Leading Web site design packages have a serious contender called XSitePro, a new software package geared toward the rapidly expanding world of Internet marketing.

XSitePro is a new web site design package that creates entire web sites, not just individual pages, with ease.

Unlike leading web design programs, XSitePro approaches the whole process of site design from an online marketer's perspective, incorporating easy-to-use features that differentiate XSitePro from other site design software.

"We are confident that XSitePro offers the alternative to Microsoft's FrontPage and Macromedia's Dreamweaver that Internet marketers and other web designers are looking for," says Paul Smithson, president and CEO, of Intellimon Ltd. "Our customers can create professional Web sites in a fraction of the time it would take them using other web design software."

XSitePro users don't need to know how to write code to create a professional quality web site. Anyone who has word processing skills can create web pages using the built-in "What you see is what you get" page editor.

Users will also find that XSitePro is a great program for keeping their web sites updated after they have been created. Using the page layout feature it is possible to change the whole style of a site in minutes rather than days. You no longer have to settle with existing designs, or be intimidated by the workload of redesigning your sites. "

It is refreshing to see the product designed from the ground up for marketers," says Ed Keay-Smith of AdWords Marketing. "I love the built in automation of affiliate and Google AdWords links…I have now chosen to use XSite Pro over FrontPage as my major money making website builder."

Here are just a few of the great features that this software offers:

-Add Google AdSense ads with just two clicks of the mouse, adding extra income streams with little effort.

-Hide unattractive page urls by creating redirect pages that automatically forward visitors to alternative locations.

- Include navigation menus that automatically update themselves whenever new pages are added.

- Use the 130,000 word built-in spell-checker to guarantee spelling mistakes do not occur on any pages.

-Split long documents into multiple pages that include complete page navigation menus.

-Keep track of all of the essential information regarding web hosting, which means users will never forget any important information such as usernames, passwords, mail server details, etc.

-Export sites into other Web design programs, such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver.

XSitePro also assists users with optimizing their Web sites for the search engines. Users can designate keywords that are automatically added to the meta tags of every new Web site or Web page created. They can also measure if they have used keywords the correct number of times on each page and quickly make corrections so that they maximize the chance of ranking well in search engines.

You don't need to worry about backing up your data either as the software can back-up all your web site work to a single file in just one mouse click.

In my opinion XSitePro is definitely one of the most exciting software packages to have been released in recent years.

You can find out more XsitePro by visiting their web site at http://www.xsitepro.com

# # # Michael Jones. This article can be reprinted, used in newsletters or on web pages as long as it is credited to Michael Jones, it appears in its entirety and the resource box below is included.

About two years ago, I had a go at commercial web site design. I put a medium-sized ad in a London classified ad paper. Nothing fancy: "Web designer seeks work ..." etc. This was expensive, about ฃ500 for a month's run.

Got a few replies. Lesson number one: advertise where clients of the calibre you want will see it. The clients I got thought ฃ300 was a lot for a web site. They didn't want to pay web hosting. They wanted a lot of bang for their buck. 'Mission creep' was a term I grew to know and loathe.

This set me thinking: how could I give these people all they could ever want, but not spend a lot of time and money? Lately, I realised how.

So how can you get a full featured site up in a day? Easy (ish!).

1. Mambo Content Management System http://www.mambo.com/

I wish I'd found this software a couple of years ago. It's freeware. The default set-up allows people without web design skills to update the site. It has a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) option. This adds HTMLArea code to text input form fields. Each HTML code input box becomes a mini HTML editor.

If you can use Microsoft Word, you can add formatted HTML code to the site.

To get it running you need to know how to install MySQL databases, or have PHPMyAdmin as part of your web-hosting package.

You can add articles, edit them, send emails to members, and be contacted by users.

The only criticisms I have of this software are:

1. The admin interface is confusing. It's all there, just finding and using it is the problem!

2. You need to search around template sites to find ones suited to your site purpose. I wanted simple, clean, business ones. Most of those available seem to have a fat graphic which covers half the screen. There are more restrained ones out there.

These are minor gripes, compared to the relief of finding what is essentially a web site in a box. It can be installed in an hour, once you get familiar with it.

To add ecommerce to your site:

Oscommerce Shopping Cart http://www.oscommerce.com/

Again, this is a full-featured, freeware software. You can add lots of freeware 'plug-ins' to it, to get a professional shopping cart.

Therein lies the danger. Some of these plug-ins require altering or overwriting the default cart files. When you try to upgrade the cart version later, you may 'break' it, by overwriting a plug-in, thus creating errors.

The trick here is to only install plug-ins that add files (rather than overwrite them) or that require minor alterations to existing files.

What I do is download all the versions of the plug-in type I need e.g. a WYSIWYG editor. I then choose the one which has the least files, or which creates a new directory for its files. If it requires that important files be overwritten, or is complex, I chuck it.

Mambo and Oscommerce. Don't try to integrate them! Hyperlink from one to the other. I've tried integrations of other softwares, like PhpBB and PhpNuke. Fine, when it works, but when you upgrade one or the other, arrgh!

*Keep databases separate*. If one goes skew-whiff, then at least the other will still work. Same goes for adding chat rooms and the like. If they're all running off the one database, and that database becomes corrupted ...

It may offend your sense of tidiness for your visitors to have to sign up twice at your site, but you'll thank me for this sage advice later. Remember KISS is the basic rule of computing (Keep It Simple, Stupid!).

There's an old adage which states that "You get what you pay for".

In most areas of life, and business, this holds true. Not necessarily so, however, in the webhosting industry. Often, you pay too much, and don't get what you pay for.

Several weeks ago I got a call from a web designer friend of mine.

"John," He said "You won't believe this".

He went on to tell me about a Plastic Surgeon he was redesigning a website for. This client was paying $600.00 per month for his webhosting account.

"The incredible thing is" He related, "I can't get the current host to return my phone calls or emails".

After looking at this clients needs, I was shocked to find that there was nothing special about his site that justified his being on anything other than a basic shared webhosting plan. We quoted him a monthly rate of under five dollars.

In this case, the client was being raped by an unscrupulous host who was not only overcharging him, but not even providing the basic support he needed.

This is an extreme example, no doubt, but it all to often characterizes the poor deal which most website owners fall into.

Several years ago, there was no such thing as a webhosting industry. Nearly all websites were hosted by local ISP's. The average monthly cost for hosting a website was $20.00 per month. Often, if you called the ISP with a technical question, they would tell you to buy a book or take a class.

Around 1996, we saw the emergence of a few "webhosting" companies. These were companies which were strictly committed to hosting websites. Using the economy of scale, they were able to offer incredibly useful webhosting packages for around $10.00 per month. What's more, some of these companies provided useful tech support which was geared towards meeting a website owners needs.

Fast forward to 2005 and we now see the emergence of a new type of web host - the cheap webhosting provider. These are companies which offer hosting for less than $5.00 per month.

Generally, cheap webhosting providers are newer companies. There's a reason for this. It's extremely difficult for the older companies to lower their prices when they already have a large customer base which pays higher prices. They'd be slashing their gross, and most companies just can't afford that.

So how do cheap webhosting providers offer such a low price to begin with?

Part of it is that servers, hard drive space and bandwidth are much, much less expensive than they were several years ago. Cheap webhosting providers capitalize on this.

Another part is that cheap hosting providers use a different business model than the older providers. Webhosting is a very competitive business. Until recently, web hosts attempted to compete by providing the most tools and features. The problem with this model is that not everyone needs everything. Most web hosts provide free backup services to all of their clients. Backups are costly, and not everyone needs or wants them, but everyone pays for them because they're built into the cost of the package.

A cheap webhosting provider, on the other hand, might give you the basic features that everyone uses, but offer weekly backups as an available add on feature, putting the cost of backing up websites on only those customers who want that service.

This all sounds great, I know, but what about service? Will I get competent and fast customer support from a company which charges me $4.00 per month?

The answer, surprisingly, is usually yes.

Obviously, not all cheap webhosting providers will give you great service. But not all expensive webhosting providers will give good service either. Our Plastic Surgeon friend couldn't get his $600.00 host to return his emails.

But, with a cheaper provider, the key for the providers success is customer retention. A savvy web host will endeavor to please his existing clients by providing the best support possible.

September 2005

You offer web hosting services. Or web design services. Or both. When your clients need domain names for their websites, do you want to send them to another site, possibly to a competitor, to register one?

Of course not. That's part of why domain name registration is a popular service to offer. Reselling domain names provides an additional service to attract and keep clients as well as another source of recurring revenue. You can offer domain name registrations on their own or bundled with other services you provide.

Features of domain name reseller programs

When you are a domain name reseller, your clients register domain names using the service accessed through your domain name reseller account. The domain name company bills you, and you bill your clients. Or possibly the domain company handles the billing.

You decide on the retail pricing, and you market your services. The wholesale prices you pay before you add your markup depend on your sales volume and on the domain name reseller program you choose.

All of the domain name reseller companies compared in this article offer a reseller API (Application Programming Interface), which enables you to use the features provided with the domain reseller program. When your clients register domain names or update records at your site, the API communicates with the domain name reseller program system. With an API at your website, you keep the appearance and branding of your site when you resell domain names.

Two of the domain name companies compared here offer website creation tools for resellers, which means that you can be in the business of reselling domain names within minutes of having your account set up.

Many domain name reseller programs require the domain name reseller to pay and regularly top up a deposit for domain names. By doing this, the domain name reseller is paying for the domains in advance while making a profit from them when they're registered.

Domain name companies compared

The starting prices listed are the highest current wholesale prices for .com domains. Some other extensions may be higher, and the prices typically decrease with volume pricing.

See the company websites for more details about what each domain name reseller program offers.

BulkRegister

BulkRegister's Domain Pilot tool allows domain name resellers to provide their clients with a unique URL and access code to make changes to the Whois data for their domains. Resellers can control which of the fields to provide their clients with access to. Registration can be automated or manual.

Resellers become BulkRegister members and are invited to take part in discussions about product ideas, upgrades, and updates. A $50 Overture advertising credit comes with the first year of membership.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: $99
- Deposit required: No
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $12
- Website creation tool for resellers: No
- SSL certificate: Yes

eNom

If you resell domain names through eNom, you choose between two eNom tools:

- Automated Registration Software (API), which allows your clients to register and manage their domains through your site - PDQ, a site that you customize and eNom manages — they handle the billing, and you earn commissions

As an eNom domain name reseller, you can also offer your clients web hosting, web monitoring, SSL certificates, and other eNom products as a reseller.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: $99 if you use the PDQ website tool
- Deposit required: Starts at $199 for 199 eNom points
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $9.95
- Website creation tool for resellers: Yes - SSL certificate: No

Tucows

A website builder, blogware, SSL certificates, and email services are among the services you can resell as well as domain names.

- Setup fee: $95
- Annual fee: No
- Deposit required: No minimum payment, but they recommend prepaying one month of credit in advance
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $9.85
- Website creation tool for resellers: No
- SSL certificate: No Wild West Domains

Wild West Domains

Owned by The Go Daddy Group, Inc., Wild West Domains offers several reseller packages. They also offer other products to resell in addition to domain names, including hosting, website builders, email plans, SSL certificates, and merchant accounts.

- Setup fee: No
- Annual fee: Starting at $99; $249 with the API
- Deposit required: No
- Starting wholesale pricing for .com domains: $7.75
- Website creation tool for resellers: Yes
- SSL certificate: Yes

The webmaster's biggest job is to get their traffic up and keep customers/visitors coming back. Building the site is one thing, but simply building and posting a website does not guarantee traffic. In fact, a website could be beautiful and an example of all the latest technology and still not attract a single visitor if not promoted correctly. Here are 10 tips to guide you to success with your website.

(1) The internet is a new medium. At least compared to print, it is. A website is a waste if it simply re-hashes something which could easily be put into print. Don't have the site be just an online brochure. Put up features which take advantage of the internet as a medium of communication. Filter information for them. Provide search capability. Provide interactivity with features like forums, quizzes and tools. Web visitors like to interact.

(2) Treat the Customer's Time as Valuable. When a person visits your website, you have their attention for that point in time. You either need to use it or you will lose it - fast. Most visitors have short attention spans, what you need to design your site homepage so that it grabs their attention and provides what they are looking for right away. Its like walking into a restaurant. If you walk in and just stand there and nobody comes to greet you, you might wonder what is happening. But, if the hostess comes and greets you right away and walks you to a table, then you will be there for awhile and eat. The same analogy goes for websites. Don't overcomplicate your website homepage. Best results will be obtained if you make it very clear where to click to find what they need.

(3) Design the site for customers, not the company. Your site needs to satisfy the needs of customers, not the company. So, don't post content which is not really useful to the site's customer. And avoid over-flattering marketing hype about the company. It inflates the ego of the company more than it helps your customer.

(4) Involve the Visitor. Keep the visitor involved and make them feel like a valuable contributor. Actively ask for the feedback and suggestions. Ask for communication from your visitors and answer that communication swiftly. When getting that communication, capture their email address. This will allow you to communicate with them long after they have moved on and forgotten about you. (

5) Keep it Current. You need to have content on your website which is timely and relevant to the customer's life. Posting month-old news is not interesting. Posting dry product information which never changes is not interesting. Yes, you need to have product information and other information on your site that won't change much, but you can also post more timely content. You can, for example, post content about how your products can be used in certain situations in life. Provide tips and techniques - things which are immediately applicable and solve a problem.

(6) Pay Attention to Form/Design. Some sites simply over-do it on the eye-candy. Big graphics just for the sake of graphics often impress the site's designer more than the visitor. Do not use graphics that are large and purposeless. Remember, some visitors may still be accessing your website via dial-up. Your site needs to load up quickly for all users. A slow website will cause your users to leave quickly. Also, pay attention to graphic and design size. Many web designers operate on fairly large screen resolutions and sometimes forget that even though a graphic looks great to you, it will appear enormous to somebody on a smaller resolution. On the flip side, don't go too light on graphics. A site which is poorly designed and using the default font and no color is not very aesthetically pleasing. Any web visitor, whether they admit it or not, judges your company by your website unless they have something else to go on. A well-designed site communicates professionalism. A poor design makes the site seem like an afterthought.

(7) Promote. When a visitor communicates to you via email, it is best to use a web form. not only will this keep your email address from being picked up by spammers, it will also allow you to ask your customers for their email address and then store that address for later use. Employ the "push/pull" marketing strategy. A visitor coming to your website is the pull, but later you want to push content back to them in the form of a newsletter or other promotional material. Start a mailing list and use it. Invite visitors to sign up. Promotion makes or breaks a business, and as long as you respect the ethical considerations of your mailing list, you should use it.

(8) Don't Operate in a Cocoon. The internet is a medium which is shared by millions. When you set up your website, don't operate as if you are a self-contained island. Get out there and keep in tune with what is happening on other websites related to your own. Participate in forums. Post links to other websites and ask for a link in return. Form partnerships with other sites if it is appropriate. When it comes to communication, people like personal contacts. Hiding behind general email address like "sales" and "info" is OK as long as there is a way to also email you directly. A company site which allows email direct to the management is good. Just remember how much you hate calling a company and getting stuck in their phone system. Sometimes you just want to talk to somebody. Give your visitors that ability.

(9) Have a Plan to Attract Repeat Traffic. Use newsletters, out-going email, contests, forums, clubs, auctions - anything that will cause people to return to your website. When posting links to other websites, don't just send your visitors somewhere else. They may never return. Provide them an exit page. Give them a pop-up when they try to leave your site. Or at the very least make external links open in a new window.

(10) Track Your Visitors Pay attention to your site's statistics and react accordingly. What are people reading? How are they finding you? Do they just come and leave right from your homepage? How long as they are on your website? Do they return? This data is immensely valuable in fine-tuning your website based on customer needs and wants. Remember, the biggest mistake of any webmaster is designing the site for what THEY want. A successful website is designed for the target audience, not to impress the site's owner.

Can you really get a website even without knowing anything about code, and without paying a fortune? Find out.

The days when websites were primarily distinguished by their code are long gone. Nowadays, the web is a true publishing medium that favors well thought-out ideas. You can get a professional-looking website online in minutes with many website building services and software. But what should you look for? What are the features you really need and which are just clutter?

Content Editing

Some website authoring software packages only allow you to entire plain, unformatted text. Some of them allow you to entire HTML tags. Others provide a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") interface with options for font, links, and image insertion much like a word processor's. Some will allow you to use more than one, or even all of these options so you have a choice on how you want to format your text.

Template Designs

Every website builder ever invented came with at least one or two templates for creating the graphical look of a website, so you don't have to design the look of the site yourself. But some packages have very large libraries of templates, some have only a few. Some will let you mix and match elements of the design templates, while others will lock you in to one setup.

Ecommerce Functions

Many ready-to-go websites created by website builder software feature built-in shopping carts. Some even come with credit card processing. This is of course necessary if you're going to be selling stuff direct online. But if you're not going to be selling anything, ecommerce functionalities may just complicate the administration of the site and pad the price for the software or service.

Blogging Functions

Blogs are "web logs," but blogging software involves more than just a simple online journal. Blogging technology allows you to send your new posts directly to subscribers via RSS, without them having to visit your site or receive an email from you. Still, unless you plan on updating your site regularly (at least once a month), your website's blog will just gather cobwebs.

Email

Some hosted web authoring systems provide email accounts at no additional charge, while others do charge separately. Some web builder systems even come with modules for creating email newsletters.

Support

It is very likely that you will encounter a technical difficulty at some point while owning your website. Make sure you know in advance of paying whether the company provides only paid support, and if any included support is over email, a web ticketing system, or the telephone.

Photo and Image Management

For many, if not most, people who want personal websites, displaying pictures online is a primary motivation, if not the only motivation. If you want to display pictures on your website, make sure to choose a website builder system that makes it easy to upload and publish images.

Renting vs. Owning

You can buy website authoring software upfront for a flat fee, or you can "rent;" i.e., pay a company every month to use a hosted service. The choice is up to you, but remember that the hosted service will likely charge you much more in the end: averaging around $20/month, hosted the typical hosted website builder will cost you $240/year--far more than most desktop software.

In short, you don't need to know how a website is coded to make one, any more than a book author needs to know about printing ink. Don't burden yourself with learning how to do web design. Having fun with your website starts with choosing a website builder software that will make it fun.

by: S. Rosendahl

by: Oleg Ilin
Currently there are 3 main types of broadcast Internet messaging systems that you can use to deliver newsletters, e-zines and other informational materials to your customers.

I'm not going to cover here internal or intranet messaging systems, the main focus of this article is on the virtual world outside your local/corporate network.

The main Internet Broadcasting Systems are:

- Email broadcasts that are sent through sender's ISP and received with the email client of your customer (such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Web Mail systems, etc.)

- RSS Feeds delivered through web-based RSS Aggregators.

- Completely customizable and personalized multi-media messages that are sent through RSS Channels and received with branded RSS Readers (such as Private Mail Reader and Feed Demon).

E-mail communications used to be a very efficient way to deliver information to your prospects and customers. This was working well until we got spammers - thousands of unethical people trashing your inboxes with annoying junk offers without any permission on your part. Nobody really wanted these products, ISP customers were irritated with email-boxes full of irrelevant content, to say the least.

Big and small ISP companies (Internet Service Providers) responded by developing anti-spam filters and society at large was forced to work out a set of anti-spam laws regulating the use of e-mails.

So legitimate internet marketers had to accommodate themselves to these unpleasant changes by implementing various forms of opt-in verifications. In other words, now the customers have to confirm in some way that they give you permission to send them e-mails.

And you inevitably loose a percentage of your customers who for some reasons doesn't want to go through the opt-in process.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Anti-spam filters are now so tight, that they easily throw in the bulk folder even legitimate e-mails. How it could happen? Well, you may accidentally use some of the "bad words" - such as "free", "buy", "purchase", etc (there are hundreds of "spam words" and the list grows every day). You know very well what happen to the bulk folder emails - they are as good as trash. Chances that recipient will ever read bulk emails are slim to none.

You also loose some of your readers when you try to enhance their experience by sending emails in html format (which would allow you to add colors, and pictures to your email, use different fonts, etc).

You might want to go even further and insert audio or video streams into your emails to give your readers the opportunity to better comprehend the featured topic. You might want to do other neat things....

Well, don't bother. Sorry to disappoint you, but your efforts will be in vain. Major ISPs consider html to be the format for commercial emails and as such it triggers spam filters almost automatically.

Some analytic companies estimate that you can easily fail to reach as much as 70% of your customers in the nearest future. According to Doubleclick, one of the e-mail delivery leaders, the average rate of opened e-mails in 4th Quarter of 2004 declined 11.4% from Q4 2003, and is now only 32.6%.

Very bright picture, isn't it?

Luckily, there is a solution, and it comes in a form of RSS technology (Really Simple Syndication).

To put it simply, RSS Feeds are the streams of information presented in xml format. This syndication allows webmasters to find the feeds of interest written by other authors and easily place them on their own web sites (with authors permission, of course). The Big Benefit is that this information is automatically updated every time when the particular RSS feed is updated.

In case of RSS aggregators, readers simply subscribe to the feeds and read them through web-based user interfaces (one of the popular RSS aggregators, for example, is My Yahoo - find the RSS Feeds of your choices, add them to your My Yahoo page - and you will receive the update on what is new on these feeds and will be able to read it in user-friendly format (you don't have to learn xml). Each time you go to MY Yahoo you will be informed which of these feeds were updated in the last 3 days.

And finally, there is a third option - RSS Readers. It gives readers the ability not to worry about the information of their choice being blocked by ISP anti-spam filters. They can simply download RSS Feed Reader and enjoy the benefits of private media-rich environment from your computer!

You don't have to go to any websites to get these data and you're not forced to receive this information, you decide where and when to receive it. (Whereas with e-mails you're facing the fact that anybody could send them to your mailing address).

There are a many good RSS readers out there. Some are free, other offer free trial. The most well-known is FeedDemon (has free trial), then goes SharpReader, NewsCrawler, Awasu, PMR etc.

Now it's your turn to explore the benefits of RSS technology. Use RSS messaging system of your choice and stay ahead of your competitors!

About the author:
Oleg Ilin, the president of 1EzHost L.L.C.- custom web design and development company, invites you to visit http://www.1ezhost.biz/and get your unique and result-driven website done by professionals. Free gift for you: 2 valuable internet marketing e-books: http://www.1ezhost.biz/onoff1.php

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Nowadays, most of us have so many email addresses, it's hard jusy to keep track of our own, let alone manage those of our family and colleagues as well. Throw newsgroup sunscriptions and multiple storage folders into the mix as well, and it's a management nightmare.

Mozilla Thunderbird, my email client of choice, solves this problem effectively and easily with Profiles.

How do Thunderbird Profiles work?

Thunderbird allows multiple users to set up the email client to suit their own specific needs and tastes, from Themes and Extensions to Email accounts, Inboxes and Newsgroup subscriptions. Upon startup of Thunderbird, you are able to choose which user profile you would like to use. So, you can now have a profile for yourself, one for your partner, and even one for the kids (allowing you to increase Thunderbirds's spam and security measures). Each profile is independent of the others, so it's like having a new installation for each user.

How do I activate Thunderbird Profiles?

1. Firstly, find the Thunderbird shortcut on your desktop (or create one from the .exe file).
2. Right-click it, and select properties.
3. Lastly, in the Target box, add ' -p' without the apostrophes to the end of the target line (so that it reads something like 'C:\Program Files\Mozilla\Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe -p'), and click OK.

Now when you start Thunderbird through this shortcut you will be prompted with the Profiles Manager box (as long as you do not already have Thunderbird open). It's all self-explanatory from thereon.

For faster start-up, I advise that you keep two shortcuts on your desktop - one to load up Thunderbird as normal, and this new one to execute only when you want to change profile.