Building your web presence takes time and a bit of consistent effort. The last thing that you want it to use software that makes life more difficult for you. You need to be able to update your website yourself, you want to be able to send out email marketing quickly and easily. Everything you use should help you get the job done quickly.
When choosing a service to recommend, my criteria is:
- Easy to use so the business owner can be independent;
- Affordable (free is also good);
- Have good customer service and support
The following resources all met this criteria.
Where to buy your .com or .ca domain
Buy your domains from Godaddy. They have the cheapest domains around and are easy to point and forward meaning you can use a different host (which I recommend and explain in the next point).
Godaddy will try to get you to buy a bunch of other stuff as you go through their check out. Most of it is unnecessary. Just skip past saying “No Thanks” until you can pay.
The best thing about Godaddy is you can always get coupon codes for discounts at Fat Wallet. Simply go to the final page and apply some of the codes until you get the best deal.
Hosting
A host is the home for your website files to live. There are lots of hosts out there and with my clients have tried many of them. The host that is by far the best is InMotion Hosting. They have excellent customer service, very reliable servers and they don’t charge extra for stuff like unlimited email (which a host like Godaddy does).
You can start with the business class hosting package Launch which is $84 a year.
WordPress Website
WordPress is the best system to put your website on. It is an extremely flexible and scalable system that will allow your website to grow and change with you. You can easily add static pages, blog posts, pictures, videos and almost anything else you would like without requiring assistance from a Web Developer.
Once you have your hosting, WordPress is installed on it. Then you need a template. A good WordPress developer will charge you about $3000 to build you a WordPress template. There are lots of pre-built templates around, but in most cases, they are not worth purchasing as they can cause a lot of headaches and extra money to get them customized to your liking.
The best template around is Catalyst. The Personal Edition is a bargain at $97 and includes access to the support forums. It’s an extremely flexible template and allows you to manage a lot of the design elements yourself. What this means is once it’s set up, if you decide to change your web banner for example, you can without needing to get a web developer to do it for you. It’s extremely flexible.
I absolutely recommend having someone set this up for you initially if you aren’t extremely technical or don’t want to spend 60+ hours learning WordPress and the Catalyst theme. My team can do this for you and then train you how to use it. Email me this interests you.
Email Marketing
I love Mailchimp. It’s easy to use and best of all, it’s free until you have 2000 subscribers to your email list. Free is great.
You can set up different lists for different functions – for example you can have a general list that includes everyone and you can have a list for free resource sign ups from your website that automatically sends the free resource after someone enters their information.
Customizing Your Facebook Page
Fan Page Engine is a great tool that allows you to easily set up a custom landing page for your Facebook Page. I recommend purchasing the Unlimited Fanpage Engine for the one time fee of $67 to get access to the best templates.
Customizing Your Twitter Page background
For a beautiful custom Twitter background go to Twitrbackgrounds.com. They will make a branded background for $89. Their work is excellent and they will get your design to you very quickly.
What tools do you use and recommend?
I’d love to hear what you love to use and why, so please add a comment and share it.
