WEAVING THE WEB
TIPS AND INFORMATION FOR WEBSITE OWNERS
18 June 2003
Welcome to the Websites at Work information bulletin - Weaving the Web - keeping you up to date with what's new and what's news at Websites at Work and the wider Internet
This issue focusses on analysis of advertising sources and traffic flow to your website.
Craig joins us in the office full time making for faster responses to your questions. Those of you who are used to getting emails sent late in the evening (early morning US time), however, will still get them.
Regards,
The Websites at Work team
Michelle, Kenny, Gillian, Fiona, Jeremy, Col and Craig
http://www.websitesatwork.com.au
RECENT UPGRADES: NEWSLETTER SYSTEM
Those who use our newsletter system regularly will be familiar with a number of features that have been added over the past months. Automated archiving of newsletters and the ability to create templates have speeded composition. For those who send bulk email for more than one purpose, or to more than one group, multiple mailing lists and the ability to create categories have also improved the process flow. Some of these features may not be available until we activate them for you. If you'd like to have features activated or to hear more about our newsletter/bulk mailing system, contact Craig.
SPECIAL OFFERS
20% Referrer discount
Our aim is to provide top quality websites and a service that is so good you recommend it to your customers and colleagues. To show our appreciation when you do this, we offer a 20% discount on your monthly hosting and support fees for every new customer that you introduce to us. The discount is cumulative, so only five successful referrals and your monthly hosting and support will be free.
FasFind business directory
Make the most of your website through a listing in FasFind Australia yellow pages.
For a low $25 per year you receive
• an agent who will help you get the most from your website
• a priority listing for your website
• the equivalent of a yellow pages online directory listing for a fraction of the cost
• automatic entries via FasFind into search engines
• notification of services that could improve your website and business
Find out more by contacting Kevin Cox on kcox@fasfind.com or visit www.fasfind.com and see if you have a free listing in the FasFind directory.
TIPS
TIP: Use bold and larger fonts rather than underlining headings. Underlining should only be used for hyperlinks as visitors will assume underlined words are links and then be confused when they do not "work".
TIP: Find out how many visitors are coming to your website through links from other sites by using the "referral sites" graph and tables in the website visitor statistics page. Get to this by logging on, going to "home" and clicking on "visitor stats". Every time a visitor arrives at your website from an external page this is recorded. The table shows how many visitors have arrived from each referring website. This table will show the relative importance of linking websites and search engines. If few visitors arrive from referring websites you may need to pay more attention to getting active websites to link to you.
TIP: Another way to bring visitors to your website is online advertising - this is where you pay for placement of a link with a banner, graphic and/or information on a website. The question is: how do you determine if an ad is good value? Once the ad is running your referrer statistics (see tip above) will tell you how much traffic is arriving from. Until then, the website you're thinking of advertising on should tell you how many visitors they get. Assume a 1% click-through rate (it may be higher if your content is highly relevant) to get a rough estimate of how much traffic will arrive. Then you need to determine the value of each visitor - to do this calculate your conversion rate by dividing the number of sales you make through the website by the number of visitors. The value of the ad is then given by the formula:
Estimated return = (number visitors referred) * (conversion rate) * (average profit per sale)
You then compare the estimated return to the cost of the ad to decide if it is good value or not.
TIP: To increase your ranking on Google searches (and Google power most search engines these days) you need to increase your "Page Rank". This is calculated based on the popularity of the pages that link to you - to increase it get websites with high page rank to link to you. To see your page rank, and that of your competitors and potential partners, use the Google toolbar. This is free to download at http://toolbar.google.com.
MARKETING TIPS - from Creative thinking
www.creative-thinking.com.au
TIP: Think about new ways to keep your customers coming back. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think about what would help get YOU to come back.
TIP: Keep your ears open to your clients. Always listen, because listening to your customers is the key to their satisfaction in doing business with you.
FEATURED WEBSITES
Piazza Consulting
http://www.piazzaconsulting.com.au. Piazza are creatively using the Internet to add value to their already highly professional market research services. Websites at Work recently built a secure online form which enabled Piazza to use the Internet to conduct a staff survey for a high profile Federal Government department.
Canberra Montessori School
http://www.canberramontessori.com/ provides in depth information on the educational programmes and activities of a small school in Canberra. This website is an important source of enquiries and new enrollments.
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This material is Copyright Websites at Work 2003.