Stephen Covey died on July 16, 2012 at age 79. Covey will be remembered as a transformative thinker on leadership and personal effectiveness. His book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is, and will continue to be, one of the greatest instruction manuals for personal growth that has ever been written. Today’s post is a respectful tribute to his most lasting legacy  “those 7 effective habits“. And since we focus on WordPress around here, that’s what we’ll apply them to.

So, in honor of the late, great Stephen Covey, here are The Seven Habits of Highly Effective WordPress Users.

1. Be Proactive

Own your WordPress experience.

My favourite aspect of WordPress is how even a beginner like myself was able to become comfortable managing and even customizing! WordPress sites relatively quickly.  I quickly realized that themes and plugins were available to help me add to the site in ways I could otherwise never do. I also quickly learned that there were tutorials online for damn near anything I wanted to learn how to do myself.

This enabled me to go from a clueless and tentative new site owner to a confident one who felt empowered to create the WordPress experience I wanted for myself and my readers. The beauty of WordPress is that anyone can do this. It just takes a proactive mindset.

2. Begin With The End In Mind

Use WordPress as a tool for achieving your objectives.

What do you want to accomplish by launching a WordPress website?

• Are you looking to set up a glorified online diary?
• Are you looking to create an online business card for your brick-and-mortar business?
• Are you looking to develop an ecommerce site?
• Are you looking to build an audience that builds your business?
• Are you looking to completely transform your life?

The possibilities are endless. You just need to know which one of myriad possibilities you’re targeting. Notice that Mr. Covey’s original habit does not read “Begin with the end in mind … and it can never be amended!” Not even close. Goals change. Objectives shift. Plans alter. Nimbleness is required. But you have to at least have a potential end in mind to know which direction to start out in.

Launching a WordPress site can be daunting for some. Beginning with the end in mind will help you make the requisite initial decisions like domain name, host choice, initial design, so you can get out the door confidently with your WordPress site.

3. Put First Things First

Prioritize, plan, and evaluate your strategy.

Once you have committed to taking control of your WordPress experience and determined your objective in launching, the next step is to plot a course of action. This is where determining and adhering to priorities is so important. Remember that the greatest strengths about WordPress can also be its greatest weaknesses. I wrote before about how this applies to plugins, but that is far from the only area. For example, if your website will be focused on displaying high-resolution photographs then having a robust, photo-centric child theme from the get-go will be important. If, however, your site is copy-focused, then there is no need to spend much time fretting about how photos are displayed. Instead, time should be spent on setting up an editorial calendar that works or making sure Jetpack is installed to assist with proofreading and sharing.

The amount will differ, but we all have a finite amount of time that we can put towards our WordPress endeavors. Prioritizing and planning will help make the time more efficient. Taking time to evaluate and make strategic shifts, where necessary, will make the time more effective.

4. Think Win-Win

Contribute actively to the online community.

One of the most important lessons I have ever learned in my time online is that if you ever want to receive, you better learn to give, give, give. For example, when I wanted to gain exposure and credibility for MSF, I knew I needed to get links from bigger, more established sites. Simply emailing out links to articles didn’t get me very far. But once I started linking to other sites first, and then sending an email to the site owner to commend him or her for writing a great post (and without mentioning anything of my own), I found folks much more receptive to the links I’d send out in the future.

Pay it forward, as the cliched but relevant saying goes. It became a win-win situation as I promoted other sites, they promoted mine, and all boats rose. The concept can be applied to your site’s own community. If someone comments on your blog, that’s a win for you. If you respond to your commenter, especially if you answer a question or provide additional insight, it’s a win for the commenter.

This will encourage other people to comment, which is a snowball you most certainly want to get rolling. And the concept works specifically in regard to WordPress too. So many great plugins are available for free or for small fees that provide real-$$$ value for the people who use them. Donate to the plugin developer, link to them, thank them publicly … do something to show appreciation for their contributions to the open source community that makes WordPress special.

5. Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Have a customer-focused mentality.

Anyone who regularly reads PREMIUMWOW, knows about the importance of blogging.

Our Team even suggests building an audience before you build a business, because the audience will help you determine what direction the business should go in.Even if you are never going to sell a tangible product through your WordPress website, you are still selling a product to your readers. The product is your content, and by extension, you. By understanding what your audience wants, you can create content that provides real value and a design that complements it. WordPress makes the content publishing and design part of the equation easy, but you have to bring the focus on the customer to the table.

6. Synergize

Combine competencies and conquer.

I’ve already mentioned how wonderful WordPress is from the perspective of encouraging proactivity and enabling simple, productive learning. But that certainly doesn’t mean that you need to do everything on your own. For example, if you want to have a high performance WordPress site with great security, generic hosting just won’t do. But do you have the skills or knowledge to manage your own VPS? Would you even have time to if you did? This is why people opt for premium managed hosting. You do what you do best — run your business, while we do what we do best — run and protect your site.

That’s synergy.

Sure, there are enough WordPress-related tutorials online to teach you how to do almost anything WordPress related. But at the point where learning and implementing the lesson creates negative value because of the time it takes away from your core activities, it makes sense to synergize. This concept applies with landing pages, SEO, and design as well. Be smart about how you implement synergy into your WordPress strategy, but certainly don’t be afraid.

7. Sharpen The Saw

Balance and renew resources and knowledge.

WordPress is constantly growing and developing, which means any WordPress site owner should do the same. For example, with each new WordPress update comes new built-in features that you should know how to use. Every day on sites like these and from people like these there are new insights presented that will make you a better WordPress site owner. There are always new lessons to learn, skills to acquire, or partners to team up with … and if you’re proactive, objective-focused, and prioritized, and if you think win-win and listen, then you can be in a constant process of moving your WordPress website forward as an ever-improving tool for achieving your goals.