March 2005

The Net Gazette
Helping You Help Your Site

First, I want to thank everyone for signing up for the free Web newsletter. This is the third issue of The Net Gazette and so far, it has been a great success, with lots of people signing up regularly. If you enjoy this newsletter and think an associate or friend may benefit from it, please point them to this page: http://www.oakwebworks.com/contact_us/newsletter-signup.htm

In this issue of The Net Gazette we are going to explore the wonderous and magical world of databases, prospect lists, and html forms. Well ok, it may not be magical, but it's certainly vital to any business today. So let's get started on our way to improving your Web business.

Web Tip #5:
Remember Rolodexs? If you haven't made the connection, your email program is your 21st century Rolodex. And why do I mention this? It's vital as a Web entrepreneur or business person to continually build an email list. There are many ways to do this, and we're going to look at a few in a minute. But one simple and effective way is to make sure you always record and keep most email addresses that you mail to throughout your day. Your email program should allow you to create groups or categories of people. So you should be able to create groups called 'Outside Vendors', 'Prospects', 'Business Associates', or whatever is suitable for your particular situation. For example, I write a lot of articles online and have a list of people who accept and post my articles, so 'Article People' is a group I have in my email program. Every time I write a new article, I send an announcement to that group.

The reason for keeping and organizing your day-to-day email addresses is so you can market to the later, or at least remind them that you still exist. Depending on the group, you could craft an email that would fit their particular interests and drop them a line once in a while. You could also import that list to your prospects database (you have a database of potential customers, right?) and bring them 'into the fold' as it were.

E-Marketing - Email Lists and Databases

First of all, there are lots of different databases and lots of different solutions. The software and solutions you choose should be determined by your company size, budget and your specific needs. For example, if you are a one-person show who runs a website on your own, and have a modest budget, then you're not going to want to buy an expensive database. And believe me, they can get expensive. Microsoft SQL Server can run in the many thousands of dollars. So your solution may be to use Microsoft Excel as your 'database'. Or you can use an online, subscription-based service. A good choice is AWeber (http://www.aweber.com). It is reasonably priced, lets you manage your leads, and facilitates sending regular email blasts to your lists. It also gives you the code for html forms to insert into your website.

If you are a medium sized business, and I define that by having 25-500 employees and a budget to have a Web or technical person, and preferably a database administrator, then a Microsoft Access or MySQL database may be appropriate for you. MySQL database software is actually free for download, but is difficult to handle. There is no graphical user interface to help you. It is completely set up, managed and administered by command line only. And you'll need to SQL (structured query language). So you really need someone in your organization who knows how to handle MySQL or has the time to learn it if you choose to use this database package.

If you're a large company and have the money to spend, and hundreds of thousands of leads to manage, then a more robust database may be necessary. In this case Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server may be the way for you to go. Of course you'll need to hire a database administrator to handle this software. And you'll need to hook the database up to all your systems including any CRM packages you may have, supply chain, inventory, etc. There are many other databases in existence to choose from that have not been mentioned here as well. And remember, it is always best to keep your database on a seperate physical machine than your website server machine. This is the case for security and performance reasons.

So there's many things to consider when determining what to use for a database. But why have a database in the first place? In this day and age, any business that does not take full advantage of the standard technology in existence presently is going to lose its competitive edge. Notice I used the words 'standard technology'. I am not referring to bleeding edge technology. In other words, Microsoft Excel and Word are standard business technologies. RSS and XML Web services are a little more cutting edge and would not be considered standard. You don't need to rush out and buy and learn all kinds of new and exciting technologies to be in business today. But you have to take advantage of the common tools of our day. And one such tool is undoubtedly the database.

Rolodexs are big and unwieldy. Databases are tiny and nimble. Since the lifeblood of a business is sales, and since sales is precipitated by leads, a nice little database software program that stores and manages your leads is obviously vital to your business.

Web Tip #6:
Trade links with other websites. If you read January's issue of The Net Gazette regarding search engine optimization and the importance of link building, then you already know why it's important for you to create as many links out there on the Web pointing back to your website as possible. The more inbound links you have pointing to your website from other websites, the better you'll rank in the search engines.

I suggest that you create a 'Resources' page as part of your website and use that page to list websites that you trade links with. See the Oak Web Works' Partners page as an example.

Among the numerous websites I run is a Sports and Concerts Tickets Website called http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com/.

If you are interested in exchanging links with this website, please email me to discuss it further. I would place your website link for free on this page: http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com/partners.htm in exchange for you placing my tickets site's homepage link on your website. If interested, please email me at:

How to Build Your Leads Databases

In Web Tip #5 above, we talked about hanging on to all your email addresses that you gather throughout a normal business day. That's one way to build your potential customers database. But there are lots of great ways to do this if you have a website. Enter the html form. Now, people generally don't like to fill out forms online. Privacy and impatience are two major reasons. So you need to address both of these issues every time you attempt to ascertain a site visitor's information via an html form.

As far as the privacy issue is concerned, always have a 'Privacy Statement' hyperlink in plain view and on every page of your site if possible. Furthermore, add a condensed version of it that just talks about how you handle people's private information, especially their email addresses, right there above or below each form on your site.

Spam stinks, (both the food and the email behavior) so be sure to put people's fears to rest and assure them that you aren't going to sell their email address to Johnny Spammer next week. Finally, be sure to always include an 'opt-out' check box in each form. That way, people can choose not to be emailed by you in the future.

Since people are so impatient while surfing the Web, keep your html forms as absolutely short as possible. You don't need to ask them every piece of obscure contact information you can think of, especially if you will probably never use all of it. If you plan on only emailing your prospects in the future, don't ask for a street address. If you have a few qualifying questions you'd like your site visitors to answer, keep the number to questions to no more than two to five. If I come to an html form on a website and it has twenty questions, I'm gone.

In the last issue of The Net Gazette we discussed why incentives are so important. You can diminish people's impatience if you motivate them to fill out your short html form by offering an incentive in exchange for their time. In a nutshell, follow these rules:

• Have a 'Privacy Statement' hyperlink in plain view and on every page
• Add a condensed version of it below each form that explains how you handle people's email addresses
• Include an 'opt-out' check box in each form
• Keep your html forms as absolutely short as possible
• Keep the number of questions to no more than two to five
• Always offer an incentive to people for filling out the form

Here are a number of reasons to include an html form on your site:

• A free download such as a white paper or a trial version of software
• A free newsletter signup (that's how we got your email address)
• A subscription to your site for premium content (see www.marketingprofs.com)
• A basic 'Contact Us' form
• A custom experience on your website
• Contests
• An online forum

And this is just a few scenarios where it's appropriate to include an html form. Each industry and business may have their own specific scenarios. Get creative. As long as you give your site visitors a reason to fill out a form, an incentive, and address their privacy concerns, html forms are a great way to build your leads database.

Web Technology Article
If you are interested in learning more about how to read and interpret website statistics, please read my article by clicking the link below:

Web Analytics - Murder by Numbers - Part 1
Want to know a methodology to learn the exact effectiveness of every e-marketing initiative you conduct?

In the next issue of The Net Gazette we're going to look at more ways to improve your search engine optimization, more Web design suggestions, and maybe we'll get into some technical programming stuff as well, all in the name of improving the Web, one site at a time.

To learn more about these subjects or if you have a need for e-marketing, design or programming services, please visit www.oakwebworks.com.

Happy Webbing.

- Jason

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