My Website Journey: A Professional Has to Start Somewhere

Wonderful World of Websites | Website Wonder Woman
My website journey a blonde lady walking along a pink path through a woods

My Website Journey - How it all began

I can easily remember how my website journey began. It was the first time my youngest daughter was ill. She was two years old and had been suffering for a while, so much so that I had to give up work.

I remember sitting there in the house thinking that although I was looking after my daughter, I needed some kind of other stimulation, always having worked part-time. But what could I do from home?

I trawled the Internet looking for something I could do. Envelope stuffing, delivering leaflets, data entry, oh, and the usual 'Earn $5000 overnight by starting your own business' - I wasn't fooled. What I did come across, however, was affiliate marketing. It seemed simple. Set up a website, place some adverts, and there you go - money in the bank.

If at First You Don't succeed...

As you can imagine, it didn't really work that way, and over the next few years, my website journey took many turns. I tried so many different things, even after returning to work part-time. I found it so difficult being away from home and my kids needing me. I've tried network marketing, making my own crafts and personalised chocolates, and running my own blog. I was determined that, from my study of affiliate marketing and websites, whilst I was off work, I could create my own business online.

And so it begins...

In 2009, my website journey took a path in the right direction, and I created my own online business. The blog that I started in 2008, 'Pink Heaven Party Ideas - Party Ideas for Girls', became so popular that I was receiving 40,000 visitors a month globally! So I put my affiliate marketing skills to work and started advertising on the site. The sales started trickling in, but I was making money! Even though it was part-time, I was earning £300 to £400 a month, on top of my part-time job, by writing a couple of blogs and putting some adverts on them.

As my time became less, with family and job commitments, the site started to dwindle, and I was also losing interest.

My website journey - the words 'The Next Chapter' and a book

The Next Chapter...

I had made the site with a template website builder. Despite learning about online businesses, SEO, and website building along the way, I could never get it to look exactly how I wanted it to look! I eventually convinced my husband, who had a background in computers and coding, to write me a website in code that looked exactly like I wanted it to. The problem now was that if I changed my mind or wanted to add anything, I couldn't!! I was also fed up of being told 'what you want just can't be done'. I just don't believe in can't - there has to be a way!!

My Website Journey with WordPress begins!

Fast forward a few years, and some other failed businesses. I won a place on a WordPress course. Now I had heard of WordPress, but I took one look and thought this is not for me, it all seems so complicated - and I've always been quite techy!! But once I started the course, I was hooked; it's the only online course that I have ever finished! It was like finally seeing the light at the end of a dark forest pathway. My website journey had a new direction. I learned so much. So after that, each of my business ideas had a beautiful website to go with it, and with the number of businesses I had, I was building up quite a collection of websites!

Then, in 2013, my love of events and my love of learning led me to start an Events Management degree, which I completed in two years. I loved learning, but the need to run my own business was still there, so I also took extra modules in starting a business, determined that when I graduated, that is exactly what I was going to do.

It didn't quite work out like that, but about a year later, and at the end of my marriage, a local business had come across one of my many business websites and asked me to create one for them. This then got seen by another business, then another, and it kind of snowballed. So, without thinking about it or planning anything, I found myself running my own business. Which was just as well, as I was struggling to hold down any job with my daughter's illness and the constant demands of family life.

My New Business begins to grow

I started off doing anyone's website who asked me and for next to nothing, but the more websites I built, the more skills I developed, and I found that there was a certain type of people who I loved working with - other female entrepreneurs!

My website journey has found the right route! I understood their struggle. I understood their need to be able to run an online business from home so that they could still be there for their family. I understood their need for wanting to provide for their family whilst still having something that was theirs - something that they had built from the ground up.

And I could help them do that by providing them with a website - their businesses debut into the online world - their chance to become a real superhero and have the best of both worlds - work and family!

The cost of building a website - Lisa in a navy stripe dress holding a wand and wearing a crown is sitting in a chair

The Wonderful World of Websites is born

That was back in 2015, and since then, my business has gone from strength to strength, with my events and business management degree enabling me to help them even further.

In 2016, I rebranded from my own name to Website Wonder Woman, and I love how my clients always tell me I really am their Website Wonder Woman. I've made so many connections and friends through running my business. I love going networking, working with clients (who usually hang around way after the website has been finished as we have built up such strong relationships) and using my creativity to bring ideas to life and enabling the women I work with an ability to get their business online, start making the money they deserve and achieving their dreams!

Want to know more about what I can do for you and your business?

Then feel free to contact me, I LOVE to chat!

Help ChatGPT find your website a laptop with a megaphone coming out of the screen

I know that sounds ridiculous, but spend a few minutes browsing small-business websites, and you will see why it matters.

For example: A homepage might say: "Helping you achieve your goals." That's great, but what goals? Who are you helping?

A web visitor might work it out from the logo, photographs and navigation. Machines have less tolerance for ambiguity.

Compare that with: " We provide commercial cleaning services to offices, schools and healthcare businesses across South Wales."

Suddenly, there's much less to decipher. Who are you? A commercial cleaning company. What do you do? Clean commercial premises. Who for? Offices, schools, and healthcare businesses. Where? South Wales.

Clear website copy isn't unsophisticated copy. If you want to help ChatGPT find your website, clarity can be a big advantage.

3. Create Proper Pages for Your Main Services

One mistake I regularly see is businesses trying to squeeze everything they offer onto one service page. Imagine a building company offering extensions, loft conversions, kitchen renovations, and garage conversions. Giving each important service its own useful page creates far more context than mentioning all four in a short bullet list.

A strong page can explain:

  • what the service involves;
  • who it is suitable for;
  • common questions customers ask;
  • the process;
  • relevant experience;
  • examples of completed work;
  • geographical areas covered.

This is not only useful information for potential customers, but also useful for conventional SEO and will help ChatGPT find your website and understand exactly what your business provides.

However, a word of caution. The important word here is useful. Creating 30 near-identical pages simply to target 30 slightly different phrases isn't the answer. Websites are ultimately for people, so create pages because you have something worthwhile to tell them.

4. Answer the Questions Your Customers Really Ask

3d speech bubbles with Q & A in them for Help ChatGPT find your website blog

This is where good blog content becomes particularly valuable and can help ChatGPT find your website.

People often interact with ChatGPT and other AI bots in a conversational way. Rather than searching for something like: "loft conversion Cardiff", they might ask "Do I need planning permission for a loft conversion in Cardiff?" or "Is my house suitable for a loft conversion?". You get my drift.

Think about the questions customers ask you on the phone, in emails, during quotations, or at meetings. Those questions can become extremely useful website content. And don't limit yourself to just obvious FAQs. Some of the best content comes from the questions that require actual expertise to answer: comparisons, costs, pitfalls, misconceptions, alternatives, and situations where one option is better than another. That is where your knowledge becomes valuable. Put that into blogs, and it will help ChatGPT find your website.

5. Don't Just Say You're an Expert - Demonstrate It

Almost every business website claims some variation of: "We pride ourselves on providing a professional, high-quality service." The problem is that anybody can write it. Evidence is much more persuasive.

If you want to help ChatGPT find your website and understand why your business might be a credible source, then you need to give your website substance.

That could include detailed case studies, named authors with relevant experience, customer reviews, original photographs, accreditations, qualifications, awards, research or data you've produced, and genuinely knowledgeable articles/blogs.

A case study saying: We recently completed this project for a client in Newport", isn't particularly informative. Explain the problem. What did the customer need? What did you recommend? Why? What difficulties arose? How did you solve them? What was the outcome?

That is useful information for humans, and it gives search and AI systems considerably more context about your real-world expertise.

6. Make Your Location Clear

Naturally, this is particularly important for local businesses.

If you are an electrician serving customers across South Wales, make that clear on your website. Your address, service areas, and contact details shouldn't require detective work to find.

Your About and Contact pages can reinforce where you are based, while individual service pages can naturally explain areas you cover. However, avoid creating dozens of thin location pages where the only difference is swapping one town name for another, like "Electrician Newport", "Electrician Cardiff", and "Electrician Cwmbran."

That's not useful content. If a location genuinely warrants its own page, give the reader something specific and worthwhile.

7. Build Your Reputation Beyond Your Own Website

Your website doesn't exist in isolation.

If you claim to be a leading expert in your field but nobody else on the internet appears to know you exist, that's not a particularly convincing signal. Therefore, I want you to think about your wider digital footprint.

Are you listed accurately on relevant professional or industry websites? Have local publications mentioned your business? Do reputable websites link to you? Are there genuine customer reviews? Have you contributed expert comments or guest articles elsewhere?

You see, digital PR, quality guest blogging, and traditional link building still have a place. However, the aim shouldn't be to scatter links across hundreds of low-quality websites to help ChatGPT find your website. On the contrary, it's to build a recognisable business with a credible online presence.

8. Write Content Worth Citing

Graphic woman sat at a computer with pages of content coming out of it

This may be one of the biggest opportunities created by AI search.

If everybody writes a generic article called "10 benefits of X", then there is very little reason for any search or AI system to favour yours above the others. To help ChatGPT find your website, you need to give it something better:

Share your experience.

    • Explain what customers commonly get wrong.
    • Compare two approaches and say when you'd choose each one.
    • Publish original examples.
    • Answer awkward questions.
    • Discuss pricing honestly where possible.
    • Challenge a commonly repeated piece of industry advice if you disagree with it – and explain why.

The internet doesn't desperately need another 800-word blog saying the same thing as the previous 100 ones. What it does need are people who actually know their subject sharing information that isn't available everywhere else. Tricky, yes. Impossible, no.

9. Don't Forget Traditional SEO

As I mentioned right at the beginning of this article, trying to help ChatGPT find your website doesn't mean forgetting Google and other search engines. In fact, as I'm sure you've realised by now, many of the fundamentals overlap.

You still need a technically sound, crawlable website with logical navigation, descriptive page titles, useful headings, strong internal links and well-written pages focused on genuine customer needs. Ultimately, your content should make sense to a person first; I always stress this to my clients. There is little to be gained by contorting every single paragraph into something you imagine AI or search engines want to read.

Cater for your customer. Ensure your website clearly explains who you are, what you do, where you operate, and why you know what you're talking about. That's what they need to know, and by doing that you are already building a much stronger foundation for both traditional and AI-driven searches.

Help ChatGPT Find Your Website - But Write For People

Help ChatGPT find your website a 3d graphic of a person in front of a laptop with books and text

AI is changing how people discover information online, but that doesn't mean websites suddenly need to be written for robots. Quite the opposite. After all, humans, your potential customers, are asking ChatGPT the questions. So, if you want to help ChatGPT find your website, you must make it clear, informative, and more authoritative for the people you're trying to reach.

Follow the guidance listed above. None of it is particularly technical (save point 1); it is simply about making sure you have good website content. The difference is that today, a well-written website isn't only helping a potential customer decide whether to contact you; it may also help ChatGPT find your website and decide whether or not to list it in response to a query, ultimately driving fresh traffic your way.

If you would like help reviewing your website content, or creating quality blogs that appeal to both humans and bots, please do not hesitate to get in touch. My name is Heather, and I'm The Content Creator.

Heather the Content Creator A lady with blonde hair in a bob, smiling, wearing a black top

A bit about the author

Heather founded The Content Creator nearly three years ago, combining her love of writing with a genuine passion for helping small businesses and solopreneurs get seen online. She supports her clients with everything from website copy and SEO to AI search visibility, newsletters and social media, taking the stress out of creating content that not only sounds like them, but helps their business grow.

If you need a helping hand with any of these areas, Heather is your go-to girl! We can speak from experience, too, because she works on our own website, helping us keep up with the ever-changing world of SEO and AI search and making sure our content continues to work hard for our business.

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