Free servers are not a problem in terms of credibility.
What is more important is to have your own FULL domain name. Simply because, you don't want your customers to have to remember long and hard sub domain names with all those slashes.
What have given free web hosts a bad name are:
- Annoying banner ads
- Downtime
- Lack of features such as CGI bins, scripts, etc.
In my case, I use Homestead.com and pay a fee to have my domain name directed to their server ... So it's not entirely free.
I do this because "I practice what I preach".
I show others, who are just starting out and don't want to spend a lot of money, how to get a website up and running.
I'm not suggesting that free hosting is for everyone or every type of online business ... But for selling ebooks online from a small site ... It works just fine.
I also use a FREE shopping cart, FREE secure server for ordering, FREE autoresponder, FREE email, FREE software tools, even FREE ISP internet access account, FREE forum, and FREE advertising ... Just like many other online marketers.
Have I tried Paid hosts and sold products online?
Yes ... And you know what ... It makes very little difference!
People buy products every day they see in
free newsletters, free magazines, free newspapers.
I've never heard anyone complain, "I won't buy from this company because they advertised in a FREE medium!"
I don't recommend using any free server that has annoying pop ups, banners, or is slow to load. Nor do I recommend "sub domain names" if you are selling online.
The bottom line is this: If people WANT what you are selling... They are going to buy whether or not you operate on a paid or free server.
And remember the money you save in hosting fees each year can be channeled into advertising and promotion instead... Where it really counts... Bringing the traffic.
Now another myth ... People will tell you that websites hosted on free servers don't get listed in the search engines ... Not true. Take my FREE forum for instance... It's got a no.1 listing in every major SE.
You say ... "Maybe its because when I see free I see cheap".
Well what you are forgetting is that not everyone realizes that a certain host is free ... You are Net "savvy".
Most of the Net population are not that aware of these things you and I understand. Many people who visit my website or this forum never even realize it's hosted for free. It's not something they're conscious of.
Another thing ... No one really cares how much you pay in hosting fees whether its $5.99 or $99 per month ... They are more interested in what you are selling, the look of your site, the ease of navigation, piece of mind in buying from you, ease of ordering, etc.
I also have friends online who have paid $2000 or more to have their website designed or hosted!!... Guess what ... They're still paying them off from their ebook sales ... Whereas I made money from day one! (Nor, do their sites look anything special I might add)
Questions:
"How are you able to drop the homestead.com from your domain name, while still having homstead host your site?"
Simple, I pay for a domain name and have it redirected to my Homestead site.
I use alldomains.com as a forwarding service: http://www.alldomains.com
Alldomains can host your web site if you like, but to use their redirection service, you must already have a site to direct it to.
Alldomains.com
They provide a very effective redirection service for US$24.95 per year ... The package option you need is called "d-gear".
What this does is redirect visitors from a domain name you select (i.e. your full domain name) to your Homestead site or any other site you want.
I have used them for 17 months with absolutely no problems.
The d-gear package also includes email forwarding and "catch all" email address e.g. anyname here@yoursite.com.... Excellent if you want to use different email addresses for different promotions, etc.
Another benefit of their service, is that you can easily update the host to where you want your domain name forwarded by using a password/username on their Web site.
You can use any shopping cart/secure server for payments with Homestead. I do not recommend the one provided by Homestead. Instead, I use a free service provided by a company called:
GTA Technologies
I choose them for the following reasons:
- Easy to install and set up (By following their well explained online instructions you can have your order form up and running in an hour).
- Their Service is fast, reliable and I´ve never had a complaint from customers not being able to access my form on their server.
- A very useful feature is they send out three emails once a customer has placed their order.
- The customer gets a confirmation e-mail, and can include a customized message you include. For example, you can include a password or download address for your ebook.
- You also get notification of an order being placed (the second e-mail),
- A third goes to whoever you chose. This might be a 24 hour “Corporate Call Center” you´ve contracted, who monitors your account for you, or a business partner or a second e-mail account like “Hotmail” so you can monitor sales from anywhere you might happen to be in the World.
- The GTA form has good error detection functions. This alerts customers that they have not entered their details correctly on the form. This might be that their card number is invalid or expiry date is wrong.
Unless the user corrects the errors, their order will not be processed. This stops people placing “dummy” and a percentage of fraudulent orders which waste your time.
(Note: You still have to get credit card authorization on each order you receive before shipping the goods or banking the money. This service can be provided by GTA for a fee, but is not included in the free service).
They provide this service only to United States customers, so you unless you live in the USA you may not be able to use this valuable feature.
- Their "shopping Cart" system, allows you to list up to 10 individual products on your order form… Ideal if you are selling many different ebook titles of info-products from one Web site.
- GTA Technology will initially give you a 30 day trial period, where you can use all their advanced features such as autoresponders, full background and color schemes for your order form, including the ability to include your own company logos, and other shopping cart functions.
After this time, you can continue to use the order form free, but you won´t have access to the other features unless you pay a fee. The free form will also then default to red text on black background and will include a banner ad at the top of their choosing.
Do free sites get listed in Search Engines?
Yes, my Homestead sites do get listed in the Search engines, I have mine listed in quite a few, although, I don't spend much time trying to get a top ranking, as I believe in other ways to get traffic to a web site such as mine.
What's the point of paying to redirect a domain to a free site? Why not find a low fee host?
The advantage of redirecting your domain name to another site, is that if ever you want to use your domain name to point to another site you've created, or you find that your current web host is experiencing problems, you can redirect your visitors, without the hassle of moving your domain name to another web host. Redirection can take effect within a shorter period of time than it would take to move your entire site to another host.
And remember, when listing your site with search engines, you are not asking them to list a site based on a free host, you are listing your full domain name.
This approach is no different to having a whole lot of doorway pages you've set up redirected using a script to your main site, and getting these doorway pages listed in the Search engines.
Also, when you redirect your domain name as I do, it makes it harder for someone to view your source code and "steal" your site. (It's not impossible, but it is harder for the less experienced thief ... the type who is most likely to resort to this kind of cyber-crime).
Another advantage of using a redirection service: the site that gets redirected to whatever I want. You must always "protect" your promoted domain name at all costs. www.1website1.com can never be hacked or closed down because it is only a shell.
If my "holding site" (The site I redirect to) is ever hacked or out of action, I have mirror sites sitting all over the place under different names on different servers. All I need to do is redirect where 1website1 points to, and I'm back in business within hours.
Also it means I have a full domain name hosted for free ... No hosting fees, just low cost redirection fees of $24 per year.
The other advantage of doing it this way, is I could register 50 full domain names and have them all point to the same location by redirection. Yet each domain name can have it's own unique set of meta tags for search engine purposes.
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