Website and Mailing Question

[erchess]

This is for those of you who have websites to which you somehow attempt to direct traffic and try to get the visitors to your site to give their contact information so that you can send them electronic or postal mail.

What has worked to get traffic to your site? I am paying for hits from Google but we shall see whether that is cost effective.

What has worked to get people to share their information? I have a little about me and a blog with so far two entries and links to other tax related sites.

What do you do when people unsubscribe? I am sure the general public would like us to erase any record we may have of them but it seems to me that would leave me defenseless if someone accused me of spam after unsubscribing. Instead it seems to me that I need to keep the contact record and the IP Address from from which and date and time on which they subscribed and unsubscribed. I obviously have to stop contacting them when they unsubscribe.

[August @ ADG Financial]

Website

We do business in just NY. So I promote the site in my general area. I have the address on my business card, my signage, my telephone message for when no one is in the office and also in advertising we do. I don't pay for per click's or anything like that. I've had the website for about 4 years and I can trace some business to it but not a lot. We get about 35 hits a month. But I do think it's been worth the investment. The cost was about $2500. one time and about $100 a year for maintenance. I have an IT person that keeps it up to date and add things to it for me. The picture of my wife and myself was added this year and next year I'm thinking of adding a financial component as were Security and insurance licensed. The site is www.adgfinancial.com. What's yours.

[JohnH]

Nice looking site. Brief, to the point, and lots of links to other relevant sites. I noticed you are in Stone Ridge - are you familiar with FTS Systems? They are (or were) located near you I believe.

[erchess]

Ok

I now have a third blog entry. Also my biggest inducement for people to give me their contact info is that I will email them a quarterly newsletter.

My address is www.1040ow.com.

[JohnH]

I think it looks very good. You provide good info, and I like your warnings about the return info being sent overseas.

[erchess]

TY John

An internet marketing guru told me that there are three keys to marketing by a website.

1. There are many possible means but somehow ya gotta have traffic.

2. Visitors have to be entertained or given free info or free stuff because they rarely buy on their first visit to a site but the more often they visit the more likely they are to buy. It was stressed to me that you offer genuine value so that you become the first person they think of when they realize that they have a question or concern within your area of expertise. That would seem to apply whether you sell help with tax problems or swimming pools or widgets.

3. Getting their info to email and or snail mail from time to time with value to them is key to turning visitors into buyers because you send out real useful information.

[geekgirldany]

Yes it is a very nice site. Both of them. Good information on services.

Erch I noticed on yours that you don't have meta tags in the source code. Did you build the site yourself? If not then talk to your website designer about adding the meta tags. My website is
. Notice at the top how I have it listed everything I do, then also in the source code I added a meta tag listing about the same thing. For example
tax preparation location name
bookkeeping location name
payroll location name
etc.
I come up on the first page everytime for all the keywords I have listed except accountants.
Also go to Google Local and Yahoo Local. Submit you site and information there if you haven't already. This will make you come up on top for local searches.

Also make sure the same keywords in the meta tag are scattered through out the site. The search engines love blogs. Fresh content. Make sure you have a ping list setup so that every time you post it goes out and tells all the major blog outlets like technorati.com . These posts will then start getting listed on the SE.

You could make a little banner for your newsletter. Tell people they will receive information that is not posted on the blog and will also get notified when the blog is updated.

With that being said I get around 70 hits per month. But I have had only two people contact me directly from a search result. Most of the time they see me in the Yellow Pages and then look over my site. I think a blog would be a great addition to my site also. Just have to find the time to do it.

I hope I have helped you some

[August @ ADG Financial]

Fts...

is just down the road from me. It's change hands twice I think in the last 5 years.

[August @ ADG Financial]

Liked your site..

Geekgirldany liked your site. Liked on your contact page your "how did you hear of us" question. On my next revision think I will add that to mind. It's been a bear adding Financial Services to our website but seems I might have found a way to get it thought compliance. At an Investment program in Ct. recently I came across a company called www.advisorsquare.com which would provide a compliance approved site for $249. a year which could be a link off my site. Sounds great and might be my next step. I’m in Atlanta this week to visit my daughter and attend the NATP on Monday.

[JohnH]

It was a great company when it was under family ownership, but things have changed drastically since it got absorbed into the big boys.

[Uncle Sam]

Website and Mailing Question

If you would like a referral for setting up websites that provide direct personal attention to customize your site with national exposure and part of a network of links that lead to your site, I suggest you contact either Cheryl or Jim at http://www.bookkeepinghelp.com. or call
1-800-284-4662
This is the only entity of its kind that I know of that's been around for practically 10 years, very conscious of the problems encountered with fly-by-night entities that have literally gone out of business due to unethical business practices - and very sensitive about avoiding those problems - and will not stop attempting to improve your exposure until you are.