Creating your own website

In my line of work, I often come across professionals who are subject matter experts in their field. This could be a therapist, a business coach, artist, lawyer, author, engineer, doctor, or professional services consultant. Inevitably, the topic of websites enters into our conversations. As prolific as they are, not everyone has the experience or skill sets to create content, design layouts, format files, or set up a domain name, email, and appropriate functionality for your own website. A website is unlike a resume or a Linkedin profile which tend to be a chronological order of past jobs. It enables you to present yourself as you wish to be perceived and focuses on your future. It enables you to present your personal interests, your professional credentials, or if you're like me, these sometimes blend together. This is an opportunity to apply your own style with visuals and well-written editorial content. I put together this 1-page guide to outline the various components to keep in mind. I can help you get started and handle the mechanics and serve as your guide and sounding board to keep you on track throughout the process. Building your very own website is fun and many people find it very rewarding to go through the process of taking inventory of your experience and deciding on how they want present themselves for the future.  

Your Website – a 1-page Guide

1. Objective

Be purposeful and clear about what you want to accomplish and who you are targeting. Consider how you are going to build and manage your site. It’s a living and ever-evolving online digital presence that can change with your business or external factors. 

1. Content

Your target audience will determine the visual and written content that you use. I suggest clean, simple, above-the-fold pages with carefully selected images. Testimonials are a good way to showcase your work.  

1. Website build, host, domain name registration & email set up

Account costs to build and host your digital profile and with some basic functionality is about $150/year. Domain name registration and setting up an email account is under $100/year.

1. SEO & Analytics

Search Engine Optimization encompasses a multitude of things including inputting metadata, writing content with keywords, and linking from referring sites (e.g. social media). It’s the combination of many things that will determine your optimization. You can buy keywords or evolve your SEO organically.

1. Marketing

Once your site is published, add it to your email signature, include with your Linkedin account, and use it as a call-to-action (CTA) for social media postings. If you have a target audience or community of clients, a periodic email campaign is a good way to stay in contact. Personally I like to write and post articles on a blog. It helps with SEO, timely relevant topics can be presented, and it is hosted as a page on your website that includes your standard anchor pages.

1. Cost

Consultation ($175): Focused 1-hour of consultation, scoping, or answering questions.
 
Training ($500): 4-hour session using website building tool, providing tips and tricks in the process.
 
New Set Up (est. $5000): This includes domain name, email, contact page, editorial/design guidance, and approximately four pages. *Actual cost depends on complexity and available content.
 
Ad hoc updates($150/request): Page updates, new/revised content, new pages, editorial, etc.
 
*Projects ($tbd): Scope and complexity of projects will determine the cost.
 
 
 
Let’s get started!