The Webmaster’s Most Valuable and Lucrative Tool – Setting Up An Autoresponder

Setting up an autoresponder is the first thing which you should do after putting a sign up form for your newsletter/email list on your website. If you’re unfamiliar with what a autoresponder even is, this refers to having your email software automatically send out a chain of email messages in a follow-up style after someone new subscribes to your newsletter.

These are prewritten e-mails which have been written by you in advance and which can be used for a number of different purposes. You of course don’t have to set up an autoresponder for your list and instead you can just send out manually messages as you like.

I’m a fan of the autoresponder, however, so here are two reasons for why you should go about setting up an autoresponder.

First off, you should keep in mind that when someone signs up for your e-mail list, they probably still don’t know that much about you. They may be somewhat familiar with your company or your website, but why take that chance.

Setting up an autoresponder enables you to send out automatic follow-up messages when someone first signs up for your e-mail list which get your new subscriber acquainted with you and your business or website.

Establishing a relationship with your subscriber is one of the main reasons to use email marketing in the first place, so sending out a handful of establishing e-mails to get your new subscriber better acquainted with your service is a great way to start off that relationship as opposed to just sending them an offer e-mail when you have one ready. You probably don’t want to be selling to a new subscriber when they haven’t received anything else from you, so this is one effective use of these autoresponder e-mails.

Another major reason to go about setting up an autoresponder is that it’s a powerful sales tool. You can use that set of e-mails to address a problem or issue which your subscriber might be having, and all throughout the course of your autoresponder e-mails you can recommend to them solutions coupled with your own products or someone else’s products as an affiliate.

Your product can represent the solution, and through this repetition of regular follow-up e-mails, you increase the chances that your subscriber will make a purchase from you. E-mail marketing is by far the most powerful sales tool which you can have on your website, and using an autoresponder as a sales funnel to send your new subscriber through with lots of great offers which you can make money on is another extension of this.

There is one more reason why I recommend that you go about setting up an autoresponder which I have yet to mention. Click on this link for setting up an autoresponder to learn that reason and how to do it.

I also encourage you to watch this video on my 100% free and complete 10 Day Fast Tracking Training Course for people looking to make money or more money through affiliate marketing. Watch the video to see what it’s all about.

There are many places you can go to obtain a domain name, like NameCheap.com (my preference), GoDaddy and many others.  It’s very simple, you just search for the name you would like.  You can also try other variations that include dashes and the registrar may even make suggestions that are available but still include your preferred keywords.

To buy the domain you just follow their cues to enter your information.  You will want them to have a valid email or other way to contact you to renew the domain and for the yearly check to make sure your information is the same that is required now.  There is one thing you will want to look out for, that is WhoIsGuard Protection.  It’s inexpensive but very worth it because it protects your identity from being available to anyone that wants it.  Believe me after the numerous phone calls I received the first couple of times I didn’t do this I forked over the cash just to stop the madness.

The next problem you will face is making a decision on the extensions so I have brought in some help from Scott Casey to explain this:

Let’s shine a little light on what are known as ‘Extensions’ at the end of a domain name. Sometimes they are known as TLD extensions with the TLD just standing for Top Level Domain. (Not sure why, but that is what the TLD stands for.)

Primarily you’ll see a domain name ending in either ‘.com’ / ‘.org’ / ‘.net’ and also ‘.biz’ and ‘.info.’ The ‘.com’ is the most widely known as it was the first and stood for ‘Commercial.’

Now you use to hear to always try for the ‘.com’ because that is what people were familiar with. But now not only are most ‘.com’ domains taken but people are used to seeing the ‘.org’ and the ‘.net.’

My understanding from talking with a few people who really focus on this is that today Google does not penalize a site for having an extension other than the traditional ‘.com.’

Looking for a domain name with ‘.org’ or ‘.net’ gives you more of a chance to get the domain name you really want. I have been told that after the ‘.com’ the next 2 best ones are the ‘.org’ and ‘.net’ but in search results you’ll still see a few ‘.biz’ and ‘.info’ ranking high as well.

Interesting thing is with the ‘.org’ people give it a little more credibility as it stands for ‘Organization’ and I believe it used to be for non-profit organizations only. Now it can be used for a commercial site and is the one I would look to first if the ‘.com’ is not available. Keep in mind when it comes to a domain name ending in ‘.com’ that some of these sites were established early and have been built up over the years with content and a lot of good links.

So don’t be surprised if you see the ‘.com’ fairly often. Keep in mind there is a lot that goes into making a page rank well in the search engines besides a domain name.

Also consider that a well established company can afford to purchase a domain name ending in ‘.com’ from someone who already has the domain they want and normally a large marketing budget to promote that domain.

And remember There Are A Lot Of Other Effective Ways To Get Web Traffic than just trying to rank high in the search engines.

So don’t think you need to have a domain name ending in ‘.com.’ You can use the ‘.org’ and ‘.net’ and then look at the ‘.info’ and ‘.biz.’

Scott Casey has a lot of Internet marketing experience and you can take advantage of this experience by visiting his blog at http://www.internetmarketingscott.com. He writes many blog posts especially for those just starting out who want to learn and understand things such as getting a good domain name, understanding a target market and more

What is web hosting in simple language?

It is a way of renting space on another computer. This other computer is connected to the internet 24.7, 365 days a year. It’s called a server. It is simply a fast computer with a lot of storage space, or Gigabyte (or Terabyte nowadays). After you rent your own space on the serve, you can use your home computer to log on to it and build a website. Then the whole world can visit your space on that server and via the internet simply by typing the name of your website in their browser. So you see, it’s just like real estate. You rent some land (computer space) and build a house (website) with an address (domain name).

The amount of storage space you rent is measured in gigabytes, and the number of people that can view your website (and other files like videos and photos and music) is a measure of the bandwidth allotted to your site. The more bandwidth you have, the more visitors you can entertain at any one time. The bandwidth is like a highway to your site. The bigger the highway, the more cars can come. If you gain such a large number of visitors that you exceed your allotted bandwidth (like creating a traffic jam), your site could be shut down temporarily. Nowadays with storage media being so cheap, the top 10 web hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth even on their basic personal hosting plans. So always look for a company that offers unlimited storage space and bandwidth.

Another good thing to look for when searching for a good hosting company, is uptime. This is the amount of time the server will be up and running, measured as a percentage. For example, many hosts will usually offer 99.9% uptime. That means the server could be down for maintenance maybe about 8 hours every year. The top 10 companies usually offer 99.99% uptime (less than 1 hour of downtime every year).

Another thing you may want to do is keep track of your site statistics. You’ll find that all hosts ( at least the major ones) offer some kind of stats tracking tool for free. You can use it to monitor the number of visitors on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis, even hourly if you so choose. You can also find out how many of those are unique visitors, how many just come once and how many are repeat visitors etc, as well as all sorts of interesting things like which browser they use and which website they came from before they got to yours. You can view graphs to see the trends also.

Do you want to add blogging to your site? Most hosts offer free blogging software like WordPress and Joomla.

And last but not least (perhaps the most important thing) is to look closely at reviews about customer support. Go only with companies that offer 24/7 phone support and some kind of email support, as well as live chat. Then hopefully you will have a happy web hosting experience.

John Guinn is the Founder and CEO of Complete Hosting Reviews, a website that publishes unbiased reviews of the top web hosting companies.

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