Hi, and welcome all!

This version of the course was written with writers in mind. If you'd like to read more on site set up and promotion, please see: www.stacistallings.com/OnlineCourseMain.htm I do want to point out, however, that the full course is a year old, and since it was written, I have learned lots of new stuff that I will be sharing in this course. So, hang on, have fun and let's go!

"Promotion for Writers: Establishing a Web
Presence and More"

Week 1

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Hong Kong or London?
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Subject: Where are you? And where do you want to go?

If you called me and told me that you needed to get to Houston as soon as possible, I could do one of two things: (1) I could start giving you directions or (2) I could first ask you where you are. Now if I just started giving directions, chances are you would be as likely to end up in Hong Kong or London as to end up in Houston. That's why we must first establish where you are when it comes to deciding on the best direction to go with your site.

So, where are you? Do you know how many visitors came to your site last month? Yesterday? Do you know how you rank in and among the approximately 168 million other sites out there? How many links do you have on various search engines? Why does that matter?

Are you just starting out? Do you have the capabilities of updating your own site or does someone else do that for you? Do you want to be able to update your own site? Are you interested in promoting your site or are you perfectly happy to set it up and let it sit there collecting cyber-dust? How many visitors (not hits) did you have last month? How many page views did you have? (If you don't know, don't worry, we'll cover a way to start tracking this in this lesson.)

These are just some of the questions you need to consider as we begin this class.

A helpful hint: Because any subject dealing with the Internet and promotions online can be overwhelming in its scope and breadth, I recommend that you read through the entire lesson and the homework once quickly. Then go back and go through the suggestions step-by-step. Otherwise, if you run into a problem with a suggestion, you are likely to get stuck there and never see the valuable information in the complete lesson.

Also, remember that I will be answering any questions that you may have as we go through the course on the list. Feel free to ask any question even if you feel like you should know the answer. Remember, the Internet is really only seven years old-we're all new at this!

Good luck, and now… Onward and upward!

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THE LESSONS
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Where are YOU?
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Three ways to assess where you are and how your site stacks up against others in your area are Webalizer, Alexa, and Addme.

Webalizer. This program, when uploaded to your site, can give you tons of valuable information, which is updated every day. It helps to tell you when a promotion element works fabulously and when one fizzles. To download Webalizer, go to www.webalizer.com and follow the directions (you may well need help with this, and it may be necessary to consult your web designer-if so, please make a note of this on a running list of things to consult with the designer about as there will undoubtedly be many more things on your list by the end of the course. Nonetheless, I highly recommend looking into installing this powerful program on your site at some point). As soon as it's working, you will begin to have a treasure trove of information to tell you exactly where you are, and as the months go by, you can track exactly how far you've come because Webalizer saves your statistics for a full year.

Once Webalizer (or something similar) is working, the statistics you want to focus on are:

· Unique Visitors (counts each computer that logs on once each day)
· Visitors (counts each computer that logs on every time it logs on each day)
· Page Views (how many pages do visitors look at? Or do they look at the page they come to and then leave?)
· Entry Pages (what page are people coming to first?)
· Exit Pages (where are people getting bored and clicking off your site?)
· Referrals (what sites are your visitors finding you at?)

Combined, these stats will give you a good idea of how your site is doing, where weaknesses might lie, and who your friends are who are sending their visitors to you (so you can send more promotions their way!).

Alexa. This is a free program at www.alexa.com. This nifty little program does some pretty remarkable things-the most important is that it will tell you where your site ranks in comparison to all other sites on the 'net. (One note of caution: If your site is hosted by someone else, i.e. homestead, tripod, or one of the other free mega-sites, the counter will count not your site but the mega-site's instead, which makes this technology useless except for analyzing other sites.) Knowing your rank is valuable information. Now, possibly your site will come up "No Data." That means that your site has not been registered at the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org). Go there and register immediately (it's free).

Another truly awesome thing about Alexa is if you download the free Alexa Nav Bar, it will load at the top of every web page every time you get on the 'net. As you click around the web, it will tell you how every site you visit ranks instantly! This is great for assessing where you are in relation to your competitors (and for deciding who to contact for publicity purposes).

Addme.com. www.addme.com This site has a link popularity counter. You simply click on Link Popularity, type in your URL (or the URL of your competition), and AddMe will crawl the web looking for how many sites are linked to yours. It crawls different search engines, and delivers the results for each search engine in a matter of seconds. This is a great tool to see how your link numbers stack up against someone else's. (There are other parts of Addme that we will discuss in the coming weeks of the course.)

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Hitting Moving Targets
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Subject: Theme and Purpose
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As I watched the Olympics a couple years ago, the Biathlon grabbed my attention. This is where an athlete skis for some distance, stops, and has to shoot five consecutive targets. Now these targets are stationary, but the fact that the athlete has just stopped skiing makes hitting them accurately doubly difficult. Just imagine how hard it would be if those targets were moving!

Most webmasters know that running a website is very much like the biathlon. You are running around actually running the business, and then you have to stop and work on maintaining the website. Difficult? Yes. But most of us compound that degree of difficulty by trying to hit moving targets we've created through lack of planning.

What do I mean by this? I mean, that most of us have never sat down and figured out what the purpose for our site is. (To sell a whole bunch of stuff, right?) But are there other purposes that compliment that purpose, like: have we chosen a complimentary theme that runs through our promotion campaign? Or is it simply a hit and miss effort?

Let me talk briefly about my own site so you can see what I mean. When I started, I knew a few things: My purpose was to bring good, quality Christian information and reading material to visitors. The forms this would take were my novels, my articles, and stories from others. (Trust me, it wasn't that concrete at the time, but that was the general idea.)

The theme I chose was "peace." My first site designer thought I was crazy to be so adamant about this point, but it paid off. I would get comments about how peaceful my site was to visit. Funny, how I never outright mentioned that theme to any visitor on the site, and yet it came through in my presentation.

To find a theme, I asked myself, "What am I about? What is my business about? What is my writing about? What do I want others to take away from my site?" Once I came up with the theme peace, I then had to implement it.

How did I implement my theme?

Colors. I chose the colors I used very carefully. In fact, my second web designer went through several color changes before I was comfortable with the final color's alignment with peace.

Graphics. My signature graphic is a rose, but not just any rose. It is a secret rose that is a hybrid of the peace rose. You will also notice the dove in the top right corner of every page of my site (www.stacistallings.com). That graphic is courtesy of designer #2 who (once he figured out I was serious about this) took the peace idea and found ways to further implement it.

The theme went farther than that, however. In designing my site, it was very important to me that visitors not get frustrated by anything on the site, so I made sure that navigation was straightforward and understandable. I did this by placing navigation bars at the top and bottom of every page.
Theme is carried right on over into the content on my site. Designer #1 once posted a FAQ link that he had pulled off the 'net. Problem was there were sarcastic references to the intelligence of the visitor imbedded in the FAQ page. I think it was meant to be humorous, but it conflicted with my theme, so it had to go.

I think it's critical before you do anything further to figure out what target you are trying to hit. Think about your purpose and determine a theme surrounding that. Maybe your purpose is to have fun or to inform or to agitate. Decide it is you are trying to do, and then come up with ways to implement that theme and purpose. This is not an exact science, but as we go forward, having your theme and purpose already set will decrease the amount of time you spend shooting at targets that aren't even there any more!

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THE HOMEWORK
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Look into setting Webalizer up on your site if it's not already there.

Spend some time considering your purpose, your theme, and how to implement those on your site.

Look up your Alexa Rank and your link popularity on Addme.com. (For a quick check on how you are doing on the wider web, go to www.vivisimo.com type the keyword you most want to be listed under in the search engines, it will tell you where you rank on which search engines.)

To access more information that I have accumulated (and continue to accumulate) but did not have space to include in this lesson, please send a blank email to:

emarketing@stacistallings.com You only have to do this once, and you will receive additional information each week of the course directly from me. Included will be further hints and good jumping off points that have been discussed that week to check into. If you are serious about promotions on the web, this valuable (and FREE) information should not be missed!

Course Week 2 | Course Week 3 | Course Week 4