Have you ever heard the old phrase “the Cobblers children have no shoes”? For those young pups in the crowd, a cobbler is someone who makes shoes. It’s an actual occupation. They still exist.
Anyway, lately, I’ve been thinking that my business depends almost entirely on referrals. This is great; I love my clients, and I love the fact they believe in me enough to bring along others, but I also often feel like a hypocrite.
I tell people the importance of using their website as a marketing tool; SEO, landing pages, content marketing, and flywheels. I do believe your website is the best and cheapest employee/cheerleader you will ever have. It can bring in new business, support your current clients; it is often your first and sometimes, the last impression someone will have of you or your business. In my book, it’s pretty damn important.
BUT, this here old website has seen better days. Over the years, my business has shifted from doing almost entirely development to more of why I went out on my own in the first place, inbound marketing! (a.k.a. making your website a marketing machine). And it has become very apparent to this Cobbler that my children have no shoes.
The Plan
I’m going to do for my own business what I do for my clients. This includes clarifying my message, creating an inbound marketing plan, and then implementing it.
This will involve making a lot of changes and updates to the website. It doesn’t mean scrapping it and starting over. Very seldom does anyone need to scrap it and start over. We will evaluate what we have, rework it, and grow. This is called Growth-Driven Design. It is key in making sure your website heads in the right direction.
The best part of this is… I’m bringing you along on this journey. You’ll get to see how I do what I do, what tools I use, and how it works. This will help hold me accountable and make sure I follow through. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to do a project for yourself. Sometimes it can be difficult. You get sidetracked by client work/life and it’s easy to overthink all your decisions because you are too close to the subject matter.
I’m going to post at least one article a week until we’ve made it all the way through the plan. Then we’ll evaluate the results (YAY DATA!) and make adjustments to improve.
Now, come on, folks, let’s go make some shoes!
Next up, “What in the hell do I do?”