About two months ago I decided to streamline my branding and work towards a bigger vision and so I needed a new website that focused on digital copywriting on websites and copywriting strategy.
I'd been offering services from social media marketing to branding to emailing and CRM integrations, but I realised something really important:
In the areas of digital strategy and copywriting, businesses really struggle to understand what to do and why.
Looking into what I did further, I discovered that there is some great information out there about 'digital copywriting' and that this is the discipline that my work was following. It was such a relief to be able to explain my work more effectively!
You see, not many copywriters as yet are claiming that next step of being really knowledgeable about the environment and consequences of putting their written work online. Even when the website reads well and the writer knows that copy is a user journey, the integration factors that Google uses are not always there - SEO words, great links, easy to buy... there's a lot to know.
In my own business I've offered clients everything they needed and in acting as their 'digital agency' a definite trend has emerged:
Understanding how to get it right online is NOT easy OR fast!
Here's the website fail low down...
- A lot of businesses have either had a go themselves and got stalled or have their site in the hands of a website designer, builder or marketer and become stuck in limbo.
- People find it hard to understand how to make their websites work well for their clients.
- There's a real gap between business owners as people and what their site says about them.
- Often it's not clear by language or design what kind of person the website wants to attact.
- Many times links are broken or not well worded
- Even when modern someone has been suckered into the long lead pages thing and it now looks like a TV ad channel with too much information going on ... and you get BORED!
How hard is it?
Well, after getting the information mostly in place but fairly rough, I got given a challenge by my coach to get my site up and running fast... within a month.
That seemed pretty darn easy, but of course work kept coming in and I put it off until there I was, Valentine's Day, with friends at the open mic near my place and I was going home to finish off the site.
I had less than 24 hours to launch!
My mate brought a bottle of vodka home with us and was keen to have a few shots and a lazy evening ... but I sat at the laptop and put 'Suits' on Netflix to keep him entertained.
I looked at the main page... pretty close.
Then I looked at the other pages... OH NO I'd barely started!!!
I worked away until 1.15am when the update tab on the editor started to go so slowly that I wasn't sure if my eyes or the computer was the one not working too well. So I kicked my mate out, hopped into bed and slept.
The next morning there I was, in PJs at 7am getting the rest done... page by page, laboriously updating, saving changes, not happy with the font or the layout...
The site was launched with dozens of errors which made my coach proud while I cringed at the result when I looked on my mobile later that day... but still, it was up.
Here we are just a few days later and my site now looks like I wanted it to, at least for now. I learned some serious lessons about both expectation and pressure that day which are totally worth sharing.
Getting it Done!
- If there's no pressure to finish, you'll find it hard to start
- If you're at 80% done, you'll get to 100% fast
- You can always improve
- Perfection isn't necessary, focus is!
Even if you are someone who knows about websites, there's no shortcut to getting it right. You, me, everybody is in the same boat.
It's a learning process to get your online ship to sail in a straight line.
The key is to crack the champagne, hoist the main sail and launch.
Happy Sailing!
