Those of you who have been reading my tedious and repetitive ditherings about setting up a website will be glad to
know that I met with a designer yesterday.
“Praise the Lord!” you’ll be saying, or your local equivalent. “Now she’ll stop talking about it!” And that is true, but today I am not only going to talk about it, but I am hoping for feedback.
It was not just any designer, but my Computer Guy, so I was able to lay my cards on the table.
“I don’t have any clear goal for this website,” I said. “As you know, my big contract will be ending, but I have too much other work to take a fulltime job, so I need to gather enough new clients to cover expenses — or else drop my other clients and go back to the classroom.”
“Your website can be like a salesperson for you,” he said.
“Well, you know my clients won’t find me through search,” I pointed out. “They don’t know the names of anything that I do for them. I just take care of them. But I can’t walk into the local business with a website that needs me and hand them a business card with no website on it. Also, I can’t tell people they need to get a professional site just because then they wouldn’t drive me mad. As it is, they want to know about my website, and I have to admit that I just have a dozen free ones. So I guess the main thing is just for the website to exist.”
“Those are the right reasons for you to have a web site,” he said, “but the main thing is that you need to practice what you preach.”
I wasn’t able to pin him down about cost, but he did say that using a template he’s already designed and doing all the content myself would keep the cost down.
So I’m trying to think what would be the most useful effect for my website. I usually think in terms of search and traffic, but in this case it will probably be mainly direct traffic — that is, people to whom I give my card. I am thinking that it might be best to have a non-techy look. The other local SEO folks look like Circuit City. I have no desire to compete with The Computer Guy, after all; I want him to be wildly successful so he can keep me fully employed. I am specializing in those who would never go looking for an SEO firm because they don’t know what that means.
Also, as he pointed out, I need to list the things I do so that people will stop asking me to do other things. I am in favor of variety, after all, but I would prefer to do the things I’m good at on a professional basis and let my hobbies be hobbies. Also, as we all know, I am not precise enough to want to spend most of 
my time writing code. “Your best bet,” said the Computer Guy, “would be to partner with [his firm].”
Which is true. I’m setting up a site with him for one of my clients. I met with him and translated it all for her, and between his engineering and my words and Dark Art, she is one happy camper. And of course I do the content for him, and his clients are happy about that, too. As he put it, he does the invisible parts and I do the visible parts.
So I may want to emphasize the writing at my website for the benefit of any noncompeting SEO firms that happen by, as well as the taking-care-of part for the people I’ll be marketing to.
There is one respectable local SEO writer, and she uses a pen and ink theme for her site, along with a portfolio. There are a few other, non-respectable writers for hire in the area, but they specialize in bad grammar and unwise links to their private blogs, so I am not using them as role models.
So I’m thinking about using images of the kind I have posted here — abstract, not too techy– and a list of the things I do. A list of clients. Maybe the option to download some examples of my writing.
Does it seem to you, dear readers, that this would say to a prospective client, “Don’t be scared! This person will help you improve your web site and traffic without expecting you to know 
about alt tags”?
I have had so much stuff with other clients this week that I need to spend eight and half hours on my big client today, and he has already emailed to warn me let me know that he’ll be calling me today. I need to have some numbers ready this time.
I had an email from someone yesterday asking if I’d be a researcher for hire for a book she’s decided to write. As it happens, it is on a topic on which I am very well versed, so I said yes, but would she consider bringing me in as a coauthor? I also had, from the encyclopedia that I sometimes write for, a list of topics they need articles on. One is hookworm eradication, a topic on which you may be surprised to learn that I am quite knowledgeable, so I plan to put in a bid for that. And of course there is the book audition, which Chanthaboune and I must finish up now that she is safely returned to Hamburger-a-go-go-land.
So all in all, it would be best if my big client would renew my contract, so that I can pursue all these interesting projects with confidence that I can pay my bills and feed my kids. I don’t think I am on the kind of terms with him that would allow me to point that out during our conversation today. I better just get some excellent numbers together.
After breakfast.
“So I’m thinking about using images of the kind I have posted here — abstract, not too techy– and a list of the things I do. A list of clients. Maybe the option to download some examples of my writing.”
That sounds like a good start. The only thing that I know about making websites sticky is that they’re most likely to be sticky if something is happening at them regularly. But in your case, if you’re relying on attracting people that you’ve talked to directly and given business cards to, that may not be relevant.
Good luck with your phone call today…
@ozarque – I expect I’ll have a blog, and that’ll keep things happening. Also, there may be further miracles occuring. It would never have crossed my mind to approach my big client, after all but he came to me after reading something I wrote. And while it often crosses my mind to write things, I don’t have a talent for finishing them and getting them published, but it looks quite possible that some of the current projects will see the light of day. And of course the Computer Guy has this amazing new technology that will make him a millionaire, and then he could be my big client. Anything might happen.
i like #1 and #4. #2 and #3 might be a bit frightening for some people. good luck with all that work today!
I like #2 and #3 (why yes, I am difficult!). Although #3 looks a bit Office 2007 from some angles. And very like the icon that I get against a .pst file. ~x~
@pink_hebe – Not difficult at all! I really appreciate your feedback.
@princess_smartypants – Thank you! 2 and 3 may be more techy (and let’s just tell the world here that pink hebe is a Computer Guy by trade.)
i was thinking “frightening” in terms of people who aren’t actually used to doing very techy things from themselves — might be a bit overawed by #3. make sense?
@princess_smartypants – Absolutely! That’s what I meant, too.
Of the four I would say the 1st or 2nd, though the 1st lends itself to thoughts of merry England and et cetera which may not be what you’re aiming at. The 3rd is too FFXish and the 4th just looks drab.
2nd.
Digging the blue and red swirly effect one. The marble would be runner-up.
I like #4 best. #1 looks like a piece of paper, and that always bothers me when I go to a website that has a background that looks like stationery. #2 makes me think of science. #3 is lovely, and would be my second choice. The swirls make me think of writing for some reason. But #4 reminds me more of you: historical, trustworthy, literary, like an antique, leather-bound book on some arcane subject. (Book is antique and leather-bound, not you!)
I like the second and third images, they are pretty and not too scary. With the second one you could have a black background and white writing which is easy to read and looks very professional.