The Power Of Simplicity

Right on my about page, I list out one of my core values:

Power lies in simplicity. Complexity is a symptom of a system breakdown.

As I am now in the process of doing a large content audit across the Blog Marketing Academy… and that has now also morphed into a theme change, I am reminded of my own core value.

Because I didn’t always think like this. Plus, the tech just wasn’t there to do some of this stuff in a simpler way.

As things get bigger, more complicated and more bloated, it is harder to make pivots. It is harder to change and adapt. You can build so much inertia doing things one way that the moment the situation warrants a pivot, it can be quite difficult to adapt.

We see this in the “real world” all the time. We’ve all seen companies grow to the point where they’re so bureaucratic that they can’t get out of their own way. Heck, even our government now has become such a monstrosity that I actually consider it to be the chief impediment to our own country’s survival. It has gotten so big and so self-protective (often against the interests of it’s citizens) that it truly is a humongous problem.

Well, it can happen in our businesses, too.

For one, let’s take just the content of a blog. Routine updates and maintenance on blog content is pretty important for SEO. Just publishing and moving on and forgetting about a post no longer is such a good idea. Thing is… this becomes a lot harder to do as you get more articles in the system.

With more blog posts comes more complexity.

More is not always better. And since the Blog Marketing Academy has existed in various forms since 2008, there’s a lot back there. 🙂

So, one of the things I’ve been doing is DELETING old content. If I find the content is just stupid, outdated and of no use to my business anymore, I’m deleting it in most cases.

That’s one form of simplifying.

Less content to maintain means I can make it much more useful and keep it updated.

I’m looking at the Course Library in a similar fashion. It used to be that there was “value” in the idea of having lots of online courses and a ton of videos. We used to feel compelled to just “over deliver” by packing so much into a site. But, I don’t think that any longer. I think there’s more power and usefulness in much shorter courses. Less moving parts. And, even more power in a much smaller course catalog.

As part of my content audit, I plan to REMOVE some courses. Certain core ones are going to see massive updates. There’s old “LAB” content from the previous version of the membership site that is outdated, nobody ever looks at it, yet it sits there and takes up space. I’m probably going to delete it.

Less is more.

In the process of me switching away from BuddyBoss and re-building on Kadence, I’m going to be simplifying certain things with regard to the setup and design of the site. Some of the stuff on there now looks cool, but it introduces bloat. And BuddyBoss itself has a lot of settings and code and it has (and does) cause issues when it comes to server load. So, I’m going to streamline and simplify the design and underlying code which powers things.

Less is more.

It is easy to over-complicate. We see things on other people’s sites and think “Oh, that’s cool!” We decide we want that, too. And we spend the time, effort and money to build it.

It is easy to think all those bells and whistles will bring on more success.

But, it rarely does.

Having fancy websites doesn’t make them better or more successful. Often, the simplest sites are the most profitable.

I’ve seen marketers who have sites that are so simplistic they can’t possibly be making any real money with that! But then I find out they’re generating even 6 or 7 figure incomes. Out of a pretty simple site and, perhaps, 2 products. They just MASTER those 2 products, sell the crap out of them and engage a lot with their audience.

Fancy does not beat out simple.

In fact, “fancy” often ends up becoming a lead weight. It takes more time to maintain it. It screws up priorities because you end up putting your attention more inward on the looks and function of your site… and less attention on your community and engaging and being helpful. And that’s where the money is made.

Power lies in simplicity. Less is more.

And so… yes, I will be deleting blog posts so that I have less to update and can provide a better, less confusing content experience.

Yes, I will be deleting courses because they’re not doing anybody any good sitting there. I need to focus on a few and really make them good.

Yes, I will be simplifying the site to make it faster and less bulky.

And I want to be able to have a truly useful site with a core group of courses that are kickass. And then I’ll give the rest away. Stay engaged. My time will be spent serving my clients and maintaining a much smaller subset of content that is worth the time.

Have you found this to be true for you, too?

Do you feel as if your site or business has gotten too complicated? Do you find it a little overwhelming?

Maybe you, too, can reevaluate the importance of all those moving parts. Do you need the extra complexity?

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The WP Edge is the official weekly newsletter of the Blog Marketing Academy.