How to get your website design DONE (so it can start promoting YOU)

Last month I ran my SEOctober challenge, and as I was chatting with people about how to get their products & services showing up in Google search, I heard a lot of resistance from new business owners.

“All my products are on Etsy. Do I really need a website to get found?”

(No, you can sell from Etsy. But if you don’t want to rely on Etsy’s rules — which are constantly changing! — you need a website.)

“I have a big following on LinkedIn. Can’t Google look at my posts there?”

(Sure! But your LinkedIn posts have a shorter shelf life than a blog post. So why not post similar content in both places so that Google AND LinkedIn can share it?)

“I’m working on my new website, but it’s not done yet. I’m hoping that it’ll be ready in about 3 months, THEN I’ll start SEO.”

This last one is the one that breaks my heart. So many people get stuck on creating the PERFECT website, but they aren’t sure about the tech or the content … so it just gets stuck in development purgatory.

Here’s the thing: A website isn’t a painting that you put on a wall behind glass for people to admire.

A website is a garden. Publishing it is just the first step, like tilling the soil and planting the seeds. And then it’s going to constantly need sunlight and water and love to grow into something that you can harvest so it can feed & nourish you.

But the first step is to get your website LIVE so that it can start working for you. Publish it in all its imperfect glory … then you can adjust and change it as you learn more about your ideal customer and your business evolves.

If you want somebody to build your website for you …

But if you’re getting stuck in the HOW & the tech nonsense is holding you back, here are a few ways to get your new website live:

StartSolid Websites by Rachel Vane

Rachel Vane’s StartSolid websites are a steal at $2000. Rachel has built hundreds of websites for small businesses, so she knows not only how to make them work for you NOW, but how to build something that can grow with your business. She has a process to help you write your copy, choose your images, select your brand standards, and will get the site up for you quickly … and you learn how to update it, so you won’t be beholden to a web designer forever whenever need an update.
Find out more at StartSolid websites.

Product Powerhouse

If you’re a product-based business looking to level up your website design, Product Powerhouse will help you create a website that will bring you lifelong customers.

What works for service-based companies won’t necessarily work for product-based companies – which is why Erin and her team provide specific strategies that will work for your business model. They specialize in Shopify website design and e-commerce strategy.

Learn more about Product Powerhouse

Launch In A Day by Eleanor Mayrhofer

If you’re overwhelmed by the idea of having to create a website for your brand, Eleanor of Launch In A Day can design a beautiful website for you – in a day. Plus, you’ll get a branding package, too!

Eleanor is a one-woman business specializing in quick Squarespace website design. You can even book a free consultation with her!

If you want to learn how to build your website, write your copy and market your business …

I love those professional designers above. I’ve worked with each of them on their client projects, and respect the hell out of their experience.

But if you’re just getting started running your business online … you don’t want to feel stuck every time you want to make a change to your website, or like your designer becomes your bottleneck. Maybe eventually you can work your way up to having a designer on your team, but …

When you’re brand new to business, IMHO, one of the best investments you can make is learning how to build, write, maintain and market yourself online. And that means (gasp) DIYing your website.

There are a lot of “website builders” out there that promise to make it easy. Wix, Weebly, GoDaddy website builder, and dozens more options promise to take the pain out of web design.

But as somebody who looks at the back end of a LOT of websites, and tries to get those websites to show up on search results, here’s what I constantly see: those “easy” website builders like Wix & Weebly are full of extra code that penalizes their SEO.

If you’re building a website, there are really only 3 platforms that I recommend: WordPress, Squarespace, and Shopify. Shopify is PERFECT for e-commerce, especially for marketing & sales of physical products, so if you know you want to sell products only, go with Shopify. Otherwise:

Most new business owners should build their websites on either WordPress or Squarespace.

How do you know if you should go with WordPress or Squarespace? I’ve written about the differences between WordPress & Squarespace before and explained how to choose based on YOUR business needs.

If you want a fully customizable website & you’re not afraid of a little bit of technology, build your website on WordPress.

Website design courses

Simple Start, from Do Well Websites

If you want to get started with your website design, like, yesterday, check out Simple Start from Do Well Websites, which walks you through attracting your dream client, planning your visual brand, writing copy that connects & getting that WordPress website up & running.

And since the course is self-paced, you can start ASAP and work at your own pace to get your website built on your timeline.

Shannon Mattern’s 5-Day Website Challenge

Shannon Mattern offers a FREE 5-day website challenge that will help you get your website live without all the stress. This is a great option if you don’t know what you don’t know about building your website – so I’d say this is a great place to start if you’re not sure where to!

Learn more about the free 5-day website challenge

All the recommendations I’ve made above are from marketing professionals who I’ve worked with, and who I trust understand SEO best practices (often because they come to me for training!). The sites they’ll help you build can be the foundation of your website being found on Google.

Don’t wait until inspiration strikes or you suddenly have time to watch all the YouTube videos in the world to learn how to pull this together. Hire one of these professionals to help you get your website up & running, so it can start working for you.

(And then when you’re ready, download my SEO Starter Kit to start creating content to show up in search results for your ideal client …)