HTML Email - Marketing that Works!

Something I am adding to my roster of available services is HTML Email by way of Mailchimp. I have had a lot of success using html emails for Barrett's Baked Goods, and I am in the process of developing a template and campaign process for New Leaf Farms.

These two clients each require a different strategy.

For Barrett's I create a unique design for each mailing. This is because each mailing is usually seasonal or for a specific holiday, and I tune the look for that purpose. Also, there are different visial elements for each one of their mailings, so reusing a template is not the best solution. We untilize a handwritten "guest book' on the counter at their location and a mailing list sign up form on their website to harvest addresses. I also add any users who submit the contact form from their website to the subscriber list. At the time of this post the mailing list has 551 subscribers. I am most proud number of users who actually open the emails which is approximately 43%. I am not aware of what a normal rate would be, but that is close to half the list opening messages. Also, since I am CC'ed on their website forms, I see that users are sometimes referencing items from the most recent mailing. That means they are actually looking at the content.

New Leaf Farms, a tree and pecan farm in Florida, is a project in development right now. They sent me an example html email from a competitor and asked me to make something similar. In this case they want to send out the mailing twice a month, so a template with updateable elements seems to be the best solution. There are three elements of their mailing that will change each iteration:

• Deals of the Month list - For this list they supply a text document which I need to transpose into spreadsheet form with alternate color rows. From there I make a PDF version of the table, and use the PDF to make a jpeg of the table. The jpg gets embedded in the html email, and it is clickable to open the printable PDF in a new window.
  
• Photos of Deals of the Month Trees - They send between 6 and 8 images of DOM trees, I process them to all be the same size and post them.
  
• Availability List - They send a spreadsheet of their complete inventory list which I do a bit of editing on to make into a one or two page printable PDF. I upload the PDF version and make a graphic on the template clickable to the PDF.

New Leaf is the first time I've been able to maximize the efficiency of using a template based system. This has allowed me to give them pricing for the original template build and first mailout, then a reduced price for each iteration afterwards.  Below is the template that I constructed for them as a user would see it in their email client (note: it is just a jpg, links do not work).

Couldn't Clients Just Make HTML Emails Themselves?

Yes they could. Mailchimp allows clients to run a mailing list of up to 2000 contacts for free. However, my potential clients can benefit from having me do the work for them in several ways:

• Graphic Design - Since I can do graphic design I can make their HTML email look really professional and different from a standard email. I can give it the high quality edge it needs to boost the companies image. Graphic experience also comes into play when designing elements that work well for both desktop and mobile environments, as these messages will be viewed on both.
  
• Familiarity with Mailchimp's Drag n Drop Design Interface - Even though Mailchimp have done a fantastic job of making it -easy- to create html emails, it does take a bit of trial and error to become familiar with their builder interface, and also the terminology/UX of their website as a whole. My clients often don't have that kind of time, but they do have money they are willing to pay for the service.
  
• HTML/CSS Coding Experience - Since I know HTML and CSS fairly well, if an element created using the Mailchimp wysiwyg interface is not behaving or looking exactly as I would like it, in a lot of cases I can edit the actual HTML code the system creates to meet our needs. This usually isn't necessary but I do like to have the ability in my toolbox. 

So, there is a lot of potential here. The ROI is great for clients, and the chance of consistent business is good for me. My next move may be to send out an actual HTML email that explains some of the features I've listed here and how it could help their marketing efforts in an affordable, professional way. 

Sweetwater Creek Nursery / Sweetwater Camellias Website

I'm about to launch the new Sweetwater Camellias website for Sweetwater Creek Nursery. This is a small website for a central Georgia grower that specializes in camellia japonica and camellia sasanqua. Sweetwater Creek Nursery is a wholesaler only, serving landscapers and garden construction professionals.

In this case the client wanted the website to look like their previous site which was no longer in service, but was available for viewing via The Wayback Machine. I lept the design as close as possible, however I did make the new site meet the Google Mobile Friendly criteria by utilizing the most current version of boostrap available at the time of the build.

This was a fun site to build and a great client to work with.

Current Situation

Pretty sure I am nearing the end of my run as a freelance web developer.

I'm good at some aspects of it and I'm not good at others. Additionally, the level of sites which I create don't have the "wow" factor that you can get from an off the shelf wysiwyg web building service like Wix, WordPress, GoDaddy etc. My sites are way practical and simple.

Next I have to decide if I want to try to stay in the web business at all. If so, I no longer want to work on building new site after new site. I think the next step for me would be to get with a company that has a site and be part of a team that works on that site. This may be tough to pull off as I have no compSci degree or other related things that look good on paper.

Gotta make a move in 2020 though, we'll see what happens.

Remote Working Locations - Digital Nomading in South North Georgia

Working at home is fine, but I like to get out and about and work remotely when I can. Basically anyplace with a wifi connection and a spot to plug in a laptop will work, but some places are better than others for various reasons.

Here is a list of places I frequent and what I like/dislike about them.
(In order of amount of usage)

1. Starbucks Friendship Rd  - Great location, lots of plugs, never so crowded that you can't find a spot. Thins out in the evening hours. For as long as I have been going there I have never spent a dime and no staff member has ever given me any static. I don't think they care and also probably figure if I'm there long enough surely I'll eventually buy something. My fave spot.

2. Spout Springs Rd Public Library - Another excellent location. There is a nice big table all the way to one side of the building with a plug. It is very quiet in this space so I use it when the work I'm doing is a little more thought intensive.

2.5 Duncan Creek Public Library - Great spot, very futuristic, lots of plugs, and some of the seating is actually soft! Haven't been going there much because there is a construction detour on the way there which makes me go way out of the way at the moment, but I'll put it back in the rotation once construction is completed.

3. Barnes and Noble Mall of Georgia - It's okay, not the best space. You have a choice of sitting at the coffee bar, which has plenty of plugs but you'll be battling the gigantic bright glare from the huge windows behind you the whole time, or you can get a table facing a direction that ha no glare, but your chances are slim to find one with a plug, and the workspace is very small.

4. Starbucks Across from Mall of GA - small store, has lots of USB only plugs but not too may AC plugs. This place is always crowded so getting a small table to work at is very iffy. Parking here sucks. I think that there may be a sweet spot for working here depending on what time you use the space, but I haven't fount it yet.

5. Culvers Braselton - I found a specific table in this location that is tucked away in a corner and has it's own plug. So far I have only used this space once, and the employees didn't seem to mind. The only downside about working at this spot is that eventually you'll want to get some food because it smells pretty good. Their Pot Roast Sandwich is pretty rad. Only been here once but will def try it again.

6. Mocha Moe's Braselton - I haven't been at this spot in probably close to a year. This is an indie space where you feel sort of obligated to buy something if you're gonna use their wifi. I have never sat at a table in this space that didn't wobble terribly. Try the flatbread pizza if it is still on the menu.

7. (Planning to try) Stars and Strikes Bowling Center Buford/Thirsty Turtle Bar - I actually haven't tried working here yet, but I went on a Sunday and over half of the facility was empty. They do have free wifi, I'm just wondering if I can find a spot tucked in out of the way where it won't bother them that I'm there but not bowling. Thirsty Turtle is the bar that operates inside the bowling alley, and it is one of the last places in town where you can actually smoke inside, which is gross, but the smell hasn't been too bad when I have passed through. I'll report back once I give these spots a try.

8. Local McDonalds/Arbys/BurgerKing/Wendys - I don't really do any work at these spaces usually, but they all have free wifi so occasionally I'll login and update some of my Google Sheets that I use for personal info.

Do you know of any great free wifi spots to work from in South North Georgia? Let me know!

Web Development Job Search pt.1

Although things are moving along fairly well with my web development freelancing, the amount of business I am getting is not quite consistent enough for me to make plans or grow. So, I have decided to carefully begin looking into taking a job at a company or agency for front end web development. I say "looking into" because I'm kind of funny about jobs...I want to be the right fit at the right place and positoin, and when I am, I usually stay at that spot for a long time. However, this means that my search and application process is different than some folks.

Lots of people make a resume and send it out to anyone and everyone who will accept a submission, hoping that by casting a wide net they'll land in a good spot. I can'y ping pong around life that way, I have to be more precision. So my process involves carefully screening out any positions that are at all questionable regarding my current skill set, and my estimation for what I can learn and adapt to quickly.

Also, my search is actually two-fold.

While I'm keeping an eye open for "the job", I am in a position where I think what may be a better situation at forst is to take "a job."

The Job is a career type position, full time, and will be my primary employment, and possible end or at least severely back burner my web freelancing.

A Job would be a part time 20-25hrs/wk, no heavy responsibility type position that allows me to continue giving my freelance web work equal or more importance in terms of commitment level.

I haven't done this in a while so it will be a process of refreshing and learning as things have changed since the last time I applied for a job back in 2008. Hopefully the process will be fun and educational. I'm lucky that I have my freelancing to help me out while I'm looking for my next move forward.

CSS Grid

I keep hearing about how CSS Grid is going to be the future of layout. So far I have not tried it out at all, but I plan to give it a whirl soon. At the moment I'm still using Bootstrap 4 which has elements of flexbox, but I've never really dove into flexbox either. The developer who court the convention circuit seem to be really pumped about CSS Grid though, so that I where I think my energy is best pointed. The only downside of being a bit late to the game is that CSS Grid is pretty much compatible with all modern browsers at this point. My thinking in the past was, no sense developing a skill set for a framework that can't be used universally.

Hopefully I'll have some great updates soon.

Hey Guess What I'm Still Here!

Hi Everyone,

It's been a long time since my last post and a lot of things have changed. Let me quickly bring you up to speed.

As of June 2017 I am no longer working at LandscaperWebsites.com/Porterware. I was not fired and I did not quit. Circumstances happened that made the company no longer have the income to afford an employee, so we parted ways. It stunk to lose stable employment but I will say it was a good run and I left on good terms with the owner.

So, what have I been doing since then? First I took some time to try to figure out my next move. During that span of time, some clients that I had built relationships with over the 9 years I was at LandscaperWebsites contacted me directly and asked for some help with their websites. Since I still had access to the servers their sites are on, I was able to do a few jobs for them. It was during these jobs that I decided to try my hand at doing freelance web development, site maintenance, and some seo work. We can talk later about why it's only some seo work.

At the moment I am still kicking along doing freelance sites, consulting and general web related work, mostly with the landscaper and pest control industries. If you're interested you can view more about my website offerings at robertwilliamashton.com. Give me a shout via the contact page if you need an affordable, practical, inexpensive site for your upstart business.

Upload and Send Folders via Google Drive

To send a folder of files it is easy and quick to use Google Drive. Google Drive gives 15 gigabytes of storage to anyone with a gmail account. Using Google Drive works great for sending folders that contain a lot of images, or any other type of files. Below are the simple instructions on using Google Drive.

Step 1.
Log in to your Gmail account. If you do not have a Gmail account, it is easy and free to create one.

Step 2.
 Click the app grid in the upper right corner and select Drive from the pop-up box.






Step 3.
 The main page of your Google Drive will open. Drag the folder that you want to share into the main area of the drive page. This will automatically upload the folder to your drive and you will see the progress in the lower right corner.





Step 4.
When upload is complete, click on the uploaded folder to highlight it. When it is highlighted you will see an icon that looks like a person with a + sign in the upper right. This is the "Share" icon. Click the Share icon.




Step 5.
 A pop-up box will open. Click "Get sharable link" in the upper right corner. Copy the link and send the entire link to whoever you want to share the folder with.



That's it! Very easy and convenient.

Making Sure Your Website Forms Are Working

The following information is relevant to all LandscaperWebsites.com, GreenIndustryWebsites.com, and PestControlWebsites.com websites.

It is recommended that you check each form on the site at least once a week, in order to make sure you are not missing opportunities sent by potential customers. It is up to you to monitor whether the forms on your site are making it to the correct INBOX. Because there are so many variables about the local machines that receive forms, and the way their specific email clients are configured, we do not have a way to monitor that all form submissions make it to their final destination.

It is very easy to make sure the forms on your website are working!

Step 1:
The first step to make sure you know the email address that the forms are sending to, and make sure you have access to the machine that receives email at that address. If you do not know what email address the forms are being sent to, just give us a call and we'll let you know.

Step 2:
Go to your website and fill out the form you want to test. You may want to put the words "test" in the form fields so that you'll be able to identify that it is in fact a test and not a form from an actual user. Once the form is filled out, hit the "SUBMIT" button.

Step 3:
Watch for the form to appear in the INBOX of the email account that is supposed to receive it. It should happen very quickly. If you don't see the form appear in the INBOX after about 5 minutes, then look for it in your SPAM/JUNKMAIL folder.

If the form has been sent to your SPAM/JUNKMAIL folder, consult the "Help" section of your email client for info on how to identify emails from the forms as safe/trusted senders or similar. If you cannot find this info in the "Help" section, a Google search for the info may be helpful. Basically you want to let your email client (usually Outlook) know that messages from the forms are not spam and should be sent to the INBOX.

Once you have made the adjustments, you can go back to your website and send another test. Repeat the process until you are getting the message in your INBOX.

If the form DID NOT reach your INBOX or SPAM/JUNKMAIL box, give us a call at 770.887.2901 and we'll run a test on our end to see if the problem is actually with the form, or with your local machine set up.

NOTE: the amount of support we can give for your local machine is very limited. There may be cases where you need to have someone who can be on-site with you to help with local account issues.

Immaculate Outdoor - Austin / Leander TX

I worked with Josh from Immaculate Outdoor, a landscaping - hardscaping company serving the Austin TX area, for a little over a year preparing his site. We took our time as he already had a previous site running, and wanted to make sure that this new site was complete in every aspect before launching. he also had a very large amount of photos to be uploaded. Of all the sites I've worked on, this is the one which has the most detailed text content. Immaculate Outdoor should do really well with this site. 

Team Sports Turf - West Caldwell NJ

Recently completed the new Team Sports Turf website. Team Sports Turf are an excellent landscaping, hardscaping and athletic field company from West Caldwell New Jersey. They are also one of our oldest customers here at landscaperwebsites.com. This site features a jQuery homepage slideshow, and four easily editable "modules" on the homepage which can be used to seasonal promotions.

Roanoke Lawn Care by The Green Team

Lat month I completed construction of a new website for a Roanoke Lawn Care company called The Green Team.

This is the first time we have done a site that features Responsive Design. It was a bit of a challenge but in the end the results were excellent, giving the user the same experience no matter what size screen the site is viewed with. 

One of my favorite parts of this site is the Kids Zone which features some very cool printable PDFs for kids to color, which include the Green Team alien logo. A nice touch. 

Change SMTP Port Settings to SEND Email

Occasionally ISP's may not want you to use the standard port 25 to send email. Changing the port is not difficult. Below are the instructions you'll need to change the port in Outlook.

1. Open Tools > Account Settings.
2. Select your Email account from the list. Click Change.
3. Click More Settings.
4. Check the "My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication" box.
5. Make sure that "Use same settings as my incoming mail server" is selected.
6. Click the Advanced tab.
7. Change the Outgoing Server field number from 25 to 26. (If this doesn't work, repeat these steps and change the number to 2525 or 587.)
8. Select "SSL" from the "Use the following type of encrypted connection" pull-down menu.
9. Click OK.
10. Click Next until you reach the Finish button. Click Finish.

Note that the instructoins are slightly different for Outlook Express. If you do not use Outlook as your email client do a search on how to change the smtp port number for your specific email client and version.

Using LandscaperWebsites / PestControlWebsites / Porterware WEBMAIL

Once we have set up your email addresses and password, you'll probably want to start using your new email addresses right away. The fastest way to get started is to use the WEBMAIL system. Our WEBMAIL system can be used from any computer that is connected to the internet. It is very similar to other web based email clients like gmail, hotmail, msn/yahoo mail, etc. All you need to know is the complete email address and password.

Here are the instructions on how to use the webmail: 

Go to login page: http://webmail.landscaperwebsites.com

1. In Email field, list your complete email address use no caps (example: johndoe@landscapecompany.com)

2. In password field enter your password. click button to login. If login fails try again and make sure that if you have capital letters in your password, you use those caps in the password field.

3. Once logged in, you will see a selection of different email clients that can be used. Click the client called "Horde"

4. You will be taken to a page that has another login button. This is normal. Click that login button.

5. You will be taken to the Horde Webmail Interface.

This is where you will be able to send and receive emails from when using the webmail.

The default view should show your inbox. If it does not, select expand the "mail" menu item from the menu on left by clicking the box with the plus sign in it next to the "mail" icon

Recently Launched Website for Mosquito Control, Richmond VA

In addition to Landscaper Websites and Lawn Care-Green Industry Websites, Porterware has also branched out into doing Pest Control Websites. Response has been fantastic.

Our most recent Pest Control Website launch has been MosquitoGO Professional Mosquito & Tick Control for Richmond, Williamsburg, and Ashland VA. MosquitoGO specialize in All Natural Mosquito Control, Tick Control, and Special Event Mosquito & Tick Control. They are a company which focuses on excellent customer service and providing a safe effective treatment for your home or business.

This particular client wanted their site launch to coincide with a print mailer campaign that they was going out in mid December, so once the site ended up on my desk, it was fast tracked to launch. I worked closely with  the owner of the business to tailor the text content to what he wanted, and we made our launch deadline with a day to spare. However, the site is not complete just yet.

Next we'll hyper focus on getting some great organic search results for mosquito and tick control. The first step in this process was to explain to the client that I'd be changing and adding to their text content. This customer was very particular about their text content, so  had to introduce them to the concept that most people don't actually read a site word for word, but the search bots do, so we have to balance writing text that the bots would respond to, while also maintaining readability and not overdoing it with the keyword density.

I'm looking forward to getting this MosquitoGO some great search results.

SEO Efforts Paying Off

Recently I've done some on-page SEO for a Dallas TX Lawn Service company called LawnLab. When we took over their site, the developer who built out the new version basically just transferred the text content, formatting and all, to the new site. They tried to contact him a while ago, but he was out of the office indefinitely, so I said I would step in and get them some results. First I narrowed down the geographic areas they wanted to target, then started reworking their text content and document structure after doing a baseline check of where their site showed up for some queries based on the appropriate keywords. I have not finished yet, but today I did a rank check and the results have been very good! In fact they are in the  number one position for a lot of the targeted queries.

I rock the digital voodoomagick.

Next I'll be working on doing the same for a Fort Dodge Iowa Lawn Care & Maintenance site that we built about two years ago called Smitty's Lawn and Landscape. Their site has A LOT of pages, the links to some of which are buried deep within the site, so it will be a fun challenge to get them some results. On the upside promoting Lawn Care in Manson and Humboldt IA should be easier than working on sites who have much larger more competitive markets.

Snow and Ice Removal Landing Page

A while ago I constructed a landing page for Minneapolis Snow and Ice Removal. The landing page features highly optimized, keyword dense text content, and the google recommended Heading1/Paragraph/Heading2/paragraph/etc document structure, but that is only part of the story.

Although the page looks similar to the design of the Timber Creek Landscape Minneapolis site, the HTML and CSS for the landing page has been changed to allow for the actual text content to appear much earlier in the document source. From what I understand the sooner the search bots get to the actual subject matter of the page the better, so we did some CSS stunts to place the first paragraph of text content sooner on the page than the header. Sounds easy. It is easy if the pages have a fixed height for the content area. Later, on a different site we learned that it is more difficult to apply this method when the content area is dynamic, but we pulled it off.

Farewell Sarah...

Sarah L., one of our Front End Web Developers, has taken a position with a different company for now. Sad to see her go, BUT, the plan is for her to come back and help us again when our busy season starts. Of course this is subject to change, but she did express that she wanted to sync back up with us at a later time.

 

Robert A, Sarah L, & Chris P

Working at Porterware.com was Sarah's first position as a web developer and it was great to watch her skill set grow over time, particularly her understanding of SEO. She created some of the earliest versions of our geo-specific landing pages, and built the prototype of a new landing page strategy we have been rolling out, which uses a little div ninjitsu to move the content closer to the beginning of the document without disrupting the actual display the user sees. Maybe a bit -gray hat- but not totally against the SEO "rules" as far as I can tell.

Some of the websites Sarah worked on include:

•  Live Oak Landscape Services - Atlanta GA
• Advanced Landscaping Services - Jefferson City, TN
• Central Savannah River Area Professional Pest Control Association - GA
• K&B Landscape Services - San Ramon, CA
• ABC Lawn Services - Pflugerville, TX
• All Green Lawn Service - Cumming, GA

Minneapolis Landscaper Landing Pages

We've been experimenting with creating some very stripped down landing pages for one of our Maple Plain Minnesota Landscaper clients. So far we have created pages for Drainage Solutions, Irrigation, Tree and Shrub Care - Pruning, Retaining Walls - Hardscapes, and Snow Removal.

These pages were constructed to replace other landing pages with the same URLs, which previously had the same navigation and footer as the rest of the site. The new versions have been updated so that there is a lot less code clutterin the source code. There was no need fror a lot of the navigation elements, so they were removed. Also, we worked with the <div> structure and CSS to manipulate the main content area so that although it is about midway down the page to the viewer, it is actually on of the first elements of the source code for each page.

Timber Creek Landscape have been awesome to work with, and do excellent landscaping work throughout the Minneapolis, Maple Plain, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Wayzata, Edina, Orono, and Surrounding Areas.

End of an Era

Jeff C. has been our Account Manager since mid December 2011. At the end of this week, he will be leaving Porterware/LandscaperWebsites/GreenIndustryWebsites to take a position at The Gainesville Times. He did a great job with the account management, and we'll miss his sense of humor around the office.

Jeff (left) & Robert (right)