Poor Richard 37
#037/19-Oct-99
POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE NEWS
Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site
Editor: Peter Kent
Top Floor Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/
Over 39,000 Subscribers in More Than 100 Countries!
IN THIS ISSUE
- Beginner's Column: Contests to Promote Your Site
- RealNames -- Part II
- Another Web Research Tool
- A Useful Tool For Site-by-Site Web Research
- Need Free Content?
- Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
- Book Reviewers Wanted
- Reading Back Issues
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****sponsor****************************************************Beginner's Column: Contests to Promote Your Site
I've used sweepstakes a number of times to drive traffic to my site. Believe me, it works. (And it's far cheaper than banner advertising.) For another perspective on running contests and sweepstakes, here's an article from Larry Dotson. (I wish I'd known about the sweepstakes directories!)
Quickly Increase Your Traffic By Holding An Online Contest Or Sweepstakes!
by Larry Dotson
Holding a contest or sweepstakes can draw a lot of traffic to your Web site. You can announce your site to hundreds of online contest and sweepstakes directories. Send out a press releases about your contest or sweepstakes. Ask entrants to your contest or sweepstakes if they would accept offers from your business in the future by e-mail.
Here are some online directories where you could list your contest or sweepstakes:
Contest World - http://www.contestworld.com/
Sweepstakes Online - http://www.sweepstakesonline.com/
Online-Sweepstakes - http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/
Prize Club - http://www.prizeclub.com/
The prizes should be something your target audience would need or want. Try to be as original as possible with the prizes you are offering. Always offer more than one prize, a grand prize and runner-up prizes. Use your products or services to give away as prizes. Make sure your prizes have some value, nothing cheap. Give enough information about all the prizes, so people will be interested in entering.
Make it easy for people to enter your contest or sweepstakes. I feel the easiest ways online are from an entry form on your Web site or by e-mail. Capture as much information as you can when they enter your contest or sweepstakes like:
Company Name
First/Last Name
Street Address
City, State, Zip
Day/Evening Phone Number
E-mail Address
Web Site Address
Purchasing History
Survey Questions
Give your contest or sweepstakes a professional look and feel. Provide an "Official Rules" Web page for your contest or sweepstakes. Include a time period of how long your contest or sweepstakes will be held. Tell visitors how you will deliver the prizes. Include pictures of the prizes on your site. Tell visitors who will judge your contest. Check out other contests and sweepstakes Web sites to get more ideas.
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A bit more information. I'm not sure what Larry means about announcing your site to "hundreds of online contest and sweepstakes directories" (I'll e-mail him and ask). I did find several more places to register a contest, though:
Contests, Competitions, and Giveaways:
http://www.uggs-n-rugs.com.au/world.html
Contest Catalogue: http://contest.catalogue.com/
ContestGuide.com: http://www.contestguide.com/
CyberPrizes.com: http://www.cyberprizes.com/
Playles Sweepstakes: http://www.playle.com/psw/
Sweeptastics: http://www.sweepstastic.com/
See also this Yahoo Category: http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Contests__Surveys__and_Polls
Also, more important than registering with these contest sites is to find a popular e-mail newsletter or Web site to promote the competition. (When we promoted a drawing in the Lockergnome, we had almost 6,000 entries. For more information, see http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/034.htm#locker2 )
By the way, the most common question about these contest that I hear is, are they legal? The answer, at least for within the USA, is yes. As long as you are not charging an entry fee, you can easily run a simple giveaway contest with no legal problems.
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RealNames -- Part II
In the last issue I discussed RealNames, a system by which you can "buy" search-engine keywords:
http://poorrichard.com/newsltr/036.htm#begin
Several readers wrote to me to tell me about their experiences with the RealNames system. The first reader I heard from thanked me effusively (the subject line was "RealNames - Yeah, baby!!"). Edward Bishop ( http://www.audioamigo.com/ ) told me that he was happy to discover that he was "the first person in my industry niche to take advantage of RealNames." He bought four phrases that, "according to my research at GoTo.com Search Suggestion List and my own web logs, would be considered the most coveted." He was pretty happy, but others were not quite so.
One reader complained that she'd gone through the process of picking names, been told that the names were available, but was later told that the phrases were too "generic." (I must admit I'd had a similar experience earlier, when I registered a phrase only to have it rejected a few days later.) She also told me that RealNames had changed their policy and no longer allow the registration of "generic terms." This is not quite correct, but their policy is not very clear, either. They allow the registration of generic terms in some cases ... if your company or brand name is associated with a generic term, or if a generic term is often used to describe your products, you may be able to get the generic term.
It does appear possible to "keyword stuff" generic phrases, though, as Alan Gardyne did. He couldn't register "marketing advice," but he could register "AssociatePrograms.com - marketing advice." AssociatePrograms.com is his company's Web site, so he managed to slip this through. Now, if someone types "marketing advice" into Internet Explorer, it's not going to take him to the AssociatePrograms Web site. But if he types "marketing advice" into a search engine that is using RealNames, such as AltaVista, it will bring up AssociatePrograms.com at the top of the list. I mentioned Alan's article about RealNames in the last issue. You can read it here: http://www.associateprograms.com/search/search-engine-rankings.shtml
Another reader complained that he'd tried registering keywords, that his credit card was charged three times, that the keywords were never actually registered, and that he had, thus far, been unable to resolve the problem.
It's worth registering RealNames if you can get the keywords you want, as generic as possible. It's also worth registering if you have a well known brand that someone might type into a browser.
Here's an interesting example of what RealNames have done for us. Hoover, the vacuum clean company, owns the hoover.com domain name. A couple of years ago, anyone typing "hoover" into a browser and pressing Enter would have been taken to hoover.com. Now, however, with the advent of RealNames, there's a good chance that if someone does that the browser will search the RealNames directory, find that the word hoover is associated with hoover.com, and display the hoover.com main page. Exactly the same outcome. Except that Hoover had to pay $100 to get the system that worked well in the first place to continue working.
By the way, the RealNames staff, if you ever get to talk to one of them, will try to sell you on the idea that RealNames are better than URLs, that with a RealName you'll be able to use a keyword instead of a URL. This is complete nonsense, though unfortunately a lot of Internet "newbies" are perhaps not quite knowledgeable enough to understand this. Yes, if you have a RealName keyword you can, in some circumstances, type it into a browser and get straight to the referenced site. But in most cases it _won't_ work. If you dig around at the RealNames site you'll find they claim keywords provide "access to 63.8% of U.S. Web users" -- I believe the number is more likely under 40%, the proportion of Web users working with Internet Explorer 5.
It's only going to work in Internet Explorer 5 -- it won't work in earlier versions, it won't work in Netscape Navigator, and it won't work in most other browsers (it'll work in NeoPlanet, but then, how many NeoPlanet users do you know?). They want you to start promoting your RealName keyword as a way to get to your site. Don't do it. It doesn't make sense to try to "brand" your site using a Web "address" that won't work in most cases. Instead, make sure you have a good, memorable domain name.
Another Web Research Tool
A few months ago I wrote about a variety of automated research tools you can use to keep an eye on the Web for you: http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/027.htm#search
A reader, Adam Amir, recently told me about a new one, Karnak: http://www.karnak.com/
"Karnak has saved me so much time," this reader wrote, "in finding, storing and tracking my information that I have stopped using anything else."
[I've got to say that I don't like this site's design. I think the whole idea of using a picture of a building and expecting users to click on doors and desks and so on -- a door for the entrance, a big desk for "signup," etc., is plain silly. But that's another story.]
I haven't used this site myself. But Karnak claims that it "compiles information from multiple sources, weeding out obviously bad information, storing findings in your personal library, and providing you a summarized, condensed, and highlighted report." Sounds good, if it works. The system periodically checks for more information, and e-mails you updates.
They have a free service that allows you to research multiple topics, but it only saves the most recent topic. The advanced services cost from $9.99 to $49.99 a month, depending on how many topics the system maintains for you.
A Useful Tool For Site-by-Site Web Research
I recently ran across a useful little tool that can assist you when visiting Web sites. For instance, let's say you're visiting Web sites looking for places that might link back to your site. Or perhaps you are looking for sites that might want to mention your contest or get involved in some other kind co-promotion.
2bpop is a special browser (it actually works through Internet Explorer). When you open a Web page, the system quickly creates a list of all the e-mail addresses and links in the page. You can click on an e-mail address, select a message from a list of templates, and e-mail it. For instance, you might find a webmaster@domain.com address in the Web page, and send a message asking the Webmaster if he'd like to hold a contest at his site giving away some of your products. From loading the page to sending the message can take just a few seconds, making this a tremendously efficient process.
The system also allows you to save lists of Web sites, so you can easily visit again.
You can find the program at http://www.2bpop.com/
Need Free Content?
Want to make your site more attractive to visitors? To add content to complement what you already have? How about _free_ content -- photos, news-headline links, columns and articles? Take a look at iSyndicate.com, a system that currently takes content from almost 600 providers, and channels the content to over 140,000 sites.
You can link to this content for free. So you can have news headlines, for instance, on your Web site, but when someone clicks on a headline they'll be taken to another site ... which is not always something you want to happen, of course. You can also buy content to incorporate into your site, starting at $500 a month.
See http://www.isyndicate.com/
Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
Top Floor Publishing now has five books in print:
Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/email/
Poor Richard's Web Site
http://PoorRichard.com/
Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions
http://PoorRichard.com/promo/
The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet
http://TopFloor.com/cdnow/
MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution: Turn Your PC into a CD-Quality Jukebox
http://TopFloor.com/mp3/
Order direct from the publisher, and you'll get a 100%, 1-Year Guarantee. If you feel the book wasn't worth the money, send it back for a refund!
And remember, these books are discounted at the Web site, and you pay just one shipping cost regardless of how many books you buy!
Book Reviewers Wanted
Do you review books for newspapers, magazines, newsletters (electronic or paper), Web sites, or other media spots? If so, perhaps you'd like to review Top Floor Publishing's latest book, "Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing." Or perhaps you'd like to review one of the other books I mentioned above?
Contact my Marketing Director, Missy Derkacz, at reviews@TopFloor.com. Include your full mailing address, the name of newspaper/magazine/whatever in which the review will appear and the probable date of publication, and the editor's contact information.
Reading Back Issues
If you need to refer to back issues of this newsletter -- and search the archives -- you can find them at the following location: http://PoorRichard.com/newsltr/
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