Make A Great First Impression
When potential customers visit your web page, you want to make a great first impression. The following suggestions could improve your page and mean the difference between being passed over or booking an appointment. These tips may also increase traffic directly to your page from Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines.
You may want to prepare some sections in a word processing program such as Word. (Download the Edit My Web Page Worksheet.) Edit and spell check in Word until you have exactly the verbiage you want. Then “cut and paste” to enter text into the appropriate sections. THIS IS IMPORTANT! If you have errors on your page, a potential customer may interpret that as sloppy and a lack of attention to detail. That is not the impression you want to leave with a visitor to your page.
Another consideration: On your Member Account page, you can convert your page to a pdf format and print it out, so think about how you want your flyer to look and what information you want included.
Do a local search on our home page—5 or 10-mile radius zip search or city search—to check out the competition. (It may be friendly but it’s still competition!) What do you need to do to create a better page?
Username: Your Username is visible to the public as part of your web address: www.GoGetNotary.com/Get/USERNAME. Choose something that represents your business or use your name, such as AZNotary or LoriMartinNotary. Please, no “HotMama” or “No1Dad.” This is your business! Tip: When you sign up, enter your username in all lower case letters, lorimartinnotary. Use upper and lower case in your marketing: LoriMartinNotary. (If you want one of our programmers to change your Username, the fee is $15. Call us during our business hours with your new username and credit card info.)
Title: Think of your title as keywords for a search. Use a title that customers might enter into a Google, Yahoo or MSN search, such as Notary Public, Mobile Notary, Notary Signing Agent, etc. They won’t search for Owner, Sole Proprietor, Manager…
Company Name: If you don’t have a company name, you could enter your city, state OR a county plus the word notary. This shows up at the very top of your brower on the right in the title of your page and can help in Google searches.
Address: IMPORTANT: If you don’t enter an address in this section, you WILL NOT SHOW UP in searches at GoGetNotary. If you’re concerned about privacy, enter just your city, state and zip. (The Delivery address does NOT show up in GoGetNotary search results.)
Delivery Address: Keep it simple. If it’s the same as your primary address, you can leave it blank or just type in “Same as above.”
Email Address: Make it professional. I-Love-Poodles@whatzit.com does not work for business. You can get a free email account at Google or Yahoo, so create an appropriate business email account before you begin marketing your services. IMPORTANT: We contact you through your private email address which may be different from your web page info. To change your private email address, log in and locate My Private Profile on your Member Account page. Click on Change Password / Email Address and change your info. We do not change anything on your web page or your private information section for you.
Company Website: If you have your own fully developed and informational website, this is the place to link to it. However, if you’re linking to a listing in a notary directory or to a simple website, think twice. Does the other location truly have more information than your GoGetNotary web page? Will it sell your services better than your GoGetNotary web page? If not, why divert prospects from your page? Complete your information here, then compare it to the other location to see if adding a link makes sense. I’ve seen members link to a basic contact listing in another notary directory or worse, to a directory’s home page which invites customer to search for someone else! I’ve seen members link to simple 4 or 5 page websites which have the same info as their GoGetNotary web page but it’s split up on multiple pages. The customer doesn’t learn any more and they’ve wasted their time. So put yourself in the customer’s shoes before you link to another location. Also, do not post a link in this section to your GoGetNotary page since it won’t take the visitor anywhere. Clicking on it will do nothing and they will think the link is broken.
Service Area: List cities AND counties where you provide service. If you just list counties, the only city you’ll show up for in a Google search is the one in your main address. Again, think of these as keywords that a customer might use in a Google, Yahoo or MSN search. Include zip codes, too, no more than 20 or so, because you want your page to be attractive; imagine how a long list of zips will look if you print your page to use as a flyer.
Additional: Write this in third person and use your first name (or nickname) and last name, such as “Lori Martin is”… NOT “I am”… Why? Keywords (your name) and writing in third person can have more credibility. When you read a brochure created by a professional advertising firm, it rarely says “I” because it’s hard to say how wonderful you are without boasting. Let someone else say it.
Don’t over use your name. Start the section information with your first and last name but don’t use both names again in that section; switch to just your first name and pronouns, he, she, him, her… Read your page as a complete unit to make sure you’re not over using your name. While your first and last name are good keywords, you don’t want to ruin the flow of your page by over doing it.
Tip: How to insert a line break? If you want to have text break to the next line or break two lines for a separate paragraph, you CANNOT simply hit Enter or Return. You have to add a bit of html code. (Yes, you, adding code!) Type in this code at the end of the line to force one line break: <br /> and type this to force two line breaks: <br /> <br />
(That’s the less-than sign, br, space, slash, more-than sign.)
Hours: Having very restricted hours or a complicated description here can cost you business. If you’re not available 24/7, network with someone who is. You can always say you’re not available when you get a call but be ready with a referral to another notary you trust. If you keep telling a company “no,” without giving them a backup in your place, they’ll stop calling you.
Experience: Start with your full name again and write in third person: Lori Martin has… To add a personal touch in this section, you could include a quote, such as: Lori says, “Signing important documents can be stressful, so I take time to put my customers at ease.” Keep keywords in mind and include the term Notary Public, Notary Signing Agent, Loan Signing Agent, etc., whatever you used as your title.
Certifications and Awards: Not certified? Background screened? If you did the local search as suggested above, you know which certifications other notaries in your area have earned. Certifications may not be required by law, but if your competition is impressing potential customers with what they’ve invested in their careers and you’re not, you may be left behind. What do you need to do to improve your chances of being chosen by a prospective customer?
Associations: Belonging to industry associations offers more than a community, training and networking, this is another area that may be seen as an indication of your level of professionalism. (You can post logos for associations later.)
Testimonials: This is the least used section and the one that carries the most credibility. Signing, mortgage, escrow and title companies tell us to explain to our members how important these mini-references are. Your page is not complete without testimonials. Please take time to add some quotes as you acquire them.
Tip: How to get customer testimonials: Don’t wait for testimonials. Contact your best customers and say you’d like to have a testimonial to use in your marketing. It they agree, ask them how they would describe your service. Take notes. Say you’ll edit their comments and email or call them with a draft version. Some customers may tell you to write the testimonial yourself which is even better because it will allow you to feature unique aspects of your service. Just be sure they approve the final version before you begin using it and find out how they want to be identified: their first name only, initials only, first initial/last name, first name/last initial, plus company, city/state.
Post Your Photo: This seems to be every member’s least favorite section; however, your photo could make customers more comfortable calling you. A photo doesn’t have to be taken by a professional but should reflect professionalism. Dress in business attire and have a friend take a “close-up” of you in front of a plain background. Voila! A photo suitable for your web page. Post it yourself by selecting the “Upload my photo, logo…” on your Member Account page or email it to us as an attachment.
Post Optional Association Logos: Select “Upload my photo, logo…” on your Member Account page. Check the box next to logos of your associations, certifications and select Update at the bottom of the page.
Update, update, update! Mark your calendar to review your page on a regular basis, at least every other month. Do a 10-mile zip code search on our home page to review profiles of new notaries in your area. Continue improving your web page and make sure your contact information is current.
You don’t have to follow any of these tips, of course, but members who spend time improving their “virtual brochure” web page are more likely to receive new business through GoGetNotary. Make your web page the best it can be and a solid foundation for all your marketing efforts.
For samples of member pages: Notary Sample Pages.
Additional tips on making the most of your web page: Your Own Domain Name, “Increase Your Notary Business”, and Internet Tips.
For places online to post more “needles in the Internet haystack”: Notary Directories.
Download this form to keep track of sites where you’ve posted your info. You’ll need it to track where business is coming from and for easy reference when you’re updating your info online. Notary Web Tracking Chart
For a list of signing and title companies: Signing Company Directory.
NOTE: Your membership is set to RENEW AUTOMATICALLY. If you do not want this feature, visit our FAQ page to cancel this arrangement. If you cancel the automatic feature and do not renew on time, your page will be removed and cannot be recovered.