My 7 internet hats

The story of how I developed my 7 internet hats also known as proficiencies

Over the last several decades, I have worn 7 different internet hats. The first of the 7 internet hats I wore and still do to this day is the one that the vast majority of the population currently wears was that of the end user. I started wearing this hat early on in college, not realizing at the time how the internet would develop over the years. As I went down the path of my professional journey, I wore the requirements gathering hat, then the documentation hat. My next steps along the journey was an exciting one as it was during the dot com boom. I wore the quality assurance hat, which grew into the project management hat. I then wore the content management hat and most recently I added the digital marketing hat. Along the journey, I worked with many small businesses and wore many of the above hats at the same time.

The internet has changed a lot and continues to change on a daily basis. One of the biggest changes to the internet is the exponential growth of internet users and how they access the web. Per Statista, the number of internet users worldwide grew from 1,203 millions in 2005 to 5,300 millions in 2022.
Yet, an even bigger change that the average end user may or may not realize is the ease of adding content and building a website. At the beginning, web pages were coded using a type of code called HTML (hyper text markup language).

Though a relatively easy language, a person would still have to code a web page with code that looked similar to

Miss one bracket or backslash and ouch, your page looked terrible or did not work. In 2003 WordPress was released as a blogging site which let people publish large amounts of content without having to know how to code. A person could type into an interface very similar to a word processor and like magic they had a post live on the web.

Today, creating and managing content is even easier than ever before. Complete websites can be created using tools like Wix and WordPress. Depending on the proficiency of the end user, sites can be populated with data without needing to know how to code.

While running my business, I developed my content management skills which turned into my fifth hat while utilizing my requirements gathering hat and my quality assurance hats. I managed our website’s content. The site changed multiple times over the decades. We went from a very basic website to a website with a proprietary content management system to a site based off of Magento which has since become Adobe e-commerce and finally to a site built on WordPress.

At the same time I was running my business I was working with a friend who had an Information Technology business and I wore the requirements gathering hat, quality assurance hat and the content management hat for him. I worked with clients to understand what they needed from their website and then helped them create the content, and ultimately I populated the pages in the WordPress sites that we built for them.

How I am Your Virtual Professional can maintain and grow you internet business

I am Your Virtual Professional, I have helped small businesses, and I can help you and your team meet the various challenges that arise with your website. I comfortably find myself wearing the content management hat and the digital marketing hat. I have helped clients update and manage the data on their Wix and WordPress websites, as well as helped clients implement best search engine “SEO” practices so to improve their businesses organic ranking.

If you are looking for help building a brochure ware site of need help maintaining your current website by building landing pages, adding or removing items from your online store, I can help you.

I look forward to the opportunity of talking with you to discuss how together we can grow your business.