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The Promotion World Informer
Issue #62 March 22, 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
- Get Them Involved!
- What's New At Promotion World
- Searching With Hayden
- The Discussion Board
- Sponsor Message
- Website Usability
- A Small Request
- Misc. Information
=========================== Editor's Notes ======================
Guess what?! The long awaited offline version of the promotion
tutorial is here!
My Website Promotion Tutorial for Beginners at <http://www.promotionworld.com/tutorial/> is amazingly popular.
Hundreds of webmasters have worked through it, and I have received
dozens of emails telling me how much they have enjoyed it. However,
I have had several people asking for an offline version, which they
can go through at their leisure.
I have finally got around to creating it! Feedback from it has been
excellent... people are finding it easier to read and great for as a
reference tool.
To receive it in your e-mailbox, just send mail to:
mailto:part1@promotionworld.com <-- Part I
mailto:part2@promotionworld.com <-- Part II
The Cool Quotes archives was recently updated also. There are several
hundred quotes available in there now! Use them to spice up newsletters,
advertisements, or even just to read for a fun time. Just send a blank
email to <mailto:quotes@promotionworld.com> to receive your free copy.
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 ========================
Could we stop a hurricane on the East Coast if everyone on the coast
turned on a fan outside that was pointed east?
- J.G., Dayton, Ohio
I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked
with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is
a fad that won't last out the year.
- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
History, although sometimes made up of the few acts of the great, is
more often shaped by the many acts of the small.
- Mark Twain
Download all the past Cool Quotes by sending any email to
<mailto:quotes@promotionworld.com&> Enjoy!
================= Friendly Advice from the Editor =================
The web can be pretty dull sometimes. Sometimes the web can be downright
boring. Same old same old advertising banners, sidebars, forms and the
occasional animated graphic. There isn't that much that you can do in the
way of interacting with the user, and making the web a more interesting
place to visit.
I have recently been looking into Shockwave, a system that helps get rid
of this problem. It lets you easily create all sorts of quickly downloadable
animated intros, navigation systems, interactive games, and more. It also
allows for music and sound effects to accompany your creations.
The drawback? Your visitors need to have a special plug in. However,
according to Macromedia, the company that produces this product, over 40
million visitors have downloaded the Shockwave player. Shockwave is also
distributed on a number of CDs, including Windows 95/98, Apple OS 8,
Netscape 4, Internet Explorer 3 and 4, and AOL.
Now, if you take into account the fact that there are around 158 million
people on the Internet worldwide (Nua Internet surveys, <http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/), we can assume that well over
a quarter of the worlds internet population has the Shockwave player installed.
This means that there is a pretty good chance that your site's visitors
have the Shockwave plug-in, especially if you cater to a more "high tech"
audience. And even if they don't, there are Javascripts available that will
automatically detect if a person has Shockwave or not, and give them a normal
HTML page if they don't have Shockwave capabilities.
What can you do with Shockwave? Well, the most popular thing these days
seems to be cool intros to sites. You can see examples of sites with Shockwave
intros at <http://www.countdown9199.com/> and <http://www.whatuseek.com>
(need I say that these are best viewed with the Shockwave plug-in?). There
are many others, but I am sure these give you a good picture.
The thing with these is, is that although Shockwave introductions are "cool",
I find they are a bit of a waste of time. However, I am sure that many web
surfers are really taken by them. I used to be. Just remember to include a
button that lets you skip the introduction.
What are some good uses? Well, how about something educational? How about
learning all about how a compressor works in an interactive environment? You
can, at <http://www.pneumofore.com/flash.htm>. Thanks to Bill at
<http://www.1stsitefree.com> for the lead on this one.
That is what I call a good use of Shockwave.
Another popular use is creating online games... try visiting <http://www2.pepworks.com/pepworks/>. Choose whatever language you would
prefer, and choose the projects button. Try playing Leo's Great Day, it is
a great example of what you can do with Shockwave!
You should also check out the Shocked Site of the Day. They often feature
interesting sites there. <http://www.macromedia.com/shockzone/ssod/>
Now you may be eager to start creating your own Shockwave enabled sites. You
can too, it isn't that hard to do. All you need is the Flash 3 software, which
is, unfortunately, a little costly. You are allowed a 30 day free trial, though,
before you have to pay up. Full information can be found at Macromedia's site,
<http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/>.
Another option would be to have someone create your Shockwave program for you.
If you are looking for a good webdesigner who would be able to do this for you,
I recommend you contact my good friend Nathaniel Morbey at
<http://indelible.hypermart.net>. His rates are more than reasonable, and he
does excellent work. His site is also a good example of how you can create
smooth and very good looking navigation systems using Shockwave.
There you have it. Shockwave can nicely enhance your site, just make sure you
include a regular HTML version of your page for those who haven't yet installed
the plug-in.
Joshua
Editor/webmaster/ad sales guy/everything else at Promotion World.
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======================= Get Them Involved! =======================
Don't Get Lost in the Shuffle
by Jennifer Johnson
Playing the search engine game - virtually all webmasters do it in some form
or another. Everyone vying for a coveted "Top 10" spot; experimenting with
keywords; tweaking pages for a specific engine. You'll find lots of
information online, sound advice and not so sound, instructing you on how to
design your pages to rank higher.
That's all well and good; of course every webmaster would enjoy having his or
her site rank high in the listings, but what about "the rest of us"? What can
be done to boost clicks other than living and dying by search engine rankings?
There are a couple of problems I see repeatedly on sites I'm asked to review.
In my opinion, if these problems were corrected, the webmaster would enjoy a
significant increase in traffic.
These two problems are: poorly chosen page TITLEs and inadequate (or lack of
a) META description tag.
Granted, not every single search engine supports META tags or displays your
TITLE tag in search results, but enough of the "biggies" do that you should
devote some extra time to developing these two items.
The first area you should take a serious look at is your page TITLE. The TITLE
tag is located within the <HEAD>...</HEAD> tagset. If you don't have a TITLE
tag, get one - today.
You should choose your TITLE tag very carefully because in some search engines
it will identify your page in the search results. Your TITLE tag should be
somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 characters in length, definitely should
contain a few of your keywords, it should be descriptive, and it should entice
the searcher to click on your link.
Please don't use the ubiquitous and generic "Home Page" for your TITLE; even
if it *is* the home page. Let's look at a little scenario as an example:
I'm surfing around one day and decide I want to get a little information on
obedience training for my pet weasel, Fluffy (c'mon people, I'm working under
a deadline here; I don't have time to be too creative). I enter "obedience
training AND weasel"; lo and behold links to two pages pop up! Here are the
two results:
1. Home Page
2. Weasel B. Goode's Obedience School - Weasel owners, we can help!
Now, (assuming that you believed that having a weasel as a pet or sending said
weasel to obedience school was within the realm of possibility for a rational
person) which link would you choose?
Once you've crafted a winning TITLE tag for your home page, it's time to
develop a good META description as well.
The META description tag is located within the <HEAD>...</HEAD> tagset also
and follows this format:
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Enter the description of your page here.">
This tag is what many search engines use as a description of your page, hence
the name "description"; funny how it works that way, huh?
Your description should also contain keywords and (of course) describe your
page in a way that would encourage the searcher to select your link. This tag,
however, can range from around 130 characters in length up to about 300
characters with the major search engines. I'd play the lower end just to be
safe.
The most common mistake that I see with this tag is not that site designers
give a poor description of their pages, it's that they don't give any
description at all - no META tags. If your page does not have a META
description, today would be a really good time to give it one.
Using our example from above, let's look at the advantage a good description
can give you; once again, the search results:
1. Home Page
2. Weasel B. Goode's Obedience School - Weasel owners, we can help!
Oh how we love our little darlings! Until we catch them red-handed with a map
to the chickenhouse and a dog-eared copy of "Sneaky Carnivorous Mammal: A
Memoir". Let us help you help your pet! We offer a seven week obedience
training course as well as several highly regarded books on subjects ranging
from dealing with the "problem" pet to how to conduct an intervention when
poultry addiction gets out of hand.
OK, OK, so that description ran way over 300 characters. I was just trying to
use a little humor (I know, *very* little) to illustrate how a good TITLE and
META description tag may help you gain a little advantage over the
competition.
If you don't currently have both of these tags in place, there's no better
time than the present to go to work on them. In fact, in many cases it's
pointless to continue your search engine jockeying *without* these tags!
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:
jenny@promotingyoursite.com.
===================== Bookmarkable Bookmarks =====================
By popular request this feature is back! I am amazed anyone actually
remembered it, it has been out of the newsletter for over a year now.
But it was obviously much missed!
Each week I will feature a number of interesting links on the subject
of website promotion and/or design. They are usually the sites on my
personal favorites list... and I have a lot of them!
Let me know what you think of the feature.
1st Site Free
A very easy to understand tutorial to help the beginner create their
first website.
<http://www.1stsitefree.com/>
1st Site Free
PromotingYourSite.com
Hundreds of excellent resources to help you effectively design and
promote your site.
<http://www.promotingyoursite.com>
GifOptimizer
Quickly and easily shrink your .gif files up to 75% for free!
<http://www.gifoptimizer.com/>
Webmaster Resources
Hundreds of well categorized resources for webmasters, along with
many articles and reviews.
<http://www.webmaster-resources.com/>
================ What's New At Promotion World ===================
You have already heard about the new offline version of the beginners
promotion tutorial. Have you downloaded it yet? If not, you should do
so. You will learn all the basics of website promotion in an easy to
understand (not to mention humorous) way.
To receive it in your e-mailbox, just send blanks emails to:
mailto:part1@promotionworld.com <-- Part I
mailto:part2@promotionworld.com <-- Part II
====================== Searching With Hayden =====================
Q. We have a commerce site with several domain names. These domains
are parked at one ISP (Best Internet) and pointing to our commerce
server (at a different ISP). The commerce site, home page, index page,
etc. are all on one server.
My question is will search engines have problems finding our site
since all domains are in fact pointing elsewhere. If so, do you
have any recommendations?
A. This is a little confusing, but here is my advice. List the pages
you want the search engine to find with the search engine. In the case
of Excite, and AOL Netfind where they ask for only the root domain,
try to optimize the page for your most important keyword and make sure
you have a hot link directory on the page that includes your most
important optimized pages down only one level from the homepage. I
mean hot links not image maps or buttons and put keywords in the link
as well.
Hayden Mitchell
=======================================================================
100% On Target Advertising, Marketing and Promotion
"Life is good at the Top" - Search Engine placement and much more!
For details send email to Auto-responder <mailto:webhitman@infofree.com>
Web Themes - <http://www.webthemes.com> ph. 805-270-1607
===================== The Discussion Board ======================
This week's quote from the discussion board:
"Wish you could monitor you Website server? You can!
Checkout Uptime. Uptime will request a page from your server every 15
minutes. If your site is unreachable, Uptime will send you email. Uptime
will continue checking your site and when it becomes reachable again and
when it is - will send you an e-mail..
Prior to signing up, create a text file named uptime.txt with the word
success on it and upload it to your Website. If you wish to be beeped by
Uptime, subscribe to a beeper service with an e-mail gateway.
You can visit Uptime at <http://uptime.arsdigita.com/uptime/about.tcl>
and sign up today - best of all, it's free!
Bill Green (Web Design Moderator)
---
Learn How To Create Your Website For Free
1st Site Free
<http://www.1stsitefree.com>"
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/>
========================= Sponsor Message =====================
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===================== Newsgroup Promotion =====================
Looking to increase traffic to your site? An often overlooked
but excellent way to bring in visitors is through newsgroup
postings. Depending on the group and the usefulness of your post
it can bring a few dozen to a few thousand new visitors over the
course of 2 or 3 days. There is a right way and a wrong way to
go about it. The wrong way will get you a box full of flames
(nasty email) and the right way will bring you a targeted
audience.
Whatever your interests/expertise, you will most likely be able
to find several newsgroups about it. Most of you have access to
a public or private usenet server through your ISP. For those
that don't, here's a page that lists several you can access:
http://www.freenntp.com/servers.htm
You don't want to just post a notice to come and visit your site,
that's how you get flamed. Start by lurking, that is, just
monitor the group for a few days to get a feel for it. Read some
of the posts and watch for a group etiquette or FAQ posting that
will explain the protocols of the group.
When your comfortable within the group, look for messages asking
questions you can answer. Give a thoughtful answer and include
your url and a brief description of your site in your signature
file. If it's a good answer and popular group, you will see an
almost immediate surge in your hit count. If you want to be a
little sneaky and no one is posting the right questions for you
to answer, you can change your identity and post a question, then
revert back to your identity and answer it (you little dickens
you!). Or simply ask a question and leave your sig file with it,
but answering will usually bring more traffic that asking.
People want to get to know the experts.
When posting to newsgroups, be prepared for an onslaught of spam
if you don't take measures to stop it. Bulk emailers spider
newsgroups to harvest email addresses. The way around that is if
your email address is abc@123.com, then change it to
abcNOSPAM@123.com. Most users will know to remove the NOSPAM
part of the address if they want to contact you, and the words
added to the address render it invalid to the spammers.
You do need special software to access newsgroups. If you use IE
or Netscape mail you have the software you need installed, but it
isn't the best. You can find free newsgroup readers at shareware
sites, but I prefer Microplanet Gravity. It's highly intuitive
and has all the features you need. Usenet servers typically
carry from 10,000 to 40,000 newsgroups! Some software makes you
scroll through that long list and read them all to find what
you're looking for. Gravity has a search feature that is
excellent. Just type in a keyword and it presents you with all
the groups that have that in their name. Do a few searches on
topics of interests and subscribe to only the groups you want.
It comes with a tutorial, extensive help files, and you can try
it for 30 days for free. The web site is:
http://www.microplanet.com
Personally, I wouldn't use anything else. It's worth the small
price to have the ease of use and many features it boasts. The
list of features is far to long to mention here, and is more
extensive yet easier to use than any other program. Windows
Magazine called it the best newsreader available for beginners
and experts alike. I agree. Well worth the $39.95 price tag.
I'm not affiliated with MicroPlanet nor do I receive any
compensation for recommending it. I just enjoy software that
makes life easier.
Cautions: use good judgment if you download computer programs,
usenet is a ripe source of viruses. Use your antivirus software
before executing or installing any program you download. Usenet
also carries many pornography newsgroups. With Gravity, you can
use password protection to keep your children from accessing
inappropriate material.
May all your hits be digital, Boogie Jack
http://www.boogiejack.com
Subscribe to my newsletter for a useful yet off-the-wall look at
all things internet.
almost-a-newsletter-subscribe@egroups.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
<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.
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