If your goal is to bring people to your website, don’t immediately ask them to leave

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An interesting trend I’ve noticed over the last few years is for websites to include links to their social media platforms at the very top of the site. It seems counter-productive to work hard to bring users to your website, only to immediately ask them to go off to Facebook or Instagram instead.

There are some cases where this makes sense. An example is a client of ours that is in the early planning stages of building a community of homes, so they’re trying to generate interest. Getting people to the site is great, but just getting them to follow on social media is awesome as well.

For the most part, though, including those links at the very top of your site is foolish.

If you’re writing content for SEO purposes, you’re trying to attract people to your site.

If you’re sharing great content on social media, you’re trying to attract people to your site.

If you put out a great email campaign, you’re trying to attract people to your site.

If you’re paying for ads on Google or via social media, you’re trying to attract people to your site.

When they arrive, don’t encourage them to leave right away!

We share this image with our clients to show our overall approach — build a fantastic site, and then work to attract people to visit and eventually convert.

The last sentence was key; with a “fantastic” website. If your website is subpar, then perhaps letting people dance around the edges is ok for now. When you really get serious, though, driving people to your site is often the best way to get them to become a new customer, so you should work to keep them there to discover how perfectly your services will fit their needs.

Social media is important for most businesses, and you shouldn’t hide your links. In fact, we include prominent links to social media in the footers of most websites that we build. If someone is intentionally trying to find your company on social media, by all means let them find you as it can be a great way to connect.

Just don’t start by pushing them off your site before they’ve had to chance to even dig in.

I know a guy in NYC

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Our family recently spent a week in New York, and one of those days we spent with Adam Guy of “I Know a Guy” to be our personal tour guide for the day. Him and my wife had talked quite a bit in the weeks leading up (where we want to go, what we’ve already seen, etc), so he customized the day exactly for us. Given that, I had high hopes for the day but it’s safe to say that Adam wildly exceeded them.

It was a fascinating day with a combination of just walking and talking like we were all best friends, and then occasionally Adam would turn on “tour guide mode” to give us a deep dive into our current location. It was fantastic.

We met up with him as we were finishing our lunch at P.J. Clarkes, and then we all stopped by Bloomingdale’s and TJ Maxx for the girls. After that, the adventure began.

Roosevelt Island

Our first real stop was visiting Roosevelt Island via the Tram.

The island was named for FDR, and includes a beautiful park (Four Freedoms State Park) at the south end of the island.

The island felt remarkably remote, despite being in the shadow of the Manhattan financial district.

Brooklyn 99

We had to stop by the 78th precinct in Brooklyn to see the exterior shot often used in the show “Brooklyn 99”.

Häagen-Dazs

Got a quick snack at the very first location of Häagen-Dazs.

Books are Magic

Next door was “Books are Magic”, one of a few bookstores we visited on our trip.

Brooklyn Heights Promenade

We worked our way through Brooklyn Heights, including some time on the beautiful Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

DUMBO

We walked through DUMBO (“Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass”) and grabbed a classic shot on our way to Grimaldi’s Pizzeria for dinner.

Brooklyn Bridge

We ended with a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Adam had been trying to time things so we’d hit it at sunset, and his timing was perfect!

All told we put in 22,289 steps that day, but it was worth every one of them. If you plan to visit New York, I highly recommend you book some time with Adam to see places (and learn more about them) that you’d never otherwise get a chance to see.

The Sunday Summary: Time traveling, weak Google searches, self-doubt and the opposite of friction

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In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.

Mon, July 1: You control the pen
We’re at a wonderful point in history where you can’t complain about how “they” portray things, because your pen is just as powerful as any other. Use it.

Tue, July 2: Time traveling through your notes
If you’ve been taking notes for any length of time, your ability to “time travel” through those notes is both fun and powerful.

Wed, July 3: The majority of Google searches don’t lead to websites
In a trend that’s been growing for years and continues to do so, fewer and fewer searches on Google actually lead people to websites.

Thu, July 4: What is the opposite of friction?
The idea is simple enough: find out where your customers are experiencing friction with your product or service, and remove it.

Fri, July 5: Draw out multiple identities
“Draw out multiple identities. Ask people about their backgrounds, communities, the organizations and causes they support, and where they come from. Share your identities in return. We all contain multiple selves; none of us are one-dimensional. It helps to be reminded of that.“

Sat, July 6: It can be good to doubt yourself
Don’t beat yourself up, but a little bit of doubt can be a great thing.

I hope you found some value in this. If you ever have questions, ideas, or disagreements regarding anything I write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

It can be good to doubt yourself

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I often struggle with a bit of imposter syndrome (“a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud“), as do many people. It can feel like a bad thing, but I find that it has quite a bit of power.

I see a few ways that it can be beneficial:

  • As I shared a few years ago, it can help us to keep working on our skills. If you know you can be better, you’re more likely to keep pushing forward. It’s the opposite (the Dunning-Krueger Effect) that can slow us down.
  • It makes you more willing to receive feedback. Along the lines of the previous point, if you already think you’ve got things down, you’re unlikely to listen very closely to advice. However, if you’re feeling a bit imposter-ish, advice can be exactly what you seek.

Imposter syndrome and doubts can certainly spiral into a bad place, so I’m not suggesting you should beat yourself up all the time. However, knowing your limits and seeking to expand them is often a great place to push.

Draw out multiple identities

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One of my favorite new words in the past few years is “sonder” — that moment when you realize that everyone around you has an internal life as rich and as conflicted as yours. With that always on my mind, I tend to notice more areas where it might apply.

One of those was in Charles Duhigg’s book “Supercommunicators“. In it, he encourages us to bring out the “multiple identities” in people that you’re talking to. He says:

“Draw out multiple identities. Ask people about their backgrounds, communities, the organizations and causes they support, and where they come from. Share your identities in return. We all contain multiple selves; none of us are one-dimensional. It helps to be reminded of that.“

He goes further to compare this with topics and issues, saying:

“An antidote to this proclivity (he was referring to binary bias) is complexifying: showcasing the range of perspectives on a given topic. We might believe we’re making progress by discussing hot-button issues as two sides of a coin, but people are actually more inclined to think again if we present these topics through the many lenses of a prism. To borrow a phrase from Walt Whitman, it takes a multitude of views to help people realize that they too contain multitudes.“

It’s easy to think we know someone while really only knowing 10% of who they are. Learning about more of their identities can help with your relationship with them, and also might help shape your views on other areas of life. Ultimately, it helps expand the concept of sonder, knowing that people contain far more than we see on the surface, and then it’s awesome to get to see some of those other layers.

What is the opposite of friction?

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One of the things that have made the Savannah Bananas baseball team so popular (as shared in the book “Banana Ball“) was very simple — remove as much friction as possible from baseball.

From the book:

“Here’s what I don’t understand about many businesses. Why do they continually do the things that their customers hate? Why are people endlessly put on hold, while a message plays that tells them how “important” their call is, but they do a slow burn while waiting to talk to an actual human being . . . and maybe they still hang up in frustration? In the Bananas’ organization, we have a word for this—friction. We looked at all the friction points from a baseball experience— ticket fees, price gouging on parking and concessions, as well as limited access to autographs and fan photos with their favorite players—and we did the opposite.”

We can all relate to the first part of that (“endlessly put on hold”), but rarely see the second. Even venues that are very fan-friendly, like Mercedes-Benz Stadium here in Atlanta, aren’t as fan-friendly as the Bananas. They’ve taken it to a whole new level.

What friction is in your business that can be eliminated? I see it in two areas:

  • Internal friction, like too many meetings, cumbersome software, poor communication, etc.
  • Client friction, which is many of the same things but they show up for your clients instead of your team.

If we can reduce internal friction to free up our time, and then help our clients do the same with their marketing, it’s tough to beat. It’s easier said than done, and there’s no magic bullet, but by slowly chipping away at the friction you’ll see things continue to improve forever.

The majority of Google searches don’t lead to websites

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It’s a trend that has been growing for years, but the number of “zero-click” searches on Google continues to grow (where a zero-click search is one where the user doesn’t ever click through to a website).

In a recent post on the SparkToro blog, Rand Fishkin points out that in 2024 only 360 of every 1,000 searches lead to a result on the open web. That means that 64% of visitors to Google never end up visiting a traditional website, which is a huge number.

The problem is two-fold:

First, many search questions are answered right on the page, either with a simple answer from Google or with an AI-powered result.

Second, Google does as much as it can to send users to other Google properties. Rand explains:

Equally concerning, especially for those worried about Google’s monopoly power to self-preference their own properties in the results, is that almost 30% of all clicks go to platforms Google owns. YouTube, Google Images, Google Maps, Google Flights, Google Hotels, the Google App Store, and dozens more means that Google gets even more monetization and sector-dominating power from their search engine.

This trend is unlikely to slow down, much less reverse, so we need to start coming up with other ideas to continue to be found online. SEO is going to become a much more challenging game if Google is literally sending fewer visitors to websites.

At the same time, Google search continues to be the dominant player in the search market and that doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Even with Google taking more of the pie for themselves, there are still many billions of visitors that Google sends out to the web every month, and ignoring that completely would be foolish.

If and when Google takes their next big step into AI-powered results remains to be seen, and likely will have a big impact on things, so I’m sure I’ll have more to say as things continue to develop. For now, I encourage you to check out Rand’s full post to dig into the details.

Time traveling through your notes

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I’ve only been taking solid daily notes for about four years now; that may sound like a lot, but compared to many folks it’s not much at all. One of those that has been doing this far longer than I have is Ryan Holiday, some of whose books you’ve likely read.

He recently shared how his note-taking habit can feel like time-traveling, and I’m a bit jealous of how far back he’s able to go. For example, here is Holiday talking about “The Great Gatsby”:

One of my favorite books to re-read is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ​The Great Gatsby​. I love ​Gatsby​ not just because it’s an incredible book, one of the great works of the English language. I love it because it was one of the first books I ever loved. I was assigned to read and write an essay on ​Gatsby​ in my sophomore English class and I still have that copy. So when I re-read ​Gatsby​, I’m not just talking to Nick Carroway and Jay Gatsby and Meyer Wolfsheim and Scott Fitzgerald himself, I am also talking to 16-year-old me. I can see the food I spilled while I read it at the kitchen table of my parent’s house. I can see my teenage handwriting in the margins.

While I have some notes that go further back, they’re very limited and scattered. Even so, having four years worth of notes gives me quite a lot to go back to, particularly when revisiting a book from a few years back (which is something I’m intentionally trying to do more of).

While posts like this from Holiday make me feel a little bad, it also gives me inspiration to keep going strong. The longer I do it, the more value I’m building for my future self. He encourages people to start today if they haven’t done anything yet, saying:

The best time to have started a notebook or a commonplace book would have been many years ago, but the second best time would be now. Start small–record what strikes you, quotes that motivate you, stories that inspire you. Don’t think too hard, just follow your curiosity. When you read a book, write in it, fold the pages, really engage with the material. Preserve this moment in time. Capture what you’re thinking and feeling. Your future self will thank you.

His full post is quite good, and you should check it out.

You control the pen

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I recently read the excellent book “Banana Ball“, the story of the Savannah Bananas baseball team. I was well-aware of the team, but have yet to attend a game and the book was fantastic.

One part of the book talked about the Negro baseball league and how it was always underappreciated. It’s been more appreciated in recent years, as MLB classified the seven “major Negro leagues” as additional major leagues in 2020, and then integrated the Negro league statistics into its records in 2024

Why did it take so long? From the book:

We stood at silent attention as Bob, a gifted speaker, explained to us that American historians in the past never viewed the Negro leagues as truly professional. “If you don’t control the pen,” he said, “you don’t control the story,” meaning so much of the Negro leagues story went unnoticed.

The history of that league is fascinating, as it was created to go alongside Major League Baseball as a place for Black players to play but was largely invisible because they “didn’t control the pen”.

The great thing about our current era is that no one controls the pen. There are certainly big personalities and news organizations that can push their agendas, but no one is left out of the conversation. We are the media.

Things may change in future years, which is why it’s so important that we continue to work to own our content. Wherever you’re reading this, I have 100% control of what I want to say. While I certainly don’t have a large following by most measures, I still control the pen. You should too.

The Sunday Summary: Great listeners, simple communication, and sifting through the chaff and grain

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In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.

Mon, June 24: Niagara Launcher for Android
I’m trying a new “launcher” for my phone and I really like it so far.

Tue, June 25: Who is the best listener you know?
I’d like to think it’s me, but I know it’s absolutely not.

Wed, June 26: Communicate one thing
Simplifying your message is always a great thing to do.

Thu, June 27: Sifting through the chaff and grain
I love this quote from Dinah Maria Craik: “Oh the comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are—chaff and grain together—certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

Fri, June 28: What is the desired outcome?
It’s very hard to know if you made the right move unless the desired outcome was clear before you started.

Sat, June 29: Central points versus name-calling
Paul Graham’s “hierarchy of disagreement” is a fascinating way to look at things.

I hope you found some value in this. If you ever have questions, ideas, or disagreements regarding anything I write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.