This is the second of our Monthly Hosting Newsletters. I
hope you find them helpful. 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. If any of you missed last months issue
please send me an email and request it.
Raymond Mills
Internet Contractor PHC WEB
Using E-Mail More
Effectively
As promised last month I want to go into some detail about
how to use your email and the various email tools that are available to
you.
All of you have email addresses based on your local ISP. You get
that automatically when you set up an Internet Account. However, you can also
have an email address that is attached to your domain name. For instance
yourname@yourlocalconnection.com
is your local email address but you can also have, free,
yourname@yourdomainname.com . Now it can be an email account that you go and
receive email from directly or you can have all mail sent to that address to
your local email. Most do that as a matter of fact.
The thing you want to realize is that if you give our the email
with your domain name as part of the address then you are also advertising and
driving traffic to your web site. You see the business sense of having a domain
name based email and giving that out instead of your local email. Also, you are
more likely to change your local email that you are your domain name email, so
it makes more sense to give it out rather than your local one.
Auto Responders
All of you have available what are called auto responders. This
is a system built into your server that will automatically send an email back to
anyone who tries to send a message to that autoresponders email. That sounds a
little confusing but lets look at the simplest example. Suppose you go on
vacation and you want folks to realize it might be a week or two before you can
respond. Just send me your vacation message and I can attach it to what ever
email address you wish.
You could also put this months specials in an autoresponder. The
client just clicks on the sales email link on your site and the latest prices or
specials get sent to him via email, plus you get a copy of his email sent to you
so you can build a list of those interested in your specials.
Mailing List Software
All of you have available two type of email list software that
can be used for various reasons.
Discussion List
This allows you to build a list of clients that are interested
in hearing about Plumbing Heating and Cooling issues that affect them as
consumers and discussing those issues or asking questions of you regarding PHC
problems they may be having. This builds you a prospect list of potential
clients that can be sent information as part of the discussion. A little work
but can be valuable.
Newsletter
This is slightly different in that you are sending
information one way. This is where you can set up a list of clients that want to
receive your Newsletter via email each month or quarter. They can sign up
automatically on the site and you can send to all of them by clicking on one
button.
Neither of the options above are very costly just a
25.00 set up charge one time and I am there to help you afterwards till you get
used to it or many cases I can do it for you. Just send me the newsletter for
example and I will forward it to the list and maintain the list for you.
Other Email Issues will be discussed in other issues of
this Newsletter. I will be discussing Spam Assassin Software Next Month.
Add on Software
Applications
The list below may or may not mean anything to you but many of
these tools can be used to make your site more effective and keep people coming
back to it. I will explain them all as the months progress. If you have any
specific questions on any of them just give me a call: (360) 897-6946
-
Mambo CMS tool for creating and deploying dynamic web content.
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post-Nuke (CMS)
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osCommerce Ecommerce software
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phpBB (bulletin board)
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gallery (picture gallery)
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phpBook (guestbook)
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bbClone (counter)
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gtChat (chat engine)
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AdvancedPoll (Poll system)
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AutoIndex (File statistics and file manager)
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b2evolution (Blog)
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Coppermine (Photo gallery)
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CSLH (Customer support)
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DocFAQ (FAQ system)
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openbiblio (Library )
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Owl (Knowledge base)
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phpAds (Banner system)
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phpBugTracker (PHP clone of Bugzilla)
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phpDig (Search engine)
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phpMoney (Account management)
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phpMyFamily (Genealogic tree)
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phpsurveyor (Surveys creation tool)
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phpWiki (Documentation management)
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pLog (Blog)
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Tellme (Network tools (whois, traceroute etc.))
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TUTOS (Work process organization)
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typo (CMS)
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UebiMiau (Webmail)
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WebCalendar (Calendar)
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WebShopmanager (Online store creator)
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WordPress (Publishing platform (blog))
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xrms (CRM)
Feature of the
Month
Web Logs - BLOGS
A
blog is a
website for which an individual
or a group generates text, photographs, video, audio files, and/or links,
typically but not always on a daily or otherwise regular basis. The term is a
shortened form of
weblog. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding
an article to an existing blog is called "blogging". Individual articles on a
blog are called "blog posts", "posts", or "entries". The person who posts these
entries is called a "blogger".
Having a blog such as we have available as an online tool for
your site lets you update the site/blog area with current information about Jobs
in progress with photos or specials or new products and/or services or tools
available for your clients without having me to build a page for them on the
site. You might want them included in the site later but this is immediate
"live" so to speak content for your site that you can control. If you add your
comments about your craft and the issues connected with it, your clients and
prospects get to know you and that helps them make a decision to do business
with you. I can show you how to do it. It is very easy and the set up for it is
only a few dollars.
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.
What you see is What you get Editing for your
Website
Our new server has an editor attached to it that allows you to
come in and make easy text changes to the site and even upload pictures etc.
While I am of course available to do that as you need sometimes you might want
it done immediately and I can't get to it that quickly, even with the new help I
have brought in.
There is no charge all you need is for me to set up a control
panel access for your domain. This will give you access to quite a number of
tools that we will discuss later.
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 receive this as an
E-Mail but you can always come to this site to see any you might have missed.
Next Month I will be discussing in depth how to drive more
traffic to your sites and get them coming back over and over again to expose
them to your latest specials and ideas.
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. I will have it ready
by the first of the year.
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