Website Development Checklists
I was planning my Website Success Minute on Facebook and I wanted to start off talking about my friend Cindy, an awesome marketer and coach. She told me last week that she had scheduled all of her emails through the month of November. I’m not sure they’re all written but planning them 4-5 weeks in advance is very admirable!
I also wanted to say that now is when you’re going to see a lot of people talk about how it’s time to get ready for 2019, including;
- Goals for the coming year
- Major projects
- Monthly activities
- Revised daily and weekly activities
…and all the necessary steps and planning it takes to get Goals, Projects and Daily & Weekly activities organized and moving.
In all my years of building and marketing websites for businesses both large and small, I have been amazed at how many of them fail to plan. I’m not necessarily talking about a BUSINESS PLAN, although I think everyone should have one. (There are templates all over the Internet that can guide you through that, especially if you need one for a partnership of some kind of financing.)
I AM talking about any documented plan. One that includes business goals for the coming quarter, fiscal year or calendar year.
It should probably include a look at sales and profit for the previous period and a review of your website’s Key Performance Indicators.
- How many people visited your site over the past month, quarter or year?
- How does that compare with the previous period?
- How many web pages do they look at, on average, per visit?
- How does that compare with the previous period?
- How long do they stay on your site per visit?
- How does that compare with the previous period?
- What are the most popular pages and posts?
- How does that compare with the previous period?
- How do sales and profits compare to the previous period?
- Etc, etc, etc.
Focus Your Efforts With Website Development Checklists
Entrepreneurs, and especially website owners and managers, wear many hats, so planning and prioritizing is really beneficial. Checklists help you focus on what’s most important, affordable and what you have the resources to accomplish NOW.
It’s good to review them all from time to time. As you accomplish your priorities, replace completed Top 5 projects with something else.
It’s also important to waste too much time on “Someday” tasks. Sometimes tomorrow never comes, often because you accomplish more by going after low-hanging fruit and bigger wins.
I have a Master Plan for my company that I revise from time to time. It includes specific goals, KPIs, Competitive Analysis and an “Operations Manual” section for even things we do on a regular basis, such as…
- Creating a blog post.
- Promoting a blog post.
- Posting a video to YouTube.
- Setting up WordPress.
- Adding Google Analytics to a website.
- Beginning a Facebook Ads campaign.
- Reconciling monthly bank statements.
National Checklist Day
As I prepared for my Facebook Live in the Website Success Club, I noticed that today is National Checklist Day!
Checklists help save time and avoid mistakes.
As mentioned, they help with focus.
My dad was a school superintendent and for years he kept a stack of 3×5 cards in his shirt pocket along with a Parker pen.
When I bought a Palm Pilot, I joked that his 3×5 cards were his Palm Pilot.
It’s all cool. It worked for him. He was very successful and well-respected.
Checklists save website owners and managers time and increase accuracy. Click To TweetCreating Your Website Development Checklists
Before my Website Success Minute today, I had spent an hour at a Panera Bread while I had the brakes replaced on my Jeep. I took the time to go thru too many scraps of 5×7 notes, Post-Its and, yes, 3×5 cards that had been accumulating on my desk and in my bag.
I’m using a paper Monthly Planner AND Evernote and think I should try and whittle that down even more.
After coming back from vacation in London and having a chance to reflect, I had decided to simplify. I want to cut back and focus on more of what matters.
I have a half-dozen tasks to do every day, including creating content and sharing it across several platforms. I have things to do every week and a few every month.
I don’t use Outlook any more, but I scheduled every task using Outlook and it comes up on my desktop and sends me reminders.
I feel like I’ve made progress in organization and time management, but a monthly planner, Evernote and Outlook Calendar still seems like overkill.
Take Action, Revise Later
I’ll revise as needed.
But I want to get back to the importance of checklists…WEBSITE development checklists.
They help you get more done, more accurately. Even if it’s something you do often or is seems like “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
Chaunna Brooke talked on a podcast once about how important checklists are for her and her husband Justin Brooke. She said they had checklists for EVERYTHING.
She recommended outsourcing to VAs, and when you do, have them create a checklist of what they’ve done. They won’t mind at all, she said. VAs want to please.
So, go out and celebrate National Checklist Day by creating one. Or four.
And share your best time management or Getting Things Done tips in the comments below.
