HummerGardenCrafts

My subscription ran out. And I thought what they wanted for a year was too steep no more than I have sold with them. I was wondering if any of you have or know of a good place for me to find a new home for my website. I would like to get it back up and going by the first of the year.

Thank you all for all your help ahead of time! I did look at GO Daddy! It was super high for a year.

IngeMK

I am just looking into this too. maybe this will help: http://reviews.cnet.com/2703-6541_7-...tColumnArea1.1

thepolyparrot

I've had my sites hosted at 1and1 for about six years - very easy to use, all kinds of built-in features, ftp, pop & smtp email, small business packages, domain registration - really, anything you could need whether you've never written a web site before or if you do this for a living. Fast and reliable service - I can't remember our sites ever being down more than a couple of minutes at a time and I haven't even had so much as a question for customer service for three or four years. When I did need their help, they were Johnny-on-the-spot, and especially considering all the features and great service, the prices are very competitive: http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=11331749


Edited to add - in the interest of full disclosure, if you click on the link and sign up for one of their hosting packages, I think I get points toward a free month of service or something - it's been a long time since I joined the affiliate program and I don't really remember. If you'd rather check it out without possibility of any personal benefit to me, go to www.1and1.com - they're a great company whether I get brownie points or not.

sewbeadit

Have you tried Itsey or Bluejay for selling?

sewbeadit

I love the full disclosure part.lol

HummerGardenCrafts

Thank you ladies! These sites are all new to me and I'll check them all out.

Are any of these sites good about getting your site into search engines? Or you have to do it all on your own?

HummerGardenCrafts

I would be glad to help you out if that's the one I choose. I will be more than happy too!

kathy

i know that Etsy is, never heard of the other

thepolyparrot

1and1 has a built-in search engine submission function, but honestly, from everything I know, it's best not to submit your sites to search engines. The submission functions used to be frowned upon - best to submit your site manually to only a few of the major search engines - you can then customize the submission and follow the guidelines for each SE. It may not be at all necessary to do any such submission.

If you have content-rich pages and all the graphics are properly tagged and all the names are spelled correctly, the search engines are not only going to find you, they're going to give you better billing.

There used to be a science and art surrounding optimizing your pages for search engines, but I don't know if that's true any more. I can give you a few hints on this - I have seen these things work miracles with my own eyes, so I if I were writing a new site, I would still use them.

Don't just name a picture, "crysbracred;" nobody's going to go searching for that, right? Name this picture "crystal-bracelet-red.jpg" and then use the alt tag to describe what the picture shows, "Swarovski crystals and Czech fire polish beads in a special bracelet for when you need a flash of fire red and ice. Sizes Medium and Large. $28.75" Not only is the alt tag helpful to people who use voice translations for vision impairment, the search engines will store that graphic name as three separate words because you've separated them with dashes. The alt tag supports the image with more info and this gives your graphic more "weight."

Now, if this is one of your important products and you want to sell a lot of them, then this image should appear near the top of a page.

If you're using a background image or a headliner image, it should be named after your company - "the-bead-store.jpg" and the first text on the page should include the name of your business. It should be emphasized with bolding or italics.

If you use a graphic to put your company name on your pages, the alt text for each graphic should include, "The Bead Store."

Use all the fancy navigation menus that you want, but at the bottom of the page, if you will include a plain text navigation table, it will not only be convenient for your visitors, it will repeat key words and links and help raise your standing.

There are probably a lot of good sites for learning about search engine optimization - it is constantly changing and evolving - staying on top of SE optimization is a pretty large job for any webmaster. The HTML Writer's Guild is a reputable online school for learning about all things web-related and they're going to be up to date about the various requirements.

Good luck!