Recently I was wandering around the internet looking at websites (as I am apt to do), I noticed two or three things. Okay maybe four things 🙁

The first thing I noticed was the tendency to hide the website’s owner’s name or not having a photo. Sometimes it was impossible to find their name and sometimes it was hard to find their first name but not their full name. I used my researching skills and was able to figure out their names but was mystified why people would want to do this.

I also noticed was sometimes they presented themselves as ‘us’ with no more information about who ‘us’ is.

What does it say to you when you don’t actually see the person or people behind a business? Do you notice it? Does it matter to you?

How often do you buy something or sign up for a discovery session with someone if you haven’t seen a photo of them? Is this a deal-breaker for you? Do you even notice it?

I like to know who I am doing business with and I almost always look at the ‘About’ page first. I am also interested in where they are based. Even though we are working online, we are still real people and it is nice to know where folks are based, from a networking or curiousity point of view.

The second thing I noticed was out-of-date websites or abandoned websites. There are few reasons why this happens. Someone created a website years ago and now they might have a new one and they didn’t get rid of the old one.

They might be using their original email address that is using their old URL. This happens often as things change as the business develops. We start with our first URL and then as we develop, we change our URL to better match our niche.

If this is the case, they can set up a redirect from their old URL to the new one. If a visitor types in the old URL (by using the URL of their email address for instance) they can be redirected to the new URL.

This is very easy to do. This is set up as a redirect at the website hosting company and they might help get this done.

Another option is to create a short one-page website or business card website at the URL so that they can still have an online presence without having a full website. At WebgirlPower.com we love creating one-page websites. These can super fun and effective.

The third thing I noticed is the wrong year in the copyright in the footer of the website. Set up a reminder to change this at the beginning of the year. I set my websites to change the year automatically using a bit of code in my WordPress sites. This is easy to do and then I never have to think about it.

Drumroll….the fourth thing I noticed was a blog that did not have a new post added in the last year or two. There is a trick in WordPress where the publishing date can be changed to make the post look like it was posted more recently.

When you are working on getting more visible online, it is important to review and fix these details. Even though these seem like small details I know they can make a difference.

Let’s get you more visible online!!


Andrea Cinnamond is a creative online visibility strategist and implementation specialist (she makes things happen). She is a trained business coach, technical virtual assistant and a certified online business manager. She is an ex-high tech scientist and she loves to combine the logical steps of a process with her creative nature.

 

Her #1 value is beauty and she loves nothing more than creating beautiful projects for her clients such as websites that work, quizzes, email list building projects, training and coaching programs, and many other cool online offerings.

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