e-dreaming

When I was an awkward and gangly teenager, my father, seeing how tortured I was by the usual rejections that often comes with that age, offered me a copy of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. I remember being very upset at the time, but nonetheless, spent the evening reading the book cover to cover.  The book made a lasting impression, and I'd like to think, made a difference in how I related to people from that day on.

Website optimization, it occurs to me, is a bit like the lessons taught in that book, one of the all-time best selling books.  It is also a bit like my favorite lesson from Zig Ziglar, one of the world's most successful non-fiction authors and public speakers, i.e. You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.

Those profound lessons aimed at living a fulfilling life, both point to the importance of studying others, learning what they want and need, and learning how to speak their language so that you can best help them get it.  That's also precisely the best way to create outstanding websites.  The challenge is in helping other people get what they want.