One of the things that has really frustrated me has been the commonality of the template that I chose for my website.  You see, I am no programmer by any means, so I went with one of those free templates that you can get online.  Sure it was nice, but what I didn’t like is that it looked the same as everyone else’s.

So, I decided that I could maybe buy a stock photo that would allow me to differentiate my site from all the others.  I knew that it would be a small step, but it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

So, I asked my online friends where I could get stock photos royalty free that were both great quality and a good price. They did have some suggestions that I decided to try and in the end, I went with a smaller stock photography that had the images that I was looking for.

Now, my site looks much better and I am proud to call it my own.  I hope that in the next couple of months that I will be able to get a new template designed for me, but in the meantime, I am happy with what I have.

I have been trying to figure out what I should do when it comes to website hosting.  You see, the paid web hosting company that I was with closed their doors and disappeared, leaving me high and dry in the process.

Now, I thought that I could maybe find another paid hosting provider, but after my last experience, I have felt very leery about spending any more money.  It could be that I am just too cheap to get quality, expensive hosting, but I need to find something that I am comfortable with.

One of my good friends suggested that I use some free web hosting in the meantime to tide my sites over until I find a permanent solution.  I don’t know if that is the right way to go either, as you hear so many horror stories about free web hosting companies disappearing as well.

Even though I have no idea as to what I am going to do, I will have to make a decision quick - every minute that those sites are down is costing me money that I just can’t get back.

I have been working on a website design for the past five hours and I am getting tired.  What started as a rough sketch on paper has taken a life of its own and the site is almost done.  In fact, if the completed product looks as good as what I sketched out, it will be the most impressive website that I have created yet.

But, I cannot take credit for the whole thing.  Sure, I came up with the concept, but I didn’t make the site from scratch.  I used a JavaScript menu builder and some quick and easy web design software to make my dream a reality.

I am still ironing out some kinks as I don’t really think that the header that I came up with is as perfect as I would like, though it is coming close.  Hopefully, I will be able to get it done tonight before I fall asleep - then I can show off my masterpiece in the morning.

I am having a lot of fun learning new things about websites, the Internet and how to make money online. I thought that I was pretty knowledgeable about the web, but it turns out that I have a lot to learn. I guess this is a good thing because I love to learn.

I have been teaching myself a lot about Internet marketing and what it can do for your Internet business. I have not attempted to make money online, as I would love to learn a lot more about it before I try my hand at it. I think that knowledge is power and I would like to be powerful when I put my mind to something.

I know that I will one day attempt to start my own online business, but for now I am happy to be learning and it give me time to decide exactly what I want to do.

Ever since I started building websites, I have had just one hosting account.  It was a reseller account, so I had a lot of space and bandwidth for my sites.  But as the years have gone by, I have been running out of space and bandwidth, and I have needed to upgrade my hosting.

So, I have been looking for a new web hosting company to deal with our growing Internet empire.  We have been in talks with a number of DotNetNuke web hosting companies to find one that would be able to accommodate our website network.

Whatever the outcome of our search, we need to find something quickly.  I think that we will outgrow our current hosting by the middle of next month, so we will need something in place by then.

If we can’t find something ourselves, we will take a look on the many hosting forums for a solution for us.  Until then, we will just have to hope that the current hosting doesn’t go over its limits…

One thing that I have learned about business is that it pays to follow trends.  Whether you create them or just follow them is basically irrelevant, but if you know what is currently popular, you can tend to make the most money.

A good example of this would be the Internet.  If you have been following the Internet trends news lately, you would know that having a blog is a key to getting traffic to your website and developing a following.

But even though you might have a blog, you still need to use some sort of RSS submission to make sure that your feeds (and site) get indexed quickly in the search engines.  This way, your site will benefit from the massive amount of free traffic that the search engines provide.

I find that the key to my online success has been following and implementing strategies that take advantage of the current trends.  If you are not doing this, maybe it is time that you should - your site will do much better if you do.

I recently joined an affiliate program that would allow me to sell mobile phones and mobile phone plans in the UK.  It was a very lucrative deal and the commission I was earning was far superior to what I would earn in North America.

But, my biggest challenge was to figure out the best way to market only to a UK based audience - people from other countries would be unable to take advantage of the offer I was presenting.

In order to reach only the UK, I contracted an SEO UK company to consult me on the best practices for what I wanted to do.  I figured that they would have the best knowledge on how to market to their own country and could share any tips or tricks that they knew of.

They were able to help me out by using an SEO link building service targeted just for the UK.  Not only did it work wonderfully, but my site hold the top ranking for many keywords when searching for UK search results.  Their service was definitely worth the money.

I came across a forum today where five website designers were showcasing their work and people were voting on the best design of the bunch.  I was in awe at the quality and creativity that they all exhibited and they were definitely some of the best website designs that I have ever seen.

But, as with any competition, there can only be one winner.  So, I carefully looked through all the entries in an attempt to make an “educated decision” as to which one was the best.

After careful deliberation, I decided on the New York web designer as his work was stunning.  I had never seen such a well crafted template in my life and he deserved to win the prize.

It looks like the contest will be closing tomorrow, so I will have to check back and see who won.  Man, there was sure some nice looking designs there…

Though I am happy with the general layout of my website, the header graphic leaves something to be desired.  Even though the website is selling art online, or header image looks very much like a three-year-old drew the picture.

Instead of trying to attempt to create our own graphic, we submitted tenders to couple of graphic designers in town along with our requirements for them to come up with a header that would exemplify what we are offering as an art dealer.

Though it took a couple of weeks, the graphic designers that we submitted our requests to have come up with their own unique spin on the perfect header for our site.  We will have to get the design approved by the board, and then we will be able to put the winning header on our site.  It will be nice to finally have a professional image as opposed to looking like a child may the graphics for our site.

I have been looking at online auction sites and in forums in an effort to find a good web store to buy and take over.  You see, we specialize in buying and flipping websites, and our speciality is in shopping sites.

So we have been on the lookout for any e-commerce that is not performing well, but shows potential.  We use a system that we have developed to determine if a site qualifies or not for our needs.

Lately, we have been looking for sites that will work with the ecommerce package that we are currently using.  It would be a shame if we had to use another platform for our stores as we are very happy with our current service.

Speaking of our current service, they are nice enough to provide us with aspdotnetstorefront hosting.  It has been very reliable and there support has been great.

Well, I should look some more and hopefully we will be able to find a good deal today.