SuperTips Ezine: Issue 31


May 19th, 2000
Harvey Segal, Editor:

IN THIS ISSUE

1.
Greetings!

2. "Creating Keyword Specific Doorway Pages
      A Step By Step Guide"
    - by Shelley Lowery

3. Readers Forum

4. "Ezine Publishing 101 -
      How To Get Started As An Ezine Publisher"
    - by Mani Sivasubramanian, M.D

5. More "Super" Tips
    5.1 How to tune up your Web pages
    5.2 Why should I subscribe to your Ezine ?
    5.3 Why you should archive your Ezine
    5.4 How to price your product

6. Contact Information

1. Greetings!

Hello Folks,

Have you seen the last line in today's issue ?

[Of course not - you've only just started reading.]

So I'll tell you what it says:

Archives: http://www.supertips.com/ezine/archives.htm

Yes - all the back issues of the SuperTips Ezine are now online, in a very easy to read format.

While converting these issues to web pages I found it fascinating to reread and learn again from the articles published over the last year - I'm sure you will find the same.

But there are some other great advantages of setting up these archives - as you'll see later on.

I am pleased to publish an article today from Dr Mani Sivasubramanian who is one of our long time readers. The proceeds from this article go to a good cause.

How I got Dr Mani's surname past my spell checker I'll never know. Mind you my spell checker does strange things: it rejects the copyright symbol (C) at the foot of this newsletter and suggests this alternative - "Chihuahua" !

And for 'ezine' it suggests 'Elaine'.

So on we go with this week's SuperTips Elaine.

Regards, Harvey

2. "Creating Keyword Specific Doorway Pages
      A Step By Step Guide"
    - by Shelley Lowery

If you're doing business on the Internet then you know the importance of ranking high in the Search Engines. The competition is fierce, but it can be done. What I am about to reveal to you will increase your traffic immensely, but it must be done correctly. The goal is to create powerful doorway pages that not only rank high in the Search Engines, but are Search Engine friendly and provide some valuable content for your visitors.

What is a doorway page anyway? A doorway page is a webpage specifically designed to rank high in the Search Engines for a specific keyword or keyword phrase. Not just a blank page with a link that redirects to your main page, but a powerful, content rich page packed with your keywords.

First of all, select three of the most specific keyword phrases that best describe your website. If your website is about dog grooming, then your keyword phrases might be: dog grooming, pet care, pet groomers. Place these keyword phrases, separated with a comma, in your KEYWORD meta tags between the HEADING tags of your HTML.

(Notice: Some of the opening and closing brackets < > have been left off some of the examples below to enable you to view the code.)

Example:

<META name="KEYWORDS" content="dog grooming, pet care, dog groomers">

Next, write a descriptive sentence about your website packed with your keywords for your DESCRIPTION Meta tag.

Example:

<META name="DESCRIPTION" content="The Dog Groomers Salon: Dog Grooming Tips From Top Professional Pet Groomers">

Write a descriptive TITLE for your page that includes your KEYWORDS.

<TITLE>The Dog Groomers Salon: Dog Grooming Tips From Top Professional Pet Groomers</TITLE>

Your doorway page should load very quickly, so keep your graphics to a minimum. Make sure you don't include any banners and place your main logo at the top of your page, linked to your main page. Place your keywords within the image tag using the ALT tag. Below your logo, include an intriguing sentence and link it to your main page.

Example:

IMG SRC="mainlogo.gif" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="60" ALT="dog grooming,pet care,dog groomers" BORDER="0" For More Professional Dog Grooming Tips, Click Here

In addition to placing your keywords in your Meta tags Title, and Image tag, you can also use the Comment tag. Comment tags can be used throughout your page to organize your content and make updating easier. They also provide another great way to place your KEYWORDS. They won't be visible on your webpage, just in the HTML.

Example:

!--Begin Dog Grooming Navigation--
!--End Dog Groomer Navigation--

The key to creating powerful, keyword rich, Search Engine friendly doorway pages is to provide some valuable content. In the body of your webpage, provide your visitors with a free 250 - 300 word article or report loaded with your keywords every couple of sentences.

Example:

Dog Grooming Tips From The Top Professional Dog Groomers

If you're not comfortable writing your own reports, you can find over 1,000 free reports here:

http://www.web-source.net/content.htm

Here's the basic HTML outline for your doorway page:

HTML
HEADING
META name="KEYWORDS"
content="dog grooming, pet care, pet groomers"
META name="DESCRIPTION" content="The Dog Groomers Salon:
Dog Grooming Tips From Top Professional Pet Groomers"
TITLE The Dog Groomers Salon: Dog Grooming Tips From Top Professional Pet Groomers /TITLE /HEADING
BODY

!--Begin Dog Grooming Navigation--

IMG SRC="mainlogo.gif" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="60" ALT="dog grooming,pet care,dog groomers" BORDER="0"

For More Professional Dog Grooming Tips, Click Here

!--End Dog Groomer Navigation--

Dog Grooming Tips From The Top Professional Dog Groomers

/BODY
/HTML

After you've created your doorway page, save your page using one of your keywords.

Example:

dog_grooming.html

If you're creating many pages, simply add a number to the end of your page.

Example:

dog_grooming_1.html
dog_grooming_2.html

pet_grooming_1.html
pet_grooming_2.html

dog_groomer_1.html
dog_groomer_2.html

When you're ready to submit your pages to the Search Engines, submit only one page each day. If you've created several pages you'd like to submit, you may want to create an additional page that contains links to each of your doorway pages. That way, you can submit just your links page and let the Search Engines crawl the rest of your links.

Creating doorway pages is a powerful way to increase your website traffic, but don't stop at just one. Imagine how much traffic you'd receive with 100 keyword packed, doorway pages all pointing to your website...

-----------------------------
About the Author

Shelley Lowery is the Webmaster of Web-Source.net -A complete resource portal for the Internet entrepreneur. The site assists the entrepreneur in developing a serious Web presence by providing a wealth of free information, resources, tools and content. http://www.web-source.net

3. Readers Forum

In our last issue I discussed the benefits of having a web based E-mail account, using www.yahoo.com as an example.

Eirik Johansen wrote in to say that if you just want to check your POP Email account without the need of any additional Email application you can try <http://www.mail2web.com>

You will be asked for your Pop3 server name, account name and password. If you don't know the first two then the system will try to make an intelligent guess based on your Email address. However I recommend that you always keep those three items embedded in your memory - if your PC ever goes up in smoke your main priority will be to get your incoming mail.

Which reminds me - do you have proper back-up precautions for your PC ? If you think you do then this article may make you think again  "When your PC Backup is not enough"

* Eirik is the publisher of Absolute Webmaster which includes articles on web design.
To subscribe send an Email to mailto:subscribe@netmaking.com or visit http://www.netmaking.com

                                              =========================

From John M Carter

I've thoroughly enjoyed your site for some time now and I just wanted to say thanks! You folks provide a great service to the internet community and I would not be at all surprised if you were both directly and indirectly responsible for some decent, successful web sites and/or businesses having been born. As a matter of fact I've used your resources often and never been disappointed. Actually I've just launched my own web site and by all indications, it looks as if it will be a major success.

John's site is <http://www.workplacemoxie.com>
Everybody Needs Some! Where you can find great free information, ideas and resources you can use now to learn how to succeed in any and every aspect of your work world and have fun doing so!

4. "Ezine Publishing 101 -
    How To Get Started As An Ezine Publisher "
    - by Mani Sivasubramanian, MD.

"Why haven't you started your own e-mail newsletter yet?"

I'll bet you answered: "But I don't know how to begin"

Maybe you tried and gave up, thinking that ezine publishing is incredibly complex!

Imagine this - if you publish an e-zine today, you'd have to

* spend time hunting for information
* research websites
* visit libraries
* surf the Net
* buy books on e-publishing
* try to take a crash course in visual arts, website design, publishing, e-commerce, online marketing, e-mail list management

- everything.

Before - perhaps - even giving up in frustration.

Worse, losing money and business in the process.

But it doesn't have to end this way - if only you apply the THREE GOLDEN RULES of Starting an Ezine. There are only few *great* ezines that offer fantastic value and build the publisher's reputation and they don't happen by accident.

What are the three GOLDEN RULES of ezine publishing ?

==> RULE 1: Thinking out a Strategy

Some basic strategic issues to decide upon are

* Your areas of interest / expertise,
* Your readers
* Your aims in e-publishing
* Selecting a name
* Deciding the frequency of publication
* Accepting advertisements?

But to really excel, you must plan for CHANGE.

* How will you monitor progress?
* How will you adapt to change?
* How do you know you're doing well?

==> RULE 2: Planning out the process

You need an e-zine blueprint.

- Layout and design
- Content
- Formatting
- Archiving past issues
- The ezine's website
- Distributing your ezine

< Read a free sample chapter from my ebook "Ezine Launch," titled "Content for Your Ezine," at http://www.drmani.com/business/ezl-sample.htm >

==> RULE 3: Taking action.

Most ezine editors are in a hurry to begin. But wait -there's a little more to do:

* Preparing administrative messages (e.g.welcome, goodbye)
* Setting up autoresponders
* Joining an ezine distribution service
* Checking and troubleshooting
* Setting up an ezine website
* Getting ISSN

This is a bare outline. Publishing consistently high quality ezines involves these steps -- and a lot more.

To help budding ezine publishers, and to share my experience on ezine publishing, I have written an ebook, "Ezine Launch," a primer to create, publish and distribute your own profitable ezine.

It is available for ordering and instant download in AdobePDF format. For readers of this ezine, for a limited period, I'm offering a special discount -- you can order for just $10.95

Visit http://www.drmani.com/business/ezinelaunch.htm.

The funds raised from the sale of this ebook will go entirely towards the not-for-profit organization I manage, "CHD Help Line," a help group for families with children suffering from Congenital Heart Defects (CHD).

This is a unique opportunity for me to give back to a wonderful, caring online community, simultaneously generating funds to help CHD families worldwide. Maybe this explains why, even though I'm a heart surgeon, I love to "operate" on the Internet! :-)

----------------- About the Contributor -----------------

Mani Sivasubramanian, M.D., is a heart surgeon, ezine publisher and contributor to http://www.newslettercoach.com. Order "Ezine Launch," the ebook to kickstart your epublishing career, by visiting <http://www.DrMani.com/business/ezinelaunch.htm>
Dr.Mani also maintains a popular website: "Heart Disease Online" at http://www.DrMani.com.

5. More "Super" Tips

5.1 How to tune up your Web pages

Here's a free service. Feed in the Url of a page at your website to <www.WebSiteGarage.com> and you will receive a report covering the following topics

* browser compatibility check
* !register-it! readiness check
* load time check
* dead link check
* link popularity check
* spelling check
* html design check

I tried it with a few of my web pages and got some very useful results.

For example, the browser compatibility check showed that the coloured borders on my tables which have a neat looking effect in Internet Explorer do not show up when using Netscape (because it does not support the "bordercolor" tag).

The !register-it! readiness check advised that I had spare capacity in my Meta Description tag. Fair enough. But it also informed me that my Meta Keywords syntax was incorrect saying that I should use commas to separate my keywords. And indeed if we look back at Shelley's article above we see the use of commas.

But wait. Here's a statement I came across from Marshall Simmonds, Manager of Search Engine Relations for About.com:

"Don't use commas in your keywords meta tags. Why limit the keyword phrase combination that search engines choose to parse?"

So once again we hit one of those conflicting Search engine rules.

If you want to know how I cut through the confusion and found the definitive guide to search engine submission then look back at Issue 13 .

5.2 Why should I subscribe to your Ezine ?

I've just paid a visit to your home page and the first thing that greets me is a request to sign up for your ezine.

But why should I ?.
First - I hardly know you, second what's in it for me ?
How about giving me some compelling reason to join ?

Well those are the sort of questions I recently asked myself and as a result I modified my home page. After a brief introduction where I explain that the site contains free information, articles and ideas to help you profit from the Internet I added
   "And we'll deliver more great tips straight to your Email box !
     We have a FREE newsletter "SuperTips Ezine"
     Join HERE"

The result: a definite increase in the rate of subscribers.
And to add extra persuasion to join up see the next tip ...

5.3 Why you should archive your Ezine

It's a pity to lose all the valuable content you may have written in past issues of an Ezine.

You could archive each issue (some mailing lists allow you to do this automatically) but your reader then has to plough through countless tiresome web pages entitled, for example, Volume 1V issue 39 to get to the good bits.

To resolve this I have now put each past issue of the SuperTips Ezine on a separate web page. I have not simply pasted in the text as a straight copy of the Emailed issue, but I've produced properly formatted web pages.

I then have an index page listing each issue highlighting the key tips and articles.

Here are some benefits of doing this:

* If you are asked for a sample of your Ezine you just refer to the index page. Useful for promotion in ezine lists or ad swapping.

* You can submit the archives to the Search Engines resulting in more subscribers

* You can let potential subscribers at your subscribe page look at past issues to help decide whether to join

You can see this in action here.

5.4 How to price your product

We've all encountered this problem - how to establish the RIGHT price for your product: a decision which can be the make or break for your company.

On the one hand, launching at half price could double your profit.

And yet - perversely - pricing a few dollars higher could add thousands to your bottom line.

You could spend a small fortune on a pricing consultant (but how do you know they will get it right ?).

Master marketeer Ken Evoy has now come up with an idea, adapted for the Internet, which turns the art of pricing into an exact science - and its' very simple to use.

Details are here.

6. Contact Information

Thanks for reading "SuperTips Ezine".

I always like to hear your feedback, suggestions, comments, and questions.

If you have your own article or tip please feel free to contribute it, with your bio information, and you will receive full credit if it gets published.

Thanks,
Harvey


To SUBSCRIBE to the SuperTips Ezine:Click here

ARCHIVES: Click here

Copyright (C) 2000 by Harvey Segal, SuperTips


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