Free Hosting

I do not recommend free hosting. With the plague of garbage on the web many people may not be willing to link to sites that reside on a free host.

A commercially oriented website needs to show significantly greater quality for me to want to link to it if it resides on a free host. In addition free hosts usually put some ugly banners on your site which ruin the page flow and make it look exceptionally unprofessional.

I have seen some blogs do ok which were hosted at Blogspot, (Blogger’s free host) but that exception is based on the fact that blogs are generally more personal in nature and not so commercially driven.

Additionally if you create a subdomain and eventually want to move your site it may be hard to move some of that link popularity to the new location.

Choosing a Domain Name

Before You Begin:
Often times many web based businesses fail because they do not have a functional business model. Before you even chose a name for your site you should know your target audience, what you intend to sell to them, and what will make your business idea unique or different than everything else that is already on the market.

A Horrible Domain Idea:
Many people think it is super important to have keywords in a domain. People purchase domains like look-4-buy-cheap-discount-viagra-online-pharmacy.com. This is a horrible domain name!

Keywords in the domain name are usually important, but it usually can be done while keeping the domain short, memorable, and free of hyphens.

Glossary Terms

.Edu
.Edu is the string awarded to learning institutions, and is considered highly trustworthy by the search engines as .Edu domains are not available to the general public. .Edu awards are determined by EDUCAUSE and under the authority of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Because institutions receiving .Edu domains have been carefully vetted by EDUCAUSE, search engines give more authority to links from these sites.

.Gov
A domain string restricted for use by U.S. government entities and not available to the general public. .Gov awards are overseen by the General Services Administration (GSA), a famously wasteful independent U.S. agency. Search engines give more authority to links from these sites.

Above the Fold
In the digital world of email and websites, it is the area viewable on the screen when the email or page initially loads, without scrolling, based on an average or standard screen size and resolution.

Using PPC to Increase Traffic and Revenue

PPC advertising is a very popular tool to many, but is not always used as effectively or efficiently as it could be. Advertisers often end up paying a substantial amount for targeted keywords, but later discover that they are not seeing a commensurate uptick in visitors or sales. Here are the keys to using PPC to increase not only your traffic, but also your conversions:
• Choose keywords carefully.

What is PPC?

PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, is an Internet advertisement opportunity used to drive traffic to a website. PPC has proven to be an effective search engine marketing tool with many savvy site owners and SEO professionals. PPC ads can deliver immediate traffic, but for a price. It’s important to understand how PPC works and how to use it to ensure you get the most for your money.
The mechanism behind Pay-Per-Click marketing is simple. Search engines, like Google, Bing, and Yahoo, auction off ad space on their SERPs.

How to Recover from Bad SEO

The quest for good search rankings can sometimes steer good websites down the wrong path. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of inconsistency in the SEO industry over the last decade.
While there are many excellent SEO professionals out there, there are also plenty who are either  incompetent, willfully unscrupulous, or dumb enough to believe that the worn-out, black-hat tactics of the past are still helpful to rankings today.

Social Factors

Today businesses are finding social networking websites helpful in developing authority. Regular information posted to these social sites like Twitter and Facebook can generate authoritative links as content is shared. The more a "tweet" from your Twitter account is shared by others on Twitter, or by your friends on Facebook, the more authority you can gain from the search engines as they see your followers consider you an expert.
Videos, images, and infographics are ways to generate more social networking with your brand or product. Creating these types of media makes it easy for users to share them with others, making it possible for one image or video to be shared across networks of people quickly. Social networking sites such as Pinterest.com are making sharing of these types of media fun and simple, all the while generating more traffic and authority for site owners. Videos posted to Youtube.com also have the benefit of showing up quite regularly, and often more quickly, in search engines.