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================================================================ The Promotion World Informer Issue #53 January 18, 1999 ================================================================ This issue of the Informer is sponsored by: ------------------------------------------------------------------- 4% average response rate, highly targeted audience, and an opt-in based readership. Sound too good to be true? Direct email marketing has a new name and it is not spam-me-even-more, it's E-target.com. Visit http://e-target.com/ads/informer.htm to see an effective and not-so-new concept in Internet marketing. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================ Contents Of This Issue: - Editor's Notes - Cool Quotes - Offline Promotion, By Linzi Day - Sponsor Message - The Discussion Board - What's New At Promotion World - Sponsor Message - How NOT To Promote Your Website - News Headlines - Misc. Information =========================== Editor's Notes ====================== I would like to introduce a new regular writer to you this week! David Handlos from CrossLinkz at http://www.crosslinkz.com will be writing every few weeks for us on the subject of "How Not To Promote Your Site". You have been hearing lots about what you SHOULD do to promote your site, but David is giving us a new angle of what we should NOT do in our site promotion efforts! There are a number of new writers joining us over the next few issues, stay tuned. 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. You can find subscribe instructions at the end of the newsletter. 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 ======================== Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow. - Jeff Valdez If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing. - Anonymous You live through the darkness [with] what you learned in the light. - Hope MacDonald Download all the past Cool Quotes by sending any email to <mailto:quotes@promotionworld.com&> Enjoy! ========================== Feature Article ====================== Offline Promotion By Linzi Day First of all let me make it quite clear that I'm simply not qualified to write an article on Internet site promotion. I still have huge amounts to learn about that. What I have noticed though, as a business journalist and small business advisor, is that very few people take advantage of the many cheap or free ways to promote their site off the web. I'm from the north of the UK. Now that's about half way up, on the left hand side and actually nowhere the north of the country! With geographical challenges like that, you can imagine that getting people to our web sites is even more fun for us Brits. So the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) has decided to educate us all. When you consider that current estimates suggest that 22% of the UK has access to the Internet you realise that the BBC has a real job on its' hands with the other 78%. And, hidden in the way they are doing that job, is a lesson we might all benefit from. They did a survey and squirreled it away. But on that survey, they've based their whole web strategy. The survey basically told them that when people logged on for the first time - they didn't know where to go. No surprises there -- I'm sure most of can remember our first Internet trip. The survey further pointed out, that newbies tend to spend a long time (measured in months) in their service provider's content area. Astounding stuff this, isn't it? I bet you're all wondering why I am writing this? It gets better. The survey also told them that newbies can't type addresses into their browsers, and that they find it difficult to accurately convey a URL over the phone. A UK newbie is likely to actually type in wwwdotpromotionworlddotcom. Based on all this 'ground-breaking' research the BBC set a goal. Now this goal is probably going to go down in history along with 'A computer on every desk and in every home running on our software' as a mixed blessing. The goal was that 'the one Internet address that everyone in Britain will know is bbc.co.uk And do you know what's frightening, they are achieving it! My granny who's 86 knows the BBC's URL. She doesn't know it's a URL, but she knows that the web is about those bbc dot co dot uk things! They've achieved this by repeating the address at the end of every program. 'Further information on the topics covered in this program can be found on bbc.co.uk.' http://www.bbc.co.uk They printed pens with it on. They put it on the side of their trucks. They include it on their letterheads, their invoices, their comp slips and business cards. They repeat it regularly on all their radio programs. Which, including the world service, cover the globe. They put it on T-shirts, baseball caps, tennis balls you name it -- literally. They include it on their telephone system. While you're on hold you can listen to what's on the web site today. All concluding with bbc.co.uk. They even say it in a very specific way. Wrongly! Like this bee, bee, cee, dot, (pause), co, dot (pause) ewe, kay. Go on try it -- it sounds weird. So people rang in and said 'NO! You don't say URL's like that. You should say bee,bee,cee,dot,co pause,dot, uk. This discussion moved to television talk shows and the main evening news! The whole business got even more publicity. Which is the correct way to say a URL? I don't know. But I do know that there is not a man, woman or child old enough to watch the Teletubbies (It's a Sesame Street kind of program) in the UK that doesn't know that the BBC's URL is bbc.co.uk!! Which is an achievement wouldn't you say? So now, when any Brit logs on to the Internet for the first time, the one address that's ringing in their ears is - the BBC's. That's 65 million prospective visitors who now know one address that they can type into their browser when they get on-line! So can we learn any lessons from it? Alongside our web-based promotion efforts do we truly make every effort we can to ensure that people in IRL know our URL? I get invoices and letters daily from around the world from people, who I know have web-sites, but the URL isn't on their communiques. I've got hundreds of ugly freebie pens on my desk and the only one that has a URL on it is from an ISP. Key fobs from car dealerships - phone numbers - sure. But URL's? Not usually. How many people put their URL on their answering service? My plumber is in the process of building one so he can say 'I'll call you back... if it's something you may be able to fix yourself why not check our web site for easy home repairs?!' I think that might help his customer loyalty - doesn't the guy want the call-out fees? Another simple but effective idea came from an alternative, health and book store called the Rowan Tree http://www.rowantree.co.uk. It's about 100 miles from me. I go maybe three times a year. Last time I visited they included a business card in my package with their web site and a 10% discount offer on it. Now I order monthly from them. The BBC's site and it's sister site beeb.com http://www.beeb.com now pull an ABC figure of 12 million a month, which makes it the most popular commercial site in the UK and probably among the top 50 in the world. Perhaps by taking on board some of their thinking we can pull a few extra visitors ourselves? Linzi Day is a network marketing journalist who edits several industry publications and is an expert contributor to others. She is proud to be the UK MLM journalist of the year for 1998. mailto:linzi@first.uk.com or http://www.first.uk.com/mlm/ ========================= Sponsor Message ======================= INCREASE TRAFFIC for FREE with a link from your visitors' Start Pages to your web site. The Start Page is among the most often visited pages. It's the first page your browser shows, and the page that appears when you click the Home button. People will see a link to your site every time they surf the web. Linking to your site from your visitors' Start Pages is FREE and as easy as adding a couple HTML lines to your site's Home Page. Visit http://www.startpad.com/inpw.asp for everything you need to get started in minutes. Don't hesitate to send any questions to webmaster@startpad.com. Why wait? Get FREE traffic flowing now! -- Editors Note: Quite an interesting idea! See how I am using it on the homepage of http://www.promotionworld.com/. ===================== The Discussion Board ====================== This week's quote from the discussion board: "Stop giving your visitors over to Recommend-It! I found an excellent *free* CGI script on BigNoseBird.com called "birdcast" (do a search on their site using this word and you'll find it in a flash). You can place a simple link on your page that calls the script. Then, your visitors only need to fill in a few things. Voila! and the Web page is sent to a friend. With this script you can let your visitors recommend your Web pages in a snap. You'll need to have access to your cgi-bin and you'll need to know a bit about FTP. However, the instructions are excellent. I had birdcast.cgi up and running in about 15 minutes. I even made some minor modifications. - John John S. Rhodes -- mailto:john@webword.com Usability for the Internet http://WebWord.com/ Build user-centered, user-friendly Web sites. " Visit the message boards to comment on this quote or just to catch up on the other exciting discussions going on! http://www.promotionworld.com/discus/ ================== What's New At Promotion World ================= ~ I have just completely redone our advertising information section. If you want to both help out Promotion World and get some excellent advertising deals at the same time, you need to check this out. Even more so if you are targeting webmasters, online merchants or small business owners! http://www.promotionworld.com/sponsor.html ~ Review: GifOptimizer This service will speed up your page by shrinking your gifs up to 75%! http://www.promotionworld.com/reviews/gifo.html ======================== Sponsor Message ========================= Boogie Jack's - goofy name, excellent resource. For webmasters: eye-popping graphics, easy-to-understand html and graphics tutorials, a color machine to find the code for that just right color, and a free newsletter to help you tweak your pages and promotional efforts. Browse selected articles online. For everyone: Guess the Celebrity is a contest like no other, photo warps, humor and more. All original content, growing rapidly, wildly popular, and best of all - it's FREE! Get jacked! Boogie Jack's Graphics Plus. http://www.boogiejack.com ================== How NOT To Promote Your Site ================== How Not To Promote Your Site By David Handlos Promoting a site is an ongoing process, and it gets really time consuming. A lot of time is spent "optimizing" a few bits of code called meta tags. And why not? The perfect tags will guarantee traffic from each and every engine, and make you totally rich. Right? Suuurree they will. Tags are important, but a great way to "not" promote is to focus on these things. Example: I recently redesigned my site with tables to include a navigation bar, each page with links to help search the site. Looked good, was compatible for all browsers, and easy to use. I posted the updated pages, gave it a modest plug in my newsletter, and waited for feedback. Imagine my surprise when I found my rankings in several searches drop off the map. The problem? Several engines base some of your rankings on content in your site. Excite-type searches, for instance, looked for content, but only on my navigation bar, and used the word of the links for relevancy. Ouch. Bottom line is, tags are a great thing, but not the only thing. The very design of your page can determine your ranking. Make sure your visitors can navigate your site, but it helps if they can find your site in the first place. Happy promoting, David Handlos Crosslinkz: Your Free Web Directory! http://www.crosslinkz.com Free promotion, email, and awards! ========================= News Headlines ========================= Here is a compilation of URLs to interesting news pieces on an Internet or website promotion theme. ~ Sweeping For Cobwebs http://www.searchz.com/Articles/0118991.html ~ Going Once...! Selling Web Services http://www.searchz.com/Articles/0118992.html ~ Domain name slowdown hits customers http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31049,00.html ~ Archie Comics fights parent for domain http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31027,00.html ~ Microsoft Begins Its Defense http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/msftdoj/TWB19990114S0001 ~ Bork Predicts Microsoft Will Be Broken Up http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990115S0012 ~ November US Retail PC Sales Zoom, Prices Plummet http://www.bizreport.com/technology/1998/12/981222-4.htm More Internet related news headlines at http://www.promotionworld.com/news.html ======================== 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: informer@oaknetpub.com with SUBSCRIBE in the BODY of the message. To subscribe put SUBSCRIBE in the BODY of an email to informer@oaknetpub.com To unsubscribe put REMOVE in the BODY of an email to informer@oaknetpub.com I appreciate all your mail with your comments and suggestions! webmaster@promotionworld.com Newsletter Credits: Joshua Reimer, Editor webmaster@promotionworld.com http://www.promotionworld.com John S. Rhodes, Usability Specialist john@WebWord.com http://www.WebWord.com/ Ryan Adams, Affiliate Program Specialist webmaster@clickquick.com http://www.clickquick.com Hayden Mitchell, Search Engine Specialist hayden@webthemes.com http://www.webthemes.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. |