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======================================================== The Promotion World Informer Issue #72 June 7, 1999 ISSN 1488-1675 Edited by Joshua Reimer - http://www.promotionworld.com ======================================================== This issue of the Informer is sponsored by: ---------------------------------------------- AUTOMATE YOUR EMAIL FOLLOW UP RIGHT FROM YOUR PC! Get some of your time back! Powerful Microsoft Access based software tracks all your contacts and automatically follows-up with as many message series you want. Easily convert more leads into sales in less time. Put your email follow-up on autopilot. With 2 clicks, you can follow up with your prospects, customers and Associates as often as you want. Try Postmaster today for FREE and join our FREE Two-tiered Associate reseller program. http://post-master.net/rs/index17 ---------------------------------------------- Now with over 6187 subscribers! Advertising Information --> http://www.promotionworld.com/sponsor.html ================================================================ Contents Of This Issue: - Editor's Notes - Cool Quotes - Color and Web Pages - Sponsor Message - Website Usability - Bookmarkable Bookmarks - The Discussion Boards - 7 Ways to Promote Your Website - A Small Request - Misc. Information ======================== Editor's Notes ====================== Sorry folks, I didn't get a chance to write Part III in my "ideas for getting webmasters to link to your site" series. Things get put on hold for me when I come down with my wonderful head colds which I have been receiving on a regular basis recently... To make up for this deficiency, I have included an extra guest article for you this week. It will give you a chance to hear from others besides me for a change! 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. There will never be a bigger plane built. - A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair Download all the past Cool Quotes by sending any email to <mailto:quotes@promotionworld.com&> Enjoy! ================== Color and Web Pages ================= Color and Web Pages by Jennifer Johnson Color. It's all around us. Everywhere we look our world is filled with color. Color can capture our attention, can make us feel certain emotions at times, attract us, repel us, annoy us, entice us. It's much the same when it comes to web pages. Graphics, colored text and backgrounds, pictures, etc. are some of the things that make the Internet so wonderful, but these same things are also some of the worst aspects of the Internet in given situations. How can you use color effectively on your site? You can use colored backgrounds or patterned tiles or borders to add a little spice to your page; after all, who wants to look at plain ol' black and white all day long? It's pretty boring, right? This is an area, however, where what is good in theory doesn't always translate to being good in practice. Always, always, always remember: your background tiles or your cool graphics or color combinations shouldn't be the focus of your site. (It should go without saying that this is especially true for Internet businesses.) Rather, these page elements should enhance the information and/or product or service description/presentation. In other words, you want your visitor to leave thinking, "Wow! That person really knows their stuff! I know where I'm buying my next [blank]." You DON'T want the visitor to leave thinking, "Wow! What cool graphics! Hey...what the heck was that site about anyway?" The most common mistake in terms of use of color, in my opinion, is poor choice of background/text colors. If you use poor color combinations and render your text unreadable, you might as well have taken the money you spent on developing your site and started a nice bonfire with it in the middle of the street. It would seem self-explanatory that text should, by its very nature, be readable, right? For many of us, it's not difficult to grasp that very basic concept...that is until we discover the neat FONT COLOR tag or delve into CSS - then we can become tempted to get a little too cute. Myriad pages exist that prove readability isn't high on many designers' list of priorities. It sounds boring, but black text on a white background is by far the easiest to read. You can add color with a conservative border background or thru use of TABLEs and the BGCOLOR attribute of the TD tag. Just don't go overboard. I would especially caution against use of colored text on a colored background; I've rarely seen designers pull this one off. Unfortunately, too many designers think bright blue and bright red make a great color combo - WRONG!! Choose your text/background colors wisely; if you don't, all your effort has been wasted. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with judicious use of colored text or white text on a colored background; using this set up in a navigation bar, for example, is fairly common. What I'm cautioning against is using colored text on a colored background on the majority of your site. Don't discount the negative effect this can have in terms of your visitors' perceptions of your site. In closing, I think it's always a good idea to play it somewhat conservative on business sites as a general rule. If you're designing a personal homepage, knock yourself out with the neon green/hot pink color scheme. Don't risk losing business for the sake of having a wild or "cool" color combo, though. Would you spend hours crafting a great message for your brochures then tell the person behind the counter at the printer, "Just pick any colors"? No, of course not; you realize that the medium is at least as important (if not more so in many cases) as the message. Try to think in these terms when designing your site as well and I'm sure you'll stand a much better chance of succeeding! 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. ======================= Sponsor Message ======================= Want a low-cost, RISK-FREE way to drive more BUYERS to your site? Start your own Affiliate Program today, with "The Affiliate Program Software" This is the software the Pro's use! The Affiliate Program Software makes running your own Affiliate Program effortless. Plus, it comes completely INSTALLED and CUSTOMIZED for you--at a price right for small budgets! Learn all about this POWERFUL Marketing Software by phoning (877) 2-BUY-TAP or visiting http://theaffiliateprogram.com/inf2.htm ====================== Website Usability ======================== Focus on User Responses by John S. Rhodes I've been thinking a lot lately about how to best utilize WebWord.com. I've been thinking about growth strategies, branding, marketing, and many things that you probably think about too. I've finally hit on an idea that has greatly improved my focus. I'm going to share my ideas about possible user responses with you. This will help focus your site on what your users want and what you want. You should be concerned first about getting your content developed, your information architecture built, and your site constructed. Then, you need to test your site with real users. I've said these things before. Here's my big question for you this week, what do you really want your users to do once you get them to your site? What information do you want to get to them? How do you want to them to use your site? What responses do you want from your users? Let me tell you what I decided on. Here is a list of things, in order from most important to least important, that I want users to do while they are at WebWord.com: 1. Subscribe to my newsletter 2. Email me with an interesting comment or question 3. Link to the site 4. Recommend the site to a friend or colleague 5. Bookmark the site 6. Visit another page of the site; read another article or interview 7. Print out an article or interview I'll bet that you didn't think of all these possible responses. You're smart enough to think of them, but these responses are probably not in line with your business plan or strategic objectives. Then again, maybe they are. What did I leave out? What other responses would you like from users? If you have a commerce site, you better be very concerned with the most important response of all: selling your product or service. When someone hits your site, you want the sale. You don't give a hoot about how many pages they view or how much they like your site. You want the sale. If this is true, then does your site help the user complete this action? Is it easy to shop at your site? Is it easy to contact the sales department, or your consultants, or your sales pages? How usable is your buying process? If it isn't easy, secure, and obvious to users, you will fail to get your favorite response. There are other responses you'd like from users too. They are harder to define and they are harder to develop, but they are nevertheless important. For example, I'd like to build more community at WebWord.com, so we can learn more from each other. I had considered setting up a discussion board, but I simply don't have time to monitor it and contribute. It is on my (long) list of things to do for you. In any event, if you want a community building response (e.g., posting to your discussion list), you'd better make that easy too. Requiring passwords, and several clicks, won't help you get your desired response. Finally, it should be evident to you that focusing on your user responses will help you and your users. They will find it easy to do business with you, and you will very likely rack up more sales. Usability is improved when you know yourself better, when you know your company better, and of course when you know your users better. Usability is not always about users, it can be about you and what you want. You can be a bit selfish and improve your web site. =========================================================== John S. Rhodes -- mailto:john@WebWord.com Human Factors Engineer and Usability Professional Internet Usability and Web Site Development: http://www.WebWord.com/ ==================== Bookmarkable Bookmarks ===================== The CGI Resource Index I recommend you stop by and visit the new and improved CGI Resource Index if you are at all interested in CGI scripts- this site has been incredibly helpful for me. <http://cgi.resourceindex.com/> Dictionary.com A resource I have found myself using more and more recently. It gives definitions for technical/computer terms, which is a big plus. <http://www.dictionary.com/> VirtualPromote Although many of the articles are quite out of date, there is still a lot of good information at this website. <http://www.virtualpromote.com/> ===================== The Discussion Board ====================== This week's quote from the discussion board: "Lets talk about Alexa. What do you guys think about it? I use it and find it to be a great tool. It makes "surfing" a lot easier, but I use it for more things than just "surfing". I also use it to submit to search engines. When I go to a search engines "add a link page." Alexa will tell me other search engine's "add a link page." It also tells you a lot about the place that you are at. Take Promotion World for example, Alexa says; Traffic = Top 50,000 Location = It gives me the exact location to Promotion World, even a map. I know where you are now Joshua :) Links to Promotion World = 186 Votes = none... I voted but it hasn't showed up yet. Archive = none... To archive your site go to <http://www.alexa.com/support/get_archive.html> It also gives me ten links relevant to web site promotion. I think Alexa is a good tool for the "surfer" and webmaster if you use it. I have been getting great tips from the Promotion World Forums and I thought I should give one. Hope this helps. Michael Schutt webmaster@ The Israel Vacation Directory http://www.vacationisrael.com/ E-mail webmaster@vacationisrael.com " Read and comment on the full discussion online at: <http://www.promotionworld.com/discus/messages/44/432.html> Get in on our discussions! At least stop by to see what you are missing out on. <http://www.promotionworld.com/discus/> ============= 7 Ways to Promote Your Web Site ============== 7 Ways to Promote Your Web Site by Julie T. Meyer, Marketing Specialist We know them all but are we utilizing them? 1) Search engines Are we spending too much time competing against insurmountable odds for those top slots? Time is better spent on 2 - 7 and beyond. 2) Include your URL and email address in every form of direct marketing including stationary, business cards, brochures, newsletters (on every page - pages are frequently duplicated and distributed, individually), print, radio and tv advertising, packaging & labels, all types of promotional items, etc., etc., etc. 3) Your e-mail "signature" Include contact information (at least name, company and phone), a one line description of your product and a reason to visit your site with a link to it. Limited time offers work particularly well -- the potential visitor who postpones visiting will miss out. 4) Bulletin Boards, News Groups, Mailing Lists, etc. Stop lurking and put that signature to work! Start posting somewhere once a week and increase as time permits and results dictate. Remember to keep your posts content rich and advertisement free. There are few more effective ways to market your site than content-rich, advertisement-free postings concluded with an effective signature. Also, don't hesitate to privately contact participants in the same manner. True problem solving and benefit offering (non-spam!) information is always welcome. 5) Log off and get away from your desk In other words, word-of-mouth. Set monthly networking goals, like one chamber of commerce offering and two prospect lunches, and meet them! Also offer yourself as a speaker to local organizations. Be sure to make a presentation on issues relevant to your specialty as opposed to a sales pitch (My next article will contain additional tips on utilizing public speaking for marketing purposes). 6) Give them a reason to come back Vigilantly maintain, update and expand your content. Highlight coming attractions and remind via timely e-mail (you, of course, have a guest book -- right??) 7) Cautiously Don't go overboard on promotion tactics like contests, links and banners. These promotion techniques are effective when they are well-chosen and implemented. However, more frequently, they discredit the site and its products and services by diluting the message (are you in the business of producing quality widgets or giving away prizes?) or diverting scarce hours better spent on customer service, quality control and web site updating. © 1999 Business Development Resources (WeDevelBiz@aol.com) Julie T. Meyer has developed and implemented comprehensive marketing plans for a broad range of businesses including leading accounting, law and technology firms, and numerous divisions of the University of Pennsylvania. She also has years of product development and sales experience. She can be reached via email at WeDevelBiz@aol.com; requests for free copies of her 15-Minute Marketing Plan can be made to this same address. ========================= 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 free 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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