| LED Digest 1942: Battle Tested Tips |
|
|
|
================================================== 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 This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. March 9, 2005 Issue #1942 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Creating HTML Ezines ==-- ~ Brett Atkin "HTML emails...where do you start." ~ Martha Retallick "...here are some Battle-Tested Tips..." --== RSS Feeds, Spam, and The Future of Publishing ==-- ~ Ronni Rhodes "Can the spammers be far behind?" ~ David Yancey "...it may help to come back down to earth..." ~ Michael Linehan "No-one will ever need more than 640 kb RAM" ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Blocking Email Forwarding ==-- ~ Scott Wang --== Working with Framed Sites ==-- ~ Lanell Grant ~ Derek Andrews ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Brett Atkin Subject: HTML ezines > I'm interested to hear more of the nuts and bolts > of how to build an HTML e-zine. Can anyone > recommend sites that show how to do this. - Sascha Hewitt, LED 1941 HTML emails...where do you start. Some web sites. www.constantcontact.com www.lyris.com www.intellicontact.com www.topica.com www.emaillabs.com www.businessofemail.com www.coloradosoft.com (their WorldMerge product) These are just a few of the 1000's of sites devoted to email marketing. You have two main types of sending tools, web-based (Topica for example) and software (WorldMerge for example) running from your own server or machine. The pros and cons of each depend on your needs. I've never attempted to send HTML email directly from any email client, so I can't speak on that. I design my HTML messages in Dreamweaver and then copy the HTML into the sending tool. Something basic to remember with HTML emails (I've made this mistake way too many times...), is that all links and images have to be absolute links, not relative. If you have ever seen that little "x" in an HTML email, it is because the link to the graphic is something like: ./images/company_logo.jpg when it should be: http://www.company.com/images/company_logo.jpg. Each email client renders the HTML differently so you have to test in as many clients as possible. It is up to you on how much time you want to spend getting the message to look exactly the same in each email client. When deciding on a web-based solution, it is very important that you investigate their reputation. A client of mine used ProAutorepsonder with a lot of success until ProAutoresponder got black-listed by so many ISP's and others that it was useless because the messages never got delivered. Another issue is that many ISP and companies have their own spam-filters beyond using black-lists to determine the validity of emails. HTML messages can be rejected just for being HTML. Others reject HTML messages larger than a certain size. I know that Road Runner is pretty aggressive with email filtering for example. End lets not forget that many of the HTML tags that work in the browser just won't work in email clients. Now the good news... The user experience and response from HTML emails is so much better when properly done to make all the work worth it. One final thought and don't take this lightly.... Test, test and finally test some more. Few things are worse from a business perspective then getting a call from a client that an HTML message that just got sent to 3000 people was gibberish... Good luck and hope that gets you started. Brett Atkin http://www.brettatkin.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Martha Retallick Subject: HTML ezines In answer to Sascha Hewitt's question about HTML e-zines, here are some Battle-Tested Tips from Martha: 1. Decide why you want to do an HTML e-zine. And also decide if an HTML e-zine would best serve the interests of your readers. (The latter decision is more important than the former.) 2. Start a collection of HTML e-zine layouts that are pleasing to you. If you subscribe to several e-zines, you'll have your collection built up in no time. This collection will serve as the idea file for your own e-zine design. You can also use your e-zine idea collection to get "under the hood" and see what other publishers are doing in the way of HTML source code. Occasionally, if you ask nicely, an e-zine publisher will share the source code of his or her 'zine with you. A well-known e-zine publisher did this for me, and he also took time to answer several technical questions. (Thanks, Mr. B!) 3. Choose an HTML editor. I like to use Dreamweaver for my e-zine layout. 4. Develop a Cascading Style Sheet for your e-zine. Using CSS will help keep the file size of your e-zine down. (Ideally, your 'zine's total file size should be under 20k.) I like to use the TopStyle editor for creating my CSS. 5. Once you've developed a layout, test it out on a group of very patient and understanding friends who use a variety of e-mail programs. Why the emphasis on patience and understanding? Because you're going to be sending MANY e-zine drafts at these people. And you'll be asking for feedback on EVERY draft. 6. If you have been publishing in plain text, announce to your readers that you're going over to HTML. Do this at least a month before the changeover. Hope this helps! Martha Retallick, Publisher Postcard Marketing Secrets Weekly E-zine http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Ronni Rhodes Subject: RSS and more > I downloaded and installed an RSS Reader and have > tested RSS for over a month now. I am removing the > software from my system as I find it more trouble > than it is worth. - Tom Aman, LED 1941 Tom, thank you for that succinct and intelligent summary of RSS. It's one of the best I've read. I, too, have installed an RSS Reader and am removing it from my system. It doesn't add convenience, and I prefer to receive my information via e-mail. The fact that marketers and advertisers are already thinking of ways to use RSS to deliver commercial messages doesn't make me like it any better. Can the spammers be far behind? I always hesitate to "knock" a new technology. Goodness knows, there are still people who look at multimedia as a "new fangled" notion that has no place on the Web. But until feeds can be as easily managed as I manage my other Web activities, I won't be using them. Best regards, Ronni Rhodes Ignite Your Site with Sound and Motion! http://www.wbcimaging.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: David Yancey Subject: RSS and more With all the theory and pros and cons of RSS and blogging of the past few weeks, it may help to come back down to earth and see an excellent example of how blogging can be used in building high-value, high-potential traffic. Anne Holland's "Marketing Sherpa" crew is tracking blogging (along with all other aspects of interactive marketing) and have just published this Case Study in their ongoing series: http://snipurl.com/dbev [marketingsherpa.com] Make sure you reference this article before March 18th, when it moves to the Sherpa's paid-access archive! David Yancey http://www.vivante.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: RSS and more > Don't mistake every tool out there for a piece of gold. > It may only be another pick or shovel. - Michael Martinez, LED 1940 Wonder if someone once said that about email :-) Or... "No-one will ever need more than 640 kb RAM" (Bill). Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Scott Wang Subject: Forwarding email > My ISP recently started blocking mail that is 'relayed' > to them. For years I've been using the mail forward > function with my various web hosting accounts and > having all mail sent to the ISP account. - Kevin Decker, LED 1941 Your smoothest move is going to be to go with the flow. Ditch the ISP email account, use the relaying host as the POP box and forward the other sites' mail to it. Since you're not really changing any email addresses, this adjustment should be quick and absolutely painless. Scott Wang Scott's Computing ------- new post - new topic ------- From: John Coons Subject: Frames > How do search engines feel about frames? - Nancy Cardinali, LED 1940 Hi Leders, Nancy, frames are good. Consider a design situation where you want a viewer's choice of a variety of information to appear. What would you do? You have choices. You might be using a data base generated content page? You might literally pop a new window? You might call a complete new page? Or, you might specify an area within the resident page and link to different content as a function of what the viewer has selected; a frame with a variety of content. This last solution is fast. You only load what is necessary for the frame. Consider a typical search function where the search definition remains and the result(s) magically appear just below... A good example might be a help or instruction function. Here the client clicks for a topic and the data appears just below in the "frame". Another is a choice of one of a group of simple maps. A complete frames site gives the designer the option of changing only a single geographical section of what is presented on the client computer or all of the geography or selected geographical sections. This makes possible for example a navigation frame that has graphics for different regions or different affinity groups without changing the content of the balance of the site. Examples of applications are endless. In a most fundamental way a frames web site makes possible a variety of "pages" presented on the client computer without the necessity to reload common geographic elements and a greater variety of "pages" than would otherwise be possible without individually authoring each html page. As far as I know frames have been around for quite awhile. They suffered from lack of standards during the browser wars and all sorts of stories from search engine experts. I believe this has settled down now with general agreement on format. I particularly find IFRAME, a frame defined within a normal html page to be a very useful, efficient and desirable solution to many design situations. I am of the opinion that frames would be the dominate web design choice but for the rough beginnings of frames. This is especially so in light of the much slower web access of the past and the premium placed on loading speed as a result of slow data rates. Lanell Grant ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Derek Andrews Subject: Frames > What is it with frames? I may be working on a site using > frames. When you look at the source, there isn't anything > there! www.livingintruth.org - Nancy Cardinali, LED 1940 Nancy, what is happening here is that the website itself is hosted on a free web server, bizland.com. A redirect service is being used to point the domain name livingintruth.org to the free server, which is opened inside the frame set. You can easily figure out what the search engines index by doing a search. For example, if I search for the email address which is listed on the site, Google finds the page: stevekukla.bizland.com/recommended_weblinks.htm You may wish to try this on other search engines like Yahoo and MSN Search. Now, the problem comes when you ask the search angine to list backlinks to the site. All three of the engines mentioned above found links to livingintruth.org, but none found useful links to stevekukla.bizland.com, the exception being MSN which found the 'no frame' link in the redirection frameset on livingintruth.org So, the problem you have with this type of service is that the engines index pages under one name, and backlinks to another. This is going to make SEO difficult if not impossible. My recommendation would be to find some way to fund proper website hosting. You already have funding for your domain name, and there are some very inexpensive packages out there which might suit your budget. Derek Andrews, woodturner Wedding Favors ~ Artisan Crafted Gifts ~ One-of-a-Kind Woodturning http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." - Henry David Thoreau |
