Let's get you on the web | Josh can help with site & wordpress design, development, SEO & strategy

Learn the Components of Web Strategy

Take a seat... class is in session

The worst thing you can do online is to treat your web presence – site, social networks, marketing campaigns – as due diligence. Mindlessly completing online chores leads very easily to boredom, frustration, and disenchantment. Making endless (pointless) lists of tasks is not difficult; populating those lists with meaningful tasks, however, takes a bit of finesse.

Since I started building and marketing online several years ago, I’ve been looking for the thread that runs through all critical on-line activities. There was always too much to learn, too many decisions to make, and too many to-do lists items. It quickly becomes overwhelming to try and tackle everything you can do online.

So don’t.

As a business owner or manager, your job is not to find everything that can be done and do it, your job is to find the right things to do and make sure they get done. Not only that, it’s your job to make sure what you’re doing is working and, if not, change it. This page is my attempt to help you make sense of what’s possible online so you can pick and choose the right things to do for your business. My goal is to help you gain an understanding of what’s possible so it’s easier for you to build a strategy for yourself, your team, or your company.

Below, you’ll find posts from me and external resources on a number of different categories, all of which fall under the 4 main categories: Incoming, On-Site, Outgoing, and Tools. To explain the whole concept a little better, consider this graphically snooze-worthy but totally comprehensible diagram:

Tools

Tools are the skills, techniques, networks, applications, and gadgets that help you succeed in the three components below. Some of these are universal and some are a matter of taste but all of them should be considered.

Incoming »

The Incoming component represents people that are coming to read what you write, buy what you sell, and engage with you online. In general, increasing this will increase everything down the line but that’s not a rule and it’s not guaranteed.

» On-Site »

The On-Site component makes the distinction between the types of people that are engaging with you through your web presence. Visitor behavior is a mystery without the right information but assuming it’s a black box is a common mistake.

» Outgoing

Where your audience goes after they leave an engagement with you is an often overlooked component of a complete web strategy. Outgoing visitors can be lead to make a connection, sign up for  updates, or share with their connections.

The four main components above break down into the categories and sub-categories you see below. For each category, there is a short description and a link to see related posts. For the most specific categories, you’ll see a list of posts from my site (if available) and, in some cases, links to external resources as well.

I suggest you start by reviewing the complete list, in order, and dig a little deeper on topics that you’re not familiar with. The goal here is not be to become an expert on any of these (what is an expert, anyways?), it is to be familiar with each one, understand how it fits into the whole, and think about how it fits into what you do. This is not a checklist; this is a syllabus. A few of these topics will be more relevant to you depending on what you’re offering. For those, you’ll want to get more familiar using the resources I’ve provided.

Good luck! “Do not fear going forward slowly; fear only to stand still.”