Top 5 Web Resolutions for 2013

Happy New Year! Whether you are a small business owner or part of a nonprofit organization the new year offers a chance to reboot. It's an opportunity to look at your online empire and make a plan for improvement. So out of several of recent conversations with my clients lately, here are my top 5 web resolutions for 2013:

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1. Get a makeover
   Your website is your public face to the world, make it look as good as possible. It should have current information & news, be visually appealing and be stylistically contemporary. Where social media is your bullhorn to get attention, your website is where your content really lives, it's where you build your online presence and the narrative that drives powerful calls to action. If your site is looking dated and has dorky phrases like "Welcome to our website!" it's time for an update. 
2. Trim down while saving money
   Having a site you can update yourself makes it faster and easier to keep your content fresh. Consider investing in a site that you can maintain yourself. I'm not talking about forking over big bucks for software and learning html, I mean migrating your site to an easy to use content management system. You will quickly recoup the migration costs by being your own developer and your site will be more effective. By reserving your geek for the high end stuff you'll streamline your process and begin saving money every month.
3. Use positive self talk
   Pretty much every day I hear one of my clients say something like "Well, I'm terrible with computers but ...". I have heard this from 20 year old interns to 75 year old business executives and everyone in between. It's time to start saying that you can do things online and that you are learning. As long as you say you're bad at something you surely will be. Every day things are getting faster and easier to do online and from our local Continuing Education classes to iTunesU there is an endless cornucopia of tutorials and ways to learn for free.
4. Volunteer
   Dale Carnegie said "You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you." I believe this idea is at the heart of successfully using social media. What knowledge can you share? What questions can you answer? What can you give to the world via your social media profiles that will be valuable to your audience? Use social media to give and your site will reap the rewards.
5. Simplfy
   Use technology to simplify your life. Get a smart phone (or upgrade your old one) and invest some time in really learning how to use it. Set yourself up with time saving apps including a good calendar (with reminders!) and a task management app and then resolve to work with them daily. Having your schedule and to do list instantly available saves time and let's you offload things from your memory, which helps keep your mind fresh through the day. Use services like HootSuite and IFTTT to streamline your work and employ techniques like email filtering to free yourself from mundane tasks. It is easier than ever to work smarter and smart phone apps are at the heart of this revolution.

I'm an optimist and as I talk to clients and listen to news I believe that 2013 will bring continued economic recovery, more beneficial political change and increased environmental action to address the world's most pressing threat, global warming. The web makes it easy to connect to a wide array of resources so use the new year to take a creative look at how you can make the most of the web.

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