Build a Powerful Online Presence: The 5 Step Guide to Crafting an Effective Website

Today I’m going to show you how to create an effective website that doesn’t require you to spend thousands of dollars or months of your time, and can be replicated by anyone no matter your level of experience.

Let’s face it, if you're trying to run an online business, you need a website.

But if you’ve ever tried building one on your own, you probably didn’t know where to start, how to make it work, or just felt completely lost all together.

More than likely, the reason you felt this way was because you didn’t have a plan or a proven method to build the website efficiently and in a way that was actually going to be effective for YOU and your business.

When it comes to your personal website, LESS IS MORE

And if you follow the steps I’m about to give you, you’ll have a more effective website than 90% of businesses out there.

The website architecture I’m sharing with you today is not only the EXACT model I use for my own website, but also a model that some of the world’s most successful Solo CEOs use for their business as well.

The main benefits to this system are:

1. Speed to market: you can build your entire MVP website in 7 days or less, spending just an hour or 2 a day working on it.

2. Affordability: Using a software called systeme.io, you’re able to create your entire website for free.

3. Effectiveness: Most websites have dozens of useless pages and end up confusing the customer to the point that they leave and never come back - NOT YOURS.

The simple layouts and proven strategies will ensure that your readers have a great experience and will generate new leads 24/7.

Ready for the goods? Here we go…

For the home page to be successful it needs to do 2 things:

1. Give the user something valuable for free in exchange for their email address (in the Solo CEO System, this is where your weekly newsletter comes into play).

2. Tell the reader who you are, how you can help, and what transformation they’ll get from working with you.

The page architecture looks like this:

One of the main goals of your home page is to get the user to leave their contact information in exchange for subscribing to your newsletter or some other free resource.

Once they do so, it’s important to greet them with a simple message that thanks them for subscribing and then gives them next steps.

Here is the format I use for my thank you pages:

Your audience wants to feel like you’re accessible if they need to reach you.

A contact page is a simple way to give users the ability to contact you directly.

This is a great place to put your social media links as well.

Here is the format I use for my contact page:

DON’T PANIC. We’re not creating a gigantic library of articles that needs to be updated and managed on the daily.

This is simply a place to publish your weekly newsletter so that you can link back to previous issues in the future.

It also never hurts to have blog articles accessible on Google and create organic traffic in case someone is searching for your name or relevant keywords.

Also, Systeme.io makes it super simple to set up a blog structure template (or you can just steal mine) so that you never have to do anything but copy and paste your newsletter into a new blog post. The structure will remain the same each time - it’s like magic.

Here’s the format I use for my blog:

Technically, this last part isn’t a necessity, but if you want to make your customer journey SUPER SEAMLESS, you’ll want to do this.

You might be thinking “Huhhhh?! What the heck are email automations!?” But don’t worry, you got this.

Email automations allow you to send emails out automatically when something happens on your website…

Here’s an example: When someone subscribes to your email newsletter, they’re going to be sent directly to the thank you page you built.

But to make it even more personable, you can set up an automation to have an email sent directly to their inbox welcoming them and thanking them again for joining.

I personally like to give every one of my subscribers a free gift - it doesn’t have to be anything crazy - I created a list of all my favorite software and gear I use on the daily, and when someone subscribes, I send them an email that has a link to download that list for free.

Setting up these automations is as easy as telling the software “When someone does this (fills out a form), send this email (email you write ahead of time).”

This is what my automation looks like in Systeme.io when someone subscribes to my newsletter:

With those 5 assets, you have a website that is primed and ready to start receiving traffic and collecting leads.

As you grow, understand your audience more, and start to build your own products and services, you can start adding different sales pages - but for your initial launch, they’re not needed at all.

1. Sign up for a web design software: I use Systeme.io and it’s free to start

2. Create your home page that can collect leads, tells people who you are, how you can help, and the transformation they’ll get from working with you.

3. Create your thank you page that people are sent to once they opt in for your free resource.

4. Create your blog where you publish each of your newsletter articles.

5. Create you email automations that allow you to automatically send emails when something happens on your website.

If you’re interested in learning more about building your own website, you can click here to check out my video course called Launch in 7.

Inside the course, I walk you step-by-step through the entire website building process and help you launch you own website in as little as 7 days.

Thanks for joining me today.

See you next time.