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Domain Registration
Know Where You Are Registered and When You Expire |
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One of the first things you do to market your business is to register a domain name for your web site. Your domain name is also referred to as your web address, or “URL” and is the handy little www.mybedandbreakfast.com that you have on all of your printed collateral (brochures, business cards, etc.) and on all of the internet listings that links the guest back to your web site. Without this, your web site is not being seen by the outside world.
It is important to keep a record of which company you registered your domain with, when that registration will expire, and which email address (hopefully your current email) will be notified of a pending expiration.
Why is that important? Many reasons, the least of which is to keep you from chasing phantom, bogus email that will drift into your email account throughout the year or faxes cluttering your desk, warning you that your domain is expiring and you’d better hurry and re-register with (guess who) – a competing registrar. You also have to watch for your own legitimate registrar trying to sell you multiple extension URLs. You might mistakenly think it IS your URL but it is .usa or .info instead of .com.
It’s easy to recapture this registration data. Go to NetworkSolutions. At the bottom of that site you will find a funny little navigation button called “WhoIs”. Click on this and proceed to type in your web address. A box will pop up indicating which registrar holds your domain registration (could be NetworkSolutions, GoDaddy, RegisterFly, etc), when it expires, to which email address expiration notifications will be sent, along with some other details. Print this, and save it both electronically and in paper form in a safe place that will be easy for you to retrieve when it’s time to renew, sell your inn, change web hosts, etc.
Acorn maintains a log of all of our customers’ domain registration information, and we maintain a calendar to help remind you when your domain expiration date is approaching. We also track this for all of our MarketWatch clients on a monthly basis; click here to learn more about our MarketWatch product. Make sure you calendar this important expiration date as well. Together, we expect to prevent your web site going “off line” because of a domain registration expiration.
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| As an Acorn customer you have access to lots of valuable statistics about the visitors to your web site through Urchin (web stats tracker). As a busy |
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innkeeper, do you have time to look at them? Interpret them? Formulate a strategy? Keep them organized from one month to the next? If you are having trouble answering “yes” to any of these questions, Acorn’s MarketWatch report can help you.
MarketWatch is a report that we produce for many clients on a monthly basis and transmit to them electronically. It consists of a detailed Excel spreadsheet organized to report on monthly traffic statistics including: unique visitors and bounce rates, top referrers, top search terms, entry pages, traffic from paid listings, pay-per-click stats, and organic (free) placement on four search engines for three carefully selected search phrases. The Excel spreadsheet is designed so that our clients and our staff can compare placement and traffic from one month to the next.
As part of your MarketWatch report, we review those monthly statistics and create a detailed analysis of what those stats mean, noting changes and trends from one month to the next, and make recommendations to keep your site placing as high as possible on the various search engines. We have reported to you many times just how dynamic this business of Internet marketing can be – the rules change frequently. By tracking your stats and organic placement every month, we can watch for shifts in how the different search engines view your web site and ensure that your visibility and traffic remains strong. At the end of each report, we also include industry-related articles that may be of interest to you as a valued Acorn client. The cost for this report will generally not exceed $100 per month.
If you are interested in signing up for this report, contact Sharon Rowe.
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| If you do much surfing in Google, you may have noticed that some PPC (Pay Per Click) ads present you, the visitor, with an opportunity to rate the ad you have |
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just chosen. You will see a red box in the upper left corner of the page on the ad you clicked on asking you to rate their site.
If you have seen this little red box, it is coming from Google Adwords and it appears randomly to people who have found your site by clicking on one of your Google pay per click ads. If you click on the box it will take you to a form asking you to rate the site from 1-5; 5 being excellent and 1 being poor. You are then asked to submit your e-mail address, the site URL (this would be the web address you are rating) and an explanation of the rating given.
After speaking with a Google representative on 8/22/2006 we understand the following guidelines for this program are in place.
- Google is still using this rating program, but it is very small percentage of PPC accounts that it is being used on.
- The ads that are chosen to be part of the program are completely chosen through a random process.
- The purpose of the program is strictly for Google research. It in no way affects the quality rating of the ad, the web site, etc. Google does not use the information in anyway to affect the advertiser.
- This program is NOT available for purchase or for volunteer. It is a computer generated random "drawing" and affects a minute percentage of overall PPC users.
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| Many Acorn customers have come from other web marketing/host providers. When you have an active Pay-Per-Click account, it is a good idea to change your |
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PPC passwords. The upside to changing your password: security. There is only a downside if you don’t change your passwords which would be the possibility of being exposed to outside access. Below are the step-by-step instructions for changing your password.
Step 1: Access the login screen
Step 2: Click the 'Accounts Login’ Button
Step 3: Login using your current password
Step 4: Click the words 'Change Password'
Step 5: Enter the Old Password
Step 6: Enter the New Password
Step 7: Confirm the New Password by typing it again.
Step 8: Type in a Password Hint
Step 9: Click 'Submit'
An e-mail will then be sent to you asking you to confirm the changes. It is important watch for this email respond as soon as possible, because the e-mails are usually time sensitive. They will 'expire' and you will have to go through the process again.
Note: If Acorn is managing your Yahoo PPC account, you will need to share the
new password with us; otherwise we will no longer have access to you account.
Step 1: Access the Login Screen
Step 2: Click on Google AdWords
Step 3: Login using your current password
Step 4: Click the 'My Account' tab.
Step 5: Click the word 'Access'
Step 6: Under 'Users with Access' if there is someone that you no longer wish to have access to the account, click to remove their name from the list.
Step 1: Access the Login Screen
Step 2: Click on Google AdWords
Step 3: Login using your current password
Step 4: Click the 'Account Preferences' tab
Step 5: Click the words 'edit in Google Accounts'
Step 6: Click 'Change Password'
Step 7: Type in the Current Password
Step 8: Type in the New Password
Step 9: Confirm New Password
Step 10: Click Save
An e-mail will then be sent to you asking you to confirm the changes. It is important that you keep an eye out for the e-mail and respond as soon as possible, because the e-mails are usually time sensitive. They will 'expire' and you will have to go through the process again.
Note: If Acorn is managing your Google PPC account, you will need to share the
new password with us; otherwise we will no longer have access to you account.
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Several members of the Acorn staff attended the Professional Association of Innkeepers International (PAII) conference held in Phoenix, Arizona in April. |
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The conference was well attended by innkeepers and supported by many vendors involved in supporting innkeepers. The content of the workshops at the PAII conferences are unparalled in their appeal and application to bed and breakfast innkeepers around the country.
If you made it to the conference, we hope you had a chance to visit with Lisa Kolb, Mark Kolb, Marian Talbert, Kelly Haux, or Sharon Rowe in the Acorn booth. It was great to meet so many current Acorn customers – it’s always a pleasure to put a face with a voice or a Web address! We have to admit, we were pretty busy and did our best to spend time with everyone who came by to see us. If we missed you, we sure wish we hadn’t! So, if you haven't heard from us yet - be sure to give us a call!
Lisa Kolb was invited to speak at many of the educational workshops during the conference, and received high ratings from all who attended. Click here to download a copy of the following handouts.
Internet Boot Camp: Part I (T86)
Internet Boot Camp: Part II (T87)
Tools for Tracking Internet Statistics (T79)
What You Need to Know Before You Hire & Manage a Web Designer (T75)
Search Engine Marketing (T77)
To purchase an audio tape of these workshops, contact Conference Media through their Web site www.conferencemedia.net, or call 1-888-222-1614; or go to www.paii.org . Every recorded session from the 2006 PAII Conference is available at a cost of $199.
We hope to see you at the next PAII conference scheduled for next spring, March 26-29, 2007 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where we can speak to you in person and share more ideas about building a successful marketing plan for your business!
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WARNING: SNIPPETMASTER CUSTOMERS MUST USE FIREFOX (OR SAFARI FOR MAC USERS) TO MAKE CHANGES WITH SNIPPETMASTER. DO NOT USE INTERNET EXPLORER.
INTERNET EXPLORER DOES NOT WORK PROPERLY WITH THE LATEST VERSION OF SNIPPETMASTER. ATTEMPTING TO USE SNIPPETMASTER WITH INTERNET EXPLORER WILL CAUSE YOUR FILES TO UPDATE INCORRECTLY, LOSING DATA, LINKS AND CAUSING OTHER ISSUES. YOU MAY DOWNLOAD THE FREE VERSION OF THE FIREFOX BROWSER AT:
http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/
If you find you've caused issues when updating your files using Internet Explorer - please contact us at 877-226-7699 or e-mail Mark@acorn-is.com. Time to repair your files is billable. |
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has recently joined the Acorn Marketing team and is enjoying the new challenges and learning experience Acorn provides. She has 24 years of |
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experience in student service related offices at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. Julie is working on search engine submissions and link comparison reports for our Acorn customers.
joined Acorn in May 2006 as a programmer and is working her way into web design. She has a BS in Business Studies with emphasis on Marketing from Davenport University in Holland, Michigan. Tracy has worked for 5 years in both the residential and commercial construction industry in marketing & advertising. Her experience in the hospitality industry includes: managing the King Mountain Ranch in Granby, CO, marketing and advertising for Carlson Wagonlit and Neiman Marcus Travel and can frequently be found inn-sitting at her parents B&B in Holland, Michigan.
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View more designs in our portfolio section on the Main Menu above. |
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