Poor Richard 5
#005/10-Apr-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
- Beginner's Column: Creating a Forwarding Page
- 7 New Domain Names Coming Soon? ... Perhaps Not!
- E-mail Promotions -- What Works, What Doesn't
- Getting Awards For Your Web Site
- Giving Awards
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Beginner's Column: Creating a Forwarding Page
I thought this subject was suitable for beginners, because so many have made the mistake of setting up their Web site at an online service or Internet Service Provider. Well, it's not necessarily a mistake ... it's just a mistake if you're serious about setting up a business, club, association, church, or other organization on the Web.
Eventually you'll realize you need to register your own domain name, and move to a hosted site. But what about all the people who used to know where you are? How do you let them know about your new site?
Unfortunately you'll probably end up keeping your old account for a while, and forwarding people from the old Web site to the new one. To do so, you'll probably want to set up a forwarding page. It's easy enough to set up a page with a link to the new site, but you can also automatically forward visitors. That is, they'll see the page, then, after a time delay set by you, the main page at the new site will appear automatically.
Here's how it's done. You need to add a META tag right below the <HEAD> tag at the top. If you use an HTML authoring program, and never see the HTML tags, look for the command that allows you to view the source of page, the underlying HTML codes. At the top of the page you'll see this tag: <HEAD>
Put the cursor right after this tag, press Enter, then type this:
<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="xxxx; url=yyy">Replace the xxx with a number, the number of seconds delay before the visitor is forwarded to the next page (you may want to wait a few seconds, to tell the visitor that you've moved your site).
Replace yyy with the full URL of the page to which you are forwarding the visitor. You want to end up with something like this:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="10;
url=http://www.poorrichard.com/examples/">By the way, you should also include a normal link from this page to the new one; not all browsers will forward (most will, but a few older one's won't.)
Here's another use for these forwarding pages. I use them to check responses to particular promotions. For instance, when I do my Joke of the Day adverts (see later in this e-mail), I provide a URL to a particular page. When someone reads the ad and goes to that page, the page then forwards that person directly to my site's main page. But I can check my site statistics to see how many people have accessed the page specified in the ad, giving me a good measure of how successful the ad has been.
If you want to see a forwarding page in action, use this link:
http://www.poorrichard.com/examples/autofwd2.htm
If you'd like to see this page's source code, click on your browser's Stop button as soon as you enter the page; that ensures that it won't forward. Then you can use the View|Source command.
7 New Domain Names Coming Soon? ... Perhaps Not!
You may have heard about the seven new top-level domains that were planned to be in use by now. In fact if you have Poor Richard's Web Site, you may have read a little about them there. I wrote that these domain names were planned, but that that didn't mean they'd actually see the light of day, and right now their future looks pretty bleak.
These are the domains that should have been available by now:
- .firm for businesses, or firms
- .shop for businesses offering goods to purchase
- .web for organizations involved in activities related to the World Wide Web
- .arts for organizations involved in cultural and entertainment activities
- .rec for organizations involved in recreation and entertainment
- .info for organizations providing information services
- .nom for individuals who want their own domains
Some registration services have been selling these domains for months now. Some have been doing so fraudulently, promising to register the domain, while others have been doing so with the understanding that the buyer is merely buying an early chance at grabbing the domain. (There is no way to guarantee that you will get the domain you want, as they will be registered on a first-come first-serve basis -- if they materialize at all.)
These domains were supposed to be in service last month, but the U.S. Government has decided it doesn't much like the plan, and the Department of Commerce has proposed its own plan. For this reason it's unclear when, or if, these top-level domain names will ever be available. As the FAQ explaining the "Generic Top Level Domain Memorandum of Understanding (gTLD- MoU)" states: "We hope ... to begin full operations as soon as possible but no firm date can be given because of the intervention of the US government into this process."
If you'd like to see the Department of Commerce document, you can find it here: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/domainname130.htm
You can find lots of information about the Generic Top Level Domain Memorandum of Understanding (gTLD-MoU) here: http://www.gtld-mou.org/
And if you're wondering why the US Department of Commerce should have so much control over what is an international network ... you're not the only one.
E-mail Promotions -- What Works, What Doesn't
In the very first issue of this newsletter I talked about using opt-in e-mail lists to promote your site or product on the Internet. (Opt-in means e-mail lists that have been created with the permission of the e-mail addressees. See the first edition of the newsletter -- http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/archive.htm -- for more information.)
At that point I hadn't had a lot of success with e-mail marketing. Since then I've had even more failures ... but I've also found one system that really does work.
I tried two systems (and I'm in the process of trying two more, which I'll discuss in a later edition of the newsletter):
- PostMaster Direct: http://www.postmasterdirect.com/
- Joke of the Day: http://www.joker.org/
PostMaster Direct
PostMaster Direct is a company that sells many thousands of names, in hundreds of different lists, from lists for ???? to ???. I mailed to around 2,000 people for $300 -- 15 cents per person. I sold a grand total of one book, and received not much more than 200 visitors to my site. PostMaster Direct later offered me a per-order campaign; that is, they'd provide me with orders, and I'd pay a fee per order. That's fine by me, but it turned out that they thought I was going to sell the book on a billing basis; the book would be sent to customers free, then they'd receive a series of bills later, so they could make three payments or so. (PostMaster Direct work with Rodale Press, which sells books in this manner.)
They also told me that it's very difficult to get people to buy something outright using e-mail, and when they discovered I wanted to do that -- that I couldn't sell books on a billing basis, they told me that they couldn't do a per-order campaign. So that was that.
Joke of the Day
The Joke of the Day mailing list is, not surprisingly, a list that transmits a joke to each subscriber -- all 110,000 of them, reportedly -- every day. Each joke is "sponsored" by a single advertiser; the ad comprises a few lines of text above the joke.
Now, the nice thing about Joke e-mails is that this is mail that people actually read. Consider the BusinessLink mailings that I discussed in the first issue of the newsletter. Many people sign up with BusinessLink to get onto the contest list -- BusinessLink give away computer equipment and other things to encourage people to subscribe. So many people don't care to read the messages, they just want to have a chance of winning (it's the same thing with Publisher's Clearing House; I never buy magazines from them, but I always enter the drawing).
That's not to say nobody ever reads BusinessLink messages, but they probably only read them if the Subject line is enticing enough. And however good you are at writing advertising copy, a Subject line isn't much to work with.
But jokes ... well, isn't that why the Internet was invented? To save fax paper? People really do read joke e-mail. They subscribe to joke mailing lists because they want that humor fix. And they open and read the e-mail because they want a laugh. And -- and this is really important from our point of view -- if they think the joke is funny, they'll send it on to their friends. Often to many of their friends. With luck they simply click on the Forward button, and away it goes ... with the ad still in place. So although a joke list may be sent out to 110,000 people, who knows how much further it travels. To 150,000 people? 200,000?
My ad in Joke of the Day cost me $75. It didn't bring in enough business to buy a new car or send me to Hawaii. But it did bring in around 930 visitors to my Web site, and sold about 7 or 8 books (around $220 to $260, not including shipping fees), more than enough to pay for the ad. And I'm experimenting with these ads, to see if I can get my responses up.
Notice, by the way, that I paid around 8 cents per visitor. That's _very_ cheap in the world of Internet advertising, far cheaper than most Web banners, which are measured in _dollars_ per visitor (we'll talk about advertising costs in a later newsletter). You can see an example of the Joke of the Day ad here:
http://www.poorrichard.com/examples/jod.htm
Getting Awards for your Web Site
Have you considered submitting your Web site for an award? The right award can push a lot of traffic to your Web site, and can help build credibility for your site.
For example, a week or so ago Poor Richard's Web Site was listed at a USA Today Hot Site. Whereas my site's been fluctuating between about 250 and 350 visits a day, on the two days after the award I got over 2,300 visitors.
What sort of sites are considered for awards? They can be "cool" sites, but they're often also very useful or unusual sites. If your site is something quite out of the ordinary, yet something that a significant number of people are likely to be interested in, you may want to apply for some awards (even if you don't feel that your site is one of the best designed on the Web!).
There are a number of places to find awards -- and in fact awards range from very important and effective awards, to, well, virtually unknown and probably not a lot of use awards. I'll start with some of the important ones. I've provided a couple of URLs for each site, or a URL and an e-mail address; the first to take you to the main site, the second to submit your site for consideration.
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/cyber1.htm
cyber@usatoday.com
Selectsurf
http://www.selectsurf.com/
http://www.selectsurf.com/addsite/
Webby Awards
http://www.webbyawards.com/
http://www.webbyawards.com/about.shtml#NOMINATION
You have to get your site reviewed in The Web Magazine before it can be considered for this annual award. (Although this magazine is no longer publishing its print version, it is continuing with the Web version.) You can only submit sites that are less than 2mths old.
Web100
http://www.web100.com/
http://www.web100.com/other/submit.html
Best of the Web (running since 1994)
http://www.botw.org/
I can't figure out how to submit to this
Yahoo Pick of the Week
http://www.yahoo.com/picks/
suggest-picks@yahoo-inc.com
Project Cool
http://www.projectcool.com/
http://www.projectcool.com/sightings/submit.html
Starting Point:
http://www.stpt.com/
http://www.stpt.com/general/submit.html
I signed up for Starting Point, but this site automatically presents awards to sites that have been voted in as hot sites. If you'd like to help me win this award, simply use the following link to register your vote!:
http://www.stpt.com/cgi-bin/general/vote.cgi?category=business&vote=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.poorrichard.com%2F&title=Poor+Richards+Web+Site&email=pkent@topfloor.com
NetGuide:
http://www.netguide.com/
Computing compute@netguide.com
Entertainment fun@netguide.com
Health health@netguide.com
Internet internet@netguide.com
Living life@netguide.com
Money money@netguide.com
News news@netguide.com
Shopping shopping@netguide.com
Sports sports@netguide.com
Travel travel@netguide.com
Women women@netguide.com
Lycos Top 5%:
http://www.lycos.com/
http://www.lycos.com/help/top5-form.html
Magellan
This site appears to be moribund. Magellan sold out to Excite a while back, and although the site is still there, for the moment it's not functioning. (By the way, here's a bit of Web trivia for you; Magellan was founded by the daughter of Anglo- Hungarian "socialist" newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, who, as you may remember, died in suspicious circumstances a few years ago)
http://www.mckinley.com/
http://www.mckinley.com/magellan/Info/addsite.html
Now for the not so well known, and perhaps not quite so useful awards. There are hundreds of awards, maybe thousands, being given by individuals and small companies. These awards may not bring you a lot of traffic. On the other hand, they may still be useful. If you simply feel the need to spiff up your site a little bit, these awards are often very easy to get. And if you find an award that's very specific to your business, it might be worth trying to get. For instance, there are awards for gardening-related Web sites, pet and animal sites, sites "built with nerdiness and geekiness," horse sites, and so on. (My favorites: The Absolutely Meaningless Site Award, and the Bottom 95% of all Web Sites Award.)
A great place to start going after these small awards is the Awards Jungle site, where you can fill in a single form, and quickly mail to scores of different award sites
Awards Jungle:
http://207.49.108.198/flamingo/chowch/aj/
This site lists around 130 different awards. I tried submitting to many on this list (don't bother submitting to inappropriate awards, of course), and within a few days I'd won several awards:
- The Element Design, from Jerry Tong or someone or other ...
- Quatec's Web Site Design Award
- The Critical Mass Award
- Computer Magic's Magical Business Web Award
- The Website Innovation Award
- A+ Approved Web Design
- DDC Bronze Leaf Award
I almost didn't accept the DDC Bronze Leaf Award, being slightly miffed that I didn't get the Gold Leaf, but what the heck, might as well take it. If you'd like to see the awards, and any others that have arrived since this newsletter went out, you can visit my reviews page:
http://www.poorrichard.com/review.htm
Here are some more places to find awards:
Award-It!
Another place to fill in a single form, and submit to scores of awards (over 100). This system makes it easier than Awards Jungle to check the purpose of the awards before submitting. http://www.award-it.com/
Contest Network
These are the sites that the Award-It! form automatically submits to, plus scores more that only accept manual submission (around 70 more sites) http://www.contest-network.com/
The Awards Connection
A huge listing -- over 1,700 awards -- with almost 1,000 of the award images. http://www.citeweb.net/theAC/
Award Sites
Around 360 awards, rated according to the "quality" of the award, and in many cases you can see the actual award image used. http://www.focusa.com/search/award_sites.htm
Web Search Awards List
A smallish list (it's actually a list of awards won by Web Search), but you can see the award images. http://www.web-search.com/awards.html
Yahoo's Best of the Web listing
http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wid e_Web/Best_of_the_Web/
Giving Awards
You might want to consider giving awards to other sites. Each time an award is placed, the recipient has to put a link from the image back to your site. This may be a good way to bring people to you.
Giving awards can turn into a major operation if you're not careful, and take up a great deal of time. But you may be able to get something out of it without too much effort if you play your cards just right. For instance, perhaps you can tightly target the awards. If you're in the model-rocket business, give awards for model-rocket sites; if you're selling homeopathic medicines, give awards for alternative-medicine sites, and so on. If I owned Estes Rockets, for instance, I'd be handing out awards to every really good rocket site on the Web ... but then, if I owned Estes Rockets I'd have a Web site, too, and they don't seem to have one. (For subscribers from outside N. America; Estes Rockets make great little toy rockets -- probably banned in most of the world -- that shoot literally hundreds of feet into the air!)
Begin by seeking out sites, and picking the ones you like, the ones that are really useful. Later, if your award becomes well known in your business, sites will seek you out pleading for awards.
Things to consider:
- Make sure your award image contains your domain name, so even if people don't click on the link back to you (and they probably won't very often), they may remember your site. Few awards contain the URL, but I think it's a good way to make the most of what is really a promotion for you.
- Don't give in to the temptation to award undeserving sites! Yes, every award is a link back to you. But if you present awards to sites that are of no use to anyone, you'll "dilute" the value of the award, and people won't pay any attention to it.
- Make sure you get an attractive award designed. There's something about a well-designed image that lends credibility to the award.
- Consider linking awards to other promotions. For instance, if you present a site with an award, ask if the site would like to hold a drawing for one of your products.
- Consider making the name of the award descriptive. The Estes Web Rocketry Award rather than The Estes Award, for instance. It'll be more memorable, and you'll get fewer inappropriate submissions! For instance, it's tempting, when using systems such as Awards Jungle and Award It!, for people to submit their site to all the awards; if it's clear what your award is all about people are more likely to exclude it if the award isn't appropriate for their site.
Poor Richard's Web Site in the Press
Reviews of "Poor Richard's Web Site: Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site" continue to arrive:
- USA Today awarded listed the associated Web site as a Hot Site, and said "Let [Peter Kent] provide what he calls "geek- free, commonsense advice" on building a low-cost site on the Web."
- Frank Feldmann, writing in Printing News, said that the book "is, in a nutshell, an "A to Z" compendium of the practical aspects of setting up, maintaining, and promoting a home page ... Whatever your level of expertise, you will gain valuable information by reading Poor Richard's Web Site."
- And Christopher Sarson, writing in The View from Windows, said that "The style of the book is friendly and conversational ... the advice is supremely practical ... Whether you're thinking of setting up your own site, or you're just interested in the Internet, read this book!"
For more reviews, and many readers' testimonials, visit ...
Poor Richard's Web Site is in many bookstores, and can be ordered by others; it can also 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!
Reading Back Issues
If you need to refer to back issues of this newsletter, you can find then at the following location:
http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/
In Future Issues ...
In the next issue we'll be looking at simple ways to add password-protection to pages at your Web site, and why you might want to do so. We'll also discuss search-engine optimization.
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