Spice Up Your Email Signature

Adding Graphics, Links & Graphics WITH Links in Microsoft Outlook!

It’s nice to have an email signature that stands out. You don’t want it to be too big or too small, but at the same time, you want to include all the conveniences that your recipient may want. Obviously name and contact info are a given, but what about your website, Google Map Directions to your office or links to your social media accounts? Links are so easy to add, and you can even add links to images!

Active hyperlinks in your email signature increase the chance that the recipient will click it. Today, nobody has time to type out your website address or your Facebook URL, so GIVE IT TO THEM! Another great convenience to add is to link your office address to your Google Map directions page!

Also, don’t be afraid to change the coloring or format of your different lines of text. Make certain elements stand out, rather than using all black.

Following are directions on how to add an image to your email signature with a related hyperlink.

Adding Linked Social Media Icons to your Microsoft Outlook Email Signature

1. Make sure you have the icons you want to use saved somewhere on your computer.
   Note: You can find fun social media icon image packages for free when you do a search on www.google.com. Find some you like and download the files to your computer. If the images are too big for your liking, you can resize them in any image editing program. If you do not have an image editing program, consider downloading Microsoft Paint.NET, which is free! We do not endorse this software – you download it at your own risk.
2. Open a new email window and click the Signature Button to edit your Email Signatures:
   
3. If you have not created an email signature yet, start a new one now by clicking “New”.
   
   NOTE: If you would like your email signature to insert automatically when you start a new message, reply or forward an email, populate the fields in the right hand column. It will save you time and keep your emails consistent with contact information easily at hand in every message you send!
   
4. In the Email Signature Window, click the Insert Image Icon to browse to your image and insert it:
   
5. Once the image is inserted, click on it once to highlight it:
   
6. Click the Insert Hyperlink Icon located right next to the image icon.
   
7. The Hyperlink Window will allow you to insert a related URL (web address) that you will place your website, Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter or other website URL. Make sure you insert the entire website address from http://www All the way to the .com/.org/.net. In this sample, I’ve inserted our InfoPathways Blog Icon, clicked on it, hit the Hyperlink URL and I’ve inserted our blog’s website address, http://infopathways.blogspot.com/.
   
8. Click OK. From the email signature window, the link will not work. To test that it works, open a new email window and email it to yourself. When you receive the email and hover over your icon, it should show a little pop-up note to let you know what website address it is linked to.
   

Go try creating your own custom Email Signature!

Set up an email signature for your new email messages and one for your replies and forwards.

Central Maryland Rehabilitation Services - WEBSITE LAUNCHED

Check out the recently launched website, www.CMRSpt.com, for Central Maryland Rehabilitation Services.

“InfoPathways created our website and professional portraits and they serve as an excellent tool to create awareness and education to our current and future clients,” said Todd Herring, Director of Central Maryland Rehabilitation Services.

The photographic work on the website was a collaboration between Kelly Heck of InfoPathways (for the professional portraits) and Renee Sherman of CMRS (for the candid shots that illustrate their services).

What is a "Call to Action" ?

A new phrase we hear a lot when discussing online marketing is “Call to Action”. The practice itself is not something new – you’ve probably been doing it for years, but the way you apply it has changed as online marketing has evolved.

Implementing a “Call to Action” is to entice a person to take action. The action could be to place a call, sign up for a newsletter, email to learn more, submit a quote request, fan you on facebook and follow you on twitter, stop in the office to meet the team, etc.

Are you using “Call to Action” tactics on your company website? In your email newsletter? Is it easy for potential clients to contact you? Are you giving current clients ideas and incentives to invest in additional or continuous services from your company?

Take the time to evaluate your efforts and online presences to ensure you are making the most of your marketing investments. Are the action incentives noticeable enough to grab your viewer’s attention? If you aren’t sure, ask a colleague to review your website/newsletter/profile/etc. with you. Often an outsider will have the perspective you need. And check out some other websites to see how they are drawing in their audience. On just a portion of the www.ConstantContact.com website homepage, I see at least 10 “Call to Action” tactics. Even though many are small, there are a variety of methods and visuals to reach new clients.

 

Download the PDF version of this article and share it with your co-workers and colleagues!

How SEO Works (Search Engine Optimization)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a train you need to hop on. The day you decide to join the brigade will be the day you can begin refining your marketing approaches and improve your business. Make it TODAY!
Any business and promotional activities you participate in online can be deemed SEO. Often if you post or publish something, it is linked back to a personal or professional profile or your website. These links create a pathway that leads users to your company. Let me explain how this works.

Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) have these software robots that we call “spiders”, and they crawl the World Wide Web searching for unique terms and phrases, which we web developers like to call Keywords and Keyphrases. They also search for links. When spiders find a link, they follow it and begin the crawling process over again and again and again. The spiders collect the data and save it. Web users go to a search engines to look up a service or product and the search engine is able to locate the most relevant site based on the terminology submitted. This is how search engines find you, but there are many factors that determine your relevance in Search Engine Return Pages (SERPs).

Your ranking relies on your relevance or what we call a “trust factor”. Is your company real? How long has it been established? Is it managed and marketed by real people? Is your online presence consistently updated? The SEO techniques you rely on heavily impact your trust factor. If you use White Hat SEO Techniques, which are approved methods of improving your ranking, your website will steadily become more reliable in the eyes of spiders and their related search engines. If you use Black Hat SEO Techniques, methods which have been banned (because they tend to try and cheat the system), your credibility is lost and you must begin from scratch. Use of the web and digital media is ever increasing; as a business owner or representative, it’s important that you use it regularly and that you use it right.

SEO takes a long time to build and never ends. If you spend years building your reputation online and it is crushed by a Black Hat technique, you’ve lost years of organic growth! Organic SEO is this slow, steady climb in reliability that is built not just by yourself and your other representatives, but by people outside of your company. Other web users may link to your website, your Facebook Fan Page, they might RE-tweet from your Twitter page or comment on your blog. This is the following and web of links you are looking to establish and build upon, and it takes forever, literally. But one bad move and you’re back to the bottom of the food chain.

We cannot press how important it is to follow the rules, to understand the rules, and to regularly educate yourself on the topic. Luckily there are endless resources that you can SEARCH for online! As search engines continue to increase in accuracy, you will find more relevant SERPs.

There are many terms in this paper that are explained further below:

SEO – Search Engine Optimization: helps Search Engines locate and translate your website’s meaning and/or purpose into unique phrases to achieve a high ranking on Search Engine Return Pages (SERPs).

SERPs – Search Engine Return Pages: are the results displayed in the browser after you have submitted a search via a search engine.

Search Engine: examples include Google, Yahoo, Bing, Dog Pile, Ask Jeeves, etc.

Spiders: are Software Robots that build lists of words found on websites and the location they were found. This process is referred to as Web Crawling.

White Hat SEO: refers to approved SEO techniques that will improve your website rankings in the long term.

Black Hat SEO: refers to banned SEO techniques. They are typically implemented to con search engines into appointing higher ranking to the related website. Often these techniques are short term solutions to gain higher rankings but can also lead to a site’s removal from search engines.

Organic SEO: is achieved over time through efforts of those outside of your organization who may refer to your website or other online presences. Organic SEO greatly increases your “trust factor”.

Trust Factor: is the relevance of your website or the likelihood that your products and services are true and of interest.