Hi! I’m Diana Ratliff, and I’ve been studying how to generate leads and sales online since 1999. Early success with a business card website (getting it to #1 in Google and an appearance on “The CBS Sunday Morning” television show), whetted my interest in learning more.
Since then I’ve studied and tried just about every possible way to make money online, from web design, copywriting, and SEO to affiliate marketing, Adsense, and selling on eBay and Amazon.
I have years of practical experience, and I continue to test new online strategies.
Offering Web Design and SEO to Other Businesses
In 2008 I started offering web design, SEO and online marketing services in Columbia MO. I’d been approached in a parking lot by an attorney friend who asked me if I knew anything about Google.
I said yes, and asked why – he said he kept getting phone calls from a company that specialized in attorney marketing. They told him that his site didn’t rank well in Google.
I took a look at his site and explained WHY he didn’t rank for those terms. Then I asked him if that company told him the search terms he DID rank for, and he said no.
That’s when my desire to become “your friend on the web” crystallized. I am tired of high-pressure tactics from web marketing “experts” who don’t have their clients’ best interests at heart. Many small business owners don’t know what they don’t know about web design, so they’re easily taken in.
That focus on education also led me to start writing the weekly “Web Wise” column for the Columbia Daily Tribune. (Here’s an article about combining traditional and digital advertising.)
For 11 years, I built websites and did SEO for many local and national clients.
Focus Shift to Web and Digital Consulting
Today, it’s easier than ever to build a website (whether you hire someone or do it yourself), but harder than ever to get that website found, and to get site visitors to DO something.
That realization, coupled with a growing desire to share what I’ve learned, led me to shift primarily to consulting. (I have wonderful partners that I refer to as needed for implementation.)
Sometimes it’s an hour-long conversation about why a website isn’t working. Or a conversation with a new business owner about online marketing in general, and what I recommend given their situation.
Sometimes it’s a months-long project to analyze multiple websites for conversion and SEO.
So while I can, and do, design or redesign websites, it’s usually in the context of a larger consulting project. I can even function as a part-time online CMO for a company.
Public Speaking – Conference Presentations
I’m also one of those crazy people who enjoys public speaking, and have presented about online marketing and ecommerce at such conferences as:
- BERNINA University
- The Wild Bird Expo
- eComChicago
- The Proven Conference
Recent Strategies I Recommend
I continue to test software and strategies that generate traffic and income.
I am very excited about the Case Study System I’ve developed. It includes write case studies (success stories), adding them to a website, optimizing them for SEO, and then distributing articles on news sites to get them backlinks and traffic.
This is a phenomenally effective SEO strategy, but it gets better.
It’s a CONVERSION strategy, because case studies PROVE you’re good at what you do. They build trust. So readers are much more likely to contact you.
Contact me for more information!