I started SocialHeavy a little over a year ago now, I must say though with the 18 hour days and 7 days a week, the months must be considered dog years. When I came into this business I thought that I would do a very good job because I was older and much smarter and had already had a business under my belt so I wouldn’t make many mistakes right?
WRONG. I couldn’t be more wrong.
I am a graphic artist and have a reputation for designing great stuff, so of course I have to use that methodology on myself. I have always been an advocate for walking the talk. So I did blog one which was a moderate design as I was just learning to navigate the wonderful world of WordPress and then of course I got bored. It wasn’t snazzy enough! It didn’t show how talented and multi-dimensional I was! So I went to a much more complex blog format and designed all kinds of nice and interesting graphics. When you came to my blog I wanted there to be no doubt I was at the top of my game. I really liked my new look a lot and got lots of compliments on it. Compliments mind you – not sales. The sales were being driven by me and not my website, and I am a virtual business so that is not very good. In my defense I just didn’t know any better.
Then I hooked up with a business coach – and he has literally changed my entire perspective. Ever accidently hit the cold water in the shower and it shot down all over your body and you were in shock for a second? That’s how he made me feel the first couple of times we talked. I didn’t know whether to be excited about this newfound knowledge or cry because first I felt like an idiot and second I had a lot of work to do ALL OVER AGAIN.
He taught me what to focus on, he taught me it was less about design and more about value to the audience reading my message. He taught me how to analyze the traffic information and the story that it tells about my business. I learned to start thinking less about fancy graphics and more about conversion – this is the value I want to bring to my client. I want to bring them business! I have always said that my work did not have value if it didn’t bring my clients business but I wasn’t doing all the things that I needed to do to ensure that process.
Analyze your competitors! What are they doing? What does their web presence look like? How are they fairing in the Google search? Are they above you? This is a critical oversight by most businesses.
It is very important to have a nicely designed website or blog that makes your business look upscale and interesting. But it is more important that you focus on the value to your audience and don’t impress them so much with that is going on in the website that it diverts them from what you do!
Study the traffic to your website or blog, know where it’s coming from and come up with a conversion rate (number of visitors it takes to make a sale) and perfect your business from there.
In addition, it is important that you understand that Google does not see pretty pictures or videos. It only sees links and tags. As a result it is important that you have all the necessary components that optimize your website for Internet search. 8 out of 10 websites that I look at do not.
The blog you are reading this article on is very new, and it took me a couple of months to design as most of my time goes to my clients. I had to work way into the night to get it done and guess what? A month later I am chunking it, very soon this blog will be replaced with one that represents my newfound knowledge. I have a whole new thought process and perspective and this blog does not represent that vision.
Stay tuned! New blog design coming up soon!
Facebook Page Design @socialheavy.net
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