Can I be real a second?
Most of what you have been advised to do with your website is wrong.
So, just for a minute, stop focusing on marketing. Stop focusing on design. Stop wasting your time on social media/SEO/WordPress/etc technology questions.
And instead focus on the only thing that matters: sales.
Your time + money investment in your biz multiplies when you focus on sales.
If you do nothing else today, read this short list of everything your business needs to know about websites.
Marketing Is Worth Zero/Zilch/Nada Without Sales.
I know you are much more comfortable talking about design and marketing. That’s because with design and marketing, you can live in your insulated bubble.
The rubber meets the road with sales. That’s where the game is.
You win, you lose, you love, you loss, you get rejected, you get embraced – the entire spectrum of human emotions happens in sales.
Marketing is a smooth canoe ride across Lake Nokomis with friends. Sales is sailing the Pacific…solo.
So, with all that in mind, here are…
5 6 7 FREE & Quick Digital/Business/Website Wins You Can Achieve Today!
- Get a quick, cheap website from Google via Google My Business. (If you do this, you can skip steps #2-4.
- Google Analytics: Create a free Google Analytics account, install the free Monster Insights WordPress plugin, configure the plugin in your WordPress, and rock on!
- Install & Configure the free Jetpack WordPress plugin. Activate just about everything it offers to improve page speed, functionality, and security. Here is the quick list of Jetpack features I activate on almost every site.
- Install & Configure Yoast SEO WordPress plugin. This does all the basic stuff that Google asks of us.
- Email List: Start building your email list! Get a free Mailchimp.com account, then copy-and-paste the “signup” embed code into your WordPress site. That’s it!
- Local SEO via Google My Business: It’ll take you 10 minutes, and you’ll show up higher on mobile searches! FREE! Quick!
- Get live chat on your website. I use Drift, but there are a million other WordPress-compatible options that do the same exact thing.
After You Do Those Quick Things, Do This
- Grab a free SEO Security analysis.
- Get an SSL Certificate, because Google & browsers will penalize you if you don’t.
- Forget about desktop and focus on mobile. Because mobile is all Google cares about, and they’ll penalize you if you don’t.
- Take this totally free Beginner WordPress Class by Email. You’ll love it, and you’ll become a WordPress ninja!
Okay, I’m done with all that. What else can I do to kick ass?
The best advice I can give any business owner ever is to continually challenge your assumptions. Here’s some starter reading on the topic (and feel free to challenge my thinking on all of this!):
- Ask businessy questions of your website/digital/etc.
- Don’t respond to RFP’s.
- Become a calm company.
- Choose a platform and go deep. Meetup.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, Udemy, Twitter, etc. etc. etc. Don’t try to do it all. Invest in one, and it’ll pay dividends.
- Stop covering your ass, get real, be humble, and realize that all your peers are doing it wrong.
- Be bold.
- Figure out who you are and why you work.
- Iterate quickly and fail quickly.
- Try outsourcing. It’s fun, quick, and the best way to learn “bigger team” business lessons without going all-in on a bigger team.
- Say “no” more.
- Don’t be cheap when it comes to business infrastructure. Invest smartly, not cheaply. Buy stuff when it’s better. Diversify your digital investments (i.e. stay away from Salesforce, Microsoft, etc.).
- Reply to emails quicker (and crappier). People are more forgiving on quick replies. Expectations are low, which means you can blow them out of the water with amazingness! Faster = quality in the minds of busy people. I don’t need a perfect answer – just an answer. Rack up quick wins! Don’t worry about being nice or providing a perfect answer – just deliver an answer…now!
- Let bad things happen.
- Tidy up your biz.
Didn’t You Say There Would Only Be 5 Things?
Yes. But every now and then I update this page with amazing new things I discover that increase my marketing/sales/leads.
Enjoy!
Originally published April 2018.
Updated June 4, 2018.
Updated again on July 23, 2018.
