So you’ve been living with your landing page for awhile and hopefully, it is collecting email addresses and maybe making some sales.
But much like that cute, small apartment you have in your 20s, you know this is your temporary home.
Today, I want you to put a limit on your research time, and just pick what you are going to do with version 2.0 of your website. Your options include (but are not limited to) what is below. I’ve tried to categorize them based on my perceptions, again, you’re getting free advice on the internet:
NOTE: This is not a face tattoo. You can change your mind later. You are committing to this solution for 6ish months only so select month to month pricing if you get a paid version and know that for an investment of maybe 1-2 days of your time, you will have a working website that does a bit you can get some data with!
You feel overwhelmed with software and just learning Mailchimp earlier in this 20 day challenge made you want to die.
https://mailchimp.com/pricing/ <— Free version seems ok but I have no direct experience in it.
You want mainly a brochure (informational) website and you might embed a booking calendar or a simple payment form but nothing fancy.
https://www.squarespace.com/
wix.com
wordpress.com
I’ve used both these builders and they are perfectly acceptable. Where they break down a bit is wanting something complicated. Ex: I had a client who dismantled the payment form I set up for her and moved to Squarespace… and then wondered why her recurring donations stopped working (SS forms at that time didn’t take recurring/subscription payments). I just looked into an Etsy integration of Wix for another client and the only one in their ‘store’ has terrible reviews.
Both can handle a payment form and some embed code though and are acceptable.
WordPress.com is the commercial version of the open source software I use. It has its limits and my main issue is the way they nickel and dime you. Want to use your own domain? $25/year. Need more storage? Pay up, buttercup. Kind of annoying but everything I am linking to here is getting theirs I guess so…
You have your entire inventory in Square or have an existing POS at your store, restaurant, insert-business-here.
Look into turning on the Square storefront or seeing what your POS has for options. They want to keep you as a customer and lots of them have been scrambling for online solutions for their customers lately. You’re already paying for it, ask what they got. Bonus: you don’t have to reinput your inventory into something else!
The fact that the most clear explanation of Square pricing I could find is not on squareup.com is a bit odd but here you go: https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/square-online-store-and-ecommerce-review/
You are ready to move into something that feels a bit more serious/permanent… and are willing to invest more than $25ish/month.
https://www.shopify.com/pricing
WordPress.org with Woocommerce
Shopify is great in that you can customize and set up sans code but they will nickel and dime you a bit as you want more advanced things, like an RSS feed of your products ($4.95/month).
WordPress.org is something you’d only want to do to yourself if you want to be a developer or something. Really. But if you’ve got more time than money and like learning stuff, you go Glen Coco.
Your existing website is ok but needs something… like a payment form or a booking calendar.
Lots of website services let you embed their solutions onto an existing website. Here are some ideas:
Eventbrite.com – embed ticket sales, they get 6% of your take
Calendly.com – booking calender, $14.95/month
Jotform with Stripe.com – a payment form for $29ish/month
Can you customize the crap out of it? To a degree? Will it have every possible feature you want? Maybe. Is it what we call ‘good enough’ to start probably? Yes.
You have one job today and that is picking a solution and going with it. No analysis paralysis for you.
See you tomorrow!