How to start a yoga teacher website on Squarespace.
If you’re asking how to create a website, you may have been overwhelmed by googling the steps that you have to take. I’d like to assure you that it doesn’t have to feel like that, especially on Squarespace.
For someone to start a website, there are 4 stages.
Considering that your website can be a place where you can grow your offerings, it is worth taking your time with it - specifically 3 to 4 months.
While there are other factors that will influence the timeline of starting and maintaining a website, in the guide below, I focus on how you can start a yoga teacher website without feeling like you are in and over your head.
After which you can learn how to create your website without paying developers a lot of money for every single edit.
How to start a yoga teacher website
If you follow this guide stage by stage, this process will give you three months without sacrificing a whole lot of time.
You’d be surprise that in this guide, the first two stages have nothing to do with technology. So here’s my two cents, do not pay for your website until you are ready to hit launch.
You get a 14 day trial with Squarespace and you want to maximize those two weeks for the last stage. I am all about being affordable and efficient when you start. Take it from someone who had made the mistake of spending a lot of money at the beginning.
So let’s start!
Stage 1: Reflect and write about yourself.
Start thinking about the written words you would like to include on your website. From my experience, it’s not helpful to stare at a blank page (and hey, if a blank page is what helps you, do what works).
A lot of teachers (myself included) have found it helpful to have prompts that jumpstarts the writing process.
Here are some prompts to help you start writing:
What does success mean to you?
Why do you teach?
How is your style of teaching?
What have students expressed about taking a class with you? Highly recommend asking for testimonials if you have not
done so yet!What are you offering or thinking about offering?
If you’re interested in more prompts and guidance, here is an in-depth website workbook with prompts that Tristan Katz and I put together to help jumpstart your writing process that is based in relationship building vs. transactional sales pitches.
Stage 2: The Creative Stage, Become your own creative director!
Get inspiration for your website and figure out what you like, what you do not like and what functions you would like to have on your website.
To this day, I still start every website design process with this and I usually use dribbble.com to get my creative juices flowing.
You can even use Pinterest, Canva, another fellow teacher’s website, perhaps even a cafe or restaurant website.
When you are looking through this inspiration, keep track of:
What colors do you like? I love getting a color palette from dragging a favorite photo into adobe.color.
What type of font will compliment your content? For example, if you have long form content, you may not want your font to be extra wide.
How the website is laid out for a service provider vs. products vs. blogs vs. video based websites.
Type of photos people are using. Take note of things like lighting, angles of photography and space in their photos.
The personality of the copy on their website. Are they more personable, corporate-like or a mix of both.
All this will help ease decision making in the next stage.
Stage 3: Putting it Together Stage - Easier than you think.
If you are here, you are probably just getting started. Go to Squarespace and choose a template. Look back at your likes, dislikes and functions you want on your website and use those preferences as guidelines to help you choose. Once you are ready to make a purchase, start the free trial AS MANY TIMES as you would like.
Two of my favorite Squarespace templates for yoga teacher websites are:
Align and Flow, great for folks who want to have a membership area. Note that members area feature on Squarespace is an added cost. Watch Align and Flow demo
Colima, great for folks who want the foundational homepage, about page, classes and registration page. Note that the appointment feature on Squarespace is an added cost. Watch Colima Demo
Style your template with your font and color choices. When you are DIY-ing, it’s normal to have to tweak what your font choices at this stage. To narrow down and select a font choice on Squarespace that is similar to your initial choice, pay attention to the height, roundedness, curves and width of each letter.
You can change the fonts by going to:
Design > Site Styles > Fonts
You can change the color by going to:
Design > Site Styles > Colors
Tip: Squarespace has a lot of color palettes and font packs that their designers have pre-generated, perhaps you’ll even find one that is similar to what you’re narrowed down in stage 1.
Final step in this stage is to replace the placeholder copy and stock images: Remember the folder of images you made and the copy you’ve written? Go ahead, plug and play.
Stage 4: Launch that baby
1) Purchase a Squarespace pricing plan
Squarespace has 4 pricing plans that range from $16 per month to $49 per month. The monthly cost to start an intuitive DIY website on Squarespace is affordable; less than $50 per month.
Hot Tip: If you don’t have any payments processing through Squarespace, choose the Personal Plan, it’s $16 per month. If you are interested in Squarespace’s analytics feature, choose Business. If you are selling products or services on Squarespace, choose one of the commerce plans.
If you’re not sure, don’t worry. Start with personal and you can upgrade or downgrade at any time and Squarespace will adjust for the difference in your billing!
2) Choose your domain name.
A domain name is your website URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or the dot com of our blog site. A typical dot com costs $20 - $30 per year. However, a domain name is usually included for free when you sign up for a web hosting package aka Squarespace.
Tip: Squarespace offers a free year of domain registration. You can take advantage of this by going to Settings > Domains > Get a Domain
And if you have a domain already?
Connect your domain to your website by heading over to Settings > Domains > Use a domain I own and follow the instructions given by Squarespace. Here is a step by step guide created by Squarespace
Hope this helps!
If you’ve got any questions, feel free to reply to me!
