^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| The deadlock Despatch |
| --------------------- |
| January 1999 |
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
From Jim at The Art Of Business Web Site Promotion
Co-authored by Wanda Loskot at Success Connection
___________________________________________________________
In This Issue:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1. Read Me
2. Three Reasons To Avoid MS FrontPage
3. Message Boards As Promotion Tools
4. Jim Gets Interviewed
5. Check Your Listings And Protect Your Copyright
6. Jim's Secret Admirer
7. Great Minds Think Alike
8. Yahoo! And Infoseek: Two Rumours Put To Rest
9. Taking Care of Your Golden Geese
10. WOW! Quality customer service
11. The Rule of Seven
12. Publicity Tips
13. My Gift For You
14. How Idiots Track Success
___________________________________________________________
Success Quote Of The Month
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"When we let others give to us and when we can accept their
gifts in gracious and mature manner, we may be giving them
one of the most important gifts of all"
Daniel Sugarman "Priceless Gifts"
___________________________________________________________
1. Read Me
^^^^^^^^^^
If you were expecting the December issue, don't panic
because there wasn't one! I've skipped one so that future
issues will appear at the beginning of the month instead of
at the end. Makes sense.
Please let us know what you like/don't like about this (or
any other) issue. Feedback is becoming even more urgent for
me these days because certain people are prompting me to
write a book and I'm starting to buckle under the pressure.
If you have a good marketing tip and we use it, you get a
plug.
Bon appetit!
___________________________________________________________
2. Three Reasons To Avoid MS FrontPage
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I don't normally make a habit of talking about HTML code,
but I can't stand it any longer, something has to be said.
If you don't use FrontPage you can breathe a sigh of relief
and skip this section. If you do, you should plan your
escape immediately...
A. FrontPage butchers HTML code. If you've used a 'proper'
editor to write your page and you have a nicely
laid-out, logical HTML structure, it'll be blown to
smithereens and become a horrible mess as soon as you
load it in FrontPage. If you've always used FrontPage
then you won't become aware of this... until it's too
late.
B. FrontPage is nice for beginners because it's easy to
create advanced-looking gadgets, like imagemaps.
However, it's a trap. If your whole site is loaded with
these effects you'll never be able to use any other
editor again without major hassle (and believe me,
sooner or later you'll get sick of it). It's a Microsoft
product, enough said.
C. Here's the killer. In order to use FrontPage, you need
special files installed on your server, called
'FrontPage server extensions'. THESE FILES CAUSE SEARCH
ENGINE ROBOTS TO IGNORE YOUR META TAGS COMPLETELY.
My advice? If you want to start as you mean to go on, learn
to write HTML code in a plain text editor. Try Textpad at
<http://www.textpad.com>
Otherwise, at least use an editor that shows you the code,
for example
WebEdit <http://www.luckman.com/webeditpro/edittrynow.html>
HotDog <http://www.sausage.com>
<< End Of Tantrum >>
This section prompted a lot of feedback and was followed by
this:
>I've had many responses about my FrontPage comments in last
>week's newsletter, mostly concerned with this:
>
>C. Here's the killer. In order to use FrontPage, you need
> special files installed on your server, called
> 'FrontPage server extensions'. THESE FILES CAUSE SEARCH
> ENGINE ROBOTS TO IGNORE YOUR META TAGS COMPLETELY.
>
> << End Of Tantrum >>
>
>
>Of course, I should have gone into more detail and I apologise
>for scaremongering. Here is my evidence:
>
>
>This was first brought to my attention by the following
>paragraph at <http://www.northernwebs.com/set/setsimjr.html>
>
> "Meta Medic is like the Search Engine Spiders in that it
> can not read files on servers using the Microsoft
> Frontpage97 Server Extensions. If your page starts to
> load, then halts briefly before continuing to load, you
> are using these extensions. We cannot read your page, nor
> can the search engines."
>
>
>I tested this by finding a few random FrontPage sites that
>showed "Transfer Interrupted", checking their META tags then
>going back to Alta Vista to discover that, yes, their META
>descriptions were indeed absent on the page listings.
>
>Inevitably, it was pointed out that FrontPage98 had got rid of
>these bugs, and even in FP97 this can be avoided by FTPing the
>site to the server instead of using the 'publish' feature
>(thanks to Linda Lalewicz for this tip).
>
>I'm happy to put the record straight and I'd also like to point
>out the dictionary term:
>
> Tantrum: a capricious fit of ill-temper without adequate
> cause
>
>
>Colin Chapman pointed out something interesting which I can
>neither confirm nor deny:
>
> "One aspect of FrontPage that you didn't touch on is
> security.
>
> "Put all of the following statements in this context:
> MS is marketing FP as a server/editor/web management
> interface anyone can set up and use--even with little or
> no computer experience.
>
> "When you set up an FP "web", the default is for NO
> PASSWORD.
>
> "That is the default. Obviously, this is a bad option.
> As a result there are many, many, many FP servers out
> there with ROOT UNPROTECTED!
>
> "All someone has to do is to point front page at a web,
> and if it is unprotected, full root access is granted
> immediately."
>
>Max Khat <maximaniac@hotmail.com> discovered:
>
> If you use FrontPage, be warned that under some
> circumstances it can wipe out your hard drive! It's an
> unlikely chain of circumstances, but at least one poor
> soul has done it.
>
> IF you delete their default directory, AND IF you tell
> it to make a web in c:\ (your root directory where all
> sorts of important files live), AND IF you then tell it
> to delete that web, it will assume that the entire C
> drive IS the web, and delete it. All of it, data system
> files and all.
>
> To prevent this NEVER CREATE ANYTHING IN THE C:\ AREA OF
> YOUR HARD DRIVE unless you are very sure what you are
> doing. Always make sure you create things with a path
> that looks like this: "C:\directoryname" to put things
> into a sub directory "directoryname".
>
>
>_____________________________________________________________
>
>In the words of Forrest Gump: that's all I have to say 'bout
>that.
>
>The FrontPage debate is now closed and normal service will
>resume next month.
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3. Message Boards As Promotion Tools
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What are the main ingredients of a strong listing?
* Keyword-loaded page TITLE.
* High concentration of keyword-loaded page content.
* Keywords to match the info that users are actually
searching for.
* Sheer quantity of pages, to blitz the listings.
* A main index of links to all these little promotion pages
for the robots to follow.
Guess what? I have a system that automatically generates
pages that satisfy all of the above criteria. It's quite
possible you've contributed to my system yourself.
If you take a look at my message board at
<http://deadlock.com/bbs/> you'll notice that each and every
message is a page in its own right. There are several
hundred of them, and each one is loaded with keywords
WRITTEN DIRECTLY BY MY TARGET AUDIENCE! I regularly see
deadlock messages pop up in the top ten on the deep
engines. The beauty of it is that the more often your pages
change, the more often the robots visit, and people are
constantly adding new ones for me.
Do you like that one?
___________________________________________________________
4. Jim Gets Interviewed
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Jim Murray, at Web Developer's Journal
<http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/>
(which is well worth a visit) asked me a few questions:
Q: So tell me, how did you get into the business of Web
marketing and promotion?
Q: Morgan Stanley Dean Witter are of the opinion that the
Internet is the next mass medium, with somewhere around
150 million Websurfers logging-on regularly by the turn
of the century. They think the Web will become a major
retail vehicle, eventually replace catalogue sales. Do
you agree with these predictions?
Q: Do you think there's a future for small retailers on the
Web? Or are we going to see the emergence of a few
dominant, large sellers?
Q: What have you, personally, actually purchased on the
Web?
Q: What's your honest opinion of the state of the Web today
as a shopping environment?
Q: What advice would you give to a merchant who's
contemplating an e-commerce Web site?
Q: Anything else you'd like to get off your chest?
[ a rhetorical question, if ever there was one ]
If you'd like to know my answers, please ask.
___________________________________________________________
5. Check Your Listings And Protect Your Copyright
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gray Pritchett at Ceanet - <http://www.ceanet.com.au/>
...gets a plug for his tip:
How do you tell if the search engines have indexed all your
pages? In the meta tags of our important pages, we've
included a "unique" word, in our case the word
"qwer#ty123". If we do a search on this unique word, we
come up with all the pages that have so far been indexed by
that search engine. To test it it, go to infoseek and
search for qwer#ty123 and you'll get about 40 hits, all of
them our pages.
We use this to check which pages have been indexed and
which haven't. Come up with your own unique word and put
it at the end of the meta tags. You could also bury it
somewhere in the text for search engines that don't use
meta tags. Hint: Dont use symbols like #, some search
engines (like Altavista) treat it as a space or reserved
character and we can't check our indexing. We found this
out after submitting the pages to Altavista.
Jim says: This is also a good way of TRYING to protect
your copyright. You bury strange words in the
middle of your text, then you can hunt down
people who copied and pasted it. What to do about
it when you do find them is another story.
___________________________________________________________
6. Jim's Secret Admirer
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Allan Gardyne at "Success stories and 70 money-generating
hints" - <http://www.aia.net.au/success/> - wrote:
You've obviously made a big impression on someone. Your
name was entered anonymously in my monthly "Win Free Banner
Advertising Competition" and when I drew the winner for
November your name came up.
The e-mail message with the entry said: "Jim Rhodes has
done a lot for me - I'd like to try to return the favour,
anonymously." The competition rules say you have to enter a
traffic-boosting or money-generating hint. The competition
entry copied the "one-click" hint from your web site.
Jim, the good news is that this won't cost you anything.
Your prize is free banner advertising for a year on my web
site. To "collect", just tell me the URL where I can find a
banner ad you want to use, and, if you like, also e-mail
me a signature I can publish.
I wasn't expecting any anonymous entries, but the rules
don't forbid them, so I guess that means you won. If you
don't wish to collect please let me know and I suppose I'll
have to draw another winner.
Congratulations on your success - and on having a generous
friend.
Jim says: "Be a giver, it pays." Am I right, or am I right?
It's common knowledge that I'm not a big fan of
banner exchanges, but this was a great
opportunity so I decided to hire a professional
bannerman. I went to www.eyescream.com and asked
them how much they'd charge to design a banner
for me. $750. Gulp. I spent the money on Adobe
Photoshop instead, and I've had my nose buried in
a huge instruction book ever since. Hopefully
I'll manage to make the 12-month deadline...
___________________________________________________________
7. Great Minds Think Alike
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you read the November issue, you'll remember my saying:
"Be a giver, not a taker. It pays."
Karen Eernisse (no URL) pointed out:
Thank you ever so much for the new letter. I especially
liked the article of enticing your web viewers. I also
loved your quote give and you will receive. Sounds
familiar!
...But seek ye first the kingdom of God, an his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto
you.
Matthew 6:33
...Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the
Lord.
Romans 12:11
Jim says: Well, if I'm going to plagiarise, I might as
well pick a good source, eh?
___________________________________________________________
8. Yahoo! And Infoseek: Two Rumours Put To Rest
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
<SMUG>
Jim Wilson gave me this Infoseek tip. If you like this
newsletter, you'll like his too. You can sign up at
Virtualpromote - <http://www.virtualpromote.com>
Infoseek - In mid-August an Infoseek admin person let slip
that their original guideline of seven repetitions had been
reduced to three only. Two days later they said "No, sorry,
that was wrong, our policies haven't changed."
Unfortunately by that time it was too late, the rumour had
spread like wildfire and everyone was in a panic. By sheer
coincidence I've always advised three repetitions to be
safe, so if you've followed my guidelines you would have
been unaffected by the whole thing. The moral: stick with
me, kid, and you won't go far wrong ;)
Yahoo! - everybody's talking about Yahoo! not accepting any
URL that's not a root domain. So how is it that
<http://deadlock.com/svlist/> got listed last week? More
scaremongering.
I repeat: The Yahoo! staff award listings according to the
worthiness (to a human) of the home page content. The URL
is irrelevant.
</SMUG>
___________________________________________________________
Time to let Wanda get a word in edgeways...
___________________________________________________________
9. Taking Care of Your Golden Geese
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I'm sure you agree that "by referrals" is one of the best
ways of growing business - no money thrown away on
advertising that doesn't work and no time wasted to
convince strangers to do business with you. The referred
leads are presold - trust and confidence exist, at least to
some degree. It boils down to getting more of that good
thing - leads, right?
One of the best ways to get more leads is to focus on those
who send you referrals already and to encourage them to do
it more often. So, how are you doing in the department of
rewarding your sources for referring you in the first
place? Most business people provide a referral reward or
even some kind of fee to people helping them to obtain a
lead that ends with a sale. Additionally some make it a
standard practice to refer the source to their own
potential clients when the opportunity arises. Some people
have even different rewards for different types of leads.
One thing is to mention your name - another is to insist
that prospect contacts you. And another thing is to assist
during the process of servicing... Makes sense, doesn't it?
Probably the most common -- and the biggest -- mistake
business people do in this area is rewarding contacts only
for leads that result in closed sales. Just think. If the
prospect didn't buy from you, that doesn't mean that the
person who was considerate enough to think of you and send
you a lead didn't do the job! You might say that "the lead
was poor quality" -- it might be true. Regardless, you need
to reward the BEHAVIOR of your network people, so that in
the future the same person in similar situation again
thinks of you instead of someone else.
My friend realtor sends for every referral a balloon
bouquet, another friend who sells cellular phones - a cute
little pen with company's logo and words "Thank you", my
hair dresser - always a nice thank you note. I send the
"Book of Quotes" by Jim Rohn. The cost? Two dollars. The
mileage? Tremendous - you will be surprised with the
mileage you get from your gifts when you begin to INVEST in
the business through referrals!
The bottom line? For EVERY lead you get -- give something
back. It might a movie ticket or just a thank you note. It
might be a gift certificate or more elaborate gift -
depending on the type of your business and the potential
value of a sale. Take care of your golden geese - it is
called positive reinforcement.
Jim says: On the other side of the coin, take great care
over who you refer your own clients to. Never
recommend anybody until you trust them 100%
because you're putting your own reputation on the
line. There's nothing worse than taking the rap
for somebody else's failings.
___________________________________________________________
10. WOW! Quality customer service
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Robin C. Johnston from Canada shared this with David
Goldsmith of Customer Edge:
"I don't believe that a single long distance service
provider is "best" choice for everyone. For our purposes,
my wife and I decided to use AT&T on one of our two lines
and Sprint on the other. We made a commitment to use one
line for local calls and the three particular numbers we
call the most, one from each of the qualifying areas.
When we moved from eastern Ontario to Toronto, we opted to
have only one line put in. But, after our move we got the
following letter in the mail from Sprint Canada:
----------------
Dear Customer,
Congratulations on your move! Have you forgotten
something? THE MOST savings plan is available to
you in your new home.
We understand that you have recently moved but have
not taken THE MOST savings plan with you. Did you
know that Sprint Canada offers the same great savings
and service in your new home?
Please call to reactivate your long distance services
at...... If you have any questions, please feel free
to call our customer service associates, 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week at.....
We look forward to welcoming you back to Sprint.
Yours truly,
Michael Sharp
Sprint Canada Inc.
---------------
I was impressed! I can't help but feel loyal to a company
that actually "misses" me, when I don't use their service
or buy from them in a while. And with all the
sophistication we can get with a $2000 PC these days, it is
so easy for even the smallest of small businesses!" For
more stories like this visit: <http://www.customeredge.com>
___________________________________________________________
11. The Rule of Seven
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
As you can see from the Sprint story above, business
success depends far more on keeping in touch with customers
than on getting to them in the first place.
When it comes to marketing it is equally important not to
drop a ball too soon (how about never?!). Remember about
"the rule of seven" when trying to convert a lead. You
should contact people at least seven times before expecting
that they really focus on your offer and decide to take
action to acquire whatever you're selling. Of course, it
happens quite often that people buy sooner, but don't bank
on that.
The good news is that internet allows us to speed the
process. In the "traditional" world it could be weeks
(sometimes even months) before we made those 7 contacts.
Prospect would call today to inquire about your product or
services - you'd mail a brochure and call week later to
follow up. Now you can accomplish the same three contacts
in the speed of the light. Instead of brochure, you send an
e-mail and invite prospect to see your well organized web
site and after an hour you can make a follow up call!
E-mail has changed the game forever, but please remember
about these seven contacts before quitting. I am astonished
how often people give up on me as a potential customer
after just two, or three contacts...
Jim says: People will remember you even better if, every
time you contact them, you give them some useful
information they can actually use. If you can use
their name, that's even better.
___________________________________________________________
12. Publicity Tips
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
We all would like to have publicity for our businesses, yet
most of us fail to produce continuously good quality press
releases. Here are few steps that will help you create a
great PR pieces:
1. Understand what are you trying to accomplish. Generate
inquiries? Get an interview? Orders from new customers?
By starting with your objective, you'll be able to
remember not only what to write, but also who should get
the release.
2. Write release as you would write a headline for an ad -
spend most of your time working on a powerful headline.
It will really determine how many people will actually
read the release and if anyone will eventually contact
you for more information.
3. Right on the beginning tell briefly your entire story.
And don't talk about features - talk benefits! According
to Paul Hartunian, well known author and PR expert "If
you can't sum up your story in three or four sentences,
you don't know how to say what's on your mind. Keep
working on it until you can get your whole story into
one short paragraph."
4. Use quotations as often as possible and include
credentials with your quotes. Just like in the example
above "according to Paul Hartunian, well known author
and PR expert" is more powerful than "according Paul
Hartunian"...
5. Make sure that your release doesn't sound like a sales
job. If it does, chances are it will go into waste
basket because it will require too much rewriting. Make
it easy for editors!
6. Limit the press release to one page. Double space the
text and leave big margins. Editors often write remarks
and instructions in the white space while creating their
piece. And don't forget to signal the end of your
release with either "end" or "***."
Check <http://www.gebbieinc.com/index2.htm> for thousands of
links to radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, state press
associations and newspaper associations.
___________________________________________________________
13. My Holiday Gift for You!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I started with this gift last month and it is still coming!
While trying to conceive your perfect press release with
powerful headline, read something valuable on the subject.
And there is nothing more powerful than the advertising
bible of Claude Hopkins "Scientific Advertising" which I am
reprinting chapter by chapter every week. So far you can
read the following:
Chapter 1 - How advertising laws are established
Chapter 2 - Just salesmanship
Chapter 3 - Offer Service
Chapter 4 - Mail Order Advertising - What It Teaches
And coming next week: Chapter 5 - HEADLINES! here is a
direct link - <http://loska.com/hopkins/one.html>
___________________________________________________________
14. H.I.T.S. - How Idiots Track Success
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Still talking about "hits" when trying to illustrate how
much traffic your site gets? At least don't use that word
if you are speaking to ad people because it will indicate
that you have very little knowledge of site traffic
measurement.
People who buy advertising say that whenever owner starts
telling them how many "hits" their site gets... they most
likely move on to someone else. A person who understands
the industry better. Someone who is able to talk in terms
of page views, impressions or unique visitors.
Advertisers are not interested in the number of "hits" that
a site gets because a "hit" is registered when one file on
the server is accessed by a visitor's browser. The problem
with telling someone that your site gets "Millions of Hits"
is that if you have twelve graphic files on the main page
and someone visits it, you just registered thirteen "hits":
twelve .gif or .jpg files and the one .html file. "Hits"
are extremely inaccurate, totally useless and that's why
recently more and more people use the name HITS only as the
acronym for - sorry folks - How Idiots Track Success!
___________________________________________________________
That's all for now. Don't forget, we want to know which
bits you like or don't like. If you can tell us *why* that
would be even better.
Have a great '98!
___________________________________________________________
=================== Copyright Notice ====================
You may use all the advice in this newsletter as a part of
your marketing campaign. You may print it for your own
reference and you're encouraged to forward it to as many
people as possible ** IN ITS ENTIRETY **
You MAY NOT copy any part of the text itself on your Web
site / newsletter / book / magazine or any other commercial
media without permission from the authors.
___________________________________________________________
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