How to Prepare for a New Website
What you need to do in advance, whether you’re hiring a designer or DIY
Congratulations—you’re looking into creating a new website, and making sure you have what you need prior to starting the design process!
As a website designer and entrepreneur, I’m always excited for the new business owner, or for those taking their existing website and business to the next level.
The website design process is often a mystery; this blog post is here to clear up what needs to happen BEFORE we start work together—and if you’re DIYing, these are the things to gather prior to attempting designing a website on your own.
*Full disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post, but I only recommend services and software that I use myself, have used, and like and can recommend!
Here’s how to prepare for launching a new website—whether you’re hiring a designer or DIY-ing:
Decide what website builder or platform is right for your business.
There are pros and cons to each builder, and not every builder will be right for your specific business.
If you’re a service provider or a small business owner with or without a small e-store who needs an easy-to-manage platform, I recommend Squarespace. (Save 10% off your first subscription of a website or domain by using code REBECCA10.)
Squarespace is a great solution if you care about beautiful design, functionality and low maintenance. Integrating it with other software, such as email marketing or online scheduling is a cinch (and if you’re not good at tech, you can hire me to help you!).
If you need a large e-commerce store with special features, such as a variety of payment gateways, multi-currency selector, advanced tax calculator, bundling options, robust analytics and e-commerce plugins, you might be better off with Shopify (however is it possible to design your site on Squarespace and have the store link out to Shopify).
I’m not a fan of Wordpress for small businesses because it’s hard to make it look great without expensive development, and it needs ongoing maintenance and updates to ensure it’s working properly. However, Wordpress is a good choice if you need flexibility when it comes to coding and development—if you plan to build a special app within your website, or you want to code your website from scratch, then go with Wordpress.
If you don’t need that flexibility, and you don’t need advanced e-commerce store functionality, Squarespace should work very well for you! I think Squarespace is the best choice out of all its competitors, including Wix, Weebly and Showit.
Consider whether you want or need a logo or other graphics.
If your business and brand calls for a logo and branded graphics (not all do), either have them designed prior to beginning work on the website, or make sure you communicate to your website designer that you want these elements designed as part of the website design process.
I build logo design into my time with clients, partnering with graphic designers to relay what the client wants and needs. Then I design the site with the logo and brand identity in mind. I also can work in tandem with your graphic designer during projects, provided schedules line up and they can deliver graphics within our project timeframe.
If you’re DIYing your site, I highly recommend outsourcing your logo to a talented graphic designer (unless you are one!) and then designing your site around the colors, fonts and vibe of the logo.
Research inspiration sites.
Take note of websites you like that have the style, functionality, fonts, images or the overall feel that you want for your site. It's not vital to do this in advance, but if you feel particular about what you want, this exercise can help you articulate your desires to your website designer and help you keep track of what you’re going for, if you’re DIYing.
You can make a Pinterest “mood” board with images that convey what you’re looking to achieve on your new site. As a website designer, the more information I have about what you want the better (unless you are the flexible, not picky type, which is rare!).
Follow my website design mood board / inspiration site board on Pinterest!
Start jotting down the raw copy for your site.
While my higher-tier packages include copywriting, I'll still need basic, raw information about your services or products, such as service or product descriptions, bios, and your philosophy, mission or approach.
Even if you’re designing your site on your own, you want to be thinking in advance about what words, thoughts and offerings will go on your site.
I recommend checking out other sites with products or services that are similar to yours to help you generate raw copy. Don’t write the copy last minute, willy-nilly. Think about your target audience and what they need to hear in order to want to use your product or service.
Describing your services, your experience, and what people can expect is vital to having success on your website.
Collect testimonials or reviews if you’re already in business.
Word of mouth and “social proof”—proof that others like and trust your products or services—is vital to making future sales. Make sure to reach out to past customers and guide them in how to write a testimonial.
If you need some testimonial inspiration, you can look at my testimonial page!
Or, here’s one testimonial below:
If you want to launch with a blog, write five blog posts in advance.
Writing blog posts can take time, so make sure to do this in advance of our work together or launching your own website.
Alternatively, we can always launch with the blog turned off until you've have a chance to write the posts.
Think about keywords you’d want to show up for on Google. I recommend checking out Neil Patel’s guide to blogging to begin to understand how you can optiimze your blog to be found on Google search.
There is a lot to learn, and it can be overwhelming. So start slow! Remember, you can always share your blog posts as helpful content in emails and social media posts—it’s not all about showing up on the first page of Google. But you might as well try because that’s how you can be found by people you don’t know and who don’t yet know about you or your business!
Nail down your offers and pricing.
If you want to have success in your online business, you need to deeply consider your packages, pricing and positioning. Who is your target market, what do they want, and how much are they willing to pay? Do some market research prior to working together. Think about what you feel you need to charge to make it worth your time, and make sure it’s a good value for others.
If you know the domain you want to use, buy it.
Your domain is the address that will point to your website (rebeccaeisner.com is my domain).
I don't recommend waiting—there are people who look for search trends and snag domains so that they can resell them. If you know what you want, don't sit on buying the domain. Alternatively, if you're not sure and want my input, I can both consult on the domain name and purchase it on your behalf if we work together.
Buy an easy to remember, catchy, short domain name, preferably a .com. Here’s a guide from domain registrar GoDaddy on how to pick a domain name and extension.
A physical address that you can use for email marketing and your privacy policy.
CAN-SPAM laws state that you need a physical address where you can receive mail in order to send marketing emails. I don't recommend using your home address for safety reasons.
If you can't open up a P.O. box right now due to COVID, luckily the email marketing platform ConvertKit* lets you use their address!
You’ll also need a physical address for your privacy policy.
Conclusion
There’s some advance work that should ideally be done prior to creating a new website. As a website designer, I believe it’s possible to be scrappy and make a website work with whatever you have! However, if you’re investing a considerable amount of money in a new website, I recommend that you do some legwork prior to make sure you maximize your investment.
