The Internet has grown quickly.  It's hard for most of us to imagine a world without the Internet.  Christmas shopping, raising money, staying in touch.

Communication

There may be 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, but there are thousands of ways to communicate on the Internet.  We have Email and forums, which are traditionally a slower to “chat” that allows you to sent short typed messages back and forth.  There are also audio “chats” through a variety of services as well as video chatting and conferencing. Games come built in with audio or text chats, you can leave comments on blogs/websites that encourage discussion. You can Tweet, you can “+1”, you can Post on Facebook, you can “share” across all sorts of platforms. There are so many ways to communicate and share information back and forth on the Internet.

Recreation

Video games and casual games have taken on in recent years on the Internet.  The Internet has fallen in love with social gaming as well, playing games with friends, against friends.  Several games give special in game awards for having your friends interact with you (or you with them). We spend time reading online—blogs, ebooks (and ereaders) and news have all taken their place on the Internet. We stay connect on Facebook, Google+ and an endless amount of other little “connection” sites and organizations.  We're meeting friends, we're meeting mates, we're staying in touch with family.

Shopping

Online retail has taken off as well.  Some people do all their Christmas shopping online.  Shipping no longer takes “4-6 weeks”—in some instances we can get things in 2-days without paying anything extra. You can sell your own “junk” on ebay.com or craigslist.com.  You can build your own website and sell things you make yourself!  You can buy things you would never be able to find in a local store.

Politics

The Internet can spread information incredibly fast. When SmartPhones became the majority of phones, people can receive information instantly.  Text messages to notifications of news they find interesting to important political actions.  People can organize and make their voices heard.  Nothing is more indicative of this than the recent SOPA/PIPA action. Congress shelved the vote on this bill indefinitely after action was organized on the Internet and thousands of people let's their representatives know they did not support these bills.

Another indication of how the Internet can mobilize and influence “politics” can be seen in Verizon's attempt to charge a fee for paying your bill online.  When this became news the Internet reacted and Verizon also decided against the fee.

Education

Online learning has become very popular.  It allows people to learn at their own pace while still getting benefits of having a teacher available for help and guidance. Many things that are available in a traditional setting, like lectures, textbooks and teacher feedback are still available.  It's really become an amazing opportunity in some instances that afford people a change to change their lives in ways they would not have been able to otherwise.

It's easy to see that the Internet has changed our daily lives. Why not let it continue to enrich your life by learning how to make it work for you?  Check out the Internet Marketing Training Center to see how you can harness the power of the Internet and start making money.

Choosing the Right Web Hosting Company

7 Quick Tips For Choosing the Right Web Hosting Company

Choosing the perfect website hosting service can be a bit overwhelming for many new website owners, especially nowadays because there are literally hundreds of web hosting companies offering many different hosting packages. Below I will point out some of the must have features of a good hosting plan you should look for before signing up for any hosting service.

Web Hosting Cost

Whether you plan to build just one website or many the hosting cost should fall somewhere between $5 – $12 per month. Typically you can save more money if you select to pay the full year in advance. To receive additional discounts you may also have the option to prepay for the service for two or more years. The longer the hosting service duration, the lower the overall monthly cost.

Web Hosting Control Panel (cPanel)

Most popular web hosting providers include cPanel as their web hosting control panel. cPanel helps users to manage their domains through an online interface. It gives users the ability to configure and manage their websites, set up multiple email accounts, create and edit databases, set up and manage sub-domain names, ftp access and more. cPanel normally comes with a commercial script library called Fantastico. With Fantastico you have access to numerous scripts for installation such as WordPress, support desk, forums and shopping carts to name a few. Cpanel is also the most popular and widely used control panel throughout the hosting industry.

Ability to Host Multiple Domains

If you plan on hosting more than one domain name on your account then you must make certain that the hosting company allows multiple domain hosting. Most popular hosting providers offer unlimited domain hosting which allows you to host as many websites as you like with just one hosting account.

Monthly Bandwidth

Your monthly bandwidth is added up each time a visitor accesses data from your website. Being that bandwidth is the biggest culprit of hosting costs, you want to check the limits placed on each hosting plan to see if it fits your websites criteria. Many hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth with some of their plans.

Disk Space

In order to store your website files such as pages, graphics and videos you must make certain to obtain adequate disk space for your hosting service. These days you can find numerous hosting companies offering unlimited disk space at reasonable costs.

Hosting Service Reliability

There are many hosting companies that guarantee 99-100% up-time. What this basically means is your website is guaranteed to be live at all times with no interruptions. Typically hosting companies that boast this guarantee normally have backup servers in case of technical issues.

Customer Support

If you should run into any technical issues with your website, having access to 24 hour customer support is essential to your online business. Be sure to choose a hosting provider that offers 24 hour tech support by phone or live chat.

These are a few important features you should look for when purchasing your hosting service.

To get more tips about web host selection, and other valuable online marketing techniques, please visit the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia – http://imtcva.org , and remember to download your FREE online career brochure!

Software technologies are moving fast these days.  Especially internet softwares. Browsers are updated regularly, as is any software that gets a ton of usage.  Wordpress is one of those softwares.

Security

Microsoft has always had software that updates frequently.  People find bugs or vulnerabilities and the software people jump into action to plug the hole.  Wordpress is no different. It has it's own bugs and vulnerabilities and it gets “plugged” pretty quick.  This is important.  Wordpress is a software that by default includes version information in output code.  Code that is visible to anyone.  This can be changed but by default it's out there.  For hackers, this version information is almost like putting a sign on your front door that says, “The key is under the mat, and I'm not home.”

This is why it's important to stay on top of those updates to the operating system, browsers, and WordPress.  You want to limit the opportunity for the villains to get to you.

Fixing Flaws

You also want to update to “fix” any of the broken pieces of the software.  One of the biggest issues we and our students have had lately is a “feature” of WordPress can “break” videos or iframe embedded content. We had the problem locally and then began to notice that students were having the exact same problem.  This was corrected in a future update.

New Features

A third reason to be consistently updating, is that certain versions will bring new or revised features.  For example, when the iPhone was released it didn't have the App Store.  The only apps on the iPhone were the ones that SHIPPED from Apple.  There were no Angry Birds.  The iPhone was a fancy iPod, video player, email and web browsing device.  It was announced January 2007, and there was no App Store until mid-2008.  Through software upgrades, the original iPhone has become closer to what the later generations iPhones could do, limited only by the hardware.  While the original iPhone is not on par with later iPhones, software upgrades allowed it to do a lot more things than it could do at launch.

The point here is that if you can upgrade you probably should.  Some software technologies or features may be phased out, but will probably be making the way for something more secure that works better, with additional features.

Internet Marketing – Ingredients For Success

Internet Marketing - Ingredients For Success

Becoming a full time Internet marketer is a growing trend nowadays, but too many individuals fail to implement the key ingredients that make up successful Internet marketing. Below I will point out a few important tips when beginning an online business.

1. Find Yourself a Mentor – Just like any business not having the proper training in place is detrimental to its success. By finding yourself a quality Mentoring program that provides online marketing training will greatly increase your chances at running a successful Internet marketing business. Not only will a Mentor guide your business in the right direction, they will also save you from the common pitfalls that many new marketers face on a daily basis. They say learning from experience is the best teacher, but in this case learning from an experienced Internet marketer is the better teacher.
2. Functional & User Friendly Website – Whether selling products or services your website must be fully functional, user friendly and easy to navigate throughout the entire site. Your website should also be attractive to the eye, drawing visitors to explore more of your content. Also, you should always have your products or sales page just a few clicks away, this makes your visitors buying decision easier and convenient, plus it improves your conversion rate.
3. On-Page Optimization – Your website should consist of multiple keyword optimized pages. This is one of the most important tips when attempting to rank well in the search engines. These keyword driven optimized pages will be the gateway to your website via the major search engines. By doing thorough initial keyword analysis and applying the proper on-page optimization will result in higher visibility, and in turn will drive more traffic to your website.
4. Off-Page Optimization – Off-page search engine optimization works similar to on-page optimization, but it uses other high page rank sources such as blogs and article directories to help with search engine rankings. Not only will your off-page content rank fairly well in the search engines, they will also provide you with relevant backlinks to your main website.

Here are a few off-page optimization resources:

• Web 2.0
• Blogs
• Social Media
• Article Directories
• Social Bookmarking Services
• Directory Submissions
• Press Releases
• Forums
• RSS Submissions
• Video Submissions

These are just 4 important tips out of many when beginning an Internet marketing business. If you would like to learn more regarding the proper techniques, tricks, and strategies I encourage you to visit the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia – http://imtcva.org , and don’t forget to download your FREE career brochure!

Keeping Track of Website Statistics

Tracking Website Statistics

Just like any business, one of the most important aspects of success is following the statistics. Even though there are various kinds on online businesses on the internet, the facts and figures are never one size fits all.

Obviously there are many statistics to follow; the ones that apply to your business niche and those that apply to the type of business as a whole. The truth is you need to be able to combine this data to configure an effective strategy for the success of your business.

By having a website, you must pay very close attention and keep track of the number of visitors and page views that your receiving. You may also want to create some form of an email campaign which can help you determine how your targeted visitors are responding to your emails and marketing messages.

Whenever conducting a new marketing campaign you would want to keep a watchful eye on your online statistics. Be sure to analyze the page views each page is receiving, how many times a link you created was clicked, as well as the Click Through Rate (CTR) and the percentage of conversion for each link.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should also be analyzed regularly for effectiveness. Be sure to keep track of your keywords that attract and drive search engine traffic, and the results they produce.

By tracking all of your statistics will give you insight of what's working and what's not.

To get more information visit the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia – http://imtcva.org , and don’t forget to download your FREE career brochure!