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?