PR2 Newsletter : Issue 9
Welcome to issue 9 of the PR2 Website Promotion Newsletter.
Goodness me! Turn my back on the Pr2 site for a few weeks, and look what happens! A
thousand new subscribers come along! Perhaps I should stay away more often... Anyway,
there are now over 4,400 people receiving this newsletter, so please scrunch up and make
room at the back there.
The future of PR2
Before getting stuck into this issue, I wanted to share my thoughts on a rather
dramatic change of direction I am considering for PR2.
I am quite frankly getting tired of the many, many sites out there that claim "All
you need to do to succeed is get on the Web". That's simply not true. You also need
to have some idea of what you are doing once you get there!
I intend to broaden the scope of Pr2 to cover other issues as well as how to promote
your site. For instance, I bet many of you don't know how to price ad space -- either as a
buyer or as a seller. Do you know how to judge whether an affiliate program is fair? I
want to cover these kinds of issues in more detail.
At the same time, I want to provide more information for people taking their first
steps on the Web. It's all very well to begin with how to promote a site, but that site
didn't get on the web by magic (if yours did, please don't write in... I don't want to
know!) That's why I plan to offer more information about the basics of setting up and
running a site.
My third change will be to concentrate more on what other sites can do to help you.
Every issue I'll be picking one or two sites that are essential resources to help you on
your Quest for Hits. That way, you've got something to read beyond my own ravings...
Finally, speaking of ravings, I will be instigating a column called "Sounding
Off" where I will be able to indulge myself by standing tall on a virtual soapbox and
getting all kind of things that annoy me off my chest. You'll soon see what I'm talking
about.
So that's what will be happening over the next couple of months. Don't hold your breath
otherwise you will probably turn blue before all the above juicy stuff makes it onto the
site... instead, please be patient and bear with me as I rebuild PR2 out of the shadow
that was its former self... No need to panic, I will not lose site of PR2's primary goal,
which is to help YOU bring more traffic to YOUR site!
Reality Check
Have you really worked on your site as much as possible? Once again, it bears repeating
that a great site with no visitors is not much good, but a really lousy site with lots of
visitors is like running a hot bath without bothering to put the plug in first... you're
not going to see much rubber duck action, in other words!
So do take another look at your site. Is it covered with advertising banners or banner
exchange banners? Unless your site is very full of content, there's no need to have more
than a couple of banners per page. Instead, make sure that your visitors look at lots of
pages!
How charitable are you? With all the flak being directed its way, Microsoft needs all
the help it can get... but does that really include adding their "Internet
Explorer" button to your site? Same for "Netscape Communicator"... kill
those buttons!
If you sit and watch your page for 30 seconds, does it wriggle and jump and flash and
move? Consider toning down on the animated graphics and going for something more sedate?
Do you have a fancy background? For the benefit of the 25% of your visitors who are not
using graphics, can I read your text even if the background does not load? You would be
AMAZED how many sites have text that is invisible unless a background graphic is loaded!
There is almost no conceivable reason why your main page should contain graphics over
20K in size!
Why the Nagging?
Simple actually... a quality site will promote itself! Your visitors will tell their
friends, and they'll be more likely to come back as well. So do yourself a big favour and
plug the drain right now... fix up your site... and then concentrate on getting the word
out.
This seems like an appropriate place to leave you for this issue... you can concentrate
on working on your site while I work on revamping Pr2... Good luck!
Until next time...
Edwin Hayward
Next:
Issue 10 (Coming Soon!)
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