1. - One of the most popular ‘home business’ jobs is associate marketing. This is usually accomplished through businesses which offer affiliate programs that you can join up with. Most famous concerns have a lot of recognizable brands to offer to affiliate marketers. Selling other peoples’ goods and earning a fee is the easiest way to get going.

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2. - If you’re not familiar with search-engine marketing, it’s necessary to understand how it works. You use search-engines to get surfers to visit your web site. 80 to 95 per-cent of your sites surfers will come from search engines, unless you’ve created a ‘viral’ product of your own, or a ‘buzzing’ forum or blog.

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3. - Social-media should be given due consideration. Social media sites are changing the way people connect with one another. Your success or failure is decided by your approach. The most important part of a successful social media plan is the content on your profile page. Use them to your advantage. Micro-blogging sites can have embedded web addresses that tell users about products. Free blog networks can help you build search engine optimisation into your web sites as well. There are tons of ways to exploit social media. Look to other media types to publicise your wares.

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4. - A simple method of making money on the internet is to sell domain names. You can approach businesses which are already on the internet and present to them a domain-name superior than the one they’ve got. If a business thinks your jazzy name would be beneficial for them, you can set to doing a deal with them. If you’ve a flair for this form of thing an eight dollar investment can pay off hugely.

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5. - Making a website is fairly easy, that’s only half the battle. It’s also important to drive traffic and learn how to sell your website. The problem with working on the web is that 99 per-cent of these cash-making opportunities offered are a waste of time and (your) cash.

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affiliate marketing help | internet affiliate marketing | affiliate internet marketing

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6. - Don’t only click on every advert you come across to find income sources; try to find networked groups of WAHMs (work-at-home moms) who have found success in earning money on the web or off and ask them for tips. They can give you some ideas about which programmes are actually worth investing in. Investigate message-boards and forums. Some message-boards allow users to post links in the body of a message. Make sure you read all the forum policies carefully prior to attempting this, or you may be banned for spamming.

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7. - The difficult part of selling online is staying with the enterprise until it begins to make a profit. You find advice spammed all over the Web, but how much of it can you believe in? Internet scams exist in their thousands, each one designed to bait suckers with the promise of quick and easy cash.

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8. - Pay Per Click (PPC) might well bring in a good conversion, but each click costs cash. The majority of professional marketing experts will tell you that getting involved in Natural Search is excellent value for your cash.

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9. - Toddle over to Clickbank.com to find the most recent products. Look for a product that’s popular, but make sure it’s one you know something about. Potential purchasers discount marketers that are ignorant of the product they’re selling, which causes them to be more unlikely to buy it.

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10. - Article writing is a fine means of website or self promotion. You can also author articles for other people for money, but the most webmasters will offer you is about twenty-five dollars, and often it’s a lot less. Article directories allow you to include a promo piece about yourself and your website to encourage people to visit it. You can also get more potential clients by creating an e-book and using blogs to publicize these.

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11. - Online success is easy; it just requires a plan. Most webmasters just try anything and everything, haphazardly. You can contact a wide range of consumers and communicate with anyone in the world, speedily. You can use your email opt-in list to send data about your special offers, products and newsletters; whatever you think your potential customers want.

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12. - Keywords are very important to your websites traffic campaign, but how you make use of them is also significant. Some websites do “key word stuffing” where they create near-random sequences of words to draw in search engine bots. Search engines have algorithms that can catch this and will penalise rather than promote the offending website.

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13. - Associate programmes are a very useful source of cash-flow. Most internet promotion strategists make the mistake of not developing their client base enough to actually sell their product. Affiliate programs can build your prospect base quickly.

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14. - If you have a web site set up, you need to design it. All your site needs to include is a review page about your products with user testimonials stating that each item works well and is worth purchasing.

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15. - You can try reciprocal linking. This is an agreement between website owners to hyperlink to each others’ websites. It’s a good way get a web site off the ground, but you need one-way backlinks to get search-engine ‘love’. It’s a good idea to link to sites that sell compatible but not competing items.

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16. - Most people who want to earn money via the internet start out working part-time to see if it’s a worthy project before jumping in and stumping up a big investment. Dropship opportunities give you a chance to give it a go for little to no money investment upfront. Create a database of websites that have the kind of viewership your product requires so you can emulate their wheezes and techniques. In drop shipping the vendor simply organises the deal and makes cash from it when a third party company ships it. There’s much less effort involved and it gives excellent rewards if you discover your niche. You can increase trust in your product range by distributing information about them through email newsletters.

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17. - Commit time to testing out various strategies in order to discover the ones that work best. Select a business type that you find agreeable and that you are keen on. Then research the industry. Start your own website or blog. Build a mailing list. Replicated associate sites won’t provide that for you. Start with what you know.

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18. - Be cautious of worldwide web marketing scams; they can take every euro you have. Most scams sound good. If you stick to affiliate marketing, you can’t go too badly wrong, unless you invest in PPC marketing to get traffic, and select the wrong keywords.

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19. - SEO (search-engine optimization) is the means whereby you push your web site up Search-Engine Result Pages (SERPs). At least 80% of all internet traffic now starts at a search engine. You can engage an SEO expert, but choose carefully; an inexpert one can destroy your rankings and get your website banned. Always get references on reputable webmaster forums. A top notch web marketing company will work very closely with your server logs, web analytics, and any additional statistics they can get hold of. This helps the creation and optimization of any ad campaign.

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20. - Blogging can draw visitors by co-ordinating link-exchanges with other blogs and making more contacts within the blogging community.

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21. - You can do everything from freelance work, such as writing or web design, to selling goods you’ve sourced yourself on the internet. If you’d rather work in a steady job you can get into remote admin, telecommuting, and work-from-home opportunities.

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22. - One-way backlink building is a method to publicize your site. Paid links allow you to get listed in web directories that post good quality web sites and offer links to your sites for a fee.

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23. - The more visitors you draw the greater the possibility of more money. Place content-rich pages on each one of your web sites and include keywords that will climb to the top of search-engine results and increase traffic volumes. Research in advance, don’t just work on an ad-hoc basis.

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24. - Purchase a web address that’s very similar to to the affiliate marketing product you’re trying to publicise. Do not, however, infringe on the copyright of a registered brand. That may annoy the brand owner.

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25. - An excellent way to make money online is by generating and then flipping web sites. You can either flog your own website, or you may buy a new website, increase its worth, and then sell it on. Site-flipping can be risky; it calls for a large amount of upfront investment. Thanks to the growth of greater usability, purchasing and selling web sites has become easier. It is considered a regular business venture, and people are making nice money from it. The market is always looking for good web sites. If more traffic is attracted to your website each day, the value of your domain will be higher. Before putting a website up for sale, make it look nice and attractive. Ensure it meets the specifications of likely buyers. Web sites that flog other sites ask for minimal data about your website, such as how many visitors it attracts and how much revenue you are earning from it monthly. The more transparent the data is, the simpler it will be for you to sell. When buyers are convinced about the quality of your site, they will start bidding.

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26. - When your enterprise is off the ground, if your product is not selling, drop it and try another. Do not hang about hoping that it will sell; it probably won’t.

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27. - Increase hits using keywords. You can find tons of keyword suggestion tools that generate a list of keywords on a chosen niche. You can make use of these to attract potential customers to your sales page. Most associate marketing programmes offer up to 75 percent commission on every sign-up you generate for them, so they do all the hard labour, and you rake in the cash! What you are doing is being their sales rep. Salesmen are traditionally very well remunerated, as they bring the money in.

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28. - Online promotion requires brand name exposure. Content on your site needs to be optimised. Get your name all over the Internet in order to generate worthwhile visitor numbers. Targetted traffic is what you’re aiming for; if you get a viral video on Youtube about hang-gliding, but you’re selling mortgages, you won’t make any moolah off it.

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29. - Blogs are handy for generating interest, but don’t think you can get one well-known in a few days. As a way into marketing, they are fairly quick and easy to set up. Research web-based tutorials and related forums. Or you can hire someone else to create the blog for you. For the time being a hosting account with Cpanel and Fantastico installed will allow you to install a no-frills blog at the press of a button.

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30. - There are a variety of alternatives for researching internet marketing. These alternatives include reading paperback books, reading affiliate marketers blogs, lurking in webmaster forums, clever search engine queries and paying attention to other successful online marketing campaigns.

I hope these few simple suggestions will be of some use to you in your marketing efforts.

Here are a few suggestions for those researching effective web design and marketing:

- Use Freelances For Jobs You Lack The Skills For. Is your budget tight? Try scriptlance.com or rentacoder.com. The key to getting the best work is to a) be as specific as possible as to what you want and b) write your spec in simple, concise terms. Your project will likely be done by somebody who’s first language is not English. Most web marketers give an inexact specification and get work they’re displeased with. Pick someone who’s had a lot of favourable reviews recently. Pay in increments. Use the freelance site’s escrow service. Don’t expect to get more than you stumped up for, and don’t be a cheapskate; if somebody does a good job, they deserve a bonus, not quibbling.

- Pay Freelancers To Make Software For You And Give It Away Free. This can work very well indeed. Research the most popular freeware PHP scripts; can you think of an addon you could get developed and have your own link inserted into it?

- Beware The Latest $49/$97/$149 Software. There are hordes of web marketers who’ve realised that the best way of earning cash on the web is to exploit other web entrepreneurs, as there are a multitude of them. This often takes the form of packaging up, in a service or software, an idea that was novel six months ago. By the time Joe WebMaestro gets wind of it, it’s on the way out. Research it thoroughly before coughing up cash for it. Seek out independent reviews.

- Beware Of The Guru! There are a multitude of semi-famous marketers and their followers out there flogging videos, books and courses on how to earn lolly in web marketing. They are marketing tips on how to do marketing! Nice work if you can get it. The best advice you can find about internet marketing is on webmaster forums. Even then, you need to use your own personal noise filter to sniff out the gold from the dross.

- Clean Up Your HTML. Dreamweaver adds lots of extra blank space to HTML code, and breaks lines. This is especially annoying in meta tags. Use EditPad’s ‘Find and Replace’ function to get rid of newlines and double blank spaces in your pages.

- Submit Articles To Article Directories. What you need is a service or a software that will do this for you automatically. Submission by hand is soul-destroying. Ask in web marketer discussion boards about the latest softwares and services.

- Handy Freeware: 1. NVU Web Editor. This is a pretty good freeware web page editor. 2. GIMP Image Editor. This is an effective image and photo manipulation package. 3. OpenOffice, an alternative to the Microsoft office suite. This can save you thousands if you need to buy multiple licences. 4. SimplyMepis. This a Linux operating system package. Like Damn Small Linux, it can be run from a CD; handy in emergencies.

- A Super-Simple Site: Use a text-to-html generator to create internet pages from text files. Then use an index generator to make an index HTML page of these files. Tart these pages up in a WYSIWYG page editor. Then FTP upload them to your webhosting account. Voila! A super-simple website. Want something fancier? Acquire a net hosting account with Cpanel and Fantastico. Look for the ‘Wordpress’ option in Fantastico, and install it. Then acquire a search engine optimized theme for your blog; the default install isn’t search engine friendly.

I hope these few handy pointers will help you in getting handy web design and marketing done quickly.

The replies I got were enlightening. So much so, I made a list of things applicants did wrong. Here it is.

I should point out I was initially prepared to give everyone a fair go. After the first twenty-odd emails, my attitude changed. I was looking for reasons to delete applicants. I only needed one successful one; with 100+ replies it was getting to be a headache, so I decided a brutal approach was needed.

Here are things to look out for when choosing a web designer:

1. Failure to read the spec.

Many applicants couldn’t write properly in the English language. Many were individuals only. Result: instant deletion.

2. Failure to address the spec’s criteria.

Applicants bragged about how great they were. Many copy-and-pasted standard marketing guff about ’solutions’ and ‘partnerships’ into their emails.

3. Lots of jargon.

You quickly tune this out. Anyone dealing with web companies probably gets a lot of this. Applicants should talk to the client about *the client’s* site and *their* needs, and avoid techno-babble.

4a. ‘Coming soon’ client-listing pages.

They say they”ve done work for lots of clients, then put up a ‘coming soon’ sign on the web page where their client list is supposed to be. Hmmmm.

4b. ‘Under construction’ pages on their company web site.

Something you’d see on an amateur’s site. Another reason to bin their application.

4c. They only put up pictures of sites they’ve done, rather than links to the actual sites.

I’d like to see some working example sites. Pictures can be faked, and they don’t show background programming.

4e. No mention of their main web site URL.

I tried guessing from the email address. After a while I didn’t bother.

4f. No hyperlinks at all.

Just a short email spiel saying “I am great designer, hire me”. Next!

5. Using Yahoo.com or Hotmail.com for their email address.

A pro designer wouldn’t use a freebie email address service. Basic web hosting costs $5 a month these days.

I can conceive that a web designer might use a freebie account for some special purpose, but their own domain name is a basic advert that could go out in each email they send.

6. Bad spelling and grammar.

Western civilisation is doomed, if using SMS jargon becomes the standard way to write to people. It doesn’t impress old frts lik me, fr strtrs Especially if they’re looking for work where good spelling and grammar are important.

7. Front-loading Flash designs.

I admit it, I don’t like Flash. I especially don’t like it when it loads slowly on my broadband connection. I suppose it might impress an ignorant client, who doesn’t know the economic consequences of having a Flash-heavy site.

8. Not phoning the employer.

If a web site designer can communicate clearly over the telephone, that, coupled with a good application, puts them streets ahead of the email-only applicant.

8a. Leaving unclear phone messages.

9. Too far away.

Most replies will come from from India, Ukraine, Romania etc. Anyone who is closer to home stands out.

10. Gives rates per hour.

Web design jobs can be clearly defined, in terms of time, work and software required. A definite price can be agreed on in advance. It’s called a contract. Otherwise, a web designer can leave you open to escalating bills, and themselves to mission-creep.

10. Delays applying.

The first few applications are more scrutinised. After that, fatigue set in. After one hundred, only an applicant who seems a real prospect should be given more than five seconds’ scrutiny.

Now, need to get a web site done quickly? Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

1. Define The Job.

What do you want the site to do? Successful projects are ones where the intent is well-defined. Avoid going off half-cocked buying software or services you don’t need. Changes mid-build can be very expensive; just like building a bricks-and-mortar house!

2. Suit The Design To The Purpose.

Do you just want a simple site, like a placeholder? Do you want something even an amateur can edit? Or do you want a CMS with Ajax and a coffee maker?

Get a web hosting account with Cpanel and Fantastico. Look for the ‘Wordpress’ option in Fantastico, and install it. Then get a search-engine optimised theme for your blog; the default install isn’t search-engine friendly.

Hey presto, you’ve got a Web 2.0 site! Blogs are good because Google likes them, and you can edit them easily from their admin panel.
Want something more complicated? That’s where a web designer comes in.

3. Use Freelances For Jobs You Lack The Skills For.

Is your budget tight? Try http://www.scriptlance.com or http://www.rentacoder.com. The key to getting the best work is to a) be as specific as possible as to what you want and b) write your specification in simple, concise terms. Your work will likely be done by someone who’s first language is not English. Most people give a vague specification and get work they’re not happy with.

Pick someone who’s had a lot of favourable reviews recently. Pay in stages. Use the freelance site’s escrow service. Don’t expect to get more than you paid for, and don’t be cheap; if someone does a good job, they deserve a bonus, not carping.

4. Promotion Is As Important As Content.

A site can only be good if people know about it. Promotion on the internet is mainly a) ‘Word of mouth’ and b) Links. The latter help you site move up the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). So you need a site which has something people really want (which will generate word of mouth) and backlinks to get free search engine traffic.

Links can be garnered from free articles, press releases and submitting your site to a few directories. Fire them off, then forget about them.

5. The More You Learn, The Better, But …

It’s good to learn how the software works. You can customise it, or fix it if it goes wrong. You can talk to a developer in his language.

But …

Try to keep your eyes on the prize; the end goal of the project. Avoid getting bogged down in minutiae. The internet if full of geeks living in their mom’s basement who know the ins and outs of every software you can think of. Their bosses are the ones making the _real_ money.

Focus on the end goal; you’ll make better decisions and the getting there will be much less stressful.

About the author: T. O’ Donnell is a website design consultant and web designer living in London, UK.

Before you know it, you have a monster on your hands. This monster is eating up your time and energy and money.

Here are a few tricks I’ve learned to save you time and money with your web design.

1. Avoid Windows servers, if you can.

I’ll admit I’ve never used one. I’ve had too much trouble with Windows on the PC, to risk it on my web sites. Most geeks favour Unix. It’s been around longer, and is more stable. Web hosts offering Unix variants like Linux have always been cheaper. They also seem to offer a wider range of toys. I need SSI (Server Side Includes), SSH (secure Telnet), 10 MySQL databases, Cpanel, PHPMyAdmin and a UK IP number. And you can get this for $15 a month.

If you’re in business for yourself, consider Unix/Linux. If you want to be a full-time employee, consider Windows/Microsoft. Many businesses use it, as it’s compatible with their office software, they like that a major company supports it, and they distrust something that’s free.

2. Server Side Includes are the poor man’s CMS.

Each web page can be ’stitched’ together using Server Side Includes (SSI). You can ‘call’ a header and footer HTML file, using SSI, in each web page. That way, you can make site-wide changes in an instant. For example, you can add Google Adsense to the top or bottom of your site immediately.

Dreamweaver (http://www.macromedia.com) can display SSI pages correctly. This is another reason, one of many, for its popularity as a HTML editor.

3. Which CMS to use?

A Content Management System is very handy if you have a community-based website, or want to let others add content to your site. It must have a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) add-on. This means a novice can type in formatted HTML the same way he could a formatted Word document. He presses on-screen buttons to bold or underline words, and make hyperlinks.

Another keyword to look out for is HTMLArea. This means someone has made an addon to cause all ‘textarea’ form boxes to have word-processor-style buttons above them. This allows someone who doesn’t know HTML to add it to your CMS. Saves YOU having to do it, and that is good [grin].

Many are free. I can’t really recommend one at the moment, except perhaps Mambo (http://www.mamboserver.com) and Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.org). I’ve tried quite a few others, especially PHPNuke.

A CMS allows you to set up a website with professional features in a day. The downside is you can spend weeks customising it. You may find, as I did with PHPNuke, that it’s unsecure, that it can behave eccentrically, and that essential third-party addons may not work properly.

A CMS is for geeks with time on their hands. I would dearly love to be able to point to one and say to the small businessman “Put your trust in this”. I can’t yet.

4. Put keywords in the HTML.

Fairly obvious, but webmasters don’t go far enough. *Any* image name, ALT tag, form field, bolded word or hyperlink can have a keyword in it. So why not do it?

This is where someone who tweaks his HTML code by hand gains a great advantage. Newlines and double blank spaces are redundant in HTML. A large document can have thousands of these. They obfuscate your Search Engine Optimsation (SEO) efforts.

Use a text editor that can strip them out, like Editpad (http://www.editpadpro.com), or a HTML optimiser. Broken lines are not ideal either. Dreamweaver can ‘break’ a tag or keyword at an inappropriate place. Why make it hard for a search engine to promote your page? Strip out the junk, and put in the keywords.

5. Put at least 500 words of paragraphed text in.

If your web pages have the same header, footer, left side-bar, right side-bar, and only a small bit of text in the middle, you may suffer a duplicate content penalty. This means a search engine deems your site has duplicate pages. It considers it an attempt to spam its database, and so shoves it way down its Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).

If you can’t write your own articles, get someone to do it for you at a freelance site like ScriptLance (http://www.scriptlance.com). You can get free articles at sites like EzineArticles (http://www.ezinearticles.com).

6. Offer people what THEY want, not what YOU think they should have.

This is most important. Before making a site, go for a walk in town. Sit down on a park bench, and try to figure out what people really want; not need, WANT. Then figure out how you can get in on that business with your site.

People want sex, drugs, gambling, money, a house, a car, good food, nice clothes, self esteem. The first three are disreputable. Promote them, and get cut off from sections of society.

It makes me laugh when I see pornographers saying ‘it’s just a business, I’m not doing any harm’. They’re making money *because* their subject matter is taboo. Most people don’t want to be associated with pornography or pornographers. Likewise, a bar owner isn’t welcome everywhere, and casino bosses rub shoulders with the underworld.

If you ever want to be on the school board, or run for local office, keep away from dubious content.

Look at what people really want, AND which will make your family proud, and then proceed with gusto.

About the author: T. O’ Donnell (Ecommerce Web Designer) is an ecommerce consultant in London, UK. His latest projects are a mortgage calculator and ebook, available at Mortgages UK.

However, I propose that its influence on the internet is not entirely benign. Webmasters are victims of its great success. How? Read on, and find out.

1. Google Knows Your Business (Better Than You Do).

- You use Google Search: Google knows roughly where you live. It knows what you like.
- You use the Google Toolbar, unmodified: Google knows all the sites you visit.
- You use Google Adwords: Google knows what niches you’re targeting. And which ad copy works.
- You use Google Adsense: Google knows which of your pages are most successful in getting clicks.
- You use Google Analytics or Webmaster Tools: Why not _give_ them your business while you’re at it?

Use two or more of the above and Google knows more about your business than you do. Would you be happy if a competitor had access to that data? Or your government? But you trust Google. Because it’s a _nice_ company.

2. Google PageRank Defeats Its Purpose.

Google PageRank (PR) has led to sites linking out to unrelated and substandard sites, for money. Why is this a problem? Well, Google itself rates a site according to the ‘link popularity’ of the sites linking to it. If your site has links from high PR sites, your site appears higher in Google searches.

Thus, Google created a problem for itself. Webmasters take payments to link out to sites that are unrelated and/or mediocre. This skews Google’s own rating system. It can also screw the site selling links, as linking out to ‘bad neighbourhoods’ can earn it a penalty.

Sites selling or abusing PR may retain the magic green bar, but cannot pass it on to sites they link to; another penalty. Naive webmasters then buy expensive links which don’t work as they wished.

More perverse still is that a whole industry has sprung up around selling and manipulating links based on PR. This distracts webmasters away from what should be their true goal; making great sites that can thrive purely by ‘word of mouth’.

I used to wonder why some webmasters would fret in forums, asking when the next PR update would occur. Now I realise that for some it was because they could charge more for their links.

3. Google Is Stuck In An Adsense-Spam Loop.

Google Adsense A.K.A ‘The Webmaster’s Dole’. This is a major source of income for semi-pro webmasters.

It’s given rise to the phenomenon of MFA (Made For Adsense) websites. Previously webmasters did it for the love (mostly). Now they’re putting up pages about subjects they’re not interested in, purely to get clicks on these ads. Result: low-quality websites which disappoint naive surfers.

The irony is, Google Search is constantly having to tweak its algorithm, to filter out sites like these. The ‘black hat’ webmaster’s response? Churn out a hundred more. Not so much fun for the ‘white hat’ webmaster ‘though; he may find that his one-and-only website, the labour of years, falls foul of a Google penalty. Why? Because it accidentally matches the ‘footprint’ of a spammy site.

Thus, Google is stuck in a recursive loop of its own making:

- Google Adsense encourages spam, which …
- Google Search tries to filter out, which …
- Collaterally penalises legit webmasters, who …
- Buy more links from high-PageRank sites to boost their perceived popularity and/or
- Make more sub-substandard web pages to keep their revenues up, which …
- Google Search tries to filter out.

Prior to Adsense, a webmaster had to sell his own stuff, establish good affiliate relations with other companies, or get three million visitors so _some_ would click on his crude ‘pay-per-click’ banners.

Now all he has to do is insert Adsense and make money immediately. Even if it’s not enough to live on, it encourages him to make more websites, plus more pages, equalling more money.

4. Google Penalties Cause Webmaster Neurosis.

No one, including the ‘black hat’ webmaster, is too bothered when a penalty happens to a spam site. However, they can easily happen to a ‘white hat’ site too. A webmaster reads the latest tricks on a webmaster forum, goes a little too far with ’search engine optimisation’ then BAM! He wakes up one morning, checks his stats, and gets a nasty surprise. Or he does nothing at all, and still gets a penalty; his site inadvertently ‘fits the profile’.

Result: Many profitless hours spent researching the cause, and fixing it. If he has employees, he may have to ‘let them go’: “Happy Christmas, don’t come back in the New Year”.

5. If You Ain’t Ranking On Google, You’re Invisible.

Google has a near-monopoly on search. Because Google is a benevolent company, unlike the ‘Beast of Redmond’, webmasters don’t mind this. In fact, many _love_ Google. Visit any webmaster forum, and see how often Google features in them as a topic.

The problem for the webmaster is when his site doesn’t appear on Google. Not too bad if he’s just starting out, but catastrophic if he has one website he’s monetised nicely, and it drops out of the index.

6. Conclusion.

- Spam goes up;
- Quality content goes down;
- Google techs run ever-finer tweaks on their algorithm;
- More borderline websites get booted;
- Webmasters are driven cracked in pursuit of Adsense gold, PageRank or avoiding penalties;
- Google amasses huge amounts of extremely valuable consumer data.

The average surfer never sees this. He may wonder why the same search a day later doesn’t throw up the same sites. But he won’t change search engines; there’s no real competition.

Lest you think I’m a Google-hater, I’m not. I like Google, a lot. I’ve used Adwords and Adsense, and Search, of course. I’ve put up pages spurred by thoughts of Adsense riches. I know what Google has to fight to clear the cr*p out of its index.

I just wish fewer webmasters were Google-twitchers, and that Google Search had more competition. Webmaster discussions are dominated by one search engine. Yahoo and MSN are a very poor second and third. Naive webmasters will find that a near-monopoly is never good for business, even with a company whose laudable motto is ‘Do No Evil’.

About the author: T. O’ Donnell runs sites offering free Wordpress templates, loan calculator software and free chat rooms in London, UK.

1. Make a note of the error message, and type it in Google. Remove your unique paths and file names. Someone else has had the same problem, and some nice person will have posted a solution.

2. If it’s a server error, repeat what caused the error. Go quickly to the error log on your web hosting control panel. Any clues there?

3. Read the README file. Have it open on-screen when you’re setting up the script.

4. Use a text editor like Wordpad or Notepad to edit scripts. Simply put, your editor should not change anything beyond the bare text that you type on screen. Microsoft Word will alter your formatting, with unhappy consequences.

5. Avoid wrapping lines. Check that your editor is not set to do this.

6. Avoid putting characters like ” , ‘ ; in if you don’t know what you’re doing.

The server may read these as programming code. Apostrophes and other non-alphabet characters can be ‘escaped’ out of a script by putting a backward slash in front of them.

7. Get the paths to required files correct in the script itself and in the html files involved. Telnet to your site, and use the pwd command: ‘pwd somename’ (without the apostrophes) to find where directories and programs are on your server.

8. Windows (MS-DOS) may insert carriage returns which cause errors in Unix. In Perl, You need to have a line break after #!/usr/bin/perl. It appears to be there, but you may have to insert it manually via Telnet. Otherwise you may get an error.

9. Permissions: Set permissions of scripts to 705 (e.g. ‘CHMOD 705 yourscript.cgi’ in a telnet session). CHMOD 606 for text files the script may need to read or write to. CHMOD 707 any file or sub-directory the script author asks you to. The rest can usually be left at the default 644.

(The use of 0 here in permissions is to stop people in the same ‘group’ as you peeking at your files).

10. Upload scripts in ASCII mode only, or you’ll get errors in them (the text will be shifted around if you upload in Binary).

FTP files with the extensions .tar.gz, .zip, and image files, in BINARY mode only.

11. Check whether you’ve put a trailing forward-slash where you’re not supposed to, or not inserted one when you’re supposed to!

12. Email addresses in a script may need a backward-slash before the @ to work.

13. Don’t change too many things at once. Do the absolute minimum to get the script working, then change one thing at a time.

14. If you are changing the HTML code of a form page that posts to the script: Clear your browser’s cache. You may still be loading an old version of your page, with tags that your script now won’t recognise.

Your ISP may also be using its cache of your web page. Try connecting via another ISP, or use a proxy service like http://www.Anonymouse.ws to view your page.

15. The error ‘document contains no data’ in your browser usually means a path or a file name is wrong. It can also mean the file you’re calling is 0 bytes in size.

16. Don’t try setting scripts up when you’re tired. If you’ve been working for hours, take a break, or go to bed!

17. It’s a fact that, after all this, your script might have a bug. Check any discussion boards at the vendor’s website, or general webmaster forums, to see if this is a common problem. Report exactly what problems you’re having, and your server set-up, to the programmers. It’s unlikely you’re the first person to have it.

T. O Donnell http://www.tigertom.net is an ecommerce consultant currently developing a free dating service and meta search engine in London, UK.

Then I heard about ‘blogs’ and ‘blogging’. Being smart, I picked Wordpress, the most popular software. How clever, I thought. If you get the WYSIWYG editor going, anyone can put up a web site. Very democratic.

This encouraged my to post my outermost thoughts; on politics, London, and personal gripes. As a webmaster, I watched to see Google index them. “Here we go”, I thought, “soon, my jewels of extrospection will belong to the ages”.

Except Google didn’t like my blog. It wouldn’t index much beyond the front page. Why, why, why?

Duplicate content? I set it to put only one post per page.

No improvement.

I looked at what Google was indexing. Then I looked at the blog HTML. Soon, all became clear.

In sum:

- Wordpress was still duplicating my content, and

- It had no proper META tags, and

- There was a lot irrelevant HTML, and

- The layout obscured the content.

I had a quick search on Google to find search engine optimisation tips. There is a plugin ‘head META description’ ( http://guff.szub.net/plugins/ ). But I didn’t use that, oh no.

For some reason, I got the notion that a complete theme would be the ticket. I tried modifying an existing one myself. Better, but not perfect. Google was starting to index more pages, but they all had the same title. My missives to an uncaring world were being ignored.

So I got someone else to do one, based on my criteria, which were:

- Grab a META ‘title’ from the blog post ‘title’;

- Grab a META ‘description’ from the blog ‘excerpts’;

- Put a ROBOTS ‘noindex’ tag in non-content pages.

But that wasn’t enough. For best SEO results you need to configure Wordpress brutally. You have to be _mean_ to it. You have to _man_ enough.

I did a bit of research and came up with to following tips.

WARNING: They are extreme. If you already have good rankings, making radical changes to your URLs may affect them. In my case:

- Moving my blog http://www.ttblog.co.uk to the root web directory,

- MOD_REWRITING its URLs, and

- Removing a 301 redirect,

… caused my PageRank to go to 0. BUT, page indexing was unaffected.

This was temporary, as Google saw it as ’suspect’ behaviour. I had radically changed my site.

Here are the tips, for real _men_, who can look in the face of internet death and laugh:

1. Activate permalinks by going to ‘Options/Permalinks’. You may have to enable Apache MOD_REWRITE on your web account.

1a. Shorten the permalinks code to just the %postname% variable. Don’t bother with the date codes. This keeps your URLs short.

2. Point your blog in the uppermost directory possible. http://www.ttblog.co.uk is better than http://www.ttblog.co.uk/wordpress/

So a typical post would look like

http://www.ttblog.co.uk/Im-hard-as-nails-me/

rather than

http://www.ttblog.co.uk/wordpress/2006/08/03/Im-hard-as-nails-me/

3. Then install an SEO’d theme.

My blog posts are now being indexed beautifully. The Google ’site:’ command returns all my posts, and little else.

For my next challenge, I take on Windows XP, and turn it into an operating system.

T. O’ Donnell is an personal development author running sites about things like Wordpress templates in London UK.

1. The Latest Grey-hat Wheeze.

Link farms, scraping, fake directories; whatever it is, get in there! If a newbie webmaster forum is buzzing about it, that’s the time to take it up. Put it on your main breadwinner, and wait for the hits to come in.

2. Over-optimisation.

Give the search engines what they want. Make damn sure they know what the page is about. Seven word image names, ten word ALT tags, hidden text, three H1 tags, that’ll tell the b*stards. Top of Google’s first page for you. Your clients swoon at your mAd skILLz. Respec’!

3. No Optimisation.

Google is run by Gods with brains the size of watermelons. Their algorithm is sentient. Whatever tricks you try won’t work. So don’t try any. And when your site gets booted in the next update anyway, defend their right to do so, piously.

4. Content Generators.

Life’s short. So much work, so many Stargate downloads to watch. Automate your content generation. Software is there to make life easier. Slap together RSS feeds, auto-generated text, free articles and Wikipedia pulls. Monetise with Adsense. Repeat for 300,000 pages. Is it time for that Pot Noodle? It’s _always_ time!

5. Reciprocal links.

Google loves links, and it’s too hard to get them unasked for. So ask! Send out 5000 emails cadging links to your .info domain. Don’t bother proof-reading it, they’ll only skim it. When they agree to a swop, you’ll be too busy to reciprocate. That’ll be a one-way link, then, ha ha!

Those sweeties at Google don’t mind reciprocal links. Lots of famous sites interlink, so yours should be OK too. WebDevDood on Leetwebforum.com said so.

6. Low original-to-duplicate content ratio.

People don’t read. Original content is too expensive to make. The Google algorithm ain’t all that. 200 words surrounded by the same header, footer and sidebars in a 20,000 page site will keep them coming back again and again. Have a pop tart.

7. CMS with same TITLE and no META description on each page.

There are so few pages on the internet these days that you can use any open-source CMS as-is. Just set up your forum, slap on the Adsense, let your visitors witter away, sit back and wait for the search engine lurrrve! You bad boy, have another Red Bull, you deserve it!

8. Because _they_ weren’t penalised, you won’t be.

So many webmasters say their site has X or Y, and Google didn’t mind, but funnily enough, _you_ got busted for it. Their content, backlinks, and site structure must be the same as yours, then, eh? Spooky!

9. Huge number of new links, in a short time, to a new domain.

DevWebDood says that if MySpace.com can get a million backlinks in a short space of time and not be penalised, then so can you. Just set up a travel or hotel site, join the Co-op and LinkVault, do a blog spam and watch your site race up the SERPs.

So what if it’s nowhere to be found next month? Better the fleeting taste of victory, than never having tried at all!

10. Got banned? Give ‘em Hell about it!

Write a long email to Google. State how great your site is, how they’re hurting your business, and how _you’re_ doing _them_ a favour by letting them list it. Admit no fault, it shows weakness.

Then get on as many forums as you can complaining about how the SERPs suck, how -> insert famous site here <- is doing just what you did, and _they're_ still in.

Google will be so hurt and ashamed, they'll let you back in, and dial back that nasty update. You told _them_, all right!

I write these articles for fun. Pay no attention to my byline, and do not visit my site.

T. O' Donnell is an author running freeware, search engine and directory websites in London, UK.

1. Use a popular web host.

That cheapo one might be an uncommitted reseller. I used one a few years ago. Very cheap, and very helpful. Then my site went ‘missing’. By the Grace Of God I was able to get in contact with the owner, and make a backup, before the service was closed down. I found out later he had only about six customers.

Use a popular web host. Avoid ones that are trying to attract customers by undercutting rates to silly levels. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

2. Their Google PageRank gives a clue as to how popular they are.

This will irk the smaller hosts, but if your site is a serious one, put it on a serious host. Web hosting costs peanuts these days. People can be funny about spending an extra $5 a month. You’ll wish you’d paid $500 when your site goes skew-whiff, and you can’t get a reply from their technical support.

3. Send them an email or two. See how long it takes to get a reply.

This can be very revealing. If they take two days to get back to a potential customer, how long do they take to answer their _existing_ customers?

4. Check out their forums; how busy are they? They don’t have a forum? Next!

They should have enough customers to run a forum, and care enough to have one. Reading it can give you a clue as to what their support is like. Likewise, see when they had the last news update on their site. If it was long ago, they may be moribund.

5. Technical Support.

This is as important as the features they supply. It’s no good having a Virtual Private Server for $10.00 a month if there’s no one there to answer your emails when the hard-disk fails.

6. Features.

Most geeks favour Unix. It’s been around longer, and is more stable. Web hosts offering Unix variants like Linux have always been cheaper. They also seem to offer a wider range of toys. I need SSI (Server Side Includes), SSH (secure Telnet), 10 MySQL databases, Cpanel, PHPMyAdmin and a UK IP number. And you can get this for $15 a month.

Things like MySQL databases, Cpanel and SSH access are real sticking points for a lot of web hosts. If they’re generous with these, you’ve found a rare jewel.

7. Word Of Mouth.

Webmasters are always asking about web hosts on webmaster forums. Find a few recent threads, and note who gets the most votes. Search engines, on the other hand, have been spammed by some hosts. If you do a search on ‘the best web hosts’ or ‘top 10 web hosts’ you’ll get puff pages. Recent opinions from professional webmasters are the best.

T. O’ Donnell is an artist running web sites about finance in London UK.

1. Register A Domain Name.

Pick one that’s got the main keyword of the niche you’re trying to promote e.g. bopkeyword.com. Look for a reputable registrar, not just a cheap one.

2. Use A Popular, Inexpensive Web Host.

Here are a few filtering criteria:

a. Google PageRank of at least 5;
b. Send them an email or two. See how long it takes to get a reply;
c. They should have a forum (another indication of popularity and customer support);
d. Lots of features offered (MySQL databases, Cpanel, Fantastico);
e. Recent positive mentions in webmaster forums;
f. Offers Linux servers (Windows costs more, and offers less).

Cost per month can be as low as $10, and still have all the features above.

3. Install A Blogging Software.

Wordpress can be installed in minutes from the Fantastico section of Cpanel. It allows an amateur to put their thoughts on the internet easily. You should get a search engine optimised theme for it; this will make Google index it properly. Such softwares are often free; you needn’t pay for them.

4. Put Keywords In The Text And Page Titles.

This is a simple way to get hits from search engines. Your pages should be obviously about the product you’re trying to promote. Avoid overdoing this; it should look and read naturally to a human.

5. Put At Least 500 words Of Paragraphed Text In.

If your web pages have the same header, footer, left side-bar, right side-bar, and only a small bit of text in the middle, you may suffer a duplicate content penalty.

You can get a freelance to write 500 mediocre words for $10, or 500 words of selling copy for a good deal more.

6. Selling Something Direct? Use A Simple Means Of Purchase.

An intermediary service like PayPal is perfectly good to start with. If you have just a few products, their HTML buttons are a good way to test the waters. When you make over $1000 a month, get your own merchant account.

7. Want To Be An Affiliate? Research First.

There are services which act as intermediaries between you and the companies whose products you’ll be promoting. Research them in webmaster forums and try them out. If they fiddle your payments, drop them immediately.

Long term, deal direct with companies. If you can offer them good leads rather than worthless clicks, they’ll be interested.

8. Get Some Backlinks.

Popular forums, directories and blogs are good places to drop links. Search engine bots will find them easily, and thus index your site quickly.

9. Niche site done. Now make another one!

About the author: T. O’ Donnell is a credit broker offering free Wordpress themes and real estate software in London, UK.