Tools
Over the years I’ve tried a ton of tools to help my business and the business of clients.
Below I’ll list the best of these, along with a comment or 2.
Domain Names
We used to recommend Go Daddy for buying domain names, but just can’t bring ourselves to do it anymore.
Go Daddy have made buying a domain such a complicated and confusing thing that it’s simply not worth saving a few $ in dealing with them.
They’ll bombard you with email offers and are constantly trying to sell you more and more and more. Avoid them.
When I find a decent domain name registrar that is great value for money I’ll update this page.
Hosting Your Site
Over the years we’ve hosted with tons of web hosts.
Some have been good, some have been terrible (I remember the time 1 went out of business and wiped the web sites that were hosted without warning) and some have been great.
I’ve narrowed our recommendations down to 2 web hosts. They provide sensational value for money, they’re amongst the cheapest about and their support is simply terrific (when you host as many sites as we do, you realise support is a major issue).
Click here to check out the best 2 web hosts we’ve found in 10 years in the industry.
Communicate with your Visitors
If you’re looking at sending out a e-newsletter to your market then there are 2 ways to do it.
Send an html e-newsletter – this means you can format the newsletter so it looks terrific. Read our recommendation on the best way to do send HTML newsletters here.
Send a text based e-newsletter – sure, doesn’t look as good as the html solution, but is quick, easy and cheap (i.e. free). See our recommendations here.
How To Do An Online Survey
It always seemed so expensive and downright difficult to do online surveys.
If you run an online business (or any business for that matter) regular surveys should be a regular part of your marketing strategy.
Here’s how to do an easy online survey at a dirt cheap price.
Marketing Your Web Site
2 of the most popular ways to market your site are through
- search engine optimization (getting your web site to the top of the search engines) and
- using Pay Per Click advertising (such as Google AdWords).
My recommendation for learning about search engine ranking is to stick with the same guy I’ve been recommending for years. You can read all about him, and how he helps, here.
For the Pay Per Click side of things, my recommendation is another fellow I’ve been following for years. He’s the expert on Google AdWords and I followed his info once to go from $0 to a massive $20,000 per day in sales. Yep, $20,000 per day. There is no-one better than this guy.
E-Commerce Tools
We’ve used probably 20 e-commerce shopping carts over the years and we always come back to just 2.
1. 1 Shopping Cart – the best one by far. A ton of features too numerous to list here, great support and easy to use.
If you think to yourself “I wonder is a shopping cart can do that?” then the answer is most likely “Yes” and the cart that can do it is 1 Shopping Cart.
The only downside is that it’s a bit more expensive than some others, but it’s the best value one by a mile in my book.
2. Americart is another excellent shopping cart. It’s not as easy to work with as 1 Shopping Cart, and doesn’t have the features, but that’s reflected in the lower price.
The Web Design Business Kit
Well, I have to give this a plug don’t I!
I wrote the kit 6 years ago now and have recently done an extensive update. The kit is for web developers/designers looking to build their business.
It’s not about how to design or develop web sites – it’s about ….read the full information about the kit here.
Free Info & White Paper
You’ll find lots more free information, including white papers of marketing plans, surveys, free e-books and more over on our Free Info page.
