For the past seven months, I’ve been sharing my experience as I followed every step in my free report, Get Your Website Done: 12 Actionable Steps for Designers.
Today is the finale:
Step #12: Launch your site!
I did just that on Thursday, March 16th—two days before my WordCamp presentation (because if you’re going to talk about how to get your website done, you’d better have your website done)!
Yup. I had a goal. I followed the steps. I met my goal. And it feels awesome.
Here are the some highlights of my new website:
- I fine-tuned the overall design. I wanted to keep my brand in-tact but freshen it up, so I kept some colors, typefaces and branding elements. I got rid of chartreuse elements and maximized the red and brown—and I developed a whole new set of icons. I also added circle elements throughout. They say things like “Custom crafted, Atlanta suburbs” and “Let me be you trusted partner.” Not only do they look stylish (if I do say so myself!), they are SVG images where the text is readable by the search engines. (Read more about my design process.)
- The copy got tweaked. The personality stayed, but the specifics got updated according to my candid approach to web content. Now it represents where I’m at in my business.
- My page names are stupidly simple. Because it matters.
- It has an SSL certificate, meaning the site starts with https and ensures that all the pages are secure. This is becoming more important to Google. Good news: an SSL certificate is free through many webhosts!
- My new portfolio shows my website projects on different devices and uses the case study approach I talked about here.
- My services page got a total revamp. In Step 2, I encouraged getting really specific about your services—and I took my own advice. I also created two new service specific pages: WordPress Design & Development and Content Marketing Design.
- I geeked out. I developed the site locally on my own computer and used SASS, version control and my custom WordPress theme and plugin along with Bootstrap.
- It has a pop-up! I incorporated an exit-intent pop up which shows up when you move your cursor to exit the site. (After you see it, it goes away for a month.) Is a pop-up right for your website?
- Visitors are encouraged to subscribe two different ways. I wondered if some visitors would be motivated by my free report, while others might just want to stay in touch—so I created two different calls-to-action with different wording. (The footer talks about the report. The “free updates” pop-up is geared towards staying in touch.) All of this is being tracked; I’ll keep an eye on what’s working and let you know.
- SEO is still a priority. I definitely know my focus keyword that I want to be found for—Atlanta WordPress developer. I kept that in mind as I worked on the content and the meta tags.
See? It wasn’t so hard. Launching your new website is just about taking one step at a time. If you got stuck somewhere along the way, I can help you get unstuck. Let’s talk about where you’re at.
It looks great! Well done.
Thanks, Mickey!!