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Table of Contents for this issue.....

1.    Authors Comments

2.    Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

3.    Driving Traffic to Your Website

4.    Sizer

5.    The Website Challenge

6.    Creating eBook Covers

Author's Comments

Linda is off in San Antonio helping Justin and Mary by babysitting Allison, our granddaughter.  Justin and Mary sold their old house and bought a new house.  They are moving on May 31 so Linda is taking care of Allison to let them concentrate on packing the house for the move.

Without Linda here to proof this for me, I am on my own.  Oh, well.  Here goes……

Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

Ana Young and I have had an interesting exchange of emails this week about domain names with several hyphens in them.

Hi again John,  

Me again! ;-) I couldn't help noticing that almost

every single SBI travel site (indeed, every site of

theirs) insists on using these omnipresent dashes in

the URLs.

I've heard lots of complaints about them. One in a URL

is ok, even two sometimes. But I saw one with a

mile-long URL with every word separated by a dash.

What gives? What's their reason for insisting on that?

I wouldn't let them force that on me. URLs that

eventually get noticed (even if it takes a little

longer and you have to use additional ways to get

traffic) are short, snappy, memorable and become

"brands."

Like Boomer eZine. You know you have become a known

entity in this realm. Even though you plan to change

it, it's become part of your "brand," and you didn't

need dashes.

Remember, the fact that a site ranks high in the

search engines does not by itself guarantee it's

successful. It will help, but those initial visitors

have to be willing to come back for more.

Anyway, why the dashes? Curious ...  

Thanks, Ana  

My Reply  

Ana, you caught me just before I shut down for the night.  

Niche marketing is called "long tail marketing".  The longer the key work phrase, the lower the competition.  When you choose a niche that needs several words to describe it, you need to separate it with hyphens.  Two words can be run together, but not three or more.  People have problems breaking the words out.  Also, the search engines have a problem breaking out the long tail domain names.  

SBI does not force this format on anyone.  It recommends it.  SBI is the only web host that keeps every web page of every SBI site in a database.  It uses this database to research the reaction of the search engines to changes in websites.  The SBI research has shown that the hyphens help the site rate higher on the results pages with a clear description of the name when it is separate by hyphens.  

You find it offensive.  I find it makes it easier for me to read.  It is a matter of preference.  My new web site is the-best-web-host.com.  Why?  I found a domain name in the middle of a very competitive keyword area by adding "the" in front of best web host and adding dashes.  I like the-best-web-host.com rather than thebestwebhost.com.  The search engines will identify it for its name intent quickly with the hyphens.  

I know how you feel about the human reader versus the search engine.  Just keep in mind that the reader has to find you first (search engine) then you have to have great content to get the reader to return.  If the reader never gets there the first time, you are dead.  

I own both domains boomerezine.com and boomer-ezine.com.  If you go to www.boomerezine.com you will end up at www.boomer-ezine.com.  I chose the hyphen form so it would be easy to read.  "ezine" is a relatively new word and the hyphen helps a newbie understand that it is a word by itself.  

There are other ways to get traffic to your site, but none are as effective or as cheap as the search engines.  

John Howe  

If you have anything for this section or you have a suggestion for a topic for an article, please go to http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Suggestion_Form1.htm and give us your input.  With your input, we can improve the Boomer Video eZine.  

Driving Traffic to Your Website  

I wish I had created this list since it is a very good summary of what we have been writing about to create traffic to websites.  This was posted by Justin Miche on the Warrior Forum at

 http://warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=141726  

I contacted Justin for permission to post the list in Boomer eZine.  He approved with the condition that I only post the first five items and then refer you to his blog.  He is concerned that Google will see this post as duplicate content which is a “no no”.  

Justin has a sense of humor so I am going to also post his #50 from the list.  Read on …….  

50 ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website  

By Justin Miche  

I just posted this to my blog, but also thought someone here might find it helpful. This obviously isn’t all inclusive (after 50 it was time to stop) and I didn’t include some methods I don’t really care for like FFA sites and safelists… so please feel free to add to it if you like:

1. Write and submit articles to the article directories.

2. Leave comments on other people’s blogs with a backlink to your site.

3. Answer people’s questions on www.answers.yahoo.com.

4. Post in forums and have a link to your site in your signature.

5. Write a press release and submit it to www.PRWeb.com.

Read the rest on his blog http://tinyurl.com/33zesw  

And now the last one ….    

50. Buy a pair of sandals; get your website engraved on the bottom and walk on the beach, stomp in the mud or play in the snow.

You can read the rest at http://tinyurl.com/33zesw  

Sizer  

Sizer is a helpful piece of software that I learned about in the tutorials for Camtasia at  

http://tinyurl.com/2rt2s4  

To understand Sizer, read this quote from the Readme file on Sizer.  

Sizer is a simple program that allows any window to be resized to predefined dimensions.  This can be very useful when, for example, you need to see how a web page will look with different screen setups.  Designing a page on a 19" monitor may look fine at 1280x1024 but not so good on a 15" monitor at 800x600.  

Sizer allows you to quickly change the overall window size (not the screen size) to ensure that the page design works well at all sizes.  

Sizer can also be used to set a window size accurately before a taking a screen grab.  This can be very useful when writing product documentation and you need to ensure that screen grabs are the same size.  

Sizer is very easy to download and install for helping you with the sizing of windows.  You can use it to check the look of a webpage at different sizes.  I use it for setting the window size when recording in Camtasia so all windows are the same size in the final video.  

Download Sizer at http://www.brianapps.net/sizer.html.  

The Website Challenge  

I was invited to join in some fun on one of the SBI forums this week.

AJ, who creates ebook covers, found a website that compares websites for their SEO strengths and rates one against the other.  The outcome is a numerical score and a winner is declared.  At the end of the contest, AJ chose a random number and the closest website score to the number won a free ebook cover.  I did not win, but it was an interesting contest.  

I did compare www.retirement-jobs-online.com against the other top websites competing for the keyword “retirement jobs”.  The results were interesting as follows:  

 It was a fun diversion, but as you can see, the scores do not accurately reflect the Google rank.  

You can play with it at:  

http://www.linkvendor.com/seo-tools/seo-challenge.html  

Creating eBook Covers  

I decided to “dress up” the free report that we give to each subscriber to Boomer eZine by creating an ebook cover to show on the web page for the report.  

I went to Google and used “ebook cover” for the search.  There are many options for this.  You can buy a package that creates the covers for you or you can pay a specialist to create the cover for you.  

I was attracted to an Adwords ad for creation of an ebook cover for $39.  When I investigated it, I found that by coincidence, this ad was from AJ, a well known participant on the SBI forums.  AJ is also a champion of SBI for building web sites.  

I read the sales letter and placed the order.  I am waiting for the proof copy now.  The ad promised the results in 48 hours.  AJ promised the first draft today so I will report on the progress in the next issue of Boomer eZine.  

That wraps up our issue for this week.  Until next week, stay tuned.  

John and Linda Howe  

www.boomer-ezine.com

http://www.entrepreneur-ezine.com

www.boomer-guru.com

www.boomer-entrepreneur.com

www.boomer-marketplace.com

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