Articles by Pamela Upshur on ArticleSnatch.com

Simple But Vital Tips In Choosing A Domain Name

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Your domain name has commercial value which you can apply patent to. Choose your domain name wisely; invest time and business knowhow on it alone. As far as letters, numbers, and hyphens, you can get creative with your domain name just donâ€™t place the hyphen at the start or at the end. You could not use special symbols and spaces in your domain name also. Excluding the domain extension (.com, .net, .org, etc.), you could have anything from 2 to 63 characters in your domain name, which is not case sensitive. To get you started, here are some useful tips you can follow to craft your business' online identity. 1. Use your company's known/registered name as your domain name. Itâ€™s easier for people to remember or find you online if your URL is your company name itself. Intel, Microsoft, Del, etc. are easy to find on the Web because they use their registered name, the name known to everybody, as their website URL. Itâ€™s a known fact that at least 90% of people who are not sure about the companyâ€™s website just type the company name in the address bar followed by .com. **End Summary** Topics: selecting a domain name]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> UpshurCreative.com combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: Internet Business Opportunity .

Seven Deadly Business Flaws A Shrewd Entrepreneur Should Know

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

It's good to know the mistakes businesses make so that you will not share the same fate as to these potential-rich, brilliant businesses who failed to eliminate these seven deadly flaws. Here are the seven deadly business flaws to avoid: 1. Choosing a location which is not frequented by your customers. One business clichÃ© that will never die with age is "location, location, location." In business, location is EVERYTHING. Your chosen location alone could make or break your dream of standing with the giants when the clouds have disappeared. Donâ€™t make a mistake of venturing somewhere your target customers need their schedule rewritten just to get to you. Guess what, they wonâ€™t bother. A bad location is the first recipe for business failure; therefore, locate your business where there's good vehicle, if not foot traffic. 2. Over confidence: going into battle when your ammunition (cash capital) is low. Even though everything looks good on paper, but be shrewd enough to be always on the safe side when it comes to arming your business with enough ready cash capital. Most often than not, your break-even timeline deviates from what is on your business plan. **End Summary** Topics: deadly business flaws]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> UpshurCreative.com combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: Internet Business Opportunity .

Crafting A Clever Affiliate Program To Build Your Online Business

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

You can employ the diligence of other website owners or bloggers by giving them incentive to introduce your website to their readers and visitors. You can even form joint ventures with other online sellers whose products or service is complementary to what you're offering. You can tap their customer base by giving them incentive to endorse your product or service on their website or through their advertising campaign also. You can either pay a flat rate per sale they make or per incoming traffic from their site; although the latter is not a very good option in terms of capping your advertising cost. If you have a good product or service, you can level the playing field with your more successful competitors by crafting a clever affiliate program strategy. Ride the success of other webmasters or bloggers and tap their visitors to introduce your online business. The best part is setting up your affiliate program. A secondary but not negligible advantage of a affiliate program is search engine optimization. Search engines love to rank website with lots of links pointing to it. **End Summary** Topics: affiliate programs]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> UpshurCreative.com combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: Turnkey Websites .

Get Your Online Business Started Quickly With A Turnkey Website

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Turnkey websites are ready-made and useable upon purchase. Using a turnkey website is like purchasing a fully-functioning website which you can operate as soon as you confirm ownership. I can personally attest the effectiveness of turnkey websites as I have one myself. Believe it or not, I had a epiphany upon waking up one morning. I suddenly had an idea of launching a website which I could use for a affiliate program. The minor details downs to the look and theme of the website were clear to me. I knew what I wanted to do, and I didn't want to waste any time hiring a web programming to make one for me. I turned to a turnkey website, brought it and had it up and running within 30 minutes after my light bulb moment. That was the best investment I ever made. I was still in my PJs at the time. You too can launch your own website tailored to your specific purpose. Your idea may not come as sudden as mine. You may need to sit down and form an idea in your head first. **End Summary** Topics: turnkey websites]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> UpshurCreative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit UpshurCreative.com at: Turnkey Web sites .

The Advantages Of Sole Proprietorships

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

There are no formalities required to start up a business as a sole proprietor. You may be required to register your business with your local town, city, or county government by filing out a simple form stating that you are doing business under a business name. This is known as a DBA. This form of business has several advantages: 1. Ease of starting and ending the business All you have to do to start a sole proprietorship is buy or lease the needed equipment (e.g., a saw, a word processor; a tractor; lawn mower) and put up some announcements saying you are in business. It is just as easy to get out of business; you simply stop. There is no one to consult or to disagree with about such decisions. You may have to get a permit or license from the local government, but that is no problem. 2. Being you own boss Working for others simply does not have the same excitement as working for yourself...at least, that is the way sole proprietors feel. You may make mistakes, but they are your mistakes...and so are the many small victories each day. 3. **End Summary** Topics: advantages of sole proprietorships]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> UpshurCreative.com builds custom ecommerce websites with drop shipping. All websites are pre-stocked with products from trusted suppliers. Visit UpshurCreative.

Site Elements That Can Cause Problems in Google

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Google indexes each element of a frame separately. For this reason, if the content of one element of your frame is indexed, the user will only see that part of the frame and not the entire page. If is desirable to avoid frames altogether. However, if you must use frames, either place a NO FRAMES tag in your code or create a non-frame version of each page to submit to Google. The NO FRAME tag tells the Google spider to avoid indexing the frame and thereby get around the problem of frames. By submitting the non-frames version of a page, you also avoid only displaying part of the page to an Google user. Google spidering will affect sites attempting to set cookies. Many sites use cookies to track information about their users. Cookies themselves pose no problems to Google; however, the Google spider will not accept cookies as it crawls your site. Therefore, if a cookie must be accepted before the page loads, the spider will not crawl that page or any pages below it in your site. **End Summary** Topics: site elements]]> web design]]> ranking]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of UpshurCreative.

Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I'm about to give you some very useful information, but I want you to use it wisely. Let me be clear: Avoid the following techniques at all cost. Though this is not an exhaustive list by any means, it covers the major transgressions considered by all the major search engines. 1. Promoting keywords not related to your Web site Perhaps the first and certainly the most common technique is to gain a ranking for a keyword that you know is not relevant to your Web site. This is considered spam by all the major search engines. For instance, suppose you sell auto parts, and you are successful in securing a top ten ranking for the keyword phrase "Rolling Stone CDs." This would obviously be misleading to anyone who clicked on your listing. Not only will this technique cause your site to be penalized by the search engines if detected, it will generate little, if any, valuable traffic, as it will all be unqualified traffic. **End Summary** Topics: search engines]]> spam]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: Turnkey Web sites .

Setting Up Your Own Affiliate Program

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

By setting up your own affiliate program, you are allowing other people to resell your service or product at their website, to their customer base, through their newsletter or any other ethical way they want to market it on the Internet. You get to set the rules on the ways your resellers are allowed to sell or represent your product. Options include paying affiliates a commission, a flat fee or per click, but this is less effective, and costs can quickly mount up. Affiliate programs have made a "level" playing field between the big corporations and the small companies. Using Affiliate Programs makes it easy to gain the power of the larger sites and all of their traffic... and it is possible to set up an affiliate program for your own service or product without mortgaging your house! In addition to helping you sell your products or services, an affiliate program can help to strengthen your link popularity in the search engines by gaining the links that each of your affiliates will place on their Web pages back to your site. **End Summary** Topics: setting up yourown affiliate program]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: Turnkey Home Based Business .

Searching for Buried Treasure

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Everyone hates the thought of statistics. However, if you don't track the status at your Web site, you will never truly understand who is visiting your Web site and, more importantly, why. Before you start having flashbacks of high-school algebra class, you should know that tracking and analyzing Web site stats isn't rocket science. As a matter of fact, tracking and analyzing stats is fairly easy. Regardless of whether you analyze your won Web site's log files or use an on-demand Web service to collect and process your stats, you can expect to get the same basic information. The following provides you with an overview of the types of data and reports that you can expect and provides you with insight on how to analyze this data in order to make improvements to your Web site. Discovering Popular and Unpopular Resources By tracking and analyzing stats, you can discover which of the pages at your Web site are visited most often. Although you might think that your top-level home page is the most popular, this isn't always the case. In fact, your analysis might reveal that most people visit some other page at your Web site. **End Summary** Topics: setting up your own affiliate program]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: Turnkey Home Based Business .

Playing the Name Game

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

You can never own too many domain names. That's a rather bold statement, but think about the implications. If you have just one domain name, and just one website, you have limited your ability to attain rankings, to be found in search engines and directories, and to take on your competitors. Of the many page elements that can contain your targeted keywords, perhaps the most often-overlooked is the top-level domain name. Some spider-based search engines, however, favor Web sites that contain the targeted keyword in the root domain name. For this reason when you register domain names, you should keep one eye on your search engine positioning interests. Brainstorming for a good domain name can be a time-consuming, if not maddening exercise. Let's talk about how to pick a domain name, both in generally and for the benefit of a search engine positioning program. Use Catchy But Relevant Keywords If you operate a company that offers custom Visual Basic Programming services and the company name is "Practical Computer Programming Services Corporation, "do not register the name as pcpsc.com. This tells the user nothing about your company and it is hard to remember. **End Summary** Topics: domain name selection tip]]> search engines]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: Turnkey Home Based Business .

Lovely to Look At, But Rarely Seen

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Pages with frames, scripts, tables, and lots of graphics present special problems to Web site publishers and search engines. With frame-enhanced Web pages, the main document usually contains only references to the files that a browser loads into each frame. With scripts, the code is often located at the top of the code for the Web page in the place of the all-important descriptive text. With graphics-intensive pages, room for text on the page is limited. Although some search engines are smart enough to understand and properly handle frame-enhanced pages, scripts and graphics-intensive pages, such search engines are more the exception than the rule. Fortunately, you can get your Web page noticed without eliminating frames, scripts, or your wonderful graphics. One way or you to do this is through use of META tags. However, there are a few element-specific tricks that you may want to consider as well, including: Dealing with frame issues Dealing with scripts Managing your tables Keeping graphics under control Handling Problems with Frames Frames present a bit of a challenge for many search engines. When you create a Web site based on frames, you define a frameset and frames. **End Summary** Topics: web design]]> search engines]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: Turnkey Home Based Business

Make Those Informational Pages Work for You

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

An informational page should contain valuable, relevant content such that it can stand on its own. Informational pages really become small navigational Web sites. They discuss a particular topic in some detail; perhaps they summarize some content area of the Web site and then link users to that area of the Web site. Often, they discuss a concept or describe using the vernacular of the industry rather than that of the general public. There is absolutely no reason why this informational content can not be placed on an external domain name. When choosing a domain name for externally hosted informational pages, there is less of a requirement that the domain name be good, interesting or memorable. What is important is that the domain name contains the targeted keyword phrase. Don't overlook the importance of naming the files and folders after keywords, too. This strategy is best when used sparingly and worst when overused. External domains name with content-rich informational pages are a valuable and important strategy to supplement a search engine positioning program, but they are not a search engine positioning program in and of themselves. **End Summary** Topics: domain name]]> informational page]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: http://www.upshurcreative.com

That Page Just Won't Fly

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Here are a few design failures that may call for an informational page solution: Graphics Without HTML Since search engines can't optically recognize text contained within graphics, they have nothing to index when they encounter a Web site entirely made up of graphics instead of HTML. Therefore, the Web site receives no rankings. In such a case, a Web site designer might construct an informational page to address any of the important keyword phrases that the site covers, and then link the visitor to the other areas of the Web site that the search engine could not index. Not Enough Text Here is one place where the saying "less is more" doesn't necessarily apply. Unfortunately, search engines need a reasonable amount of text to analyze to determine the content of a Web page. If you only throw 10 or 20 words into the mix, your site is unlikely to be a winner in the rankings. Some search engines have even stated that they won't index Web pages containing less than 250 words of copy (sometimes more, sometimes less). **End Summary** Topics: web design]]> dynamic content]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: http://www.upshurcreative.com.

Get a Grip: Make Them Click

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Both the title and the description META tag must be compelling, but the Title tag has special relevance, because so many search engines use the title exactly as it appears on your page. Some search engines will use the site description that you give in the META tags, but others will not. For this reason, the title of the site is more important than the site description. Longer Titles are More Effective Longer titles build a more compelling reason to visit a Web site. Because it takes a certain number of words to persuade someone to to take action, logic dictates that longer sentences have more opportunity to create that compelling argument. It is difficult to discuss time, money, value, and the problem that the Web site solves in just two or three words. People often scan headlines in brochures and magazines, even when they don't read all the information. Since the title is usually a hyperlink, it is a different color, and it is generally bold and easier to read than the site's description in the search engine listing. When it is longer, there are more words with which to "hook" a reader. **End Summary** Topics: title tag]]> description tag]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: http://www.upshurcreative.com.

The Harsh Reality: It's Top 30 or Nothing

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

If, as a Internet marketer, you expect to survive and be found , you need to learn how to: 1) place your pages in the high-traffic core, and 2) achieve a high ranking in the major search engines. Otherwise, your sites will be like little islands in the sea: remote, inaccessible, and forgotten. This means you are solely relying on people typing in your URL in the command lines of their browsers, and this only works if your site is well-known. The days of serendipitous surfers and "accidental traffic" stumbling onto your site are over. On this "new" Internet made up of billions of Web pages, site owners must use every tool available to them to attract visitors. And even then, you face stiff competition. I only consider a ranking to be a listing within the top 30, because studies have shown that must searchers do not keep clicking through past the third page. In fact, most searchers do not even click-through to the second page. Therefore, a #10 ranking is much more valuable than #27, and #64 is pretty much worthless. Now, many other search engines do display more than 10 results per page. **End Summary** Topics: top search engine ranking]]> seo]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: http://www.upshurcreative.com.

One is the Loneliest Keyword Number

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Suppose you are selling leather date book organizers and you target the word "organizers." There is no way for a searcher to determine if your site has information of interest to someone looking for a "leather organizer" for important papers, a "closet organizer" for a neater home, or a "wedding organizer" to orchestrate that big event. In this case, it is essential that you add a second word to clarify the meaning of "organizer" as it would apply to your site. Another problem with single word searches is their attainability. Even if a single keyword is what you really want, you may not be able to attain a search engine ranking on it. While it would be nice to be positioned well on a single extremely broad keyword, you might better use your time to pair the keyword with something more specific. More specific keywords have the added advantage of ensuring that your prospects are more qualified. You don't want to disappoint searchers who visit your site in the search of a wedding organizer. Another example: A search on "software" at almost any search engine will return over a billion documents. **End Summary** Topics: top ten ranking]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Pamela Upshur is the owner of Upshur Creative. Upshur Creative combines fresh, contemporary, fully functional turnkey websites with the best PHP scripts and databases to create the largest and most comprehensive turnkey collection for entrepreneurs. Visit her site at: http://www.upshurcreative.com