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Table of Contents for this issue.....
1.
Authors
Comments
2.
Q & A,
Suggestions and Comments
3.
HTML
Editors
4.
Using an
HTML Editor to Build an SBI web page
5.
Overture
Keyword Suggestion Tool
6.
eBay
Classified Ad
7.
Don’t
Read This Next Article
8.
Niche
Browser
9.
PopShops.com
Author's
Comments
After we
published the last weekly issue, Linda and I drove to
Dallas
where we have been able to hold John
Mark
-Thomas Howe, our new grandson.
I have not lost my touch to walk and bounce a baby and put him to
sleep. It is just like
riding a bicycle.
Psalm 128 says
“and may you live to see your children’s children”.
We consider ourselves fortunate that we now have two
grandchildren that we can enjoy and we have fulfilled that verse in the
psalm.
This is the first
issue of the monthly Boomer eZine. Since
we are not fighting weekly deadlines, we can put more time into each
issue. This one has two
videos to help explain the articles.
We hope you enjoy
this issue.
Q & A,
Suggestions and Comments
Art Bedard
, one of our readers, and John
exchanged several emails during September about various subjects.
In one of them, Art wrote:
I
think PopShops is the best thing I have seen on the web in years.
Here’s
why.
A keyword searchable - image output index of millions of products for
free. Just think, if you wanted to create a niche site of lets say
"Fireplace Pokers". You could aggregate fireplace pokers from
15 vendors in a few minutes, spend five minutes or so making it look
pretty. Get the domain name " firepokers.com" for $7.00 or so.
Wa-la - You are in business with the largest collection of fire pokers
in the world! My guess is that 'fireplace pokers' is one of 50,000 or so
niches out there. The hell with the cynics, we live in a golden age!
We
never heard of it so we checked it out.
See the article about what John found at PopShops.com.
If you have anything for this
section or you have a suggestion for a topic for an article,
please use this suggestion
form to give us your suggestions or your input.
With your help, we can improve the Boomer eZine.
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Close the page to return to Boomer eZine.
HTML Editors
There are many HTML editors
available to use for developing web pages.
Some cost some major money (Dreamweaver, FrontPage), but the
good news is there are many free ones.
I
have already mentioned Page Breeze in a previous article. My
son, Justin, recommended this HTML editor to me so I downloaded it and
tried it. It works fine, but
since I have used FrontPage 2000 for years, I will continue to use it as
my HTML editor of choice.
In my opinion, the best HTML
editors are what are called WYSIWYG editors (pronounced wiziwig).
This stands for “what you see is what you get”.
When you use a WYSIWYG editor, you lay out the page like you
would create a Word page placing your text and graphics.
The editor generates the HTML to produce a web page that looks
like the page you created in the editor.
The
editors allow you to switch back and forth between the display where you
see the page as you created it and the HTML that the editor created.
Watch
this short video about using a WISIWYG editor (in this case FrontPage)
and watch me build a very simple web page.
I will show the
Normal
format and the corresponding HTML code.
Play
Video – HTML WYSIWIG Editor
From
this you can see that the editor takes the text and other information
that you enter and generates the HTML code to properly place the items
and objects on the web page, display the correct fonts, and format the
web page the way you specify.
Some
people who are more techno-geek than I am like to write in pure HTML.
They say they can create a much more efficient web page which
will load faster. I will
challenge them to create a page faster in raw code than a WYSIWYG editor
can. The loading time is
a consideration, but as the world moves to high speed Internet, this is
not much of a factor anymore.
My
time is priceless since I never have enough of it.
I want a tool like an HTML WYSIWYG editor that will generate a
page for me quickly. I
want to create the page and post it on the Net so it can help my
business. The less time I
invest in the creation of the page and the more money it generates, the
better return on my time investment.
I
am on the mailing list for the weekly email from Jennifer Kyrnin who is the
editor for About.com - Web Design. She
has some interesting articles about web design and web pages.
I recommend that you consider reading her information at http://webdesign.about.com
This will open a new window so once you have checked her out and
signed up for her email newsletter, close the window and come on back.
If you want to sign up for her email, click the Stay up to date! link
to the right of her picture and you can sign up for her weekly email.
She also has a free class on coding HTML that I have taken.
In her last week’s issue, she listed 44 free web editors.
I am not going to list them in this article, but I recommend that
you read about them at http://webdesign.about.com/b/a/256114.htm
You can find one that you like and start using it.
This link will open in a new window.
Close it to return to Boomer eZine.
Using an HTML Editor to Build an SBI web page
SBI
allows you to build web pages using the SiteBuilder or to upload your
own web pages that you built with an HTML editor.
The SiteBuilder works well for inexperienced webmasters since
it leads you through the process block by block and builds a nice web
page.
I
have built many SBI web pages using both upload and SiteBuilder.
I have found that I like to use a combination of both methods.
When
you use SiteBuilder, you are asked for the page file name, the page
title, the description, and the keywords.
These are VERY important
for search engine optimization which SBI does so well.
Here
is a picture of the first part of SiteBuilder.
Just fill in the blanks and SiteBuilder builds the Header section
of your web page for you. You
will see this same information in the video in a few minutes.
I
use the first block of SiteBuilder to enter the Headline for the page.
This creates the H1 – H4 heading tag for the page.
The number 1 – 4 indicates the size of the font for the header
(1 = largest). In the video,
notice that I do not copy the header HTML code from the editor.
I use the SiteBuilder header block.
I
create the entire page in FrontPage and then I copy the HTML from after
the heading (H1 HTML code) through the last code before the end of the
body. I paste this into
a Text block in the SiteBuilder where it is accepted as HTML.
I use the HTML comment tag to show the start and end of the code
that I am pasting into the SiteBuilder.
This is so I will remember what code I copied the next time I
edit this page. I will point
this out in the video that follows.
I
then include my custom footer HTML in the next text block and my page is
built. If you do not have a
custom footer, you can use the SBI Footer.
Look
over my shoulder to see how I so this.
Play
Video – Build an SBI webpage using HTML Editor
My
advice – If you do not know anything about HTML or building a web
page, start with the full SiteBuilder.
You can build a great web page without any previous HTML
knowledge. As you learn
about web pages and HTML, you can blend using an HTML editor with the
SiteBuilder. When you become
really proficient in web page design, you can use the upload feature to
upload your complete page.
I
can upload my own pages, but I tend to stay with the combination of the
SiteBuilder and my HTML editor so I get the full SEO help from SBI.
Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool
There
has been a lot of discussion on the Net about the Overture Keyword tool
and the fact that it seems that Yahoo is not supporting it.
I
just read in a recent issue of “Site Pro News” that the Overture
Keyword tool is back. Check
this URL for more information http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/014878.html
I
went to the keyword tool at
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
It
gave me search data for January 2007 for retirement jobs.
This is the month of data that is currently being posted.
I
like this tool since it gives good results and it is free, but it was
not working well for a period of time.
Even to the point where Site Build It stopped using it as a data
source for its Brainstorm It tool. My
personal opinion is that this improved the Brainstormer since the data
now comes from Wordtracker which is a better and more comprehensive
keyword source.
I
have not used Overture for several months due to the problems with it.
Let’s watch it and see how it performs.
It is a handy tool to have in your tool chest if it is working
correctly.
eBay Classified Ad
I ran an eBay classified ad titled
“DON'T JUST BUILD A WEBSITE” with a subtitle “BUILD
A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE BUSINESS USING SITE BUILD IT”.
This ad was a featured ad which
cost $40.40 for the month run. It
received 329 views so the cost per click was $0.123.
On a previous test, the ad received 185 hits, and I thought that
was good. This is in
the very competitive web hosting/website keyword arena so I consider
this a very attractive price for advertising.
This run of the ad did not sell an
SBI, but I do not plan to stop running the ad.
I will now work on improving the ad and see if I can improve the
conversions. Since I have
not made a sale with the ad, improving the conversions means that one
sale is a 100% improvement.
I sent the ad to a friend,
Steve Coleman
, and asked
his input. He said the sales
copy was too long. Steve, it
looks like you are right. I
will streamline the copy and see if I can’t attract a buyer on the
next ad run.
The key point is the ad is
attracting traffic. That is
the first challenge. Now I
need to convert the traffic to sales.
Don
’t
Read This Next Article
Made
you look, didn’t I?
This
type of headline is a real attention getter.
The classified ad from the prior article uses this psychology to
get attention. I changed the
ad headline from the previous 30-day run and the views increased from
185 to 329. That is a
significant increase (78%).
I
am running a pay per click program now on AdCenter and this same type of
headline is getting the same great results.
I
am testing two ads for the same keywords.
One ad lists the item and some benefits.
The other ad says “
Don
’t buy the item until you check out the deals at my URL.
The
first ad is getting a click through rate (CTR) of 1.71%.
The negative ad (
Don
’t do it) is getting a CTR of 15.26%.
People
do not like to be told “
Don
’t do something”. They
will automatically want to find out why.
This
is great psychology to use to attract attention to your ads.
Try it and see how it works for you.
Niche Browser
I came across
a really powerful browser tool recently.
It is offered by Jason Moffat, Internet marketer.
I went to Jason’s blog and he says that Niche Browser was
actually created by Derek Franklin.
I downloaded
Niche Browser and tested it. It
makes research much easier and faster.
Anything “free” on the Internet is selling something so if
you can get past the annoying home page selling Affiliate RockStar
Products and a popup box, you can really cover the Internet quickly.
Here is a picture
of the browser with retirement jobs typed in the search box in the upper
left corner.
When you load the
tool and close the popup, click on the HELP icon in the upper left of
the page. This will start a
video that shows you how to use it.
Niche Browser allows you to go to many different websites from
this one browser page so you do not have to open a new window in
Internet Explorer or FireFox to search for each particular site.
I played with it
using “retirement jobs” and very quickly, I found out a lot of new,
helpful information about my major keyword.
Nothing is
ever free on the Internet, but the benefits of this tool outweigh the
aggravation of the sales pitch on the home page and the popup box.
You can
download the Niche Browser at http://www.nichebrowser.com
Try it and see
what you think.
PopShops.com
Taking the
suggestion from Art, I checked out PopShops.
I agree with Art, it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
I needed for something like this for a current project so I
jumped right in.
In overview,
PopShops is a site where you can generate an online store where you have
an affiliate relationship with merchants and promote the merchant’s
products. This is very
similar to the aStore concept at Amazon, which I use, but PopShops gives
you the entire merchant base of Commission Junction, LinkShare,
ShareASale, and Red Galoshes.
To
use it, you register with PopShops.
The basic plan is free which includes up to ten free shops.
There are upgraded plans for $5 and $30 per month if you want
more stores or more capability.
Next,
you register with the program providers (Commission Junction, LinkShare,
etc.) Since I am already a
member of these two programs, I only had to register with ShareASale.
When you register, you do have to have a legitimate website or
blog so keep that in mind before you jump into this.
You
then design your shop and add items to it.
Shop design is easy. You
just specify how many columns and rows in the shop and the type of
display for the product (graphic or text link, size of display).
When you are ready to “pop it” into your site, you copy a few
lines of Java script that PopShops gives you, and you insert this script
in the HTML on your page where you want the shop to appear.
When
your page loads, the shop is updated each time from feeds from the
various merchant sites and you display the latest prices for the
products.
This
is one of the really nice features of this concept.
If you had a static link with a price on your site to the
merchant’s page, you would have to make certain that you updated the
price periodically. PopShops
serves up the most current information each time the page loads.
Let’s
stop on this for now. I have
already set up a shop, and I will monitor it during the next month.
I will write an article about my experience with PopShops in next
month’s issue.
Our
thanks to
Art Bedard
for the tip.
That wraps up our
issue for this week. Until
next week, stay tuned.
John and
Linda Howe
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