The lighter side of life – staying in touch with friends and family by celebrating the ordinary.
Looking ahead – Marketing – argh
Now that I’m feeling better and our remodel is well underway, I’ve decided to start building my life coaching business back up. I still have a few clients, but not very many.
I have a new website, which I created so I can have a URL (website address) that includes “ASD”, which stands for Autism Spectrum Disorder, instead of Asperger Syndrome, which has become a dated term for a couple of reasons. The primary reason is back in 2013, the terms Asperger and Asperger’s Syndrome were removed from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) that psychologists use, and Asperger traits were included within the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder. The other reason has to do with the declining reputation of Hans Asperger himself. The bottom line is, the word “Asperger” is out, and my old website that I originally put up in 2001 is called coachingasperger. Oops. It was great for awhile, but time for an update.
When I realized I wanted a new website, I was lucky to be able to buy the URL “coachingasd.com” before it was taken (asdcoaching has been taken). Then I got cancer and everything got put on hold.
Recently, the daughter of a good friend of mine helped me get the new site up. Thanks to her, I was able to get it up fairly affordably. Now I need to advertise my new website, because websites aren’t found if they aren’t advertised.
This blog is a good example. I don’t advertise this blog, so no one outside of my friends and family knows it’s here. It is theoretically possible to find because it’s public, but if you put “turning 51” into a Google search bar you could scroll through pages and pages of results and you’re not going to find this blog. That’s assuming you even knew what it’s called. It would be even harder to find if you weren’t looking for it.
This blog is completely hidden in plain sight. Which is fine with me. I have no aspirations to have strangers reading my blog. This blog is for you – my friends and family. If a few others stumble across it, fine, I don’t mind. But I wouldn’t be comfortable with a large readership.
My life coaching website, however, is different. That needs to be seen by lots and lots of people before someone will actually decide to email me asking for life coaching sessions. And my new site is not going to be seen by lots of people unless I’m advertising it.
Initially after getting my new website set up, I made the mistake of redirecting my old Asperger site to my new ASD site, thinking that would bring traffic to my new site, because my old site ranks fairly high in google searches and gets a reasonably large number of clicks for a small business like mine. I’m not exactly sure why that didn’t work. The autoforwarding was working, but for some reason my old site was suddenly no longer getting clicks, so there was no one to forward to my new site.
My theory is Google dropped my old site out of their search results because they detected the autoforwarding. I can imagine why they might want to filter out websites that are autoforwarding so customers aren’t misdirected to nefarious sites. I’m just guessing, but that seems like what happened.
As soon as I figured that out, I stopped the autoforward. Now I have both websites out there as stand-alone’s. I have the same information in the text on the sites, just one of them uses the term “Asperger” and the other uses “ASD”.
The old Asperger site is now starting to get some traffic again. It ranks reasonably high in Google searches because it’s been out there for 20 years and has been getting regular traffic for a long time. My new ASD website ranks very low because it’s new. Google ranks frequently clicked-on sites much higher than sites that don’t have frequent use. So it becomes a reinforcing feedback loop. The more people click on the site, the higher the site lists in the search results, so even more people click on it.
The science of all that (I’m rolling my eyes, I don’t think it’s a science, but it’s not an art either) – the word for all that – is Search Engine Optimization. I can hire someone, for lots of money, to help me figure that all out. But a lot of it I know how to do myself. I just need to sit down and do it.
For example, I should start an autism-related blog on my website. Google rewards detailed websites that have regularly added content. The problem is, I don’t know what to say. It’s easier for me to tell you about what’s going on in my life than it is to think of autism-related content for my website. But yes, I know how to blog, and I can do that. I just need to start doing that. Unfortunately it’s not just a thing I can do once and be done. It’s something I’ll have to continue to do over time. Have you ever noticed websites that have a blog with just one or two entries? The big companies can hire someone, but your local contractor or dentist is likely to have started a blog and not kept up with it.
I also should start a business Facebook page (gag, barf). I don’t mind getting it set up, but I really ought to say something on a regular basis. Like what? Luckily, I can use the same content for the ASD blog as the ASD Facebook page. I just need to write the content. Week after week!
I also need to do a better job with keywords. Luckily my friend’s daughter, Amy, tagged the pages of my new website with keywords. But I’m the one who wrote the text on the pages, and I need to go through and make sure I mention my keywords frequently.
Once I’ve applied myself and done everything I know to do, if I don’t have the results I want, I can hire someone who knows more than I do. But right now I don’t need anyone telling me I should be blogging on my website. Yeah, I know that. I just need to do it!
I also tried to put an ad up on Psychology Today, because I know they list life coaches, but it turns out they require a mental health credential, which I don’t have. I am a certified coach, but that isn’t a mental health credential. I know that some life coaches are also therapists or have some type of mental health credentials, so that’s probably why I’ve seen life coaches advertising on that site. They must be life coaches with some sort of therapy degree as well. My degree is environmental science. Not close enough.
I can also try to advertise on autism sites. Some of them might be open to advertising.
I tried to set up ads with Google, which is expensive but potentially worth it. However, something is wrong such that Google appeared to think that I was a scammer. My account was immediately suspended the moment I set it up, and the automatic email that I got was accusatory in tone. I tried to go through their appeal process, but I never got to talk with a real person and my appeal was denied with no explanation.
Then I tried to do some internet research to see if I can figure out what about my set-up was causing Google to think I’m not legit, but I couldn’t figure it out. I’m going to get some other things set up first, and then I’m probably going to have to hire someone to help me figure this out.
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