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Welcome to Alaska Web News!
This newsletter is intended to provide information, tips and advice to Alaska business owners on how to more effectively use the web to increase business. If you would like to be removed from the mailing list click the unsubscribe link at the bottom.
Survey Results
Thanks to everyone who filled out the survey in our last newsletter. Below is a breakdown of the responses. This information will be very helpful in planning future newsletters.
| Industry |
Restaurant |
17% |
| |
Tourism |
17.5 % |
| |
Retail |
33% |
| |
Manufacturing |
17.5% |
| |
Other |
17% |
| |
|
|
| Years in Business |
1-3 years |
18% |
| |
> 8 years |
82% |
| |
|
|
| Current Growth of Business |
Static |
34% |
| |
Steady |
46% |
| |
Strong |
18% |
| |
|
|
| Have a Web Site |
Yes |
83% |
| |
No |
17% |
| |
|
|
| Visitors to Site per Month |
Don't know |
66% |
| |
0-50 |
66% |
| |
50-100 |
18% |
| |
|
|
| Emails from Site per Month |
Don't know |
33% |
| |
0-5 |
33% |
| |
15-30 |
17% |
| |
50-100 |
17% |
| |
|
|
| Have E-commerce on Site |
Yes |
13% |
| |
No |
87% |
| |
|
|
| Want E-commerce |
Yes |
20% |
| |
No |
80% |
| |
|
|
| Web Site Procides: |
General information |
100% |
| |
New Customers |
50% |
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News |
33% |
| |
|
|
| Topics of Interest |
Site design |
80% |
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Increasing site traffic |
82% |
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Business integration |
60% |
As you can see one of the topics that almost everyone is interested in is driving more traffic to their web site.
Some of our earlier newsletters go into depth on some things you can do to improved traffic to your site. Where appropriate we will link to those articles in this overview.
Search Engines
Search engines are by far the most popular method of finding information on the web. There are many things you can do to improve your standing in search results. See our earlier newsletter for more details.
Link Exchanges
It seems like a day doesn't go by that I don’t
get email from a web site that wants to trade links
with me. So what’s the deal, are link exchanges
a good idea or a waste of time?
Links from other sites can improve your rank with search engines, but only if the site linking to you is relevant. However, when trading links you should not focus on trying to get a bunch of links with the idea of increasing your page rank. You should try to get links on sites that are complimentary to yours and that can actually send you traffic.
For example – a link on a web site for a Thailand hotel is not going to generate any traffic to your Anchorage restaurant site and will not help your page rank either. However, a listing on an Anchorage travel or business directory can achieve both goals.
Directories are a great place to get links. If it’s a really good one it can even be worthwhile to pay for a listing. Try doing a search for "anchorage Alaska directory" and scan through the results.
Online Advertising
Advertising with pay-per-click ads are a great way to generate traffic quickly. It can take a while for search engines to index your site but when you set up a pay-per-click account your ads start appearing almost immediately. And unlike traditional advertising, you only pay for the ad when someone clicks on it and visits your site.
You can set up different ad campaigns to target different keywords, allowing a great deal of customization to your ads. You set up a monthly budget limit giving you control of your costs.
The two leading pay-per-click programs are Google Adwords and Overture.
"Advertise" Your Site in Your Collateral
Your site URL should appear on every piece of collateral that you produce from business cards and letterheads to advertising and signage. I have seen businesses that didn’t have a URL or email on their business cards because "we still have a bunch of old cards left that we need to use up."
Business cards are cheap – make sure yours have an email and web address.
And don’t just add the URL to printed material, integrate the two. If you have a brochure then suggest in your brochure that people go to your web site for additional information, specials or news. Make your web site an active and changing part of how you deliver information to your customers.
Newsletters
In an earlier edition we talked about newsletters and how they can be a great way to get information out to your customers. They are also a good way to bring customers to your site. But to be effective you need to keep your site fresh and up-to-date.
Email Lists
Sending out a mailer to an email list can be an effective way to generate some traffic especially for special promotions. But isn’t that spam? It depends.
Spam is unwanted email. If you buy the use of an email
list you should only use opt-in lists. These are lists
of people who have indicated that they want to receive
information from companies like yours. When registering
for services online there is often a check box that
you can click if you want to receive such information.
In that case you have "opted-in" to be on
a mailing list.
You do need to follow certain anti-spam regulations when sending unsolicited email however. You must provide a way for people to unsubscribe from your list and you must include the physical address of your business in the email.
That wraps it up for this edition.
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