Website Scorecard
Hi Theresa — my name’s David, and I build websites for coaches, consultants and other experts. I’ve been running a handful of expert websites against my own rubric lately, partly to see how well the rubric itself holds up, and yours was one of them. The things I look at come from a framework I wrote a book about, and it’s the same checklist I’d run on my own site. Here’s what I found — I hope some of it is useful to you.
What's already working
- The section just below your opening — “At 2 a.m. the voices show up” — walks through those worries and then lands on “Six voices. One decision. And no clear way to hear them all at once.” That’s your visitor’s own thinking handed back to them, which is a hard thing to write and it’s working here.
- Your Three Paths section doesn’t just name your offers, it names who each one is for. Your Advisory column opens with “For thought leaders, founders, service providers and executives in transition,” which means a visitor sorts themselves quickly instead of reading every column and guessing.
- Peri Shawn’s quote near the bottom carries her full name, her title, and the organizations she’s attached to — and the quote itself says what the investment was rather than only saying you’re wonderful. The strongest line is set apart from the rest, so a reader who’s skimming still gets it.
The eight things I look at
Your homepage ends on your press rather than an invitation
This is a small one, and the reason I’m confident about it is that you’ve already solved it everywhere else on the site. Your Advisory page closes with “Let’s start with one clear decision,” and your Frameworks page closes with “Ready for cocktail napkin clarity?” — each followed by the same reassuring line about no pressure and no pitch. Even your Reviews page ends by asking for a conversation.
Your homepage ends somewhere different. The last thing before the footer is “Where I’ve been Seen, Heard, & Read,” with your press features and a button through to your media page. It’s a strong section and it earns its place on the page. But it’s currently sitting in the closing slot, which means the reader who has gone all the way down — past the voices at 2 a.m., past Peri’s quote — is the warmest person on your site, and the last thing you hand them is a way to go read Forbes.
It can be tempting to treat proof as a closer, because it feels like the strongest note to end on. But proof answers whether your reader can trust you, and by the bottom of your homepage they’ve usually answered that already. What they’re holding at that point is a different question, and it’s the one every other page on your site answers for them: what do they do next?
One thing you could fix this week
I’d add one short section to the bottom of your homepage, just underneath your press features — and I wouldn’t write anything new for it, because you’ve already written it. Your Advisory page closes like this:
“Let’s start with one clear decision.
Not sure which step is right? Start with a conversation. We will know quickly whether there is a bigger journey worth taking together.
[ Book a Clarity Session ]
No pressure, no pitch, just clarity.”
That works on the homepage almost as-is. The one line I’d change is the opening, since a homepage reader might have arrived for speaking rather than advisory — something like “Whichever path is yours, it starts the same way” covers every column of your Three Paths and still lands on the same button.
It’s a copy-and-paste job rather than a writing job, and your press section keeps its place on the page — it just stops being the last word.
Your site is in genuinely good shape, and that closing section is the only thing I’d change about the homepage.
If you’d ever like to talk any of this through, I offer a free twenty-minute call — there’s no obligation, and I’m happy to simply answer questions.
