Hi! I'm a drawing of Catherine. She does most of the writing here, including this blurb. (Does this count as writing in the third person?) Catherine believes that websites don't really run on technology, they run on emotions. If you agree, then she wants to help you rock it out and be awesome online.What topic do you need to be writing about in order to change the world?
Any of them, dearest. Any of them.
photo credit: Hamed Saber
Most people have the wrong idea about how to change the world. They look at the big players and think “My plumbing supplies* website isn’t Gandhi. It isn’t Nelson Mandela. Therefore I will sell tap washers and leave the world-changing to dudes in robes.”
No! Any of us can change the world. Here’s two of the many ways…
Raising the general awesomeness level
Your excellent plumbing supplies website makes the world a better place by raising the standards of plumbing supplies websites. If you are thoughtful, and provide value, and write content, and configure your parts database search to be helpful and delightful, then you will get more business than your competitors. In order to keep up, they’re encouraged to improve their websites too. This then tips onto competitors at the outer edge of your service range. And it keeps tipping over, domino after domino of better plumbing websites. And then hardware websites. And then auto parts websites. And eventually the internet is a better place if you need to buy physical goods.
Will you see this part happen? Probably not. But it’s changed the world, nonetheless.
Raising YOUR awesomeness level
When you create an awesome website you change your world. You’re involved in an ongoing creative task, and that changes you. You likely make more money, and that changes you and your world. You receive more positive feedback and build more relationships, and that changes you too.
Those changes aren’t self-contained: they affect the world of your family, and your friends, and your customers, and your suppliers. Happy, profitable, generous, productive and creative you is a different person, a more awesome person. The world is changed, by you being better.
It’s a change you can observe in action:
- Your new extra income means you can take Friday afternoon off to watch your daughter’s soccer game. She’s so thrilled you’re there she tells every single member of her team. They all wave at you.
- You’ve learned how to explain technical concepts to laypeople. It’s improved your customer service dramatically; you don’t grimace when you see someone walk into the shop with a broken flush system and a confused look on their face.
- You help your sister-in-law start a small website for the charity she’s starting. She feeds you steak; she couldn’t afford to have the website done by professionals. It’s a good charity and you’re glad you could help it out. Mmm, charitable steak.
- The free resource you wrote on how to install a toilet without leaks has been downloaded 729 times. More than two dozen people have emailed to thank you for making it easier for them.
- People have started asking you how they can start a successful website too. You’ve told all of them about giving away resources and connecting on the internet, and a few have started doing it. Your best mate is shooting videos on how to build a good shed, and they’re great videos.
See? A better and more awesome world, just because you have a website. Incremental change is important! It can change the quality of someone’s hour, or weekend, or future. And often small change builds into gigantic change.
Your five-minute mission, should you choose to accept it…
Write down five ways in which your website is changing the world. Then go and do five minutes of work toward those results.
How is your website changing the world? Tell us in the comments!
*I probably over-use the plumbing supplies example. I’m sorry, but it’s the best example I have found of a goods business that pretty much no-one thinks is sexy or cool. (My service business example is conveyancing.) If you have other examples, let me know so I can shake things up a bit.