| LED Digest 2237: Building a Business |
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What does it take to build a business on a shoestring budget? How are small businesses made? It would be very interesting to hear some real-world experiences on the LED. Shoot away! ================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration 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 .............................................. August 31, 2006 Issue no. 2237 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Building a Business ==-- ~ Tom Aman "I would love to hear from Allan and Nancy some details of what they did... to build their businesses." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Small Business Sites ==-- ~ Eva Rosenberg "Frankly, I've gotten fed up with professional web designers." ~ Mark Whitman "...not all affiliate marketers are 'bottom feeders'..." --== Browsers & Security [was: HTML Editors] ==-- ~ Tom Aman "The great fear that IE is dangerous to use is really unfounded..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Income from Affiliate Marketing? ==-- ~ Brett A. Simpson ========== NEW =================================== From: Tom Aman Subject: New Topic - Building a Business Online > My amateurish sites generate enough revenue for me > to employ three full-time employees and a few part-timers. - Allan Gardyne, LED 2236 > My websites are not "professional"... Still, they > have worked well enough that the business has > gone from just me-myself-and I five years ago, > to six "official" employees, plus several work-at-home > helpers. - Nancy Schettler, LED 2236 I would love to hear from Allan and Nancy some more details of what else they did, aside from creating their own Web sites, to build their businesses. I am sure we would all benefit from their experiences. Tom Aman ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Eva Rosenberg Subject: Small Biz Sites > Then of course we have the affiliate marketers > out there. They're a different breed, often bottom > feeders with useless sites that pollute the internet... - Mark Whitman, LED 2234 Goodness Mark, such passion! And such poor judgment. Please don't call all professionals in any group "bottom feeders". There are some excellent, skilled pros who create useful, informative sites, even if they do earn all their incomes from commissions, instead of direct sales. As to your statement about small businesses not being able to create sites that are useful and hit high in the search engines - that's utter nonsense. The search engines, even Google, still respond well to good quality content. And small businesses have access to an assortment of packages to enable them to build their own sites. Frankly, I've gotten fed up with professional web designers. I've spent 10s of thousands of dollars on the 'pro's, who've only delayed the development of my sites, never delivered on their promises, always insisted on using their own re-designs of my time-tested and highly recognized logos, and simply didn't do the job. And never, ever created a site that required members to log in to access the wealth of the archived material. So I lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers because they never needed to sign in, or sign up, to get the newsletters or the articles. (Note: Traffic ranges from 50,000 - 200,000 page views per month) I took my sites back a few months ago. Picked up the MemberStar.com service and started moving the 20,000 plus pages of TaxMama.com to a new, temporary home at TaxTwist.com . (It will revert to TaxMama.com when the move is complete and all pages are reformatted.) Even without my having designed a proper masthead, just using one from an existing site I already had, the new site, TaxTwist.com, immediately hit the top of the search engines for key terms relating to one of my core products - the annual IRS licensing exam. It's searched for under a variety of names, and most of those searches point to the special section on TaxTwist.com devoted to news about the exam. http://taxtwist.com/element.php?varset=s:13-pm:p-se:264-e:64&SessId= see - "ea exam news" As I say, good content attracts hits. In most of the other searches, where my site does not hit the top, several of the sites that do hit the first two pages link to, or recommend, my course. And not because I have a pretty, well-designed page. But because of the solidity of the content and the course. So, please, get off your high horse and open your mind. Even lowly businesses, with the packaged design tools available to them, can create sites that suit them and their client base without having to battle prima donna designers. And with the help of webhosts with 24/7 service, we can even get help, when we mess things up on the site. I must tell you, my experiences, being on my own this year, have been very, very refreshing. And the folks whose software I am using have been extremely responsive about modifications to the code or quick revisions to things. Far better than any web designer I've had - with no time wasted placating emotional tantrums. (Of course, if I could find someone who's good, has the time, will do what _I_ need and not what their ego insists upon, and is affordable, I am definitely open to hiring a competent webmaster so I could devote my time "do what they do best, run their business".) If I may add one thing, though? The easiest time I ever had with a site online, was when I was moderating the I-HelpDesk under the umbrella of John and Adam Audette. They took care of everything. All I had to do was sort through the posts and respond to people. That, my friends, was heaven! When it gets that simple again, I'll revive the HelpDesk. Best wishes, Eva Rosenberg TaxMama.com - A daily cure for your tax blues http://www.taxmama.com/taxquips -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Mark Whitman Subject: Small biz sites > I don't know what "wide array" of techniques Mark is referring to - > perhaps he can elaborate - but this notion that sites built with > WYSIWYG editors are incapable of ranking well in the search > engines is nothing more than a fantasy... - Steve Pronger LED 2235 Sure, I'll publish my competitive edge for you, but you'll have to wait till I retire. What I will elaborate on is that the use of an HTML editor in itself *might* not hurt you if you understand enough about HTML, CSS, and sometimes programming (for the really tough keywords) to SEO a page as effectively as possible. My point was that you need to know what you're doing, you need to tweak HTML editor generated tags and CSS by hand. If you think that's no more than fantasy, great! I hope I'm competing with you for index placement sometime. > Stealthy? Is this why "pages I SEO end up in top 10 > very often"? Just wondered. Sometimes, but only on the really tough keywords and only for my personal projects. That's a risky game and I wouldn't play it with a client's site. > I get pages in the top 10 too... No stealth required > at all. You think those terms are easy to rank for? You did a great job but you knew what you were doing didn't you. The point I was trying to make is that you can't just pick up an HTML editor and get that kind of result without taking the time to learn what you're doing. > No hand coding (apart from the odd tweak). Thank you - that's my point - you need the knowledge to use the odd tweak. > Any small business owner, or entrepreneur, can build a high > ranking, high traffic and high converting website with the right > tools, the right resources and a desire to learn and succeed. Thank you again - that's my point - you have to know what you're doing. The original post I responded to when I made the remarks people are objecting to here was regarding someone's comment that a SBO doesn't have the time to learn anything they just want to pick up an HTML editor and go to work. In a very long winded edgy way I was saying that would be a big mistake on the SBO's part. You can't expect to achieve anything but failure until you take the time to learn what you're doing. > Your assessment of affiliate marketers is offensive > and ignorant. I suggest you learn a little about > the industry before mouthing off. Well, not only do I work closely with the industry I also do affiliate marketing from time to time, recommend affiliate marketing to certain clients, and have an affiliate marketing project in the works right now. What you chose to ignore was my qualification that not all affiliate marketers are "bottom feeders" but many NOT ALL are. Since you're so offended I'll even concede that *many* are not "bottom feeders". If you've never seen one of the zillions of useless, self-serving affiliate marketer sites, if you've never had to compete with them for SE index placement or PPC keywords then you're lucky or maybe you just can't tell the difference. And if you happened to be one of those that cranks them out, I'd be thrilled you're offended as that was the purpose of my little jab at the *segment* of affiliate marketers that are nothing more than web spammers. M.Whitman -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Browser Security [was: HTML Editors] > Due to security and virus concerns, I strictly > run Firefox browser, Thunderbird email and > AVS Virus protection. As a result, I have > never (to my knowledge) had a virus... - Mark Roberts, LED 2235 Proves nothing, Mark. The great fear that IE is dangerous to use is really unfounded provided you run with reasonable protection. I run IE as my browser, Outlook Express as my email client, McAfee for virus protection (very regularly and automatically updated) and CounterSpy (also very regularly and automatically updated) as adware protection. I have never had a virus although my protection software regularly catches attempts to infect my system. Just because you use Firefox doesn't mean you are safe. A quote from a volunteer Firefox promotion, Spread Firefox: "The versions of Firefox up to version 1.0.3 have had terrible security risks". See http://snipurl.com/vpo4 [news.com] for the complete article. Another article says: ------------------------ "The Mozilla Foundation on Wednesday pushed out a new version of Firefox to patch three vulnerabilities, just days after a major security firm said the open-source browser had 60 percent more vulnerabilities in the last half of 2004 than Microsoft's Internet Explorer." See http://snipurl.com/vpo6 [informationweek.com] ------------------------ Yet another: ------------------------ "Security firm iDefense issued a public advisory today titled, "Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Browser Out Of Memory Heap Corruption Design Error." The vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code and/or crash the browser." See http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3486196. ------------------------ While some of these concerns date back over a year, the point is that, just because you use Firefox, it does not mean you are safe. > Unless you think I might be out in left field > using these products, they are rapidly becoming > the browser of choice and some arguments > state that Firefox may soon overcome IE in popularity. And the more popular Firefox becomes the more it will become the browser of choice for malware attacks, particularly since the source code is open for all to view - makes the work of malware creators much easier when you don't have to reverse engineer the product. Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Brett A. Simpson Subject: Affiliate Marketing > I'm an affiliate marketer. Given that affiliate > marketing commissions are estimated to > reach $6.5 billion (not including ad networks > such as AdSense) in 2006, I expect there's > one or two others as well. - Steven Rothberg, LED 2236 Hi Steven, Ok, I have to ask you, since I've considered going this route myself recently, exactly how much revenue does that Soccer site bring in from affiliate links and Google adsense? I'm curious, please split out by Google, and by other Affiliate links? Part of the reason this is interesting to me is because what you have there is a local / community based website for locals, I'm curious if they actually click through, make purchases and don't get bothered by your savvy affiliate marketing on their soccer club website? Then, secondly, in this regard, how much of this is fully automated by X SitePro? Have you heard of other software, such as HyperVRE over at: http://www.hypervre.com/homepage.php Thank You, Brett A. Simpson http://www.thedreamtime.com ------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves." - Joseph Addison |
