Using outside vendors can significantly reduce the complexity of running
a money-making website.
When I first started, just about everything I wanted to have on my
website had to be installed on my server and programmed independently at
great expense and frustration. Over the past few years there have been
tons of third party application providers that provide me services
without fancy, expensive and frustrating custom programming on my end.
Here are just a few of the services that I have used myself on my
websites and suggested to my clients:
Shopping cart system
http://www.KickStartCart.com
Surveys http://www.zoomerang.com
Calculators, like mortgage, amortization, car payment, etc.(just type in
"free calculators" in any major search engine and you'll find hundreds
Mailing list management -- Again there are too many to mention
Statistics
What this means to you is that you can use inexpensive and simple
hosting and simply link to the other services, many of which can be made
to appear like they belong to your site.
As more and more of these services appear the less trouble you will have
if you are a MAC diehard. But still, at this moment in time, and for
some time in the future you are shooting yourself in the foot by
sticking with your MAC if you want to be serious about Internet
marketing because the services being offered by third parties are more
mainline and don't support the relatively small Internet Marketing
community yet.
Upcoming
web techniques
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