HTML Template Instructions

Basic Opt-In Email Tool (BOET)

BOET has been designed to retrofit an existing web site. This tool is for those who want their web site to generate an Opt-in Email List for themselves and under their own complete control. The names and addresses in your own list are people who are interested in you and your site, therefore the email you send to them is of interest to them and definitely NOT Spam.

First Step—Installation

Move the boet.zip file into the same directory as the files that make up your web site. Use WinZip to install the program in that directory. Remember to ’Use Folder Names’ in the WinZip parameters. This will place the files in a new sub-directory called boet in your web site folder.

Second Step—Personalization

Open each file (one-at-a-time) and edit the header:
Change the highlighted areas to your own domain name and your email address. Leave the rest of the header as you found it. This step will personalize each page for you.

Next you will need to open ’signup.php’. This is a critical file for the correct operation of your new application. Use your editor to Find and Replace all references to "mikes@htmltemplates.net" with your own email address. Then you need to Find and Replace all references to "htmltemplates" with your own domain name. Do the same again with "html templates". Replace this with the name of your business.

Now you will want to alter the automatic email text that will be sent to everyone who signs up with you.
Do not change any of the PHP script (black) but only change the text inside the quotation marks. Look at the code first and you will see that the HTML (red) is located inside a PHP wrapper. If you have a question about this just send me an email and I will explain it further.

Third Step—Sign Up Form

Open the file ’signupform.php’ and press Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C. This will copy all the code to the clipboard. Next open each page of your existing website and place the cursor in the place you want to insert your new sign up form. Press Ctrl-V and the code will be inserted in that place. When you do this the first time you will want to view your page in your browser to make sure that the HTML really placed the form where you want it.

Fourth Step—Upload to your Web Site Host

For this edit you will need the username and password to your Host Server Account. Open the ’configure.php’ file.

Change the username and password to those provided by your Web Site Host. Now you can use your FTP program to upload your entire \boet\ sub-directory plus all of your existing web pages that now have the new sign up form to your Host Server.

Last Step—Database and Testing

This step is not necessary if you are using one of our premium templates and setting up your version of BOET. Open your browser and navigate to your site and add "\boet\createdb.php" to the address after your domain name. This will take you to the screen that will allow you to create your new database. You will be prompted to enter your own information in the fields. These should match the fields you edited in the last step. Press the create button and the screen should display successful completion messages. If not, press Alt-PrintScreen then open your image editor. Open a new image and press Ctrl-V to copy your clipboard image into the new image. Save this image and email it to rallen@htmltemplates.net with an explanation to help us troubleshoot the problem.

Now you can use your browser to navigate to your own home page and sign up for your own newsletter. This should add your address to the database. To test this you can then navigate to http://www.yourdomain.com/boet/index.php. Select ’Edit Addresses’ on the left hand navigation bar. You should see two addresses in the list box. One is my own and the other should be yours. Once again, should this not happen, email me with the error message and an image of the screen that reports the problem. Continue testing your entire site (all pages with the new sign up form). If there are no problems you are now live and ready to collect those very valuable opt-ins.

We thank you for selecting our Basic Opt-In Email Tool and we wish you great success. Let us know how the project went and send a link to your web site. If you have not signed up for our newsletter do so now so you won't miss any of our great tips and tricks as well as web promotion advice.