We all know how important it is to make a good first impression.  Whether its meeting a new client for the first time, going for a job interview, or meeting your partner’s family, you only have between 5 – 15 seconds to ‘win them over’.  We all make an extra effort to be friendly, welcoming and to look the part, after all (as the saying goes) you never get a second chance to make a good first impression – right?

But what if you are a Virtual Assistant or your business provides a virtual service?  You might not necessarily get to meet potential clients so how do you create the all important first impression?  The chances are that your clients approach you after hearing good things about your services from others who may have used you before, or know you from networking events.

On the other hand, depending on how you’re marketing yourself, it may be that someone comes across your website and likes what they see.  If this is the case then your website needs to make as good a first impression as you do when meeting someone for the first time.  Your website has to look professional, easy on the eye, user-friendly, and have all the information at hand for the visitor.  There are some very useful tips here on how to get your website to make a good first impression.

From my own point of view there is 1 thing that guarantees I will click off a website:-

Poor Spelling / Grammar – I struggle to see why websites have spelling mistakes.  Whilst I understand that English is a complex language and some people do have difficulty spelling, there are plenty of tools / spell checks available nowadays to help avoid errors of this nature.  Whilst carrying out research before deciding to become a Virtual Assistant, I visited quite a number of websites offering administrative and proofreading services – what amazed me was the number of spelling mistakes I found.  How can you advertise your admin services when you obviously haven’t proofread your own work?  It would be like a car valeting company turning up in a  disgusting dirty vehicle – they may do a good job on your car but they’re not advertising themselves very well (not sure why I’ve used car valeting as an example! ;))

The most common error I found on websites was the correct use of there / their / they’re.  If in doubt use the spell check – just make sure you have the dictionary set to the correct language i.e. Irish (UK), not US (unless you’re in the US of course!)

Right, I’ve got off my soap box now – time for a fun test 🙂

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aeappr, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are in the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a cmolpete mses and sitll be raed wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Remember, you may not get a second chance to make a good first impression once a potential client has clicked off your website!