Still a long way to go but this was all thanks to Ros' book!

dynamic63

Hi all (and birthday girl),

As a single mum of 1, I was DESPERATE to find a way to work from home and through an internet search some months back found Ros' SA Handbook which I promptly bought. Here's my site I built myself just lauched 2 weeks ago - and already I've had a national women's mag call me for an interview! As you can see there are many things that need 'tweaking' and I'm still having prob's figuring out how to get my forum up and running, but I thought it better to just get it out there rather than wait until everything was perfect. Here's hoping 2006 will be my year!

Anxiously awaiting your feedback! (And a fabulous Christmas to you all 'up' there.)

Jo
www.cleversinglemothers.com.au
"Find your strengths and go for it!"

Rosalind Gardner · Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 2:40 pm Post subject:

Hello Jo,

Glad that I could be of help! and HUGE congrats on the interview. That's awesome!

Your site looks great! I love the big header graphic at the top with the smiling woman. Very welcoming!

I was wondering why you are going just for the Australian audience tho...

dynamic63 · Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 9:55 pm Post subject:

Hi Ros,

Thanks so much for having a look and for your feedback. Regarding appealing to the Australian audience as opposed to a more International spread, I had a look at the competition internationally and thought I didn't really stand a chance! In the US there are SO many mum/single mum(mom) and work from home sites, but here in Australia there are maybe 2-3 at most. So I thought I should focus on my home market and thus have a better chance of capturing a good share of that. Do you think this would be a mistake?

Regards

Jo

Rosalind Gardner · Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:05 pm Post subject:

Hello Jo,

Well, it IS an angle which IS getting you some attention at the moment, so keep going with it.

It would be good to look at how you might be able to use that angle and work it into a BIGGER picture... with a 'what works here will work everywhere' statement.

As you build content and articles with your 'single mum' relevant keywords and attract more attention, you should be able to move your Australian focus 'farther back' on the site, and create a more global site.

My only thought is that I wouldn't want to see you lose subscribers and/or sales for having too narrow a geographic focus... especially in such a LARGE market.

Best of success!

Cheers,
Ros

dynamic63 · Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 6:10 am Post subject:

Thanks Ros, what you say makes perfect sense. I'll work on changing some of the text and perhaps look at creating an 'Australian' section which will kill two birds with one stone. The wisdom/mentoring is VERY much appreciated!

It's already Christmas Day here and we've had a fabulous one with glorious sunny skies, mountains of good food and a refreshing late afternoon swim down at the beach to work off some of the pork crackling from lunch. I may as well have just sticky taped it to my thighs and cut out the middle man!

Thanks again Ros,

Jo

boysbach · Joined: 27 Dec 2005 Posts: 195

Hi Jo

Went to your site and have to say it looks good. If you don't want to focus on the USA market why not try the UK market as well because of our sameness as the Australia market.

One thing I would suggest is you make your links open in a seperate page. I clicked on a link, found it interesting and followed through for quite a few minutes, and then realised I had lost your site. I used the back button but many wont.

Hope that helps

Bev

dynamic63 · Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 9:18 am Post subject:

Thank you Bev! I'm madly trying to grab snippets of time at the moment (school holidays for 5 weeks here so not much child free time!) to read up on SEO as I've just gone into my stat counter and realised that some 90% of visitors were as a result of people having a look at my site via this forum, and one other I belong to with my hosting company. So I'm going to try and spend the next couple of weeks reworking my pages with keywords, trying to get a forum happening, figuring out how to set up a blog and your suggestion - figuring out how to have pages open in the same window. It's no point me having a nice looking site with no visitors!

I am extremely grateful for your feedback, so again, thank you.

Happy New Year and hope it's not too cold over there (I spent two winters in the UK though not as cold as the three I spent in Canada!)

Jo-Anne

Rosalind Gardner · Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:15 pm Post subject:

Hi All,

Sure, Jo mentions that she went for a swim on Christmas Day!!! and I've basically been 'offline' trying to get unfrozen since that day.

Brr.... cold and wet here in Toronto. Just below freezing, but the wet'll cut right through ya.

Glad to hear you've got a great plan going there, Jo.

I wish you the best with it!

Cheers and Happy New Year,
Ros