Website Critique for

Cúile Virtual Administration Services

The first thing I noticed was the nice colour scheme, and also that the website was clearly laid out and easy-to-navigate.

The Home Page:

Cúile Virtual Administration Services  (C-VAS)  is a global business and is owned and run by a professional and capable businesswoman, with extensive experience in working in administration and customer centred environments  .

What's  written there is good because it immediately poses the problem she's offering to solve, i.e. the daily admin taking up too much time.

But I felt it could be phrased a little better, and my version is below. My version is a little bit more accurate – the reader is NOT a business, they’re the owner of a business.

I also upped the ante on the frustration of them taking all this time on these tasks.

Note too that I was totally upfront about her rate (it’s on the rates page anyway) and am very blunt about what it costs them not to hire her. This is very powerful. 

The revised version is below. Note that words in square brackets are links, and where I suggest she links to is in round brackets/italics afterwards.

Are you the owner of a small or start-up business? Do you find that that administration duties take up too much of your time? You know the sort of thing: ringing vendors, sorting out VAT returns and so on. Stuff that needs to be done but which isn’t actively doing your core business and therefore – and most importantly - isn’t bringing in any money.

In other words, do you find that you’re working IN your business rather than ON your business?

If so, I have the solution for you. If you hire me as your Virtual Assistant, I’ll do all those jobs [and many others] (link to list of jobs) for you, and leave you to do the income-generating work. [As you’ll see] (link to rates) I charge only €20 per hour. Is your time worth more than that? Do your income-generating activities bring in more than €20 per hour?

If so, it’s literally costing you money every single time you do €20-per-hour work instead of a what-you’re-worth job. The maths is easy – subtract €20 from your own hourly rate, and that’s what it’s costing you per hour, every hour, that you’re doing your own admin instead of hiring me.

If you agree with me that that just does not make economic sense, then I invite you to read the rest of this website to see what I can do to help you run your business more smoothly and, above all, profitably.

For example, read on to see what exactly a Virtual Assistant can do for you. (Page follows with list of jobs a V.A. can do.)

I then gave advice on tidying up the phrasing of the V.A.'s skills, and then suggested that at the bottom of the page she put her 'Contact Me' link so they could contact her for a 'free consultation to see how I can help you move your business forward.'

I did this because it's much more powerful to say, "See HOW I can help you," than "See IF I can help you," which is what she had originally.

The 'About Me' Page:

Vicky's 'About Me' page was written very firmly in the third person. Even the button linking to it said: About C-VAS. On the page she had two gorgeous images of beautiful Kerry where she lives.

This is the text she had:

Cúile Virtual Administration Services was founded by Veronica (Vicky) O Connor after coming to the realisation that there are many businesses who struggle every day with their daily office administration.

Vicky, who has worked for years in office management dealing with people face-to-face or over the phone, had decided to offer a range of professional secretarial services from a fully equipped home office.

Vicky is based in West Kerry, Ireland, on the most westerly seaboard of Europe. Having settled here over 16 years ago Vicky made a conscious decision that this was where she wanted to live and work. During the intervening years, she has worked in local offices and Guest Houses but wanted secure employment and that was not so easy to come-by in a small, rural, tourist area like West Kerry. She had a decision to make, either commute to the nearest larger towns, over an hours drive each way or move; neither was satisfactory, so she decided to start her own business.

The question was what could she do from home and what was she good at? The first answer was - there are lots of things that could be done from home, then came the latter, what she was good at; she was good at office administration. Hence C-VAS was born. 

My comments about that were as follows:

On your About Us page, I would absolutely lose the two scenery images, beautiful though they are. They don’t add anything to the ‘story’ of what you’re offering. This is the place for your own photo, or at the very least, images of busy and happy offices.

Also, the About Me page isn’t really about you. It’s a subtle thing, in that it’s ostensibly telling them about you, but it’s really telling them how you can help them.

You need to do that. To be blunt, nobody cares about exactly why you’ve done this. All potential customers have their WIIFM blinkers on. I.e. What’s In It For Me. The website’s job is to tell them what’s in it for them.

Also, ALWAYS talk about yourself in the first person, not third. It makes the connection between you and the reader.

So, my revised version was as follows, with comments and notes below.

My name is Vicky [Your surname] and I’m a native of [where?] but I’ve been living in beautiful Kerry for (how many) years.¹ 

I founded Cuile Virtual Administration Services in (when? Put the year if it’s long enough ago to be an asset) when I realised just how many business owners are drowning under the daily drudgery of their office administration². 

As I had worked for years (how many? Again only if it’s loads) in a huge variety of office management roles³, I knew that I could take this burden from them⁴.

With modern technology I knew I could save them the hassle and expense of providing their admin with office space, desks, computers and so on⁵. And I knew that I could save them all the [hassle and expense of having a full-time employee] (link to the list of disadvanteages, including health & safety rules - throw eerything you can think of in here) 

But I also knew I could do this with no loss of productivity for them⁶. 

And so it has proven. All my [happy customers] attest to that⁷. (Make ‘happy customers’ a link to your testimonial page. And definitely get a testimonial page and as many testimonials as you can.) 

And so, I’m delighted to offer you the chance to avail of the same services. [Contact me] for the free consultation etc⁸.  

1. That’s enough personal info for them to relate to you and feel they’re beginning to get to know you.
2. Do you see how I used powerful and emotive words: drowning and drudgery? Ostensibly that sentence was about your motivation for setting up the business, but it's reminding them of why they need you.
3. I put in 'huge variety' of office management roles, to show them that you have wide as well as long experience.
4. Note the emotive language again? We're talking about their burden. It's reminding them of how much you can help them.
5. This reminds them in detail of the disadvantages of having their own staff - and by extension, the advantages of hiring you as a Virtual Assistant.
6. They might be wondering if hiring a V.A. will slow them down - this is assuring them that it won't.
7. Testimonials are proof. They are incredibly powerful. They're what others are saying about you rather than what you say about yourself. Every business needs them.
8. The call to action. You need to tell website visitors what the next logical step is.

Speaking of the call to action, if you'd like me to critique and improve your own website, with the ultimate aim of making it easier for website visitors to become customers, just click here.

Or, if you'd like a website done from scratch, click here for information on that.