Common Website Mistakes

I have a short article on my website on Common Website Mistakes, but I’m now creating its own category on here. There are a ton! I’ll slowly walk through them so it’s not just a “simple bullet point list” but so you understand WHY it is a mistake, or at least understand the nuance of when to “break a rule.”  And of course this is America and you are free to completely disagree with me.  It reminds me of a book by Charles Barkley, a hysterical athlete who wrote a book called, “I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It.”

Today I will talk about US vs I/Me. I see so many websites that talk about “us”.  “To contact us…” or “We believe in…” or “Our office is conveniently located….”

You know when that is a problem? When it’s just ONE PERSON!

When there is no “we” it is very confusing for someone to not really know who they are contacting! Will the email go to the person whose ad they read and liked? Will it go to a big group email and they just have to hope the person they wanted replies?  Will it go to a third party, maybe a receptionist or office manager?  What if I don’t want to go to a group office but just want to go to an individuals private office?  Where is the list of the other “we’s” on the website, anyway?

Who in the world is the “WE?”

I know it’s done for a variety of reasons, or perhaps it’s not even something you think about because you wrote in the “business sense” rather than the personal sense of a personal service. But guess what? You’re not a Target store manager where the “we” is a massive corporation offering thousands of varied products. You’re an individual offering your heart, mind, soul, training, wisdom, experience, personality, and time to one other person (couple or family.) Why not keep that personalization going with the “I offer” or “to contact me” statements?  If you do have an office manager, then just be clear!  Either include both people’s contact information, or make it clear who will be reading and responding to the email.

When I call the car dealership or gas station to get my car fixed, I expect “we can get it looked at today.” The WE is fine because I don’t know or frankly care who looks at my car.

But in therapy I care deeply who the therapist is and I want to know that is the person I’m getting!

If you are writing the “we” because you hope to eventually get a group practice going, consider staying with the “I” until you actually have created a “we” in the office, and created space on your website for the other person/people. 

If the “we” is meant to imply you have a huge range of offerings, then I’d recommend rearranging your word choice.  Instead of “We offer a wide range of workshops on topics including parenting, addictions, relationship stress, financial management”, I would change it to either “I offer..”, or “In this office space a wide range of workshops happen every month, including x, y, z.”  Notice the difference?  Perhaps you DON’T teach all the workshops but that is neither here or there for  general web advertising.  The last way is to help advertise the topics  without going overboard on details of potentially 4 different experts you bring in, before someone has actually expressed interest in signing up.

Please comment if you have any questions on the above!

Tone on a video

I got this video camera months ago.  I am the queen of excuses on why it’s taken this long to use it!

When doing a video, what tone do you have?  How energetic are you?  What is the goal of the video?  Will people see it because they’re already on your site, or are you trying to show up in You Tube searches?  If the later, how much do you “sell” yourself in the video or tell people who you are and what you’re about? I’m intrigued with the technology though leary that the average therapist would hugely benefit.

I have a few topics I want to present on video, but it’s a question of how and why it’s better on video than on paper.  Does video get shared more? Does it result in higher “conversions”, which is to say more of the action you want (sign ups, clients, etc) or is it a distraction because few people have high end cameras and studios to make professional videos?  I’ve seen the gamut on You Tube and am not sure whether it helps, hurts, or doesn’t matter unless you’ve got a real opinionated person.  (My sound guy was really opinionated in the sound studio, which makes the cd/mp3’s better than if I had done them on my own…)

Website “mapping” from an old to new website

If you have, or will, ever go through a “redesign” of a website, chances are very high your webmaster is going to start fresh.  They are going to use the names THEY are used to using to name pages.  For example, is it contact, or contact-us.  Is it About, or About-Us.  These seem like minor decisions with no real consequences.

Until you move a high traffic website.  And all your high traffic website pages no longer EXIST, because your webmaster renamed everything.  Imagine putting a huge print ad for your new retail store but by the time people drive to the store, you’ve closed up and moved?  Not good.

Let’s say you have a page called “pinkly.”  Pinkly gets a lot of traffic from Google searches and it really makes you happy to rank so high for that word!  You give your webmaster the content for Pinkly, or s/he grabs the content themselves, and decides to call it something different.  They don’t think anything of it.  Afterall they aren’t in your profession and have no way to know what “pinkly” means.  So they may name it about-pinkly, or maybe it’s a form of therapy treatment, so they create a new page called treatments, and they stick it inside there.  The point is once they set up your new website, all those people who Google and find your website under “Pinkly” will open a BROKEN link.  It’ll give them a web error!

A really good webmaster will either keep the same page names, or at least attempt to forward old pages to the newly named ones.  But this is not common.  Or, it’s very time consuming, which results in a large invoice to you!

Busy, busy!

I have a website consulting job right now and am working through all the stuff I teach others via CD/MP3 as I redo my own The First Dance website.  One of the things I talk about in the Website Organization class is that you should consider the PURPOSE of every single website page.  Well, with my new design I have a lot more options than ever before.  It’s released me to be more creative, but with creativity comes more challenge to come up with good stuff.

Just because you know stuff about websites, like I do, doesn’t make it easy!  I’m loving my consulting gig right now for many reasons, from the challenge, the messaging, the organization, the “translating” something to a website for maximium effect.

Real people blogging about mental illness

I’m so glad to share another website I just found, thanks to Twitter.  This is a husband sharing his struggles living in love and commitment with a bi-polar wife.  I want to share this because professionals are usually not as engaging as “real people” struggling, and you can learn a lot about how to redo your own website.  You can also learn what the world of blogging is all about  or be inspired, if you specialize in a mental health condition, to go deeper on that one issue rather than be a “generalist.”  And of course as the daughter of a marriage and family therapist, we all live in SYSTEMS… we can’t ignore the spouses who deal with people dealing with mental health issues!!

We’re all swimming in the pond together.  Bi–polar blog here!

A new website design

When my father and I launched The First Dance, we had a DVD (individual for couples and a 2 hour class.)  We still have those.  But we had just a few pages, mostly “corporate” FAQ, About Us, Contact Us.  Not innovative.  And mostly a failure. 

That is, until I got really frustrated knowing we had amazing stuff to offer.  And learned how to get traffic.  Now we get thousands of visitors a month, for free, who read all sorts of great content!

But in the last four years, we now offer the Prepare/Enrich Couple Checkup, premarital books, a money game, and an online class! We have hundreds of website pages with great advice and stories.  I’m even working with wedding vendors to get them to offer DISCOUNTS if couples purchase our products.  I’ve already got an Ohio DJ service giving couples $100 off if they buy a marriage prep book.  That is the definition of innovative – they get a free ad, they support marriages, we sell a book and help spread our wisdom, and couples get a huge deal.

Our website has been hacked way too much to get it to “retro fit.”  If we were a real house, we’d be on stilts, precariously adding chunks off windows, to get more room!  It’s frustrating for many reasons, including how much design matters!

Today I found a free website template that excites me!  I’m starting the arduous task of moving everything over, but already, the SAME information pops, intrigues, and welcomes the eye 100x more than my current website.  Knowing what I know will save us probably $3,000 in labor hiring someone else.  And, I don’t do the BIG MISTAKES webmasters do, namely, renaming every website page!!  They often start over, forgetting that Google and readers have read the old pages, which vanish when the new website launchs.  This is a total disaster, but you often have no idea because you don’t look at your web traffic.  One website I know had a full 50% bomb – or one in every two people coming to their site using keywords, were unable to get to the site because the page no longer existed. 

I’ve got a ton of work ahead of me, but it’s also a great opportunity to rethink everything!  Just like a home, websites really do require a “spring cleaning”, or complete rehaul every once in a while.

Google Adwords Update

If you’ve been following the journey, I got a $100 Vistaprint free coupon for Google Adwords.  I used this money to set up my husbands therapy website with ads.  I had fun.  I’ve learned a lot.  But I paused it at $88.  I have a lot more questions than answers, and will be rereading my Pay Per Click book this weekend!

One of the most interesting elements of Google Adwords is you can try to set the “location.”  Everyone on the web has something called an “IP address.”  This is like if you had a GPS tracking system, you always exist on some latitude and longitude, no matter where you are.  Google lets you hone in on a certain area for your ads.

The problem (as far as I’ve managed to discover) is I may LIVE in one city, but am searching for therapy (or classes) in ANOTHER area of the metro.  My husband does couples work, so there are really two people’s schedules and locations to figure out.  This has meant that while I thought I was capturing just a very small radius, I was getting words for areas across town.  UGH!  It means local folks work over there and know the only way they’re getting help is if they leave work for an hour.

A Google person who sets up ads says he has 500 “negative words” he uses.  These would be words or phrases that you never want your ad to appear for.  I can now see why there are so many!!!  Locations alone would take up a ton, then add in all the potential phrases you don’t want.  For example, my husband paid for ads for people seeking classes (he doesn’t offer them), Catholic counseling (not Catholic), retreats (doesn’t offer them), womens help (he’d help women but someone seeking women help is not his ideal candidate), another query about marriage statistics (this person is wanting to do research, so paying $2 for that ad was a waste.)

I’ll end there.  I’m both frustrated, intrigued, and trying to figure out next steps.  We have to pay $5/day for 3 clicks because they’re quite expensive.  Assuming the ratio of 100 clicks may result in 1 client, you can do the math…. obviously the goal is to improve stats, hone in narrowly showing ads to an ideal client base, and then as new clients come in you’ve more than paid for the entire months ads.

For those reading, I’m curious how therapists confirm whether clients came via their Google Ad?  My husband gets good website traffic directly so he  doesn’t want to push clients at the intake how they found him.   I’m tempted to have the ad go to separate pages with a different email address to at least potentially confirm where clients found him.

Or, we’ll drop this marketing method!  For marital harmony I can’t push him on all the things he should be doing on his site to increase his own “free” website traffic. 

Forms On Your Website, Part 2

I have discussed why you should consider NOT having forms on your website.  I will now share reasons why forms can be good!

I’m finding lately that I don’t want to be “as intimate” with a company or person, by sending them an email.  Sometimes I just want to send a quick note.  Once I used a form because the email we had on file wasn’t working, so I was hopeful the form would at least get the message to the right person.  And yes, sometimes I’m in a hurry or just plain too lazy to “craft” an email or open my email program, so the form seems really easy to fill out basic info, find the right drop down, and slap a few lines of text and press “send.”  (Plus if I’m not at my computer, I don’t have my slick email program that sends from my regular email…it sends from a webmail version of my email which is a different address..)

I use forms on my Thomas Consultation website for a few reasons.  One – there is basic information I need for certain services, so I might as well get the information through a form rather than open-ended email, requiring a few back and forths.  Two – when you want to give something away, you usually hide it under a form, so you can at least collect the persons contact info.  I do this for my Introduction to search engine optimization download.  I used to just have the MP3 floating out there and then realized I had NO idea if people were listening.  The joke is I hate newsletters and am bad at maintaining customer databases, so when I say I won’t use your email, that’s an understatement.  That administrative stuff is not my forte…it’s a form of torture!

So back to the positives of using a form.  To me the best of both worlds is unless you’re having someone sign up for something SPECIFIC (a product or class with dates/times), I recommend having the form AND your email visible.  That way people who hate forms can still get in touch with you, and those who may be at work and have no access to their personal email can still email you.

You may just want to test your forms if they are new, if you’ve made even a tiny change, and perhaps even monthly (or as soon as you see a drop in expected email forms) to ensure they are working.  And do NOT assume your webmaster is good at testing changes.

Last paragraph here.  Ignore if this is too confusing, but another reason for a form is the information can actually be stored in a database, if set up that way, which automates customer lists.  Instead of getting an email in your inbox and having to copy and paste the contact information it’s already ready for you to use.

Where Research and Reality Collide

I was very pleased to see an article last night about Baby Einstein videos being put in their place.  See this article about how they’re being forced to refund money to parents for the videos – no receipt required!

This excites me a lot because I have always disliked the way corporations are able to lie to parents and feed their most base fears (my child will be behind her peers!  I am not stimulating my child enough and this will be THE SOLE REASON he has problems as an adult!)

One of the many reasons having your own website is useful is to be a voice of sanity among the crap out there.  And the sad truth is “reality” is far less threatening, scary, or stress-inducing to people than hype and spin.  Reality and research is frankly a lot less sexy. 

The trick, however, is to calm fears, reduce stress, and not come off as an anti-conspiracist.  I think of my father (Bill Doherty, Ph.D., LMFT) who is a little of everything, researcher, writer, cultural commentarian, therapist, professor.  He does a great job when I ask him parenting questions, or questions about things in the news, of putting it “in its place.”  This is a very calming thing if for no other reason than he helps me see “experts” rarely have The Answers, or Know All.  There are simply too many variables in life for there to be One Truth.  He’ll share the real truth, the real research, and help me with a bigger context.

OK, let’s translate this back to your website.  Whatever you do, whatever your speciality, take the current news on that topic and write about it!  Write about it in a therapeutic, educational way that helps put the news in its place.  Think of your reader as either afraid/stressed with the news, or your reader who is going to get “sucked in” to a mostly mythical “fix” for whatever their ailment is.

You don’t even have to write more than 2-3 paragraphs, and there is nothing wrong with adding in what you DO with people suffering from that issue.  It’ll give your website a freshness, a sense of current timeliness, and it’ll be a way to sell what you do, what your passion is, and perhaps…. this is the big one to me, perhaps GET SOMEONE IN YOUR DOORS who might not otherwise seek help!  If you don’t have a way to edit your website, set up a free blog!  WordPress.com or Blogger.com are two easy bloggers.  Then from your homepage, have a link for “current event blog” and voila.

New “Quick Impression” Service

I’m excited to share my latest brainstorm.  It comes out of the marketing I do to find therapists.  It’s a painful process to see so many bad websites.  Websites talk to me, they make me cringe, they make me go “ooh!’, they do all sorts of things and I never get some guilty joy out of bad websites.  In fact I often wish I could email people “hey this link is broken” or “did you know it takes so long to load your site, nobody is ever going to wait” or “seriously, that moving image HAS TO GO.”

I know my one hour web review is more intense than some people might find necessary for a “simple” website.  I know others are not wanting to throw away hard earned money before they feel they know and can trust me.

Simply put: for $9.99 I’ll give you my “quick impressions” of your website!  On the sign up form you can even ask me a specific question like “is it too cluttery?” or “is it visually on par with others, too busy, too blank?”  Out of my head will come 1-2 paragraphs of WHATEVER pops into my head that I think you should know…or questions I’d ask if I were doing a more intense web review.

Check it out: Quick Impressions Of Your Website.