Curious about using MemberVault as your main website? Or do you already know you want MV to be your main site, but are trying to wrap your head around all of the different steps?
We've got you! This article will break down what to consider having on your website, and how to use MV as your main site -- plus all kinds of inspiration from current account owners who have set up their websites with us!
We have a lot of great features to help support you in building your website on MV: custom pages, a navigation menu, blog feature, community feature etc. You certainly don't have to use all of these tools at once, and you can build out as you go!
With that in mind, here are the basics that we recommend every site has:
1. Home Page
By default your MemberVault homepage is your marketplace link, but you can also swap this out with a page you've created using our pages feature.
In this example, The Great Midlife Maze is using the default marketplace for their homepage:
And then Ocean Energy Wellness is using a page they created in our Pages feature:
2. About Page
While you can certainly include an introductory section in your homepage, you'll notice that most of our examples shared in this article have dedicated About pages for visitors to their sites to check out.
About pages are especially great for letting your audience get to know you and how you can help them. It's a space for you to share what makes your products and services unique (which in turn helps your "right fit" people find you when they search for what you offer).
Janet Mercredi particularly does a great job of this!
3. Services Page
Typically this will be your MV Marketplace page where all of your different products appear. As mentioned above, you can leave this as your homepage by default!
If you do decide to use a different custom homepage, then you can still grab your marketplace link to share in your Navigation menu.
Or you can do what Jane Mucklow did and split your products into their own service pages (using either custom sales pages like Jane did, or your Product Link and promo text):
4. A Custom Domain
When using MV as your main website, we typically recommend you set up your custom domain using the "www" subdomain. Note: Some domain hosts that also allow you to create websites will keep "www" locked as a custom default setting. To unlock this, contact your domain host and request that they release the www subdomain so you can use it for MV.
Once your custom domain goes live, make sure to redirect your root domain (https://yourdomainname.com) to your MV custom domain (https://www.yourdomainname.com). This way people can type in "yourdomain.com" without the "www" and still end up on your MV site!
Extras you can tweak later:
If you have all four elements listed above, then you're already set with a really solid website to represent you and your business! But of course, you can continue to customize this and add to your website.
You'll notice that all of our examples have more than a couple of sections in their navigation menu, like Sam Livermore's site:
If you have a blog as part of your business, you can use MemberVault's Blog Feature (see "Content" > "Posts"), and link this in your Navigation menu.
If you have a public ungated community that anyone can join (meaning it's not part of a specific product), you can link your community in your navigation menu.
Or if your business offers live in-person events (or any other offering that doesn't require a product), you can include those on your website too! Here's an example from Bobbie Jo:
Our Offers feature lets you collect signups or purchases without needing to add someone to a product, so this is a great option for your navigation menu as well. Lots of opportunities to get people into your corner of the internet!
There is no restriction to the number of pages you can link or create for your website, so definitely get creative with this!
Oh, and don't forget that announcement bar like how Stacey Webb has set up below -- super handy to draw attention to a time sensitive offer or new content on your site!
As you decide which features to include throughout your site, consider how you want your site visitors to navigate your MV site. Does each page have a clear call to action linking to the next step they should take on your site?
Example Suggestion: Add a button to the end of your About page linking to your Marketplace so people can see how to work with you.
Another Suggestion: Embed a signup form to your email list on a landing page and link to this page on both your Home and About pages.
We also highly recommend connecting an Analytics tool for more advanced reporting. We track engagement in your products and your sales data, but for custom pages, you may want to have a tool tracking page views, clicks etc (Our team recommends Fathom Analytics -- **aff link.)
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Questions? Reach out to us at hello@membervault.co, within our Facebook group, The MV Collaborative, or via chat support within your admin account (not sure how to log in? look up your account here).