[Lesson 6] Your Website

First impressions still matter.

Yep, people still base their instincts on their first impressions, and that covers your website and all your online presence. If people see an all over the place site, with lots of ads + tags, they’ll think you’re unprofessional, and they’ll run away.

It has happened to me a lot of times, I love purchasing handmade jewelry, and when I find someone on Etsy or Pinterest I want to go directly to their blog and website, but sometimes I get a bad first impression. And that’s something you want to avoid because your site can be a lot more than just a fancy domain on your business cards, it can be a fantastic + powerful tool to:

• Have visibility. The first thing people do to find something or someone they need is open Google, or ask in social media, I know I do. When you have a website, you’re opening yourself to the world. And when you make your website effective, you’re allowing your audience to share about you + your work. (Remember, people enjoy to share beautiful things they love).

• Share your expertise. In your website, you can share your expertise in the way you want; through text, images, videos, audio, however you want. You don’t have to limit yourself, and you can make use of other strengths while you share your expertise and build credibility.

• Connect + communicate. In your website, you can take your work and your message to a whole new level. Facebook and Instagram are fine, but what will you do when they disappear? Or when they make it difficult to get to your audience (like FB)? Having an effective website helps you to build + nurture a relationship with your audience before they’re ready to buy.

• Share more about you + your offerings. This is your chance to elaborate more on what you do, why you do it, and why you care. This is the place to send all prospective clients to learn more about how you can help them, and get them say yes to work with you or buy from you.

Website Basics

1 | Think about the purpose

What’s the purpose of your website? What’s the first thing you want people to see + do? Do you want them to read your blog posts? Do you want them to head straight to your services page to hire you? Or do you want your shop to be the main focus so that people buy your products?

These basic questions must be clear before you continue so that you can create a website that is based on your needs, and also so all the process is smooth and quick.

2 | Make it simple + easy to consume

Remember one of our rules from the last lesson? Well, simplicity also applies here. You want a website that is clear + easy to use, and making it simple is what will help your audience understand what you’re all about, and it’ll make them stay longer.

So, avoid clutter, avoid all over the top things, and avoid big images + bold colors + big fonts all at the same time. Your goal is to implement your brand identity, but when you feel doubtful about how then go for the simplest version.

3 | Aim for balance

This point is almost about the same we just talked about in the previous point. And it also applies to how you use the brand elements on your website. You don’t have to fill up every page with all your different brand elements; having a couple or three of them will be enough, and it’ll make your site look more polished and professional.

Always be thoughtful about what you put in every page, and try to have a balance between content + white space because you want people to focus on the content of your website and not get distracted by the design elements.

4 | Be consistent (always!)

Now you have a complete brand identity for you to use, so it’s your job to stay within it and be consistent always – no matter what. I know sometimes it can be super tempting to add another color, another font, or another style of photography, but adding them will only dilute your brand. And it’ll make it look all over the place.

Website Dos

• Light background with dark text
• Music/video doesn’t automatically play when page is loaded
• Text is broken up into small chunks
• Using headings, bolding, bullet points and lists in blog posts
• One sidebar
• Sidebar isn’t cluttered–only used for important things
• Social sharing buttons are obvious and on every blog post and page
• Contact information can be easily found
• Your email newsletter opt-in is attractive and obvious (we’ll talk more about this one later)
• Website is appealing to your target market
• It’s obvious how to find your shop/products or how to work with you
• Asking at least three people in your target market for feedback on my site
• Your about page has been updated within the past six months
• Using analytics to track visitors, your most popular pages, and posts, etc.
• Website is easy to navigate
• Readers can easily comment

Everything that’s contrary to this list, it’s a resounding no.

Okay, now that the basics are set, it’s time to create your website! In the following lessons, you’ll see a quick + easy + confusion-less process to create your website, you’ll have to decide which platform you prefer, and you’ll see what pages you must have on your site. Get ready!

LESSON 5

LESSON 7