Welcome to the February RapidWeb newsletter

For previous newsletters, tips and general support information go to: WhatsHappening

Topics:

1-Maintaining Security with your RapidWeb site
2-Launching your web site
3-New RapidWeb web sites

Maintaining Security with your RapidWeb site

Rapidweb has a number of uses and markets that range from collaborative wide area page building to corpaorate site building. It is important that if you have an environment where you do not want outside participation on your website that you follow a few procedures to insure limited access to your pages.

1)Lock all pages immediately after creation. Leaving the pages unlocked allows non password enabled users to modify the page. Great for collaboration but not so good if you don't want the page to change

2)If you remove a page remove ALL links to that page. When RapidWeb finds a link to a non existent page it presumes that you want to put content on that page and will give any user even a non administrator that opportunity. A way to search out all pages with a link to the deleted page is to use RapidWeb's search function to look for the link by putting the deleted page name into the search field.

3)Review your RecentChanges page and remove any links to non existent pages from the RecentChanges page

Launching your web site

You've just spent a long time building and nurturing your site to completion. Now you can sit back and they will come...Not! The first step in launching your site is for you and your employess to use every means possible to communicate the fact to your existing customer base. There is a great article by Nick Wilson at Sitepoint.com called Website Promotion Crash Course and if you would like more information point your browser there.

There are a number of free, and effective launching activites that can help you start to get the word out about your site. They can fall into four categories:

• Electronic Communications
• Tele Communication
• Printed materials
• Word of Mouth

Electronic Communications

e-mail Campaign- Having every employee send out a brief description and the URL of your web site to everyone in their e-mail address books.
e-mail addresses - Be sure to start using your URL in your e-mail addresses. Why should you be receiving mail at yourname@aol.com instead of yourname@companywebsite.com? AOL sure doesn't need the advertisement and in aggregate your staff are sending lots of e-mails every day. It will be a constant and subtle reminder to your clients and vendors to visit your web site.
e-mail signature-Develop a common e-mail signature that highlights your web site and is added at the end of every e-mail your company sends out. This way the message gets out automatically at the bottom of each electronic correspondance.

Tele Communication

Phone Answsering-Every time your staff picks up the phone to answer a call, let them inform the caller of the new web site.
Voice Mail- Have every employee change their voice mail message to mention the web site. Your clients want the information now and by giving them the web site address in the voice message you are affording them the opportunity to do just that...get the information now by going to the web site.
Phone messages- Be sure that any after hours message or any message from an automated attendant also provides the url in a brief fashion.

Printed materials

Correspondance- It is an easy task to autmatically add a footer to a Word template that will be on every letter sent out. Again every employee should be in sync.
Business Communications- All invoices, packing lists, statements and other printed materials should have your URL listed. It is often a simple task to have QuickBooks or other accounting application add the message to each printed page.
Generate a Press Release-Web sites are still uncommon enough that your local newspaper and business news magazine will likely be willing to give your site some coverage.

Word of Mouth

Talking it up- Be sure that you and your staff mention your "new" web site in every client conversation. An "oh by the way did you know" comment to close out the conversation will be appreciated by your client base as they are always interested in finding easier ways to find out what they need to know .
Write the URL down- Have all staff write the URL down and use that oldest of high tech reminders, the post it note to keep it handy. You would be surprised how many employees I have spoke with that need to make a frantic five minute search for the URL or simply can't find it at all, even when it was requested of them.

Obviously, all of the staff will need to be pulling on the same oar for this free strategy to work and coordinating them in this activity will take some time. However, the work to make the site an integral part of your world is just beginning, not ending. You still need to develop a marketing & search engine strategy and promotional strategy but at least you now have your clients attention and it was done on a $0 budget.

Welcome to new RapidWeb Sites

This month several new RapidWeb sites have come on line. We have another example of a client designed site by the Rehabilitation Center of Cattaraugus County. Please take a look at some our newly designed sites as well. These can be seen at http://www.rapidweb.info/index.php?RapidWebSites .

As you can see, Jodi's design skills are reaching new heights. Here's what one recent client had to say:

The web site looks really, really good. Jodi gets a lot of credit. Maybe you should give Jodi a bonus for doing so well on this(LOL*). It looks really, really inviting and cool and upbeat.... GOOD JOB! Again, I am very pleased with how things are going....

Blumenthal's Designed Sites:

http://www.oleanymca.org Olean's YMCA has their site almost completed. Laura Whitford looked a over 900 sites in searching for design ideas for her site. See how she single handedly built the Olean YMCA site in her spare (yea right...who has spare time working at a YMCA?) using RapidWeb.

Client Designed Sites:

RapidWeb's flexible architecture allows the design to created independantly of the content. HAve a user that is proficient in PhotoShop or Quark but don't know HTML? Not a problem with RapidWeb! We can accept designs form any major design, paint or layout package and convert them for use with RapidWeb

http://www.rehabcenter.org The ReHab Center had struggled for months with traditional internet tools in the communication department. Most pages were outdated before the site could go live. With RapidWeb they were able to leverage their internal design and content skills to get their new site on line quickly and keep it update.

If you have any questions about this Tip sheet or any other RapidWeb feature feel free to contact us.

Mike Blumenthal