Vol. 3, Issue 4
Increasing Business Through Print Media And The Internet

CONTENTS
Newsletter Archives

"Ask O" Archives







Sam Razi - Computer Guy Extraordinaire and Newest Team Member of Dezins. Here he is in Belize... Wow! Working for Dezins must be great!
THE DEZINS TEAM IS GROWING - We Welcome Sam Razi - Actually, Sam has been with us for nearly 6 months now... maybe longer. It was one of those situations where BAM here you are and here we go. Razi joins the Dezins team and brings with him a keen insight and  ability when it comes to programming, web development, content management systems, database implementation and management, server monitoring and administration, small / medium business networking and configuration.

Actually those of you who joined us with the server transfer already worked with Sam and didn't even know it.

Sam is a graduate of LSU and his experience and education in Information Systems. Sam has a wonderful ability to communicate clearly, hear exactly what the customer needs and is able to make experienced suggestions as to the best solution to fit individual client needs.

Sam has truly made a huge impact on the services we provide by offering his time and talents. We've met alot of "techies" before but never someone so capable and downright great as Sam. Join us in welcoming him and say hello at anytime... srazi@dezins.com



Elray Kocke Service, Inc. Service to their community and to their customers are uppermost in the minds of their dedicated employees and these founding values have remained true since 1916. Elray Kocke Service, Inc. is available for all of your lumber needs for both residential and commercial use and they are proud producers of ready mixed concrete and are able to ensure the highest quality and longest lasting results at their concrete plant. www.elraykocke.com and www.lumberandconcrete.com


The McDonald Group There's a new group on the block. Well actually these realtors have years of experience but have recently teamed their strengths to bring you, The McDonald Group. They proudly serve the Baton Rouge, Ascension, Livingston and surrounding area real estate market. In today's competitive real estate market, timing is everything. Many good homes are sold before they are ever advertised. Let the experience of The McDonald Group get you the home you want to buy or sell. www.mcdonaldproperties4you.com

SHE'S MARRIED! We've spent months talking about it and guess what? IT'S FINALLY HERE. Southern Grace Weddings magazine and website has made its introduction and the response has been INCREDIBLE. Brides, grooms, brides-to-be, mother-in-laws-to-be, wedding vendors and other area wedding professionals all have said the same thing. WOW! Check it out for yourself online and make sure to pick-up a copy of Ascension's first bridal magazine at numerous area locations. www.southerngraceweddings.com



WAYS TO ADD QUALITY CONTENT TO YOUR SITE (Part I)

We’ve all heard about quality content on a web site and how important it is. Yes it is extremely important. And it is most important to two groups of people: Your buying customers and your potential new customers.

So what is quality content? Quality content is whatever it takes to get your existing customers to buy from you and keep your current customers coming back. You build your relationship with your customers and your website is an extension of this relationship. So why not include features on your website that your customers would enjoy reading about. Think of the overall picture of your site, as if it were a living, breathing entity. After all, web sites should continue to grow on a constant basis and never be stale or stagnant.

So, let's open up our creative minds and think of all sorts of ways of adding quality content to a web site.

A few things to remember:

You're only confined by the boundaries you set for yourself and your web site. Allow yourself to think in a totally different way than you've thought before.

Your web site content should be written for your buying customers . . . not for you. Your web site content should not be written for the search engines. The search engines, although helpful, are not your target audience.

Quality Content for Your Target Audience

  • CALENDAR OF EVENTS This is ideal for sites like real estate sites to show upcoming open houses; book stores to promote upcoming book signings or writers' meetings; collectors' sites to show meetings across the country, etc. Be sure to allow visitors to send in their own event to be posted to the calendar.
  • MAPS Consider real estate sites, hunting or fishing sites, camping sites, hotels, or any outdoor recreational sites for maps. Be sure to add content at the bottom of the map that describes the map and outlines its purpose as it relates to your site.
  • BEFORE/AFTER EXPERIENCES This is perfect for products or services you're selling where customers can write in and discuss how this particular product or service helped them. These could turn out to be mini articles, or use them as testimonials.
  • PICTURES FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS You could set up a special place where past customers could post their pictures and journal entries on your site. This is ideal for vacation sites, recreational sites, wedding sites, baby sites, photography studios, etc. How could you use this idea on a Halloween site? On a flower site?
  • ONLINE COLORING SHEETS Use your imagination here. If you set up some coloring sheets about your vacation property, kids could color those sheets and post them online before their trip in their own special online area. After the trip, their parents could post pictures and a journal of their trip. This is their "Web site" about their trip, all hosted on your site as a perk for booking through your vacation site. What are they going to do with this information? They're going to tell their friends, Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Edna, etc. They're going to link to it. You can use this perk as part of your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) when differentiating yourself from your competition. You'll be building one-way links from your past customers, plus visibility for future customers. Win/win situation. You'll think of many ways of adding coloring sheets (or similar creative activities for kids) to your site, if your site is the type that would work for kids.
  • ARTICLES / NEWS PAGES Write new content on a regular basis – once or twice a week should be your goal.
  • EXPERT ADVICE Get an expert to answer questions, and post one question/answer a week (or a day – whatever you can handle) on the main page of your site. Have past Q&A's in a searchable archive on your site.
  • PRODUCT REVIEWS If your industry has products or software to review, consider writing candid reviews of those products. Publish the reviews on your Web site as well as publish them in a few of the online publications. Readers are always interested in totally candid reviews, where the writer lists the positive as well as the negative aspects of a product. If you have a landscaping business, how could you use this idea? What products do you, as an expert, prefer to use, and why?
  • SHORT TIPS If your product or service lends itself to short tips, write up a series and publish them on your Web site. Send them out in your newsletter. Get your readers to send in tips as they use the product. Offer a discount off additional products if they submit tips.
  • FAQ’S FAQ's are content – content that your target audience wants to know. As you get questions from your readers, add additional Q&A's to your FAQ's to keep them current.
  • HOW-TO GUIDES People love "how to" guides. If you sell online plumbing parts, why not have a "how to" guide on installing a new toilet? Make it easy on your customers, and they'll come back to you again and again. Create a series of "how to" guides. Be The Toilet Guy on the Net. May not sound too glamorous, but if you're highly visible on the Net and are converting traffic to sales, you can afford to be glamorous OFF the Net!

Remember to think "quality" when it comes to creating content. These ideas should help get you started.

And think about this point as well. If you start creating quality content, what is certain to follow? Quality links. Sites will begin linking to your content, because you're doing what you should be doing: giving your customers what they want to see when they visit your Web site. They want to see new and exciting "quality" information that's updated on a constant basis. You become the trusted source of that information.


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WATCH IT LIVE The Carriage House in Gonzales, Louisiana has once again brought their web experience to a new level with online video. That's right, visit them online and watch their varied selection of online commercials, tours and interviews with a few of the many delighted persons who have experienced personal attention and quality second to none all in the arms of Southern Charm. www.carriagehouse-la.com


WEIGHT LOSS SUCCESS STORY "Before my third treatment, I had lost 25 pounds. It is a lifestyle I can live with without feeling deprived or feeling like I am suffering. Other diets were not realistic for me to live with," states Bobby Harvison of Laurel, Mississippi. He is one of the many satisfied clients of New Image Health and Wellness Center. With weight to lose, cigarettes to quit and pain management, don't you want to be a success story? www.newimagehwc.com



TITLE SERVICES AND REAL ESTATE CLOSINGS - Long time supporter of Dezins - Print and Web Services, Myrna Arroyo announces a new website for her title and real estate attorney services. Her firm provides Title Examination and Real Estate Closing Services to attorneys and title companies in Baton Rouge and the surrounding areas.  Her service allows you to take on additional closings without having to invest in hiring a full time attorney.  She can also act as a virtual attorney for small companies that do not have the volume to justify an attorney salary. No we did not create the website but it sure is great. Congratulations Myrna. www.myrnaearroyo.com


LOCATION NEEDED FOR A SIGN Louisiana Insured LLC looking to place a sign on busy highway for negotiated fee. The sign would be roughly 6'x 6'. If interested please call Andrew Ruiz 225-622-2993








EARN EXTRA MONEY The problem with hosting an “In Home” jewelry party is that you have to hold it in YOUR home (unless you have a very understanding friend). All the cleaning, all the cooking, all the mess, all those people looking through your medicine cabinet -all that work just to show jewelry out of a catalogue? Who needs it? Luckily the Silver sun is a very understanding friend. We’ll host your party at our store! As a Silver Sun Sales Hostess you’ll earn commissions and FREE jewelry credits at your own party. Click here to learn more.


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Add an R-S-S to your S-I-T-E and get more T-R-A-F-F-I-C


Want an easy way to distribute your news/events? Want more web traffic? Then you need an RSS news feed. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. Think about all of the information that you access on the Web on a day-to-day basis; news headlines, search results, “What’s New”, job vacancies, and so forth. A large amount of this content can be thought of as a list.

RSS is a format that allows the syndication or making available of lists of news headlines, upcoming events, etc. to your interested customers. Each listing has a hyperlink directly to your website thus more traffic.

Basically, the interested customer goes to your website where you have an RSS link (See Image 1). They click on this link and your “feed” is added to their software. If they are a first time RSS user, the link will allow them to download and use RSS software. Many simple and free programs are already available that file subscribed links; similar to the way your inbox looks in your email program. (See Image 2)

IMAGE 1 (Click Picture To Enlarge) 1) These are headlines that are available to list in an RSS Feed. 2) These are some of the common RSS Feed softwares that are available.

This allows peoples’ computers to fetch and understand the information, so that all of the lists they’re interested in can be tracked and personalized for them. It is a format that’s intended for use by computers on behalf of people. This means they want to know what’s happening on your site without having to visit it daily.

Why should I make a feed available? Your viewers will thank you, and there will be more of them, because it allows them to see your site without going out of their way to visit. While this seems bad at first glance, it actually improves your site’s visibility; by making it easier for your users to keep up with your site — allowing them to see it the way they want to — it’s more likely that they’ll know when something that interests them is available on your site.

For example, imagine that your company announces a new product or feature every month or two. Without a feed, your viewers have to remember to come to your site and see if they find anything new — if they have time.

IMAGE 2 (Click Picture To Enlarge) This is an example of a cutomer's RSS software. As you can see, they subscribe to several RSS feeds. The software works similarly to an email program.

If you provide a feed for them, they can point their software at it, and it will give them a link and a

description of developments at your site almost as soon as they happen.

News is similar; because there are so many sources of news on the Web, most of your viewers won’t come to your site every day. By providing a feed, you are in front of them constantly, improving the chances that they’ll click through to an article that catches their eye.

In many ways, syndication is similar to the subscription newsletters that many sites offer to keep viewers up-to-date. The big difference is that they don’t have to supply an e-mail address, lowering the barrier of privacy concerns, while still giving you a direct channel to your viewers. Also, they get to see the content in the manner that’s most convenient to them, which means that you get more eyes looking at your content.

Choosing Content for Your Feeds Any list-oriented information on your site that your viewers might be interested in tracking or reusing is a good candidate for a feed. This can encompass news headlines and press releases, job listings, conference calendars and rankings, or upcoming events.

Some examples:

  • News & Announcements - headlines, notices and any list of announcements that are added to over time

  • Document listings - lists of added or changed pages, so that people don’t need to constantly check for different content

  • Bookmarks and other external links - while most people use RSS for sharing links from their own sites, it’s a natural fit for sharing lists of external links

  • Calendars - listings of past or upcoming events, deadlines or holidays

  • Databases - job listings, software releases, etc.

While it’s a good start to have a “master feed” for your site that lists recent news and events, don’t stop there. Generally, each area of your site that features a changing list of information should have a corresponding feed; this allows viewers to precisely target their interests.



What are some of the more common RSS feed softwares? Where can I get them?

Ask O.

For example, if your news site has pages for World news, national news, local news, business, sports, etc., there should be a feed for each of these sections.

If your site offers a personalized view of data (e.g., people can choose categories of information that will show up on their home page), offer this as a feed, so that the viewers’ Web pages match the content of their feeds.

Finally, remember that feeds are just as — if not more — useful on an Intranet as they are on the Internet. Syndication can be a powerful tool for sharing and integrating information inside a company.

Telling People About Your Feed An important step after publishing a feed is letting your viewers know that it exists; there are a lot of feeds available on the Web now, but it’s hard to find them, making it difficult for viewers to utilize them. These links should be placed on the Web page that is most similar to the feed content; this enables people to find them as they browse.


Where Do I Get My Reader Software There are tons of RSS Reader softwares available. To find a list of some, Ask O.



ANTI-SPAM FILTER INSTALLED

Dezins.com has taken a zero tolerance policy for SPAM. All SPAM complaints are taken seriously, it is considered an unethical form of Internet advertising.
Messages sent to our clients and determined as spam are bounced back to the sender. If you received a bounce from an email message sent to one of our clients, it may be for one of the following reasons:

  • Your mail server is black listed in one of the spam reporting services we use:
    • Spamcop ( http://www.spamcop.net/)
      • The headers of the message attached to the bounce would have a line similar to: X-IMAIL-SPAM-DNSBL: (SpamCop, ...)
    • NJABL ( http://www.njabl.org/listing.html)
      • The headers of the message attached to the bounce would have a line similar to:
        X-IMAIL-SPAM-DNSBL: (dnsbl.njabl.org, ...)
    • Spamhaus ( http://www.spamhaus.org/)
      • The headers of the message attached to the bounce would have a line similar to:
        X-IMAIL-SPAM-DNSBL: (Spamhaus, ...)

Some of our clients may decide to use additional anti-spam protection. The following list explains the X-headers you may find in a bounce message:

  • X-IMAIL-SPAM-PHRASE
    The message contains phrases which are used in junk mails
  • X-IMAIL-SPAM-STATISTICS
    The message has statistically 90% or greater chance of being
    spam (content similar to other spam messages)
  • X-IMAIL-SPAM-HTML-FEATURES
    The message contains 2 or more HTML tags commonly used in
    spam messages (invalid tags, embedded comments)

If you have further questions about our email policy, please email us at info@dezins.com.


NEW ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE / PAYABLE INFORMATION We are excited to announce that we recently hired a third party to handle our accounts payable and receivable. All invoices will remain payable to Dezins, as before. The only difference that most of our clients will find is that the invoices will no longer be emailed from orhanmc@dezins.com and instead will be sent from billing@dezins.com. If you have any type of spam filters on your email, we ask that you please add billing@dezins.com to your accepted list.

HAVE YOU "ASKED O" This is where you ask questions of interest and we'll do the research and post the answers to your inquiry. There are lots of things about marketing, the internet and print media that can be challenging, so, ASK O. This issues question: What are some of the more common RSS Feed softwares? Where can I get them? ASK O



DEZINS ADOPTS TERMS AND CONDITIONS Recently we have adopted an official set of Terms and Agreements for all projects that we provide. We ask that all clients, past and present, please review the specifics of these conditions, as they are effective as of July 20, 2006 and this will serve as notice thereof. Click here to download the PDF file. As always we appreciate your continued support of Dezins.

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COMPUTER TROUBLE... CALL THE HELP LINE

This ought to make you feel better about your computer skills! If you skip any; you have to read the last one! Unbelievable, but supposedly all true!!!!

Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?
Female customer: A white one...

Customer: Hi, this is Celine. I can't get my diskette out.
Tech support: Have you tried pushing the Button?
Customer: Yes, sure, it's really stuck.
Tech support: That doesn't sound good; I'll make a note.
Customer: No, wait a minute... I hadn't inserted it yet... it's still on my desk... sorry....

Tech support: Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer: Your left or my left?

Tech support: Good day. How may I help you?
Male customer: Hello...I can't print.
Tech support: Would you click on "start" for me and...
Customer: Listen pal; don't start getting technical on me! I'm not Bill Gates.

Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print. Every time I try, it says 'Can't find printer'. I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can't find it...

Customer: I have problems printing in red...
Tech support: Do you have a color printer?
Customer: Aaaah....................thank you.

Tech support: What's on your monitor now, ma'am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me at the 7-11.

Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.
Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.
Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back
Customer: OK
Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard?
Customer: Yes, there's another one here. Ah...that one does work...

Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.

Tech support: How may I help you?
Customer: I'm writing my first e-mail.
Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?
Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the circle around it?

And last but not least...

Tech support: "Okay Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter "P" to bring up the Program Manager"
Customer: I don't have a P.
Tech support: On your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: What do you mean?
Tech support: "P".....on your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!

Thanks John Garifalos for this submission


SEND A THANK YOU CARD TO ONE OF OUR SOLDIERSou No matter what our personal opinions are regarding the war in Iraq, we are sure that we all agree on one thing. The support and safe return of the many men and women who are risking their lives every day. Now you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services. It is FREE and it only takes a second. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Visit www.LetsSayThanks.com and send the troops some mail today.

Thanks Stephanie Nettles for this submission

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