Stop Procrastinating on Website Structure for Marketing Your Business

You and I are often our worst enemy when it comes to building our website or marketing in general. The crippling factor for probably most businesses is not a lack of knowledge, nor is it a lack of resources or information. It’s not a shortage of ideas, energy or desire to achieve better results. Often the number one reason crippling most small businesses is simply paralysis of decision.

As a small business we often want to be perfect in everything we do. Perfect without the resources, financial ability, or skills to create the imaginary perfection line we strive for. I cannot think of a place that this is more prominent than when it comes to a companies website design.

My favorite question from a client is how long will it take (I’m speaking about website design specifically here). I always chuckle at this, because it’s always the same answer. “Well if you didn’t get in your own way, and all your content is ready – about two weeks.” I always get a funny look from that, but the funny part really is that we will get in our own way. In fact the average website build is somewhere between 2 and 3 months, not the two weeks it actually takes of manpower. In some horror cases I’ve seen client delays into the years. This isn’t because of slow programmers or technical difficulties, but often paralysis of decision on simple components that will likely change anyways.

Really you will make changes –  we do all the time..and frankly you should too! Testing, testing, testing is a key component to success on the web. So chances are your site will never be finished (I hope this is the case, or your business is likely finished too).

If we know this is the case, then the sooner we get the site up and built, the sooner we can focus on the important stuff…changing it! In this video I outline how to get by this procrastination. I hope it helps, and leave me some comments on your thoughts of marketing procrastination.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74soDHzALf0&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Video Summary:

A discussion about a typical experience businesses endure when building a website from the eyes of a new client. The story goes, they were stuck on a dilemma brainstorming on the ideas about the lay-out of their site which caused them the delay of over 2 years.

The tips outlined in the video guide a business from getting stuck in the analysis paralysis stage.  A stage all to common for most business people.

The essential key points discussed in the video are:

1. Consider the structure of your website.  This may be expected but keep the structure of your website clean and easy to understand in the eyes of your visitors.

2. Focus your attention on your expertise and the offer associated to this expertise. Solid content that will encourage next steps from your visitor is your main goal.

3. Through the offer, we cover the nurturing of lifelong clients. Your expertise is the what your user visits your site for, the building of the relationship through the nurturing process is why they become clients.

The good news is this client’s new site should be up in less then a month. When your focus is clear, and you know your changing it anyways, you’ll spend less time sweating every perfect detail. What do you think?

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