Ride
The Tiger.
A business doesn’t stand still. The work changes. The customers change. The ambition changes. Your website has to keep up with the animal you’re actually riding.
You didn’t build the business you have today.
There was probably a point when your business was simpler. Fewer customers. Less experience. A narrower offer. Less certainty about the work you wanted.
Then you moved. One customer became ten. You got better. Your standards changed. You stopped wanting every job. You learned which work was profitable, which customers you liked and what you were unusually good at.
Somewhere along the way,
the animal beneath you became bigger.
But the website stayed where you first climbed on.
Two versions of the same business.
Nothing has to be broken.
That’s what makes the problem so easy to ignore.
A website can continue working perfectly
while becoming less true every year.
Imagine the stranger.
Someone hears your name.
A recommendation. A van. A conversation. A Google search.
They take out their phone.
For the next few seconds, you don’t get to explain yourself.
You don’t get to tell them how much better the work has become. You don’t get to show them the project you’re proudest of. You don’t get to explain why you cost more, care more or do things differently.
The website speaks first.
You have their attention. Briefly.
Your website doesn’t need to tell them everything
in ten seconds.
It needs to give them a reason to stay for
the next ten.
The tiger hasn’t stopped moving.
There is another mistake: looking backwards.
Building a new website for the business you finally became yesterday.
Because the business is still changing. New opportunities appear. Better work changes your standards. The type of customer you want changes with them.
Don’t paint the cage.
A new website isn’t the point.
Changing the colours, replacing a photograph and making the buttons prettier can produce a nicer website without solving the deeper problem.
Colours. Typography. Images. Movement.
What are you actually selling?
Who should choose you — and why?
What makes the promise believable?
Where are you actually taking the business?
Sometimes the design needs changing.
Sometimes the words.
Sometimes the structure.
And sometimes the real discovery is that
the business has simply outgrown
the story it has been telling about itself.
You probably already have more than you think.
The new story usually doesn’t need to be invented. It needs to be noticed.
Often the strongest proof of what the business has actually become.
Work that would have felt significant when the original website was built.
Real language from people who already understand your value.
Clues to what the website should explain more clearly.
Often the beginning of a much stronger position.
My job is not to manufacture a more
impressive version of your business.
My job is to notice the pattern.
My job isn’t to tame it.
I don’t want to make your business look like everybody else’s.
I don’t want to squeeze it into a template because templates are easier to sell.
And I don’t think a website should freeze a living business into a neat little box.
The business is moving.
Good.
Understand what it has become. Decide where it is going. Build something strong enough to travel with it.
You don’t need to tame the tiger.
You need to ride it deliberately.
THE TIGER.
Liam O’Neill helps businesses close the gap between what they have become and what people see when they find them online.
Visit LiamO’Neill.pro →