Creating a free website!

I have found a few places recently that allow you to do somethings that I have spent months researching online! First, let me tell you that I am very cautious about those "free" sites that offer you the opportunity to have a free website or other kind of online connections. Mostly they are just pure advertisement money makers for the companies that offer them. Now that being said, it would be crazy for a site to not take the opportunity to make some sort of money off of a site that you place on their server if that company lets you place your site for free. So you can guess that the sites that I am going to give you do place some sort of advertisement or tagline stating that they are powered by said company on the page or pages that they offer you. However, as I mentioned before, I have spent tons of time searching for these places and have run across a few lately that I have to recommend to the new webbie.

Mainly I recommend these sites for several reasons.

• First, the sites offering these make little or no money for your pages and some even let you make a nickle or two (and no, these are not affiliate sites so I am not making any money by recommending them... I truly admire these companies and what they have to offer).
• Second, if you are like me and have spent way to much time trying to learn programming languages just to get something other than your basic mySpace page, then these sites are not for you. They offer really simple web design portals that turn out great pages with minimum effort and virtually no programming effort (although the savvy user will be able to turn a page or two into a money maker... just be sure to understand the TOS for each site).
• Lastly, these sites are among the most recommended web 2.0 sites and are mostly new players to the field. And you will see, if you choose to visit one or more of them, that they will be around for quite a while.

So, enough waiting... now the sites!

Weebly.com lets users design homepages for themselves and has fantastic templates to get you started. Choose from over 20 professional designs to get you started then just drag and drop the elements you want on your page! Weebly.com lets users place AdBrite ads on their pages with ease or advanced users can always choose to use their AdSense ads with the custom HTML element.

Spruz.com is still in beta but is another great choice for the new web page designer! A step-by-step tutorial will guide users through designing their own page or (better yet) their own online social network. Just glancing at the choice of templates it looks as though there are over 100 designs to choose from and all are able to be customized once you have chosen one!

Shopify.com is by far one of my favorite finds! It lets anyone, and I mean anyone, set up shop and sell their own goods with several awesome storefronts to choose from. Each is customizeable of course or those who choose to program their own can take advantage of a nifty program on the site that lets you design your own store front (a bit of programming knowledge is neccessary). You will need to sign up with PayPal or Google Checkout in order to process your credit cards or you can use several other available methods. They only charge a low 3% of total sales up to $10,000 per month which can be much cheaper than buying your own site!

If you like these sites, keep in mind that most of them will allow you to use your own domain name. So, if you already have www.myshop.com, you can tell Shopify.com to forward all browser requests for www.myshop.com to your Shopify.com store. If they don't offer domain forwarding, keep in mind that your domain registrar probably does so you can still accomplish the same effect! If you use one of these sites, why not leave a comment or two for the other readers and let them know what kind of experience you have had with them. And as always... links to your site are always welcome! Thanks and happy designing guys!

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Can you Digg it?

Starting today, you will notice the Digg button below each post that I write in this blog. I hope that you will take a second or two to Digg the articles that you find important. If you aren't familiar with Digg, let me give you the low down. Digg is one of the hot websites that tracks what blog readers and web site surfers are "Digg"ing at the moment. It is kind of like marking an article as a favorite of yours. You should definately take a few seconds to create a profile on Digg if you haven't already because the network of people that you can meet will add definate linkage to your blog. Once you create that profile, please feel free to link to me. My screenname on Digg is TyinQuarter. In fact, that is my screenname on most any site so please feel free to look me up and add me! Digg my blog and add me as a friend so that I can Digg yours! Hope to Digg ya soon!

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Write, post, get paid!

Admittedly, I haven't given a potential money maker the time that I should. I am speaking of Associated Content and my efforts there over the last few months. Of course I am extremely attention deficit (but who isn't these days) and I have only fifty or so (million) projects I have in mind and half finished.There are only three posts that you will find if you search the site for my articles but I was impressed by how much I was offered for the articles and the page views I have received so far.

Associated Content lets it's publishers write about almost anything. One article I wrote was not approved because the editors felt that I was gaining money off of it with referal links when in actuality I wasn't. No biggie since they offered $7 for each of the other three I submitted. And with their new payment plan for page views, I can see the potential of great returns for a little more time investment on my part.

Constant contests, lots of tools, and quick payment through PayPal keep them in my list of favorites. Now... if only I could bring my attention to writing a few more 500 word articles for them. Stay tuned! Hope to see you there!


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Get the whole group together.

Maybe you've gotten a great group of your friends together and they are going to help you brainstorm ideas for the next million dollar website you are hoping to build. The only problem is you have ten people in ten different areas of the world. How do you get them all together at one time to have an effective meeting? The answer is web conferencing from MegaMeeting.com.

Are you a business looking for an easy way to conduct online web conferencing with video and audio services? Do you want to find a quick and painless method for conducting online meetings with prospects, clients and employees? Try MegaMeeting, a browser-based video conferencing software. MegaMeeting requires no downloading, installing or configuring of software – all you need is an internet browser, a broadband internet connection and a web camera or digital video camera (if you wish to be seen).

Sounds like the best way to get the group together might be to get a quote from MegaMeeting.com and get that million dollar site one step closer to completion!



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Need to save cash on phone calls?

Okay most people these days have a cell phone and think they have no need for phone cards or another means to make long distance calls. My recent experience in Chicago taught me that you can't always rely on your mobile phone. I use a major carrier (which I will not name because I really like their service) and have their prepaid plan. It just so happens that while en route on the airplane, I inadvertently left the phone on. Despite that warning from the flight attendant, it didn't bring the plane down but did run my battery out as it searched for a signal at 35,000 feet! Well, I was in Chicago for only one day (ironically interviewing for a flight attendant position) and had NO access to my phone as I left my charger in New Orleans. Huge city... no clue where I was... and I had to find a phone card to call my ride that was picking my up that night back at the New Orleans airport. I wish I had found Pingo.com earlier!

Pingo offers the best global phone card deals with all sorts of crazy incentives for signing up on their website, referring friends, or being creative (more on that in a minute). No need to worry about the company as they are a service of iBasis, a public company and one of the largest carriers of international phone calls in the world. One of the best features in my opinion is the "PINless" dialing. There is no need to enter a slew of numbers just to reach that friend waiting at the airport. Signing up gets you four hours of international calling and a $5 bonus depending on your sign up package. Now, if you are creative (here's the fun part) -- Pingo.com is working with Qoof.com to pay $5 to the first 250 Pingo user-mercial videos posted! Interested in their affiliate program? It pays $15 for each new person who you sign up for their calling card program (I'm checking this out after this post)! Refer your friends and earn $5 for FREE calling! This company is definately worth checking out if you have a blog and want some "perks"!



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