Website Building Checklist » Reset Marketing

Just the thought of starting a website can be a little daunting. That’s why I have written this website building checklist to help you be prepared and make the right choices for your business.

1. Website running costs:

There is nothing worse than building a website, only to get half way through and start seeing all these additional costs being added and blowing out your budget. We have all been there, myself included. I have written a quick article called ‘what does a website cost’ to help with the start of your website journey, that outlines all the costs involved with owning a website. I wrote it, as I always work with full transparency with my clients and want them to start their website journey with a full detailed map, with no hidden surprises and most of all, inside their budget.

If you decide to get hosting from your designer/developer, skip to step 3.

2. Choosing a hosting platform:

There are hundreds of providers on the internet, choosing one can be as simple or as hard as you want it to be. Don’t feel obligated to get your hosting through your website developer. Yes, some will offer this service, but it’s not always the cheapest option. I say this only because I want the best for my clients, as I have friends in this industry, so I’m treading on toes here. But here I go. Some developers will do the hosting themselves a) to get a little markup on the monthly hosting fees or (b) as a way of locking you in to working with them. The later is the one I see the most. Companies locking people in with fixed contracts, therefore if you fall out with them, or find a more economical option, you will find it hard to leave them as they have all your passwords.

3. Find a website designer:

Finding a suitable designer to build your website can be daunting. Again start asking friends or family who they may have used in the past. Check out your competitors and who they have used. Sometimes designers will put their company name in small print down the bottom of the home page. You want to find someone who knows your industry, knows your target market, but most of all you can relate to and build a great professional working relationship with.

But wait, there’s more. Before you start talking to them, I would personally recommend that you try to attempt step 5, of writing your site plan. This gives them a really good idea of how big your website will be and ideally, their quote will be more accurate.

When getting quotes, these are some of the questions I always include in my quotes for full transparency.

If it includes copywriting from scratch, or will all the copy be pre-written by yourself.
will you be providing your own images or will we have to buy some from photography websites.
Do you need any booking systems or membership functions
Outline any design whizz bang fancy features you want (eg: video, interactive content etc)
Functionality that you may want in the future (eg: booking system or membership login)

Ask around friends and family first, see if they have anything they can recommend. If you need some guidance and ideas you can read my article with my reviews and cost comparisons of a few I have used in the past with my clients.

4. Booking systems:

A lot of business owners in the fitness industry and fast realising that all the admin that goes with booking and scheduling clients. Then someone cancels, you have to phone your ‘back up’ list. It’s all very time consuming. Have you considered having an online booking system to free up your time?

There are some pretty decent systems available now. If you want to read more about bookings systems and how they compare, read my review here. Then once you have chosen a system that best suits your business, you will need to either give your developer the login to this, or if the system allows it, give them their own login.

5. Online payment functionality:

Need to free up some time fro all that admin that comes with tracking payments? Are you are thinking about passive income and converting some of your services into an online course, downloadable PDF or simply giving clients the ability to register for a group activities via your website? If so your website will need payment functionality.

PayPal, Square or Swipe are good solid internationally recognised systems that can integrate with most website software. Ensure you have your PayPal business account setup and ready for your developer to link to your shopping cart. They will need some code, so be prepared to either give them your login details (and change your password in the following days) or organise a phone call and they can talk you through getting the code you can email to them.

Take the first step today!

If you have any questions about anything in this article, please contact me, or DM me via Instagram. Even if you are just wanting a second opinion, I’m happy to give you my take on things.