website

A website is one of the fundamental parts needed to build an online business. It is the digital space you can showcase your business, share information and news, share images and videos to demonstrate what you do. This is the new business premises. So there is no surprises when you realize that there are now almost 2 billion websites on the web. No small number. And its climbing everyday as more and more people and businesses build their digital presence.

What do you Need to Setup a Website?

A domain name. This is the name of your site. Example: launchdigitalfreedom.com
A hosting package. This is where you can place your domain to be accessible worldwide.
A website. This is the actual site you will load on to the server at the hosting provider.

Now you have a few options to create a website:

Code the website yourself from scratch.
Pay someone to code a website from scratch.
Install a Content Management System or CMS ,to create a website.
Get someone to install, setup and customize your CMS site.

Now if you are the adventurous type and have some tech-savvy skills you could take on the challenge of setting up your own website using a CMS like WordPress.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is one of the leading CMS frameworks used to setup blogs and websites.

WordPress was founded back in 2003 and its purpose was to create a user-friendly platform for people to publish their personal content. Since then it has matured into a robust content publishing system that is use on millions of sites throughout the web. According to WordPress themselves “It is also the platform of choice for over 42% of all sites across the web.”

What makes WordPress an attractive platform for building websites is its easy to install platform, available on pretty much all leading internet hosting companies. It is fairly easy to navigate for even beginners and also allows more competent developers to further customize and modify code as necessary.

If you new to website design and are looking for a way to build a blog or website, WordPress can offer you a platform to do so with even limited technical skills. Find out from your service provider if they offer basic configuration support to help you setup the basic site. Once setup you can learn more about how to setup your blog by accessing the website.

Designed Content Creators

What makes WordPress especially appealing is the easy with which you can create content. It take simply selecting a new post or page. In the old days of creating websites you would have to code in HTML to create a page on a site. WordPress takes the headache of coding away and allows you to focus on writing your content.

Adding images, animations and video is also seamless as you can simply choose to add your media and then upload it from your computer with the click of a button. Even embed YouTube videos from your YouTube channel or embed relevant videos.

WordPress Themes

One of the cool things about WordPress is its ability to change the look and feel of your entire website simply through changing the theme. This will change numerous variables including layout, fonts, colours, menu position, and many more.

You have two options for getting themes, use a freely available theme, preferably download from wordpress.org, or buy a paid theme.

Paid vs Free Themes

As with all things, you get what you pay for! For some a free theme may fit their needs. Many free themes offer limited features and require you to pay for the full set of features. If you want there are still many ways to customize a free theme. For example you can have a custom header, or featured images for each page. Often for simple sites a free them may be good enough.

If you require more robust features and would like more freedom then a paid theme will be a better choice. If you interested in finding a solid paid WordPress theme for your site, ThriveThemes offers a large variety of conversion focused WordPress themes.

WordPress Plugins

One of the advantages of WordPress is its impressive library of plugins available to add further enhancements. From analytics to design features, security and forms, you will find a massive array of options to pimp your site. And although you may be carried away to add multiple plugins, I’d suggest to keep the number of plugins to a minimum. As the more plugins that are running the more resources they need which could adversely affect your sites performance.

Google Site Kit Plugin

The Site Kit plugin is an official WordPress plugin from Google which provides insights about your site traffic and how people are finding you online. Site Kit plugs into Google Search Console, Google Analytics and Page Insights. Therefore the data that it provides is both accurate and inline with how Google is seeing your website. Its simple and easy to install and is free for use. Definitely a plugin to get loaded straight from day one.

WooCommerce

If you planning to sell products on your WordPress site then the WooCommerce plugin is without a doubt the plugin of choice. It is the world’s most popular open-source eCommerce solution and is free which means you retain full ownership of your store’s content and data forever.

WooCommerce allows you to build online retail stores which can blend your blog style site with e-Commerce like features. One of its key benefits is the availability of information for users and simplicity to implement. A worthy choice if you planning to start a business on a budget and need the tools to build your store.

Who Should Choose WordPress

If you are a absolute beginner looking to get your own website up WordPress is a great choice. It provides a simplified framework that is user-friendly to use, is opensource, widely used across the world, and is supported by a large community around the world.

What ever your take on WordPress, its a platform here to stay and only set to grow in strength.

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My journey into online business has brought me to the conclusion that there are many components of digital marketing that need attention when it comes to online business. Some areas need work at the beginning, some of them need work consistently, and others can come later. Each aspect can require specialised sets of skills. Even if you must do all of them at the beginning, which is a good thing, you will be better placed in outsourcing them one at a time as you start to earn money. (Re-invest into your business)

You don’t need all areas running at once, but you do need to get started. I’ll order them in the way I think is best to get started.

So, let’s get into the areas.

Product, image, brand, and primary message.

If you need to define your vision and values it can help to utilise a professional. A virtual meeting can go a long way. Try Tricia Jones, she helped me really become clear about what I wanted from my business. I’ll touch more on creating your vision and values in a future post.

The following components house your values, vision, and mission.

Sales Funnel

A Sales Funnel is essentially a page on the internet that has some marketing of your products or services. Its primary function is to get the user to perform an action. Normally it’s to get a name and email address.

To get someone to enter a name and email, you often need to entice them to do so. Perhaps offering them access to a free webinar or a free PDF that has extreme value to that person. Getting the name and email is key to your online business. This person might not buy today, but because you have their email, you can provide them with value and offers until such time as the person decides to buy or unsubscribe.

Email Marketing

We have an email address now (Hopefully many!)

The cool thing about online business is you can automate your email. Write once and send it to your subscribers as they join up. Over time, your email sequence can grow. If you write 1 email a week for 1 year, you have a decent sequence. (You can go back and modify when needed)

You can also send them broadcast messages too from time to time. These can be used to push special offers or updates to your subscribers.

A great product I use is Aweber. They make it easy to create, publish and monitor.

If you can push traffic to your funnel, and implement the email marketing aspect, you are essentially in business. You can market and try to make sales.

But supplementing the funnel with context builds trust in your target audience. This is done with a website the houses your Vision, Mission and Values. It provides valuable content to show that there is a real person (or business) behind the scenes.

Another key aspect of the site is a contact page. You need to be contactable and converse with your potential buyers. The more you engage with your audience and show a willingness to assist, the more trust you build. And in the end, all business is done on trust. (Launch Digital Freedom Privacy Policy)

Aspects that drive traffic

What drives an audience to your funnel, website, and email list? There are a few ways you can target your audience. Some of them cost money, the others will cost you time (consistent time)

SEO

In short, it is the skill of structuring your website, content and building authority for your website. It includes both content related techniques and technical aspects that can enhance the content of your website for search engines and help you rank higher.

It includes your keyword research. The words your audience will be looking for in the search engine. For example, if you are selling Canon Cameras online your audience might search:

High-Quality Cameras
Canon camera for a far distance shot
What camera should I use?

Your site and content will need to target these keywords and phrases. With time, consistency and quality content, your site will show up in search engines higher up and more often.

SEO also includes making sure you link to internal and external sites for reference. If you want to know more about search engine optimisation, visit this post, How to get Started with Search Engine Optimization?

Content

On the side of not spending money, you would have to create quality content over time. Consistency is key. The more you produce, the more quality you have, time will bring you internet traffic.

Types of content online include

Blogs
Listicles
Ebooks
Infographics
Videos
Podcasts
Guides
Case studies and many more.

Begin with one and stick with it for 3 – 5 years. Become an expert.

The content shows search engines that you are committed to producing value, and your reward will be traffic. This together with your keyword strategy is key to your online success without spending money.

Learn how to Promote Affiliate Links On Your Blog

Social Media

With your Sales Funnel, Email marketing, and content in place, we can find other ways to bring traffic to your products. Once again, there are a whole lot of options available. Don’t try and market on all of these at once. Rather, find out where your audience hangs out and target them.

In my SFM business, my audience is full-time employees that know there is a better way to make a living. And so, LinkedIn provides the best opportunity for me to find my audience. Do a little research on how to use your social media platform effectively and be consistent.

Find out which platforms you might be able to find your customers. 8 Social Media Platforms to Promote Your Business

Find out more about: The Best Ways to Learn Digital Marketing Online?

Online Ads

If you have the cash flow to run ads, it’s the perfect way to bring a targeted audience to your sales funnel. Most of these platforms allow you to pick specific details of your audience. Age, job title, interests and much more.

It helps to be very specific in your audience and speak directly to that person (Your avatar). If your Ad images and content appeal to your target, it will interest them, and they will click your ad. It will take them to your sales funnel, and you can get their email.

Once you have a list of emails, you can nurture that list over time and generate commissions.

Monitoring

An overriding aspect of digital marketing is measuring what you are doing. If you can measure it, you can adjust what’s not working. Most of the components mentioned above have metrics that you can measure over time.

For example, your email marketing lets you know how many emails were opened, how many people clicked your link and even if emails were not delivered. When you run ads on LinkedIn and Facebook, it measures the success of your ad. In fact, the more successful your ad the cheaper the cost to you! They allow you to measure impressions, clicks and even the position of ads on platforms that were successful.

To Finish

As you can see, there is lots to consider in an online business, but you don’t have to have to all running in 1 day! Take your time to learn and implement each aspect one at a time. There is plenty of support on the internet on how to do everything, but don’t fall into the habit of overlearning. It’s something I still catch myself doing from time to time. The best way to learn is to do.