Question: I’m not a technical person and want to create a simple, minimal website for my yoga business. I don’t need blog posts and I’m not looking to sell products at this stage. What are the best options? I know I need a domain name and something as a web presence for my yoga studio but am unsure about what my options are.
Answer: Thanks for reaching out. As you’re not looking to create blog posts for your website, I’d recommend that you keep things simple for your yoga studio website.
The tools I’d recommend are:
- Namecheap for a domain name ($US10pa) – they’re reliable and don’t try to oversell you on products. You won’t need a SSL security certificate from them as my next recommendation will cover this for you.
- Carrd for your website/s ($Us19pa) – you’d clarified that you may want to set up 2 websites so I’d recommend setting up your website under the Pro plan on Carrd. You’ll need another domain name but the costs are relatively low for running 2 x single page websites. Carrd is simple to setup and can link up for payments, contact form and other things you might want on the site like a booking widget (Acuity is a great option if you’re offering appointments).
- LeanDomainSearch (free) – a great tool for finding short domain names with yoga in it. I’d recommend .com as it’s the most common, easy to remember extension. If you can’t find what you want, you can always search on Namecheap for alternatives like a .yoga domain name or a .co or a .studio domain name.
Bringing this all together, your steps to get set up are:
- Check out Carrd and test it out on their free plan
- Choose a yoga domain name (you can sort out business name stuff later) through LeanDomainSearch
- Register your domain name through Namecheap
- Follow the instructions in Carrd on how to connect your Namecheap domain name to your Carrd website
- Your site will now be connected up
- Set up an email forward, through Namecheap, from yourname@yourwebsitename.com to your personal Gmail account
- Register for a GoogleMyBusiness account and notify them of your new domain name
- Add your domain name in the social media profile sections
I hope this helps!
Side note: If you do need a blog, you can check out yoga site builders like Squarespace, Wix or Weebly (it that order in terms of design options and ease of use). If you’re looking to build a yoga community and offer online classes, there is also the option of starting a yoga community with yoga courses on MightyNetworks.
