If someone is thinking of hiring you to speak at their next event, it’s almost guaranteed that they will look at your web site. It will help them determine what your message is, your typical audience and what your likely fee is. First impressions are important – people will assess you based on the quality of your site.

When assessing a speaker’s site, I look for three things:

What do you say about yourself?

I’m looking for clear content that explains your expertise and speaking topics. I’m also looking for videos of previous speeches, links to books you’ve written and a lively blog.

What do others say about you?

If a person has an interactive community, then this give me social proof that your ideas are popular and you can pull a crowd. I’m looking for lots of comments on your blog and followers on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. I also like to read testimonials from your previous speaking events.

How do you show up on search engine and traffic ranking sites?

Once I’ve looked at your web site, I’ll also see how you show up on search engines like Google and Bing. I also check out your Alexa ranking to get a sense of how much traffic you get. I can see how much buzz a speaker is generating, who is talking about you and how many sites you have linking in to you.

Here’s 10 of my favorite speaker web sites. I often use these for inspiration when I’m working on a new client site. It’s helpful to see what others are doing, what common themes emerge, and what speakers are doing to stand out from the crowd.

1. Josh Linkner, Author, VC and Entrepreneur

Josh Linkner

2. Connie Dieken, Transforming Leaders into Influencers

Connie Dieken

3. Seth Godin, Best-selling Author

Seth Godin

4. Simon Sinek, Start With Why

Simon Sinek

5. Jeremy Gutsche, Innovation Expert

Jeremy Gutsche

6. David Meerman Scott, Marketing Strategist

David Meerman Scott

7. Sally Hogshead, How to Fascinate

Sally Hogshead

8. Mark Sanborn, Developing Leaders in Business and in Life

Mark Sanborn

9. Kevin Kelly, Motivational Speaker

Kevin Kelly

10. David Pollay, Keynote speaker and best-selling author

David J. Pollay