Later as I developed working relationships with my free providers I began to purchase services from the companies that had helped me get started. I would like to share some of these resources with you.

I started out with a free email account even before I had a internet connection. Juno.com mail offers a free downloadable program with a local dialup number, It's perfect for people that don't even have a dialup connection. Although anyone can do it themselves my son has made a business of installing Juno mail on people's computers. He charges ten dollars to set it up, it takes him about 5 minutes to install it and a few more to teach how to use.

Juno Mail
     http://www.juno.com/

I also developed a list of free web-based email accounts, I suggest you get a free web-based email account using it as a reply email address whenever you are at risk of your real email address getting spammed.

It's especially useful if you can forward your email to the web-based account when you travel. Last summer I was living in the mountains of Montana for several weeks, I was able to get my email from a friend. I answered my emails off line and only needed to be connected for a couple of minutes to get my email and another couple of minutes to deliver my responses, It surprised me how well it worked, I even made and uploaded a major revision of my web-site while I was on the road.

More Web Based Email Sources
     http://www.smithfam.com/email.html

If You Need To Start A Mailing List Free Try List Bot
      http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/signup?Act=create_customer

I needed a Internet dialup service free. It took a while But I found a national Internet provider that offered a 20% commission on Internet dialup services. I joined Synergy Consultants and after referring five people locally my Internet connection was free. It's a MLM structure I really haven't made much from it but it has paid enough to provide me free dialup service for over two years, that's almost $700 I have saved so far.

Synergy Consultants
     http://www.smithfam.com/synergy/

When I wanted to build my website I figured I could find a free place to host my site, I started out with Geocities with was one of the first sources of free hosting. Geocities didn't allow commercial websites so I tried a few others. My Favorite is XOOM because they allow unlimited server space, FPT file transfers, they do offer special offers to members which really are good buys.

Xoom Free Hosting
      http://www.xoom.com/webspace/

Other places where you can get a free server are available here:
      http://www.smithfam.com/freesites.html

You are might be wondering why I would change to a pay service when there are so many free, I won't go into it here in detail but you might want to check out this article to understand.

How To Find The Right Hosting Service
      http://www.smithfam.com/hosting.html

Getting my domain name on a commercial server was the best decision I have made in the last couple of years. The differences between a free server and a pay server are understood by comparing the services offered.

My Hosting Company
      http://www.smithfam.com/host.html

Now instead of paying for hosting services or using a free server I get paid well for using the the best Hosting service I have seen. It's free to join and 28,000 resellers can't be wrong. Because there are so many re-sellers I target my marketing locally.

Virtual Domain Hosting Options For Comparison
      http://www.smithfam.com/host.html

Once I had my site up and running I was only getting one or two visitors a day and most of them were from me. I needed a free way to launch my site so people could actually find me. I started by manually submitting my pages to the major meta capable search engines.

But before you start writeing meta tags for your pages. Try this free resource. It actually teaches you the basics by just filling out a simple form and adding the tags to your site.

Free MetaCode Writing Tool
      http://vancouver-webpages.com/META/mk-metas.html

THE MAJOR SEARCH ENGINES

Alta Vista:
     http://www.altavista.digital.com

Excite:
     http://www.excite.com

Yahoo:
     http://www.yahoo.com

Things started picking up weeks from my submissions but I was still only getting a few visitors a day. The next precess was visiting each major search engine using my most important keywords. I looked at the top 10 pages from each search engine, looking at the meta tags of some of the higher ranking sites. I would then alter my meta tags to be more more like the top listings. just two years ago you could easily get a top ten listing but not any more. It also takes a lot more time now than it used to.

You might want to read up on submissions and meta-tages before you even start submitting your pages.
      http://www.smithfam.com/news/june98b.html

Meta Tags Basics
      http://www.northernwebs.com/set/set06.html#meta1

FREE SUBMISSION TOOLS

Our Submission Tool
     http://www.smithfam.com/submit.html

Our Java Submission Script
      http://www.smithfam.com/submit/

Experimental Java Tool
      http://home.sol.no/~nbk/submit/experimental/

I soon learned that without tracking where my traffic was coming from I was working blind. The following free resources might save you a lot of time.

Tracking Your Visitors
      http://www.smithfam.com/news/d0.html

Free Tracking Services
      http://www.extreme-dm.com/tracking/?reg

As soon as I started learning how to track my traffic my site took off. I grew from a couple hundred visitors a day to well over a 1000 visitors a day. You would think I would be making a fortune but I wasn't because I had no way to sell anything

Without going into another long article, I'm just going to tell you that if you intend on selling anything from your website you need your own domain name first - then a server that can handle secure processing, a shopping cart maker, free autoresponders, real-time credit card validation and more. I was able to obtain all these services when I moved my files to a commercial domain name server.

A year ago I wouldn't have said this step was necessary but today it's a must having virtual domain server and commercial hosting company.

Business Hosting Specialists
      http://www.smithfam.com/host.html

CartSnap Shopping Cart Builder Demo
      http://www.cartsnap.com/

It seems that the more I learn the more important scripts and the ability to set them up and make them work has become. In fact my most popular web page is one dealing with finding and using scripts.
      http://www.smithfam.com/scripting.html

I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it's easy because it's not but as I have said so often before "if it was easy everyone would be doing it."

I'll mention a couple of my favorites Scripts and sources.

The FreeForm Creator is a form generator that really works ! It's on-Line and you don't need to know any programming or have access to your CGI-BIN on your host's server. It runs in real time. This tool Is the best and easiest to learn tool you can find, And It's free !

The FreeForm Creator
     http://Freedback.com/?ff/smi_fam

Linkomatic has the best free 4 all script to allow others to place links on your site.

Link-O-matic Free 4 All Script
      http://www.linkomatic.com/getyours.cgi?88888

My Free 4 all Site is here try it out
     http://www.smithfam.com/links.html

I use a script from Matt's Scripts. I use the script to offer free classified ads on my site.

Matt's Script Archive
      http://worldwidemart.com/scripts/

My Free Classified Script
      http://www.smithfam.com/wwwboard/

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that there is a lot to learn and it takes time to learn it.

The Internet isn't a place you can set up business one day and rake in the dollars the next.

I'm willing to share what I have learned to save you time and effort. I have seen so many people drop hundreds of dollars on services and resources. A high percentage of the tasks you can do yourself not only saving a lot of money but learning how to offer similar services to others. Part of my business it to do things you don't know how to do at a reasonable price.

The Internet is so full of hype. I spend a lot of time with people who believe that there is ONE thing they can buy that is going to open flood-gates of money. There is money to be made on-line and plenty of it. You are not too late if you start this year just don't quit your day job right away, at least until you see some of that money.

You can reach him by phone at:(541) 689-1847 PST, and by email at.
       bob@smithfam.com

The Internet Marketing Center

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