Aaronz WebWorkz Weekly Newsletter

------------------------------------------------------------
Aaronz WebWorkz Weekly E-Zine
A Weekly Newsletter of Hints, Ideas, and Resources for
Friends and Customers of www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
Issue #97 Sept. 26, 2003
Aaron Turpen, Editor, aaron@aaronzwebworkz.com
------------------------------------------------------------
By subscription only! Welcome to your next issue of the
Aaronz WebWorkz E-Zine. You are receiving this newsletter
because you requested a subscription. Unsubscribe instruct-
ions are at the end of this newsletter. Back-issues are
available online at: http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
------------------------------------------------------------
IN THIS ISSUE
------------------------------------------------------------

=> Feature Article:
Peer to Peer (P2P) Software and Networks:
File Swapping Software Review
=> From The Webmaster
=> Readers Talk Back!
=> Guest Column:
Creating a robots.txt File
=> How to Be Featured as our Guest Columnist
=> Copyright and Reprint information
=> Subscribe/Unsubscribe information


------------------------------------------------------------
Peer to Peer (P2P) Software and Networks:
File Swapping Software Review
by Aaron Turpen of Aaronz WebWorkz

Editor's Comments: Next week I'll write an article with my
opinions on fileswapping and the current legal debate around
the issue.
------------------------------------------------------------

Several years ago when I was an Internet newbie, I had
signed up for an AOL account. AOL was itself new at that
time, having only been around for a year or two. One of the
greatest benefits of joining was the instant community
available: and the instant access to the file-swapping net-
work that was built by its users.

First, a chat room would be established with the words
"file," "FS," "file trade," etc. in the title. As AOL began
to get wise to this and disallow those types of names, the
names evolved into "warez" and other more slangish terms for
file swapping.

In these chat rooms, individual users would post things like
"I'm looking for…" and post the file type, description, etc.
Usually these were band and song titles, pornographic
picture types, specific files for applications (like DLLs),
cracks for games, and so forth.

Someone who may have something the person wanted would begin
a conversation to wrangle a trade. Files were usually
swapped via email, but other connections (like private chat
rooms with file upload facilities) were also made.

The world of file sharing took a big change when Napster
came along. With the idea of direct connections over a
network, came faster file sharing, more robust search
options, and the ability to share multiple files with
multiple users. All legal issues aside, this was considered
a huge breakthrough. I remember the first few times I used
Napster and how exciting it was to be able to trade files
quickly (well, relatively quickly, I was still on a 33.6K
dialup connection).

Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing has come a long way since
then. There are hundreds of networks, thousands of software
programs for connecting, and a multitude of ways to find
trouble with them.

I haven't used P2P systems in a long time. Mostly because I
was tired of the half-finished files, the bogus filenames
that had nothing to do with what was actually being traded,
the multiple legal problems, and now the more prevalent use
of spyware and adware to "fund" these programs.

I have occasionally fired up Kazaa or a Gnutella program to
surf for new music. For instance, recently during software
testing of ES5 (see below), I was looking for tracks from
the new album by the band Disturbed. I downloaded two or
three, listened to them, and decided to buy the album. I
did this with their last album and have done it with many
other bands as well: I consider music files online to be a
"try before you buy" opportunity.

I decided that for most P2P file sharing, there are really
three categories of things commonly traded: music, porn,
and software. So in testing each of the pieces of software
below, I gauged them on speed of delivery (avg. download
speed), number of items available (from those three
categories), and how easy the software was to use. Ratings
for these are given on an A-F scale (A being best, F being
worst). In watching for spyware and adware, I used the
latest version of AdAware
(http://www.aaronzwebworkz.com/adaware.html) and SpyHunter
(http://www.aaronzwebworkz.com/spyhunter.html), scanning
before installation and after installation of the P2P
software in question. I also downloaded five or six files
per category from each system (where I could) to test for
"schill" files (files that say they are one thing but are
something else or just random data).

Each of the software titles below are available on CNet.com
and TuCows.com for download. They are either freeware or
shareware and are presented here in alphabetical order.

GNapster (v.0.2.1)
This one gets its name from…you guessed it, Napster. It's a
pretty good utility and works fairly well, but the network
is pretty empty compared to many of the larger networks
available. I had a lot of trouble with downloads ending
early (without completion), especially when downloading
larger files. Most files smaller than eight megabytes came
through OK, though. This might be a good starting point for
the beginner.

File availability: music - B, porn - C, software - B
Speed: C
Ease of Use: A

AdAware and SpyHunter made a lot of noise upon installation
of this one.

Grokster (v1.6)
There wasn't much here that couldn't be found through Google
or Yahoo! and installing the software was an ad-driven
nightmare. About the only good thing I can say about it is
that it is easy to use once you've got it installed. Tip:
don't install any of the "extras" it asks you about during
install…they're all adware.

File availability: music - C, porn - D, software - C
Speed: B
Ease of Use: B

Both AdAware and SpyHunter went zonkers after installing
this one.

Kazaa Lite
This version of the software for connecting to one of the
top P2P networks (Kazaa) supposedly has no spyware. It is a
modified version of the Kazaa Media Desktop (below), but
without all of the extras (good and bad). Using this soft-
ware isn't bad, but novices will probably find it somewhat
confusing. The network was pretty good with fast download
speeds and reliable connections. Many of the files down-
loaded, however, were schill files (not what they said they
were) - especially music files. Overall, there is a ton of
stuff available on this network, but don't be surprised if
you have to download a particular file three or four times
before you find one that is really what you're after. For
this reason, I lowered the Speed rating below.

File availability: music - A, porn - B, software - A
Speed: C
Ease of Use: C

While claiming that this does not contain spyware or adware,
AdAware immediately gave warning upon installation of this
software. Travel at your own risk. It should be noted that
this software has many patches available around the Internet
that may or may not alleviate the spyware/adware problem.

Kazaa Media Desktop (v.2.5.1)
A much more robust version of Kazaa Lite, this software has
lots of cool features, like improved privacy protection,
multiple simultaneous searches, etc. This is easily the
best way to surf the Kazaa network. As with Kazaa Lite,
however, schill files abound.

File availability: music - A, porn - B, software - A
Speed: C
Ease of Use: A

AdAware popped up a few warnings, but SpyHunter found this
one clean.

Koala DC (v0.4)
This software uses the Direct Connect protocol. It has some
useful features and fast loading times, but the network
itself is what's dragging it down. The software really
would be better off if it could connect to a more-used
network like Kazaa or Gnutella.

File availability: music - C, porn - D, software - C
Speed: B
Ease of Use: A

Not a peep from AdAware or SpyHunter!

LimeWire (v3.5.7)
This software utilizes the popular Gnutella network for
sharing. It's very well-made and does an awesome job,
including lots of cool features. While there are a few
confusing aspects to the software, they aren't anything that
will stop even novices from using it first-try with success.
The Gnutella network is one of the best known P2P networks
around. Watch out for schill files when looking for music,
however, and be aware that this is one of the networks
specifically being targeted by RIAA.

File availability: music - B, porn - A, software - A
Speed: B
Ease of Use: A

Both AdAware and SpyHunter gave no warnings after install.

Morpheus (v3.3)
This is one of the better of the P2P software I tried. It
runs very well, is fast, easy to understand, and has cool
extra features (like the ability to search for specific file
types). With all of this, it's too bad their network is so
pathetic. File availability is OK, but not great and good
luck keeping your connection to a file host long enough to
get it downloaded. Disconnecting users, slow speeds, and
similar problems plague anyone looking for large files on
this network.

File availability: music - A, porn - B, software - C
Speed: D
Ease of Use: A

Both AdAware and SpyWare gave no warnings after this soft-
ware was installed.

OneMX (v1.06)
This software uses the eDonkey network, a protocol under the
GNU public license. On the whole, I'm thoroughly
unimpressed. While this was a pretty small download and
fairly easy install, this software is clunky, crashed
repeatedly, and the network is full of emptiness once you do
get a search to work.

File availability: music - D, porn - F, software - C
Speed: D
Ease of Use: D

On the up-side, no worries from AdAware or SpyHunter on this
one.

Phex (v.0.7.3)
This one was a disaster. It installed fine to start with,
but I only got it to function properly once - and then I was
confused by its primitive (old-school Mac-like) interface.
It runs through the Gnutella network, but I wasn't able to
run it well enough to give a rating for file availability or
speed.

File availability: music - ?, porn - ?, software - ?
Speed: ?
Ease of Use: D

AdAware and SpyHunter found nothing wrong here.

Swapper.NET (v4.1)
This is a utility for using Gnutella. It's very fast, easy
to install, and very easy to use. I would say that of all
the software tested, this is the best one for beginners. It
also does pretty well on local networks (like my in-office/
home wireless network), which many of the others don't.
Other than some of the occasional schill files you'll find
on Gnutella, this is a pretty good piece of software for
those who don't need a lot of bells and whistles.

File availability: music - B, porn - B, software - A
Speed: B
Ease of Use: A

AdAware and SpyHunter gave this one a thumbs up.

ThinDivide (v3.65)
This is a great Gnutella-enabled client with lots of good
options. It will take a little time for the novice to
master, but is worth the trouble if you plan to spend a lot
of time swapping. It integrates with the largest number of
Gnutella clients of any of the software reviewed as well,
giving you a much higher availability of files on the
network.

File availability: music - A, porn - B, software - A
Speed: B
Ease of Use: C

AdAware had a cow after this was loaded, so be careful.
SpyHunter stayed silent.

WebMedia Spider Suite (v3.2.15)
This software is nothing short of awesome. It uses the
Gnutella network, but has some really cool extras. This
suite is three separate programs that each of the three
pieces of software specialize in a specific activity or file
type: one for searching (massively), one for pictures and
video (with a built-in player), and a media manager (for
sound, video, etc.). All three are very cool and can be
used separately or in tandem.

File availability: music - B, porn - B, software - B
Speed: B
Ease of Use: B

AdAware and SpyHunter gave clean bills of health - not
surprising as this is shareware, not freeware.

XoloX Ultra (v1.57)
This one uses the Gnutella network, but seems to have a
specialty in porn. It is ad-driven, but not maliciously so
(ads only appear on some screens and are almost all some
kind of adult content). While this software supposedly has
parental controls, they don't work all that well. It does
have a nice external virus scan utility, though.

File availability: music - C, porn - A, software - C
Speed: B
Ease of Use: B

AdAware and SpyHunter had nothing to say after I installed
this one.

------------------------------------------------------------
From The Webmaster
by Aaron Turpen, Editor
------------------------------------------------------------

Yep, you heard it! I'll be writing a politically-oriented
article next week. Why? I know I've always avoided those
in the past, but the file-swapping issue has become big in
the news lately and the outcome could affect the Internet
as a whole for a very long time. So I'll write my opinion
on things, since I know that my MILLIONS (cups ear) and
MILLIONS of fans (waits for cheers as he strikes a pose,
right eyebrow cocked) will want to know what I think.

In other news, it's nearly October and that means the
beginning of the retail season for the Holidays. Oh joy. :)
To lighten things up a bit, I'll be running some contests,
drawings, and giveaways next month. This will all climax
in our Halloween issue, Friday, October 31! WATCH OUT!

------------------------------------------------------------
Readers Talk Back!
------------------------------------------------------------
"Great stuff on marketing this week! I think the dollar per
custom thing is something that most people overlook when
they start a new busienss and begin advertising."
--Ben L.

"Regarding IM, I disagree. I use Instant Messenger all the
time as an alternative to the phone to interact with
customers. I set appointments and make myself available
during regular business hours through my IM client. It's a
great way to conduct business online."
--Mary C.

Editor: Thanks for the input, Mary. I'm sure that many
people use IM effectively as a business tool. Many of us
who don't use it are that way merely because of the
distracting aspects of contacts constantly popping up as we
try to work during the day. In the right circumstances,
however, I'd say it's a useful tool.

"While finding the cost per customer is important, I hate
"lead generation" programs as they are generally the tools
of spammers."
--Bob D.

Editor: Maybe they are tools of spammers, Bob, but those
aren't the only people who use them and that isn't the only
way to use them. I've used lead-generation systems in the
past to generate postal address lists for sending postcards,
for instance. There are also legitimate lists of emails for
those who are interested in a specific item, service, etc.
Another option is to use online auctions to build an email
list (as well as sales).

------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like to send a comment or letter to the editor
for inclusion in this newsletter, please address it to:
mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com?subject=TalkBack!.
All are welcome to give their opinion, criticism, or kudos!

------------------------------------------------------------
Creating a robots.txt File

Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most
respected search engine positioning specialists on the
Internet. To have Sumantra's company place your site at the
top of the search engines, go to
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778
for more advice on how you can take your web site to the top
of the search engines, subscribe to his FREE newsletter by
going to
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778&newsletter.htm

Editor's Comments: Our search engine expert is back!
------------------------------------------------------------

Some people believe that they should create different pages
for different search engines, each page optimized for one
keyword and for one search engine. Now, while I don't
recommend that people create different pages for different
search engines, if you do decide to create such pages, there
is one issue that you need to be aware of.

These pages, although optimized for different search
engines, often turn out to be pretty similar to each other.
The search engines now have the ability to detect when a
site has created such similar looking pages and are
penalizing or even banning such sites. In order to prevent
your site from being penalized for spamming, you need to
prevent the search engine spiders from indexing pages which
are not meant for it, i.e. you need to prevent AltaVista
from indexing pages meant for Google and vice-versa. The
best way to do that is to use a robots.txt file.

You should create a robots.txt file using a text editor like
Windows Notepad. Don't use your word processor to create
such a file.

Here is the basic syntax of the robots.txt file:

User-Agent: [Spider Name]
Disallow: [File Name]

For instance, to tell AltaVista's spider, Scooter, not to
spider the file named myfile1.html residing in the root
directory of the server, you would write

User-Agent: Scooter
Disallow: /myfile1.html

To tell Google's spider, called Googlebot, not to spider the
files myfile2.html and myfile3.html, you would write

User-Agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /myfile2.html
Disallow: /myfile3.html

You can, of course, put multiple User-Agent statements in
the same robots.txt file. Hence, to tell AltaVista not to
spider the file named myfile1.html, and to tell Google not
to spider the files myfile2.html and myfile3.html, you
would write

User-Agent: Scooter
Disallow: /myfile1.html

User-Agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /myfile2.html
Disallow: /myfile3.html

If you want to prevent all robots from spidering the file
named myfile4.html, you can use the * wildcard character in
the User-Agent line, i.e. you would write

User-Agent: *
Disallow: /myfile4.html

However, you cannot use the wildcard character in the
Disallow line.

Once you have created the robots.txt file, you should upload
it to the root directory of your domain. Uploading it to any
sub-directory won't work - the robots.txt file needs to be
in the root directory.

I won't discuss the syntax and structure of the robots.txt
file any further - you can get the complete specifications
from http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html

Now we come to how the robots.txt file can be used to
prevent your site from being penalized for spamming in case
you are creating different pages for different search
engines. What you need to do is to prevent each search
engine from spidering pages which are not meant for it.

For simplicity, let's assume that you are targeting only two
keywords: "tourism in Australia" and "travel to Australia".
Also, let's assume that you are targeting only three of the
major search engines: AltaVista, HotBot and Google.

Now, suppose you have followed the following convention for
naming the files: Each page is named by separating the
individual words of the keyword for which the page is being
optimized by hyphens. To this is added the first two letters
of the name of the search engine for which the page is being
optimized.

Hence, the files for AltaVista are

tourism-in-australia-al.html
travel-to-australia-al.html

The files for HotBot are

tourism-in-australia-ho.html
travel-to-australia-ho.html

The files for Google are

tourism-in-australia-go.html
travel-to-australia-go.html

As I noted earlier, AltaVista's spider is called Scooter and
Google's spider is called Googlebot.

A list of spiders for the major search engines can be found
at http://www.jafsoft.com/searchengines/webbots.html

Now, we know that HotBot uses Inktomi and from this list, we
find that Inktomi's spider is called Slurp. Using this
knowledge, here's what the robots.txt file should contain:

User-Agent: Scooter
Disallow: /tourism-in-australia-ho.html
Disallow: /travel-to-australia-ho.html
Disallow: /tourism-in-australia-go.html
Disallow: /travel-to-australia-go.html

User-Agent: Slurp
Disallow: /tourism-in-australia-al.html
Disallow: /travel-to-australia-al.html
Disallow: /tourism-in-australia-go.html
Disallow: /travel-to-australia-go.html

User-Agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /tourism-in-australia-al.html
Disallow: /travel-to-australia-al.html
Disallow: /tourism-in-australia-ho.html
Disallow: /travel-to-australia-ho.html

When you put the above lines in the robots.txt file, you
instruct each search engine not to spider the files meant
for the other search engines.

When you have finished creating the robots.txt file, double-
check to ensure that you have not made any errors anywhere
in it. A small error can have disastrous consequences - a
search engine may spider files which are not meant for it,
in which case it can penalize your site for spamming, or, it
may not spider any files at all, in which case you won't get
top rankings in that search engine.

An useful tool to check the syntax of your robots.txt file
can be found at
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~sxw/robots/check/.
While it will help you correct syntactical errors in the
robots.txt file, it won't help you correct any logical
errors, for which you will still need to go through the
robots.txt thoroughly, as mentioned above.

------------------------------------------------------------
If you wish to send your own articles to be reviewed for
inclusion in this publication, please send them to:
mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com.
------------------------------------------------------------
Except where noted, this publication and all of its
contents are copyright (C)2002 by Aaronz WebWorkz, all
rights are reserved. To reprint an article, send an email
to mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com for permission.
------------------------------------------------------------
List Maintenance:
To subscribe
[mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com?subject:subscribe]

To unsubscribe
[{UNSUBSCRIBE_LINK}]

This newsletter is produced by Aaronz WebWorkz, a complete
online services provider. To view information or to see
back issues of this publication, please go online to:
www.AaronzWebWorkz.com. Please direct all comments or
questions to the editor
(mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com).

------------------------------------------------------------
Aaronz WebWorkz Weekly E-Zine
A Weekly Newsletter of Hints, Ideas, and Resources for
Friends and Customers of www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
Issue #96 Sept. 19, 2003
Aaron Turpen, Editor, aaron@aaronzwebworkz.com
------------------------------------------------------------
By subscription only! Welcome to your next issue of the
Aaronz WebWorkz E-Zine. You are receiving this newsletter
because you requested a subscription. Unsubscribe instruct-
ions are at the end of this newsletter. Back-issues are
available online at: http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
------------------------------------------------------------
IN THIS ISSUE
------------------------------------------------------------

=> Feature Article:
Reach vs. Frequency
=> From The Webmaster
=> Readers Talk Back!
=> Guest Column:
Your Dollar Per-Customer
=> How to Be Featured as our Guest Columnist
=> Copyright and Reprint information
=> Subscribe/Unsubscribe information


------------------------------------------------------------
Reach vs. Frequency
Is it more effective to touch 100 potential customers once
or 25 potential customers 4 times?
by Julie Chance
Julie Chance is president of Strategies-by-DESIGN, a Dallas
based firm that helps small businesses and service
professionals Map A Path to Success by providing consulting,
training and skills based coaching in the area of marketing
strategy development. For more information or to sign up
for our free marketing tips e-newsletter go to
http://www.strategies-by-design.com or call 972-701-9311

Editor's Comments: Here's a great article on an aspect of
marketing that often gets overlooked.
------------------------------------------------------------

Reach and frequency are terms generally used when planning
advertising campaigns. However, the concept of reach and
frequency applies to any promotional activity you undertake:
direct mail, direct selling, and even networking.

Reach is the number of people you touch with your marketing
message or the number of people that are exposed to your
message. Frequency is the number of times you touch each
person with your message. In a world of unlimited resources
you would obviously maximize both reach and frequency.
However, since most of us live in the world of limited
resources we must often make decisions to sacrifice reach
for frequency or vice versa.

For example, an air conditioning repair service who has
decided to do a direct mail piece has to decide whether to
mail the entire Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex once or to mail
a quarter of the Metroplex four times. An attorney who
receives many of her clients through networking may have to
decide whether to attend one weekly networking meeting or
four different monthly meetings.

When faced with decisions of reach vs. frequency remember
this rule of thumb: Reach without Frequency = Wasted Money


Marketing is the process of building a business relation-
ship with potential customers. Have you ever established a
lifelong friendship with someone you had contact with only
once? Probably not. Generally friendships (and all
relationships for that matter) grow as a result of frequent
contact over time. Even when the potential to form a great
friendship is there at the first encounter, it is unlikely
it will grow without nurturing.

Seth Godin in his book Permission Marketing uses an analogy
of seeds and water to demonstrate the importance of assuring
adequate frequency in your promotional campaigns. If you
were given 100 seeds with enough water to water each seed
once would you plant all 100 seeds and water each one once
or would you be more successful if you planted 25 seeds and
used all of the water on those 25 seeds?

While intuitively and even conceptually we understand the
importance of frequency to successful promotional and sales
campaigns, somehow when it comes to actually implementing
the campaign, we opt to sacrifice frequency for reach. And
then we complain about the ineffectiveness of our
promotional efforts. Undoubtedly one of the biggest wastes
of marketing dollars is promotional activities that are
implemented without adequate frequency.

When faced with the decision of mailing one direct mail
piece to 10,000 people or mailing to 2,500 people four times
think about the fate of those 100 seeds you can water only
once. Unless you have water rights and can obtain
additional water, opt for less reach and more frequency.

------------------------------------------------------------
From The Webmaster
by Aaron Turpen, Editor
------------------------------------------------------------

Whew what a week! I've been working on several projects
lately, one of which is about to debut as a part of the
Aaronz WebWorkz family. The Aaronz WebWorkz website will
be changing soon as well. I know I keep promising this, but
that's because I'm so excited about the new changes. No
major design changes, but some huge back-end changes to the
newsletter area and other parts of the site.

I spoke at my old school, Utah Valley State College (UVSC)
yesterday and had a great time. I remember when I was that
young and naive about the world. Instant money was just at
my fingertips. :)

I know I rarely discuss politics in this newsletter, but the
current happenings with the Recording Industry Association
of America (RIAA) are all political. My point of view was
recently well-represented by Nick Gillespie in an article on
ReasonOnline:
http://www.reason.com/links/links091503.shtml

See you all next week!

------------------------------------------------------------
Readers Talk Back!
------------------------------------------------------------
"Re: OAA Newsletter #95
Ooops!
(The title) :-)"
--Dave E. (http://www.planet-pets.com)

Editor: Yeah, I noticed that. For some reason, as mentioned
last week, my newsletter system didn't send out the news-
letter. In a panic, I quickly went in, found the problem,
fixed it and had to re-paste the newsletter in. In doing
so, I accidentally put in the subject line of my OTHER news-
letter and sent it. DOH!

"Am wondering if you use IM (Instant Messaging)? This would
be programs available from AOL and Microsoft that allow you
to type to someone in real time. Thus far I have avoided
signing up for IM partly to avoid yet another online
distraction but primarily because I don't know anyone else
who uses it. So if you use it I will think about setting it
up on my computer."
--Warren K.

Editor: Well, Warren, I have an ICQ and an MSN Messenger
account, but very rarely use either. I find IM to be WAY
too distracting versus the supposed benefits. It's almost
as bad as the phone. :) I'd much rather just use email as
an instant messaging service instead - just as fast and less
hassle.

"Hey! Thanks for the ebooks and the great info they have.
You were right, it is a lot of work to do all this."
--Bob C.

Editor: Thanks, Bob.

------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like to send a comment or letter to the editor
for inclusion in this newsletter, please address it to:
mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com?subject=TalkBack!.
All are welcome to give their opinion, criticism, or kudos!

------------------------------------------------------------
Your Dollar Per-Customer
(C) Scott Lucas – All Rights Reserved
http://www.abnormalthinking.com

------------------------------------------------------------

Ever sit down to figure out how much you spend to get a
customer or a business associate? It’s tough sometimes to
figure this out, but the sooner you figure out your dollar-
per-customer or per-enrollee, the quicker you will start
making wise decisions in prospecting and recruiting.

The quick fix is to always have an enormous list of people
to contact. It’s very hard to be in the SORTING business
(as we all are) without a lot of people to sort through,
wouldn’t you agree?

There are many, many ways to come up with prospects and
customers. The trick is finding the method that works for
you, and DOING IT!

The easiest way get pre-qualified leads of customers and
business associates is to simply purchase them. There are
many great lead generation companies that will find the
prospects for you if you pay for them. For serious Internet
marketers, you already know what I’m talking about.

For those of us that are comfortable making telephone calls
and using autoresponders, we find it very easy to just
purchase a lead list and go to work. This is a method that
everyone in network marketing uses, or has used. Also, it’s
very responsive while you always have people to market to.

The only negative to using lead generation programs is there
are some hefty costs involved. For an experienced network
marketer, you know how many leads you must contact before
you get someone enrolled.

This is what we all need to figure out.

If you know how much you can spend to find a business
partner and still make profit, then your job is 100 times
easier. For instance, if you earn $50 every time you enroll
a new person into your business, would it make sense to
invest $50 to find that person? Of course it would.

You will break even in the initial deal, plus you’ll have
someone else building your business for you and earning you
residual income. So, find out your dollar-per-customer and
start investing wisely in your advertising endeavors.

As a side note, there are many lead programs out there, but
many have hidden obstacles for their clients. Some leads are
sold many times over and over and are usually inexpensive,
but you are just buying cheap junk. Others have great leads,
but they are very, very costly.

Use a lead program that sells their leads only once to you,
and also offers an affiliate program with extra perks so you
can recover the cost of your leads on a monthly basis.

------------------------------------------------------------
If you wish to send your own articles to be reviewed for
inclusion in this publication, please send them to:
mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com.
------------------------------------------------------------
Except where noted, this publication and all of its
contents are copyright (C)2002 by Aaronz WebWorkz, all
rights are reserved. To reprint an article, send an email
to mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com for permission.
------------------------------------------------------------
List Maintenance:
To subscribe
[mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com?subject:subscribe]

To unsubscribe
[{UNSUBSCRIBE_LINK}]

This newsletter is produced by Aaronz WebWorkz, a complete
online services provider. To view information or to see
back issues of this publication, please go online to:
www.AaronzWebWorkz.com. Please direct all comments or
questions to the editor
(mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com).

------------------------------------------------------------
Aaronz WebWorkz Weekly E-Zine
A Weekly Newsletter of Hints, Ideas, and Resources for
Friends and Customers of www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
Issue #95 Sept. 12, 2003
Aaron Turpen, Editor, aaron@aaronzwebworkz.com
------------------------------------------------------------
By subscription only! Welcome to your next issue of the
Aaronz WebWorkz E-Zine. You are receiving this newsletter
because you requested a subscription. Unsubscribe instruct-
ions are at the end of this newsletter. Back-issues are
available online at: http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
------------------------------------------------------------
IN THIS ISSUE
------------------------------------------------------------

=> Feature Article:
Getting Your Site Submitted to Search Engines
=> From The Webmaster
=> Readers Talk Back!
=> Guest Column:
Frames and Search Engines
=> How to Be Featured as our Guest Columnist
=> Copyright and Reprint information
=> Subscribe/Unsubscribe information


------------------------------------------------------------
Getting Your Site Submitted to Search Engines
by Aaron Turpen of Aaronz WebWorkz

Editor's Comments: After Sumantra Roy's article last week,
I had three or four of you ask me about search engine
submissions. My marketing ebook explains this very well,
but I thought that, for those who don't have the immense
amount of time required to do it yourself, a revisit of the
article I wrote last year talking about the professionals
would be appropriate. If you'd like to read my ebooks, they
are available on the website at
http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
------------------------------------------------------------

Getting listed in search engines can be a lot of work.
"Free" submission tools are worth about what you pay for
them and, worse, can be detrimental to your efforts. Yet
you don't have the time to do it yourself by hand. What do
you do?

You hire a professional.

A professional search engine marketer, submission service,
and ranking specialist is a great tool for any site owner
who wants to get listed, listed high on the results, and see
a return on their investment. Sadly, there are a lot of
scam artists and beginners out there passing themselves off
as "professionals" in this field. How do you find a good
one?

First, look for informative content and straight-forward
pricing on the professional's website. A well-made,
professional website with informative content and easy-to-
understand pricing structures is the mark of a truly
professional submitter.

Avoid submission sites that give too good to be true claims
and too-low-to-believe pricing. Any service that makes
claims that they can put you at the top of all engines or
"guarantees" the #1 spot anywhere is lying. However, a
guarantee of "top ranking" (usually defined as being in the
first twenty in a keyword response) is realistic and
believable.

Be careful of sites that use the term search engine and "pay
per click" in the same context. These are submitters who
will promote your site through Pay Per Click engines and not
through actual search engines or directories. There is a
definite difference in longevity and price between the two
types of marketing.

Watch for submitters who have time-based plans and
contracts. These are the true professionals that know what
it really takes to get you listed for the long-term. Search
engine marketing is a continual process. If you do it once
and forget about it, it will soon forget about you too and
you'll see your visitors and sales drop as time goes on. A
great marketer will ask for a contract to review your site
weekly, monthly, or quarterly for ranking statistics and
offer extensions of contract when your results begin to
fall.

On the same token, watch for a company that's been around
versus one that's new and possibly "fly by night." If they
disappear, you'll have to start over with a new company
again, going through the initial setup headaches required.

Above all, once you find a good marketer, KEEP THAT
MARKETER! Don't get dicey over pricing and drop a good
marketer just because you've found another who's $10
cheaper. In the end, you'll lose money on the deal, I
guarantee.

So who would I recommend for your search engine marketing
needs? The two marketing companies listed below are good
search engine marketers I have used in the past or
recommended to clients. They are tried, true, and good at
what they do. Their prices range according to the services
offered. Find the one that fits your needs and try them
out!

1st Search Ranking
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1sr&1778

Submit Fire
http://www.qksrv.net/click-1357406-10286016

------------------------------------------------------------
From The Webmaster
by Aaron Turpen, Editor
------------------------------------------------------------

Quick note: Woops! I had the newsletter all preparado and
forgot to post it to the email system. DOH! :) That's why
it's a few hours late this morning. Sorry about that.

New information says that the next version of Microsoft's
Office will feature digital rights management, which could
effectively block any non-MS software from accessing or
changing documents. Read more about it here:
http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5069246.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed

A new look to the Aaronz WebWorkz newsletter area is nearly
complete. A slight change to the main site will happen as
well plus the debut of a new site in the Aaronz WebWorkz
family. Stay tuned!

Finally, we have a correction from last week's newsletter.
I accidentally published a mis-typed URL for one of our book
drawing winner's websites. It should have read:
http://www.amimax.co.il

------------------------------------------------------------
Readers Talk Back!
------------------------------------------------------------
FRAUDULENT EARTHLINK RIPOFF SITE WARNING:
Editor: After getting an email that appeared to be from
Earthlink, I went to the site it pointed me to and was
suspicious with the amount of personal information it asked
for. So I contacted Earthlink about it and got the
following response:
"Thank you for contacting us.

We understand that you have received an email stating that
your account has been suspended and that you need to update
your account information.

We apologize for the confusion. The email you received and
its corresponding web site are fraudulent, and are in no way
associated with EarthLink.

We were made aware of this site recently and took immediate
steps to contact the host of the site, to have it removed
from service.

For future reference, EarthLink will never ask you to
respond to an email with sensitive information like your
full credit card number. We recognize that email may not be
a secure way to send such important information.

The only place EarthLink would direct you to update your
personal information would be through the My Account page:

http://myaccount.earthlink.net

If you receive notifications like this and are unsure of
their validity please contact us before accessing the site
or providing your personal information. If you did enter
your credit card information at the site, please contact
your credit card company to have your account secured."

Editor: This is a common scam online - usually aimed towards
eBay and PayPal users. Be careful out there!

"Just a nice message that I wanted to pass on. - FT

A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the
ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One pot had
a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always
delivered a full portion of water.

At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house,
the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years
this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and
a half pots full of water to his house.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments,
perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was
ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was
able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure,
it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream... "I am
ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes
water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were
flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other
pot's side? That's because I have always known about your
flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path.
Every day while we walk back, you've watered them. For two
years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to
decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are,
there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We're all
cracked pots. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have
that make our lives together so very interesting and
rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what
they are, and look for the good in them.

Blessings to all my crackpot friends and relatives."
--Fran Tully (http://www.freshwaterorganics.com)

"Have you got the number to call or email to get on the "No
Call" list for telemarketers? I believe I am the only one
who has not signed up yet as I am getting A LOT of calls
lately. Do you believe the hype that "millions will lose
their jobs" because of the list?"
--Kelley L.

Editor: Millions of foreigners might lose their jobs. Most
telemarketing is done from overseas, contracted by American
companies. I did telemarketing when I was just starting
college: I sold water softeners. By far, that was my least
favorite job EVER. :) And remember, Kelley, I used to
work at Little Ceasars Pizza (not long after that). HA!

You can register online at: http://www.donotcall.gov or by
calling 1-888-382-1222.

------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like to send a comment or letter to the editor
for inclusion in this newsletter, please address it to:
mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com?subject=TalkBack!.
All are welcome to give their opinion, criticism, or kudos!

------------------------------------------------------------
Frames and Search Engines
By Sumantra Roy
Sumantra is one of the most respected search engine
positioning specialists on the Internet. To have Sumantra's
company place your site at the top of the search engines, go
to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778 For more
advice on how you can take your web site to the top of the
search engines, subscribe to his FREE newsletter by going to
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778&newsletter.htm

Editor's Comments: Another great article from Sumantra Roy!
------------------------------------------------------------

When it comes to framed sites and the effect that the use of
frames by a site has on its search engine ranking, there are
two schools of thought. Some people say that framed sites,
if done properly, have no problems in getting good rankings
in the search engines. Others claim that if search engine
optimization is important to you, never use frames.

In my opinion, the truth lies somewhere in between. Yes, the
use of frames does throw up a few issues when it comes to
getting good rankings in the search engines which don't
understand frames. Hence, when you are designing a new site,
I would recommend that you avoid using frames, unless you
have a specific reason for doing so. However, if you already
have a site which uses frames, all is not lost. You can
still get good rankings in the search engines even though
you have used frames. Furthermore, using frames also has its
own advantages when it comes to search engine placement, as
we shall later on. This article assumes that you have a
working knowledge of frames. For more information on frames,
go to http://www.webreference.com/dev/frames/

In case your site uses frames, the key to getting good
rankings lies in using the NOFRAMES tag. The NOFRAMES tag is
intended to help framed web sites display some content for
those people who are using browsers which don't understand
frames. The search engines which don't understand frames
also look at the NOFRAMES tag. Hence, if you are using
frames, you need to add content to the NOFRAMES tag.

What you should do is to add a complete web page within the
NOFRAMES tag. Ensure that this page repeats the important
keywords for your site a number of times. Also, in order to
ensure that the content within the NOFRAMES tag is as
prominent as possible to the search engines, you should put
the NOFRAMES tag right after the FRAMESET tag. However,
don't put the NOFRAMES before the FRAMESET tag. If you do
that, Internet Explorer will display your site correctly but
Netscape will display the content present in the NOFRAMES
tag, rather than the content present within the frames.
Furthermore, you should also place a link to the page
containing your navigation links in the NOFRAMES tag. This
ensures that the search engines are able to spider the
internal pages in your site.

One problem that occurs when you use frames is that the
search engines may often display one of the internal pages
in your site in response to a query. If this internal page
does not contain a link to the home page of your site, the
user will be unable to navigate through your entire site.
The solution, of course, is to add a link to the home page
from that internal page. When the visitor clicks on that
link, she is brought within the context of the frames.

However, simply adding a link to the home page presents yet
another problem. If the visitor had already been viewing
that page within the context of the frames and then clicks
on the link to the home page, a new set of frames will be
created in addition to the frames already being used. In
order to solve this problem, you have to use the TARGET =
"_top" command in the link, i.e. the HTML code for the link
would be something like

Go to our home page

Wrapping things up:

As I mentioned earlier, there is also an advantage to using
frames. Since most Internet users are now using frames-
enabled browsers, it means that not many people are going to
know what's present in your NOFRAMES tag. This allows you
the repeat your keywords a few more times in the NOFRAMES
than what you could have done if you were writing a page
which humans would also see (of course, don't repeat the
keywords too many times - that can cause your web site to be
penalized for spamming). You can also avoid using tables,
graphics etc. which you would otherwise need to use if
humans would also view that page. However, it is debatable
whether this small advantage is sufficient to justify using
frames.

------------------------------------------------------------
If you wish to send your own articles to be reviewed for
inclusion in this publication, please send them to:
mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com.
------------------------------------------------------------
Except where noted, this publication and all of its
contents are copyright (C)2002 by Aaronz WebWorkz, all
rights are reserved. To reprint an article, send an email
to mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com for permission.
------------------------------------------------------------
List Maintenance:
To subscribe
[mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com?subject:subscribe]

To unsubscribe
[{UNSUBSCRIBE_LINK}]

This newsletter is produced by Aaronz WebWorkz, a complete
online services provider. To view information or to see
back issues of this publication, please go online to:
www.AaronzWebWorkz.com. Please direct all comments or
questions to the editor
(mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com).

------------------------------------------------------------
Aaronz WebWorkz Weekly E-Zine
A Weekly Newsletter of Hints, Ideas, and Resources for
Friends and Customers of www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
Issue #94 Sept. 05, 2003
Aaron Turpen, Editor, aaron@aaronzwebworkz.com
------------------------------------------------------------
By subscription only! Welcome to your next issue of the
Aaronz WebWorkz E-Zine. You are receiving this newsletter
because you requested a subscription. Unsubscribe instruct-
ions are at the end of this newsletter. Back-issues are
available online at: http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
------------------------------------------------------------
IN THIS ISSUE
------------------------------------------------------------

=> Feature Article:
7 Steps to Killer Ad Copy
=> From The Webmaster
=> Readers Talk Back!
=> Guest Column:
Top 10 Search Engine Positioning Mistakes
=> How to Be Featured as our Guest Columnist
=> Copyright and Reprint information
=> Subscribe/Unsubscribe information


------------------------------------------------------------
7 Steps to Killer Ad Copy

Bryan Guentner created http://www.MasterCopywriting.com,
A great resource for anyone looking for sales copy
inspiration and articles. He is an internationally known
authority on Business Building, including eBook Publishing,
Internet Marketing, Copywriting, Reprint Rights and Real
Estate. Search 100's of FREE TIPS at http://www.MrBizTips.com
(c) 2003 Bryan Guentner http://www.PureSuccessPublishing.com

------------------------------------------------------------

Use any search engine on the `net and you'll find dozens of
eBooks and articles about the importance of copywriting and
its effect on the consumer. It's true. Sales copy can make
or break your business, and if you don't know how to craft
it, or don't have the money to buy it from a pro, you'll go
bust before the traffic ever starts trickling in.

In 7 Steps to Killer Ad Copy, I'm not going to waste 4
pages bragging about how I went from rags to riches in 17
days, or how waking up to a bank full of new deposits is my
daily ritual (what good does that do you?). I'm simply
going to teach you everything you need to know about how to
out-write your competitors and watch the sales come pouring
in.

I can already tell you have an advantage over 99% of your
competition. You're studying a course designed specifically
for Internet Sales Copy, not a general marketing book you'd
find on the shelf of any library.

You may not know the difference between offline and online
ads yet, but you're getting there. You've taken the first
step toward increasing your chances of success by learning
how to write words that are geared for a call to action.

There are millions of sites on the `net, and each one has
its own formula for trying to clinch a sale. But what is it
that gets people to buy, rather than think about buying on
your site? It's the copy.

Your words. Your method of interacting with a visitor to
your site. The way you tell your tale and convince people
that your product is worth investing in over Joe Blow's.
Even if you don't have what it takes now, you can develop
the skills you need to pack a punch whenever you write your
sales copy.

In the offline world, your customer has to be convinced to
take action just to walk into a store, or go to his or her
computer and type in your URL. Online, they're either on
your site already, or you're just convincing them to take a
chance on you with a simple click of their mouse.

Throw out everything you've learned about how to write
sales copy. The Internet consumer is a different animal.
He's hungry for information. He knows he has plenty options
to consider. You have to throw him a steak, not a bone –
and your copy can be the sizzling temptation you need to
capture his attention.

With traditional offline marketing, you have to introduce
yourself, explain why you're wasting the prospect's time
and taking up space in their mailbox. If they're reading a
newspaper, chances are, they won't even see your small
print ad, which cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars,
depending on which city you're in.

Ever wonder why so many people are flocking to the Internet
to launch their businesses now? Because advertising is so
much cheaper! A virtual storefront costs next to nothing,
you can write the sales copy yourself, there are no
limitations on space, and no printing costs to consider.

In fact, it's possible to do all of your advertising for
free on the `net, as long as you know how to write
effectively. It's more than just spouting off the benefits
of your product.

You have to write your words as if you're transforming them
into the epitome of the perfect salesperson. When you write
your words, visualize them as a person greeting your
customer at your virtual door.

What brought the customer into the shop in the first place?
Offline, it might be a neon sign lighting up the night.
Online, it's going to be your headline. Something shocking,
unbelievable, impressive, or mind-boggling.

When the customer enters your site – your store – there is
no tangible merchandise he can pick up and consider. It's
all based on one thing – words. And on the Internet, you
have no limitations to the length of your message. What
will stand out are larger print, colorful headlines, and
persuasive keywords and phrases.

Selling is more than bombarding them with every benefit
known to man and promises of vast riches if they buy your
product. Effective sales pitches come after you've formed a
relationship with your prospect. Earned their trust. Made
them want to listen to you.

How do you know what to say to capture their interest and
make them read on? First of all, you have to believe in
your product. If it's not a good one, your lack of
enthusiasm will be apparent.

Your product should be something you yourself have used and
found beneficial. You have to know how it has life-altering
possibilities, so that you can show - not just tell – your
customers what effect it will have on their lives.

You can brainstorm your way to captivating copy that sells.
All you have to do is think like your target audience. You
need a checklist that you can refer to so that the
sentences you put together all flow like an inverted
pyramid from the headline to the ultimate call to action –
the crux of the copy being an answer to the question, "What
can it do for me?"

Brainstorming Activity - Checklist for Copy Creation

ü Make a list of 3 problems your target audience may have
that your product can solve if they buy it. This can be a
money shortage, desire for more free time, a dead-end
career, and so on. Your product might be able to solve all
three of these issues if it's able to raise their income
and allow them to quit their jobs and not have to worry
about the bills anymore.

ü Think of 5 things your product can deliver that are
purely selfish and not at all necessary. It's not all about
what we have to have. More often than not, it's what we
want, pure and simple. While someone might be worrying
about paying the mortgage one month, they're still dreaming
about luxury SUVs and having an Olympic-sized swimming pool
installed in their backyard.

ü Write down 10 reasons someone might give for not buying
your product. You have to know what obstacles you're faced
with if you want to have the power to knock them down. Not
enough money? Think of what you'll lose if you don't buy
the product now. It's not just about waiting until you have
the cash, it's all the cash you're losing for every second
you don't buy the book.

ü What action do you want the visitor to take on your site?
You'd be amazed at the number of sites that have absolutely
no call to action whatsoever. The headlines are in place.
The testimonials are sprinkled strategically throughout the
site. The sales copy is in motion. But nowhere on the site
does it tell the visitor what to do next. You have to spell
it out for them, because if you don't, you've missed out on
an opportunity that someone else will take advantage of at
some point in time.

By reading 7 Steps to Killer Ad Copy, you're going to
become skilled at crafting words that double as your sales
staff. You're not only going to discover what works with
online copywriting, but what you should avoid as well.

From creating attention-grabbing headlines to the formation
of a powerful and persuasive vortex of sales copy, you'll
know everything you need to know in order to turn your
website from a static stand-by to a profit-stealing
storefront.

In my next lesson, If You Don't Know the Difference Between
Weak & Strong Headlines, Your Copy Will Never Get Results,
I'll walk you through a host of headlines that will open
your eyes to a new way of understanding how writers have
learned to appeal to your emotions and capitalize on your
impulse to buy now and think later.

You'll never look at another headline the same way –
whether it's on the Internet, in your daily newspaper, or
blazoned across a direct mail piece that came in yesterday
afternoon's mail.

Don't let the self-proclaimed "experts" convince you that
you have to study for years in order to be a world-class
journalist. The Internet has provided the perfect avenue
for amateur writers to grasp the fundamentals of
copywriting and succeed in transforming their dull words
into dramatic motivation to buy.

All it takes is 7 easy steps and you'll be on your way to
better sales copy in less than a day. You've already taken
the first step - brainstorming your way into the mindset of
your consumers. Now, all you have to do is let me teach you
how to construct compelling sentences for your existing
customer profile.

Don't wait until it's too late to convince someone of your
message. Without influential copywriting skills, your
website and your product will never rise to their full
potential.

------------------------------------------------------------
From The Webmaster
by Aaron Turpen, Editor
------------------------------------------------------------

WE HAVE A WINNER! The correct answer to the question posed
in the quiz contest this week was "Never gives up." You
can see the quiz here:
http://www.AaronzWebWorkz.com/quizcontest.html

...and our winner? Ruth N. (http://www.amimax.il) wins the
7 Questions book and Gene C. wins the Open Source White
Papers book! Woo-Hoo! Thanks for participating everyone
and stay tuned for more contests.

Now on to something less fun. There are a lot of viruses
and email worms floating around the 'Net. I'm getting 50-
100 sent to me PER DAY now through my various email
addresses. You all must be paying attention to my advice,
though, 'cause I have only received one through this
newsletter email address! Good work!

Keep those definitions updated and scan your system
regularly to keep your computer virus free!

------------------------------------------------------------
Readers Talk Back!
------------------------------------------------------------
"Are you getting a lot of viruses in your email?"
--Jeff C.

"What is this? National Send Me A Damn Virus Week?"
--Anonymous

"RSS looks cool. looks like i have a new way to read the
news!"
--Uncle Hack

"My PDA does all the crap that the Bantam MP3 player does
and more. It cost about the same $300 they want. Why would
anyone waste their cash?"
--Peter L.

Editor: Don't look at me, I just report the news. :)

"concealed carry for electronics! ROFL"
--Bobbi K.

"WiFi411! Right on!"
--Fellow Traveler

------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like to send a comment or letter to the editor
for inclusion in this newsletter, please address it to:
mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com?subject=TalkBack!.
All are welcome to give their opinion, criticism, or kudos!

------------------------------------------------------------
Top 10 Search Engine Positioning Mistakes
By Sumantra Roy

Sumantra is one of the most respected search engine
positioning specialists on the Internet. To have Sumantra's
company place your site at the top of the search engines, go
to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778 For more
advice on how you can take your web site to the top of the
search engines, subscribe to his FREE newsletter by going to
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778&newsletter.htm

Editor: Our favorite search engine marketer is back with a
new article.
------------------------------------------------------------

When it comes to search engine optimization, there are
certain common mistakes that I see people making over and
over again. Here's a list of the 10 most common mistakes
that I see people making. By avoiding these mistakes, you
can avoid a lot of anguish and frustration in the long run.

1) Optimizing your site for the wrong keywords

The first step in any search engine optimization campaign is
to choose the keywords for which you should optimize your
site. If you initially choose the wrong keywords, all the
time and effort that you devote in trying to get your site a
high ranking will go down the drain. If you choose keywords
which no one search for, or if you choose keywords which
won't bring in targeted traffic to your site, what good will
the top rankings do?

In order to learn how you can choose the correct keywords
for which you should optimize your site, see my article on
this topic at
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778&keywords.htm

2) Putting too many keywords in the Meta Keywords tag

I often see sites which have hundreds of keywords listed in
the Meta Keywords tag, in the hope that by listing the key-
words in the Meta Keywords tag, they will be able to get a
high ranking for those keywords. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Contrary to popular opinion, the Meta Key-
words tag has almost completely lost its importance as far
as search engine positioning is concerned. Hence, just by
listing keywords in the Meta Keywords tag, you will never be
able to get a high ranking. To get a high ranking for those
keywords, you need to put the keywords in the actual body
content of your site.

3) Repeating the same keyword too many times

Another common mistake that people make is to endlessly
repeat their target keywords in the body of their pages and
in their Meta Keywords tags. Because so many people have
used this tactic in the past (and continue to use it), the
search engines keep a sharp lookout for this, and may
penalize a site which repeats keywords in this fashion.
Sure, you do need to repeat the keywords a number of times.
But, the way you place the keywords in your pages needs to
make grammatical sense. Simply repeating the keywords
endlessly no longer works. Furthermore, a particular keyword
should ideally not be present more than thrice in your Meta
Keywords tag.

4) Creating lots of similar doorway pages

Another myth prevalent among people is that since the algor-
ithm of each search engine is different, they need to create
different pages for different search engines. While this is
great in theory, it is counter-productive in practice. If
you use this tactic, you will soon end up with hundreds of
pages, which can quickly become an administrative nightmare.
Also, just imagine the amount of time you will need to spend
constantly updating the pages in response to the changes
that the search engines make to their algorithms. Further-
more, although the pages are meant for different engines,
they will actually end up being pretty similar to each
other. The search engines are often able to detect when a
site has created such similar pages, and may penalize or
even ban this site from their index. Hence, instead of
creating different pages for different search engines,
create one page which is optimized for one keyword for all
the search engines. In order to learn how to create such
pages, see my article on this topic at
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778&keyword-rich-pages.htm

5) Using Hidden Text

Hidden text is text with the same color as the background
color of your page. For example, if the background color of
your page is white and you have added some white text to
that page, that is considered as hidden text. Many
webmasters, in order to get high rankings in the search
engines, try to make their pages as keyword rich as
possible. However, there is a limit to the number of key-
words you can repeat in a page without making it sound odd
to your human visitors. Thus, in order to ensure that the
human visitors to a page don't perceive the text to be odd,
but that the page is still keyword rich, many webmasters add
text (containing the keywords) with the same color as the
background color. This ensures that while the search engines
can see the keywords, the human visitors cannot. The search
engines have long since caught up with this technique, and
ignore or penalize the pages which contain such text. They
may also penalize the entire site if even one of the pages
in that site contain such hidden text.

However, the problem with this is that the search engines
may often end up penalizing sites which did not intend to
use hidden text. For instance, suppose you have a page with
a white background and a table in that page with a black
background. Further suppose that you have added some white
text in that table. This text will, in fact, be visible to
your human visitors, i.e. this shouldn't be called hidden
text. However, the search engines can interpret this to be
hidden text because they may often ignore the fact that the
background of the table is black. Hence, in order to ensure
that your site is not penalized because of this, you should
go through all the pages in your site and see whether you
have inadvertently made any such mistake.

6) Creating Pages Containing Only Graphics

The search engines only understand text - they don't under-
stand graphics. Hence, if your site contains lots of
graphics but little text, it is unlikely to get a high
ranking in the search engines. For improving your rankings,
you need to replace the graphics by keyword rich text for
the search engine spiders to feed on.

7) Not using the NOFRAMES tag in case your site uses frames

Many search engines don't understand frames. For sites which
have used frames, these search engines only consider what is
present in the NOFRAMES tag. Yet, many webmasters make the
mistake of adding something like this to the NOFRAMES tag:
"This site uses frames, but your browser doesn't support
them". For the search engines which don't understand frames,
this is all the text that they ever get to see in this site,
which means that the chances of this site getting a good
ranking in these search engines are non-existent. Hence, if
your site uses frames, you need to add a lot of keyword rich
text to the NOFRAMES tag. For more information on the
different issues that arise when you use frames in your
site, see my article on this topic at
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778&frames.htm

8) Using Page Cloaking

Page cloaking is a technique used to deliver different web
pages under different circumstances. People generally use
page cloaking for two reasons: i) in order to hide the
source code of their search engine optimized pages from
their competitors and ii) in order to prevent human visitors
from having to see a page which looks good to the search
engines but does not necessarily look good to humans. The
problem with this is that when a site uses cloaking, it
prevents the search engines from being able to spider the
same page that their users are going to see. And if the
search engines can't do this, they can no longer be
confident of providing relevant results to their users.
Thus, if a search engine discovers that a site has used
cloaking, it will probably ban the site forever from their
index. Hence, my advice is that you should not even think
about using cloaking in your site. For more information on
what page cloaking is, how it is implemented, and why you
should not use cloaking, see my article on this topic at
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778&page-cloaking.htm

9) Using Automatic Submission Tools

In order to save time, many people use an automatic
submission software or service to submit their sites to the
major search engines. It is true that submitting your site
manually to the search engines takes a lot of time and that
an automatic submission tool can help you save a lot of
time. However, the search engines don't like automatic
submission tools and may ignore your pages if you use them.
In my opinion, the major search engines are simply too
important for you not to spend the time to submit your site
manually to them. In order to speed up the process of
submitting your site, you can use our free submission tool
which allows you to submit your site manually to all the
search engines, without having to go to the "ADD URL" pages
of the individual engines. It is available at
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1778&submission.htm

10) Submitting too many pages per day

People often make the mistake of submitting too many pages
per day to the search engines. This often results in the
search engines simply ignoring many of the pages which have
been submitted from that site. Ideally, you should submit no
more than 1 page per day to the search engines. While many
search engines accept more than 1 page per day from a
particular domain, there are some which only accept 1 page
per day. Hence, by limiting yourself to a maximum of one
page per day, you ensure that you stay within the limits of
all the search engines.

11) Devoting too much time to search engine positioning

Yes - I lied. There's another common mistake that people
make when it comes to search engine optimization - they
spend too much time over it. Sure, search engine placement
is the most cost effective way of driving traffic to your
site and you do need to spend some time every day learning
how the search engines work and in optimizing your site for
the search engines. However, you must remember that search
engine optimization is a means to an end for you - it's not
the end in itself. The end is to increase the sales of your
products and services. Hence, apart from trying to improve
your site's position in the search engines, you also need to
spend time on all the other factors which determine the
success or the failure of your web site - the quality of the
products and services that you are selling, the quality of
your customer service, and so on. You may have excellent
rankings in the search engines, but if the quality of your
products and services are poor, or if your customer service
leaves a lot to be desired, those high rankings aren't going
to do much good.

------------------------------------------------------------
If you wish to send your own articles to be reviewed for
inclusion in this publication, please send them to:
mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com.
------------------------------------------------------------
Except where noted, this publication and all of its
contents are copyright (C)2002 by Aaronz WebWorkz, all
rights are reserved. To reprint an article, send an email
to mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com for permission.
------------------------------------------------------------
List Maintenance:
To subscribe
[mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com?subject:subscribe]

To unsubscribe
[{UNSUBSCRIBE_LINK}]

This newsletter is produced by Aaronz WebWorkz, a complete
online services provider. To view information or to see
back issues of this publication, please go online to:
www.AaronzWebWorkz.com. Please direct all comments or
questions to the editor
(mailto:newsletter@aaronzwebworkz.com).