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Scribe and Subscribe
by Mike Banks Valentine
I spend the majority of my time reading. I receive about a
hundred e-mails a day, sometimes much more than that. Yes,
some of it is spam and junk and unsolicited commercial crap.
But most of it I've asked to be sent to me. I've requested
that wrtiers submit their articles to my weekly newsletter.
They do, and I have a huge file of articles waiting to run
in the WebSite101 Reading List.
I've subscribed to the Link Exchange Digest, the HTML Writers
Guild business list, the List of Lists newsletter, a dozen
moderated discussion lists, several business related bulletins
a freebies announcement, a search engine news and advice list,
a daily achievement quote, updates from all of the paid and
free services I subscribe to and on top if it all I operate
several online businesses, each of which get regular e-mail
correspondence and inquiries from customers.
Why do I submit to this barrage of information raining down
on my overflowing e-mailbox? I came to online marketing and
the internet with less than zero information about the online
world. I knew no HTML. My Internet Service Provider laughed
at the list of silly questions I had to ask about how the
web worked and what I get for my monthly service fee. My first
web site was designed by a professional web designer.
While I waited for the world to start pounding down my door
for the services that were advertised on that beautiful site,
I began to learn HTML through a free online course called
Volcano Web at http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/index.html
it's a step by step tutorial on writing HTML, the language of
the web. Upon "graduation" from that course, I took another,
then another and another.
While I was STILL waiting for my online business to blossom
from my first web site, I knew now what went in to that pro-
fessionally designed site I had paid for and started to add to
it, using the paid-for page as a template to expand the site.
If that were all I had done, I would still be waiting for that
business to come pouring in. I began subscribing to newsletters,
discussion- and announcement-lists.I read great articles by the
more experienced business people on the web. I joined some
discussion lists for online business development run by a small
business groups. Then subscribed to multiple services offering
help to "launch" my business with promotion techniques and
marketing "secrets".
Search engines and free tutorials were the beginning of WebSite
101, where I list the services I used and the tutorials I took.
I learned what I could and then distilled them into what is now
offered at WebSite101 as a "Short Course, How to get my business
online!" That course was likely the introduction of a good deal
of the readership of this list to WebSite101. I now study the
top web gurus and research and read about improving my skills
even further and offer that to this list the way it was first
given to me, free.
I hope that you can use the knowledge and ask only that you
consider visiting the sponsors of this newsletter and pass what
you've learned on to others, while I go read my e-mail.
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WebSite101 "Reading List" Weekly Netrepreneur Tip Sheet
Weekly Ezine emphasizing small business on the Internet
http://website101.com/arch/
e-tutorial online at: http://website101.com/shortcourse.html
By week's end you're ready expand your business to the web!
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