| LED Digest 1772: Purity Geeks vs WYSIWYG, also Topica Issues |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ March 30, 2004 Issue #1772 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== HTML Editors? ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "Purity geeks advocate hand-coding for cleaner code. To me, this is not relevant..." ~ Rich Dudley "...if I were to choose today, I'd go with Dreamweaver." --== Advertising: Internet vs Print? ==-- ~ Tom Ulbrich "...an internet based storefront can be a viable business only when you drive traffic to it." ~ Amy D. Moore "Make it as EASY as possible for people to purchase." --== The Local Search Buzz ==-- ~ Greg Watson "The key to Local Search is going to be the *timeliness* of relevant *current* search results." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Problems with Topica ==-- ~ Dan Rosenfield --== My Affiliates Outranking Me? ==-- ~ Jill Whalen ~ Steve Pronger ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Michael Linehan Subject: HTML editors > I'd like some opinions on HTML editors... Dreamweaver, > Frontpage (2000 or newer), others? What can you recommend > for a "skilled amateur" (not a pro)? - Carol O'Leary, LED 1771 As another "skilled amateur" my vote is for Dreamweaver or GoLive. They are both excellent products. Purity geeks advocate hand-coding for cleaner code. To me, this is not relevant for most site builders and is not enough of an advantage compared to the huge advantage of the interface and capabilities of either program. Front Page, however, gives code that is sooooo ponderously bad --- bloated with Microsoft-specific tags that will cause you difficulty if you wish to change later and affect your search engine ranking meantime. Michael Linehan www.marketing-alchemy.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Richard Dudley Subject: HTML editors For a graphics editor, you'll want to look into a separate program such as Paint Shop Pro ( www.jasc.com ). I've been a FrontPage user for years, and currently use FP 2003, but I am very impressed with the latest version of Dreamweaver. Knowing what I know now, if I were to choose today, I'd go with Dreamweaver. DW has support for more languages, and does not rely on special server components for its functionality (althoughit has some when coupled with Cold Fusion). This will allow you more flexibility in your hosting platform, but does mean that there are a few things that FP might do that DW can't out of the box, but nothing a little time in a Google search won't take care of. Both are well supported with their own developer communites, which means a lot of support for beginners and those delving deeper into the tools. Rich Dudley www.bloomeryweddings.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Tom Ulbrich Subject: Internet vs print > My website has been up and running since 2000 or 2001. > If this was a retail with a storefront, stock etc. I would have > already had to close the doors. Why aren't people buying > via the internet? - Andrew Craig, LED 1771 Andrew: I am no web expert by any means. However, I do make a large part of my sales via the internet. In my opinion an internet based storefront can be a viable business only when you drive traffic to it. It is a convenient form of commerce for many people as it is open 24 hours, you can shop as long as you want, etc. In my opinion the only route to success is to push people to the web store via search engine listings, pay per click listings, or traditional advertising like many of the print based modes. Just my opinion! Good luck! Tom Ulbrich Mow More Supplies ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Amy D. Moore Subject: Internet vs print People ARE buying via the Internet. It would probably serve you better to ask why people aren't purchasing from YOUR web site. First, I have Broadband access and your site still loaded very slow. Reason? Your images are not optimized for the web. The photograph on your home page is over 400K - which seriously breaks the rules for an image which takes up such little screen space. I could optimize that image down to 6k. For any customer with dial-up, your home page will take approximately 4 minutes to load - and no one is waiting around more than 15 seconds to know whether they want to purchase. Your image optimization issues extend to every page in your site. I would suggest learning the imaging programs you have or purchasing something like Macromedia's Fireworks to get your images and page sizes to under 40K (20 seconds on dial-up and the design standard since long before you went on-line - and it hasn't changed). Second, you have a difficult product to experience on-line. While you have good pictures (even if they are too big for their display size) you have a object which really requires not only a 3-dimensional display, but something people need to touch and smell to sell - so retail sales on the Web are probably not your best approach. Consider marketing at craft fairs with follow-up on your site. Your product requires blood, sweat and tears to sell - be prepared for that. Third, in any business, on-line or brick and mortar, it is important to do the marketing of your product and establish a reasonable price for your product based on what the market will bear. I checked out PaGA and of the over dozen gourd artists, only one other artist sold their product on-line, and their prices - based on the apparent time invested in the product - was significantly less than your prices. This is difficult, as there is not a great deal of data available for the expected prices of a product. I was in WalMart a couple weeks ago looking at hand painted canvases of sail boats which a U.S. artist would demand, easily, $1000 or more for - selling for $30. That included the painting on canvas and a great frame - the frame alone often selling for $30 at a frame store here. The point is, in the Internet you compete in a global marketplace. Even with shipping, China will kick your proverbial butt in prices every day of the week. A solution here is to work with a conglomeration of local or regional artists to promote the "local" artist product and not necessarily your individual product. Fourth, your option for ordering your products is not Web based - and that will deter even the easiest buyer. Most Web purchasers want the following: 1) Three clicks to a sale 2) The ability to enter their credit card information on-line 3) Clear shipping and price terms You have invited people to e-mail you in a dialog on the sale. It is hard enough in person to engage a buyer in dialog - on the web it is practically impossible. Finally, don't knock the Web as a place to sell. Based on your product and your apparent marketing plan, you wouldn't have lasted two weeks in a brick and mortar store. It should cost you less than $200 a year to have your site on-line (domain name registration and hosting). You would pay twice that in electricity alone in a month. That is a four gourd sale for you. If you aren't making that - you should really consider looking at the marketing of your site. Here's the basic pointers: 1) Optimize your site for images and getting file size smaller. People who want larger, more detailed images can click on them to get that. 2) Think about the presentation of your product. Show it in use. Try to provide people the experience of owning a gourd product from your company. 3) Reconsider your pricing structure. 4) Make it as EASY as possible for people to purchase. I don't like to recommend PayPal for any serious business - but your competitor uses it and it is better than your business's offering. 5) Consider why your product is worth your asking price and market with and among peers who demand similar prices for their products (ie - local crafters or artists). Also, consider selling your personal resume with your product. Why should someone buy YOUR gourd, and not one painted in India? 6) Work the business. Don't complain about the "location." The location is excellent - your business plan needs a workout. Yours in Selling On-Line, Amy D. Moore http://internetsupportservice.com Building Internet Solutions since 1996 ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Greg Watson Subject: Local search > My point is simply that Vivante.com or any other company can just > come along and clean up in the "local search" arena. It's a wide > open playfield, and Google, Yahoo and others are late to the plate. - Kathryn Martyn, LED 1771 The key to Local Search is going to be the *timeliness* of relevant *current* search results. This is going to require local oriented sites to update content on a timely basis to be meaningful to local searchers and this is going to require local search engines to be able to spider often enough to be able to return timely relevant current results. This is going to be the one two punch that is going to make or break local search. Greg Watson ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Dan Rosenfield Subject: Topica Problems For a long time I have happily used Topica to get out an email newsletter. For reasons I'll not bore you with, I lost my log in information. Three emails and five days later, I've not yet gotten a response from Topica. Is anyone else experiencing similar problems? Dan Rosenfield http://www.college-scholarships.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Jill Whalen Subject: Affiliates > The # 4 listing in Yahoo under the search term "belt buckle knife" > (without the qoutes) is an affiliate link to my site... How in the > world would an affiliate link get into their search results...? - Phil Weaver, LED 1769 Affiliate links are generally just a link that is redirected to your site. Sometimes Google messes up and finds redirected affiliate links instead of the real (non-redirected) URL and they index this as your URL. It can happen with other kinds of URLs such as tracking links also. Google follows the link and knows the right page, but just uses the wrong URL. When this happens, it's often straightened out in the next re-indexing. By the way, your affiliate whose link is in Google instead of yours will get a commission for every sale that comes through that link in Google. The person who clicks the link doesn't need to visit the affiliate site at all -- just has to click the link. I've been on both ends of the stick. Sometimes my affiliate links for someone else's product shows up in Google (and I have the opportunity to make lots of sales). But I've also had other people's affiliate links for my Nitty-gritty handbook show up in Google, and then have to pay the commissions on those sales. The good news is that these types of errors don't seem to stay there for long. Hope this helps! Jill Whalen High Rankings SEM Chicago Seminar April 23rd http://www.highrankings.com/ledchicagoseminar ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: Affiliates > In this case it is not the salesman's hard work > which is creating the sales but dumb luck. - Phil Weaver, LED 1771 I don't think so Phil. I'm guessing the URL which was indexed is part of your affiliate's domain but forwards directly to your site. This is a technique affiliates use to cloak their affiliate URL and avoid being robbed of their commission. Some people, when they see an affiliate link, will type the domain minus the affiliate ID directly into a browser. Don't know why they do this, but it happens. Another reason is if the link is a Clickbank link and that person is also a Clickbank affiliate they can substitute their own ID and hijack the commission. Cloaking makes it much more difficult to do this. I'd say your affiliate has built a site which ranks well for his targeted keywords (takes more than dumb luck to do that) and linked to your site through a cloaked URL. It's unlikely that URL would outrank your site unless it was part of a bigger domain. I might be off base here but I've seen this phenomenon with my own site. Cheers Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Years and sins are always more than owned." - Italian Proverb |
