JimWorld Gazette Issue #58 07/19/1998

Gazette - Issue #58 - July 19, 1998

Last week I ran the following short article:

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You really have to see this one sent in by Cary Brown, past contributor to the Gazette. When I clicked on the link and entered the URL for JimWorld's home page I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair. Then I picked up the phone and called a few people to show it to them. You'll have the same kind of reaction.

The Dialectizer lets you enter a URL, select a dialect and see the translated results, graphics and all.

If you're thinking French, German and Japanese, you are way off.

Try Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron and Pig Latin. Important stuff. Anybody can translate into French.

Be sure to take a look at the page about linking to this site. It is very well thought out and explains exactly why you shouldn't link directly to the script for the translation. It makes sense and is a good lesson in fair play on the Internet.

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I neglected to include one thing: the URL. The URL was <http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/> Please notice I said was. It is no longer there. Poof. Gone. Vanished. It appears that they are in the process of setting up on a new ISP and have hit a small snag. (Been there. Done that.) Check back a time or two, or I'll let you know when it is on-line again. It's a hoot.

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Messages like the following are how I get paid. Best payment I have ever had. Kendric even knows how to type JimWorld correctly. Must be a straight-A student.

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Subject: Thanks from a 13 year old

Dear Jim,

Thank you so much for making JimWorld and the Gazette so helpful! I'm not even sure that YOU know how much assistance they can bring to a lonely webmaster down on his luck.

I'm only a 13 year old web designer right now, but the knowledge that I have learned from your page and the newsletter has lined up a lot of business opportunities for me - both for now and in the future. I am sure that this would never have come about had I not discovered your page.

Where you get the time and the strength to produce a high quality web page of that sort, I have no idea. I just hope that you'll keep cranking out more information for all of your loyal viewers.

Thank you so much!
Kendric
Chat Surf! - http://www.relia.net/~jerry/chat/
Salamandastron - http://www.relia.net/~jerry/redwall/index.html

King Of Scumbags Found!
iServer Special Offer - with new information
Pre-Education And Off-Web Promotion
Get Linked
Web Navigation - Part II
Snippets
Electronic Retailing And Lifetime Customers
Banner Exchanges

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g58

KING OF SCUMBAGS FOUND!

Thanks to Nic of the Philosophy Service <http://www.satire.demon.co.uk/philosophy.html> for sending the information about the infamous Bull's Eye 'E-mail Marketing Works' King Of Spammers. There is a helpful page at http://www.ao.net/waytosuccess/spamaddresses.html which lists many of the biggest offenders of our in-boxes.

With a very nice surprise -- names, phone numbers, office addresses and... home addresses. A gold mine of antitoxin for spam infestations.

Our sleazy reigning Spam King with the Bull's Eye now on his back is listed in the California section. Look for:

Christopher Knight
WorldTouch Network
Knight Capital Corp
Home address: 1842 Alvarado, Los Angeles 90023

I'll be trying the phone numbers listed this week to see if I can track down this obnoxious fellow and have a little chat about ethics and Scumbagdom.

If you want to try the numbers too, they are:

213-937-0342 Fax
213-937-9213 Live
213-937-4100
213-969-4930
213-980-7850
213-427-5820
323-937-9213 Collect

If this helps us find the King, we all own a thanks to Nic and a visit to his very enjoyable site.

A SPECIAL DEAL JUST FOR GAZETEERS - WEEK II

Discounted Virtual Servers

iServer is excited to extend a great offer to the members of the Gazette community. The great work you do to design and maintain a web site doesn't mean anything if you don't have an equally great place to host it. This is where we come into the picture.

Before you settle for basic virtual hosting, we want you to experience first hand the added power, flexibility, and reliability of our Virtual Servers. We're extending to all Gazeteers a 30% discount for 6 months on all Virtual Servers maintained with us. This discount will be extended beyond the 6 months if you have a minimum of 5 Virtual Servers at the end of this period. Even better, when you have 20 Virtual Servers, your discount jumps to 50%.

Ordering a Virtual Server Feel free to check out everything we have to offer at http://www.iserver.com, including our server packages and prices at http://www.iserver.com/servers/. However, when you're ready to order, make sure you come back to the JimWorld site and click on the iServer order link so that you can enjoy your limited 30% discount. After you've set up your account and ordered your first Virtual Server, you will no longer need to use this order page. You will simply order additional servers at our site http://order.securesites.com/order/index.html using your Reseller ID.

We look forward to working with you and assisting you in building your business. If you have any questions regarding this offer or any other services we offer, please feel free to contact us at sales@iserver.com or 801.224.9346.

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Jim Here: Dawn Wells (iServer) and I have been working on this since we moved the entire community to their servers and I think we have hammered out a very significant program for you. The discount is far better than I had even hoped for originally, but I soon came to understand that they really are happy to have us on their servers. Thus, the great offer.

iServer has extended to us their current specials through August 15th in addition to the special pricing. They are:

1. Free download of NetObjects Fusion 2.0.2 or purchase Fusion 3.0 for $99 ($249 value).
This is only available to customers of iServer, but a great benefit of doing business with them.

2. $25 setups on all new Virtual Servers.

To get the Gazeteer Special just order using this link: https://order.securesites.com/cgi-bin/iorder/wizard/newreseller.cgi?refid=gazette and it will hit Dawn's desk and get taken care of right away. I'm glad we could arrange this for you. I know you'll enjoy the service.

PRE-EDUCATION AND OFF-WEB PROMOTION

First of all let me make it quite clear that I'm simply not qualified to write an article on Internet site promotion. I still have huge amounts to learn about that.

What I have noticed though, as a business journalist and small business advisor, is that very few people take advantage of the many cheap or free ways to promote their site off the web.

I'm from the north of the UK. Now that's about half way up, on the left hand side and actually nowhere the north of the country! With geographical challenges like that, you can imagine that getting people to our web sites is even more fun for us Brits.

So the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) has decided to educate us all. When you consider that current estimates suggest that 22% of the UK has access to the Internet you realise that the BBC has a real job on its' hands with the other 78%. And, hidden in the way they are doing that job, is a lesson we might all benefit from.

They did a survey and squirreled it away. But on that survey, they've based their whole web strategy. The survey basically told them that when people logged on for the first time - they didn't know where to go. No surprises there -- I'm sure most of can remember our first Internet trip. The survey further pointed out, that newbies tend to spend a long time (measured in months) in their service provider's content area.

Astounding stuff this, isn't it? I bet you're all wondering why Jim asked me to write it? It gets better. The survey also told them that newbies can't type addresses into their browsers, and that they find it difficult to accurately convey a URL over the phone. A UK newbie is likely to actually type in wwwdotjimworlddotcom.

Based on all this 'ground-breaking' research the BBC set a goal. Now this goal is probably going to go down in history along with 'A computer on every desk and in every home running on our software' as a mixed blessing. The goal was that 'the one Internet address that everyone in Britain will know is bbc.co.uk And do you know what's frightening, they are achieving it! My granny who's 86 knows the BBC's URL. She doesn't know it's a URL, but she knows that the web is about those bbc dot co dot uk things!

They've achieved this by repeating the address at the end of every program. 'Further information on the topics covered in this program can be found on bbc.co.uk.' <http://www.bbc.co.uk> They printed pens with it on. They put it on the side of their trucks. They include it on their letterheads, their invoices, their comp slips and business cards. They repeat it regularly on all their radio programs. Which, including the world service, cover the globe. They put it on T-shirts, baseball caps, tennis balls you name it -- literally.

They include it on their telephone system. While you're on hold you can listen to what's on the web site today. All concluding with bbc.co.uk. They even say it in a very specific way. Wrongly! Like this bee, bee, cee, dot, (pause), co, dot (pause) ewe, kay. Go on try it -- it sounds weird. So people rang in and said 'NO! You don't say URL's like that. You should say bee,bee,cee,dot,co pause,dot, uk. This discussion moved to television talk shows and the main evening news! The whole business got even more publicity. Which is the correct way to say a URL? I don't know. But I do know that there is not a man, woman or child old enough to watch the Teletubbies (NOTE TO JIM: do you have this is the USA? It's a Sesame Street kind of thing - could you substitute the name of a popular children's educational programme if you don't mind?) (Note to Linzi - No, I like it just the way it is.) in the UK that doesn't know that the BBC's URL is bbc.co.uk!! Which is an achievement wouldn't you say?

So now, when any Brit logs on to the Internet for the first time, the one address that's ringing in their ears is - the BBC's. That's 65 million prospective visitors who now know one address that they can type into their browser when they get on-line!

So can we learn any lessons from it? Alongside our web-based promotion efforts do we truly make every effort we can to ensure that people in IRL know our URL?

I get invoices and letters daily from around the world from people, who I know have web-sites, but the URL isn't on their communiques. I've got hundreds of ugly freebie pens on my desk and the only one that has a URL on it is from an ISP. Key fobs from car dealerships - phone numbers - sure. But URL's? Not usually.

How many people put their URL on their answering service? My plumber is in the process of building one so he can say 'I'll call you back . . . if it's something you may be able to fix yourself why not check our web site for easy home repairs?!' I think that might help his customer loyalty - doesn't the guy want the call-out fees?

Another simple but effective idea came from an alternative, health and book store called the Rowan Tree <http://www.rowantree.co.uk>. It's about 100 miles from me. I go maybe three times a year. Last time I visited they included a business card in my package with their web site and a 10% discount offer on it. Now I order monthly from them.

The BBC's site and it's sister site beeb.com <http://www.beeb.com> now pull an ABC figure of 12 million a month, which makes it the most popular commercial site in the UK and probably among the top 50 in the world. Perhaps by taking on board some of their thinking we can pull a few extra visitors ourselves?

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Linzi Day is a trainer and journalist. She writes regular columns for several monthly European business publications. She was voted UK network marketing journalist of the year in 1998 for her campaigns for ethics in the industry. linzi@first.uk.com> <http://www.first.uk.com/mlm/index.html>

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Jim Here: Linzi, thanks for taking the time to write this for the Gazette. Any time you feel the need to do more writing (like you don't get enough already) just send it along.

The reason I asked you to write this is because I've discussed this subject as many ways as I know how and wanted a different slant for the Gazeteers. It is one of the most important messages for every site owner. Not just for business sites either. Personal sites have just as many, and maybe even more, opportunities to get their site out in the real world. Little League team sponsor banners that hang for months in the outfield and are seen by many eyes. License plates on cars. Lots of ways.

GET LINKED

Preferred Travel Services
Free For All Links
http://gti.hypermart.net/links

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AltaVista
http://altavista.digital.com
http://altavista.digital.com/av/content/pr052798.htm

(press release)

Size does matter, and don't let anybody tell you differently. AltaVista is now rated as the largest search engine based on number of pages indexed - 140 million. That's a lot of pages. HotBot now slips to number two. Look for a big comeback from HotBot. The gauntlet has now been thrown down.

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Christian Banner Swap
http://www.christianbannerswap.com/

New, targeted banner exchange.

WEB NAVIGATION - PART II

"To Frame or Not to Frame!"
"That is the Navigational Question!"

First of all, let me say that the Web is still an infant in the cradle. It's way too early for any of us to be making any conclusive statements, let alone any hard and fast rules! That's partly what makes the Web so exciting; there "virtually" are no rules! So be it far from me to lay down any rules regarding frames.

I know that this area, among web designers at least, is very controversial. So I'm not going to institute anything here, except to point out some basic "rules" of thumb regarding just good 'ole plain design.

Just like anything, there are pros and cons concerning the use of frames in the design of a Web site. Frames can definitely be used as a powerful tool for site navigation. In fact, in some cases, you will find that frames are the only logical way to go.

The traditional frame on the left side containing links to load into the right (main) frame can be done very tastefully. Also, the navigational frame at the top with links to the major sections of the site can also be done intelligently and simply. Once I designed a site with four frames; one at the top (constant) which contained the company logo and links to the major sections, one on the right (no, not the left!) for products in a catalog, and one at the bottom for a shopping cart script. It worked really well for this online catalog of several hundred computer components.

My purpose in this article is not to give you a technical tutorial in designing frames with HTML. For that you can check out http://www.webhelp.org/frames.html for an excellent tutorial on frames. There are also many good programs for helping you design frames such as Allaire's Homesite 3.0 (my personal fav) at http://allaire.com Another good tool is called "Frame It" and can be found at: http://www.iinet.net.au/~bwh/frameit/

What I do hope to impart to you in this writing is the knowledge of understanding when or when not to use frames.

Frames should not be used just because you think it looks cool! As you may know, there are some problems with frames. The main two problems are that the search engines don't like them, and it's easy to get stuck in frames! Has it ever happened to you? You go to a site with a frame on the left for links and a main frame on the right. You click on one of the links on the left and another framed site gets loaded into the main frame! Now you have a frame within a frame! What a mess! You just lost over half your browser real estate! Or perhaps you have been stuck in a framed site with no way out except that dreaded back button on the browser! One thing that I would like to say about the html is don't forget to use the target attribute in your links so that people won't get stuck! Frames can also be difficult to bookmark.

Here's the policy I have adopted for frames. I only use them when it is absolutely necessary! In other words, only when it will enhance the navigational functioning of the site. Frames definitely cause problems with the search engines. Most engines can't index framed sites. Remember the VP motto: "Promote or Die!" The search engines play a major role in the promotion of your site. Of course, if you do use frames, then you will want to also have a non-framed version of your site and then you can use this version for your submissions to engines. But doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?

If you are looking for the framed "look" such as links on the left with the main frame on the right, you don't need to use frames to accomplish this same effect. You need to do two things.

First, create a background graphic that is about 40-50 pixels high and about 1200 pixels wide (to cover all monitor sizes). On the left of this graphic, fill in about 100-120 pixels with a color and/or texture. Then make the rest of the graphic another color (probably white). Save it as a gif and then use it as your background for the page.

Second, create a table with three cells. The first one will be your column of links. Make this cell the same width as the stripe on your background. Then make a "spacer" cell about 10-20 pixels width and only place a non-breaking space within this cell. Then create the "main" part of your page cell, which will be the remainder of your table. Don't make your table more than 600 pixels wide or you will have some problems with screen resolutions. There you have it, a "framed" site without the frames!

In conclusion, the main thing to remember with frames is to use them sparingly and wisely. Some applications demand frames, such as shopping carts, catalogs with many products, and heavy content sites. If you can accomplish your navigational needs in another way, then do it.

The question is not really "to frame or not to frame", but rather "what works best?"

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Milt Rodriguez is owner and operator of Stellar Design, a professional Web Site design, hosting, and promotion company in Northern California. You can find them on the Web at: http://stellardesign.com or email him at: milt@stellardesign.com We have also started a new email ezine called 'Web Site Tips' that will help you with monthly articles like this one. You can subscribe by going to the web site.

SNIPPETS

Lots of changes going on at Infoseek. This week everything changed again and many of the top placed sites have vanished from the directory completely. Gone. Poof.

If you haven't checked your listings there recently, you should do it now. While you are doing that and trying to do some damage recovery, try submitting your pages using the email option and ask to have them reviewed for the Infoseek Channels. That appears to be the fastest way back to the top of the rankings.

There is lots of good information about Infoseek in the Search Engine Forums at http://www.searchengineforums.com

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CGI City
http://icthus.net/CGI-City/

Looking for information about Perl or CGI scripts? This is a site just full of it. Scripts, that is. Look around and add some interactivity to your site. Your visitors will appreciate it.

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Stock Objects
http://www.stockobjects.com

Great place for phots and graphics for your site or print project.Not a collection of random stuff gathered from other site, but a professional library used by designers for serious work. Add a bookmark for this one.

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HELP Plus Windows 98 CBT
http://www.cbtplus.com/d_win98.shtml

Tried using Windows 98 yet? Having a few problems navigating through the quicksand of Rushed To Market bugs? Here is an almost 3 MB free help file to get you through the more dangerous areas of the slightly buggy new release. Isn't it a shame that someone had to create a 3 MB file to help with something that should just run?

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Jobs with WebPromote
http://www.webpromote.com/jobs/

Lots of demand at Web Promote. Check out their jobs page and send in a resume.

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The WebLinks Company
http://www.weblinksco.com/linksbus.htm

Nice, brief and to the point article on establishing links on your site.

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Managing Discussion Lists
e/y/e/s/c/r/e/a/m interactive, inc.
http://www.internetadvertising.org/resources/emailmanagement.html

Adam Boettiger has done an update of his excellent article to help you manage a discussion list. As a long term, highly respected moderator, Adam's advice is not to be taken lightly. Read it and bookmark it.

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Hi Jim.

We'd like to announce our new Golden Pen Award for Excellence in Online Publishing. This award is given to newspaper and magazine publishers whose sites demonstrate excellence in content, appearance, design, navigability, purpose and service.

The link to apply for our beautiful animated award is on our home page at http://www.southernnewmexico.com

Many thanks,
Carla DeMarco, publisher

ELECTRONIC RETAILING AND LIFETIME CUSTOMERS

By John Doyle-JDE Internet Publishing

Many on-line businesses seem to be missing the boat on their most valuable asset -- their existing customer base. After spending thousands of dollars creating on-line sales and business, they proceed to sell their product or service new customers and never contact the past customers again.

Big Mistake. That past customer has, for example, purchased a book for $29.95 and was probably happy with their purchase. In order to get that sale, your company had to advertise and spend money. Nothing new I hear you say,however you may have only made say 50% or less in profit after you took out the cost of your advertising and overheas.

But you have gained the trust of a customer which is far more valuable than the sale itself. You can then sell a follow up product, possibly for a product or service related to the book the customer has just bought. This does not even have to be your own product or service but can simply be a joint venture between you and a related company.

You can e-mail a special offer to those customers for a related product or service at no additional cost to you. The results will be an excellent response rate and 100% pure profit for no outlay. Best of all this can be done again and again.

The result will mean long term profits which every business needs if it wants to survive and a high profit margin for no additional outlay from your existing customer base.

Or to put it another way, lifetime customers are worth their weight in gold. Do the math. 1,000 customers, of which 150 buy a follow up product for $49.95 = $7, 492.00 in sales. Done 4 times a year = $29,970 in sales yearly that did not cost you anything to get.

This is what many marketers aim for and those who do not -- should. Regular contact with your customers offering all the latest offers exclusively to them at discounted prices.

The customers get a good deal and are even more likely to buy from you in the future. Your company gets increased revenue and everyone is happy.

That is not the end of the story. By giving your customers good service and special offers it shows your willingness to look after their long term needs.

Now the customer is far more likely to refer additional business your way than to that of a competitor because of the service that they have received. This long term view of your individual customer will benefit your business and make you long term profits, additional customers, increases in both your sales and customer base, and all for no additional cost!
Give it a try. You'll see your business grow by leaps and bounds over time.

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Get a free lifetime subscription to "Cybermarketers On-line" newsletter where you'll discover new revealing on-line marketing tips, feature articles from entrepreneurs making their living online, and business related classifieds and free resources. http://www.jde-publishing.com/cybonlin.htm

BANNER EXCHANGES

First of all, I'd like to thank VirtualPromote (JimWorld) for improving my rankings in all the search engines where I added my site. My traffic has increased dramatically. Second, I thought I should write an article for the gazette which other readers would thank me for (maybe). Well, here it goes:

Dear Gazette Reader,

As you already know, advertising can be a tough thing to do. However, it doesn't take long to generate a steady flow of traffic with a little effort. This article will be discussing free banner advertising and how to use it properly.

First and foremost, because every banner exchange service is different, be sure to read the rules and regulations of every exchange that you are thinking about joining. For example, I found that LinkExchange (standard) was one of the lowest rated possabilites in free banner exchanges. However, over 200,000 sites signed up for this free service, only to find low click through rates. Trust me, even with a good banner, I started out at 99:1 (for every 99 viewings of the banner on my site, 1 person came). That, ladies and gentlemen, is pathetic.

The thing you'll want to look at most is the ratio of how many times your banner is shown on other sites, compared to how many times it's shown on your site. The most popular ratio is 1:2 or 1:3, however, some services provide up to a 1:1 ratio, but mostly you'll have to pay extra for such ratios. There are also some odd ratios going around, like 7:8 and 8:9. Be careful, these can greatly influence your amount of traffic.

The second most important thing to think about is of course the banner itself. Since most banner exchanges offer limited targetting its important to make the banner as eye-catching as possible. Did you know that only about 60% of ads are actually seen on any web site? Most users scroll down before the ad loads, so it is also important to make sure that the ad is small in file size. Many people who use free banner exchanges as their source of traffic make one big mistake. They always use the maximum file size given for each banner exchange.

So, to make the banner eye-catching here are some tips:

-- Use BRIGHT colors, i.e. yellow, red, orange etc.. ,
-- Make sure you can READ the text.

There are so many ugly banners out there which forget the purpose of the banner, to advertise your site right? So, make sure viewers can read the add! Also, studies show that a banner that is properly animated can have 25% higher click throughs than static banners... hint hint.

Well, I hope this little article has helped a bit in clearing up some of the things about free banner exchanges. I have prepared a site for Gazette readers which incorporates the 10 most popular banner exchanges. Take a look at: http://www.coolgraphics.com/banners.html

Also, if you'd like to check out my site, feel free to drop by: http://www.coolgraphics.com

Yeomans <yeomans@bellatlantic.net>