WebSpawner.com Blog

Affiliate programs are advertising programs that provide monetary compensation in exchange for qualifying traffic (web visitors) sent to the advertiser’s website. If you have a website, you can make real money by placing affiliate program banners on your website. Adding an affiliate banner to your website is simple, and in today’s post we’ll explain how you can do it yourself.

First, you need to have a website. If you don’t have one yet, we invite you to create a free web site now with WebSpawner’s easy-to-use online creation tools.

Next, you need to join one or more affiliate programs. Many affiliate programs are available online from popular sites such as eBay, Amazon.com, and Apple’s iTunes Music Store. You can find more affiliate opportunities by searching your favorite search engine for “affiliate program” or through online directories such as Affiliate Scout and Memolink. Follow the instructions on each site to complete their online forms and join the programs you select.

After joining a program, you will be able to obtain the affiliate program banner code which you will add to your website. Some programs may email the code to you; others will provide it on their websites. Select the code for the banner you wish to add by highlighting it with your mouse and then Copy it (Control-C in Windows, or Command-C on a Mac).

Open a new browser window and log in to your WebSpawner account at http://www.webspawner.com/ with your Account Name and Password. Under Step 1 select the web page to which you would like to add your banner and click the ‘Modify’ button under Step 2, as shown here:

Scroll down through the Modification form to the ‘Body Text’ step. Click inside the Body Text box, then Paste (Control-V in Windows, or Command-V on a Mac) the copied code. Next, add ‘begin’ and ‘end’ markers (being careful to avoid making any changes to the code) before and after the code to surround it exactly as shown in the image below:

Note that the ‘begin’ and ‘end’ markers are VERY important as they notify the WebSpawner page engine that it should not filter or modify the code information between the markers, thus ensuring that the banner will appear properly on your webpage. The ‘begin’ and ‘end’ marker should be entered exactly as shown in the image above. You should use these markers any time you add code to your website.

Complete the Modification process by clicking ‘Continue’ at the bottom of the form, and then click ‘I Like It’ at the page preview as shown below (this saves and publish your changes:

After completing these steps, your website should display your affiliate program banner. You can add additional program banners to the pages of your website in the same manner.

Be sure to take steps to promote your website in order to pull in web visitors… the more traffic that your website receives, the more opportunities you have to make money through your affiliate programs. Click the orange ‘Promote Your Site’ tab in the Member Menu of your WebSpawner account for helpful information and promotion options.

For more information on how affiliate programs work, there is an excellent article here from HowStuffWorks.com.

The rise of the internet has brought about a great exchange of information, which flows not only from the webmaster to the website visitor, but also in the other direction. Opinion Polls are a useful tool for gauging the thoughts of the public by examining the responses from a small sampling, and the internet has made conducting such polls significantly easier than it was in the past. There are even entire websites dedicated to the task of polling public opinion such as The Gallup Poll, Zogby International, and PollingReport.com.

Now you can conduct your own online polls… find out what the visitors to your website think about topics of your choosing by adding a poll to your website in a few easy steps.

WebSpawner members with Enhanced accounts can find the WebSite Poll tool in the Member Menu, located under the orange ‘Add-Ons’ tab as shown below:

Click the ‘Add-Ons’ tab if needed and then click the Website Polls icon to begin. The Poll Menu will appear; click the ‘New’ button as shown below:

The Create New Poll window appears. Fill in the fields for the Poll Title and Question for your poll. Then provide a number of answers in the Options fields for viewers to choose from, as shown in the sample below.

Be sure to leave the poll Status set to ‘Open’ and enter an appropriate Expiration Date, then click Continue to save your new poll. You’ll be returned to the Poll Menu and your new poll should appear in the Polls list. Close the Poll Menu window to return to the Member Menu.

Now that you have created your new poll, you must add it to your website for viewers to see. At the top of the Member Menu select the webpage under Step 1 to which you would like to add your poll and click the ‘Modify’ button under Step 2. In the page modification form, scroll down to the ‘Voting Booth’ step and select your new poll from the drop-down list as shown below:

Scroll to the bottom of the modification form and click ‘Continue’ to proceed, then click the ‘I Like it’ button at the page preview to save and publish your changes. Your poll will now appear on your webpage for viewers to see and vote on, as shown in the example below (this sample is inactive, but your poll will allow viewers to click a button to cast their votes).

In this age of reasonably-priced digital cameras it seems that just about everyone has one, as well as a computer hard drive full of digital photos.

While traditional photographic prints are usually shared by flipping through photo albums with friends or family, digital photos present new opportunities for sharing images across long distances online. This is likely the reason for the popularity of WebSpawner’s Image Gallery tool among Enhanced account members; the tool makes it quick and easy to build numerous galleries with slide-show viewing which can be enjoyed online by friends or family far away.

In today’s post we’ll discuss how you can add online image galleries to your own WebSpawner website in a few simple steps.

You can find the Image Gallery tool under the orange ‘Add-Ons’ tab in the Member Menu for your WebSpawner account, as shown in the image below.

Click the Image Gallery icon to begin. A new browser window titled “Image Gallery” will open; click the ‘New’ button. You will then be prompted to enter your Title and Description text for your gallery as shown in the image below; enter text as you wish in the two fields and then click the ‘Continue’ button.

The screen will refresh, showing your Title and Description above a series of 12 empty boxes, which are the locations for 12 images which you can place in your gallery. Note that while there is a limit of 12 images per gallery, there is NO limit to the number of galleries you can create as an Enhanced account member. Click in one of the 12 boxes; next, click the ‘Transfer New Image’ button. The following form will appear:

Under Step 1, click the Browse button to navigate to the pictures on your computer’s hard drive and select the desired image. Steps 2 and 3 are optional, allowing you to add Caption and Description text to display with the image. After completing all 3 steps as you wish, click the ‘Add image to Gallery’ button to begin uploading the image to your gallery.

When the image upload completes, the Image Gallery Edit page displays again, showing your newly-uploaded image in position. Fill as many of the 12 boxes with images as you like in the same manner, clicking the desired box and following the same steps to upload each image. Note that you may remove or replace an existing image by clicking on its box and following the simple prompts provided.

At any time, you can click the ‘Preview’ button at the bottom to see what your gallery page will look like; the ‘Return’ button will take you back to the gallery edit form. The ‘Done’ button at the bottom will save your new gallery page and return you to the Image Gallery tool window, where you can create another gallery by clicking the ‘New’ button.

Gallery pages you have created will appear in the drop-down ‘Galleries’ list; you can select a gallery and then ‘Edit’ it, ‘Preview’ it, or ‘Delete’ it at any time.

When you are finished working with the Image Gallery tool, simply close the window and return to your Member Menu.

To make sure that your galleries are accessible to viewers of your website, select the desired webpage under ‘Step 1′ in the Member Menu and click ‘Modify’ under Step 2. Scroll down through the modification form to the ‘Image Gallery’ step as shown below:

Select the ‘Yes’ button to make your galleries accessible from your webpage. Select “All Image Galleries” from the drop-down menu, unless you want only a specific gallery to be available in which case you should select that gallery. Scroll to the bottom of the modification form and click ‘Continue’ and then click the ‘I Like it’ button at the page preview to save your changes.

Now your website will display a ‘Gallery’ button which visitors can click to view your image galleries! Viewers can select from available galleries and view individual images by clicking on each small thumbnail image, which will expand to a larger image; or, they may select the slide-show viewing option which will automatically rotate through all 12 images for the selected gallery page, while allowing the viewer to adjust the length of time for display of each image.

Spice up your website and share your images by adding image galleries to your WebSpawner Enhanced account today!

In today’s post we take a look at domain names and how you can use your own domain name with your website.

If you’ve spent any time at all on the internet you’ve likely encountered many domain names, whether you were aware of it at the time or not.

When a computer connects to a web site it does so through use of an IP address (or “Internet Protocol address”) which is a unique string of numbers that identifies a particular server (the host of a web site). IP addresses consist of a string of four numbers between 0 and 255, separated by periods. For example, the IP address for the popular search engine Google is 216.239.37.99 - so if you enter 216.239.37.99 into your browser’s Address bar you will be connected to the Google site.

While using numerical IP addreses may be simple enough for a computer, few humans are going to remember all those numbers every time he or she would like to visit a particular web site. The solution to this dilemma is a domain name.

Domain names are a wise investment for businesses large and small or even individuals who wish to have a presence on the world wide web. Not only is it inexpensive to register a unique domain, but the domain can help promote a business name or brand. For instance, eBay.com, Apple.com, and Jeep.com are all domains which reinforce the company names of the respective businesses and are easy for people to recall, helping contribute to the success of both the web sites and the businesses themselves.

Perhaps the best thing about domain names is that they are available to anyone. Any individual or business may affordably register a chosen domain (as long as it has not been registered already by someone else). Domains must be registered through a domain name registrar, which is a company accredited to register internet domain names.

If you register a domain name of your choosing and have an Enhanced Web Site account with WebSpawner, you can have your domain connected (or forwarded) to your website at no additional cost in just a few easy steps.

First you will need to register your domain with a domain registrar, such as Misk, DomainsNext, or DNbuy . Simply go to a registrar’s site and follow the instructions provided to select your unique domain name and register it. Domain registrations cost just a few dollars per year.

After you have registered your domain name, you will need to change the Name Server Settings (aka DNS Settings or Domain Name Server Settings) for your domain. This is done through the login area provided to you by the domain registrar you selected. The Name Server settings will need to be changed to the following:

Primary DNS: ns.webspawner.com
Secondary DNS: ns2.webspawner.com

If you need assistance with changing the Name Server Settings for your domain, ask your domain registrar for help and provide them with the settings above.

When the Name Server Settings have been adjusted, login to your WebSpawner account using your Account Name and Password. Next, contact WebSpawner Customer Service through the orange “Customer Service” tab in the Members Menu. Advise Customer Service of your registered domain name and confirm that the Name Server Settings have been changed - WebSpawner will take care of setting up your domain from there. In just a few days, your domain will be functioning with your web site!