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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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