You know what you want to do, but you don’t know how or where to start. That is normal for big projects, or even small complicated ones. When I first started my website, it was a mess. I arranged my articles and stories in a haphazard manner, and there was nothing special about my landing page. Yes, I do have stuff out there, but my bounce rate was very high, about 80 per cent. That meant that 8 out of 10 visitors will click out of my site when they get to my homepage. Wow, eight out of ten people didn’t even want to enter and look around. I bet some of them were my relatives and friends.
A few months ago I told myself, this has got to stop. Either, I get more traffic browsing through my site, or I should just kill it. After chewing through a couple of pencils, and losing papers where I wrote down my notes, I finally bought a 120-page foolscap book. On the first page, I wrote down my objective for gmowe.ws and made a list of main ideas. For example forums, social network sites, visitors and home. Next, I reserved half of the book for 'Home', while the other main items each get an equal number of pages. Strangely, that simple act of putting a heading on top of empty pages helped me focus long enough to list an action plan.
Topics and Ideas
I plan best with empty foolscap papers because I like to be able to put in notes or comments as and when they occur or come to me. From experience, I learn that if a system is too rigid I will become so obsessed with filling in all the blanks that I will lose focus. Naturally the only order you will see in my planning book is the arrangement of main ideas. For example, under 'Visitors' I may call an area 'Statistics'. Under this I will make a list of tracking methods such as JavaScript counters, Google Analytics or any other methods available in the internet. Then under each of these I will write notes about their pro's and con's. I don’t worry too much about not allocating the correct amount of pages, because if I need more, I can just stick in more paper. Other things you can add to your planning book under 'Visitors' may be the demographic of your visitors, your target market, what do you think their interests are, etc.
In my 'Forums and Groups' page, I will make notes of different attitudes and interest of the members in general, as well as make a list of any work I have shown in these groups. Having all this information is good, because by looking at them every now and then, my mind will help me work out new ways to attract people to my site. I can’t tell you if this is due to the conscious or subconscious mind, but it works. The mind needs to be exposed to a problem, and once it has seen enough ideas or situations, then it will naturally give you a new idea. For that reason, you should not be making notes just to help you remember things, but you must also take notes so you can put the different ideas together and come up with something creative.
Another reason why you have to put up your work in group sites is because some of them show member views of any item you uploaded. This way you can track how well each upload is doing. Note down the tracking volume next to the title with a pencil though, so you can erase and re-write when the numbers increase. Also make a list of ideas or titles you want to add, and when you do add them check this item off the list.
Home is where your heart is
When you start a big project like this, make sure you have a 'Home' where you can consolidate all your articles, information, services or product. It can be a website, a blog or a video site like YouTube. Find an address for your 'Home'. That way when you introduce your work, people can find you when they want to see or read more.
In your 'Home' topic, make a list of what you want to do with the site. After deciding on a main theme, draw out a list of topics that you can write about for your ‘Home’. Figure out how you wish to decorate and arrange your articles. You can read My Website Can Change the World to get an idea of the basic codes you may need to learn how to use. If you choose a journal style blogsite for your articles, keep in mind that your work will be presented chronologically, so you must plan your opinions, articles or presentations in chronological order.
And finally, if you are a creative person my advice is, always keep this planning book separate from your actual creative work. This is because as a creative person, your mind will naturally be pulled to the art process thus making you ignore the more technical side of planning. Hence to keep your mind focused, keep them separate. Above all present your site in a tidy, easy to navigate manner. Believe me, an aimless looking site will turn traffic away because if you don’t know how to tell your visitors what you can show them, how do you expect them to know where to look?
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