One thing that I think is severely lacking in the Web development industry are metaphors. Because the tech industry is an always-changing field with new developments occurring sometimes every day, there is a constant stream of new language—something most people just call "jargon"—coming out of the mouths of the people you depend on to keep your site in gear.
Jargon has its value. After all, nobody was talking about "tweeting" 15 years ago, and nobody was told to "Google it" 30 years ago. But I'd like to offer a metaphor that could help you understand how your Website fits into the Web itself.
Now, shocking alert: the metaphor is basically a cliché. But it has fit so well for my clients that I have used it over and over again. If I may say so, the metaphor stands as a cliché, but is nonetheless very useful in its communicative power. This is the metaphor:
Imagine your Web presence as a lifeforce, manifested as a big tree, where the roots are the technical aspects of maintaining a Web presence, and the tree trunk and branches are the various pages and outlets of your Web presence, as displayed to the public.
That's it. Pretty curt for a supposedly mind-blowing metaphor, huh?
It's just a way to look at things when you're at a point that you're looking for a new Website, or social media updates, or technical solutions. In sitting down with prospective clients, I talk about this metaphor to bring in the whole picture of how to not only build the Website that you need, but more importantly, how you're going to achieve your business goals online.
So, let's break it down a little further.
If you want to have a complete Web presence that is working on all cylinders, and producing value for your organization, then it's going to have a lot of components to it. A fully-functional, well-designed and updated Website is an obvious one. For nearly all clients, Facebook is another piece of the puzzle, too. Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Craigslist... the list goes on from there about other places that your Website could benefit from being listed in.
All of the Web services that are set up to display your content to the public Web are the branches of the tree. The leaves and fruits of your tree are the pages of your Website and Facebook posts, and so on.
The roots of the tree are all of the technical, internal pages that the public doesn't see, but that are important in maintaining the Web presence. The roots are all the technical stuff that you may not be excited about learning about, which is why you are looking to hire a Web expert.
Now, it's common knowledge that metaphors do, inevitably, break down. This is certainly true about the tree metaphor as well. But there are so many other ways that I often revisit the metaphor to explain another aspect of how I work with clients. There is the Website planning and building... but after the launch of the Website, you have this living tree to sustain. Will your tree need social media help? Content updates? Per-click advertising?
It all depends on your business's objectives with regard to the Internet. Anchored Web Solutions is set up to help come up with an overall plan, build it, and maintain it so you can achieve your goals.
