If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Internet Marketing Terms, And Tips From Empowerism

AUTO-RESPONDER is simply an email program that runs on a computer server connected full-time to the Internet. It gives you an email address that automatically replies to any incoming message by returning the text of a particular file of your choosing. This information is delivered anywhere in the world, to any Internet user with email, within seconds, 24 hours a day/7 days a week.

You can include your auto-responder address on business cards, letterhead, flyers, classified advertising, your email signature line, and anywhere else you can think of! There are hundreds of places on the web that offer auto-responder for small fees, and many that offer free service. Perform a search on any major search engine for “auto-responder” or “free auto-responder.”

We suggest you use your auto-responder carefully. Network Marketing is about building relationships. These relationships cannot be built by form letters and automated replies. The majority of your prospects will want to “know you, like you, and trust you” before they will consider coming to work for you. Customize and personalize your letters to invoke this trust from your prospects.

BLIND AD (or teaser) is an ad, either sent via email or posted on a classified ad site that is enticing enough to get the recipient to request more information, but gives NO company name, trademark, or URL that points to the company you’re advertising. Blind ads are just that: BLIND.

CLASSIFIED AD Online Classified ads are similar to newspaper classifieds in most ways. The biggest difference is that many Online Classifieds are free to post an ad. Paid ads are inexpensive and tend to draw more valid prospects. Classified ads may contain your company URL, your own URL, and a mention of the company name, as they are a form of passive advertising. This means that someone actually must come to your ad and request more information from you.

DOORWAY PAGE or MIRROR PAGE is a one-page website that is specifically set up to introduce your main web site. The sole purpose of doorway pages is to get higher rankings with one or more search engines using keyword and keyword-rich content. Doorway pages are easy to identify because they have been designed for search engines, definitely not the main attraction, as the content is usually very repetitive, sometimes to the point of not making sense. To maximize their effectiveness, one would create one or two doorway pages and host them on dozens of free servers or on different web pages on one’s own website. Search engine spiders will find these pages and list them in search results according to the relevancy of the content and frequency of the search term.

FFA PAGE or “free for all” links page is a forum where people can post links to their sites, using a site submitter that is provided by the host.

FFA pages can be used in several ways. One is to place a link to your own web site on other people’s FFA page, with a catchy phrase that will make yours stand out from the rest of the links on the page. Another way is to get your own free FFA page from one of the hundreds of places on the Web offering them. Then, with most FFA pages, anyone who submits a link to your page will get a confirmation of their post in the email by auto-responder. The key here is that you get to completely customize your “thank you” email. This means you can advertise your business every time someone posts on your FFA page. This can be a very powerful way of advertising, because there is no limit to the number of links that can be posted to your FFA page.

To get your own FFA page or find hundreds of places to post your own links, do a search on any major search engine for “free FFA page” or “FFA links.”

MAILING LIST is a list of e-mail addresses of people interested in the same subject. When a list subscriber sends a message, it goes to everyone on the list. You can reply to the messages, send new messages, or just lurk, reading the messages without participating. All of this traffic is automatically managed by programs like Yahoo, and Coollist. Some companies charge a nominal fee and usually provide better service. At the very least, they won’t put an ad in every email you send out. Here are a few: ListBox.com (fee based on number of members), and Mail-List.com ($100/yr).

Mailing lists can be public or private and involve as few as two people or many thousands. There are generally two types of lists: announcement (you receive messages but can’t post to the list yourself) and discussion (everyone on the list can join the conversation).

Each list server has a different method for subscribing, so follow the directions provided. Subscribing to a mailing list doesn’t mean you have to pay money; it just means you are asking to have your e-mail address added to the distribution list. You will receive a reply giving you details about the list and how to participate. Soon, you’ll begin receiving mail from other list members. If you don’t want to be overwhelmed with a daily flood of e-mail messages, subscribe to the digest version, if one is available. A digest provides a periodic summary of the messages.

To get off the mailing list, you have to unsubscribe from it. The process varies from one list to another, so follow the directions on the master list site. Do not send a “remove” message to the forum because that’s not how it works.

Here are some additional tips for using mailing lists:

• Subscribe to one or two mailing lists at a time, then wait to see how many messages you receive before you subscribe to any others.
• Save the list subscription instructions. After you subscribe, you will get a response with instructions on how the list works and perhaps most important, how to leave it. You are expected to read and save these instructions. It is considered bad netiquette to send messages to the list requesting help in unsubscribing.
• Turn off the list when you go on vacation. It’s like stopping your newspaper delivery. Some lists have a vacation option. A high traffic list can generate hundreds of messages a day. Your system administrator will not be happy if you leave those messages piling up in your e-mail box. In fact, on some systems you will be charged for disk space storage.

MIRROR SITE URLs that point to a company web site or have the name of the program on them may NOT be included in any “teaser” emails or unsolicited email. LEAP provides all of our distributors with complimentary, company-approved, self-replicating web sites.

NEWSGROUP/USENET are public discussion areas, free and open to anyone with an Internet connection. Usually focused on surprisingly specific topics, newsgroups are where the curious, opinionated, or info-starved go to read and post messages (thoughts, hopes, dreams, rants, raves, advice, info, and everything else). It’s possible to get at newsgroups through a browser - the latest Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer work fine. Better yet, use software that is specially designed to manage, sort, and get the most out of newsgroups.

SAFE EMAIL lists are also known as opt-in lists. That means that people have signed up to send and receive email to and from all the other people on the list. There are many good ones available. All you need to do is perform a search for “safe lists” or “opt-in lists” on any major search engine. But no matter how safe a list is reputed to be, you should only send a blind or teaser ad to the members.

This procedure of protecting the company name, whether it’s LEAP or any other company, is to your benefit, especially in the long run. If a potential prospect already associates the name of your company with spam or unwanted email, and you send them an opt-in email with the name of your company, it’s going to be deleted on the spot. Always preserve the name and reputation of the company you’re working with. Think about your long-term, residual income and how much the reputation of your company plays a role in your earnings.

SEARCH ENGINES You’ve probably heard of Yahoo!, Excite, Lycos, WebCrawler, Go.com, and other Internet search engines. There are literally dozens of these tools to help you locate what you’re looking for. The trick though, is understanding how they work, so you can use the right tool for the job.

Search engines breakdown into two categories — directories and indexes. Directories, such as Yahoo!, are good at identifying general information. They group web sites together under similar categories, such as Internet tutorials, English universities and Paris museums. The results of your search will be a list of web sites related to the subject you are searching for.

But let’s say you want more specific information, such as articles about home-based businesses. Web indexes are the way to go, because they search all the contents of a web sites. Indexes use software programs called spiders or robots that scour the Internet, analyzing millions of web pages and newsgroup postings, indexing all of the words.

Indexes like Lycos find individual pages of a web site that match your search, even if the site itself has nothing to do with what you are looking for. You can often find unexpected gems of information this way, but be prepared to wade through a lot of irrelevant information too. Search results are usually ranked in order of relevancy — the number of times the search terms you used appear in a document, or how closely the document appears to match a concept you have entered. This is a much more thorough way to locate what you want.

The key is that you can literally find everything you’re looking for if you’re willing to spend some time getting acquainted with search engines. If you know how to search, you’ve struck gold. Our recommendation is to choose two search engines and learn them inside out. Each one has a different set of search parameters that you should be familiar with in order to get the most out of your time on line.

================================================================

What is a browser ?
A software program that allows you to view the World Wide Web, (provided you have an Internet connection), and view the contents of Web sites. Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer are the two most widely used browsers.

What are Temporary Internet Files or Cache ?
A cache (pronounced like cash), temporarily stores the information on a page in your computer. When you first request a page from the server, the browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer) checks to see if the page has been previously cached in your computer.

Cache helps display pages faster than the network can download. However, if the page has been updated, its a good idea to not retrieve the cached copy as this is already outdated. To get a current copy of the page, simply hit the Reload button in Netscape or the Refresh button in Internet Explorer.

Also, both browsers give you the option to customize your cache settings.

In Netscape (4.0 or higher)
1. From the menu bar, click on Edit
2. Choose Preferences
3. Collapse the Advanced category
4. Click on Cache

In Internet Explorer (4.0 or higher)
1. Click on View (or Tools in 5.0)
2. Choose Internet Options
3. From the General Tab, under Temporary Internet Files, click on Settings

What are Cookies ?

A “cookie” is a small piece of information which a web server can store temporarily with a web browser and store in your hard disk. This is useful for having the browser remember some specific information which the web server can later retrieve.

Some types of uses for cookies include remembering IDs and passwords, tracking where users go within a website, storing and recalling items you add in an online shopping cart.

Tracking where users go within the Internet is probably the most controversial issue about cookies. And that’s what you’re here to learn — that cookies help advertisers build a profile about their target audience, not a secret way for web servers to find out who you are or what you have in your hard drive.

If you’re still skeptical about cookies, you have the option of setting your preferences so that the browser will notify each time a cookie is about to be stored in your computer. Here’s how to set your cookie preferences:

In Netscape (4.0 or higher)
1. From the menu bar, click on Edit
2. Choose Preferences
3. From the Advanced category, you have 4 ways of setting cookies

In Internet Explorer (4.0)
1. From the menu bar, click on View
2. Choose Internet Options
3. Click on the Advanced tab
4. Scroll down until you reach Security, then a yellow triangle with an exclamation pont. You have 3 ways of setting cookies.

In Internet Explorer (5.0)
1. From the menu bar, click on Tools
2. Choose Internet Options
3. Click on the Security tab
4. Click once on Internet, then Custom Level.
5. Scroll down until you reach Cookies. You have 3 ways of setting cookies.

What does FTP stand for ?
File Transfer Protocol - the code that allows users to transfer files from one computer to another over phone lines. You transfer pages to your web site using FTP.

What is a Home Page ?
The first page on a Web site. That is, the page that comes up when you enter a URL and “go to” that site. Home pages usually contain general information about the site and have links to the other pages on the site.

What is a URL?
Universal Resource Locator - also known as an address, this is the string of characters you type into your browsers to reach a certain Web site. For example, http://www.empowerism.com/e/117307 is the URL for my empowerism web site. It is pronounced by saying the letters U-R-L instead of “earl”.

What is HTML ?
hypertext Markup Language - the programming language used by the World Wide Web. Just as PostScript allows users to produce desktop publishing documents with various fonts and graphics, HTML allows users to create documents for the Web.

What is a Hyperlink ?
An object (text or graphic) containing a link to a Web page. When you click on a hyperlinked object, you are automatically connected with another Web page. It might be another page on the same site, or it might be a page on a different Web site.

What is a Service Provider ?
A company that provides users with Internet access. For example, AOL (American Online) is a service provider–when you join, you get access to AOL services, access to the Internet, and (if you join at a certain rate) space on their server for a small Web site. There are also companies that provide direct access to the Internet and allow you to set up larger Web sites.

What is a Site ?
Short for Web Site, a page or group of pages containing text and graphics that can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection.

What does WWW mean ?
World Wide Web - the Web is a part of the Internet that allows users to view documents containing text, graphics and hyperlinked objects.

========================================================

Backbone - A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major pathway within a network.

Bandwidth - The rate at which you can send or receive information through your connection to the Internet.

BBS - (Bulletin Board System) Areas within the Internet where you can post messages and announcements.

Bot - Short for infobot or knowbot; a program used to search the Internet for data.

BPS - (Bits per Second) refers to the data-transfer speed allowed by the network or your connection to the network.

Cyberspace - The total range of information available through computer networks. A term coined by author William Gibson.

Emoticon - Also known as a ’smiley’, a combination of ASCII characters that suggests an emotion when read sideways

E-mail - Messages sent between computers with an Internet address.

FAQ - (Frequently Asked Questions) Canned answers to questions everyone asks.

Freeware - Software which can be used without any payment, generally downloaded from the Net.

GIF - (Graphics Interchange Format ) A visual image file.

Gopher - A menu-based method of searching for information on the Internet.

Hit - A measure of Web site traffic; each time a page on a site is requested.

Home page - The first screen you see when you enter a Web Site.

HTTP - (hypertext Transport Protocol) The standard for moving hypertext files across the Internet.

IRC - (Internet Relay Chat) A computerized way for people to congregate and chat together.

JPEG - (Joint Photographic Expert Group) A method of storing an image.

LAN - (Local Area Network) What you get when you link all the computers at a single location.

MIME - (Multiple Internet Mail Extensions) Things you can include with e-mail, sent over the Internet i.e. audio, visual images, text messages

Modem - A device that connects your computer to other computers via phone line.

POP - (Point of Presence) An Internet access node of an Internet service provider, in other words, the number your modem rings to get on-line.

POP3 - (Post Office Protocol 3) A type of e-mail system which stores messages on your service provider’s machine and downloads them automatically when you are on-line.

Server - The software that people with a home page need in order to let you look at their stuff, or the computer on which it is held.

Shareware - Software which can be used for free for a trial period, after which a small payment is expected. Generally downloaded from the Net.

Spam - A unprofessional slang term referring to sending a message to multiple newsgroups, mailing lists, or individuals that didn’t ask for it.

TCP/IP - (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) The communications protocol that connects your computer to the Internet.

internet marketing terms internet marketing tips Online Marketing Basics

Share This