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Click OK to receive our occasional Newsletter View (higher)source...Attempting to access the Higher Source website in the wake of the appalling tragedy in Rancho Santa Fe was a fruitless endeavor. I suspect the server went down as every geek in the universe attempted to access the site. Your intrepid correspondent, however, ferretted around and found a mirror site. Like everyone else, I wanted to inspect the handiwork of the group, who created a site that was "...the [Higher Source's Web] site was a well-maintained site..." (CNN), and who were described thusly by San Diego Polo Club General Manager Tom Goodspeed: "They really knew their business as far as computers..." The group, as we all know, designed a site for the Polo Club. Without wishing to speak ill of the dead, I would describe the sites I found as "workmanlike" at best, and good examples of what NOT to to at worst. In fact, the homepage is a good object lesson in what to avoid when designing a page. It features large graphics - which take an age to download, it's "Java'd" to death, the counter is superfluous, and it features that annoying ticker tape along the bottom which obscures the URL you are going to and its status. It is unfortunate that sites such as Higher Source are being held up as examples of good web design. They aren't. --John Blower
Germany Calling...Precise figures on the Internet are hard to come by. Estimates vary wildly as to the number of users, their demographic breakdown and geographical location. Nonrtheless, there is general agreement that most users and domain names are concentrated in the United States. What a suprise... What was a surprise was the finding that Germany is number two worlwide, in both the number of users (around 2 million) and the number of registered domain names (about 350,000). Obviously, due to a variety of factors, the German-speaking Web market will continue to grow fairly quickly and extensively. Klaus Arnhold has collected a few German resources which will be of interest if you wish to explore this market. There is a banner exchange, LINK4LINK, that mainly targets German sites and has become quite popular. If you wish to submit your site to German directories and search engines there are two resources somewhat similar to SUBMIT-IT. One is to be found at http://www.kdg.de/ the other one at http://www.netpromoter.de/ . Both sites are in German language only. Klaus' own organization, the Rheinische Post publishes a newsletter in German dealing with Online marketing. Netvertising is apparently quite popular within German advertising circles.
You can subscribe as follows:
mailto:macjordomo@services.rp-online.de
BODY: subscribe netvertising
Putting a banner ad on one's site strikes me as perverse to say the least.
Most of them are badly designed and serve to destroy any graphical cohesion
and integrity that one may have striven to instill. There's also the
"Tarzan" factor - encouraging visitors to swing from site to site without
discovering one's estimable content.
Nonetheless, displaying ad banners can appear to be, on the face of it, a
relatively painless way of generating revenue.
In my naiveté, I had presumed that one simply contracted with an
advertiser or broker to display an ad on a specified page, and received
payment based on "visitor impressions" or "click-through".
That was until I discovered Web Site Banner
Advertising by Mark Welch.
This is an exhaustively comprehensive overview of the ins and outs of
displaying banners. It contains links to Companies that promise to pay
for all ad displays, Brokers & Advertising Representatives, Companies
that promise to pay per click-through, Commission-Based Advertising, Banner
Exchanges and so forth. The site also contains a page devoted to the
allegedly sharp practices being undertaken by the Commonwealth
Network.
If you are considering displaying banners at your site - or indeed,
advertising your own site through this medium - I strongly recommend a
visit to Mark's site.
--John Blower
According to Marie Krakow...
"To stand out in a competitive marketplace, send news releases to the media
at least six times a year to build awareness of your company's identity,
products, accomplishments, or community service. Here are six great excuses:
Explore other opportunities for new releases to build your image and your
business."
I found this and a few other general business tips at the 110 Business Tips from 50
Experts site, which is appallingly designed and is a blatant pitch
for the book of the same name. But it's only $10.00 and probably contains
...well, $10.00's worth of advice.
Talking of offline site promotion, I heard an interview on NPR
yesterday with Tom Ferguson MD, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing a
few months ago. Tom has written a book called Health Online, and I'd
wager a pound to a penny that his site received a
quadzillion hits after his mentions on the show...
Leave no stone unturned. --John Blower
According to 20/20 i-site,
"In 1996 companies spent $15 billion on Internet development."
And that, "By [the year] 2000 conservative projections place the figure at
$100 billion."
Big chunk o' change. But did all these magabucks make any difference to
your audience's purchasing habits?
i-site claims to be "the Web's most comprehensive site evaluation
service. 20/20 i-site delivers detailed, easy-to-read reports that evaluate
all critical aspects of [your and your] competitors' sites".
The company will check out your site in four critical areas: Technical
Analysis (HTML, gifs, links and so on), Competitive Analysis
(how your site stacks up against those of your competitors), an Expert
Analysis (the panel, apparently "consists of high-powered experts in
the areas of advertising, marketing, sales, design and programming." Yes,
well...can I be on the Panel?), and a Visitor Usage Analysis.
It looks pretty good. Each report runs between $250 and $750 - but guess
what? - you can get all four for a shade under $1k.
Definitely worth a look, IMHO. --John Blower
Take a look at the Archives. We've indexed all the past issues with topic pointers.
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