YOUR INTERNET SURVIVAL GUIDE archives

Below are some of our helpful newsletter articles. Our intention is to give you clear, easy-to-understand information that will keep you safe and profitable on the Internet.

Each category listed below contains several short articles. We hope you find this informative and helpful.

• Website Add-Ons
• All About Spam
• All About Your Computer
• Keeping Safe on The Internet
• Search Engine Success
• General Business Marketing
  

WEBSITE ADD-ONS

Email Masking
Have you ever asked yourself, “How did all these people get my email address?” when you see all the spam in your inbox? Maybe you gave your email to someone when you joined a discussion group or registered a new purchase? If you own a website, you are most likely giving out your email to web spammers, unless you have masked your email address.

Web marketers have little programs called “robots” that scour the web for email addresses. When ever they find text that looks like an email address (someone@website.com) it adds it to a database. They sell that database of email addresses to anyone willing to pay. The next thing you know, you are receiving tons of junk email.

Masking your email address is a process of changing the text on your website so the “robots” can’t recognize it. We have many ways to do this and it is a quick change. This has really become a problem within the last year and we are now masking email addresses as a matter of routine. If you aren't sure if your website is protected, we can check for you. Give us a call if you want us to mask your email addresses.

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Adding FAQ Pages to Your Web Site.
Having a new employee answering the telephones is sometimes a bigger job than answering it yourself. Why? Because they don’t know the answers to the common questions you hear every day. But, soon after hearing the same questions over and over, the new employee becomes a great asset to your company.

Put your web site to work in the same manner. An FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page can provide simple, easy-to-understand answers for all those questions you have answered a hundred times. The FAQ page saves both you and your prospective customer valuable time.

An FAQ page can also be a great marketing tool. It can present the questions you wish more people would ask and give them the answers you want them to know. Inform your prospective clients of the reasons why you are better than your competitors. You can up-sell your clients by explaining the advantage of buying the premium brand.

Put your web site to work for you, don’t forget the FAQ page.

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Add Simple Online Sales with PayPal.
Selling your products and services online couldn't be easier. If you want to be able to accept major credit cards (Mastercard, Visa, Discover and American Express) without monstrous monthly charges and contracts, consider using PayPal’s shopping cart and "Buy Now" buttons.

Just by setting up a business account with PayPal (for free), you can accept credit card payments for your online sales for only a small processing fee of 3% and 30 cents/transaction. This is a perfect solution for businesses and organizations that want to offer a small selection of products or that what to accept donations online.

One reason this is such a great tool is that there is no need to purchase a shopping cart program and there is no program setup involved. All you need to do is set up the PayPal account and then we insert some special code into your web site where you want to have the “Add-to-Cart,” “Buy Now” or “Donate Now” buttons. All sales are secured and encrypted so you and your customers don’t need to worry about credit card numbers being stolen.

The drawbacks to this system is that you are limited to the look of PayPal’s payment pages and it’s not a good system for large stores where you want to keep an inventory and have a database of all sales. But, if you just looking for a simple, quick and economical way to do business online, it’s a terrific solution.

Call us today if you would like to add this functionality to your site.

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Refer-A-Friend Form
When you create a really great website, you hope that visitors will do two things: They should buy from you and then tell their friends about your site. Make it easy for people to tell their friends by adding a refer-a-friend form on your site. This little form is easy to add and reminds your visitor that it is good idea to spread the good news about your web products or services.

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ALL ABOUT SPAM

DROWNING IN SPAM!

Have you noticed more SPAM in you mailbox lately?  We have!!!  Despite employing good programs like Spam Assassin associated with our website hosting account, SPAM still makes it to our inbox. 

What’s the best solution for dealing with it?  Take advantage of your email client – that means Outlook or Outlook Express if you are on a PC.  You can set your own filter rules that tell Outlook what to do with emails that you identify as spam.

Recently, I noticed a lot of SPAM in my email box that said “Hi ____”, with the blank being the first name of my email account.  Since I collect lots of different email, the subjects were “Hi Marybeth”, “Hi Don”, etc.  When I looked at the contents of these emails, they were recommending certain stocks.  I identified certain words in the email that I know my friends and clients will not use (Current Price: ) and then I created a filter for that phrase.

Here is how to set up a filter in Outlook 2003:

1. In Outlook, from the top menu, select "Tools".
2. From the drop down menu, click on “Rules and Alerts”.
3. A small screen opens and you will see two top tabs:  “Rules” and “Alerts”.
4. The active screen is “Rules” and this is where you will create a rule to filter out certain emails.
5. Click on “New Rule”
6. Make sure “Make Rule from a Template” is selected.  This helps you create the correct language for Outlook to understand your rule.
7. Step One (the first white box you see) is to “Select a Template”.
8. In this case, you choose, “Move messages with specific words in the subject to a specific folder.”
9. Step Two (the second white box you see) is to “Edit the Rule Description”.
10. Click on the words “specific words” in the rule you are creating.  This will open up at new small window.
11. In this new window entitled “Search Text” enter the phrase that identifies the SPAM as SPAM, in this case, I enter “Current Price:”.  Click Add. 
12. Click OK and that pop-up window goes away.
13. Now, in Step Two, click on the word “Specified”. A new small pop-up window entitled “Rules and Alerts” pops up. (You are now telling Outlook what to do with the SPAM.)
14. Use the small scroll bar to scroll down to the folder entitled “Junk Mail”.  Highlight “Junkmail” by clicking on it.  Click “OK” and that small pop-up window goes away. (You just told Outlook to put the SPAM in the Junk Mail box.)
15. Now you are back in your “Rules Window” window.  Click “Next”.
16. This new pop-up window will allow you to change the rule from  “Find this text in the SUBJECT” to “Find this text in the BODY”. (If the offending spam has the identifying words in the Subject, you can stop here and click "Finish".)
17. You will see a series of check boxes.  CHECK only “on this machine only” and “with specific words in the body”.  Uncheck all else.
18. Click on the “Next Button”.
19. Click “Move it to a specified folder.”
20. Click the “Next Button”.
21. You can select any of the exceptions, but I don’t need to because I have been very careful to select text that I know my friends and clients won’t include in their emails.
22. Click the next button.
23. In Step 1, name the rule.  I usually use it’s default name but you can customize the name.
24. In Step 2, click “Turn on the rule.”
25. In Step 3, you can review your rule if you want.
26. Click the “Finish” button.
27. You are now back in your main Rules and Alerts window.  Click the “OK” button.
28. Ta-Da!  You’re done.

Important Note:  In this example, we identified text in the BODY of the email that I could use to identify an email as SPAM.  Sometimes, the SUBJECT of the email has identifiable text such as : ) that I also know my friends and clients won’t use.  If you’re filtering email with identifiable text in the SUBJECT of the email, you can stop at step 16 and click “Finish” at that point.

Another Important Note:  Be aware of which text in your email is real text and which text is in an image.  Your filter can not read text in images, so you need to choose identifying text in the real text of your offending email.  Spammers will often misspell certain words like "youre".  You can use words or phrases like this to help your Outlook identify spam (assuming, of course, that your friends aren't awful spellers.).

As you get more familiar with the Rules and Alerts section of Outlook, you will see that you have all sorts of choices to help you manage your email.  WeI encourage you to explore that function.

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ARE YOU NOT USING YOUR JUNK MAIL FOLDER? SET ONE UP NOW!!!!

Here are the instructions to use your Junk Mail box in Outlook 2003:

1. From the menu at the top of Outlook, select “Actions”.
2. From the dropdown menu, hover over “Junk Mail”.
3. From the pop-out menu, select “Junk Mail Options”.
4. In the pop-up window, the first tab is Options.  In here, select “High” filtering.
5. Also select the last option, “Don’t turn on links….”
6. Click on the OK button.

Now that you have high filtering on, you must check your junk mail box periodically to make sure Outlook didn’t put any of your friends in there.  If you do find a friend’s email in there, you can single click on it and then select "Not Junk" from the top menu.  This will add their email to your "safe senders list".

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ALL ABOUT YOUR COMPUTER

SAVE YOUR COMPUTER AND YOUR WEBSITE

Internet Explorer 6 (the website browser most of us use) has a major hole in it, making your computer very vulnerable to malicious material on the Internet. To protect yourself, it is VERY important that you keep up with your Window’s Critical Updates (update here ), which “patch” these holes. One of the latest Window’s updates includes an upgrade to Internet Explorer 7. This is the most recent and necessary update to the most popular browser.

Just so you know, this is a universal problem. A new vulnerability was found in Flash 8. To protect your computer, you need to update to Flash 9 here. Likewise, if you use a Mac, instead of a PC, its media player Quicktime was recently found to have six holes. (If you have Quicktime, update it here).

Here’s the inevitable news. We’ve heard through our professional associations that many websites are not working well with the new Internet Explorer 7. So far, we haven’t noticed any problems with websites we have built but there is no guarantee that there won’t be issues now or in the future.

The closest analogy we can find to what we’re talking about has to do with computers, in general. One day, you purchase a great computer – it’s fast, has lots of memory, a great video card, etc. Then, time marches on. Within only a few years, your computer is freezing, occasionally giving you the blue screen of death or, at best, slowing down to a crawl. What has happened is that you continue to load the latest software and your old computer can not keep up. In the time that you’ve owned your computer, computer technology has likely doubled (or even tripled!) and the new software is not written for you old computer.

The same exact thing happens with a website. Websites are viewed through browsers, computer programs that read and interpret the “language” of a website, HTML. A website is not really just text and pretty pictures; you can see what a website really is by clicking here.

When we build a website, we build it for the current technology. After a period of time, as technology marches on and browsers develop and change, your website may start to look “broken”. If your site is no longer rendering correctly in the new browser(s), you will need to have your website code updated so that it can keep up with the new technology. If you find this to be the case, please contact us to make these updates. We will review your site and give you an estimate to make the changes.

Like a car that needs maintenance or a computer that needs to be upgraded, your website also needs the same occasional care to stay in good working condition.

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Upgrade or Buy New?
You paid a lot of money, four years ago, for a good computer and it has served you well. It has gotten a little slow and you have depreciated the equipment to zero for tax purposes. Now, you need to upgrade your accounting software and you are concerned about having enough hard drive space or memory to install it. Do you buy a new hard drive or beef up the memory?

I hear this type of question a lot. With computer prices as low as they are, I believe the answer is an easy one, a “no-brainer” as my father-in-law is fond of saying. Go out a buy a basic new computer. You only need to spend around $500 today to get a good, fast machine that will do everything you need. Upgrading an old machine costs at least $150 and you still have an old machine. Do yourself a favor and donate that old computer to the kids or to a school and buy your self a new machine.

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Backing Up Your Data.
OK, tell the truth now, when was the last time you backed up your data? This is like exercise, it is something you know you should do, but never take the time to do it. Believe me, this is something you will regret sooner or later if you don’t get on the ball and establish a backup routine. Backing up you data doesn't need to be painful. You only need a couple of things to make it painless.

1. Good backup software. I like SyncBackSE by 2BrightSparks, but there are many good backup software solutions available. Go out to www.downloads.com or www.tucows.com and try out a shareware version before you buy to make sure it works for you. You want to make sure you can backup to whatever media (Floppy, Zip, CD, Tape, etc) you want.

2. Adequate storage. Buy yourself the proper media for the amount of data you need to backup. CD-R writer is perfect for those with less then 700 MB of data. You can buy CDs cheaply and take copies offsite for added protection. Tape drives are great for those with a lot of data, but they are pricey. Consider buying an exterior hard drive and use it as a backup devise.

Once you set up the backup software and media, you should be able to forget it with the exception of switching out CDs or tapes periodically. Everyone will experience a drive failure, the question is will you be prepared when it happens?

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Are there spies in your computer?
You are doing everything to maintain your computer. You are periodically running scandisk and defragging your hard drive. You are running an antivirus and keeping the database up to date, but something is wrong. Your computer is getting slower and slower. Well, it could be a badly installed program or failing hardware, but most likely you have accumulated many spyware programs in your computer.

Spyware is not a computer virus. It is a small program installed on your computer without your knowledge. It is a benign program, in that it only reports home to the marketing company who put it on your computer. The program is meant to report your computing behavior so that the marketing company can send you more targeted junk mail.

From where do you get spyware? You can get spyware from a website you just visited or from the last program you downloaded. There is spyware loaded on many of the commercial software products you purchase at the store. I have even found spyware loaded on brand new computers that I have set up for the first time!

Getting rid of spyware:
Many of you have heard of specific spyware called “cookies,” and you have blocked them, thinking that you have handled the problem. Not all cookies are spyware and not all spyware are considered cookies. In fact, many cookies are helpful and are used only to remember you when you revisit a favorite website. For these reasons, blocking cookies is not an effective way of dealing with the problem.

The best way to handle spyware is to download a program that tracks and cleans it out of your computer. Just like an antivirus program, the anti-spyware program has to be kept up-to-date in order to be effective. My favorite Program is:

• Ad-Aware, which can be downloaded from http://www.lavasoftusa.com/. They have a free version that can be used for non-commercial purposes.

KEEPING SAFE ON THE INTERNET

You must use the same common sense shopping on the Internet as you do shopping anywhere. You wouldn't make a purchase of a digital camera from a man standing at a traffic intersection! The same rules apply with the stores on the Internet. Make sure the business has a physical address (not only a P.O. Box) and contact numbers (not just email). Do a search in Google for reviews of the store. For large purchases, check on the store with their local BBB. Whenever possible, shop from an Internet store that also has a physical location locally (Wal-Mart, BestBuy, Home Depot, Lowes, Staples, etc.). Always research their refund policy in the event you don’t get what you wanted or expected.

Use a credit card when making purchases, and before you put in your card number make sure that you are on an encrypted site. You can tell an encrypted page because there is a gold pad-lock in the lower right corner of your browser window. PayPal is also a good idea for making secure transactions.

Now you only have to worry about what you are buying. Make sure you know if the product is new or used and if all the parts are included. Make sure your “bargain” price is still a bargain after the shipping and handling charges.

Now relax and enjoy your shopping trip.

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SEARCH ENGINE SUCCESS

What can YOU do to improve your website’s ranking in the search engines?

There are many strategies to make your site rank more highly and one strategy in particular that YOU can do it all by yourself. One part of a site’s ranking has to do with how many other websites are linking to you. This means that if you can get other websites to link to your website, then your ranking goes up!

The first place to start is with directories. Directories are websites that list other websites; they are usually industry related. You will find directories for retreat centers, yoga studios, auto repair places, and almost all other businesses.

Here’s how you find these directories:

Go to a major search engine, such as Google, and type in your search terms, for example “auto repair” or “fort worth auto repair”. Look at the results. Click on them. Some of these you will notice are directories. Somewhere in these directories there will be information on how to get listed. Usually you will just have to fill out a form telling who you are, giving a description of your business and your website domain name. Occasionally these directories will require you to pay a small fee for your listing. You will have to consider if this is worth it. But remember this, if you put in your search terms and find their website, so will your potential clients. They could be looking in these directories for your services and you may want to be there. In this case, listing yourself in industry-related directories helps you in two ways: 1) their link to you will help your own ranking in the search engines and 2) they may drive new customers to your website.

Other ways to improve your ranking in the search engines include optimizing the text and images on your website, updating your metatags, link exchanges, and creating pay-per-click campaigns. If you would like to educate yourself on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), we recommend this site: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167921.

Out of Nowhere offers SEO services and if you would like for us to send you information about what we offer, let us know. Our business is to make you more successful.

Contact Us About SEO.

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Getting in the Search Engines.
Everyone wants to be in the search engines for obvious reasons; To get more traffic to their sites. When talking about having sites in the search engines, there is an important distinction to keep in mind; Inclusion vs. Placement. Inclusion means just being included in the search engines. Placement relates to where your site ranks for a given search term.

• Inclusion: There are still a few search engines or directories in which you can have your site listed for free - Google, AOL, Yahoo, MSN, and The Open Directory. Another way to be included is to bid for placement with GoogleAds and Yahoo. A small bid will get you listed; a larger bid will get you listed on the front page of the results.
• Placement: How do you get your site ranked highly? There are many, many factors involved. Most important, you must have your site designed properly for the search engines to be able to collect "data" about your site. If your site is primarily in images, there will be little to no data, only image. If you have lots of information in text, then you should make that text "rich" with your search terms by using your search terms over and over in your text. We used this strategy for ourselves. If you go to Google and type in "Fort Worth Website Design" you will see that we are listed on the 1st page out of 865,000 results (as of July 2008).

If you are in a competitive industry, you may have to pay for placement in the search engines. This is usually a great way to spend your marketing dollars! The two pay for placement engines we recommend are Google and Yahoo. With these sites, you pay a certain bid amount (determined by you) each time the link to your site is clicked on. What's great is that the only people you will be paying for are those that obviously want your service; they are searching for you! Where you rank depends on the amount that you bid.

If you're a go-getter, take this information and run with it. If you want our help maximizing your site for the search engines or you want to begin a pay-for-placement campaign, please give us a call and let us help you maximize your success on the Internet.

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Reciprocal Links - Improve your ranking in the search engines.
There are many small things to potentially improve your ranking in the search engines, but aside from having rich content, having other people link to you will probably have the greatest effect.

Here are the basic rules:

• Find other sites that are related to (but not in competition with) your business.
• Contact them to see if they will link to you.
• Offer to provide a link to them.
• Who do you ask?

Think of the other businesses related to yours. Let’s say that you have an auto repair facility. You will contact the other businesses that you know, for instance your upholstery people, the car wash down the road, the body repair shop you work with the most, a car rental facility, the towing company that you use, other businesses near you, or your good friends who have other local websites. Get links from them.

Get links from organizations of which you are a member. Get links from the BBB, the Chamber of Commerce. In the example listed above, get links from the AAA for which you are a preferred provider and the Automotive Service Association.

Get links from sites you find online. Go to Google.com and put in your search terms. See if you find any sites that relate to your business and ask them for a link.
Most of the major search engines include the number of links to your site as a factor in determining how to rank your site. If you do a little work getting other sites to link to you, then you can certainly expect to see your site rise in the rankings.

Give us a call if we can help.

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GENERAL BUSINESS MARKETING

Marketing Outside of the Web.
Your website is perfect and you have done everything to bring it to the attention of web browsers and search engines. Don’t stop now! No business should rely solely on web advertising. You need to continue to promote your business in the “old fashioned” marketing way. Make sure you have printed marketing materials for advertisements in business journals, newspapers, mailings and brochures. Through our new co-operative relationship with Creative Madhouse, Out of Nowhere can help you round out all your graphic needs, Logos, labels, catalogs, publications, etc.

Read Our Archives

Email Masking
Adding FAQ Pages to Your Website
Add Simple Online Sales With PayPal
Refer-A-Friend Form
Drowning In Spam
Setting Up a Junk Mail Folder
Save Your Computer and Your Website
Updgrade or Buy New - Your Computer
Backing Up Your Data
Are There Spies in Your Computer?
Safe Shopping On the Internet
What You Can Do to Improve Your Website's Ranking
Getting in the Search Engines
Reciprocal Links
Marketing Outside of the Web

Home |  Really Helpful Information  |  Contact Us

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