What if you asked the question a different way – one that gets at what you’re really asking – which is, “What is the minimum set of pages my site should have?” The answer is probably a shorter list, for one thing, and knowing the minimum requirement to go live takes a great deal of the pressure off from day one. You can (and likely will) add pages as you grow.

Assuming you’ve done your homework and have identified an authentic (for you) target market/niche and have created your X,Y,Z sentence, coming up with the minimum required pages list is fairly straightforward.

Your X,Y,Z sentence tells people what you do, for whom you do it and the benefits those people get when you do it, and should be clearly stated on your Home page.

• The what you do is fleshed out on your Products, Services or What We Do page.
• The for whom you do it is described on a page called Is This You? or Who We Help
• The benefits should be on the Home page – clear as day – and restated on the other pages of the site, where appropriate.

One of the first things people want to know (if they’ve stayed past the first 10 seconds on your site) is who is the person behind this site? That’s your About page. And they’ll expect a way to contact you, so that’s your Contact page.

Recommended Pages for Just About Any Site

• Products, Services or What We Do – this is pretty self-explanatory, yes?
• Is This You? or Who We Help – this is where you zero in on and talk directly to your target market/niche/ideal client.
• About – this page is all about you. Don’t write it in 3rd person, ok? Be brave – write it like you’re talking to your ideal client – in 1st person. Be personable, friendly, approachable – real.
• Contact – give the maximum contact information you’re comfortable with. The more ways there are to contact you, the more your readers will trust you.
• Blog – fresh, updated content to help drive traffic to your site and connect with your target market
• Home – ideally, this page should be written last and be based on or compiled from the best of the other pages, making sure you include your X,Y,Z sentence.

All these years later, I’ve let reading time be overtaken by the demands of my life and work, and I really miss it. (This is one of the ducks I recently identified I was missing in my life.) See that bookcase in the picture? That’s one of three bookcases here in my office, and many, many of those titles are, as yet, unread. That’s going to change.

Are you with me?

One Book a Week – Ambitious But Possible

I can’t see myself making the time to read 300 books this year, even though I have that many right here waiting, but I can see myself making time for one a week, so that’s my plan. Here are the titles I’ve picked for January:

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Review From Publishers Weekly: Unabashedly inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling The Tipping Point, the brothers Heath?Chip a professor at Stanford’s business school, Dan a teacher and textbook publisher?offer an entertaining, practical guide to effective communication. Drawing extensively on psychosocial studies on memory, emotion and motivation, their study is couched in terms of “stickiness”?that is, the art of making ideas unforgettable. [...] Fun to read and solidly researched, this book deserves a wide readership.

The Power of an Hour: Business and Life Mastery in One Hour a Week by Dave Lakhani
From the Inside Flap: The Power of an Hour gives you the blueprint for making changes one at a time that add up to a big difference. Most books that promise to help you improve yourself and your business are too formulaic and too focused on one particular aspect of life to really work. But this book is different. It’s a holistic guide to the practical, everyday actions you can use to supercharge your personal and business development.

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
Despite my self-imposed book buying ban (because, as you can see, I have enough to keep me busy for the year and then some), this is a book I’ve wanted to buy since it was published. I’m happy to report I’m going to be able to read this book without breaking my ban, because one of my wonderful friends bought this for me because she loves me (or maybe because she was sick of hearing me whine about wanting it…lol) Either way, I get to read it this month! Woo-hoo! I’ve slated it for week 3 in honor of Barack’s Innauguration as President and President’s Day. Can’t wait!

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual by by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls and David Weinberger
Review from Business Week: “For every retail or consumer-products company wondering why its Internet marketing doesn’t seem to be working, The Cluetrain Manifesto…offers fresh and sound advice, expressed in entertaining prose. Its oft-repeated premise – that markets are conversations – should be pounded into the collective brain of corporate executives.”

My Rules, a Surprise and My Hidden Agenda

One of the rules I’ve set for myself is not to limit myself to just the books on my shelves. I’ve got at least that many, if not more in e-book form here on my hard drive. They count. (And they don’t count against my book buying ban, mostly because I’ve got way more hard drive space than bookshelf space.) Which means I’ve already got one book under my belt: Todoodlist. You’ve already got my review of it.

Here’s the surprise: If you buy Todoodlist through this link by Midnight Monday, January 5th and forward a copy of your purchase receipt email to me at Suzanne at vAssistant Services dot com, I’ll enter you in a drawing to be held Tuesday morning where the winner will be reimbursed their $14 personally by me! Those of you who’ve already purchased Todoodlist through my link will be entered in the drawing, too, if you send me your receipt. (I know 4 of you have, but I don’t know who you are.) So, if you’ve been on the fence, go on and get it, forward me your receipt and you could get your first book of 2009 on me! (My self-imposed book buying ban does not include buying books for others, by the way. Besides, it’s an e-book, so it’s really safe!)

So, what’s my hidden agenda, you ask? It’s three-fold, actually:

• to promote reading books of all kinds. Reading is FUNdamental, remember? And it’s good to get off the computer every now and then. (Gasp!)
• to find out about great books. You’re going to leave me a comment and tell me what books have made a difference for you, right? (Don’t worry – I’ll add your recommendation to my Amazon wish list or get it from the library, if I can’t wait.)
• to hold myself accountable for my reading goals by blogging about the books I read. See? I’ve gone and shot off my big mouth and told y’all I’m gonna do this. So, expect to see a post each week, probably on Sundays, (oh God, am I really typing this?!?!) about the book I’ve read.

So, you’re going to read how many books this year? Leave me a comment…

It’s New Year’s Day and a good chunk of the world is making resolutions. I don’t do that. Making New Year’s Resolutions is far too linear an activity for me.

Instead, I do a duck inventory. I don’t worry too much about getting or keeping them in a row. (My ducks are too much like me for that.)

My Duck Inventory

First, you should know that most of my ducks have ducks of their own. So, I guess you could say I have families of ducks. And some of the ducks belong to multiple families, so you can see right away that getting my ducks in a row is an activity I can’t just jump into. I have:

First, I see if there have been any new ducks born or if any of my old ducks have died in the last year. (It’s completely normal to get new ducks and lose old ducks. Circle of life, ya know. Sometimes ducks appear to be still alive, but they’re really dead, so you might have to poke at ‘em a little to be sure.)

Second, I check the health of all my ducks…and not just their health, but my own with respect to their presence in my life. (This is sometimes the most difficult part for me. It’s pretty easy to determine if they’re doing ok. A little more challenging, sometimes, to determine if they’re good for me.)

Third, I check to see if I need to get rid of any of my ducks. (I did a LOT of duck firing and letting go last year. Sometimes just recognizing they need to go seems to make them leave on their own. Like it when that happens. I’ve finally learned, though, that the new, good ducks you want can’t come to you ’til you make room for them.)

Fourth, I look for which ducks I might be missing or new ducks I might want to add. (I have also learned that getting new, good ducks in my life is a process of allowing them to come to me. I’ve been really good at giving for long, long time. These last few years have been about learning how to get really good at receiving. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it.)

This is about as lined up as my ducks ever get, and I’m ok with that, because when I’m done with my duck inventory I’m ready for the new year. And that’s the point, right?

How do you get ready for the new year? Do you make resolutions? If so, how do you go about it? If not, do you do something else instead? Leave a comment below and tell me. I’m really interested to know.

Here are two ways others have lost me as a visitor or prospect in the last month or so and why. I’ll bet they won’t notice that I’m gone, but if too many others feel the way I do, they’ll notice eventually. The only question is how many will they have to run off before they notice? Worse, what if they’ve just started their business and are already thinking about giving up?

Have a look and make sure you aren’t making these same mistakes.

#1: Don’t Keep Your Promises; More Importantly, Don’t Communicate

This is the most recent thing that really yanked my chain. I signed up for a membership site for, among many other things, a monthly calendar of blogging prompts, one a day. The membership price was low, so I thought, why not? I joined late in the month last month, so the monthly calendar for November was already there and in place. I took a look at it, and was pleased to see that it was timely, meaning the topics turned toward gratitude, etc., as it grew nearer to Thanksgiving, for example.

Well, guess what…it’s December 4th, and the December calendar is still not up. Not good, when that’s the main reason I joined and paid for a membership. So far, no explanation has been given, nor an estimate of when the sucker will be up.

This site’s stated purpose in life is to help bloggers easily come up with new content to blog about every day. The main benefit they waved in our faces on the membership signup page was the Monthly Blogging Prompts Calendar. The new month is here but the calendar is not. So, I’ve spent money and yet I have the same “problem” I had before I spent money. Definitely not leaving a good taste in my mouth.

Yes, I know things happen, and yes, last week was a major holiday here in the U.S. and yes, I hope everyone was enjoying the day with family and friends. Not the point.

The point is you don’t make promises and then not keep them. And if something happens to prevent you from keeping them, you let your clients and prospects know. Online, just as in life, we all want to feel valued and taking your customers’ money, not delivering what they paid for and keeping them in the dark throughout is NOT the way to show you value your customers.

#2: Make People Jump Through Hoops For No Good Reason

A couple months ago, I signed up for a free teleclass series that was supposed to have one call per month for six consecutive months. I had to register with my name and email address, which I had no problem with. After all, he was going to give me 6 hours of time, attention and information – the least I could do was cough up my name and email address. Besides, I figured I’d get the dial-in information via email and probably some reminders each month. Maybe, if I was lucky, I’d get a recording of each call afterward, in case life got in the way and I missed attending one. But I’ve been online since there’s been an ‘online’ to be on, so I knew registering was the bare minimum required. He’s doing this to build his list, after all. I’m cool with that. Build your list, dude!

The first call occurred, and it was a good call. Afterward, I got an email reminding me of the ‘homework’ for the next month’s call. Handy…thanks dude. (I use my email inbox(es) as to-do lists, so it would stay in there until I completed the homework for the next call.)

Life goes on…before I know it, it’s time for the 2nd month’s call. I know it’s the 3rd Thursday of the month, so I start watching for an email. Nothing comes. I’m assuming it’ll be at the same time and at the same number as the previous month’s call. I try to call in – get told there is no such conference.

Huh?!!??

So I email the guy and you know what he tells me? That I didn’t register for the 2nd month’s call! Can you believe that mess? He seriously expected me to go back to his site and register FIVE MORE TIMES for the same 6-month teleclass series I had already said “Yes” to! For what?!! “Oh no, dude, I don’t roll like that. I said yes once, that ought to be enough for you,” I think to myself as I delete the remaining 4 call reminders from my calendar.

Try as I might, I cannot imagine a good enough reason to make people register 6 times for the same damn thing. I mean, seriously! It was almost like this guy didn’t really want anyone participating for the whole six months, making us jump through 5 extra hoops like that. So, I responded to the message he sent (whether it was the one he intended, or not) and did not register again or attend any call but that first one.

The Fix For Both

The easiest way to avoid mistakes like these is to put yourself in the shoes of the person you’re trying to attract. View what you do through their eyes. Is what you’re doing making sense to them? Are you honoring them? Are you putting your best foot forward and investing in them and the relationship you’re trying to build?

Every last one of us makes mistakes. That’s forgivable. What’s not forgivable is not recognizing that your visitors and prospects don’t HAVE to deal with you. They’ve got options. Act accordingly.

Have you run into this kind of nonsense? Leave a comment and tell us what happened, how it made you feel, and how it affected your view of that person or site.