I will be sending out this Newsletter each month to all of
my accounts that use us to host your websites. I will be showing you many of the
tools that are available and giving you ideas on how to use them to get a better
return on your sites.
It is a well documented fact now that most of your better
clients will go to the Internet to search for help before they even use the
telephone book. Given that it becomes more and more important to advertise your
site's address and make it as effective as possible.
That will be the focus of this newsletter and future ones. I
will also discuss happenings that affect you as regards the Internet. Warnings
of virus's will be here as well as they come in to me. You are encouraged to ask
questions and look for answers in our new Web Hosting and Design Forum. I will
be sending out a special notice with the address for that in the next few days.
Feel free to call me (360) 897-6946 or email me
rmills@phcweb.net with any questions regarding your web site or if
you need ideas about how to use it.
Raymond Mills
Internet Contractor PHC WEB
New Rates go into Effect for
2006
Last Year was quite a trip for us. We suffered several
hacking attempts and server upgrades were not as smooth as we would all have
liked.
To make our little niche on the Internet, safer, we have upgraded the
security on our servers with firewalls and added 2 new servers to the mix to
spread us out a bit. The Internet is not as safe a place as it once
was.
This has cost a lot more money than we have had to spend in the past
but all in all we are better off for it as our sites are safer and run a lot
faster
Our New rates are now 360.00 a year. That amounts to a little more
than a $ 9.00 a month increase. Forour contractor accounts. The association
rates will stay the same for now.
We have added a number of additional
tools to the server that all of you can take advantage of easily. This
newsletter will be address those tools each month as well as making suggestions
to you all regarding how to use your sites more efficiently to get more return
on your investment.
In addition, in order to help defray the extra costs I am
now providing our Quarterly Search Engine Promotion Package (a $ 150.00 value)
free of charge to all our contractor accounts. That should help drive more
traffic to your sites.
New Design Team
We are adding a few designers to help me with the new accounts
and give me more time to keep your sites updated and to maintain the
servers.
Thomas Patterson is our latest member of the team his picture and
introduction are to your right on this page. Here one of his designs made for
us.
http://rbtravisplumbing.com
Thomas is a young
designer in Texas who has done a number of projects for me over the years. He
has quite a flair for the artistic nature of the Internet.
Feature of the Month
Forums and Bulletin Boards
Many web sites today have an interactive tool called a Forum
or Bulletin Board. They are used in many different ways to create a sense of
community.
Plumbers use them to help their clients ask PHC related questions.
Some call them Ask the Plumber Boards here is a link to one such board.
http://www.terrylove.com/forums/
The idea is that it gives you a place to show your customer
that you know what you are doing and give them reasons for hiring a professional
to do the job right. It also keeps them coming back to your site which increases
traffic and they tend to tell others about it as well which helps you pick up
new business.
The tool is already set on the server it costs only 25.00 flat
one time fee to activate it and adjust it for your colors and site design.
Site Statistics
For those of you who do not know, all our sites now come
equipped with site stats so you can see how many folks are dropping by and what
search words they are using to get there.
http://yoursite.com/webstat/ will bring up this valuable
tool.
E-Mail Accounts
All our sites can have domain based e-mail accounts with no
additional charge. yourname@yoursite.com for instance. These can be redirected
to your local email account or set up as server based emails that you use
outlook express or outlook to go and retrieve you mail. I can add them and
change them as needed or I can give you access to them to manage them on your
own. The advantage of being able to give someone an email address that shows
your website address is obvious. If you would like to take advantage of this
just let me know.
Coming Next Month
In this column I will give you an idea of what we will be
talking about in next months issue. All our accounts will recieve this as an
E-Mail but you can always come to this site to see any you might have missed.
Next Month I want to show you how to use some of the E-Mail
Tools on the site to help make your websites more effective. We will also talk
about the famous Blogs, what they are and how a contractor might use them to
keep folks coming back to your site. We have a built in Blog tool just for you
if you find you have a need or desire.
As a matter of fact, we have over 30 different tools that can be
added I will be showing you more each month as well as going over some of the
services that you might need.
You can send questions to me at
rmills@phcweb.net and we are also setting up a PHCWEB Hosting Forum
you can go to this forum and ask questions and see the answers to other
questions that have been asked. It is a good place to enter into a discussion
about how to use your websites to increase your business.
Sincerely,
Raymond Mills
Internet Contractor for the
PHC Industry
P.O.Box 289
South Prairie, WA 98385
Voice: 360-897-6946
Fax: 360-234-5527
Specializing in website Design and Hosting for the
Plumbing and Heating Contractors Nationwide