basics of SEO is essential for it.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization, targeted at getting a top placement in search engines is a technique used to get top ranking. There are a few key considerations to keep in mind while doing your SEO.

• Your keyword
• Keyword density in your webpage
• Keyword in Title
• Keyword in Meta tag (Deprecated)
• Keywords in the end of the page
• Keyword in the Heading tag
• Keyword in Italics

Placing your keyword in prominent positions will enable you to get a good ranking in the search engines. Make sure that your pages are Static HTML pages with No errors to get a better ranking. Other considerations to keep in mind are links to your website from other sites. Often called off page optimization, it is a key factor in Search engine placement. If you have a good off page links to your site, your website is bound to have a good placement on search engines very quickly.

You can achieve this with Basic link exchange to creating great articles to your subject and redistributing them. What’s important is that you have great links to your site. How you do it is irrelevant as long as they are quality links. This is not usually an easy task but once you know how to do it, you will be on top. For more information read the e-book by Brad Callen. It can be downloaded from our website. This is a wonderful resource for to learn basic SEO. The 90 Page resources on Basic SEO is a great Head start for SEO Beginners and Intermediate Level users. You may also find other resources on this website which could be used to your advantage.

About the Author: For More information on SEO London and Internet Marketing, visit Rajiv Sahadevan’s website powerscribe.com. The information provided above is compiled based on the Trends in Web site design India and is promoted for Career in UK.

by Zach Bastick

Gone are the days when Network Solutions would charge you astronomical fees to register domains. Actually, their fees are still heavy, but they have competition now. There are hundreds of Domain Registrars on the Internet today most which charge considerably lesser than Network Solutions to register domains. But with so many registrars, how exactly do you go about selecting the one for you? When you register domains, here’s what you need to pay attention to.

First and foremost, you check if provider is an accredited ICANN domain registrar. This is important because ICANN only certifies businesses with the right technology and processes. Besides that, if you register domains with an ICANN accredited registrar, and they do foul up; you always have the choice of complaining about it to ICANN. So always look for an “ICANN accredited” seal on the registrar’s site before you go ahead and register domains with them.

Secondly, before you register domains, you should know what kind of domains you may need in future. Almost everyone will register domains with Top Level Domains (TLDs) like .com, .org and .net. But not all registrars will register domains with international extensions such as .in, .fr, .eu, .cc, or even specialized extensions such as the more recent .mobi. Of course, when a new TLD or ccTLD is approved by ICANN, it takes time for registrars to upgrade the applications and pay fees to handle the new extensions; so users (such as yourself) may experience a delay before being able to seamlessly register domains in new extensions. But, in any case, your registrar should be proactive in doing it. Otherwise, you will end up depending on several registrars to register domains in these other fancy TLDs. This means more control panels to look after, more usernames and passwords, and often, more headaches every time you register domains. However, there are some people who prefer to do this, but for different reasons entirely: They will register domains with the lowest cost registrar for a particular TLD at that time.

Another point worth consideration is how powerful and feature-rich the control panel of your domain registrar is. Some registrars only let you register domains with basic services: they won’t let you set your own child name-servers, or they will make the domain transfer process overly complex and time consuming (so that you will be stuck with the registrar that you register domains with). You might also want a separate account manager of a domain or a group of domains, while you look after billing and renewals. Other features like alternative name suggestions, whois data privacy, and, added services like email and hosting differ from provider to provider and may not be included at all when you register domains with them. So before you go ahead and register domains with any old registrar, you need to consider what features you want, and how much you are ready to pay for them.

Again, if you are looking to register domains in bulk, you should look for a registrar that allows you to do so at a considerable discount. Most registrars offer bulk discounts to good customers. If you do want to register domains in bulk, or want to become a reseller, you should check if your registrar provides customizable web pages or APIs (interfaces) that allow you to sell domains with your own prices and branding. Of course, there are additional costs involved for this. These are levied on a subscription basis. Also, as the API and web pages will reside on your provider’s servers, uptimes and service quality become an important point to check. If you plan to do a lot of business after you register domains, you should stick with providers with a good reputation. With competition just a click away, lost business never comes back.

You should pay attention to the price last. Most competitive providers allow you to register domains in .com, .org and .net, at a price near 9 USD (inclusive of the 0.25 USD ICANN surcharge). However, the cost per domain varies a great deal if you are looking to register domains in other extensions and ccTLDs (Country Code Top Level Domains). If you are just a casual buyer, or are just interested in registering domains with .com, .org and .net extensions; the price shouldn’t bother you much. But if you are registering domains in bulk, cost savings of even one dollar per domain becomes huge when you talk numbers. Before you decide to register domains, and especially if you are looking to invest in domain names, you should check out a few registrars, as prices change almost every day. Good hunting.

About the Author: For great information on how to choose the right registrar, which registrar is best, and how to make money with domains, Zach Bastick highly recommends the Domain Name Ebook. It is the best way to make money with domains. You’ll love it!

by Joshua Spaulding

In this article you will find simple instruction on how to create an informational product that will generate residual income for years to come. But first I will tell you how they generate income.

If you have ever seen an eBook, which I’m sure you have, you have noticed that many contain affiliate links. Those that create eBooks without entering affiliate links are simply losing money. Internet marketers insert affiliate links into an informational product so that they can collect money and at the same time provide valuable information. Some people use a combination of affiliate links and links to their own web site as well. The links inside of an eBook are really what makes them so profitable.

Now, it’s time to learn exactly how to create your first eBook.

Step 1: Using Microsoft Word, create your product. You want it to look professional so that the reader does not think that it was a ‘fast cash’ product. Create an easy to navigate index and organize your eBook with chapters. If you want to get creative, you can also hyperlink each chapter in the index so that the viewer can instantly jump to any chapter. Do not forget to place your copyright information at the bottom of each page just like you do on your web site.

Step 2: Go to http://www.openoffice.org and download their free software package. This package will contain a ‘Writer’ that will transform your word document into a .PDF document. The reason you want to do this is because .PDF documents are protected, whereas a Word document can be easily edited by anyone. This will keep the integrity of your affiliate links as well as your content.

Once the conversion is done you have created your first eBook. Now you have two options. You can either give it away by announcing it on forums, putting it up on your website or submitting to free eBook sites or you can sell it. Which one you choose is totally up to you. If you think that it will very extremely viral then you may want to sell the eBook. If it is a simple ‘How to’ guide then you may want to think about giving it away. Whether you choose to sell it or give it away there is an enormous potential for profit.

For those that choose to give away their informational product, I have some advice. Find as many sites as possible that are related to the subject of your eBook. Contact them via email or their own contact form. Give them the link to your eBook and let them know that you think it would be a great asset to their site viewers and they are free to give it away as a bonus or even place it on a membership site. I have found great success in this method and I am convinced that you will as well.

About the Author: Joshua Spaulding is an Author and Webmaster providing Proven ways to Make Money Online and also Internet Marketing eBooks. Joshua also runs a Quality Article Directory where you can submit your article or find other Quality articles to publish to your web site or blog.

by Gijo George

Naturally, homepage of a website is the most visited page of any website. This homepage can be compared to the center point of your business. Keeping this in mind, you have to prepare your homepage with utmost care.

The content in a homepage of website is very important in deciding the success of that website. If you have enough content in your website which can attract visitors to your mainstream business, then your website is a success. This page should contain unique content or information regarding the business you are dealing with. Give utmost care in developing content for this particular page. Ensure that the content you are using in homepage can attract people to buy product or services you are offering. Give a critical review on the content you are planning to put in your homepage. In short, the content should be able to give a new visitor an idea about your products or services.

Use a font that is readable and normal. Using fancy fonts will not do any good to your homepage. Use graphics judiciously. Never put more graphics than it is actually required in your homepage. Overdoing graphics in your homepage will actually kill the popularity of your website. The best equation between content and graphics is that graphics should justify the content.

Provide a search box in your homepage, which will make it easier for a new visitor to find your product or services.

To summarize, a simple homepage with quality content and graphics which supports the content will make your website a real promoter of your website.

About the Author: Gijo George says visit www.giftsspace.com for Unique Gifts, and www.woodcurio.com for Traditional Handicrafts.