QUESTIONS / COMMENTS / SUGGESTIONS:
mailto:jodi@blumenthals.com
mailto:howard@blumenthals.com

Blumenthals.com, in cooperation with Greater Olean Chamber and Olean Business Institute, periodically conduct seminars on the basics of building a website. This class has been called Web Development 101, SiteMouse Class, Web Site Design Class, etc. The class is held periodically (2x/yr.) in a computer lab at the OBI campus in Olean, NY.

WHO ARE YOU, AND WHY HAVE YOU ARRIVED HERE?

STUDENT? If you are reading this page, chances are you are a student in the class. You will find tons of helpful information here that will help you learn the basics and build yourself a lovely website quickly & easily, Come on in!

CLIENT? Blumenthals.com also offers “Value-Added” Web Hosting Services. Part of this service allows our cPanel hosted clients to build and edit their own websites using a web editor built-in to cPanel. If you are a hosting client & are visiting this page because you’re getting ready to build your site, Welcome!

NEITHER? This page contains information, tips, links, that are designed to help our clients and friends develop a website on their own using the services built into our cPanel hosted accounts. If you do not have an account on our server, some of the information will make no sense, the rest of the information is generally available elsewhere. If you are interested in building your own website using our service, then let’s talk! Click here http://blumenthals.com for more information on our Value Added Hosting, Consulting, Web Design and other service, and thanks for visiting!

HELPFUL LINKS FOR WEBDEV101 CLASS:

TEMPLATES & GRAPHICS:

• http://www.steves-templates.com/templates.html
• http://www.dreamweaver-templates.org/dreamweaver-templates-free.html
• http://www.blogsearchengine.com/web_templates.html

CREATE YOUR OWN TEMPLATE - COLORS / THEMES:
Choose a color theme for your site from VisiBone ColorLab.
http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/

Choose three light colors and three dark colors for text, links, backgrounds and buttons.

COMMON IMAGE FORMATS FOR WEBSITES:

GIF Pronounced jiff or giff (hard g) stands for graphics interchange format, a bit-mapped graphics file format used by the World Wide Web, CompuServe and many BBSs. GIF supports color and various resolutions. It also includes data compression, but because it is limited to 256 colors, it is more effective for scanned images such as illustrations rather than color photos. GIF does not support layers.
When to use the GIF format:
When you need a single color transparency
When you need a single file animation for use on the Internt
When the image has fewer than or will look acceptable with fewer than 225 colors

JPEG Short for Joint Photographic Experts Group, and pronounced jay-peg. JPEG is a lossy compression technique for color images. Although it can reduce files sizes to about 5% of their normal size, some detail is lost in the compression. Also see JPG vs. GIF vs. PNG in the Did You Know . . . ? section of Webopedia.
When to use JPEG:
When you need 24-bit (16.7 million) color
When the image is a photograph or contains continuours tones
For distributing on the Internet

COMMERCIAL IMAGE EDITING SOFTWARE:

• As I said in class, my recommendation for web imaging software is Adobe ImageReady. This product runs on both Macintosh and Windows platforms and comes bundled with Adobe PhotoShop. A less expensive, and great alternative is Adobe PhotoShop Elements

• Microsoft Picture IT
• Paint Shop Pro

FREE IMAGE EDITING:

• GraphicConverter An excellent all-purpose (Macintosh only) image editing program that can import a wide range of different graphic-based formats, edit the image, and export it out as various available file formats. The high-end editing tools are perfect for graphic manipulation as well as the ability to use Photoshop-compatible plug-ins. It offers batch-conversion capabilities, a slide show window, and more.

• Ultimate Paint Paint program for Windows for photo editing and image creation with support for many file formats. Freeware and shareware versions are available.

• Pixia Very nice freeware paint and image editing program for Windows.

• GIMP - Windows Freeware image editing program for Windows, Linux, X-Windows. The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

• ImageForge Freeware for Windows. Create and edit images, acquire pictures from your scanner, digital camera or other Twain-compliant device, apply special effect filters, produce your own photo albums and simple slide shows, and much more.

• Painter 23 Free image editor for Windows. Features: backdrops, effects, and filters, banners, GIF and JPEG optimizer, airbrush, textures, clone, morphing, mirror, flip whirl, etc.

• Image Enhance Free image editor for Windows: bitmap and JPEG images, webcams, digital cameras and scanners, filters and effects.

• VCW VicMan's Photo Editor Freeware photo editor with intuitive skinnable interface and a variety of features. Windows.

• i.Mage Fast and Simple graphics editor. Supports 8, 16, 24 and 32 bit images. Excellent at tile editing, cropping and cleaning up images. Supports GIF, BMP, JPG, PCX. Split view zoom and basic graphics file support.

• Texture processor Free program for creating various textures. Texture Processor is intended both for 3d-artists and web-designers. Windows.

• Do your GIF image editing online with GifWorks It's an online GIF image editor. This unique tool is completely on-line -- nothing to download or install. Better yet, it's ABSOLUTELY FREE. Create your own special effects with any GIF -- even animated ones! Resize it, colorize it, optimize it, and jazzercise it -- then save it and take it with you.

FREE CLIP ART, IMAGES, BACKGROUNDS, TEXTURES, FONTS, ETC.

• MieNet Image directory and poster store A large collection of images and posters, sorted by theme.

• Acclaim Clipart Clipart in many categories from copyright-safe sources only.

• Barrys Clipart Many categories of free clipart for download.

• ClipartGuide.com Directory of clipart sites ordered by category.

• Clipart Index Free drawings, free images, free pictures for pamphlets, newsletters, school activities, web pages, parish magazines and all forms of non-profit publishing. The clipart pictures, animations and roll-overs are free for non-commercial use.

• Clip-art.com Comprehensive directory of clip-art and images.

• Fantastic Arts A collection of high-quality, high-resolution images and textures.

• Gifworld A world of FREE GIFs, animated GIFs, fonts, photo's, etc.

• Graphxkingdom Home to thousands of clipart, icons, backgrounds, bars, interfaces, and other cool, free graphics.

• JAC Clipart Archive Large collection of public domain images, clipart organized by category.

• Northstar ClipArt The collection of original North Star artwork by Peter Reynolds, inspired by the themes of his own book 'The North Star', is free to use on your own website, as long as it is for non-commercial or non-profit use (educational, institutional, family, etc.).

• Spot's Graphics Archive Modest collection of nice images.

• Webshots Free. Large directory of high-quality images and wallpapers for use on your desktop.

• Yahoo image gallery Images to use for your home pages, clubs, greeting cards, and more.

• The ultimage backgrounds page Categories: brick, cloth, fire, marble, metal, ornamental, paper, etc.

• Free-Backgrounds.com Free backgrounds listed by category.

• Fontmagic http://www.fontmagic.com/ Free fonts archive, over 5000 freeware and shareware fonts. All fonts are in True Type format.

• 1001 Free Fonts http://www.1001freefonts.com/ Free fonts for download.

FREE INTERNET PROGRAMS:

• Free Web Browsers

Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/ Freeware open-source Web browser based on the famous Netscape Web browser. We can recommend Mozilla as a stable and efficient Web browser which runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS X. There is also a version which comes with a newsgroup reader and email program.

Opera http://www.opera.com/ Web browser for Windows, Mac, Linux, OS/2, Solaris, FreeBSD, QNX and Symbian. The freeware version is very useful, it displays advertisements, which can slow down the program a bit; the shareware version does not have the ads and costs $ 39 USD.

Free Netscape.com http://www.freenetscape.com/ Netscape, freeware Web browser with email program, newsgroup reader, and Web page editor.

FreeBrowsers?.com http://www.freebrowsers.com/ More free Web browsers for a variety of platforms.

• Free e-Mail programs

Eudora http://eudora.qualcomm.com/ Good email program for Windows, MAC and Palm. The freeware version displays advertisements. To get rid of the ads you need to register.

Pegasus http://www.pmail.com/ Freeware email program for Windows and DOS.

Phoenix Mail http://sourceforge.net/projects/phxmail/ Freeware open-source email program for Windows.

Popcorn http://www.ultrafunk.com/products/popcorn/ Popcorn is a freeware ultra-lightweight e-mail client for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.

Web-based email http://www.freebyte.com/email/#webbased You can also send and receive emails without downloading (and installing) an email program. Just check out our section on free Web-based email services.

eMail Virus protection http://www.freebyte.com/antivirus/#email Email is the most widely cause of virus infections. This page lists a large number of free and non-free anti-virus programs to improve your email security.

Bloomba http://www.bloomba.com/ Free email program with email management features for those being flooded with messages everyday.

• Free FTP Programs

FTP Works http://www.corbanware.com/ftpworks.html Freeware for Windows. Full featured, ftp client. Includes support for firewalls, downloading and uploading directories, change file attributes on remote files (CHMOD).

WS FTP LE http://www.ftpplanet.com/download.htm FTP program, allowing only multiple file transfers and the auto re-get or resuming feature. Freeware for educational, government and non-business home users.

Leech FTP http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/~jdebis/leechftp/downloads.html Freeware, multi-threaded FTP client for Windows. Can also do HTTP file downloads.

Right FTP http://www.right-soft.com/ Free FTP client for Windows, with multi-threaded data transfers, firewall support, ability to change remote file/directory attributes, passive data transfer and more.

• Free Telnet Program

TeraTerm http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.html Freeware for Windows. One of the best free Telnet clients we found.

FREE VIRUS SCANNERS & SPYWARE PROTECTION

• How not to get an email virus

http://www.yourtechonline.com/virus.shtml Prevention is the best cure when approaching the hazards of email viruses. This article, written by Dhugael McLean, explains how to best handle a variety of email attachments, and which file types you should never open when they are sent to you by email.

• Virus scanners operate by searching your harddisk(s) for files which might be infected by a virus. This method is never 100% secure, since only known viruses (or known virus patterns) are detected. If an infection has been detected in a certain file, the virus scanner might be able to clean the file, but very often this is not the case. In that case, you can try another scanner to clean the file, you can try to replace the file or - as a last resort - delete it.

However, if many important operating system files are affected, it might be the best solution to reformat the harddisk and install the operating system from scratch. There are even viruses can not be cleaned by mere hard-disk reformatting. E.g. so-called boot-viruses infect the boot-sector of disks, and will very often not be removed by simply reformatting the harddisk. In this case you will need to repair the boot-sector, a good utility for this can be found in Norton Utilities (not free).

Antidote Super Lite version http://www.vintage-solutions.com/English/Antivirus/Super/index.html Freeware lite version of the commercial Antidote program. It utilizes the same virus database as the commercial version.

Anti-vir http://www.free-av.com/ Free anti-virus software for Windows. Detects and removes more than 50,000 viruses. Free support.

Avast! http://www.avast.com/avahome.htm Anti-virus program for Windows 9x/Me, NT/2000/XP. The home edition is free for noncommercial users.

AVG Free edition http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php Free anti-virus program for Windows.

BitDefender http://www.bitdefender.com/bd/site/downloads.php?menu_id=21 Freeware virus scanners for Linux, MS Dos, Palm, Windows CE, ICQ, Messenger.

HouseCall http://housecall.antivirus.com/ Free anti-virus software. Runs in your Web browser (Netscape 3.01 or higher, Explorer 3.0 or higher) while scanning your drive(s).

Symantec Security Check http://security.symantec.com/ A number of online tests (run in your Web browser), including a virus scan. Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher required.

Outlook protection http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/ie/downloads/security/oelong.asp Some Outlook and Outlook express versions are very vulnerable to virus attacks through email. Several versions of Outlook and Outlook Express can execute malicious scripts or programs hidden inside emails sent to you without warning. A patch for Outlook Express to diminish this security risk can be found on the Microsoft Web site.

Spybot-S&D, the best (according to PC World, PC Mag, Download.com...) privacy software available! http://www.safer-networking.org/en/

Ad-Aware is designed to provide advanced protection from known Data-mining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, selected traditional Trojans, Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking components. With the release of Ad-Aware SE Personal edition, Lavasoft takes the fight against Spyware to the next level. http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

OFF-LINE WEB PAGE EDITORS

Should you decide to try creating web pages offline, you might use one of these packages:

• Adobe Go-Live
• Macromedia Dreamweaver - Mac & Win
• HotDog HTML Editor - Win only
• Coffee Cup HTML Editor - Win only

MORE RESOURCES:

• Dictionary of Web Terms

PLANNING & BUILDING YOUR WEB SITE:

START WITH A PLAN
When building a Web site, as when building any other complex structure, the first stage is architecture - the creation of a detailed plan designed to make sure all the infrastructure is in place, the pieces fit together and the final structure is one that meets the client's needs. This plan is not only important for the success of the project, but it is important for your budget. Sometimes the planning phase represents 25% of the total project budget. By the end of the architecture phase, we will have a plan for every page on the site, the navigation elements, the look & feel, etc,... AND we will know how much time & money it will take to build.

Many of our web clients are looking for more than a simple "on-line brochure". Blumenthal's specialty is the attractive, interactive, easy to update, "sticky" site that provides visitors with information, plus will encourage repeat visits. We very often build dynamic sites with database "back-ends". For more information, please visit http://www.rapidweb.info.

DESIGN & BUILD THE SITE
Here's a brief overview of the of the process of designing & building a web site:
#1) Requirements document - a statement of the client's objectives to ensure the site will be designed toward the appropriate goal. This can usually be accomplished in a meeting with the client where we also discuss site features Blumenthal's has included in other sites that may be of benefit
#2) Create a structure - "site map" or "flow chart" to include the elements of the requirements document. Generally this structure looks like an organizational chart depicting navigation elements, links, content pages, etc.
#3) Functional Specifications - This document describes the function of each element (page, link, etc.) of the website to our programmers. It may also include the page architecture of each page which can be just a sketch depicting content, navigation elements, etc.
#4) Advertising plan (if required) - Plan for getting the site listed with major search engines, linking to & from related sites, promoting the site to increase traffic, etc.
#5) Create the Web site per specs.- This process is generally an interactive one where our programmer makes changes & updates to the site & the client monitors progress. Much training can also be done here (usually via the phone) to orient the employees responsible for the maintenance of the site to the update techniques. It is important for the client to be FULLY ENGAGED in this process, that may require an input of time.

Generally we spend many hours designing & developing a site BEFORE starting to build it.

SEVEN STEPS TO START SELLING ON-LINE:

It seems as if everyone in the world is in a wild rush to do business on the Internet. Some people are starting new businesses just to be there, others are moving their businesses or adding Internet functionality to their existing operations.

It’s great to see that Nike’s advertising slogan "Just Do It" is being taken to heart by so many businesses and individuals. But maybe we should all remember some other age-old and time-tested slogans. How about "Look before you Leap!" or "An hour of time spent planning is worth a year of recovering, fixing and re-doing!" OK so the second one isn’t really a slogan, I just made it up, but it could be reality, especially with the way that our businesses and our lives run at Internet speed.

So what’s my point? Take this as a key concept: First and foremost, Internet commerce is about business and the achievement of your business objectives.

Putting your business on the Internet requires an understanding of your current business, and how you can enhance that business through the use of the Internet. Some planning and story boarding can go a long way to creating an effective e-commerce enabled web site. Here’s a sample of some business issues to consider before you "Just Do It".

How does the Internet fit with our strategy? Should we change our strategy?

• What is our competition doing or going to do?
• What will the timeframe be for a positive return on our investment?
• How will we measure success?
• How much will it cost? Up-front, and ongoing.
• How will it affect our sales channels?
• How will it affect our partner and vendor relationships?

So take your Nike’s off for an hour or two, ask yourself these questions and any others you can think of and then when you're satisfied that you’ve had a good look, strap your cross trainers back on and leap away!

----Step 1---- Shop Around
It's a basic step, but an essential one. Put yourself in the shoes (or in this case, at the keyboard) of your customer. See how other stores present products and services like the ones you plan to offer. Get a feel for what types of bells and whistles you would like to include in the store you build.

----Step 2----Solidify Your Plan
You'll want to be sure your small business is ready for e-commerce *before* you get into the intricacies of building a store. You'll need to know details ahead of time, such as:

• What types of products and services you will offer.
• Will your prices be higher or lower than local retail stores.
• How you will handle order fulfillment & shipping.
• How you will handle sales calls & customer service.
• How you will guarantee satisfaction & handle returns.
• How you will handle international orders, if at all.

Remember that just because a particular product sells well in retail stores, it won't necessarily sell well online. In fact, many products cannot be sold easily over the Internet because of factors like high shipping costs, high product liability issues, or the need for personal salesmanship. Before building your online store, evaluate your products' suitability for online sales. An objective assessment can save you much time and expense in the long run.

----Step 3----Keep It Simple, To Start
A common mistake is to attempt to develop a site that turns out to be too complex to ever be implemented. Often, well-intentioned projects never get off the ground because of unrealistic expectations and mounting technical costs. To avoid over-engineering your online store, start simply by identifying the most basic goals, and implement those to begin. You can always add more bells and whistles after the basic system is in place, and sales have begun.

----Step 4----Pick a Provider
When it comes to the nuts and bolts of building an e-commerce store, there's good news, especially for beginners. Many e-commerce solutions providers are now teaming with ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and Web hosting services, a trend that makes it easy to find a one-stop solution for doing business on the internet. These new partnerships often combine site hosting, store setup, and credit card processing into a single package specifically designed for e-commerce beginners.

Let your store-hosting service worry about fending off internet hackers and handling "back-end" technical issues, so you can concentrate on selling your products and marketing your store.

----Step 5----Address Security Issues
If you want to host your own e-commerce site, you need to make network security a top priority, even before your e-commerce site goes live. Unless you are an experienced network administrator, you should seriously consider retaining the services of a network security expert who can install specialized security software. If you are a beginner, as we mentioned above, your best bet is to use a turnkey hosting service that will take care of most security issues for you.

----Step 6----Develop a Professional Design
Once you've settled on a provider for hosting your site and handling payment processing, you'll want to concentrate on the front-end interface and design. A word of advice: Don't Skimp on Design. Without a professional, marketing-oriented, easy-to-use page layout, even the most sophisticated back-end technologies won't be enough to drive your e-commerce sales success. If you are serious about building a successful e-commerce site, make sure that the design works to your advantage, rather than becoming a cause of lost sales opportunities.

----Step 7----Be Accessible
Always make it easy for your shoppers to contact you by e-mail, phone or fax. Keep in mind that the internet is a global medium. When possible, you may want to provide a toll-free telephone number for customers within your region (such as an 800 number in the U.S.), as well as a standard telephone number that works around the world. Prominent contact information on each page of your site will help convey to shoppers that you are a reliable source, dedicated to customer satisfaction.

Hosting Guide for Small Businesses

Where Should You Put Your Site?
There are several different types of locations for Web sites, but many do not fit the needs of a small business' site. How does one identify, evaluate, and select a place for a site? To learn how, read through the options and advice offered below.

1.) Host your own site on a Web server. Generally, smaller companies would not consider this too seriously because it is complicated, expensive, and requires regular maintenance and administration.

2.) An ISP (Internet Service Provider) host your site. When signing up for an Internet account, free Web space is almost always offered. However, you won't get all the services your Web site needs, and you won't be able to use your own domain name. So, when you decide to move your site to a hosting company you'll have to change your business cards, letterhead, brochures, etc... Also, if you use a personal-page site, it's nearly impossible to get listed on Yahoo and some other search sites.

3.) A free homepage-building service. This is a great option for those just starting out. This method allows you to launch a Web site without assuming any cost risks. You can also play around with the layout and design and test it to see how it does with your customers. Then, once your business has grown, you will be ready to consider a more robust hosting option. SiteMouse.com is a good example of a free business web site.

4.) A cybermall. Satisfied cybermall clients are few and far between. Cybermalls may or may not be good hosting companies, but don't expect a cybermall to bring you business.

5.) A Web store. There are some sites, in particular book sites, at which you can sign up for space within the store. But, consider carefully whether the site can really provide you with the services you need. And, you won't get your own domain name.

6.) At a Web host's site in a subdirectory or subdomain. A hosting company is a firm that rents space on its Web server. A subdirectory or subdomain is a Web site that uses the hosting company's domain name: http://www.yourname.greatbighost.com/, for example.

7.) At a Web host's site as a virtual domain. You get your own domain name plus, if you choose carefully, all the services you need for a reasonable price.

8.) A Web-hosting account with your own domain name. This is really one of the best options for small businesses that plan to be around for awhile. Note: there's a lot of overlap in this business. Most, ISPs also sell hosting services.

Finding a Hosting Company
Two challenges are faced next. First, how to find these companies? Second, how to choose? The first problem is minor, because there are over 15,000 companies that host web sites, and it's easy to track down many of them at the following directories:

Budgetweb: http://www.budgetweb.com/
Host Find: http://www.hostfind.com/
Host Index: http://www.hostindex.com/
HostSearch: http://www.hostsearch.com/
Top Hosts: http://www.tophosts.com/

Doing this research yourself can be time-consuming, and there's more to picking a hosting company than getting the best price per megabyte of disk space. There are dozens of different services associated with Web hosting, so you need to figure out what those services and features are, and which ones you'll need.

What to Ask a Web Host There are many questions to ask a hosting company, the questions below are a good start.

SHOPPING CART Do you need a shopping-cart system (a series of forms that visitors use on your site to place orders for your products?) If so, you may want to pick a hosting company that can provide you with a good shopping-cart system. However, selecting a shopping cart is another complicated subject, and it's often difficult to find a hosting company with all the services you need including a good shopping cart.

COST Cost is always an important consideration when it comes to anything where you will be paying monthly. Most companies will charge a setup fee and a monthly fee. But, be sure to at least ask if they'll waive the setup fee, especially if you're transferring from another hosting company, because some companies will do so.

Cost is often related to the number of megabytes of disk space. Note that disk space costs the hosting company next to nothing. But, the theory is the more space you use, the more traffic you're likely to have, and the more maintenance and attention your site will need.

In reality, the disk space used by small business sites is minimal. Unless you plan to store lots of sound files and graphics, you will get many Web pages into 5MB. Make sure you find out how much it will cost to increase the amount of disk space you get, or the amount of data transferred each month.

HIT AND DATA TRANSFER CHARGES Some companies charge you for the number of hits - i.e. the number of times someone transfers something from your site (a page, a picture, and so on.) This is an imprecise way to measure traffic. Most companies charge by the amount of data transferred from your site.

The busier the site, the more you pay. Many companies have no limit, they base cost on the amount of hard-disk space you rent. The more disk space the busier your site is likely to be. In other words, you may be very ambitious and create a huge site, and get no traffic ... but on average, a large site may well be busier than a small one. Regardless, that is the basis for hosting fees.

FRONTPAGE If you plan to use Microsoft FrontPage, then go with a company that offers true FrontPage accounts. Be careful, some companies will tell you that yes, you can use FrontPage with their company, but that doesn't mean the FrontPage server extensions are installed, and if they're not the advanced features of FrontPage it won't work.

CONTRACT CONDITIONS Check the conditions of the contract. Is there a minimum time to Stay? Many companies ask for a year long contract, which is too long. You may want to switch hosting companies if the one you pick doesn't work out, so make sure you can leave whenever you want. Some companies provide a guarantee, too -- you can work with them for 30 days, for instance, and leave without paying if they don't provide good service.

By the way, the hosting business has a very high "natural retention rate." Once you've signed up with a hosting company, you won't want to leave them unless they really screw up. The problem is that it's difficult to leave, especially if you use lots of complicated scripts and utilities. Setting up a new site and transferring everything can be a hassle.

MULTIPLE DOMAIN NAMES If you are using more than one domain name, find out how much it will cost to have them all hosted. For instance, if you have abc.com, and xyz.com, each of these points to a different page. Also, you may have several old domains you no longer use: efg.com for instance. They can point to the same page at abc.com.

There are many different ways that hosting companies charge for these services. You may be allowed two domains for free, with an additional fee for extra domains. Or maybe you'll have to pay an additional fee for all extra domains. Just be sure to ask the question if this is important to you.

EMAIL ACCOUNTS You should get an email account with your Web site, especially if you are using your own domain name. In fact, if you are using your own domain name that domain can only point to one computer; you couldn't have a Web site with one company and an email account with another.

Owning your own email domain is great -- all of a sudden you can create as many email accounts as you wish: !joe@TopFloor?.com, !fred@TopFloor?.com, !sales@TopFloor?.com, !admin@TopFloor?.com, and so on.

MAIL FORWARDING You'll probably also be able to forward mail. For instance, you might forward joe@abc.com to joe317@aol.com. Ask how many forwarding accounts you get, and how much additional ones cost. Also, find out how hard it is to set up a forward. The hosting company should have some kind of simple-to-use interface.

Getting Listed- Keywords, MetaTags Selecting Keywords Contributed by Sherry Isler, Miva Corporation

It’s important to have a solid keyword strategy in mind in order to drive traffic to your web site. Keep in mind, however, that keywords are for indexing on search engines via spiders, robots and web crawlers. You still need to have a marketing campaign that includes registering your site with directories and search engines. Ideally, each time a potential customer asked a search engine about your product, company, or industry, your site's URL would appear at the top of the results list. If your site is new, you can increase your site's visibility with well-chosen keywords.

Your keyword strategy is an important part of your overall online promotion plan. Good, well-placed keywords can help bring much-needed traffic to your site. Keywords are just one component of a solid marketing plan. You may also want to consider advertising on other sites, participate in an affiliate program, networking in your local community and create strategic alliances.

Keep in mind that your keyword strategy is in addition to registering your site with directories and search engines (which you can do either on your own or with the help of a site submission service). Your keyword efforts are primarily for the automatic indexing conducted by the search engines' "spiders," "robots," and "Webcrawlers."

Selecting Keywords Begin by identifying all of the words that can be used to describe your product(s), business, and industry. Also think about all of the words that prospective customers might use when they come looking for you. You will probably end up with a long list, consisting of both very specific words that name your products as well as more generic words that describe your type of product(s) and industry.

Edit your list to no more than 20 words and phrases. Make sure you eliminate as many duplications of words as possible, since some search engines regard more than three repetitions of a keyword as spamdexing.

It will probably not be difficult to get a high search-engine placement with specific keywords like your company name. The real challenge is to get a high listing with the generic words that apply to the industry you are in and the products you sell.

Getting listed at the Top of the Search Engines Written by Kevin Nunley. http://DrNunley.com

Today's estimates tell us that 80% of all people on the Internet find sites that interest them by going through search engines. Most use one of the major search engines: AltaVista, !Excite, HotBot, !Infoseek and Lycos, or one of the major directories:Yahoo!,LookSmart, and Snap.

If you can get a prominent listing on even one of these search engines or directories you can get a big increase in hits and sales. Almost any site can get listed on search engines, but it takes some know-how to get listed in the top 10 where your site is seen by thousands, maybe even millions, of people.

IMPORTANCE OF TITLES AND METATAGS Most search engines look at your Web page title, the metatag information in its HTML code, and the first 100 words or so of copy on the page. The search engine looks for words that appear in all three places. When someone searches using one of the words that appears in your title, metatag, and copy, your site will likely be presented by the search engine as a top choice.

PROVIDE USEFUL INFORMATION The key to a good search engine ranking is really quite simple. It doesn't involve hidden secrets or fancy technology tricks. You get a good listing when you have a site filled with good information on a topic that people are searching for. After all, that is what search engine users want, so that is what search engine technology is striving to do better with each passing month. If listed correctly, search engines can drive very qualified prospects to your Web site. The best way to get favored treatment from search engines is to have a tightly focused site that presents a lot of information on one or two narrowly defined topics.

CREATING KEYWORDS AND KEY PHRASES If you haven't yet started building your web site, consider yourself lucky. The best time to worry about search engine placement is while your site is still in the planning stages. Start by thinking about what words or phrases potential customers would use to look for a web site like yours. We call these "keywords" and "keyword phrases."

Think about obvious broad terms that describe your site, like "marketing." Also think about specialized, narrow terms like "Internet marketing," or "web site promotion," or "e-mail lists." In addition, consider insider terms that people in your industry will use, like "opt-in safe lists." Keep in mind that some people will spell these "website" and "email," which search engine computers will consider as different words.

Customers often search for sites with terms that describe the benefit they get from the product or service they are searching for, these are called keyword phrases. For example, the customer searching for our marketing site might type "getting more hits" or "successful web site" into a search engine.

Make a list of the keywords that people will likely use to find a site like yours. Rank your keywords and keyword phrases in order of importance. Put the keywords people are likely to use most near the beginning of your list and those less likely to be used near the end. Most search engines limit your title and metatag information to about 15 words.

SAMPLE METATAGS AND KEYWORDS Let's look at the HTML code that makes up a web page. If you're using a PC, go to any web page and right click your mouse. A little menu will pop onto the screen. Click "view source." That page's HTML code will appear.

Look toward the top of the page. The Meta Tags look like this: META NAME="description" content="Kevin Nunley-One of the Net's top business writers provides lots of tips on marketing, media, on-line marketing, and the Internet." META NAME="keywords" content="marketing, advertising, ads, Internet marketing, press release, copy writing, web site design, small business assistance, newsletters, web site promotion, selling on-line, ezines, home based business opportunities,"

This is the Meta Tag info for my DrNunley?.com web site. Notice how the "description" tag and the "keywords" tag contain many of the same words. Your "description" tag should briefly describe your site while listing your most important keywords in a way that sounds like a real sentence.

Put your Meta Tags between the HEAD and /HEAD tags in your HTML code. Place them right below your TITLE code. This is a good time to make sure that your most important keywords are in BOTH your title and your Meta Tags. Search engines will give you extra credit for having the same words in both places.

Be sure to include your keywords and keyword phrases in your web site's copy. Especially concentrate on including your most important keywords in the first 100 words of your opening page.

REGISTERING YOUR URL The days of spending a half hour registering with each search engine are gone. There are a number of places where you can register with all the top search engines with a single slick. Your best bet is to use a simple program that register's your site with 400 search engines.

Marketing: The Next Step

Putting a site on the Internet without marketing is like "building a billboard in your basement" --No one will see it, and no one will know it's even there.

Here are a few quick ideas to get you started:

• List your site with the search engines and directories.
• Issue a press release to announce your site.
• Consider using free banner-ad exchange programs.
• Consider paid banner ads on well-targeted sites.
• Consider advertising in magazines, newspapers, etc.
• Approach other sites about cooperative marketing.
• Send direct mail to a targeted list of potential buyers.
• Spread the word, through customers, friends & associates.

Insights & Advice from Other Online Merchants

It's not enough to take a traditional business model and implement it on the Web. People need to rethink the issues of marketing, supply chain management, inventory, and customer support, and formulate a real Web-oriented business plan.

Save money in your budget to hire someone to promote your Web site. It's worth every penny.

You have to perpetually market your products, and really be pushy with cyber-marketing, so that people get to know about your site.

You don't want to end up in competition with the Amazon of any product category, because you will be out-marketed and out-discounted.

The most important thing you can do is to think like a customer. The golden rule still applies: Treat others like you want to be treated.

And last but not least, remember to take your time and do it right...

Build your business one customer at a time.

Align your business with a partner who specializes in the specialized area of Internet Marketing. Webster Group International (WGI.COM) has proven itself in this area. Allocate some portion of your advertising budged toward marketing your web site.

Small Business Success Story….. The Viatical Settlements Site

The following case study is related to an unusual subject: viaticals. So unusual, that few people even know what this word means. A viatical is a life-insurance policy that is sold at a discount before the insured person dies. The viaticals business really grew in the early days of AIDS; patients who knew they had only a year or two to live could sell their polices at a discount getting 70% or 80% of the value, and the investor would become the beneficiary of the policy.

Viaticals is turning into big business, and one prone to scams. Many viatical companies target seniors, telling them that viaticals are a very safe investment (not true), and even suggesting that they Rollover their Independent Retirement Accounts into viaticals without mentioning that they'll have to pay the Internal Revenue Service a penalty and tax, because IRAs cannot hold viaticals.

Now, along comes Gloria Wolk of Bialkin Books with her Web site. This story involves a single-person company Bialkin Books, owner Gloria Wolk. She's written and published two books ("Cash for the Final Days: A Financial Guide for the Terminally Ill and their Advisors" and "Viatical Settlements-- An Investor's Guide"). And, she promotes these books on her Web site. She believes she's stopped at least $1 million dollars in losses to viatical scams, and helped thousands of people learn more about the business.

Gloria sells a book a day from her Web site, though sales seem to be increasing. The site promotes the book, and pushes bookstore sales. And she's making some great contacts online. A year or so ago, before she decided to set up a Web site, she was thinking of working in a lawyer's office, and working on writing her books at night. But she discovered that what lawyers really wanted were people they could pay $8 an hour, people who would work overtime without overtime pay.

Her Web site and the internet have changed things completely. Now lawyers call her, asking her to be a consultant on viaticals, and organizations ask her to talk. She even has lawyers writing chapters in her latest book --for free.

How does Gloria use her Web site? Well, first you should understand that it's a very simple, low-cost site. She has a $30/mth hosting account. She used Microsoft FrontPage to create her pages. And she's focused on information, not "glitz" (http://www.viatical-expert.net/ ). Gloria is almost apologetic about her site, but she has no need to be. Far too many Web sites have concentrated on form rather than function, and failed as a consequence. Gloria's site concentrates on what really matters, information about viaticals.

The Web site is merely the center of her Internet activities, she works hard to bring people to the site and to network across the Internet. For instance, she visits DejaNews? (a newsgroup search engine --http://www.dejanews.com/ ) regularly, and searches for the word "viatical" to see what people are saying about her subject area. She'll respond to messages with advice and information, and of course mention her Web site and books, too.

She also went looking for links from various sites. For example, Growth House ("The Yahoo of Death and Dying" -- http://growthhouse.org/ ) reviewed her book and links back to her Web site, and various sites related to investments, the terminally ill, and the disabled link to her site.

Gloria also regularly resubmits her site to the major search engines. She checks her position now and then, to see if she's been removed or seems to be lower down the list, and then resubmits to get back in or into a better position.

For Gloria one of the most powerful uses of the Internet is as a networking tool. The internet is not just the Web, and Gloria hasn't forgotten that. "The internet is being used to defraud people left and right," Gloria says, "so it's a great place for me." She can see viatical frauds in action, and warn people of what is going on. She gets email from people telling her about the latest scams, and lawyers and regulators asking her for information.

Gloria was not a particularly computer-literate person before getting involved with the Internet; she had "no background whatsoever," she says. She found it a lot of trouble to get started. In fact her attitude now is, "if I can do it, anybody can do it!

Market Your Business with Free Publicity Written by Kevin Nunley. http://DrNunley.com

Believe it or not, some of the best media advertising you can get for your small business is FREE! It's the publicity that comes when you interest an editor or producer in your company's news, information, or story.

Newspapers, radio programs, TV talk shows, magazines, and email newsletters need a constant supply of interesting information they can pass on to their audiences. In exchange for that, you get free exposure in their publication, on their radio show, TV news show, etc..

Program managers and editors love it when you bring them a story that is tailor made for them to use. Most media people call this kind of information "newsworthy."

Let's take a few moments to look at what kinds of stories get the attention of the press, and then how you can shape your story to be attractive to them.

First, target your message to the medium that is most interested in your type of story. Television goes for a mass audience. Radio seeks a very tightly focused demographically skewed crowd. Magazines touch a specialized regional or national readership. And, your local paper goes for a very local/community approach.

There are several topics that the press almost always covers. If you can think of a way to combine your message with one of these topics you will greatly increase your chances of getting mentioned or written about.

1. Is your story timely? At any given time there are certain topics the media favors. It may be reduction of crime, or new schools, or the city's sorry streets, or a new company employing people in the community. Find some way to connect your message to the media's latest trend. If you have an internet company you're in luck, just about anything having to do with the internet gets media attention right now.

2. Does your message fit with one of the press's favorite human-interest angles? Story lines such as "the little guy takes on corruption" or "formerly poor single mom takes on the business world and succeeds" or "one guy gets fed up and cleans up his neighborhood" are stories which receive favorable responses from the media.

3. Does your message tie into a topic of mass interest? The press frequently does surveys to find out the community's top 5 concerns. The results are almost always the same. Crime, kids, schools, roads, and employment. The press always covers topics like these.

4. Can you relate your message to some community initiative? The media loves to cover things that invoke passion in people. Perhaps you can position yourself as a good guy taking on a problem or an expert who can provide insight to a troubling issue.

5. Is your message the favorite subject of a particular reporter? Get to know media folks whenever possible. Stop by the studio of your favorite station with a box of donuts and start a friendship. Your favors will be returned on the air.

6. Does your story relate to a specialized newsletter or general topic? If readers find your information is adding to their knowledge of the general topic, you're in. This kind of publicity can be the most effective and the easiest to get. Bigger publications may be flashier, but it's often the smallest ones, focused at a very specialized audience, that get you exposure with the right audience.

Writing press releases to send to the media can be a difficult and daunting task. Here's a quick guide on how to help you write your own press release to send to media. Start by putting your contact information in the upper left-hand corner of your page. Also include the name of a contact person with their phone number and e-mail address. Everyone in media has e-mail now and an increasing number prefer communicating with you via e-mail telephone number.

The top of your release should look like this:

GreatIdea?, Inc. 1900 Yourstreet Success, WY 11006 http://greatidea.com

Contact: Charley Success (555)555-1212 e-mail: charley@greatidea.com

For immediate release.

Some press releases tell the media manager not to use the story until some later day--For release on January 1. My experience is not many media folks adhere to time limits. If they like the story they use it--NOW! It's best to give them a green light by typing "For immediate release."

Next, include your headline. This should be a complete sentence or two that gives the reader a clear idea of what the release is about and why they should care about reading it.

GREATIDEA, INC. RELEASES VERSION 3.0 OF THE MOTORIZED MAID.

Then proceed with the body of your release. Present your information with the most important details first.

The bottom line is this: think like the media, shape your message to fit their likes. Do that and your message has a good chance of being used. Critical to getting 'ink' is to send releases regularly. While one media manager may not have the slightest interest in your idea, another may welcome you with open arms - but they all should get your news. The media needs piles of fresh stories every day.

Find free media contact info at http://www.gebbie.com/. Also check your local library for one of the popular media guides. Some services that will send your press release to media are USANews.net, NewsBureau?.com, and XpressPress?.com.

PROMOTE YOUR WEB SITE! http://www.drnunley.com/

Olean Business Institute Mrs. Jennifer Madison Class Links - http://www.sitemouse.com/users/jenglish/