Lorrex

 
Effective Electronic Newsletters
I am currently providing some Internet strategy advice to one of my clients. As part of that work they asked for my assistance in setting up an electronic newsletter. I have advised them to start a corporate blog but they want to try a newsletter first.

In that electronic newsletters aren't really my speciality I pointed my client in the direction of some vendors that provide online newsletter management tools. One of the vendors had a nice list of fundementals you should employ to make your newsletter more effective. I liked the list and thought I'd post a link here for your reference. Even though the list was intended for electronic newsletters I think that the information also applies to websites.

Have you thought of publishing a newsletter? I'd be curious to hear your feedback.
- posted by John @ 17:43  

 
Is spelling important for SEO?
Spelling is indeed important for SEO but not necessarily in ways that we are comfortable with. In order to present a professional image it is very important to have your site content spelled correctly. This can take a lot of time to properly edit and proofread. But here's the rub - your visitors will not spend as much time proof reading their query.

According to Google there are were almost 600 ways to spell " britney spears " in a three month period. The traffic associated with these misspellings was roughly 30% of that of the correct spelling. The lesson here is that you could be missing a large number of visitors because of misspellings. By extension variations of a word could also be important in your SEO strategy.

For example if you sell Oak Chairs you may also want to have your site optimized for Oak Furniture. Be broadening the search terms you may get more leads that are not qualified but it could mean you don't miss that one lead that changes your business.
- posted by John @ 13:21  

 
Internet lead generation - myth or reality?
For most everyday business the purpose of their website is to help that company market its product or service. The purpose of marketing is to generate leads. In essence a website should generate leads. Unfortunately not all websites have this objective in mind.

A lead can mean many things. If you sell VOC filtering systems it may mean the contact details for someone looking for that type of equipment. If you operate an adult literacy program a lead may mean contact details for a volunteer tutor. What ever your definition of a lead is, you should make sure your website is working to get you more of them.

A number of years ago a client said something to me that is apropos to this post. He said "you can't close what you don't propose." You can convert site visitors in to leads simply by asking them to contact you. (example)
- posted by John @ 16:27  

 
Domains and email addresses, can you have one without the other?
This post falls more in to the Internet Strategy part of my business than the SEO side of things. A core part of any Internet Strategy is to let people know that your business has a web presence. One of the easiest ways to do this is by using your domain name in your email address. Why do I point out this simple truth? The reality is that many businesses are not doing this! I have seen many businesses using a domain only publish their email address with the domain name of their ISP.

There is another downside to not using your corporate domain name for your email address: changing ISPs. If you publish your email address using your domain name you will not have to notify anyone if you change your ISP. This will prevent lost or delayed email.

In most cases using your domain name in your email address is as easy as setting up your email client. Chances are the domain email has already been set up by your ISP. If you aren't sure check with their technical support team.
- posted by John @ 09:53  

 
Spam cure worse than the curse
I have an associate that believes spammers should be shot, literally! He runs a very busy mail server that sees just way too much spam. I'm not sure i'd be that draconian in dealing with spammers but nor would I do what I see happening on many websites.

You can reach me via sales@lorrex.com, not salesatlorrexdotcom. How does publishing your email in the aforementioned manner make it easy for potential customers to contact you? It doesn't! Does it slow the spammers down? Not really. If spammers really want to harvest email addresses they'll just come up with better algorithms to get them.

A better way to thwart email harvesting is to use use a feedback form. If you still want to publish your email address you can do it by using a graphical link to your form. One day I might even do that on my site.

Another way to deal with spam is to use a spam filter. That's what I do and it seems to work fairly well.

Now, who's got the bullets?
- posted by John @ 16:58  

 
SEO Long Tail
While reviewing the web stats for one of my clients as part of my SEO maintenance service I noticed that only 50% of the traffic comes from the top 20 keywords. I noticed similar results in some of my other client's stats. This is referred to as the "long tail" approach to marketing. On a graph think of the long tail as the reverse of a "hockey stick" line.

Chris Anderson from Wired Magazine wrote a great article about the long tail. You can get a copy of it here. Danny Sullivan has posted a more SEO relevant blog on this phenomenon here. His blog has links to several more sites supporting his position.
- posted by John @ 15:07  

 
7 Sins of Email Etiquette
Shortly after discussing email etiquette with one of my clients they sent me this article via email. The article does a nice job of exploring the "softer" side of email etiquette. It deals primarily with communicating your intent clearly. There are good lessons there for everyone.

There is an article here that has a more basic take on email etiquette. If you are new to using email in business then that article is for you.
- posted by John @ 08:05