Web Wizardry Shop in STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine

Web Wizardry Shop
Tips and Tools for Web Masters
by Michael Star ©1999-2005
A Web Wizardry article in
STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine.

What's Web-Wizardry?
In this section called "Web-Wizardry" - or "Web-Wiz" for short - I want to share some of the tricks, tips, traps, and time-saving tools I have come across since I first published the STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine web site in July of 1996. Hopefully, it will help save some time and trouble for those of you who are thinking of putting up your own pages on the Web, or for you web masters already maintaining a web site on your own. On this page are links to tools and services which a web master will find useful in creating, maintaining, marketing, and making money with his or her home business web site. Learn HTML, site design, search engine optimization, site promotion, mail list management, free traffic building tips, how to make money from affiliate programs, how to accept credit cards, how to publish an e-book, how to start your own newsletter, and how to build a web site that makes sales while you sleep.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Domain Name Search & Registration Improve Search-Engine Position Add a Search Box that Pays

Web Site Traffic Analysis Accept Credit Cards Online - Without a Merchant Account Income from Affiliate Programs

Income from Pay-per-Click Banner Ads Autoresponder Follow-up System Mailing List Management

FREE REPORT: How to Earn $130,267.33 Online Without Spending A Penny on Advertising. Find out the Insider's Secrets to Making Money-On-Demand Online Without Having Any Products of Your Own: Click here! Triple Your Traffic & Sales Winning the Affiliate Game

Why Free Web Sites Cost Way Too Much (and can cost you more than you want to lose!) How to Register a Domain Name SEO: Optimize web pages for top search engine rankings.

Build a Web Site That Sells!
Sorry to shatter your dreams of instant success, but "If you build it..." they won't come. You can build a pretty site, but nobody knows it's there! You have to get top search engine listings to attract tons of FREE traffic - or you will end up paying forever for advertising. And you get top listings by building pages from the ground up with the right content and key words, so search engine spiders will love them and list them high. This is a complete site building and hosting system which even "newbies" have used to build sites with high traffic that rank in the top 2% of all sites measured by Alexa. I did that the hard and slow way in 1996. But now you can do it the fast and easy way! Web Ad Magic: Maximizing Your Profits from Your Advertising!
Here's how to get your hands on a huge collection of winning auto responder messages, emailed sales letters, and ezine ads to model, copy, and swipe. Over 1,235 pages! Written by top Web marketers and ad copywriters, these are the ads that have proven successful for the top Web marketers - and they can bring in sales for you when you use them as guides or templates for your own ads and modify them to suit your product or service. Why reinvent the wheel? Use what works! Click here to see how Web Ad Magic can save you time and money on advertising - and bring in more sales!

Affiliate Mistakes: Maximizing Your Profits From Affiliate Programs!
An ebook that saves you time, and makes you more money! Ebook Secrets Exposed:
Make Money Selling eBooks - even if they are not your own!
Free article: First Step To A Best-Selling Ebook The Top 7 Mistakes eBook Authors Make. Now you don't need to make them - if you read this first!

How To Find Your Niche Market - where there's less competition, and a stream of serious shoppers looking for something you can sell! A "Must Have" Tool You Need to Track Advertising ROI (Return On Investment), because you MUST know: (A) WHICH ads make you the most money, and (B) WHICH ads keep wasting your money! To make a profit: Do MORE (A) and STOP doing (B). The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth About Internet Marketing
This ebook was actually written "under oath". It exposes all the usual "marketing hype" and shows you what really works! Highly recommended.

Discover How To Improve Your Web Site's Profitability. Generate more leads and make more sales! The Best Way To Track Clicks, Sales, and ROI From Your Advertising and Marketing - so you can keep doing what works, and stop doing what doesn't! Amazing Pop-Ups - How to use pop-ups to boost your sales and newsletter sign-ups! Make it easy for your visitors to join your mailing list with a single click.

Internet Marketing Guru Can't Give Away $100 Bills!
A Bizarre But True Experiment Reveals Why Most Fail - And What You Can Do To Boost *Your* Profits Immediately. You're not going to believe this... Get the full story! Get this FREE newsletter called Letter From Phil. It's by Phil Wiley of Australia, the author of Mini Site Profits, and is one of the few newsletters I really look forward to. An always-interesting mix of tips, tools, books, and affiliate program reviews, plus his personal "Internet lifestyle" philosophy. How to Write Hypnotic Letters that get results!
If your sales letter or web page doesn't move your prospect to take action, it's a wasted effort. Learn how to write letters that really motivate people to do what you want them to do.

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Get a Free Showcase Site! You get a professionally-designed portal site that lists hundreds of merchants who will pay you a commission for sending customers to their web sites. Your free Showcase also provides a search facility for you and your visitors to find topics of interest. You can feature your own favorite affiliate program at the top of the page, and if you upgrade to the Pro version you can also rate the merchants' programs with one to five stars so that ALL the programs YOU joined will come up first when people do a search. You can also change any of the merchant site links to include YOUR affiliate ID code, so YOU will get the commissions when your visitors purchase from the merchants they find in your Showcase. This is a great way to start earning money from affiliate programs. Not only can you find the all the good ones here, you can get your own Showcase site up and running in just a few minutes! Click here to see how to get your own Affiliate Showcase Site for free!

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Searching for Available Domain Names and Registering Your Site's URL

If your web site has a commercial purpose, it is best to have your own .com domain name and an email address which is yours to keep, no matter where you may move your business or your web site. Click here for a discussion about choosing the domain name, registering your domain name, parking your domain, DNS redirection services, mirror sites, virtual hosting, and other matters involving domain names.

Note that if you are considering using the highly-recommended Site Build-It! service and its many tools to plan, create, host, register, manage, and promote your new web site, be aware that this excellent "everything-in-one-place" service INCLUDES the cost of hosting your site and registering your domain name with them. And as part of his money-back guarantee, Ken Evoy will allow you to keep your domain even if you decide to take him up on that guarantee! Dr. Ken advises that you use the Site Built-It! keyword and theme tools BEFORE you select a domain name, so that you will choose the best one to help customers remember it, and also one which helps your site get the highest position in the search engine listings.

TIP: You can use a hyphen in your domain name's URL (e.g. great-gadgets.com). If your domain name contains key words which help describe the nature of your business (and it should), it may help you get a higher ranking in the results of a search-engine topic search if you separate the words with hyphens, since most search engines treat them as a space and thus you can have two or more key words, which some engines give extra weight to when found in the domain name. In the example of great-gadgets.com a search which includes the key word "gadgets" may turn up your site near the top of the listing, while using a name like greatgadgets.com may not ("great" might show up in a search, because it shows up at the beginning of the name, but that won't do you any good).

Also, try to use the plural form of the word (with an s on the end), since it will usually get matched in a search for either of the plural AND singular forms, while the singular form may not get matched if the user enters the plural form. In other words, gadgets is better than gadget in your domain name.

TIP: If you want to get extra exposure for your web site in the directories and search engines for a particular country, it may help (or be required) that you have a domain name from that country, such as a .uk domain name for England and the United Kingdom, or a .ca domain for Canada. For a Canadian domain, I recommend EasyDNS. They really DO make it "easy" to register your domain name. Note that most domain registrars in the U.S.A. are not offering .ca domains. EasyDNS is located in Toronto, Canada, and offers both .ca and .com domains.

TIP: Before you actually reserve your domain name (unless you are in a big hurry to lock it down), check with the web hosting service where your site is or will be hosted, to find out the details which you are going to have to enter when you register your new domain name, otherwise you may spend a lot of time filling in forms before you discover you cannot complete the registration until you can enter some detail you don't know and can't find quickly. One thing you will need to know is the IP address of the "Name Server" your domain will be listed on. Often there are two, or sometimes four URLs for these name servers.

If you don't know the required details (or don't have a web host yet) and you still want to reserve your preferred domain name, you can have a temporary web page hosted (called "parking" your domain) at the company which registered your domain until you are ready to direct traffic to your new site, but it may cost you extra, such as a small annual fee in addition to the usual registration fee. Have your credit card handy, since you will likely have to pay up-front by entering your credit card number.

Some hosting services which offer help in registering your domain name (and earn a commission for it) will also offer a temporary web page on their server (sometimes for free) which your new domain name can point to until you get your new web site set up with the new content.

Other name registrars like EasyDNS may have a "DNS redirection" (or "stealth redirection") service available which lets you direct traffic from your new domain name to a web site you already have established (even if it has a different domain name), or lets you easily change the web host where it points at a later time, or lets you quickly redirect your visitors to your backup site if your original site goes down - similar to a "call forwarding" service for your telephone number. (For redirection service, I recommend EasyDNS, whose link is above, or else MyDomain.com.) Be aware that you may not be able to use DNS redirection when your site is hosted on a subdirectory of an ISP or free hosting service - one where there is a / after the root domain, like home.istar.ca/~starman. It may have to point to the root domain, such as www.mybusiness.com in order to work. But EasyDNS does offer this feature for an extra annual fee.

TIP: URLs are not case-sensitive, but you may want to use, OR in other cases, avoid capital letters in your advertising, so that your potential customers who try to type your company name into the address bar of their browser or into a search engine will be able to type it easily and spell it correctly - and actually find your web site! Sometimes adding a capital letter in a two-word name helps avoid typographical errors or make the name clearer (e.g. AstrologyZine.com), but since the general public usually sees .com addresses advertised in all small letters, it may be best to advertise your URL in small letters too.

For the same reasons, it is better to have a .com URL than .net or .org because the public is more familiar with .com and will expect your URL to end in .com - and because browsers like Internet Explorer 5 will automatically assume a domain name typed into the address box ends with a .com extension and starts with the http:// prefix. Your potential customer might type in your company name correctly, but end up visiting the web site of a competitor who has registered the same name, but with a .com after it! If you can, you should try to register all three variations of your domain name, just to keep opportunistic competitors from registering a similar domain name and confusing your customers (i.e. stealing some of your potential traffic). The extra $10-$35 per year per additional domain name might prove to be cheap insurance in the long run.

TIP: Using www. or not, is a choice you may have to make. It is possible to have either http://www.yourname.com or just http://yourname.com work correctly to direct people to your Web site - but you should check with your Web hosting service to make sure they CAN set things up so that both addresses work. It may take some programming changes in their system, so don't just assume both ways will work. On some web hosts, you may have to change a setting yourself to get the www. version to work properly. Check this out before you decide which way you are going to advertise your domain name URL! (Or which web hosting service you will choose to use.)

Wouldn't it be a shame to do all kinds of things to promote your new web site, and perhaps spend a lot of time and/or money doing it, only to find out later that all the people who wanted to visit your site by typing just the URL yourdomain into the address box of their web browser, or were typing the URL www.yourdomain.com were getting a "page not found" error or "site not found" kind of error because the web servers that host your site were only configured to accept yourdomain.com (without the www.) as a valid URL for your site?

Remember that the InternetExplorer browser and some others may be automatically inserting the www. at the start and a .com at the end when someone only enters a single word (depending on how the browsers settings are configured). Don't forget to test this for yourself before you publicize your URL in one form or the other, and if possible, insist that your hosting service set things up so that BOTH versions of your URL direct visitors to your web pages - or some may not be able to find you! If your host can't do this, and you don't want to change hosting services, then at least be certain you are publicizing the one version which does work!

My new hosting service does let people use either www.AstrologyZine.com or just astrologyzine.com to find my site. But just to check out what I was saying here, I thought I should test my IE5.5 browser with the URL for my mirror site, which I know does NOT accept the www. in front of its URL - which is horoscopes.hypermart.net. Now hypermart.net is a huge hosting service hosting over a million business sites, and it ONLY hosts commercial (money-making) sites, yet their DNS servers are not set up to allow either the supplied domain name with or without the www. prefix to work. If I type in www.horoscopes.hypermart.net into my IE5.5 brower's address box (or type just the phrase horoscopes.hypermart without the .net at the end) then I get an error page saying the site cannot be found! I think hypermart.net is a very good hosting service with reasonable fees and and reliable service, yet when you don't register your own .com domain name and have it point to the name of your account on your hosting service ("horoscopes.hypermart.net" in this example), then your visitors may be subject to the kind of problems I just illustrated in getting to your site that only uses the host-supplied domain name - and some may not be able to find your site!

On my main hosting service for AstrologyZine.com, which is on a different hosting service, I tested MS IE5.5 and found that BOTH astrologzine.com and www.AstrologyZine.com get me to my home page. But when I type in just AstrologyZine I get taken to the MSN Search page, where it shows my "spelling" has been corrected to "Astrology Zone" and I am presented with a list of eleven web pages, none of which are mine! There is an option at the top for "Don't correct my spelling" and search again. When I click this, I am presented with a list of two "Web Directory Sites" pages which are both mine, and then under the title "Web Sites" is a longer list of web pages, the first two of which are mine.

If a potential customer typed just AstrologyZine into the Microsoft IE 5.5 browser, they would NOT find my site listed - unless they happened to notice that MSN had changed the search term to "astrology zone" or they noticed and clicked on the "Do not correct my spelling" option. I wonder how many people are going to astrologyzone.com when they type "astrologyzine" into their IE browser. I tried clicking on the listing which said "Astrology Zone", which is a RealNames keyword (they are possibly out of business by now, since MSN ended their affiliation with them, but MSN is still showing the link today), and clicking it resulted in a "page not found" error. I then looked for the listing for "astrologyzone.com" and it was apparently a go.com paid listing which at this time also led to a "page not found" error.

This must be very frustrating for a potential customer who wanted to find my AstrologyZine site, but didn't type in the .com at the end, either because they expected the browser to add it automatically (which would work if it did) or because they weren't sure if my site's URL had a .com extension. Or is Microsoft just trying to hijack visitors who don't type in the URL fully and send them to other sites which pay them for listings? You decide. To be fair, when I typed www.astrologyzine into the IE5.5 browser, it gave me an error page which asked if I meant to look for www.AstrologyZine.com and below that it did list two URLs which were to pages on my site. But you would think that a good search engine would list www.AstrologyZine.com in its first page of results when the key word entered was "astrologyzine", wouldn't you? How many other sites would have that exact coined word in their URL? Wouldn't "astrologyzine.com" be the first logical choice?

Results may vary when YOU try this with YOUR web site URL, which is why you should test things like this thoroughly when you are setting up your domain on a new web hosting service. Make sure that your potential customers can find your site, or at least know what you need to do to minimize the chance that they will end up at a "Page Not Found" error page and assume you are out of business - or else end up at a site run by one of your competitors who paid for a listing on a certain search engine!

This is especially important when you are advertising in off-line media or just saying the name of your site to people you meet, where the potential customer may be going by memory in searching for your web site later, and might leave out the www. or the .com - or use .com when your site URL is .net or .org. It would help to have the .com version registered as your domain and pointing to your site (see "DNS redirection" above), even if you want to use .net or .org or any country extension like .ca or .uk or .au or .de for your main site URL. And, most of all, it helps to have a simple and memorable domain name!

Now you know why I wanted "starsigns". Hey! I just tried entering only "starsigns" into the IE5.5 browser and found my OLDEST web site home.istar.ca/~starman listed in the number 3 position for "Web Directory Sites", but not in the "Sponsored Sites" section above it (good thing I still maintain the old site). Clicking on the "Internet Keyword" link for "Star Signs" in the "Featured Sites" section at the very top, listing number 1 for the words "star signs" which now mysteriously appear in the MSN search box instead of "starsigns", actually took me to a site in the UK which sells signed photographs of movie stars and celebrities. And it is listed as a "sponsored by RealNames" site (i.e. somebody paid a lot of money to buy this key word phrase). Who would have known that a search for a specific word like "starsigns" and modified by the MSN search engine to "Star Signs" would take you there - instead of to a site actually named "Star Signs Astrology Zine"? And you wonder why you aren't getting enough visitors to YOUR web site?

This demonstrates to me how is is far better to rely on the no-ambiguity, no-misdirection, clickable links from other web sites that are willing to exchange links with you (or will just recommend your site by linking to it because it's a useful resource for their users), than to rely mainly on search engines actually sending people to your site - even when they are looking specifically for your site but don't know how to enter the exact URL. But that's another subject... (see next paragraph)

I would highly recommend that you do your submissions to the major search engines (by hand) but ALSO try to get as many other existing web sites as possible to link to your site. You can do this the hard way by searching for likely sites whose themes are a good match for yours (i.e. whose visitors could also be interested in YOUR service or product) and then writing to the web masters to ask that they place a your link on one of their web pages. You can do this the easy (and probably better) way by using the Zeus Internet Marketing Robot - Automatic Reciprocal Link Generator and Link Directory Creator.

Zeus is a highly useful and time-saving tool, and well worth the cost because it will automatically find the kinds of sites you tell it to search for, present you with a list of sites you can easily check out yourself, and send a customizable email letter to the web master of any site you want to ask for a link. It also creates many co-ordinated and themed "Links" web page for you automatically - and much more. You can try this tool for free, and will likely want to get the upgraded version once you see how valuable it can be to your business. Just the time it will save you is worth the price, but the value of having perfectly "themed" pages of links on your site is considerable, in terms of both how many "qualified" (i.e. "interested") prospects those incoming links can generate for you, and how well your site "ranks" in the major search engines (higher rankings mean more visitors).

Check out Zeus at the link above, and you will at the very least learn a whole lot of things you may need to know about getting potential customers to your web site. Read their "Webmaster Resources" pages which offer some valuable information you may not know right now - including the real truth about some search-engine "myths" that you often hear on the Net. Quite frankly, I get more new visitors from other sites linking to AstrologyZine.com than I get from ALL the search engines. Getting other sites to link to you can be way BETTER than getting good listings in the search engines.

You really need to work on getting BOTH sources of traffic set up so they keep the customers coming. Using Zeus to set up incoming links will get new visitors coming within a few days or weeks, while submitting to the search engines for a free listing can take weeks or months before you actually get listed and see any traffic coming in.

Search Engine Rankings / WebPosition Analyzer

The first thing a webmaster usually does do to start bringing visitors to see his creation is to get his pages' URLs listed in the index of the major search engines. Once the pages are listed, WebPosition can track their rise in rank to the "Top Ten" (or their descent into obscurity). Get a free 30-day trial version of WebPosition Analyzer.

Click here to download the free 30-day trial version of WebPosition Analyzer

The WebPosition product pages are worth a visit just to learn some useful facts about search engines and why it is so important for webmasters to get their pages listed in the top ten search engines.

Click here to see the product description page for WebPosition Analyzer

For useful tips on the latest developments in submitting pages and improving your pages' positions in the search engine rankings, check out this page where you can subscribe to First Place Software's free monthly Market Position Newsletter.

Site Build It! is an all-inclusive site building and hosting service which includes tools to automatically submit your site to all the major search engines and automatically monitor your listings and resubmit, if necessary, in the proper manner so that the search engines will not ban your site for "spamming" them. It also monitors and reports on the current positions for your pages in all the major search engines. If you have a Site Build It! web site, you won't need WebPosition Analyzer.

Putting a Search Engine on Your Site and Getting Paid Whenever Visitors Use It

The major search engines are getting slow to add the newest sites and update their listings, and some are giving pages full of irrevelant results when you search for a key word or phrase. More and more, people are turning to specialized smaller search services which offer better and more convenient results, often by searching several of the major search engines at once and removing duplicate listings. Your visitors are going to leave your site at some point anyway, so why not help them go to where they really want to go by providing a useful search engine right on your site?

Some of these smaller search engines like Kanoodle.com will pay you a few cents each time one of your visitors uses the search box on your site and clicks on one of the listings in the search results, so why not make a little extra money while providing a useful service to your visitors? All you have to do is sign up for their affiliate program and they will generate the appropriate HTML code (with your member ID in it) for the search box of your choice, which you then cut-and-paste into your own page (or several pages) before uploading the revised page(s) to your Web server. After that, the search-box link will make money for you without any further effort on your part, while providing a useful service for your visitors.

Other search engines will offer you a specialized search box so your visitors can search for key words on YOUR site only. Often there will be no charge for this service because the search engine gets some free advertising on your site in exchange for the use of their customized search box and the HTML code you use to install it on your web pages. This is worth considering, since you want your visitors to find the information they are seeking on YOUR site while they are there, and not go to some other site they find in a search over the entire Web.

Analyzing Your Web Site Traffic
Knowing how many visitors are coming to your site and reading your pages, what pages they read, how long they stay on your site, where they are coming from, and other statistics about your web site's traffic and operation is important information you can use to design your site better and increase its effectiveness, whether it is meant to offer free information or to generate sales of your products and services. WebTrends Log Analyzer is a popular and highly-rated professional software package which will generate many types of useful reports for you, after automatically analyzing the cryptic traffic log files your ISP's server should provide for you as part the service you are paying for. Click on the WebTrends banner for more information about this useful traffic analyzer, and download a free trial version directly from the WebTrends site.

Accept Credit Cards on Your Site

Click the banner to obtain information about accepting credit cards on your site.

Accepting credit cards online through a secure transaction processor will make it easier for your visitors to purchase your products or services, and it is said that when secure credit card transactions are offered online, your total orders will increase by up to 100%, and the number of items purchased can increase to 2.5 times the previous average. How many sales have you lost because someone didn't want to write and mail a check, or go offline to place a phone order? When visitors see that you cannot accept credit cards, do they wonder if you aren't running a serious business, or if your bank didn't trust you enough to give you a merchant account?

But it is expensive and difficult to obtain a merchant account from your bank for use on the Internet, and even if they will grant you one, they often require a large security deposit of thousands of dollars (my bank wanted $5000). Even if you can get a merchant account for one card, you still need to get one for every card you want to accept, which often means dealing with one bank for Visa and another bank for Master Card.

And getting a merchant account does not necessarily provide a means of processing credit card payments automatically online. You would have to get your customers to email or fax their card data, or else provide a toll-free phone number where they can phone in their order and give their card data to a live operator. That means you would have to be able to answer that order line 24/7 - which you may not want to do yourself or pay people to do for you. A secure online transaction service is much easier and more reliable, and does not put any extra obstacles in the way of the customer who is ready to buy now and pay now. It is also fully automatic - you don't have to do anything to accept payments, they come in even while you are asleep or out of town. And you don't need to pay for a toll-free phone number, unless you want to be able to also serve the small percentage of customers who insist on giving their credit card number over the phone.

There are "third-party" credit card processing companies which use their own merchant account standing and proven track record with various banks to be able to let you process credit card transactions through their secure servers, without requiring you to have your own merchant account. Fees for this "Guaranteed Merchant Status" service will vary, but often are reasonably low, and will be offset by the increased sales and income you will make by being able to offer convenient secure credit-card payments right from your web site, and by your savings on the cost of doing things the alternate way. You don't even have to get an 800 number or lease equipment, or do any work yourself! You just add the appropriate HTML code on your order page to link to their secure server, and they will do all the checking, authorizing, and collecting of credit card payments, then send you a check or deposit directly to your bank account.

Your customer enters their private data into a form on the secure site, then gets bank authorization and a receipt in less than a minute. Your site will make money even while you are on vacation!

TIP: Be careful in choosing a company to handle your credit card transactions, since they will have your money for some period of time before they pass it on to you. If they happen to go out of business (or are less than honest), you could lose some money! I use and recommend InternetSecure, a long-established service which is physically located in Canada, near where I live (they offer secure US and Canadian dollar processing for merchants located anywhere in the world), and there are also many companies in the USA offering similar services, such as iBill and E-Commerce Exchange (established in 1989), whose banner appears above.

TIP: If you cannot arrange for the ability to process ALL the major credit cards, choose Visa for sure, since the majority of your orders will likely be paid for with Visa, especially the ones from outside North America.

TIP: A "US dollar" account will probably be your best choice, even if you live and operate your business outside of the USA. American dollars are more or less the "standard" currency all over the world, and people in foreign countries are likely used to seeing prices quoted in US dollars and know the approximate exchange rate for their own currency. I live in Canada, but only accept US dollar payments for the credit cards I can process, and this has not been a problem, since the card company will convert the US dollar amount into the currency of the country the customer lives in automatically. I also find that the vast majority of my paying customers are from the USA, although I often get Visa payments from all around the world.

My fellow Canadian customers also have the option of paying by check or cash or money order in Canadian dollars at the current US/CD exchange rate, so they are not forced to pay in US dollars if they don't want to make a US dollar credit card payment. You will likely have to pay a fixed monthly fee to accept different currencies, so choosing just "US dollar" is the most cost-effective way to go, especially when you are a small business just starting out. You don't need that extra monthly expense when you are not processing a lot of payments in that less-used currency, for those fixed monthly service fees can add up to a significant percentage of your actual income when you are not processing large numbers of dollars per month.

You will have to pay the monthly account fees even if you are not collecting any payments that month, and sometimes those fixed fees can be greater than the customers' payments you are trying to collect! It can hurt to have to pay a lot of money just to collect a little money when you are just getting your business started - but if you don't accept credit cards at all, you may not have many sales at all. Think of it as being like buying a cash register when you first open a bricks-and-mortar store - you have to pay for the cash register even before you make any cash to put in it!

I wish things were not like this, but I have not found any credit card transaction processor who doesn't charge a fixed monthly fee just to use their merchant account, in addition to a fixed per-transaction fee as well as a percentage fee you pay the credit card company on each dollar they collect for you. And if I did, I would first wonder if it were a "too good to be true" deal from a fly-by-night outfit who might disappear with some of my hard-earned income they had not yet sent me.

Be aware too, that with any credit card processing company there will likely be a fee you pay if a transaction is reversed (a "charge back") because the customer used a phoney credit card number which was not caught by the bank's verification system, or because a customer was dissatisfied with your product or service and refused to pay the credit card company the amount billed to them (a "disputed transaction").

You can also be subject to a charge back and a processing fee if your customer is just a deadbeat who received your product or service and then disputed the billed transaction just to avoid having to pay you (if you don't have an actual signed receipt for delivery of your product, you are likely out of luck and out all the money). I had one customer, thank God only one in six years, who had actually sent me an unsolicited email thanking me for my service and saying it was good - and then the next month they turned around and disputed the credit card payment they had voluntarily made AFTER I had delivered the information product to them by email. I lost not only the fee I was owed, but also lost another $20 in the fee I was charged for the card company to process the charge back! And the email letter I had retained was not good enough proof of delivery for the credit card company because it was not "signed" - so I was just out of luck, and also out almost as much money in charge back fees as the amount of the entire lost $25 sale! This might have been a case of a teenager using a parent's credit card without permission, and then the parent disputing the charge, but it could happen with any customer who later decides they don't want to pay for something they charged to their credit card.

You, the merchant, don't have much protection against this happening when you accept credit cards in payment. Only if you insist on shipping via a delivery service who gets signed receipts for delivery (and you ship only to the name and address registered with the credit card) do you have a chance at getting paid and not paying a fee for the privilege of losing it. (The card owner is "protected" from fraudulent merchants, but the honest merchant gets little protection from dishonest customers.)

You don't have much control over "charge backs", but you can try to get a transaction processing service that has a track record of detecting fraudulent credit card use (using AVS, the "Address Verification System") and keeping the percentage of charge backs to a small percentage of total transactions processed - typically, less than 1% of total dollars processed is a good rate, and I can vouch for InternetSecure's track record with my account in that I have lost less than 1% to bad credit cards. Be prepared to write off that percentage of your sales to bad debts, but make sure you don't also have to write off too much additional money in the form of "charge back" fees you must pay for the privilege of being ripped of by a customer. The fixed charge back processing fee can be a significant percentage of the lost sale, if you are selling low-priced items (and that extra fee is probably not entered into the calculation of dollars charged back compared to total dollars collected, which is the "percent of transactions" number the processing company might quote you as their track record for fraud detection).

It may help ease the pain a little to consider that if you were taking personal checks in payment, you would also lose a percentage of your sales to bad debt when some of your customers send you bad checks. For some reason, though, my bank does not charge ME a processing fee if I deposit a customer's check which later turns out to be "insufficient funds" - but I do have to pay a charge back fee if someone uses a bad credit card issued by that same bank which was processed and "authorized" through that bank's authorization service used by my credit card processing service, who passes on to me the fee the bank charges them. Taking credit cards is good for business, but it also involves some expenses you may not have been aware of at the outset. Some of them even seem unfair to the merchant (you), but you don't have much choice in the matter because all the credit card companies have rules which work in their favor and at your expense.

In effect, the bank is saying they will let you let THEIR cardholders pay you with the credit card the bank issued them, but it is up to YOU (through your transaction processing service company) to make sure the credit card is being used by the person the bank issued it to. (They never thought to include a secret "password" as they use with debit cards?). When the bank "authorizes" the transaction for your processing company (or for you if you have your own merchant account), you may think they are checking things thoroughly - but they are really only checking to see if the available credit limit will cover the amount of the transaction, and whether the credit card has already been reported stolen and that cardholder's account has been flagged.

They are NOT guaranteeing that the person who uses the card to pay you is actually the person who owns the card and WILL pay you, because you did not take an imprint from the card and did not get a signature from the cardholder and match it to the sample signature on the credit card. They like you to accept their credit cards over the Internet or by phone, so they can make a few percentage points on all the sales you make, but they don't like to take responsibility themselves when the way the card is used does not allow anyone to effectively check if the person using the card is the actual owner of the card. They even charge you a higher percentage fee than if you can obtain signed vouchers with an imprint of the card (apparently because they know there is a higher RISK of fraudulent card use) - but it is still YOU who must pay up if you happen to process a transaction from a crook who is using a stolen credit card number. The actual cardholder does not lose, and the credit card company doesn't lose - for the money is collected from YOU, even if YOU also lost the product or the time to perform the service you delivered in good faith.

Frankly, I would rather get paid by a personal check from Australia or England than process a credit card transaction. My bank in Canada charges me no fee (other than the exchange rate if it's in a foreign currency) to cash checks from Canada, the USA, and the United Kingdom. They also cash checks from any country if the check is drawn on an international bank (such as Lloyds of London or any American bank) and can clear through the US banking system (usually, if the check has a magnetic set of imprinted numbers on the bottom it will clear through any bank). I have found, in my case, that my losses due to bad checks, on a percent-of-sales basis, is less than the fees I have paid to collect money by credit card payments. If your basic processing fee for a credit card is, say, 4% of the dollar amount, then you can afford to lose 4% of your sales in bad checks and still come out the same. Actually, it's higher, because you have to add in the amount of monthly fees and per-transaction fees for doing credit card tranactions, which can easily come to 10% or more of total sales for a small, one-man business. Keep that in mind when you consider whether you want to accept personal checks or not. They might actually be less "risky" for you than the certainty of paying a significant percentage of your sales income to a credit card company.

Make Extra Income from Affiliate Programs

Click on banner to see affiliate programs monitored by Commission Junction.

By joining affiliate programs from popular quality merchants and suppliers, and placing text links or banners on your web pages, you can earn extra money in sales commissions or referral fees when your visitors visit and make purchases or sign up for a free offer. Some programs will pay 1 to 25 cents or more when a visitor clicks on the text or banner link, and some pay both for clicks AND sales. When the affiliate program is tracked and monitored by a trusted independent third party like Commission Junction or LinkShare, you can feel more secure in knowing that you will be actually be paid for ALL the clicks or sales your site generates for the merchant, and you can also conveniently apply for several programs all in one place and with just one or two clicks, without having to enter your personal and site data over and over again at each merchant's web site. You can also view the daily and accumulated results online, and all in one place, through the various online reports produced by the third-party monitor who collects traffic and sales data from all the merchant programs it monitors. Even if you don't make any sales, you can still get a commission on anything you purchase yourself from most (not necessarily all) of the merchants whose affiliate programs you join, so if you are planning a purchase anywhere, see if you can join the affiliate program first and then buy it from your own site!

I have used third-party-monitored affiliate programs such as Commission Junction and LinkShare (since December 1998), and can honestly say that they do produce extra income, provided you choose the right programs and place the links and banners in the best positions on your pages - and have enough visitors! I am now earning enough income from affiliate programs to more than pay all my expenses for my web site hosting and Internet connection, and you never know when one big sale might generate an extra large commission! One program alone has actually generated enough income to pay my ISP fees for the next six months! And the nice thing about affiliate programs is that once you sign up and place the links on your pages, you don't have to do much else but wait for the checks to come in the mail each month or each quarter.

To find a lot of affiliate programs in one place, and many of which have been recommended and ranked by myself and other web masters, visit the Finder-Fees Affiliate Showcase.

To learn how to really start making money with affiliate programs, and not waste time and effort by making the wrong moves, I recommend this book: Affiliate Mistakes: Maximizing Your Profits From Affiliate Programs!

Disclosure: If you sign up with Commission Junction or LinkShare for any affiliate programs they monitor, I will earn a small referral fee. This will not reduce your earnings in any way, and it would be a nice way for you to reward me for creating this free information page and telling you about a way to earn extra money from your web site - IF you choose to click on the banner above when you are interested in checking out the programs or are ready to sign up. Thanks!

Match.com offers one of the best-run and most generous affiliate programs on the Web, with high commission rates, excellent support and incentives, and reliable, on-time commission checks. I can personally recommend this one highly, based on my own experience as an affiliate since 1999. Click on the link above for information on the affiliate program for Match.com.

TIP: If you can choose the few affiliate programs which offer a "pay-per-click" commission, you will likely make at least a few dollars for your efforts and the free advertising you are providing, even if nobody makes an actual purchase. Some pay as much as 5 to 10 cents per click in addition to a decent commission on any sales, and that can pay for your ISP or hosting fees over the course of a month! Expect a click rate of 2 percent or less (20 clicks per 1000 impressions), but if your page's traffic is high enough, even a 0.1 percent click rate (1 per 1000) can make you money if you have several such programs advertised on your site.

If you are lucky enough to choose a hot-selling new item that your visitors will purchase, you can make some significant commission income from affiliate programs which operate on a pay-per-sale basis (most programs pay only for a completed purchase). Test the response you are getting on your site, and replace any program that is not generating sales with a new one that offers more potential income in exchange for the "free advertising" that you are providing. Don't forget that you could be using that "ad space" for something else, including an ad for your own service or product.

TIP: Choosing merchants whose products or services are related to the topic of your web site, and incorporating a text link (or small button link) through their affiliate program to a relevant page or product item on their web site within some appropriate paragraph or list on your own page, will usually generate many more clicks (and income) than a banner image on the same page for an unrelated product or service. And text links do not slow down the loading of your pages to any great degree, as banners do. The best results come when you have used the product or service yourself and can give an honest personal recommedation along with the text or button link!

TIP: DO NOT SPAM! Don't get suckered into buying one of those lists of 100,000 or a million email addresses and a program which mails your advertising to people who didn't ask to receive it, and don't want it. You will get many people flaming you and complaining to your ISP, and many ISPs will automatically remove your web site and email service for violating the agreement in your ISP contract about not using their servers to send SPAM mail. Besides, it annoys people and wastes their time (and the resources of the Internet) for no good purpose. Don't be one of the selfish, self-serving scum who sends SPAM. One of the people you happen to annoy might be a vengeful hacker who will do damage to your web site or "mail-bomb" your email server in retaliation. Note also that most affiliate programs will terminate your agreement (and you'll forfeit any commissions earned) if you send unsolicited email to promote their products or services.

Click on the banner above to see over 200 affiliate programs monitored by LinkShare - a reputable company that pays on time and has the most convenient system for joining programs and viewing your results, to save you lots of time.

Get Paid to Display Pay-per-Click Banner Ads

Pay-per-click banner ads can make you extra income when you place them on your web pages in places where you haven't been able to sell advertising space on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis. Sites which get smaller amounts of traffic will not be able to attract advertising on a CPM basis, but if your site is attracting about 500 unique visits per day (and isn't hosted on a free site like Geocities), you can probably join a pay-per-click program like the one operated by ValueClick. My site earned enough in the first month with ValueClick to more than pay my entire ISP fee for the month, and it has consistently generated a good income every month, more than most of the affiliate programs whose banners I display on my site. They pay on time as promised at the end of each month your accumulated commissions total US $30 or more, and offer online reporting in real time, so at any time you can see exactly how many impressions were delivered, how many times the banners were clicked, how much you have earned, and the current average click rate (clicks as a percentage of impressions or viewings). They pay US 6 cents per click at the outset, more if your site delivers a lot of clicks per month. All you have to do is place a few lines of their HTML code on your page(s) to display a standard 468 x 60 pixel ad banner, and they will rotate new ads so that a different one appears each time someone views your page. They also offer smaller sizes of banners. You can choose to NOT display any ads from any given advertiser in their list (which is available online), so you don't have to run ads which you don't like or which conflict with ads for affiliate programs you are displaying on your site, and you can choose to not run any ads about alcohol, tobacco, or gambling (they do not run "adult" site ads at all, unlike some other pay-per-click programs). It's a reliable money-maker and a good program run by an honest, reliable company, and I recommend you try running ValueClick banners on your web site to see for yourself.

Here is a sample of the type of banner ads ValueClick would display on your web site. If you are interested in the displayed ad and click on it, I will earn 6 cents... ,-)

TIP: Don't place banner ads right at the top of your page. They take a few seconds to load, so displaying some fast-loading headings and text at the top of your page will at least let your visitors have something to read while the banner loads into an empty box. You'll get more clicks if the banner is near the top of the page, but move it down a bit, closer to the bottom of the first screen if you can.

If you place the banner ad in a table at the top of the page, don't put it in the left-most table or make it the only thing in the table - put some text containing your page title and some desciptive words in the first table cell. The search engines usually give much extra weight to approximately the first 200 words (visible to your viewers) which appear in the source code, so you want the search engine spider to see and index YOUR key words and a description of your page's contents in those important 200 words, not the wasted words in an ALT="Click here to visit our sponsors" tag in the banner's IMG SRC code!

If you want to place another company's banner at the top of your page, use a TABLE and put YOUR keywords and important phrases and titles in the first TD section, and the banner code in the second TD section, so the spiders will read all your relevant words in the first section BEFORE seeing the irrelevant words in the ALT tag of the banner. This can improve your rankings in the search engines, so it's worth paying attention to!

TIP: Don't alter the HTML code supplied for the banner ads, or you may be in violation of your agreement and get dropped from the pay-per-click program (and not be eligible for payment). And don't try to cheat by clicking on the banners yourself - they can tell it's you, and you risk getting your contract cancelled and your commission income forfeited. It would be fraud, and you might even get prosecuted under the law. If you have to click to check if the newly-installed link code works, fine, but don't click too often! No, I didn't learn this the hard way... ,-)

Clip Art and Animated Graphics

Clip art is a convenient way add images to illustrate ideas on your web pages. Animated images, if used conservatively and appropriately, add interest and draw attention. Click on the banner above for some great free 3-D and animated clip art images you can use on your home page. For commercial use, you may have to pay a small royalty fee for permission to publish the images you choose on your own site.

TIP: Don't get into legal trouble by committing "copyright infringement" - make sure the images you publish really are free for public use (some shady sites offer "free" images that really belong to someone else), or that you have obtained proper permission from the copyright owners.

Setting Up Your Own Mailing List or Newsletter

Opt-in mailing lists have proven to be the best way to keep visitors coming back to your site when you send them interesting and useful information, and inform them about new content on your web site. When enough people have voluntarily subscribed to your email list, you can also sell advertising space in each of your periodic mailings to help pay for the time and effort you put into a free newsletter. Many advertisers know that targeted advertising in a niche-market emailed newsletter produces far better results than banner advertising on web sites, and they will pay you more to include their ad copy in your newsletter.

You can manage a small list (less than 800 to 1000 addresses) from certain email programs like Qualcomm's Eudora Pro (highly recommended over Microsoft Outlook as your regular email software). But now there is a new and most excellent piece of software you can install on your own server to build and manage your own opt-in mail list of ANY size. If you are going to be sending out a newsletter, you need to see this! (And check it out before they raise the price, because it is worth more than they are selling it for!)

OptIn Lightning (OIL) gives you a newsletter manager, an auto-responder which is highly customizable, and a smart and easy way to build your own opt-in mail list from your own web site traffic. There is too much to tell here, so click on the link to get all the details. This is an amazing product, and well worth checking out before you pay lots of money to have someone else manage your mail list. Get your mail list set up right the first time, and avoid a lot of time and trouble later on. This software looks like the best solution available in 2005.

In some ways, Opt In Lightning does a better job than even the professional mail list management services, such as in how it handles "undeliverable" email. Many services will just delete the subscriber if your newsletter is returned for any reason - but you may be losing a valid and valuable subscriber whose mail server was temporarily off-line, or whose mailbox was full at the time your letter came in! In general, I would advise you to keep control of your own valuable mail list of potential paying customers, and you can do that with this software which you OWN and can install on your OWN server. It is also much cheaper in the long run, and may be much more effective in making sales than other mail list management services. You can find out why on the OptIn Lightning web site.

The same company also offers some inexpensive software which uses pop-up boxes on your web pages to invite visitors to sign up for your mailing list. The beauty of Lightning Pop Up is that the visitor does not even have to enter his email address, he just enters his name and clicks OK on the pop-up box. His address is taken automatically from information passed on by his own web browser (the same way his IP address is sent in the header of the request to download your web page) and a blank "subscribe" letter is automatically sent from his own default mail program using MAPI, and received by your own mail program sitting on your own server, and also forwarded to your private mailbox where you collect subscribe requests. You can have the subscriber's request letter sent to your own autoresponder so that the subscriber automatically gets a welcome email right away.

What is also beautiful about this method is that it keeps anyone from subscribing a fake address or subscribing for someone else without permission, since their OWN email address is captured from the browser they use to view your web site (they don't get to enter the email address themselves). The software also captures their IP address, so you can see if someone is trying to pull a prank or do damage by subscribing multiple user names without permission (because all the requests will have the same unique IP address of the would-be troublemaker). Another advantage is that there will not be any errors in typing in the email address, so you won't lose a new subscriber because of a typo error. Take a look at Lightning PopUp and you will see how this inexpensive software could help you easily and effectively build your own opt-in mail list by inviting your site's visitors to sign up instantly in an uncomplicated, quick, and easy way.

When your mail list gets larger, you may want to have it handled by a professional list server like ListChannel which automates the time-consuming process of adding and removing the people who decided to sign in or opt out. Some offer free services if you allow them to insert their own ad into your newsletter, but often you are better off paying a fee for their services and keeping control over what your valued subscribers will see in your own newsletter. (When Microsoft suddenly closed down its formerly "free" mail list management service called ListBot, it caused great concern and extra work for its thousands of users who had to scramble to find an alternate service and transfer their data off the ListBot computers before it became closed off to them. Those who did not act fast enough may have lost their valuable list of subscriber names and email addresses.)

Quality of service, convenience of use, fees, and options offered will vary, so check out several list servers before you decide on who will handle your newsletter or periodic mailings to your precious list of loyal readers. You don't want the hassle of having to change list servers later, so choose wisely the first time, and plan ahead for when your list gets larger!

Back Up Your Important Files and Access Them From Anywhere via the Internet

Backing up your web site's source code and image files is good insurance against a possible glitch in your web host's system or an error in transferring your updated HTML files via FTP to your web server. Once in a while, I somehow manage to send an updated web page to my web server in BINARY mode, when it should be transferred in ASCII (plain text) mode, or I mistakenly transfer a .gif or .jpg image file in ASCII mode when it should be sent in BINARY mode (and the image then appears in web browsers as a mess of random colors). This can be fixed easily, as long as I maintain the original image and HTML files on my desktop or notebook computer, and can transfer the files again in the proper way to overwrite the corrupted ones on the web server. But what if I am out of town and don't have the latest files on my notebook computer, or don't have it with me, or it gets lost, damaged or stolen while traveling? What if my web host had a system crash and some or all of my web page files got corrupted or lost? How would I correct the situation or replace all the web page files on the server, even if I could use someone else's computer and Internet connection to connect to my web host via FTP? The original files would still be sitting on my desktop PC at home, where I cannot access them remotely.

Here's where a file backup on a free web-based file storage system could save the day. It could also save the day if my desktop computer were damaged or stolen, or if its hard drive crashed and corrupted my original files (a hard drive crash or some bad sectors will occur on your computer eventually). If I uploaded my entire set of web page image files on a regular basis to the server (in encrypted form), then whenever I needed to retrieve those original copies, I could access them via the Web from anywhere, using any Windows computer. I could download my entire web site's files and then transfer them via FTP to my own hosting service, thus replacing any missing or damaged files in a matter of minutes. As long as I remember my password and encryption key, I can access the backup copy of any of my important files from anywhere via the Web!

It's cheap (actually FREE) "insurance" to back up your important files using an online storage service. You can store any of the most-used file types by simply uploading them, using your regular IE or Netscape Web browser, to your free 100 megabyte space on "diaster-proof" servers. Using a Java applet and your personally-chosen secret "Encryption Key", your files are encrypted so that not even the service's own staff can read them, yet when you retrieve them by entering your personal Key, they get decrypted and delivered via the Web in the original form to whatever computer you are using (and you can use more than one computer).

I recommend that you back up all the files you cannot afford to lose, or may need to access while away from your home or office computer - especially if you are traveling with all your important files on a portable computer that could get lost, damaged, or stolen. A free service may only let you transfer only one file at a time, which is a little inconvenient when uploading many files, but there are upgrades available for a fee (starting at $3 per month) which let you transfer multiple files at once, get up to 1 gigabyte of storage space, and provide a way to keep files on two computers updated in sync.

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Click here to see the Web Wiz 1 page for more tips and tools for improving search engine rankings!

Domain Registration | Search-engine Position | Search Engines that Pay | Traffic Analysis
Accept Credit Cards | Affiliate Program Income | Pay-per-Click Banners
Clip Art & Animations | Mailing List Management | Back Up Files via Web | Triple Your Traffic
Winning the Affiliate Game |

Link to: | Free Daily Horoscopes | Free Weekly Horoscopes | Free 2007 Horoscopes | NEW Articles | Astrology Articles | Tarot Articles | Numerology Articles | Crystals Articles | About Michael Star | CONTACT Michael | Page-Top | Quick Site Index | HOME-Page |

Link to: | Personal Horoscopes | Vocational Astrology | Romance Astrology | Karmic Astrology | Horoscope Readings by Email | ORDER-FORM |

TO CONTACT Michael Star ...

Email ... michael@astrologyzine.com

Phone ... (905) 891-7436 from 11 AM to 11 PM E.S.T.
E.S.T.= New York or Toronto "Eastern Standard Time"
E.S.T. = G.M.T. -5 hrs.

E.S.T. is 3 hours EARLIER than P.S.T. in California (call 8 AM - 8 PM), and 5 hours LATER than G.M.T. in England (call 4 PM - 4 AM).

Write ...
81 Lakeshore East #51, Mississauga ON, Canada L5G 4S7

STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine (c)1996-2007 by Michael Star
e-Zine of the Arcane Arts:
Astrology * Tarot * Numerology * Crystals * Graphology
Free Daily and Weekly and Yearly Horoscopes * Psychic Stars Daily Oracle
Personal Horoscope Readings and Birth Charts
HOME page: http://www.AstrologyZine.com

Web Wizardry Shop
Tips and Tools for Web Masters
by Michael Star ©1999-2005
A Web Wizardry article in
STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine.

What's Web-Wizardry?

Click here to see the Web Wiz 1 page for more tips and tools for improving search engine rankings!

Searching for Available Domain Names and Registering Your Site's URL

Search Engine Rankings / WebPosition Analyzer

Putting a Search Engine on Your Site and Getting Paid Whenever Visitors Use It

Analyzing Your Web Site Traffic

Accept Credit Cards on Your Site

Click the banner to obtain information about accepting credit cards on your site.

Make Extra Income from Affiliate Programs

Click on banner to see affiliate programs monitored by Commission Junction.

Click on the banner above to see over 200 affiliate programs monitored by LinkShare - a reputable company that pays on time and has the most convenient system for joining programs and viewing your results, to save you lots of time.

Get Paid to Display Pay-per-Click Banner Ads

Clip Art and Animated Graphics

Setting Up Your Own Mailing List or Newsletter

Back Up Your Important Files and Access Them From Anywhere via the Internet

Triple Your Traffic, Triple Your Sales

Winning the Affiliate Game

Click here to see the Web Wiz 1 page for more tips and tools for improving search engine rankings!

Domain Registration | Search-engine Position | Search Engines that Pay | Traffic Analysis
Accept Credit Cards | Affiliate Program Income | Pay-per-Click Banners
Clip Art & Animations | Mailing List Management | Back Up Files via Web | Triple Your Traffic
Winning the Affiliate Game |

Link to: | Free Daily Horoscopes | Free Weekly Horoscopes | Free 2007 Horoscopes | NEW Articles | Astrology Articles | Tarot Articles | Numerology Articles | Crystals Articles | About Michael Star | CONTACT Michael | Page-Top | Quick Site Index | HOME-Page |

Link to: | Personal Horoscopes | Vocational Astrology | Romance Astrology | Karmic Astrology | Horoscope Readings by Email | ORDER-FORM |

TO CONTACT Michael Star ...

Email ... michael@astrologyzine.com

Phone ... (905) 891-7436 from 11 AM to 11 PM E.S.T.
E.S.T.= New York or Toronto "Eastern Standard Time"
E.S.T. = G.M.T. -5 hrs.

Write ...
81 Lakeshore East #51, Mississauga ON, Canada L5G 4S7

STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine (c)1996-2007 by Michael Star
e-Zine of the Arcane Arts:
Astrology * Tarot * Numerology * Crystals * Graphology
Free Daily and Weekly and Yearly Horoscopes * Psychic Stars Daily Oracle
Personal Horoscope Readings and Birth Charts
HOME page: http://www.AstrologyZine.com

Web Wizardry Shop Tips and Tools for Web Masters by Michael Star ©1999-2005 A Web Wizardry article in STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine.

What's Web-Wizardry?

Click here to see the Web Wiz 1 page for more tips and tools for improving search engine rankings!

Searching for Available Domain Names and Registering Your Site's URL

Search Engine Rankings / WebPosition Analyzer

Putting a Search Engine on Your Site and Getting Paid Whenever Visitors Use It

Analyzing Your Web Site Traffic

Accept Credit Cards on Your Site

Click the banner to obtain information about accepting credit cards on your site.

Make Extra Income from Affiliate Programs

Click on banner to see affiliate programs monitored by Commission Junction.

Click on the banner above to see over 200 affiliate programs monitored by LinkShare - a reputable company that pays on time and has the most convenient system for joining programs and viewing your results, to save you lots of time.

Get Paid to Display Pay-per-Click Banner Ads

Clip Art and Animated Graphics

Setting Up Your Own Mailing List or Newsletter

Back Up Your Important Files and Access Them From Anywhere via the Internet

Triple Your Traffic, Triple Your Sales

Winning the Affiliate Game

Click here to see the Web Wiz 1 page for more tips and tools for improving search engine rankings!

Domain Registration | Search-engine Position | Search Engines that Pay | Traffic Analysis Accept Credit Cards | Affiliate Program Income | Pay-per-Click Banners Clip Art & Animations | Mailing List Management | Back Up Files via Web | Triple Your Traffic Winning the Affiliate Game |

Link to: | Free Daily Horoscopes | Free Weekly Horoscopes | Free 2007 Horoscopes | NEW Articles | Astrology Articles | Tarot Articles | Numerology Articles | Crystals Articles | About Michael Star | CONTACT Michael | Page-Top | Quick Site Index | HOME-Page |

Link to: | Personal Horoscopes | Vocational Astrology | Romance Astrology | Karmic Astrology | Horoscope Readings by Email | ORDER-FORM |

TO CONTACT Michael Star ...

Email ... michael@astrologyzine.com

Phone ... (905) 891-7436 from 11 AM to 11 PM E.S.T. E.S.T.= New York or Toronto "Eastern Standard Time" E.S.T. = G.M.T. -5 hrs.

Write ... 81 Lakeshore East #51, Mississauga ON, Canada L5G 4S7

STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine (c)1996-2007 by Michael Star e-Zine of the Arcane Arts: Astrology * Tarot * Numerology * Crystals * Graphology Free Daily and Weekly and Yearly Horoscopes * Psychic Stars Daily Oracle Personal Horoscope Readings and Birth Charts HOME page: http://www.AstrologyZine.com

Web Wizardry Shop
Tips and Tools for Web Masters
by Michael Star ©1999-2005
A Web Wizardry article in
STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine.

Domain Registration | Search-engine Position | Search Engines that Pay | Traffic Analysis
Accept Credit Cards | Affiliate Program Income | Pay-per-Click Banners
Clip Art & Animations | Mailing List Management | Back Up Files via Web | Triple Your Traffic
Winning the Affiliate Game |

Phone ... (905) 891-7436 from 11 AM to 11 PM E.S.T.
E.S.T.= New York or Toronto "Eastern Standard Time"
E.S.T. = G.M.T. -5 hrs.

Write ...
81 Lakeshore East #51, Mississauga ON, Canada L5G 4S7

STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine (c)1996-2007 by Michael Star
e-Zine of the Arcane Arts:
Astrology * Tarot * Numerology * Crystals * Graphology
Free Daily and Weekly and Yearly Horoscopes * Psychic Stars Daily Oracle
Personal Horoscope Readings and Birth Charts
HOME page: http://www.AstrologyZine.com