My 2¢ Worth

here's only one thing I like better than publishing this E-zine. That would be eating. Well... make that two things.

he point is that Web Sm@rts is not paying its way. I've mentioned in the past how much work it is to publish this E-zine each week. If I divided the income derived by the man-hours spent putting this E-zine together for you it would be plainly obvious that my time is worth about 25¢ an hour. Depression wages.

owever, I'm not ready to give up publishing yet. This is still a labor of love for me!

hat being said, however, I still like to eat. Well you don't buy too many groceries on 25¢ an hour. So I'm going to try something new.

eginning today, Web Sm@rts is accepting your donations. If you would care to help a starving publisher eat, just click on the graphic to your right and make a donation to this E-zine. The amount may be anything you like, although you probably don't want to waste your time with anything less than a dollar.

hether you choose to donate or not, I will continue bring Web Sm@rts to you for free each week. Deal?

heck out our great advertising prices too. Advertising in Web Sm@rts is a great value. E-zine advertising is still your most affordable advertising solution on the Web today and best of all, it gets results!

'll let you get on with the articles now. Thanks in advance for feeding a starving E-zine publisher! But do hurry... I'm getting mighty skinny here.

Feature Article

Maximum Marketing - Minimum Budget

by: Bonnie Davis ArticlesThatSell.com

Two years ago I started my small Virtual Assistant business with a non-existent marketing budget. I borrowed marketing books from the library, read countless articles on the Internet and joined a professional trade association of my peers. I learned hundreds of marketing techniques and one valuable lesson. The lesson I learned is that the financial ruin of large companies is often achieved by incredibly expensive and glitzy marketing plans that do not take into account the company’s ability to earn a profit. Over time, I found that the most effective marketing techniques that allow a company to make a profit are those that are inexpensive or free. What a fantastic discovery for me at that time! This knowledge, combined with hard work and excellent customer service, enabled my small business to expand at a phenomenal rate.

When developing your marketing plan be aware that frugal marketing techniques take more time and a great deal of personal creativity but they DO produce results! Following are a few of my most successful frugal marketing techniques:

Website

It is not necessary to spend thousands of dollars on a beautiful website. Some of the most effective and interesting websites I have seen were built on a frugal budget. Far more important than the cost is the content of a website. At a minimum your website should include your company name, contact information, tagline or slogan, company/owner biography, a list of services, a client list or list of testimonials, articles or press releases you have written and any interesting information related to your business that might be of help to your visitors. It is essential that you use a paid web host and not a free service. Free hosting may exclude you from search engine listings and may brand you as a neophyte in your field when that impression may not be correct. Inexpensive hosting is available and many hosts provide free or low cost web templates that will give your site a polished and consistent look. For a list of affordable web hosts visit the Web Host Directory and Host Review. Having a well-developed website will help you leverage the results of your other frugal marketing techniques and, in the long run, will save you money by reducing the overall cost and shipping of your marketing materials.

Public Relations

Create a press release and submit it to your local newspaper. Highlight the unusual aspects of your business and educate the reader about your business and your industry. Do not simply promote your own company, but promote the industry as a whole. Position your business as unique in that industry by explaining, for example, how your company takes a novel approach to delivering products or services. Take the same press release and format it for the Internet. Submit it to as many free press release sites that you can find such as LocalBusiness.com, PRWeb.com and USA News. For added impact, search the Newslink website to find other community newspapers in your state that might be interested in your business news. Follow standard press release formatting and be sure to add that you are available for interviews in your contact information section as this opens the door for feature interviews during slow "news" weeks for local papers. Send out a press release every quarter or at least twice a year. Always include your website’s URL in any marketing materials and press releases. For more information about press releases including formatting visit the Netpreneur Exchange, Infoscavenger and Pertinent Information.

Contests

Sponsor local or on-line contests by providing a prize. This could be one of your products or a coupon for two or three hours of your services. In return you will receive valuable free publicity. Find local contests, which would welcome your participation by scanning your community newspaper. Target on-line contests by surfing for well-established companies that compliment your own. For example, if you sell wine glasses, you should seek a company that sells wine and offer a set of wine glasses as a contest prize. Another option is to search for e-zines (on-line newsletters) that cover a topic related to your business and ask the editor about partnering to offer a contest to readers with your product or service as the prize. You can find e-zines by searching on-line directories such as BestEzines.com, The Ezine Directory or Ezine Search.

Publishing

This is my favorite technique. Write an article about an interesting or timely topic related to your business that would be of interest to your target market. Ask a friend or loved one with editing skills to proof your article for you. Create a four or five line biography at the end of the article that includes your contact information: your company name, e-mail address and company URL. Add a copyright statement at the very bottom of the article. Then submit the article to on-line article archives, e-zines and appropriate websites. This technique helps establish you as an expert in your field, publicizes your business, and creates incoming links to your website to increase your link popularity and search engine rankings. You can begin submitting your article to: Article City, Expert Articles and GoArticles.com. These three resources will get you started but a quick Internet search will provide an extensive listing of thousands of venues on-line.

Networking

Research your local chamber of commerce and start attending their networking events. Develop and rehearse an interesting "elevator speech" that summarizes your business and your talents in less than thirty seconds. Introduce yourself to as many people as possible, give your elevator speech and hand out your business cards and collect the business cards of prospects. Take the business cards you collected, use the back of the card to write down what you discussed or other important information about the prospect, and FOLLOW UP! Write and mail a quick note on your business stationery to say how nice it was to meet them and mention something memorable you discussed. Keep in touch with them on a regular basis.

Join on-line communities such as newsgroups, discussion boards, e-mail lists, etc. where your target market and peers congregate. Introduce yourself and your business if introductions are allowed by the community guidelines and encouraged by the list moderator. Establish your credibility and promote yourself by responding to questions in your field of expertise. Join an affordable, well-known and professional association of your peers on-line or locally. If it is permitted, announce your availability to take on sub-contracted work from your peers, but read the guidelines and do not "spam" these lists which will result in a loss of your credibility and professionalism. Become involved locally with a worthy charity by donating your time, products or services.

Over time, as your business grows, you can and should add a few paid marketing techniques to your marketing plan. But you must continue to use the most rewarding of your free and inexpensive marketing techniques to maximize your profit. Never forget that creativity, hard work and excellent customer service are the keys to growing a successful business while keeping your marketing costs in check.

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Bonnie Jo Davis is a Virtual Assistant specializing in frugal marketing techniques. Bonnie recently published an e-book "Articles That Sell" focusing on her favorite technique.
Visit Bonnie at www.ArticlesThatSell.com

Describing tables using the SUMMARY attribute

Remember the ALT attribute in <img> tags? The SUMMARY attribute in <table> tags serve a similar purpose, in that it will provide a description of the table to users of non-visual browsers. Unlike the alt attribute, Explorer 4.x, Communicator 4.x and lower browsers do not use the SUMMARY attribute to display pop-up hints when the mouse is paused over the table

NOTE: You likely won't see a visual change by adding the SUMMARY attribute if you're using a graphical browser. However, HTML authors concerned about their content being accessible in different mediums and by users with disabilities are advised to provide a summary of their tables.

Example
<table summary="Red, green and blue rectangles">

* Get these syndicated tip feeds for your web site, free. *

Second Article

Alphabetizing By Last Name in Microsoft Word

by: Ed Andrist Paradigm Web Design

Have you ever had a list of names in a Word document that you needed to sort? The format in which the names appear can be bothersome. For example, if the names are in the order First name/Last name, then it can be more challenging to sort them than if they are in a Last name/First name order. There are several ways you can accomplish the task, however. One way is with the use of tables. All you need to do is follow these general steps:

1. Convert the text to a table, using the space between the first and last names as a separator between columns.
2. Sort the names based upon the second column, which contains the last name.
3. Then convert the table back into text.

While this process might sound difficult, but it can go very quickly and allows you to easily see what Word is doing during the sorting.

Another approach that doesn't require messing around with tables is to simply sort the text by words. You can do that by following these steps:

1. Make sure the names in your document are arranged so there is only one person per paragraph
2. Select all the paragraphs containing names.
3. Choose the Sort option from the Table menu. (If you are using Word 6 or Word 95, choose Sort Text from the Table menu.) Word displays the Sort Text dialog box.
4. Click on Options. Word displays the Sort Options dialog box.
5. Select the Other option
6. Erase whatever is in the box to the right of other, replacing it with a single space. (You are telling Word that you want to consider spaces as the dividing point between sort fields.)
7. Click on OK to close the Sort Options dialog box.
8. Use the Sort by drop-down lists to specify the word by which you want to sort. For example, if you want to sort by last name (the word after the first space), you should choose Word 2 in the Sort by drop-down list.
9. Click on OK to sort your names.

You should note that this approach only works properly if all the names in your list are formatted the same. If there is only a first and last name for each person, then the sorting works fine. It will also work fine if there is a first, middle, and last name for each person — the only difference is that you would select Word 3 in step 8.

Problems creep in, however, if there are two names for some people and three for others. In those instances, even the convert-to-table approach first mentioned will not work properly. In that case you must do something to make sure that Word treats first and middle names as if they are a single word; for instance, by separating them with a non-breaking space.

**************

Ed Andrist is the owner of Paradigm Web Design where a great web site doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Only an arm. He also publishes this E-zine as well as being involved in several other web sites.

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comments@ paradigmwebdesign.net

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