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Newsletter
- March 2006 |
Don't let your Website Hold You, and Your One-Person Business, Hostage
The great myth that stops many one-person business owners in their tracks is
their website needs to be perfect, or at least
wonderful, before they can use it to market their business.
In fact, there's lots you can do before you have a real website, or with your
current website, to market your business.
The reality behind the perfect website myth: almost any website is
better than none at all, even a one-page site.
The key word is almost. Many people look to the web first for
information about new resources, whether from a referral from
friends and colleagues, or even when they hear you speak, or see
one of your articles. You need to be ready with a
simple "website before you have a real website" with your contact information and
a little about what you do and who you are.
Which brings us to dreaded myth number two: I must optimize my
website so major search engines will find me and put me on page
one of the search results so everyone in my market will find me
and hire me. It's a prevalent myth. And, like
most myths, has just enough basis in fact to make it dangerous.
The reality with search engine optimization for one-person
businesses? It is just too expensive. Most one-person businesses
are too small and have too tight a budget to afford a mid-five
figure monthly commitment to search engine optimization.
Does this mean you should just ignore search engines? Absolutely
not! Ignore at your own peril.
Just get real clear on why you are using them and what they can
do for your one-person business. Change your approach and your
expectations.
View your website as an easily updated, increasingly
comprehensive brochure, with lots of information about you, the
services and products you offer, and goodies
for people who stumble into it, or are purposely referred to it.
Use your website as your brochure. Reassure suspects and
prospects who find you on the web that you're credible, ethical,
knowledgeable, and easy to work with.
How to do this? Since most people will be looking for you by name,
first check out how "findable" you are when people search on your
name.
Enter your name into the two major search engines: Google and
Yahoo. Be sure to use the format "firstname lastname" with
quotation marks. For example I search on "Pat Wiklund" or "Patricia
Wiklund" (Of course I get different results depending
on which name I search...ahhh the joys of electrons.)
After quenching your joy, or dismay, with your results, look
carefully at each listing.
Each listing has three parts: the title, a short description of what
is on the page, and the url (website address) of the page that is
referenced. Click through to the page to see what opens. (Or, if
nothing came up from the search, go to a page you know is on your site.)
You should see the same title at the top of the browser bar that
was the title of the link. (Browsers are the programs you use to view webpages: Explorer, Safari,
Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape)
Now dig deeper by "viewing the source." (It is an option with just
about every browser, typically in the View drop down menu
window.)
Don't let all the HTML hieroglyphics put you off. Find the text that
is the same as the title and the description you saw on the Google
or Yahoo listing. These are somewhere close to the top of the
source code page. You may also see a list of "metatags" close by,
or maybe not.
If you have text in each of these areas, title, description, and
metatags, and it includes your name, you are on your way to being
"findable" when someone searches your name.
Will you come up at the top of the listing, when they search on
your name? Maybe, maybe not.
If you have a common name, you may be listed with all the other
Mary Smith's. The less common your name, the more likely your
site will be towards the top with a name search.
I have a pretty uncommon name here in the States. However,
there is one more Pat Wiklund I know for sure, a nice man who
lives in Maryland. There are lots more Pat Wiklund's who live in
Sweden, where Wiklund is very common. Someone looking
for me can determine which links are to me by the title and the
description of the link.
What to do if you aren't found by searching, or there are no titles,
descriptions, and metatags in your source code? Run do not walk
to your web master for a web redo. Someone has constructed
your website either by using page images, rather than HTML code,
or they didn't know what to use in these three
fields, and you didn't realize how important it was to have these three little
helpers.
Don't have a web master, or have just lost confidence in the one
you have? Go to http://www.PatSentMe.com
and click on the first section to see the service
packages Marcus Yong offers to my clients and referrals. He knows how to work
with people like us who need effective websites that honor our marketing budgets.
Reprinting and
Reposting
An
electronic version of these articles is available if you
wish to reprint or repost one of them. Please contact Dr.
Pat Wiklund for permission to reprint, and to see if there
is a royalty required for reprint.
If permission is granted, we request a hard copy of the
publication in which the article appears. We request you
include Pat's bio at the end of the piece, along with
contract information, and preferably, a photo. We'll happily
supply a 5x7 black and white or color photo if you can use
it.
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For
additional information, you may complete an information
form or contact Dr. Pat
Wiklund directly at:
236 West Portal Ave. #349
San Francisco, CA 94127
(415) 641-5997
Email:
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