It’s a leap year and so I thought it time to write the first Blog of the year. 600 words, set to a formula, add some sub-titles, keyword it up and we should be good to go. What a load of baloney and if this is how you treat your customers, oh dear oh dear.
I set up a website a few years ago called www.heabalteaformen.com, it was a complete test bed, could I practice what I preached, could I get onto a band-wagon, in this instance a subscription-based service, could I automate everything from the Newsletters that were sent to the Blogs that were written.
In fact, how little could I do?
What I learnt
Failure, on a minor scale mind you. I had conceived the idea, but I lacked the passion, I was in short lazy. Any new business has to have real drive, the owner has to be in it for the long haul and utterly committed.
Great Social Media, great blogging, great newsletters, great website, it all comes down to one thing – content. So this month I want to look at Content and try and ascertain how far you should push it. What is it about the words that matter so much?
The Early Days
I remember the very beginning of the web, 1995, an American in Hong Kong, dragged me into his bedroom to his computer and wrote ‘Hello World’, I cannot remember the exact process or logistics, but he turned round to me and said: “Now the whole world can see what I have written”.
The Internet had arrived, but the key was that anyone could write anything they wanted. This is one of the last facets of the World Wide Web that for me still holds true. We can also sign up to Facebook or Instagram, hook into Google, advertise, and be subject to advertising, but we can all still write whatever we want.
It’s actually more than that, because, essentially it means we can write from the human heart what we want, every webpage you ever see is an opinion, a viewpoint, a fact or an expression of what’s going on in someone’s mind. It’s YOUR point of view.
Your Words
So, you start a business, you know you want to use the Internet in whatever way you can. And on analysis what this means is that only one thing is going to make or break your Idea, it’s your words.
For sure an image speaks a thousand words, I am not denying that, in fact, I would expound on that, the image comes from you as well and it does speak a thousand words, all the more reason to use a great image. The key here is that you can’t outsource this away to someone else. These words have to come from you, the business founder.
Throughout history, Humans have organised themselves in groups big and small, tribes, countries, and companies. The Internet, however, has reversed this whole process, it’s harder now to delegate when the responsibility lies with you.
A few Juxtapositions
Setting up a Café or any small business – you’ll spend hours, planning the kitchen, decor, seating, choosing tables, billboards, menus, and the website – you’ll farm out to a web designer and send him a few photos and the menu. It’s your principal means of getting new customers and the area you give the least attention to.
Setting up an eCommerce store – categories, products, structure, order processes, emails even. And often you’ll be good at Advertising too, maybe even Social Media. But the About Us page, a Photo and a paragraph will do. Actually, it won’t do, to create a Brand you need a Story, what excites you, must also excite your customers.
B2B consultancy, lawyers, surveyors, and accountants, often have more than adequate websites, somehow they can afford them, but the images hardly ever relate to what they do and the wording is intensely corporate and inhuman. How do images of Dolphins help me decide that my money is safe with these organisations, Aren’t they all just spending too much time on Holiday?
I can go on with example after example, and clients will fight back with argument after argument, Dolphins give an impression of the type of company we are. But a real website that serves to help real people will not do this… and success should be measured on how much a website helps people.
Back to Content
So how do we deal with Content? What should you be writing? The answer is from the heart, only the founder of the business should be writing it, Boards, Directors, and Managers can all have a say, but only one voice should be writing it.
Humans can tell two things, firstly it’s horribly easy to tell if something is produced with AI (unless true time and effort have been used) and secondly, humans are also pretty adept at telling if something has been designed by a committee, just look at the general state of modern cars.
I would suggest one more piece of criteria, exaggerate a bit, push the boundaries, and grab people’s attention, whether setting up an e-commerce business or if you’re an accountant, there is a reason you’re doing what you’re doing. Tell people about it and make it a little fun, it’s what makes us Human.
Comments
comments