If you’re an influencer, or working towards building your content creating business, you may wonder if you need a website at your own domain name. Although the majority of your content will be on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, having a website is ESSENTIAL for multiple reasons:
1)A website gives you control over your business, branding, and revenue.
When you grow a social media account, you are at the mercy of that social media platform. If they ban or suspend your account, change their earning algorithms, alter their standards or even shut down entirely, your business will be dramatically affected. On the other hand, a website is a space on the internet that is controlled by you – you own the domain name and have complete control over your website, giving you a place on the internet and control over your brand.
2)You can monetize your brand with an online store or digital content.
While you grow your following on social media platforms, you can make an income by leading followers to your online store to buy merchandise or digital content from from your online store. Plus, if you make your online store using Website.com, Website.com does not take any commissions or fees from your sales!
3)A website communicates professionalism to future partners and collaborators.
A website gives you a professional feel, giving potential partners trust in you and your work ethic. A website also gives you a chance to highlight what you offer, and showcase your biggest and best collaborations.
Ready to make a website? This video will show you how to make an effective influencer website! Find the video transcript after the video.
Video transcript:
Hi there! In this video I’ll show you why it’s important to have a website as an influencer or content creator, and show you exactly how to make one, with no coding or experience needed.
While the majority of your content will be posted on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, etc, having a website is a necessity if you want to be successful as a content creator. The first reason is because a website gives you control over your own space.
Your accounts on social media platforms can be banned, immediately cutting off your access to your followers and your revenue stream.
But a website is your own space on the internet, and you have control how that space is used.
The key is to have a website that can support your brand and allow you to monetize on your own terms.
You can even sell merch or offer exclusive paid content through your website.
A website also gives you a professional feel to potential collaborators and partners.
Having a website can also boost your brand identity and help you rank higher on search engine results.
So with all that being said, let’s make an influencer website.
We’ve signed up for a website builder account with Website.com, and I’ve logged into the website builder.
So the first thing we’re going to do is make sure the aesthetic matches your social media accounts so you have consistent branding.
We’ll pick a template from the template library, and once we’ve selected it, we’ll click Select this Template.
We’ll also pick a colour pack, so let’s choose Site Design, and we’ll choose Site Colors.
And we’ll choose a color pack that matches my branding.
And it will apply to your entire website.
You can also click here to choose custom colours for the pack.
Now let’s go back and edit the Home page.
First think about, what is the goal of your website? Is it first to present yourself and your services, and secondary to sell merchandise?
If so, then you want your home page to deliver on that.
So we’ll edit the Welcome section on the Home page with your name, picture, and a tagline that reflects your brand.
Now I’ll add another section, and you may want to include videos of your top reels or a gallery of editorial photos. So I’ll add a Gallery, and choose this layout.
Now to swap out the placeholder media, I’ll just click on this first image, and then choose select from files.
And now, I’ll choose Youtube.
Now I can input the URL for one of my youtube videos that i want to highlight.
So I’ll go and click on Change Colors and Layout for this section, and I want to play around with the media aspect ratio so that it doesn’t cut it off awkwardly like this.
I’ll choose landscape.
Now I’ll also choose to have only 3 columns per row.
Now you can click on the next block and upload an image or input more video links, whatever will showcase your work the best!
Now I’ll scroll down on this template, I’ll change some of the content here but I like that it’s a little About section, that can help visitors know more about who I am.
I want to delete these 2 sections, so you can just click on the section, and then click on the garbage can icon on the top here.
I’ll do the same for this section.
And having a contact form is a great idea to let potential partners reach you, so I’ll customize the fields.
And I’ll also make sure the email here is correct so I’ll get a notification when someone submits a form.
And I can come click Manage Form Submissions to see all the submissions for this form.
Ok now this page content is done, the next thing I want to take care of is the header and footer on this website.
The header and footer are global, so all the changes I make on them will be on the header and footer of my other web pages as well.
So let’s scroll to the very top and take a look at the header.
The main thing to note is my name, and the call to action button, and the social media links.
So I’m happy with my name here.
For the call to action, I’d want that to go to my merchandise store, which I haven’t created yet, so we’ll edit that later, but let’s edit the social media links.
Just click on it, and then scroll on the left to where it says social media links, and then click Edit.
Now you can input the URL to your social media accounts, and remove or add any of the ones that are listed here.
So I’ll remove this one.
Now I’ll scroll down to the footer, and I’ll click and edit that content on here too.
The social media icons are linked between the header and footer, so I don’t need to redo those.
Now I’m ready to edit other pages on my website!
So first I’ll click on Manage Pages, and I see that this is a one-pager website, so there are only anchor links on the menu that guide visitors through the sections on this website.
Depending on your template, you may also have pages on here. So I’ll just delete the pages or menu items that I don’t need.
So I’ll keep this anchor link that goes to the About section on my home page, but I’ll delete the rest.
I’ll delete the link that goes to contact because I want to create a whole Contact page.
Just click the pencil icon that appears when I hover on the page name, and then click Delete.
Now let’s add some new pages. I’ll first add a page specifically for partners.
That will make it easy for partners to know what services and value you provide for them, and a media kit that is ready to go.
So I’ll add a Services page because I like the general layout for that purpose. And I’ll give the page a title, Partner With Us.
So now you’ll see that in the menu.
And i can just click on each section to customize it link what I did on the home page.
Now I’ll go back to start by clicking the home icon on the left panel, and I’ll go back to Manage Pages.
Now I’ll add a Contact Page.
So click through and add this page, and this way it’s an easier access point so that potential partners can reach you.
Lastly, if you want to monetize your brand further by selling merch or digital assets, you can easily add an online store.
And the great thing about using the Website.com site builder to make your online store is that they don’t take any commissions or fees from your sales!
So I’ll go back to start, and click Online Store, and I’ll add that.
And you can watch our Online Store video series to learn how to best set up your online store, with payment options and more.
And as promised, I do want to update the call to action button in the header so it leads to the online store, so I’ll click on the header, and find where it says Button.
Let’s change the label.
And now click next to the link icon, and we’ll choose to have it lead to the online store.
So now let’s publish the site and make it go live!
Let’s look at the website so far.
So these are the key components to having a successful website as an influencer, to help you grow your business and succeed. We hope this was helpful and thanks for watching!