Drawing a parallel between website creation and house building, Chrissy explains the importance of having a solid foundation before beginning construction. She details the four essential building blocks: strategy, content, design elements, and launch planning, providing practical guidance for each component.
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Show Notes
In this episode, Chrissy Rey breaks down the four fundamental building blocks every website needs before construction begins. Learn why preparation is crucial and what specific elements you need to have ready before starting your website build.
The Four Essential Building Blocks
- Clear Strategy
- Define website goals and desired actions
- Identify target audience
- Set success metrics
- Technical requirements:
- Domain name
- Website builder selection
- Hosting choice
- Content
- Written copy that speaks to target audience
- Quality images (professional or good DIY photos)
- Key messages and calls to action
- Design Elements
- Color palette (2-3 colors)
- Font selection (2-3 fonts)
- Layout preferences
- Use of white space
- Launch Plan
- Pre-launch testing strategy
- Launch announcement plan
- Post-launch maintenance schedule
- Future feature roadmap
Action Steps
- Document website goals
- Research domain names
- Create content list
- Collect website inspiration
- Join Website Quickstart Challenge
Upcoming Events
- Website Quickstart Challenge (starts January 22nd, 2025)
- Build Your Website in One Day Workshop (February 1st, 2025)
Resources Mentioned
- Website Success Blueprint
- Website Success Academy mini-courses
- Episode with Eve Simon about design
- Website Success Lounge Facebook group
Transcript
[00:00:09] Welcome to Website Success. I’m your host, Chrissy Rey, and today we’re going to talk about what you need to prepare before you start building your website.
[00:00:27] And before I get into that, I want to apologize for taking a little break there. I had a vacation planned, went to Disney world, and then when I got back, there was the craziness of the holidays. So the last month or so has been a little bit hectic. I also had to cancel my Website Quickstart Challenge because I had no voice when I got back from vacation. I rescheduled that to January. It’s going to be January 22nd is when it’s going to start. And then the build your website in one day course is going to be on February 1st. So I’ll talk more about those a little bit later.
[00:01:01] But back to those website, building blocks.
[00:01:04] Creating a website is kind of like building a house. When it comes to a house, you’re going to start with a blueprint. And then you’re going to build a foundation. You’re going to put up your walls. You have to do things in a certain order. And a website is very much like that. You could start building it in any order that you want, but in order to build a good website, you do need to do things in a certain order.
[00:01:30] I recently had a client come to me, totally frustrated because she had spent three weeks trying to build her website. And she would start building it and then she would delete everything and then she would start building it again and then she would delete everything. And the reason that she kept doing this was because she hadn’t really prepared anything before she started building, she just jumped right in and started building. She was trying to make a lot of the decisions that she needed to make before she started building, as she was doing it. It’s kind of like building the plane as you’re flying it. You’re probably not going to do that. Or at least you shouldn’t do that. You want to come up with a plan before you start actually building anything.
[00:02:07] So I’m going to walk you through the four, what I would consider essential building blocks that you need before you start building your website and you can sort of think of these as the foundation of your website. So things that you need to get ready before the actual building is going to happen. It’s going to make the building a lot easier.
[00:02:26] Building block number one is going to be a clear strategy and this actually covers a lot. You can kind of think of this like your blueprint for building your house, which is why I have a website success blueprint that you can find in the resources at websitesuccessacademy.com. And if you don’t want to download my blueprint, you can just answer a few questions.
[00:02:46] I want you to start by asking yourself, what do you want people to do when they visit your website? Do you want to, do you want them to book a call, buy a product, sign up for your email list? If you don’t know what you want them to do, how are they going to know?
[00:03:00] I recently had a client who said they just want people to look around. They want them to learn more about them on their website, but when I dug a little bit deeper, we figured out that what she really wanted was for people to book a discovery call with her on her website. And that completely changed how we approach the website.
[00:03:18] You also need to be crystal clear about who you’re trying to reach. I always want you to remember if you’re trying to talk to everyone. You’re probably not really connecting with anyone. You need to have a specific target audience in mind.
[00:03:32] And you also need to think about what are you going to consider success when it comes to your website? How are you going to know if what you’re trying to do is actually happening? You got to think about what your goals are for the website. And they could be things like getting five calls scheduled a month, or maybe selling 10 products a week. So whatever it is, I want you to define it before you do anything else on your website.
[00:03:58] Now part of your strategy is going to include nailing down all of your technical requirements. This is kind of like deciding what materials you’re going to use when you’re building your house. And yeah, it sounds a little bit scary, but it doesn’t have to be.
[00:04:12] There are three main things that you need to consider. Number one, it’s going to be your domain name, which is your website address. You also need to think about what website builder you’re going to use, which is the tool that you’re going to use to create your website. And then you need to consider where your website’s going to live, which is going to be the hosting for your website.
[00:04:33] For your domain name, keep it simple, make it easy to spell, make it easy for people to find you. For your website builder, you need to pick one that matches your needs and your technical comfort level, but also supports all of the functionality that you need. So that’s a little bit harder, but still doable. I usually recommend WordPress for most of my clients, but there are other good options that are out there depending on your specific situation.
[00:04:58] Now for hosting, some of that is going to depend on which builder you choose. So, for example, for website builders, like Wix and Squarespace, you’ve got to use Wix and Squarespace. The builder is the host. But if you’re using a builder like WordPress, you do have a lot more choices. You need to find a reliable company with excellent support. And if you need any help with that, I have a mini course on choosing a WordPress hosting provider on the website success academy website.
[00:05:27] Building block number two of these essential building blocks is going to be your content. And this one is probably the most time-consuming part of the preparation process. But it’s also one of the most important parts.
[00:05:40] You need your written content. And I don’t just mean a few sentences about your business. You need to have some compelling copy that speaks directly to your target audience, which is why you need to figure out who your target audience is with building block number one. You also need good images and notice I said, good images, not perfect images. They do need to be clear and professional looking, but they don’t necessarily need to be worthy of a magazine cover.
[00:06:08] And please don’t get stuck on thinking you’d need to hire a professional photographer before you can launch your website. You don’t. Yes, professional photos are great. They’re going to be the best, but you can absolutely start with good quality DIY photos on your smartphone. If you’ve got an Android or an iPhone, you can use that to take some really nice looking pictures. You can look on YouTube, but there’s lots of tutorials on how to do that.
[00:06:33] Building block number three is going to be your design elements. And this is going to include things like your color palette, your fonts, your basic layout for your website. Remember what I said in previous episodes about planning your website and building your website. Don’t get stuck in that perfectionism loop. You need to make some decisions before you start building, but do remember that they are not set in stone forever.
[00:06:57] When you’re thinking about your design elements, I do recommend choosing two to three colors, two to three fonts, more than those tend to make your website look a little cluttered and unprofessional.
[00:07:08] And for layout, look at other websites in your industry. What do you like? What don’t you like? What is your target audience going to like? Make some notes about your preferences and your audience’s preferences.
[00:07:18] And one thing I do want you to keep in mind about your website layout is that less is usually going to be more. I have a recent episode where I talked with Eve Simon. She covered this in a lot of detail, but go back and listen to that episode. You want to make good use of white space. Don’t try to cram everything in there at once. Sort of break it up into bite-sized chunks.
[00:07:40] Finally, we’ve got building block number four, which is going to be your launch plan. Yes, you do need to think about this before you start building. You need to think about what you’re going to test before you launch, which goes back to what functionality you’re going to have in your website. And how are you going to announce your new website? Because just because you put it out there on the internet, doesn’t mean people are going to start coming to it. I also want you to think about things like what maintenance tasks you’re going to need to handle after you launch, what are some additional features that you’re going to add to your website in the future? And having all of those things planned out is going to make the whole process a lot less stressful.
[00:08:17] So those are the four building blocks. How do you get all of those things ready? I’ve got good news. If you’ve listened to some of my previous episodes, you already know about my Website Quickstart Challenge, which I did reschedule again, it starts on January 22nd, 2025. So if you’re listening to this after, then it already happened. But we will work through the first three building blocks together. We’re going to create your strategy. We will go through and create a simplified version of the website success blueprint. And you will start working on your content and making your key design decisions.
[00:08:54] Then, if you want to actually build your website, you can join me for my build your website and one day workshop, which will be on Saturday, February 1st, 2025. And we’ll spend six hours going through the building process step-by-step.
[00:09:09] I do have some action steps that you can take right now. Number one, start documenting your goals for your website. Number two research, some domain names for your website. If you don’t already have that. Number three, make a list of all the content that you’re going to need. Four, start collecting some website inspiration in a Pinterest board. And number five, sign up for that Website Quickstart Challenge. The links for both the challenge and the build your website in one day workshop are going to be in the show notes at websitesuccessacademy.com/podcast. If you have any questions about any of these building blocks, come and join me in my Website Success Lounge Facebook group. I will be happy to help you figure out what you need for your specific situation. And the link for that will also be in the show notes.
[00:09:56] Remember, preparation is the key to a smooth website build, take the time to get these building blocks ready, and you will be amazed at how much easier the actual building process becomes. Especially if you have experienced trying to build a website without putting those building blocks in place.
[00:10:13] If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe, leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and come back for my next episode.
[00:10:21] Thank you so much as always for tuning in, and I hope to chat with you again soon.