Part Three in the “reworking my blog” series

Remember? I got my site reviewed by Men with Pens and promised to share all the neat stuff I learned with YOU.

Including what I’m taking from their useful advice, what parts I’m ignoring (even though maybe I shouldn’t), and why.

Just so we’re all clear … caveats, etc.

Remember how last time there was a bit of hullaballoo vocal discussion in the comments?

Well, even more landed in my inbox, and a couple of people who didn’t participate in the comments discussion didn’t realize that the advice I got from these lovely men (with pens!) was not completely random and unsolicited.

So I just wanted to say for the record:

1. Solicited? Hell, yeah. I went and asked Men With Pens for this advice.
2. In fact, I paid them for it. Not much, admittedly. $30 is an absurdly low fee to get professionals to review your website, but it was a transaction all the same, one you can take advantage of too.
3. It is completely clear to me that I don’t have to take any of their smart advice — and that they knew I wouldn’t feel obliged to actually listen to them if I didn’t feel like it.

Alright. Boring part over. Let’s talk about my website and — by extension — yours, and the extremely sexy important theme of navigation.

Talking about navigation …

This is actually the main reason I dropped $30 on their drive-by shoot-up-your-website thing.

I have a tormented and passionate relationship (well, let’s say “love-hate with the emphasis on love”) with website navigation. Specifically with what to name the different pages on my site.

Yes, this is another post about wordishness. I can’t help it. Words make me happy. Or, depending on how they’re used, drive me nuts.

And so I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what to call things and why.

For some reason, this is fun for me.

You’ll notice that there are eight little links in the navigation bar up top. Men with Pens zeroed in precisely on the ones I was most unsure about. Keep in mind that I’ve made some changes since their review, some based on their suggestions and others not … but that’s not the point.

The point is that there are certain parts of the navigation that I feel 100% about, and others that were meh — and Men With Pens immediately picked up on that.

Awesome. Great minds and all that.

Basically they don’t like the ones that I don’t like, and — here’s where it gets interesting — for entirely different reasons.

Sometimes their reasons are better than mine — and sometimes their reasons help me understand more about my reasons.

Let’s start with the something we definitely do agree on.

Men with Pens:

The navigation titles aren’t clear enough to the average visitor happening by your blog.

This is probably true. In fact, I’m sure it is.

I mean, it’s true for almost every website I’ve ever been on, and no matter what you do, there are always going to be people who just don’t get it. But you do want as many people as possible to get it.

Especially the people who are your right clients — the ones you most want to help.

Figuring out how to speak to those right people in the navigation is one of the things that anyone building a website agonizes over — and then constantly tweaks.

My navigation titles have changed more often than anything else on my site in the past three years. Some for the better, some still not sure about. So yay! Bring it on.

Issue #1: “Is this you?”

“Is this you?”… Well, yes, this is me. What of it? I have no incentive to click through and I’m not sure what I’ll read if I do.

Okay, this was actually cramp-inducingly funny for me, because it was a big gigantic lightbulb moment of the kind every business owner absolutely needs. This thing called “perspective” is the weirdest, coolest thing ever.

Let me explain. In the world I come from (self-help-ey, yoga-ey, coach-ey work-on-your-stuff stuff), everyone says “Is this you?” on their websites. I can think of fifteen sites just off the top of my head that do this.

Saying “Is this you?” is so completely de rigeuer where I come from that it didn’t even occur to me that this isn’t at all true outside of those places.

In fact, I was completely expecting James and Harry to have issues with “Is this you?”. It’s just that what I was imagining that what they’d say was this:

[In my head, yes? Not in real life!]

“Come on, do you really have to be a boring blah-blah-freakity-blah cliche like everyone else?”

Huh? At first I didn’t even understand what they were getting at, but then I took a step back — oh, right. We don’t swim in the same pool. Men with Pens don’t hang out in the version of the online world that I hang out in. And really, why would they?

Oh, is there anything better than the realization (again!) that the world is so much bigger and full of possibility than the slice of it you happen to inhabit?

So: “Is this you” is standard formula in my industry. Do I like it? Meh. Not married to it. Am I going to change it?

Well, I’ve been trying “Might be you?”, but just not digging it. “Sound like you?” is kind of a big silent screw-you to anyone who is visually oriented, which is most people and also everyone I know.

Yeah. I don’t know what to call it. I do know that this page (and its place in the navigation) has two functions:

The first thing is to make it extra-clear exactly what kind of people my work is for. It’s my red velvet rope, to use a Michael Port-ism.

The second function is to give me a place to send people when they think they want to work with me but actually they don’t. Because when you’re a consultant people will sometimes just call you up and want to give you their money.

Doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens. And sometimes these are people who are just not a good fit for your business. Instead of having to have a time-wasting “get to know each other” initial consultation, you just point them back to your “Is this you?” page — and they figure it out.

I love this page (hey, wanna read it?). I’m absolutely willing to call it something else that will fill the same function, but in a way, this is the most important page on the site.

Open to suggestions!

Issue #2: “Working together”

“Working Together” also isn’t clear, and “How I Work With You” may be a better choice. “How We Work Together” is another alternative.

Done! Changed to “How we work together”. Thank you. That was super helpful and answered a big silent question of mine.

Love it.

Issue #3: “Get stuff”

Men with Pens were not crazy about the “Get stuff” category. And they have a point.

[Note: this is the section that (as of this writing) is called The “Store”.]

“Get Stuff.” What stuff? What is stuff? Clear that up again. “Free Goodies” might be a better choice (if the goodies are indeed, free). Everyone knows what that means.

“Get Stuff” also comes off as flat instead of lighthearted. “Free Stuff” is another choice.

Okay, this clearly isn’t clear. I was trying to be light-hearted. I was not trying to imply free stuff. This site is full of free stuff, but not there. In fact, it’s the one place that isn’t all free stuff.

Basically what I want is a word for “products” that isn’t products.

Because I hate the word products. It’s so sterile and cold and yuck. Pretty much all my associations are negative: factories, warehouses, executive suites, not to mention: more plastic junk the world doesn’t need …

Store? The word “store” is also annoying. Plus I think the shopping metaphor and associated terminology (“add to cart“, etc.) never translated well to the internet because buying something online is such a different experience than real-world “shopping”.

Yes, I’m aware that this ship has already sailed.

Still, it seems stupid to call something a store that has like, three items in it.

Tried calling it “resources”. Too vague.

Tried using “booth” for a while about a year ago but no one got it, obviously. Yes, I get that being clever is never a good idea. But I also don’t want to be lame. And “store” and “products” are kinda lame.

This is not about ‘improving sales”. Sales are fine. There is always room for improvement — such is the nature of business — but I’m certainly not complaining.

Yes, two people have written to me to say they couldn’t find my products, but coincidentally these were also two people who wanted me to consider switching to their shopping cart system. Grain of salt, yes?

I talked this over with the usual suspects (colleagues who do web consulting and copywriting) and they all said the same thing which was: “Whatever. ‘Stuff’ works for your audience, and you use it consistently. It’s the vernacular of what you do.”

But I’ve done some hard thinking.

And I really do want to be as clear as possible that hey, if you’re already looking for the place where you get to buy useful things that let you take this work home with you, here it is.

So … for now it’s the “store“. With what would be “airquotes” if we were “speaking”. (If that didn’t make you laugh, you need to spend more time at the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks.)

And just so you know, in the “store” you’ll find my Emergency Calming Techniques package, the Procrastination Dissolve-o-Matic, a Starter Kit for hard-core yoga brain training work, and some amusing commentary from me.

I’ll be creating more good stuff for the “store” as time goes by, though I doubt there will ever be so many things there that it will lose its “quotation marks”.

Issue #4: “Habits blog”

And the last bit of navigation I was unsure about was the link to the blog.

Lastly, “Habits Blog” could use another title too. “Good Habits Blog” might be a better choice, as habits in themselves have a negative connotation and association.

This was interesting — and a good idea. I just don’t want to use it.

And here’s where I can finally draw on expertise rather than gut feeling, because now we’re completely in my area (habits) and not their area (websites).

There is no such thing as a good habit. I teach about how habits work and how to rewrite them, but I don’t teach about “good habits“. As far as I’m concerned they aren’t ever good or bad.

This is really a theme that deserves its own post, but let me just note that any habit that is unconscious and automatic, even if it’s a “healthy” one, needs some love and attention. I also have no interest in helping people kick their habits (ow!).

It’s not about good habits. There are no good habits. It’s about making the patterns behind your habits conscious so you can shift them when you want to.

I don’t know how to say all that in one word. Hence: habits blog. Yeah?

Bottom line: I don’t like “Good Habits Blog” one bit, but I do get that Men With Pens have a valid point about not confusing people.

Luckily, this is now a non-issue, thanks to a technical quirk. Having changed “Working together” to “How we work together”, there isn’t any room up there to qualify the blog. Which is fine. Blog it is.

The Men With Pens mantra: “Be clear, never be clever.”

I’m working on it.

It’s not that I want to be clever so much as that I want to be a. personable (in a real-live Betty Boop way) and b. not annoying.

These suggestions from our Men with Pens have given me lots of nutritious food for thought, and I will absolutely let you know where I go with this.

But for now … ideas? Suggestions?

A way to say “Is this you?” that’s clear and non-cliche? What about the “store”? Do I need to rename the blog or does it work as is?

And yes, I will feel as free to consider and then maybe ignore your wonderful, well-intentioned, thoughtful, insightful advice as I did with that of Men With Pens. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the hell out of it, because I do.

Feedback: totally welcome and appreciated.