soho-life.com

… unless you do something to let people know you exist.

I  have recently taken on some new clients – all of them requiring websites to promote their new businesses.

I love doing this type of work.  Setting up a brand new site, giving them an identity or brand and helping them to let others know they exist.

But their level of knowledge or expectation vary considerably.

There are those who really put the research in, know exactly what they want and in what order and then are ready to do the promotions and marketing as soon as the site is ready. They’re raring to go and can’t wait to take over the site (by the way, did I tell you I build CMS sites so that clients can have the control?).

And then there are those who have a loose or vague idea of what they want. They’ve heard if they build a website they can make a lot of money but they have no idea what it will take to get them from their idea to the reality of that goal. There’s a lot of information missing inbetween and I have to try and draw it out of them:

• What will their domain name be?
• What information will be on the website?
• What will the site look like (colour, number of pages, style, etc)
• How are they going to promote the site?
• Do they want to write articles, have a blog or newsletter, build a subscription list?
• Do they know who their competitors are?
• Why do they think they need a site?

And the list goes on. These clients are harder to service, or should I say more challenging?  I still enjoy the work but I wonder if they really understand what’s involved, other than having a website up one day and then they’re expecting the money to come in a few days later…

I frequently feel like I’ve shifted from webmaster to business coach as I try to get them up to speed on the information they should be providing me with.

If the content is there and they know what they’re talking about, they will get an audience… eventually. But they need to spend time networking online and offline, letting people know they exist and understand their topic well.

If no-one knows you exist they are not going to find your website, except by chance.  The site needs to have worthy content and if your name is not well known, then no-one is going to be searching for you by name at all. Only by topic and you’ll already have at least tens of thousands of sites to compete with out there.

And if a logo is all you want on the front page, well I’m sorry but that’s not going to work for you – unless you’re Coca Cola or some well known brand.  No-one wants to click on an image to see what’s behind it, unless they already have some idea of who you are and what you do.  All sorts of nasties live on the web and they won’t know you from Adam, so why would they want to click on a logo or image if they don’t know what you do or what your site is about?

Apart from that, search engines need text on the home page of the website – how can they catalogue and list your site if they have nothing to work with?

So, if you’re looking to get a website – that’s just the seed.  It needs to be planted, nourished and fertilised in order to grow and develop so that your site becomes an integral part of your business.

Oh, and if you’re a website virgin, then here is what you need to get started:

1. A domain name – that’s the address people enter into the web browser to find your website.
2. Webspace – you need to pay for webhosting to get webspace. Your webhost will help you get the domain name pointed to your particular webspace so people can view your site after entering the URL or address into the browser
3. Website – this is what is built to show up on your webspace at the address you have for your site.

And that’s just the beginning. Next there is content, images, logo, decisions to be made on how people will contact you, what email addresses you might use, what your site will look like, what colours you will use, how you are going to promote the site so that people will visit it, how often it will be updated and so on.

Once that is done the rest is up to you – the website owner.  You need to be networking, meeting people, speaking to people, adding your web address on all your printed material, in your email signature block and anywhere else that people might see it. After that, they will come…

Tags: Business Operations, Working Online // 1 Comment »

I’ve recently joined another forum (why do I do this??). I must be a forum junkie or something

Anyway, my heart went out to many there who are seeking work online but don’t know where to look, how to start, or what might be real versus a scam.  I posted a very long item on the forum but thought that the information would be useful outside of the forum so it was more public as well. Here seemed a good place to post it.  Your comments are welcome!

Hello everyone, I’m very new here but have been reading through the threads and contributing where I can.  I’m hoping that the advice I give here will help many of you who are seeking jobs or online businesses.

As you know it’s so very easy to get taken in by scams these days. So easy for people to set up a website, make it look impressive and make it sound
like they know what they’re talking about and that they have experience on
their side. Unfortunately it’s all too easy to hide behind a website and
you don’t get to see the real person for what they’re worth.

Whatever your skillset, research becomes a very necessary skill you need to
hone and develop.  Because the internet allows people to remain ‘invisible’
and only show what they want to show (there’s both good and bad in this)
then it’s important for you to check out who it is you’re planning to work
for or do business with.

There are some things you can do to help you:

• When you visit a website and you’re not sure of its longevity – has it only been around 6 months or 6 years, there is a way to check.  Visit the Wayback Machine and enter the URL.  It’s interesting to see how sites have progressed and matured over time. http://www.archive.org/web/web.php  If the site has only been around a month then you might need to tread carefully.
• Investigate the head person or the contact person for that business.  Do they show up on the web much or are they a non-entity?  Have people discussed them at forums and is the feedback good or bad?  If that person is really business savvy chances are they will have a profile at linkedin.com and have a website of their own. There may be articles written by them or about them or they may have shown up in newspapers and magazines online.
• If you’re looking to go into business with someone, or register with a
  business that requires you to pay a membership or subscription fee, then again make sure you research the company or person first.  No business opportunity is that urgent/important that you have to sign up today.  If the opportunity is good it will still be here tomorrow and next week, or even next month, so take your time to research and consider.
• Compile a list of pros and cons for joining that company or running that business.
• Look for discussion forums online that relate to that industry and if the forums are free (most are), then join it and hang around for awhile. Get to know the people and how they conduct themselves.  Let the industry speak for itself via the forum(s).  There are many board forums like this one, oryahoogroups.com has tons of forums there on almost any topic imagineable.  Ning.com does too.  And there are others so the research is worth doing.
• If you’re not sure what kind of work you’d like to do, make a list of your skills and abilities and then start doing searches on those skills and abilities. Google will show up all sorts of things – the adwords of people selling their services or products, lists of forums, websites and all sorts of other things relating to those items. This research may well open your eyes to possibilities you hadn’t considered before.

Who am I to tell you this? My name is Kathie Thomas and I’ve been in
business for over 16 years.  I began as a homebased secretary BEFORE the
internet so was well placed to adopt this ‘new’ technology when it entered
my country (Australia) back in late 95.  I was online early 96 and had my
first website by April that year.  My business has grown with the internet.
These days I’m known as a Virtual Assistant.

I get a lot of people (mainly women) emailing me, writing to me, phoning me up, just to make sure I’m a real person before they decide to join my VA
network. Others write to me for advice because they’ve seen my name on the web in lots of places and consider that I am well known in my industry.  I
get women from other industries seeking advice simply because they know
I’ve worked on the web for a long time and they want to know what they
should or shouldn’t be doing and what to look for.  It doesn’t matter that
they might be planning to do something different to what I do, they just
recognise that experience counts and they want to benefit from that.

There are always great new opportunities out there and once you’re in that frame of mind, they will keep showing themselves up.  I often get approached by people, mainly from the US, because their business is reaching my own shores and they’re looking for someone to join up, sign up, become a distributor or something along those lines and because I have a huge network of people I know, I’m an ideal target for those approaches.  Some I look at with interest, others I turn down immediately. But I only
get approached because I have a web presence and am visible to many.  Which brings me to my next point.

All of you can have your own website at no or very little cost to you.
There are services out there that are free such as blogger.com,
wordpress.com and similar.  Whilst these are known traditionally as
blogging tools you can create static pages instead of posts.  Why not set
one up in your own name and add your profile, almost like an online resume.

Don’t put in personal information such as your home address but do make it
easy for people to contact you if they need to. Anyone in business usually
has a contact form, or email address and a phone number for easy access.

If you have topics you’re passionate about and if you have good writing
skills, then use that site as a platform to share your knowledge – you
never know who might see it.

A good example: one of my daughters is into horses in a big way. She’s
almost 26 now.  3 years ago she got an email from someone who had been
reading her blog about the horse studies and work experience she’d had in
the industry. It kept showing up in their Google searches on the topic.
When she contacted me to find out if I thought the email was a scam I told
her ‘no honey, that sounds very real, you better call them’. She did.
Turned out to be a local Technical College of Advanced Education and they wanted to engage her as a teacher for their Equine Studies course. She’s now been teaching for them for 3 years. No, she didn’t have a teaching degree but the college recognised she had the experience and skills for the topic and they agreed to put her through a ‘train the trainers’ course. She’s now studying for her teaching diploma part-time while teaching at the college.  She’s making money she didn’t think she would be making as the industry is low paid but her passion outweighed her desire for a high income.

So, if you want to stand out and get noticed, start creating an online
profile for yourself.

While on that topic, it has been documented by the media many times now
that prospective employers can research their employees by checking places like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and so on.  What does your profile online say about you?  Is there anything you wouldn’t want a
prospective employer or business partner see? Best you get it cleaned up
now – before that time comes.  What you put on the web is there forever and
it pretty darned near impossible to get removed so take care in your online
presence – always.

Sorry for the long post but I hope this information helps someone here.

All the best to you in your searches!

Tags: Self-employed, Warnings, Work From Home // 2 Comments »

A variation on a US cell phone hoax has been targeting Australian email addresses advising the mobile phone numbers will be made public next month and if you don’t want to be charged for telemarketing calls you had better contact the DoNotCall Register online.

Interesting things to note – the email gives no references to back up the information, nor do they include a date which would make the message obsolete once that date had passed.

If you receive the email, do us all a favour and don’t pass it on. It is a hoax and deserves to be trashed, like all other hoaxes.

If you want more information then read here.

Tags: // Add Comment »

I don’t know about you, but if I email someone with a request for advice, a quote, or something else, I kind of expect a response acknowledging they’ve received my email.

I don’t mean an autoresponder and I’m not into using the read receipt option (a whole other story there) but a response email that just lets me know it has been received and read, and they’ll get back to me with an answer later.

Whether we like it or not, society has become one that requires quick answers and quick fixes and email has helped produce that expectation.

While I’m not expecting service or product providers to drop everything at my beck and call, I certainly don’t expect to wait 4, 5 or more days for a response – usually if I’ve enquired about something it means I’m looking for that thing now and would like to know if it’s available, doable, achievable, deliverable.

If I don’t hear back from the person I emailed within 2 or 3 days I email them again and then if I still don’t get a response I ring them up.  Result is they think I’m nagging them or something.  Huh?  Am I in the wrong?  I don’t think so.

I know if a prospective client contacts me for some work to be done they don’t wait around very long for an answer.  They go off to the very next VA business they can find to get the answer they’re looking for.  So even if I don’t have an answer on the spot (I need to research for some information for example), I will at least email them a reply letting them know I’ve seen their email and will get back to them very soon with an answer. What do you do?

Tags: Email Etiquette // 1 Comment »