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Free Downloads
Service
Sellers Masters Course - Explains how to attract new clients from
around the world... Or from around the block.
Netwriting Masters Course - Want to sell more? Write better. Write smarter. First, write to PREsell. Then write to SELL. The *ONLY* course on the Net that shows you how to do BOTH
Affiliate Masters Course - Become a high-earning affiliate champion.
Make Your Net Auction Sell!, The Masters Course - Start and grow a profitable Net auction business.
Webmaster BUSINESS Masters Course - Show Webmasters how to run the BUSINESS of WebMastering... Super-assisted, of course, by the ultimate PRODUCTIVITY tool.
Make Your Price Sell!, The Masters Course - "How much money are YOU leaving on the table?" Price with complete confidence & double your Net profits.
InfoProducts Masters Course - Brainstorm, create, produce, and sell your very own information product online
Free Services
SpamCheck -
use it to keep your e-mail out of the trash! Just send them a copy
of your e-mail newsletter or promotion and, in seconds, they'll return
a "spam score" and recommendations on how to decrease the
odds of your e-mail being filtered.
SiteSell Value Exchange is a fast, ethical, real and effective link exchange. It can never get you into trouble with a Search Engine because they (SiteSell) simply put you together with a small number of other quality sites and then stay out of the process. All the Exchange does is greatly accelerate what happens (tediously) in "the real world." Note: they won't accept your site if they don't think it is of sufficient quality.
Additional Information
Got
a passion? Then click on the link for information on how to use
the internet to help get your business up and running. This is ideal
for the small business person just starting out.
Master the Word to Webmasters - more information on how you can help your customers be more successful online.
Google's AdSense -- A Revolution in Web Site Monetization. A Tailor-Made Way to Monetize Your SBI! Site!...
Web Site Creation
Sitesell's
sitebuildit! - You will find here everything, absolutely everything,
you need to start your own ecommerce venture including FREE training
materials and educational courses, ebooks on all aspects of ecommerce,
software and tools to assist you in preparing your ebusiness blueprint,
domain registration and web hosting, tools for website design and development,
strategies for getting traffic to your website and a host of other
services. It's all available from a single source which means that
you don't have to worry whether one component will fit into another
or not.
Online Stores - "Store Build It!" is going to be the most powerful combination of CTP and best-in-world store-selling online.
Web Hosting
Lunar
Pages -
They have a state of the art data center, located in Los Angeles, California,
that provides the highest level of security, safety, redundancy, reliability,
salability and technology. They are multi backboned with Mzima Networks,
NTT/Verio, Global Crossing, Genuity and Cable & Wireless. which
means you will have a fast website. Industry reviewers report they
have better than 99% uptime. They use the latest version of the CPanel
5 control panel with features such as mailbox modification, password
changes, ftp login modifications, statistical information, and so on.
Their customer support includes telephone and email access.
Naked Hosting - specialize in adult web hosting and adult amateur websites. From shared virtual hosting to dedicated servers, they have the ability to fulfill your needs now and in the future. In the adult industry, they are considered a highly reputable hosting company with a proven track record. All their services utilize extremely high bandwidth connections. Technically, they rival the best web hosts in the business with state-of-the-art equipment and an optical fiber backbone. In addition to web hosting, they offer content hosting, live streaming and on-demand video hosting services. They provide live customer service and technical support 24/7/365. They also offer fully managed services to all virtual and dedicated clients.
DPW Enterprises- DPW Enterprises hosts this site. I've been using them for the past 5 years with one of other sites and have always been satisfied with their service. They provide Standard web hosting, Mini-Site Hosting and an Online Newsletter Hosting Service at very reasonable prices. Each site come complete with pre-installed and pre-configured autoresponder software as well as free access to a members area that contains online tools, a script library and an ebook library for use of hosting customers.
Merchant Accounts - USA
and Canada
Charge.com -
A highly rated low cost service catering to all size business from
the home based to the large corporation. Free setup for American Express
and for accepting electronic checks but there is a per check transaction
fee. Additional setup fees may apply to Discover Card and Diner's Club
card.
Electronic
Transfer Inc. -
Offers credit card merchant accounts to small businesses, Internet
merchants, and home-based businesses. ETI has one of the highest approval
rates in the industry. Additional setup fees may apply to American
Express, Discover Card and electronic checks.
Merchant Express - Offers discount merchant accounts, credit card processing and E-commerce solutions for businesses through authorize.net. A free shopping cart is provided and authorize.net is compatible with most available shopping cart systems.
Merchant Accounts - Alternate
Payment Methods
PayPal - For small business and especially service providers, I recommend
PayPal.
PayPal offers a simple cheap and reliable on-line method of receiving payment
for
goods
or
services. Customers can
pay directly
by
credit
card
and the
proceeds are credited to your PayPal account. One of the nicest things about
PayPal is that anyone with a bank account can get a PayPal account even people
who don't qualify for credit cards. Purchases are debited directly from the
customers bank account. Available in most countries.
2checkout.com - 2checkout.com basically acts as a distributor for all kinds of merchandise over the Internet and can accept most forms of payment. A basic cart is provided and there are several third party carts that are compatible. International payments are accepted only through Visa and MasterCard.
Merchant Accounts - International
World
Pay - WorldPay gives you everything you need to begin selling online
to the world - quickly, safely and securely. I have personal experience
with WorldPay and have never had any problems with their service as
either a customer or a merchant. The merchant account, international
fraud protection and secure payment gateway are bundled in their service.
Installment and subscription payments accepted and are set up and cancelled
online by the customer which is a very nice feature.
Durango Merchant Services - Durango Merchant Services provides Merchant Accounts & Merchant Services for US/Domestic companies, Mail Order companies, Telephone sales, Hard to acquire merchant accounts, eCheck and electronic check Processing, Offshore Merchant Accounts and Casino Merchant Accounts.
Eagle Merchant Systems - Eagle Merchant Services offers retail, international and online merchant accounts. Includes a shopping cart and a merchant control center, but can also be integrated with most commercial shopping cart software. Also provides for recurring billing.
Merchant Accounts - Individual
Propay - ProPay is a cost-effective alternative to
traditional merchant account offerings providing individuals and small
businesses the ability to process credit cards. ProPay gives you the
ability to process Visa, MasterCard and Discover. ProPay is only currently
available to US citizens.
Merchant Accounts - High
Risk
iBill - iBill Complete is designed for businesses selling
services and subscriptions that do not have a merchant account. Products
and pricing options are presented in a shopping portal environment allowing
consumers to search for the products they desire. No solution available today
offers more options than iBill Complete. Under the merchant account, we accept
Visa, MasterCard, Discover and JCB credit cards, online checks and Web900
telephone billing. IBill does accept adult oriented businesses as clients
and almost any other legal business.
Web Site Designers
DPW
Enterprises - My recommendation for most
smaller businesses. A New Jersey design shop that specializes in special purpose
websites
for
small
businesses.
They
provide
sites designed for the specific type of business at very reasonable
prices. You can also get autroesponder, shopping cart, affiliate program
and other software installed and configured if your business needs
it. In fact, if you host your site with them, you get pre-installed
and pre-configured autoresponder software FREE as part of your hosting
plan.
E-Commerce Shop - A Detroit, Michigan Company that offers an Internet Website presence for one low rate including a secure shopping cart and secure charge card ordering, necessary for selling your products online. The design will be tailored to your specific product or service so the potential customer or client will have all the necessary information to make the right choice - to buy your product or go with your services.
Other Software
Business
Plan Pro from Palo alto software will help you create
a top notch business plan. It is easy to use and has many neat features
including
more than 400 sample business plans and an array of wizards to guide
you through virtually every page of your plan, making your questions
about sales forecasts, market analysis, cash flow, and business terminology
a snap.
Shopping Cart Software
1st
Shopping Cart - My recommendation if you sell hard goods. All
of 1stShopping Cart services integrate into your existing website.
If
you sell actual
physical products,
this
company
can provide all of your needs. Their best product can handle the delivery
of digital goods as well. So if you sell hard goods or both hard goods
and digital goods, you definitely want to consider using this service.
eCompal - Another service for selling Hard goods is Ecompal. Ecompal is an online service that easily integrates into your web site. The nicest thing about the Ecompal service, especially for the smaller or specialized business, is that you can purchase as little or as much of their service as your business needs. Ecompal's gold service provides a shopping cart with online credit card processing, email order notification, a 225 item product catalog and notification of abandoned shopping carts for a monthly fee under $20. For a small additional monthly fee (approximately $5), you can add Quick Books integration.
1AutomationWiz - My recommendation if you sell ONLY digital downloadable goods. All of their services integrate into your existing website. If you sell only digital products, this company can provide all of your needs. 1AutomationWiz.com is an Application Service Provider (ASP) whose shopping cart software provides integrated digital delivery for ebooks, software sales, etc., electronic coupon and discount modules, broadcast email capability, ad & Revenue Tracking, "Pop-Up" Windows wizard, a contact and survey web forms generator, support for multiple web sites all from the same account, an unlimited product database, a 10,000 client database and integrates with 57 payment processors. An upgrade can provide auto responders and affiliate tracking software. They also allow payment with PayPal in addition to merchant accounts. That can be a definite plus since not everyone has a credit card but everyone who has a bank account can get a paypal account. 1AutomationWiz.com charges a monthly fee.
A Shop Software - purchased shopping cart software that offers a fully customizable catalogue, handles multiple currencies, integrates with most payment processors, provides digital product delivery, shipping and handling calculations, allows discount coupon codes, provides for password protected membership directories, 2-tier affiliate tracking software, can email both customers and affiliates and can integrate with free e-mailers for extended capabilities, generates sales reports and provides for an unlimited number of order fulfillment email addresses (a must for drop shipping). The product is installed on your website. Or if you prefer you can host your website with Ashop and get the Deluxe shopping cart software installed on your hosted site for a monthly fee.
Tax Software
TurboTax -
TurboTax, from Intuit, comes in three flavors, Deluxe, Premier and
Premier Home & Business. TurboTax Business is designed for the
Partnerships, LLCs or S-corporations. It can import data from Quicken
and Microsoft money and would be my choice if importing data is important.
Tax Cut - TaxCut Premium Home & Business includes all pertinent forms for business reporting (1040, 1120, 1120S, 1065, 941, 1041 and 990). It is good choice for most small businesses and it can import data from Quicken and Microsoft money. TaxCut State comes in versions for individuals and for businesses per state.
Accounting Software
NitroTaxHelper - My recommendation for the home based business. It's an inexpensive
program designed for an online business offering services rather than
products,
a consultant
working
for a
parent company
or
any individual receiving a commission that is generated by your website.
Provides you a total of every kind of income and expense you have for
the year so you can easily see where you are earning your money and
more importantly where you are spending (or overspending) it. It has
fully customizable income and expense categories so you can configure
it specifically for your business needs.
Peachtree Accounting - A popular business accounting package. Peachtree offers tools to create a Web store and integrate data with its Peachtree Accounting programs. With Peachtree WebsiteCreator Pro and Website Trader, businesses can build a commercial Web site and online catalog.
Quick Books - My recommendation for any business. The most widely used business accounting program that can integrate with several shopping carts.
TWSC Affiliate Lite - I use this program on one of my other websites. It is PHP based and installed on your web server. It works with PayPal, clickbank and most other shopping cart software. It does require programming knowledge to install and make the necessary modifications to make it work for different landing pages. The company that hosts my websites, DPW Enterprises will install it for $100 and that includes the purchase price of the software.
My Affiliate Program - My Affiliate Program easily qualifies as one of the top choices for fee-based affiliate management software. It offers tracking on a pay-per impression, click, lead, or sale. Paying affiliate commissions is easily managed and direct deposit via Paypal is fully supported.
AssocTrac - While it doesn't have all the features of My Affiliate Program, it comes close - and it's a whole lot cheaper. It was designed to integrate flawlessly with any shopping cart system, e-commerce site or secure server. AssocTRAC delivers reliable affiliate sales tracking.
Interneka - offers flexible affiliate tracking management. Interneka is fully compatible with any shopping cart. It's also extremely easy to setup. All you have to do is cut and paste some code and you're ready to go. Interneka allows affiliate commissions to be paid using Paypal. You can also export your database to Quickbooks.
Synergyx - This purchased software is designed primarily for those who want to run an affiliate program and distribute digital products but can be used to manage the sales of hard goods as well. It comes with a fully integrated shopping cart that can be used with the most popular merchant accounts and payment gateways. Synergyx comes completely installed on your servers so you control everything for a one-time flat rate. The only drawback is that the software must be hosted on a UNIX or Linux web server.
Ultimate Affiliate - This CGI based purchased software is provided by Groundbreak software and is a CGI script that provides a clear, user-friendly interface using your web browser. It is easy to setup provided you have some HTML and web site maintenance experience. The programs integrates with a variety of billing systems, allows up to 12 levels of commissions to your affiliates, provides a customizable sign up form. Allows you to email your affiliates. Provides fraud protection. Can process recurring commissions for subscription-based sites. Provides affiliate stats tracking. The program uses a My SQL database.
LinkShare - LinkShare is one of the leading commission-based affiliate networks around. Commissions are tracked via impressions, clicks, leads, and sales. A major drawback of LinkShare is the inability to send affiliates email notification after each order you receive.
clixGalore - allows you to build your own affiliate program and boost your sales, leads and website traffic by promoting and building your own large 'pay for performance' sales team. clixGalore works seamlessly with 99% of all shopping carts and stores. These include Yahoo Store, Paypal, PaySystems, WorldPay, Miva, DigitalRiver, CCNow, 2Checkout, Digibuy, EziMerchant as well as many others. On a cost-per-click basis, using a pre-approved/preferred pool of affiliates, clixGalore is able to send you qualified leads to your merchant program at budget pricing. You have complete control over spending limits and the overall growth of your program through clixGalore's online monitoring tools.
Books
Branding
the Net by Dan Janal provides an excellent insight to what the
branding process is and why it's so important.
A to Z of EDI, Second Edition by Nahid Jilovec is an informative book that can help you decide if your company can benefit from using EDI.
The Copyright Handbook by Stephen Fishman is an excellent source for more detailed information on copyrights.
Getting Permission: How to License and Clear Copyrighted Materials Online and Off by Richard Stim is a comprehensive look at how to get permission to use copyrighted material and avoid lawsuits.
The Public Domain by Stephen Fishman is a guide to creative works that are in the public domain, which can be copied without the worry of copyright infringement and without the need to pay fees.
Trademark by Stephen Elias is an excellent source for more detailed information on trademarks.
Logistics & Fulfillment for E-Business : A Practical Guide to Mastering Back Office Functions for Online Commerce by Janice Reynolds is the best and most readable book I've found on the subject of order fulfillment for an internet business.
Smart Cards: Seizing Strategic Business Opportunities by Catherine A. Allen, William J. Barr and Ron Schultz is basically a primer on how to use smart card technology in business that is aimed at business people rather than software developers.
HTML 4 for Dummies is as a good place to start as any to get your feet wet in the world of HTML coding. The Dummies series of books does not assume you know anything about a topic, so they really do start at the beginning.
Learning Web Design. is a great beginner's book that will walk you through the entire web design process.
Branding
BrandU is
run by Why Communications which are a group of professionals in the
field of company branding. They offer self-paced courses, tele-classes
(some free), recorded workshops, live workshops, on on-line community
for their customers and one-on-one mentoring. You can find everything
you need to create a successful brand at BrandU.
Domain Names
DPW
Enterprises- My recommendation. I've personally been using DPW Enterprises for the
past five years. They are a reliable registrar that provides good service
at
reasonable
prices.
I’ve never had any problems with their service.
RegistrerFly - RegisterFly is a newer service that seems to be one of Dotster's chief competitors. I find the web site somewhat difficult to navigate and to find detailed information. But, considering the lower prices and all the free services, the next time I register a new domain, I plan to give them a try.
Other Services
Inc-It-Now -
is a company that will incorporate your offshore business and help
you establish a US presence.
Internet Law Compliance System - is a system that was put together by a law firm in Greenville, SC that provides all of the necessary legal forms for a website and instructions on what to do with them on your website. It's not expensive and certainly worth doing. I use their system on all of my websites.
VerticalResponse - is an online service allows you to create do it yourself email marketing. They only allow you to use your own opt-in email list, but they provide tools to help you build and manage your email list from your website. You can publish a newsletter, send targeted emails using your own designs or their templates and track the results of each mailing. In fact, their service checks to see whether your potential customer can accept HTML email or whether the email needs to be text only and will send your message in the correct format for each recipient. You can also create post cards that will be sent by regular mail to your customers.
Website Traffic
Trafficology -
is one of the best sources of information for generating website traffic
that I have found. Traffocology is a Private Membership site where
you get all the insiders tools for what is working right now to get
more traffic to your website - and how to turn that traffic into profits
with free and low cost proven tactics.
Stomping the Search Engines - a very good and reasonably priced home training program for Search engine optimization called Stomping the Search Engines. The course will provide you with all the essential information in a step-by-step format which eliminates most of the confusion surrounding search engine optimization.
Web Design Software
Macromedia's
Dreamweaver - My first choice for HTML editors is Macromedia's
Dreamweaver. It has an easy to use, intuitive user interface and state
of the art design tools. It allows you to split your screen top and
bottom and work in both the Source Code and the WYSIWYG Design View
windows simultaneously allowing you absolute control over what your
pages look like. With a customizable user interface, you can work the
way you need to. You can design intricate CSS-based layouts and designs
easily with tools that allow for quick selection and control of page
and site wide style properties. There is a built in graphics editor
that uses Macromedia Fireworks technology. Dreamweaver allows you to
develop HTML, XHTML, XML, ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP, and Macromedia ColdFusion
websites.
Microsoft FrontPage - When I first started building websites I used FrontPage, mostly because it didn't require me to have any knowledge of HTML and, at that time, it was included in my copy of Microsoft Office Premium. FrontPage includes the professional design, authoring, data, and publishing tools needed to create dynamic and sophisticated Web sites. Its major drawback is that your site must be hosted on a server running Frontpage server extensions to use the more advanced features.
123 WysiWyg HTML Editor -There is a newly released program. It has an easy to use interface, good instructions, has the capabilities of the more expensive editors that most people would actually use and is easy to learn. I reviewed this program and liked what I saw. There has been a need for a product somewhere between the more limited free HTML editors and the expensive professional programs like Macromedia's Dreamweaver.
With the bonuses the creators of this software are currently offering, it’s also a very good value.
TSW Webcoder - No matter if you're a rookie who wants to learn how to make websites, or a professional looking for a decent working environment, WebCoder is a great choice. WebCoder has long list of settings and a fully customizable interface. Best feature is that it's free for personal use. Webcoder is a partial WYSIWYG design program. Some things can only be done it text mode.
Business Tax Information
The list below provides links to the US Givernment and State Agencies for additional information on business taxes
Federal - Us Department of Treasury Tax Information for Businesses