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Build Your Own Website in 5 Easy Steps: Step #1, Establishing Purpose and Objectives for the Site
What do you need to do to make your new, private website successful?
Now that you have your new, private, Lasting Links website, what are you going to do with it? What do you need to do to make it successful?
If you are like many people, you might do nothing. Lack of time, the press of responsibilities and cares of the world have a very good chance of crowding out your good intentions to bring people together in a vibrant community on your own website.
Unless you do something powerful…
… powerful enough to counteract inertia and the expectations of others. That “something powerful” is to:
• Clarify your purpose and
• Establish objectives for your site.
Clarify Your Purpose
Ask yourself questions like, Why am I building this site? What is its purpose? Write the answers down where you can refer to them. You may want to include the purpose in your invitation to persons to join your site. Having a clear purpose, written down, and succinctly communicated, will make it easier for your invitees to join you and contribute to your objectives.
Here are some examples of purposes of three different, private Lasting Links websites:
1. “Participate with and get to know extended family members better by sharing information on our past and future activities, including our Summer 2010 event.”
2. “Contribute thoughts, photos, stories or other memorabilia that will broaden the memory of Franklin and Laura June Cole, expand our appreciation for them and clarify their contributions to their descendants.”
3. “Make this site a central gathering place dedicated to [person’s] progress and recovery from brain tumor surgery. Contribute your comments, photos, audio, video, news – whatever may be edifying and will let her know that she is loved and that family and friends are pulling for her.”
Establish Objectives for Your Site
In addition to clarifying your purpose(s), establishing objectives can do wonders in making your site more successful. Ed Bliss, in an out-of-print article, “How to Make Time to Reach Your Goals,” tells us good objectives or goals must meet five standards to be effective:
1. They must be specific. “Have a good website” is much too general. “Attain a membership of 100 persons in the next 6 months” is more concrete and, importantly, it is also measureable.
2. They should be written down. You remove fuzziness and crystallize your intentions by writing. Something about writing them down and reviewing them periodically seems to mobilize the body’s forces into actually attaining your objectives.
3. They must be challenging. Challenging objectives make your blood run warm. An element of risk makes them exciting. However…
4. They must be achievable. Realistic, reasonably-achievable objectives will maintain enthusiasm and help you and those working with you avoid giving up when petty obstacles appear.
5. They must include a deadline. A deadline provides a sense of urgency. Without a sense of urgency, your objectives may never be attained before months and years go by and the need for your website passes by the wayside.
So, before you begin inviting people and even before you begin uploading content, we encourage you to
• Clarify your purpose and
• Establish objectives for your site.
These two tasks completed at or near the beginning will help your site become one that will delight your visitors – and become one you can be proud of!
To go to Step #2 of how to Build Your Own Website in 5 Easy Steps, click here. How would you change or add to the points above? Please reply below. Our support group stands ready to help by clicking Lastinglinks support.