Starting A Website

JasonNutting · 06-09-2009, 06:24 PM

I'm in the process of building a website right now. It isn't e-commerce so I won't be able to sell anything on there, but it will allow me to have an automatic newsletter (I sent weekly recipes, motivational quotes, tips etc), I can put up workout videos, blog, testimonials, and bio and background. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can add or things I need to make sure to have? My goal is to get more people to come in through the website, provide a place for clients to come and ask questions, etc. In the future I'd love to be able to sell training on there, but I didn't want to spend the money for e-commerce if it didn't pick up off the ground. Any suggestions?

Dave Chesser · 06-11-2009, 12:29 AM

My advice is to start up a blog using something like wordpress. Blogs are easy to set up and you could do it on one of the free services. As you write more, you learn how to communicate your ideas more clearly to your target audience, thereby improving your communication skills and likely increasing traffic to your blog.

Later you can make the full transition to a website if you want, but by that time you'll have a basic idea of what works to get people's attention and not. All part of the learning process.

Jean-Paul · 06-16-2009, 01:41 PM

Galya has the best blog around in my opinion. Check out her links in her sig line and look at what she's doing. She provides a lot of information for free, and for a premium rate, she will help privately coach clients. Having a blog or site that is on your business cards is a great way to locally promote yourself.

trainercoach · 07-12-2009, 11:38 AM

I agree, having a blog is one of the best ways to promote your business. However, the key to a great blog is to optimize your posts for search engines. This way you will get tons more traffic and grow your client base much faster.

Tom@foresight · 07-16-2009, 07:05 PM

Since having my blog the hits to my site have gone through the roof! A blog is a must for the website, it is also a great tool for getting a better page rank!

TOM

getting_big · 07-29-2009, 03:30 AM

Wordpress is perfect for your purposes as it's very easy to adopt to virtually any need you may have in the future. there are tons of free plugins available and even if you can't find a free one you can easily find a (cheap) programmer to do it for you.

If you want something more advanced, then you need to look at Joomla. It's quite a steep learning curve and the addons are not free, but it is very professional and robust.

junosama · 08-17-2009, 02:43 PM

Use the blogging engine WordPress for your site and use a mailing system like aweber or mail chimp for your newsletter!