Are you trying to figure out the best way to create your new website?

There are so many ways to create a website these days and in truth there are no right or wrong ways to do it. However, people love to flex their opinions and say things in a definitive way. 

I don’t like that approach. 

Of course, I have a favourite way that I like to create websites that is based on my past experience and familiarity with certain tools. However, I have supported dozens of clients with websites set up using methods other than my favourite way. That experience makes me a bit more objective about website setup than some other people in the field because what I see is: they all do pretty much the same thing. 

I think the best way to decide is based on: 

• Familiarity with the platform
• Ongoing cost of time/$$

If you are getting help from someone, it’s best to use the tools they are most familiar with. If you want to be able to do things yourself on the site, hopefully that helper has some tools and instructions to help you learn how to use your site. 

If your helper isn’t willing to let you do things yourself and you really want to do things yourself, you need a different helper. 

If you are doing it all yourself, you may need to pay a bit more in ongoing costs for a platform that reduces some of the more technical parts of website set up for you. 

First, I’m going to just run through some website platforms I am familiar with to help you grasp what I mean by website platform. 

In my mind there are: 

• WordPress
• Squarespace
• Wix
• Weebly
• Kartra
• And plenty more

Now I want to compare and contrast them a little bit. 

WordPress

Actually there are 2 versions of WordPress websites. One version where you start with a free version and you can choose your own domain later and one version where you have to have domain and hosting first and you set up your WordPress through y our hosting. There are other ways to do it but I don’t want to talk about every single option here. Let’s say these are the 2 main WordPress options. 

There are some significant differences between the two options in terms of what you can do and when I talk about WordPress sites I’m usually referring to option 2, the domain and hosting method. 

My first site was a WordPress free site and I have helped a couple of clients with these but I don’t recommend them. I like to use the Divi theme on a WordPress site. There are many Divi naysayers out there and I just come back to my golden rule for website creation: 

It’s all about what you are comfortable with and familiar with. You can save so much time when you have duplicable processes, so just find a method that works for you and invest your time and energy in that one. 

That’s what I love about WordPress with domain and hosting; you can choose a theme. WordPress says: 

“Your theme can have different layouts, such as static or responsive, using one column or two. Your theme can display content anywhere you want it to be displayed. Your theme can specify which devices or actions make your content visible. Your theme can customize its typography and design elements using CSS or theme.”

Fancy right?

What I also love about WordPress is that it can be as simple or as complex as you like. You can add a shop, add events, add a course platform. Whatever you like. 

End of WordPress love festival.

I want to talk about all the options in depth in a separate article/chapter each so for now I’ll just say this: 

Squarespace,Wix, Weebly and Kartra have regular monthly fees for a website on your chosen domain. This is because all of that domain and hosting and platform setup is done for you.

These are the easiest tools to use if you have no experience and you need a plug and play option with lots of templates.

The downside of this for me is that the templates feel like a constraint to me. I am used to having creative freedom over fonts and placement of objects so I get a bit frustrated with any templates. 

Squarespace, Weebly and Wix even have a free version you can start with while you learn how to use it and then you can add on domain and hosting later if you want. 

Kartra is a very integrated tool and includes email marketing and course platform. I love it but the monthly fees are a stinger. I am not a fan of high monthly fees. I find that they trigger my scarcity mindset wobbles, so I love to run my business very lean. 

I love to use VentraIP for cPanel hosting which is $5 a month or $2.50 a month for the first year. Cost of domains is pretty standard across providers from $10-20 a year. So for me, using the WordPress domain and hosting method, it’s only $70 a year. The cost for me is in my time to maintain and create the site. 

OMG how are you supposed to decide? 

Are you getting help from someone?

If this is you, it’s best to use the preferred tools of your helper. The main thing to focus on is: can you get the level of access you want later, once the site is built AND how well do I get along with this person? How are we going to handle difficult conversations later? It should feel like a good relationship because things will get weird with your website one day or another. It’s just the nature of them. A good person to work with will have the communication style that works for you. 

Doing it yourself?

If you are doing it yourself I hate to say it but Squarespace might be the best thing. My big problem with Squarespace is the ongoing costs and the constraints of their templates. 

WordPress is possible “Do it yourself” if you have good support to learn from. You can Google anything about WordPress, but tech nerds love jargon and they  might not make it easy for you. 

I have run a WordPress setup course in the past and will run it again in the future to teach people how to create a site using my favourite method so if you can get help like that, where a person will teach you how to use WordPress, then I think the domain and hosting setup for WordPress method could work for “do it yourself”. 

The trouble with WordPress is, if you are only learning it for one website, it will feel hard a lot of the time. It’s worth learning if you are going to build websites for people, but if it’s just you it might not be worth it.

There are pros and cons for every method. 

I am happy to have a chat with you about your project if you like. Just hunt me down through my website 🙂 

Geez I hope this helped. 

I think I might have made it worse! Let me know.

Learn more about Online Marketing and Business that doesn’t require you to sellout on your soul.

“I am going to outsource my social media posting” 

I get a bit nervous when I hear my beloveds say this. 

Why babe? 

Why can’t you make your own content?
“It takes too long”

“It’s overwhelming”

“I am not good at making things pretty” 

Oh no. 

But making content – why has it become overwhelming, time consuming and tedious? 

From my perspective, content creation could be for YOU. 

It could be your spiritual practice. Your act of service to humanity. 

It could be your creativity, your purpose and your self expression. 

If your content doesn’t feel like that, I think you might be creating the wrong kinds of content. 

But what is the right kind of content? 

It’s the content that CONNECTS you to your audience and builds RELATIONSHIPS.

It is not the perfectly branded, spiffy Canva post. 

Unless you are a graphic designer. 

And in fact, I heard a graphic designer say, 

In other words: keep it simple unless you are a graphic designer and you are trying to flex and show the world how awesome your designs are. If you are a service based entrepreneur, content that shares your message is more important than pretty content.

Unless you want to be in the market for stealing people’s attention. Then of course, you need to dance and point and interrupt people. 

How rude. 

I would much rather connect with people on a deep level of love, shared aspirations + shared values. To create content that informs and serves others rather than steals their attention. I am not in the attention market. I am in the loving service market 🙂

What works for me:

I love to share videos of me giving tips to my audience. They love these too. 

Carousel posts seem to go quite well too. 

To figure out what works for you, just try sharing different kinds of content over a 3 month period then look back and see what your audience responded to the best. The most genuine likes and comments. 

If you still really want to outsource here’s my tips on what to create and what to outsource.

WATCH THIS AS A VIDEO

LISTEN TO THIS ON THE PODCAST

Once a week create a substantial piece of content.

It could be:

A video 

or 

audio recording

or 

A blog

Now, by substantial, I don’t mean a mini novel or a one hour vid. 

You could write 500-1000 words or talk / video for about 5-10 minutes.

That is plenty.

The great thing about this method is: you can create a whole lot of other content from this one thing. 

You can create videos from a piece of writing. 

You can create a piece of writing from a video. 

You can create a video from audio. 

You can create carousel posts from a blog or video

You can create single image posts from a blog or vid

And more. 

All of that OTHER content – other than the one thing – could be done by someone else. 

I like to do it myself for cost and energy reasons.

But if you need a hand, this is a great place. 

You could also get someone else to send out a newsletter for you using this one piece of content.

You might like to create templates for the support person to use. Posts don’t need to be overly graphic designed. Simple and meaningful works just as well. 

1. Create images in Canva for a carousel post using the blog words
2. Export this as JPGs and publish to Instagram
3. Export as a PDF and publish to LInkedIn
4. Add music and maybe sparkles and Export as a MP4 and publish/schedule to IG, FB + LI
5. Read the blog out loud and turn into a podcast (or get the author to read it out loud)
6. Turn the podcast into a HeadlinerApp wavegram video
7. Create single image posts (3 per blog) in Canva of quotes from the blog, export as JPGs then publish/schedule to IG, FB + LI  – with or without captions – with or without a link to the blog
8. Add animations to these single image posts and export then as MP4s then publish/schedule to IG, FB + LI – with or without captions – with or without a link to the blog
9. Make sure I publish/schedule to IG, FB + LI at least once a week a paid way to work with me
10. If the content creator is willing, make a video of them reading through the blog and post to YouTube, IGTV and Facebook – even better do it live on Facebook
11. Once all of this content is created, send out an email highlighting 2-3 of your content highlights and include your current paid offer in the newsletter

So, if you are a willing creator you might do the 3 things: write a blog, read it out loud and deliver it live on Facebook – and then the support person could do SO MANY other things for you.