Optimize Your Website

No ... this thread is not about how to improve your web site's performance in a search engine. (You can learn about that in an earlier "idea".) Instead, I want to talk about optimizing your web site in the minds of the viewers who come to check it out.

This is informal research conducted by visiting www.Google.com and typing in "resume writer." After visiting nearly 100 sites, I have come up with a couple of pointers for making your web site user-friendly.

1. Put your e-mail contact on every page of your site. Make sure it is particularly prominent on the home page and on the "contact us" page. Also, if you have a "packages" page -- or whatever page your "buy" page is -- make sure it's prominent there too.

2. For those who may not want to contact you by e-mail, make sure your telephone number is also prominent on the pages listed in item number 1.

3. Content and form is more important than style. There are some very pretty web sites out there that are NOT user-friendly. Just when you're convinced and ready to buy, you can't figure out where to go.

4. Organize your information effectively. I love content-rich web sites, but if the viewer doesn't know where to go to buy, you've lost the chance to make a sale. Clearly indicate buttons or links on how to buy your service.

5. Please, please -- don't disparage the majority of your colleagues while you try to make a sale. I can't tell you the number of web sites that had a "how NOT to choose a resume writer" section. In it, these writers put down some very reputable resume writing practices, including those who do business solely online. We need to be careful that the image we are projecting to the resume-buying public is one of credibility. Cutting down your peers through generic "labels" of shoulds/shouldn'ts isn't the way to go.

6. Check often to make sure all your links work. There's nothing worse than clicking and receiving a message that there's been an "error" and that page no longer exists.

Kudos to web sites that responsibly and accurately use credentials, links to the professional associations and certifications and more. I didn't even mind seeing stats and figures from Resume Writers' Digest included on subscriber web sites. That's what we're here for -- to help establish your credibility as an expert resume writer.