Creating A Plan For Success

A goal is a dream with a deadline.
- Napoleon Hill

For a larger part of my life, I was anti-planning. I credit this to my father, who was in the Military for 20 years and always had a plan. For a long time, I thought of plans as I thought of suicide pacts--you stick to the plan under all circumstances. I've learned this to be a flawed strategy.

The Importance of a Plan

A plan gives you direction. It lets you know that you're not only moving, but moving in the right direction. It's silly to work hard for the sake of working hard. Having direction insures you end up where you intended.

How is this relevant to web development you ask?

It's especially important for developing a website. You can literally do anything you want with your website. You're in complete control. Without direction, without a plan--it's likely you will fail. Not because you didn't try hard, but because you didn't give yourself direction.

My Example of Good Planning

In an e-mail to the new owner, I explained the single biggest reason behind BlogCatalog's success is the users linking back to the directory.

I realized early on in developing BlogCatalog that bloggers by nature love to link to services they use. If I could create enough incentive for users to link back, I could build something that performed extremely well in the search engines.

I came up with the Rate this Blog button which allowed users to rate your blog directly from your site. The success of this button was overwhelming, propelling BlogCatalog to become the largest blog directory on the Internet. BlogCatalog even ranks very well for competitive keywords such as blogs.

All this because of a little planning.

Applying these Principles to MacTips

So, how can I apply these same principles to MacTips? I'm taking two approaches here I think will work well. Let me state without quality content, neither of these ideas will work.

First, if I can build a Dashboard widget that enough people use, I can keep it in Apple's Top 50 Widgets. This is a huge source of traffic, but the key is keeping it in the top 50. I've been building this widget all weekend--but I've still got lots more to do until it's ready:

Second, We've recently launched videos on MacTips. By posting these videos on YouTube and iTunes, I hope to draw in new viewers that may have never found the site. I'm especially excited about the iTunes possibility--it was recommended by Omer (one of my writers) and I think it will be very successful.

In Closing

Are these cutting edge ideas? Hardly. But by having a plan, then executing it to the best of your ability--you'll be amazed with the results.

Of course I'll report back in a few weeks to let you know how these ideas are going.

If it turns out one or both don't work, we'll revise and then try again. Don't be afraid to adjust the plan. But don't be stupid enough to think you can wing it.

Below is one of my favorite Latin Proverbs as it relates to motivation:

If there is no wind, row.

This entry was published on Feb. 25, 2008 in Web Development