Can Your Website Handle A Traffic Surge?

This morning a new website, RecessionWire.com, was mentioned on the CNN television broadcast. Just launched yesterday, this website is an online resource which provides support and information to people suffering job losses and other recession-related problems.

Since I was sitting at my computer, I immediately went over to take a look and assess the website for myself. But upon visiting, I was unexpectedly met with an error which stated that the website was unavailable, and that the server resources might have been exceeded… What a Cuil-esqueway to waste some amazing countrywide exposure!

So, what about your website? Can it handle a traffic surge?

How Much Is Your Website Worth?

If you are interested in selling your website or domain name, it is a good idea to be able to determine how much it is actually worth before setting a price. Unfortunately, there is no quick rule to help you determine its worth, however, there are various things that you should consider before listing it for sale. These include:

• Quality of the Domain Name
• Level of Traffic
• Revenue
• Industry of Website
• Page Rank and Inbound Links
• Potential Buyers

Below, we address these six bullets in detail.

4 Controversial Ways To Get Traffic For Your Website

Webmasters use many ways to get traffic for their websites, with conventional methods including pay-per-click, search engine optimization, and blogging. But as competition has increased, webmasters have resorted to some very creative means to get visitors and minimize advertising costs.

Below we list some very effective, yet controversial ways to get traffic.

Is Alexa a True Measure of Success?

Alexa traffic rank, provided by Alexa.com, is a measure of how much traffic a website gets. Alexa rank takes into consideration both the number of unique users that visit a website (known as reach), as well as the number of pages each user views (known as page views).

Is Alexa Rank Accurate?

In short, no. Alexa rank is not always accurate. In fact, according to the disclaimer on the Alexa.com website, they mention that traffic rankings of 100,000 and above should be regarded as not reliable. Why is this?

Will A Recession Hurt Your Website?

While news reporters and commentators are still hesitant to call this a recession, we have all started to feel the pinch. And like most people, you might be looking for ways to save money.

It is not surprising then, if you wonder if a recession might hurt your website.

Is Your Website At Risk?

To determine if your website will be greatly affected by changes in the economy, there are three questions that should be asked:

1. Does your website sell something that is a staple? If your website sells something that is needed by people, regardless of the state of the economy, then it is likely that your sales will stay high. Some examples of staples are basic clothing, toiletries, footwear, office supplies, and paper goods.
2. Are your offerings unique or do you have many competitors?If you have a unique product or service, then you will have guaranteed business. But if competitors exist, they might affect your position in your market, especially if they are able to offer lower prices.
3. How do your prices compare to other similar products or services? It is also important to research the market and find any similar products that users might be able to substitute for yours. If there are a lot of alternatives that buyers can choose from, your website might be at risk.

Brace Your Site For An Economic Downturn

Even if your website is at risk, there are ways to make it successful regardless of the state of the economy. However, it will be important to think outside of the box and employ some less than traditional methods.

1. Widen Your Customer Base

One of the great things about operating a website is that you can reach anyone with an internet connection. This means that you do not have to be limited to your neighborhood, county, of state. Instead, you can sell to customers all over this country and in other countries.

By opting to widen your customer base, you can easily target other, more robust economies, and generate income even when the local economy is stagnant.

2. Get Creative With Web Marketing Strategies

Many people have continued to use the typical approaches to internet marketing, such as pay-per-click and banner advertising. However, these types of campaigns can be very costly and give little return on investment.

Instead, we suggest using other low cost or free advertising options. For example, you might consider using press releases, article marketing, blogging, and social bookmarking sites. Another feasible option is creating an affiliate marketing program. This way, you only pay for successful advertisement. (See more options in our article 5 Free Ways to Increase Your Website’s Traffic.)

3. Find Other Ways To Make Money With Your Website

It might also be helpful to brainstorm other ways to make money with your website. Some things that you should consider are affiliate advertising, Google adsense, or selling ad space.

By adding another method for generating revenue, your website will always be working for you.

Ways To Save Money

In addition to recession-proofing your website, it is also a good idea to evaluate your expenditures and find ways to reduce costs. Some areas that should be considered are listed below:

• Web hosting costs. If you are regularly being charged for bandwidth overages, consider upgrading your plan or moving to a new web host.
• Maintenance costs. While it might seem relatively inexpensive to pay for occasional updates to your website, you might want to consider having a web developer integrate a content management system to enable you to maintain your website yourself. Yes, the initial costs may be great, but over time, a lot of money will be saved.
• Domain Fees. Domain registration fees typically range from $6 to $50 dollars per year. If you are opting for a standard no-frills registration service, we suggest you register your domain from GoDaddy. Additionally, it is a good idea to find a discount code to save money on any domain registration fees. (To find a discount code, simply use a search engine.)

A recession doesn’t mean that your website will be negatively affected. With a bit of work and increased marketing efforts, your website can weather any slow economic period.

Source : http://www.velvetblues.com/web-development-blog/will-a-recession-hurt-your-website/

4 Web Development Practices to Save Time and Money

It has never been more important than now to save time and money when building or maintaining a website. Here are some practices that we recommend.

1. Create website mock-ups.

Believe it or not, most clients will not know exactly what they want. Or perhaps, you want to show off your new concept and get feedback before investing time. As a result, it is never a good idea to start developing a website before pinning down the actual design.

To develop and finalize the design, we suggest working with a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks and then exporting PDF’s or JPEG’s of the design to show to clients. Then, when the client realizes that the color scheme is not to their liking or that the graphics don’t fit their image, changes can easily be made to the design before you’ve invested costly hours building a website that won’t work.

2. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

When many people approach the task of building a website or adding advanced functionality to an existing website, they often decide to build it from scratch. And while building custom code may offer greater flexibility than a preexisting solution, there are benefits that can be gained by using what’s already out there.

For example, there are lots of free open source applications that you can use instead of building a custom content management system. Additionally, there are code libraries in all languages such as PHP, ASP, JavaScript, and Ruby which contain tried and true code blocks ideal for building scalable applications. And finally, there are a lot of free-to-use code snippets and widgets floating around the internet that can easily be customized to work with whatever you are planning on building.

So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, consider using or extending something that it already out there.

3. Write flexible, scalable code.

More often than not, websites will need to be redesigned or upgraded in the future. As a result, it is a good idea to build all websites with future growth in mind. This means that everything, from the CSS and HTML to the underlying dynamic coded should be able to be easily modified. So, forCSS and HTML, code should be standards compliant and CSS should be neatly organized in external files. And you should also limit any use of tables. (See our article 6 Reasons to Avoid Using Tables in Website Layouts.) For any dynamic code, it might be a good idea to employ object-oriented programming techniques as opposed to a purely function-based approach.

4. Choose the right web host.

Sometimes, clients may often already have a domain name and a web host. However, before doing any development, it is important to make sure that the web host is adequate. This includes verifying the platform (usually Windows or Linux), looking over the resources allotments, as well as support for scripts and any advanced configuration options. This will enable you to get a good idea of what your working with and save any time and heartache that might be cause later when you realize that the host is not compatible with what you’ve built.

The best case scenario, however, would be to choose a web host that you feel comfortable working with. This will eliminate any future surprises and costly modifications. Additionally, it is also a good idea to develop any dynamic or database-driven websites directly on the server on which it will reside.

Have some other tips that you’d like to share? Let us know.

Source : http://www.velvetblues.com/web-development-blog/web-development-practices-to-save-time-and-money/

Common Affiliate Advertising Mistakes

Affiliate Advertising is a marketing practice in which a business rewards you for visitors, potential leads, or new customers that they receive from your marketing efforts. As an affiliate, you will generally have to place some sort of advertisement on your website. Then, when a visitor to your website clicks on the ad and is redirected to the company’s website, you are credited for their visit and/or purchase.

For most people, this sounds fairly easy. Add an advertisement. Have people click. And voila, you make money!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen like this. Instead, it will take a bit more time and effort to develop a successful affiliate website. So, if you are waiting for your website to realize its earning potential, read on to learn what you could be doing wrong.

Google AdSense vs. Affiliate Marketing Programs

For most people trying to make money online with their websites, they are looking for the easiest solution that will reward them with the highest payout. This usually means that they will implement Google AdSense or a combination of affiliate marketing programs. But which is more effective, and which should you choose for your website?

6 Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank

Alexa.com is a website which provides traffic statistics for millions of websites. Your Alexa rank or Alexa traffic rank is measured according to the number of visitors who have visited your website with the Alexa toolbar installed. Unfortunately, most visitors to your website will not have the Alexa toolbar installed. As a result, Alexa rank is not a true indicator of the popularity of your website, as it only measures a subset of your visitors.

Alexa Internet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexa Internet, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary
Founded	1996[1]
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Industry	Internet information providers
Products	Web search engine
Parent	Amazon.com
Website	www.alexa.com
Type of site	Web traffic and ranking
Advertising	Web banner with AdBrite
Registration	N/A
Available in	English
Current status	Active
[show]Screenshot

Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and website. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the website where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic reporting. Alexa claims that 6 million people visit its website monthly.^[2]

Cost per mille

Cost per mille (CPM), also called cost ‰ and cost per thousand (CPT) (in Latin mille means thousand), is a commonly used measurement in advertising. Radio, television, newspaper, magazine, out-of-home advertising, and online advertising can be purchased on the basis of what it costs to show the ad to one thousand viewers (CPM). It is used in marketing as a benchmark to calculate the relative cost of an advertising campaign or an ad message in a given medium. Rather than an absolute cost, CPM estimates the cost per 1000 views of the ad. This traditional form of measuring advertising success can also be used in tandem with performance based models such as percentage of sale, or cost per acquisition (CPA).
An example of computing the CPM:

1. Total cost for running the ad is $15,000.
2. The total audience is 2,400,000 people.
3. CPM is calculated as CPM = ($15,000/2,400,000)*1000 = $6.25

Examples

• In online advertising, if a website sells banner ads for a $20 CPM, that means it costs $20 to show the banner on 1000 page views.
• While the Super Bowl has the highest per-spot ad cost in the United States, it also has the most television viewers annually. Consequently, its CPM may be comparable to a less expensive spot aired during standard programming.

Effective cost per mille

Effective cost per mille (eCPM) is used to measure the effectiveness of a publisher's inventory being sold (by the publisher) via a CPA, CPC, or CPT basis. In other words, the eCPM tells the publisher what they would have received if they sold the advertising inventory on a CPM basis (instead of a CPA, CPC, or CPT basis). This information can be used to compare revenue across channels that may have widely varying traffic - by figuring the earnings per thousand.

Example

• There are two banners: "Super Apps" and "Fantastic Apps".
• The publishers earn $1 per click.
• Both banners were published for the duration of one week.
• "Super Apps" was viewed by 2000 visitors from which 10 clicked on it.
• "Fantastic Apps" was viewed by 2000 visitors from which 50 clicked on it.

This shows that:

1. "Super Apps" has an eCPM of $5 ($10/2000 * 1000)
2. "Fantastic Apps" has an eCPM of $25 ($50/2000 * 1000)

How much does a solid HYIP cost?

Many investors are interested in detail and for analysis how much a modern and rather solid HYIP project costs, that is, with all details, a good DDoS protection, SSL encoding, beautiful design, unique or too modified script, etc. We undertook boldness and tried to question the administrators of HYIP funds about the amount of money they spend on creation of their HYIP funds and even about the preparation of project to the launch. Communication with two of them turned out well. They quickly and unlike some other administrators, to our mind, honestly answered our questions in letters. Unfortunately, I can’t name the projects the administrators of which they were, as their projects are SCAM already and there is no point in doing it (it won’t cause anything else except for possible irritation of the investors who lost money). And even if they launch new HYIP funds, they will as usual change the names, E-mail addresses, etc. Maybe, we won’t recognize them as well. In the article I have chosen the following way of supplying information. I will give all numbers, as the very letter had nothing interesting, and further I will describe my thoughts concerning the chosen scheme of working with their HYIP projects by the administrators. I think it will be interesting to you.

Invest efficiently at HYIP

In this article we will describe how more effectively to invest in HYIPs. Beginners and some old investors often have situations in which they do not know how to proceed better and act blindfold. We will explain this with an example: there is profitable HYIP with attractive plans, it regularly pays you all percentage for a long time, but it is not actively advertised. The site does not update. What can make admin not to stop paying? Indeed nothing, but investors continue to invest and believe in the long work of this project.

HYIP Investment Diversification

One of the simplest and effective methods of risk management can be named diversification of deposits. Do you know the famous proverb "Do not keep all your eggs in one basket"? In the world of online investment it is more than actual. In fact, it is so easy to break all eggs, stumbling over the small stone on your way to the house.
Investing in HYIPs and receiving profit, always remember that sooner or later this fund will be closed and if you constantly reinvest all the money, you will earn nothing and only will observe of growing figures which mean nothing. Try to invest money received from funds possible effectively.
Study lists of new HYIPs. Choose only the most perspective projects with reasonable plans and distribute money adequately. Do not invest in projects with fast plans the same sum as in the slow but more long-lived projects. But also it is not necessary to invest in a dozen funds. It will be very difficult to control investments and to analyze many projects. Search for the middle way and withdraw money from projects which have already become outdated and reinvest them in new ones. To stay long in the same projects is dangerous even if in your opinion they are very perspective.

HYIP Due Diligence

Due Diligence (or "DD" for short) is a process involving investigation and evaluation of an opportunity before actually investing money in it. Carefully following all the steps it implies will provide you with highly valuable information that can help you to estimate the risks and increase the probability of profits. The actual investigation starts the moment an opportunity becomes of interest to you and can easily be done online. Just follow these steps:

FAQ: Frequently Asked Question(s) of beginners

In this article we have tried to collect the most frequently asked questions about the world of HYIP which come to us from beginners or we saw them on the Internet and tried to answer them. Before you ask us any question, please firstly find out if the answer to it is here.
Does at least one HYIP work honestly quite a long time so that you can be completely sure in it ?
No. We can not be sure in the HYIP funds. Many of them worked many years and just the same became scams , taking with them millions of their investors. With HYIP funds you should always be alert, this is the golden rule of investing. And do not believe the tales of admins how they earn their money honestly. In ~ 100% cases this is Ponzi, or sooner or later it becomes Ponzi.
I always lose money. All HYIP funds quickly close yet on the first circle! And the most reliable ones in my opinion, in which I earned a profit and decided to invest again, immediately close. What am I doing wrong?

Return money in Alert Pay

Few know that there is a chance to return the lost deposit in the HYIP fund becoming a SCAM if you use Alert Pay electronic payment system. The system of support Alert Pay has different sections and it is rather complicated, especially the form, in which you have to file an application for transaction contestation (deposit in our case). So, in this article we'll tell you how to do it properly,

If you've realized that HYIP has become a SCAM, you should try to send a letter to the Alert Pay support about the money return.

Perfect Money. Description and registration

Perfect Money - appeared in 2008 and quickly became popular and the second system after Liberty Reserve in HYIP fund payment systems. It has been translated into many languages (including Russian) and works with two international currencies: USD and EUR, as well as troy ounces of gold.
Perfect Money is fully anonymous like Liberty Reserve, during registration you can enter anything you want.
Perfect Money has registered in Switzerland in Zurich.

Liberty Reserve payment processor

Liberty Reserve is a relatively new, but popular payment processor strong enough to compete with giants like E-Gold. It currently supports two major currencies - LRUSD (U.S. dollars) and LREUR (euros).
This processor is as anonymous as E-Gold and doesn't require you to enter your real name or address while registering. Furthermore it offers a private payment option which allows sending payments anonymously without revealing the sender's account number to the recipient.
Although it claims to operate since 2002, it only started to gain its popularity in the summer of 2007 when E-Gold started a mass blocking of its customers' accounts under the pressure of the U.S. government. Liberty Reserve S.A. is incorporated under the laws of Costa Rica and is an off-shore company out of reach of the U.S. authorities which prevents it from having problems similar to those of E-Gold.
Since then LibertyReserve became very popular because the administration of the world's former leading e-currency for HYIPs - E-Gold, officially prohibited to use their system for participating in them, whereas LR does not prevent HYIPs from functioning. Now LR is the main e-currency for HYIPs and holds this position despite the tough competition.

HYIP terms

HYIP

It is deciphered as High Yield Investment Program. Under this definition they usually understand any monetary investments which bring a higher income than in banks.

Online HYIP

These are all HYIP funds which are managed exclusively via the Internet and work with electronic payment systems such as Liberty Reserve. The list of online HYIP funds is presented on this site .

What is HYIP? How HYIPs works?

HYIP stands for High Yield Investment Program. These can be both online and offline companies which offer a higher return on your investments than banks do. But due to the fact that offline HYIPs usually have very high investment minimums only online HYIPs are of interest to private investors. HYIP owners usually claim getting their above average returns on the stock market, FOREX, by placing bets on sports events or by participating in various online ventures. A part of the profits from these activities is shared among the investors according to the program's investment plans and the remaining amount is used to cover the hosting/maintenance fees and to pay the owners. There are two main types of online HYIPs - investment funds and autosurfs.

10 Reasons Your Competitor Gets More Traffic

Have you ever spied on a competitor? Perhaps you’ve checked out their pagerank. Or maybe you just peeked at their Alexa traffic stats. Or, if your are especially envious, you might have even verified their search engine ranking on shared keywords.

Are you irritated that they seem to be getting more traffic than you while putting in less effort? Don’t despair. There is usually an easy explanation. Below, you will find 10 reasons which might explain why your competitor is getting more traffic than you are.

Networking Is The Worst Way To Increase Traffic

When it comes to building traffic, webmasters often focus on one of two methods: networking or search engine optimization (SEO). Networking is especially attractive for new websites because it can bring swarms of traffic almost immediately, and with very little work. On the other hand, search engine optimization, which is even more effective, takes a long time to achieve.

As a result, it is tempting to ignore search engines and focus primarily on networking as a source of traffic. Unfortunately, if you plan on making money from your website, networking is in many ways not the ideal choice.

Boost Traffic With A Website Contest

It seems like this is the season for contests. And there’s good reason. In this worsening economy, contests provide websites with a cost-effective way to generate traffic, build a mailing list, and gain inbound links. And for the visitor, he gets the chance to win something for nothing (or for very little work).

But there is a skill to creating a good contest. So before you go out and create something that doesn’t work, pay attention to these tips. Otherwise, you might find that your contest doesn’t help you boost traffic at all.

How To Make Money With Your Blog

We have all heard of those successful bloggers who blog fulltime, and make a great living. But now that there are many many bloggers online, a lot of people think that this kind of success is out of reach. In truth, however, there is still a lot of money in blogging, but many people do not know how to tap into it.

Below, we list six ways that you can turn your blog into a source of revenue.

Why The Alexa Widget Is BAD For Your Website

Most webmasters are familiar with Alexa, the web information company which maintains traffic rankings for websites on the internet. Alexa is important to us because it can help to verify our website’s popularity and increase the value of our advertising spots.

So webmasters often do anything necessary to boost their traffic rankings. The most common way to do this is to place an Alexa widget on your website. The way that this widget works is that (1) it proudly displays your traffic statistics, and (2) it collects information about your visitors. It boosts your rank because it is maintains an accurate count of visitors and pageviews. Whereas websites without an Alexa widget do not have all of their visitors and pageviews counted. (Note: Earlier this year, Alexa claimed to have revamped its ranking algorithm, but webmasters still notice that placing widgets on their websites does indeed increase their Alexa rank.)

Alexa Internet Terms of Use Agreement

WEBSITE TERMS OF USE AND END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
FOR ALEXA BROWSER COMPANION SOFTWARE ("TOOLBAR SERVICE")

NOTE: ALEXA'S TOOLBAR SERVICE COLLECTS AND STORES INFORMATION ABOUT THE WEB PAGES YOU VIEW. IN SOME CASES, INFORMATION COLLECTED BY THE TOOLBAR SERVICE MAY BE PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE, BUT PRIVACY IS IMPORTANT AT ALEXA, AND WE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ANALYZE WEB USAGE DATA TO DETERMINE THE IDENTITY OF ANY ALEXA USER.

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT AND PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY BEFORE DOWNLOADING AND USING THE TOOLBAR SERVICE SOFTWARE. IF YOU DOWNLOAD AND USE THIS SOFTWARE, YOU WILL BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING THE PRIVACY POLICY.

NOTE: ALL TERMS APPLY BOTH TO THE TOOLBAR SERVICE AS WELL AS TO THE ALEXA WEBSITE(S), WHERE APPLICABLE.

Alexa Internet Privacy Policy

Alexa knows that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly. This Privacy Policy is a binding part of Alexa's Website Terms of Use and End User License Agreement ("Agreement") and explains the type of information Alexa collects through its website and browser companion software ("Toolbar Service") and what Alexa does with it. If you download and use Alexa's Toolbar Service software or use the Alexa website, you will be bound by the terms of the Agreement, including this Privacy Policy. This policy may change from time to time so you should check it frequently.

Alexa is the Web Information Company. We measure Internet activity in order to understand trends, help people discover new content, and help people make better online decisions. Millions of people download Alexa toolbars to help measure the web. In return, Alexa provides toolbar users with information about Internet trends, website popularity, new and exciting topics, and related content.