It's not a website - it's a marketing magnet!

By Cathy Goodwin
Posted Friday, December 3, 2004

Designing a website? It's not just a pretty face. The "write" content can sell!

1. Certainly you want an attractive website -- but visitors to your site will be drawn in by your content.

2. Search engines pick up odd bits of content. The more content, the more likely you'll be picked up in a search. Some visitors find my site by typing in phrases I tossed off casually, such as "moving with cats."

3. Design your web content backwards, starting with the search terms your future clients use on their surfing expeditions.

4. Post your articles to your website. Include a note, "May be reprinted if my resource box is included," and place your resource box on every article page.

5. Drop the ho-hum, me-too ideas. "Set your priorities." "Divide a project into manageable chunks." "Yawn."

6. Unless you are offering a new-to-the-world service, your clients have already heard of your service. They're surfing to answer questions of "How" and "Who."

7. If you offer a personal or professional service, clients will hire your personality, style and expertise. They may actually be turned off by a list of "too good to be true" benefits. Perhaps the worst advice I ever got was, "See what benefits your competitors offer and list them on your site."

8. Be guided by the question, "How do people make the decision to hire me?" Are you a professional service -- or a chocolate chip cookie?

9. Once your site goes online, it will look different. Visitors will send you feedback and you will want to make changes.

Web designers charge for each change. You may have to become a designer or marry your designer to keep your site economical as well as up-to-date.

10. Do clients and web visitors say, "That sounds just like you!" Do your articles get posted and reprinted and even translated into other languages? You can learn to answer "yes" to all these questions. Seek out help and practice as if you were training for a marathon. In a sense, you are.

About the Author
Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D is an author, speaker and career coach who helps midlife professionals who want to change careers or relocate. For her free Career Freedom ezine, visit (http://www.movinglady.com/currnews.html). Her website is (http://www.movinglady.com). Free classes are listed at (http://www.movinglady.com/classes.html).