7 Musts For Updating Or Building Your Website

Anyone who’s ever done a home renovation knows how much work goes into bringing the vision to life. Browsing through magazines and Pinterest for ideas, pulling the concepts together, pricing the work, and hiring the right people for the job all take time and patience. 

Why then are websites any different?

Here are my guiding principles for creating or updating your website. By sharing these, my goal is to help you feel more confident and excited about your website, while also preparing you for some spots along the way where you’ll need to put your thinking cap on. Let’s get started!

1. Start With the End in Mind

Are you aiming to sell digital products or coaching sessions? Monetize your blog or have a membership? This matters more than you might think. Save yourself time and money by knowing what you want to do with your website. The best part about starting with the end in mind is that you can chunk things out in stages. If you love blogging right now and want to sell digital products down the line, you just need to know that it’s on your radar so the website can be set up for it at some point. Without the future visioning for your website, it’s too easy to get caught up in all the bells and whistles when really, you’ll only need half of them. 

2. Your Website is Your Business’s House

If you don’t already have a website then you’ll be starting from scratch and building something brand new, which is really exciting since you’ve got a blank slate. 

If you have a website but it’s not where you want it to be, you need to ask yourself whether it’s a renovation or a complete tear down that’s needed to turn it into version 2.0. 

By renovation I mean there will be some updating, usually in the form of design and branding, and likely some new pages to better reflect your business. But you certainly don’t need the full overhaul of a tear down, which may be the case if you’re repurposing your site for an entirely different business or niche market. 

Now, because we’re totally biased about how wonderful our home is, you may need to ask a business-minded friend for their input so you get a more accurate account of your website’s current state. Try to remain open minded and don’t take it personally if the feedback is less than positive. Remember, you’re on a path to building something amazing and there’s going to be some messy spots along the way. 

3. Prioritize Your Priorities

There are endless things to update and modify on your website. Which items will have the biggest bang for your business buck? It’s time to go old school and bust out that yellow legal pad to jot down your wishlist. This can be as many items as you’d like, with one caveat. You have to prioritize them! 

Depending how intense your list is, you may be able to get a lot of those things included in your website now. Save the rest for later. I try to anticipate what will be needed for the next 6 months to a year and use that for reference.

4. Go for Sustainability

Just like with fashion trends there are oodles of new design themes coming out at rapid pace. Resist the urge to get super trendy. If high-waisted jeans have taught me anything, it’s that they’re here for a good time not a long time. You don’t want your website to be the equivalent of high-waisted jeans when low rise pants make a comeback. Stick to clean and classic looks to get more longevity out of your website design. 

This doesn’t mean your branding has to suffer if you have a more eclectic flair. Aim for a streamlined look and add your big bold colors and trendy elements in small splashes.

5. Get Inspired, Not Sidetracked

When you get to the design stage it’s time to have some real fun! Browse through a lot of websites across different niches to see what resonates with you. You’ll find that you either love or hate script fonts. And that’s a really good thing. Take screenshots or write down the elements you want to see on your website but try not to go down a website rabbit hole of wishing your website/business/audience was as good as so-and-so’s. This is all about you, and it’s your chance to get your website to shine with all the pieces that make your business so special. 

6.  Go Shopping

The first and only car I’ve ever owned (my trusty 2010 Toyota Yaris hatchback💕) was purchased without so much as a test drive. I’m not much of a car person so it really didn’t matter how smooth the ride was, but in general that’s not a smart move. 

When it comes time to hit go on your website, you’ll want to make sure your designer is a good fit. After working on countless Kajabi websites, I can tell you that the best client-contractor partnerships came about when I knew exactly the type of entrepreneur I wanted to work with, and the entrepreneur knew who his or her type was as well. 

I’ve heard this special kind of relationship search compared to dating because of how important it is for values, expectations, and chemistry to align. And as with true love, your chosen website expert will be worth the wait! 

Some of the most important areas to agree on are overall approach, timeline, what the deliverables are, and fee structure. 

And unlike my car shopping experience, you’ll absolutely want to take a test drive! In this case it’ll be more like seeing samples of the person’s work and checking out their client success stories, so be sure to ask for these.

7. Trust The Process

Whether you’re a coach, artist, teacher, financial advisor, or anything in between, you know how important it is for your clients to stick to what they’ve paid you to help with. 

Now it’s time for me to turn the tables and let you know that you may feel super uncomfortable (temporarily) while your website goes through its transformation, but you must resist the urge to go against the plan you agreed to. This means you need to step back and let your chosen designer work their magic. 

Again, it goes back to finding the right person to take this rollercoaster ride with you. If you’ve found someone you click with and they’ve demonstrated their capabilities, you’re the only one standing between your old or non-existent website and a shiny new one. Time to get outta the way!

There will be time for edits and revisions, that’s a given, so sit back, embrace your role as CEO and focus on your business while your website techie does what they do best. 

Being online means bigger possibilities, farther reach, and higher income potential. Your website is your company’s online home, and you should feel proud to invite guests over to visit. 

If you’ve been thinking of making some changes to your site, I’d love to hear from you! You can share some info about your business and what you’d like to achieve by filling out the “Let’s Work Together” portion at the bottom of my Bundles page, located here.