Paula G. Web Design

With email marketing it can sometimes feel like you spend time crafting your articles, bless them, send them off,and then wonder if anyone is every opening or reading them.  How can you know?  If you’re using a professional email publishing system you have easy access to basic statistics about your broadcast.

Information you will want to know about each broadcast includes:

• # of emails sent
• # and % of undeliverable emails
• # and % of people who opened your email

Any system you use should also automatically manage any undeliverable emails.  For instance, attempting to deliver the message a certain number of times before it considers it a “bad” email address.

As with any statistics, they are a benchmark, not an absolute. For instance, I use Aweber and while they can tell me the open rate of my broadcast, they cannot track this figure for emails that are sent plain text (vs HTML).  So, I can usually assume my open rate is “at least” whatever percent it is showing in the report.  I always include a plain text version of my HTML newsletters for people who either choose to receive plain text only or for email programs that do not support HTML (or have the settings turned off). Read the rest of this entry »

Email marketing is a critical part of an overall online marketing strategy. By giving away something free on your website you can build a list of prospects that are interested in who you are and what you offer. Of course that list means little unless you actually use it to your advantage - to communicate with your prospects, offer them something of value, and build a relationship.e. For many businesses that something is a periodic email newsletter.Just to be clear, an email newsletter is the same thing as an ezine for the purpose of this article.

If an email newsletter is something you want to include in your marketing, you want to take some strategic steps up front to ensure your success. Here are some of the basics.

Choose a Professional System

You do not want to be sending your emails from your own personal email account and program (Outlook, Hotmail, etc.) It may sound easy and inexpensive but is one of the most costly mistakes you can make. Here is why:

• It looks unprofessional
• Email deliverability can be very low
• Your email provider limits the number of email addresses to which you can send at one time
• You look like and can be labeled as a SPAMMER (yikes!)
• You cannot prove that you have permission to email these people (again - translates to SPAM)
• People have no way to opt-out or cancel their subscription without contacting you directly. That creates a very awkward situation for you and you prospect.

There are numerous professional email newsletter systems out there. Read the rest of this entry »

You know the old saying about buyer beware and do your own due diligence? Well the same holds true with promises made on the Internet regarding web services. Just because the Internet has exponentially increased the ease and cost-effectiveness of both doing business and buying products and services online doesn’t mean you don’t have to still be on your toes. I’m not talking about security issues, identity theft, or scams here. Sure those are always a concern. What I’m talking about are overinflated promises regarding what a service will do for you and how long it’ll take to implement it.

I recently worked with a client who signed up for a great lead generation tool. And it is a good tool. I’m not disputing that. What got me rolling, though were the promises made about it. Specifically,

Adding <this great service we offer> to your web site takes less than 1 minute, and no HTML or other programming skills is required to do so.

Now that is swell IF your site has no design template that can be goofed up by inserting their deprecated code and if you choose to use their hosted service at an extra fee. It doesn’t say that here, though. Read the rest of this entry »

When I hit a website, I instantly look at the timeliness and accuracy of content. If peeking in the virtual windows reveals nothing but dust and cobwebs I immediately surf away. This holds true whether I am literally out shopping for a product or simply doing research on potential service providers. My assumption is that if they don’t care about the image they are putting forward and how they are serving their prospects, how will they treat me when I work with them? How reliable will they be?

Now, just for the record, I am not an utter and complete website snob. When I say that I want to see a strong and up to date presence that doesn’t mean it has to be a $5,000 slickly designed site with a ton of bells and whistles. In fact, I am into simplicity and a clean look as I am sure you can tell from the design on my website. What I do want to see is some indication that someone is home inside that website and they are still fully open for business and ready to serve. Read the rest of this entry »

Your website by itself isn’t going to generate leads for you. Unless you have a way to capture visitor information you’ll never know who visited or why. Not only that you can’t even follow up with them to see if what you do is a fit for them. That is why you need to give something away free.

I first came across this concept from reading Andrea Lee’s “Multiple Streams of Coaching Income” in the part where she describes a Pink Spoon. You know when you go to an ice cream store and they give you a tiny spoon with a sample on it? That is a pink spoon. It is a metaphor for giving your prospective customers a little taste of you and what you offer before they buy.

On a website this can take many forms:

• A free report
• A free eCourse
• An audio sample
• A newsletter
• Anything you can dream up…

The key is that the freebie should be high quality and high value (after all it is a representation of you and what you offer) but relatively easy for you to produce. It should be representative of who you are and what you offer through your products and services. Within that freebie should be a call to action asking the prospect to take another step on their journey toward working with you. That might look like “Contact me” or “Go to this part of my website” or “Buy this”.

The important key in this freebie offer is to capture the prospects’ information (typically name and email but the more information the better) so you can communicate with them in the future. Design it so that they are explicitly giving you permission to do so because you don’t want to be spamming anyone. An autoresponder with double opt in is a great way to do this. Ensure you let them know your privacy policy as well. Respect your prospects and don’t share their information with anyone.

How could you start leveraging this proven internet marketing technique for your business on your website? It is a project that can be done low cost and in relatively short period of time, so there is no excuse to wait. If you need help navigating the “how-to’s” drop me a line and we can chat.

The other day I was having a conversation with a potential client when she started apologizing for not being better with technology and not having had any success building her own site. I get this a lot. I am not sure why, but it seems web design and financial planning are the two main fields where people for some reason think they should be able to do it all on their own. I mean, I have yet to hear a colleague or client say “I have this painful tooth, but if only I were better at dental surgery I could get this fixed right up in my spare time.” Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? Yet that seems precisely the line of thinking many solo and small businesses take when it comes to their website and Internet Marketing.

Now, if you are dead set on taking the DIY route, I am not here to stop or criticize you. It is your business and the choice is ultimately all yours. However, I would like to put forth a compelling list of 7 reasons why it is not the best use of your time or money to do so.

1) Do you consider a website a once and done project? Are you prepared to make an ongoing investment in writing content, updating the site, and maximizing your technology investment so customers can find and buy from you? On the web content is king so unless you only want a virtual brochure, you need to be ready to invest ongoing time on your site on a regular basis (at least monthly). A team of professionals can help you navigate these waters and make it easy for you to do so. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently learned of GoDaddy’s new feature of adding Google’s Webmaster Tools to the built in features you get with your hosting account. This is just another reason why I love to recommend them — they are always adding new features to benefit all their hosting plans.

What this new addition gives you is the chance to have all your sites hosted with GoDaddy automatically connected into the suite of webmaster tools that Google offers. So now from directly within your control panel you can tap into information about how Google sees your site. That is:

•  Is your site in the Google Database?
•  Are there any site issues where Google is concerned?
•  What do the crawl statistics look like?
•  What does your site’s visibility look like in Google’s search results?

Using a combination of the Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics (separate from the webmaster tools) you can get a LOT of information about your account for free.

If you don’t host with GoDaddy, you can still tap into the full set of Google Webmaster Tools at their website. Same great stuff just an additional step you need to take separate from your hosting account.

This sounds like a simple question, right? I mean everyone has a website these days and it is almost required to have some sort of Internet presence even if you are a brick and mortar company so people can find you when they do local searches on Google and other search engines. Yet I am always surprised how many people come to me wanting a website but can’t answer the question “Why do you want a website and what do you want it to do for you and your business?”

Can you answer that question?

The truth is there are many different reasons to want a website and the sky is the limit with the funky things you can do with technology to make the web work for you. However, if you don’t have a clear idea of what you want and how that integrates with your overall marketing strategy you could be in for a rocky road of paying too much for stuff you don’t need or building a site on a shaky foundation.

Ask yourself some of these key questions before you get started:

• Why do I want a website?
• What do I want a website to do for me?
• How does my website integrate with my overall marketing strategy for my business? (and if you don’t have an overall marketing strategy - consider taking this course . I did and it made a WORLD of difference.)
• Do I want to capture prospects’ email addresses by offering a newsletter or freebie?
• Do I want to sell products online?
• Am I committed to keeping the website fresh with updated content and investing the time and money to do so? (the web is not a once and done project)
• What do I want people to know about me and my business?
• What is my overall budget in terms of time and money to devote to the website project?

Read the rest of this entry »