Best Internet Practices
For Business
http://openrain.com

Today
Website necessities and common mistakes.
Email marketing and newsletters.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
Tracking and analyzing website visitor traffic.
Content writing tips for search engine
optimization.

Websites.

Website necessities.
Solid branding. Content is king.
Consistent. Business information.
Professional. Products and services.
Modern. Sample work.
Usability. Meaningful imagery.
Easy visitor navigation. Valuable education.
Enjoyable, memorable. Specific to your office.

Website necessities.
Contact methods.. Call to action.
Phone. Extremely obvious.
Email. Easy as possible.
Fax.
Form submission.

Website mistakes.
Meaningless pictures. Dancing gerbils.
Inconsistent. Scrolling or blinking text.
Unclear call to action. Music.
About the owner. Not indexable.
Text embedded in No cross-links.
graphics.
3rd-party ads.
Huge/Slow graphics.
No follow-up opportunities.

Example: Search engine problem.

Example: Search engine problem.

Example: Inappropriate ads.

Example: Lack of branding.

Should you post pricing?
It depends.
Pros: Potential customers like it. Filters out
people without the right budget.
Cons: Hard to quote services. Does not create
a personal connection. Can attract “bargain
basement” leads.
Alternative: Explain detailed estimate process.

Email.

Motivations and goals.
Reach out to new potential customers that will
receptive of your message.
Reconnect to people that know you, but are not
customers.
Stay connected to existing customers with
routine periodic mailings.
Special announcements.

Pricing.
Varies. 1-2 cents/email typical.
Pay as you go, or monthly fixed.
Expect some form of bulk discounts.
Varying tiers of services and features.

Lots of vendor options.
iContact Online Outbox
Constant Contact SubscriberMail
Vertical Response Savicom
Benchmark Email Boomerang
Stream Send iPost
Mail Chimp Mailworkz
InfusionSoft Many more...

Useful features.
Scheduling.
Template customization.
Campaign management.
Reports and statistics.
Integration.

Examples: Integrate!
Empty email has no value.
Get people interested!

CAN-SPAM notes.
If majority of content is A label for “adult” content.
sales/solicitation- it is a
commercial offer. Recipient cannot be
required to pay a fee or
Accurate from lines. provide info other than the
email address and opt-out
Relevant subject lines preferences, or other steps
(relative to offer in body other than sending a reply
content and not deceptive) email or visiting a single
Legitimate physical address web page.
of publisher/advertiser.

Pay-per-click. (PPC)

Common terminology.
SERP: Search engine CPM: Cost per thousand
results page. impressions.
PPC: Pay-per-click. CR: Conversion rate.
PPA/CPA: Pay-per-action, Keywords/Search terms.
cost-per-action.
Bounce rate.
CTR: Click-through rate.
Pages per visit.
CPC: Cost per click.

SERP dissection.

Analysis.

Stuff you want to know.
Who is visiting you?
What are they interested in?
When did they visit?
Where are they?
Why are they visiting your?
How did they get here?

Tons of tools and options.
VisiStat eWebAnalytics
Google Analytics Opentracker
ShinyStat Webstats
GoingUp Clicky
SlimStat Yahoo! Web Analytics
mviSpy Sometric
MetaTraffic many, many more...

Google Analytics.

Overview.

Location.

Content.

Sources.

Content.

Tips for effective online content.
Write to the visitor. Make them want to read it.
Demonstrate expertise and professionalism.
Emphasize the call to action.
Focus on a couple key phases per page.
Use headings, bold, italics, highlighting etc.

Example: Homepage content.

SEO realities.
The major search engine You must identify your
players do not release target concepts, and can’t
specific ranking heuristics. optimize for everything.
Specific tactics can be You can be penalized in
highly debated, and with SERPs--and potentially
different end goals. blacklisted--by using some
tactics.
Usability guidelines
sometimes run contrary to The very notion of “SEO”
SEO practices, particularly is controversial in some
in copy writing. circles.

Optimization tips.
Focus on only a couple core Generate inbound links
phrases/concepts. from partner sites, PR etc.
Generous use of keyword Provide meaningful
phrases (and variants). outbound links.
Include region-specific Lots of “experts” make
keywords. (City, state etc.) generic comments or
outdated information, so
Remember that CPC is a make decisions scientifically,
major factor! not based on random
feedback.

Presenter Information
O p e n R a i n p rov i d e s e x p e rt web d e s i g n , Preston Lee is a founding member of OpenRain
development and marketing services for the Software: bringing businesses online with dynamic
desktop and mobile web. Based in Phoenix and one of internet applications. He has provided senior
Arizona’s most successful web development shops, engineering leadership for Apollo Group, Cisco
OpenRain services national clients and also offers Systems, the U.S. government and many other Phoenix-
personalized hosted deployment and training services. area and multinational institutions where he has
become recognized for a wise balance of technical,
OpenRain, LLC business and customer perspectives. He has also earned
1 (623) 691-7869 MBA, BS in Computer Science & Engineering, AA and
sales@openrain.com AGS degrees.
http://openrain.com
http://blog.openrain.com While not on the job, Preston is active in over a dozen
http://twitter.com/openrain local tech communities and enjoys woodworking, music
production and filling frames on his digital SLR. He
can be read regularly and contacted via his blog at...
http://prestonlee.com