The website you've been meaning to build
There is a particular kind of business task that lives permanently on the list.
Not because it isn't important. Not because you don't know it needs doing. But because it's yours, and that makes it harder somehow.
Client work gets done. Your own stuff waits.
For a lot of small business owners, the website is that task. And for some, the question goes even further back than that.
Do I actually need one?
Can I get away with a Facebook page?
Is there something cheap that will do the job for now?
There is always something cheap. There is always a free website builder being promoted somewhere, usually as a sponsored post on the very platform you're using instead of a proper website. A pop-up offer, a limited time deal, a freebie that appears to solve the problem without requiring any actual investment.
Nothing is ever free. It just isn't. What looks like a free website usually comes with a catch that only becomes obvious later:
It has the company's branding on it, not yours, and you can't remove it without paying
It looks fine on a laptop but broken on a phone, which is where most people will see it
When your business grows and you want to change things, you find out you can't, or that moving everything somewhere better means starting again from scratch
The support, when you need it, doesn't exist
The hours you spend trying to make a free template do something it wasn't designed to do are hours you could have spent on your actual business. That's the real cost.
A Facebook page is useful. It is not a website. It is borrowed space on someone else's platform, and that platform can change its rules, limit who sees your posts, or simply fall out of fashion, and there is nothing you can do about any of it. Your website is the one place online that is actually yours. Nobody can take it away or change how it works overnight.
You know you need one. You probably have a reasonable idea of what it should look like. You might even have a folder somewhere with notes, screenshots, a colour you liked the look of. And yet.
The reasons vary. Too busy. Not quite sure where to start. Waiting until the business feels more settled, more defined, more ready. The uncomfortable truth is that it rarely feels ready. You just have to decide that the waiting is finished.
The person who knows exactly how it should be done
Kerstin had been meaning to build her own website for about ten years.
This is not someone who didn't know where to start. She has a background in web development and marketing, so she understood better than most what a good site needed and what it should do. Alongside that, she had spent years building her expertise in the things she actually wanted to teach — qualifying in yoga, Pilates and Reiki, and training clients for organisations like Nike, Lululemon and the SF Giants. She had the skills, she had the experience, she had a clear idea of the business she wanted to build. It just never quite made it to the top of the list.
Then she moved to New Orleans. Started building a studio in the back garden. And decided that ten years was long enough.
I mention her background not to make a point at her expense. This pattern is far more common than people admit. Knowing how to do something and still not doing it, especially when it's for yourself, is one of the more human things there is. The stakes feel different when it's yours. The standard you hold yourself to is higher. The fear of it not being good enough is closer to the surface.
Sometimes the most useful thing is just deciding to start, even imperfectly.
What getting started actually looks like
The first draft of Kerstin's site was not good. I'll be honest about that.
Her brother is a graphic designer and had created a beautiful brand identity for her. Calm, considered, with a glowing aura effect that was genuinely striking. Neither of us were quite sure how to use it at first, and the first attempt showed that clearly. We had somehow taken a beautiful wellness brand and produced something that looked like a Cyndi Lauper music video. Neon. Chaotic. A confident step back into 1987.
But a bad first draft is often the most useful thing. It gave us both the clarity to say "not that," which is sometimes exactly the conversation you need before you can get to the right answer. What came after felt completely different. Calm, personal, much more Aura Wellness. You frequently need to see what something isn't before you can see clearly what it should be.
This is worth knowing before you start your own. The first version doesn't have to be right. It just has to exist, so you have something to react to.
What a properly built website should actually do
A website that just looks good is a brochure. A properly built site is a business tool, and there's a meaningful difference between the two.
Think about what happens when someone finds your website. What do you want them to be able to do? Book a session, probably. Get in touch. Sign up for your newsletter. Find out what you offer and decide whether it's right for them.
A good website makes all of that easy and handles it for you in the background. Kerstin's site does exactly that:
Book directly — visitors can book a session straight from the site without needing to email first or find a separate link. It goes straight into her diary with no manual work from her
Get in touch easily — contact forms that actually reach her, with an automatic response so nobody is left wondering if their message arrived
Stay connected — when someone signs up for updates, they're added to her mailing list automatically. She can send newsletters, class updates and offers to people who have already said they want to hear from her
Find the right service — there's a short quiz on the site, six questions, that helps visitors work out which of Kerstin's services suits them best. Not everyone knows whether they need yoga, strength work or something quieter. The quiz does that thinking for them and points them in the right direction
All of this runs without her having to be involved every time. She's not manually replying to every booking request or copying contact details into a spreadsheet. The site is working for her business even when she isn't.
That is what a properly built website should do. Not just sit there looking nice, but actively help the business run.
The site should feel like the business
One more thing worth saying. A website can only reflect what's already there. It can't invent a business identity from nothing, and the ones that try tend to feel a bit empty.
Kerstin came to this with a decade of clarity about what she was building. She knew her values, her clients, and what made her approach different. That made it possible to build something that genuinely felt like her rather than a template with her name on it.
If you're still working out what you want to say, that's fine. Part of the work is figuring that out. But the clearer you are on who you are and who you're for before you start, the better the result will be.
The studio is being built. The site is live.
Kerstin's business is finally, properly, out in the world. The thing she'd been carrying around in her head for the better part of a decade exists now, and people can find it.
You can visit Aura Wellness at auranola.com.
If you have a website that's been on the list for longer than you'd like to admit, that's exactly the kind of conversation I have. Feel free to get in touch.
