Building and launching the first website for your business is special. It represents the symbolic launch of your business. It also means it’s time to move on to building an audience and product. But before you can do any of that, you need a place to call home on the web.
Most Entrepreneurs Try to Do Too Much
It is so tempting to try to do too much with your first website. You get excited, you have a few (hundred) ideas, and all of a sudden you’ve wasted a week or more (or worse, thousands of dollars) building a website that won’t grow with your business.
This is not the time to find some bada** designer to create a custom logo for you – use a text logo for now. This is not the time to build the website of your dreams – one page will accomplish our goal for now. This is not the time to write thousands of words of copy for your site – no one will read it because you don’t have an audience when you’re just getting started.
The Two Requirements of Your First Business Website
There are two very important requirements for your first website.
- It should be just one page
- It must have a way for your audience to stay in touch
First, have the discipline to build just one page to start. This will be incredibly difficult. And yet, we recommend this because you don’t yet fully know what your business will become.
Second, you have to have a way to stay in touch with your audience, right from the very beginning. Ask any independent online business builder what mistakes they would avoid if starting over… We’ll wait.
More likely than not, you would have heard this: “I wish I had started building an email list sooner.”
Well, we’re going to avoid that mistake from the very beginning. Your one page website will include a way for your audience to join your email list.
Choose a Platform
This is your first big website decision: what platform will you build on? Yes, you have options. A website platform, also known as a content management system, allows you to build a website without writing all of the code yourself. It’s the best way to get up and running quickly when you’re not a developer.
We recommend considering two platforms for early stage business builders:
Squarespace – The quickest and easiest way to get your site online. Squarespace costs between $8 and $30 a month, depending on the package you choose. This is an all-in-one package, so you won’t need a web host or other software. Squarespace lacks some of the flexibility of WordPress, but if you’re short on technical skills or patience, this might be your best bet. Works for all archetypes.
WordPress – Free software, but you’ll need a web host to run it on. It’s the most flexible option, and can be customized for just about any situation (Fizzle runs on WordPress). WordPress can also be one of the cheapest ways to build a great site, with some web hosts starting around $4/month. 90% of founders interviewed in Fizzle run their businesses on WordPress. Works for all archetypes.
You should choose the platform that:
– You can learn to use on your own (without the help of a designer or developer)
– Allows your website to grow over time
– Aligns with your business archetype
No choice is permanent, so don’t let this step keep you from moving forward. Do some research on each platform, consider what might be best for you, and then choose. The best way to make the wrong choice is not to choose at all.
Choose a Host
A web host is a company who stores the data from your website and makes it available on the web. Without a web host, you wouldn’t have a website.
Luckily, Squarespace has built in web hosting. Skip this step if you chose Squarespace for your platform.
If you chose WordPress, then you’ll need a web host. Read our web hosting guide to make a decision about your host.
Choose an Email Marketing Tool
Remember, we have two requirements for your first website. One of them is to have a way to stay in touch with your audience. The best way to do that (for now) is still through email.
Before you build your one page website, you’ll want to choose an email marketing tool. We most commonly see Fizzlers being successful with these three services:
- ConvertKit – definitely our highest recommendation these days. Much more powerful than Mailchimp for online entrepreneurs. Segmenting, tagging, automation, email sequences/courses, landing page creation, all of it is so easy and powerful.
- Mailchimp – Friendly brand with relatively easy to understand user interface. Features range from basic email campaigns to automation workflows. Free up to 2,000 email subscribers (without automation). Paid plans start at $10 and scale up as your email list grows.
There are plenty of other email marketing tools out there in the world. If you’re dead set on one that’s not listed here, then don’t let us hold you back.
Build Just One page
Now we have all of the pieces in place to create your one page website. The goal for your homepage is to communicate what your business does, who it is for, and how your audience can learn more.
Here are some of the key elements you’ll want on your one page site:
– The name of your business
– A tagline
– A photo (of you or something related to your business)
– A short one paragraph elevator pitch
– A call to action
– An email optin form
For example, you could have a one page website up within the hour by using Squarespace’s Cover Pages combined with a Convertkit modal form triggered by a button.
Write Your Copy: The Elevator Pitch
Now, the part you want to get right is the copy on the page, which you should limit to a headline plus a sentence or two to elaborate.
Here’s a perfect example:
It has a headline (The beauty of Squarespace in a single page), as well as two sentences of detail (Sometimes bold ideas don’t require a full website. That’s why Cover Pages can be used to convey a single idea in a beautiful way.)
We have a course inside Fizzle to help you come up with both a tagline and elevator pitch. If you need that right now, sign up for a free month and take the Telling Your Story Course to nail your messaging for your business launch.
A One Page Website is All You Need to Launch Your Business
You don’t need any more or any less. A one page website is enough for you to be able to say, “I’m an entrepreneur and we’re open for business.”
To get there, just stick to the plan… And the plan is:
– Choose a platform
– Choose a host
– Choose an email marketing tool
– Create a one page website
If you stick to the plan, then soon enough you’ll be building new pages for your site, launching your audience channels, and more. But if you get lost in the minutiae, it’ll cost you in time and energy. So why not get started… maybe even today?
Learn how to set goals that actually stick!
The Top 10 Mistakes in Online Business
Every week we talk with entrepreneurs. We talk about what’s working and what isn’t. We talk about successes and failures. We spend time with complete newbies, seasoned veterans, and everything in between.
One topic that comes up over and over again with both groups is mistakes made in starting businesses. Newbies love to learn about mistakes so they can avoid them. Veterans love to talk about what they wish they had known when starting out.
These conversations have been fascinating, so we compiled a list of the 10 mistakes we hear most often into a nifty lil' guide. Get the 10 Most Common Mistakes in Starting an Online Business here »
Awesome and insightful as always. Gracias.
Jessi Lohman
Author
Riding the Camino Dragon
Finding Yourself in a Suitcase
Befriending Death
http://www.RockStarJessi.com
Very helpful! When you want to support your business with a blog, you have so many ideas that you keep planning and never start. It is wise to keep it simple and do it.
You can take that one page website to start promoting your website and use it to get an audience before you even start writing your first piece of content!
Yessss! You can make it professional and appealing, but still keep it simple and affordable. My partner Teresa and are launching a detailed step by step guide through these steps for a Squarespace site (Make a Tiny Website will work for even the most unfamiliar). Fizzlers we’d love to give it to a few of you free as beta testers, apply at makeatinywebsite.com/beta. On Gumroad we’re preselling now half off, too: https://gumroad.com/l/jEqtD/launch50
I’m an Adobe Business Catalyst reseller and web/graphic designer looking for work.
Please visit my website at: http://www.rapid-launch.com.
What I can offer:
Easily Manage Your Own Website
You are empowered to quickly and easily edit and update their own web pages.
Build Your Customer Database
A built-in contact management system, so you can build stronger relationships with your customers.
Do Some Serious Marketing
With our email marketing capabilities built in, along with our next generation reporting, your clients can do some serious email marketing.
Sell Anything Online
Our eCommerce capabilities enable you to build an online shop for your clients, allowing them to sell products online and collect payments in real-time.
Search Engine Friendly
Your online business can be easily found via search engines
React Faster to Inquiries
You can get SMS and Email notifications instantly when you have an inquiry or order come through your website.
Executive Insight
Get a birds-eye-view of your online business as soon as you log in, with integrated reporting.
I think Strikingly is also worth mentioning as a kick start for launching a website.
Thanks for this great article! Following these pointers would have been really useful when I launched http://snapbets.com
Hey team great post. I really love the fact that you kept the step by step process really simple. I think to many starting out get quite bent out of shape and caught up with all the hype to actually launching your online business. Starting out with a one pager is a great tip. Cheers Kim :)
Great post. But I am surprised you haven’t mentioned using landing page websites such as Instapage, Leadpages, Launchrock, etc. Curious – is there a specific reason?
I use and love Instapages (no affiliation in any way). Just because it is clean, simple, drag-and-drop, does the job really well. Doesn’t waste any time. I get something out there quick to create opportunities for feedback early. And I can easily integrate with Mailchimp as well.
Hey Avinash,
Using landing page software like this is certainly a valid approach. In the case of this article, one of the criteria for choosing a platform is “Allows your website to grow over time.”
We made this one of the criteria to help our readers avoid rework when applying this to their own business. Creating a one pager on Squarespace or WordPress means you can continue to build on that progress over time rather than having to learn a new platform if the idea works out.
There are other approaches that will work, of course, but this is the one we recommend.
Cheers,
Barrett
Wow! This was simply amazing, worth reading twice!
-SAM
https://www.bosstents.co.za/
A few questions about single page sites…
If, for example you want to test an idea for a course / product etc and you put your single page site up, what are the best ways to drive potential customers to it?
I understand that you can use social media, but if you don’t have a huge following then you are left to google search right? Are there good ways to rapidly rank a single page site in google?
Good question, Ben. Setting up a 1-page site to test interest in an idea requires some traffic. (This is a different goal than a simple “here’s where I am online” kind of 1-pager.)
One common tactic is to use Search or Social ads. Added bonus of this is you choose targeted keywords that will send “qualified” visitors to your site… hopefully.
The ad method isn’t free, but that doesn’t mean it’s expensive.
Other than that, you could do any of the standard traffic stuff, like:
1. try to get the site featured on other publications
2. write valuable stuff that people start finding via search
3. be all the places your people are (forums, social groups, etc)
4. etc. etc. (we have a course that walks you through these kinds of things in Fizzle. It’s worth the time, if you haven’t yet).
Thanks for the reply Chase, good stuff. I like the ads suggestion – it potentially allows you to get in front of a brand new audience really quickly if you’re testing out a new idea. And it doesn’t require you to have built a following.
Not that I don’t want to build a following, but sometimes you feel like you might come up with an idea that suits a niche other than that of your current audience, so you’d need another way to get the traffic.
Hey guys! You always seem to choose outstanding stock photos like the one above. Where is your go-to place for stock photos?
http://www.pixabay.com is great. It contains loads (probably millions) of photos that can be used royalty free.
Hey Charles — look no further than this: https://fizzle.co/sparkline/50-sites-free-images-fonts-icons-blog
What about when you launch an online store? Some of these might apply, but there is more:
– choose an ecommerce platform (shopify, prestashop)
– start to work with paid advertising to get traffic (adwords, facebook)
– email marketing still applies (mailchimp.com, constantcontact.com)
– marketing automation and personalization (vibetrace.com, monetate.com)
I think you need a few more things when you start an online shop.
I think most people agree that the quickest and easiest way to start taking payments online (and most trusted) is Paypal. You can create payment buttons and paste the code into your web page to create a full shopping cart. There’s no need to go for an expensive eCommerce solution if you are just trying things out.
This is a friends site and he does over $1,000 usd per month through it. Very simple, very effective. He basically tacks it on to the end of his eBay business and sends his url to people that buy from him:
http://www.reprostarwarsweapons.yoursps.com/
Really great article. This is exactly why my company exists. Not only is a single page website a quick and easy way to launch a business, it is also important due to the way browsing behaviour is changing. People want to scroll through content on mobile devices and a single page provides this without having frustrating navigation.
I used this formula to launch our web site. But I think we cheated because I ended up using a rotating banner at the top to provide five images with different elevator pitches :D
I appreciate this idea – it’s SO overwhelming to jump feet first into website creation – it feels unnatural at best. I think in many ways this approach take sis back to the days when a business could start with simply a flyer or a business card. I’m re-working my website – I will start with this approach and see if it doesn’t make the retooling faster. I’m thinking I may aim to make every page almost like a landing page unto itself – I love the clean sophisticated aesthetic. Thank you for this idea-spark!
WordPress sites are 100% free if you choose the free themes. What is this about hosting costs? True you can’t run a store through them without paying but not all businesses are stores. Where are you getting this costs claim?
There is a terminology mixup here. Sites on “WordPress.com” are free. But you don’t own the site. Can’t make money off of it, etc. However, you can use “WordPress” as a content management system that can run on your private domain name that requires a hosting service for which you pay, as well as paying for the domain name. Downloading and using WordPress as your content management system in this way is also still free.