Ozdachs | Dangerous Common Sense

About Ozdachs

San Francisco Internet Marketer and web designer gets you on the Internet in a cost-effective, responsible way.

How Not to Avoid Spam

One of my clients contacted me today because people are complaining to him that emails they send are bouncing back. My client wanted to change the contact address on his website to one on another email server that is more “reliable.”

The email system he’s using is the same that over 20 other of my clients have, and none of them have reported problems with messages to them bouncing back to the sender. So, I looked at his Contact Us page to see if I could find a problem.

Oh.

When we created the site several years ago, the client was concerned about the amount of spam he was receiving. Spammers were scraping the website and collecting email address. They then were clogging the inboxes with the normal collection of get-rich-quick schemes and offers for panacea pills.

So, my client asked me to delete the email link and to instead list his address as Name <AT> domain.com. His address appeared as mine would if I posted my email address as Galen <AT> ozdachs.com.

This method kept the screen scraping automated programs from collecting his email address. It’s worked for years.

Ozdachs Business Contact Form

However, there are side effects! Some percentage of his clients apparently cannot figure out how to cut Galen <AT> ozdachs.com, paste it into their email program, edit it to become [email protected]. I’m guessing that they’re leaving in an errant space or to. Trying to send email to Galen @ ozdachs.com won’t work.

Basically, web surfers expect to be able to click on a link to send you email, or else they want to fill out a form. You don’t want to make it fancier than these two options because some percentage of your potential clients are not going to be able to figure it out!

I use both ways, an email address that leads to a spam protected mailbox and a contact form, to keep my spam down.

The form on the right is the way to contact me that I provide on my business website.

And, I use SpamArrest to protect messages sent to my personal email account, [email protected]. If you send a message to that public email address, you’ll be sent a message back asking you to click on a link to prove that you’re a human before your email is delivered to me.

These techniques keep the automated mass-mailing messages from appearing in my inboxes.

Of course, determined spammers are going to get their message to you. Some companies hire workers in poor countries to go through sites and fill out inquiry forms with their spammy messages. And, other bulk-mail senders respond to the spam challenge messages sent out by services like SpamArrest.

But, the use of forms with a CAPTCHA (those PQAJ characters in the picture at right) and the use of a spam challenge system will stop almost all of those unwanted email messages.

These two methods work. Asking your customers to cut, paste, and edit your email address leaves a lot of people out.

By Ozdachs|2011-11-20T12:13:38-08:00November 20th, 2011|Web Design|0 Comments

How to Get Your News Published Like a PR Professional

I’ve been on both sides of the press release. I’ve attracted press attention for my active San Francisco church and I have edited the group’s weekly electronic newsletter.

I know what grabs me when I am editing. When I am in PR mode and seeking media attention, I send out pieces that would appeal to my editing side.

Here are 4 Top Tips for Getting Your Story Out

Make your press release “camera ready” so that ~~lazy~~ pressed-for-for-time editors can cut and paste what you’ve submitted right into their article templates.Top news outlets don’t run prepackaged press releases However! Many news outlets wind up running stories that are changed very little from the original press release.
Grammatically correct stories in paragraph form that lead with Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How stand out. A huge percentage of press releases submitted leave out some part of this basic information!

Write paragraphs. Announcements that are all bullet points grab attention on the bulletin board, but they have to be re-written for most news stories. Your material is more likely to be thrown out than lovingly rewritten by a busy editor.
Write your announcement like it is news. Don’t just state the facts about what you’re doing like you’re describing a dead fish. Use action verbs and use the headline to tease the editors into wanting to read more.
If the event doesn’t have a natural news hook, create one!When the church wanted to publicize its anti-Iraq war stance it faced a problem: a church against war is not on any assignment editor’s list of hot news stories.

But, the peace activists and ministers created two brilliant hooks. First, they created a Mother’s Day event that focused on the pacifist sentiments of Julia Ward Howe, the creator of Mother’s Day in 1870. Then, they encircled the entire church block in a colorful peace ribbon which made a great visual backdrop.

When the congregation gathered on the church steps to promote peace on Mother’s Day, television and radio and print media outlets were all represented.
Include pictures in your release. Conventional wisdom says that editors do NOT want photographs and that email systems for many organizations strip out photographs. Maybe.
However, when I wanted coverage for a new minister with five adopted children under 13 years old, I shamelessly embedded a photo of the kids in the press release. Several major news organizations bit on the news release which, if you think of it, could have been dismissed a routine story of a congregation hiring the latest in a series of ministers. The San Francisco Chronicle created a front-page Sunday feature.
Post a summary box at the top of the page. Include the event title, date and time, press contact name and number, and target publication date. This box will let editors know at a glance what you’re publicizing and how to get more information.

When you are attracting publicity you want to do everything you can to grab the editor’s attention and make your story easy to run. Be a great assistant to that work-worked editor, and you’ll see your story picked up and shared.

By Ozdachs|2011-11-11T10:18:13-08:00November 10th, 2011|Writing|0 Comments

Submit to 3000+ Quality Directories — Click Here

A friend is trying to grow her law practice and asked me if she thought this email she received would help get her website noticed:

Subject: Submit to 3000+ quality directories

Do you really know what it takes to quickly
generate high-quality traffic to your Web Site?

Listen up. I must let you in on a few insider *secrets*:

Instead of waiting months to generate sales on your
site, you can start gaining the hits you want right now.

Click here to visit our website

I didn’t click and told her not to go to that site either.

Anyone who is telling you to submit to “3000+ quality directories” is trying to dazzle you with numbers and lead you down a pointless path of quantity.

Think about it. How many Internet directories do you know about? I’ll guess that you can think of maybe 5, if we stretch the definition to include social networking directories like Twitter and Facebook. The Internet names that come to mind the quickest, like Google and Bing, are search sites, not directories, so they don’t count. Directories maintain a list of sites or users, and they provide some information about each entry. True directories like The Open Directory Project and Yahoo! Directory are organized by topic and let you browse as if you were walking down a library aisle.

Even if you were going to combine the number of important search sites and directories, you are still below 50. You’re way below 50 into maybe the teens if you’re a local business only interested in showing up where potential clients will see you. If you’re selling pet grooming services in San Francisco, you probably don’t care whether or not you’re listed in a Chinese directory.

One search engine optimization (SEO) publication I subscribe to (yes, there are SEO journals!) suggests 25 directories that are worth trying to get in. Most are manually edited, and they charge a little or a lot to be listed. Yahoo! requires “only (sic) $299″ per year to be listed, but most charges are lower.

Personally, I don’t often use directories, and think I am a typical Internet surfer in that respect. That means a major value of any directory listing is the link which Google sees from that directory to your site. Google likes links from authoritative directories, like ODP and Yahoo! When a good directory includes your site , Google lists your pages higher in its search results.

But, submitting to hundreds, or thousands, of unread directories is not going to impress Google or other search engines. Nor are 3000 submissions going to increase high quality traffic to your site.

Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet for search engine optimization. There are no automated steps that, if followed, will guarantee that your site will show up on the top of results for searches that will make you money.

I stopped my friend from wasting her time and money responding to the spam email. She’ll be better off doing some common sense optimizations that work! I’ll share in another post what I told my lawyer friend to do to improve her position in Google results.

By Ozdachs|2011-10-30T10:34:55-07:00October 18th, 2011|Scams|0 Comments

Amazon Reinstates California Associates

This Wednesday Amazon.com reinstated the California participants in its associates program. Amazon had thrown out all California associates earlier this year when a new state law threatened to make online Amazon purchases taxable in California, and this week’s reinstatement came after the state and Amazon reached a compromise which was reflected in a law signed by Governor Brown.

You can now again visit Ozdachs business web site, click on the Amazon logo, buy things from Amazon, and I’ll get pennies for your purchase.

Yes, Ozdachs is an Amazon associate, and over a year period I probably earn $100 or so in commissions. Obviously, I am not seriously flogging Amazon, nor am I really depending on its revenue to feed the dogs. I signed up because I wanted to suggest books and related items, and the program was a good way to share my recommendations.

My minimal involvement as an Amazon associate aside, the reinstatement of California associates does raise two important issues.

Issue #1 – the relative fairness of having Internet companies deliver goods tax free when local stores have to pay taxes. This is a political/moral question which I’m happy to talk about. Personally, I support local stores and am willing to pay up about 15% more for items from them. I think that should be enough, since the issue of 8.5% sales tax is balanced by the cost of one-off shipping which online retailers have to deal with. Frankly, I buy online because of selection and convenience more than pure price. But, we can discuss about this point if you disagree.
Issue #2 – if you own a web site, why aren’t you an Amazon associate? Especially if you are a non-profit, why not have a recommended reading page that your members and friends can visit and see your latest reading tips.

The Amazon associate program is free. Applying for the account and setting up commission transfers to your bank takes, what, an hour?

Once you set up your account, you can post small, tasteful suggestions that people click through to Amazon in general or you can link to a specific book or product. (Amazon also provides tools for you to create category pages and other banners, if you’re really going into eCommerce, but that’s a different type of web site than most of my customers have.)

Your Amazon recommendations are actually helpful to your web visitors. Suggestion of quality resources is good web content!

Plus, you’ll earn some money. Even though it’s not a lot, even $100 a year is better than $0. And, if your web site is popular, and your Amazon suggestions compelling, you can earn considerably more. Again, non-profits whose web site visitors want to support the cause can make noticeable commissions as supporters decide to buy from your links, knowing that they’re helping you.

Deal with the 2 Issues

Let’s chat about whether governments should continue to allow Internet sites to sell without collecting sales taxes. At the same time, if you’re a web master, think about what books and goods you can honestly recommend, and sign up with Amazon to buy kibble for your dogs.

By Ozdachs|2011-10-07T09:54:26-07:00October 7th, 2011|Tips and Resources|1 Comment

Run this Again, … It’s Important!

“But, it’s important!” I get told by the author of an article we ran in the organization’s last electronic newsletter. “Nothing has changed this week. Can’t you just run the story again?”

I understand that it takes a lot of time to create even a two- or three-paragraph invitation asking people to join in your event. When you’re the organizer of a class and have to worry about the content and the petty organization details, writing a fresh press release can be just one thing too many. I sympathize because I’ve been there! But, the answer to “Can’t you just run the story again?” is “No.”

Repeating a story is unwanted by readers, bad for the publication, and also bad for the activity being promoted.

Readers know when they’ve seen something, and they will keep checking the newsletter — or listening to in-person announcements — only when they are being exposed to new information. Repeating the same words week-in and week-out because it is “important” is unlikely to get more participation. People tune out old news, and if there is a lot of old news in the publication, they’ll stop reading it completely. Moreover, repeating the same words another time has a diminishing impact on the reader. They have already seen that come-on one time, made their decision not to join in, and repeating the same “come on down” message is not a good way to get them to change their mind.

Your invitation to participate has to be fresh each time you give it!

Here’s What to Do

If you are working on a major or ongoing event you can tell people about what you’re doing repeatedly. Just give a different focus for each of your stories.

Here’s are some creative ways people have made second and third and fourth stories sound fresh and new:

The organizers of the annual pledge drive ask a different person in the organization to write what the group means to them and to explain why they are giving generously. The message of (“GIVE!”) is consistent, but each story is interesting because of the personalities of the folks writing in.
Weekly articles advertising a multi-session religious education course offered glimpses into the specific content for that week’s class. While people were welcome to sign up for the whole series, the weekly focus on the topic of the next class gave people new insight each week.
A major fundraising silent auction wanted to build up excitement among donors and bidders, so the auctioneers sent in new stories over six weeks. Each story highlighted a different aspect of the event: one week the article solicited donations for vacation rentals, another week’s article talked about donating restaurant and home-cooked meals, and then the spotlight shifted to the fun of an auction reception with a preview of bidding. The overall theme of “silent auction” ran through each episode, but the new ideas in each story made you want to read it and find out more!

Repeated articles are not nearly as fun to read as new ones on the same topic. In addition, stories that are repeated are often inaccurate! Plans and details change, and if your press information distribution system is on autopilot, you probably propagating outdated news. Cutting and pasting from past releases is kosher, but you have to sit down at the keyboard and create every time blast out a story.

Finally, if you have completely run out of ideas and cannot think of a way to flog the event and make it sound interesting, maybe it’s time to stop. If you’re tired of writing about the event, people are surely tired of reading about it!

By Ozdachs|2011-10-10T15:29:41-07:00October 4th, 2011|Newsletters, Writing|0 Comments

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