Internet Marketing class, November 18 and 19, at JCCC
These links to web resources may be helpful to you after the class is completed.
Google webmaster tools:
Tools for site status, statistics, diagnostics, content submission, and sitemaps, among other worthwhile tools.
Domain name registration at GoDaddy
Thousands of registrars will help you register a domain name. GoDaddy has the mind share right now.
Thousands of hosting companies will host your site and your email address. Here’s three hosting the sites of my customers.
Web hosting by Dreamhost
Web hosting by media temple
Web hosting by 1and1
Build your own 404 error pages to replace the browser defaults. Friendly 404 pages keep the visitor around, and may help you, the web editor, to find problems missed by other link checking tools.
Custom 404 building at Plinko
Keyword development tools will help determine the unique sets of terms site visitors might use to find your site.
Keyword development with Wordtracker Wordtracker is a paid service, but offers a free trial with limited scope.
Keyword research using AdWords
Keyword density is calcluated in a formula:
Density=keyword frequency divided by total words on the page
Density of 7% is appropriate, while density of 10% and above results in stilted language and possible penalties by the search engines. You’ll need a worthwhile Keyword density checker
Adding search capability to your site helps visitors locate the information they desire more quickly. You can find and configure search for your site from
Custom Google search engine
Roll your own site search
Free site search from Atomz
Search Builder at Yahoo!
Usability and findability is critical for any site. Jakob Nielsen’s site, Jakob Nielsen’s Useit.com
Social networking tools can complement existing sites. Depending on the need, you might consider using:
My Facebook profile
Twitter
And you’ll want to find people using Twitter, so you’ll likely want to use Twitdir
Watching trends and looking for blog mentions can be done at Technrati
For a corporate approach to social software, you might take a look at LinkedIn
For sharing bookmarks (or Favorites in Internet Explorer speak), ma.gnolia
Books with companion web sites that cover the range of web work include:
Web Redesign 2.0. Kelly Goto, one of the co-authors, runs a web consulting company. The company’s site has content worth spending time reviewing.
Web Style Guide, now in a third edition, is an exceptional book, condensing a great deal of web design content into a short book.
Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think is another well done and short book on usability.
Email marketing covers a wide range of topics and skills. Here’s a few companies that will help shoulder the load.
Mail Chimp has moved into my top spot. Their preview package, showing how the email will be handled by various platforms and email clients is invaluable.
iContact does a very good of making it easy to send and track email campaigns.
Campaign Monitor, like the others, offers a trial period to evaluate their product.
Constant Contact is a fourth email product offering similar features to the other packages. Using the trial period to evaluate each package is worth the time.
Blogging tools include:
Blogger, from Google is a free blogging service that can have you up and running in a few minutes.
WordPress is extensible and a large number of developers build plug-ins and customized content management tools for WordPress users.
Movable Type offers a mature platform for blogging.
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