Home office expert's guide to working from home/home office tips» Lisa Barone

What Not to Do With Your Web Site

Lisa — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:45:53 +0000

My Web site is a work in progress. I make a few changes to it and then a month later I think of a few more things I need to update. Within the next few weeks I’ll be making a few more changes. It never ends.

In “11 Reasons Customers Don’t Trust Your Web Site,” writer Lisa Barone shares common sense tips and easy-to-stop-doing strategies for making your site better.It’s more of a list of Web site mistakes you may be making including:

It’s littered with typos. Do your best to find typos and squash them dead. It’s hard to believe what someone has written when every other word is spelled wrong. Also, it looks bad if your phone number is wrong. My number changed recently but I didn’t change it on my site until last week. (Oprah, if you tried to call before, try again!)

You don’t say why you’re different. Guilty as charged. This is one of the points I hadn’t considered but will be changing shortly. No matter what type of expertise you have, there has to be something that sets you apart from your competitors. Highlight that difference on your site.

It’s hard to navigate. If I’m struggling to find your Product pages, than your site must be for people way smarter than me. I’ll go elsewhere. When you’re closely tied to your company, product and site, you may not realize how easy your site is to navigate. Do an informal survey with business associates whose opinions you trust and make any changes to make it easier for visitors to find the information they need.

There’s no About page. Help people trust your Web site by telling them about yourself, why you do what you do, how long you’ve been doing it, and by introducing to the people who run your store. Include a photo so people can attach a name to a face.

The beauty of a Web site is that you can make changes whenever you want. Finding the time to make those changes though, can be the challenge.

Why You May be Losing Followers on Twitter

Lisa — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:47:59 +0000

Do you take the time to weed out the list of folks you follow on Twitter? Lisa Barone, Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., culls through her Twitter list monthly and stops following some people while adding others to her list. I do the same thing every few months and each time I do that, I lose followers. I’m not obsessed with how many followers I have, but if someone stops following me, I wonder why.

In her Small Business Trends post, “20 Reasons People Unfollow You On Twitter,” Barone shares the results of a quick poll she did with Twitter users. All of the tips are insightful and worth reading, especially these four.

1. You’re a self-promoter: Lots of people mentioned that they were turned off by Twitter users who do nothing but promote their own content. You want to drive traffic to your site, but there’s other content out there.

2. You’re too self-centered. Twitter is about connecting with others and not making it about you.

3. You auto-DM: Nothing hurts more than choosing to follow someone you think is cool…and then being hit with the dread auto spam DM. There will always be something annoying and creepy about getting a sales pitch via DM. Build a relationship before you try to sell something to someone.

4. You don’t share anything new. There’s nothing wrong with retweeting unless that’s all you do. Share new information when you can.

How Tweet it is

Lisa — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:18:00 +0000

With only 140 characters per message, is it possible to mess up a tweet? Absolutely. According to Lisa Barone, Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., “Tweeting is an art.” Her blog post “How To Write Better Tweets” is filled with several to-the-point tips to help you improve the way you tweet including:

Think before you tweet: Before you tweet that link, publish that twitter comment or get into that heated debate, ask yourself if what you’re about to put out there is meaningful. You know that queasy feeling you get in your stomach when you say something you wish you could take back? Bad tweets can give you the same feeling but you can’t ever take those words back.

Own your account: If you’re tweeting on behalf of a company, make sure you disclose that both in your tweets and in your profile. If you try to hide it, it will be found out. Bottom line: nobody likes a sneaky tweeter.

Learn to tease: Much of good Twittering is tied to the ability to write great engaging headlines and get people wanting more. With a name like Working Naked I can get away with double meanings. Of course that disappoints the teenagers who visit this site looking for pics of chicks working naked.

Leave room for retweets: There is nothing that validates you as a good tweet writer more than being retweeted by your followers; however, if you make your tweets too long you actually lower the chances of people retweeting you. Great tip that I never considered. Using Tinyurl.com helps but you can shorten a tweet only so much.

What Do I Write About Now?

Lisa — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:01:22 +0000

You’re sitting in front of your computer and you can’t think of anything to write. We’ve all been there. Lisa Barone comes to the rescue with her blog post “100+ SMB Blogging Ideas to Kick Start 2010.” Most of her tips make sense, while a few of them are a bit too warm and fuzzy. After you read her tips though, don’t be surprised to see your fingers dance across the keyboard or at least take a few blog-starting steps. Check out a few of Barone’s better tips.

Write 10 ways your industry will change this year

Attend industry events and blog about them

What someone needs to consider before getting involved in your industry

Interview someone well-known in your world and profile them

Publish a presentation you gave somewhere else (with permission)

Search Google News for relevant press releases and news about your industry. Write your own take.