How your website is like my lawn

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I’m not going to pretend that this title has SEO best practices in mind.  It doesn’t.  I like it anyway. I bought a house last year and for the first time I have a lawn. Now, I’ll be honest: I haven’t given much thought to the lawn at all….until this spring. It is overrun with weeds and there are entire sections where the grass has just refused to grow – it is so bad that professionals needed to be called in and the verdict was not good. The entire lawn needs to be re-seeded. I was left reeling.  This is going to be a major project and then I got on a call with a new client. And guess what?

Their website: It is like my lawn

They let it go. They didn’t pay much attention to it.  Someone was giving it the yearly once-over and they thought that’s all that they needed.  They had a blog -it got stale, it lost focus, it received flashes of brilliance but mostly it was ignored and walked over. There entire site needs to be re-seeded.

So there are two action items from today’s blog post.

ACTION #1 – Periodic Re-Seeding

In your calendar right now block off 40 minutes in the next week to read the content on your 4 most FREQUENTLY visited pages.  Make sure that it is:

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  1. Accurate and current.  You’re probably thinking this is just a crazy idea that it is NOT accurate and current.  Read it.  Gasp and then just look forward.
  2. Readable.  When you’re writing your content in your text editor of choice it can seem like a breeze to read. But when you get to your site you’ll notice things you missed like your paragraphs being so long that your eyes started to lose focus.
  3. Converting. These are your very best pages.  What are they doing for your business?  Do they link directly to your sale page?  Do they give an interested party ANY good next step?  Make sure it does.

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Depending on the amount of content, the number of visitors and what you need to accomplish from your website you’ll want to look at your best pages at least once a month and schedule in time to look at the other pages too.

Action #2 – What’s your Website for anyway?

I challenge you to look at what your website is for.  I know this might SEEM obvious – but it really isn’t – and yes, my lawn inspired this part too.  I have a lot of lawn options.  I could install turf, sod, I could do nothing, throw rocks down, did you know you can moss an entire lawn?  It’s true.  There are lots of ways to cover your acreage. Same thing goes for your site.  Perhaps you do not need 800 pages of research on your site – perhaps you need eight pages that actually say SOMETHING.  So think about what your website is for and really look at your top four pages and see how those most popular pages support your website’s purpose. If they don’t, take some time and really revamp them in such a way that they advance the ultimate purpose you’d like the site to serve.

Who are you even talking to?

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So you’ve convinced yourself that you need to have a presence online. Or maybe someone else has convinced you – either way, you’ve made the decision and are ready to move forward. Now your problem is that you have no idea what you should say. What aspects of your product or service should you highlight? What tone do you take? All of this can be extremely daunting – unless you first answer one key question that flies under the radar for many people new to the online arena:

Who exactly are you talking to? Who is your target audience?

To find your target audience, you have to define two key people – your consumer and your customer. “Wait,” you say, “aren’t those the same person?” Not always! Here’s the distinction – your consumer is the person who consumes or uses your product or service. Some examples:

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  • the guy who eats your sandwiches
  • the woman who wears your t-shirt
  • the business owner who implements your marketing advice.

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Your customer is the person who makes the purchase decision – your buyer. Examples of customers:

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  • the mom buying groceries for her family
  • the purchasing manager evaluating b2b vendors
  • the receptionist placing an order from a restaurant for a company lunch

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If these two people are the same, your job is easier. You can craft a message appropriate for that audience and meet them where they are online. If you have several audiences, you need to decide how you’d like to engage and drive demand – from the consumer side, or the customer side. Consumers respond to messages appealing to the enjoyment or utility they get from your product or service. Customers generally respond better to messages that promote value, quality or convenience. Specifics depend very much on what types of people populate your audiences. Do your research, and engage the proper audience the way the want to be engaged and you’re well on your way. Stay tuned this week for more advice on finding your customers and tailoring your content and messages to their needs. It’s gonna be a good week.

It’s Content Week (your content, it’s weak)

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We read. A lot. When we find something online that makes say “huh” or “YOU MUST READ THIS”  we post them here on our Tumblr page. Last week was a little rough though.  There was some great stuff but in general it highlighted something that we obviously need to talk about…

Your Content.

So this week it’s all about content here and because we think spoilers are delightful, We’re going to give you a reason to come on back here this week.

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  • How your blog is like a lawn. (maybe you don’t think lawns are riveting….you will have a change of heart)
  • Who are you talking to Willis?  (if you don’t know what I’m talking about please use google)
  • Are you concerned that you sound like Charlie Browns teacher?
  • How to tell if you’re nailing it. (or not)

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3 ways to overcome the “too much to do” inertia

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Every single client that I work with has a lot going on.  I have a lot going on. You likely have a lot going on too – we are a society that values the busy – maybe even to a fault.

The thing that I noticed about the start of my week this week was I had too much to do inertia.  The list: it was long.  The location to start: completely unknown. The desire to start anything was swept up in what I can only call Cinco De Seis.  So there are a few things that I did that actually worked.  I’m going to share those with you.

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  1. I eliminated some stuff. I just flat out crossed it off the list. Last week at some point I read this post from Amanda Genther where she spelled it out really really clearly: it’s not a now thing. Hold on to that moment you’re having for a second – think about something that you have on your list that simply does not need to be a NOW thing. Cross it off. If it comes up again it might be a NOW thing then. Right now: It’s about letting it go.
  2. I pulled out three things to do in the am and three things to do in the pm. If I got six things done that was going to be a HUGE win. I put the rest of the list away and let myself WIN. Yes. DO THAT: LET YOURSELF WIN!!!!!
  3. Eat the frog. Do the thing that you most don’t want to do. Get it over with. Because inevitably you will feel one of two things: relief or that wasn’t so bad I can do more! Want to know more about eating frogs?  Check out this book: Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time

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Book Review: Renegades Write the Rules – using social media to innovate

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There have been a stack of books on my counter for approximately three months. All of them have been started – none of them finished.  BUT that all changed this weekend. To motivate me to get through all these books I’m going to do brief book reviews with a handful of takeaways.  So lets kick off our first book

Renegades Write the Rules: How the Digital Royalty Use Social Media to Innovate

by: Amy Jo Martin

Read time: About 3.5 hours if you read at a moderate pace. Who should read this book: If you’re wondering if your personal brand should be active on Twitter and Facebook and you really want to be sold on how you can leverage it and be impressed by the wicked cool people Digital Royalty works with this is the book for you.

The best part for me: 

“I told him that social media is not a marketing tool.  You have to earn the right to sell something in the same way you earn the right to ask a friend for a favor.”  p. 38

Favorite line: “Be real and use your best judgement.”  (what else can you do – online or in life?)

Thing I want to do with a client: Find and Tweet. What a great idea and I love a good game of seeking.