“What can I do to make my website better for SEO purposes?“

That’s the question I often get from some clients. Although several factors can play an important role in the success of your website in search engines like Google and others, I’ll focus on one aspect that has been proven time and time again to be very effective.

I am referring to content. And when I say content, I am talking about fresh and unique content. Believe it or not, keeping your website updated regularly with fresh and unique content is very effective in attracting the search engines to visit your website regularly. One of the best ways to have post fresh content on your site regularly is to maintain a blog. Blog is much more than it used to be. Before, it was some type of personal online journal. Now, everyone is “blogging” about everything! It’s not only personal anymore, it has gone over to the business world. If you visit major sites on the web, you will notice that many of them maintain their own blogs. If big companies even use it, then this tells you how important having a blog is!

The truth is, search engines love blogs. They love blogs because it’s updated constantly. Compared to other types of sites, blogs are visited very frequently by search engine bots. In some sites I’ve worked on, the blogs have been picked up by the search engines literally by the next day! (disclaimer: this may not always be the case, but it worked more often than not). If not the next day, then at least by the end of the week — provided that the blog is updated daily with fresh content and the search engines are notified of it.

If you want to install a blog on your website, why don’t you contact me? I will install and configure the WordPress blog script on your server, and you’ll have your own blog running in no time. WordPress is one of the most popular blog platforms used worldwide, and it is updated regularly by developers to ensure stability and security for those that are using it. In fact, WordPress has become much more than a blog software. It’s now being used as a Content Management Software (CMS) — telling you how important it has really become.

Do you need someone to install WordPress on your hosting account? I’m just a click away!

Remember, when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), regular, fresh and unique content plays a very important role — no doubt about it!

Let me design you a personalized Twitter page! Contact me and let’s get started with it!

By the way, do you want to follow me on Twitter? Here’s my Twitter page. I just signed up a few days ago, after hearing all the craze about it. My number of followers are growing… slowly, but surely. Hope you’ll be one of them!

Sounds familiar? Chances are, you’re someone who started everything with no money too, so you’re pretty skeptical when it comes to giving away your money in exchange for something that you could have done yourself. However, there is a lot more to hiring a designer than just finishing up a job that you don’t want to do.

When you hire a web designer or a programmer to do your job for you, you are doing more than just handing over the “dirty job” to someone else. In fact, by paying a little money, you can let the designer/programmer worry about the little annoyances that always evade the main picture and only come haunting when you’re halfway through the job. That way, you will be more focused and have more time to spend on your actual business strategy.

I remember a client who was almost about to give up after learning the kind of work that is required with having an online business. After having some challenges with his website, server, and other technical aspects, this internet newbie was about to throw in the towel! Good thing he found me later because this allowed him to concentrate on what he knew best (he owned a local business) and leave the headaches of the technical aspects of an online business for me to handle.

Remember that the designers/programmers you hire are professionals, so they are good at what they do. By outsourcing your web design/programming jobs to them, you won’t have to worry when problems surface because you can always get them to fix it for you. Again, they will be able to pin point the problem and fix it faster than you probably will be able to. Also, the work you pay for will turn out more professional than what you can achieve because the designers/programmers have been doing it longer than you have. After all, they do it for a living so they have to be good, right?

A past client spent an entire week trying to fix a problem with her WordPress blog. After contacting me, the problem was resolved within a few hours. Imagine what she could have done instead with the time she had lost! If only she outsourced the work earlier!

I know that it is good to work on a project yourself. However, you have to consider the instances when outsourcing the work to someone else is beneficial in your situation.

So, if you are looking for a web designer or a programmer for your online projects, contact me. I am here to help!

Before you finally launch that product of yours, make sure you remember to consider a few things.

First, double-check your sales page. Check for spelling and grammar errors of your sales material. If you want to build the credibility of your business and product, then make sure your grammar and spelling are correct! You don’t want to make it look like a 5-year old put your site together. If you don’t have time or need the assistance of someone to proofread your material, you can outsource the work to proofreaders like me. Double-check your payment buttons to make sure they are functioning as they should. If possible, make a test purchase prior to launching your product. Check all your links to make sure they are properly connected. Double-check everything!!!

Next, think about your price. Is your product pricing too high or too low? Many make the mistake of overcharging or undercharging. How does your product compare to that of your competitors? Take a look around and see what the average price is. Take that into account when you’re trying to figure out your final price. Do you provide something better or some other option that your competitor might not offer? These are just some of the things you can consider when pricing your product.

If you have to make a choice, my opinion is that it is much better to undercharge because of the potential of drawing many customers in. That was the idea behind Walmart, and other similar stores. Because you are cheaper than your competitors, you get more customers — but it takes a longer time for you to make a profit in the beginning as compared to charging high in the first place. However, you can profit more in the long run. You have to make the decision yourself about what is more important to you. The problem with undercharging is that you will lose the profit you desire, especially if you want the money right away.

Overcharging is just really bad altogether, I think. It drives away potential customers. Everyone wants to save. Many people will do anything just to save a few bucks. I once read about this guy who drove to the next town to buy a product that was cheaper than the one offered in his local area. Of course, by the time you add up the gas expense of driving there, he would have been better off staying local. The point is, people want to save — and most likely won’t think twice about it!

Finally, is your server capable of your traffic? This is something very important that you don’t want to miss. So you’ve prepared a massive advertising campaign. You expect to receive a lot of traffic because you’ve hired the best marketers. Can your web server handle the load it will generate? Some forget to check the resources allotted to them by their web hosting provider. Forgetting this can be your biggest mistake! I’ve come across several online marketers already who have forgotten this very important aspect. In fact, just the other day, I was prepared to buy a new product a few hours after I received the notice. When I visited the site, it was suspended by the host because the traffic bandwidth it received was more than it was allowed to have. Imagine how many sales this guy had lost before noticing the problem! He also wasted money on marketing, because he still had to pay for the clicks to his site, even though his server was down. Don’t make the same mistake with your product launch.

Of course, there are more things to consider before launching your product. I just wanted to focus on the items above to save you the trouble. Before you get too excited about launching your product on the world wide web, make sure to remember a few things that will save you a lot of headache and loss of money!

Here are the elements you need to consider adding on your sales page:

(1) HEADLINE – This is a very important aspect because this will be the first thing that your site visitors will see when they load your page in their browser. This is the big bold letter at the top of your sales letter — often with a font color of red, black, or blue to make the headline stand out from the rest of the text. This could be a promise of some sort, or something important about your product that grabs the visitor’s attention and compels him or her to read the rest.

(2) SUB-HEADLINE – This can be optional, depending on how your headline is already written. Usually, this is smaller in font to the headline, but it’s still bigger than the remaining sales text. Again, this should be good enough so that the reader wants to keep going instead of leaving your site.

(3) BENEFITS – How can your product benefit the potential customer? What makes it stand out from the rest and make it better than your competitors? A good practice is to put yourself in your costumer’s shoes and think of what would make you buy the product. Use those ideas for your content.

(4) PICTURES – You know the old saying, “Pictures are worth a thousand words.” That holds true, even in sales marketing. Add graphic pictures of your product, or of people using them. This makes your product more believable. Photos are proven to increase response.

(5) TESTIMONIALS – Convince your potential customers with testimonials from others who have already purchased your product or services. Show photos, if possible, to make them more convincing. Target skeptics.

(6) GUARANTEE – It is best to provide a money-back guarantee. Mention it a couple of times in your content to reassure the customer. The customer is more likely to complete the transaction knowing that her purchase is risk-free. You’ll end up selling more in return, compared to making every sale final with not returns — which drives customers away. For the most part, customers don’t ask for refunds so you’re safe offering a money-back guarantee.

(7) TIME LIMIT – Creating a limited time offer creates that sense of urgency. You want your customers to buy your product before you increase your price, before your product runs out, etc. Make them buy now and not later on or they’ll miss out on something.

(8) BONUSES – Everyone likes a freebie. Offer a few bonuses to your customers, just for purchasing your product. Bonus offers are good incentives to convince your customer to buy your product. They will more likely buy from you if you offer free bonuses that your competitor doesn’t offer.

Now that you’ve learned about these important elements, it’s time to put them in practice. Go ahead and start writing your content for your sales page and use this article as a guide.

Need help? You’d rather have someone else do the work? No problem. I can certainly help you in your online projects. Just contact me with details and I’ll respond with a quote.

Well, here’s an alternative solution that you might like! You no longer need to convert your html site into PHP — thus, eliminating the hassle. You can now use your regular html site as it is and make it behave as if it was a PHP-based website so that you can embed PHP codes on your pages. For example, you can finally add RSS feeds on your html page so that you can have new and fresh content everyday on your website.

How is this possible? This method only works if your server supports .htaccess. If you are unsure if htaccess is supported on your server, contact your web hosting provider.

(1) First, open notepad and create a new text file.

(2) Enter the following on the document:

RemoveHandler .html .htm
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html .htm

(3) Save the file as “htaccess.txt” (txt is the default extension of a file made by Notepad program on your PC).

(4) Upload this file unto your server.

(5) Rename the file as “.htaccess”

(6) Insert the PHP code into the html page that you want it on

(7) Enjoy better features on your site!

Hope this information helped you.

If you need any other type of assistance with your online projects, contact me with your requirements. If it’s within my scope, I’ll respond with a price quote accordingly.

First, is it really necessary for you to hire a web design company (with more than 1 employee) to build your website? Have you ever seen those advertisements in newspaper classified ad sections that offer a 5-page website at $1999? These companies are established companies with physical locations, therefore they have to increase the amount they charge to pay off some overheads: office rent, designer’s and employee wages, advertising costs and so on.

Therefore, it would be wise to find freelance designers — instead of design companies — to develop your website. These people are often working from their home office so they do not have a high operation cost like that of a company. Are freelance designers a bad choice to go with? No, that’s not really the case. On the other hand, they will be able to design images with quality similar to those of designers from big companies, so it’s a “no-brainer” choice.

However, choose freelancers with care. Make sure they are reliable freelance web developers. I am a freelance web designer and I stand behind my work. If you have doubts about my services, please feel free to read the testimonials from some of my clients.

Another route you can take is to design your website yourself. You’ll just have to spend a lot of time working on your website. You have to think of a design concept and draw it out on the computer, then use your programming skills to make that into a complete, working website. It’s a lot of work and takes a lot of time.

However, if you don’t have the time nor the patience to do this that’s what I’m here for. Are you looking for a freelance web designer? Contact me with your project details and I’ll respond with a quote accordingly.

Before we get to the steps, let’s give a summary of what you will be receiving with this hosting provider:

• Host unlimited domains – If you manage several sites, then this is very useful. You can add as many domains to host under one hosting account.
• Unlimited diskspace – If you have a large website, lots of graphics, files, or photographs for your image gallery, then you don’t have to worry about running out of space.
• Unlimited MySQL databases – Most scripts or softwares need a database like MySQL to store data to run the program on your server. With unlimited MySQL databases, you don’t have to worry about limits when it comes to installing scripts/software on your server — start a classified site, start an auction site, start a dating site, start a blog, you name it! You can create as many databases as you need!
• Unlimited sub-domains – This is a nice feature. If you want to have different niches under one domain, then you can create as many sub-domains as you want. For example, you can have “auctions.mydomain.com” ; “classifieds.mydomain.com” ; “blog.mydomain.com” ; “store.mydomain.com” — all under one roof!
• And more features!

By the way, you get a 45-day money back guarantee with your order, so you really have nothing to lose!

Let’s get you started with this deal. Just follow the 3 simple steps below:

(1) First, go to the order page. You will get to a page with a drop-down that says “Select Your Type of Hosting.” From the 3 options given, choose “Shared Hosting” then click on the ‘Continue’ button.

(2) The next page asks for your domain details. If you already have a domain name, then place your mouse over and select the radio button that says, “I will use my existing domain…” Enter your domain name and continue on to the next page. (Note that there are 2 input fields. The first one is where you put the name of your domain. The second input is where you put the extension of your domain — .com, .net, .org, etc — enter without the ‘dot’ because it’s already there for you)

If you don’t have a domain name yet, I suggest registering your domain through a separate registrar. That is because I believe that you should register your domain name from a different provider than your hosting provider. There’s a good reason why, and you probably know about it already (I won’t discuss it here, but contact me if you need to know why). I highly recommend GoDaddy and Namecheap to register your domain names. Go to GoDaddy now to register a new domain name, before proceeding to the next step. Come back here when you’re ready…

(3) The next page asks you to select a hosting package. Pick “Baby” from the drop-down list and click ‘Continue’ button. You’ll need to select a billing cycle on the next page. It’s up to you whether you want a monthly, yearly, or something else. For the sake of this deal, just choose “Monthly”

(4) This is one of the important steps, if you’re taking advantage of the penny hosting offer. If you follow all the steps above correctly, then you should see an input field on the order form that says “Coupon.” On that field, enter this coupon: 1cent. Hit the ‘Continue’ button again. Confirm on the next page that your coupon was accepted. Your total due should now be $0.01. If not, then start over, carefully following the steps above.

(5) Complete the transaction and you’re done!

Hope you liked this coupon! Remember, if you need any help with your website or online projects, just contact me with your project requirements. Take care!

WARNING:

Believe it or not, there are people who will try to gain access to your product ‘download’ page or ‘thank you’ page without paying — hence, stealing your ebook or software. Seasoned sellers of digital products already know about this problem of digital product theft, and have taken measures to protect their products from such theft.

How do hackers steal your product without paying for them?

One method is to try to guess the name of your download page. Unsuspecting and newbie sellers often name their download page or thank you page something easy — such as ‘thankyou.html‘ or ‘paypal-thanks.html‘ or ‘clickbank-thanks.html‘ among many others. Some have tried to reduce this by naming the thank you/download page into something a little more difficult to guess — like adding random numbers and letters within the name (example: thankyou827193cba.html). However, tests based on analysis of server logs indicate that some people will spend as long as up to an hour to try to guess their way into your thank you/download page. They take the extra security measure as a challenge, and will do anything to prove their worth as a hacker.

Some now employ special softwares that can automatically try millions of permutations to guess the name of your thank you/download page. What this means is that simply giving your download page an uncommon name is no longer an effective way of protecting your digital products from being downloaded freely.

Another method that digital thieves employ is to use your listing on Google, Yahoo, and even Alexa to get to your download page. If it’s in the search engine, then it is literally available to millions of people to download for free! You don’t want that either!

I can help protect your download page from digital thieves!

First, I’ll add a special code to your download page link. Without this special code, the script will automatically send the visitor to your homepage, instead of being able to go to your download area — hence, preventing your digital product from being downloaded. This adds an extra protection from those who are guessing their way into your thank you/download page.

Second, I’ll add another extra protection so that your download or thank you page will not be listed in the search engines.

Third, I’ll add another layer of protection (in case #2 may be ignored by search engine bots) so that anyone coming to your download page from the search engines will be redirected to your homepage.

This method has been fully tested for use with Paypal and Clickbank, but it can certainly work with other processors as well.

What’s the cost? I’m only asking $12 (per page) for this service! I must say, it’s a small price to pay for protecting your product. Would you rather lose hundreds of dollars from theft? I don’t think so!

I could actually choose to charge $130 or more for this service, but I’m not going to do that. At least, not yet. Maybe later… so you better hurry.

What are you waiting for? Contact me now and we’ll get started. The longer you wait, the more you are losing money!

DISCLAIMER: Although my method will substantially improve the security of your download pages, there is no such thing as a 100% secure solution for selling ebooks and software. I will not be held responsible for any loss you might incur. As long as we live in this world, there is no such thing as 100%. Be careful of people or companies who claim otherwise! They are not being fully honest!

Are you thinking of a redesign just for the sake of it? If you answered yes to that question, it is not yet the right time to do a redesign. Remember, a design serves a specific purpose. If you are not sure whether to do an overhaul of your site, keep in mind that your current design might have a specific purpose that you might not know about. You will lose that function if you do a redesign.

On the other hand, if your website has had the same website design since 1990, perhaps it is high time to do a redesign. The last thing you would ever want to happen to your site is when visitors leave your site without taking a look at your content just because the design is old fashioned. If this is your case, here are some points to ponder before doing a redesign.

Redesigning your website is like performing plastic surgery on it. Your website loses its current identity (for the better or worse) and your regular visitors might not recognise your new design at first glance. You risk losing them just because they thought they landed on the wrong page. Hence, it is very important that you retain a characteristic feature from your old layout. Perhaps it is the logo of your site; perhaps it is the same text style for the title for your site.

To play it safe, put a poll on your site to let your visitors do the talking. If they think it is necessary for the website to have a fresh look, give it to them!

Is it time for you to have a site overhaul? If you are looking for a new design, consider my services and I’ll give you the makeover that your website needs. Just contact me with more details and I’ll respond with a quote.