If you’re interested in increasing traffic to your website, you’ve come to the right place. Each concise entry deals with a particular site feature or method of getting visitors to your website.
Email Accounts, Anti-Spam & Webmail Tips
Send and receive messages using your business email address (domain name) since it is more professional than a yahoo or aol or gmail address.
Utilize email marketing and newsletters to drive traffic to your site and keep your mailbox clean with anti-spam software.
Webmail Options
Your website email can be accessed by either:
- Logging directly into the webmail server with your email address and password
(usually at http://mail.yourdomain.com (or) - Forwarding incoming messages to a personal address such as Comcast or Yahoo (or)
- Adding your email address(es) to POP mail software such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora,
Mozilla Thunderbird, Opera Mail, or Pegasus
The last option (POP) can be best for several reasons.
You can receive AND send from your business address, which you can’t do if you simply forward messages. You can also add anti-SPAM software to reduce junk messages. Prices for those programs range from free to $50/year. I’m using one called Cloudmark Anti-SPAM that costs $40/year, but it does a great job…. Or just search for “anti spam”.
If you use Comcast or Verizon or another ISP for email and log in to their website to access it, you can instead add that to Outlook, etc. as your primary account and then add your website email address(es) as well.
These POP email clients also offer formatting of messages with color, html, etc that can’t be done with the basic webmail server and you can use the same address book for all of your email accounts. A disadvantage is that you must have the POP software installed on each computer you would use for your email.
Website Mail Anti-SPAM Measures
Email problems have become more commonplace, largely due to increasing amounts of SPAM and the different methods that email providers use to combat it. Website owners are more vulnerable since we want and need visitors to contact us.
Spam Filter for Outlook, Express and Mozilla Firefox. Download SPAMfighter today.
Email addresses are collected by Spammers in many ways. Robots cruise the internet and can read Addresses that are in text form on websites. They can also read simple email links that open email programs. It can also be risky to submit your email address to any website or chain-email that you cannot verify as friendly.
Prevention: For my websites and those I design, I exclusively use email forms (Form Mail) that can be better protected than simple email links. To display an address, I create an image instead of using active links or even text.
Problems: Email providers have been going to great lengths to try to protect their users from the epidemic of spam. The side effects are spam filters blocking good messages along with the bad (aol and yahoo are famous for this) and any messages from certain servers blocked completely. Most websites, such as yours and mine, are located on “Shared Servers” so we don’t have to pay several hundred dollars each year for hosting. If there are Spammers using web addresses on the same server, all mail coming from that server may be considered SPAM and potentially be blocked. These “blacklisted” accounts can be re-instated (“whitelisted”) manually, but have often fallen back into the bad category.
Purge your webmail servers: If your email forwards to your personal address, be sure to delete unneeded messages from the “inbox” periodically at mail.yourdomain.com or ask ray to have inbound messages be automatically deleted from that server. This is especially important if you receive messages with large file attachments which can fill up the mailbox and make it slow to open. If there are hundreds of messages, I could delete and re-instate the mailbox quickly, but you’d lose any saved inbox and sent messages on the webmail server.
Actions to take:
- Seriously consider adding your website email to a POP client (Outlook, etc.)
- To screen out spam, install some anti-spam software.
- If you haven’t received website email recently, fill out the form on your site to be sure you do receive it and contact me if it isn’t received at least within a day. We may need to request “whitelisting”.
- Refrain from listing your email address on pages of your site that you’re equipped to update yourself. Many people use a secondary address such as a free Yahoo or Juno or Gmail account in that case.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome.
…and since referrals to my business earn you free maintenance time, that would allow me to upgrade your spam defenses at no cost!
Best Regards,
Webmaster Ray (302) 633-1482
Website Productivity – Keep your site working hard!
Your business has a website because it’s a cost-effective way to supplement advertising to prospects and to maintain contact with customers. You’re probably aware that you should include the web address in all marketing material, correspondence, signage, email signatures, and phone directory ads. You want your site to be more attractive and more user-friendly than the websites of your competition. You’re happy with the design, structure and maybe even a cool Flash movie. You’ve added photos and images that reinforce the text. But once the site is online, it can be all too easy to neglect a key ingredient—your content!
The site may have contained informative and relevant information when it was built, but is it still current and correct? It can cost very little time or money to ensure that your website continues to do it’s best to help your business thrive. And if you don’t put that small effort in, visitors can be quickly “turned off” by faulty or outdated information. It’s always there for you, 24/7. Treat it as a cornerstone of your business.
Site Structure and Uniform Layout
Color schemes, font size, layout of pages, and navigation structure must be consistent throughout the site for the benefit of both humans and those search engine “tigers” that we want to keep well fed at all times!
Functional and uniform layout
Keep navigation consistent and clear. It is the most important concern for good “usability”. Visitors are more likely to stay at your site when they realize how quickly they can find their way around. Keep the link names (“anchor text”) as simple as possible. Your home page link should be easy to find so people can “start over” if they get lost.
Understandable Navigation
Arrange the pages (navigation) as if you are giving a tour which culminates in a purchase or contact. The hierarchy of the site should flow from most requested information to the least important so that significant areas are easy to find.
Keep site structure logical
Create a list or flowchart of the major content areas and sort individual pages into their relevant categories. It will be easier for visitors to locate the specific information they want if the structure makes sense. If a series of pages is dedicated to a particular purpose, include it as a directory name within your hosting account, giving you additional credit for keywords. For example, a shoe store may categorize items by type and then each type by brand. Great choices of directory and page names for “ABCShoes.com” could be:
Running Shoes
ABCShoes.com/running/asics.html
ABCShoes.com/running/brooks.html
ABCShoes.com/running/nike.html
Tennis Shoes
ABCShoes.com/tennis/reebok.html
ABCShoes.com/tennis/brooks.html
ABCShoes.com/tennis/nike.html
Keep the structure relatively flat, meaning as few layers (directories, sub-directories) as possible. Shorter paths to internal pages result in more credit by search engines.
Organize link menus
Ensure easy access to each page. Large sites may need a Site Map, Search Feature or drop-down menu such as at http://www.HealthandEndurance.com. In particular, a horizontal or vertical drop-down menu allows easy categorization of pages, while using a small area of the page. With multiple sub-menus, visitors can jump from one page to another with minimal clicks. New pages can be quickly added at to the appropriate location.
Maintain consistent layout features
All pages must show consistency in terms of backgrounds, colors, navigation, font sizes, etc. If they don’t look like they all belong to the same website, you don’t look professional. It also invites confusion.
Content is King for Websites
As a website owner, you must give your visitors what they want.
The main goal of your website is to “sell” your products, services or ideas. An eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site directly earns revenue by taking online orders. Informational sites seek to persuade visitors to travel to a physical location or request further details by phone, email, or signing up for a newsletter or membership. Whatever tactic your site takes, you must study the whole process from the visitor’s point of view.
Right from the start, your web pages must be engaging and provide what people came there to find.
Keep the people happy
“Content is King!” This has been the credo of web designers and SEO experts from day one. Incorporate the “keywords” and “keyphrases” your visitors are searching for throughout the site. Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines. The most popular of these expressions must be included on your pages in various places.
With endless choices for any subject, your site must be customer focused. Catch the attention of visitors within 3-8 seconds or they will try one of the other three million related sites, never to return again. First impression is crucial, so choose your home page headlines, text, images and colors carefully.
Capturing their attention within the first few seconds is most important, but you then have to make it easy to solve the problem that initially led them there. The home page needs to concisely explain how you can help
them. It needs to have a layout and navigation system where visitors will quickly realize that their answer is just one or two clicks away. Don’t irritate them by requiring 4 or 5 clicks or by making it a game to guess
which links may have the most pertinent details. Even if they “get lucky”, they may not be able to stumble upon answers in the future.
Web surfers prefer to sell themselves. In the real world, sales and marketing involves convincing prospects in person or via media to try what you’ve got. It often includes playing to their emotions to close the deal.
In the cyber world, there are so many website choices that surfers continue to look for “free stuff” whenever possible. Without seeing each other face-to-face, it’s harder to play to the prospect’s emotions, so they know
that they have the upper hand in that they can decide against you in one click of a key.
Knowing that they control the situation, your site must offer what they want, not what you think they need. Design the site from their point of view by providing complete information, answering logical questions, giving written and visual examples, displaying choices (such as colors and other options), displaying testimonials that people can relate to, and providing free samples! When prospects feel that a website is tailored to their needs, they’ll bookmark it or take the next step towards becoming a customer.
Know your audience
Keep visitors comfortable by designing from their perspective. Your site should reflect the values of your potential customers. If they expect instructions or FAQ pages or multiple photos, meet or exceed these expectations.
When you really prefer that they contact you for certain information (such as pricing or custom specifications) at least guarantee that the details will be provided without sales pressure. Offering a free or discounted promotional item can also entice them to continue the process. Give them what they want and they will return for more!
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