It’s fun to build a website!
… But also it can be a real time-sucker. If you have decided to build a website yourself, then keep reading to learn how to avoid the 3 most time-wasting mistakes.
If you read the first blog post in this series, you already:
- Understand the purpose of your website
- Have clarity on your content for at least the Homepage and the About page
- Made a careful choice who gets to build your website
Still a bit confused about what your website needs to truly engage your visitors? Clarity will get you on the right track from the beginning. You can sign up for my Website Planner freebie where I explain it all:
Many new business owners try to build a website on their own… and they’ve told me their journey 🙂 . Here a collection of advice from their website building experience to help you save time and not turn your website project into a stressful version of “The NeverEnding Story”:
Mistake 1: Not breaking it down to manageable pieces
Building a website is a large project. Besides learning a lot of completely new techy stuff, you also have to learn how to write a copy that makes your visitors hang on the edge of their seats (ideally!).
For many of you, all of this is a brand-new area. Nobody teaches you the technical part in school, and the way we learned to write content was the “proper way” (with that I mean language that is used in the corporate world). Writing for the web is much more personal and informal.
TIP: Make a time-plan, and do a bit every day!
Mistake 2: Trying to build your website all on your own
Ask an expert when you’re stuck! And do it before spending 5 hours (or days!) trying to figure something out, only to find out you don’t really like the result (Even I’ve been there…). An expert might be able to show you, or do it for you, in 10 minutes, so it doesn’t always need to be expensive. A good place to start to ask questions is my Facebook group Web Design for Coaches. It’s the place for some free advice if your problem is not complex 🙂
You might be familiar with this:
- Wasting hours and days playing with settings and new weird code language
- Spending non-quality time with Google to try to find answers and searching numerous forums for help
- Trying to learn tech vocabulary that seems only to be explained by even more tech vocabulary
Free resource: Website vocabulary for the clueless
TIP: Ask! Take action. You can do it!
Mistake 3: Make it perfect before launch
This is a challenge, especially for us ladies. We tend to over-prepare and never feel ready. It can be hard to get around, but one strategy is to prioritize preparing the parts of your website that matter most to your potential clients:
- A Homepage that grabs their attention
- An About page that makes them like you, and feels that you are the person to help them
- A way to contact you
Since the attention span online is rather scattered these days, most website visitors don’t read through every piece of content you have, so the remaining bits and pieces, like the task of adding the smaller details of your services, your blog, your perfect design and images you can prepare in parallel with the more important task of looking for clients.
The truth is that you might want to change some of this information later anyway. As you get your first clients and learn first-hand what is most important to them, and what they need, you will most probably keep tweaking your content to adapt to “real-life client” (vs. the “imaginary client” before you get started).
TIP: Get over it! Yes, you can start looking for clients without a perfectionist perfect website.
If all the time people spend on their website was actually spent on looking for paying clients… They would be rich by now. (Ok, maybe not rich, but much further along the way to make a living off their business 🙂 )
Where are you in the process? Did you know I have a free Build Your Website course among my courses? Build Your Website is a course that will guide you step by step in setting up a quality WordPress website without having to learn code.
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