Nancy Hendrickson

Above is a famous photo of deserted ships in San Francisco Harbor–left derelict by crews who jumped ship and headed to the gold fields, hoping to make an easy fortune.(Credit: San Francisco and a forest of masts. 1979.90.141. Mystic Seaport)

The general thought was that gold was simply there for the taking, and in fact a favorite parody of the popular ‘O’Susanna’  was:

“I’m goin’ to San Francisco
And then I’ll look around
And pick up all those Lumps of Gold
A ‘layin’ on the ground!”

Seeking El Dorado
More than 90,000 people poured into California in the two years following James Marshall’s discovery–and 300,000 in the next four, with San Francisco growing from a shanty town to a boomtown. The miners called themselves Argonauts, after the mythical men who accompanied Jason in search of the Golden Fleece.

While a few of the early miners did stike it rich, the majority did not; and as rumors of  new strikes sped downstream,  miners whose gold pouches remained empty broke camp and journeyed to what they hoped was the next El Dorado. In the end, it’s estimated  that one in every five miners who came to California in 1849 was dead within six months.

Someone once wrote, “that the young men scrambling their way West left their souls on the plains, alongside with the useless gold digging machines.”

What’s the Analogy?
If the story of the California Gold Rush sounds familiar to you, it’s because it’s being played out on the Internet every day.

Thousands – tens of thousands – pour online in hopes of cashing in on the easy money just waiting to be grabbed. We’ve all seen the sales pitches with claims of “$10,000 for four hours work!” or “make your fortune in two days with our fail-safe system!”

And once entrepreneurs have bought a “fail safe” system that didn’t work, they move  downstream to the next El Dorado - the next Internet guru with something to sell.

The truth is – there is no Internet El Dorado. However, there is a tremendous opportunity for the entrepreneurs who provide value to their customers and clients.

Do you know who made money during the gold rush? The people who sold the gold pans, shovels, picks, and food. The people who supplied the gold camps with the necessities.

As I write this, I think of the generous, talented entrepreneurs I’ve met over the past year who’ve supplied my necessities – like Lou Bortone (the Video Guy), or Leo Babauta who strives to help us simplify our crazy inboxes, or Darren Rowse who offers sane advice on getting the most out of Twitter.  These are the “gurus” worth following – and pay attention to how many RSS feeds you get from these guys that have a “BUY THIS!!!!” message.  Very few.

If you’re asking “So is this a guru-bashing blog post, Nancy?”  The answer is “no”.  This is me taking the long view – and recognizing that there will always be people who want to grab your dollars without returning equal value.  That’s life.

This is about steering your ship to the safe harbors – the places populated with the Internet good guys who care about your success.

In the end, those scammers will end up like the derelict ships in San Francisco Harbor – and their customers will receive about as much value as the miners with empty pouches.  While the Lous and Leos and Darrens of the world end up growing a solid business.

What Next?
A New Year is beginning – - how about making 2009 the year of growing the business that feeds your passion.

Be one of the good guys (and women).

You’ve worked hard to gain the level of knowledge and experience that you have – - so find a way to package it that provides real value to new and existing clients and customers.You won’t believe how well you’ll do with a clear focus, a valuable product or service, and a little grit.

Check back in next January and let me know how you’re doing.

Saw a great post by Tom Chandler about Typealyzer, a site that instantaneously analyzes your blog and pops out a personality type along with a diagram of the parts of your brain used to write your posts.

Want more targeted website traffic? Use my 5-point checklist and see if your site rates as a clunker or a Ferrari. (Scores below)

1. Best Practices
Wikipedia states that best practices are the most efficient and effective way of accomplishing a task, based on procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people. In medicine, if you go into the Emergency Room with chest pain, best practices dictate you’ll receive an electrocardiogram (EKG).

On the web, best practices include adding meta data to your web pages, chunking your information into easy-to-read bites, and adding ALT tags to your images. Are you using unique meta data on each page or are you using the same title on every page throughout the site? Time to go back and start honing that meta data.

SCORING: Give yourself 1 point if your pages have unique meta data, 1 point for ALT tags, and 1 point for info chunking.

2. Clear Value Proposition
Why should I buy from you instead of the guy on the next website? What do you have that compels me to choose you from all others? A clearly-stated value proposition.

Your value proposition differentiates you from your competition, and clearly states how your offering is better than anyone else in the world. You offer three books and a 15 minute consultation. Your competitor offers two books and a 30 minute consultation. It’s up to you to clearly tell me why I should pick you.

SCORING: Give yourself 1 point if you have clearly differentiated yourself from your competition.

3. What’s In It For Me?
The WIIFM mantra never changes. Your website isn’t about you (unless you’re Barack Obama or Michael Phelps!) – - it’s about how the customer will benefit from buying your product or hiring your services.

For example, if you’re selling a new computer system with the fastest processor ever made, what’s in it for me is the ability to run multiple applications at the same time, or play computer games at a faster speed. Does your site focus on client benefits, or you?

SCORING: Give yourself 1 point if site visitors instantly know how it will benefit them to do business with you. Give yourself an extra point if you’re WIIFM is extra clever!

4. Call to Action
I analyzed an author’s website to improve their non-existent book sales. Guess what? There wasn’t any BUY button on the site. Even if you wanted to buy the book, you couldn’t!

Don’t be shy about asking your site visitor to do what you want by stating a clear call to action. Ask them to call you now, e-mail you within the next 24 hours, click to buy, or purchase at today’s discount. Use action verbs, and even if the call to action is obvious to YOU, make sure it’s obvious to your site visitor.

SCORING: Give yourself 1 point for a clear call to action.  Give yourself a bonus point if you put your call to action above the fold.

5. Usability
One of the best books written on usability is titled “Don’t Make Me Think”. That says it all. If your website visitor has to click through five levels of navigation before finding important information, you’ve got usability issues.

Keep your most important items no more than one click down in navigation, and remember – it’s more important to have clear and easy navigation than almost any other factor – - a site visitor who can’t find what they’re looking for because your navigation is fuzzy will never return.

SCORING: Give yourself 1 point if your most important info is at the top level of navigation or one click away.  Take away 3 points if your visitor has to click more than 3 times to find your most important info.

RESULTS:

7-9 Points: Tighten your seatbelt – you’re obviously driving the Ferrari

4-6 Points: Congratulate yourself on the things you’ve done well. Get help to fix the components that are iffy.

2-5 Points: You’re doing something right, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.  Talk to me – let’s see how we can fix you up!

1 or less Points:  Can you say Studebaker?  Please—Call.