Why it's a Must to Know HTML

If you have a web site then you must learn, at the minimum, how to make simple changes and upload the changes. (There is one exception to this).

Even if your site has been designed by a professional there is always going to be a need for some change. Do you want to pay for, and wait for, a designer to do a simple alteration which could take you minutes ?

So you will need to learn the basics of HTML. You can pick up a good understanding by studying the code of existing sites and there are numerous resources on the Net.

You may find however some of this too technical, ideally you want to learn from the angle of setting up a business site.

References to Ideal Basics of HTML

It is useful to be aware of other web associated technologies once you have learned the basics of HTML. A brief summary with references to ideal beginner's books follows.

1. CGI
If you wish to install software, then a knowledge of CGI and the CGI-BIN is very handy.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface) allows communication between a site visitor and the site, via the browser.

It is CGI therefore that allows interactive operations such as forms on web sites, live surveys, shopping carts, search engines.

2. PHP
PHP is short for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor.

It is one of the various server-side scripting languages with which to write CGI programs, others are Perl, C/C++, Java.

Click here for Simple PHP.

3. Javascript
Javascript is a client-side programming language used particularly to create special effects on your web pages.

So it can create rollovers, splash screens, colored scroll bars, flashing and highlighted text, pop-up windows, mouse over effects. It can also validate forms, display date information and provide password protection.

As a comparison:

- A CGI script resides on the server and interacts directly with it, so a CGI program can run with any browser.

- JavaScript is run by the web browser, which limits its functionality to only things that the browser knows about.

What is the Best Format for a Sales Page

There's been endless debate on which is the best format for a sales page.

Some say that stats prove that long copy outperforms short copy.

Others say that most readers won't bother to read long copy.

The counter argument is that these readers were not going to be buyers anyway.

To find an ideal compromise let's look into the mind of your visitor. There are two key stages when he visits your site.

• 1. On arrival he needs an instant quick overview of what your site offers, for example "an ebook about search engines which costs $27"

  He does not want to wade through thousands of words to extract this information, so this is best dealt with by short copy.

• 2. At some point he begins to get interested and may consider a purchase. Now he wants to know everything about the product and how it can help him.

  So now he wants to see all the detail - long copy.

So if it were possible you'd like to be able to switch from a summary to a full description.

You could start with short copy and at the end have a link to a second page with the instruction 'For the full details click here'

But a good alternative is to insert 'more detail' links throughout the body of the short copy and have them come up as pop ups which the reader can open and close while remaining on the main page.

Here is the code to do this

onClick = "window.open('more.htm', 'more', 'height=400,width=450');">
More detail here

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On the subject of sales copy I would say that copywriting is one of the most profitable skills to acquire and here is a demonstration why.

Suppose you spend the next 3 hours preparing an advertising campaign in a newsletter. You may produce successful results but these will appear as a one-off spike in the chart of your sales figures. You would need to continually repeat these campaigns to maintain the improved figure.

Instead let's devote these 3 hours to revamping your sales copy. They say that simple improvements to a headline alone for example can see conversion rates multiply by 5, 10 or more. But let's allow a modest increase - you are able just to double the conversion rate.

Then your sales figures will double from now on, and remain doubled without any further effort.

But there's no need for me to 'pre-sell' it to you. If it does what it claims to then the sales page alone will do it for me.

Why Split your sales page

As a customer what do you like to see at the end of a sales page ?

I expect you will say - an order form with

• the price clearly shown
• a minimum number of steps to complete the purchase

However I'm going to suggest a slight deviation from this, namely one additional step and the price not immediately shown.

How come ?

Well, many visitors in a hurry may click to a long sales page, immediately cast their eye towards the bottom, see the price and leave without stopping to read the benefits of purchasing.

Just when you expect it to end as per norm with a summary of benefits, a bonus and an order link it just says "Order Now and receive Bonus Title"

I believe that anyone reading through that page is going to want to know, even if out of curiosity and no intent to purchase

• what is the price ?
• what is that bonus ? - there's been no previous mention of it

On taking that one additional click they find a short easy-to-read page with

• the key benefits summarized as bullet points
• the bonus revealed
• an instruction "If you decide NOT to order please click here" which pops up a final inducement to order

If you took the time to read that second page then you may agree that splitting the sales page into two sections is well worth a try.

Testing your Sales Page

They say that a simple change to a headline can make your sales rocket.

There's a way to scientifically test the impact of such changes.

The key point is that you should change one component at a time and measure the results, so that you are able to pinpoint exactly the effect of each single change.

So here are the chief components that you could experiment with to increase your sales conversion

• headline
• sub-headline
• bullet points showing the main benefits
• page design and color
• adding or removing graphics
• the ordering process (is it too complicated ?)
• the addition of bonuses
• the guarantee and refund policy
• the first fold (the initial visible screen of your page
• site navigation

Why Use Stylesheets for your website

CSS (Cascading style sheets) enable you to use a common design format across your web site with greater control over all the HTML elements.

For example you can declare that all the main headings are a certain font, size and color: then you simply change that one declaration if you want to change the format of all the headings on your site.

Some time ago I took the plunge and rewrote a huge chunk of my site supertips.com (some 70 pages) to use CSS.

One immediate visual benefit was the smooth flow as I clicked from page to page and saw the same layout, color and format for headings and text compared to the previous assortment of different size headings and sub-headings.

The HTML code is now so simple that I no longer use a web design program to make changes to my pages - I just use a text editor (NoteTab)

Here are two indispensable free tools which helped me

• 1. W3C CSS Validation Service
• 2. TidyGui

Solving the navigation problem

Here are a few tips I picked up after redesigning one of my sites.

1.Some websites s you can see the main navigation options are listed in two lines (both at the top of the page and repeated at the bottom). But as the site has expanded there are more pages I wanted to add, and having more lines would begin to look untidy.

The solution ?

A vertical navigation bar.

This gives me scope to add more menu options easily but also, very important, I can group the options into categories.

2. I had a choice of putting the navigation bar on the left or the right. I chose right, one advantage being that the main text of each page (as opposed to the navigation bar text) is now nearer the top of the page which helps the rankings in the search engines.

3. I've long wanted to use SSI (Server Side Includes) for my navigation bar. This means that you just have one copy of the bar and any change takes effect in all the pages.

In order to 'include' an element such as a navigation bar in a page you need to give the page an extension of .shtml

The problem has been that for an existing site you don't want to rename pages which may be ranking well in the search engines.

The solution ?

I found an option on my server to process .htm or .html files as if they are .shtml files.

Note that there is one disadvantage of using SSI - you cannot view files locally as they would be seen online, the include instruction does not work.

However it's less of a problem for me than having to duplicate the bar in every single page.

When pop-ups are a must

We know that pop-ups are controversial.

We know that many surfers dislike them, though marketers claim a good success rate in getting extra sales, all for the sake of a bit of additional code.

But, even if you oppose pop-ups, what cannot be denied is that if a visitor is going to leave your site without taking any action you may as well provide an exit pop-up.

As someone said "It would be a sin not to use a pop-up"

The content of the pop-up could be a final pitch for your newsletter, or a special bonus or whatever.

Why Hide Your Email Add in your Website

It's a good idea to invite questions from visitors at your website, so that you can provide a personal touch and establish a good relationship.

But as your traffic inevitably increases you certainly don't want to be swamped by email queries.

So here is what you can do - and it brings added benefits.

First, you accumulate a list of common questions and set up a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page.

This is a common solution but at this point most sites provide a link from their sales page to the FAQ page but keep their email address on the sales page.

The secret is to remove the address and only put it on the FAQ page.

Why ?

This will force your visitor to read the FAQ first, hopefully eliminating 90% of the questions you would otherwise receive.

But don't just put a series of questions and answers.

• Take the opportunity to surround every question with a positive benefit.
• Introduce additional material that may have been too much to include on the original page.
• And finish up with some motivating copy to get your reader to order.

The result ?

Your reader will have gained by finding answers to questions he had not thought of and discovering extra benefits offered by your product.

And you will have fewer messages in your email box.

Top Mistake - Removing a Webpage

You may be very surprised at how long information can remain floating around on the Net.

For example, I've had requests for articles published in other newsletters dating back several years.

The links pointed to pages at my site which I could easily have removed thinking that they were no longer needed and I would have lost potential visitors.

So rather than remove an out-of-date page simply change the content to point to a current one.

And for a variation of link switching: I no longer promote my very first book written in 1998 as it is so out-of-date, yet there are sites which still link directly to the .exe file as opposed to the download page itself.

Fortunately easyClick404 comes to the rescue once again and I am able to intercept the visitor and switch him to a more modern book - this one !.

Why redesign your website

I launched my first site SuperTips back in 1998, offering tips, information and advice about Internet marketing.

I've often said that if I were to begin again there is no way I would have such a site !

Why ?

Well, these days everyone has a site about Internet marketing and how to make money on the Net. The topic is much too general and extremely competitive.

So I wanted to redesign my site to show what is now my main focus - and that is having niche sites and books. In particular I wanted to bring together my main ebooks scattered over various sites and have their ecovers showing on the main page.

But a problem.

These cover images would have made the page very large in size and slow to access for dial-up visitors.

The solution ?

I asked around - at forums of course - for advice about acceptable page size and how to reduce image size. And I found a tool which did the job - for free.

Now what to do with that old page.

Here is what it looked like before

I've taken the core of it, removed unproductive links, and moved it down a peg so it is now accessible from the new home page, which is here

As you can see - much more focussed, with links just to the key areas of my business.

Maybe it's time for you to ask the question

'What is the real purpose of my site ?' and redesign it accordingly.

By the way, there's a fascinating site which contains archives of sites (maybe even yours) showing how they have changed over the years.