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Lies and Damned StatisticsIn the old days - about a year ago - it was felt that having a counter on one's page would provide a decent enough measure of a page's popularity. Well, through lack of clarity on what exactly was being counted and the potential for abuse by constantly hitting the "reload" button, the realization dawned that a page counter wasn't much use. The Internet Audit Bureau promised a more exact "hit-count", but something happened when they upgraded, and the service fell hopelessly behind (my own account only goes up to 12/27/96...). Visitor tracking has become more refined. Usually, if you have a Business Account, your server will provide site visitor stats in one form or another. My own server Hiway.net uses a program called Analog, which provides extremely comprehensive statistics. So comprehensive that it's difficult to make any meaningful analysis... Another option is by using "plug-ins" like Webaudit or Websnoop (both available from Wishing.com. Essentially, you cut and paste some HTML into your page(s). Site visitors are tracked on the Wishing.com server, and you access the stats from your browser. There's a free trial - although you need to pledge $50 for all five plug-ins, which is only charged if you continue to use them.
Pretty much anywhere and everywhere! We found the Wishing.com site through
an article at The Marketing
Resource Center. This is a comprehensive resource of marketing tips
both on- and off-line, although the site is somewhat difficult to
navigate, and some of the articles appear dated. (For example, 20 Reasons to
Put Your Business on the World Wide Web claims Web usage worldwide
at 7 million...).
However, plenty of useful info and links, including one to the (in)famous
Jay Conrad Levinson's Guerrilla
Marketing Online site - whose homepage confused me - it looked like Yahoo!...
We found The Marketing Resource Center through a link at Lightning Web - surely one
of the ugliest and least-appealing sites around. But we did find the MRC.
Which only goes to show...
--John Blower
The structural change in the economy we are currently experiencing has given rise to an explosion in the number of small businesses. This new business sector is known as Small Office/Home Office - or SOHO. This sector is the fastest-growing in the economy, and will continue to be for the forseeable future.
There are two aspects to be aware of with this phenomenon. The first is if you are a SOHO business yourself. The second is if you are a corporation attempting to sell into this market.
If the former, there is an excellent online resource in Business@Home. This journal runs the gamut of issues affecting small businesses, with a number of regular sections including one on Marketing, which includes an index to previous articles.
You can also subscribe to the magazine for $9.98/year.
Consultant Jeff Berner has written a number of books and booklets on working from home. This former San Francisco Chronicle columnist also works with companies attempting to sell into this dynamic market.
Jeff's site looks spiffy, but can be difficult to navigate. We understand he's in the process of upgrading... --John Blower
When asked about that new technology "Mail", Henry David Thoreau is
reputed to have lamented that he felt privileged if he received "two
letters a year which were worth reading".
Despite Thoreau's suspicions, mail developed, expanded and often
became known as "junk mail" - much to the detriment of our environment in
many cases.
When eMail arrived, it was used to communicate in a kind of shorthand - all
the advantages of the telephone with the semi-formality of a written
communication. eMail inevitably gave rise to "junk eMail", unsolicited
messages about all and any subject and product under the sun, from the
latest MLM scheme to Trent's
AOL Disk Collection Point.
Nonetheless, bulk eMail is a great way to communicate with a large number
of people virtually instantaneously. Is it right for promoting your
business? We can't answer for you, but there's an excellent article
available on the pros and cons by Geoff Duncan, entitled Those Bulk Email Blues.
I suppose it comes down to "if you don't mind getting it, you won't mind
sending it"...
If you decide that bulk eMail's for you, and you are one of the 18+million
users of Eudora, you'll probably want to load up on the latest version, due
any day now. There's a good overview of this product at the Ziff Davis
Internet Magazine site. This page also has links to other reviews
of the new Eudora.
Also at the ZD Internet site is a useful section called Cyberstats, which quantifies the latest Internet Marketing Trends. It also links to
an archive going back several months.
--John Blower
Small business owners and operators are by nature shy, retiring and
modest types. And even if you go against type, like the rest of us you
probably find it difficult to write about yourself and your business.
Paula Wrenn specializes
in working with home-based businesses in order to help them communicate
their message more effectively.
Her site, however, does contain a number of useful writing and public
relations tips for small businesses. These range from setting
and measuring PR objectives to an invitation to answer home-based
business related questions.
Much of the advice is pretty commonsensical, but it is nonetheless useful
to be reminded of the obvious on occasion.
There is informed criticism of several companies' online PR efforts in an
article called Online
PR Assessments and Tips, which is part of the Successful Marketing
Strategists website. The site as a whole is devoted to online
marketing, and includes a section entitled Cybermarketing Info
Center, which is full of interesting and useful info.
We were particularly impressed with one report, A Quest for Insight: PR in
Cyberspace 1996, an in-depth look at how journalists are using the
New Medium.
The site design and graphics leave something to be desired, IMHO, but wade
through the big graphics and emboldened homepage and you'll find a
wealth of information.
Finally, Rick
Amme & Associates provide online advice on crisis management from
a Public Relations point of view. All good stuff - and a particularly
attractive and well-designed site.
--John Blower
Over the past year there's been a massive increase in the number of web pages, accompanied by a concomitant rise in the number of Search Engines and Directories.
The problem for site designers is how to design a site which conforms to the needs of with the major search engines, thus ensuring that your superbly-designed pages are listed - preferably on page one of a search.
The Search Engine Tutorial is an excellent guide to designing with major search engine needs in mind.
The comprehensive Tutorial is based on practical experience. It covers pretty much everything you need to know, from the length of time from submission to appearance in the major engines (you'd be surprised!), to detailed surveys of the needs of the major engines and a good explanation of the use of Meta Tags.
The site is graphically intense. Thankfully the designers have provided a low graphics version.
After you've designed your site, you can download Submission Wizard, which apparently lets you submit to 500 engines "with the click of a mouse". To use the software, you need to purchase a modestly-priced "key.
We haven't tested this claim, as the software is not available for Mac or UNIX (quelle surprise!). The site itself is "framed" (sigh...) and sports a suitably aggravating animated gif. --John Blower
It sounds good in theory - clump on-line businesses together in "online mini-malls". A bit like recreating the Los Angeles shopping experience.
Worldprofit Malls claims to be one of the largest promoters of online businesses in this configuration. We found the prose a mite prolix and gushing (and we're always suspicious of Ph.D's who style themselves "Doctor"), but there are a few gems buried away there.
David Siegel is a writer and graphic designer with some interesting perspectives on the past, present and future of the Web. We particularly enjoyed his provocative essay on The Balkanization of the Web, providing as it does a number of points of reference for designers of successful sites.
Siegel is the author of the highly-successful book Creating Killer Websites. Design tips from the book can be found at the Killer Sites website. Useful stuff, even though we'd figured most of 'em out already...
Take a look at the Archives. We've indexed all the past issues with topic pointers.
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