We’ve met with more than 1000 businesses here in Chicago over the last 10 years. In those many conversations, we’ve encountered some understandable emotions related to web design and web marketing. One of those is fear. In this post, we’re going to look at the common fears and examine how they can slow down your web design project and your online marketing.
Here are some of the top fears of website owners that can slow down your web marketing:
Let’s look at each of these and consider how emotions can get in the way of results.
“I don’t want to go live until everything on the site is completely finalized.”
It’s common for people to hesitate or delay before launching a new site. They’re reading the copy, looking at the pictures and they’re finding things that could be just a little…bit…better…
Why not take an extra week and wordsmith that last paragraph? Because the extra time isn’t worth delaying the value you’ll get from the new website. You’ll get better results sooner if you launch it now and tweak that paragraph next week.
By the way, there is no such thing as a finished website! A good site is designed to change. Hopefully, you’ll be updating and changing things regularly for years. That means the best time to go live with a new site is the first day it’s better than the old site.
Digital ink is never dry.
“I don’t want to write about that topic. My competitors might steal my ideas.”
It’s natural to be afraid to say too much. Some of us have had information taken and used by competitors. (I once saw a proposal from a competitor that looked awfully familiar. As it turned out, most of it was language I had written a year before for a different proposal. Where did they get that?)
But it’s probably a mistake to not write something useful because you’re afraid it might be used by others. It goes against the premise of the Internet. When you share something you become more widely known and more relevant. I would rather be plagiarized than be irrelevant.
If you’re interested in SEO and link popularity, you may actually want other website owners to take your content. When you share your content with other bloggers (guest blogging), you’re actually hoping people will take your writing and put it on their sites, because when they do, they’ll add a link back to your website.
You get what you give.
“I don’t want to be on camera. I won’t look good in video.”
We’ve all felt this before. It’s common. It may be more shyness than fear. But since video is such a compelling upgrade to a website, getting over this shyness can make a big difference. People want to know who they are working with or buying products from. It’s called trust and video helps you build it.
If you had a potential client or customer to your office, would you want them to see your face and hear you talk? So if you have a visitor to your website, why don’t you want them to see and hear you? Think about it: it’s not that you don’t want to be seen and heard by others, you just don’t want to see and hear yourself. Silly, isn’t it?
So give it a try. The 3 minutes you spend talking about your business may be seen hundreds of times. This might be the most effective use of marketing time you’ll ever spend.
Say it once, say it well, say it to many.
Being concerned about getting things right is good. But worrying too much can cause problems, especially online, where the best results are seized by those who embrace taking action, sharing information and putting themselves out there. Remember, accomplishments are proportional to attempts!
“Audentis fortuna iuvat.”
Fortune favors the bold.
The Aeneid, Vergil
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Oh how I can understand this fear. Glad we ended up just launching even though we were uber embarrassed when we first went live.
The fear of the unknown and the “what if” is very real for companies. I love posts like this because it’s important to keep speaking about the benefits of the social web and to educate companies on how to take advantage of what’s available.