Choosing the Best Jigsy Theme for Business Success

This is part of a series of free Jigsy tutorials that walk you through not only how to do the essentials to build your own website in Jigsy as easily as possible, but also, in each tutorial, I will offer advice along the way to help make your website be its strongest for promoting your business.  So let’s get started with today’s Jigsy Tutorial: Choosing a Jigsy Theme for Business Success

This tutorial will teach you:

• What you need to think about before you choose a website theme.
• How to choose the best Jigsy theme for your website.

Three Things to Do Before Choosing a Jigsy Theme for Your Site

1. Write down exactly who you plan to serve on your website.
   If you say that you want to serve small business owners, that’s a good start, but let’s get more specific.

   If you say that you want to serve small female small business owners who have had a business for over 2 years and have a staff of fewer than five people, you are far more specific.

   When you think in a more specific manner while building your website, your choices will be more honed in on who you really serve. This means that your site will probably resonate with your target audience more than if you built the site without them in mind. The more your messaging resonates, the more your preferred audience will feel like they are in the right place.

2. What action do you want to happen on your site that will grow your business?
   If you think that just showing people what you have to offer is enough, it probably isn’t. You need to direct people to what you want them to do, not just to what you want them to know.

   You need to guide them through exactly what you want them to do, from beginning to end, so this means you’ll need to make it very easy and obvious for them to call you, buy from you, sign up for your free offer, etc. So what is that thing that you want them to do? Write that down; again, be specific and also write down why you want them to do it.

3. Map out your website’s menu based on points 1 and 2.
   Before figuring out how your site should look or what functionality should be in place, map out your content. All you need to do at this stage is write an outline of your content. I talk more about doing this here.

How to Choose a Jigsy Theme for Your Website

When you look at a Jigsy theme, you want to look at it more like a blueprint and less like a fixed design. Sure, you can use the Jigsy theme pretty much the way it comes, but know that most of the themes are very flexible; which I love!

After you’ve taken the steps I mentioned above to think about who you want to attract and what you want people to do when on your website, you might want to take a look around at your competition and/or sites that you like. Can you identify who it is they are trying to attract based on their site’s appearance? Can you identify what it is they are trying to get the visitor to do based on their site’s structure? Write down what you see in these other sites that you would like to have on your site.

Now return to Jigsy and login to your website. From the top toolbar, roll your mouse over “Edit Theme” and then select “Change Website Theme.”

Next, you’ll see Jigsy’s selection of themes. Warning: If you click a theme, you will install it, so just scroll down the page and look at each theme.

As you look at each theme, remember it is a framework. You will be able to add or change features later (like slideshows, images, and text) and adjust the layout of pages in your site.

Think about what you have written down based on the research and planning that I walked you through at the beginning of this tutorial. Think about the layouts of the sites you reviewed. Which theme looks like it is closest to what you were hoping for? It’s okay if it isn’t exact. It’s okay if “the closest” one is miles away from what you were hoping for. The theme is in a base state. You’re going to modify most of it to be truly yours. You’re just looking for a theme that has a grid, an outline, that is similar to what you think you would like. Also, if you find two or three themes that will work, great! Now compare them and think about which one will require the least amount of adjustments in color and backgrounds; the least amount of work you have to do to the theme, the better. Think about this like house hunting. Usually, you’ll find a few homes or apartments that will work, but there will be something that pushes the one you get over the edge. That’s how theme selection works.

Once you find the theme you want, put your mouse over the theme and choose the green “install” button.

And that’s all there is to select a new theme in Jigsy. And you can change your theme at any time, so if you realize you have chosen the wrong one once you start working with it, you can select another theme.