1. Don’t click on links in email
   Unless you’re absolutely sure you know who the email is from, and were expecting it, don’t trust the link. If you were expecting the message, and it’s personalized rather than something that reads like a form letter, it’s more likely to be okay.
2. “Mouse over” before clicking
   What you see is not always what you get. The link destination does not need to be the same as the visible text on the screen. Most email programs let you move the mouse over a link (without clicking) and give you some information about that link, usually in the lower left or right corner. The address you see there is more likely to be the actual address than what you read in the message itself.
3. Type the address yourself
   Though it’s more of a pain, you’re safe by typing an address into a browser yourself rather than just clicking. That way you’re more aware of what address you’re actually entering, and you can’t be tricked by a bait-and-switch.
4. Access your accounts your regular way
   If you have a PayPal account or online bank account and receive a message about your status or some other problem, access your account the way you typically do rather than through a provided link to see if there really is a problem.

Just because you see part of the address that looks official doesn’t mean it really is. For example, the following address has nothing to do with PayPal:

https://accounts.paypal.com.recoverbalance.net/id398998938/

Many people see the “paypal.com” part and feel reassured. However, it’s the last two parts of the address before you start seeing any slashes that are the most important. In the case of this example, the website you’d be going to would be recoverbalance.net and could be owned by anyone. It’s fairly easy to duplicate the design of a website, so the address is an important way of knowing where you really are.

Another important way to be safe is to make sure you have functioning firewall and anti-virus software in place on your computer. Avast has a great track record in preventing infection, and also works with your browser to prevent connections with pages that attempt to download software to your computer without your knowledge. Better yet, it’s free for personal use.

Further Reading:

• Phishing – Wikipedia Definition
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
• FTC’s “How Not to Get Hooked by a ‘Phishing’ Scam”
  http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt127.shtm
• How Phishing Works
  http://computer.howstuffworks.com/phishing.htm

Email is fast and convenient. However, this often results in less than professional use of email by business professionals. Just as your outfit or handshake make an impression on your clients and associates, your email also creates an impression of you and your business.

Here are some ways to use email effectively, while creating a professional impression.

Use a signature

People might be able to see who a message is from by looking at the “from” information on a message, but this is like expecting people to use an envelope to see who a letter (written on old fashioned paper) is from. Most modern email software allows for the creation of a signature file, which is then added to the end of all email you send. This means you don’t have to type it each time, and you can have a consistent signature that contains your contact information.

A signature can be short or long, but don’t make it too long. You can use formatting to emphasis text, though you should only use it sparingly. You can also include a logo in your signature, though adding an image is usually a little harder than just adding the text. Here’s an example of an effective and simple signature:

	John Smith

	My Company Name
	jsmith@mycompany.com
	(906)555-5555 or 1(800)555-5555
	www.mycompany.com

Edit for readability

When responding to an email, type your response at the top of the email rather than after the message you’re responding to. This lets people see the relevant part of the message first. If the original email to you was longer, remove the parts that you are not specifically responding to. It’s often good to retain the parts you are responding to, as this helps maintain context.

Use the default font settings unless absolutely necessary. While styled emails are possible (they use HTML like a web page does) there is unfortunately not much consistency between email programs on how things are written and displayed. If you use formatting, chances are good that it won’t look the same on your computer as it will on the computer of the person who’s reading your message.

DON’T USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS UNLESS YOU’RE ANGRY. FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF THE INTERNET, USING ALL CAPITALS IS EQUIVALENT TO SHOUTING. MOST PEOPLE DON’T LIKE TO BE SHOUTED AT.

Don’t use a “free” email service

There are many free email services available. Some of the more common ones are Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo. These services are great for personal use, but when sending email as a business, why advertise for someone else? You should have your own website, and with most hosting plans or domain registrations you have the option of creating email addresses based on the domain name you have. This means you can create personalized emails with your own domain, like john@yourbusiness.com or you can opt for a more generic approach like sales@yourbusiness.com. Either way, this will look much more professional than sending mail from AOL or Hotmail or the others.

Use BCC instead of CC when forwarding messages

If you have to forward an email to more than one person at a time, use the BCC (which stands for Blind Carbon Copy) option rather than the CC (Carbon Copy) option. When you use CC, each person getting the email can see all the other people’s names and email addresses who you sent the message to. Using BCC hides that information. Best practice when using BCC is to send a message to yourself, with all of your recipients listed in BCC fields.

Sending emails to a large list of recipients carries some risk. Internet Service Providers may interpret your use as spamming, and you find yourself blocked from the Internet. If you’re using email to send newsletters, advertisements or other marketing messages, you should consider using a third party email service instead. These services also include many very valuable features, like tracking the number of messages opened, forwarded, etc.

Delete email you don’t need anymore

Don’t let your inbox take over. Delete old email messages you don’t need. Organize messages you want to keep by creating folders outside of your inbox. You can take this a step further and create filters that automatically sort your incoming email into various folders, leaving only miscellaneous messages in your inbox. Because time is so valuable and rare these days, a little bit of organizing with your email can save you countless headaches.

Think twice before clicking send

Yes, email is quick and convenient, but it also provides another advantage in communication that people seem to rarely take advantage of. Before you click “send” you can look back over what you wrote, and make sure you’re saying what you want to say. While you don’t have to make every message perfect, there’s less excuse for poor grammar in a written message than in verbal communication, and most email software comes with spell checking software.

Every email you send out is potentially immortal. It can be forwarded, saved, printed, and thrown back at you. It can also reappear years later when you least expect it. You should never assume email is private. Make your messages professional, respectful, and meaningful. (Or, at least, harmless.)

Finally… use it!

Some people still don’t use email, for various reasons. But the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Email is a great tool for business, both for communicating with your clients and for communicating within your company. If you’re unfamiliar with the technology, seek out the nearest computer geek and ask them to show you the basics.

Further Reading:

• How To Set Up A Signature in Mozilla’s Thunderbird
  http://www.upwebmaestro.com/help-thunderbirdsignature.php
• Thunderbird Tutorial – Using Spam and Junk Mail Filters
  http://www.tech-evangelist.com/2007/09/03/mozilla-thunderbird-spam-filters/
• Outlook Spam Tutorial
  http://www.sitedeveloper.ws/tutorials/spam.htm
• How to Create an Email Signature in Outlook
  http://email.about.com/od/outlooktips/qt/et072706.htm
• Email Marketing & Online Surveys
  http://contact.upwebmaestro.com

Are People Looking For You?

There may be several factors working against your website being number one in the Google “top ten” hits. What happens most often is that no one has determined what keywords or phrases your potential customers are using. If your customers are only searching for “widgets” and your website never mentions them, using instead the term “doodad” then it’s not likely that your website will be found. There are so many websites out there (at the time of this writing there are 130,000,000 results for the keyword “widget”) that even slight variations in keywords and combinations can mean the difference between being included near the top of the search results, and being buried. And let’s be blunt—if your website doesn’t appear in the first few pages of results, it might as well not be included at all. Most people don’t dig down to result number 129,999,999 just to buy a widget.

Understanding your target audience is key. If you know what they are likely to search for, you will know what to include in your page titles, paragraph headings, and page text. Ideally, you want pages on your website that refer to and contain information on what your customers are searching for. Your website should provide useful information, while avoiding the spammier tricks like hiding lists of keywords at the bottom of a page set to the same text color as the page background color. Many search engines can pick up on this type of thing and will actually penalize your website as a result.

If you already survey your customers for marketing purposes, you should add some questions that determine their online behavior. You could simply ask, “if you were to search for us online, what keywords would you type?”

Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

Another common problem is a website that isn’t built to be search engine friendly. Search engines don’t care how your website looks, or how professional your graphics or logo may be. Your website is evaluated based on a predetermined set of criteria, and is compared to other websites. Ultimately, search engines are attempting to provide searchers with what they are looking for.

In the early days of web design, you could learn tricks to give your website a competitive advantage over other websites. However as search software becomes more intelligent, honesty has truly become the best policy. If you build websites that people want to find, they will be found. Instead of trying to learn tricks to stuff your website into the top rankings, you should seek to create pages with a reason to be there—and your search engine visibility will take care of itself.

You don’t necessarily need to hire an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) professional, though an honest one can’t hurt your endeavor. “Optimized” is a relative word, however, when it comes to websites. You should ask, “optimized for what?” It all depends on your targeted keywords. Whether you determine these yourself, or are working with an SEO company, make sure that your website developer or designer is aware of and understands your SEO goals.

Whether you actively work to “optimize” your website for a set of keywords or not, make sure that none of the following are getting in the way of your website’s performance.

Common Website Mistakes That Affect Your Search Ranking

• Images used instead of text
  Some designers will use images to display paragraphs of text or headings, when they or their client want to make sure a particular font is displayed. However, this makes the text invisible to search engines. When it comes to search engines, text is king! If you absolutely have to use an image instead of text, make sure to include alternate text in the HTML.
• Missing or inappropriate page titles
  Page titles are often what a search engine will use to display a result, so it may be the first thing your potential customer sees. Titles are also used very prominently in most search engine’s formulas to judge ranking. Each page of your website should have a unique, descriptive, and optimized page title.
• Lack of text organization
  Text should be organized logically with headers and paragraphs. Not only does this make for easier reading, but headers (along with page titles) pack a much larger punch when they use your keywords.

You don’t need to be computer wizard to own a website. You don’t have to know much about XHTML, servers, or SQL injection attacks. “Great!” you say. However, as with anything that costs your business money, you should make sure you understand what your actual needs are, prior to writing the check.

Free Hosting!

Wouldn’t that be great? There actually are companies you can find on the Web that will “give” away hosting and let you get your website up and running without having to pay a penny. The problem is that it’s not really free. In exchange for not charging you for the hosting, your website will be required to display advertising which the hosting company then sells (of which you don’t get a penny.) Many “free” hosting companies also require that your site’s address (domain name) be an extension of their own. For example, www.example.com/sites/yourcompanyname/ instead of www.yourcompanyname.com. This dilutes your own company’s image and branding.

Even if you’re okay with not having your own domain name, and sharing advertising space on your site, you may want to consider the full effect this could have on the image of your business. The next time you visit your favorite restaurant, imagine what it’d be like if, to save on costs, they’d sold advertising space on their signs, menus, table-tops, napkins, and windows. Then imagine if their competitors had purchased some of that ad space. Not a great impression. And like a restaurant, your website is an experience (good or bad) for each visitor.

The same arguments can be made for email addresses. While using the free email services available through AOL, Yahoo, Gmail and others can be great for individuals, why waste the marketing opportunity for your business? Every time you send an email out from your Yahoo email account, you’re advertising for Yahoo, and reinforcing Yahoo’s brand instead of yours. Why not let your business benefit instead? Make sure all your email comes from you@yourcompanyname.com. (Well, not literally. Use your own company’s domain name.)

How About UNLIMITED Bandwidth And Disk Space?

Nope. It’s a popular trend in the very competitive hosting business to set up hosting plans that offer unlimited (usually shown in capital letters to make sure you see it) disk space and monthly bandwidth. (Bandwidth is the measurement of the amount of traffic your website can use each month.)

While it sounds like a good deal, it is an impossible promise for the hosting company to keep. No hosting company in the world has an unlimited number of servers, or an unlimited capacity to handle unlimited bandwidth. What they are counting on is that most people don’t use their full monthly allotment of bandwidth, or all their available disk space that comes with their hosting plans. That means the companies can “oversell” the number of people on their servers, by pretending there’s more space and bandwidth than are technically available. However, if you tried to take them up on the offer of “unlimited” you’d quickly find out (and it’s usually in the fine print of their service contracts) that there are phrases like “reasonable use” that will suddenly apply to you and cause limits to suddenly exist. Technically this amounts to false advertising, but no one seems to be calling the hosting companies on it yet.

Don’t be fooled. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and you do typically get what you pay for.

How Much You Should Spend On Hosting

Does your business need to have website access and functioning email 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Is it critical to your business that large numbers of people can visit your site at one time, without crashing the server? If you’re a small business but answered “yes” to these questions, you may be disappointed to know that the most commonly used hosting solutions are probably not for you.

Dedicated Hosting

If your website is “mission critical” you should probably invest in what’s called a “dedicated” server. This means that your website gets it’s very own server, and doesn’t have to share resources (memory, performance, etc.) with other websites. Dedicated servers are not cheap, and start around a couple of hundred dollars a month. The differences in cost are most often the quality of the hardware, and the amount of monitoring and service that come with the package. These types of hosting plans will often include setup fees and software licensing fees.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS)

A slightly cheaper version of these types of plans are “virtual private servers” (or VPS). These are created by taking a dedicated server and setting up several virtual servers running side by side—each with it’s own website and operating system supporting it. While you share the physical server, each site still gets its own resources. The cost is less because you’re sharing some of the expense, but you still have individual control over the complete environment your website lives in.

Shared Hosting

Most of the hosting you see advertising for is called “shared” hosting. It’s cheap, because essentially you share the server (both physically and all the software resources) with any number of other website owners. While the cost is nice, it’s less reliable than a dedicated server, because you never know if one of the other site owners you’re sharing the server with is sending out tons of spam, setting up phishing websites, or otherwise misbehaving. Since your website shares the same server IP address as these unknown potential hooligans, you share in that IP’s reputation around the Web.

People who abuse hosting can also cause the server to freeze by running memory intensive scripts and programming, and if the server crashes, your site does too. Even someone doing nothing illegal can bring a server down, just by creating a site that becomes wildly popular. If your website shares their server, the more their website uses of the server’s memory and performance, the less there is available for yours.

Which Type Of Hosting Is Right For You

So how much to spend? It depends on what you need. Most small business websites will do just fine on a shared hosting plan. How much disk space and bandwidth you need will depend on what your website does, and may change over time. But if your business relies completely on your website, or you find yourself featured in national media (so now everyone in the country wants to visit your site) or are a fast growing company, you may want to go in for a dedicated server.

Make sure your hosting is part of the conversation you have with your website designer or development professional, and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

In today’s business world, it’s better to have a website, any website, than to not be online. However, there’s a huge difference between having a website that makes you more money, brings in more customers, or improves service to existing customers, and a website that just sits there like an unread brochure. Think of your website like an employee… would you hire someone you knew would come in to work and just sit there costing you money?

The job your website does should depend on your business or organization. Not everyone is selling widgets, so not everyone needs a shopping cart. You should start by determining what your business or organization’s goals are. When you have a good picture of what you’d like to accomplish, then it’s time to talk to a professional web designer. Make sure you and your designer are on the same page and that they understand your goals.

Increase Your Sales

If your main goal is to increase sales, then your website should revolve around making it easy for a visitor to give you their money. Don’t spend a lot of space on your company history, a collection of links to other sites, or virtual tours… put featured products right up front! Make it obvious how to “buy now” or “add to cart” and of course the “check out” should always be handy.

The check out process itself should be as painless as possible—don’t worry about using long forms to collect a ton of personal information, only what’s necessary to complete the sale. There’ll be plenty of time later for gathering marketing information. With cart abandonment rates anywhere from 25% to 75%, don’t give your customers any reason to get frustrated or distracted from completing a sale. Focus up-sells or additional sales on the “thank you” pages rather than during the ordering process.

Make sure your website provides a receipt your customers can print, and a “thank you” page letting your customer know how much you appreciate their business.

Create an Online Community

You can build loyalty to your company or organization if you create an opportunity for like-minded customers to interact. Discussion boards are the most traditional method of doing this. Sharing their experience and opinions online with others reinforces their relationship with you. This won’t work for everyone, but when it does, it can be the best investment you’ve ever made.

To go this route, make sure that you or someone working for you can spend the time managing it and keeping current with the technology. You’ll want to make sure your company is involved and an active foundation for your new online community.

Improve Customer Support

Imagine how happy your customers would be if you hired someone to answer their questions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Without adding to your payroll you can actually come pretty close.

Compile a list of your customer’s frequently asked questions, and provide answers to them on your web site. This isn’t an opportunity to answer questions you wish your customers would ask—stick to information you know they want because they’ve already asked. This will help you build trust.

Create an online help desk to centralize and document support issues. By providing a page where customers can initiate a support request, you can provide a sense of being taken care of. By setting up an automated response to a new request, you can further reinforce your positive impression. Be sure to state in your automated responses what your expected personal response time will be and then be sure to follow through. You’ll be able to do more with fewer man hours by utilizing an online support system.

Resist Temptation

It may be tempting to use your website to create an online shrine to you, your company or your brand… but don’t do it. The problem is, no one cares. Your website should include some basic information about who you are and what you do, but statistics show that people are spending less time browsing around a site, and are instead visiting sites for a specific purpose. Make it easy for them to accomplish their purpose, and you’ll win them over.

Above all else, make sure you know what you want your website to do for you. It’s as important to give it a job description as any other employee in your organization.

Further Reading:

• Guide to Building an Online Community
  http://www.work.com/building-an-online-community-1299/
• Understanding the Causes of Shopping Cart Abandonment
  http://onlinebusiness.volusion.com/articles/understanding-the-causes-of-shopping-cart-abandonment
• About Us Information on Websites
  http://www.useit.com/alertbox/about-us-pages.html