Having a website is essential for entrepreneurs. If you create it yourself, you won’t need to pay someone to manage it indefinitely. Fortunately, it’s not as difficult as you might think.

To have a website, you need to purchase its address. It’s analogous to owning a home. First, you need an address, and then you can build something there.

There are three URLs you need to purchase:

1. Your business name
2. Your book title
3. Your superhero name

My business is Jon Friedl, LLC, so I own JonFriedl.com, JonFriedl.net, and JonFriedl.org. You’ll want the URL ending in COM, plus you want to prevent anyone else from getting NET or ORG and using them for nefarious purposes. Do not purchase a URL with dashes.

You’ll also want to purchase a URL ending in COM of your book title, which can have dashes. This URL will most likely be “attached” to your website. Basically, anyone typing it in will be re-directed to your main homepage.

Next is your superhero name, which is your main website. All other URLs you own are redirected to it. My main website is YourAuthorPlatform.com, and I own the .NET and .ORG versions. You want a descriptive URL that is easy for fans to remember.

Alternatively, you could make your main website your name, like JonFriedl.com. However, this is an example of shooting yourself in the foot. Using a descriptive website URL makes your business far easier to start, but highly successful businesses perform better using their own names for brand recognition.

You can purchase these URLs from various providers, but I prefer GoDaddy.com since it doesn’t really matter where you acquire them. I would avoid URLs that have already been taken. URL suppliers may offer to negotiate for taken URLs, but attempting to acquire them when someone else is reserving them for such a purchase can be problematic.

Gift Suggestion: Get the URLs for your children’s names. When they are older, they’ll eventually make great birthday presents. Imagine the look of surprise on their faces!

Now that you have a URL, you can put a website there. There are many ways to do this, but I advocate the cookie-cutter approach. Let’s make it easy on you, so you don’t have to upgrade it later or pay endless fees to a webmaster.

First, you should purchase a framework, like Astra or Genesis. Second, you will need a theme. If you have the option, choose a premium theme.

Many themes are available. Review them to see what you might like. It’s not about color, which you’ll determine and we’ll discuss next; rather, it’s about style.

Your theme will include many features, most of which you may not use right away. At a minimum, you’ll want a theme that supports a blog for your website articles. Everything else is adjustable.

Once your framework and theme are installed, you can start experimenting with the appearance of your initial website. Your first decision is to pick a color scheme. Take your time and consider your primary color, perhaps consulting an artist friend or searching the Internet for good choices.

Your secondary color must also be chosen, but it is usually the color on the other side of the color wheel from your primary color. Other fun things to decide on are preferences like available fonts and types of buttons.

Your next step involves three pages, which are slightly different from posts. These necessary pages are:

• Homepage
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service
• About

In order, from the top of your homepage, enter sections for:

• Channel name
• Value proposition
• Purpose statement
• What you offer
• Podcast episodes
• Latest website articles

All sections except the podcast and article sections are static and unchanging unless you make a change. The podcast and article sections will automatically populate, a standard feature with most themes.

The privacy policy and terms of service are legal documents. You could generate them using a free service. However, I highly recommend contacting an internet lawyer to design them specifically for your business.

The About page is a short description of your business. Although optional, including a picture of yourself is a good idea.

At the bottom of every webpage is a footer, which is identical on all pages and posts except for landing pages. It’ll need the following items shown:

• Contact info
• Social Media Links
• Copyright Notice

Your contact information should include your business address, email address, and telephone and text phone numbers. Hopefully, your business address is NOT your home address but a post office box number or something similar. Until your website launches, you’ll need to use a GMAIL email address or something similar, which you’ll switch to your business website ASAP.

Utilize the free Google Voice service to create a phone number in your area code. The goal of having a functioning phone number is to present yourself as a legitimate business. While you may receive only a few calls or texts, the value it offers is invaluable.

The copyright notice is “Copyright” followed by the year your business started, a dash, and the current year. After “Copyright 2024-2025,“ your official business entity name will follow. For legal reasons, it is advisable to include the statement, “As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.” either before or after this notice.

Your website is a valuable business asset. Email addresses also represent another significant business asset, potentially worth $100 each if collected properly. To effectively capture emails from your audience, you essentially need three things:

1. Lead magnet
2. Email subscription list provider
3. Subscription page

A lead magnet is a gift offered in exchange for your fan’s email address. Most of the time, when I create an email magnet, it only takes about 30 minutes. It’s easy: What three or ten things should your audience know about?

Create that list and generate a PDF version of it. The list can include anything relevant, even if it doesn’t belong to you. Over time, you will greatly enhance your lead magnet.

Email subscription providers include MailChimp, AWeber, Drip, and Kit (formerly ConvertKit). Switching providers can be a hassle, so I recommend Kit. You should just go directly for the best, right?

Your subscription provider can help you with landing page templates for your website subscription page. You don’t need to design everything yourself. These landing pages don’t have menus at the top or footers at the bottom, so the viewer has fewer links to click other than the offer highlighted.

Lastly, create a post template that will never be published. Its purpose is to save you time and remind you of every element you’d like your website articles to include. These sections consist of:

• Title
• Introduction
• Embedded video
• Embedded podcast
• Article sections (4 or 5)
• Summary
• Related articles
• Previous and Next articles

Yes, after each article is written, you will create a long-form video and podcast episode. These sections serve as placeholders until you learn how to produce both. Don’t worry; I explain how to create them in other articles.

I suggest forming paragraphs of three sentences each, limiting yourself to four or five paragraphs per section. However, as demonstrated in this article with its seven sections, exceptions will occur.

Every third paragraph should include a button linking to your subscription page for email sign-up. By placing them at this interval, one button will always be visible on the screen as readers scroll through your article.

Initially, you won’t have any related articles to share. However, over time, you’ll be providing them with every article. For instance, this article currently lacks related content but will soon include two articles about creating long-form videos and podcast episodes. Eventually, it will feature a comprehensive list offering additional articles on each section, complete with extensive detailed descriptions.

The last section links to the previous and next articles and is crucial for search engine optimization. As search engines crawl your site, it is vital for your success that every article be discoverable. Therefore, your initial article links to your next article once it is written, and each subsequent article links to the prior and upcoming articles as they are published.

It took me three days to put together and launch a website. However, I already had legal documents from my internet lawyer, which took about a week to receive. These three days also included some details not covered in this article, such as logo design.

Once you publish each page and article of your website online, visit every page and post. Correct any errors you may find. Additionally, check it on a computer, tablet, and phone.

If you don’t have a tablet or phone, view each page on your computer while resizing the window until it resembles a tablet format. Next, resize the browser window even more until it changes to a phone format.

About half of your viewers will watch from a computer screen, while the other half will watch from a phone. This topic is not covered here in the process of setting up a Google Analytics page. These analytics will provide information on how many viewers are using each type of device, along with a wealth of other data.

As a fair warning, several minor items are not covered here. Menus will be placed at the top of your website, but there are only three to begin with:

1. An “About” page for your website
2. The name of your primary category
3. A “Contact” page

Two major items are not addressed here: your online shop and plug-ins. Your shop will be discussed later, once you have something to sell. Plug-ins are a detail associated with your website framework and theme.

Congratulations on launching your website! You’re on your way now!!

You now have a website that you created yourself. Congratulations! Now, get started and write some articles for your website!

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