Get Your Website Done

ACTIONABLE STEPS FORDESIGNERS

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WebsitedG E T Y O U R

DONE

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Jill AndersonI design and develop websites for creative professionals.

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Who you areWhat you do

Why it matters

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1 PICK YOUR NICHE

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Choosing a niche is hard— but totally worth it.

Stop worrying about excluding somebody. You will include a lot more people because you’ll know who they are and where to find them.

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Vertical & Horizontal Niches

In a vertical niche, you focus on a particular type of client.

In a horizontal niche, you focus on providing a particular kind of service.

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Need help picking a niche?

The Niche Notebook by Tomas Fransson lists 300+ niches actually picked by

real life creative professionals.

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2 DEFINE YOUR SERVICES

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Do work you love and sell it to ideal clients who need it.

What do you enjoy doing?

What are you best at?

What do your clients need most?

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3 DETERMINE YOUR COMPETITORS

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Competitors can be...

People potential clients are considering along with you.

People who come up in the same Google searches as you.

People in your personal network who provide similar services to you.

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4 LIST YOUR PAGES

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The 5 pages you need:

Home About

Services Work

Contact

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5 DON’T GET HUNG UP

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It’s perfectly fine to save a blog and newsletter for Phase 2 of your website.

You’re either ready to commit now, or you aren’t.

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If you’re ready to commit to a blog and newsletter...

Write 2 or 3 posts so your blog will have some content when you launch your site.

Prepare an image and categories/tags for each post.

Commit to 1 new blog post, with at least 300 words, once a month.

Aim to send out a newsletter once a month.

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6 CHOOSE YOUR CALL TO ACTION

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What do you want people to do?

Call you?

Fill out a form?

Sign up for your newsletter?

Buy something?

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Primary vs. Secondary Calls to Action

People aren’t always ready for your services right now.

Provide a way to stay on their radar.

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7 WRITE ALL OF THE CONTENT

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Content First!

Open up a new Google Doc, Word document, or your favorite word processor.

Add the title of each page at the top of a new page, and add your content.

Don’t worry about design yet.

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HomeExplain who you are, what you

do, and why it matters.

AboutTell your personal story in a way

ideal clients can relate to.

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ServicesDescribe your services in a way that

shows what really gets delivered.

WorkShow challenges and solutions.

ContactTell them how to contact you.

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8 GET PHOTOS TAKEN

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Get over yourself.

Photograph where you work.

Don’t use stock photos.

Pay attention to quality.

Hire a photographer.

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9 PREPARE YOUR PORTFOLIO

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Select projects for your portfolio.

Categorize projects.

Write a description for each project, or better yet, consider the case study approach by stating

the client’s challenge and your solution.

Create images including thumbnails.

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10 TAKE INSPIRATION & DESIGN

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What other brands inspire you?

Revisit your competitors.

Create a style guide.

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Work on your site during your most productive time.

Schedule it like you would a client project.

Have a deadline.

Use your process.

Just get started.

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11 CODE

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3 ways to build your site with WordPress

Use a page builder.

Create a child theme.

Be a development ninja / golden unicorn.

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12 LAUNCH YOUR SITE

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Test your website across all modern browsers.

Make sure you have a 404 page.

301 redirect any old website URLs to the new URLs.

Review best practices for SEO.

Keep it updated.

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A few of my favorite designer websites for inspiration:

https://grainandmortar.com http://mucca.com

https://basicagency.com http://thinkbaseline.com http://kmacdesign.com

http://intendcreative.com

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