Orange E-Business Advocate

No Bulls!

I found this great picture in my Flickr RSS feed. I love the fact this it is orange.



So there you have it everybody. With OCEA, there is no bull, only expert advice.

Websites for Free

It's becoming harder and harder for a custom website design and development shop to stay in business. At least one that caters to other small businesses who have tight budgets and aren't really aware of what their options are.

If cost is your primary concern, a free website you can have.

But if you want a killer website design, or someone to be a true advocate of your specific needs and how the web can fulfill those needs, you need to turn to a professional.

Orange County Trust: Try Harder Next Time

I just received an email from Orange County Trust, the local bank in this area, telling me about the "ease and convenience of Internet banking." For the record, I like Orange County Trust as a bank, but I am really disappointed with their online efforts. I have tried to register for their online banking service many times over the past few years, but have never experienced any success.

Here is the email:

The ability to view your accounts online is a powerful tool in staying on top of your finances ANYTIME and ANYWHERE - check your account balance, view up-to-date account history and more.

We invite you to login to our Web site and experience the ease and convenience of Internet banking. If you have any questions about your new Internet Banking service, feel free to call 845-341-5000 or email octc@frontiernet.net.

Orange County Trust Co P O Box 790, Middletown, NY, 10940 845-341-5000

If you would like to discontinue receiving helpful reminders about our online services, login to our web site, click the User Services tab, and select "Marketing Preferences" under the User Preferences section.

This is a perfect example of a company that does not "get" the web. The first major problem is that nowhere in the email is a mention of their website address - how do they expect me to register? Or more importantly, remove myself from their mailing list? All email correspondance of this nature should include a one click unsubscribe service.

And don't state the obvious; if your customers have an email address, they understand that their online banking account can be accessed anytime and anywhere. In fact, online banking should be a GIVEN for any bank these days, not advertised as a nifty service or extra perk.

From a marketing perspective, this email is terribly weak. The from address is simply octc@frontiernet.net; most likely, the email address assigned to OTC Co. the first day they signed up for internet access with Orange County's local ISP, Frontier Communications. If I hadn't attempted to register for an online account before, I wouldn't have even recognized the email address and marked it as spam. The message leaves so much to be desired... why not go into further detail about the features of the system, explain the steps involved in registering, and outline the benefits to online banking that a customer can't get any other way?

And lastly, a little design goes a long, long way. There is no corporate logo in this email, or photos of the branch, or even screenshots of this wonderful online banking system that would make my life much more convenient. A little more effort would achieve significantly better results.

Reputation with Search Engines

If you are paying for someone to optimize your website for search engines, and waiting anxiously for results, believe them when they tell you these things take time!

How to keep URLs clean

For the web developers...

A while back, I talked about the importance of URLs. The other day I came across a site that echoes some of my sentiments in that post, and explains how to use a technique known as URL Rewriting (lots of thanks to Apache's mod_rewrite) to achieve cleaner, more memorable URLs.