9 Home Page Must Haves

by Jacquie Robertson | Jan 12, 2022 | web design

LOGO

The first thing your website visitors should see is your logo. Don’t clutter your logo, keep it simple and surround it with white space.

HERO SECTION

This can be a large image or a slideshow which is just under your menu bar. Use your hero section to display your mission statement or give a brief intro to entice the user to scroll down.

CLEAR MENU SYSTEM

Your navigation menu must be visible at the top of the page. Sort the links in an organised and structured way.

HEADLINE

Usually consists of 2 to 3 sentences which provide a clear description of your business and the services you provide.

BLOG

Display your most interesting or recent articles on your home page showing only snippets of your articles with a “read more” link to lead the reader into your other posts.

SOCIAL PROOF

Showing what your clients are saying about your business is a powerful way to gain trust and establish your expertise.

BENEFITS

Describing what you do, and how your clients can benefit from your services is essential for maintaining interest in your site.

CALL TO ACTION

This can be an animated button on your hero shot, and further down the page or a pop up which appears when the user scrolls. Use keywords such as “click” “count me in” “yes please” to encourage people to take action and sign up.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Add your contact information in your menu bar, or in the footer area of your website. You can also have your phone number displayed as a “call me” button on mobiles.

How to add your videos onto your Website

by Jacquie Robertson | Jul 16, 2021 | membership sites, vimeo, web design, web design for fitness professionals, youtube

If, like me you’ve amassed a huge online library of classes built up since March 2020, you’ll be thinking about how to monetise your video archives and sell to a larger audience.

A good solution is for you to start a Membership Website. This gives you the options of selling your different as stand alone courses, or you can opt to bundle all your classes into a monthly membership plan. The possibilities are endless.

Your website provides the perfect platform to showcase your online classes – plus the weblinks can be used to promote everything onto Social Media therefore increasing your exposure. Once you’ve created and uploaded your videos to YouTube or Vimeo they are automatically copyrighted to you, meaning you have full rights to them and can choose where they should appear. Prior to writing this article I always added the links to my videos, however I have discovered that this is not always the perfect solution.

The Benefits of Embedding your Videos

For example, have a look at my video explaining about my Membership Site – https://youronlinestudio.beaumontbodys.com/. You can play the video directly from the website without going to YouTube. This means that the reader won’t get distracted and hopefully sign up to my Membership Site.

Please note that there are drawbacks if you are using YouTube, as adverts will pop up. A better solution is to go use Vimeo for uninterrupted and ad free viewing especially for your online memberships. It’s a good idea to use both platforms as YouTube will help you with your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

The best option to include videos on your website is to embed them. This means that your videos can be viewed on your website without the viewer being directed to third parties.

Linking your Videos

Linking your videos via a URL makes it easier for the users to share your content – even if it’s set to Unlisted. There’s also the added distraction of other peoples video recommendations and linked videos can also take longer to load.

How to display your videos in your WordPress Website

Once you’ve got your page all set up, it’s time for you to add in your video content. Using WordPress and the Divi Builder it’s really easy to do. Follow this instructional video to find out how easy it is to add a YouTube video to your website…

To add your videos in from Vimeo, simply click the chain link icon on your video and the option to copy or embed your video displays. Use the same process to add in the video code or link.

Wix or WordPress?…

by Jacquie Robertson | Apr 19, 2021 | domain name, web design, web hosting, website maintenance

WordPress or Wix? What’s the difference?…

If you are a complete beginner, don’t want to hire a Web Designer and want a quick and easy way to get your website up and running then Wix is the perfect solution for you.

Although Wix offers a basic website builder service for free it does have some drawbacks…

- Wix branded advertisements on the header and footer of your website
- You can’t use a Custom Domain name for your website so it will appear as
- username.wix.com/sitename
- There is no SEO or E-Commerce functionality

If you want to remove the advertisements and get additional features you’ll need to upgrade to one of the Wix Premium Plans.

WordPress

A WordPress website will give you complete control of every aspect of your website.

You have the flexibility to build an E-Commerce Store, run a Blog or start a Membership Site, plus you have access to over 58,000 Plugins.

Apps and Plugins

Wix calls them Apps and WordPress calls them Plugins. Some are free and some require a monthly subscription payment.

What are they?

These are lovely addons which you can bolt onto your website. They’re an essential part of building and creating an amazing website.

There are Apps / Plugins to boost your sites speed and performance, improve SEO, add contact forms, sell online courses. Some are free and some require additional monthly or annual subscription payment.

Your Fiit Marketing Website comes with additional features such as animated text, flip picture boxes, image hover boxes, and links to your Social Media.

Domain Name and Hosting

With a WordPress website you’ll need your own Domain Name and Hosting Service. At Fiit Marketing we can help you to find and purchase your own Domain Name. All our websites are hosted on our Shared Server account with Bluehost. If you want to add an E-Commerce functionality WooCommerce can easily be bolted on which gives you the ability to start selling products directly from your website. With a WordPress website you can backup your website, download your media files. You can even move your website to a new hosting company and designer. Wix makes it a little harder to move your website and files to a new hosting company so if you want a WordPress site it’s sometimes easier to walk away from Wix and start afresh.

Blogging

If you’re looking at writing a Blog, WordPress wins hands down. It started as a blogging platform and now is used on 40% of all websites.

Themes

This is the most important part of your website – how the design and layout look and work.

Your website must be user friendly, easy to navigate and especially needs to be functional across all platforms – mobile, laptop, tablet.

Wix comes with over 900+ website themes. However the drawback is that once you have selected your theme you can’t switch to another template. You can change the colours and layouts but not the overall look of your website.

Imagine wearing the same clothes day in and day out and not being able to change them?

A WordPress site allows you to easily change the look and feel of your website whenever you feel like having a refresh.

As your business grows and develops your website needs to reflect this and grow with you.

Cost

Over time Wix is the more expensive option.

At Fiit Marketing we have created transparent website costs, monthly payment plans and ongoing hosting options once your website is completed. You can come back to us to add more features to your site whenever you’re ready and we are always here to help.

Summary

We can get your new WordPress or Wix website up and running in no time at all.

If you have a Wix website, we can help you to update your site – but not give you a new theme – and we can add on additional Apps for you.

(Ref: https://www.wpbeginner.com/opinion/wix-vs-wordpress-which-one-is-better-pros-and-cons/)

Claire Jardine Evolution Fitness

by Jacquie Robertson | Mar 25, 2021 | call to action, domain name, logo design, web design

New website launch!

Claire Jardine Evolution Fitness

https://clairejardinefitness.com/

I was approached by Claire back in January to not only create her new website but her new logo.

Following an initial telephone consultation the colour pallete was decided upon and Claire sent me over some websites which she liked the look off. This is always a useful exercise to do when you’re creating a new website.

The initial logo presentation included several design options but the preferred “love heart” was the standout choice. This was further developed using different script fonts until the final version was decided upon by Claire.

Some clever treatments on the website include a “hover effect” on the Class boxes on the Home Page. The Classes Page has a sub menu built in to link to the many classes she offers.

A Pop Up Call to Action encourages new clients to join her Facebook Group.

The website reflects Claire’s personality and is the perfect platform for her to grow her online fitness business.

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