12 Tricks to Build Your Website Fast
I’ve found that building your website fast is the only way to go.
Slow, long, drawn-out efforts can really zap your biz mojo and essentially kill your coaching dreams. You don’t want that.
Common reasons websites get stuck include …
- You overthink it
- You grossly underestimate the work involved
- You’re not technical enough
- There are too many bells and whistles
- You’re not good at writing
- Perfectionism
- Not having time in a busy life
When you build a website fast, the exciting momentum often leads to an influx of new clients.
In this article, I’ll give you my best tricks from 17 years in web design (11 of which are exclusive with coaches) to get the job done on time.
1. Set a Deadline (My Fave)
A deadline on the calendar will limit your time which prevents you from the illusion that you have forever to do it. You’ll avoid endless research and endless perfection.
And you’ll actually do better work because you will be highly focused.
A deadline is magical.
Building a website fast is one thing. But getting clients with it is another!
Don’t create another fugly, boring coaching website. Instead create one that makes people say, Wow! I gotta work with this coach!
Learn how in The Coaching Website Guide.
2. Add a Painful Risk for Failure to Launch
There’s a part of our brain called the amygdala, often referred to as “the lizard brain”, which is always on the lookout for danger.
To use that primal part of our being, what we do is tie a painful consequence in place if we fail to reach our deadline.
For example, you could announce to your Facebook friends that you’re going to launch your new website on such-and-such a date. If you don’t make it, you risk a hit to your reputation.
Another way to do it, a brutal one that I’ve heard about among some of my fave productivity gurus, is to give a friend $1,000 dollars to donate to an organization or charity that you despise if you don’t make your launch date.
I heard about the idea of donating to the Nazi Party in which your name gets publicly listed as a donator. Yipes!
Imagine you just posted to all your Facebook friends that you will give them each $5 if you fail to launch your website in six weeks. Can you feel your energy start to rise?!?!
3. Pay for It
If you pay for your website, two good things happen:
- the web designer is committed to getting it done, and
- you want to get your money’s worth so you’ll be on top of them until it’s finished.
Just be sure the designer you hire has a track record for getting things done and that you spend some time talking with them to get clear on exactly what you want to create.
Interestingly, in my experience, if you don’t pay for it, and ask a friend to do it or barter for it, it rarely works out.
What typically happens is your website projects get low priority to other paid projects which put food on the table. And it’s hard to crack the whip on your friend because you’re getting the help for free.
Pay for your site if you want a commitment to getting it done.
4. Write Less
Writing can take a lot of time and effort which is often underestimated.
And if the idea of writing makes you a little nervous, then it’ll be a painful grind.
To make sure you get your site up timely, I recommend you get clear on the content you want to put up including the pages and the sections of content on those pages and aim to write less.
You can always expand on it later.
If I ever struggle to write something, I often take a moment to ask myself, What are the few key points I really want to make ?, and then I just focus on those.
Writing less is a good move.
5. Build Fast by Going “Lean”
When considering the functionality of your website including things like blogs, ebooks, sliding images, calendar software or other fancy doohickies, you can always start with less and expand later.
I recommend skipping things like PayPal buttons, client-management software (do you even have clients?) and shopping carts (do you even have products ready to sell?) – and go for less.
Embrace the idea of going “lean”.
Let your website be a work in progress just like your yoga practice, your relationship, or your life. Let it evolve.
You can start with something as a few pages of good copy and a compelling call-to-action like contacting you or getting on an email list.
6. Collaborate to Get It Done
Find another coach who needs their site done as well so you two can work together, share resources, give feedback, and encourage each other to get it done.
You can quickly post your request in your favorite LinkedIn group, school alumni forum or any other online hangout.
If you suck at writing or hate technology, get someone who has those skills. And make sure they’ve got a track record of completing things or be sure to bring it up as you consider candidates.
Just be sure to use the other tips in this article with them as the deadline.
7. “Reverse Calendar” It
If you are a productivity junky like me, you’ve probably heard of the reverse calendar.
It simply means picking your website launch date in the future and then working backward to the current time to figure out key milestones to make it happen.
Be sure to get clear about your website (pages, visuals, content, functionality) to see how much time you can make for this project, and think about what resources (writing, graphics, technical setup) you’ll need.
Use the Coaching Website Launch Time Estimator to help.
8. Do Videos
If writing is a struggle and you have something of a stage presence, consider doing videos.
Videos are great because they give people a real sense of who you are, they are fast to make, and you can transcribe for written content.
Your dynamic voice and personality will shine through and you’ll get the job done with more fun.
Even though I’m not all that great on the camera, I recently used video in a course I taught and people loved it.
My biggest tip on videos is to do practice a lot so you get comfortable.
Do a video. Then do another. And another and another and another and another …
9. Get Interviewed
Got a curious friend? Someone who is good at asking questions and listening?
Or, maybe you are willing to invest in hiring a professional interviewer?
If so, have them ask you about what you do and then put that into writing.
Dialoguing about what you do is a great way to get content out of your head and onto paper.
10. Hack Your Time
If life is too busy, you’ll probably need to rethink about your priorities and learn to say NO.
I know you’ve heard this before, and so have I. When you get clear on what’s important and how much time you really have, it becomes easier to realize that you have to say no.
Also, with a short deadline (yes, you can see I love the deadline), it’s also easier to excuse yourself and say no to other things by saying, I’d love to join you but I gotta get this website done.
The second way to hack your time is by crowding out things. You do this by filling your time with the high priority items first and essentially there’s no time left for the lower priority things.
You crowd them out.
For example, if you decided your website is critical right now, and you will spend 2-3 hours on it each Saturday morning, then perhaps your nails won’t get done as often or cutting the lawn will have to wait until Sunday.
When your new site is up, you’ll feel like a million bucks, and those smaller things wouldn’t have mattered.
11. Let Go of Mental Baggage
Let go of whatever thoughts, ideas, worries or concerns that are causing you to resist completing your website. Any and all of it.
Unhelpful thoughts that trigger a resistance can keep you stuck for a long time include:
- I don’t have a niche.
- It’s just too overwhelming.
- I’m afraid people will think I’m a fraud.
- I’m afraid my site will turn people off.
- I’m not good at writing or technology.
When resistance kicks in, I want you to chew on this bit of reality …
- If you’ve ever helped at least one person by coaching them, then you can help many more.
- There are so many people out there who badly need coaching help, your help.
- And when they find you, they will wish they had found you a long time ago.
- Your job now is to help them discover you – and your website is a tool for that.
- And when they get to your site, check you out, they will think an angel came down from heaven.
- And, every day that goes by, those people struggle because you haven’t shown up in their lives.
Yes, others sit around struggling because you haven’t gotten your website up and gotten the word out.
Go build your website fast, get out there and coach people! 😉
12. Give It to Your Coach
Whether you’re in the planning stage or stuck in mid-build, bring it up with your coach and ask them to pull out a big whip. 😉
Have him or her challenge you to …
- Set a deadline
- Clarify your website pages and features
- Ask to be held accountable
- Spend time figuring out your priorities
Do I need to tell you about the power of coaching? 😉
Are any of these tips hitting home for you?
Have you been stuck for a while? What has or hasn’t worked for you? Just post below.
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Coach, bullwhip… sounds like it’d work. I think it may have been Terry Pratchet whose publisher locked them both in a hotel room and wouldn’t let either of them out until a first draft of a new book was finished. Sometimes accountability needs to be really firm to be an incentive.
You speak the truth Kenn. AND, your course was the perfect solution…plus I can make changes all day long as my coaching business evolves. I launched early December 2015.
I admit being asked to commit to an actual date to be finished when I signed up for your course annoyed me. Yet my need to live up to my commitment and get it done became the focus. Your “do this or that in the next 10 minutes kept the momentum going.
Truly the best investment I’ve made so far for my business. It was my calling card from the very beginning.
Hi Kenn
Much of what you addressed applies to me, I am stuck and have been for some time. I like to write so have lots of content A friend helped to update my blog which took a long time but I have not been blogging. I am currently writing my transnational memoir schedule for publication Fall 2016. I need to create a platform for the book but not sure how to do that. I’ve already purchased package two of your coaching guide, but not sure how to utilize the different files. My question is how is the course different from the content in the guide? I am currently on a tight budget is it possible to get support in using the guide to create my website instead of taking your upcoming course? and what would be the cost for that? I am a Life, Anger Solution, and Health Coach who has no clients as I have allowed fear to stop me from showing up in peoples lives and share my gifts. Please look at my blog can it be enhanced as a viable website? Thank you in advance
Melissa
The best thing about the course as opposed to the guide is you get (1) technical steps laid out in videos and tutorials, you just go step by step, so it’s more of an application of the guide and (2) I’m right there if you get stuck to get you through it. Don’t waste hours on tech stuff. Oh and also (3) human feedback from others in the course. That’s been priceless. With your tight budget, I did make a longer payment option to make the payments small. So that might help there.
This course is for building a website to promote coaching. Not so much for a book though. Hmmm … I think you need a strategy to get all the pieces to work. Seems to be a few things dancing around you need to address, decided upon, and get implemented.
Yes Kenn,
all the above have been problems for me, so your suggestions are helpful.
My main struggle is building the site for my partner who had a vague idea of what she wanted in terms of style and clear ideas about content. Time has flowed by with multiple obligations being put first by me. This course has helped me to focus on getting it done in a confined time.
One thing I’ve found useful is to use a familiar tool to scope out the design, before I try to implement it in the page builder, where it’s a bit more abstract. I use MS Word a lot, and it has many of features of the pages being built.
I’ve also enjoyed your suggestion of Divi, a really simple theme which cleaned up a real mess which arose when I applied a very complex template to the site.
Great … it sounds like you and your partner need a simple way to get ideas into a firm sitemap so the content is clear, the ideas are there, and the style is good.
And do it quickly so it doesn’t get lost in busy life.
A tip: Just start with a theme, like Divi, and use it’s layout to form the site. Avoid trying to create a site design on your own and then making it real – that’s quite a task for any designer.