Some Suggestions On Efficient Web Design And Marketing
The following are a few ideas for those researching fast web design and marketing:
- Use Freelances For Jobs You Lack The Skills For. Is money tight? Try scriptlance.com or rentacoder.com. The key to getting the best work is to a) be as clear as possible as to what you require and b) write your spec in simple, concise terms. Your project will probably be done by someone who’s first language is not English. Most clients give an inexact specification and receive work they’re displeased with. Pick someone who’s had a lot of positive reviews recently. Pay in stages. Use the freelance site’s escrow service. Don’t expect to acquire more than you paid for, and don’t be a cheapskate; if somebody does an effective job, they deserve a bonus, not carping.
- Pay Freelancers To Make Software For You And Give It Away Free. This can work very well indeed. Look around at the most popular freeware PHP scripts; can come up with an addon you could get developed and have your own backlink put in it?
- Beware The Latest $49/$97/$149 Software. There are many of web marketers who’ve figured out that the best way of making cash on the web is to hustle other web entrepreneurs, as there are so many of them. This often takes the form of releasing, in a service or software, a wheeze that was cutting edge six months ago. By the time Joe WebMaestro gets wind of it, it’s moribund. Examine it carefully before plonking down money for it. Look for independent reviews.
- Automate, Automate, Automate! The effort involved in web marketing can be very boring. Prior to getting caught up in some lengthy promotion or submission process, consider whether you could get a freelancer or a software to do it for you. Or whether it needs to be done that way at all.
- Have More Than One Web Host. Have more than one web hosting account if you have a lot of web sites. Spread the web sites out over different accounts. That way, if one internet host goes ’splat’, it will be a minor irritation instead of a twelve-hour slog getting twenty sites back online. You can place the resource-intensive stuff on the superior, expensive host, and the subsidiary websites on the $5 p.m. hosts. You can then, using SSH and FTP, backup one site on-server and FTP it to another account directly. This can save a lot of time. It’s also much speedier than downloading a backup to your PC and re-uploading it somewhere else. Have you got a 2MB broadband connection? The 2MB is the theoretical _download_ speed. Ever try _uploading_ a fat file? A lot slower, isn’t it?
- Webhost Features. Most geeks favour Unix. It’s been around longer, and is more stable. Web hosts offering Unix variants like Linux have always been cheaper. They also seem to offer a good deal more of toys. I need SSI (Server Side Includes), SSH (secure Telnet), 10 MySQL databases, Cpanel, PHPMyAdmin and a UK IP number. And you can acquire this for $15 a month. Things like MySQL databases, Cpanel and SSH access are real sticking points for a lot of internet hosts. If they’re generous with these, you’ve found a rare jewel.
- Useful Freeware: 1. NVU Web Editor. This is a pretty good freeware web page editor. 2. GIMP Image Editor. This is an effective image and photo manipulation package. 3. OpenOffice, an alternative to the Microsoft office suite. This can save you thousands if you need to buy multiple licences. 4. SimplyMepis. This a Linux operating system package. Like Damn Small Linux, it can be run from a CD; useful in emergencies.
- Come Up For Air Occasionally. It’s very easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of this or that net project. There are people whose _lives_ revolve around tweaking addons to open-source software. You should keep your eyes on the prize; what do you want and what’s the most direct, legal way of getting it?
I hope these few handy suggestions will help you in getting useful web design and marketing done fast.
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