Contact forms are a stress point for every website. Almost every customer that comes to us has some form issue or another. So we created a better solution.

Introducing TeamClock Connect. TeamClock.com is our generally useful software for small businesses. TeamClock Connect gives you a way to import data from your contact forms directly in to your TeamClock account. TeamClock handles the input, sends out notification and thank you emails and stores your contact in a secure and reliable database. TeamClock Connect is completely invisible to your visitors.

TeamClock Connect reduces the time it takes to implement a form and adds reliability by storing every contact in a database. TeamClock.com also adds powerful contact follow-up features

Find out more. Call us at 888-627-8888 or contact us online.

Learn more about our fast, affordable and friendly website maintenance service at FastWebUpdates.com.  Try us for just $99.  Since 1996.

You have a website. Great. So does every one of your competitors. How do you stand out? Simple: improve every visitor’s experience every time they visit.

What does that mean? “Improvement” means something different for everyone based on the particular niche they’re looking to scratch. Here are three broad ideas that almost any site can use to deliver a better user experience every time.

The easiest and usually least expensive way to improve the user experience is to add more content. These could be articles (like this one), photos, success stories, etc. Whatever your users come to you for, that’s what you should concentrate on adding. The new materials should be prominently displayed and easy to find.

Your next target should be your site’s interactive elements. Are they as simple as they could be? On your forms, for example, are you asking for any information that you don’t really need? If you are, you’re probably losing potential customers. You should take the time to review your signup, inquiry and/or purchase processes on a regular basis. If you see something that can be simplified, jump on it.

Finally, you should look at your overall design. Is it still valid? If it is, don’t touch it. If parts of it are still valid, address only those parts that need work. A complete site redesign will usually be the most expensive change you can make. It will probably force you to touch almost every page and to rethink questions you decided ages ago. This is not to say that a complete redesign never makes sense. Sometimes sites are like old, dilapidated houses that just need to be torn down and replaced. More often than not, though, elements of the old design can be tweaked to give the site an up to date look and feel for less cost and with less risk.

Regardless of the industry you work in or how big you are, the people who visit your website spend most of their time elsewhere and judge your site accordingly. A regular improvement program is a great way to make your site stand out.

Remember: Don’t wait-update!

ATTENTION FASTWEBUPDATES.COM CUSTOMERS

Greetings!

It’s August and you’re like us: working through the heat. Here’s something designed to make things a little cooler: a free iPod Nano.

You heard right.

Refer your website maintenance needing friends, associates and third cousins to FastWebUpdates.com, and we’ll send you an iPod Nano – free!

Here’s how the program works:

1. Refer your friends to FastWebUpdates.com. Tell them in person, tell them by email, or send them a text message. Just tell them.
2. Your friend calls up and orders our New Customer Special Referral Edition — $300 for 6 hours worth of website maintenance. (You should tell them about this special, too, since it’s not on our prices page. This 28% savings off our regular price is available only through this offer.) IMPORTANT: Make sure your referral tells us you sent them. Otherwise we won’t know where to send the iPod.
3. We send you a brand new 1GB iPod Nano. Free, no strings attached.
4. You rock out. Or maybe you’ll give your new iPod Nano to a lucky someone and they rock out.

There are a couple of rules (see below). This program ends August 31, 2006.

Hurry. Your iPod is waiting.

Best Regards,

FastWebUpdates.com

Promotion Rules:

1. Offer valid for current customers of FastWebUpdates.com ONLY. If you are not a current customer, you cannot participate in this program. Why not become a customer and participate in our next killer referral program?
2. The referral must be completely new and unrelated to the work we do for you. You can’t refer yourself or someone else that we work with in some other capacity. We’re looking for new blood. If you find yourself wanting to ask a bunch of what-if type questions, you can probably assume those situations don’t qualify for the free iPod. Remember: we’re looking for new blood.
3. Your referral must purchase the $300 New Customer Special Referral Edition in order to qualify for this program. Other purchases do not qualify. And this purchase must be made on or before August 31, 2006.
4. Note that FastWebUpdates.com can handle almost all website maintenance tasks, but there are times when we cannot help a customer. In the unlikely event you refer someone and this is the case, we appreciate your efforts, but no iPod will be awarded.
5. The referral must tell us that you referred them.
6. Limit one iPod per referral. If two people make the same referral, you’ll have to split the iPod among yourselves.
7. iPods will be shipped within 7-10 days of the referral’s purchase to your name and address as we have it on file.
8. Each iPod award will be subject to individual approval. Although we don’t anticipate needing to do this, an award may be denied for some reason that’s not listed here.
9. We’ll get the iPod to you, you’re responsible for everything after that. Warranty, technical support, etc., will be directly through Apple. We make no particular claims, promises or warranties about the iPod, including that of coolness or that you will be cooler when you have one.
10. Void where prohibited, taxed or otherwise hated on.

iPod and Apple are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. FastWebUpdates.com is in no way related to Apple. But we do like their iPods.

So you’re starting a business and need a web site.  Great!  What next?  Here’s a step by step guide.

1. Pick a domain name.  Don’t worry if your exact domain name isn’t available.  Come up with something close and then let the search engines handle the details.  For example, if widgets.com is taken, try widgetshq.com or ewidgets.com.  Most domain registrars will help you with this process. DomainsOnIce.com can help you register your domain and this article will help you understand the current state of .com domain names.

2.  Pick a web host.  You shouldn’t need to spend more than $200 on hosting a year when you first start out.  If you think you will because of future volume, start with the cheap host and upgrade when you’re ready.  Your host should support PHP and MySQL.  Most will automatically.  FastWebUpdates.com hosts client web sites starting at just $149 per year.

3.  Install a free content management system.  Why do you need a system?  You’ll want to keep your site fresh and interesting so visitors come back on a regular basis.  A content management system makes this easy.  We recommend WordPress.  WordPress started life as blogging software, and it does that well, but it has some pretty sophisticated features that make it useful outside of the blogging world as well.  A decent content management system lets you add content without knowing a lot of code.  By the way, this site is powered by WordPress and so are our other sites.

4. Customize your look and feel to match your offline image.  You’ll want to coordinate the colors and logos on your site with any business cards or stationary you have.  Most content management systems provide you with a templating system that make this process relatively easy.  This part requires code, so you’ll probably want to contact a web site design company to help you out.  Try FastWebUpdates.com at 888-627-8888.

5. Trick out your new site with features that help you interact with visitors and other sites.  For example, you can use Flckr to manage your images and FeedBurner to track your subscribers.  WordPress plugins make this process quick and easy.  There are plugs designed to help with most previously custom issues like event calendars and contact forms.

That’s it.  Now all you need to do is add your content and you’re good to go.

FastWebUpdates.com has recently helped Clay Cafe of Lubbock and Clay Cafe of Visalia create WordPress driven web sites that integrate seamlessly with Flckr and other services.

We use Google AdWords from time to time. I noticed something interesting this morning. People were searching for an email address on a non-Google site, a search partner, finding my ad and clicking through. Here’s a screen shot of their results:

Now, what you’ll notice is that Comcast claims there are 6 results. In fact, all six of these are ads. There are no search results supporting these ads, just the ads. Another hit that came through was from AOL’s search site. They return sponsored links and shopping results but no actual results.

If you do this search on Google’s site, you won’t see any ads and you’ll get a message saying there are no results. This behavior makes sense. If the user isn’t getting results for whatever they’re searching for, they shouldn’t see any ads either.

I don’t see any value in displaying the ads to either the user or the advertiser–just to the site operator. The site operator wants to maybe capture some small portion of revenue from a user confused about the difference between real results and paid results. So they show the ads. And Google, who also makes money, let’s them.

I would like to see Google’s behavior required on their search partners’ sites as well and I’ve sent Google a note telling them so.

Oh, and I’ve turned off “webmaster”, the keyword that started this whole thing in the first place.