It's moving season! As a Project Manager, you can imagine my moves are pretty darn organized. My proudest moment as a homeowner came when a real estate agent told me my house was the cleanest she'd ever toured. I own a messy dog, so I take this as a huge compliment. Now that I'm moving again, I'm as organized as ever – starting weeks in advance to clean house so the big moving day goes smoothly.
Similarly, this type of meaningful preparation can go a long way to support a smooth transition to a new website. A great inbound website that attracts, converts, closes and delights takes a lot of legwork (and pre-work). Here are three ways moving and building an inbound website are similar.
The Great Purge
This is my favorite part of moving. I put a strict rule in place – anything I haven't used in the past year has no place in my new, wonderful apartment. I take my time selling some unused items on craigslist while donating others to charitable organizations.
The same process can be used with your marketing content ahead of a new inbound marketing website. Create an inventory of offers, messaging, and services working on your current site that you want to transition to your new website. If you are considering new content offerings, build a plan to create them and decide whether you will create them before or after the new website launch.
Here's a good approach to review existing content on your website:
• Review content that is working and understand why it's working
• Bucket content by lifecycle and confirm the content's value as a lead generator (see
lead scoring for more information)
• Assess content value from an SEO perspective. You might be surprised what simple tweaks to content titles using high-value keywords can do for your organic traffic and conversions on your new website.
Never Stop Planning (NSP)
This move I made a plan to hire movers and move as much of the fragile/awkward items ahead of time as possible. I wrote a quick checklist of items I could move myself without sacrificing my sanity. Integrating my packing with the help of professional movers saved me time, money and headaches on the big moving day.
Similarly, you should discuss internally how your new inbound website will be integrated into your marketing and sales processes moving forward. There are many items to consider, here are just a few:
• Which leads sales will respond to, in what order, and how
• How you'll launch new campaigns – blogs, emails, landing pages, with tracking and reporting ready to go
• Who's responsible for new content, why and how you'll support them
Reward Yourself
One of the big reasons I moved was for more space to entertain more. As my reward for weeks of hard work, I already have plans for friends and family to come visit. Having a reward in mind helps keep me motivated and in a positive mindset during stressful moments in a big project whether it's work related or personal.
Celebrating your new website success should start with identifying exactly why you are setting up a new website. Are you streamlining your content? Just need new templates? Or are there specific metrics you are trying to improve?
After you've identified the why, make sure you communicate before, during and after to your team the status and objectives of each phases of your website project. Have fun with it! Throw a soft launch party, have a sale and celebrate the new website on social media. It's a great morale booster and helps energize your content owners to keep the success going.
Tell us, how do you get organized for a new website? We want to hear your best tips and tricks!
