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John L. Dilbeck's News Archive
John L. Dilbeck's Ramblings
Whatever strange and wonderful ideas tickle this big brain of mine.
ISSN: 1533-8193
Being a voracious reader, I go through lots of news and stories. When I find one of interest that I think will benefit you, I write about it here. Your feedback is always welcome.
News Archives
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November 2004
New Promotional Opportunities for Businesses in Cherokee County, NC
Posted by johndilbeck on Tuesday, November 23 2004 at 10:37 AM
Category: cherokee_county_nc
Promoting a business in Cherokee County, North Carolina just got a bit easier. Whether you are located in Andrews, Brasstown, Culberson, Marble, Murphy, or one of the other communities in the county, you are invited to take advantage of the new portal for Cherokee County, NC and the new Murphy, NC Business Directory.
The portal for Cherokee County, NC is a free, interactive resource for anyone interested in Cherokee County and what's going on here. Residents of our county are invited to participate in submitting news and announcements of events and meetings related to your business, club, organization, team, church, or other group. Any press release you would submit to an area newspaper is welcome here. You can register as a member -- at no cost -- and submit a news story or discuss your interests in our forum.
You can link to the websites of your choice in our web links section, so be sure to link back to your organization's website. We don't require reciprocal links, but we welcome them.
Would you like to write a review of a book, song, movie, play, or anything else that interests you? We have a review section just for that. Did you have a particularly good experience with a person, group, or business in Cherokee County, NC? If so, write a review -- or testimonial -- and tell us.
In the main menu, in the left column or the pages, we have links to county, state and national government information; chambers of commerce; calendars of activities and meetings; the Nantahala Public Library; news from a variety of sources; and more.
At the new Murphy, NC Business Directory, you are invited to list your business. The cost is very reasonable and there are several advantages for listing your business here.
Gold Members can create a page just for you that lists your business, your description (in your own words), coupons, specials, and links back to your website. You can also post an unlimited number of items for sale in The Marketplace and submit as many free classified ads as you'd like.
Two other levels of membership offer features that should appeal to businesses of any size in Murphy, NC.
Anyone, business or not, is welcome to post free classifieds to the site. It's easy to do and you can register for free. Each ad runs approximately 30 days and you can resubmit it for free when it expires.
Between these two sites, you should find many ways to promote your business. Coming in the next few days will be pages that list many other resources for effectively marketing your business and products or services online. Some are free and others are reasonably priced.
With more and more people going online every year, all businesses should be promoting themselves online. Even local businesses with local customers can now gain a competitive advantage by advertising on the Internet. For much less than the price of a small ad in the yellow telephone directory pages, you can promote your business online to a wider audience.
You never know where a new customer, client, patient or friend will come from.
John L. Dilbeck, owner of Dilbeck Marketing, in Murphy, NC, is the webmaster who manages both of these new sites and he invites you to register as a user on either or both sites and tell us all about your business or other organization in Cherokee County, NC.
Whether your advertising budget is hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, or only hundreds of dollars, you'll find a cost-effective promotional vehicle at one or both of these sites that anyone can use. It takes a technical wizard to make it easy for others to use, and anyone can use either of these sites, regardless of your experience on the World Wide Web.
Whether you sell used children's clothing or million dollar homes, you can place a classified ad from the comfort of your home or office at no cost.
Gold Members of the Murphy, NC Business Directory can post as many items for sale in The Marketplace as you want, and you can choose to add a picture to the ad if you like. There are no newspapers that will let you pay one small annual fee and run as many ads with pictures as you'd like. The Murphy, NC Business Directory offers you just that opportunity and it can be viewed from anywhere in the world.
To celebrate our Grand Opening, any company that registers for a Gold Membership before 12/31/2004 can choose to pay half-price for a full year membership (expiring on 12/31/2005) or get two years for the price of one. This offer expires at midnight on December 31, 2004.
I made a small change to CherokeeCountyNC.com
Posted by johndilbeck on Friday, November 12 2004 at 4:46 AM
Category: cherokee_county_nc
As you may know, I've been building A Portal for Cherokee County, NC over the last few weeks.
It's coming along nicely and I want to thank you for visiting and participating.
When I started it, I had the intention of creating a place where people living in Cherokee County, North Carolina could talk about their organizations, groups, schools, businesses, events, and more -- all for free.
I chose software called PHP-Nuke to build the interactive portal and put it at CherokeeCountyNC.com/news/. To make it easier, I created an automatic redirect so that any time you went to CherokeeCountyNC.com, you really went to CherokeeCountyNC.com/news/. This was transparent and you may not have been aware of it.
Now that I have the interactive portion of the site up and running, I realized that there are now two interactive parts of the site and I may want to load more content, both static and interactive, in the future.
Plus, the major search engines don't like to index a site that starts with a redirect, so tonight I put up a new static home page for the site at CherokeeCountyNC.com/index.html that will work better for the search engines and will load a bit faster for you.
From that new home page, you can link to the various interactive features powered by PHP-Nuke in the news section and you can also link to the Cherokee County NC Blog which carries announcements and other information and has been recently moved to archive the postings at blog.CherokeeCountyNC.com.
The only thing this may impact for you is when you bookmark the site. You now have a choice of bookmarking the static page at http://CherokeeCountyNC.com/index.html which loads a bit faster, or the dynamic page in the news section at http://CherokeeCountyNC.com/news/ which takes you right to the main interactive section of the site.
Either way, this means that more is on the way and the site remains free. If you live in Cherokee County, North Carolina and you want to participate, it's easy -- and free -- to register and jump right in.
See you there,
JD
Canadian Long Distance Service Now Available
Posted by johndilbeck on Monday, November 8 2004 at 10:39 AM
Category: cognigen
Cognigen agents now have the ability to market and sell long distance service to Canadian residents. Canadian long distance services will be provided by Cognigen's alliance with one of our newest vendors, Convergia Networks.
Convergia is a world-class provider of voice, data, and Internet services for residential, business and wholesale customers. Using their state-of-the-art switching facilities and end-to-end network, Convergia presents the fullest potential of today’s broadband revolution. By introducing leading edge and innovative products and services, establishing global alliances, and always striving to improve existing business, Convergia is changing how the world communicates.
- Convergia offers Tier 1 voice quality to calls anywhere in the world
- Long distance calls across North America for as little as 4.9 cents per minute
- International toll free available
- Save more than 70% on international calls
- Huge savings on International calls via our own privately held network that spans over 152 points of presence in 45 countries
- Detailed electronic billing using our state of the art billing platform
- Choose between direct billing and credit card payment options
If you live in Canada, look into what Convergia offers you.
Opex Lowers Interstate Long Distance Rates
Posted by johndilbeck on Monday, November 8 2004 at 10:00 AM
Category: cognigen
Opex has long been a very competitive long distance offering for Cognigen customers, and now Opex has raised the bar by lowering their interstate long distance rates to an incredible 2.95 cents per minute. Residential customers are billed in full minute increments, and business customers are billed in 6 second increments with an 18 second minimum call duration. The monthly fee is waived if long distance usage is over $20 in a month, otherwise it is a very low $2.00.
Note that this rate is also available to business customers. Most business customers today are paying 3 to 4 times more than this for long distance.
Save money at work and at home with Opex long-distance phone service.
Packet8 Broadband Phone Service Launches
Posted by johndilbeck on Monday, November 8 2004 at 9:20 AM
Category: cognigen
Cognigen agents now have the opportunity to market Packet8, 8x8's broadband phone service for both business and residential subscribers. Using high-speed connections to make voice and video calls over the Internet, Broadband Phone (a.k.a., VoIP or Voice Over Internet Protocol) is one the biggest growth industries around and Packet8 is ranked as one of the top three services available.
Packet8 is an affordable and easy-to-use broadband telephone and videophone service. Designed with both residential and business customers in mind, Packet8 allows anyone with broadband (high-speed digital, DSL, or Cable, but not dial-up) Internet access to use their regular phone to make UNLIMITED calls to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for as little as $19.95 per month. Packet8 subscribers with videophones can make video calls for as little as $29.95 per month. All Packet8 subscribers get world wide UNLIMITED calling to other Packet8 subscribers at no extra charge.
Do you want broadband Internet access? Comparison shop at ShopforDSL, and get ready for VoIP.
I wish I'd had this book when I built my first website!
Posted by johndilbeck on Sunday, November 7 2004 at 8:43 AM
Category: sitesell
Over the years, drawing from a wide range of sources, I've learned some of the art of building a website that actually earns a profit instead of dying with no traffic.
It hasn't been easy to find the information and separate the worthwhile from the worthless. Sometimes they're hard to tell apart before you put them to the test and see for yourself what the results are.
One thing I've learned is to listen to Ken Evoy. As time goes by, I listen less to others and more to him.
Why? Because I'm earning money following his advice and often losing money following the advice of others. Plus, I just like reading what he writes. I like his style and the fact that he is devoted to not only building his own company, but also to helping as many others as he can to build their own successful online businesses.
You've heard me rave about Make Your Site Sell! and Site Build It!. I'm a very happy customer after buying both of these products and others he offers. When I find something that works, I want to learn as much about it as I can so I can put it to work for me as much as possible.
Ken has just released a new ebook -- Make Your Content PREsell! If it had been available, and if I'd know what I do now, I'd have jumped at the chance to purchase this book.
In a little over 130 pages, Ken condenses what he's learned about designing and building a website that earns money.
It doesn't have nearly the amount of content as Make Your Site Sell!, but it sells for one-third the price. It isn't an in-depth guide like MYSS, but more like a "here's how you do it" kind of friend-leading-a-friend guide for someone who wants to get started or for someone who has tried and not succeeded.
It will get you get started on the right foot rather than floundering or wasting time and money going down the wrong path.
Ken reiterates that it's quality content that attracts free visitors through the search engines and that content presells by establishing your credibility as a person who knows what you write about. It's that credibility that presells your visitors and helps convert them into happy customers -- over time.
I just finished reading the book. It has excellent insight into what it takes to make a profitable website. He gives numerous, easy to understand examples that make the whole process clearer.
This is NOT a get-rich-quick book.
Ken explains the concepts and tasks that are necessary to build a site, and these things take time and effort. This ebook will shortcut the time it takes to reach profitability, if you read it, learn from it, and put it to work.
The best news? It's only $10 USD. Not $100. Not $30. Only $10.
Buy it for yourself and tell your friends and family about this great deal.
If you want to build an online business and you're not willing to spend $10 to learn from someone who has already learned the hard way, you might as well reconsider your dedication to online marketing, and do something else.
As with all his products, it comes with a money-back guarantee if you don't like it. Where's the risk?
While it's too late to change some of my big sites, what I learned in this book will definitely shape my approach to building new sites.
This book teaches the concepts and approaches to marketing and communicating, not the technical things like HTML, FTP, CSS, and the like. There are other books that cover those things, or you could use Site Build It! to create your site and not have to worry about them.
I personally recommend Make Your Content PREsell!
Cherokee County, NC Blog Moved
Posted by johndilbeck on Wednesday, November 3 2004 at 9:15 AM
Category: cherokee_county_nc
If you've been reading the Cherokee County, NC Blog, you should be aware that I've moved it from its home on blogspot.com to a new home at blog.CherokeeCountyNC.com.
There are a couple of reasons for this.
1. I want to see if the search engines will index it better than they do on blogspot.com.
2. I think my server is more responsive and this should give you faster access to the information in the blog.
Unless there are problems with this, blog.CherokeeCountyNC.com should be its permanent home.
AHC Yard Sale Fundraiser -- Murphy, NC 28906 -- November 20, 2004
Posted by johndilbeck on Wednesday, November 3 2004 at 7:24 AM
Category: cherokee_county_nc
Appalachian Heritage Crafters, a non-profit arts and crafts cooperative, is holding a yardsale on Saturday, November 20, 2004, starting at 8:00 am and going most of the day.
A wide variety of items will be available, some at bargain prices.
The members will be selling snacks, coffee and hot chocolate.
Proceeds go to the cooperative to help offset expenses.
Appalachian Heritage Crafters, founded by craftspeople in and around Cherokee County, North Carolina, is a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving and promoting Appalachian crafts and heritage.
The specific purpose of the corporation is to preserve and promote the Appalachian heritage of quality hand-made crafts. This goal is achieved through training programs, educational programs in the schools and senior centers, programs providing outreach to youth and homebound seniors, and programs enabling crafter members to create, market, and sell handmade Appalachian crafts.
You are invited to our yard sale, which will be held at our crafts store, located a couple of miles west of Murphy at 2016 Highway 64 West, Murphy, NC 28906. While you're there, browse through the items in our store to find great gifts for the holidays.
For more information, visit their website at AHCcrafts.com or call 828-835-3500.
More events in Cherokee County, NC, can be found in the Calendar of Events and the Calendar Planner at CherokeeCountyNC.com.
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