About
Website hosting options
Even
if you have a paid web hosting service, you can use the other free
websites to
promote
your
website and to build up in-pointing links to your site, which
is essential to bring traffic from the search engines.
Your
hosting choice depends on your goals for your website. If you are
a student studying internet technology, you can just sign up
for Bluehost or
just about any top-rated hosting service and get everything you
need if it doesn't really matter how much website traffic you
get.
If
you are looking to promote your business or service, if you want
the website to become your business or, even if you just
want to share your
point of view with the world, website traffic is essential.
95%
of all websites get no traffic at all.
You
can pay to get traffic, but the best things in life are free, and
this includes website traffic. If you have never created
a website or
done business online, the free websites are a no-risk way to
get started.
The
Scoop on Free Websites
MySpace.com
Facebook.com
Squidoo.com
These
free websites let you create a single web page of almost any size.
You most likely have heard of MySpace.com, since it
is in the news almost
every week (usually for someone getting into some bizarre
kind of trouble on the site!).
Facebook.com is similar to MySpace.com but
with a more upscale and business-oriented user base – it began
as a student website project at Harvard. The most interesting
(and potentially profitable!)
free website is one you probably have never heard of
-- Squidoo.com.
About
Social Networks
MySpace.com has become the cyberspace equivalent of the street corner, with some
folks passing by on their way
to something
important, and some
just hanging around with too much time on their hands.
While
it is a great tool for promoting a business or music act, MySpace has
become filled with mostly useless and pointless
pages,
and cluttered
with so many “tribute pages” and “clone
pages” that
it is hard to find the page for any specific person
or product.
Facebook.com is a more serious and professional social networking site, and I
recommend it as a
first choice
to post your professional
profile.
MySpace and Facebook are
social network sites, which means you are expected to interact with
the other
site members
in a variety
of ways. You can
create groups of friends, leave comments on
other’s pages, send
quizzes and polls to your friends, play games,
create and join groups that have a variety of interests, publish
videos and a blog, and lots
more.
I
created a basic page on MySpace to
promote my fractal art website.
Squidoo.com is
a free social networking site that is more about information than
people. You can
create
a single
web page about anything – your business,
your hobby, your passion or anything that interests you.
A
page on Squidoo is called a lens (their mascot is
a squid with a giant eye), and you
can make as many lenses as you wish.
A lens is super-easy to build and to add a variety of components
such as related eBay & CafePress
items, RSS syndication feed, and allow
comments from visitors.
The
best benefit of Squidoo is that Google loves the site.
On almost any topic you Google there
will usually be a Squidoo lens in the first
page of search results.
About
Videos, Bookmarks & Articles
Of
course you have also heard of YouTube. I am fascinated with this
site. You can
find video
of anything you
can imagine -
any subject, any person,
any place, or any product.
YouTube makes
it super easy to have video on your website – either
your video or anyone else’s.
Just paste a single line of code
into your web page and presto! Instant
video! Tip: If you do post video
on YouTube make sure you include a clickable
link back to your site, which will
really help your traffic.
Article
websites are a great way to get free publicity for your business,
website,
or
cause. You can write
and contribute
articles
and the sites
make them available to a wide audience.
They
are also a great way to build up links to
your website.
You
can take
material
from your
website
and rewrite it just enough that
it
does not look like a copy of
your website
material to the search
engines.
Ezine
Articles
Idea Marketers
GoArticles
Press
release websites are similar to article websites but they
deal exclusively with
news items in press
release format,
and
they are an
excellent way to get the word
out about your business or organization.
There
are both
free and paid service
press
release websites.
PRWeb
PRFree
SBWire
Bookmark
websites like Digg.com, Del.ico.us and Propeller are
elaborate collections of links
to websites that
have been marked
by members
of the site, to save the
links for reference and also to recommend
them
to others. The websites
and web pages that have been
marked by
the most
people are
listed in
a section
on the home
page showing
the most popular
items. If you can get your
site in the
top section of one of these
bookmark sites it
will bring
you a ton of
traffic – for a little
while.
Free & Paid
Hosting Blogs
Free
blogs like WordPress, Blogger and TypePad allow
you to set
up basic blogs,
are a great
way to get
started, and to
see if
blogging is for
you. The limitations
of the free services can make
them
unsuitable
for most types
of online
businesses.
You can’t add
a lot of features that
are essential to making
money with your blog.
Paid
hosting for any business-related blog
is really the way
to go since it is
so inexpensive. For only
about $8
per month
you
can have as many
blogs as you want
if you get a hosting plan
with
unlimited domains.
The full-featured
WordPress software itself
is free, and the
domain name
required for each
additional blog is only about
$10
per year.
When
you get set up with a paid web
hosting
service
like
Bluehost,
you
can easily
install many different
types
of websites including
conventional
sites, blogs, bulletin
boards, and content
management systems
which
store the website
information in
a database and
create the web
pages automatically.
A
blog on a paid hosting service
allows you
to customize
it with a variety
of business tools,
such as name
and address form
so that visitors
can
enter their name
and address.
You can also
add paid advertising,
plug-ins that
expand functionality,
such as SEO Pack
(which helps
the search engines
find your blog),
and custom
blog templates
that can
have a
unique look and
can
contain other
money-making features
such as
web
links to products
that you recommend.
You
really shouldn’t run a business website as a blog, but a blog
can be great
support for your main site. The various services listed above should
be used to enhance a business website by spreading publicity,
building links,
and helping to bring traffic to the main site.
If
you are planning to create a basic brochure website you
should understand that it will not bring a flood of business
by itself -- this is just the beginning of the
process.
The most beneficial things you can do:
- Expand your website with information
that your potential customers are looking for.
- Create links from other websites that point to your
site using a variety of free website services.
|
Components
of a business
website
There
are a few essential
features
for a business
website
that you often
don’t get with a basic hosting account. Usually, features like mailing
lists, contact forms, search engine submittal, traffic & search
engine
statistics,
accepting
visitor
content,
and website
research
tools are
all extra
expenses.
They
can be separate
services
that
you have to
buy
from
your web hosting
provider
or that
you have
to choose
from
a variety
of different companies.
There
are flaws with
some
of these additional
services.
Search
engine
submittal,
for
example, (sending
notification
of
your
site
to
hundreds of search
engines),
can
be purchased
from
many
different
vendors
usually
for
about $50.
But
how
often
should
you
submit?
This
one-time
submittal
is
better
than
nothing,
but
what
about
new
content?
You
should be adding and updating your website content regularly & every
new or
updated
page
should
be
submitted
to
the
search
engines.
Mailing
list sign-up
forms usually
require you
to program
your email
address in with
the web
page code.
This means
your email
can be
seen from
the web
and is
guaranteed to
receive lots
of spam.
Even
website traffic
can add
to the
cost of
hosting. If
your website
starts to
draw lots
of traffic,
you can
be subject
to “bandwidth
charges” by
your hosting provider.
Strategy
outline for building an effective website
The
most powerful
free traffic
drawing system
is to
use a
combination of
ALL of
the above
methods.
Put
your main
website at
the center
of a “link
network”.
Use the free sites,
articles sites, bookmark sites,
video sites,
and a blog to create a network
of links
all pointing to your main
site.
Site
Build It! Is the
only website hosting
provider that
provides everything a small
business
needs. In
addition to
having the
most effective traffic
drawing methods,
they provide
all the
services you
will need
for doing
business on
the web.
Next --
Learn about the types of tools for creating websites
-->Click
Here
Click
here to learn about Site Build It!
The most complete & effective website design & hosting
system for small business.
