Hello Kolb Net Works Clients and Friends,
June has arrived bringing welcome sunshine and warmth to rural Pennsylvania. I picked the first fresh strawberries of the season from our backyard patch yesterday.

The start of another baseball season prompted me to work out the kinks in our small 802.11b wireless system here. I can now listen to Major League Baseball radio anywhere in the home via our IBM ThinkPad laptop computer.

Having wireless Internet on the laptop and Pocket PC has been a bit of an eye opener for me. Since 1996 I've spent most weekdays working on the Internet. I've resisted putting broadband Internet (fast Internet access provided by SusCom cable modem access) in the living room, bedroom and kitchen. I figured that I spent enough time online through the work hours.

I was wrong - here's an example why. For years, my husband Lou and I have listened to National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" (ATC) while eating dinner. Then our public radio station moved the time that ATC airs here so that halfway through our supper the program would end and Terri Gross's show "Fresh Air" would come on. We don't particularity care for her program. Now, with wireless Internet, we've been listening to wonderful programs via the Internet during our evening meal together.

My current top program picks:

• CSPAN's Booknotes - includes great archive back to 1989 of authors interviews.

• National Public Radio - includes archives of "Morning Edition" to 1996 and "All Things Considered" to 1995.

• British Broadcasting Corp (BBC) - BBC World service programs without the shortwave fadeouts.

Are you using wireless Internet access at home? Please email me your favorite content links - thanks!

Link Building:
Last month I wrote about how very important it was to have links to your web site from other web sites. Some search engines, including Google, take this link data into account when deciding whether to rank your site high or low for given search terms. Until now, building link popularity was all manual labor, using a web browser (to find other sites to ask to link to you), emails, and a notebook or spreadsheet to keep track of who was asked when and who got added to your outgoing links list when.

I spent several days researching this challenge and discovered a program "Arelis" that helps with this task. You train it to search out potential linking partners, then it helps keep track of the linking process. We've purchased the enterprise edition of this software so we can utilize with with our clients. We also signed up to be an affiliate, so we can recommend it to our clients in case you want to run it at your location. Link: http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/kkolb

Search Engine News:
Choosing the best keywords for your web site and individual pages is very important. Currently, one of the best ways to get high search engine ranking is for your pages to contain great, relevant, targeted content. Visit our support page: http://www.knwsupport.com/keywordsnew.asp for more guidance on choosing keywords.

And here's a link to a good online tool provided by Overture which allows you to see how many people searched for certain terms. The tool also suggests related keywords. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Affiliate Marketing
Web sites have a unique cross selling opportunity to present commercial offers from other companies to viewers. By signing up to be an affiliate with companies that have products that complement your own, you can both offer a service to your viewers and make some $ yourself. We've been working on our Affiliates page, you are welcome to take a sneak peek at it before it goes public. Having multiple affiliate connections helps us keep up to date on the changing affiliate landscape. Contact us for recommendations for affiliate possibilities for your web site.

New Clients:
Kuhns Brothers Log Homes, Inc. and their related companies: American Heritage Crafters, Inc. and Country Log Cabins, Inc. are all getting Internet Marketing / Search Engine Optimization upgrades from us.

Kuhns Brothers Log Homes - a leading log home manufacturer. Kuhns Brothers Log Homes produces quality kiln dried NO-SHOP ™ log home kits. 

American Heritage Crafters specializes in rustic furnishings, lighting and decor - great things to put in your home!

Country Log Cabins - log cabin kits and plans.  Country Log Cabins offers a wide selection of log cabin and log home plans, kits and packages.

KNW News:
Summer is a popular vacation time. Our staff will be rotating some vacations throughout the summer. Carlos is taking a vacation week mid-June, Lou and I are going on vacation in late June. Robert will take vacation in July.

Reminder: During the Summer, our staff will be starting earlier on Fridays (8 AM), and turning out the office lights at 4 PM so the team can get start the weekends a little earlier. Our hours for Monday to  Thursday remain 8 am to 5 pm.

This month you can listen to our "Vacation" radio spot on WRAK during the morning show. You can also give a listen at http://www.kolbnetworks.com/news.asp.

E-commerce Tips:
How can your  company test your ecommerce quality assurance?

1. Test your shopping cart on a regular basis (daily recommended)

2. Survey a sample of your customers to see how you can improve your web site and the whole shopping experience, from placing items in their basket to receiving the ordered goods.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Do you yearn for higher search engine rankings? We can help! See http://www.kolbnetworks.com/searchengineservices.asp then call us.

Email Newsletter Tips:
It's time for a bit of review. Here are a collection of newsletter tips from earlier postings:

• Decide what your goal is for your email newsletter; new sales leads, customer retention, viral marketing, etc.

• Start gathering email address from existing and new clients - store in a notepad file or in Outlook as a distribution list

• Place a form on your web site to gather email addresses

• Make a web favorites folder names "newsletter content" so you can bookmark web content that might be usable in your newsletter

• Make an email folder in Outlook (or whatever email program you use) so you can gather and store emails that might have content you can reuse for your newsletter

• Plan what that main content of your email newsletter will be; company news, product news, investor news, frequently asked questions, dealer support, etc.

• Get a friend or co-worker to proof your newsletter draft

• Send out your newsletter, get feedback from readers

It's OK if you can't produce a newsletter every month or even every quarter when you begin. Remember, it's important to start gathering the email addresses of people who will welcome your email news.

Note: issues of current and past newsletters are online and can be viewed at: http://www.kolbnetworks.com/newsletters

As you start your email newsletter address list, please include my email address so I can see how you are doing.

We appreciate your interest and business,
-----
Kathy Kolb
President, Kolb Net Works, Inc. - Powerful Web Solutions
http://www.kolbnetworks.com --- (570) 326-2888 --- kathy@kolbnetworks.com

Using Wireless Internet to listen to baseball games

KNW news

New Client spotlights

Affiliate Program news

Search Engine News

Internet Marketing Tips

Link Building Ideas

Event Spotlight

Ecommerce Tip

Upcoming special day: June 14 is Flag Day.

We're now using the enterprise version of  ARELIS for building link popularity for our clients. If you have an internal marketing department, you may want to check the standard edition out yourself. 

Are you looking for information on how to increase your web site conversion rate (number of sales per 100 visitors)?

We recommend Dr. Ralph Wilson's electronic book, "12 Ways to give your web store a sales boost":  

With all the storms around this month, one of these cool weather alert radios might be handy.

See this product and more at Al Smith's ecommerce web site: http://www.albionsmo.com
 

We publish this newsletter to help show our clients and friends how to market using the Internet.

We believe one of the best ways to learn something is to do it!

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Additional Services:
Did you know that Kolb Net Works also offers ancillary design services including:

• Web Development / ECommerce / Database / Maintenance / hosting
• Multimedia Production: CDROMs, web sites, Video spots
• Domain Registration
• Search Engine Optimization
• Email marketing
• Streaming Media live broadcast and archive
• Flash & Shockwave Development
• Logo Design / Development
• Print Ads
• Brochure / flyer / newsletter design
• Poster design / Buttons / Election campaign
• Postcard design
• Kiosk development
• Ad Campaign Development
• Radio spot writing and producing
• Voice over narration / On Hold messages

Copyright 2004 Kolb Net Works, Inc.