# How much to run a web page



## Leonard (Apr 30, 2006)

Hi, I would like to know if paying $33 a mo. for a web page + $22 a mo. for a merchant account too much?. Yahoo has a plan that has most everything I need like(accept credit cards, design my own pages, shopping cart... etc.).
Thanks.


----------



## joemeca (Jun 5, 2006)

If it was me I wouldnt go with yahoo nor pay 33 bucks a month for a starting hosting plan thats a rip. I would look at hostgator.com they are great and not a reseller etc. and are up all the time like it should be. As for accepting credit cards what specifically are they offering you sure it isn't something you can get for free because I know you can get the pages and shopping cart free.

cheers

joe


----------



## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> Yahoo has a plan that has most everything I need like(accept credit cards, design my own pages, shopping cart... etc.).


The Yahoo Store option is used by a couple members of this forum and it can be a great way to get it all in one place. They offer a good shopping cart, a decent merchant account, and I think promotional help at yahoo shopping?

If you have the budget for that, and you need an easy to use solution, I think it could be a good way to go.

If you don't mind a larger learning curve, you could probably get less expensive hosting, install an ecommerce script like cubecart.com or oscommerce, get your own merchant account and have it come out to a bit less per month.


----------



## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

"A bit" being more like $8-10/month for hosting, and then either nothing (if you go with PayPal) or up to about $50/month for a merchant account.

$33 is a lot for hosting, but $22 seems cheap for a merchant account, so it may balance out. I haven't shopped around much for merchant accounts though.


----------



## grand rkiteq (Aug 24, 2006)

Man I'm so new at this part of the game, I need to learn more but all these ecommerce sites and options it seems like alot to me could any possibly clear this up step-by-step or direct me on where I need to go. I have seperate two space pages I figured if I can't sell I can still advetise my designs for free w/ a link to my sites(which I have none as of yet) Bottom line I have shirts, and designs I need to upload to xpand customer base, exposure, and sales and speed things up a bit, and still stay within a reasonable budget.


----------



## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

I operate several websites under one hosting plan from Godaddy. My cost is $65. for all, not each, a year for their deluxe plan. I use paypal shopping cart at 0 (zero) cost. I pay a percentage of sales when I actually get an order.


----------



## woodchuck (Feb 13, 2008)

I'd go with Yahoo.

I'll list some pros and cons off the top of my head:

Pros
1. Easy for the noob to add products, prices, descriptions, etc

2. Premade templates that look decent.

3. Easy for a web designer to create a scratch and add "tags" where the shopping cart, items, etc show up on the page. Any decent web designer should know how to do this.

4. One of the most Search Engine friendly shopping carts available. The easier it is for search engines to find you, the more traffic you get.

5. Free automatic, no approval needed, inclusion in Yahoo shopping directory. This is great for direct traffic from Yahoo shoppers and means a lot when Google and MSN rank your site in the search engine results.

6. All in one merchant solution that is sure to be completely compatible with each other. No worries.

Cons
1. If you cancel your account you need to be ok with losing your website. At least that's the way it use to be. It's no problem to start over with a new site since you should have your prices, descriptions, pics, etc in a separate ".csv" file anyway, but any search engine rankings you've accumulated will be lost.

2. There are a few small things that Yahoo doesn't allow you to do that are important to folks like me that use every SEO/traffic/marketing trick in the book (such as accessing .htaccess files), but to most people, it's really no big deal.

3. There's a bit of a learning curve to get started, but Yahoo is just a phone call away to help.

Hope this helps.

LC


----------



## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

woodchuck said:


> I'd go with Yahoo.
> 
> I'll list some pros and cons off the top of my head:
> 
> ...


How about the biggest point and that is cost... And as as far as being search engine friendly I believe that is mostly in the way a web site is designed. I have very high ranking for my sites. type "heat press transfers" (which by the way is not the name of my website) in yahoo and I come in 4th place. It is called placing key words in your content. Lou


----------



## grand rkiteq (Aug 24, 2006)

badalou said:


> I operate several websites under one hosting plan from Godaddy. My cost is $65. for all, not each, a year for their deluxe plan. I use paypal shopping cart at 0 (zero) cost. I pay a percentage of sales when I actually get an order.


Thanks Lou that sounds like a clear, easy, economic option indeed


----------



## debz1959 (Jul 29, 2007)

We just switched over to Host Monster - Web hosting . The main site is still with Yahoo! stores because it's going to take some time to transfer that one over.

$5.95 a month if you pay for 24 months up front (which I did). I don't know what it is if you pay monthly. The first domain is free if you get a 12 or 24 month subscription & additional are $10.00 each(unlimited). Free ecommerce shopping cart, templates, email, and a lot more add-ons...


----------



## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

I am with Lou here, my web site ranks# 1 to # 4 on Yahoo just under the paid websites, at least it did yeterday, it costs me $5.95 a month, I use Paypal also zero cost, they take a percentage but such is the cost of doing business.

I was just like you Leonard, noob de noob, but I found a web builder software I was comfortable with and just jumped in, didn't know htlm still don't know much but hey just do it and you won't regret it.

R.


----------



## Xeon (Aug 11, 2007)

At US$30+ a month, you might as well get your own dedicated server. No kidding!


----------



## woodchuck (Feb 13, 2008)

> How about the biggest point and that is cost... And as as far as being search engine friendly I believe that is mostly in the way a web site is designed. I have very high ranking for my sites. type "heat press transfers" (which by the way is not the name of my website) in yahoo and I come in 4th place. It is called placing key words in your content. Lou


Good points Lou, but by far the most important factor
in a site's rankings is the number of incoming links, the
quality of the sites they come from (see my point #5
above), and the age of your website (particularly with
Google).

Here's what I mean by using your site for example...

Yahoo shows that you have 1370 incoming links to
your site, which is great. And for yahoo's SE algorithm
that's all you need to reach the #4 for your keyword.

But in Google, your site ranks #327 for the same key
phrase. Here's why...

First of all, your site is only a couple months old. It's
not an issue with Yahoo, but Google holds your site
back for up to 6 months, depending on how fast you
accumulate quality inbound links to your site. All in all,
there's not much you can do about Google's sandbox
effect without investing a lot of upfront money.

The large majority of your incoming links also come 
from this forum, which again, isn't an issue with Yahoo,
but Google looks for links coming from a larger variety
of domains and ip addresses to give more validity to
your site.

Also, if you changed the link in your sig from a URL
link to a text link, you'd help Google decide what your
page is about and where to rank it. It would also help
if you unbolded your font on your site except for your
keywords and saved the H1, H2, and H3 tags for your
keywords also.

The "heat press transfer network" in your title tag most
likely has nearly everything to do with you being ranked
as high as #327 in Google.

Here's what I mean by point #2 in the cons list and
how it affects your site in particular...

Every one of your your incoming links point toward
"http://www.heat presstransfernetwork.com" and none
point to "http://heat presstransfernetwork.com".

If you could access your ".htaccess" file, which I don't
think Godaddy or Yahoo allows, you could redirect all
your links to "http://www.heat presstransfernetwork.com".

So whether people link any of the following:
http://www.heat presstransfernetwork.com
http://heat presstransfernetwork.com
http://www.heat presstransfernetwork.com/index.html
http://heat presstransfernetwork.com/index.html

They would all redirect the search engine spiders to the
url http://www.heat presstransfernetwork.com and it
would dramatically increase your rankings because all of
your incoming links, in effect, point to pone place.

Sorry for the long explanation and I certainly didn't
mean to hijack the thread.

Also, if you're reading this post and have decent ranking
already, but see some changes that you could make to
your site, don't go revamping your website from top to
bottom. You'll find yourself at the bottom of the SERPs
and very little traffic for another 6 months or so.

It's best to figure out when Google visits and updates
your site, then introduce improvements a little bit at a
time.



LC


----------



## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

Woodchuck nice seo tips thanks


----------



## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

woodchuck said:


> Good points Lou, but by far the most important factor
> in a site's rankings is the number of incoming links, the
> quality of the sites they come from (see my point #5
> above), and the age of your website (particularly with
> ...


It sounds like you know what your talking about. You are welcome to do an article for the site (Mine) about website use and how to bring in viewers. I would give you credit and a link or what ever you need.


----------



## robby (Oct 29, 2007)

wow Woodchuck way to go!! really an eye opener.. 

Is promoting via adwords can also help the site's ranking on google?


----------



## woodchuck (Feb 13, 2008)

Thanks for the invitation Lou. I may take you
up on it when I find the time to offer something
useful to your readers.

Robby, there's been a ton of debate over that
question. Most SEOers say no. I tend to say
yes, but it may not be practical or economical
to spend the money on adwords for the sole
purpose of increasing your rankings.

Here's why...

First of all, I've noticed my own sites move up
slightly when I run an adwords campaign over a
period of time... not much but slightly.

My personal opinion on why that is, is because
when you buy adwords placements your ad is
placed on other people's sites for Google's SE
spiders to scan for new links.

The argument that most SEOers make is that the
ad is placed on the site using javascript, which is
unreadable to Search Engines. So in theory, the
spider wouldn't see your ad at all.

But, my opinion is that G can and does read some
javascript (it even says they attempt to read the
javascript on your site in G's webmasters area).

If they can read some javascript, I can't help but
think that G's SE department communicates with
their adwords department to help the spider read,
understand, and sort the javascript code that
they created.

But, like I said, I just don't think it's very practical
or economical to launch an adwords campaign for
the sole purpose of SE rankings.

Here's why...

I've bought adwords ads and placed them on high
PR pages within G's content network and my site still
showed only a slight increase in rankings.

So basically, the ad was picked up by G's SE spider,
but it was given very, very little credit.

Had I placed a text link ad on that site (in one form
or another), it would have had a more dramatic effect
on my rankings and click throughs. 

IMHO, your time would be a lot better spent writing
articles, press releases, and blogging - all for free and
your money would be better spent buying text link ads
on quality sites.



LC


----------



## HMD10 (Feb 17, 2008)

If you are paying more than $14.00mo you are paying way to much.


----------

