There are a few things to keep in mind when writing website content:

1. Keep it short: Website readers are impatient, so they scan website content – it’s often too much work to really “read” on the web & there are so many sources of information that people will find another source if yours doesn’t immediately deliver. Also, because of the nature of the medium people read more slowly and avoid large blocks of text. You can deliver a longer message below the fold or on other pages of your site, but avoid information overload on landing pages.

Read on for more tips on writing website content . . .

This week in the Client Spotlight is Laurie Richter, author of Put Me In, Coach! A Parent’s Guide to Winning the Game of College Recruiting. Laurie’s book is an essential guidebook for parents and their student-athletes who want to be recruited to compete in athletics at the college level.

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

I wish I’d had a better understanding of how search engines work to drive people to your site, and how to develop language and content based on that. I still don’t know enough about it and it’s not what I want to spend my time thinking about. My instincts were to just write good content without regard to how it shows up in search engines.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

The most important thing I’ve learned is that if you want to be successful at selling something on the web, FIRST you need to build a relationship with people who come to your site and you need to provide them with something real whether it’s content, product or something else. You need to give a little before you can take. I’ve also learned that it’s a constant process of fine tuning – your site is always a work in progress.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Try to look at your site from the point of view of someone coming to it and what their needs are – vs. just focusing on what you want to get out there and say about yourself and your product or service. If you misjudge what people need and want because you’re focused on you and not them, your site won’t be relevant.

This week in the Client Spotlight is Diane Marie Pinkard, author of Just Treat Me Like I Matter: The Heart of Sales. Diane’s passion lies in the business of human relations. Her love for teaching, training, and selling ultimately evolved into her own personal study about human dynamics and what makes people tick. Her book offers inspiring tools and techniques for developing strong interpersonal relationship with clients.

There is a saying: “The reason the world is round is so people will not be able to see what is coming or lies ahead.” Well, I can really relate to that. For a long time I have had a passion to write a book. And I did write a book. But my belief was that writing the book was the majority of the work; that everything would just fall into place and everybody would want to buy my book. Wow, was I in for a HUGE RUDE awakening. Writing the the book was just a tip of the iceburg! The work truly starts after the book is written – that is my lesson learned! So the advice I have for anyone wishing to follow your dreams – be sure you also are EXTREMELY passionate and tenacious about fulfilling your dreams. And that you have the positive mindset to travel the journey and weather the storms to accomplish your dreams and goals. Also, you must have the unbending commitment, belief, and faith to enjoy the ride (up and down), learn the lessons (many) and tackle the challenges (also, many) that present themselves along the way. Most important: Come from a place of what you have to offer to the universe – not what you expect (or hope) the universe is going to give you (i.e. notoreity, money). These lovely gifts will naturally come when you properly align your forces with what you have to give – not with your expectations of what you want to get! And when you are committed this special place – from your heart and soul – you naturally open up to the universe and the right people come to help you.

This week in the Client Spotlight is Bill Trimble, author of Screw It! I’ll Be My Own Contractor. Bill provides expert experience-based advice to the home owner who wants to tackle large home improvements themself. Bill’s website highlights his current book, but is built to be able to highlight future projects moving forward.

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

Honestly – that it was relatively simple. I anticipated much more time and effort than it actually took to get up and running.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

I have discovered that having an on-line presence means very little until you can create traffic to your site. There are hundreds of millions of people on the internet every day, but they have to know how to find you.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Have a concept in mind before you go to a professional. Think about what you want the home page to look like and what you want to say there. How many pages or tabs are essential? What are the color schemes you want to use? Keep it simple, you can add on after you’re live and see what kind of feedback you get. Then give it to Kate. She will have you on the internet before you can say Kate McMillan. I’ve received many positive comments on my website, so I am really proud of it.

This week in the Client Spotlight is Diana Raab, author of the award-winning memoir Regina’s Closet & other great works. Diana’s comprehensive website highlights her appearances, her current projects, her future projects, her press mentions and reviews, and lots of information about her published works. She updates it frequently to keep the content fresh, and is always exploring new ways to reach her audience online.

You must think of all the ways you can to drive traffic to your site.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

I learned that whenever possible you need to link back to your website, whether you are answering emails or responding on someone’s blog or sending snail mail. It also helps to join as many social organizations as possible.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Keep your website up-to-date. Instead of bombarding Kate with one or two updates more frequently, what I do is keeping a running list and wait until I have at least 5-10 items which need updating before sending to her.

When it comes to choosing a domain name, leave the cute and vague for the cutting room floor. While it’s important that you have your site’s content, meta tags and page titles keyword-rich, it’s even more important that your domain name is really working for you.

If you’ve authored a book, for example, the book title is a good place to start, but why not also buy up a domain name related to the genre or topic? Domain names come cheap these days, so there’s no reason not to buy a bunch of them when launching a new site. The one that returns the most amount of traffic should be the primary one, and all the others should be permanently redirected to the primary one. The company through which you buy your domains can easily take care of that for you.

Also, if you don’t already own your name as a domain name, whether you’re an author or a small business owner, go out and purchase it right now.  And if you’re selling yourself as a service professional (eg: a consultant, a designer, a copywriter, etc…) it’s even more important.  You may not want your name as the primary domain name for your offering, but it’s a great thing to have in your back pocket as a redirect.  And in the future, if you begin to have multiple locations on the web for new projects, you can use your name as a one-stop-shop that links to all your locations on the web, including your social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc..).

If the name you really want isn’t available, get creative!  For example, my design business is called Outbox Online, operated under my name, Kate McMillan…  and the primary domain name is outboxonline.com.  But I also own katemcmillan.com, katherinemcmillan.com and iamkatemcmillan.com.  As long as the name you go by is in there, you’ve achieved your goal.

By choosing a domain name that doesn’t have to do with your offering, you may be leaving site traffic on the table and making it difficult for people to find you.  In certain cases it may not be important or appropriate to drive traffic to your site based on what you offer, but that’s seldom the case… so make sure you’re making an informed decision!  I, for example, will be taking my own advice as soon as I finish this blog post!

Finally, be sure you’re linking to your calling card site wherever you have a profile online, and if you don’t already have one, be *sure* to set yourself up with a Google Profile.

Now, get out there and make yourself internet friendly!

This post is the first in a series of weekly interviews with clients where I pose questions that I’m hoping will help people as they embark on their own projects.

This week I’ve asked three questions of Gail Kearns (Book Shepherd, Project Editor & Production Coordinator) and Lucy Levenson (Online & Offline Marketing Specialist) at To Press & Beyond, a full service book shepherding agency.

1. What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

You must be prepared to work on your website regularly each week. You need to be constantly finding new content to keep it fresh and interesting. Blogging, posting articles, keeping up to date with endorsements, finding opportunities to link to other sites in your niche, it is much more of a commitment that I had understood.

Visitors will stay on a website for only a few seconds if they cannot immediately find what they want. Make sure critical content and information is quickly available at the top of the page and it loads quickly.

2. What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

What is “IN” is constantly changing. When we started it was Google ad words and per click sales – now it is all about social media, like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. You have to be constantly educating yourself.

3. What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

For authors with one book and no other products, it is best to direct visitors to Amazon to purchase a title, rather than setting up e-commerce on the author’s site. A large percentage of buyers will go to Amazon anyway. As Amazon provides free exposure worldwide, authors need to optimize their Amazon author page. Having a title properly listed on Amazon can create demand for it everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re a famous author or an unknown.

There are lots of different reasons people hire web designers:

1. They don’t understand the internet, what it’s capable of, and how to use it to their benefit.
2. They understand the internet, but they don’t have the skills necessary to create a web presence for themselves, and don’t want some standard ubiquitous template that may or may not meet their needs.
3. They have some skills, but not enough time/energy to figure out all the details.
4. They know exactly what they are doing, but don’t want/need to do it for themselves.

Rarely do people fall neatly into those categories, however.  Often times someone knows a little bit, but needs some help to get going.

If you’re getting ready to hire someone to help you with your web presence, I recommend that you keep the following in mind:

• Get organized. And I don’t mean just knowing where you’re going to get your domain name and hosting, or the big testimonial you want featured on the Home page.  I mean that you are clear about what the goal of you project really is.  For example, do you want to attract new customers or service exiting ones, or both?  Do you want to enrich your existing brand, or create a new one?  Do you want to attract a wide audience, or are you looking for a particular group of people?  Once you have a clear goal, make a list of what you might put online to help reach that goal, then solicit advice from people who are experts in web marketing and find out if what you have planned will realistically help you meet that goal.  Only once you feel confident that your idea will help serve your goal should you hire a web designer to help you put the plan into action.  Many times, a web designer wears both hats, but it’s important not to jump straight into what the site will look like before you’ve talked about what you want your web presence to *do*.
• Do your research. Having an idea of what your competition looks like and what they’re doing online is critical knowledge.  Not only will this help you get more fluent in what your customer/audience will expect from you, but it’ll help you talk with your designer about how your ideas will be implemented.  For example, it’s not enough to know that political candidate websites heavily leverage patriotic colors and iconography…   you need to go further into the voice and tone of the site, how their site is organized, and what kind of content they’re offering.  This will help you position yourself in the marketplace and communicate your wants and needs to your web team.  Remember, you’re hiring them not because they know about *your* business, but because they know about theirs.  Helping them get up to speed on your business so they can create a great solution for you will streamline the process and make sure everyone is playing to their strengths.
• Understand your limitations and don’t be ashamed of them. This is often the most difficult hurdle to overcome when working towards a successful web presence, but it’s important to leverage the expertise of people who fully understand all the available options to be successful.  Remember, your goal isn’t to acquire a new skill or to prove your intellect, it’s to make your web presence work for you.   And most likely your business/service/product doesn’t require you to be an expert on web design and marketing — it requires you to be an expert on whatever you’re offering.  The tough love here is that the less your web team has to dance around your ego, the more efficient your project will be and the more likely that they’ll be able to create something that really meets your needs.

In my experience, the most successful projects are those which implement the above tips.  They are not only more efficient (thereby saving money), but also encourage a type of communication that benefits the end result.  Make sure you’re leveraging your web team to the best of your and their ability…  they’re there to design solutions that make you and your project a success if you’ll let them.

People find me for their projects in a number of ways… sometimes they search the internet for a web designer, other times they see my link on the bottom of one of my project pages, and then there are people who hear about me from someone they know. In certain cases I’ve approached someone I want to work with, generally via email, pointing them to my portfolio and letting them know that if they have a future project they think might suit me, to keep me in mind. In one particular case, they have turned out to be one of my best clients.

One of the things I’ve never done is any sort of targeted advertising, and I don’t know whether it’ll be something I’ll need to do future. Instead, I focus my “advertising” energy on expanding my online presence via social networking.

Interestingly, especially when people find me themselves, they are all over the map with their understanding of the internet & many times my projects begin with me explaining how to purchase a domain, and “what is a web host anyway.” A great way to build trust with a new client is to spend the time to answer *all* of their questions up front… and to anticipate what they may ask you next. It’s a great opportunity to establish a rapport with someone new, and to help them feel like they made the right choice hiring you. Usually, the time you spend here isn’t billable, so think of it as an investment in your business.

Once the domain and host are organized, I usually begin by building a simple outline of the site based on conversations with the client. This helps to make sure nothing is overlooked, and that the site is organized so that the client is happy, and it’s easy to navigate. I do this ahead of sending a contract and a 40% deposit invoice. I treat it like an addendum to the contract — it defines the scope of the project.

I generally send over the contract, the deposit invoice, and the outline together. I also ask the client to send me links to designs that they really like, or really hate. I point them to design aggregators to help them out with this, as many times it’s very hard to describe in words what you’re after. Once I receive the signed contract and the deposit in the mail, I start the actual design work.

Usually, I create a visual design mockup in Photoshop. I make sure to keep in mind what will work well in a CSS layout, but not to let that get in the way of the desired effect. I start with a 1024×760 document, put up guides for a 780 pixel wide, centered column, and go from there. Usually, I design fixed-width layouts, and I find these dimensions work really well. Sometimes I’ll create a single mockup, other times, usually when I have less to go on from the client, I’ll create more than one and let them choose. Some clients are happy with it straight away, and others want to get really involved in this part of the process and do a great deal of art direction. I really let the client dictate this part of the process. But to keep things efficient, I make sure to stipulate in my contract that I include up to 3 revisions in the project cost, and beyond that I charge my hourly fee. Speaking of which, usually I charge a per-project fee, and only bill hourly beyond what is defined in the contract & site outline.

After the client signs off on the visual design, I get to work on the HTML/CSS. If the client’s web server is available, I FTP the files over there. If not, I host them on my own server for the client to review. I usually ask that as much of the content as possible is available before I start in on each page. And if the exact text isn’t ready, to give me an idea of how much I should anticipate and I use Lorem Ipsum as a placeholder. This helps make sure we’re both using our time efficiently.

Once the pages exist and all content is included, the project is “finished.” This is when I send over the final invoice, update my portfolio (if it’s something I want to include) & ask for a testimonial, and make sure my invoicing spreadsheet is up to date. Many projects then move into a maintenance mode where I help the client keep the content fresh and up to date.

And that’s the standard process. Of course each client is different, and each project is unique… and I’m constantly evolving this process as I learn.