JimWorld Gazette Issue #64 10/02/1998

Gazette - Issue #64 - October 2, 1998

A bit of bragging:

"Your site [JimWorld] has been selected by the members of the Moderated Homebiz Discussion List as one of the "Top Home Business Resources" available online. All THBR sites are listed at http://www.tqm-online.com/top_resources.htm and are available by autoresponder as well at mailto:resources@tqm-online.com "

Thanks HomeBiz list members for this! Gazeteers that are involved in a home-based business should drop by and sign up for the discussion list. It has a lot of good information flowing through it.

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"Congratulations!!! We are awarding [JimWorld] our inaugural "Fun Site Award" for selected web sites that live up to the content of providing fun, fun and nothing but fun to its visitors. This award is in recognition with a job
well done by you to make the Web a better and fun place to be."

Http://www.penang.org/JMMD

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The beat goes on at Top Ten Links where people can vote for their favorite sites in lots of different categories. In the Web Site Promotion category, the top 3 continue to be JimWorld, Get High Forums and Search Engine Forums. This has been stable for several months, so I guess we're a hit. http://www.toptenlinks.com/internet/promotion.vote

Special Deals For Gazeteers
Goings On
Getting Traffic From Free-For-All Pages
New JimTool - TrayColor
Tips From The Hitman - Part XXXVIX
Cyberfraud Is Alive And Well
Free For All Treasures
Creating Awesome Web Ads
Get Linked
Snippets

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g64

SPECIAL DEALS FOR GAZETEERS

iServer
http://www.iserver.com/partners/vpromote/

Ordering a Virtual Server

Check out everything iServer has to offer at http://www.iserver.com, However, when you're ready to order, make sure to go back to the JimWorld home page and click on the link there to get some very special treatment as a Gazeteer. Start with a 30% discount on all of your hosting and options. Plus, the special for $25 set-up fee is still in effect. That's a big savings. Check out the other specials they have going on for members, and you can get any of those also. iServer is where the JimWorld and the rest of our affiliated communities reside. Very happily, I might add.

GOINGS ON

Keyhole
http://keyholesearch.com/

The Search Phrase Keyhole had a rocky start after I announced it in the last issue. I badly underestimated the response and you folks brought it to its knees. John and I went to work right away and by Wednesday it was humming right along. As of the end of its first week of operation it is, in fact, humming along at the rate of about 15,000 page views a day. We have continued to add new Hyperseek directories to the database and now have several hundred search terms being captured into the keyhole each hour. Looks like a big hit with the Gazeteers.

If you missed the information about the Keyhole, it allows you to watch real searches as they are being performed on Hyperseek directories all over the Web. While a couple of the big search engines and meta-search engines have made this information available for their site, this is the first instance where this data has been captured in real time from dozens of directories throughout the Web. It will give you a very good idea of exactly what people are looking for when they search.

If you want even more information about search keyword usage, download the Freeware Plus Word Market program from http://www.jimworld.com/freeware/ It is brought to you free of charge. Word Market will build a database of real time searches being done on several other search engines elsewhere on the Web.

Knowing what search words and phrases are actually being used is about the most valuable information you can have on hand when designing the search engine phase of your site promotion.

GETTING TRAFFIC FROM FFA PAGES

By now I'm pretty sure that everyone knows I am a fan of posting to Free For All pages as a way to drive cheap new traffic to a web site. I get excellent results for all of my sites. On the JimWorld site, FFA traffic outnumbers search engine traffic by 4-to-1.

But I am getting a fair amount of email asking how to use FFA links to get good results. Asking for 'my secrets'. Sorry folks. No secrets. Just some smart work.

Start by visiting a few FFA pages and taking a look at the posts that are already there. Take a look at what is there. Usually pretty bad looking stuff. Lines that read '$$$$$$$$$$ COME GET RIPPED OFF BY US $$$$$$$$$$$$$!!!!****' just scream rip-off. Try a little class. Make an offer. Express a benefit. You only have one line of copy to make your whole pitch. Don't waste any space.

Make the offer a benefit to the reader. They don't care how much money you are making. They don't care what kind of car you drive. They care what's in it for them.

Instead of 'MAKE TONS OF MONEY LIKE I DID' try 'Pay Ca$h For Your New Sports Car For Christmas.' Be sure to use all of the characters allowed since most of the ads are shorter and your ad will stand out.

Post your ad to the first category on the page. Most people don't go to the categories below that. Post your message twice each week about 10 in the morning or 5 PM Eastern Time. That hits the two highest traffic times.

If your ad doesn't work well for you, change it. Keep trying until you find something that works.

NEW JIMTOOL

TrayColor
http://www.burnt-sand.com/downloads/tc95.zip

Ever had the problem of creating a great graphic in Photoshop and wanting to match the background color of your page for a seamless fit? Not that easy is it. Photoshop uses lots of different ways to represent colors, but none of them work in HTML.

If you're running Windows, why not download TrayColor? It runs in your system tray just waiting for the time you need to check a color - anywhere on the screen. Just call up TrayColor, use the eye dropper to get the Hex, Decimal or HTML color of any color on your screen.

This is a simple as it gets. Yet another non-bloated tool that does just enough and nothing more.

TIPS FROM THE HITMAN - PART XXXIX

Web Site Promotion on a zero budget, part 2

Last time out, I talked a bit about educating yourself through reading and participation in various news groups and discussion groups. While we are on the subject, I also want to plug the forums. My hat is off to Jim, he is the master of community building and the forums that are a part of Virtual Promote are honestly the best example I can give along these lines.

If you have never taken the time to look at the forums, I encourage you to do so. There are two very active forums that can teach you quite a bit in the way of self promotion, and the price is right, free.

At the Search Engine Forums, you will learn about building your pages with the focus on beating the odds that are stacked against you considering the number of pages that are listed. I think Alta Vista claims more than 50 million pages listed in the index now. Most of the engines do not have this number of listings, and are actually starting to initiate some policies that could be considered as discrimination to some domains and some types of pages. This is all the more reason to get involved with reading then participating in these forums.

I have focused a lot of my effort over the last two years in understanding how the search engines work and how to help clients get better than average position. Now I know some people will say that search engine position is over rated, but I have seen efforts that were solely in this area pay off with ten thousand hits a week to a web page. Even if you are one of those that thinks that time can be better spent building community, the fact remains that following some basic guidelines in page design and page format (such as paying attention to page titles and meta tags and some other basics) can make all the difference in improving your position on the major search engines. If nothing else, read the forums to learn how to successfully get your page listed in Yahoo.

A good listing in Yahoo is gold, as they are the number one place people search and one of the first Portal sites new Internet users become familiar with. If you want to know more, visit the forum, sign up and start reading then jump in and ask some questions. Anyone who has ever had the good fortune to get a page one listing in Yahoo or one of the major search engines will tell you it does wonders for your hit count.

The other forum is the Get High forum. This one is a real catch all of ideas. You can find everything from hints and tips on site design with tips on designing for browser compatibility, graphics do and don’ts, comments and suggestions, cgi and Java, and when all else fails HELP! There is a forum on contests and other tricks of the trade to increase page views and build community.

The subject of community building is covered and this area is so important that Jim is starting a new page, discussion groups and a newsletter to cover this subject in the near future. If he asks, I may put in my two cents in that newsletter on occasion as well. Community building is hard work, but, if you have been on the Net for any length of time, you know that those who master the task of community building are the long term winners.

A look at the winners shows they have a good grasp of this concept. When Yahoo started it was just a place to look up sites, now days they are adding features all the time to keep you coming back. The same thing can be seen at Link Exchange, the number one banner exchange. Every time I stop by there is something else that is free or helpful to keep you interested and to keep them in the number one position.

Traffic to your site is the life blood of your site, work on building links. If you cannot afford to pay to have your site posted for you, there are lots of free pages that have lists of links in the thousands. This is very tedious but posting your page to all the directories, search engines and free for all pages is probably the best start to traffic after you get your site in order. Remember, you can have your site professionally posted to all these pages fairly cheap. I do it for $40 to 850+ for instance, and so do many other reputable promotion businesses.

You might try to work it in your limited budget since working to get reciprocal links is something you really need to do yourself. Sure, you can have it done but this is one area that will really cost to have done right by someone else. The Internet works on links and trading links with other sites is important. Don’t be afraid to link to other sites, even your competition. You will find that having good links on your page add value and increase busine ss. Take the time to build links, trade links or offer a free service or utility that is useful to others but requires a link back to you, the source. Link building is a slow ongoing process that pays off over time.

If you are just getting started, or suffer from a dismal and disappointing hit count you should not let it get you down. Give yourself a plan of action. I suggest that you do just one thing everyday to improve your situation. This can mean reading to improve your understanding and skills with HTML, it can be taking the time to submit your site to some new locations, or just reading a Internet related magazine to learn just one thing that will improve your Web site.

If you let it, the Internet will overwhelm you. It is easy to try to do too much too fast and blow a gasket from information overload. Remember, if you just take it on one task at a time the cumulative results will reward you with success.

If you are only on the Internet to make money, you will likely lose interest or let setbacks beat you down. Find what you love about the Net and use it to make the whole experience fun and the rest will follow. I would like to have back the time I wasted a couple years ago when I tried to get rich quick instead of getting there slowly and steadily while enjoying the ride! Read, write, learn and grow. If you do you will like what you see when you visit your own page and so will others.

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Hayden Mitchell
The Web Hitman
http://www.webthemes.com

CYBERFRAUD IS ALIVE AND WELL

It should come as no surprise to you that Cyberfraud is rapidly approaching stature as an institution. It is, like it's non-cyber counterparts, everywhere you turn. Merchants being ripped off. Consumers being ripped off. Business-to-business and any other category you care to name.

The watchdog group at the National Fraud Information Center are active in tracking and reporting fraud on the Internet. Here's their Internet Fraud Hit Parade:

Web Auctions - items bid for but never delivered by the sellers, value of items inflated, shills suspected of driving up bids, prices hiked after highest bids accepted.
Internet Services - charges for services that were supposedly free, payment for online and Internet services that were never provided or falsely represented.
General Merchandise - sales of everything from T-shirts to toys, calendars to collectibles, goods never delivered or not as advertised.
Computer Equipment/Software - sales of computer products that were never delivered or misrepresented.
Pyramids/MLMs - schemes in which any profits were made from recruiting others, not from sales of goods or services to the end-users.
Business Opportunities/Franchises - empty promises of big profits with little or no work by investing in pre-packaged businesses or franchise operations.
Work-at-Home Plans - materials and equipment sold with false promise of payment for piece work performed at home.
Credit Card Issuing - false promises of credit cards to people with bad credit
Prizes/Sweepstakes - requests for up-front fees to claim winnings that were never awarded.
Book Sales - genealogies, self-help improvement books, and other publications that were never delivered or misrepresented.

Check out their complete report at http://www.fraud.org/internet/intstat.htm

Browse around. Get the information needed to protect yourself. Learn to tell the good from the bad.

If you are one of the people they are talking about, shame on you!

FREE-FOR-ALL TREASURES

These are a few of the postings to the Free-For-All page that caught my attention. Enough so that I visited the sites listed and found some really interesting sites.

Camcorder Batteries At Wholesale Prices
http://www.batterybank.com/

Send Smoked Salmongrams to a Friend or Business Assoc.
http://www.cuckookingdom.com/salmon.htm

ToolPlace.Com Free Building Tips and Innovative Tools
http://www.toolplace.com

LoonyVerse Games, Animation and More for YOUR Site
http://www.loonyverse.vir.co.uk

CREATING "AWESOME" WEB ADS

As a popular Web classifieds publisher I see over two thousand ad submissions daily. The two most repeated mistakes writers make to compromise their ad's effectiveness are:

failure to qualify the audience and/or
not following proven ad writing basics

I believe we can morph the solution to both mistakes into this one article.

To design an awesome ad follow these four essential AIDA basics:

(A)ttention - (I)nterest - (D)esire - (A)ction

If your ad doesn't contain all of these, it is not an Awesome Ad.

(A)TTENTION: & AD TITLE ABC's

Know Your Audience.

You must first capture your readers' attention. Picture the reader flipping through sections of classifieds containing hundreds of ads, of which your ad is just another ride in the park. The ad that attracts the reader's gaze has a title that may look exciting or even simply comfortable but, most certainly, the ad speaks to them personally.

A sky divers club visiting Disneyland will likely seek rides for their thrill value, while a group of senior citizens may prefer the comfort of a safari monorail trip through the animal park. Title appeal is different to different people for different reasons at different times in their different lives.

Before deciding where to advertise first decide who is your target audience. Ignoring category demographics is like trying to "sell air conditioners to Eskimos." It just doesn't generate enough heat to warm up the prospect to your product or service.
Position Your Ad for Success.

Don't expect readers to come to your ad, take your ad to the people. If Mohammed can't go to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammed. Take the necessary time to place your ad in the most appropriate section(s) of the classifieds.

Now that your ad is in the ball park, through proper placement, there must be something in the title of your ad to stop the reader from scanning long enough for them to focus on your ad.
Animate Your Ad

Animated banners out perform by 5:1 non-animated banners. Why? Because, it's inbred through genetics to focus on movement for primal reasons. Movement in the primeval forest usually meant either food or danger, and caused us (man the hunter) like other animals, to freeze and gaze intently.

Today's humans are very much like our ancestors. We utilize our inherent tendencies when moving through a forest of ads. Action words command our attention. This knowledge helps advertisers animate even non-graphic ads for greater "eye catching" appeal.

Consider these two ad titles:

"URL Broadcasting can Skyrocket Your Profit" or

"Use Submission Software for Improved Sales".

Both titles contain 6 words, 42 characters, and advertise submission software. But, do both command equal attention? Notice that one ad contains verbs and the other doesn't. Verbs show action.

Spend a goodly portion of your time, as I have here, on your ad title or the reading process may end rather than start here. To generate attention, consider the flash value of the words in your ad's title. An awesome ad must cause the reader to stop and to investigate your product.

(I)NTEREST:

The body of your ad must have cognitive appeal. It must make enough good sense, to be worthy of a visit to your site, an email info request, or just to continue reading the ad. Use the body's description of your ad to state the benefits or features your product holds in store for the reader.

Develop a mental picture of the customers who frequent the particular classified section where you place your ad. What are their demographics. What kinds of jobs do they have, cars do they drive, are they young, old, single, married? The clearer and more real your mental picture of your audience, the better you can match the features and benefits of your product to their interests.

There are general and specific reader interests. We all want to make a smart buy of a dependable product that is productive for our purposes. But, the web business man or woman will be especially interested in buying a proven product that maximizes their exposure to new clients and helps to close the sale.

Always look for the unique features of your product that is not being offered by your competitors. This is your market niche.

After making logical sense to the reader, you will then need to turn interest into a personal desire for your product.

(D)ESIRE:

Interest alone is not enough. The awesome ad stimulates the reader toward desire. While interest can generally be obtained by highlighting the practical properties of your product, your words will need to stroke more basic buyer erogenous zones in order to produce desire.

Is there something here that makes the reader feel good, excited, confident, secure, hopeful or powerful? Think about other emotions that your product or service might evoke. Does your product appeal to a particular sense? Can the reader taste, hear, smell, see, or feel your product? You need to convey the emotional appeal of your product to the reader.

All, and let me emphasize, ALL human actions result from our desire to either experience pleasure or to avoid pain. Desire (for your offering) is created when your reader experiences either; an anticipation of pleasure or expectation of avoiding pain or problems from the use or purchase of your product. The influence that this physiological and psychological fact has on prospect purchases can not be overly stated.

Contrary to popular belief, we don't really desire money. We may desire the pleasure we believe money can bring. We may desire to not experience the pain that might result from not having money. The word money only triggers the feelings and desires within us which we seek, whether they be happy, secure, or powerful desires, based upon our personal value system and past experience.

It is the feelings that are attached to the words of our ads that give them power. Surviving is the sole goal of every living cell in every living thing that exists everywhere in the world. Primal concerns are satisfied first. The more primal the feelings attached to the words in your ad, the greater their power.

Everyone has experienced the power of impulse buying. Have you been grocery shopping while hungry? Well, if you have, then you were primed for food purchases. Did you make a new product buy because the food looked tasty? Did you purchase something on crave value rather than food value, or maybe spend more money than you intended?

Well guess what! It is more than a little likely that your product will be purchased on impulse. If your reader is not presently in primal state you've got to get them there. It is the job of your advertising to both create and satisfy the reader's hunger.

There are always good, better and best words. The right word(s) for creating product desire are the ones that elicit biological emotional responses in the reader. Emotional responses bypass the cognitive process and cause us to experience rather than merely read words.

(A)CTION:

If your reader does not take action, there is no sale. How do you get your reader to act? Believe it or not, it's easy.Just use a directive.

If your ad simply says: "call this number now", "email me for details", "go to our web site" etc. Why would you create feelings in a prospect without telling them what to do with those feelings? Yet ironically, not asking for the sale is the single most repeated mistake that stops reader desire from leading to reader action.

Psychologists tell us that when given a directive (unless obviously harmful) our first instinct is to comply. If you are at work, you can turn to the person in the seat next to you, and in a slightly commanding voice say, "give me your pen for a minute" chances are they will, and usually, without question, for no other reason than you told them to do so.

If the first three ingredients (attention, interest, and desire) have been well done, and the reader is a qualified customer, they will more than likely take the action you direct them to take.

Develop your web ad with the above thoughts in mind. Check your ad to see that the four AIDA basics have been met. Now you have an awesome web classified ad that will outpull, by many times, the thoughtless ads of your competition. That's the bottom line.

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Author:
Jim Foreman, president of NetSeek World Presence and creator of DialUp Profits Websites mailto:weblave@netseek.com
Visit their web site at: http://netseek.com/dialup/dialup.html They can provide you with free local dialup connections throughout the U.S. & Canada.

GET LINKED

GoatSearch
http://members.tripod.com/~GoatSearch

You're probably tired of hearing me beat this drum, but the key to success on the Web is finding a need and filling it so completely that you are at the top of the food chain - in your category.

Goat search does just that. They have organized all of the relevant web sites that have goat related content and put it into a well designed directory. While 'goat' may not be one of the top search words in the Keyhole, you can bet that with a bit of promotion, GoatSearch will dominate the traffic that is available. If yours is a goat related site, be sure to submit it.

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Arab World Online
http://www.1001sites.com/addurl.htm

Got an Arab related site? Submit it for review and addition to this Arab-related only sites directory.

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2U4us Business Opportunity Directory
http://www.freeyellow.com/members/wadevc/

Submit your BizOp for a free listing.

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The Accounting Firms on the Internet Database
http://www.prosystems.com/cpas/links.htm

Speaks for itself. Get your free listing.

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Afterpage Internet Marketing Directory & Search Engine
http://www.afterpage.com/

A growing list of Web resources about Internet advertising and marketing. Submit
your marketing or advertising site for a free listing.

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Splat Directory
http://splatsearch.hypermart.net/

Submit your site for a free listing.

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Cprogramming.com
http://www.cprogramming.com/home.html

If your site deals with C/C++ programming, stop by and submit it by email to this very nice looking technical site. Goes to prove that just because someone wears a beanie and propeller, it doesn't mean they can't design a good looking site.

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Cafe Progressive's Resource Directory
<http://users.lmi.net/jchas> is a unique blend of progressive political, educational and multi cultural online resources. All listings are categorized and annotated. If you have an appropriate site, go get listed!

SNIPPETS

Why Brilliant Websites Can Fail
http://www.internetday.com/archives/100298.html

An excellent article from Steve Prentice, president of Web Sites Limited, as published by InternetDay. If you are currently considering over-designing a web site, this is required reading!

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CyberAtlas
http://www.cyberatlas.com/index.html

Get up-to-date on the statistics and trends driving the Web. Before you jump at any Web statistics, be sure to visit a few different sites offering their estimates of the Web. They will all be wildly different. How many people on the Web? Nobody knows.

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If you haven't been under a rock the past few weeks, you obviously know that the iMac has been a big hit for Apple. The low cost iMac has done much to put Apple back into the game and as we go into the Christmas shopping season, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple's share increase even more.

What does this mean for you? It means that you had better be checking your web sites with a Mac. No longer is it safe to assume that the Mac is going the way of Word Perfect. It is not only still around, but it is growing in share. The obvious thing to keep in mind is that new computer owners use more on-line time than just about anybody else on the web.

To those of you that pooh-pooh any good news from Apple, No. The iMac is not the only good news at Apple. While the iMac has generated stunning increases in Apple sales, it is not alone. Other Mac system sales are up 20% during the same period. Seems that many people who had been nervous about buying a new G3 system have been reassured by the iMac success and have taken the plunge.

I guess it's safe now to mention that of the four computers on my desk, two are Macs and two are Windows. I'm not secure enough yet to tell you which I prefer. Maybe after Christmas. We'll see.

Where are all of the web sites that will be needed to help these new iMac owners get the most out of their new computer? I've seen a few, but not enough.

How about the sites to help webmasters design their sites to be iMac friendly? Most of the cross-platform site design web sites have gone away or become badly out of date. Their webmasters were reading too much in the Windows press about how Apple was dead. There's lots of room in that market right now.

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The iMac is not the only hot news. Digital cameras have taken to the fast lane and sales are soaring. With overall prices dropping a whopping 30+% this year, digital cameras have gone from an early-adopter high-tech toy to their current status as a consumer mainstream device.

As with all consumer trends, there is opportunity for the fast-moving web site operator.

Does your site attract gadget oriented consumers? If so, offering content for digital camera owners could be a real shot in the arm for your community building efforts.

Your next question is probably 'But what can I offer that isn't already offered?'

First, let me step up on my soap box and mention the obvious. If the fact that something is already being done were a roadblock to what you can offer, there would only be about 50 web sites in operation. Just because it is being done doesn't mean that you can't do it better and grab your market share.

JimWorld came into existence when there were already dozens of site promotion and marketing sites. That didn't stop me. And it hasn't stopped the hundreds of sites that have developed since then.

So, what could you do for digital camera owners? Here's a few thoughts:

Photo contests just for pictures taken with digital cameras.
Industry watch newsletter.
Discussion forums for digital camera owners.
A directory of other sites containing digital camera information.
Tutorials to help people select the right camera for their needs.
Tutorials on basic photography techniques from the perspective of the digital camera user.
A photo gallery of great photos taken on digital cameras.
Classified ads for used cameras and accessories.
My personal favorite: Open an ecommerce site to sell digital film. < g >

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There are many other under-serviced markets. They offer opportunities to anyone willing to do the research and learn the information. Here's a small list:

Digital video production:

Basic 'All About' for people thinking of starting to make digital videos.
Buyers guide to digital video equipment and software.
Advanced digital video techniques and problem solving.
How to upgrade an iMac with lots of close-up digital photos.
WebCam how-to tutorials. Lots of confusion in that market. While it is easy to get the camera to work, making it useful is pretty tricky. Finding the right software is a real challenge.
How to keep your laptop and desktop computers in-sync with each other. There are many techniques that would make this a pretty interesting site.
Making your voice heard. There are hundreds of places on the web where you can express your opinions. From CNN to the local newspaper forums. Why not create a gateway to all of these sites?

Then there is the almost total lack of basic information in hundreds of areas. I can go to any one of hundreds of sites to get in-depth technical content for computer audio cards. But where do you go to find out what the issues are? Don't tell me the minute differences in performance between different brands of MIDI. Tell me what the heck it is and how to know if I want it on my audio card.

Want more ideas? Visit the Missing From The Web area on the site.

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allyouneedtoknow.com
http://www.allyouneedtoknow.com/

Love the name! Why didn't I think of that one? Nice start on basic information tutorials for the web newcomer. Worth a look.

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Web Marketing Today
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt/

Are you subscribed? If not, how are you ever going to keep up with everything happening in the ecommerce world? Go subscribe. It's the best in its field.

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If you haven't started getting ready for the Christmas shopping season on your ecommerce site, you have very little time left. All of the indicators, throughout the world, indicate that this could be the year that on-line purchasing shows that it has real teeth. Sales are up everywhere. Don't be caught unprepared.

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WebCMO
http://www.webcmo.com/mis/survey.htm

Got a few minutes? Head over to WebCMO and participate in one or more of their webmaster surveys. In return you'll get a free copy of the survey results. The surveys currently running are:

Online Banner Advertising Study
Online Promotion Strategy Study
How do you search for local information?
A survey about Customer Satisfaction surveys