Further, it takes time to manage input. To even consider letting stuff flow without a moderator is foolish. One solution is to find a volunteer to moderate, someone interested in topic who can benefit from exposure. It's easy enough, then, to drop in now and then and add a comment of your own.

Let Nothing Be Overlooked

Anything you can do to obtain input from your readers and visitors is worth effort. Even little things can make a difference. Elsewhere I've mentioned AtomZ.Com. This great little site search engine offers a neat spinoff. By examining terms searched on, you can gain a good deal of insight about searchers. You can often separate out beginners from more experience searchers, simply from search term used. But again conclusions are limited, for you have only input from those who search, not a random sample of visitors.

Email Is King

Email is most effective tool I have found for building demographics. On my site and throughout my newsletter, I invite comments and questions. In fact I beg for them. In answering, I have an opportunity to generate further feedback. More important, it allows me to demonstrate expertise and make first connection in what may grow to be a significant relationship. And from every message, I gain a better view of my readers and visitors.

Even frivolous questions get an answer. Serious questions are answered as completely as possible. The path for dollars to my pocket begins with a site visitor who subscribes to "STAT News." Once they decide I know a couple of things, and come to believe I can be trusted with their feelings, they may step forward and ask a question. A good reply generally creates a supporter, one who may also be a potential client. Paths to profits on your site may be quite different. But figure what they are, and enhance each step along way as possible.

Evaluating Input

It's tough to do. About when you decide your visitors know nothing about Web, a steady flow of them begin to point out authoritatively where you are screwing up.

What it comes down to is hunches and guestimates. But try to answer such questions as how old your average visitor is. Something of their economic status. And so forth. As mentioned, I take one input as representative of nine others not received.

Also try to answer questions relative to your business. Where are your visitors and subscribers on Web cycle? What percentages are novices? Have a site? Want a better one? Your questions will be different than mine, but take time to state them clearly. Then seek best possible answers.

Your Target

Behind all this, you have already defined your niche and target market. Disregard any input that is off target. Answer email, of course, but discount this input from your view of your visitors and subscribers. The objective is to continue to narrow your focus even further. Thus you are looking for input that will help you do so. In short, you are seeking a better definition of your perfect customer.

The Bottom Line

Write your newsletter and site pages targeted as closely as possible to your view of your typical reader and visitor. Write for needs of your perfect customer. In time those who do not fit within your tight focus will unsubscribe and stop visiting your site. You will in fact have created an audience who for most part are interested in your niche or focus.

Moving on to gif files. Gif is used for graphics that have areas of flat color, like palm tree you made in your paint program. Read manual, and check out your paint program. You might have a paint program from which you can save or export gif files.

If your paint program won’t export art work as gif, no problem. Print your art work out at a high resolution on good paper and scan it at 72, size it, and save or export it as gif 89a. If your software just says “gif,” I think you can safely assume it is gif89a unless your software is very old.

There is one important distinction between gif and jpg. In jpg, you must be sure that your photo fills picture window after you scan. If there is white space around or on any side of photo, crop it off, or it will show up on web. But in gif89a, background of your picture will be transparent. So, if you scan your palm tree on its white background and save it as gif, what will appear on web is just palm tree. jpg would show a palm tree on a white rectangle.

While saving or exporting in jpg, you had a choice of quality for your finished product. In gif, you have no quality choice, but you may have a choice of number of colors to be used. The fewer colors, smaller file. So again, experiment with saving or exporting your artwork with different numbers of colors until your arrive at a satisfactory graphic with as few colors as possible.

There are really just three things you need to know:

1. jpg is for graphics that are photographs or like photographs. 2. gif is for everything else. 3. All graphics should be created in smallest possible file size.

Got it? Go create!