How to Be Your Own Website Expert

How to learn what you need to manage your WordPress website.

I subscribe to many feeds and newsletters, and often don’t have time to open or read them all. But I make a valiant effort.

I am an information junkie, particularly when it comes to WordPress, marketing, social media, and website-building trends. I read, read, read.

Being an infoholic means I have this uncontrollable urge to stay on the edge of developing trends, products, and services. By keeping up with the commentary, studies, and observations of online “experts,” I can try new things and discover what works for me.

All “Experts” Need Reliable Information

In doing so, I have considered myself an expert in training for the entire life of my consulting practice. I attribute this approach to my success, but it wasn’t easy.

With that, I’ve come to realize:

You must make an effort to qualify every single source of information. You can’t just believe everything you read — about anything. Use critical thinking to determine who is worth your attention.
Be willing to read and read more; don’t be afraid to apply.
Be open to new sources, concepts, and opinions. Follow those ahead of you to get an idea of what you must do to get there.
You can’t know everything. Learn what you need to know and become good at it.
Understand you’ll make mistakes. And that’s okay. Learn from that, too.
Not everything you try will work as you want on the first attempt. It rarely will.
Reach out for help when you need it. There is nothing wrong with not knowing everything. Know what you know and get help with the rest.

Unfortunately, many website owners are not up to this challenge. I know I’ve failed on some of my projects, but at least I tried—and I learned a ton each time.

Find Out What You Don’t Know

Anyone who is attempting to keep up, really trying to “get it,” and working towards understanding the ever-changing online business arena is also an expert in training. If you genuinely want to succeed, you must strive to be as knowledgeable as possible in everything related to your online program to make informed decisions that can either hinder or enhance your success.

You want to know what you don’t know. Make a note when you question your knowledge about something related to your website. Then you can decide to learn or engage a helper.

Websites, including those involved in online marketing, evolve at a dizzying pace. Social media and online marketing have taken a turbo turn into a medium that is tested, analyzed, and extrapolated by every “expert” imaginable—every hour, day, week, month…

It’s in your best interest to try to keep up.

Add Google’s algo changes, and you have a slew of “What am I supposed to do nows?” So you turn to the experts.

Can’t be a “Know it All”

But, the reality is you cannot know it all. No one can. I don’t. After all this time, I am brutally aware of how much I don’t know.

This is especially true when what you know is constantly in flux and morphing for unknown or documented reasons. Being realistic about acknowledging what you don’t know yet is crucial.

Discover what interests you, be enthusiastic about it, and learn as much as you can. Then, seek out true experts who can help fill the gaps. Partnerships like these can yield results that exceed your expectations.

Choose Your “Experts” Wisely

Some of these experts support what my decades of experience confirm. Then some go in directions I have yet to consider. This is why you want to rely on multiple sources and resources.

This approach can cause me to question what I thought to be true just the day before. And try something new. Sometimes things work out—other times, not so much.

Of course, everything can be tried, tested, analyzed, and changed to produce different results. However, these results depend on several variables unique to your website, including your budget, motivation to learn, work ethic, and market.

So, your mileage will vary.

That can be pretty darned exciting — or mega frustrating for many.

Every Website is a Unique Ecosystem

No program, strategy, or “metric” will apply the same to every website, project, market, methodology, or process.

Judith
TheIStudio.com

Expect the Unexpected

Each website is an island unto itself, with its unique approaches, tools, methodologies, and strategies that may work. So, yeah, some basics and staples apply to all sites, but daring to try something new and different—that’s when things start getting interesting.

No expert can claim to tell a site owner exactly what to expect, other than to expect the unexpected. There will always be new twists and turns unique to each website that can cause even the most expert of “experts” to scratch their heads.

Online business is a work in progress. Anyone who claims to be an expert will admit that they realize the importance of continually building upon their expertise and growing their portfolio of strategies.

This is the only way to ensure you have all the necessary information and data available to apply to the project at hand, at that moment in time. Then stay on that edge and evolve — hopefully before you are forced to because you’ve been left behind.

Your Mission If You Choose To Accept It

Every “expert” is on a mission to develop and implement successful strategies based on their individual experiences. More importantly, they must learn how to measure everything related to website visitors’ interests and activities to produce ROI.

You know your business and customers better than any “expert” out there. You have the data at your fingertips to interrogate. Use that information to your advantage.

The experts in training, just like you, push the envelope. They try new things no one has yet attempted and repurpose strategies so they can be born anew.

Choose your sources wisely, read, learn, test, tune, and discover what works best for your website. Take risks and try new things, then learn from those efforts. Rinse and repeat. Nothing less will do.

At your service,