What the Bleep is Your Website About?

In the wacky world of website development, it's easy to get distracted. What with SEO, long tail copy, keywords and such - there's a lot to pay attention to, especially if you want people to find your site and engage with you.

Now, I thought I was doing a pretty good job. I recently revised my homepage copy at ADRPracticebuilder.com to longer copy that satisfies the basic questions about being a member. I added some fancy picture testimonials (that was tough but very worth it). I even added the Google analytics codes to my pages (next step is actually reading the reports). Sounds great, huh. Eh, no.

What the Bleep is My Site About

After all that work, I thought I'd captured what the site is about - you know, marketing for mediators. Wrong! Turns out my site is about mediators only. How'd that happen?

Larry Chase, who has a terrific newsletter filled with all sorts of cool, useful software and tips, suggested that the keywords on a site, and their concentration, will tell a different story about the purpose of the site than the creator intended. When creating the copy, I was thinking about marketing, niche practice and mediators but somehow the word marketing doesn't appear on the site. Not once. How do I know? I took the test, and you can, too.

Google Keyword Tool

This is a great tool for figuring out the best keywords to use or how to evaluate a niche. It's also a terrific way to find out what Google thinks your site is about and who your competitors are.

Here's the link: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Copy and paste this into your browser.

Go to the Related Keywords Tab, then check off 'include other linked pages'. Then plug in your URL. A minute later you'll get a list of the keywords on your site and the related keywords. Turns out 'divorce mediator' is the second biggest keyword group behind 'mediators'. Since I'm really talking about marketing and niche practice development...I got some 'splaining to do' as Ricky often said to Lucy.

Websites and Gardens

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Websites are like gardens. They always need tending. If you have tech questions, you'll be delighted to know that Sandy De Freitas, Tech Coach, is going to join me on Sept. 28th to calm our fears and dispense practical advice. Register now so you don't miss out.

Try. Fail. Learn. Grow.

Dina