Archive for the ‘card’ category

Why You Should Choose Your Web Hosting Provider Wisely

July 5th, 2009

Whether you are opening a new website to share information on a hobby or expanding your business to the online market, you will want to choose a web hosting provider that will meet your needs.

Who Needs a Web Hosting Provider?

In order to share your information on the Internet you have to have your own spot in cyberspace. A web hosting provider will rent you the space to use for your files and data. Internet users will then be able to access your site with their browser to shop, read your content or contact you through email.

When choosing a web hosting provider, it is imperative to choose one that will be able to meet your needs. Don?t impulsively choose the first good deal you find, but take time to compare with other providers and examine all their features and options. The bargain hosts might not be the best for you. It can be difficult to change if you are not satisfied.

What Do I Need in a Web Hosting Provider?

To begin, you must determine what you need on your site and if the web hosting provider will be able to provide everything you need. This will help you choose the right one. Make a list of the basic requirements, and ask yourself these questions.

* How much space will I need?

* Do I have a lot of data and do I expect a lot of traffic?

* Will I need to set up an email address or use another server?

If you are unsure of the size you will need, consider developing as much of the site as you can before shopping for a web hosting provider. This will give you a basic idea of how much space you will need for your files. If you start small, you can expand later.

Different Options

There are a variety of options in the features you can use on your web page. Some web hosting providers use the more sophisticated features in PHP, which support MySql or ASP and ColdFusion. However, a simple website that you will be adding to or changing yourself will be just as efficient in the HTML format.

Many web hosting providers offer ecommerce packages to help you open and manage an online store. They offer searchable catalogs, shopping carts and credit card services.

Good Service

Even if your budget is tight, you shouldn?t make cost the highest consideration in entering into a contract with a web hosting provider. Sometimes cheap hosting means cheap service. Make sure that the company is reliable. Check their website and see how long they have been in business. See if their customers are satisfied with their service.

Notice whether they offer telephone support or just an email address. Call them and see if they are easily accessible. If they are not, you might want to consider another company. There are many companies that offer affordable hosting with excellent customer service. Search the Internet for a list of hosts and then check their features carefully.

Making the Right Decision

If your website is important to you, find a host with a good reputation and one that will meet your needs. Finding the right web hosting provider will make your website run smoothly and could save you the trouble of trying to switch later on. Make an informed decision, and you will be happier with it.

Many “Free” Offers Online Can Scare Newcomers to the Internet

June 17th, 2009

In the time it takes you to read this article another several thousand newcomers will be surfing the Internet for the first time. Many will be excited, then delighted (especially if they enjoy cable hook-up), become anxious and finally overwhelmed.

All of this can and does happen because on the Internet, home of Internet Marketers (kind of like having your in-laws and outlaws in the same room at the same time), many Internet Marketers believe if they do not relieve you of your money first, there will be none left for them to get.

If you thought they were going to give you a congratulatory greeting and a helping hand, then your education will progress very rapidly.

This rush to get into your pocket is exactly what financial institutions and predators do to young adults after high school. These money grubbers (also known as money lenders) want nothing to do with a marathon in chasing the na?ve, they will choose the sprint every time, without fail.

Financiers know the first one to tie up a young person with a car loan and several credit cards has a leg up on enslaving the young, na?ve borrower forever; it becomes a done deal when they lock in the same borrower with their first home mortgage (real property loan).

At this point, the young borrower is now exactly where the fastest lender could bring them to: years of hard work, unfair taxes and a lifetime of debt.

I felt like going down to the local credit union and slapping the loan officer that set my son up with a loan for a new car that he acquired with a part-time job, no assets and no real credit rating. My son thought he was king of the hill (mind you, this was no $2,000 used car loan, this was more like a $20,000 new car loan).

My son figured it was easy to get loans. He kept going back until he was in for about $300,000, and then all of the lenders backed off like he had developed the plague and was contagious.

The point is a 30-year-old or 40-year-old man could have gone to the same credit union, or bank, or whatever your lender of choice is, asked for the same loan, and been laughed out of the building. Surely you get it, the first one in gets the prime filet mignon, the rest of lenders get the crumbs off the table.

You may imagine it could not get worse online, and you would be dead wrong. At least my son drove away with a car and had the transportation he thought he needed. Newcomers to the Internet many times buy products and services that simply do not perform (I have bought my share), never mind whether the newcomer wanted or needed the purchase of the moment.

All of this comes back to me today as I received an e-mail from what appears to be a nice, concerned fellow Internet Marketer, which says:

“I don?t normally pay much attention to these internet (sic) marketing giveaway events (that is why I have received another similar offer from the same marketer this week) that spring up every now and again (looks like at least a dozen in my e-mails today), but when I seen some of the tools available free at the ?Blank Blank Giveaway?, I wanted to make sure you had the chance (so very thoughtful of him) to check it out . . .” (followed by the link to the web site).

Turns out that “Not only can you grab 200+ hot Internet marketing tools without spending a dime, you can also build a list at the same time!”

Any newcomer to the Internet that has just started an Internet Marketing business may already know the idea is to generate traffic to his web site. This looks like another can?t miss deal, but is it?

Let us look at this offer from the perspective of a newcomer:

1) Many newcomers have virtually no technical knowledge or skills (I was one). How overwhelming would it be for me to download 200+ Internet tools, install them (if I can), and then use them effectively? Talk about being overwhelmed.

You might ask, why does this happen (the big time offer of 200+ tools)? Probably, a long time ago, some enterprising marketer offered one software tool as an incentive to sign up a newcomer on his mailing list, and then, you guessed it, things got out of hand, and soon it took 100+ free Internet tools to get that same newcomer to volunteer for a mailing list.

Look for someone to offer 300+ Internet tools soon, as the Internet is nothing if not a copycat business of the first order. There is such a lack of originality in marketing on the Internet that if the Internet exploded, it would probably take 1,000 years to resurrect it.

2) There is a great possibility that response to this kind of offer leads to the newcomer becoming a list member who will then be exposed to hundreds of offers to make instant money with a free web site, free hosting, free everything, and no requirements to think, do or say anything (the money, of course, will fly through the newcomer?s front door because the whole system will be automated).

But what is really happening here? Only this: You will probably be asked to advertise to drive traffic to your new, free web site (with access to the “secret” money-making techniques of your guru, and his personal schmuck-proof help), at your expense, in exchange for earning a commission on something sold.

Sounds OK, but what do you get besides the commission? Answer: nothing. Who gets the names for their mailing list? The guru, not you. What have you really accomplished? Only this: you have helped build the guru?s mailing list at your expense. The guru now has more newcomers to sell to over and over again, and you, you have nothing.

Well, not exactly. You, of course, have more advertising expenses, which we surely hope you can pay for out of the commissions you earned, assuming you earned any commissions. What you are really doing is subsidizing your guru, and he is making the money you want to make.

The guru (or any other Internet Marketer) is not giving you a free web site, hosting and all of the other amenities because he is feeling rich, blessed and altruistic (that is only what he is telling you with a straight face). He is giving you all of this because he can stuff his pockets 100 or 1,000 times more with affiliate web sites than without them, and so he spends his time creating affiliate web sites. It is called leveraging your time and money, his (the guru?s), not yours, he is bleeding you dry.

Gurus will quickly fall all over themselves telling you there are thousands of marketers making millions of dollars a year in affiliate marketing, and that may be, but will you be one of them, and what are you willing to do to make money at someone?s expense without really telling them the truth about what is happening here?

Some gurus (and other assorted folks) may be better off as an Internet Marketer if they have no conscience whatsoever.