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Every legitimate business today needs a professional website. But
how do you build one that actually works? What components should it
have? Whom can you trust to navigate the technology and architect
the site for maximum effectiveness? And how can you keep it within
budget? Continue reading to answer these questions.


Web design has come a long way since the early stages. It's never
been cheaper or simpler for anyone to throw up a good-looking
website within days, sometimes even hours.
 
The challenge is that it takes a bit more expertise to build a
website that actually persuades your visitors to take meaningful
action for your business.

From Custom To CMS

In the early days of web design, you would determine your needs
then have someone custom design the entire site from scratch. The
proliferation of Content Management Systems (or CMS), including
Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal to name a few, has drastically
changed this model. We're raving fans of Wordpress.
 
With a little research and a lot of persistence, anyone can figure
out how to set up and operate a CMS. Thousands of themes, or
layouts, are available across the web. This means that all you have
to do is choose the right layout then customize the color scheme to
match your company branding.
 
For example, we customized this theme for our website and this
theme for The Center for Social Leadership. To find themes for
specific Content Management Systems, simply do a Google search
(i.e. "wordpress" + "themes", "joomla" + "templates").
 
If you find a theme that meets your needs as it is, then all you'll
have to pay for is hosting (assuming you build the site yourself).
If you want a custom design but aren't tech-savvy, you can hire a
graphic designer for between $250 and $1,500, depending on how
complicated the job is. If you use Wordpress, we recommend Charfish
Design and Men With Pens.

Architecture

After you've chosen and set up your CMS and theme, the next step is
to architect your site. As we detail in this blog article, there
are four components of a website: 1) technical programming, 2)
graphic design, 3) copywriting, and 4) architecture.
 
The technical programming is taken care of with your CMS, and you
can find designers who work specifically with the CMS of your
choice. This leaves text and architecture.
 
This is where knowledge of personas plays a critical role. You need
pages and text to answer the questions asked by each. Specifically,
you should have at least the following:

    * An "About Us" page describing credentials and competitive
advantages for Competitives.
    * A "Get Started" page, or something similar, for Spontaneous
types. Free downloads also appeal to this persona.
    * Pages that detail your products, services, processes,
methodologies, and applicable research for Methodicals.
    * A "Testimonials" or "Case Studies" page for Humanists. Also
include bios of relevant owners, managers, and employees for this
persona.

Write your text to answer the questions asked by the personas. Use
hyperlinks on relevant words and phrases to direct people to your
pages. Make the navigation simple and intuitive. Test it on a
number of your friends to find where they experience difficulty or
their questions don't get answered.

Build Your Database

Capturing data from your website visitors is one of your biggest
priorities. People may not buy on an initial visit, but if you can
gain their trust enough to get at least their name and email
address, you can continue serving them and making your case over
time.
 
The trick here is to have a free download, such as an e-book, audio
file, or a free trial of something. Your download must be relevant
to visitors and valuable enough to draw attention.
 
For example, we spent hundreds of hours over months and paid a few
hundred dollars producing our e-book on Hub Mentality. And guess
what -- you're reading this email now because you downloaded it!
 
You'll need database management software, such as AWeber, to create
web forms and build and manage your database.
Drive Traffic
With your website built, the next step is to drive traffic. Website
traffic comes primarily from organic searches, direct referrals,
links, and social networking and bookmarking.
 
To optimize your search engine ranking, there are a number of
technical programming elements to take care of. This is one reason
why we love Wordpress so much -- it automatically takes care of all
those details for you.
 
It's also imperative that you have a blog and post articles
frequently. The more you post the more relevant content search
engines will find. Furthermore, it increases your chance of people
across the web linking back to your site, which search engines
love. Read our free e-book, The Beginning Blogger's Bible, for more
information on the benefits of blogging.
 
Currently, the three most popular social networking sites are
Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Set up profiles on each, make
friends, then wisely refer people to your website. Social
bookmarking sites include Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and others.
These allow people to share content. The better your blog content,
the better your chances of people linking to you from these sites.

Optimize Over Time

Your website will never be finished. Embrace that fact. As we
explain in this article, the key is to always be testing to
optimize your site over time.
 
To test you need to set up analytics. Google offers this free
version, which works great for most websites. Set up an account,
then input your website address. You will then be given code to
insert into the back end of your website, either in the footer or
header.
 
This will track everything from page views to time spent on your
site, and hundreds of other variables. Adjust your site and watch
what happens to your statistics, then further adjust accordingly.
Review

    * You don't need a custom site; these are expensive and
unnecessary. Choose a CMS. Wordpress rocks. Choose a good layout
that works as it is, or have a graphic designer customize the
design.
    * Set up your navigation and write your text to cater to the
four main personas.
    * Use a free download and database management software to build
a database.
    * Blog, blog, blog. This will drive traffic, generate links,
and create trust and credibility, among other benefits.
    * Drive traffic through social media.
    * Optimize your website over time by using analytics.

How KGaps Can Help

This newsletter is obviously a crash course. There are tons of
details involved with each of the phases we've described. If you've
got time but a limited budget, it should give you enough direction
to pull a respectable website together.
 
On the other hand, if you have the budget and want a professional
job done quickly, then we can build your website for you for as low
as $2,500, depending on the nature of your site. Contact us for
more details and to get a custom bid.
 
The following are a few websites we've built to give you a feel for
our capabilities:

    * Wealth Swing Coach
    * Soul Purpose Institute
    * Gradient Financial
    * Max International Blog
    * The Center for Social Leadership
    * The Coming Aristocracy

 If you don't have the budget for us to build your site but you
want more direction, we'd be happy to provide consulting at an
hourly rate.
 
Contact us now for more information and to receive a custom bid on
your website.