Why it’s so important to have a website for your home business

Show Notes Episode 5 – Visibility Online – Do you Have a Website?

This episode is about having an online presence and a website. How important is it to have your own website? Do you rely using only social media to use for your business?

Not relying only on social media for your online presence
Importance of you owning your own content by having your own website
Hosting service
Buying a domain name

Don’t just rely on having your business online presence on a social media platform. In my humble opinion, you have more control over your own website. For the hosting service GreenGeeks, I mentioned that they speak to you in plain easy to understand English, (just a quick note, I don’t know if they speak to other customers in English only, since I am in the US and shared my own experience. They might speak to you in other languages too.) Please read terms of usage, and/or condition of the social media platforms mentioned in this (or all of our) episode.

[Music intro]

This podcast is about our experiences with being self-employed, entrepreneurship, and bootstrapping it. Sometimes I have a spectacular guest that join me and share their stories. Also, it’s about connecting to our soul, our inner selves to unwind and chill. My name is Lourdes, and I hope you enjoy this episode!

Hi, in today’s episode I’m going to talk about your online presence and websites. Do you have a website? Do you think you need a website? If you don’t have a website, do you rely on Facebook page for your online presence? I really don’t understand why people only use Facebook as their business page.

They have no website. Come on, really? Do you really think that everybody uses or has a Facebook account? Well, they don’t. So, you’re kind of missing out on reaching some customers or potential customers that you can have because they’re not on Facebook.

I know so many people that don’t even like that platform, they don’t like Facebook. Maybe it’s a small group of people, but just so you know not everyone has a Facebook account. If you truly want to reach potential clients or customers worldwide, in my honest opinion, I believe having a website is the key. When you only have a Facebook page for your business, you are essentially agreeing to their terms and conditions.

So, with Facebook, you somehow violated some type of rule or something of that sort, they have to have a reason that they feel is right for them, they can potentially shut you down. They will take off your Facebook page, maybe perhaps delete your account. Is this something that you wanna have someone control over your Facebook business page? Essentially, Facebook sorta owns that content on your Facebook page.

They own the land, they own the real estate, so you gotta abide by their rules. So, if somehow, something happened between you and Facebook’s terms and conditions, or algorithm, I don’t know, what will you do with your customer base? They are living in that land. They are living in the Facebook platform, that’s their real estate. So think about that for a moment.

Alright, so remember. These big tech giants on social media, like Facebook and Twitter, are just a small example of them sort of owning your content because you are using their platform. And of course, you can still have your Facebook page, just don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I really suggest having your own website, and here’s why.

If you have your own website that you are hosting, guess what? That is yours. As long as you’re paying for your own hosting, you have better control for your own content. You own all the information, you own the land, the real estate, your online business on that. And there are many CMS to choose from. CMS stands for “content management system.”

Perhaps you have heard of Wix, Squarespace, Joomla, Shopify, WooCommerce, Drupal, or WordPress? These are just a few examples of using content management systems to build your website. WordPress is a pretty popular CMS. I believe about 33%, the last time I checked, I think sometime last year or so, about 33% of websites out there were built with WordPress. So then you might just take a look at different types of CMS on YouTube, see which one is easy for you to learn, or hire someone to help you build your website.

Because we are bootstrapping it, you may want to start with a free version of creating a website. There are free versions of WordPress or Wix, those are the only two that come to mind right now. And if you use the free version, it will contain their names in the browser name. So for example, let’s say your website name is Piano People. If you use the free version of WordPress or Wix, the browser name or domain name will appear as pianopeople.wix.com or pianopeople.wordpress.com.

Now, if you buy your own hosting and not using the free versions of WordPress or Wix, your website will then say pianopeople.com. And y’know, sometimes the free version is acceptable, it just depends on your business. And I do know some people who use the free version of WordPress or Wix, and that’s fine. It really depends on your business and how comfortable you are with that, and if you’re getting clients with that, that’s great.

Ok, so now moving on. If you decide to buy hosting, you need to shop around for the best prices and reliability. I’ve used a few different hosting services in the past, and now I use GreenGeeks. What I like about GreenGeeks, is their fast and reliable speeds, and the most important thing to me is customer service.

When you call GreenGeeks, they don’t talk to you in a techy way that it goes over your head, and you don’t understand what they’re talking about with the techy jargon. They speak to you in plain easy to understand English. And why is customer service so important? Because if something should go wrong with your website, and you cannot figure it out by yourself how to fix it, you wanna be able to reach out to customer support for their help.

You don’t want to mess around waiting and putting in a ticket and waiting and waiting for them to answer your ticket, because you need help right now. So they provide a phone number, and somebody’s always there, 365 days of the year. At least at the time of this recording. And this is why I like having my paid hosting services with GreenGeeks.

They are always available, especially for emergencies. And again, to be transparent, I do use GreenGeeks, so I also have an *** affiliate link with them if you decide to use them, it’ll be in the show notes. And I’m not getting paid just because I mentioned their name in this podcast, it’s really because I like using GreenGeeks.

So to have your own website, the other thing you probably would need is a domain name. So the domain name, for my example again, was Piano People. So you have to look at a place to buy your domain name like GoDaddy or Namecheap, and type in Piano People and see if it’s available. And in the past, I’ve purchased my domain names from HostGator, Namecheap, and GoDaddy.

Those are the only three I can think of right now, but there are lots and lots of places you can buy your domain name. Ok, so then let’s pretend you bought your domain name from Namecheap, and you have hosting from GreenGeeks. What you will need to do is point your domain name to your hosting services, such as GreenGeeks. And so what you have to do is log in to your Namecheap account, look for the domain name, log in to your GreenGeeks, let’s pretend that’s where you bought it from, and look for the DNS servers.

And then copy that information and put it into Namecheap where you bought your domain name so that it’s pointed to your hosting service. It’s not that hard, and I believe people can help you with this and perhaps your hosting service, you can ask them for help with this and they would be happy to help you. And of course, I do this all by myself, so if I can do it, I believe you can do it too. And if you really wanna bootstrap, you can learn how to do this. Alright, I think this is it for the episode, and until next time!

[Music Outro]

I hope that you enjoyed this podcast and please share this episode with your friends! Please subscribe, rate, and review this episode! And as always, the show notes will be available at 8thlevelpodcast.com. Thanks for listening!

Resources

Check out GreenGeeks for your hosting services
Buy a Domain Name at Namecheap

*** Disclaimer: All the episodes in this podcast provide general information purposes only. The views and expressions from the show and our guests is their own and we are not liable for any business outcomes or your success. Please to seek professional advice from tax preparers, legal, financial counseling, for your business.

*** Affiliate link – If you click and buy from GreenGeeks or Namecheap, I make a small commission from them and you don’t pay them extra for anything other than the price they advertise at the moment.

About the Host

Lourdes McCombs is passionate about helping you take your unique skills into the online world, learn digital strategies, and scale. She is a Business Mentor & Success Coach and helps men and women transfer their local business online to create a global impact and to attract more clients. She is spiritual transformation coach that helps people make changes in their life without compromising their mission and their soul.

If you need clarity, or defining your life’s purpose, visit her business website: click here for her website at: BlueLarimarCoach.com

Or schedule a 30-minute complimentary meeting to get to know her, ask questions about business development and kickstart your business ventures here.

*****Disclaimer: All the episodes in this podcast are for information purposes only. The views and expressions from the show and our guests are their own. 8th Level Podcast, its subsidiaries and owner are not liable nor guarantee any business outcomes or your success. Seek optional advice from tax preparers, legal, financial pros at your own discretion. For more information of our terms and disclaimer go here.

For a more information of our terms and disclaimer, please go here.