Starting your own business is one of the most exciting and scariest things you’ll ever do in your life. There’s so much to do and to learn, and trying to piece things together from different websites online is nearly an impossible task. There are all types of communities out there, but it’s tough to really find an all-inclusive package that will teach you the skills you need for success. If they do educate you, they rarely provide anything else to actually help you get set up. One platform, a website called Bookmark, sets out to change that.
What is Bookmark?
Bookmark is an all-inclusive platform that can help you get your website created in under two minutes. Bookmark eliminates 90% of the pain points associated with website building with a builder that is intuitive to use, while providing useful tools that business owners need, like SEO and website analytics.
Bookmark also includes an e-learning section to educate entrepreneurs on the things they need to know to run a successful business. While you might find similar platforms out there in terms of online education and courses, Bookmark wanted to set itself apart when it comes to how it helps entrepreneurs build websites. The Bookmark Website Builder has templates and a drag-and-drop builder that make building a business website incredibly easy.
AIDA: Your Artificial Intelligence Design Assistant
One thing I hear from business owners all the time is “I’m tech-savvy, but I am not a designer.” With AIDA, you don’t have to be. AIDA is an artificial intelligence design assistant that will walk you through building your website. Through analyzing and understanding your design wants and needs, AIDA helps you to make choices from millions of combinations to create a unique website for your business.
AIDA has the ability, using its guided system, to help you to build a website in 2 minutes. Not only is it a fully functional website, but it is ecommerce-ready and responsive. Imagine being able to build a website for your business in under 2 minutes? Most business owners and entrepreneurs don’t have time to sit down and learn how to build a website step-by-step.
Artificial intelligence that helps you to make design decisions is a truly revolutionary concept. AIDA will help you to make the right choices for your website, based on your needs, taking the guesswork out of website design for entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Features of Bookmark
E-learning: Understanding different parts of your business increases the chances that you’ll be more successful. It’s difficult to understand what to study and what you need to know. However, Bookmark has a selection of courses available to help you understand things like SEO, website analytics, how to use PayPal, and more.
Ecommerce: Want to sell physical goods? Setting up your own store is tough! However, Bookmark’s system has that capability built-in. You can be up and running, selling your products in minutes.
600+ businesses: Most website builders with templates only offer a few industries for you, which don’t fit well with what you’re trying to create. This means you have to spend a lot of time customizing the content for your business. AIDA is different, because there are over 600 different industry choices, making it easy to find one to suit your needs.
Mobile-ready: It’s no question that a majority of people browsing the web are doing so on their smart phones and tablets. Your website absolutely has to be mobile-friendly. Everything you build with Bookmark is responsive, without having to tweak CSS or know how to code.
SEO aid: Search engine optimization is at the top of many people’s lists. Going through the steps to optimize your website through other platforms can be a long-term learning experience, with a lot of trial and error involved. Bookmark helps you optimize your site for search engines, so that your business website is more likely to be found by the people looking for your products or services.
Analytics: Knowing who your website visitors are, their demographics, and what they are doing on your site will help you to understand what is bringing people to your site in the first place. Gauging performance can help you fine tune different aspects of your website to improve conversion rates. All of that is included with Bookmark.
Drag & drop: It seems like most platforms are including this feature. Being able to move, reorder, or restructure areas of your website is an essential part of streamlining the construction process. Create anything you can imagine with the drag-and-drop builder.
Hosting: Most web designers or developers will tell you that a website is only as good as its web host. This is true, considering it is the foundation of your entire website. From speed and performance to stability, you want a host that is robust and stable, giving you everything you need to deliver your website quickly. Bookmark has cloud hosting servers, so your website is both fast and secure.
Getting Started
Right from the beginning, when you sign up for an account, you are given the choice to use the website builder, or to use AIDA, the Artificial Intelligence Design Assistant. For our purposes, we are going to choose AIDA.
AIDA starts asking you questions, with the first one being: “What type of website do you want to create?" The astonishing thing is the number of selections you have. You’ll find everything in the list from accounting, to acupuncture, bridal shops, building contractors, butcher shops, dance schools, daycares, IT services, Italian food, locksmiths, magicians, lawyers, website designers, realtors, and so much more. There are over 600 business types to choose from.
For the example, I chose Realtor, and named the website “Knox Realtors Agency”. Once I entered this information in, it asked if I were one of the following realtors. The selection wasn’t valid, since I’m not really a realtor, so I continued.
The next thing AIDA asked was for me to fill in my information. I put in mostly fake information for the example. AIDA also asks for a logo. I dropped in a generic logo for our test.
I was asked if I wanted ecommerce capabilities. I opted out, as it wasn't relevant to the real estate site I was building, but it's good to know that they're there if you need them.
My Surprise and Delight
Once I’d entered in this brief information, the next screen brought me to a page asking if I wanted to let AIDA start the building process. I hit the start button, and AIDA started filling in a layout for the entire website. After about 30 seconds, all sections were finished, and I had a full page of content and sections to work with. Colors were automatically chosen, and I had something to work with.
Right now, I could hit publish and the site is fully functional. I tried it out myself, and was surprised by how fast it was to create my realtor website.
Editing and Refining
Of course, a lot of what is there is filler or basic content to give me an idea of what to build and what information to provide. Everything is easily selectable and customizable. You simply click on a section, highlight the text, and you can change the font size, color, weight, alignment, etc.
Continue reading %Using Bookmark’s AIDA to Build Your Website in 2 Minutes%
by James George via SitePoint
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