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Secrets of a Webmaster
Subject Line: The Write Market Release - Issue #2
CONTENTS IN THIS ISSSUE:
1. Editor's Remarks
2. What's new at The Write Market
3. "Secrets of a Webmaster"
4. Sponsor Message
5. "Debate"
6. Free Monthly Drawing - sign up today!
7. Psst... Pass it on!
8. Information
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EDITOR'S REMARKS
Terry and I have been thinking about how people
view the internet. Some of the syndicated TV news programs have
been portraying web marketing in an unattractive light.
We believe that it is the duty of every webmaster or web
business to market professionally and ethically. There are
always going to be scam artists or "get-rich-quick-schemes" -
even in real time there are many of these types of "businesses".
However, if we - as a community of professional business people -
want to make the web a safe place for consumers - it becomes
our duty to find ways to improve our marketing techniques and our
guarantees (and to stand behind those guarantees);
our businesses can only profit from this.
Can we trust the government to develop and monitor web marketing
standards? Do we even want the government to intervene? We
encourage you to think about these issues.
Enjoy our debate - until next month....
Renee Kennedy
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WHAT'S NEW AT THE WRITE MARKET
Yes - we redesigned again (it seems to
be a never ending process!) We've included every
free thing that we have in the "Webmaster's Only"
section of the site - so be sure to check out that directory - for
lots of information on web design, promotion, tools, every little thing
you will need for your site - or at least the links on where to get it!
Here's the url: http://www.thewritemarket.com/webmasters.shtml
We have also added a direct news feed. Check it out at:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/daily.shtml
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"SECRETS OF A WEBMASTER"
"Do you have any secrets that you could tell me, like what programs
do you use to maintain and promote your website? If you had an
unlimited amount of money at your disposal, what programs would
you use?"
Michael Hudson
All your PC hardware needs in one place - exceptional prices!
http://www.onestopcompshop.com/
Yes, we have several programs that we use to maintain
and promote our website. We're going to list them here
and provide you with links to get to them. We are also
providing you with the expensive option and the cheap
option.
Website Promotion Tools:
1. Webposition Gold: Analyzes your ranks in AltaVista,
Infoseek, Webcrawler, Magellan, Yahoo, Lycos, Excite,
and Hotbot. You can analyze as many words as you like
for as many engines as you like up to the 200th rank. It
costs $149, but we can't live without it! Here's the url:
http://www.webposition.com/cgi-local/index.pl?DS1=RP&DS2=CYO-555E
Some cheap solutions:
Rank This: Analyzes your ranks one word at a time in
one engine of your choice. Free! Url:
http://www.rankthis.com/
Postion Agent: Analyzes your ranks one word at
a time in several engines at a time. Free! Url:
http://www.positionagent.linkexchange.com/free.htm
2. Weblog Manager: This is a traffic tracking tool. Tells you
exactly where people are coming from (referers) and what
queries or keywords they're using to find your site in the
search engines. The reports that this program generates
are so easy to use and understand! Cost: $149.
Here's the Url:
http://www.monocle-solutions.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi?ID=9001
A cheaper solution:
If you have a good host, your website will come with statistics,
access logs and referer logs. You can usually get them for
free or for a minimal fee. However, if all you are getting is an
access log (no statistics page) - it's a struggle to
parse out the data and figure out what's what and who's who,
especially when you start getting a lot of hits. I'm not saying
that it's impossible - but why struggle - if you can afford the
less time consuming WebLog Manager? Also, WebLog
Manager allows you to generate the reports that you want -
for any time period - daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.
Website Development Tools:
CuteFTP (For PC's): Use this program to upload your
new or changed web pages to your host. If you are
maintaining a website, I dare you to live without a good
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program (Unless you are using
FrontPage). This one is free to download - 30 day
trial. Cost $34.95. Url:
http://www.cuteftp.com/
WS FTP (For PC's): This is another excellent FTP program.
There are many free versions of this available at:
http://www.download.com/ - type WS FTP into the search
box. The pro version is available at:
http://www.ipswitch.com/ for $37.50.
Fetch 3.03 (for Macs): This is an easy-to-use program -
available from many host sites. The Fetch home page is
http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/softdev/fetch.html
A single user license is avaiable for $25.
Graphic Tools:
1. Adobe Photoshop: While not cheap (over $600.00) this standard
in the graphics world is among the best for photo manipulation.
Check out http://www.adobe.com/ for more information.
A cheaper solution:
Gif Builder: A simple freeware Mac program used to create small
animations. The animations in our Graphics Mine:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/Gallery/animation.htm were
created with Gif Builder. Download a self-extracting copy for
yourself at: http://www.thewritemarket.com/gifbuilder If you like it,
please send Yves Piguet an email at piguet@ia.epfl.ch.
2. Imagemapper: This shareware Mac program by Stuart Snaddon
lets you easily create image maps of your images. You can
check it out at:
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~snaddosg/Creations/
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SPONSOR MESSAGE
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(Please visit our sponsor - next month - this could be you - see
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newsletter!)
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DEBATE
Recently, we received a request from a webmaster who wanted
us to place a link to his website on our free-for-all-links-page.
We receive several requests every week. Before we include any
site, we look at them and determine if they are "adult content"
or if they contain any "questionable content".
This particular website spawned a little debate between Terry
and I that we thought you might want to hear. (Well, maybe you
don't want to hear it - but...)
We are not trying to offend anyone - these are just our
meager opinions - so - don't take it personally. Thanks...
RENEE: Do you think we should include the link?
TERRY: He's basically saying that those kids in Columbine did it
because they were under mind control. Everyone's entitled
to their opinion.
RENEE: I'm not sure I want to link to a strange site like that.
TERRY: But it's strange by our opinion, probably not to all.
RENEE: OK, I'll add it if it makes you feel good.
TERRY: I'm just debating with myself. On the other hand, he
already is sharing his opinion, he already has a web page, we
certainly don't have to promote it.
RENEE: Right, I don't want to include a site when they are
expressing an opinion that can potentially hurt people or
influence people to commit hate crimes. Like the website
the kids in Columbine put up. I certainly wouldn't want to
promote that or include a link to it on our website.
TERRY: I heard the site went up AFTER it happened.
RENEE: Oh, that's nice.
TERRY: Well, I have nothing against "adult content sites."
I do have a lot of caveats, though. Like, I feel that parents
should be doing their job of teaching and monitoring and
dictating what their children are looking at. There is also
a lot of "monitor" software out there, to help them do that.
But, I'm completely for freedom of speech.
RENEE: But, do you know - when you go to the GoTo suggestion
box (http://inventory.go2.com/inventory/searchInventory.mp -
this box will tell you the most used keywords for last month in the
GoTo Search Engine) and you are looking for keywords like
"children" or "toys", do you know what comes up? Do you know
what thousands of people are searching for? Not "children". Not "toys".
But - child pornography.
TERRY: I see a lot of things on the web that are taboo in real
life or boast strange opinions, like this person's site.
RENEE: But all of this adult content stuff and the Columbine
site and this person's site - all of them influence how people
view the web.
TERRY: Absolutely. It's the "oddities" that create the overall
impression of what the web is.
RENEE: I heard a little report on the ABC Nightly News that
slanted the web as being a place where "normal marketing" was
not the norm - that people could do anything they wanted, that
advertising didn't have to be ethical. Like it's ethical in the real
world! Maybe we need someone to monitor the web.
TERRY: It doesn't really have to be ethical on the web, it's too
hard to monitor it. But you're right, a lot of the web is presented
as schemers. I'd say for the small business they'd want as little
control or monitoring by the government as possible, because
it's hard enough to make it without being controlled every step
of the way. However, I also think it's important for the "upstanding"
businesses to get involved with The Better Business Bureau - to
show they're upstanding.
RENEE: Right, but maybe it would be a good thing for "upstanding"
small business if someone interevened - to get rid of the people that are
trying to profit off of stupidity.
TERRY: But who dictates what is stupid? Who or what determines
what's acceptable in society - who determines what is the "NORM"?
How is the world wide web society different from the real world
society? Are the norms different on the web than in the real world?
RENEE: According to the ABC Nightly News they are! The
scenario was that a webmaster selling theatre tickets was
capitalizing on the "Trench Coat Mafia" (the Columbine website).
He had optimized a doorway page to come up in search engines
under the query "Trench Coat Mafia". Now as a web marketer,
I do not condone this method of getting hits. What good will it do
a business to optimize a page for something that they don't have
anything to do with? There's no target market here, there's no telling
what types of people will come to the site - just a bunch of
unqualified hits.
TERRY: So, there are marketers out there that do scheme to get
their sites to come up in search engines?
RENEE: Of course there are. However, what is that spamming
going to get you? Has anyone studied the results of all these
spamming techniques? I still believe that you have to have
marketing scruples on the internet - look at all the "bad publicity"
you can get when you spam people's email boxes.
TERRY: But does the spamming really stop, even if people get
bad publicity?
RENEE: No, and it never will until someone or some agency
interevenes. Or until the search engines get their act together to
effectively stop spamming. (Of course that wouldn't help email
spamming.)
TERRY: I'm not sure how I feel about the government intervening.
It may come down to censorship. However, we - as individuals -
have the right to censor what we're linking to. I don't think we should
put this site (the strange opinion one) in our links page, he has a lot
of very "questionable content".
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1. Should the government monitor content on the internet or
marketing on the internet? Could they do it effectively and/or
appropriately?
2. What are the perceptions from people in
the "real world" of what the web is all about?
What is the web all about?
3. How can webmasters prevent "bad perceptions" of
marketing or content on the internet? Should we bother?
Send your thoughts to:
questions@thewritemarket.com
The above was an excerpt - to see the whole debate - go to:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/articles/debate.shtml
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FREE MONTHLY DRAWING
Free Monthly Drawing: Each month we have a drawing for
people who subscribe to the newsletter. It’s free -
and we DO NOT give out your address to any person or any
business. This month, the giveaway is TWO FREE ADS
in the next issue of this newsletter
- send an email with your 5-10 line ad to:
ad@thewritemarket.com
All drawings are fair - we pick names out of a hat! (Yes it's
old-fashioned - but it works - and it's fun!)
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PSSST... PASS IT ON!
If you like this newsletter - tell people about it.
Anyone can subscribe by sending a blank email to:
subscribe@thewritemarket.com
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INFORMATION
This newsletter is put together by:
Terry Kent: tkent@thewritemarket.com
Renee Kennedy: rkennedy@thewritemarket.com
Send your comments to:
critique@thewritemarket.com
Send your requests to publish your article in our newsletter to:
articles@thewritemarket.com
Send your questions to:
questions@thewritemarket.com
We publish the best questions along with your signature file.
You signed up to receive this newsletter at The Write Market: http://www.thewritemarket.com/ Or you sent an email to subscribe@thewritemarket.com
You can unsubscribe by sending an email to: unsubscribe@thewritemarket.com , but please, tell us why you are unsubscribing. If there's anyway we can improve this newsletter, we want to know. Thanks!
Copyright 1999 The Write Market
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