Episode 4: Choosing and designing your website as a creative entrepreneur

One of the main stumbling blocks for creative people is technology, often this puts people off starting their own business, or taking it beyond an Etsy or Instagram feed.

So today I thought I’d give you some top tips on choosing and implementing your own website with minimum fuss.

Now I’ve had my own website in various forms for 11 years, I began with Wordpress and then a couple of years ago I switched to Shopify for my products and Squarespace for my coaching, branding and photography services. I no longer have my products so am just on Squarespace now.

So, first off, why did I switch from Wordpress?

To be honest because I’d had the website so long, I had added to it and changed it bit by bit so that the design had become a bit diluted, everything was a bit clunky – I had loads of plugins all doing different things, and to be frank it was costing a lot more than it needed to. It also broke, a lot. Again, mostly because it had been through so many iterations it was no longer fit for purpose.

So I decided to have a clean start, split my shop off onto Shopify (SO easy for ecommerce) and my services onto Squarespace – beautiful sleek design, easy to use and really intuitive to build. And even running both these websites it was STILL CHEAPER than my Wordpress.

So, how do you go about choosing the right platform for you:

So (and no affiliate financial benefits for me saying this I might add), I would always now go Squarespace for portfolio or service businesses, and Shopify for product-based businesses.

Yes Squarespace does have a shop facility, which is fine if you have a handful of say digital products that complement your services, but Shopify is hands down the easiest ecommerce solution right now for anyone who is selling products.

The first thing I do with my coaching clients if they want help with their websites is get them to write down a list of ‘must haves’ for their website, eg an About page, sales page, shop, portfolio etc etc, and then a ‘nice to have’ eg podcast modules, video options, integrations with other platforms (eg your email list, Zoom, teaching platforms, meeting booking systems and so on). These are things that you feel you might like to have later on, but aren’t necessarily essential to the website right now.

So, let’s focus on Squarespace for a moment.