Poor Webmaster Personal Sites

[William Tasso]

...
Web design/development is going to the dogs people. Time to learn how
to drive a truck.

Always a good back-up plan

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

You REALLY can't make a blanket statement like that. It IS true for some
sites,
but obviously is not true for others. And I'm not talking about pure
dotcoms,
either, I'm talking about brick and mortar companies that happen to have
websites. Some of them are very effective in bringing in revenue.

I've never met anyone in person who's made a decent living from the
internet. I DO know people who spend big money with conventional advertising
to drive customers to the website the makes money, but NEVER met one that
made any money from finding internet customers. Have you? If so what's their
url and how much do they make? One thing for sure I've never met a Realtor
who's ever had a site that pulled it's own weight never mind made a profit
for them, and I know A LOT of Realtors.

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

Hm. Do you not have the flash player installed, or are you just blocking
downloads of .swf files? Actually, either way, the site should
automatically
forward you to /welcome - if it's not, let me know so I can fix it. I
would
never *require* Flash on a website unless a client wanted their site to
require
Flash, and even then I'd try to persuade the client to not require it.

I was just being a wise ass. Sorry. It's just I feel that Flash slows
everything down and is more appropriate for children sites that cater to
children. I don't see how it will put a dime in your client's pocket. IMO
it's value lies more in impressing the client's inner child.

There are plenty of Flash Blockers out there however
http://www.adseliminator.com/

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Eric Jarvis]

I've never met anyone in person who's made a decent living from the
internet. I DO know people who spend big money with conventional advertising
to drive customers to the website the makes money, but NEVER met one that
made any money from finding internet customers. Have you? If so what's their
url and how much do they make? One thing for sure I've never met a Realtor
who's ever had a site that pulled it's own weight never mind made a profit
for them, and I know A LOT of Realtors.

In one job I used to take home a good proportion of a seventy grand
sponsorship deal. The sponsors considered it good value and had increased
the sponsorship three years in a row when I left. So not only was I making
money, and the site making money, but a multinational were also making
money too.

What you can't do is make good money from being at the bottom of the heap.
You need to be amongst the best at what you do. Of course being the only
site on a subject in two out of three of the World's most used languages
can also help.

It's no different from any other market, you have to offer the customer
something they are prepared to pay for. The difference is that it's an
enormously wide ranging market, so there isn't as much room for being
small scale and local as there is in most fields. A lot of people don't
get that and don't know why they can't operate locally on the web just as
they do with a bricks and mortar business. Adequate but local doesn't cut
it. You have to be amongst the best in one way or another.

 

[Charles Sweeney]

Stephen Horrillo wrote

I've never met anyone in person who's made a decent living from the
internet.

Allow me to introduce myself. (this is as near "in person" as it gets!)

For the best part of three years plus, my only income has been from the
internet. Mainly from selling a file I wrote for Autocad, plus other stuff
here and there.

It's not a huge income, but it buys me independence, which for me is more
than decent!

 

[Eric Jarvis]

I was just being a wise ass. Sorry. It's just I feel that Flash slows
everything down and is more appropriate for children sites that cater to
children. I don't see how it will put a dime in your client's pocket. IMO
it's value lies more in impressing the client's inner child.

There are lots of uses for Flash. It's great for animated tutorials for
instance, which can help when it comes to staff training or instructions
(or hints and tips) for customers. The trouble with most Flash is that
it's second rate. Good writers and animators cost money, if you don't pay
TV rates you don't get TV quality work. Most web Flash is created by
people who can't pull that sort of money. Too many people think that means
they can get away with second rate work on the cheap.

 

[Steve Sobol]

I was just being a wise ass.

So did you actually have flash turned off, and if you did, did the site
automatically redirect you to /welcome and/or provide a link to that page?

Thanks in advance for the info.

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / (e-mail address removed) / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

The problem here is often that many businesses put up a website and then
don't think about how they are going to market and promote the website -
they seem to think that just having a website is good enough and that the
sales will just start magically rolling in with little to no work on their
part.

That's precisely what they think. So the what it comes down to is I can put
my phone number on an advert or I can put the web address. But it's the
advert that's pulling the weight not the website. I that case who needs it?

customers who want to sit at home
and view a few hundred different possibilities to pick that "dream home"
instead of just limiting themselves to seeing just a few houses a day and
settling on one.--

Problem is the ratio of realty sites to realty customers. I've had some
success "doing nothing" but SEO ("nothing" meaning not putting out and
traditional adverts or spam to create traffic) but the success is very
minor. For example www.over100percent.com gets me about a lead a week and I
do nothing, but that's not going to come anywhere close to paying the bills.

Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[G*rd*n]

...
That's precisely what they think. So the what it comes down to is I can put
my phone number on an advert or I can put the web address. But it's the
advert that's pulling the weight not the website. I that case who needs it?
...

The web site has about the same function as a glossy
brochure. It could create some sales. However, with some
squeezing, you could get _both_ the phone number and the URL
in a print ad or on a business card.

 

[Robert Broughton]

Some people who design/maintain websites for a living want to make a site
where the aim is not to sell anything at all and will deliberately do
things that will prevent that such as not updating the layout for years.

In my case, my personal home page is just that: personal. As Tim said, it
doesn't exist to sell or promote anything.

--
Bob Broughton
http://broughton.ca/
Vancouver, BC, Canada
"Not all carcinogens are known to cause cancer in humans."
- Todd Benson, mailto:[email protected] , Oct. 24, 2004

 

[Windsun]

Then you have not been around much.

"If so what's their url and how much do they make?

See URL below. And we make enough so that our income is well above the US
average.

 

[Windsun]

If you think that, then you don't know how to use Flash appropriately.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[William Tasso]

...
how to use Flash appropriately.

would make for an intersting discussion, but perhaps for another day.

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

There are lots of uses for Flash. It's great for animated tutorials for
instance, which can help when it comes to staff training or instructions
(or hints and tips) for customers.

I've used Camtasia and that gives me the choice to use Flash or AVI which
can be converted into many other file formats. What makes Flash better than
a movie file?

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

So did you actually have flash turned off, and if you did, did the site
automatically redirect you to /welcome and/or provide a link to that page?

Thanks in advance for the info.

No I was just making a point that more and more will be blocking Flash as it
gets assciated with ad banners. I NEVER block any adverts and I welcome spam
because I like to study how other's are marketing their products.

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in microsoft.public.frontpage.client,alt.www.webmaster,

I NEVER block any adverts and I welcome spam
because I like to study how other's are marketing their products.

You're weird.

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

Then you have not been around much.


See URL below. And we make enough so that our income is well above the US
average.

So you're telling me you don't spend money to get people to come to your
site? Your "above average" income is coming mainly from customers searching
the web, finding you then buying Solar?

BTW, I used to be a solar contractor and sold thermal solar for many years
before I got into real estate and my cheesy site at
http://www.angelfire.com/alt/solarwaterheaters/ still occationally gets
enquiries to this day.


--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[John Bokma]

I've used Camtasia and that gives me the choice to use Flash or AVI
which can be converted into many other file formats. What makes Flash
better than a movie file?

Flash can contain vector graphics, which can compress way better compared
to AVI. For example, most cartoons could be compressed way and way better
using their original vector format compared to rendering and then
compressing them (and without those ugly artifacts that result from the
aformentioned compressing).

Also, a movement in a vector movie can be just a simple
rotation/translation/etc. E.g. a spinning rectangle can be:

draw a rectangle at 0,0, width 100, height 200, colour yellow
rotate 1 degree
rotate 1 degree
rotate 1 degree
etc.

 

[Windsun]

That is true. For the first time in years, today I turned off Flash.

Odd isn't it, that advertising to get around pop up blockers may be what
kills Flash as a viable website medium.
[/QUOTE]

 

[Windsun]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So you're telling me you don't spend money to get people to come to your
site? Your "above average" income is coming mainly from customers
searching
the web, finding you then buying Solar?

Yes, that is exactly what I am telling you. We spend maybe at most $1000 a
month for advertising, mainly on Google and Overture ads. And we are in the
process of cutting that back now also to about half or less, as we are too
swamped and running low on product. We spend zero on print ads, except once
a year for yellow pages and about $50 6x a year in one specialty magazine.

We started as a B&M store 25 years ago, now about 80%+ of our sales are from
the internet.