Hello everyone! I’m Samara, a South Surrey/White Rock-based Squarespace website designer. My business is called Samara Bortz Creative Design and my specialty is helping creative women stand out in the busy online world with a professional, strategic, and beautiful website. I build custom sites for photographers, artists, and small-business owners, mostly in creative industries! The creative entrepreneur life is one that I’m intimately familiar with; when I’m not designing websites, you can also find me directing Crescent Choirs – White Rock and South Surrey’s family of choirs.

Nothing makes me more excited than helping other women unleash their creativity and build their businesses online. This is why I am so thrilled to be a guest on Kim’s blog, sharing my best tips for how to quickly and easily up your DIY-website game.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

First, I’ll start by saying there is no shame in the DIY website game. If you are in the beginning stages of building your business and have more time than money on your hands, it can be a fine way to go – especially if you’re tech savvy and have a creative eye!  I recommend using a template if possible, so that you aren’t starting completely from scratch and have the basic bones of the site already in place. Look for a template created specifically for your industry! If you’re a creative in need of a site and are keen to build it yourself, check out my template shop launching in early 2021!

Onto the DIY website tips. If you already have a site that you built yourself, here are my top recommendations for little tweaks that can help to make it easier to navigate, more professional, and stand out from the crowd.

 

1)    STREAMLINE YOUR HEADER NAVIGATION

How’s your header navigation looking? I’m talking about the main menu across the top of your website that holds your different pages. I recommend streamlining your header navigation to give your site visitors a clear path to follow. Consider having only a few options like “About, Shop, Portfolio, Blog" (no more than 5 or 6!) so that your visitor doesn't get overwhelmed or distracted down a rabbit hole of drop-down menus. Too many options can be paralysing and confusing!

 

2)    WRITE A TAGLINE. PUT IT FRONT AND CENTRE.

You want your site visitor to immediately know who you are, what you do, who you serve, and what makes you unique. Ideally, you give them all that information in a snappy, few-sentence-long home page tagline. This should be one of the very first things that your website visitors see when they land on your page. Don’t make them dig for the information – make it crystal clear what you do and how you will serve them. Here’s an example of my tagline, as well as a format for creating your own.

Formula:

Who you are

What you do

Who you serve

What makes you unique

Example: I’m Samara (who I am). I design custom websites (what I do) for photographers, artists, and creatives (who I serve), in two weeks or less (what makes me unique).

 

3)    CREATE POINTS OF CONNECTION

It’s important to know that having a beautiful and user-friendly website is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to making sales, booking projects, or connecting with clients. People can peruse your website all day long, but oftentimes, it takes a little extra push for them to pull the trigger. You need your website to be a place that not only provides your future clients with all they need to know, but also that entices them to reach out and connect with you. Here are a few ways you can do this:

-       Integrate your Instagram feed directly into your website with a call to action encouraging visitors to follow you

-       Create some sort of educational or valuable offering like a PDF freebie, in exchange for collecting their email addresses (I have a whole post on this here, if you’re interested!).

-       Tell your story. Integrate as much of your personal story into your written content as possible, so that your site visitors can get to know you and feel a personal connection to you.

4)    INVEST IN QUALITY PHOTOS.

This is a big one! It’s important to use high-quality images on your website, because low resolution iPhone photos don’t translate well across different screen sizes. You want to make sure your site looks beautiful and professional not only on a laptop, but also on your phone, or larger desktop screen. Photos taken with a DSLR camera are an instant game-changer for a website. I always recommend that my clients invest in a photoshoot with a professional photographer (someone amazing like Kim!). If you’re ballin’ on a budget, you can absolutely take your own photos, too! Beg, borrow, and dust off that DSLR camera, set up a tripod, wait for a nicely lit day, and snap some new photos for your site.

 

5)    ADD AN FAQ SECTION

I’m a huge fan of giving your website visitors all the information up front! The more of their potential fears or worries that you can put at ease, the better. An FAQ section is a great way to do this. It serves a couple of purposes:

-       It gives answers to potential questions, so that you don’t have to field as many emails.

-       It helps to build trust because it shows that you’ve put forethought into potential issues or concerns your clients may have.

 

There you go! 5 quick little fixes for your DIY website that you can do right now. If you’re interested in learning more about creative marketing and website design, make sure you head over to my blog and subscribe for updates or follow along on Instagram.

If you’re looking for someone to build a new website for your creative business, please reach out to me! I would love to collaborate with you to create an online space that helps you connect with your clients, sell your creative work, and stand out in your industry.