e-Biz
Resources
Presenting!
The most excellent resources for I have discovered over the
course of my web wanderings. These are the little
nuggets of gold that greatly simplify my life and
my work!
I've spent a lot of time researching the Internet for the
best deals on Internet services including Web site hosting,
Tools for more efficient Search
Engine optimizing and internet marketing, the best marketing
guidelines and manuals I've found, as well as handy
dandy little software apps to assist you in your varied
marketing efforts.
All-in-Ones
The latest rage for the self-starter e-commerce business person
are packages that tie the whole shebang together in one little
nifty, user-friendly, pretty interface place. I'm referring
to a package that includes everything you need to
build your site, accept orders and market your site online
including doing search engine optimizations.
The best I've researched, although I have yet to try the
service (and I will), is Site
Built it!
They are run by the MYSS (make your site sell)
people - an internet bestseller for years
now.
Merchant
accounts - Take Online Payments
If you want to accept orders in "real-time"
over the internet, you will need a shopping cart
and a merchant account. They must be compatible because they
work hand in hand. If you didn't know before, you do now -
Gone are the days where you need a $3600+ merchant account
with $100/month fees (Cardservice International - boooo).
You can get set up and be taking orders instantly for under
$50 nowadays! My favorite is 2checkout.com. There is another
called clickbank.com, but they limit you to strictly electronicly
delivered products such as e-books and mp3s. 2checkout.com
does both electronic formats AND general mail order stuff.
www.2checkout.com
- $49 one time set up fee, no monthly charges, only a transaction
fee of 0.45 and 5.5% percent of your sale. A good place to
go for a new start-up without a lot of volume.
If you are getting lots of volume and you want to get your
own merchant account with lower transaction fees, the best
deal is Accesspoint through www.creditcardprocessor.com
whose rate for POS is 1.65% and $0.20, and 2.15% and $0.30
for Internet sales. Lots of other benefits that I can tell
you about from my personal experience, such as stellar customer
service. Please e-mail me any specific questions you may have
about my experience with this company @ dibs@live-simply.net
.
Bravenet.com
- Free Web Tools for Webmasters
Web
Site Hosting
Whether you are a do-it-yourself Web manager for your small
business, or a Web developer with many clients, there are
some excellent deals for hosting available. These hosts have
reseller or affiliate options, providing you with an opportunity
to capitalize on any customers you refer. In my experience,
many people pay too much for too little when it comes to hosting.
You want to have easy management of all your hosting functions,
which is why I've listed providers that include a Web based
user-friendly interface control panel for simple management.
- Worldwide Hosting - www.worldwidehosting.net
- a great little resource for those of you who have a small
clientele. You don't want to spend $150 a month on a server
because you don't need that much space, but you want to
host 5 - 70 domains...
- eHostingBiz - www.eHostingbiz.com
- a fantastic deal at $5 a month for 50 MB, 20 email accounts,
a static IP address, as well as a killer affiliate program
to earn commissions from referrals (hint hint). But seriously,
I use them for my baby colic site and they are great.
Domain
Name Registrations
If you are still using Network Solutions to register your
domain names, you are paying too much! I don't have all the
technical info on the registrars, but I know who I've used
for the past three years without any problems. These are the
features you need to make sure your domain name registrar
offers:
GoDaddy - www.godaddy.com - Notice - I did not hotlink them!
Although they are one of the cheapest out there, I do not
recommend them. Their service, bookkeeping and customer satisfaction
departments are suck-y! Don't waste your money. I lost a couple
domain names with them and they wouldn't even give me my money
back even though the mistake was on their part. Hmph. $8.95/year
domain names - but in this case you get what you pay for!
Doster
- www.dotster.com - a little more than godaddy but still
less than standard Network Solutions or other. I've been using
them for over 3 years and they are rock-steady. Superb team
and resources available for the online business person. $14.95/year
domain names.
Tools
for SEO
An excellent program for finding the top 10 pages in each
of the top 10 Search engines simultaneously, as well as a
listing of around 300 quality search engines that are out
there is a software called Copernic. This program is excellent
for doing any kind of research - personal or business related.
It's also good for those SEOs who want to get a quick view
of your competition in all of the top 10 search engines. There
is a free version for download. The upgrade obviously has
more features and is well worth the $39.95 (Plus) and $79.95
for the Pro version.
Go to www.copernic.com
and simplify YOUR life, too!
Marketing
tools, guidelines, manuals
- 33_days to Online Profits - one manual. Start here if
you are wanting to make $$ on the internet. You may have
to wait for the snowball, the the techniques and their sequence
are the real thing. There is sooo much junk out there -
this one is NOT junk. Check it out or suffer the missed
knowledge.
Neat
little Software programs
- Roboform - If you do a lot of internet marketing, you'd
better go download this software free off the www.roboform.com
website. This nifty little app will save your personal info
and automatically fill forms with it with your permission.
As far as security issues, they claim to have all the proper
ethics as the info is stored on your machine, not the internet
- so no one has access except you or your password. You
can decide for yourself, but I find this bit indispensible.
Saves me sooo much time.
- AdsGone - also great if you surf the internet a lot and
get distracted and annoyed by pesky pop-ups and/or ads in
general. This is a little filter program - you can tell
it what to show you and what to not. By default, it kills
all ads. Wouldn't it be cool if we could kill t.v. ads this
way, too? www.adsgone.com
|
Dynamic! Web Marketing Education Center