Why this matters:
Before you can speak to a person, you need a connection. If you want to call your friend, you pick up the phone. The connection runs through cables. If you text your girlfriend that you are running late, you use WhatsApp. The connection runs through the mobile network. If you want to present your product or service, you create a website. The connection is the internet. What few people know: The internet consists of real, physical cables that run all around the globe. It is a real, tangible bridge into the digital world. But who is responsible for how this connection looks and sounds for a small business or a solopreneur? And more importantly: How do you even find this connection?
What happened:
In reality, it often looks like the business owner hands over this task. He hires web design factories. These are agencies that do not make a living from giving you a custom, authentic design, but from having as many clients as possible. An acquaintance of mine had over five thousand clients in his web design firm. If everyone pays thirty or fifty euros a month, you immediately understand the business model. It is not about quality, it is about mass. The same templates and the same extensions are used everywhere, which is why so many websites look the same today. And the people who build them there are often pure technicians. They sit introverted in front of their code and their design. They do not understand how human communication works. They do not work with the target audience, they work with the screen.
And here is the point: The internet is nothing more than a huge network of all these connections. In the early days of the internet, Google beat the competition precisely because they systematically crawled the web. They sent out so-called spiders that followed every single connection, every line, every link, and indexed everything. That is where the term World Wide Web comes from - the worldwide network. The entire internet is nothing more than all the connections to all the pages that are live. And when someone searches for something online, they are searching for exactly this connection. They want to find your line.
How I solved it:
I understood early on that the online presence is always the boss's business. It is not just about making sales. It is the mouthpiece of the founder. It is the image you have of your vision. In the virtual world, there is no physical mass, no streets, no passersby. The domain, the design, and the texts are all you have. It is like a long-established toy store in a small Bavarian town. It has a great facade and a beautiful window display that draws people into the store. In the nineties, I ran a toy wholesale business together with a partner from the USA. I witnessed firsthand back then how Amazon destroyed many of these stores that had been successful for generations. Only those survived who used the internet to get customer inquiries for their real business. Your website is this window display. That is why the first phase of my 6-phase internet business development strategy, building the website, takes a good three months. And the second phase, content creation, takes six months. You need this time to really know where the journey is going.
Why this works:
It works because only you know the soul of your business. A technician can build you a structure, but he cannot find your voice. If you hand over your communication to a mass-production line, your website will end up looking like eighty percent of your online competition. You will become invisible in the mass. But if you take it into your own hands, your online presence becomes a true mirror of your personality and your expertise. People do not buy from an anonymous template. They buy from a human being whose facade they understand and who welcomes them.
How you can do this too:
The next time you think about handing over your website for a few euros a month, pause for a moment. Imagine you would give a stranger the keys to your physical store and ask him to design the window display without him ever having touched your product. You would never do it. Treat your online presence the same way. Sit down. Think about what your facade should look like. Take the time it takes to find your words and your images. Do not let someone who only sees code take your voice away.
What you can take away from this:
Your online presence is more than just a tool to make money. It is your lifeline into the digital world. It is the storefront you present every day. In a world where there are no physical passersby anymore, this facade is all you have. Make it the boss's business. Design it yourself, with your vision and your voice. Because in the end, only a real, authentic storefront draws the right people into your store. And it is this connection that needs to be found.
Food for thought:
But here is a question that has been on my mind for months: What happens when AI knows everything in a few years? When it no longer has to search, but can simply predict everything?
I have experienced it all firsthand over the last thirty years. I was there when eBay changed the market. I watched as Amazon turned retail upside down. I saw how Facebook pushed Myspace out of the market (my youngest daughter was very active on Myspace back when I lived in the USA). And I observed how Google left the competition far behind with web crawlers (small computer programs that crawl the internet like spiders) to index the entire web.
And today? Today, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Alibaba, Elon Musk, and many other large corporations are all working on the same thing. They are driving forward the concept of the transparent citizen and the so-called Smart City (a city where computers monitor and control everything that happens on the street via cameras and sensors). Their goal is an AI that knows everything. In China, this development is already much further ahead than it is with us. Super-apps like WeChat or Baidu dominate there, integrating AI assistants so deeply that users often do not even have to leave the platform anymore. The "one field" concept is already a reality there - a chat interface, and the AI delivers the answer, perfectly personalized, without you having to click on different websites anymore.
Do you even need websites then? Or will the game of the big tech corporations around 2030 be exactly that? A single field, and the AI delivers the answer, perfectly personalized, without you even having to visit a website?
That is a question I ask myself often. I know it sounds wild. Some would call me a crank or a conspiracy theorist for it. But I am saying this purely from a good understanding of how the WWW works, after thirty years of having been through it all.
But until then - and maybe even after that - your website is this connection. It is what needs to be found.
Questions for your own AI:
If you want to take charge of your online presence today as the boss and prepare for the future at the same time, copy one of these questions into your AI and let it guide you through your situation:
How can I analyze my current website to find out if it really reflects my personal voice and vision, or if it just looks like an anonymous template?
I am considering handing over my website to an agency. What questions do I need to ask to make sure they really understand my business and do not just deliver a mass-produced product?
How can I start treating my online presence as the boss's business, even if I have no technical background?
What are the concrete steps to design my digital storefront in a way that attracts exactly the right people, instead of just generic visitors?
How can I build my own voice and expertise into my website texts so they remain authentic - no matter how much search technology changes in the future?
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