I relate to service businesses for one simple reason: because they are the easiest to start. All you really need to get up and running are the appropriate tools, the will to perform a service, and a website.
That was the case for me at PACWEBCO, where my laptop, a cleverly worded Craigslist posting, and a very simple website helped us land our first ten web design clients. We put zero money down, and we haven’t looked back.
You can do the same thing. In this post, I’m going to explain how to build a perfectly workable website yourself. It just takes a little time and thought, and a user-friendly web-publishing engine called Wordpress.
Here are six steps to building a great website yourself:
Go to JustHost and buy their $3.95 per month hosting package. It has everything you will need and includes a free domain of your choosing.
Wordpress is an awesome tool takes all the work out of building a new site or blog. A few minutes after signing up with JustHost, you’ll get an email with a link to your own CPanel control panel. In CPanel, click the Wordpress Icon and follow the simple steps to install Wordpress. By the way, Wordpress is free.
Wordpress separates content from design, allowing you to change the look and feel of your website to a suitable “Theme” in under a minute. Click “Appearance” and then “Themes” and follow the steps. There are hundreds of excellent free themes; you can always opt for a paid theme at a theme store like WooThemes; or have a designer create a custom one for you later on. The beauty of using Wordpress is you can start small and upgrade later.
Go to the Google Analytics homepage and create an account, so you can measure all traffic coming to your website from Day One. Here’s a handy tutorial on Installing Google Analytics on Wordpress. It is quick and painless.
Ask yourself, “What do we do, Who do we do it for, and What do they get out of it?” Boil it down to one very clear sentence, and make that sentence front and center on your new website. Be sure to reinforce your positioning statement in the content you write. For example, the positioning statement for this blog is as follows: "The Shift Key is a web strategy blog for businesspeople looking to become better online competitors".
Use Google’s Keyword Research Tool to find out what words are searched most often in your line of business (Agent vs Broker, Expert vs Consultant, etc.), and use that knowledge to create your site map and the content that follows. In addition to the standard pages: What-We-Do, Who-We-Are, Contact, etc., begin to write articles that illustrate your expertise and help your customers understand more about what their options are. For example, a plumber might write articles like: "Ten Tips to Unclog That Drain Yourself" or "The Difference Between a Licensed and an Unlicensed Plumber."
While I don't recommend running your business on a shoestring budget website forever, most people don't have a choice in the beginning. I'm confident that if you follow the steps above and use Wordpress, you'll be well on your way towards a successful new business; at least the online component, anyway.
