G’s Daily Dose

What is content?  What is good website content?  You may be thinking, your website appears crammed full of keywords and keyword phrases, and it still doesn’t generate quality prospective customers.  What is the problem?   My website guru said this would work.  Now you hear him saying, maybe more AdWord campaigns are the answer.  I’m sure you just need momentum.

To address this, let me first give you my description of a website for small business.  A website for your business should be Web Pages and Data Files that Authentically Represent Your Business, both products, and services.  In today’s competitive online world we also need to add entertaining.

How well does your website represent your products?   When you carefully look at is, is it compelling?  Do the words and pictures make you want the product or service that’s being represented by the description in words and pictures?    Is the information so exciting, you want to see more, read more and find out more?  If so, this is leaning towards entertainment.  Like a great book, a movie or it could be like a game, or simply a magazine full of wonderful pictures, if the content on your website is drawing you into the story, you could have good content.  If not, you don’t.

Most websites for small business use great big “buy now” buttons, contact us now, get a free estimate and so on, much like circus barkers simply because good content that represents your goods and services is missing.

Here’s an example, I just clicked on a website, I chose a business at random, one I’ve not looked at before and typed in plumbing.  The first business that popped up is a good example.  Here’s what’s visible on the opening or home page, the part that fits or is visible without scrolling on my monitor.  The name of the business which appears to be a person’s name or nickname, a logo character, a bulldog smoking a cigar showing growling teeth with a pipe wrench, a 10% off note for Veterans, a big red “Call Today” button and a red truck with this same information, but instead of call now it says to call the marine!

If you have something to sell, (that’s a good starting place), shouldn’t shoppers get a chance to engage your products first?  It’s like the entire sales process has been eliminated from websites.  That would be like a car dealer putting the cars out back and trying to step forward with the sale before a potential customer gets to see the cars.  People shopping want to see the products.

This fast pace, jumping up and down to get you to take action is all to get quick click results to show statistics so they can retain you as a customer buying more website services!  Just look at how many clicks you got?  Guess what; you can’t take clicks to the grocery store and trade them for food, you need clients that want to buy what you sell.

As mentioned above, most web developers when acknowledging your concern will recommend throwing more money at AdWords to get people to your website, sadly only to have big buttons pop up, an effort to close the sell before visitors even know what you sell, I don’t know why this makes sense to anyone.

What about this makes you and your business any different from any other?  You better have good pricing because you’ve given the potential customer nothing up front to separate you from the crowd.

It sure doesn’t appeal to me, what about you?

ON JANUARY 3, 1996 Bill Gates released an essay entitled Content is King.  If you have been considering building a website or improving your website or SEO, you’ve probably come across this now famous quote, “Content is King”.  Most of us have but what have we done about it?

For well over three years, I looked for a way to have a good website.  A website that actually represented our business.  I paid hard earned money to a few different website companies, experts in their field, to get a couple of crappy websites built and then for only a couple of thousand a month, “they” would provide SEO.  The results were a disaster and I’ll bet many of you had and still have the same crappy results with your website and optimization.

Today, we’ll focus on the Website itself. Let’s start with what Bill Gates said, not what your current website builder, host, and SEO computer website expert dude that sucks money off of you monthly says.

Here are a few highlights from the Essay by Bill Gates, Content is King.

When it comes to an interactive network such as the Internet, the definition of “content” becomes very wide.

The broad opportunities for most companies involve supplying information or entertainment.  No company is too small to participate.

One of the exciting things about the Internet is that anyone with a PC and a modem can publish whatever content they can create.  In a sense, the Internet is the multimedia equivalent of a photocopier.  It allows material to be duplicated at low cost, no matter the size of the audience.

The Internet also allows information to be distributed worldwide at basically zero marginal cost to the publisher.  Opportunities are remarkable!

If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will.  They need to have audio, and possibly video.  They need an opportunity for personal involvement that goes far beyond that offered through the letter-to-the-editor pages of print magazines.

Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products, a marketplace of content.

Ok, if that’s true, here it is 22 years later, how good is your content?   I’ll bet like mine was, it’s not very good!

Take a look at your website.  I’ll bet it’s stuffed with “keywords” that are duplicated over and over.  It’s optimized, “they” say.  Yeah, right!  Can a potential new customer actually look at your website and see that you are different from your competition?  Probably not and if not, and if your company is selected, you most likely will be selected nine times out of ten because of price, right?

If Content is King, how good is your content?  

 

It’s time to pivot.  I’ve explored, I’ve followed the flow and now it’s time to pivot.

It’s time to put my focus on this new path, a slight change from the path I was on, an altered path with more promise.

Today, I pivot and continue the journey.

 

Once you see the need to change, then there is the changing process.  It feels weird.  Doing something different.  Just planning the day to do different tasks after years of the same thing can feel uncomfortable.

You may even feel you’ve abandoned something.  That feeling can lead to confusion or even frustration.  You can easily begin to question your decision about going this new direction.

It’s important to build strong legs to support your decision to continue in this new direction.  Imagine a table with only two legs.  It wouldn’t be very stable.  Add strength to your decision by adding legs, what are the reasons to support your decision for this new direction?    The better the reasons, the stronger the support.  Write them down.  Read them often.

Move it forward.  Study something about your new direction daily.  Get used to it!  Then take action.

If you could choose today, the career you wish you had, what would it be?  What would a day in that life look like?

Would you get up at the same time or would that change?  How would you prepare for your day?  Would your work consume your day or would you have part of the day left for other activities?

How would you dress?  Who would you see or meet?  What key activity fulfills your duties for the day?

How would that feel?

I watch so many people struggle today doing the jobs they do.  It’s so obvious their mind is not on completing the work at hand and sadly for them, this half-minded effort makes being there miserable.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to observe a couple of guys doing construction work, stucco, to be exact.  It’s not an easy job, bucket after bucket of concrete mix, plastered to the wall.   They worked in near perfect harmony and seemed very happy as they performed the tasks, mixing the concrete, getting it to the roof level three stories above the ground, masking off and covering up to protect other work, it was like a well oiled, well-tuned machine and the amount they got done was amazing.

There are times we need to work like a machine.

My love for architecture never ceases.  I love the classic homes but they usually become obsolete in functionality. It’s time for a change.

Those who manage to change these masterpieces of the past while maintaining the creative integrity of the past are the real masters.

We all must change.  What is wonderfully classic about us that we should hold on to, be careful not to discard what cannot be replaced.

There is a Zen quote, “Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment chop wood, carry water”.

Well, I won’t try to say it better, it’s so true.  The difference is simply the knowing.  Knowing who you are.  Knowing why you do the things you do.  Know you’re doing the right things.

Most importantly, doing them with the attitude of gratitude.  There’s much to do, let’s do it and enjoy the doing!

Life is an amazing thing.  Despite my failures, setbacks, the many disappointments, I’m still here with the opportunity to make a difference today!

I am thankful for this day!

I can choose to make a difference in someone else’s life today.  I can choose to make a difference in my life today.  I can choose to step forward where in the past I’ve let it rest.  With an attitude of gratitude, I can do many things today or find a single thing to focus on that could make a  single difference.  The choice is mine.

We have all been blessed with that powerful choice!

I am grateful.

As we apply our selves to study we slowly acquire new skills.  Then like magic, moments without instruction, we miraculously leap forward in learning.  Maybe it was just a single thing, but it happened.

Doing nothing more than providing discipline to follow through and study to learn something new and often within just a few days. that magic leap takes place.

It is truly magical.