What drives me: Successful websites for companies

The Internet is now often the best marketing tool for companies: colorful, informative, personalizable and always available. It is also very inexpensive compared to other channels. Even small companies have a real chance of competing with large companies.

Unfortunately, many do not make the most of this opportunity. My goal is to open up this potential to small and medium-sized companies and increase their success through the possibilities of the Internet.

I created my first websites in the mid-90s. But it wasn't until 2002 that I came into contact with a content management system for the first time: TYPO3. With a CMS, there is a separation between the content and layout of the pages. The web pages are no longer saved statically as .html files, but are generated dynamically when the page is called up. This made completely new functions possible and the content could be individually tailored to the visitor. In January 2003 I registered a business and since September 1, 2006 I have been working full-time with TYPO3 and the creation and operation of websites. From small beginnings as a hobby, I have now grown into a company with 15 employees.

I would like to pass on my experience of almost 40 years in the business so that other small and medium-sized companies can benefit from it.

The first website went online in December 1990. Within a few years, the Internet has developed into a mass medium and today over 4 billion people(55% of the population) are online. No other medium has ever achieved such a large market penetration in such a short time.

I was fascinated by communication from an early age. In the early 1970s, I made contact with people all over the world as an amateur radio operator. After leaving school, I studied communications engineering. As early as 1990, I was 'online' via the American service CompuServe. At a speed of 0.0024 Mbit/s and for 3 marks per hour, data could now be exchanged digitally and worldwide. A legal 2400 baud modem cost a lot of money back then, so I brought a cheap modem with me from my first trip to the USA in 1991. The sticker with the post horn was missing, but it worked perfectly. CompuServe was discontinued in 2009, the only thing that remained was the GIF image format developed by the company to compress image data for transmission.

Complex things explained simply

Even during my studies, I was deeply impressed by one sentence: 'If you can think clearly, you can express yourself clearly'. I have always enjoyed explaining complicated issues in a way that makes them accessible not only to experts but also to the general public. At the beginning of 2002, I published instructions on how to install TYPO3, which was still quite complex at the time, as many hosting providers were not prepared for the system and there was hardly any documentation available.

To this day, the TYPO3 instructions are an important part of our website. In recent years, many video tutorials have been added, which were created by our employee Wolfgang Wagner. He can also explain complex technical things very clearly. Around 400 video tutorials have now been created, all of which are available free of charge on our website as well as on YouTube and Vimeo.

These tutorials not only help users, they also bring us new contacts and customers. This is because the tutorials demonstrate our expertise and that we know our stuff. We also make use of user feedback by continuously updating and improving the instructions.

Does every beginning have to be difficult?

There are always users who are completely new to a system like TYPO3. For example, there was recently this question in a Facebook group:

"I'm new to the TYPO3 program.and am already despairing about installing the program. Where can I get the complete download from? I can't find the .exe file to install in the zip file anywhere"

Then came an answer that was certainly well-intentioned, but not very helpful for this user:

"However, before you rely on XAMP or similar: use ddev/docker directly... vagrant then in combination with a local virtualization... virtual machines on a high performance computer (openstack)"

Precisely because getting started often involves a few hurdles for newcomers, we have been offering free test systems where everything is pre-installed and you can start entering content straight away. It is a wonderful feeling of success when you enter your first text, click on Save, call up the website in the browser and the text appears immediately.

In earlier TYPO3 versions, an error message appeared after installation ("Error: No template found") and the user then had to wade through the documentation and learn the basics of TypoScript and templating before the system could be used properly. Many people gave up in frustration at this stage.

"My website isn't quite finished yet, so it can't go online yet"

Websites are never finished, they are always a living object that improves and matures over time. That's why you should stick to the Pareto principle: when 80% is finished: publish it and then continuously add to and improve it.

"My website is filled with content and is now finished"

A phenomenon that you come across again and again: you have created a website (or had one created), gone online and then been more or less forgotten. Recently I was talking to a customer and recommended that he update his TYPO3 version. He just said "Why, I haven't changed anything in the last four years!" - Find the mistake!

"How much does a website cost?"

A question I often hear. The universal answer: 'It depends'. If someone has the right knowledge, a website - apart from the time invested - costs nothing. All the information you need is available for free on the Internet. The software for creating and managing a website is also freely available as open source programs. Templates for the design are also available free of charge - such as our sample template for TYPO3. The only running costs are the server rental for the operation of the website and the fees for the use of the domain(s). In addition, there may be costs for the encryption of the data transfer (SSL certificate), but this is now also available free of charge from some providers.

In total, the costs for operation are less than one euro per day. A few people then say: 'What - that's 200-300 euros a year, that's far too much! But those who have understood the system properly will say: 'What - so cheap? Is that any good? To anticipate the answer: yes, a good website can cost less than a cup of coffee a day.

However, I recommend that most companies don't do all the work themselves, but leave some of it to a specialist. This costs money, but ultimately saves a lot of time and energy. If brake pads need to be replaced on my car, I also have this done by an expert in the garage. I don't have the necessary knowledge or the right tools. It's a big mistake to assume that your own time is worth nothing or costs nothing. In the time I save (it would take me much longer than someone who is skilled at it anyway), I can do the things I am an expert in (and charge appropriate hourly rates for them). Or I can spend valuable free time with my loved ones. So my advice is to hire others to do the things I don't have the expertise in. Nevertheless, there are of course people who [can] change the brake pads themselves - that's completely ok.

Large corporations have entire departments dedicated to creating and maintaining websites, online marketing and search engine optimization. But that's not the target group for the instructions and information I publish. Spending a lot of money is also no guarantee for online success, there are enough examples of bad websites of well-known companies. My vision is that even small and medium-sized companies can hold their own online with a manageable budget and play in the premier league. I will provide support in the form of blog posts, instructions and videos.

For capacity reasons, I cannot advise every website owner individually, but I can well imagine a weekly online consultation hour in which I would be happy to answer questions and provide assistance.

Incidentally, a website doesn't have to have a particularly great design to be at the top of the rankings and search results. Wikipedia is the best example of this.

There are often just small tricks and measures that - if you follow them and apply them consistently - can lead to great success.

The next article on January 12 will be about choosing the right domain.