SERENA SANDSTROM GROUP PROGRAM BUILDING YOUR LUXE BRAND WITH - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

SERENA SANDSTROM GROUP PROGRAM “BUILDING YOUR LUXE BRAND WITH SQUARESPACE!”

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN TODAY: The pros and cons of Wordpress vs. Squarespace Get Acquainted with the back end of Squarespace Why you don’t need to be a design genius to build a beautiful website that converts!

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: I did not know the FIRST thing about web design. My background is in Broadcasting, no graphic design experience whatsoever. One day, I decided to start a little blog, but I fell in love with building the site, instead of writing!

I DECIDED I WANTED TO BECOME A designer

After 6 months of countless coding courses, blog tutorials and YouTube videos, this was my first Wordpress site for my business. It got the job done, but it wasn’t “me,” and more importantly, it made me NO MONEY!

THAT’S WHEN I DISCOVERED Squarespace is a website-building platform designed to help people create beautiful sites without lots of tech know-how. Photo Credit: Squarespace

BENEFITS OF Literally anything is possible. If you know how to code. Your Wordpress site has endless customization options. If you want a membership site, Wordpress offers a lot of plugin options to create a personalized experience for your members. Recent software like SentryLogin has made it possible to create a membership site on Squarespace.

BENEFITS OF #1: Site Maintenance If you’ve ever had a Wordpress site, you know that you constantly have to update plugins, themes & software to prevent a crash. I was always worried about updating a plugin and crashing my whole site, or using a plugin that might bring a virus into my site. With Squarespace, there are NO UPDATES to worry about, they take care of it!

BENEFITS OF #2: Site Speed My Wordpress site had extremely slow page loading time, this hurts SEO! Squarespace solved that problem for less than half the price of premium hosting.

BENEFITS OF #3: Typography As a designer, typography is SO IMPORTANT Futura The right fonts can make or break your design Squarespace offers dozens of amazing premium fonts that are NOT FREE on the web

DRAWBACKS OF It is REALLY difficult to come up with any There are only 14 templates, and a few of them are very popular. You could risk your site looking “cookie cutter” if you don’t know how to customize it, or don’t have unique branding

MY BIGGEST BENEFIT: With my Wordpress site, I made a total of $200 in my business… EVER. Within the first month of my new SS site launch, I had made nearly $4,000 I’m not saying it was the magic bullet, but Squarespace did a few things for me: • It boosted my confidence, because I was proud to send people to my site • The new web presence allowed me to position myself as a polished expert • The build-up and frenzy around my new site launch got me a lot of attention

ESSENTIAL WEBSITE STRUCTURE HOME ABOUT SERVICES CONTACT How can people work with you? I encourage a “barrier to entry” • • • Think: “calls to action!” • Time to get personal I encourage package-based for potential clients • • Determine 2-3 goals for your • Make sure that people know work that speaks to YOUR ideal Require people to “apply” to • site, and PUSH THEM your “why” after they finish client’s problems work with you, and get on the • Within 8 seconds, people reading this page I like to “name” my packages phone. • should know: who you are, what • Always finish with a “call to with the result in mind. Like Use a traditional contact form, • you do, and who you do it for action!” “90 Biz Kickstart Program” or something like Typeform • They should also have an opportunity to “opt-in”

ANOTHER BIG PAGE: You want a page with 1 specific focus: SIGN UP FOR YOUR FREEBIE! Notice there are no distractions. No menu, only 1 action to perform I like to direct social media traffic to a focused page like this. This was created using Squarespace’s “Cover Pages” in less than 10 mins!

ANY QUESTIONS?