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Marsha had a great idea for a business. She dreamed about it every night, thought about it incessantly every day. She bought the domain name and chose a lovely shade of green for her logo.<\/p>\n
Weeks went by. Then months. And Marsha began to lose enthusiasm for her project. WordPress themes. Graphics. Actual words. Opt-ins. Newsletters. Analytics. They danced through her head like high-strung Sugar Plum Fairies. What started off as \u201cthis is going to change the world\u201d morphed into \u201cI\u2019m sooooooo overwhelmed.\u201d Her idea stayed just that\u2026 an idea, tucked away safely in a Moleskine journal. In a box. In her garage.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be a Marsha.<\/p>\n
The tasks involved in creating a website should never prevent you from putting your awesome thing out into the world. \u00a0It all begins with a plan.<\/p>\n
WHY PLANNING MATTERS<\/b><\/p>\n
You wouldn\u2019t build a sailboat without first drawing up some kind of plan. \u201cThis goes here. That goes there.\u201d Follow the instructions and eventually you havea boat. AN ACTUAL BOAT! Heck, even Ikea provides a manual for putting together a side table. Four legs and a top seems pretty straightforward, but we still refer to the instructions to make sure we\u2019re doing it right.<\/p>\n
The same is true for a website. You need a plan, an instruction manual.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve noticed that people tend to view website creation as a finished masterpiece rather than a work in progress. \u201cLook at Davey Dinkleshort\u2019s website. It\u2019s so shiny and savvy.\u201d They become frustrated by how much work they think it takes to make it all come together like Dinkleshort. What they don\u2019t know is that Mr. D\u2019s current website has been reinvented 12 times.<\/p>\n
So\u2026 where should you start? Instead of choosing some random element and cobbling everything together so that it \u201ckinda-sorta fits,\u201d I recommend working through two big questions first.<\/p>\n
You think the answer would be as simple as \u201cmake me lots of money.\u201d While a fistful of dollars can be freaking fantastic, the answer is a bit more complex than that. Do you want to build an email list? Sell products directly? Educate potential clients?<\/p>\n
How you answer this question will determine the direction of your website.<\/p>\n
Please don\u2019t say, \u201cEveryone!\u201d This is the wrongest of all wrong answers. Your audience should be a specific person with specific needs.<\/p>\n
What is the pressing problem they want to fix right now? How do you solve it for them? Is your audience tech-savvy? Or do you need to keep things uber-simple?<\/p>\n
Over the years, I\u2019ve consoled dozens of clients who\u2019ve struggled with their websites. I knew that I needed to create something that would help take away the pain of website overwhelm and break the process down into bite-sized, digestible chunks.<\/p>\n
So I designed a Website Planner, an interactive tool that helps people design the look feel, and tone of their website while keeping ALL THE THINGS organized.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s yours and it\u2019s free. Seriously. Sign up\u00a0here to download it:<\/p>\n
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