PHP is a programming language that allows your website to go beyond a basic HTML document, and create an interactive experience. Open source means that the source code is available to someone with proper access to the site, so that they can easily make changes. When the Internet was first getting started, most of the pages on websites were basic HTML documents. Meaning that when you visited a page (about.html, for example), you downloaded all of the content of the page into your browser.

How Do I Know if I have a PHP Site?

If you are visiting a site, and you see that the page name ends with .html, this means that the page is most likely a plain old HTML page. If the page name ends in .php, then the site is a php based site. Other dynamic programming languages include .jsp (Java Server Pages) or .asp (.NET or Active Server Pages). Occasionally you’ll see sites that end in .html that have dynamic code embedded in them, but this requires some tricks to accomplish on the server.

We have several sites that use static HTML pages and have great results. There are some pages that have dynamic content, but most of the pages are built in straight HTML. It’s great for search engine optimization, as some of those pages have been active for years. However, as the number of pages grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to update menu or navigation items, because it means you have to open each page, one at a time, and modify the contents.

Advantages of using PHP

PHP works a little differently. Instead of downloading the entire page (with the navigation, content and everything in one file), php allows you to embed programming code that isn’t displayed to the end user. This programming code allows you to tell the page, “Insert the top navigation here.” Or, “put the content for the page over there.”

PHP allows you to personalize a page, for example, or automatically detect that a user is coming into the site from a mobile device and display a different version of the site that is optimized for their Blackberry or iPhone. PHP keeps most of the code for the site “behind the scenes” so that the page that is displayed to the end user loads quickly and doesn’t require the browser to do processing work — the work is handled instead by the server.

PHP Is Ideal For Working With Databases

One of the biggest advantages of a programming language like PHP is that it allows you to easily interact with a database. If you’re unfamiliar with databases, think of a database as a souped-up form of an Excel spreadsheet. You have columns (i.e. page name, content, title) and rows. Rows typically would hold information that is organized by column headings.

PHP makes it easy to read information from a database, and then display information onto a web page. So, if you’ve ever used a site where you type in your zip code to find a store location near you, the system likely is taking your zip code, performing a database query (i.e. find all stores within 10 miles of the 80303 zip code) and display the results so that you can find your way. In order to do this, we have a geolocation database that allows us to tell the approximate distance between two zip codes.

You could do the same thing by building out a series of web pages that has each location. And while this is fine for three or four locations, as the number of locations increases, PHP allows you to automate the process.

Keep Content Organized

One of the ways we’ve been able to streamline the process of building websites is that we’ve standardized our process using our PageDirector content management system. There are many, many ways to build websites. Each designer seems to have a slightly different way of putting a site together. We are frequently asked to work on sites that other people have created, and in order to make simple changes to the content or navigation, we often have to dig around in the code to find where things are located. This takes time and isn’t very efficient. The PageDirector system, however, keeps all of the content for the site neatly organized in a database table. So that anyone can easily find the content and make changes quickly and easily. One of our clients said to me in an email to me yesterday, “It’s really efficient and a simple tool to use PageDirector. It makes my life easier being able to update the website fast.”

How Does It Work?

When someone clicks on a link to go to a page, the system pulls the right content from the database, grabs the menu items from another location, and on-the-fly creates the page for a person.

Summary

PHP is a server-based programming language that allows you to create an interactive experience for your site visitors, and keep content and other information organized within a database.

Next, Discover Here More Tips On How To Build Websites

With a high converting squeeze page, an online business will make more use of the traffic they drive to their website. With more email leads an online business can promote to, there are more chances of buyers for your products and services. Generating traffic is hard work so you want to capture as many of the visitors’ emails as you can when they visit your website.

Here are 9 steps to creating a high converting squeeze page:

1. Determine Type Of Traffic

Decide what type of prospect you want to attract with your squeeze page. Then create your squeeze page to attract that particular type of prospect only. Don’t create a squeeze page which caters for everyone. Your conversions of visitors to leads will suffer.

2. Professional Graphics

Create the best graphics you can for your squeeze page. Eye-grabbing graphics have proven in my tests to increase conversion rates. So hire a good graphics designer if you can’t design good graphics yourself.

3. Keywords

Make sure your squeeze page shows the keywords which the visitor is looking for. If your ad promises that they will receive an insurance review report when they visit your squeeze page, make sure your squeeze page shows the words “insurance review”.

This will confirm to the visitor that they are on the right page and they should find the information they are looking for.

4. Attention

Get your visitor’s attention right away when they visit your website.

You can do this by showing a headline that raises curiosity and promises benefits.

Once you have their attention, they will read more of your squeeze page.

5. Benefits

With your squeeze page, explain the benefits for the visitor if they sign up to your list.

Explain the benefits using words or video. Make sure that when you read the message on the squeeze page, you actually emotionally feel how signing up will benefit your visitors.

6. Graphics – Video/Report

If you are offering a free report or video on your squeeze page, create a graphic (called an ecover) for it.

This will make your intangible product seem tangible. Visitors will want their hands on your free offer. It’s all about packaging your offer.

7. Call To Action

In your squeeze page, make it very clear what you want the subscriber to do. Don’t make them guess that they should enter their name and email address to sign up to your list. Tell them directly in simple terms. Command them on what they need to do.

People react to commands. Telling them to enter their name and email and then click on the submit button is needed. This may sound silly, but tests have shown this to increase response rates.

8. Split Testing

With every squeeze page you create, you need to create another one with a slight variation such as a different headline, different benefits or place your sign up box in another place.

All squeeze pages can be improved. Use the tool at http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer to test which 2 versions of your squeeze page has the better response rate.

Remove the low performing squeeze page and try to create another one to achieve better response rates. This is how you create squeeze pages that have 50% sign up rates.

9. Drive Traffic

At the end of the day, you need to drive traffic to the squeeze page and see what type of prospects react to your squeeze page. If you notice that a certain source of traffic has good sign up rates then market your squeeze page more in that area.

The more traffic you drive to your squeeze page, the quicker you will be able to create a high converting squeeze page.

All these steps are not rocket science, yet not many people follow them. Improve your squeeze page one step at a time following the advice above and you’ll be able to convert a high percentage of your visitors to subscribers. This list building component of your online business is essential if you want to increase sales. If you want your online business to succeed, a high converting squeeze page is mandatory.

Next, Discover Here More Skills On How To Make Money Online …
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Of all the article marketing tips I could give you, writing articles for free advertising online is likely the most beneficial to you if you currently spend money on advertising your website. There are several reasons for this, but the major reasons why article writing can bring you better results than expensive pay per click (PPC) adverts or taking a chance with reciprocal links are detailed below.

Keep in mind that Google is not keen on reciprocal links unless the page you are reciprocating with relates to the page on your website that the link points to, and the link is no good to you in any case if it is one of many others on a ‘links’ or ‘partners’ page created predominantly for such links. You only get a share of the PR of the page your link is on, not that of the ’site’, and even that is shared between all the other links on the page.

Being one of 5 links on a page with a PR of 1 is better than one of 50 on a page with a PR of 8. If you take these article marketing tips, writing articles can offer you a form of free advertising online that Google itself provides willingly, and that can work for you for many years to come. Here is how to go about writing articles to get you the benefits that free online advertising has to offer:

1. 1. Write an article about your niche, using a conversational style as if you were explaining what you are writing if talking to somebody face to face – just as I am doing now in fact. Offer interesting information that anybody involved or interested in your niche would find useful. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering news, but what you write must be factual and show that you have a firm grasp of your subject. You want people to continue reading once they have started.
2. 2. At the end of your article, provide a link to your website. You can say something about yourself if relevant, such as a brief word about your qualifications and experience if the topic warrants it, or do as I do and simply offer a link to your site for more information. You can use more than one link if relevant. When writing articles for free advertising online you should keep in mind:
   1. You should never include a live link within the body of the article. Directories do not like these (more on article directories shortly).
   2. Only use multiple links in your resource if relevant. Thus, I include a link to my product and also one to my Article Services website that is focused on writing articles and my own ghostwriting services. c) Most article directories offer a special box for your link and other details (known as the ‘author’s resource’), but if not then you should add it to the end of your article. Never write an article without a link back to your website. That’s what gets you the free advertising.
3. Having finished writing your article, the power of writing articles and article marketing now comes into play to get you a ton of free advertising. You get that by submitting your articles to article directories. This can be done in a number of ways, the most common being:
   1. Manual Submissions You should choose a number of the top article directories, register with them and then submit your articles manually. This will take you about 5 minutes per directory. Your articles should be submitted in plain text format, so if you have written them in Microsoft Word, copy the Word text and paste it into a text editor such as Notepad. A Google search for ‘article directories’ will give you lists of the top directories.
   2. Software Submissions You can use software to make the submissions for you. Most of these work whereby you enter each part of your into a box provided for it: Title, Summary, Article body, Keyword list, Resource – parts of these will be in plain text and HTML, particularly the resource. You then scroll down a list of directories loaded into the software, click on those to which you want to submit, and the article submission is made automatically. You have to provide the software with your login details for each directory, where relevant (no all directories need a login), or log in to each individually.
   3. Article Submission Services You can use a paid article submission service that will submit your articles to a number of directories for a fee – either paid individually or monthly. I use all three of these methods for my submissions for maximum exposure and best results.
   4. Don’t worry about duplicate content when you submit the same article to loads of directories and ezines. That will take a few months to come into play and you can make up for it by writing an article each week.

Using these article marketing tips on writing articles will get you free advertising online in the following ways:

• Your article will be published on a number of article directories. If you use the right directories, these will further syndicate your articles to other directories and ezines and so on. It is viral, your articles being distributed around the internet. You get a back link to the pages stated in your author’s resource from every directory and ezine that publishes your article. That link is valuable in attaining you a high search engine listing position.
• People read your articles on the directories. This is fact, irrespective what others say. If you have done the job properly, these readers will possibly click on your link to visit your website for more information. Make sure that your link leads them to a web page related to the title of your article.
• An article published on a directory page is a single web page, just like any other. It can therefore be listed on Google or any other search engine. I have literally tens of dozens of articles scattered around search engines on various topics, optimized for specific keywords. That’s what free advertising is, and writing articles can achieve that for you if you take these article marketing tips.
• Many people will copy your article as content for their own website: to do that they must retain your resource containing your link. Writing articles just got you even more free advertising!

These are just some of the ways in which writing articles can get you free advertising online, and if you take these article marketing tips seriously then you could save yourself a lot of money on advertising costs, and get better results by doing so!

Building a great landing page should be on top of your priority list if you want your website visitors transformed into customers. While a great looking website  can grab the attention of your visitors, a strong landing page will keep them involved and get them to buy your products/services.

Wikipedia defines a landing page as:

the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-ngine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.

Wikipedia’s definition sums it up nicely but there is certainly more to a great landing page then relevant and keyword rich content. Here’s 10 things that you should be looking at when optimizing a landing page:

• § Relevant Content
  A landing page’s content should be directly related to organic search results, PPC campaign, anchor text in inbound links and any other targeted inbound advertising, online and offline. If people don’t get what they expect, they will be more likely to leave.
• § Multiple Landing Pages
  A landing page shouldn’t necessarily be your homepage. In many instances a homepage is a good landing page. However, for more targeted traffic and better results, you want a landing page to be focused on specific offer and specific call for action. To accomplish this, a given website should have multiple landing pages. Create some deep link landing pages that will focus on specific offer and your conversion rate will be higher.
• § Focus on Functionality
  More and more visitors seem to judge the professionalism and credibility of a site by its design. To satisfy this, many website owners concentrate on the design aspect instead of focusing on its functionality. A well-designed landing page is essentially worthless if the prospect can’t accomplish anything. While I wouldn’t suggest skimping on the design, it shouldn’t be your priority. Focus on the exact steps you want your visitor to take and design a page with that in mind.
• § Call To Action
  You got visitors to your landing page, now direct them to take action. Make it clear a highly noticeable without overwhelming your audience. Whether it’s a sign-up form or a “buy now” button, make it the focus of your page.
• § Send a Clear Message
  Keep your landing page clean and clutter free so your visitors stay focused on your message. Emphasize the biggest reasons that they should carry out the applicable call to action with larger text, contrasting colors, images. Make it easier for them to scan the content by using lists and getting right to the point.
• § Offer Incentive
  Bribing your visitors with freebies and samples is a proven method of enticing them to sign up. Offer more then your competition but don’t sell yourself short either. Provide a list of reasons why your offer is better and what exactly the visitor can expect. Provide references and testimonials.
• § Make Visitors Stay
  Avoid sending your visitors to another page unless it is absolutely necessary. That includes any internal navigation as well as external banners. If you remove all distractions and limit navigation options, you stand a better chance of keeping your visitors around.
• § Simple is Better
  Make it easy for your visitors to complete the action you want them to. Less confusion and decision making for your visitor means better conversions rate for your landing page. Don’t offer multiple choices and throw in optional extras. Focus on the offer the page was created for.
• § Power of Freebies
  Everyone likes free offers. They are hard to resist and can be a powerful conversion tool. Whether a call to action is free or something free is received as a result of carrying out a call to action, it certainly doesn’t hurt. If your competition charges for something and you offer it for free, you’ll win the customer. Remember, just because you make a free offer doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be quality.
• § Testing
  In a recent post I’ve stressed how important testing is in finding out what your visitors like. Testing various text, call to action forms, layouts will give you true idea what produces the best results as far as conversion. Using a tool like Google’s Website Optimizer you can easily monitor the conversion rate, bounce rate, and tons of other useful metrics found in most modern day web analytics apps. Using these metrics you can easily figure out which version will be your optimal page, one that maximizes the results.

Creating a successful and effective landing page takes a lot of work but should be the focus for anyone involved with a website. Whether you are a website owner, web designer, web developer or a web marketing specialist you must be aware of the components that comprise a solid landing page. After all this can mean website’s success or failure.