WebSpawner.com Blog

“Crazy Art” here, celebrating Independence Day!

In honor of the 4th of July, I’d like to offer YOU some explosive deals to help your website spark up some additional visitor traffic! For a limited time only I’ll slash an additional 20% off of our already low prices on any Search Engine Submission package. And, to get your banners really “waving” in front of the millions of monthly visitors to the WebSpawner network, I’ll double the number of displays on any Banner Ad Display package. If you don’t have a banner ad, we can even design one for you.

These offers are only available to WebSpawner members, but you must act quickly… login to your WebSpawner account today and look for the offer in the Member Menu as shown below. Don’t delay… both of these Star Spangled Savings offers will end July 15th!

Following are suggestions on how to use and promote your web site to generate income.

Affiliate programs - In an affiliate program, you place an advertisement for a company’s products on your web site, viewers of your web site see and click the ads to learn about the products, and then the company pays you a commission for each sale that results. Many affiliate programs can be located and joined online; here are just a few:

• Clickbank
• PayDotCom
• Commission Junction

You can visit each site for information on their programs.

For instructions on how to add Affiliate advertisements to your web site, as well as additional information on how to locate available programs, see our previous post “Adding Affiliate Program banners to your website.”

Sell Goods - You can use your web site to sell items as well, regardless of whether you create the items yourself (drawings or paintings, woodworking or other handicrafts, CDs of music from your own band… the possibilities are endless) or whether you are just cleaning out the garage or attic and looking to have a yard sale with a wider audience of buyers.

To show the items you have for sale, use your Enhanced WebSpawner web site account to create and display Image Galleries and add pages to your web site as you need, all at no additional cost.

Sell Services - Offer up your typing skills, proofreading or copy editing services, design skills, and more for others online. A web site is a great way to extend your reach to new clients, especially if you are self-employed. Pet breeders, child care facilities, auto service centers, hair salons and more can all benefit from an online presence.

Of course, you’ll need a way to accept online payments if you want to sell goods or services online. We highly recommend using PayPal as it is a convenient and trusted way for buyers to safely transfer funds online without either the buyer or the seller seeing any of the credit card details of the other party. For full instructions on creating a PayPal account and adding “Buy Now” buttons and Shopping Cart features to your web site, see the post “Using PayPal for easy online selling” (this is a 3-part article series which continues through the ‘Part 2′ and ‘Part 3′ links at the end of each part).

You can create visitor confidence in your web site and offerings by having a site with a professional appearance that is easy to read and navigate and by registering your own domain name address (www.YourOwnDomainNameHere.com for example). For further information see our previous posts “Tips for creating a viewer-friendly web site” and “Set up your own domain name.”

One of the most important steps to take in order to make money with your web site is to promote your web site… if people cannot find your web site online, then it will likely not be very successful. As the vast majority of internet users will use a search engine to begin looking for goods or services online, getting your web site included in as many search engine indexes as possible is vital to your web site’s success. For detailed information on how to promote your web site using search engines, see our previous posts “Getting your web site listed in search engines” and “Improving your web site’s positioning in search engine results.”

It is important to note that you should have realistic expectations going in; what you get out of your web site is directly related to the time and effort you put into creating it and promoting it. If you spend only a few minutes throwing together a web site and make little or no effort to promote it, then it isn’t realistic at all to expect an instant wave of visitor traffic and an immediate flow of incoming cash. Only with time and effort can a web site develop a flow of visitor traffic and therefore a stream of income for you.

Rarely does a day go by in which we aren’t asked “How do people find my web site?” or “How can I get some traffic to my site?”

Search engines are the #1 tool people use to find what they are looking for on the web. Getting your web site listed in search engines is the single most beneficial thing you can do to help others find your web site online and to build web site traffic.

For the vast majority of internet users, search engines like Google and Yahoo are the starting points for their web-surfing sessions.

A web site which does not appear in search engines is kind of like having an unlisted phone number… it makes it nearly impossible for anyone to find or contact you. While this may be good for having dinners uninterrupted by phone calls from telemarketers, it’s not so good if your web site isn’t being found or visited online.

Starting on Cinco de Mayo (that’s the 5th day of May for those of you who do not speak Spanish), “Crazy Art” has been offering all WebSpawner members a special price break on Search Engine Submission Services, but only for a limited time.

If you hurry, you can save $10 OFF of a Bronze, Silver, or Gold package and have WebSpawner submit your web site to search engines and directories for you. Have your web site submitted to 100, 200 or 500 search engines and directories for a one-time fee as low as $29.95!

This offer is only available to WebSpawner members, and is only available until the end of May, so don’t delay… there is only about one week remaining for this great sale. Login to your WebSpawner account today and look for “Crazy Art” in the Member Menu to take advantage of his special offer. Hurry… the sale ends May 31st!

The World Wide Web is a huge assortment of various web sites and documents, many of which are linked together for easy navigation from one to another by viewers. The element which creates such an interlinked connection is often referred to as a hyperlink. A hyperlink is either an image or colored text which, when clicked by a viewer, takes the viewer to another web site. In today’s post we’ll cover how to add hyperlinks to your web site.

To add a hyperlink, you use a small bit of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) code. Once you understand the HTML format required, adding a hyperlink is really quite easy… you just add the bit of code to the Body Text area of the Modification form for your WebSpawner website.

Let’s start off with a text hyperlink. The HTML code required is in the following format:

<a href=”URL”>
The Text to be displayed goes here
</a>

This particular HTML tag is called the Anchor tag. It’s really not complicated; you simply substitute in the URL address and the text to be displayed. Here is an example:

<a href=”http://www.webspawner.com”>
Create a free web site!
</a>

The line of code above will result in text displaying on your web site like this:

Create a free web site!

The text that you substitute into the ‘text to be displayed’ portion is displayed as colored clickable text, and when that colored text is clicked, it takes the viewer to the web site indicated by the URL address.

Now let’s take a look at the format for using an image as a hyperlink:

<a href=”URL”>
<img src=”URLofImage”>
</a>

Using this format, you simply substitute in the URL of the web site to which you are linking, as well as the URL address of the image that you wish to have displayed (the image must exist somewhere online… see Tips below for more information). Here is a usage example:

<a href=”http://www.webspawner.com”>
<img src=”http://www.webspawner.com/ads/freewebpages/wsanrevb.gif”>
</a>

Adding this line of code will result in a clickable image being displayed on your web site like this one:

When the image hyperlink is clicked, the viewer is then taken to the web site indicated by the URL address.

You can add hyperlinks of either type to the Body Text area of your WebSpawner web site any time you are in the Modification form.

Some closing tips:

• For your first few hyperlinks, try selecting and Copying (Control-C on a Windows PC, or Command-C on a Mac) the format we have provided above and then Pasting it (Control-V on Windows, or Command-V on Mac) into the Body Text area of the Modification form. Then you can easily replace just the URL and Text portions as you wish to create your own hyperlink.

• The easiest way to correctly enter the URL address for a web site is to first visit that web site in a separate browser window, then click in the Address Bar to select all of the address there and Copy it. Then you can simply Paste the entire URL into the Anchor tag code.

• The image used in an img src tag must already be hosted somewhere online where it can be viewed on a web site. You can obtain the URL address of an online image by right-clicking on the image in your web browser, choosing “Properties”, and then Copying the information marked “Location” or “URL”. On a Mac, Control-click on an online image, then select “Copy image address.” Once you have the URL of the image copied, you can then easily Paste it into the img src tag.