Your Website: The Basics To Create A Face For Your Business That Gets You Customers
Once upon a time, having a professional website would cost thousands of dollars—trust me, I had them built for an E-commerce business—but those days have passed. Now, you can build one yourself, for free, in a matter of hours.
With the improvement in technology that allowed this, though, came an increase in options available to build a website. To ensure that you don’t get paralysis by over-analysis, here is a summary of your options:
- Self-hosted – Most common website is self-hosted at wordpress.org.
- While a little more work to do up-front, wordpress.org offers far more flexibility in the long-run.
- If you prefer an easier version to use, wordpress.com hosts a paid option with many of the benefits of wordpress.org.
- Hosted – There are tons of options, but some of the most popular are wix.com, squarespace.com, and weebly.com.
- If you are not tech savvy, and you have no desire to learn about this, hosted websites limit your options, so it is simpler to get started.
- Other – Though not designed for website building, I use the same tool I use for my sales funnels to kill two birds with one stone.
- The powerful back-end of ClickFunnels allows the necessary flexibility, and the front-ender interface makes it simple to use.
- Remember how I talk about always affiliating? We are an affiliate of ClickFunnels, and here is where you’ll go to get a 14-day free trial.
Here is the key to picking your website and any form of technology in the future: Compatibility with your existing infrastructure will make your life easier and more successful. My business uses wordpress.org for it’s blog and ClickFunnels for everything else.
If you have no infrastructure yet, then I recommend ClickFunnels, because of the reasons listed above. If you want to start with something free and learn as you go, I recommend wordpress.org. In general, I don’t recommend one of the hosted options, because you will always be at the mercy of their development team. If you need to integrate something that they don’t yet allow… you can’t.
Which option will you use to build your website?
However you decide to create your website, you need something to be the online face of your business. Here are three key points to making it a fantastic looking face:
- Professional – The definition of “professional” will change based on your market. A CPA will want a different look than a surfer. All this means is that you present yourself in the right light.
How do you want your market to perceive you?
- Clean – Regardless of the look, your website needs to be clean. This means it is free of clutter. Avoid tacky ads, confusing fonts, pictures, or backgrounds. Don’t use 10 words when 5 will do or 10 pages when 1 will do. This will enhance the “professional” appearance of your website as well.
How are you going to keep your website clean?
- Clear – Your website must be clean to be clear, but one more step is required: Every page on your website must have a clear objective. This is referred to as a call to action. Before putting anything on your website, ask what purpose it serves, and determine how you will ensure that it accomplishes that.
What are your main objectives, and how will your website help accomplish them?
As with anything, one of the best ways to accomplish all three of these is to look at one of the great brands’ websites and mimic it. Look at Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or a great website in your market.
Which website will you model yours from?