Entrepreneurs, like all humans, are inventive. Changes over the past two years encouraged us to create new ways to connect with each other and with our clients. I see Membership Websites as an emerging catalyst to support eCommerce, online learning, and improve client communication.
A Membership Website is like a beautiful gift for your clients, helping create a place to engage with like-minded individuals. Here are two startups and one business organization that I had the privilege of building membership websites for 2021.
Last week, a coffee meeting with Kim Allchurch Flick left me inspired. It’s always refreshing to see a business owner walk their talk and practice the values they promote.
From our Portland office we work with clients across the U.S.
One of my favorite things is working with clients opening new businesses, clients who need a starter website.
Like many of my customers, Laurie Schwartz came to me through a referral. She has years of experience in sales and marketing, including working with Fortune 500 companies, and decided to launch a business helping people deliver presentations with confidence and enthusiasm in corporate environments, Dynamic Presentation Training.
While I have never met Laurie, she lives in Chicago and I live in Portland, I enjoyed getting to know her and creating a website that meets her vision and needs. Dynamic Presentation Training is a starter website and Laurie made good use of each of the five pages included in this economical package. Rather than reserve a page just for emailing, Laurie opted to add a form on the Home page that allows clients to email her and check their areas of interest.
I highly recommend subscribing to her blog where she writes about interview tips, using humor in presentations, and many other topics related to public speaking.
Laurie’s Testimonial
This is what Laurie has to say about her experience working with Waterlink Web:
I had no idea how to design a website and I really needed a lot of help to design and launch a professional looking website for my new business. Someone referred Mary Ann Aschenbrenner from Waterlink Web and that turned out to be my lucky day!
Mary Ann worked with me from start to finish on every detail and made several helpful suggestions that I never would have thought of. She was always patient and minimized my stress for what seemed like an overwhelming task to me. She has excellent web design skills and really knows what she’s doing.
My completed website came out better than I ever could have hoped for thanks to Mary Ann at Waterlink Web. I highly recommend her and would not hesitate to use her services for any future projects.
Thank you, Laurie. The pleasure is mine.
May I Help You?
If you need help getting your business on the internet, establishing social media, and building a website, let me know. Check out our page on Starter Websites to learn more.
Or, how to get Google to confirm a business listing without a mailing address.
I met Alisa, owner of Sea Monkey Private Charters, early in 2016. She was a referral from another company, an online advertising agency specializing in pay-per-click. I was recommended to help set up the Sea Monkey social media accounts.
The work was straight forward and included:
Establishing her Facebook Page and Trip Advisor accounts and adding cover images
Diagnosing a Facebook mapping error and getting Facebook to correct it
Adding the Trip Advisor app to Facebook and their badge to the website
Setting up the Facebook feed on the website and adding the Yelp badge
Client training in how to size images and post on her blog
Fixing the site when it suffered an online attack
Nevertheless, one (very important) step eluded us — her ownership of the Sea Monkey Private Charters Google business page.
Alisa and the Sea Monkey Private Charters’ ship captain on board the Sea Monkey. USPS does not deliver to the Lahaina wharf.
When you attempt to confirm ownership of your Google business listing, Google will mail you, via USPS, a postcard with a code. Once you receive the postcard you can log into your account and insert the code. After that Google will recognize you as the owner of this business allowing you to add pictures and update the listing. This geographic listing is important because it also allows Google to serve up your listing in local search results.
Get Google to confirm a business listing without a mailing address
Alisa operates out of the Lahaina, Maui harbor and the address is a boat slip. USPS does not deliver to this wharf. She tried repeatedly to get ownership of her listing with no success.
I am persistent, however. This spring I attended the Governor’s Marketplace in Salem and the Google seminar that was part of the event. After the seminar I spoke with the Google representative about Sea Monkey Private Charters, got the representative’s name, business email, and the magic words to add to our inquiry, “_______ says you can make this happen.”
It took several back and forth emails with Google, but it did happen! Alisa is the owner of the Sea Monkey Private Charters Google business listing!
This is her testimonial:
Waterlink Web is an amazing Company and Mary Ann is a miracle worker!
She has done a lot of work on our website and social media and I am more than pleased. She was able to get us back online after our website (not designed by her) crashed in the quickest way possible. She simply dropped everything she was doing and went to work until the problem was resolved. Since, our website is the main source of all of our customers it was very critical to have it fixed ASAP, and she did just that.
She also helped us to put our business on Google maps and helped us verify it. Although it may not sound like a miracle work to some — it really is when your business is located on a wharf that does not get mail delivery. She was able to connect with someone at Google to help us and stuck with the process through several rounds of emails until the verification was complete. The usual steps of “setting up your business on Google” only work for businesses with mailing addresses at their location.
Thank you so much, Mary Ann, for all your great work and personal attention!!!
Thank you, Alisa. The pleasure is all mine.
If you need help establishing your social media or getting Google to confirm you as a business owner for your own company, please let me know. I can help you.
When I first met Martha Shelley I knew her as a quiet writer of feminist historical fiction, researcher, and neighbor. She gave me the opportunity to build a website for her company, Ebisu Publications. As I worked with Martha and her wife, writer Sylvia Allen, I learned more. I discovered that Martha was one of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front and part of the ’69 Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village.
If you are striving for excellence in a website, usability testing is essential. A couple of months ago I completed a site for a young local attorney, David James Robinson.
My client loved it. I loved it. Then I asked another attorney, a cousin, to run a usability test. He thought it was great, but …
A few changes later it is even better. Check out the photos and see if you can find at least three differences. You can navigate to David’s website at www.DavidJamesRobinson.com
By the way, I definitely recommend David as an attorney! Check back next week to learn more about setting up your own usability test.
WordPress site for estate and business planning attorney.WordPress site for estate and business planning attorney.
