My niece Kendra, who lives in Maine, graduates from high school this weekend. Even though I can’t be with her, I’m still celebrating by offering 30% off Website and Blog Coaching Sessions through July 14th at www.ToolieCoaching.com.

You may be curious about what website and blog coaching accomplishes, so let tell you about one of my successful clients. She’s has had Internet Marketing training; she knows the general principles of how to attract clients, and is diligent in her outbound marketing. But is as the case with many of these Internet Marketing training programs, they leave out implementation instructions for maintaining the websites and blogs they want you to put in place.

When it comes to Internet Marketing, simply putting up a website or blog is not enough. It needs to be updated frequently with content to keep the search engines coming back. Even if you’re using blog software to create a website, you’re still going to bump into HTML and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) code when you want to change something: adding a new widget, installing a new feed, changing the appearance of the blog theme if you don’t like the colors.

My client realized that getting help with her websites and blogs was the smart thing to do. Over time she’s learned the HTML and CSS she needed to post new pages, add features to her website, and start an ezine with a template SHE created that matches her brand and colors. Yesterday’s victory? She added a new page to her website with links to past newsletters. By uploading the HTML ezine emails to her website as “side door” web pages, she’s building up the content, and regularly updating her website. The search engines LOVE her site.

It may seem like a small thing to be able to add pages to a website, but believe me it brings a huge sense of accomplishment. Over and over we’re told that we can get by without learning HTML… why? Because the people who tell us that have something to sell us that is several steps down the road from setting up a website. So we put up a pre-fab site we don’t understand to install a feature we can’t maintain. How do I know? Because those pre-fab site owners come to me to help them deal with the aftermath of those decisions.

The good news is that HTML and CSS are not difficult, they’re just detailed. It requires a little patience to get started, but once you get the hang of it, it’s enthralling, creative, even fun! Time and time again, my clients express relief, then satisfaction, then excitement, then joy over the fact that their most important online business asset is no longer a mystery to them. It becomes a tool they can use to increase their income, and bring help, joy, and satisfaction to THEIR clients.

Now what does all this have to do with my niece Kendra? She’s going off to college this fall, and a whole new world will open up to her. In addition to being 1,000 miles from home, there will be more competition, more challenges, more things to learn than ever. I want for her the same things I want for you: a good foundation for future success, and thankfully she’ll get it at that school. Now what about you?

Recognizing the value of learning certain essential skills for online success (like HTML and CSS) is my challenge to you. I’m offering you a free 30-minute initial consultation to help you sort out what needs to be done on your sites. Sign up for one now, and let’s get your websites and blogs back on track. Learn how to really manage your websites and blogs so that you can benefit YOUR clients.

http://www.toolie.com/links/initialconsultation

Toolie®

Reason 8: Branding, Creativity, and Freedom to Fly

I get asked a lot about how I can possibly make a living teaching website and blog skills when there are so many free website templates and site-builders out there already. My answer is simple: people come to me when they’re tired of bumping into the limitations that both website templates and site-builders have. They’re ready to make their sites work for them, instead of the other way around.

I remember when I learned to ride a two-wheeled bicycle. My Dad bought a bike with smaller wheels, and put training wheels on it. (This was before we knew we should wear helmets, but thankfully all I ever got were skinned knees.) I rode up and down the sidewalk, back and forth, back and forth. After a while I thought I was ready to have the training wheels taken off. Dad ran alongside me and steadied me while I got that wobbly front wheel under control. After a few sideways landings (thank goodness for lawns!) I took off and pedaled as fast as I could until Dad called me back. It was incredible! I felt like I was flying.

Pretty soon I was doing circles and figure-eights in the street, going fast, going slow, even racing with the other kids in the neighborhood. It’s a good thing I liked riding my bike because I rode it to piano lessons, to my first job at the grocery store, and even to driver’s education classes during the summer after my sophomore year in high school. I rode it to go shopping as a teenager, and many years later, I rode it for recreation and fitness. (McAlister and I even rode bikes on our first few dates.)

The point is, once I got the hang of riding with training wheels, I insisted on having them taken off so I could ride my bike without them. I wanted to feel grown up and free. As silly as the comparison may seem, being able to maneuver your own websites and blogs gives you that same sense of freedom and control. And the people who come to me are usually the ones who want a sense of empowerment, freedom, and control. They understand the importance of standing out, of being unique among the millions of websites already online.

There’s another really, really important aspect to consider about your sites, and that is your brand. Usually by the time entrepreneurs, virtual assistants, and small business owners come to work with me, they’ve got a logo and color scheme that they want applied to their sites. That’s the difference between having a site that looks like the other 662 sites using your website template, and having a site that is truly unique and reflects your brand choices. Plus with a site you’ve built or had built, you have the flexibility to do creative things with it, such as audio, video, and other interactive features.

A site with a good design gives you so many opportunities to attract visitors by continually expanding and enhancing it with good content. In my website/blog training program, we’ll talk about both design and content to produce sites that really work for your business.

Tomorrow: Reason 7 – Behind-the-Scenes Knowledge to Really Enhance Your Site

Toolie®

When I describe what I do to folks who are not business owners or who don’t operate on the Internet, they’re baffled. “There are plenty of free website templates out there: do you have customers for what you do?”

Yes, absolutely. If you’ve spent any time on the Internet trying to attract customers, you quickly discover that simply putting a website up is not enough. You can set up a website or a blog and have it live in relative obscurity for months, even years. I know this from personal experience…!

“You don’t need to learn HTML to have a website.” That’s true as long as you don’t have a preference as to whether the website is blue or brown or purple. Perhaps you don’t mind that your website looks like the 762 other websites using the same template. However, when you begin to develop a brand for your business and you want your sites to reflect your brand, your colors, your logo, you will start to care very much.

“Have your web designer add this, (and this, and this) to your site.” Why do the experts say use this phrase? Because the assumption is that you as website or blog owner are not willing to learn HTML or Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) skills necessary to make the changes yourself. Perhaps not at first; but as time passes and your sites sit in cyber-obscurity, your priorities change. You can certainly choose to depend on your web designer to make updates, but why not learn how to do the simple things? It makes fiscal sense, and your site updates will certainly move along a lot faster. And on the Internet, fast updates are the name of the game.

When it comes to marketing over the Internet, you need more than just a website or a blog. You’re going to want to create squeeze/opt-in pages, confirmation and thank-you pages, custom HTML for the top and bottom of your shopping cart pages, and of course, pages where you post downloads or giveaways. You can certainly copy and paste from existing pages, but are you confident that you know what to add and what to remove without breaking the template?

There are plenty of things you can do to attract traffic to your site. And what do they usually involve? More often than not, it’s jumping into the HTML or CSS to make changes. The good news is that HTML and CSS are a lot simpler than you think. They’re detailed, but they are not difficult. And that’s where my business is: showing entrepreneurs, virtual assistants, and small business owners a simple method for learning the HTML and CSS they need to feel confident and be competent to work on their own sites.

I’ll have more to say on this subject in the weeks to come. Stay tuned for more of my gentle truth-telling…

Meanwhile, be sure to sign up for Thursday night’s Free Website and Blog Makeover Webinar.

I’ve just returned from a trip to New Orleans where I spoke to a group of professional speakers, and from Chicago, where I both visited family and did some business research. In the next few weeks I’ll be busy completing my much-anticipated “Fix My Website, Please!” Course, so I will be talking to you about that soon.

One of my clients emailed me this YouTube video, and I thought it so much supported the ideals behind this blog that I had to share it with you. Entrepreneurs are really the unsung heroes of the nation’s economy. We are in the best possible position to move things along and to help the recovery happen faster.

But it’s not easy! I have my own moments of doubt, but when I get to my desk and find emails from people I can help, that changes everything. So here’s to my clients, past, present, and future. Hang in there!

Now go forth and do tech!

Toolie®

We had a great call last night, with lots of websites and blogs reviewed. The recording is now ready for viewing at:

http://www.fixmywebsiteplease.com/20090811/index.html.

What you’ll see in this webinar recording is coaching very much like what I do with clients, one-on-one. If we worked together, you could bring me your websites, blogs, opt-in (squeeze) pages, thank you pages, autoresponders, HTML ezine templates, aging logos, mangled menus, fuzzy photos, distressed graphics: anything involving a web page, (happy or not) and I would help you figure out what needs to be done.

On my www.ToolieCoaching.com website, you can choose a 1-hour checkup, a more detailed 2-hour checkup, or bring your own list and Design Your Own Plan. You can click on the session length of your choice, make your appointment online, and pay once you receive confirmation. It couldn’t be easier!

You and I would then meet via my GoToMeeting account (which includes a voice-over-Internet connection — no telephone toll charges), where we can see the same website or blog, talk about solutions, fix things immediately, and make plans for where to take your site from there.

My sessions on www.ToolieCoaching.com are 30% off until September 9th (09/09/09)! Now is the PERFECT time to take care of the updates you’ve been thinking of making but have been putting off.

Write this discount code down: 09SUMMERSALE

When you get to the check-out page, enter that coupon code and click Apply to see your savings.

Make 2009 your best year ever by taking ACTION. Click through one of the links above and make an appointment. I’ll be waiting!

This coming Tuesday night, August 11th at 6 pm Pacific, I’m holding a FREE Website and Blog Makeover Night. Bring your blogs, websites, opt-in (squeeze) pages, thank you pages, mismatched logos, mangled menus, fuzzy photos, distressed graphics, HTML e-zine templates: anything involving an unhappy web page, and I’ll help you diagnose and figure out what needs to be done.

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/319294818

If your website is basically OK, but you’re looking for ideas to give it more “zing,” I can help you with that too. Let’s brainstorm on ways to bring customers back again and again. This call is entirely FREE, and scheduled to last 90 minutes.

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/319294818

Things may be quiet now during August, but when September comes, you and your website need to be ready! Get the edge: get your websites, blogs, and other pages in great shape so that website visitors STAY and BUY.

That’s Tuesday night, August 11th at 6 pm Pacific/7 pm Mountain/8 pm Central/9 pm Eastern. Register now, and when you do, tell me which URL you want me to review. They’ll be reviewed in the order of registration.

I’ll see you online!

Toolie®