Poor Richard 1
#001/12-Jan-98
POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE NEWS
Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site
Editor: Peter Kent
Top Floor Publishing
IN THIS ISSUE
- Poor Richard's Web Site News -- What's It All About?
- Beginner's Column: Web-hosting and Online Access are Different Things!
- Opt-in Email Marketing ... Does it Really Work?
- The "Plug-and-Play" Web Site
- Free Chat and Discussion Groups for Your Web Site
- Did-It.Com and Search Engine Optimization
- Bits and Pieces
- What Do You Want to Know?
Poor Richard's Web Site News -- What's It All About?
Welcome to the first edition of Poor Richard's Web Site News; much delayed, but finally "in print."
Poor Richard's Web Site News is an electronic newsletter associated with Poor Richard's Web Site, a book written by Peter Kent and published by Top Floor Publishing. Most of the people receiving the original distribution of this newsletter signed up for a subscription at the Poor Richard site:
Poor Richard's Web Site News will bring you information about how to create a low-cost Web site. That doesn't mean a "cheap," ineffective Web site. The whole purpose of the Poor Richard method of Web-site creation is to allow you to create Web sites that are sophisticated and effective, yet don't break your budget. Want a chat group running at your Web site? We'll tell you where to get one for free (see later in this newsletter). Need shopping cart software, but don't want to spend $thousands? We'll explain how to get one for $25 a month. Need online credit-card processing? We'll explain how to set that up at your site without spending a fortune. We'll also be talking about ways to promote your Web site -- there's a lot more to promoting a Web site than simply registering at search engines (there are significant problems with the search engines, anyway), so we'll be talking about targeted e-mail, promotions and giveaways at other Web sites, real-world promotions that lead people to your site, and so on.
So let's get started with the first edition. If you like this newsletter, please forward it to friends and colleagues. If you decide it's not for you, see the subscribing/unsubscribing information at the end of the message.
Beginner's Column: Web-hosting and Online Access are Different Things!
I want to explain a very basic principle, something you must understand before you set up a Web site:
Web-hosting and online access are two completely different things!
In other words, you don't have to place your Web site with the same company that provides your online access; in fact, you almost never should! Furthermore, you probably shouldn't be using your online-access company as your primary e-mail account, either.
First, what do I mean by "online-access company"? I mean the company your computer dials into in order to connect to the Internet. It may be a major online service -- America Online (AOL), CompuServe, Microsoft Network, and so on. It might be a major Internet service provider, such as Earthlink, MCI, or Sprint. Or it might be a small, local service provider. Most people, even those who are setting up Web sites, seem to think that they should buy everything from the same company. They get their online access, then they use that company for e-mail and Web hosting. But that's a bad idea. Here's why.
If you are serious about setting up a Web site, you should get your own domain name. Instead of using http://members.aol.com/acmeplumbing/, you'll be able to use http://www.acmeplumbing.com/. There are a number of reasons you should do this, which I'll explain in the next newsletter. But for now, let's just assume you're going to get your own domain name.
In order to get your own domain name, you need to "point" that name to a particular computer connected to the Internet. The major online services and service providers won't let you do that. If you have, for instance, an AOL account, you can't point your domain to your account. In other words, although AOL provides space for you in which you can set up a Web site, you won't be able to point to your Web pages using your own domain name ... people visiting your site will have to use the http://members.aol.com/ address.
Some of the smaller local services may let you point a domain to your Web pages, but in general, in order to use your domain, you have to find a Web-hosting company. (Just to confuse the issue a little, many of the major online services and service providers _also_ host Web sites; but these are separate businesses. AOL, for instance, will host your Web site, but it's a completely separate account from your normal access account.)
How do you find a Web-hosting company? One of the best places to start is budgetweb, a directory of low-cost hosting services:
Hosting services can be very affordable -- as little as $10 a month, though you'll probably want to spend a little more ($30 - $40) to make sure you get all the services you need. There's a lot more to picking a Web-hosting company than simply comparing prices, though. In "Poor Richard's Web Site: Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site" I've provided a complete chapter on how to pick a hosting company, with 40 major questions to consider, along with a checklist table in an Appendix. I'm also going to post a free article at my Web site, "20 Questions to Ask a Web Hosting Company":
http://www.poorrichard.com/freeinfo/
The article isn't there yet, but I'll be posting it within the next week or so.
Now, once you have a Web site, you know what you also get? You get e-mail. All Web-hosting companies will give you a free e-mail account (or certainly should; if they don't, find someone else). Now you can have all your e-mail directed to, say, fred@acmeplumbing.com. No longer are you stuck with a particular online service or service provider. Want to try another service? -- perhaps you're looking for one that's cheaper or more reliable. Well, switch at any time. Your e-mail's coming through your acmeplumbing.com account, so it doesn't matter which service you use to connect to the Internet, you'll still get your e-mail.
And here's a great bonus. Once you have your own domain name, you can use as many e-mail addresses as you want:
fred@acmeplumbing.com
sales@acmeplumbing.com
info@acmeplumbing.com
promotions@acmeplumbing.com
whateveryouwant@acmeplumbing.com
I'll be talking more about e-mail in future issues. This may be Poor Richard's Web Site News, but it's a mistake to assume a Web site stands alone; it has to work with associated e-mail services (autoresponders, newsletters, announcements, etc.), or you're missing a great opportunity.
So think afresh about your Internet access. Think of your access and your Web site (along with e-mail) as separate services, and find the best company for each.
Opt-in Email Marketing ... Does it Really Work?
Spam -- the transmission of unwanted e-mail messages to large numbers of people -- is extremely irritating to recipients, but of course it's also very tempting to businesses ... which is why so many companies use it. I most certainly don't recommend using spam, but for a moment let's consider why it's such an attractive idea to many direct marketers.
I've heard it said that spam can't work; almost nobody will respond to these messages, critics say. But that completely misses the point. The majority of recipients of any direct mail campaign -- whether the message is sent via email or snail mail -- do not respond. A good response for a snail-mail campaign might be 2%; 4% or 5% would be excellent. But such a campaign can be very expensive. Consider the cost of mailing, envelopes, and several printed sheets of paper, and you'll understand that a large direct-mail campaign can cost a lot of money. Mailing to 10,000 people might cost $3,000, $5,000, or much more.
On the other hand, an e-mail promotion costs next to nothing. If you already have a computer and a decent connection to the Internet, you can send out large numbers of e-mail messages virtually for free. Or you can hire a service to do it for you at a very low cost. So even if such a mail campaign garners a very small response -- even a 1000th of a percent -- it can still be very effective. If you mail to 5 million people and only one person in ten thousand buys, you've just sold 500 products.
That's why we see so much spam; the temptation's just too great for many people. But there's a downside; there are repercussions that could be very painful to a reputable business, sufficient threat to keep most businesses away from spam, everything from lawsuits to death threats, from losing your Internet access to having your mail blocked by large mail servers. It's just not worth getting involved with spam.
But what if there were a "politically correct" way to carry out a direct-email campaign? A way to e-mail cheaply, yet not be spamming people. Well, there is; it's known as targeted e-mail, and is done using "opt-in" mailing lists.
There are a number of companies that have collected large numbers of email addresses from people who are willing to receive commercial e-mail messages. Why, you might ask, would people want to receive such messages? In general, for one of two reasons.
Some people sign up for "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" plans. In other words, they agree to receive e-mail in return for something else. For instance, a company may hold regular drawings, giving away computers to the winners. In order to be included in the drawing, you have to be on one of their mailing lists. Of course the problem with this sort of list is that the people who sign up may have no interest at all in receiving the email, and may delete it without reading it. All they want is the chance to win a prize.
The other reason people sign up for opt-in email is because they have a genuine interest in getting information. For instance, hundreds of thousands of people who are trying to learn how to do business on the Internet have signed up to receive e-mail, in the hope that some of the mail will lead them to information and services that will help them.
One major purveyor of opt-in lists is PostMaster Direct:
http://www.postmasterdirect.com/
This company sells dozens of different types of lists, from people interested in astronomy (over 4,000 of them), to people interested in woodworking. They're not alone, though. There are a number of companies selling opt-in lists. Check out some of these sites for more information:
Articles about Opt-In E-mail (This document links to variety of press reports about opt-in e-mail.)
http://www.intellipost.com/whatsnew.html
BulletMail (Relatively small lists -- generally 2,000 to 4,000 addresses -- created by people signing up at their Web sites)
Business Link (650,000 business e-mail addresses at a very low cost; $25 for a small ad to the entire list, $750 for a large ad)
The Direct E-Mail List Source (A list of companies with opt-in e-mail lists, electronic newsletters carrying ads, "sponsorable" discussion groups and so on; a very useful site)
http://www.copywriter.com/lists/
Intellipost
Notify.me (Mails to a list, and recipients can go to a corresponding page at its site; you pay only for people clicking through to your site -- 50 cents per person, perhaps less if you negotiate)
PostMasterDirect Response (Claims to have three million names on file, which seems rather a lot for opt-in; generally about $150 per thousand addresses)
http://www.PostMasterDirect.com/
WebPromote
Yahoo! -- Direct Email
http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/Marketing/Direct_Marketing/Direct_Email/
Some services charge by response rather than by recipient. In other words, instead of charging you, say, 15 cents for everyone who receives your message, they'll charge you perhaps 50 cents for everyone who visits your Web site as a result of your e-mail message. Negotiate with these people, and see if you can get a lower rate. And compare to other forms of advertising. See, for instance, the information on Did-it.com, later in this newsletter.
--But Does it Work?--
It's more expensive to mail to these lists than to use a spam list, of course. You may end up paying as much as 15 cents per recipient, though some lists are much cheaper. So the question is, Will this really work? Will you get enough business to make it worthwhile?
Perhaps, perhaps not. First, much depends on the offer you are presenting to recipients. If you are offering a product they're not interested in, or a price that's too high, or simply writing a lousy sales pitch ... it's not going to work. That's not the fault of targeted e-mail, of course.
There's another important consideration, though. How will your message be delivered? Some of these services sell a sort of classified ad service, and I'm pretty sure these don't do very well. They work like this. You provide a few lines to be inserted into a message, anywhere from, say, three to fifteen lines. Your message is then added to a large e-mail message that has dozens of other similar messages, and sent out to the list. BusinessLink has a service like this, and mails the message to around 650,000 people. It's cheap; you can send a 15 line message to 650,000 people for about $145.
The only problem is, it probably won't work. The response will probably be extremely low. For instance, I experimented with this service recently. And I received a total of 65 people signing up at my Web site, or sending e-mail to my autoresponder. But 16 of the 27 messages to my autoresponder were spam! So probably only 49 of the contacts were from people interested what I had to say -- almost $3 per contact.
Note also, that this response was the result of _two_ inclusions; I paid extra to be at the top of the message, but the first time the ad went out I was way down the list, so BusinessLink ran it again for free -- near the top. I also paid extra to get a 15-line message. I'm sure the response to a 3- line message would have been worse!
I'm not done with my opt-in, targeted e-mail experiments, though. I believe that properly done, it can work. I've come to the conclusion, however, that the classified ad type of message _doesn't_ work. I'll be experimenting with a PostMasterDirect list soon, and perhaps one or two other services. I'll let you know the results.
The "Plug-and-Play" Web Site
I recently wrote a two-part article for NetBITS, an electronic newsletter distributed to 20,000 people. I won't include the article here, but if you're interested, you can read this article at the Poor Richard's Web site:
http://www.poorrichard.com/freeinfo/
Here's the basic concept that I described in that article. I'm a proponent of what I've termed the "plug-and play" Web site. This is the idea that when you want to add a component to your Web site, you quickly plug it in. It doesn't have to be expensive, and it doesn't have to be terribly complicated. In fact many people who are creating low-cost Web sites don't realize how sophisticated their sites can be -- the assumption seems to be that things like chat and discussion groups, feedback forms, shopping-cart software, and so on, are complicated, expensive things, out of the range of small-budget Web sites.
In fact these things can be plugged into a site very quickly, and at a very low cost. In many cases you can add a service that is running on someone else's Web server. To add a chat or discussion group to your Web site for free, and all it takes is plugging in a little bit of HTML into one page on your site (see "Free Chat and Discussion Groups for Your Web Site," below). You can probably figure out how to do this even if you don't write HTML -- if you're using an authoring tool that insulates you from the HTML it probably allows you to add pieces of your own code. Shopping-cart systems are available for $25 a month. Feedback forms can often be added very quickly and cheaply, too.
And here's one really great thing about plugging in services held on other Web servers; even if you have a "personal pages" Web site -- Web space provided free by your Internet service provider, by AOL, or by CompuServe, for instance -- you can still add services that you wouldn't normally be able to install. AOL won't let you run scripts, for example, but if you "plug-in" a shopping-cart service running on another server ... bingo, you've got an ordering system incorporated into your Web site.
Of course as you read earlier in this newsletter, I don't recommend that you use "personal pages" if you're trying to set up a serious Web site. But if you are on an extremely tight budget, linking to a service on another server provides a lot of flexibility
Free Chat and Discussion Groups for Your Web Site
Want to add a chat group or discussion group to your Web site? You might want to, but perhaps you've thought it's not worth getting into. After all, consider the expense, the complication. Well, how about if you can get one for free? And how about if you can set it up in ten or fifteen minutes?
There are a number of ways to add these things. Some authoring programs let you add discussion groups. If you're using Microsoft FrontPage, for instance, look for the Discussion Group Wizard; this lets you create a discussion group very quickly, as long as your site is at a Web server with the FrontPage server extensions installed.
Another way to add a group is to use someone else's service. Several sites provide free chat and discussion groups to anyone who wants one. One of the best chat-group services is TalkCity:
There's no charge to set up a chat room, and it takes just five minutes work: you simply follow the instructions they send you. You get your own room, and you link to it from your Web site. It appears, to all intents and purposes, to be running at your Web site, except that your visitors will see banner advertising. TalkCity recently improved the system, too, allowing site owners to customize their chat rooms -- adding a special icon or logo, or a Welcome banner -- though there's a charge for these services ($4.99/mth for the icon).
You can see an example of a TalkCity chat room running at my Web site:
http://www.poorrichard.com/examples/chat.htm
You may not find anyone in the room -- this is not something I promote much, I simply put it there as an example of what can be done -- but you'll get an idea of how it all works.
By the way, while you're at my site, visit the Poor Richard's Example Page:
http://www.poorrichard.com/examples/
This page contains examples of the type of utilities that can be added to a site cheaply and easily. Right now there are about a dozen examples, and we'll be adding more now and again.
Another service I've run across recently is Delphi Custom Forums:
I haven't experimented with this service, but it looks good. Not only will they provide you with a chat group, but they can do discussion groups, too. A family, an "interest group or organization," or a "small workgroup" can set up both a chat room and a discussion group for free; there are some limitations on the number of participants and messages, though they seem pretty generous, and you can pay extra to upgrade.
Did-It.Com and Search Engine Optimization
You may have seen services advertising that they can push your entry in the Web search engines to the top of the list. I have my doubts about this -- I think a number of these services are probably exaggerating what they can do, and I'll explain why in a later issue. But I quickly want to mention one of these services, Did-It.Com:
This company will place special listings in the search engines, linking back to a page on their server. People who use the listings are then forwarded to your server. You pay just for the people who visit your site. Now, Did-It.com's prices are usually $299 to set up the system, then 25 cents for each "clickthrough"; that is, you pay them 25 cents for each person who visits your site as a result of the Did-It.Com listing. However, they're currently running a promotion. Right now they'll charge $150 to set up, and 12 cents per clickthrough. I don't know how long they'll run this promotion, and I didn't see any information about it at their Web site (I received an e-mail offer). So if you decide to try it, ask them for the promotion pricing.
Is it worth it? I'm not sure, but if you've been thinking of experimenting with such a system now is a good time to do so -- and they'll continue the 12 cents price for as long as you use the service. I may try it ... if I do, I'll let you know the results.
By the way, here's the way I look at this sort of service. In effect, it's just another form of advertising. They'll send you people interested in your product or services, and you pay them each time. And 12 cents per clickthrough is actually a very good price when compared to other Web advertising systems.
Bits and Pieces
Here's a great Web site with links to 100 computer magazines and journals on the Web; a great resource if you're promoting a computer hardware or software product:
http://www.internetvalley.com/top100mag.html
The "Magazines For and About Computers and the Internet" site has links to over 330 magazines:
http://www.cris.com/~milewski/magnet.html
If you start an electronic newsletter -- like Poor Richard's Web Site News, a newsletter distributed by e-mail -- you can begin by running it from your desktop computer. As it grows, however, you may find it's too big to manage by yourself! In a future issue we'll look at e-mail distribution companies, but I just wanted to mention one I found recently that looked good (that's not a recommendation, it's just based on a quick look), Revnet Systems:
What Do You Want to Know?
Let us know what you think about this newsletter, and the type of subjects you'd like to see covered. Send your comments and questions to feedback@poorrichard.com
In Future Issues ...
Here are just a few of the subjects we'll look at in future issues of Poor Richard's Web Site News:
- Keeping Your Domain Name Safe
- Setting up Shopping Cart Systems
- Finding a Transaction-Processing Service (process credit cards online)
- Web-page Templates for the Design Challenged!
- "Push" Technology That Really Works
- Putting Your Web Site Near the Top of the Search Engines
- Managing Your List Directory using Bookmark Programs and Offline Browsers
- E-mail Merge Programs
- Electronic Press Releases -- Do They Really Work? (Yes! ...We'll Explain How)
- Getting People to Visit Your Web Site by Using the Announcement Lists
- Why "Hits" Are Often Meaningless
- Distributing Electronic Newsletters
- Animated-GIF Archives
Don't Forget Poor Richard's Web Site!
Poor Richard's Web Site: Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site" is available now! It is on its way to the bookstores (though that's a painfully slow process!). It can be ordered online, through the mail, by fax, or by phone. See ...
http://www.poorrichard.com/order/
Order direct from the publisher, and you'll get a 100%, 1-Year Guarantee. If the book doesn't help you set up a low-cost yet effective Web site, send it back for a refund!
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