Make a small business solo website

Websites. What goes in it?

The Upside of websites

A website (unlike your Social Media account) cannot be shut-down. A website makes you legit and is read by serious buyers

The downside of websites

Most websites are 'salesy', so people may avoid them

The solution

Have a one page website. With lots of helpful info (Content Marketing) not salesy stuff

Copy this website if you want

Have your name in your web address. Because it's personal, YOU are the business. Now you’re the only contact (meaning new clients know they will never have to ‘deal’ with anyone else). Brilliant!

Make a 1 page website (a few scrolls long) with a few subpages. Just like this one. Don’t use a menu because you're not Woolworths

Menus are useless for solos because

menus don’t display well on mobile phones
words in menus mean different things to different people
most solos have too many pages on their sites anyway
Usability (ease of navigation) is bad on most websites. No menu, helps avoids this problem

Have a short video with you talking to camera for at least a few seconds, because

YOU are the service
your competitors won’t, they’re too scared
it builds trust - you ‘meet’ them, without meeting
YES you’ll be nervous and that’s a good thing – it’s authentic

Words are often left-until-last when making a website. Don’t let this happen to you. And make sure the reader hears ‘your voice’ and style, not a wishy-washy “I’m the best!”, professionalism.

Your websites should ...

make you an 'expert' by educating your niche audience (Content Marketing)
have your photo / video (Don't get Kramer to take your photo on a red velvet sofa).
have tiered pricing to reduce risk - free information then a $50 service, then ...)
have your location because it builds trust. City and suburb. Don't worry about having a home office and meeting in a cafe if you're a coach. Clients don't care; they just want solutions.
make you easy-to-contact. Make your phone / email easy-to-find. Use "next day reply" to encourage contact

Your website should have an ABOUT page is more popular than you think.

Because before people trust your service, they need to trust YOU.

Your competitors can copy anything EXCEPT YOU. So, promote YOU. Your opinion, interests, style, beliefs and background. Go deep and get personal it makes you different, you'll STAND OUT

Example: Cafes that only post food photos on Instagram ARE NOT differentiating themselves, YOU CAN GET FOOD ANYWHERE. What's the vibe of the Cafe? Is there a community noticeboard? International magazines? Newspapers? Sponsor the local footy team? Back garden patio? Mulch their waste? Eco practices? Photos and stories of local suppliers / customers?

Be careful though. Get personal but don't RAMBLE ON (you are not Led Zeppelin, yet.)

Graphic Design - don't drown your message in design. The purpose of hiring a Graphic Designer is to deliver clarity. Not to win them a Graphic Design award, by selling you a BEAUTIFUL but hard to use website. (Yes, I learnt the hard way).

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). 5 reasons to not be bothered as a solo

Search Engines use a

secret rulebook (algorithm)
that constantly changes
that makes your tiny Brisbane business compete with millions of other businesses on planet earth that all have more time and money than you, to rank higher

All the information on this website is more important than SEO

Websites. Buy or DiY?

Up until about 2015 you needed to know coding (computer language) to make a website.

Right-click on any website and select 'inspect' to see what coding looks like. Yes, worse than a doctors hand writing or the doctor that treated Elaine, "woof woof, not bang bang."

We now have no-code web builders like Wix, Squarespace and others.... Meaning you drag and drop 'text boxes' into place and type the words in ... easy. Well easy-ish

WordPress is also a no-code builder BUT not really ... long story

I paid a designer to make a WordPress website for me but found it too difficult to maintain. Small changes were easy, but bigger changes were not so easy because I needed to use coding.

Wordpress is sort-of free. You buy parts of it and other parts are free

2 DiY options, Wix and Squarespace both have a free option, but this means you web address will be long, with a confusing name.

However free is still a good option to 'play' with and you can upgrade/pay later.

Is 'free' unprofessional? Maybe it is. But a free site with great content beats an expensive site that's garbage. Maybe start with a free one and upgrade when you want to

Currently my Wix website (you're looking at it) costs me $200AUD a year.

I found Wix relatively easy to use. However, I did have some very basic graphic design experience - there's always drama though. For example; a mobile phone will display sections in the wrong order, (you have to do some 'tidying up').

A couple of times I've brushed the keyboard and the site disappeared and the 'undo' button didn't fix it, so I had to go into site 'history' and restore a version from a few minutes ago.

If you're not committed to learning some design fundamentals I wouldn't recommend making your own site. You can pay a Wix affiliate (a website designer that specialises in building Wix sites) to make a website for you (they are listed on the Wix website) from memory it was $500 - $1000

All-in-all I'm happy with Wix. There is something very fulfilling about building and controlling your own website.

Another great thing about a website with all your info and articles is when someone is annoying, you can direct them to your website to read all your free helpful info, then call you back. They never do. Problem solved

Should you hire a Graphic Designer.

If you can find a good one - YES

However

I hired one, 3 times.

The first one made me a beautiful site. But my clients found it hard to use. He won a design award for it. That didn't help me though.

Second guy - same thing

The third guy over charged me (I worked that out later). And when I needed help, he would take 3 weeks to answer my emails and wasn't very helpful. I just assumed he would be cool to answer simple emails every couple of months - NOT. And then he quit being a graphic designer, so no more help. And then the WordPress 'theme' it was built with was 'retired'. I could have migrated the website somehow, maybe, but I just wanted to get off WordPress

Study other websites

Especially your competition. What do you dis/like about their site? What have they left out, have too much of? The feel of your site is a part of your Brand. My site (the one you're looking at) is low on design / graphics because I'm more of a direct communicator / I'll help you solve a problem quickly rather bamboozle you ;-)

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