theKilt On

All,

A couple of weeks back, fugly had a theme day on the DC board for guys to post their own ad.  I did my thing.  Thanks for all of the kind words and feedback.

The few days that I had to put things together I found to be, amongst other things, a bit of a learning experience.  These items I've captured here and thought I would share them with the rest of the board and hope that you find it worth reading:

* I was very lucky to get all the help that I did from many different ladies.  In addition to banner sharing and ideas on format and content, some ladies provided substantial detail about many things, the "production value", that goes on behind the scenes that makes the time that we spend with them so seamless, so effortless, so fleeting.  Very hard working.  I had never really given much thought to the volume of contacts (a lot of text, email, voice) ladies have to deal with on a daily basis (setting appointments, checking references, giving references, hotel/plane reservations, etc.) and have a new appreciation for the effort put forth by some of these ladies, not just for what goes on during, but for what goes on before and after.  So, thanks for that confidence.  On a semi-related, I was also surprised to hear about the large number of ladies that are afflicted by "bullshit" reviews.  Fakes, excessively harsh.  Seems like a lot of ladies get these.

* Feedback from some free sites takes a while.  Guys, be patient.  It's batched up.  You send an email thru one of those cooked up forms and it would not reach me until that night and it was all batched up in one message along with all of the other messages that were sent that day.

* You can do a lot of static stuff, but forms and acting on data is limited (like setting up your own "review" form is impossible ("He snores!"); but maybe in PHP).

* To maximize use of your visual real estate on these free sites, you need to know and edit the HTML.  This usually requires a skill level beyond what most folks that use the free sites will have, I am guessing.

* To get something useful looking, it takes time (even if you are in the business of producing web pages).

* What you want people to remember and feel after visiting your site should drive your content.  What I wanted was "fun and entertaining".  I could be goofy, a "brand" not many ladies want to advance (excepting Jenny McCarthy, maybe).

* Stale content is the biggest enemy of a website.  Have some sort of strategy for keeping things fresh, even if it's just changing pictures.  Remember, too, that you do not want a content freshness strategy this is onerous for you.  Your website has only two purposes:  1) attract new business and 2) maintain your current clients.  Sometimes these two goals can be accomplished via other means (emails, text msgs, phone calls, board postings, or attending mixers - your call).

* I deleted certain default pages like:

  X Blog (my diary; I don't want the bother of constantly having to update
    stuff like, "Hey, I went shopping today.".  Yawn.
  X Calendar : was a pain in the neck to update.  I like it when ladies do
    keep their calendars up to date, but, for me it was too bothersome.  I
    could accomplish my "when & where's" by board postings.
  X Member : maybe if I had special pictures or some other content that I
    wanted to restrict access to, but I did not need it here.

* Always have goals for your website.  I would imagine for most ladies, the goals are 1) attract new clients and 2) preserve, inform, and entertain current clients.  For me, my goals were:  

  X have some fun and entertain
  X see what it's like to go thru the mechanics of "marketing"
  X see if there's anyone out there that likes sushi
  X do not take what you are doing here too seriously
  X try and project some love and respect for the ladies

* My thanks to all of those that allowed me to link up their banner.  I always asked permission first, but not with the ones that were not directly referencing a lady (esp. with such short notice).

* Also, my thanks to all of those folks that gave me ideas and counsel on content and presentation.  I appreciate the indulgences and hope that, in some way, it was fun for you, too (again, with very short notice).

* One observation:  if the last two bullets suggest anything, it's that you do not do stuff like this alone.

Hope that this helps.  Again, many thanks for the reception and have a great Spring 2011.

Your kilty pleasure,

theKilt Off