Michael's Monthly Memos

Welcome to Michael's Monthly Memos! These memos are intended to provide you with information to help you utilize the Internet and technology to promote your business. Information will be broken down in simple terms so that all levels of computer users will be able to understand it and use it in their business.

July 2010: How to Create an Email List

Email lists are very helpful when you need to send an email to multiple recipients on a regular basis. They are also referred to as contact lists, contact groups, address lists, or distribution lists. Rather than having to enter in everyone's email address each time you send an email, you can simply enter the name of your email list in the "To" field and each recipient in your list will receive the email. Below are steps to create and add contacts to an email list for several different email providers.

Tip: Most email providers will show the email address of everyone in your list in the "To" field when your recipients receive your email. Protect your contacts' privacy by sending to your list using the "Bcc" field instead of the "To" field.

AOL

Click on “Contacts” on the left side of the page.
Click the “New” button at the top and choose “New List”.
Enter the name for your email list in the “Distribution List Name” box.
Click the “Add Contacts” link to select email addresses already in your address book. Or enter a new email address in the box next to the link - separate each email address with a comma.

Gmail

To create a contact group:

Click on “Contacts” along the side of any page.
Click the “New Group” button located in the top portion of the Contact Manager.
Enter the name for your email list and click “OK”.

To add contacts to a contact group:

Select the contacts in the Contacts list.
Open the “Groups” drop-down menu.
Under “Add to...”, select the group you'd like to add the contact to, or select New group to create a new group.

Yahoo

Click on the “Contacts” tab at the top of the page.
Click the “Add Category” button at the top.
Enter the name for your email list and click “Save”.
Open the “View” drop-down menu at the top. Change “View All Contacts” to the name of the category you just created.
Click the “Add Contacts” link on the right.
Check each contact you would like to add and click “Add Selected”.

Hotmail

Click on “Contact List” on the left.
Click on the “Categories” button at the top and choose “New Category”.
Enter the name for your email list in the “Name” box and click “Save”. You can leave the “Members” box empty.
Click on “Contact List” on the left.
Check each contact you would like to add.
Click on the “Categories” button at the top and choose the name of the category you just created.

Windows Mail

Go to the “Tool” menu at the top and select “Windows Contacts”.
Click the “New Contact Group” button at the top.
Enter the name for your email list in the “Group Name” box.
Click the “Add to Contact Group” button.
Select the contact to add to your email list and click “Add”. Repeat for each contact to add.
Click the “OK” button.

November 2009: Bing Local

This month, we will learn how to set up a local business listing on Bing, Microsoft's Search Engine. While Bing does not currently have the audience that Google does, listing your business in its search results can still provide you with more exposure for your business on the Internet regardless of whether or not you have a website. It's free, easy, and gaining just one client from your efforts will make it worthwhile.

Approximate time: 60 min.

Go to the Bing Local Listing Center website:
https://ssl.bing.com/listings/BusinessSearch.aspx
In the upper right hand corner, click the "Sign In" link.
You will be prompted to log in with your Windows Live ID.
1. If you have a Hotmail account or an MSN Messenger account, you can use the login for that account here.
2. Otherwise, click on the button on the left that says "Sign Up" and fill out the one page form. In the email address field, you can enter any email address you typically use for emails – it does not have to be a Hotmail or MSN email address. This will be what you use to log in to your Windows Live account in the future. (Note: after you create this account, you will receive an email from Microsoft to confirm your account. Within the next day or two, be sure to follow the steps in the email. It will only involve clicking on a link.)
Click the "Add new listing" button.
Enter the name and address for your business/private practice. Click "Check your listing".
Enter the characters displayed for verification and click "Continue".
Enter the details for your business/private practice. Click "Next".
Select one or more categories for your business. For therapists, try looking under "Mental Health Services".
Review your information and click "Next".
Review the terms and conditions and click "I Accept".
Microsoft will send a letter to the address you listed above. Follow the instructions in the letter to verify your listing.

October 2009: Meta Descriptions

Ever wonder how Google (and every other search engine) comes up with the text that goes along with each website that shows up in its search result listings? The first, easiest way is by looking at what is called the "Meta" tags on the website. When setting up your site, this is something that you can place on each page of your site. It never shows up when regular visitors browse around your site, but the Search Engines see it when they find their way to your site. If they see this information, they will use it when they display your website in their listings. Otherwise, they'll grab the first few lines of text that they see on your site. This can sometimes result in a poor description for your site and will not entice people to click through to get to your site.

Here's an example of an ill fitting description from a Google search result for the keyword "Psychotherapy":

The first thing you see is a list of unrelated locations and at the very end, you find out that the site has a disclaimer. It doesn't speak to what the site is about or what one would find when they get there.

The same search also included a good example of a listing that provided specific details about the content of the site:

This listing is very clear about what you will find on the site (articles, videos and interviews) and who this content is created by (master psychotherapists). From this simple description, you also learn that there are even resources for therapists (continuing education, professional resources) on the site.

Take a few minutes to do a search for your own website and examine if the description that appears is what you want to say to potential visitors to your site. If not, take some time to write a short blurb describing what you do or what your site is about. Send this to your Webmaster and ask him/her to use this for the “Meta Description” on your site. Remember, this is the first impression that most people will get prior to actually landing on your site. You have about 70 characters to reel them in.

Approximate time: 5 min.

Go to: http://www.google.com/.
Type in the address of your website – without the "www" or the ".com" part.
Scroll down until you see your website. (Hopefully, it's first!)
Examine the description that appears along with your site.
Revise the description if it doesn't fit with your goals.

August 2009: Google Analytics Explained Part III

The final part of our series is here. So far, we've learned about The Where and The What. The only piece of the puzzle left is The Who. No, not the rock band. We're going to profile the behavior of the people reaching your website. Combined with the other information we've already looked at, this will give you a better sense of whether or not people are finding what they are looking for on your site.

Overview
We'll begin by logging in to your Google account and clicking on the "View Reports" link to get to your Dashboard. On the left hand side of the page, click on the "Visitors" link. The reports in this section tell you how many people have visited your website.

In this example, 85 different people have reached this site. This contributed to 222 visits which means many of these people returned at a later date. 385 pages throughout the site were viewed. 77.48% of the people left after viewing only one page on the site. 34.23% of the visits were from people who have never been to this site before. (Notice the graph to the left of each of the numbers. They provide a quick way to spot trends during the date range you selected.)

New vs. Returning

This last number is worth investigating a little further. It involves a little math, but if you click on the "New vs. Returning" link on the left hand side of the page, we'll get a little help from Google.

Above, we saw that 34.23% of the 222 visits are from people who have never been to this site before. We see here that this represents 76 visits. This also translates to 76 new visitors since each person has to have visited the site at least once. So now, if we look at the total visitors, 85, a little long division tells us that these 76 visitors represent 89.41% of the total visitors. And that's a much higher percentage for new visitors to the site as opposed to new visits.

Benchmarking
Now that we know how our own site is doing, we can compare our results to similar sites Google is tracking data for. Google will average the data from sites similar in size to yours. Size is determined by how much traffic you're getting, not by how many pages you have. Click on the "Benchmarking" link on the left hand side of the page.

The report will default to all sites similar in size. To make this information more meaningful, click on the "Open category list" link and choose the category that fits your site and business best. In this example, the gray line in the graph represents the similar sites and the blue line represents our site. We can see that the average visits for the similar sites is 73 which means our 222 visits is 204.11% above average.

Loyalty and Recency
This section pertains more to people who are providing content on their sites and are interested in drawing in many repeat visitors. That's not as important to us since we want people to contact us and visit us repeatedly in person in our offices, not online. However, it is still interesting information and nice to know. Click on the "Loyalty" link on the left hand side of the page.

This is showing us that 76 visits were first time visits to our site. Looking back at the other reports above, this makes sense because we learned that we had 76 new visitors during this time period. 9 people returned to this site for a second time and 6 people came back 3 times.

Click on the "Recency" link on the left hand side of the page.

Here, we can see when the last time these repeat visitors were at this site since they returned. 181 were here less than 1 day ago. 12 people were here the day before and 8 people had been on the site 2 days before and then came back again.

Analyzing the data from both of these reports tells us that most people come to this site once. The ones that do come back multiple times generally come back the same day. They may be going back to where they found the site from, looking at other results, and then coming back to this site or they could be visiting in the morning, and then returning later that day.

July 2009: Google Analytics Explained Part II

In Part I of our series, we looked into Where people were coming from to get to your website. Continuing on our exploration of Google Analytics, we'll be investigating The What. This is going to give you some insight into what content people are looking at when they get to your site. Knowing this can help you decide where you should put your best marketing message because it's getting the most eyes and which pages need some attention (or dropped completely) because your visitors aren't getting to them.

Overview
Let's get started by logging in to your Google account and clicking on the "View Reports" link to get to our Dashboard. On the left hand side of the page, click on the "Content" link. The reports in this section tell you which pages people have viewed on your website.

The page listed as "/" represents the home page for your website. In this example we see that the home page was viewed 227 times, representing almost 60% of all pages viewed.

Entrances and Exits
In the "Navigation Analysis" section, click on the "Navigation Summary" link. This report will show you how often each page was the first page a person landed on in your site and also how often it was the last page.

In this example, we're looking at the "services.html" page. Of all the pages viewed on the site, 5.26% started on the services page. The services page was the last page viewed 18.42% of the time. You can see this analysis for each page on your site by choosing it in the dropdown next to "Content".

Site Overlay
On the left hand side of the page, click on the "Site Overlay" link under "Content". This will open a new browser window and bring up the home page of your website. Next to each of the links on the page, you will see the percentage of clicks made to each of those links. As you navigate around your site in this window, it will continue to show the percentage of clicks made on each of the links on each page you view.

June 2009: Google Analytics Explained Part I

Last month, we walked through setting up a Google Analytics account and installing the tracking code on your website. Over the next 3 months, we'll delve into the different Google Analytics reports giving you insight into The Who, What, and Where about your website. In this installment, we'll be looking into The Where. But first some explanation of a few key terminologies used throughout the reports.

Visitors	The number of unique individuals who have landed on your site.
Visits	The number of times a Visitor has landed on your site (either first time or returning).
Pageviews	The number of individual pages Visitors have viewed on your site.
Bounce Rate	The percentage of traffic that left after viewing only one page on your site.

Now, back to The Where. This set of data will help you understand where visitors are coming from to get to your website. Log in to your account and click on the “View Reports” link. This will take you to your “Dashboard” - a high level overview of activity on your site.

Setting Your Date Range
To get started, click on the small icon to view all the data in the reports grouped by month. Then click on the date range to select at least the last two months – the longer the better. This will help us evaluate the activity on your site over time.

Overview
On the left hand side of the page, click on the link for "Traffic Sources". These reports show you which websites Visitors were on before they arrived at your website.

The websites are grouped into three categories:

Search Engines	Visits from a keyword search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.
Direct Traffic	Visits to your site by typing in your website's address directly.
Referring Sites	Visits from any websites that had a link to your site.

In this example:

39 Visits were from individuals that searched for a keyword. This represents 71% of the total visits.
13 Visits were from individuals that typed in the website address, representing 24% of the total visits.
3 Visits were obtained by clicking on a link from another website, representing 5% of the total visits.

Traffic from Other Websites
In the "Top Traffic Sources" section, below "Sources", click on "View Full Report". This will show you the full list of websites users were on before they clicked through to your website and how many Visits were from each site. In the example below, we can see a referral from LinkedIn and Blogger – our Internet practice building at work!

Traffic from Keywords
On the left hand side of the page, click on the "Overview" link under "Traffic Sources" to take us back to the previous page. Now, in the "Top Traffic Sources" section, below "Keywords", click on "View Full Report". This will show you a similar list, but here, it will contain the keywords used by Visitors on the Search Engines to bring up your website. You can look at Visits from keywords you paid for in your Pay-Per-Click campaigns separate from the free keywords.

These are the few simple ways you can see how people are finding your website on the Internet. With this knowledge, you can determine which sites are working for you in terms of getting more Visitors. It will also help you discover which areas your Internet marketing may be weaker in and may need more attention. There are a few more graphs and filters, and ways to group this information available on the Google Analytics site. There's even a map that shows you where Visitors to your site are located so you can distinguish between a beekeeper in Mastic from a stranger in Moscow. Don't be afraid. Click around and examine the information. What's the worst that could happen - you break Google? Well... if you do, you break it, you bought it.

May 2009: Google Analytics

Being able to measure results is a critical component of any marketing campaign. Marketing your website is no exception. When you spend time or money driving traffic to your website, you want to ensure that your resources are being spent efficiently. Through a series of graphs and reports, Google Analytics can help you determine which one of your efforts is working and which isn't. This is a free service provided by Google to help you find out how people are getting to your website and what they're interested in when they get there.

By analyzing this information periodically, you can divert more attention to sources bringing traffic to your site and stop wasting time and money on sources that are not. You will also learn which pages are popular with your visitors. This will identify areas of your website to expand because they provide content people are searching for. Pages getting few visits will identify areas of your site that may need editing to be more useful to your visitors.

To utilize this service, you'll need to set up an account and place a few lines of code on your website to track the traffic on your site. Here are the steps:

Approximate time: 15 min.

Go to: http://www.google.com/analytics and click "Sign Up Now".
Sign in to your Google account. Anyone who attended the blogging seminar or completed April's monthly memo will have one. Otherwise, click "Sign Up Now" again to create a Google account.
Click the "Sign Up" button.
Enter your website address and change the time zone to Eastern Time.
Enter your contact information.
Check the box below the Terms of Service box and click the "Create New Account" button.
The next page will show you the HTML you will need to include on your website to track your traffic. Copy and paste the code onto each page of your website immediately before the </body> tag.

Good news for any of my Webmonk.net clients, I can take care of this for you if you send me the code.
Click the "Continue" button.
You will receive an email from Google confirming your new Google Analytics account.

Below are some examples of reports that Google Analytics provides. In next month's memo, we'll learn how to interpret this information.

April 2009: Google Local

This first memo will help you gain more exposure for your business on Google. It's free and it's easy. Google allows any business to register their information with them regardless of whether or not you have a website. After you register, your business and contact information will appear in Google's "Local Business Results" when someone does a search and includes a zipcode or city. Your information will also appear in results when someone does a search on Google Maps. To get your business set up follow these simple steps:

Approximate Time: 20 min.

Go to the Google Business Solutions website:
http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/services/var_2.html
Look for the Local Business Center link on the left side of the page. Click on that link.
You will be asked to log in to your Google account. If you already have a Google account enter your log in information here.
1. Anyone who attended the Blogging seminar will have one. You can use the same log in information you use to log in to your blog here.
2. Otherwise, click on the link that says Create a new Google Account and fill out the one page form. (Note: after you create this account, you will receive an email from Google to confirm your account. Within the next day or two, be sure to follow the steps in the email. It will only involve clicking on a link.)
Enter the details for your business/private practice. Click Next.
Enter a Category for your business. As you start typing, Google will suggest options. You can enter as many as are applicable. For therapists, try the following:

Mental Health Services
Psychotherapy
Upload a photo if available. For difficult to find offices, a photo of the exterior could help clients find your location.
Enter in any Additional Details you think will be helpful to people when searching for your business. For example:

Parking Available: Yes
Click Submit.
Click Verify Listing by Phone Google will call. Follow the voice prompts:
1. Press 1.
2. Enter Pin Number displayed on the web page and then pound (#) sign.
3. Google will hang up the phone call. The web page will confirm that your listing has been saved.