What do I want to achieve?

It is not uncommon for a website to be created once, but then it gets silent and not much happens afterwards. It doesn’t have to be like that. In this post, I’ll share some thoughts on how to keep your website up-to-date with little effort. To do this, you have to ask yourself a few questions first.

If you have one or more websites, you have just as many shop windows for your own activities. Now it’s not unimportant where and how you create your shop window. You can set it up on a busy shopping street, in a side street or even in the backyard. Of course, every positioning has an effect on whether it is found, whether it is liked and whether it results in active, regular visitors or even customers.

Thus, it pays off to think a little about the goal of your website(s). Only after that, you can intentionally position the website. So, you can “have” a website, but it would be more effective to “consciously use” a website. An evaluation should help to find out what you want to achieve and what is needed for it. As a result of a conscious positioning, you actively use the website to achieve your own goals.

The evaluation

An evaluation is about asking as many questions as possible: What should be achieved? What is the goal? There is neither right nor wrong here. The only important thing is that you become aware of your own goals. Make a list, leave it a few days, and then correct it where you find it necessary.

In a second step, one should think about what you yourself can and want to contribute, and where you need help from others. What resources do I need? I would like to explain this with an example.

Imagine that you are enthusiastic about solving challenging problems, but having difficulty writing texts. You are familiar with your strengths, but also know your weaknesses. Perhaps you enjoy writing, but you don’t have the time. These considerations should reflect the reality of your situation. What you cannot or do not want to cover yourself may require the support of other people. This knowledge can relieve you and lead to real solutions.

Each task can be solved in different ways. Again, there is no right or wrong. More on this below. Here we can state two things for an initial situation:

1. Goal: What do I want to achieve with my website?
2. Resources: What can I contribute to this myself, and what am I still missing?

Understand the environment

You are now clear about what you want to achieve and whether you need further assistance. Details may not be clear yet, but an approximate direction is becoming apparent. Now it is a matter of keeping an eye on this direction and sketching a path from the current “ACTUAL” state to the desired “TARGET” state. This path becomes your strategy.

A broad marketing strategy considers many areas, such as an online presence, personal contacts and events, advertising material and many other things. The online presence is therefore only part of the possibilities. This post is all about this online presence.

At an online presence, one can think of the following:

• Website and information
• Interaction (email, inquiries, etc.)
• Social media.

Not everyone has to be present everywhere. The most important question, however, is: Where are my current and future customers? You may not have an internet affinity yourself, but your typical clientele is on social media every day. One should not infer the activities on one’s own, but rather, based on the customer, decide what is important. Of course, you always have to balance between goals and resources.

When working out a strategy, you want to realize the explicated goals through suitable channels. You include the environment in the strategic considerations. The website is central to this mix of possibilities. The website contains the contact details, where you can present your competence. Further activities, for example via social media and other possibilities, build on this specialist knowledge and information.

Actuality of the website

An up-to-date website is attractive. A website where nothing has changed for months – and maybe even years – becomes less attractive. There are many methods that you can use to keep a website up to date. Differentiate between:

• Visual adjustments
• Content adjustments

When making visual adjustments, you want to regularly update the appearance of the website, especially the homepage. If someone visits the website from time to time, the same things don’t always appear there, but you can see that “something has happened” since the last visit. That kindles curiosity to look at something. It doesn’t always have to be new things. You can also randomly fade in articles or images, for example from a certain series or category.

Changes to the content are about new contributions. Think of new posts, new images, new stories, new ways to interact, and the like. This is where the real value of a website grows. With a good and future-oriented website, content grows continually. This increases the value of the website. Over time, the website grows and offers the visitor an ever larger pool of answers and information.

Actuality is an important keyword. On the way to reach your goals, actuality is what allows your offer to flourish. A growing and current website creates trust with customers and gives an insight into your competence. Search engines also rate websites with good and up-to-date information higher than static websites. You yourself make a decisive contribution to the ranking of your website.

Once you have the actuality of your offer under control, the strategy can be expanded accordingly, for example with:

• Newsletters
• Activities on social media
• personal information to customers
• Press reports.

The plan

Now it’s getting practical! Make a plan. Summarize:

1. target
2. resources
3. target group
4. Where is my target group? How do I get there?
5. What content do I have to create?
6. Does accompanying measures (events, advertising, etc.)

Adapt this list to your situation. Not every website needs all of these things. A simple strategy can be formulated as follows: “Do good and talk about it”. Whether you talk about it, write about it, create videos or hold interviews is secondary. Let readers of the website participate in the achievements, solutions, and experiences. This is how you win.

Marketing: Do good and talk about it.

Expertise is important. However, people are often emotional. The reporting is not only about facts, but also about liveliness, reliability, diversity. Example: A mattress salesman has learned to sell a good night’s sleep more than the mattress that makes it possible.

Having a website doesn’t make you “technical”. Anyone who can maintain their website gains “independence” and “freedom”. A website can be used to communicate, to reach people, to win customers, to inspire readers, to convey competence, to awaken zest for life. These are the important terms with which goals can be implemented. Your customers are not enthusiastic about your desire for more sales, but they are enthusiastic about reliable partners who, for example, solve problems competently, offer unique experiences or who help them to develop their personal competence. Keep your focus on the customer. Whatever it is you offer, you can do something your customers can’t. Make it an experience – on your website.

How can the plan be implemented?

the next steps

The rough plan is in place. In what timeframe do you want to implement the plan? Now it’s time to take the next steps towards fulfilling the plan. Although this seems cumbersome, it is often nothing more than a few good ideas that you don’t want to achieve all at the same time, but rather one after the other. That makes the job easier.

Plan + steps = strategy.

Imagine a simple scenario. You have a personal website that you want to make more attractive over the next 12 months. The goal would be more sales. You want to do this yourself and not rely on other services. You want to expand the website, and you have found that your competence and experience make up the core value of your offerings. You want to highlight these strengths. How do you do that?

Option A:

• Regular posts keep your website up-to-date
• You don’t like to write, but you like to explain things in a personal conversation
• You can show this with videos
• You are planning a short conversation with an employee or customer every month (video)
• Every month you publish a video with a few lines of text on a specific topic.

Variation B:

• Regular contributions keep your site up-to-date
• You would like to give brief insights into your work
• You want to answer typical questions from customers
• You are planning a short text with a photo as a post every month
• You create a question-and-answer (FAQ) page

Variant C:

• You are short on time, so you plan for those times when you have less to do
• During these times, you write multiple articles, of which the publication dates will be staggered. This way, you can plan the publications months in advance.

These are just a few of the options. It is only important that you find your style that supports you to achieve your goals.

Finding topics

Here are a few tips on how to find suitable topics for your planning:

• Make a list of titles:
  • What questions do the readers of your website have? What does them bring to you?
  • What questions do customers have before buying? After the purchase?
  • Can you give an insight into successful projects?
  • Provide insight into your career
  • Introduce employees
  • Do you know any tips and tricks that will help your readers?
  • Which specialty sets you apart from the competition?
• Plan a minimum of 6 titles
  • Reserve time on your calendar. Plan the publications over the year.
  • How much time do you need for photos, audio, video, production, texts?
• Stick to the plan
  • Celebrate each contribution as a milestone
  • After a year, your website has increased significantly in value.

With every step you get closer to your goals.

Contact

Have I piqued your interest? Can I help you to evaluate a possible strategy for your website?

Website as a shop window

You have a shop window, which is your website. Like a shop window in the city, you want people to stop and linger for a moment. What do you offer? What can be of interest to passers-by? Was it skillfully staged? These questions can also be transferred to your own website.

In this post I summarize some experiences that I have tried on several websites for many years. The summary is: Make people happy by writing What I mean by that, I’ll try to clarify below.

Actuality on the Internet

Whoever writes wins! This statement may be a bit provocative for some. Not everyone likes to write. What is meant is not the writing itself, but rather the current message. Nowhere it is about the length of a contribution or particularly high-quality texts. It is nice when there is. However, it is more important that it is up to date.

If you have a website, think of it as a shop window. You would have to maintain this window regularly. The same goes for your website.

A website receives a better ranking by search engines if it shows relevant and up-to-date information. Do good and talk about it! Write answers to simple questions so that people with questions can find you. Provide insight into your work so that existing customers can feel it. Tell stories so that complex contexts become clearer.

You can gain up-to-dateness from regular information. Each contribution is an addition to the website. Your website will become more valuable over time.

The relevance does not always lie in the technology, in new products or in cheap prices. For many customers, these are often at the end of their interest (even if it is your daily business). People are looking for solutions to current questions or challenges. These questions and challenges deserve attention. There is huge potential here for good communication.

Better than advertising and SEO

There is something that is more valuable than expensive advertising: Share your know-how, give insights. You do this through regular contributions. Your know-how is your capital. However, this only becomes visible when you apply it somewhere – for example in a post on your website.

Dare to write something even if it doesn’t feel good. Learn how to write. Let others read or even write your texts. It is not so critical who writes, but more that it is regularly and that the readers “get it”.

Many invest time and effort in search engine optimization (SEO). However, this makes little sense if the website doesn’t support this with substantial content. First comes the content of the website. This is the most important of all efforts. As the saying goes: “Content is King”.

Continuous good results start with the texts and articles on your website. This is because these are automatically picked up by search engines. I explain below the things to look for.

Good texts and search engines

Good editorial texts and optimization for search engines go hand in hand. Here are the most important points for orientation:

• Write short and sweet
  “Reduce to the Max!”
• The most important comes first
  Immediately say what the text is about. Details will only follow afterwards.
• Structure your texts
  Use meaningful titles and subtitles. They make the text accessible.
• Note the title sizes
  The largest titles (in HTML: H1, H2) are available above the text, subtitles (in HTML: H2, H3) in the Text for further subdivision
• Keep sections of text short
  Nobody likes to read long texts on the Internet. 4-6 lines as a guideline.
• Make it easy to get started
  Short articles to get you started. Link to more detailed information.

Meaningful titles

Search engines find titles. They are recognized by the HTML designations and these are hierarchical. H1 is the largest title, followed by H2, H3, etc. This assignment is supported in every WordPress theme.

What is now recognized as a title by search engines is given a higher priority. The title must therefore be meaningful. The essence of the contribution should be shown in the title. For this reason, very short titles are not always the best choice. It makes more sense to create descriptive titles with all important terms. This applies in particular to the main title of the article, of course, but also to the other subtitles.

Titles like:

• «Won!»
• “Hooray!”
• “At last!”

Descriptive titles like:

• “The company’s team won the championship competition in 2021[FIRMENNAME] out[ORT] »
• “The swimwear for summer 2021 surprises with fresh color combinations”
• “What are the special challenges with Long-COVID?”
• “Sherlock Holmes has found an employee by the name of Watson”
• “Why Captain Kirk always drinks Earl Gray tea on the Starship Enterprise”
• «5 tips for more exercise in everyday life»

In these last titles there are many relevant terms that describe the content of an article in an understandable way. Search engines check whether the terms or expressions in the title can also be found in the text. Whether a post is “discovered” as helpful or informative therefore depends on the title and also on whether the words from the title are used several times in the post.

Typical advertising phrases such as “free”, “offer” and the like are not very helpful and can even lead to a lowering of the rating.

All websites that Kursiv creates have an SEO tool installed on the website. This can be used to test and improve things like this.

Ideas for more posts

Not everyone likes to write texts. But there are many other ways to get active. New contributions can contain a great deal. For example, think of:

• Texts
• photos
• Videos
• tips and tricks
• Interviews
• Introduce employees
• Let customers have their say
• Describe project requirements
• Create process whitepapers (PDF downloads)
• Invite customers to a Zoom meeting on a topic while the pandemic is still going on.

Many companies are focused on their own performance. However, pure technology is only of interest to a few. For example, those who restore old timers love the mechanics. However, some customers just want to see the end result and drive the chic sledge over pass roads. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Don’t just write about your passion, write about that of your customers.

Create values

No matter what you do, how you write and how often you publish news: create value! Do good and talk about it. Perfection is not a goal here. It’s about communication. You write. Show off your latest accomplishments. Talk about it. Get started. Just start and improve yourself with every next piece of text. Whatever you write should make your web visitors and clients happy. That is the meaning of the sentence quoted at the beginning: Make people happy by writing.

It is better to publish a short text with a few photos once a month than an encyclopedia once a year. Test the best frequency. Create a newsletter. There are many more ways you can optimize your website experience today.

It is an adventure!

What is a captcha?

The word «Captcha» is an acronym and stands for «Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart ”. In German: “Fully automated Turing test to distinguish between computers and people”.

A captcha is a hurdle that is used to tell people and machines apart. The hurdle can be easily overcome by humans, but is recognized as difficult by bots. This is especially important because there are so many “bots” on the Internet trying to gain access to websites, record spam comments and the like. If you have now installed a captcha, a small test appears that is easy for humans, but difficult to bypass for automated processes.

A captcha makes it difficult, for example, to post spam or brute force attacks on websites.

Where are captchas used?

Captchas can be seen in different places on the website:

• Log in
• Registration
• request password
• To place an order
• Complete Order
• Create a comment
• etc.

Not all of these options need to be offered. Often you can only find a captcha when logging in and maybe when creating a comment. A captcha should work where there is interaction between users and the website.

What do captchas look like?

There are very different captchas, visible and invisible. For example, older captchas look like this:

The captchas are being developed further and further because hackers do not stand idly by as the path is blocked. The ReCaptcha from Google, for example, is also popular, offering various images to choose from and the user has to click on the palm trees, the cars, the hills, crosswalks, motorcyclists or similar.

Do Captchas Make a Website 100% Safe?

No. There is no such thing as 100% security. However, captchas should be part of any security strategy because it increases the hurdles. Using captchas already locks out a lot of hackers. Think of it as a layer from a multi-layer security concept.

Captchas and WordPress

There are a lot of plugins for WordPress that offer captcha functionality. Some integrate the Google solution, others offer, for example, a small arithmetic problem that has to be solved. Which captchas work well on a website must always be tested.

For example, there are some captchas that have been customized for the WooCommerce online store, while others have no such customization. If there is no support for certain tasks, a captcha can lie across. While this applies to every extension, a captcha is about the direct interaction with the user of the website. Here it should work particularly easily and reliably.

Support may be necessary, for example, for:

• WordPress login
• Online shops with registrations, accounts, etc.
• Newsletter registrations
• Forum software
• etc.

New Captcha solution for Kursiv customers

In our service package for WordPress customers, we are now also including a tried and tested captcha solution that has proven itself best. Various solutions have been in use so far, but each solution has its drawbacks. For example, Google ReCaptcha works great, but Google tracks websites. Certain math captchas with calculations didn’t work with an online store. These and other experiences led to the search for a new solution.

A plug-in was found that covers most requirements and is also very easy to use. The captcha works with icons and can be understood intuitively.

This solution is simpler than any previous solution, it is fast, there is no tracking and mostly works perfectly. This plug-in also has a honeypot function. A honeypot is called a diversionary maneuver. It is the wrong lead that bots often fall for.

The new solution was installed and tested on all of the websites we maintain. Kursiv offers one more service to make it easier for you to maintain your website.