Blomped.com - Business Blog

Exposure

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 12:46:35 +0000

The original article in this series explained that it is estimated almost two in three small businesses do not engage the services of a web hosting company.* They put forth no web presence. These articles are written to those in charge of such businesses with no web hosting provider. The goal is to encourage them to introspectively evaluate how web presence could benefit their particular business, now and in the future.

The exposure for a business can increase dramatically by implementing a website. Obviously with a web presence the business information is available to anyone on the internet who wants to access it. The number of people who do depends on the site promotion. Site promotion can be broken down into two main categories, online and off line.

Online promotion can be very profitable. The local, national, and world market can be reached. The internet is the largest market in the world. The trick is to get those prospects to the site. Traditional online promotion is by advertising and search engine listings. These will get results however they require time, effort and money. Markets can be very competitive and costly to penetrate. The potential is tremendous but results will only come through concentrated effort, expert guidance and time. Before undertaking a campaign one should be well versed in the price that must be paid.

Off line promotion can cost little and be very effective. The business web hosting company will host the site online. Anyone who knows the web address of the company can take advantage of the information on the website. All company literature, brochures, invoices, business cards and any advertisements should have the web address listed. Existing customers should be able to easily obtain the site address from correspondence they receive. New prospects and new customers should have the same information. Any advertising source that is being used should include the web address. These changes can be done over time and incorporated with the next publishing of any company material or advertisement. The expense will be minimal. The results can be substantial.

Existing customers� exposure to the business can be greatly increased through the website. They may go to the site seeking information about such things as product description, pricing, shipping costs or any number of inquiries. It may be to gather contact information, business hours and etc. whatever the reason it is continual exposure to the company and what is offered the whole time they are at the site.

Word of mouth promotion is always the best and with a website, it is even better. Anyone interested in the company can find information about it instantly online. Here is an example. A satisfied customer is relaying the good service that was provider by the company employees to a friend. The friend is given the web address and goes to the website looks around and decides to place an order. No trip to the establishment was necessary no phone call was made. The website processed the order and no one from the company was present. The main point here is the exposure was generated effectively with results and little added expense.

Anyone anywhere with interest in the company and internet access can obtain company information through the website. This exposes the company to prospects in ways that previously would have been nonexistent. Exposure can be timely before interest is lost or forgotten. Detailed questions can be answered without a word being spoken. Transactions can be finalized when the buying decision is made. The website also increases exposure by expanding the window of time that information is available to 24 hours a day 7 days a week

The internet is a great source to gain added company exposure. A reliable business web hosting company will provide a website with consistent web presence and customer access. The benefits will soon be apparent as more prospects are presented with information about the company and the opportunity to attain what they want.

VOIP

Thu, 29 Dec 2005 12:34:07 +0000

Our hosting company has been using one VOIP (voice over I P) phone line for over a year. There have been advantages in the service. There are also things about it that should be considered before someone chooses it.

One great part about the program that we chose is that it is very economical. It is designed for small business. We pay about $50/mo. That includes unlimited calling in the USA, Canada and Puerto Rico. There are no long distance fees for calls to those countries. We also are able to have an 800# with the service although there is a charge for it. We have voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, 3-way, call return and several other features at no additional charge. So the service is hard to beat when we compare it to normal landline service for features vs. price.

One other free service that comes with the small business plan is a free fax line with its own separate number. This costs nothing! The sad part is we can't take advantage of it. Our landline phone company has had our business for several years and hasn't raised their rates. If we were to drop our fax line with them they would discontinue our contract and raise all the rates to the current prices. That would negate the savings. If it weren't for that however we would have taken advantage of the complimentary fax line. You may wonder why we don't switch to VOIP exclusively for our phone service if it is less expensive. Read on.

One situation that is always in the back on one's mind with VOIP is what happens if a network goes down somewhere since much of it is done over the internet? The answer is you would have no phone service. That would not be good in our business. Therefore we prefer to keep our eggs in two baskets.

The other issue with VOIP is there are situations when the reception is not the clearest. While this is a rare occurrence it does happen. The caller will sound distant and at times the call can be scratchy. This isn't a big enough issue for us to discontinue the service but it is concern enough that we don't want all our lines switched at this point. Phone support plays a very important roll in customer service within our system. We don't want anything to interfere with it.

One other situation worth noting is that customer service with our VOIP carrier is atrocious. One of their service representatives told me the average wait time on a customer service call is 20-25 minutes. They are well aware of that fact. If we treated our customers the way they do we wouldn't have any. Luckily we don't need them very often.

VOIP is definitely here to stay. The economy of it is undeniable. We plan it use it but with discretion. It seems to be a high growth industry so as time goes by many of the glitches will probably be remedied as service and quality catches up. Until then we will use it sparingly.

Google Adwords Advertising - Part 2

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 14:42:46 +0000

Today we will be discussing how to create ads with good appeal and high click through ratios. This was the most challenging aspect of Google Advertising for us for several reasons. Creating ads that were attractive and got lots of clicks does not mean those clicks will convert into sales, and so we had a very hard time trying to find a balance between high click through ratios and good conversion rates.
When we first started using Adwords to generate traffic and sales on our site, we used ads that simply said exactly what was offered on our site. Example:

Windows Hosting $9.95/mo
250MB web space � 10 email accounts
25MB SQL space � 10GB traffic/mo

This ad did not get very high click through ratios, but those who clicked it had a high rate of converting into customers. One of the main factors we found contributing to this was the lack of the name of the business in the ad. Many people would say that having the name should not matter, but when doing an ad campaign branding can be very important and if the person sees your name in the ad it makes it easier for them to remember you. We then started using ads like the following:

E-Insites Hosting $9.95/mo
Windows Web Hosting 250MB Space
10GB Traffic/mo � 25MB SQL Space

This ad had a higher click through rate along with a stable conversion rate. We were still not satisfied with the click through rate so we decided to get fancy with our ad text to see what happened. And example of this is as follows:

E-Insites Web Hosting
Windows Virtual Hosting Accounts
With ASP, SQL, FrontPage & more

This ad had a much higher click through rate because it mentioned the features offered, and did not mention the price. This caused more people to click through to see what they could get all these features for. However, the conversion rate went way down. The amount of hits went way up, but we felt like the people who were price hunting just clicked the ad to see the price and moved on.

We came to the conclusion that we needed to find a balance between the last two ads. One that generated more traffic but also had a higher conversion rate. It took a lot of time to come up with ads that did both considering the amount of characters that could be used was very limited. We came up with the following ad:

E-Insites Hosting $9.95/m
Windows Web Hosting 250MB Space
Includes ASP, SQL and 99.9% Uptime

We also found that when we targeted ads to certain regions and countries we could then change the ads to be more descriptive and still have good click through and conversion rates. We ran the following ad in the US only and it did very well:

E-Insites Hosting 9.95/m
Get Web Hosting Service Online
Many Plans & 99.9% Network Uptime

Not all businesses are the same, but in our industry getting the right type of ads with your Adwords campaigns can have a huge impact on your Return On Investment.

The Old Man and the "E" More Thoughts

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 14:16:24 +0000

To the younger generation:

I just wonder what you in the younger generation will look back and marvel at when you are my age. I'm 56 years old. The spectrum of technical advancement that spans this life of mine is really quite extraordinary. Since the theme here is business related let me give you an example. The telephone is an intragal part of business and has been in my life time. As a child I remember a few "old style" phones. They hung on the wall and had a wooden case, a crank for ringing the operator, a mouthpiece attached to the phone and a receiver on a cord you put to your ear. Our phone however was "modern" it had the mouthpiece and receiver in the handset. It did not however have a dial. You had to pick up the handset, wait for the operator and tell her whom you wished to call. The line was a party line of course with 3 to 5 other families sharing it with us. And yes it was not uncommon to have 1,2 or maybe 3 others on the line listen in when our ring combination sounded. This was called "rubbering" and was common practice although Mom never would allow us to do it, much to my dismay. Having a private line wasn't even an option on our road and besides it would have cost a lot more to have one.

Now contrast that with the latest cell phone. All have private lines. They are a hand held voice recorder, text massager, video camera, alarm clock, calculator, phone directory, tunes player and voice mail recorder aside from being a compact phone that will fit in the front pocket of a shirt. It truly is amazing when I think about it. Keep in mind the closest thing to mobile communication I had as a kid was a walkie talkie that wouldn't work from a distance over about 60 feet.

So what has all this got to do with the web hosting business? Well maybe nothing directly but generally maybe a lot. The business environment is now in the throws of a metamorphosis as extreme as anytime in history. Long term this transition to the "E" template for commerce is going to turn traditional business methods inside out. The telephone example is just a small picture of what is permeating business practices right down to the essence. Some are being hit with all this change later in life and it does take big time adaptation.

Web hosting is playing and will play a huge part in this business "E " evolution. By definition the web hosting industry is in the midst of much of the change occurring. The danger is forgetting that not all businesses and customers will be. We must remain relatable.

We must not forget who pays the bills in any hosting company, the customer and we better treat them right. Many hosting customers are from my generation. They aren't techies or code monkeys they don't have to be. That is why they pay hosting fees. It is the responsibility of those in the hosting industry to patiently guide them and fill their needs. Remember they have come along way technically from where they started.

You of the younger generation might have to show those of us who are older how to use text messaging on our cell phone, but if you had to figure out how to call someone else on the same party line and the phone had no dial you might have to ask us. So don't act too superior, both get the same end result, it's just that that was then and this is now.

Google Adwords Advertising

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:09:57 +0000

Over the last few years we have successfully used Google Adwords to advertise our site and services. Though we have had some success it took a lot of trial and error to get a good strategy for getting targeted visitors to our site using Adwords. In this series of articles I will shed some light on how we were able to get good results from our Google Adwords Campaigns.

Targeting Your Ads By Countries -

Our first edition will deal with what countries we should target with our ads and whether to use the search network, content network or both. In the past we allowed our Adwords to run in any country. This left us open to a lot more fraudulent orders. We then compiled a list of IP addresses in our database of orders that were fraudulent. We took these IP addresses and created reports that compared fraud orders to good orders by country. Any country that had a high ratio of fraud orders we removed from the list of countries that our ads were showing in. Now this might not work for everyone depending on what country you are in, and it also cut down on the amount of orders we got, but, in the long run it saved us money by eliminating the fees for charge backs from our merchant company.

Once we had eliminated the countries that had high fraud ratios, we then moved on to eliminating the countries with low conversion rates. Before we move on we must point out that these strategies are not for everyone, as we had large budgets and were able to run the campaigns that were not having great ROI while we tried to increase the ROI. We ran the campaigns for at least 2 weeks and observed our web stats software to see the trends in conversions by country. We then used this data to narrow the countries we allowed that ads to show in to those who had high ratios of signups vs clicks. Once again this is a judgment call on whether you want a broader branding campaign not based solely on ROI or a campaign that is more targeted to getting high returns.

Content Sites Vs Google Search -

Our next step was to decide whether to have the ads on the Google search network or on the content network or both. We allowed the ads to run on both for a while and watched our stats once again. We found that the visitors from the Google search network were converting to orders at a much higher rate than those of the content network. However, we found that clicks on the content network were a lot cheaper than those of the search network and we were getting a lot more visitors from the content network. In the end after running the numbers even though the Google search network ads were a lot more expensive, the conversion rates made them have a higher ROI. We decided the go with the search network ads.

We are not sure why the conversion rates are higher on the search network, but one can speculate that the fact the ads on the content network are on sites trying to make money from those ads might allow for more fraudulent clicks than those on the search network where there is nothing to gain by clicking on the ads other than wasting the money of the advertiser.

Tomorrow we will discuss how to make ads that get high click through rates.

Old Businessman - New World or The Old Man and the

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:39:59 +0000

Looking back it all started with the answering machines. My RC (Resistance to Change) Factor was understandably very high with those things. First of all I knew they would never catch on. They were too impersonal especially for a business environment. They made me very self-conscious talking to myself and knowing any stammer was being recorded. They were also insulting, requiring the customer talk to a machine instead of a human. Did participating businesses think so little of their customers so as to communicate with automated instructions and commands? Many times it became apparent they were dysfunctional because the brilliant business owner on the other end depending on this voiceoid for interchange with his highly valued customers forgot to rewind the tape. Years went by and I would hang up on them rather than have an exchange with an apparatus. I even perfected the hang up method so that the recorder would come on before the hang up just to make it very apparent that someone had called and would not leave a message. Sheer customer vengeance wouldn't allow dignifying the whole system with a response.
I don't actually remember when I first gave in to these robotic message takers. I do know that I was very gradually worn down to the point that I could talk relatively comfortably while being recorded and you guessed it now I get irritated if someone doesn't have one and I can't leave a message. Such is the way of real progress most are drug kicking and screaming into the future. The PC, the fax machine, the cell phone all suffered similarly high RC Factor levels. I prided myself in not even knowing how to turn our business computer on at one point. The reality is it seems to come quite naturally this high RC Factor.

Meeting the highest RC Factor yet however is the internet. The RC was of unprecedented heights and why not. Many weren't even familiar with the PC yet and now would be faced with using the PC to do business with people half way around the world. How could all this ever be legitimate? Personal identity theft, monetary theft and privacy were all concerns. These were sincere issues but lying beneath all these for me was the real true resistance.

The real resistance was that of individual change and growth required to function in the "e" economy. One thing those with little or no computer or internet skills know is that they don't know enough. To know enough demands concentrated effort, study, persistence and lots of experience. These require change and as my Father always said "It's pretty hard for people to change."

A second reason for this internet RC Factor is the lack of true understanding of the huge impact it is having and will have on all businesses. Ignorance is bliss or you don't know what you don't know however you want to say it, not grasping the future business implications of the internet economy is a major contributor to nonparticipation of many businesses. People hear what a force the internet is constantly, but many subconsciously are oblivious to what effects may eventually come to roost.

Fear can play a role, the fear of change, the fear of failure, and possibly the fear of the future. These can be extremely strong and even paralyzing. They are not logical but they are powerful.

The only way I get through any of the above is being thrust into a situation where I have to address the issue or finally deciding I must face fear to conquer it. The older I get the harder it seems to be to overcome new fears.

There are two reasons I write about the above here. One is in hopes that someone may identify with some part of what was discussed and second to help those who may be trying to understand people infected with Internet RC Factor and why they act the way they do.

The "e" economy is exciting. Potential is limitless. For an older businessman like me it is enlightening to start to understand what was so fiercely resisted to begin with. While the internet can be suspect it can also be controlled for the most part. People first need the willingness to change and then the follow through to put change into practice the results can be very rewarding.

(c) Copyright 2005 Henry Vowels. All rights reserved. 12/13/2005

Author:

Henry Vowels- B.S.Degree in Business, Business owner for over 25 years most recently involved in web hosting with E-Insites.com Business Web Hosting with "A Human Touch" http://www.e-insites.com 1-866-441-8926.

Internet Disregarded By Most Small Businesses

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:53:16 +0000

The small business majority is standing on the sidelines as Internet growth rushes by. Most small business owners have not engaged a business web hosting company to provide them an online presence, even though the internet has reached a record growth rate.

The Internet has expanded more in 2005 than any year in history. A Netcraft survey reported in October 2005 that more web sites were added to the internet in 2005 than ever before--even more than the original boom of the year 2000. The survey was conducted only through Sept. 2005 and growth had already outdistanced the entire year 2000 by 1.5 million sites. 1
The Internet is growing faster than ever before, yet it was estimated in early 2005 that sixty to sixty-five percent of small businesses did not have a web site.2 In other words there is no avenue for an interested party online to access information directly from nearly two thirds of the businesses in the United States!

Why would a major portion of small businesses not be a part of such a visible phenomenon as the internet? Many business owners have not fully realized how influential the internet could and will be on their particular business.

This series of articles is addressed to the people in charge of those businesses.

Supply the Need or Lose!

Business in its simplest form is still �find a need and fill it�. Give the customers what they want. The undeniable fact is the internet is changing what customers want and need from companies they do business with. Several aspects will be considered concerning this subject, but here is a personal example that encapsulates the main point.

Ten months ago I started banking online. This was a totally new experience though after my initial apprehension I began to be at ease with the service. Now I am used to it. It has simplified the bill paying process and saves me time. I wouldn�t be a customer of a bank that doesn�t offer this service. I have been a banking customer for over thirty-five years and in only ten months I have drastically altered my criteria for banking service.

A second factor is that now I also want the businesses I pay monthly to be accessible through online banking, so I don�t have to write them a check. My demands as a customer have changed just over these last months to the point that I would switch to a new company if the original one doesn�t meet my current needs. The internet has directly affected the expectations I have as a customer.

Businesses must be willing to change and meet such customer requirements or suffer attrition. Just as time marches on and waits for no man, the internet waits for no business. The internet is changing the way we live, and more to the point, it is changing the way we do business.

These realities are nothing new. Still, almost two of three businesses do not have a company website--for these business owners the effects the internet is having on business haven�t hit home yet.

The purpose of this article and others to come is to shed light on how the internet has, is, and will affect small business. The hope is to connect those who do not have a web presence with information revealing business benefits the internet can provide. Conversely there will be advantages derived from exploring the effects of not engaging the internet.

Business owners are urged to keep an open mind and seriously consider the future role the internet will play in our economy and more specifically the role it will play in their business. The articles to follow will highlight areas where the internet can be beneficial. Weigh the gravity of this phenomenon. Serious introspection is suggested. The stakes are too high to be ignored!

1 http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/10/04/
october_2005_web_server_survey.html

2 http://www.access-ecom.info/article.cfm?id=27&;xid=MN

(c) Copyright 2005 Henry Vowels. All rights reserved.

Author:
Henry Vowels
Management Coordinator
E-Insites.com
http://www.e-insites.com
Henry Vowels has a B.S. in Business and has been a small business owner for over 25 years and more recently became involved in the web hosting industry.

Welcome to blomped.com

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:11:35 +0000

So you might be asking, what exactly is blomped.com? Well, blomped is our attempt here at E-Insites to share our business experiences with the rest of the world. Our company has been doing business on the web since 1997 and our experiences might be of value to other online business men and women who are either seasoned web entrepreneurs or new to the online business world.

Back in 1997 when the company was started as a web design firm known as Cyber World Internet Services we knew the day would come when not having a web site for your business would hurt some businesses. However, none of us knew what an impact blogging would have on the Internet even two years ago. The focus of this site will be to share our experiences with business men and women and give some insight on what we feel are good and bad practices for online businesses. Since we have been around from 1997 and have been through many trial and error experiences with our business online, we feel that sharing this information will be helpful to many people.

There are many business blog sites popping up all over the Internet these days and we hope that people will find this site to be very informative. We will have articles from many different points of view, from the baby boomers who are now beginning to use the Internet to do business, to the 18 - 24 year olds who are the future online business leaders. We hope that with this broad spectrum of people writing for us, that we can help other online entrepreneurs succeed and encourage more people to get their businesses an online presence.

If you are interested in becoming a contributor to blomped.com please email henry@e-insites.com with your credentials. We are looking for two more contributors who feel they can help make this site a great resource for online business entrepreneurs.