As I'm sure all of you are aware of search engine optimization is the root to your online success. Building a functional and appealing site is one thing, but developing a site where people are visiting is whole other thing. Depending on your site's goals, getting traffic could be a critical component to be successful.
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, should be another tool in your toolbox along with programming, graphic design and database knowledge. Of course, getting proficient in all areas is extremely difficult and time consuming. Not to mention that there are many SEO practices that involves massive amounts of time. This could often be link directory submissions, search engine submissions, back link submissions, etc. If you don't have the time or the resources, you should look to hire a SEO company that specializes with this field. Obviously price range all over the map, so do your research and have a clear goal in mind before contacting any one.
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Easy-To-Build.com
Over the last year or so, I've been dabbling into affiliate marketing, basically making web sites that attempt to make money for me. I've mentioned over and over it's important to create multiple streams of revenue if you own your own web development business. Development, hosting, application services and now affiliate marketing all make up various forms of incoming revenue. These streams are diverse, so if one portion is slow, hopefully the others can maintain or pick up the slack.
While dabbling, I've run across multiple people interested in getting into affiliate marketing. I tell them to start, it's good to know some programming (even if it's just straight HTML), and to have a host with unlimited or at least a account with multiple domains. Affiliate marketing can often lead to multiple sites, so you don't want to purchase a hosting account for every domain you have; it'll be hard to get a good ROI (return on investment).
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Qoo Forum
One thing that I'm always on the hunt for are communities or forums that discuss web development, graphic design and other useful items that I deal with on a regular basis. The ability to access questions and collaborate on problems is critical to overcome obstacles or taking your application to the next level.
I often frequent DigitalPoint and DevShed (as all of you should be checking out every day), but there are many new forums popping up on almost a daily basis. With this sponsored post, I'd like to talk about Qoo Forum . Here is a great example of a community forum that discusses just about anything from politics to business to Programming. It's still in its infancy and is growing all the time. I really enjoy taking part in these new sprouting forums to help get involved with out being intimidated by 'gurus' or 'masters', which they can be incredibly supportive and helpful but can also be mean spirited and just plain annoying.
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Brent Crouch - Marketing Blog
Having my own web development business, I'm faced with challenge of maintaining a revenue stream to keep the business afloat. Usually, this comes down to new clients, maintenance or site upgrades to existing clients and monthly hosting. In the previous entry I touched upon hosting, but I'd like to talk about another potential source for revenue. That is internet marketing. In basic terms, making recurring revenue from web sites you create.
This is definitely not for everyone, and involves a lot of time and work. I'm not going into the 'How-Tos' of this, but when I started, the first step was to learn and understand some of the process. Then after applying some ideas, I would look for ways to improve. The internet is full of resources, and my favorites were blogs that focus on this topic. Some of my favorites would include:
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ePowHost
Here again, I'm looking for the perfect hosting solution for small sized web development firm. I think the market is really budding for new upstart programmers and there are a lot of potential clients out there.
If you're starting out in the 'business', then remember one thing. Don't throw away potential money from hosting!!!! Programmers often thinking about developing an application for a client, and then moving on. It's important to take advantage of recurring revenue! This recurring revenue is what will maintain you between jobs. Don't send that cash off to someone else, when you could be making a few bucks from every client every month.
When searching for a host for this, you're left with a few options. Dedicated server, colocated server, virtual private server or shared hosting. Shared hosting is the cheapest and with low maintenance. Dedicated, colocated or VPS (Virtual private servers) are more expensive and have much more maintenance. The benefit is control of the server, where shared you're at the complete mercy of the hosting facility.
Starting a development business, you should get your feet wet with shared. Things to look for in shared hosting. Large disk space, high bandwidth and unlimited domains. With these covered, you can begin to resell the hosting and start generating monthly profits.
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AJAX Workspace Review
For a while now the buzz has been around Ajax (Asynchronus Javascript and XML). This is insanely powerful and greatly improves the user's experience. It converts a classic client/server interaction to give the impression of a windows based application. obviously it's still doing client/server communication, but is event driven instead of purely being page driven. If you've played with Google Maps, then you've seen the power of Ajax.
With this sponsored post, I'd like to talk about AJAX Workspace, which is a Online collaboration tool for teamwork and project management : AjaxWorkspace.
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Google Page Rank Article
Every web site has a goal of generating more traffic. There is a large portion of traffic generated from organic search results from the various search engines out there. Google being the most popular and used search engine has a way to rank your site. This ranking is a complex algorithm that Google only knows for obvious reasons. People have speculated that backlinks (site that link back to your site) is one of the ways to help improve your PR (page rank).
With this sponsored I would like to talk about a web article that discusses google page rank in some detail. The article is located at Brent Crouch's - Best of Internet Marketing. The article discusses the basics of page rank, and touches on back links. It offers a link to purchase the SEOBook, but I wish it could have given a few tips on generating those backlinks.
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Site Review - Letters-To-You.com
With this sponsored post, I was asked to Review LTY , a graphic design web site. One thing that I've discussed multiple times on this web site, along with various forum posts, to create a successful application you need to have a combination of ingredients. A site that is beautiful, but not function will fail. A site that is incredibly functional, yet unattractive will fail. The goal for any programmer and graphic designer is to merge these two areas where both fields are strong for the user experience.
This particular site has some great points, but also has some flaws. Now before, I go too into detail with my criticisms, I must first say that these are my own opinions. My opinion is not the rule, just what I feel that is correct. When you develop your own sites, you'll have your own set of personal rules that you feel are important. We may share a few of these, and we could differ drastically.
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