Kate wrote to us about her new book and website. We love the creative title, but want to make sure people know this is a book about working from home. –The Editors.
“We’re building out our site in anticipation of the release of our book, Undress For Success–The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home (Wiley, 2009). We have 650 inbound links including some from esteemed .edu and .org sites. We’ve had great media coverage) and anticipate a new round in the next month or so as a result of new data we’ll be releasing to coincide with the book launch, Wiley’s marketing, and our own book launch PR.
160 bloggers representing over 10 million viewers have agreed to review and/or help promote the book. Early review from some of the most respected names in the business are great. We’re currently in the process of a site redesign and need help building traffic and monetizing it. We’ll also be releasing our own eBook “Finding Money–Secrets of a Former Banker” (formerly a John Wiley & Sons book that we’re updating) at about the same time. We’d like to add affiliates to help sell that book.
We’re in the process of redesigning our web site. We need help monetizing the web site, building traffic, optimizing the site for better search engine ranking, and marketing an affiliate program for Finding Money.”
-Kate Lister, co-founder
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
While I really, really like the resources captured in this site, it took me a while to “get it” upon landing on the home page. When I consider the owner request, or our rescue mission, and how the site presents the business solution, I can see that there’s a great product (or service) here but it needs two things:
1. A clear mission and statement of sustainable competitive advantage as the basis for guiding and structuring the information/site and value to the customer.
2. A cleaner home page design.
Mission and Competitive Advantage
The owner’s request (our mission) is around wanting site traffic and affiliate production. The home page states that the site provides “work from home – resources and advice” – I work from home and can use both. As I ramble through the site there are great resources, though many of them can be found elsewhere. There is advice in the blog, but the advice is often more the raw information spread through the site – what good advice I find isn’t structured like I would expect. It would be nice to see the areas of support framed as a set of logical benefits for the home-based worker – much like I suspect that the companion book may be structured. If you know exactly what you want to find, though, this site can produce it. “Advice” though, is a bit tougher to deliver on as the site/business is currently structured. At least advice that I can’t find somewhere else, thus the challenge in delivering on a sustainable competitive advantage.
Cleaner Home Page Design
The straightforward main navigation is buried in the clutter of the rest of the home page. This made it particularly difficult for me to focus on what this site can do for me. Due to the whimsical title I’d like to see the landing/home page deliver quickly to the serious business person so that they don’t think they’ve landed on a site that teaches one how to earn money by undressing!
In summary, I am sure I missed some things in my cursory examination, but as one working from home that would never spend this much time on a site I came across outside of the SRT, I think my investment of time was likely a bit beyond the core target’s threshold.
Kudo’s to the publisher and business owner for a great concept – let’s take it to another level so it’s around in five years.
Hi Kate,
Thanks for the opportunity to comment. Publishing is outside of my immediate area of expertise but having read the brief it appears that you have most things under control!
I wish you every success with Undress 4 Success.
Andrew Sayers
Acquire Business Consulting
ats@acquirebusiness.net
http://www.acquirebusiness.net
+44 7789 386 990
Kate,
I’m with Jeff Walters. The site and biz and book have a great concept, but the design distracts a bit.
I love that you have the media/press mentions front and center, but can you draw more attention to it somehow? With a book and site like yours, in order to clarify the value, I think you could immediately make it clear by simply sharing the quotes (in a rotating banner, perhaps) from some very prominent media players. Kudos to you for making all that happen and writing a book and resource that gets those players to pay attention. No easy feat. Kudos again.
Twitter and Facebook are linked from your bio. That’s good. Obviously you are super busy promoting the book, but when the dust settles, I think you have a huge opportunity with both of those services.
Let’s chat more about this and get your thoughts and then rally back to the team and see what new stuff we can add in here before I blog and tweet about it elsewhere.