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======================================================== The Promotion World Informer Issue #73 June 14, 1999 ISSN 1488-1675 Edited by Joshua Reimer - http://www.promotionworld.com ======================================================== This issue of the Informer is sponsored by: ---------------------------------------------- HIT YOUR AUDIENCE! Target by interests, demographics, and geographies using direct email marketing. All sources are verifiable. All recipients have opted-in. Prices as low as .01 per subscriber. Response rates have been recorded as high as 25%. Visit http://e-target.com/ads/informer.htm to view 350+ lists in more than twenty categories. Two million individuals are just an email away. ---------------------------------------------- Now with over 6239 subscribers! Advertising Information --> http://www.promotionworld.com/sponsor.html ================================================================ Contents Of This Issue: - Editor's Notes - Cool Quotes - Friendly Advice from the Editor - Contest Drawing - Sponsor Message - What NOT To Do - Bookmarkable Bookmarks - The Discussion Board - Sponsor Message - Bookmarkable Bookmarks - The Discussion Board - Website Usability - A Small Request - Misc. Information ======================== Editor's Notes ====================== Greetings! We have an excellent article from David Handlos again today. He covers an extremely important subject that I believe we should all pay attention to. In my article, I give yet more ideas for generating links to your site. I bet you never thought there were so many ways to get people to link to your site, did you? 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 ======================== We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees. - Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks. The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible. - A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.) He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away. - Raymond Hull Download all the past Cool Quotes by sending any email to <mailto:quotes@promotionworld.com&> Enjoy! ================= Friendly Advice from the Editor ================ Receiving Links for Services by Joshua Reimer Over my last few articles I have presented a number of ideas and examples about how you can generate links pointing towards your site. I am doing this not only so you can implement the method of promotion, which is one purpose, but also to get you thinking creatively about your promotion efforts. There is so much more to promotion than just submitting to the search engines and "putting up banners"! As promised, this week I am going to talk about how to get people to link to your site in exchange for services. This can be an excellent way to get free, or near free traffic to your site. How exactly does this idea work? Well, in exchange for you providing an information product or service, the other person has to include a link on their website to yours before you will provide them with the service or give them the information. Some prime examples of this type of system are many of the automated search engine registration services. Here's one site that requires, or at least strongly requests a link back to their site before you submit their registration form: <http://www.addme.com/> I have seen this technique used on many other sites, including ones giving out free reports, free website reviews, and other services and products. Of course, now that I am writing an article on the subject, I can't find them! Always seems to happen that way. What's the secret to all these services? They provide services that are invaluable to others, but *don't cost anything* to provide. Or at least, they are very inexpensive to provide. In the case of search engine submitting programs, the owner's largest expense is the one time software development fee. After that, he can provide the service for virtually nothing- or at least, after he has payed his hosting charges. The secret is that the system is all automated. It takes no time to provide the service. Of course, there will always be those who try to cheat, and don't place the link before requesting the services. The companies that do best with this method are the ones who manually verify the links before providing the service. Naturally, this can be a lot more time consuming, but makes sure you aren't just giving away your services without some compensation Have a brainstorming session. What service can you provide inexpensively to your visitors in exchange for a link back to your site? This idea may not be appropriate for all types of sites, but give it a try. You may be surprised at what the words "FREE! (with a small link back to our site)" can do! Next week I will explore yet more ways to build the number of links pointing towards your site! Joshua Editor/webmaster/ad sales guy/everything else at Promotion World. <http://www.promotionworld.com> ======================== Contest Drawing ======================= It is time for the monthly random drawing for the winner of 25,000 banner impressions across the highly recommended LinkBuddies network at <http://www.linkbuddies.com/start.go?id=100041>. This month's winner is: The Official Upcoming Figure Skaters Website <http://www.angelfire.com/sc/OfficialSkatingPage/index.html> Want to be eligible for next month's drawing? You don't have to do much. Just include a link back to Promotion World! More information at <http://www.promotionworld.com/contest.html> ======================= Sponsor Message ======================= DRAMATICALLY INCREASE YOUR WEB SITE TRAFFIC: ************************************************* First-time Make Me Your Home Page software users will see your home page the next time they open their Web browser. MMYHP software increases traffic to your Web site by allowing your visitors to change the home page setting of their browsers at the click of a button, to point to your Web site instead of to the default setting. This generates a dramatic increase in unique visitors to your site, providing tremendous value to sites that generate revenue from advertising . CNBC reported that, amazingly, one half of web users do not know how to perform this basic function manually. Increase Your Return Web Traffic at http://www.makemeyourstartpage.com ======================= What NOT To Do ====================== How NOT to Promote Your Site by David Handlos You've gotta love the Web. This is an incredible medium, where you can meet anyone, anywhere with an Internet connection. With your site on the World Wide Web, you can reach customers in any country, and send your message out to people around the globe. And man, are you ready. All the latest features are integrated on your site. There's a FFA link page, and visitors can search the Web from a fancy toolbar at the bottom of your pages. You've even got a free email service set up. You can't go wrong! Wait a minute. What IS the message you want to send to people around the globe? With all those features, will the visitor spend any time on the rest of your site? Don't get me wrong, extra features are great. They can help boost traffic, and improve feedback. However, they can also detract from the site. EXAMPLE: Recently, while searching on Alta Vista, I clicked on the wrong link by mistake, and took me to a rather interesting site. Right at the top, I was offered both a free guestbook, and an offer to promote my site to their "high-traffic" FFA link page. Below that, there was a box where you could search Alta Vista, HotBot, and InfoSeek all at once. Still below that, there was a link to a site that offered free clip art. By now, I thought this was a free site, although it might need more verbal content. It wasn't until I scrolled just a bit lower that I found this page was supposed to be "devoted entirely" to the subject of skateboards! While searching for ways to increase traffic, don't forget to ask yourself: Why did I build this in the first place? Careful, the main subject of your site can be lost in the effort to attract visitors. Happy promoting! David Handlos Crosslinkz: Your Free Web Directory! <http://www.crosslinkz.com> ================== Bookmarkable Bookmarks =================== LinkStation Will submit your site for free to over 1,500 free for all link pages automatically. Seemed reasonably effective. <http://linkstation.hypermart.net/> The New LinkBuddies My favorite banner exchange has just been improved! Many new features. I recommend you try them out. <http://www.linkbuddies.com/start.go?id=100041> List Universe A huge resource for newsletter owners. If you run a newsletter, this is a must visit! <http://List-Universe.com/> =================== The Discussion Board ==================== This week's quote from the discussion board: "I need an autoresponder script that does the following: When a person signs up, they get not just one autoresponder message, but several - over the course of a month. Is it possible? Does anyone know of such a script. I looked at cgi resources didn't find one, I'll check out some other places, but I thought if anyone ever heard of such a thing that they could help me out. Thanks, Renee Free web design and promotion resources: http://www.thewritemarket.com/ To subscribe to The Write Market Release, send an email to: subscribe@thewritemarket.com" Read and comment on the full discussion online at: <http://www.promotionworld.com/discus/messages/16/441.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 ======================= ***LIST YOUR SITE & ONLY PAY FOR RESULTS -- GoTo.com*** When you list your site on GoTo.com, you can get the top search listing and targeted sales leads for pennies per click. You only pay when someone clicks on your listing, and you control your site's ranking in the search results! Itis keyword advertising for pennies per click! Sign up now with a minimum of $25 and GoTo.com will add $5 to your account. If you're not happy, do nothing. If you're happy with the results you get with GoTo.com, just add more money to your account when it gets low. Click here: http://www.goto.com/d/advertisers/p/generic/?o=22&Promo=promoworld_C ==================== Website Usability ===================== How to Gain the Trust of Your Users by John S. Rhodes I recently conducted a short and informal survey to determine what makes users "trust" a Web site. While some respondents claimed they would never trust any Web site, the vast majority of the respondents had something to say about what worked well to gain their trust. Three primary trust factors surfaced from the survey: good content, simple design, and few grammatical errors. Solid and well-written content is crucial to gaining trust. Similarly, trusted web sites are content driven versus design driven. Fancy graphics, animations, and eye candy are catchy but they do not seem to facilitate the development of trust. Lastly, grammatical errors tend to repel users and discourage bookmarking. Trust can be improved when a Web site is well organized and provides users with material that is frequently updated. Respondents said that they tend to trust Web sites that are easy to access and easy to search. Another factor was content freshness. Fresh material is easier to trust than old material. As a whole, the survey provided some evidence for a simple folk theory of mine. People tend to trust Web sites that are more usable. Since you cannot convince a person face-to-face that a Web site is trustworthy, the site must fight tooth and nail on its own. The interface is on its own - it does the "talking" to the user, not you. You cannot personally persuade a user to trust your site (unless they contact you via email and you respond). Seemingly small things, such as spelling errors, quickly turn users off and their trust will drop. Trust is especially critical for web sites that sell products and services. Even a minor grammatical error can deter a sale. And for those sites that provide users with news, when there are usability problems, people tend to go elsewhere. There is a simple relationship that you should remember: a decrease in usability leads to a decrease in trust. Based on the survey, here are some guidelines to follow to gain usersi trust: 1. Make sure that your content is audience-appropriate and user driven. Create content first, design second. Then, repeatedly test the content and design with users. Systematically proofread, then do it again. 2. Make sure the Web site is as simple as possible. Effectively organize content, and use a minimum of colors and graphics. Be consistent from page to page. 3. Be sure that the Web site contains no grammatical errors. Be aware of factual errors; don't say something that is not true and don't fabricate information. 4. Where appropriate, provide references (author, publisher, data) and links to sources. Give credit where credit is due. 5. Be sure that material is frequently updated. Inform users of the date of the last update (this is usually done at the bottom of the page in the footer area). 6. Minimize the use of graphics. When using graphics be sure that they are appealing. Graphics should generally provide extremely useful information or they should present an idea not easily expressed with words. 7. Be sure that there are no dead links on your site. 8. Be sure that user email (especially user feedback) is responded to as fast as possible. An increase in response time is inversely proportional to trust. Also, be sure to utilize the power of your .sig file. =========================================================== 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? The more subscribers there are, the more time I am able to justify spending on creating valuable content for you all! Just tell everyone 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 <mailto:informer@oaknetpub.com> 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. The only exception being you may freely forward this newsletter to your friends and associates *only if* it is in its unmodified entirety.
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