Hello, and welcome to the Rainmakers Website Creation Course. Here, I'm going to teach you how to get a great looking webpage up-and-running for your business in less than an hour.
This page will be pre-optimized for SEO, and the theme I've chosen to show you is perfect for freelancers and most small business owners.
If you'd like to use a different theme, that's fine too. As time goes on, I might add new themes to this course if people request them.
Below I've given you everything you need to get your new site up and running.
For any technical issues, please reach out to Janice at Magic Pages. You can find a link to his chat in the customer portal of your site.
Have fun,
Diana
Getting Started
The first thing you'll need to do is sign up for Ghost hosting. I recommend Magic Pages because it's the most affordable hosting that I've found. Here I'm going to put the link where you can sign up.
You can buy lifetime hosting for $120. That's the plan I recommend for people that are just staring out. There's another plan for $350 where you can use any theme you'd like - but for this course we're just going to use a free theme and the cheapest lifetime plan.
If you can't afford the $120, right now. That's fine. They also have a monthly option for less than $5 a month. And there's a 2-week free trial with every plan.
Once you've signed up on Magic Pages, you should receive a welcome email that looks like this.
Once you get this email, you'll click the second link to get to your Ghost admin panel. But before you get access, you'll need to fill out the form below.
Think carefully about your site title.
You should choose a title that works well with SEO. Put a keyword somewhere in the title. If you're a therapist, put therapist in the title. If you own a petting farm, put petting farm in the title. If you're a copywriter, put copywriter in the title.
If your business already has a name. You can hyphenate it, and add your keyword.
Here are some examples...
New Tomorrows - Therapy for Children with ADHD
Happy Goats - Atlanta Petting Zoo
The Write Stuff - Copywriting For Business Coaches
Remember - Google isn't that smart. Google doesn't know what your name means. So if you want people to find you, you're going to have to put keywords in your Site Title.
Cool?
Once click the black button, it will take you to your admin panel....
Don't do anything just yet. I want you to go down to the section, "How to Change the Design of your Site." And we're going to do the rest of this process together.
How to change the design of your site
In this video, I'm going to show you how to change the description of your site (what people see when Google links to your page.)
You'll also be able to change the photo in the hero section on your website, and the accent color throughout your site.
How to change the theme of your site.
For this course, we're using a free theme from Magic Pages. It's called Kyiv. It has everything you need for your business website.
It includes a....
- Hero Section
- Features Section
- About Section
- Social Proof Area
- Blog
And even a place where people can subscribe to get on your mailing list. In my opinion, if you're a service based business, there's no better theme available for you at this moment.
Kyiv has everything you could want for your business site, and it's free.
Of course if a better theme comes out later, I'll include it in this course as well.
Create the Hero Section
Your hero section is the most important part of your website. It tells people who you are. There are 4 parts of the hero section, and they're all incredibly important. So let's talk about them here.
Your Photo
If you're the face of your operation, you might want to put a picture of your face on here. If you're selling puppies, you could put a picture of puppies up. My brand is Rainmakers United, so I post a lot of pictures of rain.
Just make sure that whatever photo you decide to use is cohesive with your brand.
Your Hero Title
Your hero title is the big section in bold. Here you're going to want to write a very clear benefit of working with you.
If you're a therapist treating ADHD children:
Clear Focus in Less than 30 Days
If you're a petting zoo in Atlanta:
We'll Bring the Zoo to You
Or if you're a Copywriter for Business Coaches:
Get 5 New Clients this Month
Basically... your hero title should be the outcome you want your customers to achieve in words that they can understand.
Your Hero Subtitle
Here you're going to dive deeper into what you do for your clients/customers. You've promised them something, now you should talk about the mechanism you plan to use to get it for them.
Your CTA
Here you're going to ask your reader to do something. You want them to click the button.
Hint - Learn more probably isn't enough to get them to click. Better phrases might include...
- Start Today
- Get Started Now
- Get 10% Off
- Limited Availability
Give people a reason to click, and they'll probably do it.
Create your About Section
The best way to create your about section is to frame your story in a way that interests your ideal customer.
Why should they buy from you? What makes you different from everyone else?
There's this famous quote that goes something like...
People don't care what you do, they care why you do it.
So tell your story, but also give your customers a reason to root for you. There is a lot I could say about this topic but it's probably too long for this course. So later, I'll probably make a special post about it and put the link here.
Create your Features Section
Your features section should tell people about which services you offer. My advice here is to keep it simple. Focus on the benefits of what you offer.
If you're selling real estate, don't write "I sell real estate." Instead, you could write, "I get my clients top dollar for their homes."
If you sell puppies, don't write "I sell puppies." You could try, "I'll introduce you to your new best friend." After all, nobody really buys a puppy because they want a puppy. People buy puppies because they're lonely.
You've got to see through what you're offering into what people really want, and write that down instead.
Create the Testimonials Section
This one is easy. Get people to say nice stuff about you, and write it down. Don't make up stuff though. That's not cool. ;)
Customize your Homepage
Here's where you can change the words and the colors of your homepage. Go through the video - it's pretty self explanatory.
The same advice I gave you before still applies...
- Keep it simple.
- Keep it clear.
- Focus on Benefits.
How to Use Your Blog/Newsletter
Unlike most Ghost themes, the Kyiv theme doesn't force you to have a blog. Which is great, because it means you can get your website up and running in less than a couple of hours.
But as soon as possible, you should add a blog to your site. It helps people find you on Google. It convinces people to buy from you. And it handles any objections they might have about buying (in general, and from you specifically.)
What's next?
Congratulations! You've finished my website creation course, and you should have a fully functional website up and running.
It's a big deal. It takes some people years to put up a website, and you probably did it in a couple of hours. Time to pat yourself on the back.
Now it's time to create content for your site.
Don't worry. I have your back on this one. For the next couple of months, I'm going to be creating a course on the my super amazing content strategy.
I'll put the link here when the first module is out.