Just Starting Out

[Kate (newbie)]

Hello Everyone,
I've must have read every post on here in last 2 months. You old pro's probably forgot how hard it is starting up and thus prob don't appreciate how helpful this forum really is to Actinic Virgins like me. Superb forum!

I'm setting up several websites to bring my old dad into 2008 (the exciting world of transferring cine and video's onto DVD ! LOL) I've tested and I'm buying Business Plus.

Q. Does anyone have any comments / warnings / tips about my plan below;

After much reasearch I'm going for;

1. Protx as payment provider
2. Webfusion as hosting (probably VSP if their normal packages dont offer multiple domain)
3. Using Actinic Theme HOTSHOT for websites - only cos i like it - I can't see any definitive answer if this is best for SEO

Regarding SEO - I'm designing everything as plain as possible in Actinic, in order for this to work I need Dad in the top 25 on Google.

Any reply greatly appreciated (even sarcasm!)

[AndyBorrett]

Sounds fair enough to me.

You will need an Internet Merchant account too if you don't already have one - try a search for Streamline and FSB for what seems to be the cheapest way to go about it.

To get near the top of the Google listings takes time as much as anything else so I would get your sites up and running as soon as possible. The best approach seems to be to have lots of relevant content on your site - not just the things you sell. Try to think what your potential customer would put into a search engine and include those words as phrases.

When starting off just add a few products so you can see how your site works as there is no point uploading a thousand products everytime you make a small change to your design. I found it usefull to follow the instructions in the AUG for running Actinic on a standalone PC as it saves uploading to the Internet all the time.

Finally take lots of Snapshots and name them so you know what worked and what didn't.

Good Luck

[chris ashdown]

Whilst it's important to write for SEO it is more important to write for Sales, I advise you to write all descriptions and products for sales and then go through them in fine detail and try to make them SEO without degrading the sales effort

There are plenty of SEO starter info blogs and sites where you can learn all of the basics for free, which may be all you need

New sites and google positions take many months to get up to the top end

Think a lot about what keywords and phrases people would type into google to find your services

Hope this helps

[mattc]

Cut and run my friend. Cut and run.

[Mark H]

"Webfusion as hosting (probably VSP if their normal packages dont offer multiple domain)"

Have a look at their Reseller account, £26.99 a month to host as many domains as you want (you have to buy these separately) with unlimited bandwidth. This account is designed for designers to sell accounts to customers, but at that price many use it purely to host their own accounts.

Also - the last time I asked, the Reseller was based on UK servers, whereas the VPS was not. The former might have SEO benefits for websites which are aimed at a UK market.

[Kate (newbie)]

Thank you

That's great info guys thank you so much.

Regarding Protx I'm stuck with them as I have another old site on Protx, so it only worked out an extra 50 pounds to point another site.

[Kate (newbie)]

Which Hosting / Hoster

[QUOTE=Mark H;248315]"Webfusion as hosting (probably VSP if their normal packages dont offer multiple domain)"
QUOTE]

Just for the benefit of the forum (any newbie who is wondering which hosting company / package)

I went for Webfusion Reseller because it offerred;
Multiple Domains - (as many websites as I wanted)
Higher Volumes than all the other hosting companies

I uploaded my site to webfusion and it went up first time with no problems
(except make sure your picture titles are alpha numeric eg abc/123 It didn't like my pics cos they has [1] & etc.
Hope this helps

[RuralWeb]

Your webfusion package will help with your SEO efforts here

[grantglendinnin]

Just for the benefit of the forum (any newbie who is wondering which hosting company / package)


I uploaded my site to webfusion and it went up first time with no problems
(except make sure your picture titles are alpha numeric eg abc/123 It didn't like my pics cos they has [1] & etc.
Hope this helps

FTR, I think the file name conventions are the same for all Linux-based servers, some will let you away with it, others won't. In some cases I'd argue it's worthwhile 'keywording' your images (kettle_brand.jpg as opposed to 14244.jpg) as it will help make your images more relevant for Google Images searches (not that those who use it will buy from you, more likely to steal the image, but nonetheless!)...might be worth making a bit of effort for.

Oh, BTW - I'm looking for a new host and have looked at WebFusion a few times, and they seem like they can do the intended job for the VPS2.0 Pro - Any Actinic'ers have a referral scheme so I can buy it through them and make 'em a few pennies?

[RuralWeb]

Any Actinic'ers have a referral scheme so I can buy it through them and make 'em a few pennies

I certainly do - its on every page of my site

[grantglendinnin]

I certainly do - its on every page of my site

Yep, I seen the referrals but thought that was just for the cheap pennies-per-month shared hosting. If your referral links are good to go with then I'm all set

[RuralWeb]

just for the cheap pennies-per-month shared hosting

No its good for dedicated servers as well - just click through and you will see them off to the bottom right of the entry page

[RuralWeb]

Just noticed that they are on special offer this month.