Business Name…check. Business Plan…check. LLC…check. Now it is time to give it a footprint. A digital footprint.
Domain. SEO. Design. HTML.
I have an idea of what those words/acronyms mean - I have seen them before, heard them used in conversation. In the context of the conversation, I figured out what meant what - just enough to engage and follow along. But, let someone ask me to define or explain any of them…HA! However, this is 2020 - and despite how bizarre it has been, the resources to create and market your business online have been plentiful. So now it was time to research.
Go Daddy, Wix, WordPress, Square Space, Google - so many options…which is best? Let's make a spreadsheet. My goal was to create a website that was clean, informative, and esthetically appealing aka pretty. It needed to align with my brand and the experience that I will provide for my clients and associates. It needed to be affordable - we are working on a detailed budget and a ballerific website was not a line item. The hosting site needed to have additional resources to help me maintain, evolve, and promote my website to the right audience.
After some research and review of my budget - I decided Wix was the best fit. It was easy to design, as the templates were simple to manage and adjust to my branding. There were plenty of resources for marketing, SEO, a blog, and much more! I was feeling pretty good about my decision and as the design process started, I felt even better.
Hours were spent…but spent with love, excitement and much care and consideration for what I wanted to share and how I wanted to use this resource as a tool to help or maybe even inspire. The goal was to do a teaser on October 25…and announce and launch everything no later than October 27. Goals and plans are wonderful - they keep you motivated, they keep you on task, and there is a wonderful sense of achievement when they align with the universe. However…
I did not launch until October 28. There was a whole meltdown on October 26. All my planning and strategizing went out the window when I published my website on October 26th and that 404 ERROR mess popped up…REPEATEDLY. In a panic, I assumed I missed a step and did not pay for hosting…so I went to Go Daddy's site and paid for hosting. I linked my Wix page to Go Daddy (so I thought) and about an hour later, my page was up and running. Desktop/laptop and mobile. It even popped up when Googled. Whew!
The next day, I get an e-mail from GoDaddy asking for some code to release my site to them so they could host it. Weird…they are hosting it…right? A phone call later, it turns out Wix was my host all along, not just the space for designing it…oops. Shoutout to GoDaddy for the quick educational lesson, and the prompt refund.
The next website will be designed and managed by an expert - the detailed budget will address this accordingly.
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