Small business emails

Email addresses and websites are now just like phones and answering services: everyone has them but not everyone uses them well.

So many small businesses I come into contact with still have their internet service providers (you know, Yahoo) as their email addresses. To me, it smacks of a couple of things:

a) They haven't realised that this looks pretty amateurish when they communicate with their customers (or they don't care)

b) They're not taking their email and internet strategy seriously (or they don't have one)

However, in our search engine seeking world, you just can't afford not to be leveraging the power of your brand.

The Australian Government's e-business guide suggests you ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does the domain name support the branding of your organisation?

2. Would your target audience guess the domain name and email address?

3. Do the domain name and email address stand on their own and make sense?

4. Is the domain name or email address too long, awkward to type or repeat verbally to people?

5. Can the name be confused with an existing popular domain name?

Even if you've had your domain name for a while, that doesn't mean you can't revisit your strategy.

Think it through today.

Margie