My 2¢ Worth

ur latest contest winner was Janet. She won a free ad in the adbox #2 position. Thanks everyone for playing.

 read an article recently in which the author stated that embedded style sheets could harm your search engine rankings. If you have read that too, put your fears to rest. There is absolutely no evidence supporting this claim.

ou see, embedded style sheets go into the head section of your HTML document and therefore will not affect you search engine rankings. Now if these style sheets went into the body of your document, that would be a different story. The only thing the search engines spiders worry about in the head section is your meta tags (Description, keywords, etc.) and your title tag. Then it moves on to the page content. Here's where you need to be careful because many times the spiders will pull a site's description from the body of your document.

ny way, I could write a whole article on these things, which I don't have the space for here. The only point I wanted to make was that you need to be careful about taking everything you read as written in stone. Many times the authors of the articles you read are either misinformed or they have their own agenda.

'm particularly concerned with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) specialists putting their own particular spin on everything they write. Be careful with these people. A good SEO specialist is very difficult to find. In most cases hiring an SEO specialist cost much more than what their services are worth. Many of the things these people advocate are simple not necessarily to obtain decent search engine rankings.

Feature Article

Cook Right?

by: Ken Darby The Pebble

A cannibal went to the tribe's witch doctor. "Doc, I've been feeling lousy lately."

"Hmmm," replied the witch doctor. "Let's review your diet. Are you eating man or animal?"

"Man, doc. We're eating those Catholic missionaries we caught last week."

"OK, tell me how you cook them."

"Same way as always, doc. We boil them up in the big pot."

"Hmmmm," pondered the witch doctor. "Tell me more about these Catholic missionaries."

"Well, funny thing, doc. They all look alike! They're short, fat, wear long robes, sandals, rope for belts, and are bald with a fringe of hair."

"Well, that's your problem right there," responded the witch doctor. "Those guys aren't boilers! Their friars!"

Wow! This guy sounds like the kind of connoisseur I don't want to meet.

Still, like all jokes it brings out a point. It explains that often when we are striving to reach a goal, we don't "cook right".

Oh! We have all the right ideas. We have the right products. We have the right audience to reach, we have found our niche, but somehow it isn't quit working just right.

So many try and fail because they don't properly assess the circumstances, the conditions or how they are reacting to them. They simply draw the conclusion their attempts don't work and they move on to try something altogether new and different, or quit.

You know, we would likely not have the telephone if Bell took that attitude. He knew he was in the right arena. He knew he was on the right path. He knew he was close. Yet somehow it wasn't working just right.

Then, one day, one of his assistants had an accident that changed the world forever. He spilled some fluid on vital equipment, and his voice was heard over wires.

That is what we must do. We must not give up. We must try the same old thing in different ways. You KNOW, deep inside you that you are doing right, are in the right place. All you need do is sometimes change the way you cook to have the meal turn out right.

Cook Right?

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

Ken Darby writes articles, books and other material helping people achieve their goals. We pay for your dream home.
For an amazing income opportunity take a look at www.thenewsshop.com/oursalespeople.htmlYou might want to see if an internet business is for you. For a series of short emails that shows you, sign up for the Pebble at www.the-pebble.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">

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Second Article

Selling Multiple Products? Avoid These Top Blunders

by: Marcia Yudkin Yudkin.com

When your web site sells more than a dozen items, you may face a fierce challenge of helping shoppers find what they are looking for. You'll need to classify products into categories, but these will serve as obstacles and even deal killers if those categories do not match those in the heads of shoppers.

I've seen again and again web sites using classifications that aren't known or understood by a portion of their customers. For instance, I once wanted to buy T-shirts and went to the site of a famous catalog company, where I found a category called "shirts." So far, so good. But then I had to choose between a category called "woven" or another called "knitted." There I got stumped. Are T-shirts woven or knitted? I was not sure.

Another time I was searching for a Toyota car part, ready to buy it, but I could not find it on the Toyota parts web site unless I knew whether it was part of the drive train, an accessory, the exhaust system or something else. I hadn't a clue. In both these cases, the site wrongly assumed that shoppers understood their jargon, and set that up as a barrier to an online purchase.

Let's suppose that you solve the jargon problem and someone finds what they are looking for. The next hurdle for shoppers concerns whether or not people can find answers to all the questions about availability, shipping charges, warranties and return policies that they could easily ask if shopping by phone or in person. In the last year, I would say that only 50% of the time when I'm shopping online I've had all of my pre-purchase questions answered by the web site. Among the multi-product sites I've toured as a reviewer, I don't remember a single one that answered enough questions for shoppers.

Before your site launches, you can think up all the questions people might ask by imagining different kinds of shoppers - people from other countries, corporate buyers, gift givers, etc. - and what they'd need to know. Once your site's been up for a while, collect the questions that come in by email and phone. Gather the questions and answers in a Frequently Asked Questions page and make the FAQ accessible from every page of your site.

Especially do not make people put items into their shopping cart and begin checking out in order to find out the shipping charges and refund policies! Another epidemic blunder is not revealing the address of the company behind the shopping site. Not only is this necessary to set at ease the mind of any shopper worried about recourse against no-show orders or faulty merchandise, it's important for some people to know where items are being shipped from.

Ditto for your privacy policy. Are you going to be renting out your list of customer addresses and bombarding everyone who's bought from you with frequent emails?

Online order forms range from easy to use and complete to baffling and aggravating. Submit yours to what I call "the grandmother test" - ask people who've never seen your site before to place an order and talk through the process out loud. Button your lips and listen. Note where they get stuck and fix your ordering procedures accordingly.

Finally, do you have testimonials attesting to the quality and value of what you sell and the pleasures of doing business with you? That's the cherry on the sundae of a well-designed site from a company shoppers recommend and return to for more purchases!

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

Marcia Yudkin <marcia@yudkin.com> is the author of Web Site Marketing Makeover and 10 other books. A four-time Webby Awards judge and internationally famous marketing consultant, she critiques web sites and performs web site makeovers for clients. Learn more about her detailed critique sessions on five different kinds of web sites (including multi-product sites) at www.yudkin.com/websitequiz.htm .

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