January 8, 2025 • 14 mins
Learn the secret to building a website in just one day - proper preparation. Chrissy explains why most websites take weeks or months to build and provides a detailed roadmap for completing your website build in a single day. She shares insights from her experience helping clients and students achieve successful one-day builds.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
Welcome to Website Success.
I'm your host, Chrissy Rey, and todaywe are talking about something that
surprises a lot of people (00:15):
how you can build your website in just one day.
I know what you're thinking.
One day?
Really?
Are you, are you serious?
Yes, really.
I have built many websites in one day.
And I've also helped other business ownersbuild their own websites in one day.
The key here is that you need to startyour day with a lot of things ready.
(00:38):
You need your content ready.
You need your brandingdecisions already made.
And you need a clearplan for your website.
But if you have all that, by the endof the day, you can have a beautiful
professional website ready to launch,or just about ready to launch.
But the key really isyou have to be prepared.
That's the only thing that'sgoing to make it possible.
Today, I'm going to tell you exactly howthis works and what you need to have your
(01:03):
website ready to go and built in one day.
Now I do need to add that theseone day websites are going to
be relatively basic websites.
They're going to have a home page, ablog, about page, contact page, and maybe
one more page, but they probably won'thave e-commerce, courses, memberships
and other stuff like that, becausethose usually do take longer to add.
(01:26):
Although I have personally addedsome of those things in that one day,
but for someone with little to noexperience, it's probably not going to
be doable to get all of those thingsadded to your website in that one day.
Let's start off by talking about whymost websites take weeks or months,
or in some cases, even years to build.
It's usually not because thetechnical part is so complicated.
(01:50):
In a lot of cases it's going to bebecause people try to make all of
their decisions while they're building.
At least this is usually whathappens with people that aren't
used to building numerous websites.
In a lot of cases, they'rewriting their content on the fly.
They're hunting for their photosas they're trying to add them.
And they're probably changing theirminds about their colors, their
layout, and all of these other things.
(02:12):
And of course, all of that.
It's going to take forever.
If you think about it, likecooking a complicated meal.
If you read through the entirerecipe first and you get all
of your ingredients ready to gomeasured, and everything is set up.
All of your equipment is out there readyto go before you start the actual cooking,
then that is going to go pretty quickly.
(02:34):
I mean, you're going to have to takesome time to actually cook the meals.
So it might take 45 minutes at 350degrees, but the actual build of the
meal is not going to take that long.
But if you're running back and forth tothe grocery store, because you forgot
an ingredient or you're going back andyou're trying to figure out what in the
world you're trying to do with the recipeas you go, then it's probably going to
(02:56):
take a lot longer and it's also probablynot going to turn out quite as well.
So, what exactly do you need to beready to build your website in one day?
You need your writtencontent and your images.
You need your brand elements, like yourcolors and your fonts and your logo.
And you also need a clear planfor what pages you need and
(03:20):
what is going to go on them.
If you have all of that ready to go,the actual building is in a lot of
cases, just putting everything inplace and then making it look good.
Let me walk you through what aone day build actually looks like.
And this is based on what I've donewith my clients, for the done for
you services, the done with youservices, and also the DIY clients.
(03:43):
We usually start with gettingthe domain name registered.
So you have to have some ideaof what domain name you want.
But then you can get a registered.
After that you're going to set up yourwebsite hosting, and then depending
on what website builder you're workingwith, you might need to configure that.
I usually use WordPress formy one day websites and that's
(04:04):
my website builder of choice.
So my day or the day that is goingto happen for the clients that I work
with is usually going to include sometasks that are specific to WordPress.
But all of the setup needs to be donebefore you start building your website
to give your website a good foundationfor everything else to work properly.
(04:25):
Once that foundation is set, I usuallymove on to the design and customization.
Sometimes I'll do thisstep and the next step.
I'll switch them around.
It depends on the website, butusually I'm going to do the
design and the customization.
And that's going to be where we installthe theme or the template, depending
on what website builder you're using.
And I'll usually customize it tomatch the brand with the colors,
(04:48):
the fonts I'll add the logo andI'll usually set up the header, the
footer, and maybe even a sidebar.
It depends on the template.
Next, and again, this is the onethat I might flip flop with the
design and customization, but thenext thing is usually going to be
setting up the essential pluginsthat the website needs to work well.
And plugins are a WordPress thing.
(05:10):
So you might not need to do this ifyou're building your site with another
builder, like Wix or Squarespace,but you can think of plugins, sort
of like the utilities in your house.
You need things like electricity, plumbingheating to make it all functional.
And in a WordPress site, the basiccore of the house, the foundation
of the house, is already there.
All the walls and everything are there,but sometimes you need to install
(05:33):
plugins to handle things like yoursearch engine optimization, image
optimization, overall website performanceand contact forms and things like that.
WordPress doesn't come witheverything already installed.
So sometimes you need to add extrathings and those are the plugins.
You might not need to worry about thatif you're working with other builders
other than WordPress, but for WordPress,you usually do need to worry about that.
(05:55):
Now when I do a website for a client, soif I do a done for you website or a done
with you website, I usually have all ofthose plugins already installed for them.
But if you're DIYing it, you mighthave to install them yourself.
Next thing that we're going to dois move on to adding your content.
And this part usually goes pretty smoothlyif you already have all of your content
(06:17):
ready, all of it written and your imagesready to go from all of your preparation.
And most website themes and templates,and this is true, whether you're
working with WordPress or Squarespaceor Wix, but most of them come with
the basic pages already created.
So you should be able to just drop yourcontent into those pre-built pages.
(06:39):
Unless you want to customize them.
So unless you need to move things around,you want to change the order of the
content on the pages, or you want toadd an image where one doesn't already
exist in a template, then you should beable to just drop that content in there.
During a one day website build when I'mworking with my clients and this is what
I recommend for the DIYers, we typicallyonly focus on a couple of content pages
(07:00):
like about and services, and we mightcreate a contact form, add the contact
info to a contact page, add some blogposts and customize your homepage.
You don't want to add toomuch to the website if you're
trying to do it all in one day.
The other thing that I usually dois add placeholders for legal pages,
like your privacy policy and the termsof service, then you would need to
(07:23):
work with an attorney or a servicelike Termageddon, which is what I use
to add the content to those pages.
The last thing that we usuallywork on is going to be the
final touches before launch.
And I have a pre-launch checklist that Iwork with all my clients and my students.
And we go through that checklist to makesure that everything's working properly.
(07:44):
Then once that's done, you're goingto point your domain name at your new
website, set up your SSL certificatefor security, get your analytics
configured so you know how yourwebsite is performing so you can track
everything and maybe do things likeset up your Google search console.
So it's sort of the prelaunchstuff that you need to do
before you launch your website.
And in most of my client's cases,if I'm doing a done with you or
(08:08):
a done for you, we usually dothis as part of the same day.
But sometimes you're going todo it after the day is over.
You might do it a little,a little bit later.
But most of my clients do usually take afew days to sort of test everything out,
tweak their website before they launch.
You could do this as part of the same day.
It just depends on your website andhow much of a perfectionist you are.
(08:32):
Now let's talk about some commonroadblocks and how you can avoid them.
So If you've done all yourplanning, everything, you're
probably pretty good to go.
But if you haven't done that, soif you have content delays that is
going to require you to take longer.
So if you have written all yourcontent and you're ready to go,
you can do everything in one day.
(08:52):
If you don't have all of your contentwritten, you're still looking for images,
you probably, aren't going to be ableto build your entire website in one day.
I don't count the content creationas part of that one day, that sort
of the pre-work that you need to doactually writing your content that
you need to do before that one day.
So that's why I emphasizehaving all of your content ready
to go before your bill day.
(09:14):
Another common issueis decision paralysis.
So getting stuck between yourlayouts and your design options,
that's going to be a big roadblock.
That's why you want to dothat before your build day.
You want to figure out whatdesign you're going to do,
what layout you're going to do.
All of that.
You want to think about thosethings before your build day.
Technical issues can also slow thingsdown, but in a lot of cases, those
(09:37):
technical issues are usually prettyeasy to solve when you have the right
support, which is why I recommend havingsomeone experienced, like me, guide
you through your first website build.
So either go through a tutorial orsign up for a course or do something
like that when you're building yourfirst website so that you're not
doing it completely on your own.
(09:58):
Now let's talk about the keysto success for a one day build.
First, you do need to have all ofthose organized content assets.
You need to have your content indocuments, ready to easily copy from.
So don't just write themwith paper and pencil or pen.
You want them in an electronic format soyou can just copy and paste your content.
And then also keep yourimages in a folder.
(10:20):
I usually put everythingin a Google drive.
And have them properly sized,properly named, ready to go
to upload to your website.
I also recommend having your brand guidewith your colors, your fonts, your logo,
everything ready to go for your reference.
So you already know what your colorvalues are they're called hex
codes or color values, make sureyou know what those are, so you can
(10:42):
just plug them into your website.
You do also need to have a clear plan.
So you need to know exactlywhat pages you're going to have.
And what's going to goon each of those pages.
Have examples of the layoutsthat you like, so you can use
those for your inspiration.
And then finally also have asupport system it's already
mentioned earlier, have someoneexperienced to guide you through.
(11:03):
Have someone in your back pocketthat can help you if you get stuck
or if you need some guidance.
After your build day, you do needto test everything thoroughly.
So this is usually partof my prelaunch checklist.
Check all your links,make sure your forms work.
Test everything on multipledevices, multiple browsers.
If you're on a Mac, checkit on a windows computer.
(11:24):
If you're on a windows,computer, check it on a Mac.
If you're on an Android,check it on an iPhone.
If you're on an iPhone, check it on anAndroid, check it in multiple browsers.
Make sure that everything works.
Then you can prepare for launch, whichmight again include things like adding
Google analytics, setting up Googlesearch console, things like that.
And also think about how you're going toback your website up, how you're going to
(11:47):
announce your website, things like that.
And also one thing that a lot ofpeople forget about, especially
when they're working in aWordPress website is maintenance.
Uh, you need to plan onupdating your content regularly.
And again, if you're using WordPress,you do need to also make sure
you're updating your software.
Some hosting providers will give you theoption to do that for you automatically.
(12:10):
Some of them have that as an add-on.
For a lot of my clients,we do it manually.
I can show you how to do it manually.
It's not that hard.
But it is something that you doneed to account for when you're
planning out your website.
You also want to just make sure thatthings are working correctly because
sometimes when you do those softwareupdates, sometimes things break.
So always make sure you're checking that.
Now, if you're thinking this allsounds great, but you need help getting
(12:33):
prepared so you can build your websitein a day, I do have some good news.
If you've been listening to the pastfew episodes, you already know about
the Website Quickstart Challenge.
I have that starting on January22nd, and you can work with me to
get everything that you need readyto go before you build your website.
And then once you've got allthat stuff ready, you can
(12:55):
build your website in a day.
So in the challenge, we will workon creating your website plan.
We'll work on your content, andwe're going to make all of those
important design decisions.
Then, if you want to actually buildyour website with me, you can join
me for my Build Your Website inOne Day workshop on February 1st.
And we'll spend about six hours thatday walking through the entire process,
(13:17):
building everything step-by-step.
The links for both the challenge and theworkshop are going to be in the show notes
at websitesuccessacademy.com/podcast.
And if you have any questions aboutwhether or not a one day build might
work for you, it might, it might not.
Join me in my Website SuccessLounge Facebook group.
I'll be happy to help you figureout if this approach would work
(13:39):
for your specific situation.
Remember the actual buildingof your website doesn't have
to take weeks and months.
It could, but it doesn't have to.
With the right preparation andsupport, you can absolutely build
your website in just one day.
Sure, you'll probably want to make sometweaks and refinements after that one
day, but you can have the basic structureup and running in just that one day.
(14:01):
If you enjoyed this episode, makesure you subscribe, leave a review
and come on back for the next episode.
Thank you so much for tuning in, and I dohope to chat with you again soon to help
you make your website a huge success.
Welcome to Website Success.
I'm your host, Chrissy Rey, and todaywe are talking about something that
surprises a lot of people (00:15):
how you can build your website in just one day.
I know what you're thinking.
One day?
Really?
Are you, are you serious?
Yes, really.
I have built many websites in one day.
And I've also helped other business ownersbuild their own websites in one day.
The key here is that you need to startyour day with a lot of things ready.
(00:38):
You need your content ready.
You need your brandingdecisions already made.
And you need a clearplan for your website.
But if you have all that, by the endof the day, you can have a beautiful
professional website ready to launch,or just about ready to launch.
But the key really isyou have to be prepared.
That's the only thing that'sgoing to make it possible.
Today, I'm going to tell you exactly howthis works and what you need to have your
(01:03):
website ready to go and built in one day.
Now I do need to add that theseone day websites are going to
be relatively basic websites.
They're going to have a home page, ablog, about page, contact page, and maybe
one more page, but they probably won'thave e-commerce, courses, memberships
and other stuff like that, becausethose usually do take longer to add.
(01:26):
Although I have personally addedsome of those things in that one day,
but for someone with little to noexperience, it's probably not going to
be doable to get all of those thingsadded to your website in that one day.
Let's start off by talking about whymost websites take weeks or months,
or in some cases, even years to build.
It's usually not because thetechnical part is so complicated.
(01:50):
In a lot of cases it's going to bebecause people try to make all of
their decisions while they're building.
At least this is usually whathappens with people that aren't
used to building numerous websites.
In a lot of cases, they'rewriting their content on the fly.
They're hunting for their photosas they're trying to add them.
And they're probably changing theirminds about their colors, their
layout, and all of these other things.
(02:12):
And of course, all of that.
It's going to take forever.
If you think about it, likecooking a complicated meal.
If you read through the entirerecipe first and you get all
of your ingredients ready to gomeasured, and everything is set up.
All of your equipment is out there readyto go before you start the actual cooking,
then that is going to go pretty quickly.
(02:34):
I mean, you're going to have to takesome time to actually cook the meals.
So it might take 45 minutes at 350degrees, but the actual build of the
meal is not going to take that long.
But if you're running back and forth tothe grocery store, because you forgot
an ingredient or you're going back andyou're trying to figure out what in the
world you're trying to do with the recipeas you go, then it's probably going to
(02:56):
take a lot longer and it's also probablynot going to turn out quite as well.
So, what exactly do you need to beready to build your website in one day?
You need your writtencontent and your images.
You need your brand elements, like yourcolors and your fonts and your logo.
And you also need a clear planfor what pages you need and
(03:20):
what is going to go on them.
If you have all of that ready to go,the actual building is in a lot of
cases, just putting everything inplace and then making it look good.
Let me walk you through what aone day build actually looks like.
And this is based on what I've donewith my clients, for the done for
you services, the done with youservices, and also the DIY clients.
(03:43):
We usually start with gettingthe domain name registered.
So you have to have some ideaof what domain name you want.
But then you can get a registered.
After that you're going to set up yourwebsite hosting, and then depending
on what website builder you're workingwith, you might need to configure that.
I usually use WordPress formy one day websites and that's
(04:04):
my website builder of choice.
So my day or the day that is goingto happen for the clients that I work
with is usually going to include sometasks that are specific to WordPress.
But all of the setup needs to be donebefore you start building your website
to give your website a good foundationfor everything else to work properly.
(04:25):
Once that foundation is set, I usuallymove on to the design and customization.
Sometimes I'll do thisstep and the next step.
I'll switch them around.
It depends on the website, butusually I'm going to do the
design and the customization.
And that's going to be where we installthe theme or the template, depending
on what website builder you're using.
And I'll usually customize it tomatch the brand with the colors,
(04:48):
the fonts I'll add the logo andI'll usually set up the header, the
footer, and maybe even a sidebar.
It depends on the template.
Next, and again, this is the onethat I might flip flop with the
design and customization, but thenext thing is usually going to be
setting up the essential pluginsthat the website needs to work well.
And plugins are a WordPress thing.
(05:10):
So you might not need to do this ifyou're building your site with another
builder, like Wix or Squarespace,but you can think of plugins, sort
of like the utilities in your house.
You need things like electricity, plumbingheating to make it all functional.
And in a WordPress site, the basiccore of the house, the foundation
of the house, is already there.
All the walls and everything are there,but sometimes you need to install
(05:33):
plugins to handle things like yoursearch engine optimization, image
optimization, overall website performanceand contact forms and things like that.
WordPress doesn't come witheverything already installed.
So sometimes you need to add extrathings and those are the plugins.
You might not need to worry about thatif you're working with other builders
other than WordPress, but for WordPress,you usually do need to worry about that.
(05:55):
Now when I do a website for a client, soif I do a done for you website or a done
with you website, I usually have all ofthose plugins already installed for them.
But if you're DIYing it, you mighthave to install them yourself.
Next thing that we're going to dois move on to adding your content.
And this part usually goes pretty smoothlyif you already have all of your content
(06:17):
ready, all of it written and your imagesready to go from all of your preparation.
And most website themes and templates,and this is true, whether you're
working with WordPress or Squarespaceor Wix, but most of them come with
the basic pages already created.
So you should be able to just drop yourcontent into those pre-built pages.
(06:39):
Unless you want to customize them.
So unless you need to move things around,you want to change the order of the
content on the pages, or you want toadd an image where one doesn't already
exist in a template, then you should beable to just drop that content in there.
During a one day website build when I'mworking with my clients and this is what
I recommend for the DIYers, we typicallyonly focus on a couple of content pages
(07:00):
like about and services, and we mightcreate a contact form, add the contact
info to a contact page, add some blogposts and customize your homepage.
You don't want to add toomuch to the website if you're
trying to do it all in one day.
The other thing that I usually dois add placeholders for legal pages,
like your privacy policy and the termsof service, then you would need to
(07:23):
work with an attorney or a servicelike Termageddon, which is what I use
to add the content to those pages.
The last thing that we usuallywork on is going to be the
final touches before launch.
And I have a pre-launch checklist that Iwork with all my clients and my students.
And we go through that checklist to makesure that everything's working properly.
(07:44):
Then once that's done, you're goingto point your domain name at your new
website, set up your SSL certificatefor security, get your analytics
configured so you know how yourwebsite is performing so you can track
everything and maybe do things likeset up your Google search console.
So it's sort of the prelaunchstuff that you need to do
before you launch your website.
And in most of my client's cases,if I'm doing a done with you or
(08:08):
a done for you, we usually dothis as part of the same day.
But sometimes you're going todo it after the day is over.
You might do it a little,a little bit later.
But most of my clients do usually take afew days to sort of test everything out,
tweak their website before they launch.
You could do this as part of the same day.
It just depends on your website andhow much of a perfectionist you are.
(08:32):
Now let's talk about some commonroadblocks and how you can avoid them.
So If you've done all yourplanning, everything, you're
probably pretty good to go.
But if you haven't done that, soif you have content delays that is
going to require you to take longer.
So if you have written all yourcontent and you're ready to go,
you can do everything in one day.
(08:52):
If you don't have all of your contentwritten, you're still looking for images,
you probably, aren't going to be ableto build your entire website in one day.
I don't count the content creationas part of that one day, that sort
of the pre-work that you need to doactually writing your content that
you need to do before that one day.
So that's why I emphasizehaving all of your content ready
to go before your bill day.
(09:14):
Another common issueis decision paralysis.
So getting stuck between yourlayouts and your design options,
that's going to be a big roadblock.
That's why you want to dothat before your build day.
You want to figure out whatdesign you're going to do,
what layout you're going to do.
All of that.
You want to think about thosethings before your build day.
Technical issues can also slow thingsdown, but in a lot of cases, those
(09:37):
technical issues are usually prettyeasy to solve when you have the right
support, which is why I recommend havingsomeone experienced, like me, guide
you through your first website build.
So either go through a tutorial orsign up for a course or do something
like that when you're building yourfirst website so that you're not
doing it completely on your own.
(09:58):
Now let's talk about the keysto success for a one day build.
First, you do need to have all ofthose organized content assets.
You need to have your content indocuments, ready to easily copy from.
So don't just write themwith paper and pencil or pen.
You want them in an electronic format soyou can just copy and paste your content.
And then also keep yourimages in a folder.
(10:20):
I usually put everythingin a Google drive.
And have them properly sized,properly named, ready to go
to upload to your website.
I also recommend having your brand guidewith your colors, your fonts, your logo,
everything ready to go for your reference.
So you already know what your colorvalues are they're called hex
codes or color values, make sureyou know what those are, so you can
(10:42):
just plug them into your website.
You do also need to have a clear plan.
So you need to know exactlywhat pages you're going to have.
And what's going to goon each of those pages.
Have examples of the layoutsthat you like, so you can use
those for your inspiration.
And then finally also have asupport system it's already
mentioned earlier, have someoneexperienced to guide you through.
(11:03):
Have someone in your back pocketthat can help you if you get stuck
or if you need some guidance.
After your build day, you do needto test everything thoroughly.
So this is usually partof my prelaunch checklist.
Check all your links,make sure your forms work.
Test everything on multipledevices, multiple browsers.
If you're on a Mac, checkit on a windows computer.
(11:24):
If you're on a windows,computer, check it on a Mac.
If you're on an Android,check it on an iPhone.
If you're on an iPhone, check it on anAndroid, check it in multiple browsers.
Make sure that everything works.
Then you can prepare for launch, whichmight again include things like adding
Google analytics, setting up Googlesearch console, things like that.
And also think about how you're going toback your website up, how you're going to
(11:47):
announce your website, things like that.
And also one thing that a lot ofpeople forget about, especially
when they're working in aWordPress website is maintenance.
Uh, you need to plan onupdating your content regularly.
And again, if you're using WordPress,you do need to also make sure
you're updating your software.
Some hosting providers will give you theoption to do that for you automatically.
(12:10):
Some of them have that as an add-on.
For a lot of my clients,we do it manually.
I can show you how to do it manually.
It's not that hard.
But it is something that you doneed to account for when you're
planning out your website.
You also want to just make sure thatthings are working correctly because
sometimes when you do those softwareupdates, sometimes things break.
So always make sure you're checking that.
Now, if you're thinking this allsounds great, but you need help getting
(12:33):
prepared so you can build your websitein a day, I do have some good news.
If you've been listening to the pastfew episodes, you already know about
the Website Quickstart Challenge.
I have that starting on January22nd, and you can work with me to
get everything that you need readyto go before you build your website.
And then once you've got allthat stuff ready, you can
(12:55):
build your website in a day.
So in the challenge, we will workon creating your website plan.
We'll work on your content, andwe're going to make all of those
important design decisions.
Then, if you want to actually buildyour website with me, you can join
me for my Build Your Website inOne Day workshop on February 1st.
And we'll spend about six hours thatday walking through the entire process,
(13:17):
building everything step-by-step.
The links for both the challenge and theworkshop are going to be in the show notes
at websitesuccessacademy.com/podcast.
And if you have any questions aboutwhether or not a one day build might
work for you, it might, it might not.
Join me in my Website SuccessLounge Facebook group.
I'll be happy to help you figureout if this approach would work
(13:39):
for your specific situation.
Remember the actual buildingof your website doesn't have
to take weeks and months.
It could, but it doesn't have to.
With the right preparation andsupport, you can absolutely build
your website in just one day.
Sure, you'll probably want to make sometweaks and refinements after that one
day, but you can have the basic structureup and running in just that one day.
(14:01):
If you enjoyed this episode, makesure you subscribe, leave a review
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