My website is getting a makeover with WordPress.com
I guess you can say this is normal for an influencer, especially as your brand grows and changes over time. The real question is why though? What is it that changed that pushed me to make some adjustments?
Well, let me give you a history of how my brand started! When I first began, I was simply just creating blog posts to share content with others that may benefit. I needed something simple and manageable, and many people I knew suggested I start with SquareSpace. Quite frankly it did well for me for a while and was very simple to use. But then my brand started to create its own identity. Well, unfortunately, I could not customize that identity the way I wanted to on that platform.
That pushed me to pivot a little based on my new focus. At this point, my shift was focused on customizing my website, but in a way that was easy! After reading various reviews, it seemed Wix was a good place to move to. Wix worked well for the time being, but as my brand has grown data ownership was important to me. This was especially true as I started selling my own personal products on my site. The business features through WooCommerce was a no brainer, and made it so easy to overcome my fears of launching the products I’ve worked so hard on!
There was some fear in starting all over but when I found out WordPress.com had a content importer tool I was beyond excited to make the switch!
Where am I now?
Well, here I am today, with a growing audience! Almost 70,000 followers on Instagram are clicking through my website daily! I’m at a point where creating daily content is imperative. I understand what my audience wants based on their asks. With that being said, creating tools to aid in healing, protocols for purchase, daily blog posts, adding AIP recipes, and identifying brands with a similar mission, and utilizing my platform and theirs to advertise! I’ve put so much time into my blog, and I recognize how many people I’ve helped in doing so. At the same time, I need to make it sustainable and identify a means to monetize some of the work that I do!
This is what led me to WordPress.com! WordPress.com always seemed a little big and scary being new to the world wide web and creating a website. WordPress.com offers several different plans depending on your needs. With where my page is today, the business plan makes the most sense. I wish I would have known that WordPress.com had the capability to grow along with me a couple of years ago! Fortunately, through the business plan, I had direct access to support through a chat feature that helped guide me through the build process. I also had access to super quick and easy tutorial videos when I was in a bind.
When I started the process, I was pleasantly surprised that WordPress.com now offers a website migration tool that literally brought all my content from my existing website to WordPress.com The best part about this is that my existing website stayed intact until I was ready to flip the switch and transfer my domain! This was super important to me as I didn’t want to negatively impact my growth or drive my audience to my website.
WordPress.com offers 1000’s of templates you can choose from, but at the same time, you can customize them with your brand colors, pictures, and logo. I was able to use an existing template and pick and choose the features I wanted to incorporate while using their block builder to do the rest! As you guys know I am by no means a web designer, I’m a Pharmacist that understands her limitations in this space. I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to build my website on WordPress.com using their block builder tool. It was just a matter of click and add, incorporate your content, pictures, and more! I always shied away from WordPress.com because I assumed it would be too complex, however they’ve proven me wrong! I managed to build out this entire website in a weekend. This includes the learning curve of never having used this platform before. This demonstrates how easy it is for someone without a background in web design to create and execute their site.
Something I want to point out is the super-intuitive user dashboard on WordPress.com. It makes it incredibly easy to add new posts and content and even batch them out to be released when you’re ready to post! For someone like me who is juggling a lot between work and home life, this allows me to set a few hours aside to create my content and post when I’m ready!
If you’ve been looking for the right platform for your needs, check out WordPress.com! Take it from someone who has utilized several platforms and, in the end, has made the final switch to WordPress.com. I am ready to take my brand to the next level and can’t be more grateful for this platform to do it with. I’m most excited about the ability for google analytics integration, the 50,000 plugins I can incorporate, and advanced SEO to make my blog more discoverable. Most notably I’m looking forward to the ability to work more closely with brands and collaborate through ad networks like the one SHE Media offers or affiliate marketing, something that was a limitation in previous platforms I was on!
If you’re like me and find your blog is your true passion, you will get to a point where you realize you need a platform that’s truly yours and that can accommodate and grow with the needs of your business! If you are interested in switching to WordPress.com I am excited to offer you a discount code “Donna20”, which gives you 20% off any WordPress.com annual plan!