NFT Minting Websites Explained | Setting Up Your NFT Project for Success! | Ep 64

Ty Smith0:03

What's up guys? Today we are going through the essentials of what you need to know to set up a highly converting NFT website. So we'll discuss, first of all, why you need a website for an NFT collection, top tools and CMSs to set up a website, and then the five essential components that will set up your website for the best chance of success.

Ty Smith0:18

So first of all, why do you need a website for your NFT collection? The same reason that essentially every business nowadays should have a website. It's a place for people to find you, find resources about you. There could be links to other resources that you have. They can just explain why people should be excited about what you're working on. And a website is essential for any business, especially a digital business like NFTs.

Ty Smith0:34

So top tools to use to set up a website. There's three main ways you can set up a website that I recommend for NFT collections. The first one's going to be WordPress. WordPress is pretty straightforward. There's tons of resources available online that will help you set up a website. It's a basic CMS, it's open source, hosting is relatively cheap. It could do really everything that you would need from an NFT website. NFT websites are typically not all that technologically advanced.

Ty Smith1:20

So that's option one. Option two, similar, is Webflow. Webflow is a little bit more customizable. It's a little bit more of the advanced version of WordPress. WordPress runs a lot on themes, whereas Webflow, you can get pre-packaged templates, but they're so highly customizable that if you know any bit of code, especially front-end code, you can probably make it exactly what you need. So it adds a little bit of customizability to it.

Ty Smith2:09

And then the third way would be to hard code a website, which is probably the most expensive from a money or time perspective, depending if you're hiring someone to do it. But you could fully, top to bottom, make it exactly what you want it to be, potentially making it even more impressive than most other websites. So those are the three ways to do it. I would rank them from one, two, and three, from WordPress being the most beginner-friendly and fastest, Webflow being slightly more advanced and slightly more customizable, and then hard coding your website being by far the most customizable because you're creating it from scratch, but probably the most expensive as far as money or time resources.

Ty Smith2:24

So let's discuss five essential components to be on your NFT website. Most NFT websites, not all, most are really just one landing page that has all the essential information on it. I'll discuss the main components that should be on that page. Some sites like to add other pages, usually those are used more for perks for NFT holders. But we'll discuss just the basics of NFT sites that are either pre-mint or recently post-mint that haven't yet built out all that functionality for NFT collectors.

Ty Smith3:13

So number one, this is especially if you're pre-mint, meaning people haven't yet been able to purchase the NFTs, you're going to want a Web3 integrated button on the website. It should be the most prominent button there is. Oftentimes people put a countdown, basically just whatever call to action language that is needed to get people to click on the button and then actually purchase the NFTs. It should be integrated with MetaMask. You can hire a developer on something like Upwork or Fiverr to do this, usually not all that expensive, maybe a couple thousand dollars.

Ty Smith3:34

And they will allow it so that when you press the button, MetaMask opens up, it says, 'Do you want to buy these NFTs? This is how much it costs.' And then someone could either use their MetaMask wallet or their Ledger, something that integrates with MetaMask to purchase the NFTs. At the end of the day, we want to sell NFTs, and this button makes that possible.

Ty Smith4:11

Number two is the team. So teams over the years of NFTs, it used to be acceptable that teams could be anonymous, meaning you wouldn't know exactly who's behind the NFT collection. Nowadays, people are a little skeptical of that just because so many of those anonymous, non-doxed teams have rug pulled, meaning basically left their investors or their buyers for dead. So having a section that has the team, talking through the credentials of the team, basically explain who is working on this and why they are the best possible team or group of people to make this successful.

Ty Smith4:37

That's huge. That's huge as far as credibility, especially in a world that's so noisy like the NFT world. Number three is the roadmap. When people buy NFTs, for the most part, the more advanced collections have a roadmap which will outline what is planned when certain milestones are met. And those milestones could be either a function of time, meaning like in quarter two, we're going to host a yacht party for everyone that has purchased these NFTs...

Ty Smith5:21

...or it could be as a function of sold NFTs. So when 80% of our NFTs are sold, we're going to host a giveaway and we're going to give away 10 NFTs to some of those people that bought the first 80%. Those are the two ways to do it. The roadmap just gives people a good understanding of where the team's head is at as far as how they're going to deliver value, what they're signing up for, and why they should buy NFTs. It's actually huge.

Ty Smith5:38

Number four, social media links and links to relevant documentation. Twitter is huge in the NFT world. You need to have a Twitter for any NFT collection, so make it obvious on the website where they can find that. Discord is also huge. That's where NFT communities exist online. We've done tons of content already on this, and check the other videos and podcast episodes for this, but Discord is absolutely massive.

Ty Smith6:25

It is essentially where the online community lives, interacts, speaks with each other, and that should be prominent on the website. Instagram, I would put as an optional link. I say that because Instagram isn't necessarily, in my opinion, required for NFT projects. The organic engagement isn't fantastic. It's just not worth the time typically that Twitter is worth. But if you do have it, put it on the website, put it in the footer, put it in the header, put it somewhere on the main page.

Ty Smith6:40

And number four, as far as links go, is OpenSea. Once the collection actually has been minted and you have an OpenSea page set up, you should put that on the website for two main reasons. One, so people can go and buy them and see what the floor price is, see how many holders there are. Those are all important statistics to NFT investors.

Ty Smith7:18

And number two, a really common NFT scam is to make fake collections that look like other collections. If you have a successful NFT company, other people will try to trick people. They will set up an OpenSea page and collection that looks identical, has the same pictures, same looking NFTs, and around the same price they'll try to mimic. Because of that, people will go to your website to find the link to OpenSea to be sure that they are looking at the true NFT collection on OpenSea.

Ty Smith7:37

The last part that I would consider an essential component to an NFT website is the description, the story, the copy of the page. These are things like, what is the history behind the collection? You really have to sell people on the story of the value system that you're trying to build in your community, what type of people you're trying to attract...

Ty Smith8:20

...what type of people you're not trying to attract, because again, all these NFT releases are often an exercise in community building, and communities are often tied by values or shared interests. So it's wise to do that for an NFT collection, and just tell people about what it is that you stand for. Similarly to the roadmap, they're going to want to understand as much as possible about the value that you plan to provide.

Ty Smith8:38

So if it is things that aren't on the roadmap, just things like you get backstage passes to this concert, or you get access to these events, or you'll have access to an airdrop in the future, make that really clear on the website. The website should really, at the end of the day, sell your collection, and it's going to be one of the most highly visited things that you create. So it's super important to set things up correctly. That's going to be it for this episode. We've created a really in-depth guide to all this stuff and more, like all the essentials for NFT website setup, so check the link in the description. And if you found value, make sure you subscribe and click the thumbs up, and we'll catch you on the next one.