New year’s website resolutions

Happy New Year to you.  At this point I should “wish” you a prosperous year and “hope” that 2014 brings you your heart’s desire.  However, I take issue with “wish” and “hope” because they take the responsibility for your future and place it firmly in the hands of fate and chance neither of which are easy bedfellows when you’re trying to run a business.

This idea runs in parallel with the notion that our minds can be programmed (something we do every day).  Whenever we encourage a particular type of behaviour (good or bad) we strengthen the programming of our minds which ultimately translates into habitual behaviour.  So, whenever we ‘hope’ things will be okay or ‘wish’ they could be better we’re actually programming our minds to accept the fact that we’re not in control of our future.

So, when someone hopes for a better website they are really programming their minds to accept the fact that the state of the website is actually not in their control

And that’s why I’m such a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions.  These are the concrete promises we make to ourselves which turn hopes into something tangible.  Most of the time resolutions are personal – a diet, the desire to get fit, learn a language and so on.  But why not extend our resolutions to our businesses and in particular our websites?

A simple resolution would be to spend at least an hour a week working on the website or trying six new online marketing methods or even just to read that book on online marketing you’ve been promising yourself.

Whatever you decide try to pick resolutions which are achievable and write them down using clear unambiguous language.  You could even combine these into a short paragraph.  Here’s an example;

“In 2014 we will increase our website’s profitability by 20%.  We will do this by testing 5 new marketing methods (each costing no more than £1,000 per test).  Our web manager will attend at least two courses on improving website traffic and sales.”  And so forth…

Set aside a little time to think about your Website New Year’s Resolutions and please remember that what you get back from your website is directly related to how much you put in.

I won’t wish you a Happy New Year, instead I’ll guarantee that if you keep your website resolutions you’ll have a FANTASTIC NEW YEAR!

Jed Wylie is the author of Make Your Website Sell and works for Morgan Wylie a web design and digital marketing agency in the Midlands.