How to (or not to) launch a website for your business

Here I am, in my 4th year of self-employment and I've finally created and published my website.

Why did it take me so long?

Do I need a website?

Well if I'm honest, the first 2 years I didn't need it. Business was rolling in, I won some large projects that kept me busy for months at a time.

Then, last year, it got a bit quiet. So I spent that time doing the planning I could have (should have?) done at the start of this business journey (the things I talk to my clients about!!) and thought about strategic and tactical marketing planning issues like: - who are my target customers? - how can I reach them?

And ended up with a 'launch a website' on my (long) to-do list.... and then I procrastinated...

Building a website - should you build it yourself or hire a professional?

The answer here is, of course, 'it depends'!

Once I decided I needed a website, I decided I wanted to challenge myself and build it myself in Wordpress. Bad idea. I wasted loads of time researching it all and going down rabbit holes trying to start work on it without achieving anything, it was too technical for me.

I had a quick call with someone in my network, Freya, who agreed that I'd bitten off more than I could chew and I was better off building it myself using an easier solution like Wix or Squarespace. I'd already used Squarespace on a client project, so I went with Wix so I got to try something new. And here it is, it could be much better but it meets my objectives for now (see next section!)

In hindsight, I wish I'd outsourced the work, As fun as it's been, it took time away from other business development work that isn't so easy to outsource.

Building it yourself vs outsourcing might depend on:

• how strategically important your website will be (i.e. if it's where all your revenue will come from, you should probably outsource to someone who lives and breathes websites that convert well!)

• how complicated it will be (e.g. if it involves ecommerce, or membership, you might want to outsource)

If you just need a fairly simple few pages and you're not a procrastinator like me, then platforms like Wix and Squarespace are definitely easy to use.

If you'd like to speak to some professionals I can recommend:

• Freya who works with Wix websites

• Lisa who works with Wordpress websites

What's the aim of your website?

Before you can start work on your website, you need to decide:

• what it's for

• who it's targeted at

For me, launching a website had 2 objectives:

1. To improve the conversion rate from an enquiry to securing work. If I was sending someone a proposal, I could add the website as a place for them to find out more about me. If I was just in message or email conversation with a potential client, again I could point them here without writing a long spiel about myself. I hoped it would add increase their trust in me, and make me look the professional that I really am!

2. To attract new enquiries. I need to start practising what I preach. I speak to clients about creating keyword-rich content that that their potential target customers will stumble upon. I suggest content ideas to clients that should help them rank in Google, and now I need to do it myself too!

It was important to me that the website really showcased me and my personality. A pet hate of mine are websites for marketing consultants that either:

• Have very little on them about the actual person who they're looking to hire - no photos, no history etc, and/or

• Make out like they're a boutique agency that talks about 'we' and 'the team' but has no information (like names or photos) of the 'we' or 'team' and actually the said consultant is just a one-man/woman band like me working mostly from their kitchen tables

Anyway, rant over...

So how's it going - how's your website performing?

Ok, it's early days (ish!). I finally launched this website in February 2025. I launched with:

• Home page

• About You (because I think you are more important than me!)

• About Me

• The 'Services' section with 6 different sub-pages

4 months in, I've had zero new enquiries from it, but I'm not surprised. It's only ranking for a few queries on Google which is why I've started this 'phase 2' where I will write blogs to try and reach potential customers by writing about things they're stuck with (or interested in).

I also need to add some case studies to the site, to bring my work to life a bit more so these are on my to-do list for phase 2 too!

On the other objective of improving conversion, I think it's helped but can't say for sure. Work has picked up again this year and the website might have helped me get those jobs over the line.

(I know, I know - I'm not practising what I preach here either - I should have a CRM which would fully measure my conversion rate and ask customers why they picked me!)

I can see which pages are doing best and worst in terms of traffic so phase 3 will involve tweaking pages a bit and maybe even ditching some of the service areas that don't seem to resonate with my visitors. As I build up content, I will also be considering tactics like 'lead magnets' - i.e. giving away some useful content in exchange for visitor data like name and email address.

how to optimise your website

As I've already said - before you launch your website, make sure you know WHY you're launching it and what you hope to get out of it.

Countless businesses succeed without a website, with many just running off social media pages (although I would never recommend just relying on one channel in case that algorithm changes overnight and you lose all your business!)

And once you have launched it, don't expect you can just launch and run. If you want it to attract traffic from search engines, you will need to 'SEO-optimise' it (I can help you, I'm far better at helping others than myself :)).

And whether you're wanting it to drive SEO traffic or not, you should be:

• Keeping an eye on the numbers - site traffic, leads etc

• Taking a look at the data - where are they coming from - geographically, demographically etc? are they staying long or bouncing off?

• Using that data to inform next steps - what content/pages can you add/tweak/remove? Do you need to change headlines/images? Some of this will be a guessing game but this is where customer feedback can be really handy. That's a whole other blog post but asking a potential customer to navigate your site and tell you what they think can be super useful (I did this with some of my peers who are all potential clients and got great feedback).

In summary - launch, learn, optimise - it's a never-ending cycle!

Thank you for reading my first blog, all written by me - no AI involved.