Volume 1 Issue 12 6-30-06
For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I12_063006.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com.
Table of Contents for this issue.....
1. Author's comments
2. Publish your own eZine without a website
3. How to create an eZine
4. Free - How to Book on eZines
5. Site Build It #6
6. Voice Recognition Status Report
Author's Comments
Hello again. It is amazing how fast the weekend rolls around and it is time to publish the Boomer eZine again. I am so fortunate that there is so much happening on the Internet. This makes my job much easier. If I were writing about some fairly static, boring industry, I could not pump out these issues every week.
The high point of our week was a visit from our daughter, Susanna. She is a "road warrior" with a territory from Amarillo in the High Plains of Texas to Pharr in southern Texas , near the Mexican border. She lives in Austin and she visits us when she is passing through to her southern territory.
The main theme of this issue is about publishing (what else) eZines. I have come across some great ideas that I am using, and I will share them with you.
Publish your own eZine without a website
Publishing an eZine without a website is certainly possible since you really only need to be able to send your newsletter to your readers using email. However, most publishers like to post the past issues of the newsletters and this is usually done on a website. Also, in text email you cannot embed AdSense ads and other revenue generating items. In the HTML format of the website you are able to do this and develop some potential for revenue.
Also, the website gives you a location where you can post a form for new subscribers to complete that enters them into your database. So having a web site is definitely an advantage in publishing an eZine, but it is not absolutely necessary.
The new concept that I have developed is to use a blog to post past issues of the newsletters so people can read them in HTML format if they desire. I have started testing this project and it appears to be working well.
Let’s talk about blogging
Blog is short for web log. It is an online journal or newsletter that is published by someone on the Internet for public reading.
The largest blog site on the Internet is www.blogger.com. This site started in 1999 and was purchased by Google in 2002. The site on the Internet that keeps statistics on the traffic for every site on the Internet is called www.alexa.com. I just checked the stats for www.blogger.com on Alexa and it is rated 12th in the US and 18th in the world so you can see it is very popular.
Traffic to your site is the major factor for the success or failure of your site. Your site’s position on Google or Yahoo search engines for your key words will make or break you. Having your newsletter on Blogger helps since the Google spiders check the blogs when new information is posted. This will give you much quicker exposure to the search engines than posting your newsletters on a website.
I made a decision to continue to post copies of the Boomer eZine on the Boomer eZine web site and also post to the Boomer eZine blog on www.blogger.com.
The blog that I have set up is Boomer-eZine (luckily the name was available). The URL for it is http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com.
I am in the process of transferring the old issues of Boomer eZine so when you check it may not be complete, but it will be before too long.
There are some great advantages of using a blog for the archives of your eZine.
1. It is free.
2. You do not have to worry about setting up a website.
3. Publishing on a blog is very quick and easy.
4. You can include AdSense or affiliate advertising on your blog to generate revenue.
5. Setting up AdSense ads on Blogger is much easier than setting them up on your own website.
6. Readers can leave comments about your issues and interact with you.
7. Search engines see your new content faster than on your own website.
Since AdSense is such an important part of this program, I recommend that you join it first and then set up your blog.
AdSense is a Google program that you set up on your web pages. It reads the content of the page and automatically places ads on the page that match the page’s theme or content. When a reader clicks on an AdSense ad on your page and makes a purchase, you receive a commission on the sale. All you have to do is allow the AdSense program on your pages and Google does the rest. Is an ingenious system and one that has revolutionized advertising on the Internet. If you are not already a member of AdSense, click the link below to go to the AdSense web site and register.
https://www.google.com/adsense/
Now that you have joined AdSense, let’s set up a blog. This is very easy. Go to www.blogger.com and follow the three easy steps on the page. Once you open an account, you will name your blog, and then choose a template. There are several templates to choose from which is the hardest part of the set up. Don’t get too concerned about the template since you can change it whenever you want to.
Table of Contents for this issue.....
1. Author's comments
2. Publish your own eZine without a website
3. How to create an eZine
4. Free - How to Book on eZines
5. Site Build It #6
6. Voice Recognition Status Report
Author's Comments
Hello again. It is amazing how fast the weekend rolls around and it is time to publish the Boomer eZine again. I am so fortunate that there is so much happening on the Internet. This makes my job much easier. If I were writing about some fairly static, boring industry, I could not pump out these issues every week.
The high point of our week was a visit from our daughter, Susanna. She is a "road warrior" with a territory from Amarillo in the High Plains of Texas to Pharr in southern Texas , near the Mexican border. She lives in Austin and she visits us when she is passing through to her southern territory.
The main theme of this issue is about publishing (what else) eZines. I have come across some great ideas that I am using, and I will share them with you.
Publish your own eZine without a website
Publishing an eZine without a website is certainly possible since you really only need to be able to send your newsletter to your readers using email. However, most publishers like to post the past issues of the newsletters and this is usually done on a website. Also, in text email you cannot embed AdSense ads and other revenue generating items. In the HTML format of the website you are able to do this and develop some potential for revenue.
Also, the website gives you a location where you can post a form for new subscribers to complete that enters them into your database. So having a web site is definitely an advantage in publishing an eZine, but it is not absolutely necessary.
The new concept that I have developed is to use a blog to post past issues of the newsletters so people can read them in HTML format if they desire. I have started testing this project and it appears to be working well.
Let’s talk about blogging
Blog is short for web log. It is an online journal or newsletter that is published by someone on the Internet for public reading.
The largest blog site on the Internet is www.blogger.com. This site started in 1999 and was purchased by Google in 2002. The site on the Internet that keeps statistics on the traffic for every site on the Internet is called www.alexa.com. I just checked the stats for www.blogger.com on Alexa and it is rated 12th in the US and 18th in the world so you can see it is very popular.
Traffic to your site is the major factor for the success or failure of your site. Your site’s position on Google or Yahoo search engines for your key words will make or break you. Having your newsletter on Blogger helps since the Google spiders check the blogs when new information is posted. This will give you much quicker exposure to the search engines than posting your newsletters on a website.
I made a decision to continue to post copies of the Boomer eZine on the Boomer eZine web site and also post to the Boomer eZine blog on www.blogger.com.
The blog that I have set up is Boomer-eZine (luckily the name was available). The URL for it is http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com.
I am in the process of transferring the old issues of Boomer eZine so when you check it may not be complete, but it will be before too long.
There are some great advantages of using a blog for the archives of your eZine.
1. It is free.
2. You do not have to worry about setting up a website.
3. Publishing on a blog is very quick and easy.
4. You can include AdSense or affiliate advertising on your blog to generate revenue.
5. Setting up AdSense ads on Blogger is much easier than setting them up on your own website.
6. Readers can leave comments about your issues and interact with you.
7. Search engines see your new content faster than on your own website.
Since AdSense is such an important part of this program, I recommend that you join it first and then set up your blog.
AdSense is a Google program that you set up on your web pages. It reads the content of the page and automatically places ads on the page that match the page’s theme or content. When a reader clicks on an AdSense ad on your page and makes a purchase, you receive a commission on the sale. All you have to do is allow the AdSense program on your pages and Google does the rest. Is an ingenious system and one that has revolutionized advertising on the Internet. If you are not already a member of AdSense, click the link below to go to the AdSense web site and register.
https://www.google.com/adsense/
Now that you have joined AdSense, let’s set up a blog. This is very easy. Go to www.blogger.com and follow the three easy steps on the page. Once you open an account, you will name your blog, and then choose a template. There are several templates to choose from which is the hardest part of the set up. Don’t get too concerned about the template since you can change it whenever you want to.
Once you have established your account, you can set up the blog for your eZine. (You can have multiple blogs in your account). However, I would recommend that you create a blog about your thoughts and experiences while you are planning your eZine launch and make daily entries in that blog. This will give you experience on how to maintain a blog and I think you will have fun doing it. Just remember that the world sees your information in the blog so don’t give away any confidential information about your new eZine.
How to create an eZine – a Free How to Book
Creating an eZine is a challenge, but if you have a message to give to other people, you will find it fun and rewarding. I could write volumes about this topic, but I think that you will learn more by reading an eBook that I will give you free. It is called “Ezines 101” or “How to get Started as an Ezine Publisher”. It is a collection of articles by several well known eZine publishers or eZine experts.
I read this book several times before I launched Boomer eZine and I still use it as a reference. Some of the links in it are broken, but the links to the important, better known sites are still good.
You can read this from the Boomer-eZine website or you can download it to your own computer and read it when you want to. It is an Adobe PDF file so your will need to have Adobe Reader on your computer.
To read it from the website, left click this link. http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Downloads/eBook-on-eZines.pdf
To download it to your computer, right click the above link and select “Save Target As”.You will then be able to write it to your hard drive and read or print it later. Just remember the folder where you told the download to write it. TIP: I have a folder named “Downloads” and I always download into that folder so I always know where the download is. Many downloads are temporary and you can then come back and easily delete the unneeded files later.
I think you will really enjoy this book if you have any inclination to publish an eZine. Good reading!
For more great eZine reference information, go to Ezine Articles and look for information about eZines at http://www.ezinearticles.com/?cat=Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Ezine-Publishing. There is an entire category on eZines in the index.
Good luck!
Site Build It #6
Last week, I told you that was going to experiment with using Front Page to create web pages for our Site Build It site. I tried this and it was very successful.
When you want to create your own web pages to Site Build It, there is a defined procedure for doing so. You download a template of your Site Build It page from Site Build It into your HTML editor, in this case Front Page, and then you build your web pages using that template.
When you have built your page the way that you want it, you go to Site Build It and use the section about uploading your own web pages. In this section you browse your hard disk to find the web page that you want to upload. You then enter that into Site Build It and then click the upload button. Site Build It will then load your page and tells you if the upload was successful. You then perform the Site Build It functions such as checking the page to make certain that you have conformed to all of the proper rules for creation of title, key words, description, and heading on the page to make it very search engine friendly.
Once you have satisfied yourself and Site Build It, you then tell Site Build It to build your page and it becomes active on the Internet.
If you go and check out www.retirement-jobs online.com you will see the new pages that we created using the Front Page editor. You can access them by the navigation bar that says “Internet Basics”. There are three pages that we added using this method. If you read them, you will notice that the font size is slightly larger than the font of the pages that were built using Site Build It. I’ll go back and correct this sometime next week since this is not a real problem. But I want the look and feel of the site to be the same for all pages.
I want all readers to understand that is not necessary to use an HTML editor to build a website using Site Build It. I will probably not use an HTML editor again unless I need to build a page with some very special effects that will be easier to create in Front Page than in Site Build It.
I have said in the past every time I work with Site Build It I continue to be impressed with it. It is more expensive than just a hosting on a web host, but it has so much more to offer, especially for the beginner on the Net.
I will report more on Site Build It in future articles.
Voice Recognition
Back in Volume 1, Issues 2 and 4, I discussed the use of voice recognition for data entry into the computer. I am using voice recognition for entering this issue of Boomer eZine. I am still not pleased with the accuracy level of the dictation, but I can put words on the screen much faster with this method than I can by typing. I have to do a lot of editing but overall it is much faster for me to dictate the article into the computer, and then edit it than to type it.
Another factor which helps me with this is my wonderful wife, Linda, who is a great proofreader, grammarian, and has a great grasp of the English language. With her looking out for what comes out of my productions, I can lay down text quickly and know that she will catch most errors that I miss.
If you are a fast and accurate typist, then voice recognition using Windows XP may not be for you. I have not purchased the Dragon Naturally Speaking software, but I might in near future.
I can probably improve the accuracy of the dictation if I spend more time reading the training exercises to the voice recognition software so that they will increase the accuracy of the dictation. I must put that on my long “to do” list.
Well, that’s it for this issue. I hope that you will seriously consider working on creating a blog and publishing an eZine. A blog is something that you should consider whether you plan to publish an eZine or not. You can have fun and make money at the same time when you’re publishing a blog. Happy blogging!
Until next week, stay tuned.
posted by John & Linda Howe at 8:44 PM
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