Can Your Visitors Contact You From Your Website

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Can Your Visitors Contact You From Your Website
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Permission to reprint this article if:

*Article must remain intact in its original form and free of charge.
*All links must be made into hypertext links and activated.
*The author byline or resource box must remain intact and be displayed.
*This article CANNOT be used in SPAM of any forms.
*You can only use the articles for your opt-in subscribers.
*A courtesy notice of where or how you have used it would be great.

Author: Dave Tan - Wednesday, June 23, 2004

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Can Your Visitors Contact You From Your Website
-------------------------------------------------------------------

HTML Version:
http://www.ebookok.com/resources/wd_no_contact.html

Argh, where's the contact button?! Believe it or not,
some websites just DON'T WANT any visitors
(even customers) to CONTACT them. There's
no email address, no contact form, no NOTHING!

What if a potential customer wants to BUY something
from your website but have a few questions or doubts
that he/she needs to ask you first? If you have a FAQ
page, that's the first place he/she will definitely seek
answers...but what if your FAQ page still can't provide
the answers he/she seeks?

Don't care?! Not your problem?! Would rather prevent
spam than going through all the trouble?!

If your website can't even provide even HANDLE
the SIMPLEST form of communication, you will
definitely lose lots of potential customers (even
loyal customers) because simply can't contact you!

That's why the Contact Us button or link
should be placed in a highly visible or accessible
position. This is common sense. Who would feel
SAFE to buy from a someone let alone a
website that don't even provide the most BASIC
form of customer support. What if the product they
bought is defective or they're having some trouble
accessing it?

If you're HIDING your website's email
address purely because of spammers, especially
from those email harvester software, you do NOT really
need to REMOVE your email address from your web
site. You can create and place a simple GIF image
with your email address on it using the same background
color as your web page.

Example 1:

To contact us, send us an email to:

height="20" align="absmiddle"
alt="Placing an simple gif to replace the simple mailto link.">

If you don't want to use an image, you can separate
your email address so that it doesn't look like an email
address to email harvester softwares...

Example 2:

To contact us, send us an email to:
sales at ebookok dot com

This approach is NOT recommended, because
some visitors will actually send an email to sales
at ebookok dot com without first changing it to
sales@ebookok.com. Of course you can tell them to
remove the at and replace it with @ and dot with
"." before sending it.

Alternatively, you can create a web form
that allows visitors to submit their questions to
your email DIRECTLY from your website. You will
need a little PERL programming knowledge
for this, or you can simply hire someone else
to write it for you!

If you do use web form as the ONLY way to
contact you, make sure (1000 percent) that the
script is WORKING properly! Make sure you've
set the permission for the script, no errors, etc.

Note: When scripting in Perl, usually a
simple MISSING ";" or "{", or "}" or
"Permission Not Set" errors are the main reasons
why your script is not functioning the way it should
be! Always make sure your script is as BUG-FREE
(not containing any errors) as possible!

When your visitors submitted their questions to
your through your website, it's a good idea to
display a friendly message like: Thanks for
submitting a question, I will be in touch with
you shortly!

This is a good practise and it is highly
recommended because your visitors will know that
your script works and their questions was indeed
successfully submitted. Some websites don't even
bother to add a simple message like: Your question
was submitted.

They will just display a silly BLANK page or
REDIRECT you back to their contact page or
homepage...leaving you to wonder if your
message was indeed submitted properly.

Always try to answer all emails ASAP and
personally - within 24 hours. Customer service
is IMPORTANT! Let them know that you care about
them and they will be happy to do business with
you! :-)

That's all for this article, have fun placing
those contact link!

Best Regards,
Dave Tan
eBookOK.com

------------------------------------------------------------
Get fresh, weekly, up-to-date Internet Marketing Power Tips
and Exclusive eBooks that will give you an unfair edge over
your competitors here:
http://www.ebookok.com/
------------------------------------------------------------