YOGOWYPI

When it comes to websites, a good thing to remember is YOGOWYPI.

Are you looking at me strange now? Because YOGOWYPI isn’t a word, right? It’s not a word, it’s an acronym. But let me back up and explain. Back when I was a teacher many, many years ago, I was also the co-sponsor of the Student Council. There was an overnight student council conference in a neighboring town, and we took a group of kids to this conference. One of the main events of this conference was a speaker named Bill Cordes who used this word YOGOWYPI. (I think if you Google him he’s called ‘The Yogowypi Guy.’)

Anyway, YOGOWYPI is this: You Only Get Out What You Put In.

There’s this belief that people have that if they hire a great web agency (*cough – Sumy Designs – cough*) to build their website, and they have a great website when it’s over, that this is all it takes to be successful.

Step 1) Get website!

Step 2) Profit!

But what I try to explain to clients and to anyone who asks is that we are no longer in an era of ‘set it and forget it.’ You can’t just create a new website, put it online, and expect it to work for you. If you want your website to work for you, then you are going to have to put in some work too.

And as much as I wish I could tell you that setting up your new website and making it live is all it takes to succeed, that’s usually not the case. Your website is competing with millions of other websites. If you open a brick and mortar store in your town and you sell shoes, and you are the only shoe store in town, you are already the best. The minute you open an online shoe store, you are competing with a million other shoe stores.

That’s where YOGOWYPI comes in. You have to put in work to make your site great. You have to write great content. You have to establish yourself as a leader. You have to build credibility with your audience. You have to publish new content. You have to engage people on social media. You have to tell people about your website.

In short, you have to show people why you are awesome. The more you work on your online presence, the better results you will see. You know that old saying that hard work pays off? Well, it applies here too. Your online success will vary greatly depending on how much work you put into it.