How to build your own website: the key to clarity and conversions
The curse of the blinking cursor. You’ve got an empty screen in front of you — just where are you supposed to start?
Building your own website is a daunting task.
You’ve got so many ideas flying round your head and so many other websites you aspire to, but actually creating something that (1) you’re proud of, (2) is going to authentically represent your business and (3) going to make you sales/get you bookings in a totally different story.
I’m going to walk you through the first steps that are vital to creating a website that achieves these three things. They are the steps I undertake when building a client’s website and it is what I teach my Website Revival Series programme students to do too.
The three main questions to ask yourself are:
What do I want my website to do for my business?
How can I communicate to my clients with the most clarity?
How can I make the experience of someone using my website simple?
Don’t worry, I’m going to answer these questions for you.
It’s not about the fancy features or making your website look like no other website in the world. You need to focus on creating an effective website. What even is an effective website? An effective website needs to achieve the following:
It stops your future customers in their tracks and reels them in, because they need to know more about what you offer.
It develops a connection of trust with these people, as they will feel valued and heard.
It increases the number of people who engage with you, whether that’s engagement through buying something, engagement from contacting you, engagement from contacting you or engagement through downloading something you are offering them for free.
Because you have moved scrollers from being in a passive role to being actively engaged, your website will help grow your business and give it longevity (which means your business will be able to sustain you into the future).
So follow my 3 step process for building a website, positioning it as a key player in growing your business.
→ Stick to the end to get my ultimate website-builder’s blueprint.
Use this as your personal checklist to make sure you’ve hit all the key elements of an effective website, whether you’re building one from scratch or aren’t sure if your current website is as good as it can be.
Do all these things and your very first website will be reeling in new customers from the moment you hit ‘Go Live’.
1. What will my website to do for my business?
Before you do anything, write down exactly why you’re creating a website. Whatever you come up with should also be the one thing you want someone to do when they land on your website. Be clear on your one primary goal.
If your website exists to make money, your goal would be to get someone to put an item in their cart. If your website exists to grow a membership or your mailing list, your focus should be on your email sign up box. If your website exists to educate and empower people, your primary goal would be to get more readers of your resources page or blog.
It is important to repeat the thing you want someone on your website to do.
You can use calls-to-action (also known as CTAs), like buttons and links, to signify this.
If you’re saying to someone who lands on your website ‘I really want you to visit my shop’, and you have a button for your shop on every page, in the header and in the footer, they are more likely to visit your shop.
A study by Invespcro showed that repetition of the same call-to-action on one page can increase clicks on that button by 20%.
So if you want that click to be to send someone to your sales page or your contact form, what would it mean for your business if your sales went from 50 per month to 60? What if you started getting 6 enquiries to your inbox every month instead of 5? That could have a huge impact on the revenue of your business!
I often see on websites links sending you all over the place. There is no clear one action the company wants me to take. Navigating their website, I’m bouncing from page to page with no clear direction. I might be a bit confused or feel detached if there is no clear goal I’m moving towards. Therefore I’m so much less likely to reach the company’s primary goal.
So for this company, it probably means they’re losing a lot of engagement, because they aren’t clear with their one primary goal.
2. How can I communicate to my clients with the most clarity?
This is my BIGGEST tip when designing a website, regardless of whether you’re building your very first site or if you’re on the sixth iteration of your business site.
Start by writing, not with the designing.
By designing before writing, you’re more likely to get hung up on fancy features, tweaking layouts and playing with fonts.
These distractions will detract from your message. So what you are communicating to your audience is going to be weakened.
Say you’ve made a pretty design and now you’re going back to fill in the text boxes you left empty until now (i.e. the wrong way to start). You have a box that allows you 3 lines to write something. What if what you want to say only needs one line? Are you going to fill up the rest of that box with fluff?
Flip to the other side of the coin: what if the thing you have to say needs 6 lines? How can you squish your message into fewer words?
Writing for design is going to detract from your message. And your message is what will make you sales at the end of the day.
You should always design around your writing instead.
So my advice is to open up a Word or Google Doc before you even look at templates or you start your Squarespace account.
Start writing, making sure you are talking to your target audience, their pain points and how your products/services can elevate their lifestyle/business.
It is your words that will connect with a future customer. Focus on the impact you can give a customer.
Some pro images and fancy website features are not going to build trust with people scrolling your site. Your words are what’s going to help you to sell. So you need to be clear and concise. By removing distractions from your copy will help you connect on a deeper level with your prospective customers.
→ If you’re not sure what to write, scroll to the bottom of the page where you can access my website building blueprint. It’s packed with ideas and tips to craft website words that will resonate with your readers and followers and get them excited to get their hands on what you can offer them.
3. How can I make my website experience simple(r)?
My answer is: use a template.
This might sound counter intuitive. Everyone wants a snazzy website that doesn’t look like a template. After all, doesn’t having a website that feels and functions like a template make you look basic and inexperienced?! Absolutely not.
Brands can easily be sucked in by fancy sliding carousels, elegant full-screen video pop-ups and pages that slide horizontally (instead of vertically). It makes them look unique and contemporary. They feel that their audience sees them as ahead of the curve.
But these features that ‘set you apart from the competition’ don’t always equal an effective website.
People like familiarity, something that feels comforting and safe.
If you’ve got a navigation that bounces around the screen or a page that slides left to right instead of up and down, this is interrupting this safe and familiar experience. When people need to use their brain to navigate a website, because it’s not how they’re used to looking round a site or moving between pages, they leave their comfort zone. If there is any moment of confusion, interrupting their easy, effortless experience, they are probably going to run for the hills. In website-world, that means someone is going to leave your website, never to return again.
Keep your website simple. If it looks like so many other websites, that’s a good thing. If they know exactly where to go to find a new page, they will find that page. If they can read your content easily, in a tried-and-tested format (that looks like the template) that means people are going to be spending longer on your website.
So feel confident in using templates and pre-made designs.
I will always, and forever more, recommend Squarespace. You aren’t restricted to just one template. It’s like a mix-and-match of all the features you need. Each feature has a ton of layout options and they’re created to look clean and profesh already. It’s a drag-and-drop format, so every page can still look unique.
Their customer service is all-time. And I’m also a certified Squarespace Circle member, so you are always more than welcome to drop me a line if you hit a road-bump and need a quick fix on something.
They have a two week free trial if you want to play around (remember, only after you’re written down on paper what you want to say, re: bullet point number 2 of this blog post) which you can start by clicking this link here.
And, you know, an effective website means that you don’t need to work SO hard on your marketing (that can be an uber-energy-drainer).
so to recap…
to build an effective website you need to:
Make sure your goals are at the forefront of your mind when creating your website. Also make sure your goals are clear to your website user, by using buttons and links multiple times throughout your website.
Write out your website copy before ever opening up your website building platform. By having no distractions, you will be able to connect and persuade your audience more effectively and efficiently.
Find comfort in using a pre-made website design or template. There is merit in having a website that looks like everyone else's, as potential customers will enjoy engaging with it, rather than being frustrated by it.
At the end of the day, your very first attempt at building your own website might not be your greatest achievement.
This website isn’t going to define you for the rest of your business life. These platforms (such as Wix, Wordpress or Squarespace — Squarespace has always been, and will always be, my number one) are built so you can tweak and add and edit whenever you want. You don’t have to feel like this is the be all and end all.
And if you’re resistant to launch your first website, it probably means you really care about your business and the impact it has on your future customers, which is amazing. You should be proud of that.
My Website Builder’s Blueprint will give you the structure to build an effective website that authentically represents you and connects with your audience.
Inside you’ll find all the writing prompts you need so your phone *dings* are going mental (from all those Paypal notifications pinging through!
You can get instant access to it by popping your deets in here, plus fortnightly updates on other website-building resources I’ve created for you.
