The Importance of an Eating Disorder Website

If you have suffered from an eating disorder, you have a wealth of valuable personal experience that you can share with others. You see, the pain and suffering you went through can be turned to a good purpose – to educate others and let them know they are not alone. Your website can be an extension of your personality, especially if you blog truthfully about your experiences. Others with eating disorders, whether they admit having them or not, will be able to identify with your experiences and might be more open to treatment because of your site.

So how do you get started? Here are some simple tasks that will get your new website rolling:

1. Design: You can start with a WordPress website, as they are free, easy to customize, and a favorite of bloggers. WordPress automatically separates blogs from regular content, making it easy to include both in your design. Set up moderated comments so that you can approve or disapprove comments as they come in. You can also start a forum to make it easy for your visitors to make their opinions known.
2. Content: The most important content will be your blog. Try to blog at least weekly, and don't be afraid to reveal the intimate details of your disorder. The more personal you make it, the more it will help others. Not a good writer? Work with a freelance writer to help you put your content together and make sure it is well-edited. You need to ensure perfect grammar, spelling and English usage in order to have a website that garners the respect of others. Remember to put keywords onto each page so that search engines can correctly index your website. It also makes sense to include links to important eating-disorder resources on the web, such as the Anna Westin foundation.
3. Backlinks: To have the most impact on others, you want your website to rank well in search engine results, hopefully appearing on Page One. The most effective way to improve your search results is to arrange for backlinks from authoritative websites to yours. An authoritative website is one with a Page Rank of four or higher. These backlinks can raise your Page Rank if they emanate from a website of related subject matter and arise from the main body of the web page, not the footer or sidebar. You can check backlinks with an online tool that will list all backlinks to a website. Use this to see if you have enough good-quality backlinks.

Follow these easy steps and you will be well on your way to helping others fight the debilitating effects of eating disorders.

How to Donate

Drew & Anna

The outrage at Anna's death and the outpouring of community support has led Anna's family to establish The Anna Westin Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed to help others suffering directly or indirectly from eating disorders, and to provide education and information designed to prevent the development of anorexia and bulimia.

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The Anna Westin Foundation - PO Box 268 - Chaska, MN 55318