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January 14,2010
Review of SENuke 7 day trial.
I've downloaded hundreds of software packages, and like you, I've been disappointed by most. SeNuke was different -- way different. Not only was it easy to use, but it did AMAZING things, saving me literally hundreds of hours a month doing what I had been doing manually to increase my search engine rank.
Unlike other similar software that promised 'instant results on Google' and other ridiculous claims, SeNuke didn't use blackhat techniques to just post a million links that will be instantly deleted and eventually get you kicked off the search engines ... it actually helped you produce QUALITY links, just 100x faster than you could do it before.
January 10, 2010
We've researched the top-paying Google Adsense terms. Learn how these can pay you or cost you!
December 5, 2009
Besthostnet teams with three computer professionals to develop the get rich experiment, a one-year project in which three technically savvy people try numerous 'get rich quick' schemes and online money-making opportunities to discover which ones are legit and which ones are scams... and ultimately to become rich from it!
Read moreBuild a Website Start to Finish
Starting out
For those of you just starting out in the online business, putting up a personal page or one for a small business can be a fun or frustrating project. It can be as easy or difficult as you'd like. We'll start off with some tips for complete beginners.
The first step in creating a working website is to decide what kind of site you'd like. Are you creating a blog (derived from 'web log,' a sort of online diary), a personal page to introduce yourself to the world, or a small business? If it's a business, are you selling a product from the site, or is it just informational?
The easiest to set up is a blog. Many sites, including blogger, wordpress and many others make it as simple as entering in your personal information and uploading some pictures. Other sites such as myspace and Facebook also make it easy to put up a simple page about yourself without knowing any HTML or programming of any kind. The best part is that they're all free! The bad part is you're limited to their format, and generally aren't allowed to sell anything or advertise -- they're strictly for sharing your personal information, comments and pictures with friends and others.
If you like more freedom to be creative, or plan on doing any kind of business from your site, then you need to look further. Luckily for you, we've laid out the step by step process for creating a working website, complete with recommended and trusted links to help you. We've labeled these Step 1, Step 2, etc, but in reality there's no set order you need to follow. This is just a general guideline, and a nice, simple order to make things work.
Step 1 - Your Domain Name
Pick a name for your site. You've probably noticed that websites contain a name, usually starting with a "www" or "http://www." and ending with a ".com" or ".net" etc. There are variations on these, but the collective name is known as the URL (stands for Uniform Resource Locator, but you'll never need to know that). The part between the "www" and ".com" is the domain name. This ideally will be something short, descriptive, and easy to remember. For example, if your site is about polar bears, you'd want a site named "www.polarbears.com" but you'll probably find it's already taken. We suggest you go to www.GoDaddy.com and find a spot that says 'domain search,' type in the name you want and view the results. It will tell you whether your choice is availabe, and if it's not, suggest similar ones for you. In our example, we find that "www.polarbears.com" is taken, but "www.polarbearssite.com" is available, as is "www.polarbearsstore.com" if we are selling polar bear merchandise (note these are examples only and may change).
The more common your business or personal name is, the less likely it will be available. Try to avoid making excessively long or non-legible names like "www.123p-bearsILx.com" as people will have a hard time remembering it. If you have a business, it's wise to try to find a ".com" extension, as these are the most common and most trusted. Other extensions may be cheaper, but lose some credibility in customers' minds. For personal pages, this doesn't matter nearly as much.
Registering a ".com" domain name will usually cost between $9 and $12, although there are often specials, especially for the lesser-known extensions. There are many sites to buy domains from, but www.GoDaddy.com is the biggest and will be safe and reliable. We've registered with other companies that had a $1.99 special, but the following year the price jumped up to a ridiculous $35, so be careful. Note that if you do register with another domain registrar, you can change it later, but it can be a hassle and is VERY easy to forget. We prefer the ease and simplicity of www.GoDaddy.com
, but feel free to shop around.
Step 2 -- Find a Host
Your site must be hosted somewhere. Sites are hosted on servers, and there are a variety of options, including dedicated servers (for large sites), shared hosting (for small and mid-level sites) and free hosting (for small, personal pages).
Finding the right host for you can be daunting, especially for a beginner. There are thousands of choices available, but most end up going with the most convenient -- the ones offered by the domain registrar. www.GoDaddy.com has several plans available, ranging from $4.99 to $14.99/mo. They also have packages with discounts. However, the lower end plans are very limited in the amount of storage space, email, and features. They are a domain registrar that offers hosting... it is usually better to shop around, as a company in the business of hosting can offer MUCH MORE for LESS money. We've reviewed the top hosting companies for you. Our three most recommended hosts are Just Host
, www.fatcow.com, and Webhostingpad
, all of which offer unlimited everything for a fraction of godaddy's price.
Many first-timers understandably opt for the free version, such as freeservers, 000webhost.com, free-webhosts and others. These are fine for a personal webpage, but there are some real drawbacks. First of all, these hosts cost a lot of money to maintain, so to offer it free, they have to make money somehow, right? They usually make money by placing ads on your site -- ads for what they want, where they want. Sometimes these are annoying for readers, such as popups and popunders, and will instantly make the site look amateurish. When people see this, they often decide to pay for the hosting, at an inflated cost of what they can get elsewhere.
Step 3 -- Build the Site
This is the biggest hurdle to overcome. The first and most obvious option is to hire someone to make your website for you. This service can cost from $500 to $5000, depending on the type and scale of site you want. There are thousands of web design companies -- one good one is www.quicksitesplus.com.
For others that don't require a complex site (a few pages or less), or are more technically savvy, most hosting companies offer site builder software that can make nice looking, functional sites with a minimal amount of technical expertise. These walk you through step by step how to create your site using one of their prepared templates.
The main drawback to these site builders is they're hard to customize. If you want things in a different place or a different format, or any add-ons like a shopping cart or contact page, they simply don't accomodate it. It can still be done, but it requires more coding knowledge and patience than most people have.
The next step up is to build your site from an existing template, and customize it in web design software. The most common web design tools are Dreamweaver and Frontpage, but a free version is available called NVU. With these products, you can build powerful websites, and usually without knowing much HTML. They are simple to use for basic things, but require a fair amount of training and practice to fully utilize. There are many template designs available online, including free ones, like www.freewebsitetemplates.com, www.freewebtemplates,com, and others. You find a template you like, and customize it to your liking. This site was made from one of these!
Finally, if you are an HTML/ XML/PHP/java wiz, you can just code up your own site from scratch! You would technically not even need any software, other than notepad. However, if you fall into this category, you probably aren't reading this article (or at least this section of it).
Step 4 -- Get the word out.
Your website doesn't do much good if nobody knows about it. It's like a billboard on the moon -- it may be beautiful, informative, compelling, and amazing... but if nobody sees it, who cares?
The short version of the story is; get other sites to link to yours! Let the search engines know you're there, then get others to tell others about you. Rather than re-hashing a long article, we refer you to our seo tips page for details.
Step 5 -- Make Money from your site.
If you have a personal webpage, this may not apply to you. But even a personal page could stand to make a little extra cash, right? There are a number of ways to do this, here are just a few.
1. add a shopping cart for your existing product. try 1shoppingcart.
2. get other people to sell your product. This can be EXTREMELY lucrative. If your product sells on your site, imagine how it would sell if it had 100 or 1000 other websites dedicated to it, each one spending their own time and money to promote it? Clickbank is the leader for this, which is known as affiliate marketing.
3. sell someone elses product. Place ads from commission junction or take a more aggressive approach and advertise particular products from clickbank
4. sell ad space. This can be done either by selling actual spaces on your site (good for local or targeted sites), selling space per impression (get paid a bit every time someone views the page containing the ad), or employing an ad product like adsense or yahoo ads (simplest, their software determines what your site is about and displays ads that it believes your customers would like, you get paid every time someone clicks on one).