Exactly one year ago I decided that I was going to lose weight. Ever since I was a young kid, I have always been "big" (6'4" and 275lbs when I started this program, for perspective). Then suddenly on my birthday last year I realized that I was very disappointed with how unhealthy, out of shape and lazy I had become. I knew it was time to make a change, so I focused on losing weight and getting healthier. A year later, I am 65 pounds lighter, healthier and generally happier.
What I did to lose weight applies very well to planning, building and monitoring an effective web presence too! Don't believe me? Check it out...
Step 1 - Plan
From the beginning, I had a general long term goal in mind (get down to 200lbs), but I was more concerned with what I was going to be doing every day. I knew it had to be drop dead easy and fun enough that I could stick to it. I took the mathematical approach. I was going to count calories. No drastic food changes, no food-cycling, nothing too extreme. Just counting calories I took in and calories that I expended every day.
For websites, an effective website strategy should include the activities and features that fit with your organization or business. If you aren't going to blog, don't pretend that you will (PS - I'd guess 80% or more of you probably should be blogging). It's about identifying your goals, and what features and functionality you are going to use to measure how well you are achieving them. If your goal is to sell products on your website, make sure you focus on the things to get those products in front of people, give those people the information they need to buy, and make the buying process easy for them.
Step 2 - Do
This is the hard part. The bottom line is that you have to work on an ongoing basis to achieve your goals. For me, I took a phased approach to my day-to-day activities, breaking my plan into manageable phases that I could focus on (and not get overwhelmed with how far I had to go). I set an intermediate goal of losing 30 pounds in 4 months. I documented that phase over at 43Things. To achieve this phase's goal, all I did was count calories and ride a mountain bike that I had bought (3 times a week). Easy, simple and effective. Once I saw results and knew that I could do it, continuing to do it was easy.
On the web, you need to focus on "moving the needle" on a continual basis. Think about your website as your body. You have to push it a bit to see results. And, in case you are wondering, you aren't going to get the traffic of a site like ESPN.com overnight. Set up intermediate phases for your website that you can focus on. Execute mini-campaigns that are focused on a specific objective (i.e. focus on increasing the size of your email newsletter list, increase the number of inbound links to your site, increase the number of people who subscribe to your blog, decrease the bounce rate on your pages by increasing the quality of your content, etc). Once you see results with these mini-campaigns, it will be much easier to execute them on an ongoing basis.
Step 3 - Check
I weighed myself 2 times a week at the start. That was enough to let me know if things were going the right direction and not frequently enough to drive me crazy with every little up and down movement my weight made day to day. For straight weight loss, the metrics of interest are pretty simple = pounds. These days though, I am more interested in decreasing my body fat %, how many miles I can ride and run in a set amount of time, how many push ups and sit ups I can do, etc.
On the web, the metrics of interest also depend on your goals. Pay attention to what matters. If you want to get more clients/customers/inquiries generated on the web, pay attention to things like contact form submissions and surveying incoming people on how they found your company. The great thing about the web is that almost all web goals you have are very easy to measure. So, when you ask "How are we doing on newsletter subscriptions?" You can get an answer as precise as "we've had 56 new subscriptions this month, which is a 10% increase over last month and 15% increase on the monthly subscription rate for the year!"
Step 4 - Adjust
For 4 months, it was actually really easy to lose 2 pounds a week. I was dedicated and things were working like clockwork. After about 6 months I began to realize that I was burning out a little, so I changed things up a bit. I joined a gym and went every other day. I would ride my bike on new (more challenging) routes. These little changes kept me from burning out while also keeping me on track towards my ultimate goal. These days, I can try a new activity (jogging, cross training, etc.) for a week or two and quickly realize if it fits with my personality and moves me toward my goal.
Same thing on the web. Once you've laid your plan and set your goals, implemented your tactics and activities to reach those goals, and measured their effectiveness, you have to adjust to what the data is telling you. If things you're are doing online are working, do more of it! If they aren't working, analyze why and adjust (or drop the activity altogether if things aren't working or if they're too expensive).
And to bring it full circle here, these things are really what we at Valitics are most interested in: measuring how well your online activities are working and helping you continually increase their effectiveness.