The great mystery: the fewer customers you have, the more customers you get – finding a very specific niche, and why you want to do it. Really.
Review your tagline – How a few well-chosen words can reassure your Right People that they’ve come to the right place.
Review your Contact Us page – build trust, and make it easy for people to give you money.
Comment on one blog post – why you should, and how to do it well.
Update your signature – writing a catchy and effective signature for your email and forum presence.
Perform the 3-second test – the simplest effective branding test for your website ever.
Update your About Us page – what About Us pages are really about, and how to write a good one.
Review your navigation – help your readers and improve your success. Good navigation matters.
Emphasize the important tasks – how design can help you win.
Survey your customers – is your website working?
Promote your website – stop your website from being a well-kept secret.
Defend yourself – you don’t know how awesome you are until you have to prove it…
Create a resource – help your people and give them a reson to come back!
Help one person – the power of one good deed.
Send one email – reach out and touch somebody. But not in a creepy way.
Offer to do a guest post – how to do it well, especially when you’re freaking out.
Balance your benefits – who does your work benefit, and are you riding for a fall?
Copywriting
Remember when you used to suck? – how to avoid the Curse of Knowledge and write for people who aren’t as expert as you are.
Test your readability – how accessible is your writing?
Enjoy your content – take a moment to realise just how spectacular you are at this!
Where do the ideas come from? – more specifically, where my ideas come from.
Find new ideas – simple inspiration sources for new ideas.
Go a bit crazy – shake things up and come up with some off-the-wall ideas.
Promote yourself – how to ask people to do the thing you’re hoping they’ll do.
Cut empty words – ruthless slash and burn pruning of your copy.
Admit an error – the power of apologising.
Say “I love you” – toughen up and get soft.
It IS all about you, a little – it’s got to be about you, too.
You can definitely criticise your competitors – write great copy by refusing to be That Guy.
You don’t have to be an expert – how to write before the doctorate arrives.
Change the goddamned world – any website can change the world.
We’re not all the same – how subtle cultural differences can have huge consequences.
The Vital Questions
Seven super-duper-effective questions to answer before you start (or refresh) your website:
Vital Question #1: Who is your customer? – the base requirements of your customers and a simple persona constructor
Vital Question #2: What does your customer want? – now you’ve figured out who to attract, start figuring out what would attract them!
Vital Question #3: What problem do you solve? – benefits, how not to be invisible, and problems in disguise.
Vital question #4: Why are you better? – how to be the one people turn to when they need a rubber walrus polisher.
Vital question #5: How are you different? – being delightfully different in ways that have nothing to do with your benefits
Vital question #6: What is your website for? – why are you spending all this time and money and how do you meet your goals?
Vital question #7: What is your website budget? – how much time, money and commitment do you have to spend?