How Do I Create Fillable Forms for My Resume Clients? (Q&A)

Every day, I get questions from resume writers! I reprint many of them on here to help other resume writers! Here's today's question!

Question:
I just updated my client agreement and some of my other forms and my graphic designer created some pretty PDFs for clients to fill out. How do I make these PDFs fillable forms so the clients can just put the information online and send it to me?

My Answer:
There are three options for giving clients an interactive way to complete your client forms. (And I would still post the "pretty" PDF versions for folks who don't want to provide their information online in any way, shape or form!)

The first allows you to use your actual PDFs. The only reliable method I know of to allow you to do that is using Adobe Acrobat Pro software:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/convert-existing-forms-to-fillable-pdfs.html

It's now available as a monthly subscription vs. what it used to be as a one-time $$$$ cost.

There's also folks on Fiverr.com that will do this for you for a small fee.
Here's one:
http://www.fiverr.com/pdfhelper/create-pdf-fillable-forms-for-your-company

There are a couple of "knock-off" "fillable PDF" converters, but I can't speak to their reliability:
http://www.pdffiller.com
http://www.PDFill.com

The second is to use an online form builder.
I personally use FormSite. You can see an example of a FormSite form here:
http://acasseroletogo.com/onlineordering.html

You can also link FormSite to payment providers (like Authorize.net and PayPal) so that the client can securely provide their payment information online when they submit their information too.

(My husband is a website designer, and he uses FormSite on his client sites.)

JotForm (http://www.jotform.com) probably has similar functionality and like I said, if you use WordPress, you can use online forms like Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms as WordPress plug-ins.

The third option is a fillable Word document.
(Bronze members of BeAResumeWriter.com, you can log into your BeAResumeWriter.com account and go to the Pass-Along Materials page and check out the different versions of the Resume Critique Form and LinkedIn Critique Form to see how this works in practice.)

Here are the instructions for creating a fillable Word document:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/create-a-fillable-form-HA102840128.aspx

If you have a different version of Word (not as new), Google "Fillable Word document" and the version of Word you have (i.e., Word 2003). It actually was easier to make them in the old versions, but it's still pretty simple! :-)

I hope one of those solutions helps!


Note: None of these links are affiliate links, and I can't vouch for any of the services mentioned, except FormSite, which I personally use.

How to Use On-Page Search Engine Optimization To Get More Traffic To Your Resume Business Website

One of the most frequently asked questions I get from resume writers is, "How do I get more prospects to visit my resume business website?" (This is also known as "website traffic.")

An important part of the overall search engine optimization process is what is known as "on-page search engine optimization." Basically, this is just making sure that you're labeling your website content in a way that the search engines will find useful so that they can direct folks who are looking for what you provide (interview-winning resumes!) to your site.

Having your on-page SEO done well isn’t necessarily going to help you achieve the #1 position for the type of searches your prospective resume clients are making. However, if you don’t have your pages well optimized, chances are you won’t rank at all.

Taking some time to label your pages and content properly is an all-important prerequisite to getting your website ranked on the front page of your preferred search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). If you don’t have your on page SEO done properly, chances are you won’t be found on the first, or even second or third pages of the search.

The primary reason you want to do on-page SEO is so that Google can accurately tell what your page is about. A poorly optimized page will seem like it’s about "everything." A well optimized page, on the other hand, will tell Google exactly what the page is about, so Google can give you strong rankings for your chosen keyword(s).

Here’s how to optimize your resume business website page for search engines. For the purposes of demonstration, we’ll be using the “All in One SEO” plugin for WordPress for a number of these steps.

Step 1: The Title Tag
The title tag is the most important tag in all of your SEO efforts. It’s what Google places the most weight on when they’re trying to determine what your site is about.

Your title should have as much of your keyword towards the front of the tag as possible.

Different pages on your site should have different title tags. Do not have the same title tag throughout your entire website. If you do, you waste each individual page’s potential to rank for unique keywords.

For example, below is a setup for how your WordPress pages and posts might look like. You can configure your system to by default put post’s title first, then the blog’s name second, rather than the other way around.




Step 2: Meta Description
Your meta description tag doesn’t actually help you rank higher. Instead, what it does is tell Google what to display beneath your search listing. This can help you get a lot more clicks from Google by writing the “right thing” to hook your audience in. 

Each page on your site can have a different meta description. You definitely want to write the meta description for your home page and the popular pages on your site yourself. For the pages on your site that aren’t too popular, Google will just take an excerpt from your website and use that as your meta description. 

Step 3: Meta Keywords
Your meta keywords tags tell Google what keywords you think your site is relevant for. It doesn’t bear much weight as far as helping you rank goes, but it can really help Google figure out what your site is about. It takes just a minute to do them and is good SEO practice in general.


 

(Yes, you definitely can come up with a better description for your site -- and be sure to include your keywords!)

Step 4: URL Structure
Generally, you want your URL to contain your keywords as much as possible. You never want to use just your post ID or the date as your URL. You should also avoid cryptic URLs that contain data that no human being can read.

If you want to use just your post title as your URL for example, this is how you’d do it in the WordPress “Permalinks” settings.



Step 5: Image Alt Tags
Optimizing your alt tags plays a much larger part on SEO than a lot of people think. It won’t single-handedly help you improve your search engine ranking, but it is an important factor for your on-page SEO.

Give the images on your site good alt tags. Make sure the filenames are meaningful and make sure that your alt tags are descriptive. If you have purely navigational images on your site, such as white space or button backgrounds, name them numbers (111.jpg) rather than a text-based keyword.

In WordPress, you can change the alt tag of images by going to that image’s preferences.

Step 6: Noindex Non-Content Pages
You should "noindex" your non-content pages. Your affiliate pages, your category pages, your archives, and so on should all be "noindexed." This is particularly true if those pages contain duplicate content. On most blogs, category and archive pages are mostly duplicate content, so you definitely want to noindex those pages.

Step 7: Internal Linking
Internal linking is one of the most crucial factors you can do to improve your SEO.

Make sure you have links going from all your content pages to other pages on your site. Embed these links within your actual content, or within links on the site or bottom of the article.

Things like “You May Like” boxes or “Related Posts” boxes are all good choices.

Step 8: Have a Robots.txt
A robots.txt file just tells search engines where to go and where not to go. This is a good way to disallow search engine spiders from going where they’re not supposed to.

This can help you keep the areas you don’t want from ranking out of the search engines. For example, you probably don’t want the paid areas of your site (like a members-only section) indexed and shown in the Google search engines.

Step 9: Low Ad-to-Content Ratio
One factor that’s become more prominent since the Google Panda and Panda 2.0 updates is the ad-to-content ratio on your website. As the name suggests, the idea is to avoid stuffing your site with ads.

Google knows that great websites tend to only have a few ads on their pages. On the other hand, people who focus too much on milking their visitors for as much cash as possible tend to produce lower quality content.

So, therefore, pages with more ads tend to rank lower. Of course, you do need to make money – just limit your ads to one or two per page, rather than including ads all over the place. 

Step 10: Regular, Fresh, High Quality Content
Finally, it all comes down to content and content quality. Google is looking to promote websites with high quality content.

Produce fresh content as often as possible. The more fresh content you have, the higher your chances of ranking. Blogging is a great way to add new content -- but also consider articles, videos, and audio links as ways to share content. (Check out "Using Content to Capture New Career Clients" for more on this topic.)

These are the most important on page factors to pay attention to in search engine optimization. Get your on page optimization right before you try and topple your competition.

If you found this information helpful, check out "Website Traffic Secrets for Resume Writers."

Or this post by Vayu Media.

Pros and Cons of Using a Template-Based Website

When you set up a website for your business, or decide that it's time to do a complete overhaul of your existing site, you'll be faced with a number of design decisions. Much of the focus will be on how your new site should look and how people will interact with it, and rightly so. As the internet "face" of your resume writing business, these are very significant issues.

But you also need to decide how your website is going to function behind the scenes, and choose the structure and framework on which your website will be built. If you are using a popular framework such as WordPress, Joomla, or perhaps using one of the pre-built websites that your hosting provider offers, you'll be using what is known as a "template." Using website templates provides a number of pros and cons that you should carefully consider before going forward.

Most resume writers equate the word "template" with "bad" -- i.e., a Microsoft Word resume template. Templates are really much more than that, however. They're simply structure. If you customize the template, it can simply be a good foundation upon which to build. In my book, "Write Great Resumes Faster," I talk about using a template that simply has placeholders for the information you want to include in the resume (often, advanced formatting tricks -- like section dividers.) In the same way, a website template can offer advanced customization features as well.

By the way, "Write Great Resumes Faster" is the October special report offered in the BeAResumeWriter.com website. Join the Bronze level for just $10 a month, and you'll get access to the $14 "Write Great Resumes Faster" book as just one of your membership benefits for the month.

"Pros" of Using a Web Template
One advantage of using a web template is that you can get your website up and running much more quickly than if you were starting from scratch. A web template is usually ready to go right out of the box, or very close to it -- you still need to customize the template for your business name, contact information, and the like, but you're starting from framework.

Because they save you time, templates are also likely to save you money. There's a good chance you can find a free or open source template to fit your needs, or that is already included in the cost of your web hosting package. But even if you decide to purchase a template, it is likely to be significantly less expensive than either hiring a website programmer to build your site from scratch, or trying to learn to do so yourself.

Templates that are in wide usage by other websites are also likely to be stable and less likely to break down. Any bugs or defects in the code are likely to be discovered and possibly remedied by other users. Some popular templates even have discussion board communities on which you can find tips on maximizing the effectiveness of the template.

I've managed (but not built from scratch) Joomla and Wordpress-based sites, and although there is a learning curve, I found it fairly easy to edit existing content (especially changing out existing text) and even adding new pages.

Cons of Using a Website Template
On the other hand, popular templates suffer from a significant disadvantage because when a template is popular, it means that there are likely a number of other websites that look quite similar to how yours would look. Many businesses know that their success is going to depend, at least in part, on their ability to stand out from their competitors. Sometimes trying to start with a template and then undertake significant modifications winds up breaking a template, so you're back to square one.

In addition, although there are many reputable and trustworthy sources for website templates, there are also some sources that could wind up significantly damaging your business. Hackers and computer criminals have been known to take templates and add short snippets of malicious computer code, then offer the template for free. The code is often very hard to see, and wouldn't be found by anyone unless they were digging deep trying to find it, and could compromise your website or let the hacker potentially take full control of it. WordPress and its templates (known as "themes") are common targets, due to the popularity of the WordPress framework. Avoid downloading any WordPress themes or other templates that you see offered for free but which are offered for a fee from the official source.

I had a resume writer contact me just yesterday and mention his site had been targeted by a hacker. (Just like Windows folks are more susceptible to viruses than Mac users, just by virtue of the large user base, the same is true for Wordpress sites. I'd especially recommend changing the default passwords, as this is the easiest way to prevent being hacked!)

Consider all the factors outlined above before deciding whether to use a template for your website.