• What Is Transparency?  Simply Put … It’s Honesty •
• Why You Should Provide Information About Your Online Business Policies & Procdures •

In my dealings with clients who are newbie website owners, and even with those that have had sites for a long time, I have to spend a fair amount of time coaching these clients about creating quality content for their sites. Not only does my conversation include SEO issues and keyword phrase usage best practices, but also many other facets that comprise a well written page of content.

Since these website owners have a site specifically for the purpose of providing them with an online presence in order to generate income, there will likely be two, three or more pages on their site that can be considered to be a “landing page”.

Here’s my blog post about landing pages, what they are, and what purpose they serve: all about landing pages.

Your Landing Page Copy Needs To Be Transparent

What do I mean by transparent? In landing page tech-talk, this means to be honest and provide your site’s visitors with the important facts they ought to know about things such as:

• The nature of your business – what do you offer? Products and/or services?
• How you intend to use a visitor’s personal information – meaning what is your privacy policy?
• What is your shipping policy? Domestic only? Or international? USPS, UPS, Fed Ex, etc.? Overnight, standard delivery, 2nd-day delivery options?
• Your return policy?
• If you’re offering a special discount or coupon – what are the particulars as to how you do/don’t honor these specials?
• How do you charge your customers? This isn’t just the methods of payment accepted (credit cards, e-checks, PayPal, etc.) but additional information such as stating you only charge for items shipped or services received; that back-ordered items are only charged once they are shipped.

There are also other “transparent” pieces of information you would do well to explain and/or provide, too:

• If you require a registration (log-in and password must be created to access a certain section of your site), explain why you require this.
• If a special piece of software needs to be installed, explain why and ask permission to proceed with the install; and explain how it can be easily uninstalled, too.
• Don’t send unsolicited mailings – allow the customer to opt-in for your newsletter, special deals emails, even snail-mails.

And one more thing that I don’t run into very often, but there are still websites out there doing this unprofessional (in my opinion) tactic so it is worth mentioning here:

• Don’t disable the functionality of the browser back button! (I really dislike it when a site has implemented this annoying feature.) If a visitor wants to exit your site, be polite and allow it!

As is very truly said:  You can’t please ALL of the people ALL of the time! 

About providing a privacy policy … any and every website that asks for any type of sensitive information - from something as simple as an email address and first name, or on-up-to very detailed information such as credit card numbers should have a privacy policy page in place!

Here’s a free online tool that allows you to create a professional privacy page that is based upon the guidelines of the Direct Marketing Association: click here. It even provides the HTML code, so all you have to do is copy and paste the policy into your website page template and voila! Your webpage is done and ready for you to upload.

For a example of how you might like to provide your privacy policy, look at the one on my SEO-Innovation.com website.

The content on each landing page, also referred to as the landing page copy, serves a particular purpose, as I’ve already stated. Whether you will need to implement some, or all of the above depends (of course) on the purpose of your site. An e-commerce site will most likely need to have all of the suggested information in place, whereas a mini-site that promotes a digital product may only need to provide their privacy policy and ordering procedure guidelines.

No matter what purpose your website serves, always remember to over-deliver the quality of information. It is much better to tell your visitors a little more than they might need to know, than not enough!

• A New Category For My Blog - Positive Thinking! •
• Changin’ Our Mindset - No More Stinkin’ Thinkin’ •

Do you REALLY  believe that by focusing your thoughts on positive expectations … meaning your hopes, dreams, desires, wishes and the resulting outcomes … that you will REALLY  receive and experience positive results? Hmmm?? Do you practice positive thinking in your life?

Well, I do!  I didn’t used to a few years ago. Honestly. Oh sure, I would say I wanted this or that good thing to happen to me, or that I wished my finances would improve, or that I hoped that new opportunities of one sort or another would come knocking at my door, but I just didn’t have a true spirit of positiveness and positive thinking instilled into the deepest core of my thought patterns.

Because I am now such a believer of the power of our thoughts, and how our thoughts really color and affect our entire life’s circumstances, I feel it is very important for me to begin to add posts containing words of positive thoughts and encouragement to my blog. And so, today marks that day! 

Here’s what I’d like to share with you today:

~~ “Your life will go in the direction of your MOST PROMINENT thoughts! ~~

• Broken Links Are Not A Good Thing! •
• Easily Check All The Links On Your Website •

I ran a broken link check yesterday after receiving an email from a woman who had visited one of my websites, and wanted me to know she loved the content I shared so freely, but thought I ought to know I had many broken links and also that my contact form just wasn’t working!

” … but I do want to mention that on your website I was unsure if you got my e-mail. I kept hitting ’submit’ but it didn’t do anything. Maybe it was my computer. Hopefully you didn’t receive a bunch of those duplicates. Sorry if you did. Plus, on your website, sometimes the links didn’t work. Like I said, maybe it was my computer or the server. Just thought you would like to know.”

This is NOT what any website owner wants to hear, let alone someone like me who promotes high quality website design services as part of her repertoire!

Even though I knew darned well I didn’t have any broken links, and also that my ‘Contact Me’ form was in 100% working order, I did two things to double-check the situation.

How To Check For Broken Links On Your Site - For Free

There is a great free piece of software called “Link Sleuth” - download it here. It’s been around for quite awhile and I can tell you it is great! It’s safe (no spyware or anything like that associated with it), easy to install on your computer and it works.

It checks all the the links on your site: the ones that link all your web pages internally, and any links you have on your site pointing out to other websites. You can set parameters of what it will/won’t check. It’s very efficient.

So, after running it, just like I was sure of … NO broken links on my website.

Then, I tested out my contact form and again, just as I was sure of … no problems with it submitting my name and email address. It also took me right to the customized ‘Thank You’ page I always put in place for all my contact forms.

And yes, I certainly emailed the individual back, letting her know I appreciated the heads-up, but that unfortunately the problems she encountered were on her end and with her computer (or ISP), and not with my websites!

It’s a good practice to periodically run a full site broken link check on all your sites. How often to run the check is up to you, but is also dependant upon how often you make changes to your website, and how many links you have pointing out to other sites. Remember that these other pages you have links pointing to may become non-existent - the website may no longer be available/active, or sometimes the web page you are linking to gets deleted.

Checking for broken links is just one of the many ways to maintain a search engine friendly AND visitor friendly website.