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Marketing your business: A beginner’s guide to buyer personas

You’re great at running a small business… but how about marketing it? There are so many things to think about: where to find new customers; what they like; and how to get your business out there so people can see what you do!

Say goodbye 👋  to the confusion with buyer personas! You might have heard of them before, perhaps you know what they are, or maybe you’re scratching your head. Whatever your knowledge, don’t worry – we’ve broken down:

What a buyer persona is

How to create yours

How to use buyer personas in your marketing

We’ll take you from theory to action, without breaking a sweat. The result? You can stop stressing about marketing and get back to running your business. We’ve even created a free downloadable eBook ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Buyer Personas’ for you to takeaway.

1. What are buyer personas and how can they help?

A buyer persona is a representation of your typical customer. Think of it as snapshot or collage of the kind of person that buys from you.

Buyer personas help you market more effectively. Created from your knowledge of customers, as well as a little market research, they help focus your marketing efforts. How? Clarity around who buys from you means you can serve your customers more effectively. Instead of trying to reach everyone, buyer personas focus your marketing efforts.

Our eBook, ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Buyer Personas’, aims to make knowing your customer easy. The outcome? The rest of your marketing falls into place.

2. Get to grips with the theory of buyer personas

Who to include in my buyer personas?

What information should I research?

When can I use my buyer persona?

All of these questions and more are covered in the eBook. The first section lays out the theory, to make the process as simple and transparent as possible. As with anything in life, understanding the reasons for something before doing it provides clarity and confidence. Because without a good understanding of what matters and why, it’s hard to create effective buyer personas that work for you.

3. A hands-on guide to creating your buyer personas

The second part of the eBook gives practical information about what to include in your buyer personas.

Use our hints and tips to create your own personas. You can also take a look at our example for inspiration, or make use of the template included and use your own customer data to fill in the gaps. The aim is to give you the knowledge and the tools to build up a set of buyer personas that work for you and your business.

4. Action! How to put your personas into practice

While it’s fun to get creative, the third and final section of the eBook is about action!

The best thing you can do with your buyer personas is to use them. Think of your personas like a fancy new bike. It arrives in a box, in many pieces, and you follow the instructions to slowly, slowly, build the bike. The process is challenging but fun – it’s exciting to see the bike take shape.

Here’s the thing though. If you don’t take the bike for a spin, you miss out on the benefits of cycling. Your buyer personas are no different: the best part is putting them to use in your marketing. You’ve put a lot of effort into creating them, so why not make the most of them?

5. Create your buyer personas with confidence

Knowing where to begin with marketing can be tricky, especially when you’re trying to run a business or juggle a side hustle. Defining your buyer personas is a great place to start, because you already know lots of information from serving your customers. And once your buyer personas are complete, they make the rest of your marketing much easier.

6. So why not create your buyer personas today?

Download our free eBook below👇 

Download for free

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Simply fill out the form below to receive your exclusive copy

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Top tips to attract new members to your sports club

Group of three females sitting on steps outside and relaxing after running in their sports club

If you have a sports club whose members are dwindling, you want to reach out and flex your marketing muscles to get more members! Finding new people isn’t as difficult as it sounds, you just have to consider your potential new members; what do they want and where will they be looking?

Many people new to an area will turn to the internet to find out what fun things are going on. If your sports club has a good online presence, then your club will be the one that stands out, and you will reap the reward of new talent! We’ve put together some top tips to help you attract new members to your club. 

Be online

Your club may have survived over a decade without a website, relying solely on community spirit and word of mouth, but as we move further into the digital age, a website is a necessary component to any sports club. The majority of potential new members will research online to see if there are any clubs that they would like to join, comparing and contrasting to find which one will suit them best. If your club doesn’t even have a website, you will lose out at the first hurdle!

What do they want to know?

So, you’ve got a website, but what do you put on it? There’s no complex strategy here, just be simple and transparent. The first time a visitor enters your site, they want to know the basics: Product, Place, Price, and Process. What does membership get them, and how many times do you train a week? Where is the training ground? How much does it cost per month, and what are the steps involved to becoming a member? 

By making this information easily accessible, you will have given a visitor all the information they need to be able to join your team! If they still have questions or are unsure of how your sports club works, then it reduces the chances significantly of them clicking the “join” button. 

Social media

Social media is a great way to build a community around your sports club, as well as a useful tool to link people back to your website. Join relevant groups in your area to help build your club’s recognition in the area, or post regular updates on your Facebook page for upcoming games or training. 

You can drive social media engagement further by using photos and videos, as well as adding relevant hashtags to get more new eyes on your posts!

Email subscriptions

If you already have a website, then you should set up email subscriptions – this is for your fans to follow your team closely and stay up to date with new matches, results and general news. This is an invaluable tool! Write in your newsletter that you are looking for new members, and your fans – who are already invested in your team – will put the effort in to ask their friends and family, or even join up themselves.

Get involved with the community. 

Getting the community involved will help publicise your team, get the word out that you’re looking for new members and help you gain a positive reputation! There are various ways to do this. Organise a barbeque or a friendly field day – something that everybody can get involved in – and bring your team to help out. Give a quick speech about the importance of being active, and invite new people to join to help them reach fitness goals or just to expand their social circle. 

If you’ve got a website and an active social media presence, it should be easy to drum up some support for these kinds of events. 

Word of mouth

We may be living in a world where a digital presence is crucial, but that’s not to say that word of mouth isn’t an important element of marketing. People are much more likely to trust recommendations from their friends and acquaintances.

Use the team members that you already have, and organise a buddy night, where each of your existing members brings a friend to practice one night. Make sure it’s a fun night, but also add in the standard training and drills you do every week, so that the newcomers can see what it would be like if they were to join. Post pictures of this on your website and social media and share them with everybody who came, so they can easily show others how much fun they had!

For a sports club, a mixture of digital and community-based marketing is a great strategy to reach as wide an audience as possible. If you want more ideas, then check out our article on how to create a great website for your sports club. 

If you’re looking to build a website for your sports club, then Go Sitebuilder is an excellent option. If you’re new to websites, then our platform is perfect for you; just click the style you want and upload your content and you’re ready to go. Try out their 14-day free trial and start attracting new members to your club today!

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What online courses platform can I use to learn marketing strategies for ecommerce?

Young black male entrepreneur studying marketing strategies for his new online store. He is sat at a desk with a coffee and laptop, writing in a notebook

Having an ecommerce site allows you to keep an eye on analytics, which makes marketing strategies easier to design and implement…unless you’re a complete novice. If you’re setting up your online shop but haven’t the foggiest on how to make the most of it, then you can take a MOOC (massive online open course) to quickly learn the fundamentals. We’ve put together some of the best MOOC options. 

Udemy

Udemy is one of the largest MOOC platforms, and they have a great selection of courses on marketing strategies, with the most popular marketing courses ranging from £10-20. The price includes lifetime access to the course, so you can go back to brush up on your skills whenever you want, as well as a certificate upon completion. With a 30-day money back guarantee, they’re a great place to start, and they even have a marketing course quiz to help you choose which course is right for you!

Coursera

This is one of the largest providers of free courses out there, so if you’re on a budget, then this is the place to look! For most courses, you will have to pay extra if you want to get a verified certificate at the end, but you can view the course content free of charge and there is financial aid available if you need it. They offer a 7-day free trial to see if you like the extra features. 

EdX

EdX offers free courses from top universities and institutions. With most courses, you can access course content and discussion boards for free, but you won’t be able to view it after the course duration ends. The paid version includes lifetime access to course content as well as graded assessments and certification upon completion.

These are all general MOOC providers where you can search for marketing strategy courses, but some marketing specialist companies offer their own. Hootsuite, Hubspot Academy, and QuickSprout all offer specialised marketing courses that will give you pointers on how to increase revenue and attract more customers to your online shop. Universities also offer online courses (such as this one from University Arts London) but they’re often much more expensive than MOOCs. 

If you haven’t got your own website up and running yet, what are you waiting for? With Go Sitebuilder, you can have an ecommerce site online in just a few hours, with no experience needed. Try them out now with a 14-day free trial. 

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How can I sell things online for free?

Female business owner accepting a package from a delivery person.

Maybe you already have an online store where you sell your products, or maybe you’re just starting out in the ecommerce world. Either way, online marketplaces are a great option to diversify your customer base and increase your income, as you can capitalise on the site’s already-existing loyal audience. 

If you’re just starting out, it’s not worth paying the fees for high-traffic sites like Amazon and Ebay, so we’ve had a look at two of the best online marketplaces that don’t cost a penny.

Craigslist

Created in San Francisco during the early days of the internet, Craigslist is now the world’s largest online classifieds website where you can advertise anything from houses to plant pots. According to SimilarWeb, the marketplace is ranked 15th in the United States and 48th worldwide, so the site has a large and loyal audience. 

Craigslist is good for selling items locally, as the buyer usually picks up the item in person and hands over the payment in cash. This can help you develop a good relationship and trust with your customers, but isn’t so good for expanding your customer base beyond your immediate area. If you do want to send your products further afield, you will have to handle everything from the point of sale, including the delivery and any after-sales issues. 

Facebook Marketplace

Using the ever-popular social media platform, Facebook Marketplace is a simple and easy way to sell your products. Just upload a picture and description of the item, and people can contact you directly through Facebook messenger. One of the benefits that this platform has over Craigslist is that you can look at the profile of the person you’re selling to by checking out their Facebook profile, which can help you identify scammers or bots. 

Being part of a social media site, Facebook Marketplace is also a good way to expand your audience, as content is easily shareable, either by you or by happy customers. Similar to Craigslist, this platform works better on a local scale, unless you’re prepared to handle delivery and online payment yourself. 

If you’re based in the United States, LetGo and Geebo are also good alternatives for free online marketplaces, but they are not yet available in the UK. 

Free online marketplaces are useful for local sales, but they are often limited if you’re looking to expand your reach beyond your city. If you want to set up your own ecommerce website, why not try out Go Sitebuilder’s 14-day free trial? Their online store has unlimited products, a variety of payment options and you can even create customised discount codes! 

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How to Plan a New Product Launch with Digital Marketing

Caucasian male sat in a stylish living room working from home on his laptop and holding his mobile phone. He has a beard and is wearing a gold shirt with a navy blue jacket.

Launching a new product can be a nerve-wracking process. By setting a digital marketing strategy in place, you’ll be optimising your product for success. Here’s a step by step guide on how to plan a new product launch with digital marketing:

1. Build a website

The best way to feature any product or information is with a beautiful website. Not only does this give you the space to scream and should about your launch, but it can double as a place for the customers to make purchases.

Use vibrant and appealing images to draw people to the pages. Make sure to include written content that explains who you are, what you’re selling and what makes your products so special. This is your chance to create a story and convert people from “lookers” to “buyers”.

2. Define an audience

Most people have an idea of who their ideal audience will be, but, you need to ensure you have established your audience on social media. Have you found them? Once you know who they are you can get to know them better. What are their interests? What hashtags they’re using? Do they have any slang terms? What motivates them and why would they be interested in following your brand on social media? All of this is exciting to learn and will help you build better relationships. Creating buyer personas is simply a way to attract the right customer, at the right time, with the correct messaging – our free buyer persona eBook will make sure you don’t waste another penny!

Once you’ve defined your audience, start to use their terminology and hashtags in the pre-launch posts to build up your future customer base before the product has even launched. Make sure to include links to your social media account on your website too.

3. Make goals for your launch

Linked to your business goals, your launch goals are critical to being able to measure the success of your product launch. Ultimately, you want new leads or customers, so it’s important for you to try and define how many you want in the first month, and what impact you want to make in the first few weeks. Set small achievable goals, they’ll help you get excited and you can always set more once you’ve finished another.

It’s easy to get lost in numbers, and so your goals should always strive to create quality leads that can be measured using data and metrics. For example, if you want to launch a new range of eco-friendly diapers, you probably want a launch goal of ‘create 30 new leads in the first month who are expectant mothers/mothers to babies and toddlers.’ Using free metrics like Instagram’s business analytics will help you to see who your most popular audience are – such as age, likes and gender.

4. Prepare launch content

For your social media, e-mail strategy and website, you’ll want to create some exciting graphics and content pieces for the launch of your product. A vital role for your product, you will want to keep a consistent style, including font, colour palette and tone of voice. Make sure your graphics are eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing, and that it is in line with the times.

Once you have these, start using them in emails, blogs and social media campaigns to drum up excitement. Partially cover images of your new product and use countdown timers to the launch date – it will all help to increase the excitement!

5. Influencer marketing

If you are going to be implementing an influencer strategy to your launching of a new product, then it’s essential you get them on board at least several months before launch. Get them to review the product, and share it on their social platforms on the day of the launch. You can even strike up a contract that involves them in the countdown to the new product, using their influence to drive in more traffic to your brand’s social media.

If you have influencers writing blogs about your new product, ask them to include a backlink to your website!

6. Launch day

Ensure all your social media posts and email campaigns are scheduled and ready to go on the day. Ideally, you want the launch to be during a time when your workers are in the office, in case there are any tech malfunctions. Run through your checklist to ensure everyone is prepped and ready to go. It can be a very daunting few hours, but ultimately one that should (hopefully) pay off if you’ve done it well!

If you still haven’t got your business online, now is a perfect time! Try Go Sitebuilder free for 14-days and see just how easy it is to get your website up and running.

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How can I achieve success in digital marketing?

Achieving success in digital marketing

Digital Marketing is important in today’s world, but it needn’t be daunting. There are some simple ways to use it to make your products and services more successful. People love a good story, so use a website to tell the story behind your business. Be personal and talk about how you were inspired to start up, people will feel they can understand and relate.

Pictures that tell a story

Images are a great way to share your journey, particularly if there’s an interesting reason behind how your business started. Social media can be great for this and allows you to add hashtags to reach people who may be interested. While it’s important to let people know what you have to offer them, it helps not to be too “salesy”. And even on occasion, allow them to see a little of yourself or your company; such as social outings as a team or celebrating a colleague’s milestone birthday.

Adding personality to your brand

Potential customers like to feel that they know your brand or at least understand why they might need what you’re selling. Simply posting an image of your product and a link to buy, isn’t good enough. It offers no reason for people to part with their hard-earned money and it gets caught up in a sea of other adverts all doing the same thing. Describe your products well and add an ‘About page’ to your website so your customers can get to know the brand they’re buying from.

Reaching your customers the right way

A website that is memorable and includes something which sums up what you do is a fantastic way of ensuring people can find you. Linking your social media accounts to your website also makes it easier for people to get in touch and follow your progress and successes. To appear more professional, add forms to your website so people can reach out directly. Including a news section or adding a blog is useful for keeping people informed and engaged with your business.

Optimising your content

To ensure you attract the right people to your website, SEO can important and so is the ability to incorporate social media and YouTube videos. Many people respond better to videos. They are a great way to keep people’s attention for a longer span of time. As mentioned, you’ll also want to add contact forms to your website. This makes it easier for customers to get in touch, as not everyone finds using email or social media to be an easy task.

If you haven’t started building your website yet, or you’re still looking for the right tool for you, check out our free trial of Go Sitebuilder. Go Sitebuilder has been created with busy small business owners in mind so you won’t need any previous website building experience. Try it today and see just how easy it is!

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How do I promote my electrician business website?

Female electrician working on a construction site.

Every small business should have its own website. It’s a powerful way to attract new customers while still enable existing ones to find you. A quality website makes you look professional and builds trust for your business. In today’s world websites can be your first impression, and with a beautiful and sleek website, you’re sure to make a good one. Once you have built your website, you’ll want to promote it in order to attract more customers to your electrician business. Here are some expert tips that will help you get some more exposure.

Search Engine Optimisation

We offer easy to use SEO tools at Go Sitebuilder to help ensure your website is indexed with Google. These tools make something that might sound a little intimidating a breeze to get done and gets them done correctly. You’ll also want to make sure the content on your site fully optimised. There are endless resources available to help you learn about SEO online, or you could work with a specialist to help optimise your content quickly! Whichever way you do it, there will be a bit of trial and error. But with the process, you’ll be growing your skills at the same time you’re growing your business. If you’re new to the world of SEO, check out our beginners guide over on our blog.

Trade directories

There are plenty of online trade directories where you can list your business. Most of these listings will include the option to add your website URL. This kind of placement could land you a lot of visits from local customers looking for electricians – so, get listed on as many directories as you can. Remember, you’ll need a unique domain name if you want to stand out from the crowd!

Social media

There are many businesses who have managed to turn their social media accounts into powerful sources of organic traffic. It’s not necessarily simple to get people excited about a trade on social media, but with a little creativity you could come up with a clever way to attract attention. Just remember to be yourself and to add your personality into everything you do. Remind everyone about what is unique about you and your business and have fun with it.

Paid Advertising

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads on Google and social media can be a great way to attract the right sort of customer to your website. There are tons of how-to’s online along with articles directly from Google Ads to help you get these campaigns running towards success. An electrician business is a good candidate for attracting customers this way since most people will be using search engines to find what they’re looking for.

The bottom line

These are just some of the simplest ways to promote your electrician website. There are lots of others, and it’s worth picking a few that you think will work and giving them your attention to get some success. People will always need electricians, so you simply need to find a way to help local customers find your website. Don’t be afraid to be a little creative to stand out from the competition.

If you haven’t got your business online yet, or your existing website isn’t working for you, check out our free 14-day trial with Go Sitebuilder. Sign up today and start building the website that will make your business a success. You won’t need to hire an expert and you won’t need any previous website building knowledge – you can even start building on your mobile phone!

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How do I get my new website noticed?

Male looking at mobile phone whilst holding reading glasses. He is working from home and his young daughter can be seen eating at a table in the background.

Building a new website is an exciting time for any business, and getting it live on the internet for people to see can be just as fun. But how do you make sure people are seeing it? If you want your site to really stand out from the crowd and achieve its greatest potential, it needs to be as visible as possible. We’ve compiled some tips to get your new website noticed.

Pay attention to keywords

Getting your new website noticed involves being easy to find when people are searching online. It’s helpful if your brand name appears as near to the top of search listings as possible. In order to achieve this goal, you’ll need to find out what keywords people would use to search for your business. There are different tools you can use online to get an idea of what these keywords might be. But, whatever keywords you choose to represent your business, try to find words that are as relevant and specific as possible. Use for keywords that are less frequently used and not just single words. Long-tailed keywords or keywords with more information will help you drive more traffic.

Once you’ve identified keywords, embed them naturally in your website. Keywords should be used within your content, along with your tags and picture titles.

Start blogging

Blogging about your business, your products, or subjects you think your website visitors will enjoy reading is a great way to get your new website noticed online. So, if you haven’t set up a blog already, now is the time to get writing! Including blog content on your site is also a favoured SEO strategy, which could help you to rank higher on search engines like Google.

Each time you publish a blog, let your followers know by posting a quick message on your social media pages. It’s also a good idea to send an email out to your mailing lists. In order to gain attention, and to keep attracting visitors to your website, provide unique content that puts a fresh spin on what might already exist online. Mix things up a bit and publish different styles of posts, such as how-to guides or even video tutorials. Encourage readers to like or share your content, so that it gets promoted even further.

Get listed

Get your name noticed by making sure that your website’s address and contact details appear on relevant online lists, directories and indexes. This is an especially useful strategy for those who rely on local custom. In particular, adding your details to Google Maps could also improve your local search ranking.

Think about relevant sites where your target audiences might search for a business like yours, or seek related information, and make sure your name gets added in those places.

Having a website is crucial for every business. If you haven’t created yours yet, why don’t you check out Go Sitebuilder? Create your website from anywhere without the need for any technical skills. Try Go Sitebuilder free for 14-days to see just how easy it is to get your business online.

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How to introduce a new website on social media

Close up of a laptop on a desk displaying a social media page. Also on the desk is a glass of water, a computer mouse and a pan.

A huge part of the success of marketing your new website could come down to its presence on social media. Read on to discover how social media can help to get your website noticed!

Create a social media presence

If you don’t already have your social media accounts set up for your business, then the launch of a new website is the perfect time to do so!

You should first decide which networks are the most suitable for your brand. For example, if you are a B2C business that sells visually enticing products, then Instagram could be the perfect platform for you. On the other hand, if you are a B2B company looking to work with some of the industry’s experts, then perhaps LinkedIn is the best platform for your business to be on.

Once you have decided on the platforms, create your accounts, selecting the same username across the platforms and filling out all the profile information, including placing your new website’s URL address in the main body of the profile.

Get followers

The next important step is to begin to gain a following. Do this by inviting your colleagues, friends, family and customers to follow your profile, as well as by creating posts with relevant hashtags and location tags to draw in users that could be interested in your business.

Ensure you post to your page on a regular basis, using a range of engaging and informative posts which include call-to-actions that drive users to your website.

Use paid ads to promote your website

All the major social media networks offer a variety of ad spend services that can promote website URLs. Whether you choose to boost a Facebook post, promote Pinterest pins or Instagram stories, there are a plethora of opportunities for you to select.

When using paid ads, you can select who sees your adverts based on their interests, location, age and much more. This will help the right people to see your website on their social feeds.

Create teasers

When launching your new site, it can be fun to drum up excitement by launching teaser images on your social media sites. You can blur, curtain or paste a ‘coming soon’ sticker over a screenshot of your website to get your followers excited.

Share customer testimonials

Once a few customers have used your service or purchased your products, you can ask them to send you a review and start sharing it on social media.

According to a recent YouGov poll, it is becoming clear that people trust other people’s opinions of products/services, rather than brands talking about how great their products are. Therefore, using customer testimonials on your social networks can be another way of driving more traffic to your new website. Make sure to include a CTA (call to action) to your website to drive people to where you’d like them to be.

Launching your new website is an exciting first step in growing your business. In today’s world, it’s crucial that every business has a professional online presence to succeed. If you’re considering your options for getting online, check out Go Sitebuilder for free! You won’t need to hire an expensive professional, and you won’t need to learn any new skills. Try it now and see just how easy it is to build your dream website.

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What to do after launching a website?

Female sat at a window next to some white flowers writing in a notebook.

Now that your website is up and running, you may be wondering ‘what’s next’? There are plenty of key tasks that you’ll want to get started on right after launching your site to help it become a success. Here are a few carefully selected actions that will help you get you started on the right path.

Keep creating new content

Flocks of visitors might have viewed your website on launch day, but now it’s important that you find ways to keep them coming back. One of the best ways to do this is to add new content regularly to your site. Set up a blog and get into the habit of publishing items that impart your insights and wisdom in a useful, informative and interesting way.

Whenever you do add new content to your fledgeling website, include social share buttons so that your readers can share it with your friends. This could get your content into the hands of hundreds or maybe even thousands of more people.

Not only is it good for your readers but, frequently providing fresh content is favoured by search engines too! It can help you to become more visible on search engines like Google.

Engage with your audience

Whether you’re a new business starting from scratch or an established company that has had a complete rebranding, after you’ve launched your site, it’s an ideal time to start engaging with your audiences. This is a powerful way to understand more about your target customers, but it also helps to keep viewers hooked on your brand.

Include options to capture email addresses on your site, and create a newsletter to keep customers updated on your products or services. Give viewers a chance to provide feedback, whether on the website, your social media pages or both. Whenever you get audience feedback, make sure to start a dialogue with them. This builds a rapport that can help turn first-time customers into loyal and repeat ones.

Get statistics savvy

One of the key ways to understand how well your new website is doing is to analyse statistics and trends, including who is visiting your site. It’s important to be on top of key factors such as when the visitors are coming, how often and which pages they’re going to. This is all really useful information that can give you important clues about your audiences, what is working well (or not) on your site, and what potential changes you might need to make to improve things. In order to analyse these trends, get set up with Google Analytics.

Remember that this should never be a one-off activity. You should monitor your website’s progress regularly to help you really understand what the customer experience is like.

If you’re yet to launch your website, why not check out Go Sitebuilder to see just how easy it is to create your own website. Sign up for a free 14-day trial – no credit card required – and get started on creating your dream website.