You can get your business online for less than £10 by following these simple steps:

1. Register your domain name
   Whether your choose your trading name or a name based on your keywords, your first step is to check it’s available then BUY it!  Domain names start at around £3 per year and can be purchased from websites such as 123-reg or Heart Internet.  There are plenty of other domain name registration companies out there, but these are two that I’ve used personally and can therefore recommend.
2. Choose your hosting company
   This is the magical part - I’m going to tell you where to find web hosting for an incredibly low price! Pop along to M8 Internet and you’ll find they have packages starting from £1 per year.  I’m not affiliated with M8 but I am a happy customer of theirs, which is why I’m happy to recommend them.  You can also register your domain through M8 and it sometimes is easier to keep everything in one place but that’s your choice!  There are other hosting companies which offer similar packages to M8, but I haven’t found anyone else who offers such good value.
3. Set up your website in a few easy clicks
   Once M8 (or your chosen web host) have created your hosting package and your domain is fully set up (it can take anything from a few minutes to a couple of days for your domain registration to work its way around the internet!), you’ll be able to login to your website control panel.  Scroll down and you’ll see a section called “E-commerce” and below that “CGI Scripts” - these contain several powerful website packages which will give you e-commerce capabilities … and won’t cost you a penny, due do them being “open source”.  I won’t tell you which package to choose, but Zen Cart and OsCommerce are very popular.  All you need to do is click on your choice of package and follow the simple instructions to have your website up and running in minutes.

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Web Accessibility is all about making sure your website is accessible to EVERYONE, including those people with disabilities.  This includes visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities.

The Web Accessibility Initiative develops and publishes a list of guidelines in web accessibility that are considered the international standard.  You can read the guidelines for yourself at http://www.w3.org/WAI/ along with some more information on why accessibility is important.

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If you fancy doing your own SEO, Google has put together a handy startup guide full of best practices.

Download it for free here.

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Glasgow design firm T-Enterprise have just released this Stephen Fry viral game: The Name’s Fry, Stephen Fry.  Inspired by his recent comments on illegally downloading episodes of House, the game is based around Fry trying to avoid the police.

Great fun - have a go!!

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I’ve written an article at Hubpages about how best to build incoming links for your site.  Read it here!

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If your site runs on Wordpress, this free plugin is a must:

All in One SEO Pack

Amongst other features, it allows you to add unique titles, meta descriptions and meta keywords to each of your pages.  Lots of other options to choose from!

To install on your Wordpress site:

• Ggo into WP Admin, click Plugins then Add New
• Search for “All in one SEO“
• Click on “All in one SEO“, then click “Install“
• Once installed, just click “Activate Plugin” and adjust the settings as required in Settings > All in one SEO
• You’ll find you now have the ability to add unique meta titles, descriptions and keywords in each of your blog posts & pages.

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by David Viney

If you are intending to do your own website SEO, this book is simply a must-have.  Written in plain english, any technical terms or techniques are explained clearly so you don’t need to worry about being baffled by technical jargon!  The book covers all aspects of SEO, from very detailed discussions on keyword research through to on-page (title tags, meta tags, alt text, keyword density etc.) and off-page SEO techniques (link building, directory submission, article writing).  The book also includes a voucher code for 6 months’ free access to David Viney’s own SEO forum and tools website.

Buy this and you won’t need another SEO book!

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by Jon Smith

If you’re new to Adwords - or even if you’ve been using Adwords for a short time - you’ll find this book useful for its good advice and tips.  It’s a relatively small book, so the amount of information is not overwhelming and you can easily read it through in a day or two.  Don’t get me wrong - the official Adwords help pages are extremely useful in teaching the basics, but this book goes into personal experience with ACTUAL campaigns to talk about different advert layouts, keyword techniques, budget strategies etc. to see what really works.

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Today I encourage you to do a good deed and consider joining Spirit Jump.

Spirit Jump is an organisation made up of volunteers who send cards and/or small gifts to people who are fighting cancer.  The organisation is run by two amazing ladies: Meaghan (a cancer survivor) and Stacy (a cancer fighter).  Please visit the Spirit Jump website to read more about their mission.

I’m a Spirit Jumper (my Hot Wax Art website is listed on the “Jumpers” page) and I can tell you it’s a WONDERFUL project to be involved with!

GO NOW!  Read all about it and get ready to do some spirit jumpin’!

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If you’ve ever looked into having your own live customer services chat on your website, you may have been off by the price.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve managed to track down an open source Live Help package offered by Crafty Syntax. Crafty Syntax Live Help is packed with features:

• Unlimited operators, departments, and users
• Live Support with visitors on your site in real time
• Proactive chat invites
• Typing Preview to see what is being typed as it is being typed
• Chat Transcripts and Logging
• page and referer Tracking
• Canned Messages
• and more

Click here to visit the Crafty Syntax website and download Live Help for free.  You will need to have FTP access to your website and at least one available database in order to set it up. I can do this for you - please see Maintenance, Updates & Fixes.

If you use this software and find it beneficial, I would strongly recommend that you donate to Crafty Syntax.

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