The following is an excerpt from instructional materials for Donna’s online writing seminar on creating content for your website. See the course description and registration information at http://www.moonmavenpublications.com/

writingseminar.html 

If you’re creating a website or brochure to showcase your work, quotes from people you’ve helped can add a great deal to your marketing efforts, but they need to have credibility, integrity—and class. Rather than raving about how awesome you are, a good testimonial mentions specific ways that the work you did together addressed the client’s needs. Quotes that convince website visitors of your worth are ones that demonstrate your gifts by providing details. 

A rule that students in most writing courses hear is, “Show, don’t tell.” Let that time-tested rule guide you in creating web pages that showcase your work by providing a convincing picture of you in action. Choose client stories that let the visitor see what you do in a typical session and what it’s like to work with you.

How would you apply these principles to a website for your own practice? Suppose you’re a psychologically-oriented astrologer/healer who’s gifted at helping women sort out issues from a toxic relationship with their mothers. Your services page explains: 

“I start with comparisons between the woman’s chart and her mother’s, and of course I also look at the woman’s Moon. Drawing on the deep insights these astrological factors provide, the client and I begin a series of sessions working with flower essences, guided imagery, and other healing tools to speed the release of old wounds and behavior patterns that relate to that early and crucial relationship.”  

Naturally, you’d provide educational material elsewhere on the site about the healing methods you use, but since the tools you’re using aren’t exactly mainstream, this would be a good place to insert a testimonial or two: 

“I wanted to say how much our sessions together have helped me. The chart comparison gave me so much insight into my mother as a person and why she is so critical. It’s enabled me to be more detached about the things she does, but what helps even more are the guided meditations we put on tape. Now when my mother comes at me with her mean-spirited comments, I put up my bubble of light, and it deflects them.”

Or, suppose that your astrology website contains an article about transits and how they work with the natal chart to clarify current conditions and life challenges and to serve as a catalyst for change. Add quotes like this one to give the potential client a picture of what it’s like to have a session with you: 

“When we used my chart to understand the trouble I’m having with my boss, it was a major breakthrough. You showed me how I was reliving my relationship with my father and viewing everything my boss did in the light of that history. I see now that the pattern of placating people in authority is a big reason why I’ve wound up being taken advantage in every job I’ve had. What you said about how to use the current transits to my chart to change that pattern has given me the guidance I needed. I’m so glad I came to you!

As with any good design project, aim for quality not quantity. Weave a few pithy, pertinent paeans of praise into descriptions of your services. That’s far more impressive—and more credible—than a separate page of blowsy, bloated, blurry blurbs with no context or details to back up the claims. A good testimonial placed next to a description of the methods you use is also educational for website visitors. It helps them understand the growth process that a user of your kind of service typically experiences.    

About the Author:  Long one of astrology’s most prolific authors, Donna’s current focus is on sharing her writing methods and experience—and her enthusiasm for the writing process—with professionals in the astrological and metaphysical fields. Donna has also edited metaphysical journals since 1984, including ten years of Vibration Magazine, the free online educational quarterly about flower essences. As an editor, her special joy has been to seek out gifted practitioners of the metaphysical arts and guide them in writing about their experiences. She is teaching writing seminars at the Online College of Astrology—a basic writing class and a class on how to create content for a web page, including two courses for Fall, 2008. For more information or to register, visit her website at www.moonmavenpublications.com/writingseminar.htm