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The Promotion World Informer
Issue #66 April 17, 1999
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This issue of the Informer is sponsored by:
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Contents Of This Issue:
- Editor's Notes
- Cool Quotes
- Friendly Advice from the Editor
- Sponsor Message
- Tracking Your Success
- Bookmarkable Bookmarks
- The Discussion Board
- Sponsor Message
- Website Usability
- A Small Request
- Misc. Information
======================== Editor's Notes ======================
Welcome to yet another issue of The Informer! Issue number sixty six already.
The Informer has been coming to you for almost two years now. Time flies!
Jennifer Johnson's column this week is applicable to many of us, and very
practical. Be sure to read it!
The Informer is sent only to those who have expressly requested it.
If you no longer wish to receive it, simply follow the simple
unsubscribe instructions at the end of this newsletter.
============================ Cool Quotes ========================
If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong
golf ball.
- Jack Lemmon
The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would
pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for
investment in the radio in the 1920s.
During my 87 years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological
revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character
in the individual.
- Bernard M. Baruch
Download all the past Cool Quotes by sending any email to
<mailto:quotes@promotionworld.com&> Enjoy!
================= Friendly Advice from the Editor ================
Going Beyond Reciprocal Linking
by Joshua Reimer
You have probably all heard about the concept of reciprocal linking, right?
Normally what occurs is one webmaster contacts another webmaster and they both
add each other's links to their special link pages. In theory, they are both
supposed to generate more traffic to each other pages by doing this.
But does it work? Not very well. Some people have improved on this concept by
only trading links with sites on a similar theme. This is a major improvement.
However, it still isn't perfect.
Now, I believe that the concept I am about to talk about has already been
introduced by John Rhodes in his Website Usability column a while back, however
I believe that there is more to be said on the subject yet.
I think it is time to go beyond reciprocal linking. We need to be creating
"Linking Partnerships" with other sites. Let me explain how this works.
With a link partnership you do away with the reciprocal links page. Ask
yourself: When was the last time you visited a reciprocal links page? I thought
as much. Hardly anyone visits those things any more.
Instead, we need to highlight the other site's link. Make sure your visitors
see
it! Have a main page box that highlights "Other Recommended Sites". You make
sure, of course, that your partner also does the same thing.
You could even go to a more exclusive extreme and only recommend one other
partner site, and get a really good exchange of traffic between the two sites.
Also, I believe that banners and buttons don't really cut it very well for
reciprocal linking. I know, I know, I have been using them myself, but I am
trying to change that. Personal recommendations next to links work *much*
better.
I strongly believe that strong relationships with a select few websites that
match your topic perfectly is much better than dozens of smaller deals with all
sorts of websites.
This is a concept that has been slow to catch on... but those that are
discovering it are finding that it works very well! Why don't you try it?
Joshua
Editor/webmaster/ad sales guy/everything else at Promotion World.
<http://www.promotionworld.com>
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=================== Tracking Your Success ====================
Tracking Your Success
by Jennifer Johnson
You've finally done it, your first site! What better
way to celebrate your success than installing a cool
counter so that you can keep track of the hordes of
visitors swarming your site; those skyrocketing numbers
will impress your friends and give your ego a little
boost at the same time, right? Not necessarily...
Counters are fine for personal pages, but when it comes
to business web sites, I would strongly discourage the
use of publicly displayed counters. If the number is
astronomical, say 1601 googols, people will never
believe it; on the other hand, if it reads something
like "5 visitors since the beginning of recorded time",
you can probably guess the kind of impression it will
create - a less than remarkable one, to put it mildly.
So how do you determine how many people are visiting
your site if you don't use a counter? Simple...you
acquire a good tracker.
A very basic explanation of the difference between a
"counter" and a "tracker" is that a counter does just
that, it counts - you don't get any information other
than a number. A tracker, on the other hand, counts
your visitors but, depending on which tracking program
you use, it can tell you MUCH more than that.
Trackers can tell you where your visitors are coming
from (referring pages, search engines, email, Usenet),
what browsers, screen sizes, and color settings are most
popular among them, what word or phrase your visitors
searched for most to find you, average number of pages
accessed on each visit, average visit length, and more.
It should be readily apparent why these statistics are
worth their weight in gold (almost literally!). This is
the kind of information that allows you to find out which
of your ads are pulling the most visitors. It can also
help determine the direction your future advertising will
take and (hopefully) help make it more successful. Not to
mention the fact that advertisers interested in ad space
on your site will likely require information of this type
before making any kind of purchase.
There are myriad advantages of a tracking program over a
simple counter, but it's beyond the scope of this article
to cover them all. Let me just say this, though, if you're
using a counter now, it would be more than worth your while
to check into a tracker. I'm going to close with a few URLs
that should help you locate a tracker (some of the trackers
are available free, some aren't):
eXTReMe Tracking <http://www.extreme-dm.com>
SuperStats.com <http://www.superstats.com>
Dave Central <http://www.davecentral.com>
Once you find one you like, have fun with your new toy!
PromotingYourSite.com
<http://www.promotingyoursite.com>
Free info on how to effectively design and promote your site. Join the "Rate
My Site Newsletter" (delivered 3-5 times/week) by sending any email to:
ratemysite-subscribe@listbot.com and find out how to submit *your* site for
other webmasters to review. Contact Jennifer directly at:
jennifer@promotingyoursite.com.
==================== Bookmarkable Bookmarks =====================
ISyndicate
Using this service you can have free, real time news headlines incorporated
into your site. An excellent way to keep visitors coming back!
<http://rcx.rapidcontent.com/>
Internet News
Have a look at my news page that gives you the latest internet news headlines.
<http://www.promotionworld.com/news.html>
Top 101 Marketing Sites
An excellent listing of some of the best promotion and marketing related sites
out there.
<http://www.bookmarket.com/101mark.html>
===================== The Discussion Board ======================
This week's quote from the discussion board:
"Alta Vista is going the way of GoTo.com! They will be charging for
rankings pretty soon. Problem is, they start with a minimum of $.25,
which is a little pricey for us little guys.
Full news article:
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/19110.html
What do you all think of this? Is the level playing field becoming less so?
Joshua "
Read the full discussion online at:
<http://www.promotionworld.com/discus/messages/44/372.html>
Get in on our discussions! At least stop by to see what you are missing out
on. <http://www.promotionworld.com/discus/>
========================== Sponsor Message ==========================
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======================= Website Usability =======================
Designing for an Audience of One
by John S. Rhodes and Bill Skeet
If you want a great Web site, one that custom fits each person, then read on.
You think you know all about usability and you think you understand your users.
You feel like you know them dead cold, right on. You have solid demographic
information, you know their favorite Web pages, you have data on when they are
visiting your site and what they are buying. You know a lot, but we bet you are
looking at averages.
Are you also looking at data points? Are you looking at individuals?
One Size Does Not Fit All
Simply stated, the problem is that you lose individuals for the sake of knowing
the group averages. You're designing for the common denominator when you could
be designing your site to fit each and every person. Further, you could be
marketing one-to-one -- making each interaction personalized.
The Web allows you to communicate with each and every user. Simply put, your
site always interfaces with individuals. Groups of people are not looking at
your site, it is a one-at-a-time situation. Think about it, when was the last
time a group of users bought something from your site?
Average Person Fallacy
Maybe you think you're on top of the situation just described. Maybe you're
designing a site so the "average person" can use it.
There is a well-established adage in human factors that the average person does
not exist. For example, the result of designing for the body dimensions of the
so-called average person is that the smaller 50 percent of the users cannot
reach the controls or read the displays, and the larger 50 percent will not
have room to move about comfortably.
No one is average. In fact, few people are average in even a few dimensions
(see Human Performance Engineering, 1996, by Robert W. Bailey
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0131496344/wedwordcom>).
To test the concept of the average person, a 1952 anthropometric study
categorized 4063 men according to ten measurements used in clothing design. Not
one man was average in all ten dimensions and less than four percent were
average in even the first three.
This means that designing a Web site requires more than imagining what a
faceless, generic user might do. It means you must identify real users --
their
motivations, abilities, skills, needs, biases, and environments. Find out what
makes each person tick.
Of course, it is impossible to build a custom site for every single user. The
key for making this a manageable problem is to define your audience as
precisely
as possible. Then, try to identify the characteristics of that population. You
need a good sample, and you need to look at the data points as well as the
averages.
The Web site design should accommodate 95 percent of your users by
considering a
full range of characteristics from the 2.5th percentile to the 97.5th
percentile. Here is a partial list of characteristics you could consider:
- language (e.g., English)
- visual acuity (and color-blindness)
- internet connection speed
- browser type and version
- time constraints
- occupation
- technical knowledge
Obviously there are many more. Define what characteristics are important
according to the needs of your site.
Building Custom Fitting Web Sites
The usability of a site will suffer if you take an "audience view" of content
development and site design. The language that you use should make your site
sound and feel like a one-to-one, personal conversation.
Think about how boring a lecture compared to a personal conversation. Design
the site as if you were interacting with a single person.
Besides using a conversational tone, there are at least three other ways to
improve the site-to-user interaction.
First, while controversial, you can use cookies. People are becoming more
familiar with them and hence their comfort level with them has risen. Also note
that your competitors are probably using them, and if you don't you can suffer
from a competitive disadvantage. Another way to improve site-to-user
interaction
is to conduct a survey. Individuals divulge a surprising amount. Note that
this
method is only advocated if you use this information strictly for the purposes
of improving your site. You can also attend to individual users via email. Never
underestimate how far a quick response to an email will go. Be sure to take
great strides to quickly and effectively respond. This is a simple, yet
powerful, way of gaining a user's trust, and it is much easier than changing a
Web site. Also be sure to encourage feedback.
The bottom line is that you can build sites that are more personalized. Think
beyond groups. Think about each person that is visiting your site. It is a
one-to-one world out there.
=========================================================================
John S. Rhodes -- mailto:john@WebWord.com
Human Factors Engineer and Usability Professional
Internet Usability and Web Site Development: http://www.WebWord.com/
========================= A Small Request =======================
If you enjoy reading this newsletter each week, why not tell a friend
about it? Even better, why don't you recommend The Informer on a
discussion list? After all, you wouldn't want to keep all this free
information to yourself.
Just tell 'em all to subscribe by sending a message to
<mailto:informer@oaknetpub.com> with SUBSCRIBE in the BODY of their message.
======================== Misc. Information =======================
To comment on the issues covered in this week's newsletter, use the
appropriate forum on our Discussion Boards.
<http://www.promotionworld.com/discus/>
Browse the archives at <http://www.promotionworld.com/informer/archives.html>
If you are looking for some good advertising deals, you might like to
consider Promotion World and the Informer as places to advertise.
<http://www.promotionworld.com/sponsor.html>
To subscribe put SUBSCRIBE in the BODY of an email to
<mailto:informer@oaknetpub.com>
To unsubscribe put REMOVE in the BODY of an email to
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I appreciate all your mail with your comments and suggestions!
<mailto:webmaster@promotionworld.com>
Newsletter Credits:
Joshua Reimer, Editor
<mailto:webmaster@promotionworld.com>
<http://www.promotionworld.com>
Jennifer Johnson, Feature Writer
<mailto:jenny@promotingyoursite.com>
<http://www.PromotingYourSite.com>
John S. Rhodes, Usability Specialist
<mailto:john@WebWord.com>
<http://www.WebWord.com/>
Hayden Mitchell, Search Engine Specialist
<mailto:hayden@webthemes.com>
<http://www.webthemes.com>
David Handlos, What Not To Do Specialist
<mailto:webmaster@crosslinkz.com>
<http://www.crosslinkz.com>
And now for the mandatory legal stuff:
This newsletter is copyright 1997, 1998, 1999 Joshua Reimer. No part may be
reproduced in any way without prior permission.
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