Hi
Gang,
Thanks for
being here, I value every one of you
and truly hope that you become successful online!
Things are
nuts around here as usual, just can never seem to catch
up. My "task list" is bulging and I am having
to prioritize what I can get done in what time frame.
As an Internet marketer, you really need to learn how
to do this or else you will sink!
I have a
new product coming soon and am working on the site re-design
so my 'other' marketing duties have to fit in even though
they aren't my focus.
It will
be a short intro today since there's 2 articles.
Things
to discuss in the intro of this issue of "Starting
Smart!":
1. What
to do with your time.
2. Website rankings; Yahoo! vs. Google
Once again,
thanks for being here, your membership to this e-zine
is what matters most to me as an Internet marketer.
"The Regular
Guy"
Karl Augustine
In this edition
of "Starting Smart!"
*Intro
by Karl, 2 topics
*Featured Article #1:"The
Lowdown: How To Create And Send HTML Email"
by Steve Shaw
*In "The News" - Site Pro News' article
*Featured Article #2:
"The making of An RSS Feed"
by Sharon Housley
*Welcome new subscribers!
*Copyright and Publisher Info
Intro
by Karl...
Things to discuss in the
intro of this issue of "Starting
Smart!":
1.
What to do with your time.
2. Website rankings; Yahoo! vs. Google
1.
What to do with your time.
Wow,
this is a big one! One of the most precious, if not thee
most precious commodities that you have in your whole
life is your time. It will get away from you if you aren't
careful. And, for newbies to Internet marketing, wasting
time can be a business killer because time is often under
appreciated and underutilized.
As an Internet
marketer, you are required to maximize your time and what
you do with it. There's just so much to do! Sometime newbies
don't know what to do first and can't prioritize.
2
hints for maximizing time:
HINT 1.
Make a list of what you need to do at the beginning and
end of every work session. Use that list a "re-set"
in case you get off track...don't let email distract you!
Your list of tasks should be arranged in your
own categories of importance...some tasks are
administrative, some are 'product producing', some are
geared toward traffic generation...but most should be
about marketing.
Not to say that you should
forego the other tasks for marketing tasks, but you should
realize that without the marketing tasks, the remainder
will be meaningless. Use your task list wisely!
HINT 2. Constantly
assess and re-assess your prioritization of tasks.
If you are a 'one person business', learning how to do
this will be a key part of your success rate. You need
to learn what to do immediately, most importantly, and
to do when you get time. You should identify categories
of tasks and rank them in importance as they pertain
to your business...then you can understand how
each 'rank' with regards to their worth in your online
business.
2.
Website rankings; Yahoo! vs. Google.
Make sure
that you do not get discouraged if your rankings slip
on Google and/or Yahoo! if you at least have one of these
two 'search-like' sites figured out for rankings.
Do all you
can to learn what it takes to be ranked high on Yahoo!
and Google for your chosen keywords because these 2 sites
aren't going away anytime soon. If you can optimize your
pages for one of these sites, chances are you have the
ability to optimize for the other. The battle between
these 2 sites will not subside so you
must make sure that you remain optimistic if you are ranking
high on at least one for your chosen keywords. Google
bounces around quite a bit testing algorithms, and Yahoo!'s
results change frequently too...so, learn to rank high
on both.
Something
else to think about - Microsoft's MSN SE is being re-vamped.
When MSN is rebuilt, you'll have 3 solid search-like sites
to optimize for...plan for that as soon as you can!
Enjoy the rest
of this edition and thanks again for reading.
Karl Augustine
"The Regular Guy"
(c) Karl Augustine
**Featured
Article #1:
"The
Lowdown: How To Create And Send HTML Email",
Copyright 2004 Steve Shaw
I am frequently asked how
to create and send HTML email, usually with regard to
how to broadcast it to a mailing list. This article presents
the various options available to you.
How to create HTML
email:
Creating the content of
an HTML email is very similar to how you would create
a basic web page. Just use your normal web page editor,
such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver (or even Notepad can
be used, in conjunction with a browser to preview the
code), and construct a web page in the normal way, saving
it as an .html or .htm file.
You may consider creating
an HTML email template that you
can use as a basis for all your future HTML emails. If
so,
once you're happy with the basic look, save it and then
just open and re-edit for your future emails.
There is an important difference
that you need to remember between writing HTML for your
web site, and writing HTML for email.
All the URLs in your code
need to be absolute, rather than relative, for all links
and images, eg. http://www.yourdomain.com/image.gif,
rather than something like just image.gif. This also means
of course that any images used in your HTML email need
to be stored on a web server, the same as when you use
images on a web site.
How to send HTML
email:
To send the HTML email to
an individual, such as to yourself in order to check on
its appearance, you can open the web page (i.e. the HTML
email) you have created in the latest version of IE (File
-> Open...), and then click File -> Send.
However, if you're creating
HTML email for use in email marketing, you will normally
want to use a completely different tool in order to send
it to numerous recipients.
There are two main options
to enable you to send email to a mailing list - you can
either use some special software on your own computer;
or use a web-based solution, either on your own web site,
or via a service run by a third party.
If you are looking for software,
you can find a variety of solutions by going to somewhere
like download.com, and searching for 'send email'.
You can also install some
software onto your own web site, which can give you more
control but also gives you all the responsibility for
maintenance of the software/script if things go wrong.
However, I personally have
a preference for using a third-party web-based service
when sending out my newsletter. For one, it means my broadcasts
are not reliant on my own Internet connection or PC, and
it also let's someone else take care of delivering my
messages to several thousand recipients.
There are literally hundreds
of third-party web-based services available, all varying
widely in quality and ease of use, and suiting different
budgets and email requirements. One of the best ways to
do your research on
this is to check out your competitors or your favourite
newsletters and ezines, and, if they send out HTML email,
find out what service they use. Often the unsubscribe
link, that should be at the bottom of their messages,
will point towards the relevant web site.
(HINT: By signing up to
my own newsletter at http://takanomi.com/newsletter,
you will be able to find out which service I personally
use.)
Finally, and importantly,
should you send out HTML email?
It entirely depends on the
preferences of your own list. But, in general, look towards
big business. Most big businesses tend to send out HTML
email, and there's only going to be one main reason for
that - response rates. But you do need to ensure that
your HTML email is professional, easy to read, and has
an attractive layout.
Steve Shaw creates systems
and software for effective e-marketing. His powerful PopUpMaster
Pro software creates popups that beat the popup blockers
and can significantly increase your conversion rates.
For more information:
http://www.popupmaster.com
In
"The News"
Site
Pro News- "Buzzwords
vs Effective SEO Keywords"
Read the article by clicking
'keywords' below (new browser
opens)
Keywords
**Featured
Article #2:
"The
Making of an RSS Feed", Copyright
2004 - Sharon Housley
Everyday more and more websites,
news services and blogs are adding RSS content. RSS is
a method of syndicating content.The concept of aggregating
content in one central location or repository is very
appealing. Consumers have become tired of push technology,
RSS allows users the flexibility to regain control of
their content. RSS feed creators provide content without
forcing it on consumers. In fact with RSS consumers are
able to choose the content they wish to view.
How to Make an RSS Feed
RSS feeds contain what
are referred to as "items". The items are usually
connected in some way and contain a common theme or other
similarity.
The following feed http://www.notepage.net/feed.xml
contains eight items. The items are all SMS and paging
related news articles that would likely benefit someone
interested in the wireless market.
Each item contains:
title
description
link
The title and description should be written to describe
the content and the link should reference the webpage
that contains that actual content.
Like html, the xml file
uses open and close tags to designate the title, description
and link. Tags are enclosed in brackets <>, like
standard html and the close tag contains a forward slash
/.
The following is
what an item in a xml file looks like:
<title>The Title Goes
Here</title>
<description>The description goes here</description>
<link>http://www.linkgoeshere.com</link>
As I mentioned earlier,
an RSS feeds contains items and like the tags above, an
open and close tag is used to distinguish between items.
<item>
<title>The Title Goes Here</title>
<description>The description goes here</description>
<link>http://www.linkgoeshere.com</link>
</item>
<item>
<title>Another Title Goes Here</title>
<description>Another description goes here</description>
<link>http://www.anotherlinkgoeshere.com</link>
</item>
Now an RSS Feed is a series
of items, these items are chained together to create what
is called a "Channel".
The Channel
appears at the top of the file and tells people how the
items relate to each other. Like items channels use title,
description and link tags to describe its content. The
open channel tag <channel> occurs before the first
item and the close tag </channel> occurs after the
last item.
<channel>
<title>The Channel Title Goes Here</title>
<description>The explanation of how the items are
related
goes here</description>
<link>http://www.directoryoflinksgohere</link>
<item>
<title>The Title Goes Here</title>
<description>The description goes here</description>
<link>http://www.linkgoeshere.com</link>
</item>
<item>
<title>Another Title Goes Here</title>
<description>Another description goes here</description>
<link>http://www.anotherlinkgoeshere.com</link>
</item>
</channel>
Finally you will need to
designate the file by indicating it is an XML file by
inserting xml and rss defining tags at the beginning and
</rss> at the very end.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>The Channel
Title Goes Here</title>
<description>The explanation of how the items are
related goes here</description>
<link>http://www.directoryoflinksgohere</link>
<item>
<title>The Title Goes Here</title>
<description>The description goes here</description>
<link>http://www.linkgoeshere.com</link>
</item>
<item>
<title>Another Title Goes Here</title>
<description>Another description goes here</description>
<link>http://www.anotherlinkgoeshere.com</link>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
When you save the file be
sure to save it as an xml file.
Warning
If you create the file
using Dreamweaver or a similar tool be careful that it
does not strip out tags it feels are redundant. In order
to be be an RSS feed your file needs at bare minimum that
tags that were discussed above, and the file will not
be valid if tags are stripped out.
I found a cool little free
program that helped in xml file creation called "First
Object Editor ".
http://www.firstobject.com/
Validation
As my math teacher use
to say, check your work! Once your file is complete and
uploaded enter it into the feed validator at http://feedvalidator.org
Syndication / Submission
If you've made it this
far you are in good shape it is time to "syndicate"
your content! Submit your RSS feed (the xml file you created)
to sites just like you would submit a web page. Some of
the more popular sites that accept RSS files can be found
under "Post RSS Feed"
http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/rss-feeds.html
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc.
http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric
paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions.
Other sites by Sharon can
be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com
, and http://www.small-business-software.net
*Welcome New Subscribers!
For those of you just joining,
welcome!
Your time is valuable and
I'll do my level best to make this "read" time
well spent. I am just a regular guy, just like many of
you out there...I stuck with it, and now am having a blast
doing what I love to do. Keep a positive attitude and
you can do just about anything....seems like old news,
but it works and we all can use a little reminding now
and then.
Please forward this e-zine
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Thanks for helping
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http://www.9mistakes-online.com/startingsmartnewsletter.htm
