This series is all about the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when creating a website. The fifth mistake is focusing on the wrong things. 

When building a website, especially when just starting out, you can focus on the wrong things. Sometime this can feel like getting stuck.

 

Where do you put your focus?

Where you put your focus depends on what you like to do and what you don’t like to do. That also means that you get stuck on the things you don’t like doing.

If you are a writer then you won’t get stuck on the writing but you might get stuck on graphics. That could mean that you focus on writing.

If you are a graphic designer or have a visually creative bent then the graphics might be easy but you get hung up when it comes to writing.

If you are a bit of a geek like me and like to learn technology, then the actual building of the site won’t be too difficult but the writing and the design may stump you.

 

Getting stuck is normal.

We tend to put our focus on tasks we like and feel capable of handling first.

But sometimes you get stuck because you choose to focus on the wrong things.

 

Why do you do this?

You might do this because the thing you choose to focus on might be easy, it might be fun or it might be time consuming. All of these things allow you to not take action.

If your website needs to be perfect before you can launch your business, you can delay launching indefinitely. It is a sort of permission slip to not take action, to not put yourself out there.

The need for perfection is not good, but focusing on the wrong things is worse.

What are the ‘wrong’ things?

Anything that prevents you from moving forward. Entrepreneurs can get bogged down in details. When it comes to websites there are lots of details to deal with – so many different things to do in so many diverse areas.

Examples of the wrong things include spending hours researching and comparing the technology or tools you use, working on your logo for 6 months before you launch, or constantly changing your fonts or colours.

 

Another reason why you may focus on the ‘wrong’ things

Creating or recreating a website is a project. There are a lot of different things you have to do.

Sometimes you focus on the wrong things because you don’t know what to do or how to bring the project together.

Not knowing where to start, what to do next, or why you need to do it is a major problem for lots of people.

When you don’t know why you need to do something, you tend to not want to do it. You might be feeling some perfectly understandable internal resistance.

When you know why, that resistance tends to evaporate and you can move forward.

When you know what the right things to focus on are, the whole process becomes more manageable.

 

Want help with where to put your focus?