Site Templates Are Your Friends

When you start your first website, you probably don't need a lot of fancy features.  You need to get comfortable putting your message on the interwebs--you can always change it up later.

Templates are your friends.  They give you a variety of looks for your site--maybe not as much variety as you want, but still.  If you decide it's really not you, press a button and it's gone.

If you have a blog, you already know how templates work.  Was I surprised that setting up a "real" website is just as easy.

So find a template you like and concentrate on the more important issues: what you want to say, and your domain name.  I'm happy to help you with both, of course.  But I want you to learn how to update your site yourself, so that you can keep it fresh and keep readers (both human and search engines) coming back for more.

FYI, I created my own website, KatharineHadow.com, using a template. :)

My Cringeworthy Website

Please don’t visit KatharineHadow.com. 

Whenever I visit it I tell myself that it looks disorganized and unprofessional.  Then I do what anyone else would do.  I close the tab.

I started my site for two reasons:

1. as a portfolio for my print work, so I could send URLs instead of attachments
2. to show that I could produce and maintain a website

 It serves those purposes, but it’s unwieldy now.

It needs to portray a bold, confident marketer who can size up customers and bang out compelling copy on tight deadlines.  It, well, doesn’t.

But, ugh, the thought of rewriting all that copy from scratch, finding the perfect USP and call to action feels so overwhelming.

And yet, I do it daily in my pitch letters.  Pitch letters are easier, probably because I can tell myself that no one reads them anyway.

My project for today is to cull the best lines from my pitch letters and refashion them into exciting web copy for KatharineHadow.com.

About perfection—It’s actually good if the web copy isn’t perfect.  If the site were perfect, I’d never change it.  Then the search engines would assume that I’d abandoned the site, and eventually my rankings would slip.

So, in web copy, as in life, the goal is

Progress, not perfection.

Comparison Shopping: Permission-Based Email

I've been thinking for a while about getting a Constant Contact account, especially now that I've taken on a big volunteer project (but that's a posting to itself.)

Constant Contact is a permission-based email service. You can use it to send emails to people who have agreed to received your emails (no spamming). You get good reports back as to how many people received and opened your emails. For small organizations that send out limited numbers of emails, the charge is $15 a month, which seems pretty reasonable.

But as I mentioned before, today is the last day to renew website domains before the price goes up. As long as I was at GoDaddy I thought I would update my profile. Under the "Support and Community" tab they had an Express Email forum for permission-based marketers.

I spent at least 10 minutes flipping around on the site trying to figure out if they charged for Express Email. Finally I had to resort to Google, whereupon I learned that Express Email offers all the features I wanted from Constant Contact for half the price or less. (One month is $7.99/mo; thirty six months is $6.39/mo.)

The main difference is that with Constant Contact I can send unlimited emails. GoDaddy would limit me to 500/mo. If you start receiving oodles of professionally-formatted emails from me, you'll know why.

Reminder: renew your domains today to avoid the 7% price increase.

Stick a Fork in These Domain Names

I ordered the following domain names for a project, but I don't need them any more. They have now baked at ICANN for the requisite two months, so they are ready to transfer to you. If you need a domain name that connotes instant service for PCs, or service that keeps PCs running trouble-free, consider the following

• pcindependence.com
• pctogether.com
• steadfastpc.com (PC stays fixed, like the Steadfast Tin Soldier)
• sturdypc.com
• desktop999.com (may work well in countries where you dial 999, not 911 for emergencies)
• pcminuteman.com (do many people in the US know who minutemen were anymore?)

Hmm, not very inspiring, you're thinking? I agree--and I dare you. Think of any domain name for a PC repair and maintenance service. (Helpful hints.) Every good name is taken, except for these.

If you want one of these domain names, drop me a line at katharine@katharinehadow.com.

Bob Parsons' Comments

Picking domain names is so much fun, all for less than the price of a new pair of shoes.

I just enjoyed watching Bob Parsons' video blog about Top 10 Tips for Picking a Domain Name. I think you will enjoy it, too.

I Don't Need a Website

Not everybody can hop in the car and cruise down the highway to the big-box store. I am lucky to live in a community where children, senior citizens and disabled people can walk to local merchants. Even if patronizing local businesses were not so convenient, this would be a good reason to support them.

Small business owners are busy keeping afloat. Some of my favorites tell me they do not want to worry about websites, which they probably believe are time-consuming and expensive.

If they do nothing else, I urge them to register a domain. What a shame it would be if Jim's Friendly Bakery finally decided that it wanted to build a site called JimsFriendlyBakery.com, but someone else had already taken the name. Even worse, what if Larrys Surly Bakery next door took the name, and used it to redirect visitors to its own website? More about registering domains on my website.