At one time if you wanted to build a web site, you looked for a good domain name, registered it, set the nameservers, and built the web site. That may no longer be the case. We are finding out that domain names need to be scrutinized before registering them, because penalties are sticking with the domain. A case in point is a recent web site we built for a financial services … [Read more...]
Amazon Top Sellers PHP Code
Amazon.com has one of the largest affiliate marketing programs on the web. Their wide selection of products makes them an attractive merchant to work with. While there are several scripts available that interact with Amazon's XML database and provide real-time displays of products, pricing descriptions, user comments and images, it is hard to find a script that displays … [Read more...]
A Simple Redirect Script for Affiliate Marketing
This is a simple script for setting up redirects to affiliate merchant links without using a database. It can be added to any site that can run PHP code. If you are not familiar with click scripts or jump scripts, they are used to block affiliate links from search engine spiders. While using a click script is not absolutely necessary, it can be good idea because a properly … [Read more...]
ICANN Approves .xxx TLD Domain
The ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) board has approved the addition of a .xxx TLD (top level domain) for use by the porn industry. We saw the announcement about the approval of the XXX TLD in PC World. It looks like it will take a while to work through the process of formalizing the approval of the domain and it appears that the registration … [Read more...]
Affiliate Marketing 101 Part 1 – Things To Know Before You Jump In
Affiliate marketing programs can be attractive for many web entrepreneurs, but success is not always as easy as it sounds. Here are some of the issues that you need to be aware of before you decide to get into affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is another marketing channel used to drive traffic to an Internet merchant's web site. Affiliate marketing is built around the … [Read more...]
Affiliate Marketing 101 Part 2 – Pros and Cons
Setting up an affiliate marketing site can be a simple or a very complex venture, depending upon the goals you wish to meet. The scope of the pros and cons needs to be understood before you embark on a commit to a project. On the surface, setting up an affiliate marketing web site sounds simple. You create a web site, populate it with articles, reviews or content about each … [Read more...]
Affiliate Marketing 101 Part 3 – Getting Started
If you have read the first two parts of this series and are ready to get started with affiliate marketing, we list the next steps for your project. The next step is to define the niche that you wish to focus on. Whether you are building a site with a product catalog or a blog, the site will always do better in the free organic search engine rankings if the site is focused on … [Read more...]
Beware of Domain Name Misrepresentations
I just noticed a domain name auction where the seller was claiming that the .mn domain extension is a Minnesota domain. You may have also seen people selling .ws domains as a domain meaning "web site" or a domain ending in .tv for "television station" or .md as meaning "medical doctor." What do all of these have in common? If they are being sold with that type of claim, they … [Read more...]
History of the Internet
Many people mistakenly believe that Internet was developed in the 1990s. The history of the Internet actually goes much deeper than that. The Internet we use today has evolved over the past 40+ years from a simple communications network to one that spans the globe and includes participants in every country in the world. Many people are also surprised that the Internet started … [Read more...]
Building an Online Machine
As I've mentioned in previous posts, there is a difference between a marketing strategy and marketing tactics. A strategy is a goal. It's what you want to be. Tactics are the methods used to achieve your strategy. In my opinion, the ultimate strategy is to build an online machine. Better yet, to build multiple online machines. So what is an online machine? An online machine … [Read more...]