Good article...and having just been through the process myself with my daughter ( and she is finally committed!!) , I can not stress enough the earlier the better. Her club coaches unfortunately weren't much help in all this but I think they need to be because the recruiting world can be very scary and cut throat. I think they felt that because my daughter had been a Level 10 for several years and done well at JO Nationals many times, that their assistance wasn't necessary but it definitely would have been easier with their help.
What I have noticed through all this are girls with so-so skills and results being signed earlier and earlier because their coach DOES market them, and markets them well. My daughter doesn't have a website but in talking to the college coaches, they all preferred a You Tube channel...so that's what we did , and we updated it with her results in a timely manner...and we would hear from these coaches that they had watched the updates so that seemed the way to go there.