First off, congrats! You’re either starting a brand new business + creating a website from scratch and there is soo much to look forward to, or you’ve been running a business for a while and it’s finally time to step it up a notch.
Either way, that’s freaking great.
And now it’s time for the research, the planning, and the million questions of how to actually do that.
Well, I’m not actually going to tell you how to build your website today – that’s for another post. I would, though, like you to consider all the things you need to consider before creating your website.
The last thing I want is for you to jump into creating your website totally blind and losing countless hours because of it – not to mention the level of frustration you’ll likely experience if you don’t figure these things out first.
I know it may seem like so much more fun to jump into the creative part of things, but you know what’s more fun?
Actually being able to enjoy the process because you’re not overwhelmed or getting stuck every five minutes while you’re doing it.
So how can I help you avoid that? By getting you to understand these 5 important topics to consider before creating your website.
1. What is the Purpose of Your Website?
Don’t worry, we’re not trying to solve the meaning of life here.
But you do need to figure out the main purpose of our website, especially when creating a website from scratch. Well, that’s if you want to create one that actually helps you grow your business.
So, let’s figure that out.
What is the main thing that you want people to do when they land on your website?
Do you want them to buy something from you, do you want them to book a discovery call with you, schedule a free consultation, sign up for your lead magnet, or join your membership?
You need to have a very clear idea of what your number one goal is for your website and have all paths leading to that end goal.
And once you know your main goal, you can then make sure that you’re not veering off track and offering people a million other options and confuse them.
When people are confused, they don’t stick around for long!
2. Know your offers.
Here is where most people stumble.
They get all excited to have a website, but they don’t take the time to figure out what they’re actually going to sell on that website.
If you don’t know how you’re actually going to make money or what you want people to sign up for on your website, you’re not ready to create your website.
If you decide to skip this part and go straight to creating your website, you will lose hours, weeks and months, I promise.
So instead, take the time to figure out the type of programs and services you plan to offer as a base (this doesn’t have to take months), and then you can refine from there.
3. Determine Your Brand Messaging.
I know I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ll continue to do so.
Determining your brand’s messaging is necessary for the success of your business, but it’s equally important for the success of your website.
If you don’t have the right brand messaging, you will get really stuck, especially when creating a website from scratch.
All of the text on your website needs to be created in a way that speaks to your ideal audience. It needs to connect with them emotionally in order to get them to take action.
The better you can speak to how your product or service very clearly solves their problem, the better the chances are that they will buy that product or service.
And the last time I checked, you were running a business, not working on a hobby. Generating revenue is what makes the difference.
If you’re not sure if you’ve done a great job on your brand’s messaging yet, this blog post will be a huge help for you: 4 Brand Messaging Mistakes You’re Likely Making In Your Business.
4. Choose an Appropriate Brand Identity
Although your brand’s messaging will lay that solid foundation, determining your brand identity will further help to keep you top of mind.
Every page and piece of content on your website needs to clearly scream your brand identity – from fonts, to your color palette, to your logo.
When you have a mishmash of style, fonts, and colors on your website, your audience will immediately question your professionalism.
It will also make it much harder for them to actually remember you. And when they don’t remember you, they will certainly not be thinking of you as the person who can help them.
Please also remember that your branding identity is not about you. It’s all about the audience that you’re trying to attract.
You need to attract them with your messaging and solidify that you’re the one by using a branding identity that they can connect with and remember.
If you keep this in mind when creating your website from scratch, you’ll be golden.
For a few more tips on branding identity, here is a great post that you can check out.
5. Choose the Right Website Platform
This is definitely where a lot of entrepreneurs get hung up. There are just soo many damn options out there, especially when you’re creating a website from scratch.
And I can tell you that I’ve tried a hell of a lot of platforms. But there is always one that comes out on top and I’ll explain why.
If you’re trying to build a website that you can monetize and that you literally have the ability to do anything with, then WordPress is it.
When you create your own website using WordPress.org, you own everything that you’re creating instead of creating your website on a platform that someone else owns.
And although WordPress may seem like a steeper learning curve, if you’re serious about the success of your online empire, to me it’s a no-brainer.
It’s also why we created our WordPress Website Academy. We want to completely remove the overwhelm and complication from creating your own WordPress website.
Our goal is for you to be empowered and excited about being able to take your online presence to the next level.
There is one more thing I want to add in here, though. If you have no intention of monetizing your website and you simply need a place to showcase some information, I would suggest using Squarespace.
It has less of a learning curve and is the perfect platform to use if you just need a simple landing page type website for people to find out more information about your business.
But like I said before, if you want to monetize your website, sell products, blog with affiliate links, and/or add in ads, I would highly suggest using WordPress.org.
6. Have a Plan of Action
Before diving right into creating your website from scratch, you will save a heck of a lot of time when you can create a plan beforehand.
Knowing which pages you’re going to create, the type of content you want to include, what your calls-to-action will be, etc… can make a huge difference. For both your time and your stress-levels.
This is why we offer our FREE Website Content Planner. This is likely the most important step. Because once you get pen to paper, you can finally get started on building out that website!
You’ll be able to pre-plan out everything you need to know for a really smooth creation process. It makes creating your website from scratch much easier!
Planning out your website also comes in handy in the event that you’re outsourcing the job to someone else. You’ll feel better knowing that you were able to let your web designer know exactly what you want.
Now that we’ve covered the pre-planning part of creating your website from scratch, are you feeling ready to get started? Let us know in the comments below!
And, if you are looking to take away the extra overwhelm of where to begin, don’t forget you can check out our Website Academy Course, here.
