Home-built CO2 laser-cutter Free Report

I dunno, Tony. This started out pretty well, but you're going down some
crass commercialism road, IMO. It's not that you're trying to make some
money -- which is fine -- but how you're doing it. Either put up a
regular Web site to sell the damn book or give it away for free. You
have popups to collect e-mail names of people interested in the "report"
that is never described on the page, and come-on advertiser links that
click through to products that have nothing to do with your laser.

Example: At the bottom of the page you kave the text: "Other places of
interest: Reasonably priced, brand new laser tubes and power
supplies...," and then a picture of an exposed CO2 laser tube. But
clicking on the picture brings you to a site selling a so-called
gasoline-saving device. Pretty cheeky.

Since your ultimate aim is commercial in nature, please start putting
FS: or similar note on the subject to indicate it's a commercial post.

-- Gordon


Tony Burch wrote:

Gordon, I think your point about him being clear whether he's doing
something for free or actually trying to make money is valid.  He should
decide which he's doing and make it clear one way or another.

However, with a bit closer inspection, I see the "gas saving" site has a
link that reads:

  SuperGasSaver CO2 Laser Division, Click Here!

And if you click on that you see they do sell C02 laser tubes.  So the link
is valid even if it is a bit confusing.  He might consider linking straight
to the CO2 tube page.

--
Curt Welch                                            http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com                                        http://NewsReader.Com/

But you know, with everything else on the site -- the popup that my
popup blocker didn't catch, the invitation to sign up to a newsletter
and report that have any description or example, the lack of a privacy
notice regarding the use of e-mail names, etc. -- I wasn't about to look
around the gas saver site to see if they indeed had tubes! I rather
think most people will just click off that page just as I did, which
means it's not too useful as a way for the gas saver guy to make money
selling tubes.

I wish Tony all the success and hope he does well, but I just found a
couple of the tactics a bit disconcerting. I mean, a lot of us have
something to sell (including me), but most of us use some discretion in
promoting that.

-- Gordon

I'll just comment here that any site with a popup written to get
around my popup blocker has automatically defined itself to be a site
I want nothing to do with.
--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D.       Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science       FAX   -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University          http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your comment.  It's certainly your right to decide what websites
you look at,
or decide to filter. I definitely understand what you are saying.

I actually agree that "normal popup windows" are irritating. However, if you
look
more closely at this one, it's not a normal one. A new window is not opened,
like
with a "normal popup window".  When you close the browser or navigate away,
this html window doesn't stay anywhere.

Most visitors actually find this kind of "gentle window" to be useful and
not
irritating, because it performs a valid function (free report and newsletter
subscription) on the website when it comes up and does not open any new
window (which WOULD be really irritating).

Let me say again that I understand your comment, but I think this
parcticular
html window is not a "bad one":)

Cheers, Tony Burch
http://www.theblakelaser.com

Though it uses some JavaScript IFRAME tricks, the nuisance is the same.
You have to ask yourself why you even use it to begin with. It covers up
almost the entire screen. Users have to manually move it out of the way,
or manually close it, to see what's underneath.

Your page would be more effective if you provided a sample of the
newsletter content -- it's not a lot of effort for asking people to give
up their e-mail addresses -- and providing the signup in the body page.
It seems to work for everyone else.

Otherwise, as I said, you've designed a spammy-looking site, IMO.

-- Gordon

Hi. Thanks Gordon and Curt - I sincerely appreciate your comments. I may
have went a bit too far with some things, so the feeback is very helpful.

I've taken your comments onboard and I have just edited the website
again.  There's now a description of the free report, a privacy
notice for the newsletter subcription, and a comment to help
SuperGasSaver visitors to go to the laser tubes. I've also removed
the Third Sphere hosting link - even though this is a great service,
you are right - I should stick with laser stuff on this page.
http://www.theblakelaser.com

I'll respond about the popup window too in the next post where
Joe has commented.

Please also consider that the picture e-book is 97 cents. To date, it
certainly
has not even covered the web hosting and bandwith costs, but I still
want to offer it to the laser builder community somehow. Also,
the other report is free (with newsletter subcription).

Gordon, by the way, what do you sell (please give us a link)?
Is it laser related? I am sure alot of us, including me, would love
to know what your commercial activity is, especially since you
are such a helpful and long-time contributor to comp.robotics.misc
and alt.lasers (and probably other newsgroups too). I have also
appreciated your help in the past.

Thanks again for the feedback. Cheers,

Tony Burch
http://www.theblakelaser.com

For the US at least, privacy notices are legally mandatory if it's a
commercial site and you even suspect some visitors will be minors. I
know you're in Oz, but I have to wonder if they don't have something
similar. For adults, I'm not sure that it's legally *required*, but I
personally feel it's very important to spell ouyt the privacy policy on
any site that takes in money or asks for e-mail addresses for permission
marketing purposes.


Actually, I wasn't bothered by this at all. It wasn't obstrusive, being
at the bottom, and the graphic/link says what it is. Let me rephrase:
it's not links to unrelated topics that I found troublesome, but what
appeared to me a link to product that was masquerading as something
else. Curt pointed out the gas saver site also sells CO2 tubes.


Like I said, you gotta spend more time on telling people what they're
going to get with the free signup. You're asking people to divulge a
valuable commodity: their e-mail address. I think you'll find the sample
content will also do wonders not only for the ratio of signups but also
for your Google ranking. G loves content.


It's Budget Robotics, which I've been operating for the last few years.
BTW, I'm also in Oceanside, California, along with Gas Saver Guy (or
'C02 Tube Dude' in this context).

-- Gordon