This guide is a work in progress that will be expanding in the coming months.
At present please enjoy the August 2019 “Mini Guide”
Mini Guide: How to do your website and your internet marketing yourself
(or pay the kid down the block a couple bucks to do it for you).
First and foremost, the most important thing you can learn from this guide and this website is this:
- It is entirely possible for you to do your site and your marketing by yourself (you don’t have to be a genius).
- The resources and advice to do so are plentiful if you have the right person to point them out to you (i.e. me)
- Not only is it possible for you to do-it-yourself, it is BETTER (way better) for you to do it that way.
This advice alone is bound to liberate you from predatory business relationships, save you money, and give your marketing a boost. If I’ve helped you, consider “buying me a coffee
.” At other points here I will also mention free services and alternatives – if you want to tip me for it click the coffee .
Control
The number 1 reason why you should absolutely to some extent manage your business website yourself is control.
If you are not in control bad things can happen. For instance, you could be locked-in to a bad relationship or even shutdown like this.
What things should you control? This link has the things you should control about your website and marketing.
Philosophy of a DIY website and marketing
(For sure I plan to talk more about keys to marketing in this guide and elsewhere on this website at some point. But for now just some quick points.)
- design isn’t everything: instead of trying to be “polished” (which actually is just boring), make sure your website shows your personality; talk to your customers through your website; post lots of pictures and information
- get testimonials (and other recommendations for your business) and post them everywhere
- talk to everyone everywhere about your website and business (obviously there is more to know about this, baby steps; for now you might want to read this post about small business marketing)
A great website and marketing come down to three components mentioned in the rest of this guide:
- have a website (that you can edit)
- make a great GoogleMyBusiness listing
- work to rank high on Google
If you are starting from scratch (no website) keep reading directly below. If not, if you have a website already (and a good or bad relationship with your web service companies) contact me by phone, text, or email. I will be posting info to help in all types of situations; stay posted.
A website in two steps
- Get a logo on https://99designs.com/
- Use a free wordpress.com account to create your website. Pay $10 to have it show as YOURNAME.com.
(As of 2018, WordPress runs 30% of websites -the most of any website system- and in my opinion is the best way to build a website. But let me not bore you with the reasons for that, you’ll see for yourself along the way. Later you’ll also switch from wordpress.com to wordpress.org, but don’t worry about what any of that means just yet.)
Remember our first philosophy rule (“design isn’t everything”)? Once you have your site started don’t waste much time on design.
And don’t waste time making lots of separate pages. It might be best to create one long page with everything on it (“about us,” “contact us,” “testimonials,” “services”). Once you have started adding some of this content to your website you can move on to the other two essentials: making your Google My Business listing, and showing up on Google (SEO).
Your Google My Business listing
Now that you website has some content it’s time to make your Google listing.
Below is a link to a (long) but good guide to making your listing. If he is too boring you might try finding another one or a video here, but I recommend coming back to his article later to make sure you have done everything he recommends.
https://neilpatel.com/blog/optimize-google-my-business/
(worth a coffee? )
Showing up on Google (SEO)
There is no end to the advice online about this topic. Even for how to DIY.
In a nutshell though, you need people to write about your website and link to you…
Let me say that again, the whole thing boils down to: you need others to write about your website and link to you…
Here is a website that helps business get that done:
If you have time and you want to spend time learning more now about SEO, here are the best places to do that are either free or just great:
(you owe me big time for giving you these!)
A good outline of things you should do
SEOmoz Local SEO Ranking Factors
(an annual look at how to rank; originally by David Mihm)
(a marketing guy obsessed with GoogleMyBusiness; more info than you will ever need)
(by the guy who more or less wrote the book on SEO. a little dated)
Questions?
I’m sure you have questions and I haven’t been able to post nearly all the content I want to give you yet.
So, contact me. 954.779.6275 for voicemail or text.
email tori@eaglelandgrace.com
and don’t forget the coffee 😉