Online Money Guide
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Most service providers and product sellers online will sooner or later create an affiliate or reseller program (if they don’t have one yet) and sometimes those programs appear to be to good to be true, so I’ll provide some insights based on my 9+ years of experience running reseller and affiliate programs.

Basic differences between reseller and affiliate programs.

Affiliate program. All visitors will be directed to the provider’s website, which will track the affiliate code to know who sent each visitor. The provider will add up all sales and pay a comission to the affiliate. In order to do so, most providers will provide banners, text links and some marketing tools to the affiliate. Pricing is set and payments are processed by the provider. Support, customer service and issues are dealt directly between the customer and the provider.

Reseller program. Most of them are “brandable” or “white label”, meaning that the visitor will actually think that he’s dealing with a provider instead of a reseller. Reseller usually sets his/her own prices and processes payments, even though some reseller programs (like Enom and WildWestDomains for domain names) process those payments on behalf of their resellers. Most reseller programs require the reseller to provide first level customer service to the end user.

Common questions that aren’t always answered when signing up for a reseller/affiliate program.

Affiliate programs:

Q1. How can I be 100% sure that I’m being paid for all sales I refer?

A1. There’s no way to know, some affiliates place a small “test order” which they pay as if they were regular customers just to see if the comission for that sale shows in their affiliate panel, however there have been cases of providers that use rules and ratios like pay for 9 sales, skip the comission on 1 sale.

Q2. The provider is offering a higher comission than what they’re charging the end user, how’s that possible?

A2. Sometimes it’s because of recurring payments. Maybe a customer will sign up for a monthly service that will cost him $10/month. The provider is paying a $50 comission on that sale… looks like they’re risking too much as the customer may cancel the service after 1 month, however the provider knows -based on research and experience- that most customers will remain active for 2+ years, so in the end, they’ll charge each customer $240+ so paying a $50 comission isn’t really that much. Also, read the fine print, some providers offer juicy comissions but those comissions are paid only after the customer has been with the provider over XX days/months/weeks/years.

Q3. So providers are really paying a lot of money to affiliates each month?

A3. Sometimes they do, however most affiliate programs have a “minimum limit” that has to be met before comissions are paid. Let’s say that a specific affiliate program offers $5 per sale, but you need to have $50 or more in your affiliate account before it’s actually “paid” (funds sent to you). A lot of affiliates will sign up, generate a couple leads that will eventually turn into sales and will remove the affiliate code because it wasn’t as good as they were expecting, so those $10 will never be paid. Also, sometimes the affiliate is also a customer, so comissions can be exchanged for services, adding up to the provider’s profit.

Q4. How do provides track sales to know exactly which affiliate referred a customer?

A4. They use cookies, when the visitor clicks on the affiliate link or banner, a cookie is set in the browser, so when the visitor returns to the provider’s site, even if the sale wasn’t completed on the first visit, the affiliate system will read the cookie and know which affiliate created the lead in the first place. However cookies aren’t always reliable, there are a lot of tools that wipe the entire cookie repository from browsers (system optimizers, history removers, and such programs). The visitor could be using another computer when signing up, other than the one he used when he clicked on the affiliate link, so the sale can’t be tracked. Or the cookie’s expiration time could be reached and therefore removed by the browser itself.

Q5. So that means that all providers can cheat on their affiliates?

A5. Yes, they can. However if their affiliate programs are working as expected, it would just hurt them bad, as people will start moving away to other affiliate programs and will post their bad experiences online, damaging the public image of the provider. You can expect most affiliate programs to be trustworthy.

Reseller programs.

Q1. Is it possible for my customers or visitors to know that I’m reselling?

A1. Yes. Sometimes it takes more knowledge and time to figure it out, but there’s always a way to know which provider you’re reselling for. Google is your friend.

Q2. If my customers can find out who is the real provider, does that mean that they will go directly to the provider?

A2. Not true if you’re smart enough. In order to be a good and profitable reseller, you need to add that “extra” to the services or products being resold that will make your customers be loyal even if they know that you’re reselling for a profit. Let’s say that you’ll be reselling IP phone services (VoIP), you are adding a small profit to each call, so why would your customers stay with you instead of going to your provider and getting cheaper fees? Maybe you could give them freebies, like a sign up bonus, send your customers nice emails on holidays (non-automated), try to know them by name and provide a presonalized service, etc. Most customers won’t mind paying a small extra to get a good service or product.

Q3. Will the provider contact my customers and offer services directly?

A3. All of them claim they won’t, however their TOS (Terms of service) usually incluse a special clause that says that if needed, they can contact your customers. Sometimes it’s a customer protection measuer, as there are unethical resellers that will disappear overnight leaving their customers hanging in the air, but some other times that clause is used for marketing purposes. So don’t believe blindly what you read, always try to build a loyal customer base that will not just inform you if they’re contacted by your provider, but will also dismiss such offers and stick to you.

So how can I be sure that I’m signing up for the right affiliate/reseller program?

Both cases:

Make sure that the provider of your choice has a good reputation online.

Look for providers with some experience providing the services or products you’ll be reselling, try to avoid starting companies.

Affiliate programs:

Make sure they pay on future purchases/signups from customers you referred.

Look for low payout limits, so that you can collect your earnings sooner.

Try their support, see if they always reply in a timely manner.

Reseller programs:

Make sure you’re getting a good discount or that it’s a wholesale-only provider, do some research to find if they have a retail leg. If they do, your provider will also be your competition.

Make sure that what you’ll be charging is enough to keep your operation profitable but that also doesn’t become so expensive that it will scare your customers away. Add your costs plus payment processing fees plus your profit and then look at other providers to see if your price is still reasonable.

See how you can improve the services or products being resold.

Just my 2c.

You can find a lot of companies offering reseller programs and discounts, and it’s pretty tempting to jump into reselling as the investment required seems to be ridiculous and the profits margin huge. However you should take everything with a grain of salt, as sometimes things aren’t as good as the providers paint them.

Myth

It takes close to nothing to build a reseller business.

Fact

You’ll have a lot of hard work, there are thousands or millions of guys thinking exactly as you do. In order to prevail over all those resellers you need to add some value to your services.

Myth

You don’t have to invest any money, all you have to do is sell.

Fact

Even though you’re not investing in infrastructure, technology and a lot of staff, you’ll need to make your site or service noticed by potential customers. Doing so needs advertising and advertising costs money, less money if you do it yourself, but money nevertheless.

Myth

As a reseller you’ll be making thousands of dollars  each month.

Fact

You’ll start making a few bucks a month, after creating a loyal customer base, your earnings will increase, but before you make thousands by just reselling, you’ll figure out that it’s cheaper to become a provider than to keep reselling other providers’ services.

Myth

John P. of Whatevercity, Whateverstate is making a living by working 3 hours a day reselling services.

Fact

John P. doesn’t even exist, and if he does, he works way more than 3 hours a day in order to make a living.

Myth

You’ll be paying a few cents (or other cheap prices) for the services being resold but you’ll be charging a lot to your customers.

Fact

As there are millions of resellers like yourself, you’ll find some resellers that don’t mind having a small profit from each customer in order to have a bigger market share, so be prepared to resell those services adding just a small %.

Myth

It’s a safe bet.

Fact

Since to the real provider, you’re the customer, if one of your customers doesn’t pay his bills on time (or doesn’t pay them at all), or if you are targeted by a scammer (online fraudster) that causes you chargebacks (reversed credit card payments), you’ll still have to pay the bills to your provider. So yes, there’s a risk. You can minimize such risk by following some simple steps (read the article I posted some weeks ago about preventing online fraud) but there’ll always be a risk.

Myth

The provider you’ll be reselling for sees you as a “business partner”.

Fact

They see you as a customer, if you fail, they won’t as they have a lot of resellers like yourself. So even if being a reseller gives you some voice when it comes to bargaining, they are already prepared to lose your account or to see you go to another provider, so they won’t always go the extra mile just to keep you happy.

Myth

The cheaper you buy, the more profit you’ll make.

Fact

Do some math, make sure that your provider is making enough money to stay in business. Some providers try to go hit rock bottom prices and file for bankruptcy a few months later. If your provider goes out of business, you’ll have some hard times explaining to your customers why their websites suddenly disappeared. Make sure that you’re signing up with a solid provider that will be able to provide quality services to your customers, after all, it’s your image that’s going to be damaged if something goes wrong, as your customers will come back and get on your back, not your providers’.

Myth

An All-in-one provider is the best way to start reselling.

Fact

Sometimes it’s true, as your billing will be a lot easier since you just have to send payments to one provider, but that’s not a rule. Some providers are excellent when it comes to one  service (i.e. domain name registration) but just suck at others (i.e. webhosting) so you’ll have to do some research and make sure that you’re signing up with a mix of providers where each one of them provides one of the services you’ll be reselling with the highest quality.

Myth

Automated systems allow you to run your business without any human intervention.

Fact

Even though systems increase productivity and save a lot of time, there are issues that require some special criteria applied. A system can’t determine that by itself. Let’s say that you have over 1000 webhosting customers and one of them starts hosting illegal files… a system would shut down your account but a human may see that if you’re hosting 999 legal and decent customers, having one customer host illegal files doesn’t reflect your business but just a bad luck isolated incident. So always make sure that there will be someone available to call or email if you need true human assistance.

I hope these lines help you think twice before rushing in and signing up with a provider expecting to make thousands of dollars a month.

Soon I’ll be posting an article on why providers love reseller/affiliate programs and also if launching one can benefit your business. I’ll also post another article on what to look for (kind of a rule of thumb) when selecting a provider to resell.

So you’ve decided to start your own online store from home… this isn’t an easy task, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t become a success. I’ve personally assisted over 50 friends to start their own online stores and work from home, most of them are still online and selling every day. Based on my own experience either with my own stores and those built for friends and customers, I’ll provide some tips that will help you start your online store and make it a success.

Tip 1. Don’t think that because you’re working at home there aren’t any more schedules. As a matter of fact, working in your own online store can be more time consuming than having a regular job. Most online store owners spend close to 12 hours a day promoting, adding products, tracking shipments and managing their stores.

Tip 2. Don’t rely on a home phone line or a mobile phone. Having a kid or maid answering a phone that is published as your store’s contact phone number will scare 90% of your potential customers away.  Getting a voice mail with a recording from a mobile operator has the same effect. The explanaiton is pretty simple… a new customer wants to be able to trust your store/company. The easy solution: Get a VoIP based line with a fancy DID (Direct Inward Dial – that’s a phone number) if you can afford a toll-free it’ll be way better. Set up your VoIP line to direct callers to your voicemail if there’s no one to answer or if the line is busy, however keep an eye on your voice mail at all times so that you can return calls in a timely manner.

Tip 3. Get a P.O. box that doesn’t look like one. There are literally thousands of companies that will lease something similar to a P.O. Box but that use fancier names like “suite” or “office”, something like “Broadway St. 315 Suite 912″, even though it’s a P.O. Box, it will bring more confidence to your customers, as it looks like a “real office in a business address/building”. Those companies will then forward all your incoming mail to your home address.

Tip 4. Even though you are working at home, try to set an area that is dedicated to your work, it can be a room, a studio or even a corner of your table, but try to use that space for work-related things only. That way, if you need to write something down on a post-it, you can stick it there and it will still be there tomorrow for you to pick up where you left off the day before. If you have kids at home, instruct them to never touch anything in your work space.

Tip 5. Try to avoid house-typical noises. That means, if you’re on the phone with a customer, don’t leave a TV set, stereo, blender, mixer, vacuum nor any other household appliace on. If possible, try to set your working space in a noise free area of your home.

Tip 6. Keep your store’s finances separate from your home expenses. In order to run a successful business (not only an online store) you have to be very organized as to how you run your finances. It looks so easy to just use money from your online sales to pay the rent or to buy groceries, however there’ll be a time when you have to re-stock your store, pay advertising or maybe hire someone else and you have to make sure that you’ll have funds to pay. At the end of the month, see how much profit you had from your online sales, see how much you’ll be needing the next month and then move your earnings to your house budget.

Tip 7. Promote your store at all times. Include the URL to your store in your e-mail signature, let all your friends know about it (even if they are your close neighbors, you never know when they’ll get online just to satisfy their curiosity or when they’ll refer some new customers to you), print a sticker with your URL and stick it to your car’s bumper, print a couple T-shirts with your URL and wear them as often as possible (out of home), write down your URL when leaving a note to someone, etc. There’s no such thing as “enough promotion”. The more people know about your online store, the more customers you’ll get.

Tip 8. Learn about SEO or hire a SEO consultant’s services. SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most effective ways to promote your online store, if you’ll be selling men’s shoes, you’ll want your website to show up in the first results when someone googles “leather boots”. Keep in mind that close to 85% of all internet web traffic starts at search engines.

Tip 9. Be patient. Some people think that they’ll start selling the minute they publish their websites, that never happens. You’ll have to work hard for users to start visiting your site, and even after that, you’ll have to spend more time turning your visitors into customers.

Tip 10. Treat every customer as if you had more customers waiting in line. When you’re starting, it’s easy to become discouraged and pay less atention to customer service. Customer service is a must and you should answer most questions in a timely manner. Even if you’re only getting 3 emails a week, each one has to be replied on time. Keep in mind that if you’re only getting a few customers you can’t risk losing them.

Tip 11. Get a live chat, forget about automated ones. People love live chats, they allow visitors to ask all their questions regarding your products or services and get an answer or solution in real time. It also removes the “tech-only” skin of your online store and brings a “there are humans behind” feel. However there are some companies that sell automated chats, where a script tries to figure out what the customer is asking by running some simplistic “artifical intelligence” routines (they are more like term matching) and try to provide the best answer. Installing one of such automated chats is like calling someone who has a voicemail recording that just repeats “hello, hello, I can’t hear you, hello”, it makes you feel like a fool, and I’m sure you don’t want your potential customers to feel that way.

Follow these simple tips and you’re on your way to a successful online store! (plus a lot of hard work, of course).

Almost every webmaster has used or at least thought about using Adsense(R) to monetize traffic, however there are literally thousands of webmasters complaining everywhere that their accounts have been frozen. So this time I thought it would be good to include a list of the most commonly seen reasons of why Google decides to freeze an account.

1. Keep it legal. Piracy (warez), free porn and cracking/hacking websites can generate a lot of traffic, and therefore adding Adsense to such sites is always luring, however Google doesn’t like to have their advertising program associated with such sites. If you read the TOS (Terms of Service) carefully, you’ll see that they are actually telling you to keep from adding Adsense to such sites! However most webmasters just click the “I accept” button without reading them thoroughly.

2. Avoid using “instant website creators”. There are hundreads of scripts advertised on the net that will create “adsense-ready” websites in just a few seconds and some of those scripts use false testimonials as “proof” that there are webmasters making thousands of dollars a day just by using the script. Google doesn’t like that kind of scripts. In order for Adsense to be a valuable resouce or ad channel for advertisers, the ads should be displayed on content-rich websites that are somehow related to the products or services advertised. The scripts that try to fool Google into thinking that there’s a lot of content will most likely use the same content for all websites created using the same script or will steal content from other sources (such as RSS feeds, forums, blogs, etc.). Google doesn’t like duplicate content, so if they find that most content in your site is actually a copy from other websites, they will ban your website from Adsense and will maybe freeze your account.

3. Keep from clicking your own links. Yes, I know… you’re just about to earn your first $100.00 and you’re close… very close… but there are a few cents missing and the month is coming to an end… the link is there, it looks as if it was even flashing for you to click on it and try to “earn” those few cents that will add up to your earnings and secure your next payment by the end of the next month… The feeling is somehow similar to undressing in your best friend’s daughter in your mind… you know it’s wrong but can’t look away. However Google has some very advanced ways to know if a webmaster is clicking on his/her own links! and a few cents could bring your Adsense account to an end.

4. Don’t invite others to click. Some websites add texts that read something like “in order to keep this site free please support us by clicking on our sponsors’ ads”. This can lead to 3 different endings. The first one, users don’t mind, they don’t click and you don’t make any extra money. The second one, users care about your site and try to support you by clicking on ALL YOUR ADS, this will make Google’s systems think you’re using some fake traffic generator and will close your account. The third one, Google’s spiders will detect your text and as per Adsense’s TOS, they will close your account. In the end, it’s no good to lose your account including fair earned money just because you tried to convince your visitors to click.

5. Aways keep an eye on the website guidelines published by Adsense. Sometimes they change, and you have to make sure that your website abides by those guidelines. It includes the content on your website, what websites you link to and how you display your ads.

6. Moderate. If you’re using Adsense on a public forum or blog, you need to constantly moderate the comments posted by your visitors as some visitor could try to “spam” your blog or forum by posting several links to other websites which my infringe Adsense’s TOS/Guidelines. Keep in mind that even though you’re not the author of such comments or posts, it’s still your forum/blog and therefore you’re responsible for what’s published in it.

7. Review your website’s design. There are some websites that rely mostly on images and animations. Some graphic designers jump into web design and create full layouts entirely in image creating software, you can read text on them but it’s text within an image, so search engines (including the adsense bot) can’t read it. Adsense relies on your website’s content to “know” what ads to serve, if it’s unable to “read” your website, it won’t serve the right ads, and believe me, the right ads mean a better CTR (click through ratio).

I hope this few tips help those that rely on Adsense to monetize their traffic. Again, I don’t work for Google nor Adsense and the only relationship between those companies and myself is that I have an account to display ads. This tips aren’t endorsed by Google nor Adsense and shouldn’t be used as a proof for anything, I wrote this article based on my experience and what I’ve read in other websites.

So you’re ready to start selling online, however you’ve read and heard everywhere that selling online is a huge risk because of online fraudsters… well that’s absolutely true.

However, there are also scammers taking advantage of real-life commerce transactions! You can open a bricks and mortar store to sell goods and still face a fake bill, a bounced check or a stolen credit card. So just as you would do in a “real life” store, there are some things to look for and some security measures that you can take to conduct safe commerce online.

Step 1. Assess your true risk level.

There has always been a higher risk selling services or intangible products than selling tangible products. The explanation is very simple, with a tangible product you need a ship to address and therefore you know where to reach or locate your customers. With intangible products (like domain names, software, memberships) or services, it’s very easy for a scammer to sign up or fill the purchase forms stating that he/she lives in one country and actually be sitting somewhere else.

There’s also a higher risk when selling intangible products or services that may lure minors or that would attract people to try to get them for free. This is very common in the porn industry, a lot of minors are looking for stolen credit card details to purchase memberships and gain access to adult oriented websites, or people that just want to “protect their privacy” by avoid using their real credit cards to purchase such memberships.

Here’s a very simple questionnaire that we use to measure the real risk while developing an e-commerce project for our customers:

Q1. Is your product tangible or your services rendered “in-person” to your customers?

a) Yes

b) No

Q2. Will you be selling your products/services to people from other countries?

a) Yes

b) No

Q3. Will you accept credit cards or 3rd. party payment processors?

a) Yes

b) No

Q4. Would your customers publicly and proudly announce/admit that they have purchased your products or hired your services?

a) Yes

b) No

Q5. Is your product designed for (or would it lure) minors to sign up for it without their parents permition?

a)Yes

b)No

Q6. Do your customers have to come back to your site in order to keep using the service, receive product updates or confirm information so that the product can be shipped to them?

a)Yes

b)No

Score:

Q1. a=0 b=3

Q2. a=2 b=1

Q3. a=1 b=3

Q4. a=1 b=3

Q5. a=3 b=0

Q6. a=1 b=0

Results:

15 Very risky

10-14 Risky

7-9 Average

3-6 Low risk

Step 2. Select the right payment processors

When you’re starting a new online venture, it’s wise to use a 3PPP or 3rd party payments processor, as most of them already have advanced fraud screening mechanisms that will save you a lot of headaches.

Even if you’ll only accept cheques/checks and money orders, you can still be a victim of online fraud. A customer may sign up for your services or buy a product and then claim that he never received it. Make sure that the payment processor you’ll be using allows the sale or re-sale of the products/services you’ll be offering. Also make sure that even if there’s a chargeback or any other kind of fraud-related issue, they won’t charge a high fee for it.

Most payment processors have a “dis-allowed/banned/prohibited products list” where you can find the most risky products and services and why they don’t allow it. There are also payment processors that specialize in serving such niches, they will have higher setup fees, higher comissions and longer reserve periods.

Step 3.  Another fraud prevention system isn’t too much.

According to your risk level, you may use as many fraud detection/prevention systems as possible. The most common and easy to set up are:

1. Geo-IP checking: Make sure that your customer is connecting to your website from the same city/state/country that he’s stating as his address.

2. IP logging: Keep a log of every single IP that hits your “order now” pages.

3. Captcha images: Those images with letters or numbers that the user has to copy over a text field. This tools prevent automated systems that will keep trying to force a stolen/false credit card.

4. Session checking: Make sure that the user that’s filling the payment details form is the same one that started the sign-up/buy process. This will be useful because will prevent users from hijacking sessions.

5. Password protection: Keep all your sensitive information password protected using .htaccess files.

6. SSL: Even if your customers won’t be entering credit cards information directly into your site, it’s always wise to serve every form that gathers personal information through a secure connection, so eavesdroppers have a hard time trying to sniff data.

Here are some more advanced mechanisms.

7. Phone verification. If possible try to verify by phone every order/signup. Get a database of mobile assigned numbers so that you can make sure that you’re calling a home/work phone number. There are automated systems that do this in real-time.

8. E-mail verification: If you’ll be collecting e-mail addresses from your customers, send them a verification email that has proves that the email address used is valid and actually belongs to them.

9. Free e-mail ban: Ban e-mail addresses from major free email providers (like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) most scammers will try to use a free email address that provides some anonymous features.

Hope this helps you when starting your online venture. Online fraud is a pain in the butt, and every single company/person that sells something online is exposed to it, however if we all work together and make it almost impossible for scammers to rip us off, sooner or later they’ll run out of resources and will have to get a job to earn some money to spend online.

So now we’re going to talk about how to select a good affiliate program. There are thousands (maybe millions) of them out there, so selecting the right ones is one of the hardest tasks.

1. Make sure that the affiliate program that you’re joining is somehow related to your target audience. Let’s say that you’ll be sending your affiliate link (the one the program creates for you so that it can track your referrals) to your email contacts, but most of them are men, so it wouldn’t make sense to join an affiliate program that promotes high coture dressing… right?

2. Look for low and at least monthly payouts. Some affiliate programs have high payouts, which means that you have to generate a lot of sales before you’ll be paid, or some programs issue payments on a bi-monthly or even semi-anually basis, which means that it will take you a while before you can collect. Most decent affiliate programs have low payouts ($100.00 USD seems to be a rule of thumb) and offer montly payouts. This is very important because there are affiliate programs out there that use the high payout or too long term as a way to make sure that a lot of affiliates will join the program but that none of them (or only a few) will actually be paid.

3. Payment methods that work for you. It’s also very important to make sure that the affiliate program  you’re joining sends payments using methods that actually work for you. I once joined an affiliate program that would only send payments via wire transfer and they would deduct the bank fees from my payments. As the provider was based in South America, that meant that a $100.00 payment, after deducting such fees, would be a $30-$40 payment when settled in my account.  It seems like PayPal and ePassporte work for most webmasters, but some prefer wire transfer as long as it’s started and received locally (within the same country).

4. Support forums, tickets or chat. Sooner or later you’ll need to contact the provider to ask something related to the affiliate program, maybe it will be how to customize a link, set a landing page or ask about a missing or delayed payment. If it takes them too long to reply, then you’ll be questioning yourself if you’ve been working for free.

5. Reputation and good standing of the provider. There are companies going out of business every single day! Most new companies will start affiliate programs with huge comissions, as they see it as an easy way to start building a customer base. However some new start up companies won’t realize that they will need extra cash to pay their affiliates and when they decide to go out of business or to simply cancel their affiliate program, a lot of webmasters are left hanging in the air.

6. Understand the product or service being promoted. Don’t fool yourself with huge comissions. If you can’t fully understand the products or services you’re promoting, there’s a good chance that your referrals won’t either and if they can’t understand it, they won’t sign up or buy them.

7. Forget the testimonials unless they come from a verifiable source. Most scam affiliate programs publish a lot of testimonials of guys  with fake names claiming they are making a living out of promoting the product or service that the affiliate program offers,  it makes us dream of being a little bit like them, having lots of spare time and working just a couple hours from home and making thousands of dollars a month. That’s crap, you can make a living out of the Internet, but it takes lots of hours of hard work and joining a mix of affiliate programs that allow you to reach a bigger audience. However there are provider-neutral forums where you can read real testimonials of how others are doing with each affiliate program, google is your friend to find them.

That’s all folks.

Yes, there are millions of webhosts out there, and what makes it more difficult, they all advertise 100% uptime and a lot of features, but as we all know, it’s impossible to have a perfect provider. This time I will try to provide some tips so that you can be sure that you’re using the right host for your money making website.

Things to look for in your new web host:

1. A nice support tickets system, a phone number to contact support and maybe a live support system.

2. Some kind of money backed uptime guarantee, most webhosts will advertise some kind of guarantee, but please make sure that they’ll actually honor that guarantee or that they will somehow compensate their customers in case of downtime. Keep in mind that every minute your website is down will halt your earnings.

3. Multi-path connections to the Internet. A webhost that is “single-homed” or that just has connections to one single provider will be most likely to suffer downtime due to issues with that specific provider, while a webhost that has more than one link to the Internet will be able to re-route traffic through other paths while they (or they provider) fix the issue with the failing link.

4. Unix based plans, it’s always cheaper, easier and more secure to host your website in a unix-based server. “Unix-based” means every flavor of Linux, BSD or Unix. Also keep in mind that there are tons of free scripts that you an use in your money making website that are available for free but that are designed to run in unix-based servers. Scripts for windows-based servers aren’t cheap and aren’t that easy to find.

5. Make sure that your webhost supports .htaccess redirection and URL-rewrite, since those features are mandatory for a nice SEO optimized website.

6. Try their support late at night, early in the morning and during regular working hours… also try weekends. That’s the only way to make sure that they are actually staffed 24/7! Your website could go down at 4 a.m. and there has to be someone available to bring it back online.

Things to avoid:

1. “Unlimited” webhosts. Just using that term as a sales pitch is a good thing to look for and run away. There’s nothing really “unlimited”, everything has a limit, either imposed by the provider or by the hardware/network limitations. Webhosts advertising “unlimited” hosting will sooner or later suspend websites that are really using a lot of resources, so it’s always better to run away from them.

2. Dirt cheap webhosts. Do the math, a well managed server will never hold more than 200 accounts (well it can host over a million, but in order to keep the service at a decent level, a webhost shouldn’t host more than 200 accounts in a single server). A decent dedicated server costs something between US$90.00-US$200.00 so the provider has a cost per account that ranges from US$0.45 and US$1.00 per month, plus they have wages to pay, rent, power, phone lines, etc. So if you see a webhost with plans under US$5.00/month it is mostly sure that they are overselling or that they really don’t have the infrastructure or staff they try to make you think they do.

3. The reseller of the reseller of the reseller. Even though there are some pretty good resellers, most webhosting startup businesses will go for a reseller account with a bigger provider in order to keep their costs down. The issue is that maybe they’re not even getting the reseller account from a real provider, but from another reseller. If you keep tracking up the “providers chain” you’ll find that there are 2 or 3 steps before getting to the actual owner of the hardware. The main risk when signing up with a reseller is that as most of them are just starting their hosting companies, they also tend to go bankrupt or disappear. Also, most resellers run are a one-man show that runs his/her business from a basement or a bedroom, so you can’t expect true 24/7 support.

4. Webhosts that try to push you into registering your domain name with them. You never know when a webhost will go out of business or what their code of ethics is. So the safest way is to register your domain name with a domain registrar and get your webhosting ONLY with the web host. If the host goes out of business overnight you can just point your domain to a new host and upload a copy of your website, so the downtime is as minimal as possible.

Things or features that seem important but aren’t that important.

1. Money-back or free trial periods. Some webhosts will allow you to cancel your account within a specific timeframe and will return your money if you aren’t satisfied with the service. However some webhosts will take you through a never ending process in order to get your money back, or they simply won’t refund it. Also keep in mind that the service might not fail during the “risk free” trial period but that doesn’t mean that they won’t fail after that.

2. Company and brand logos everywhere. Most webhosts love to display the logos of all software providers, hardware manufacturers, brands, carriers, and even clothes they use, however that doesn’t mean that those companies (most of the are very respectable) are actually backing up the web host.

3. Flashy website. The biggest webhosts have the simplest websites. It’s those hosts that are desperate to get new customers that invest more time into their websites than into their network/servers.

Hope this helps you avoid headaches with non-professional webhosts.

It seems like a virus, those PowerPoint files that have “nice” messages and “thoughtful” wishes, yes you know them, you have received at least one of them as a forward from someone else. I still can’t understand how people spend lots of time creating those files just to send them to friends and coworkers.

However there’s a way to have some profits by sending and forwarding such emails.

What you’ll need…

1. A catchy domain or subdomain (you can get a subdomain for free with several free hosting providers, however your own domain would work better).

2. A hosting account (paid or free, a paid one would work better than a free one).

3. Affiliate accounts with at least 10 providers.

Now let’s get to work…

Step 1.

Create some basic HTML (you can use some software to assist you, like Dreamweaver or even Word) describing the products of each provider, don’t copy-paste from their websites, instead try to provide your own point of view about each product and why you would recommend it. Insert the links to the providers’ websites including your affiliate code at the end of each description. Try to keep it simple, don’t create a professional looking website as you will be using this website as your “personal recommendations” website.

Step 2.

Upload your HTML to your hosting account. Some free hosting providers won’t allow you to upload files directly, but will give you some kind of built in HTML editor (also called wysiwyg editor) where you can copy-paste your code.

Step 3.

Set up a signature in your e-mail address, most free email providers (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc.) will allow you to do so. In your signature include a small text at the end with a line similar to: “My list of recommended providers” or something that will lead your friends and coworkers to visit your website.

Step 4.

Whenever you receive an email that you think is nice or will provide something good to your contacts, forward it. Your contacts will receive a nice email plus will see your link. But it doesn’t stop there, there’s a good chance they will also forward the email to their contacts and most people are just too lazy to remove the quoted text, so their contacts will also see your link and it keeps going and going. Sooner or later, some of the people getting the email will access your website and purchase/sign up with one of your providers, which will give you some profits.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

This article is intended to help you monetize your regular forwards, not to promote mass emailing. Please keep in mind that even though email is free to you, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an associated cost with each email that travels through the Internet, so please keep your emails as ethical as possible.

In a previous post we discussed about how to know if a website is secure or not and one of the main requirements was if the website had a SSL certificate and used encryption technologies to transfer information to the visitor. Today we’ll talk about the different types of SSL certificates and what you should look for.

Self signed: These certificates were signed by the webmaster instead of a certification authority. Most web browsers will display a warning message indicating that the certificate wasn’t signed by a trusted authority (CA or Certification Authority). There’s no true validation in a self signed certificate.

Domain control validated: This is the most common type of certificate today. The signing CA (Certification Authority) sends an e-mail to the administrative contact of the domain according to the whois database and validates that the requesting party is actually the owner of the domain name.

Extended validation (EV): The CA asks the requesting party for some documents that act as proof that the company actually exists, that it has a valid street address, a valid phone number and that it’s registered with some kind of government-regulated organization (commerce chamber, tax authority, etc.). With new browsers, the EV certificates turn the address bar into a shade of green.

Now, the true facts about SSL certificates:

All certificates provide the same encryption strength! Some people think that EV certificates are “stronger”, while the algorithm strenght/length depends on the web server and web browser and not the SSL certificate. So even if it’s a self-signed certificate, it means that the connection is encrypted using industry standards and your information can’t be easily seen by an eavesdropper.

An EV certificate provides a higher assurance just because a third party received and “validated” some papers, which doesn’t mean that a website bearing an EV certificate can’t scam you or could get the certificate using false documents.

Now, what’s the deal with those “seals” that some websites bear as if they were medals or trophies?

Actually they are just links to the CA that take you to a page where you can read that the website you were visiting has a valid certificate, something you could already know since your browser didn’t display any warnings! Ok, maybe I’m not being fair, sometimes they also display the company information and some “guarantee”.

So what will a CA do if I’m scammed by a website using a certificate signed by them?

Nothing! Most of the CAs advertise some “money backed guarantee” but if you read the fine print, it says that they will pay for damages up to $XX,XXX (the amount varies according to the certificate type and the signing authority) if you can prove that they messed up during the validation process and that it was their fault! They are not backing up the business/website that uses the certificate, they are just backing up their own validation methods.

From my personal point of view, visiting a website that uses an EV SSL certificate shows that they’re serious about business as they are spending some serious cash in that certificate, nothing more, nothing less.

So are SSL certificates really that important? You can say yes, but the most important thing is to know that the connection is being encrypted and therefore your information travels “safely” through the Internet.