The Healthy Way to Build Your Website
I remember building my very first website for my very first company. I spent hours agonizing over every detail – every word, every color, every font, the logo. It took me months to finish it. And it left me exhausted.
But what was interesting was that, during that time, my revenue in my business went down to nearly zero.
I was stressed about money all the time, and I didn’t have enough clients because I was spending so much time worrying about the website and not nearly enough time taking actions to build my business.
In my 15 years of coaching, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with literally thousands of entrepreneurs – and I see this same pattern all the time: taking six months to build your website and revenue suffering.
There are four primary reasons why we tend to fall into this trap.
The first reason? We feel like every inch of our website has to be perfect before we can move forward and launch our business, because our website is the equivalent of our store.
If we opened a candy store, for instance, and people walked in and found half-painted shelves and candy all over the floor, they’d turn around and walk right out. Our shelves are the pages of our website. Our candy is our content.
But the catch here is that it is impossible to perfect your website before you actually start getting clients.
Your website is going to change dramatically after you’ve worked with your first 5 clients. And then again after your first 10 clients, and again by your 20th client.
Whether you’re just starting your business or entering a new target market, spending a huge amount of time perfecting your website right off the bat is a crazy waste of time.
To get your website up and running, all you need is seven basic pages:
- Your Home page
- Your Start Here page, which should have your free gift on it
- Your Blog page, which will house your newsletter articles
- Your Offerings page, where you’ll describe your products, program, and/or services
- Your About You page, which talks about who you are
- Your Testimonials page, for your success stories
- Your Contact Us page, where people can connect with you
And I recommend that my clients spend no more than five to six hours writing copy for these pages, especially if they’re working on a new business – because you will change them once you start working with clients and better understand yourself and your business.
If you’re like many of my clients, the second reason you may be spending too much time on your website is because you’re using it as a place to hide – as an excuse not to put yourself out there.
Understand that, while it may feel like a reasonable excuse, hiding behind your website will leave you desperate and unhappy, burning through your savings and accumulating debt. It’s time to start taking actions to connect with people – especially sales conversations.
Which brings us to reason number three – and I think this is the most difficult pill to swallow – you’re spending months on your website because you’re avoiding making a decision about who you’re trying to reach with said website.
There are decisions inherent in creating a website. You have to decide who your target market is. You have to decide what your offerings and programs are. You have to decide what will be your signature story.
All of these decisions can be so heavy. It feels like if you make one wrong decision, it’ll wreck your business irrevocably.
But that’s not reality. The reality is that you make immediate decisions, knowing that you can go back and change things later when you have more information and outside experience.
Fourth, and finally, know that everyone under the sun is not judging your business based on your website. The people who end up on your website have usually already been introduced to you through other means, like social media, speaking gigs, or referrals.
Then they go to your website to check you out and make sure you’re legit. As much as it may feel like this website is going to be seen by thousands of people right away, I promise you it’s not.
The good news is that it has become fairly easy to build websites – I often recommend sites like Wix or Squarespace. These sites give you some really lovely templates to work with, which means you can get your website up and running quickly and then easily edit it later.
Don’t let your website be a source of self-sabotage. Get it done, get it up, and trust.
Trust that your website will work for you.
