How to Build a Website That Converts in 3 Simple Steps

On Wix or Substack

Dec 31, 2024

I remember building my first website. It was 2010, and I had a documentary production company called “Eyes Wide Open Productions.”

I had just shot, directed and produced my first feature length film in India and worked with an agency to create the website.

Today, anyone can build a website in a matter of minutes.

Here is a step by step tutorial. I’m using my 2024 client Chef Nitin as an example.

When he first came to me, he had been sitting on a supper club concept for 3 years. His clients were asking him to do more storytelling around his food. It wasn’t something he was good at, but wanted to improve. We started an 8 week coaching engagement, training him on how to tell stories in a concise and commanding way.

Now I’m not an ordinary coach. I believe in creating something performative at the end of my coaching engagements in order to put the learning to the test.

At the end of the 8 week coaching engagement, I brought all my friends and clients to a private dining room in Little Italy. Chef Nitin hosted his first supper club and did fantastic storytelling.

But now it was time to build a website to give potential clients a sense of the experience.

Step 1 Buy domain name

I recommend you go to ionos.com and buy your domain name. You can buy several variations of it for a $1.00 each.

Step 2 Create assets

Your goal is to bring clients and potential clients into a universe.

A world.

In order to create that ‘world’, we set about creating a massive bank of assets for Nitin.

Newsletter:

We launched a newsletter on Beehiiv.com.

He began publishing every Friday. I worked with him on the initial few newsletters, before he got the hang of it.

For beginners, I recommend that you start publishing on Substack. The user interface is very easy to navigate and publish.

You can easily connect your domain in settings.

Photo assets:

We launched his first supper club at a private dining room in Little Italy.

My photographer Christian Fiore professionally shot it.

Chef Nitin also catered an event for me, and we shot more professional photo assets there.

Video assets:

After six weeks of coaching and the supper club launch, we went into a professional studio. Christian shot my interview with him.

As the final flourish, we put the videos through Opus.pro to format and caption them for social media.

Download my cheatsheet here on how to do that.

This is what the final product looks like.

Step 3 Choose a website builder

He chose Wix. com

Squarespace is also a great alternative. Both feature templates that you can plug assets into easily.

This was the initial one page website he had posted on his own.

A few issues:

It did the job of sharing a photo of him, his contact info and socials, but it didn’t create a ‘world’ for people to immerse into.

He had gracefully aged since the photo was taken. The potential danger in this is that you create psychological distrust if you aren’t representing what you look like now.

As a result of our photo shoots, we had very recent and dynamic photos to replace it with.

I revised the “above the fold” of the website to look like this.

This photo shows Nitin in a power posture, commanding the room with his storytelling.

Everyone is laughing and having a good time at his supper club.

This is upleveling him from someone who did catering jobs to someone who hosts elite supper clubs.

Notice the search bar on the left.

Wix makes it super easy to “add elements” by hitting the + sign.

Up pops an exhaustive menu of things to add:

images
text
video carrousels

Simply drag the elements over and place them where you want.

Next I created an “About” section. Templates are searchable from the WIX bar and can be easily dropped in.

Now it’s time to populate his writing. I added a section (see in purple). I had to drop in a URL.

I logged into his Beehiiv account and lifted the URL linking to his newsletter archive. I dropped in the URL to create “Chef Nitin Writes.” This positions him as more than someone who cooks. He is now a thought leader about food.