Resources

Everyone that's building a web site and selling on the Internet needs lots of different bits and pieces to get their site operational. The following is our recommendations for resources that you can use and we feel will serve you well.

We are affiliates of some of the resources and receive compensation if you sign up for their services. That said, we don't recommend them just because we get a small fee. We have either used these services or have checked them out prior to making any recommendations. Our reputation is on the line and that's important to us. It can't be bought for a couple dollars.

• Merchant Accounts /Credit Card Processors. If you're selling online you need an online credit card processor. Your offline account will not work. These are the processors we support and all of them do an excellent job.
  
• Domain Registration. If you don't have a domain name, i.e. www.myname.com then you need to get one.
  
• Web Hosting. This is a discussion of web hosting and our recommendations for hosting service.
• Sales and Marketing Testing This is probably the most important thing you can learn and do to improve your sales and income.
  
• Niche Marketing. Learn how you can find a niche and fill it.
  
• Stamps and shipping labels. Learn how you can get your postage and print your shipping labels at the same time. This is a great service.
  
• Search Engine Positioning. Find out how you can optimize your rankings on the search engines.
  
• Sales letter writing. I must admit I'm challenged when it comes to writing sales letters. I've found some resources that helped me and I'm sure will help you.
  
• Web Site Analysis. How is your site doing? You've done your search engine work, so let's look at analyze the results.
• Google Site Map. One of the rages today is to have a sitemap that you use to can tell Google how to find the pages on your site. There are marketers that charge substantial prices for this service. Here's a page with several free services that will create the sitemap for you.
• Link Checking. One of the big challenges you face if your site has very many pages is making sure all your links work correctly. Here's a page describing a free tool.
• Keywords. When you're trying to target your customers and the search terms they my use to find you, you can make it easier on yourself by using tools that help you determine appropriate keywords for your audience.
• Link Building. If you have a web site that has lots of pages it's sometimes difficult to make sure all the pages are linked appropriately. This is especially true if you are adding lots of pages. Here's a tool that will build your link pages for you.
• Link Checking. Nothing's more frustrating that getting a "Page Not Found" when you're cruising the web. Here's a tool that will help you make sure it doesn't happen on your site.