Infoguia2007 guide

This is one of the most important aspects of a site, yet I find many sites still haven't figured this one out. Why are they not trying to get the opt-in? Those that do try to get the opt-in - a lot of times they don't try very hard.

If someone else creates your site for you, they well may not be giving this important aspect of your site much attention. The web is supposed to get rid of the middle-man. Unless you have a lot of money to finance your venture, don't get someone else to do what you can do yourself, and you can easily do it better.

Likewise with the template site: Is the template site going to get that opt-in for you? Probably not. If you have a webmaster or template site, let me ask you: Are you getting opt-ins? If your site has been up for awhile and you've been uploading content, it might well be that you get traffic. Do you get opt-ins? Okay then.

For those who don't know for sure what I mean by a "template site," I mean a site that offers extremely limited functionality and a basic template. "This is what you get and that's it." Those who haven't created their own site don't realize what they miss out on when they buy the template site. You think you are getting a deal. Well, you are getting a deal, alright. A raw deal. Maybe I exaggerate, but not much. The web offers tremendous functionality at an incredibly low price. The template site can't do any better for you because the web simply doesn't work that way. The web gets rid of the middle-man. The template site provider is a middle-man. You must understand that.

I admit I don't get all the opt-ins I'd like, either. But I know what to do about it and I know how to begin. Plus, I have my own website-producing software, and I know how to use it.

Build your own site. I make this suggestion a lot because it's a good one. Moreover, use FrontPage, 2003 or better. Is there a better yet? I've been using 2003 since, well, 2003. 2007 is coming out. I'll wait awhile yet, for the bugs to be detected and dealt with. I think I'll hold onto 2003 a few more years.

To create an opt-in in FrontPage 2003, all you have to do is choose insert: form. Insert a form. This will give you a submit button and a reset button. Get rid of the reset button. Go back to insert. Choose "form". While your curser on the page you are working on is in the form you created, you can no longer create a form. Now you create a textbox. Actually, you create two textboxes, one after another. Before the first textbox, you type "name". Before the second textbox, you type "primary email."

You're not done. You must tell FrontPage what to do with this form. Create a "Thank You" page. FrontPage will do this for you if you don't do it for yourself. You don't want that. Your opt-in is going to be awaiting the free digital goodie on the other end, and you've got to have one. So you create a Thank You page along with a hyperlink to the file available for download. You will click on the properties of the form in "form properties." You get that if you right click the mouse while you scroll over the form you've created.

In properties box, click on "options." In the "file results" tab, you can enter where you want to receive the results of the form. In other words, your customer types name and email, press submits, your web hosting receives this info and passes it along to you. This is all an automatic procedure once the visitor enters the info and clicks "submit."

On the "confirmation" tab of the options in form properties, you can browse for the URL of the Thank You page you created. Enter the Thank You page, and you are done! This may sound a little foreign to you if you have not done any webmastering or are fairly computer illiterate. This information is a lot easier to follow at first if you watch a tutorial. They abound. I produce them as do others.

You can't have an opt-in form without a freebie offering. Well, you can, and a lot of sites do. Those that still get the opt-in work another angle, or they are just plain stupid or lazy. You'll want to offer a freebie or have a good reason for not doing so.

What's the freebie going to be? It depends on what your site is about. I am an artist, so I offer pictures - LOTS of pictures - of my art. Actually, I created an eBook, but I will change this. The eBook doesn't work so well anymore. Instead I will offer a heavy dose of pictures of my work. Web visitors get to see my work. Opt-ins get to see a LOT more.

Whatever you create for your opt-in subscriber, the freebie needs to have some cache. It needs to be special. The opt-in subscriber should get that special feeling that "I get this because I opted in." Your opt-in subscriber has chosen to become a fan. You need to reward your fans, and not with junk.

The freebie should have a great picture to symbolize it, meaning, if it's an eBook, you have a neat picture of your book. These days anyone pretty much can do the necessary photo-editing and graphic titling. And for 50 bucks or so you can get great software that will take your images and turn them into images of books, CDs, DVDs, and so on. With some inexpensive photo-editing software and the 50 dollar or so 3D image creation software, you can look professional. Once again, this all can sound a lot more complicated than it actually is, and screen capture tutorials can help.

Screen capture refers to software that can capture an image of your desktop screen along with voice narration or whatever audio you create. Camtasia predominates, but many companies have produced great screen capture software. You don't have to worry about having this software - quite yet, anyway.

My recipe for a great website: FrontPage 2003, Arcsoft PhotoStudio (photo-editing), and BoxShot 3D (3D-image creation), Bluehost (webhosting), and great tutorials. So get cracking. Don't settle for a webmaster or template site when you can do this thing yourself. Get rid of the middle-man, upload MORE content, and reap the profits.