Details

This is all about registering your website domain and social handles and since it’s how people find you, and it’s the first thing people see when they visit you online, it says a lot about you and your business.

It makes sense that you make the right impression with the right name. We’ll set these up if you’re ready, and ‘park’ them if necessay.

That way, they’ll be all ready when you are. 

Your web hosting is where your website ‘lives’. Think of it like a remote bank of computers (a LOT of them) where millions of websites are hosted or if it’s easier, think about it like renting space where you keep your website.

Your domain name points to a particular hosting account on a particular server. Your cPanel is essentially the ‘back end’ of your site and amongst other things, and set up your email.

The other side of the cPanel is the WordPress admin dashboard where you actually create pages and manage content amongst other things.

A bit dusty, but a vital component – without it your website won’t work. .  

Platforms and marketplaces. Two totally different things but are often confused. And no, social media is not a website platform! 

We’ll go through what you need for your website and work out the best platform for you. That could be WordPress, it may be Shopify, Wix, Square, Squarespace .. or it may be a marketplace like Etsy. They all have their pros and cons, and we’ll explore those while deciding the best solution for you. 

WordPress is known as the most popular blogging platform and content management system, powering about 27% of all websites. Considering that there’s over 1 billion websites out there, that’s a lot of websites!

We’ll dive in and set up WP, get it working, and install some plugins. Clear as mud right?! It will become clearer, and rest assured, this is a one time job. 

How do you know exactly what you want your website to do? If you’ve done the planning stage, you’ll have a reasonable idea and that will give you the ‘clues’ as to what to do next.

Do you want an online store? Do you want to build your mailing list? Do you want a membership site? Do you want a simple contact form or perhaps some way for your customers to be able to ask for pricing information or something else.

If you’ve done the planning process (and I highly recommend that you do), you should have a reasonable map of what information you need for your website, who your customer is, and what things you need to enable.

This is the fun part! 

We’ll talk about how you want your website to look – the style that suits your brand and product best, the themes (templates) that are a best fit and how you can customise them to be exactly what you want. 

We’ll also talk about colours (your style and brand), images, photography, graphics. Although we will have covered some of this in our initial planning, we’ll also identify what you’ve got and what we need to do. Don’t be too fazed if you don’t have a logo or product shots just yet – we can work with what we’ve got to keep your website moving!

This is a biggie, and may involve homework!!

By this point in the program, we will have a checklist of pages you need to have content for – information pages, your bio, your business profile, product information, and policies. There will be different requirements depending on your business but we will be writing content that reflects you, your business, your brand, and engages with your customers. 

Your website should be near complete, and we’ll be able to work through each page and flag any outstanding items. Think of it like the ‘blue tape’ that builders use when doing an inspection on a newly built house! Every page needs to be tested – do links work, is everything consistent, are there gaps on any pages … 

By now, you may be comfortable getting a colleague to look at the site – there is nothing like a fresh pair of eyes for clarity! If our planning has gone well, and you know your customers, WOW is really the best response here! 

At this point, we’ll be ready to start the process of getting your site indexed and some analytics happening with the bulk of that work happening in our last session and I’ll also be busy doing a mini audit of your site if you’ve done the whole program. 

A little bit technical, a little bit content. We’ll be setting up your Google account (if you don’t already have one) and getting your analytics, and site indexing happening. It’s not a magic process – you will have already been working on this by making sure all of your website pages have keywords, good ‘slugs’, and good content that Google can then index. We’ll also set up your Google business page, and a merchant listing if you need one. 

There is a bit to cover this week, but once done, it will only need to be checked every few months, unless of course you’re into stats and data!! 

If you’re a brand new business, this may be the start of your marketing journey; if you have a more established business, you will likely have done some of this … but in a nutshell, we’ll be covering posting to social media and what are the best ones for you. There is an overwhelming choice, but Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, Pinterest are probably the most familiar and we can go through the pros and cons of each so you can make a decision about which may be best for you. We’ll also cover the nuts and bolts of posting, images, scheduling, etc etc. 

We’ll also talk about email marketing and how to kick start your email list; along with marketing in specific niches that relate to your business. For example, you may be a retail store that serves the local area only, or you may be bricks and mortar plus online so can send world wide – each would require a different approach and budget. 

Print collateral, eg business cards or banners, may also need a quick review to make sure they’re in a consistent style. These should be updated if necessary so they’re good to go when you’re ready to print. 

~ And that’s all folks! ~