5 (crucial) Steps to Take Before Creating Your Website

How many times have you gone to work on your website and you feel stuck? You don’t know what the head line should be, what content you want to put in there or what pictures should go where. You find yourself completely paralyzed, so you just never put it up there.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

A website is not something you can whip together in a day, (and if you can then I can assure you it’s not something that’s built for longevity or is converting to sales).

It takes a lot of curated thought and behind the scenes work before it can even begin to think about putting content into a template. In this blog post I’m sharing the 5 (crucial) steps to take before creating your website that will help you to easily create a website, whether with a template or website designer, that converts to clients.

1.Identify Your Ideal Client

If you’re a day 1 homie, you know I’ve been preaching this way too much, but I don’t care. Your ideal client is the driving force for everything you do in your business. The services you provide, your messaging, blog posts, email opt-in, EVERYTHING revolves around the solution you’re solving for your ideal client. Download this Ideal Client Workbook to help you discover who this is for you.

2. Package and Price Your Services

Putting together your services before you create your website is important because it’s the focal point of your website. The reason you want a website is to showcase your work and for people to see how they can work with you. So, before putting anything on your website, you must know exactly what’s included in your services. Put together everything that’s included, what the service entails and what the investment is, so you can create content throughout the site that points to your services.

3. Brand Vibe

The number one thing I hear people say when they hire me is, “I tried to create my website on my own, but it just didn’t look right”. If you’re not a designer or just don’t have a creative eye, don’t worry there are some things you can do to help yourself out. Go on Pinterest and create a board that has pictures, colors, fonts, quotes, etc. that resonate with you. In the comments of everything write WHY you like these and what they represent for your business.

4. Develop a Work Flow

So, how will people get in touch with you? Or once they do, what’s next? Before creating your website, you want to know exactly the work flow that will happen from people contacting you to through your site, to sending the first invoice. Is there a questionnaire they will fill out? What questions need to be asked in order for you to get the right answers?

I would suggest writing down everything that would entail the on-boarding process (questionnaire, phone call, contract, etc.) and then thinking about what you’ll need from them and you will initially get in touch.

5. Create Website Content

I saved this one for last, because it can sometimes be the most daunting. But guess what? If you’ve done steps 1-4, the website content part should be easy! DON’T write your website content in your website, but in a completely separate document (word or google docs). A big mistake is looking at the template and then trying to fit in content that looks good – but COPY IS KING. The website will be functional, informative and beautiful if you create the content first because the design will compliment the copy.

Here I wrote a blog post that has an outline for each page of your website.

Lastly, don’t obsess over how the website looks. If you have all of information someone needs on there, you will be able to put it into a template that compliments your business, but you need to do steps 1-5 first before you even go online.