| LED Digest 2120: Paperwork |
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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 20, 2006 Issue #2120 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> ~ LED Power! --== And Now For... Paperwork ==-- ~ Nancy Schettler "What are you readers doing with your order data?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Email List Services or Software ==-- ~ Val Waldeck "[Yahoo Groups] is a great service and so easy to operate." ~ Donald Nelson "...a solution is to install inexpensive software that lets you bypass your ISP's SMTP server." ~ Chris Allen "Once, many moons ago, in a classic rookie maneuver..." --== The LED Downhill Spiral? ==-- ~ Carol A. Goodwater "Perhaps your perspective has changed?" ~ Viggie Bala "Right time to get into action rather than sulking." ~ Steve Pronger "You need to remember that LED isn't a thing - it doesn't have a mind of its own." --== Getting Pages Ranked ==-- ~ Anthony Kirlew "SEO aside, the potential for your site is huge..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== 301 Redirects and URL Naming ==-- ~ John Barendrecht ~ Shari Thurow =========== NEW ================================== <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, We've got a good problem... there are a lot of posts and not enough space! I don't know if it was timing, Paul Morris signalling our downhill spiral, the stars, or what, but there's been a dramatic increase in posts. Lots of great posts, new topics, and good ideas, too. So bear with me. I'm going to publish ALL of it, I'm excited to, just need the time and space. Some of the new topics I'll roll out slowly over the next week or so. LED power! Have a great week, Adam -------------------- From: Nancy Schettler Subject: Now for something completely different... Paperwork Just wondering what other folks out there are doing about all the paperwork that their business generates. We receive orders by phone, fax, or mail (as well as online), and each of these orders results in a piece of paper (hand-written or printed). Usually, once we fill the order we never have need to look at the paperwork again, but sometimes a situation arises where we need to look up the original order. Plowing through piles and piles of paper is not my idea of fun, so we decided to scan each order form and archive it on our computer. So now we have tons of paper, and tons of data files. We have to keep the papers for three years, in case of credit card disputes and also for sales tax purposes. After that, I will buy some marshmallows and have a big bonfire, I think, because putting it all through the shredder takes too long and will waste too many garbage bags. Composting takes too long and is, well, not very secure. ;-) What are you readers doing with your order data? If you're storing volumes of it on your computer, what is your chosen method of backup? We are discovering that to do online backups of even our essential Quickbooks data is taking about 2 hours, and this is a number which will never decrease. Thoughts? Suggestions? Nancy Schettler A Well Dressed Kitchen www.awelldressedkitchen.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Val Waldeck Subject: Email lists > ... I need to be able to upload a list of emails, the content > of which may change slightly each month as [newsletter] > members enter and leave... - Tom Connelly, LED 2119 Take a look at www.yahoogroups.com. People do have to subscribe, although you are allowed to add ten per day, but this is a great service and so easy to operate. Val Waldeck www.valwaldeck.com reaching our generation one book at a time -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Donald Nelson Subject: Email lists Dear All, Tom Connelly's problem in sending email to a list of 700 members is probably shared by many. Many ISPs and even the hosting companies where your site is located do not allow mass mailings, even modest ones. I found this out the hard way when I learned that my host does not allow more than 200 emails to be sent per hour from mailing scripts installed on my site. An expensive way around this is to host your mailing list with a company such as www.aweber.com . If you are doing serious marketing work, then this is a good alternative. However if you just have a small list like Tom's then a solution is to install inexpensive software that lets you bypass your ISP's SMTP server. One such software is sold by www.softfolder.com , their Easy SMTP Server script allows you to send out an unlimited number of emails (using programs installed on your computer, such as Worldcast or even Outlook Express). I would also like to hear about other inexpensive solutions to this common problem. Sincerely, Donald Nelson www.a1-optimization.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Chris Allen Subject: Email List Services or Software Tom: We use Streamsend for our occasional emails to customers. Once, many moons ago, in a classic rookie maneuver, we used a mass mailing on our own domain's email server to send about 300 holiday greeting emails to our customers. Boy did we pay for that! We spent the next week or so (during heavy holiday sales season) recovering from being labeled a spammer by the AOL's and Earthlinks of the world. We couldn't even do basic emailing to customers, suppliers, etc. We finally had to abandon our email server for another before we could get basic functionality back. Ouch! After steering clear of mass emails for a while, we decided to try Streamsend to do the sending for us. It has been a good experience. It's web based, and has some neat features, including the ability to upload emails, manage HTML email templates, and let recipients self-manage opt-outs, etc. It's not free, but the features make it convenient and it might fit the bill for your newsletter. Good luck! Chris Allen www.gentlemansemporium.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Carol Goodwater Subject: Downhill LED > When I was getting started online, LED was the resource for me. > It would not be over-stated to say that I owe almost everything to > LED, either directly or indirectly... I miss the good old days... - Tom Anson, LED 2119 Mr. Anson, Your comment left me feeling a little like there was a party and I wasn't invited. I've been reading LED regularly only for a year but I have found it to be exactly as you described it being many years ago. Perhaps your perspective has changed? Others here at Web To Market Corp. have also read LED for many years, and have expressed your same sentiments. However, those of us who don't yet always know what questions to ask are reaping the benefits you enjoyed when you began. LED is a priceless resource that will continue to aid Internet developers and users for years to come. Internet technology changes daily, growing outward into unexplored territory. Maybe all of you--who know what questions need answers--should ask and then others will join in, to the benefit of us all. Warmest Regards, Carol A. Goodwater Web To Market Corp. http://www.webtomarket.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Viggie Bala Subject: Downhill LED I would like to thank Peter D'Aprix for suggesting the remedy. Of late, I've started skimming & skipping long replies in LED, particularly on link strategy. Initially the long 'intense' replies were helpful to some extent, but it's getting repetitive now. Right time to get into action rather than sulking. And actually there is a lot to discuss. Thanks & Regards, Viggie Bala Helping Websites to Work http://www.viggie.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: Downhill LED I don't agree Paul. I think that, thanks to Adam, the Digest has always provided balanced views on a variety of issues. Sure, SEO is probably never far away but that's only because readers often ask SEO related questions. You need to remember that LED isn't a thing - it doesn't have a mind of its own. Adam can only publish what the readership sends him. So, if SEO doesn't interest you, make a post on an issue that does interest you. Instead of saying "I don't want to read about SEO from the usual protagonists", say " I have a question about online payment systems", or whatever. Or post some info on something that you have experience or expertise in. Start a new thread and let's bash it around. You'll only read posts from the "small few" if no one else has anything to say. Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Anthony Kirlew Subject: Getting ranked > Is anyone willing to share some ideas for improving > ranking of web sub-pages? I believe I have done > everything correctly... and have sufficient "content" > on the web pages. - Bob Sheridan, LED 2118 Bob, You have a very well laid out site. Here are a few suggestions based on a brief viewing of your code: 1. Make your title tags specific for the keyword you are targeting. This pages title tag in particular is busy and is diluted by the attempt to capture too many keywords with one page. 2. Simplify your meta tags. Get all of the clutter out of there about Front Page, distribution, language, etc unless you have some esoteric reason for wanting it there (even then I say it is a bad idea). We have sites that rank #1 for their terms and the only meta tags we use are keyword, description, and robots. The "meta revisit" tag in particular is an often subject of conversation, but it has no value to any reputable search engine. I have even seen some directories that will not add a site just based on using it. Also, regarding how you use your keyword meta tag, please refer to item #1. 3. Use H1 text for your page headers and make them keyword specific as well. 4. Use specific alt tags for your page images targeting your keywords for that page. The one on this page says "restaurant software" which is not the same as "pos hardware, point of sale hardware", which you are targeting with that page. SEO aside, the potential for your site is huge if you consider adding software (download) and affiliate partners. I wanted to mention that in case you had not considered those aspect. I hope that helps. Anthony Kirlew Web Traffic Team www.webtrafficteam.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: John Barendrecht Subject: URL naming > Unfortunately (in this case) my site is on an ISS server. Is > there a solution also for that server, or do I have to move? - Magnus Brattemark, LED 2119 Don't apologize for being on an IIS server, over 50% of the Fortune 500 companies use IIS, you're in good company. A 301 redirect is easy on IIS: Go to Computer Management | Web Sites | yourwebsite Right click on file or folder | Properties Choose file you want to redirect to and check "permanent redirect" I also do 302 (temporary redirects) and URL spell checking. For page names if you leave off the extension or type html instead of htm, I'll still serve the right page. Type index.php or any 1, 2 or 3 letters for an extension and we'll still show home page. Some of my page names use an underscore but if you substitute a space, dash, or equal sign, we'll still serve the right page. Put an extra or wrong letter in a page name and we'll fix it for you. Type in zero, one, two or 4 w's for domain name instead of 3, no problem. You should always try to make your site user friendly. People guess at page names but are horrible spellers. Don't give them a 404 error page, try to correct the error if at all possible. If I'd known in 1996 what I know now, I would have had a different directory structure and page names. But redirects and spell checking helps to alleviate problems. As for the look and feel, that was cutting edge in 96 but I'm thinking of a redesign for its 10th birthday. Best regards, John Barendrecht Centralhome.com Company Inc. http://www.centralhome.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Shari Thurow Subject: URL structure Hi all- This is in response to Magnus Brattemark's post in LED #2117 regarding keywords in the domain and file names. I hope I can share my knowledge on this topic, though it is a bit technical in nature. Let's just use Google as an example. Suppose you type a keyword phrase into Google (such as help desk software) and click the Search button. In the search results, you will see the query words help, desk, and software presented as bold in search results. In the information retrieval industry, this is referred to as "term highlighting." The reason that term highlighting is common in the information retrieval industry is, quite simply, usability. To make searchers feel more confident that they are viewing desired results, a software engineer has programmed it so that query words display somewhere in the search results. In Google, you can see that software engineers have decided to utilize term highlighting in title-tag content, snippets, and URLs (Web addresses). Now, as someone who builds search interfaces, I know I can change term highlighting. I might only want to show term highlighting in the document's title and not show it in the description. I might not want to utilize term highlighting at all. Or I can really mess everything up and highlight terms that are not keywords. Here's the problem: many SEO companies have staff with absolutely no technical background. Conclusions are based on misconceptions such as, "It's highlighted in the search results; therefore it's part of the algorithm." I admit, a long time ago, that was my initial hypothesis. As I became more educated and experienced in this arena (being back in graduate school for Information Sciences helps a lot), I realized how important the technical background really is. Though technical skills certainly are not the be-all-that-ends-all in being an SEO expert. I know plenty of SEO techies that know how to cloak but have few SEO skills outside of that. I often shudder when I read their version of search-friendly, user-friendly copywriting. Anyway, term highlighting has little or nothing to do with how any information retrieval system (including a Web search engine) determines relevancy. The only time that the URL is used for relevancy is if searchers are doing some type of URL query. That being said, from a usability standpoint, it is true that if users see the term highlighted in the URL, it does make them more confident that the information they are seeking is available on the Web site. An overgeneralization, but at least it's in the right direction. I hope I was able to communicate this well. If I didn't, just let me know. I'm more than happy to clarify. Sincerely, Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director Grantastic Designs, Inc. ~ For Free design and marketing tips, visit us at: http://www.grantasticdesigns.com/tips.html ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. "When I find myself fading, I close my eyes and realize my friends are my energy." - Anon. |
