Make Your Website Work for You

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Ken Wilson, a web developer and copywriter based in Kingston, ON, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Primarily, my focus is on helping entrepreneurs and small business owners navigate our confusing digital world. There are a lot of misconceptions out there, a lot of misinformation, and a lot of web developers and writers who don't care about the product they're selling—I'm just trying to be the counterweight. My customers are entrepreneurs and small business owners that are looking for "no BS" solutions to their website and content needs. If you're an entrepreneur who has a story to tell but you're not sure how to tell it, I can help you. If you're a small business owner with a website that stresses them out, or you've had a bad experience with websites and are looking for a solution that will work this time, I can help you.

Tell us about yourself

It's a long story, but both writing and web development have been hobbies of mine since I was young. And everyone tells you to do what you love, so here I am. When it comes to writing, I've been doing it as a side hustle since I graduated from Algonquin College in 2013. While it's a major component of what I do, it wasn't the reason I started my business. The real drive to start came after working for a company called Digital Main Street during the height of the COVID pandemic. Our job was to help small businesses boost their digital presence to ease the burden of the lockdowns. All of the clients I assisted came to us with websites already, and as the web developer on my team, I was tasked with fixing them or adding features. Unfortunately, what I learned was that there are a lot of "web developers" out there pretending to know what they're doing and charging high fees for products that would fail a code review.

To be frank, it was just annoying to see. So, I set off to do two things really:

Produce high-quality websites (and writing).
Be a trustworthy navigator for people looking for answers to web development-related problems.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Honestly, I don't think about it like this. I'm here to help other businesses, so my biggest accomplishment is whatever I've helped them accomplish most recently.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

The stress, but I was stressed at my 9-5 job as well. We're always going to find something to stress ourselves out about, so I've given up worrying about it.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

It really depends on the business, but from my perspective, you generally need two things:

A simple, performant website that isn't going to get in the way of your day-to-day.
Copy that's, at the very least, proofread.
If you're writing content, write it so that humans want to read it and come back. SEO comes second.

If you're looking for more information, feel free to reach out. My website has a contact page, and all submissions go straight to my phone. I don't mind answering questions (for free).

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.kenwrites.ca/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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