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Chapter 1: Before You Start
Essential Tools
You're probably expecting me to try to sell you a whole bunch of stuff here...
...Well, I'm not going to do that. The fact is there is a zillion different tools, tutorials, software programs, scripts, etc., that I could recommend buying - but unless I know what you're trying to achieve (for example which specific marketing ideas you're attempting), I'd be wasting my and your time.
However, there are two things that I think that every serious web site needs:
- Its own domain name
This is important for some of the promotion/ideas discussed in this eBook, but also allows you to present a professional image and keep the same URL if you change web hosts).
- Good quality web hosting:
You want to a web host doesn't plaster your site with their ads (which eliminates most free hosts), is reliable, and has all the technical features that you need. Of course, I don't know what particular technical features you might need (and perhaps even you don't, if you have decided what kinds of scripts etc., to run your site), so it's impossible for me to make a specific recommendation.
There are also three things (the first of which you can get for free) that I think that most webmasters should consider getting at an early stage:
- Get some kind of visitor counter, preferably one that is unobtrustive and will allow you to see where you are getting visitors from, graph number of visitors over time, and show you referring URLs (how visitors got to your site). There is a good free one at SiteMeter.com
 (which you can optionally upgrade for a fee to get extra features).
- Some kind of ad tracking script, like Click/Counter Tracker
 , AdTrackZ or DynaTracker. This will allow you to determine whether people are clicking on your ads. (Note: while these kinds of scripts have some overlap with visitor counters - they are not the same thing. Visitor counters are usually unable to tell which specific ads generated a response, and how many responses for each ad - whereas these ad tracking scripts can).
- If you're paying for advertising (in ezines, for example), it's obvious why this is useful - you can immediately tell whether any particular advertising campaign is generating results.
- If you're placing free ads (on classified sites, for example), this will allow you to whether all your efforts in placing ads is generating a worthwhile response, and more important which free advertising sites (and which of your ads) are generating the best response.
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