Have you ever felt like you’re incredibly busy, but somehow your business isn’t growing?

It’s pretty common, and years ago I found myself in that position. Every day was full to the brim with work and there was no chance of being able to fit any more in without burning myself out. And somehow, our business was stagnant. It’s not a nice feeling.

Eventually, I hit a breaking point. Something had to change. I began looking for ways to claw some precious time back.

This led me into the world of workflow automation – a way to have software take over the repetitive processes in your business.

Once something is automated, you often never have to even think about it again! It frees up your time to work on more important things, and get back to growing your business.

One of the most popular tools in this industry is Zapier. Some rough math indicates that I save around 150 hours per month with Zapier.

In this post, you’ll learn how you can get started with Zapier and also eventually save 100s of hours.

What is Zapier?

Zapier (pronounced like “happier”) is one of the most popular workflow automation platforms.

It connects with the tools you’re already using and moves data between them.

The best way to explain is by a simple example that just about every business can relate to.

Imagine you have a contact form on your website.

Also imagine you have a place where you store your customer and lead information. This could be a CRM, or even just a spreadsheet.

A workflow could say:

> Whenever someone fills out my form, add them to my CRM

Or

> Whenever someone fills out my form, add them to my leads spreadsheet

Why bother automating?

Let’s continue with the above example.

Many contact forms send an email when someone fills it out. To get that person into your CRM, you have to manually copy and paste the data in. This automation means you never have to do that again.

At first this can seem trivial – it might only take you a minute to open your CRM and copy in the info. But consider that you have to do this every single time someone contacts you – whether it’s through your contact form or any other place your leads come from.

What started as only a minute adds up quickly. Consider how many other processes there are like this in your business. Sum all of these up, and I guarantee there are at least several hours per month spent on boring, repetitive tasks like this.

But there’s more to it than just saving time.

What if you make a mistake when copying everything over? This happens all the time. Wherever humans are involved, there will be mistakes. Then you have to go back in and correct it. You might only realise after sending a few emails to the wrong address. By then you might have lost the client.

All in all, automation helps you:

• Save time (yours, or your team’s)
• Avoid human error
• Stay focussed on more important work

Even better, when you automate things, it kind of feels like you’re a wizard. Seriously, every time I create a new automation I still get a huge kick out of it.

How to get started with automation

Getting started in automation can be intimidating. There are so many possibilities, so how are you supposed to know where to start?

The easiest way is to start exploring what Zapier can do with the apps you’re already using.

On the Zapier website, navigate to “Popular ways to use Zapier”

Scroll down to the section where you can choose your apps. It looks like the screenshot below. Notice that I have turned on “Google Sheets”, “Gmail” and “Slack”.

Search for a few of the apps you’re using and select them.

Scroll down a little further and Zapier shows you some ideas for workflows using those apps.

Not all of these will be relevant for you, but it’s a great way to build an understanding of what is possible.

Spend some time exploring this area in Zapier.

How to build your first workflow

When you’re ready, it’s time to build your first workflow.

This part could be an entire post in itself. If you’d like to see how to set up a workflow for the first time, from start to finish, watch my Zapier tutorial.

But let’s take a quick look at how to do it.

You can break a simple workflow down into 2 parts.

1. Trigger: When to start the workflow
2. Action: What the workflow should do

You can think of it as “When this happens (trigger), do this (action)”

Example: When someone fills out my contact form, add them to a spreadsheet.

Here’s how to build this workflow in Zapier. We’ll be using Typeform as the form builder. You’ll need an account, with a contact form already set up.

For testing, I suggest creating a simple form with the questions Name, Email and Message.

Step 1: Create a Zap

In your Zapier account, click the button to create a new Zap.

Step 2: Choose a trigger & event

Feel free to adapt this if you’re using a different tool for your contact form.

First, search for the tool that you’re using, then select it.

Click continue, then choose the event “New entry”

After this, you’ll be asked to connect your Typeform account. Go ahead and do that.

Finally, you’ll be asked to test your trigger. Click the button and Typeform will provide an example as if someone filled out your form.

Step 3: Set up the action

Before you do this, go and create a new Google Sheet with the columns:

• Name
• Email
• Message

Back over at Zapier, set up the action. Start by searching for Google Sheets.

Choose the action event “Create spreadsheet row”, then connect your Google account.

When setting up the action, choose the Spreadsheet you just created. As soon as you do this, Zapier will pull in the columns that you created – name, email and message.

Click into each box (name, email & message) and Zapier will show you the different questions on the form that you can send to each column in the sheet. Choose the respective data from Typeform.

It should look like this:

Click continue and then run the test. Then, Zapier will ask you if you’d like to turn on your Zap.

Click that button, and you’ve completed your first workflow!

Every workflow you’ll create is just a variation of this. For example, if you were using email marketing software like MooSend, you would follow the same steps to add a lead to your account.

Over time, you’ll be able to build more and more complicated workflows.

How to work out what to automate

Knowing how to create a simple workflow is a great place to start, but the thing I see people struggling with the most is working out what to automate in their business.

Bear in mind that as you build more knowledge and try more things, you will naturally start coming up with more ideas. It’s only really difficult in the beginning. So let’s look at how you can start coming up with ideas.

As we spoke about earlier, you can simply explore the Zapier website.

But to come up with ideas specific to your business, create an “automation wish list”. This can be a spreadsheet or document that you add to as you come up with ideas.

As you complete your work each day, consider if a task is something that you’re doing over and over again. If so, write it down. When you’re ready, dedicate some time to go through your list, experiment with Zapier and see if you can find a way to automate the things on your list.

To help you come up with ideas, most automations fall into one of these categories.

1. Repetitive tasks

This is anything you have to do over and over, like moving data from one system to another.

Examples:

• Keeping contact information accurate. When you get a new lead, or when a person’s details change, there are usually a few places you have to update it. If you’re copying data between systems to keep them in sync, it’s a great opportunity for automation.
• Onboarding new clients. As part of your client onboarding process, you’ll likely repeat some steps with every client. This might include sending invoices, sending emails, getting contracts signed or creating folders in your online storage.
• Social media posts. If you post the same or a similar thing to multiple channels, you can create workflows that do this automatically. E.g. When you post on Instagram, automatically repost it to Twitter

2. Tasks that cause excessive email

Anything that clogs up your inbox is bad news for productivity. You don’t want to be spending all day handling email.

Here are some ideas for reducing your email workload. Note that these automations don’t necessarily use Zapier. Automating your business often requires using a few different apps, and sometimes chaining them together with Zapier.

• Meeting bookings. Instead of going back and forth with people to find a meeting time that works, use a tool like Calendly. With Zapier, you could then update your CRM to say that your client has booked a meeting
• Notifications and alerts. Any notifications that come in via email can be handled with Zapier. For example, you could say that when you get an email that your website is down, post a message in Slack.
• Collecting information or documents from clients. Instead of using email to ask clients to send you information, send them a “request” with Content Snare. You can send out the request using Zapier automatically, and then Content Snare will automatically remind your clients via email.

3. Things you forget to do

When you’re super busy, it’s easy to forget about things that you’re supposed to be doing, like checking in on your team. Automation can help you stay on top of this in a few ways:

• Email follow ups. If you’re expecting a reply to an email, use a tool like Follow Up Then or Boomerang to bounce the email back to if the person doesn’t reply in a certain time.
• Project management activity. It’s easy to lose sight of everything that is happening in your business. With “Digest by Zapier”, you can create mini-reports that roll up lots of events into one. For example, you could get a daily email with all the tasks that got checked off in your project management system.
• Social media monitoring. With Zapier you can monitor Google, Twitter or Reddit for brand mentions, and notify yourself via email or Slack when it happens.

In summary

Automation can help you save a ton of time in your business.

Start out just by building an understanding of what is possible, then just be mindful of the tasks you do day to day. As your knowledge grows, you should naturally begin spotting opportunities to automate more and more tasks.

The more you automate, the more time saved and the less you have to think about boring parts of your business. At first, you may only save a few hours per month, but as your knowledge grows, you’ll start measuring time saved in 100’s of hours. Some people even manage to delay the need to hire someone, as their automation does so much work for them. Needless to say, the cost saving there is insanely helpful for scaling your business.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to use Zapier to save 100s of hours every month appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

And we get it. Talking about yourself, your achievements, your life story, and how awesome you are is awkward.

But guess what?

There’s another way!

Because (wait for it) your About page isn’t really about you!

And if you’ve tried writing your own About page copy, you’ve probably fallen into one of the traps a lot of other website owners fall into. So here we give you the top copy mistakes that personal brands make on your About page (and share some handy tips on how to fix them). Because we’re nice like that.

Let’s get stuck in.

What are the biggest mistakes personal brands make on their about page? 

1. It’s all about you!

The first mistake a lot of business owners make on their About page is focusing on themselves. It’s making a big song and dance about what an amazing professional you are, when you went to university, what you got your degree in, and… and… and…

Boring!

News flash. No one’s interested.

Obviously, you are awesome – super qualified and great at what you do. We know that.

But do you know what people really care about? Making sure you’re the right person to help them. They want to know they’re in the right place to get the product or service that’s going to solve their problem.

And most of the time, whether you went to university or bagged yourself a gazillion certifications that only really mean something if you work in your field and industry, is irrelevant.

What Should You Do Instead? Tell your readers how you can help them

Turn your About page on its head. When it comes to writing your about page, reframe your mindset from ‘about me’ to ‘How I can help you’.

This isn’t what you’re actually going to name your page by the way. You’ll still call it ‘About’, ‘About Me’, or ‘About Us’, but adding this phrase to the top of the page while you’re writing your copy will help you switch your focus onto your readers – your ideal customers or clients.

So think about:

• What are the problems they are experiencing? (And that you solve?)
• What puts you in the ideal position to solve those problems?
• How do you help them?

Ask yourself these types of questions as you write your copy, and you’ll avoid the mistake of making it all about you. Make it about how you can help them. 

2. You write in the third person

“Bob is one of the most acclaimed speakers in the industry. Since 1995, he has travelled all over the world to deliver his signature talks to large crowds.”

Who is writing this for Bob exactly? His biographer?

Let’s be honest. Writing in the third person may have been the done thing 10-20 years ago. It came across as professional and prestigious. Not many personal brands or small businesses had websites back then, and no one wanted to come across as a one-person band. The trend was definitely to try and make your company look bigger and better – more corporate and sought-after.

But, just like in fashion, things changed. And they’ve moved on.

Website users are shrewd and clever. We can see through stuff. And we can tell the difference between something that comes across as genuine and approachable versus something that seems stuffy and detached.

You may not be aware that you’re doing it, but when you write content in the third person, you’re putting distance between yourself and your reader. You’re almost putting yourself on a pedestal, making yourself look unreachable and unattainable. Which is exactly what not to do as a personal brand.

And people don’t tend to relate too well to that.

What Should You Do Instead? Write in the first person!

If it’s just you in your business, and you’re the one people will work with when they hire you, don’t be afraid to say so. Feel free to use ‘I’  – write content for your About page in the first person. We’re giving you full permission here!

You need to learn to embrace your personal brand, not run away from it. That’s why we recommend your website domain can be your personal brand name! And it’s why we recommend you write in first person.

And if you have a team, you can still write using the first person. Just change ‘I’ to ‘we’, ‘me’ to ‘us’, ‘mine’ to ‘ours’, and job done!

3. You don’t have any calls-to-action to your product or services

Much like your Homepage, which acts as the reception area of your website, your About page should direct people to other pages.

For example, on our About page, we list all the problems our services solve, and under each service, we have a ‘Find Out More’ button that takes people to the relevant service pages. This is where they can read more about each of the individual services we offer and make an informed decision as to whether they’re ready to work with us.

We also invite people to get in touch with us via our ‘Let’s Chat!’ button, which takes our readers to our Contact page.

But if you don’t have any calls-to-action where you let your prospective customers and clients know what you’d like them to do next, your About page may become a dead end.

So what should you do instead?

What Should You Do Instead? Direct people to other areas of your website

Use your About page efficiently by directing your audience to the relevant pages on your website where they can find more information about working with you. Add links to your Product or Service pages, your Contact page, and more of your content, if relevant.

4. You copy your competitors

Another mistake we see people make all the time is to sound exactly the same as their competitors. We see this a lot in the web design world, but it happens in all fields and industries.

Sure, all coaches want to help their clients ‘thrive’ and everyone is ‘result-driven’. But is this really you? Or are you just using terms and phrases that everyone else in your industry uses?

If your website copy reads exactly the same as everyone else’s, how can your ideal clients make a decision as to who they should work with? How do they know you’re different and better for them than any of your competitors?

They don’t!

So what should you do instead?

What Should You Do Instead? Focus on your USP

Instead of trying to fall in line and use overused words and phrases that other professionals in your industry use, be original. Be you! You are a personal brand, after all, and what makes you unique is you.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What’s your USP? What makes you unique and special? Is it your method? Your business set up? Your background and experience? Or maybe your qualifications?
• Why should people do business with you?
• Why should they pick you over someone else?

That is what you want to talk about on your About page, so don’t worry about the latest buzzwords or the overused business jargon that everyone else is using. Being like everyone else won’t do you any favours – we can promise you that!

5. You have zero personality

When people come to check out your website, they want to get an idea of what it’s like to work with you. Are you serious and corporate? Informal and quirky? Straight-talking but hilariously funny?

Whoever you are (and whatever your brand), it’s important that your website copy reflect your personality. The last thing you want is for people to get you on the phone or hire you for their first consultation and find out you’re nowhere near how you come across on your website.

Surprises like that never tend to work out well. After all, people check out your About page to figure out if you’re the right person to work with. And your job is to help them make that decision by the way you come across on the page.

How will you do that?

What Should You Do Instead? Nail your tone of voice

Your copy should help your target audience connect with you. You want to build trust and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

If you want to learn more about how to show your personality on your website, check out our blog post: How to Nail your Tone of Voice.

6. You don’t have any pictures of you!

Another mistake we see a lot of business owners make is to shy away from having any pictures of themselves on their website, and especially on their About page.

Remember – your About page is the place where your ideal customers or clients come to work out if you’re the right person for the job.

How can they choose you if they can’t even see you?

You see, words and images are a match made in heaven! The trick is to make the copy about your reader but the imagery about you. This is so people can see and sense who you are and who they’re thinking about hiring. 

Using stock photos or no images at all is tempting, but it means missing out on the opportunity to build that know, like, and trust factor that’s so important when people are thinking of buying from you.

What Should You Do Instead? Have amazing personal brand pictures of you on your About page

If it’s just you in your business, by all means, show us your face! You can have photos of yourself ‘in action’ while working with a client, speaking from a stage, teaching from a classroom, signing your book – whatever applies. Just make sure people can see you!

And if you have a team, share their lovely faces too! We feel so strongly about this that we even wrote a piece called, Show Us Your Face! And if you’re thinking of hiring a photographer to take some professional pics of you, then check out our blog post, Lessons We Learned From Our Business Photoshoot.

7. You don’t capture any leads

Something a lot of personal brands seem to forget is that your website is the ideal place to capture people’s email addresses, so you can build and nurture relationships with your audience by offering them value, and, ultimately close more sales.

Website traffic is great, but a lot of people won’t be ready to buy after visiting your website just once or twice. They’ll want to read more, find out more about you, and get to know you a little better before they make the decision to go ahead and make a purchase.

You can certainly give them more information through your copy and the awesome content you publish on your blog. But your email list is the place where you can show off your knowledge and expertise and offer your prospective customers or clients loads of value. 

Except… you won’t be able to get your visitors from your website and onto your email list if you don’t give them an incentive to pop in their email address.

What Should You Do Instead? Add a sign-up form to your About page

Your About page is the ideal place for you to add a sign-up form, so make sure you create a lead magnet and ask your readers for an email address. What can you offer your audience that will encourage them to join your email list? What value can you give them? Is there a quick problem you can solve for them? 

Once you’re clear on what you’re going to offer, add a sign-up form where they can easily pop in their email address, and then you can deepen and nurture that relationship via your email list. If you’re interested in using your website to build your email list, check out our blog post on how to create a lead generating website. 

8. You call your About page ‘Your journey’ (or something equally rubbish)

We see this all the time, and it’s probably a side-effect of wanting to be original and show your personality (which we get).

But calling your About page something else – like ‘Our journey’, ‘Our story’, ‘Experience’, or ‘Thoughts’ (or anything else) is never a good idea.

Why? Because people are used to the About page being called ‘About’. It’s an easy, recognisable term. It’s what the page is called.

Your readers head over to your About page when they’re trying to make a decision about working with you. The last thing you want is for them to skip over the page or miss it completely just because you called it something else! 

If they can’t find your About page, they might click the back button and be gone. And that’s not what you want!

So what can you do instead?

What Should You Do Instead? Call your About page by its name

This is a simple one. Call your About page ‘About’, ‘About Me’, or ‘About Us’. You don’t need to be any more creative than this – not with your page title. It’s what your readers expect to see on your website and where they head to in order to find out more about you. Make this easy and straightforward for your audience. 

Want to Learn More About How to Create a High-Converting About Page?

And if you want more tips on how to write an awesome About page for your website, head over to our blog post, How To Write Your Website About Page.

Or download our checklist on how to create an about page for your personal brand…

Martin & Lyndsay

The post The Biggest Copy Mistakes Personal Brands Make on Their About Page appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Martin here from Jammy Digital, where we help business owners like you to make your mark online. If that’s exactly what you want to do, then click on the subscribe button, and then click on the bell icon to get notified, the very next time that we release a video.

WordPress theme problems

So why are we talking about problems with WordPress themes? It may baffle some of you because we actually have a membership where we teach people how to use themes and plugins and all of that good stuff. So why are we releasing a video talking about the problems that you might face?

Well, because you may face problems, no tool out there is 100% perfect. And I wanted to outline the key issues that you’re likely to face if you’re building your own website using a theme. And at the end of the video I’m going to tell you how you can eliminate a lot of these problems. So make sure that you stick around to the end.

1. Your website NEVER looks like the demo theme

Okay problem number one, when you install a WordPress theme from a third party vendor, what’s likely to happen is you’re going to see a really nice theme and you’re going to think this is the theme for me. This is exactly what I want to use on my website. You download it, you maybe even bought a theme, you click on install and nothing. You don’t see that amazing design that sold you that theme in the first place. What you essentially have to do with most themes is actually rebuild that theme again, using their features within the backend of WordPress.

Now this isn’t a very good thing. They sell you on the design, but then you install it and then you have to build it yourself to make it look the same. Well that’s not really what you paid for you want it to just be one click and then it installs all of the sample data. And that does happen on some themes. It does, but not all of them. So you have to waste even more time spending the time, creating the theme, working out what does what, and already you’ve wasted all of this time. And really you just wanted to click a button and have it look like that theme and it just doesn’t happen. So that’s problem number one.

2. WordPress themes are basic

Problem number two is that WordPress themes are quite basic if I’m being honest. So what they usually do is they showcase a really amazing homepage with all of these really nice designs. Maybe they’ve got some sliding stuff down here, maybe they got a nice testimonial section, and then you click through to the about page and the service page and the contact page, and they’re all really basic. They sell you based on a really nice homepage, but we all know as online shoppers and as looking around for online services that you don’t just need a nice homepage you have to click through to other pages when you’re doing your research, you want those pages to be as good as the homepage.

Now with WordPress themes, quite often they focus all of their energy on the homepage and you click through to the other pages and they just don’t look that great. So you’ve essentially installed the theme just for the home page. And that happens a lot. Yes, there are some themes out there that come with really nice different page designs, but it’s not very common. So be on the lookout for that one. That’s problem number two.

3. All WordPress themes are created differently

Problem number three, most WordPress themes are built completely differently. That means you install one theme from this third party provider and it will be different from this theme on this other third party provider. So all of the themes are different. How you edit them is different. You may have spent five years editing one website, you install a brand new theme and it’s completely different. And from the ground up, you’re going to have to learn the ins and outs of that theme and it can be quite tricky. So that’s problem number three, it’s not very adaptable, it’s a lot of time and energy and effort for you to learn how to customise that theme the same way that you have done in previous theme so that’s not very helpful.

4. You’re relying on the theme developer to keep it updated and secure

Problem number four, you’re reliant on the developer of that theme to keep you up to date. So we’ve just been through a major update with WordPress where they released Gutenberg and version five and there are a lot of themes that people were using beforehand that when version five came out, something developers just said, “Nah, we’re not going to update that theme.” And people were left stranded and they’re still using the previous version of WordPress. So that’s a real issue. You may have paid 20, 30, 50, maybe even $100 for this theme, and then 12 months later the developer decides to go and find a job, do something else with their life, and you’re left with this theme that is no longer updated.

If this is your entire business, you know that’s a pretty scary place to be. We’ve had people come to us before that say, “I’ve got this website. Can you help? We’re really stuck because there’s no latest version of the theme and plugins don’t work well with it.” Everything needs to be ideally on one of the later versions so that you don’t have issues with compatibility. And that’s another problem with using WordPress themes.

5. Stuck with the header and footer of your theme

Problem number five when it comes to using a WordPress theme is you’re pretty much stuck with the headers and the footers of the theme. Most of the other things can be changed around and moved around a little bit, but usually the headers and footers are not very adaptable. This is what makes a theme. It’s the headers and the footers. Everything else in between it can kind of be changed, but the headers and footers are there. So you have to check to make sure that the theme that you using has interchangeable headers and footers, and it’s only a small issue for a lot of people, but it matters. It’s a potential problem that you might face.

6. Not enough control over the layout

Now, problem number six is a big one. You do not have much control over the layout of the individual pages. Now this is a theme by theme problem. You may get more access to change the layout of the individual pages on some themes, on others you might be stuck with what you can see. Obviously the more that you pay for a theme, the more functionality it might have, but overall you need to have 100% control over your website and if you don’t, that’s a major issue. So I mean we teach a lot about what you should include on your homepage, what you should include on your about page, your service page, your contact page. This is what we do. And when we give you that advice, you want to go to your website and you actually want to say, “I want to move this up here. I want to delete this thing that’s no longer relevant. I want to add an FAQ here and a gallery here and some testimonials here.”

But chances are if you’re using a theme, you’re going to be restricted in what you can do and how you can make it look. And that’s a real issue. So there you have it, there’s six issues that you could be facing. If you’re trying to install a theme on your website, however you’re not alone. People struggle with WordPress all the time and people struggle with WordPress themes.

WordPress page builders

This is exactly why we do things differently for our clients and for our members. Anyone that’s a part of our membership knows that we actually provide page templates. So we actually recommend that you install a baseline theme, something very, very basic, something that you can have a lot of control over. Something like the Hello Theme by Elementor, something like OceanWP, Astra. These are all very, very basic themes that you have more control over. So they might not look great, fresh out the box, but actually what we recommend is that you plug in a page builder, something like Elementor or Beaver Builder, one of the page builders where you can actually have control over the design itself and that’s exactly what we teach you how to do in our membership MakeYourMarkOnline.net

We guide you through the steps and tell you exactly what you should be including on your homepage and your service page and your about page and all of the other pages on your website. And then we give you the tools in order to do it. Here’s exactly how to do it as well. So you’re not stuck relying on a WordPress theme that you paid $50 for 12 months ago in the hopes that your WordPress developer or the developer who designed it to build that theme is not going to run away and have a trip around the world and you’re stuck with this outdated theme that breaks your websites. The worst thing in the world, and there are lots of other problems, we’ve seen that with WordPress themes. Take back control of your website, make sure that you have access to change the layout, add features that you want. And again, don’t get trapped in the WordPress theme cycle of just swapping your theme out because it doesn’t work. Swap for another theme. You need control over it. And like I said, that’s exactly what we teach you how to do in the membership. MakeyourMarkOnline.net.

What now? How else can you improve your website?

If you found this video useful, then you’re going to love this. We’ve created a 54 point checklist that goes through loads of different things that you can do in order to improve your website, even more than what we’ve been talking about in this video today. So go to jammydigital.com/54ways, and get access to our very own, brand new checklist.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Biggest Problems with WordPress Themes appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Martin here from Jammy Digital, where we help business owners like you to make your mark online. If that’s exactly what you want to do, then click on the subscribe button, and then click on the bell icon to get notified, the very next time that we release a video.

Most common website mistake

So what is this big mistake that we talk about? Well, we’ve reviewed hundreds of websites, maybe even thousands of websites over the years, and we see the same mistake happening over and over again. And this one thing is the reason that so many websites fail. So you could be out there, and you could be promoting your business on social media. You could be going out to networking events, or maybe even spending some money on advertising. But when that visitor reaches your website, they’re not converting into a lead, or an email subscriber. They’re just not interested. You might not even be getting the visitors that you need.

Why do websites fail?

And this one mistake will stop you in your tracks, and stop the customer in their tracks as well. And this one thing is, you treat your website like an online business card. Essentially what you’re doing, is you’re saying, “We’re really awesome. Come and work with us. Here are all our services. Goodbye.” That’s what you’re essentially saying. You’re in sales mode, and people just don’t like being sold to. That’s the top and bottom of it. You wouldn’t like it either, if you went into a shop and the first thing somebody did, was try to sell to you, that is what you’re doing on your website, when you have things like, hire us, buy now, get in touch. Without actually giving some value and some trust upfront, what you’re essentially doing is saying, come and see how good I look, which is not going to deliver leads and sales.

How to fix your website if you are making this mistake

So what can you do instead? What you should do instead, is treat your website as a customer service tool. There’s a few different things that you can do.

Treat your website as a customer service tool

You can change your language. So rather than actually have your services right there in black and white, like we offer editing and proofreading services, why not switch it around, and put the emphasis on your visitor? Like, are you struggling to get your book finished? We might be able to help. You’re showing that little bit of empathy, and people will stick around a little bit longer. Yes, that’s me. I’m struggling to get my book finished. What can I do? That’s the first thing that you could do that could potentially lead to a sale.

Focus on the problems you solve

Another thing you could do is to focus on the problems that you solve, the problems that you help your visitor solve. So on the about page for instance, don’t just talk about you and when you graduated, nobody cares about that. Talk about, these are the issues that most of our customers face, and here’s how we can help. Yes, have a little bit of information about yourself. People want to know who you are, and what you do, and where you came from. But ultimately they care more about their problems. So where possible, always try to say about us, and how we can help. That’s a great way to write an about page, for instance. About us, and how we can help. And you reframe your mind to say, we know you don’t care about us, but you only care about us enough to be able to verify that we know what we’re talking about. Everything else should be focused on, you’re struggling to get your book finished.

You’re struggling to get a deadline in the diary. You’re struggling to get this off to your publisher. Whatever the issue may be, you can absolutely reposition it, and talk about the problems that you help people solve.

Deliver helpful content…consistently

Another thing you can do is create helpful content. People will find you online more if you create helpful content. They’ll find you in search engines. They’ll share content that you’ve created. If you help someone get off the starting block, then they may well eventually hire you later on down the line. Too many business owners just hold back all of their knowledge in the hopes that people will hire them. You need to use your website as a customer service tool, to build that trust element, and eventually when that customer is ready to buy from you, who are they going to go to?

When they’re ready to invest money, are they going to go to some randomer, who doesn’t offer helpful content, who doesn’t talk to their problems that they’re facing, who only talks about themselves? No, they’re going to hire you, because you’ve spent the time showing that empathy, creating a website that’s more of a customer service tool, rather than an online business card. And that’s the number one mistake that people make, and hopefully now you’ve got some ideas on how you can prevent that from happening to you.

What now? How else can you improve your website?

If you found this video useful, then you’re going to love this. We’ve created a 54 point checklist that goes through loads of different things that you can do in order to improve your website, even more than what we’ve been talking about in this video today. So go to jammydigital.com/54ways, and get access to our very own, brand new checklist.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Most Common Mistake Most Websites Make appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

That’s always difficult to swallow, isn’t it? Even for us web designers. (Actually, web designers are the worst culprits of making their websites about them.) 

Most business owners generally focus on one thing: how it looks. We want it to look good. Why? Because if our website looks good, we look good. 

And that’s the biggest reason why websites FAIL, even ones that cost 10, 15, 20K+. You’re thinking about how gorgeous your website is, and your user is thinking who the hell is this, where do I go and how can this person help me? If they don’t get those answers in a split second they’ll hit the backspace button. No amount of beauty can prevent that. 

The Perfect Website is a Balance of 6 Key Areas

Your website’s appearance is important, but it is not the be-all-and-end-all. 

A good website (one that will deliver you leads and sales) is actually a balance of six key areas. A lot of websites will focus solely on one area or two, very few will nail all six. 

These elements must work in perfect balance. Too much focus on SEO may mean your copy is flat and dull. Equally, too much focus on creative copy means your user (and search engines) might not understand what you’re talking about. Too much focus on appearance, sometimes means the user and their experience is forgotten. 

You get the picture. 

The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Website

In this blog post, I’m going to tell you what those six key areas are, and how you can improve in all six areas. 

No one can get these areas 100% right all the time because no website is ever done or perfect. By having an awareness of these areas and improving them, you will see much better results from your website i.e. more leads and sales! 

Let’s get cracking…(also, this is one of our stupidly-long, ultimate guide blog posts, so maybe get a brew while you’re at it. And a cookie. Get a cookie too.) 

The Six Key Things That Will Make Your Website a Success 

To summarise this, here’s a humongous, fancy graph. 

User Experience 

This is the biggie. If your users don’t know what to do on your website they’ll hit the backspace button in seconds. 

Users need direction. Do you know those little feet on the ground that show you where to go in Ikea? That’s what you need on your website. Even if it seems obvious to you what to do, remember, you live and breathe your business. Your website users don’t. So they need a little handholding when it comes to your website. 

Why Do People Get User Experience So Wrong? 

There are two main reasons why people get user experience wrong…

1. User experience just doesn’t occur to them 
2. Some people are more concerned with how their website looks 

The first one can be tackled by gaining knowledge of user-experience and making simple tweaks to your website. The second reason is trickier to argue with. 

We all want a beautiful website. But sometimes, we get so obsessed with beauty that our websites are nothing more than pieces of art – looked at and admired but do nothing to inspire action. 

When creating a website, you need a good balance between appearance and user-experience. You can make a unique, beautiful or memorable site through your images, branding, icons, logo, fonts and colours. But when you step away from a standard website layout, that’s when you might hit problems. 

Typical industries that struggle with this tend to be fashion, beauty, architecture, designers – anyone creative, essentially. 

A Quick Wins Checklist For Improving Your User-Experience 

If you want to improve your website’s user-experience straight away, here are some quick wins you can follow…

1.Do your call to action buttons stand out on the page?

Call to action buttons are buttons that say ‘download now’ or ‘contact me’ or even ‘click here’ – they get the end-user to do something. You want them to stand out, not blend in. Make them a different colour and leave plenty of white space around them.

2. Is your homepage broken up into sections?

You want to break your homepage up into sections, and each section should have its own topic (such as about a service you offer) and a clear call to action. Each section can include text, images and/or videos – just make sure they cover one thing. If not your end-user will get confused.

3. Do you have a page for each of your services?

Don’t cram all your services onto one page. Have a page for each service you offer and hone in on everything to do with that service – FAQs, costs, processes, benefits, overview, testimonials etc.

4. Do you give clear names for areas on your website?

A lot of pages or sections on your website have standard names like about or blog. So don’t call it ‘My Journey’ instead of ‘About’, as your end-user won’t have a clue what that means. Same with your services, give them clear to understand names in your main menu – not obscure or pretentious ones!

5. Do you have an annoying, invasive pop-up? If yes, get rid!

Imagine you’re browsing in a shop and a shop assistant taps you on the shoulder. ‘CAN I HAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS!’ You shake your head, but she then follows you around the shop repeating the same thing. “CAN I HAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS!”

You’d leave the shop, right? That’s the equivalent of an annoying popup that won’t go away.

6. Do your pages follow a consistent design? Or are they all different?

When we use website builders or get going with some nifty coding, it can be tempting to add our styles and layouts to every page. But if there’s no consistency in the design, then it’s only going to end up confusing your end-user. So keep your page designs consistent. For example, make sure your service pages follow the same layout.

7. Do you use relevant images that support the text?

Your images should reflect what the text conveys and vice-versa. Ideally, these images will be of you and your team and not just stock photos.

8. Is your content accessible?

Don’t be that guy who hides some of his content in exchange for an email address. We see this more and more. When you advertise free content, like a blog post, then ask someone to input their email in exchange for it, it’s just going to annoy people.

9. Are your internal/external links underlined or bold?

If you’re linking in your text, it’s a good idea to make those links underlined and a different colour or bold. This makes it super clear to your end-user that it’s an external link. It saves them missing it or accidentally clicking it!

Want the checklist everything you can do to improve your website and get more leads and sales? Click below to download!

Extra Resources/Content that Will Help Improve Your User Experience…

Our Homepage Blueprint 

How to Appeal to More Than One Audience on your Website

Copy 

Website copy is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of web design. Web design agencies don’t usually concern themselves with the words on the page, after all, it’s not in their remit. BUT, the words on the page can make or break a website’s success. 

Your words are a way to connect with the reader – getting them to understand who you are, who you help, how you help and why you do what you do. 

Why Do People Get Their Website Copy So Wrong? 

There are two main reasons why people get their website copy wrong: 

1. They copy what their competition does 
2. They don’t know what they’re doing 

It’s even worse when people copy off the competition…and the competition also doesn’t know what they’re doing. 

The problem is, we can all write. And when we think we can do something, we often don’t spend time or money trying to improve it. For example, I technically know how to sing. I can move my mouth and a tone comes out but Martin still says the words ‘Dear God, please make it stop.’ 

But all is not lost. A lot of people quickly realise that their website just isn’t converting and will improve their writing or hire a copywriter. 

The Quick Wins Checklist For Improving Your Website Copy 

If you want to improve your website’s copy straight away, here are some quick wins you can follow…

1. Do you dumb down your service too much?

Be aware of your audience’s knowledge level. For example, we wouldn’t start by saying ‘Having a good website is essential for your business,’ because, well duh, our audience knows this. Get straight into how you solve their problem instead.

2. Do you use unnecessary jargon?

Equally, you don’t want to use unnecessary jargon. There’s a reason we won’t find CSS or HTML across our website because that means nothing to the end-user. Remember, you’re not writing for your competition, you’re writing for your target audience.

3. Would people know EXACTLY what you do when they land on your homepage?

As soon as someone lands on your homepage, you need to explain what it is you do – ideally in one sentence. And you need to do it in a way that is simple and clear. You don’t want your reader working too hard to understand what it is you do.

4. Is your about page about how you can help the reader, not just about you?

Your about page should be about how you help your visitor/target audience. A lot of business owners ramble on about their degree or experience or what motivates them. As much as this is good, it should not be the focus of the page.

5. Do your service pages go into detail about the service you offer?

There’s nothing worse than a bare service page that offers zero information. People want to understand as much about your service as possible before making a buying decision. You just discuss pricing, your process, features and benefits, the problems you solve, case studies and FAQ etc.

6. Do you avoid big, fancy words?  

Don’t make your website sound like a thesaurus threw up it. It’s better to use simple language than make yourself look clever.

7. Do you use active voice instead of passive voice?

Active voice is far more engaging for the reader. So instead of saying, ‘The letter was posted by me.’ You should follow a subject/verb/object structure e.g. ‘I posted the letter.’ As you can see it’s much more engaging this way. Tip – You can easily identify passive voice if you can add the phrase ‘by zombies’ after the verb. Lessons were learnt (by zombies) – you’ll notice that one now every time a politician says it.

8. Do you include a clear call to action on each page?

Each page on your website should have a purpose, even you 404 page or your terms and conditions page, you should get your reader to do something. Make sure you include a call to action on every page.

9. Have you ignored your English teacher? (I’m looking at you, Ms Cooper)

Shock-horror, it’s okay to start sentences with but or and. It’s even okay to write how you speak. You don’t need to write formally and without emotion or personality. In fact, this is the opposite of what you should do. You should treat your reader like you’re meeting someone in a cafe and telling them about your business.

Extra Resources/Content that Will Help You Improve Your Website Copy…

What Should You Put on Your Homepage?

9 Ways to Create a Big, Bold Statement

How to Write an About Page

How to Master Your Tone of Voice

Content Marketing 

What’s content marketing got to do with your website? Isn’t that just a separate ‘marketing thing’?

No, it’s not. 

The biggest mistake people commit when their website goes live is leaving it. It’s the equivalent of building a shop in the middle of the desert. If you don’t get traffic to your site, it’s not going to perform. And the best way to get traffic to your website? Content marketing. 

It’s also one of the best customer service tools you have. 

Many of us don’t own shops, we have internet-based-businesses. We don’t have that helpful, smiley person to answer all our customers’ questions. This is why you need content marketing to do it for you. 

Why Do People Get Their Website Content Marketing So Wrong? 

There are two main reasons people get their content marketing wrong…

1. They produce generic ‘fluff’ content 
2. They don’t promote their content 

We can’t get away with producing mediocre content anymore. Everyone is upping their game, and that means more noise and more competition. You have to put effort into content marketing, going in-depth on one particular topic or question in order to get results. 

You also have to spend as much time promoting your content as you do writing it. This is why it’s difficult for business owners to see a return of investment with content marketing. It can take hours out of your business. It’s worth, if you can, outsourcing the promotion of your content. 

The Quick Wins Checklist For Improving Your Content Marketing 

1. Do you answer a specific question in your content marketing?

Good content marketing answers a specific question. This could be how much do copywriters charge? Or ‘How to bake a vegan Victoria sponge? Every good piece of content marketing should answer a question that someone has asked. 

2. Do you showcase your content on your website homepage?

People aren’t ready to buy from you straight away, but what they will do is consume some of their free content. The problem is, you need to get your end-user to your free content. A good way to do this is by displaying your content on your homepage.

3. Do you showcase relevant content on your website service pages i.e. related to that service

On each service page, display content that is related to that particular service. For example, if you’re a therapist, you’d lino to content only about hypnotherapy on your hypnotherapy service page.

4. Do you link or give a shoutout to others? If so, have you told them?

If you link or talk about another person in the industry, have you emailed them personally to tell them and ask them to share it? Or have you tagged them on social media promotion? It’s a good way of getting more traffic to your site!

5. Do you have content for every step of the sales process?

A lot of people focus solely on ‘traffic content’ i.e. content that gets you website traffic. But do you also write content that appeals to those who are ready to buy? E.g. how much you charge, what your process is etc.

6. Does your personality come across through your content? 

Do we get a sense of who you are through your content? Does your personality shine through? It doesn’t matter what platform you use – blogging, video or podcast, having some personality will get your end-user to connect with you.

7. Is your content actually helpful to your audience?

Do people really want to know about the latest client you’ve landed and how great you are? Probably not. Your content needs to be helpful not a sales pitch.

8. Do you have a call to action in your content?

Many of us forget to add a call to action to our content. This could be something like subscribing to your Youtube channel, downloading a guide or booking a call. Either way, getting your audience to do something when they’re consuming your content!

9. Have you included social sharing buttons on your website content?

Social media sharing buttons make it super-easy for your end-user to share your content. If you’re blogging using WordPress you can also use ‘click to tweet’ plugins throughout your post too. These allow your reader to tweet something written by you, and it saves them time in coming up with their own message! 

10. Have you given an actual opinion?

We see a lot of content that kind of summarises facts and figures but doesn’t offer much in the way of an opinion. But readers want answers and if you’re an expert in a particular industry, then people want to know your opinion. Don’t be afraid to put it out there.

Extra Resources/Content that Will Help You Improve Your Content Marketing…

How to Write a Blog Post

What is Sales Content?

What is a Content Fortress?

What is a Learning Centre and Why Do You Need One? 

If Your Content Doesn’t Scare You, It Won’t Work

Want the checklist everything you can do to improve your website and get more leads and sales? Click below to download!

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) 

Search Engine Optimisation isn’t something you ‘do’ to your website one time. It’s a continuous process. Every time you add a new page or blog post, it should be optimised. 

Unfortunately, SEO is presented as this mythical process that only super-techies can master. This isn’t true. Yes, there are advanced SEO strategies, but for the most part, basic SEO is simply good website administration. It’s not exactly sexy stuff, but you don’t have to be an SEO consultant/web designer or techie to do it. 

Just having a basic understanding of SEO and applying that to your website is more than enough to achieve good results from search engines. 

Why Do People Get Their Website Content Marketing So Wrong? 

1. They think SEO is too technical, and don’t invest any time in learning how to do it 
2. They think they need to use super-advanced strategies or get a bit obsessed with SEO 

The first one can easily be tackled by learning the basics of good SEO. We like to think of it like this, good SEO is all about good user experience. Google wants to provide the best service to their customers, so they only show the websites that provide the best user experience. If you focus on user experience, a lot of the time, your SEO will be fine.  

The second one is something we see a lot of. People get obsessed with SEO. They want to understand it all. Know the algorithms inside-out. Now, there’s nothing terribly wrong with that apart from it takes valuable time out of your business and it can impact on other elements too. If you’re focusing on the technicalities of SEO, are you producing content or writing good copy? Or just trying to get backlinks to your website? Ultimately, people get obsessed with Google when they should be obsessed with their customer.

Our advice is to make sure you build your website with an understanding of SEO. And make sure you keep on top of it regularly. But don’t get so obsessed with it that it impacts negatively on other aspects of your website. 

The Quick Wins Checklist For Improving Your Search Engine Optimisation 

1. Have you included a keyword in your URL for each page?

Your URLs for each page of your website should be clear and give the end-user (and crawler) a good idea what the page is about. It’s a good idea to use your keywords here if you can. And you don’t have to worry about making it a sentence. The shorter, the better. E.g. www.example.com/copy-course-beginner

2. Have you done any keyword research?

Finding out what people are searching for is pretty useful when it comes to your content marketing strategy. But more importantly, it’s good to find how people phrase their questions or topics when they use Google. You’d be surprised, as it’s not always what you think. When you have this, you can use your research to help you with your content.

3. Have you included keyword(s) in your H1, H2, H3 etc tags for each page of your website?

In order to make headings on their website, A LOT of people choose to edit the colour/size/boldness of the text. What you should be doing is using your Header tags to break up sections on the page. With H1 being generally what the page is about, all the way down to H3/4/5. This method allows search engines to understand what information is on the page.

4. Is your title tag under 55-60 characters?

A title tag is displayed in search results and when sharing on social, and it’s important for usability and SEO that you create these correctly. It’s best keep your title tag under 60 characters. And use your keywords too!

5. Have you included your ‘long tail’ keywords in your content marketing?

We tend to have a habit of going after one big keyword like ‘small business copywriter’. But we can miss out on a lot of traffic if we don’t consider other ‘long-tail’ keywords. Now, these might not be searched for as much, but they’re more targeted. For example rather than ‘copywriter’ focus on ‘copywriter for creative entrepreneurs’

6. Do you use your keywords naturally throughout your website copy?

Don’t stuff your copy with keywords, instead use them naturally throughout your website copy. But do have an awareness of them before you write your website pages. You’ll notice little opportunities to use them.

7. Is your website mobile friendly?

It’s great when your website works well on desktop but does it work on a mobile device too? You don’t want your end-user pinching their screen to see all of your info. Or images overlapping text! Plus, you will be punished in mobile search results

8. Do you separate words in your URLs with hyphens?

Make sure you separate your URLs with hyphens between words, such as copywriter.com/website-copy This is because Google views a hyphen as a word separator. It doesn’t do this with underscores.

9. Are your URLs short?

Keep your URLs as short as possible. Long URLs confuse search engines. For example, use: businesscoach.com/consulting rather than businesscoach.com/coaching-and-consulting/my-consulting-services

Extra Resources/Content that Will Help You Improve Your SEO…

The Beginners’ Guide to SEO 

The Biggest SEO Mistakes You’re Making and How to Fix Them

Hiring an SEO Agency vs Doing it Yourself

How to rank your service page higher in Google search results

5 Ways to Check Your Keyword Rankings

SEO Checklist for Blog Posts 

Appearance 

Although, yes, I have argued that appearance isn’t the be-all-and-end-all, it’s still important.

People are much more likely to trust an ‘attractive’ looking website than one that looks like the 90s threw up on the page. But it goes deeper than that. Your website is a representation of who you are, and it should reflect your brand. This is what makes you memorable. People often say to us ‘oh you’re the guys with the pink and green website?’ or ‘you’re the guys with those pop-art images, right?’. 

Yup. 

The design of your website doesn’t necessarily have to be brash or loud, a simple black and white, modern website can stand out just as much as one full of colour. 

It just has to reflect who you are and what you stand for. 

There are a couple of things people get wrong when it comes to their website’s appearance…

1. They don’t know what looks good and what looks terrible 
2. They’re the same as everyone else 

Before anyone designs their own website, we recommend they understand the basics of what makes good design. Even if you’re not a designer, things like consistency of fonts or plenty of white space on the page can make your website look so much better. More importantly, it’s a lot easier for your end-user to navigate your website, if you follow some basic design principles. 

The second problem is quite common. We often see websites in similar industries that look exactly the same. A lot of female entrepreneurs, for example, use pastel and gold colours and script fonts. This usually happens because people use website themes, and many themes look the same. 

The Quick Wins Checklist For Improving Your Website’s Appearance

1. Is your text a minimum of 16 pixels?

No one wants to read tiny text, so what is it with some companies doing it? Do your end-user a favour and be kind to their eyes!  

2. Do you have a maximum of two fonts?

The general rule of thumb is, use one font for 95% of all your text and one font sparingly for your main headings. Any more than that is going to look too messy for your end-user.

3. Is there plenty of white space on each page?

White space is your friend. People don’t want to be greeted with war and peace when they land on your website. Break things up with paragraphs, bullet points, headings and images.

4. Is your text clear to read?

Do you know that pretty squiggly font you love so much? Yeah, don’t use that. It’ll be difficult to read! Google actually penalises you too if it can’t read some of your text. Pick clearer, easy-to-read fonts instead.

5. Do you only centralise text for a maximum of two lines?

Centralised text is difficult to read because the starting point of each line is different. That’s why we say use it for a maximum of two lines, any more than that, left align it.

6. Do you use visual hierarchy?

Headings/important sentences/calls-to-action should be larger, bolder, more colourful and have more whitespace surrounding them. Avoid too much bolded and/or underlined text on your website, as this takes away from the important elements.

7. Is your branding consistent?

You want all your web pages to have coherent branding with consistent colours, fonts, imagery, positioning of your menu and logo etc. For example, you don’t want cartoony images mixed with real-life photographs, or different colours on different pages. This is jarring for the end-user and they have to work harder to understand your message.

8. Do you have an image carousel on your homepage?

We usually advise against having an image carousel (it can be quite jarring for your end-user) but if you have to have it leave at least three seconds between each slide.

9. Stick to a maximum of two/three colours

Ideally, you want to use two colours throughout your website with a bold call to action or button colour to get people’s attention.

Want the checklist everything you can do to improve your website and get more leads and sales? Click below to download!

Extra Resources/Content that Will Help You Improve Your Appearance…

15 tips to Make Your WordPress Blog Posts Less Boring 

Lead Generation 

It’s unfortunate, but people don’t generally buy as soon as they land on your website. They have a million things to do, and buying your product or service might not be a priority for them straight away. 

It’s therefore wise to capture someone’s email address before they leave your website. That way, you can keep in touch with them, build trust and just generally remind them that you exist until they’re ready to buy. 

There are two major issues we see on websites to do with lead capture. 

1. People don’t make any attempt to capture someone’s email 
2. People make too much of an attempt to capture someone’s email

It’s certainly tricky finding the balance between the two. If we’re honest, our biggest mistake has been number one. We’ve always put content out freely, and we’ve felt a little icky about asking for an email address. But, this isn’t just about the sale, it’s about delivering your end-user a good service. Most of our email subscribers like to keep up with our blog posts and they like to know about special offers. 

Don’t feel guilty about asking for an email address, as long as you’re helpful when you email that’s only going to be of benefit for your subscriber. And if they don’t like it, they (should!) have the power to unsubscribe at the click of a button. 

The alternative is business owners who harras their website user’s for their email address. Pop-up, after pop-up, a call to action after every paragraph, content that appears public but is in fact only accessible through giving up your email address. 

Don’t do this. It’s just irritating to your end-user. No one built a good relationship with anyone by continuously harassing them (except that weird bloke off 50 Shades of Grey but we’ll just ignore that). 

The Quick Wins Checklist For Improving Your Lead Generation 

1. Do you offer a newsletter? If yes, think about how you advertise it!

If you simply advertise it as a ‘newsletter’ then it won’t encourage your end-user to sign up. Tell your end-user what’s in it, what the benefits of it are and how often they’ll receive one.

2. Do you offer a content upgrade or some form of a lead magnet on every blog post?

On that subject, would you like to download this as a handy little checklist that also goes into more detail? 😉
Ideally, every piece of content on your site should have a ‘content upgrade’ that people can download. If not, at least feature a suitable lead magnet for your readers.

3. Have you updated old content (such as blog posts) with your latest lead magnet? 

Got something specific going on like a webinar? Don’t forget to update your older content with a link to your latest lead magnet. You’d be surprised how much this works for very little effort!

4. Do you promote your lead magnet on your homepage?

Don’t forget to feature a lead magnet on your homepage too. Make sure you do this in the first third of your homepage so people don’t miss it. It’s You can do this subtly, but it’s a good way of attracting email addresses.

5. Have you added contact forms to all of your service pages/case study pages/portfolio pages etc?

Capture people when they are in the mindset of wanting to work with you. Add contact forms to each of your key pages such as your service pages or case study pages – you’ll be surprised how many people come from those pages and not your contact page.

6. Do you ask for the least amount of information possible?

When asking someone to fill in your contact form, book a call, download a lead magnet, do you ask for the least amount of information possible? Long forms put off your users. Requesting phone numbers also turn people off (they think you’ll phone and sell!)

7. Is your lead magnet easy to follow and implement?

A free lead magnet should be relatively straight forward and offer quick wins (like the one we offer here ;)) What you want is for your end-user to get a quick, easy win from your lead magnet, that way, they’ll trust you know what you’re talking about.

8. Do you use landing pages for your lead magnets that sell the benefits of it?

You actually have to sell the benefits of the lead magnet! Yes, it’s free but you’re asking people to invest their time in something. You need to tell them what problem the lead magnet will solve. Do this by using a separate landing page that shows the benefits.

9. Have you created a thank you page when someone signs up?

When someone signs up for your lead magnet, redirect them to a thank you page which tells them when they’re likely to receive it and what to look out for in their inbox. Also, get them to take another action here, such as follow you on social media, or mark you as not spam!

Phew. There you have it, our ultimate guide to the ‘perfect’ website. And we say ‘perfect’ because, in reality, we cannot get all six things 100% right all of the time. 

Extra Resources/Content that Will Help You Improve Your Lead Generation…

The Ultimate Guide to a Lead-Generating Website

How to Capture Leads On Your Website Without Being Annoying

How to take payments online for services. PayPal vs Stripe vs SamCart vs GoCardless

But having an awareness of these things, and implementing as much as possible when we can, can make a huge difference to the leads we get from our websites. 

If you’re wanting to get more leads and sales from your website, then check out our membership. Our membership helps small business owners build AND grow their websites, so they generate leads from your ideal clients. 

Martin & Lyndsay

The post The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

We always recommend business owners have some knowledge of how to make changes to their website. You don’t want to pay someone for every little change.

However, sometimes it is better to outsource web design tasks, particularly if it’s going to free up a lot of your time. Spending hours and hours faffing with your website trying to get something to look right is definitely not something you want to be doing!

In this episode, we will be talking about how to outsource website tasks and the best way to do this.

We discuss:

– What we mean when we say outsourcing?
– What tasks could you outsource with your website?
– When not to outsource work
– When to outsource website tasks
– 3 lists to freedom by Chris Ducker
– Where you can find people to outsource to?

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Youpreneur

The post Ep 28 – When to Outsource your Website Tasks appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Before 2017 we neglected our website.

Yep, we’re web designers who abandoned our site. But it’s easy done, isn’t it? You’ve got better stuff to do than keep faffing about with your website, stuff that brings in actual money – client work, invoicing, admin.

We thought the same. We were so busy with client work that we didn’t touch our website. Problem was, client work dried up, and we had nothing in the pipeline to sustain us. We hadn’t put any effort into our website and we found ourselves stuck.

In this podcast episode, we discuss how we managed to increase our website traffic by 10-fold, so we could continue to bring in leads and sales to our business.

In this episode I tell you how we increased our website visitors by 10x within 12 months.

We discuss:

– What we were doing before 2017
– How many visitors we were getting per month
– Why we decided to change things
– What we did to increase our traffic
– How we did it step by step
– Traffic number after 2017

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 27 – How we increased our traffic by 10X appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Every year pretty much every business owner sets themselves new goals, new targets to hit and areas to expand or grow.

But often, we don’t set ourselves any goals for our website.

Our businesses are growing and changing, yet our websites remain static.

This is a huge mistake.

Having no goals for your website means the part of your business that’s viewable to the world is out of date and inefficient.

In this podcast episode, I talk about goal setting for your website and how to measure website success. This includes measuring and improving…

– Web visitors
– Page views
– Bounce rate
– Number of enquiries
– Rankings
– Conversions on sales pages
– Email subscribers

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 26 – New Year’s Resolutions for Your Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Every year we hear the same thing from business owners and personal brands:

‘This year, I’m going to sort my website.’

But then clients and customers come first and the sliver of time you do have to work on your website is taken up by procrastination.

What’s my colour scheme? 
What should I write on my homepage? 
How do I do this bloody techie thing! 

If this sounds like you, you are not alone! We see business owners vow each year to sort their websites only to go into the next year with the exact same one.

You know your website is important. You know that you can’t continue with the website you’ve got and that #WebsiteShame is holding your business back.

So 2019 is the time to get it sorted! 

In this four-part series, we’ll be outlining the four key pillars to website success so you can get your website live ASAP in 2019.

In this final episode, we’re talking about how you can create content that converts your readers into paying customers.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

– How to plan your website content
– What to consider for your homepage content
– What you should include in your content
– How many words you should include
– What to include on your about page
– What to include on your services pages
– Mistakes you want to avoid

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Worksheet Website Content

Transcript

Welcome to Make Your Mark Online podcast, where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Please welcome your hosts, husband and wife team, Martin and Lyndsay.

Welcome to episode 25 of the Make Your Mark Online podcast. This actually episode four of four in this little mini-series. As you know, 2018 is now over and 2019 is here. Part of what we’re trying to do with this podcast and with the Facebook group and the membership as well, is to help as many people as possible create a highly successful website. The problem is, is that quite often you’re just not sure where to start, especially if you’re doing it yourself, and especially if you’re trying to redesign your website from scratch. It feels like a little mountain to climb. This is why throughout this little mini-series, we’re helping you plan your new website.

We’re going to be focusing on four key activities that will help you get your website live quicker so that you can get 2019 off to the best possible start because seriously, we want you to make your mark online in 2019 and stop fluffing around and putting off the website stuff because it will be holding you back. So let’s do this together.

Now this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online Membership. This is our signature membership community where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Now the doors for the membership are currently closed but we will be opening them again later on this month, but get your name in there. Join the wait list at makeyourmarkonline.net and we’ll notify you as soon as the doors open.

Now before we get into the show, we have a little announcement to make. As you know, Lyndsay went off on maternity leave last month getting everything ready for our brand new little boy who was due to arrive on the 22nd of December. On the 21st of December he decided to make an appearance a day early. He’s called Lucas Michael Huntbach and we’re so happy that he is nice and healthy and so is Lyndsay as well, and they’re both doing really well. As you might expect, he’s got us wrapped around his tiny little fingers, but we’re loving every second of it. I’m sure you’ll be hearing his cries in the background on this podcast and I’m sure he’ll be making a few Facebook Live appearances in the Facebook group as well so be sure to check that out.

Like I said, I’m going to be covering the podcast for the next few months while Lyndsay’s on mat leave and then we’ll see how things go and then potentially in season three, she will be coming back and maybe even Lucas as well. Who knows? So something to look forward to. But thank you so much for all of your kind messages and support in the Facebook group and privately as well. We’ve even had some of our listeners send us gifts as well which is so amazing. We’ve never received so much handwritten notes and postcards and chocolates and even little baby presents which is fantastic, so I really appreciate that.

So let’s get into the show.

So in the past three episodes we’ve discussed three major elements that will help you get started with your website. First of all, it was understanding your goals for the website and then it was how to structure your website based on those goals, and then it was what to do when you start to think about design. We gave you three different things that you can do to make your design planning easier.

In this episode, the final episode of the mini-series, we’re going to be helping you plan your content. So what content will you need to have in order to launch your new website? I’ll be honest. We review a lot of websites. We do it in our Facebook group. We also have lots of people pay us privately as well for our website critiques. One of the major issues is that there’s a real lack of content. Most of the websites that we review need to improve their content. We’re not talking about blog content necessarily. I’m talking about content for your main pages.

Quite often the mistake that people make is there’s just not enough content there in general on the different pages and it’s quite vague and broad. What we want you to do is to go a little bit more specific and actually talk about the questions that people might have and actually go into a little bit more detail for the specific services.

We said this in the past couple of episodes as well is that on some websites, when they talk about, “We’ve got all of these services. You can hire us for this or this or this,” but they don’t go into the details of what’s included. They just say, “These are our list of services. Please get in touch.” It’s not really enough.

That’s why it’s so important that we dedicate a full episode to this topic, which is plan your content and have some rules to follow so you can make sure that when somebody does land on your website that they are potentially going to fill out an inquiry form or get in touch or give you a call or at least join your email list, for instance. That’s what we’re going to be going through in this episode.

Now in episode two of this mini-series, which was two episodes ago, we actually spoke about the structure: the structure of your homepage, the structure of your website, as in what pages you’re going to have and how many pages. You should have a list of pages that you need to produce content for, so that’s a good place to start in regards to planning out the content for those pages. But we’re going to go through a few of those in this episode anyway.

So let’s start with the homepage. This is an extremely important page and quite often it’s the most highly trafficked page. It should act like a little bit of a reception area. It should be when someone gets to your homepage and they are directed to the next pages that they’re supposed to go to or that are most relevant. So it’s really, really important that you get this right, the language that you use, the content, the wording, everything really. It has a job to do. It has a role to play and it’s very important that you take your time to plan this page.

Everything from your big bold statement, supporting statement: what content are you going to have for this? Things like the buttons. Are you going to say, “Find out more.” Are you going to go to, “Click here,” or “Check them out”? You can use some quite interesting language with your buttons, so this is your opportunity really to get a blank piece of paper out, actually plan out what kind of content that you’re going to have and spend some time on mapping that out. What’s it going to look like? Have you got any text on your homepage? What’s that going to sound like?

Quite often we find that the mistake a lot of people make with the homepage is they don’t have any content whatsoever, or on the flip side, they go into a little bit more detail than they need to. So for instance, we see this a lot with the promo area, or the promotional area where you’ve got your three key services or your four key services. Quite often we see people go into a little bit detail than they need to on these ones, whereas generally you only need a line or two to convince somebody to find out more, to click on a button. So that’s something that we see a lot of.

You might just need to ask somebody a question on those things, but you do need to plan out what that question is going to be. You do need to plan out what your big, bold statement is going to be. Is it going to be a power statement? Is it going to be a question? Is it going to be a guarantee? We spoke a lot about this earlier on in the podcast, I think it was episode nine. We’ll link to it in the show notes. But it’s definitely one of those key messages that you need to get across on your website and we gave you nine ways to come up with a big, bold statement.

Again, everything on your website is an opportunity for you to build up more trust, come across as more relevant. You can even position yourself as an authority with the language that you use on your website. You can make yourself stand out from your competitors. If you’re the kind of business that swears in your content, then fine, let that be your differentiator as long as it’s authentic. You can obviously use the language and the content on your website to help direct people to where they’re supposed to go. But you need to do something and you need to plan it out. It’s not enough to just copy what other people do because you’re not going to stand out and that’s not going to position your services differently from your competitors. This is why it’s so important to plan out your homepage and the other pages as well.

So what other content might you have on your homepage? You might have a section of text. You may have to come up with maybe 100 words for a little section of text that you’ve got on your website template that’s something that you need to fill out. This might be something like, “You may have struggled to find somebody who can edit your book or who can design your logo and we can help.” You’re actually talking about the problems that people are facing. You’re automatically tackling the questions that somebody might have. You’re not just saying, “We’ve been in business for all these years. We’re amazing. We’ve won loads of awards.” You’re actually talking the problems and concerns that somebody might have in the hopes that they’ll stick around longer and then click on that “Find out more” button or they’ll subscribe to your email list.

That leads us on nicely to that content. What’s that going to look like? Is it a question? Is it a concern? Are you talking about the pain points or are you talking about something exciting that you want somebody to get from your website? Do they need to fill out their email website? This is your opportunity to put it all down on paper. This is why this episode is so important because you know what goals that you’ve got for your visitors and for your website. You know what pages you’re going to have and obviously in the previous episode we talked about design, which will bring it all together as well.

Now this is the content that’s going to really get people on your side. The content has the power and the words that you use have such a force that can help people buy from you a lot quicker. That’s why people pay so much money for content writers. It’s just so important. Even if you’re hiring a content writer or a copywriter and a technical writer, whoever it is that you go to, ideally you still need to plan it out and that’s why this episode is so important. So think about all of the places on your homepage that you’re going to need to create content for and then use this time to map that out. What does it look like on your template? Did you find a theme that you like the look of? How many sections of text does it have? What would you put in those sections of text?

Actually get the demo of a theme in front of you and then mark out all of the words, where they are, and then what you would replace them with. It’s really important that you do this, especially for the homepage. And remember, you shouldn’t really need to do any selling on your homepage. It’s all about convincing people to stay on your website for longer, click through to another page and then you can go into the content a little bit deeper. Then you can educate them on the individual pages.

Nobody goes to your homepage and decides, “Oh, this is the person for me,” the first time they land on your website. “I’m going to ring this person or get in touch and give them loads of money.” People visit your homepage to make sure they’re in the right place, to allow you to build up a little bit more trust and to allow people see you as more noteworthy. Then they’ll go into a little bit more detail and then they get in touch and then they might join your email list and then they might buy from you. So it doesn’t all happen from the homepage which is why you don’t need a lot of content on there, but the content you do have is extremely important to get people through to the service pages which we spoke about in the past. They’re very important pages. These are the pages that will help people buy from you.

Chances are you’re going to need to have an “about” page. Most websites have them. They are very important pages. We’ve never built a website without an “about” page and whenever somebody says, “Do we really need one,” we always say, “Yes, yes, yes. You do.” It’s really important that you have an “about” page because people like to know a little bit more about who they’re working with. They don’t necessarily want to know about your background. They just want to know if you’re trustworthy.

That’s why so many people visit the “about” page. They want to know who you are, they want to know are you capable of helping them solve their problems. So be aware that it’s not all about you. A lot of people think it’s the page where you can actually just brain dump your previous work history onto a page in the hopes that people will sit there and read it with a cup of coffee. It doesn’t quite work like that. Yes people like to get to know you a little bit more and a little bit about your personality, but just a little bit. Easy enough.

The rest of the “about” page should be about what they are having an issue with. With us, it’s does your website make you feel like putting your head in the sand? Do you have website shame? Are you struggling? Have you hired web designers in the past and you’ve not gotten the website you wanted? Have you lost money before? These are the reasons that you want to work with us. That’s what is should be about really. It’s about the problems that your potential customers are facing and how you can help.

Quite often when we write an ‘about’ page, because we do occasionally write content for our clients, we write at the top rather than “about me” or “about us”, we actually reframe our minds by writing “about how we can help”. That just sort of flips that switch in our heads that allows us to create content that’s customer focused rather than business focused and that helps. We always have a little bit of information about the people behind the business which is definitely something you should have, but more than anything, as soon as someone gets on the “about” page it should be. “You’re probably struggling with this. This is why I can help. This is what I’ve done in the past and this is why you should care. This is how it relates to your problems and your business. Get in touch.”

Again, that’s something else that you need to have. You need to have call to actions on your pages. Every page should have an action you want somebody to take. It should have a call to action. Your “about” page is no different. Every page is a sales page on your website, it’s just that you need to be tackling the problems that people are facing.

So an “about” page is very important. We have, I think, close to 800 or 1000 words on our “about” page because we have a lot of problems that crop up that people are talking to us about. “We hired this web designer. It didn’t work because of this. It didn’t work because of that.” We’ve just collated that information and put it on our “about” page. It doesn’t look like there’s a lot of text on there, but there is actually quite a lot and it allows people to get to know us a little bit more, but it also allows people to get to know our processes and a little bit more about what they’re going to get when they work with us. So an “about” page is really important. Take the time to plan out the content for this page. Take a look at our website if you need some guidance as well and what we’ve done, but it is very important.

Next we have the service pages. This is where it gets really interesting actually because when we talk about content, we talk about website content, quite often people think about blog posts and writing really in-depth blog posts. Get lots of traffic to your website and then the money will start rolling in. But we’ve actually found that service pages are the ones that generate the sales and the inquiries. You might get lots of traffic via these big long form blog posts and in fact you do want to do those. We definitely do them as well to draw in the traffic and draw in the numbers, but to actually get somebody over the finish line, to actually get somebody to fill out that inquiry form or get in touch, the service pages are absolutely vital.

It’s very important that you have a page for each dedicated service. If you offer all these different services, you need a page for each individual thing. You don’t just want to have a vague broad statement that says, “We offer these services and we are great at delivering service. The customer service is fantastic. Read our testimonials.” What you want is you want to split your services into individual pages.

You want to write at least 500 words plus if you can. Our service pages are probably again, close to 800 or 1000 word mark because each individual service is different. You’re not going to speak to every single person the same way which is why you need to talk about the individual services, the problems that people faced in the past with these services, and why you’re different.

Show a little empathy. Show people that you care about their individual problems. When you don’t have an individual service page for everything, what you’re essentially saying is, “These are the services I offer. I’m not really going to tell you anything about them, but I want you to give me your money anyway and then we can talk about them.” It comes across a little bit arrogant and maybe a little bit lazy sometimes when we see this. That’s why it’s so important.

People have questions. People are doing more research than they ever have done before. That’s why it’s so important that you go into detail about the services. Don’t be afraid to talk about the processes. You can even talk about pricing if you’re really brave, which is a good thing. That’s what we like to do. But you absolutely need to be talking to that person who is looking for that key service. It’s just not going to work anymore by having 300 words on a service page that just lists your products and services. It’s definitely not going to work. It’s not going to allow me to learn more about how you are different from your competitors and why I should work with you as opposed to them.

This is quite often what we see a lot of websites do when we’re reviewing them. So go deeper into that service, specific problems that your customers are facing, what questions would prospects have before working with you. These are the kinds of things you need to be talking about on the service page. Are you addressing these? Don’t just talk about you’re here, people talk about features and benefits and getting a little bit more clinical about it here. But a lot of websites we see that do go into a bit more detail, they tend to focus on the kind of benefits all through the content, so, “You’re going to feel better. You’re going to live a happier, healthier life. It’s going to be incredible.” They avoid talking about the specifics of the service as well.

So don’t forget about that. Don’t just get your copywriter head on and just talk about benefits, benefits, benefits. You do need to give some information away as to what somebody’s actually going to get when they pay you that money. We were reviewing a website not long ago and for the life of me, I couldn’t work out what I was actually buying because they just kept saying, “You’re going to get more clients. You’re going to get more sales. It’s going to be amazing.” It’s like, yeah, but what am I actually getting? What is the tangible thing that I’m going to get when I give you this money? What am I getting back? I don’t just want this kind of dream life that you’re trying to sell me. I want to know the specific things that I’m going to get.

That’s why people care about specifications of cameras and TVs. When you’re buying things you want to know the specifics sometimes. It’s okay to know that you’re going to feel great after it and it’s going to be amazing and you’re going to live a happier life, but you still need the benefits and the features as well. They go in tangent. So don’t just focus on selling the big dream at the end of it. You do need to give people some key information and that’s why service pages are so important.

A few other things to be aware of: make sure that the content sounds like you as well. Would it be the kind of thing that you would say if you were sat with a client and they were asking you questions and you were answering them? Or does it sound like you’re putting on a little bit of a writer’s mask? You don’t want that to stop you from sounding like yourself. You want to be authentic. So ask yourself, does this sound like me? Write out the content for the pages, give it to a friend or family and say, “Does this sound like I wrote it?” If it does, then great. Keep doing it. But if not, you may want to revisit it because at the end of the day, people want to know that they’re getting to work with you.

If they speak with you on the phone or meet you face to face and they read your website, if it all sounds like the same thing, then fantastic. Nobody’s going to get any surprises when they pick up the phone and they start working with you and they start talking to you. They’re like, “This doesn’t sound like the person on the website at all.” That can be a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s best to keep everything consistent.

Another thing, avoid the fluff and get to the point quickly. What do you want people to understand? People’s attention span isn’t as good as it used to be, especially on the internet, which is why you need to get to the point quickly. So say what you want to say and say it quickly, but obviously be authentic as well.

So there’s a few tips there, but like I say, if you need any additional help with the service pages, then feel free to check out ours. Share a link to a Google doc perhaps in the Facebook group and we can help you with that as well.

Other pages you might need: contact pages. There’s not generally a lot of content on a contact page. It’s best to get straight to the point. If somebody clicks on the contact page, generally they want to get in touch. But just be aware that when you do have content, make sure it’s authentic and make sure that you’re giving people clear direction. Just accept that people don’t want to be messed about. They want quick answers, quick communication and you want to make it easy for people to buy from you as well.

So use regular language. When you’re labeling your menu items, don’t use fancy words for your blog. Don’t use the “journal” or “our thoughts”. Get to the point. It’s a blog. It’s an “about” page. It’s your service pages. Try to not have anybody think too much when they get to your website. It’s really important.

So again, use this time to plan out the different core pages on your website: what you’re going to talk about, what do you need to sell, remember your goals, remember your structure and how this content is going to fit into all of that as well. It’s really, really important. I felt it was especially important to have a dedicated episode to this.

Again, there’s lots of other podcasts that we’ve done, lots of other episodes that we’ve done that break into these different sections in more detail, but this is your opportunity to plan it out before you touch your website. Before you actually start building anything it’s best to get an idea of what content you’re going to have on the different pages and take a few hours at this stage to plan what content is going to go on those pages. If you’re not writing it, then write down bullet points based on what we’ve gone through in this episode and then give it a content writer. There’s plenty of content writers in our Facebook group. If you’re struggling, then we can give you … We can tag a few people in there and you can reach out to them yourselves.

This is just so important that you’ve got this right. Far too many times we have people launch their website and they’ve not got anywhere near enough content and then they come to us and they struggle because it’s not working. They’re not getting the visitors. They’re not getting the conversions, and quite often this is one of the reasons which is why it’s so important.

So that concludes our four part mini-series on planning your website for 2019. Just by using these four key principles you can dramatically speed up the process of getting your website live sooner.

So I hope you enjoyed it and please let me know if you’ve got any questions at all. I hope to hear from you in the new year to find out what you’ve been getting on with following these episodes. Like I said, ask if you have questions at all. If you do need some support with this, some guidance, and you just need a helpful community to help you get your website live quicker, then check out the membership. Check out the website at makeyourmarkonline.net and join the wait list. As I mentioned, we will be opening the doors later this month, so make sure you’ve got your name down.

So I hope you found that episode useful. Let me know how you get on with exercise and don’t forget to download the worksheets to help you with this as well. If you didn’t already know, we have a free Facebook group. We’d love you to join. If you head over the jammydigital.com/facebook. We try to do regular training. We do website critiques every week. We’d love to help you get better results with your website as well.

So that’s it for today’s episode. I wish you a happy new year and we can’t wait to help you get massive results with your website. We’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark Online Podcast.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 25 – Planning Your New Website Part 4 of 4- Website Content appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Every year we hear the same thing from business owners and personal brands:

‘This year, I’m going to sort my website.’

But then clients and customers come first and the sliver of time you do have to work on your website is taken up by procrastination.

What’s my colour scheme? 
What should I write on my homepage? 
How do I do this bloody techie thing! 

If this sounds like you, you are not alone! We see business owners vow each year to sort their websites only to go into the next year with the exact same one.

You know your website is important. You know that you can’t continue with the website you’ve got and that #WebsiteShame is holding your business back.

So 2019 is the time to get it sorted! 

In this four-part series, we’ll be outlining the four key pillars to website success so you can get your website live ASAP in 2019.

In this third episode, we’re talking about 3 key design elements that will dramatically improve your website.

In this episode we’ll cover…

Website Photographs/ Imagery
Your Colour theme
Website Themes

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • Should you use photographs or stock images?
  • Where to find ideas for your colour theme?
  • How to find great themes and what to avoid?

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Deposit Photos

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Transcript!

Welcome to the Make Your Mark Online podcast, where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Please welcome your host, husband and wife team Martin and Lindsay.

Welcome to episode 24 of the Make Your Mark Online podcast. This is actually episode three of four in this little December mini-series. Now, as you know, 2018 is nearly done, and 2019 is right around the corner. And part of what we’re trying to do with this podcast, and with the Facebook group and also the membership as well, is to help as many people as possible create a highly successful website. The problem is that, quite often, you’re just not sure where to start, especially if you’re trying to redesign your website from scratch, and it feels like you’ve got a mountain to climb. And this is why, throughout December, we’re helping you plan your new website. We’re going to be focusing on four key activities that will help you plan your website, and getting it live quicker, so that you can feel better about getting your head into it and actually starting to look at the tools and the tech behind it.

Before you do any of that, we’re going to go through the four important elements that you need to do before you get to that stage. Because seriously, we want you to make your mark online in 2019 and stop faffing around and putting the website stuff off, because I know it’s holding you back, okay? So let’s do this together.

Now before we get into the show, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online membership. This is our signature membership community, where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. The doors for the membership are currently closed, but you can check out the details at MakeYourMarkOnline.net, and you can actually joint he wait list, and we’ll let you know as soon as we open the doors again in January. So let’s get into the show.

So in the last two episodes, we’ve discussed two of the major elements that will help you get started with your new website. First of all, it was understanding your goals for the website, and then it was how to structure your website based on these goals. How to structure the pages, how to structure the home page. Both of these episodes are really, really important. They both come with worksheets, as well, so feel free to head over to those episodes and then download the resources.

In this episode, we’re going to be talking about design. The fun stuff. Although I would say, if you haven’t listened to those episodes, do those first. This might be the fun one, but those two are very necessary, because you have your goals, you have your key services identified, you have the map for your new website, and now, you need to know how it’s all going to be pulled together in terms of the design, so that we can make it look nice and professional.

Okay. So what I’ve done with this episode is I really had to think about the three most important elements that will impact your design, or the design of your new website. And these three sections are photography, and the imagery on your website; the colours, which is kind of the branding and the style; and then thirdly, the theme. Now these three elements, if you break them down, and you just do these three things … there’s plenty more you can do. You can talk about fonts, and you can talk about all that, but these three elements, from experience, are probably the best ones to get started with, because the majority of the website will be taken up by one or more of these three things. These three items are going to help you plan your website and get it live quicker, and yeah, we’re going to go through those now.

Okay, so the imagery on your website. Should you use photographs? Should you get stock images? Should you use vectors or animation on your website? This is such an important element that I don’t think I could ever stress it enough. You can clearly see some websites have not been designed by a professional. Some of them scream, “I have just been down by the designer, or the actual, the business owner.” And photography and photographs and images is the quickest way for you to show people that you have not invested in your website, because it’s just so important. Once someone lands on your website, what are they going to think? What are they going to feel? And chances are, they’re going to immediately see some imagery on your website, and it’s really important that you have a strategy behind it, otherwise it may potentially look like it’s kind of been Frankensteined together, bits and pieces added at different times, and you don’t want people to be on your website and not feel like they’re in the right place. You want people to feel welcome. You want people to feel at home on your website. And you don’t want to put people off, because it’s the easiest thing for people to spot whether or not you’ve invested or you haven’t.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to invest. It means you need to have an system and a structure. And yeah, we actually did an episode a few weeks ago now about photography for your website, so we’ll leave a link to that in the show notes. But this is kind of a quick start guide, really, in regards to photography for your website and the images. They can either make or break a website. I think I mentioned that. And like I said, I can’t stress this enough. It is one of the most important elements. So, yeah.

Now should you use photography or photographs of yourself? You know, the higher that you’ve got somebody to take for you, or should you use stock images? So this is something that you’ll be able to tell me based on your budget, based on how much you’ve got to invest. Or whether or not you know someone who can kind of get to take photos of you. But more that anything, if you’re a personal brand, you’re going to have to have a picture of yourself on your website somewhere. It just so happens that on most personal brand websites, the halo section, the big home page image that you see as soon as you land on a website, usually has an image of the person who’s running the business. You know, the coach, the consultant, the speaker, the author, the business adviser. Whoever it is, whoever you are, and whatever you do, if you’re a personal brand, generally speaking you would have a picture of yourself there.

That being said, quite often I stumble across some websites where they have a picture of themselves, but clearly they’ve taken it themselves, on kind of like a smart phone. Maybe they’ve cut out the background, and it looks a little bit amateurish. So, just because you’re including an image of yourself doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to come across as professional. And when I say professional, I just mean it’s got a certain level of quality. You know, we’ve all been on websites before where it looks as though the website’s been built by the person, and they kind of just cut out an image, it looks a bit awkward and strange. So at some point, you might want to think about hiring a professional photographer. We found it one of the best investments that we ever made, and it’s something that we’ll continue to invest in as time goes on. Yes, we have a really nice camera, and yes, I could potentially set the timer and take pictures myself, but I’m not a photographer. I stick in my lane, and I just do what we do best. I would not trust my own skills with, even though I’ve got a quite decent camera, I just wouldn’t trust myself to do photography myself. It would just look a lot better if I got somebody else to do it, a professional.

So just bear that in mind. That being said, there are some instances where you can’t use a picture of yourself. Maybe you’ve got a small team. Maybe you’re just not sure about it yet, and you just want to get the ball rolling. You want your website live, and maybe you’ll think about that later down the line. That’s fine.

If you do need to use stock images, we do have a few rules to follow, one of which is to keep it consistent. So if you do want to use a series of stock images throughout your website, then make sure you’re being consistent with the style of them. So, we’ve been on some websites in the pas where there are photographs on one page, and then on another page, they’ll have kind of cartoon images, or vectors, as they’re called. And this is kind of a bit awkward, really, because you want that consistency. You want people to not kind of land on every new page and it has a different kind of image theme, if that makes sense. So try to keep it consistent. If you are using photographs, generally stick to photographs. If you are using doodles or vector images or icons, then use them, as well.

There are some occasions where they work well together. You know, if you have been on any home pages, for instance, you may have noticed they’ve got a photograph of themselves, but they’ll still use a few icons around. That generally is okay. But I just want you to be aware of it. Be conscious of it when you’re buying stock images or downloading them.

And that leads us on to the next point, which is, invest a little bit of money. If you’re not spending £500 on a professional photographer, then you can at least spend 50 pence or a pound on an image every now and again. This is your website at the end of the day. If you’re not paying a web designer, then generally, you’ll have to provide the images yourself. And even if you are paying a web designer to build your website, generally speaking, you don’t want to leave the images to them if you don’t have to. You can provide them with some images that you like, and then let them decide which images they want to use. But you want to keep it consistent, and generally speaking, you might have to buy a few images. The main reason for that is if you use free stock images, other websites have used them, as well. Other business probably don’t want to invest in photography because it’s cheap and it’s easy to just download a free one. The problem is, I’ve stumbled across websites in the past that have a lot of similar images.

There’s this one image that just keeps, I just keep finding it on every website. It’s just kind of a standard office image with people talking, but it seems to be overly used. And that’s the risk that you have with stock images. The best thing that you can do is actually get a book, buy images. So if you go to DepositPhotos, for instance, or ShutterStock, or 123RF, then these three websites will allow you to buy packs of images. And at the end of the day, it’s a really thing for your website. You want it to look good, so try to keep it consistent. Try to spend a little bit of money on photographs if you can pay a professional photographer. But just be aware, it’s about making sure that your website looks good. That is important. We talk a lot about SEO, and we talk a lot about content, but the images on your website and the design is equally as important. So don’t skip this step. It is important.

And also get to know tools like Canva, you know, free online tools that you can actually use to edit the images. Sometimes, you need to create an image of a specific size. So get to use Canva, go on YouTube, learn a couple of tutorial videos, and actually just get used to some of these tools, because it’s going to help you further down the line.

You’ll also want to avoid any kind of clearly stock type images. You know the ones I’m talking about, with the big, cheesy grins, and the people with he thumbs-up. You know, those kind of images are clearly stock photos, and it’s best, if you can, to avoid them. Try to find ones that could potentially have been photographs, actually taken by a photographer who you’ve hired. Things like taking a picture of the desk with people’s hands if they’re signing things, if they’re drawing, if they’re sketching, if they’re educating, they’re teaching in a classroom, for instance, or a workshop. Then you can find lots of images of people in that kind of scenario.

Generally find if you zoom in, you’ll get nice little sections of images. You might not need to use all of the images. But you can play around with them. And like I say, you might need to get to know image editing tools like Canva. But hopefully, you got a few tips there in regards to images. Where possible, get a photographer. Get them to take photographs, and check out the episode that we did a few episodes ago about what to do when you’re planning your photo shoot for your website. We give you lots of extra tips away there, as well.

And finally on this one, don’t copy anybody. If you see an image style that you like, you may be tempted to coy their style. We get this quite a lot with our blog images. We spent quite a lot of time coming up with a style that we wanted, and we buy stock images. But people still try and copy what we do, because they like the style, which is nice and flattering, but we’re seeing an abundance of these blog posts being published now, where then everybody using similar sort of images, and sometimes it doesn’t come across very well, especially if you’ve tried to copy because you like the style, but we spend a lot of time editing those images so if somebody does copy, then it might not come across, it might not look as good as you expect. And that goes for you copying other people, as well. Just try to avoid it, and come up with your own style. It’s probably going to be better for you.

Now moving on to colours. colours is such an important topic, and that can, again, make or break your website. It can have such a big impact if you get it right, and it can have such a negative impact if you don’t spend any time on it, much like all of these things, really. Sometimes it’s about just learning a little bit, and then researching, and having a few tools and tips, but quite often, people get colours wrong. So I’ve got a few resources here that you’ll be able to use. Again, you don’t have to be a designer to use these tools. You just have to give yourself a better chance. If you’re planning your website, knowing what colours you want to use and the style, and kind of what those colours mean, is going to have a big, it’s going to play an important part, going to play an important role in the website and how it’s designed.

colours have a unique ability to make us feel a certain way. colours have various meanings. The colour red can mean danger, but it can also mean passionate. The colour blue can also feel cool and cold, but it can also make you feel relaxed. So there’s lots of different colours that, lots of different meanings for those colours. But, what’s important for you is that you find a colour scheme that represents your business, and what you want people to feel.

So, again, without kind of going to university and doing a degree in regards to colours, there is a kind of quick step guide that I’m going to give you now, and you may already have a colour scheme in mind, you may already have colours within your logo that you need to keep, and that’s completely fine. That’s going to make your life a lot easier. But generally, we like to have five colours to play with when it comes to building a new website. You know, the main kind of three colours that we use, and then a couple of extra ones that kind of, more middle of the road colours that are consistent with the rest of the website. But three kind of, or two or three main colours that add an overall brand elements. You may also need kind of this accent colour, like you’ll see people have a certain colour because they want the buttons to be a certain colour, maybe orange or green, that kind of thing, to add to the mix.

So yeah, you want kind of a nice colour scheme that complements. You want the colours to complement each other, but you also want a couple of stand-out colours. One specifically is important to highlight the areas of your website that you need to highlight. So a few different resources. If you don’t know what colour scheme you want go with, then you can actually use a website called Coolors. So we’ll even link to that in the show note as well, and you can actually browse a series of colours. You can browse through unlimited colour swatches, while you can actually lock in certain colours. You can lock in a few colours if you like a couple of them but you don’t like the others. Then you can mix and match, and you can find a colour scheme that’s going to work well for you. Again, this is nice, it’s a nice tool, because it’s free. If you go to Coolors.com, I think it is, you can actually just press the space bar, and they’ll just give you a new series of five colours, and like I say, you can lock some in. So you can just kind of spend ten minutes going through that, and get a few really nice ideas about colours that you like, five colours that you can imagine being on your website. So that’s a really, really good tool.

There’s also a tool called Peculiar, and again, I’ll leave a link to that in the show notes. This is where you can actually search for keywords, words like relaxing, words like winter, you know, general words like sunset, those kind of words that will give you a series of colours. So if you are a marketing guru, and you don’t want to be seen as kind of relaxing, and meditation kind of theme, then you would put a different kind of word in there. You would put hard work, or passionate, something that outlines who you are, and like I said, colours can help you in so many different ways. It can help differentiate you from your industry. Some people, if you are a health and wellness coach, for instance, you may see that there’s a series of websites out there that kind of use green and pastel colours, you know, relaxing colours like that, whereas you mIght be a health and wellness coach that wants to stand out in the industry. So this is an opportunity for you to type in words that you are associated with. So again, great little tool. It’s kind of the search engine for colours, and so have a play around with that, as well.

Another great tool for getting ideas is Dribbble. So Dribbble is a website that is great for inspiration. But if you go to the colours page, then you can actually type in specific colours that you like. You know, if you like a colour, if you have a colour in mind, like it’s in your logo, for instance, and you’d like to have that colour as well as finding other colours, then search Dribbble, and have a look at all of the websites out there that use a colour similar to that colour that you’d like. What you’ll notice is that as you scroll down the page, they’ll start introducing new colours, so you may find that if orange is your colour and you’ve got a certain tone, some of them might use blue, some of them might use another colour, and you can kind of get an idea based on inspiration from existing websites that are already using that colour.

And again, you don’t want to copy people, but it’s nice to get as many colour options as possible. But more that anything, find five colours that represent your business, and how you want people to feel, how you want people to think about you, and like I say, it’s extremely effective if you get your colour scheme right. People like to comment on our colour scheme quite a lot. They recognize it when they’re scrolling through Facebook, and they see a blog post that someone shared on LinkedIn. They can automatically recognize it as a Jammy Digital blog post. So, it’s great in so many ways, but these are a few tools that you can use.

If you don’t know anything about colours, then feel free to share a couple of colour swatches in the free Facebook group. That’s what it’s there for. If you are in the membership, naturally you can add a thread in there and ask us about that. But you’ve got a few tools there that you can use. Again, you don’t have to have gone to university to at least start the process of finding colours. As long as you’ve got a really nice scheme that represents who you are and how you want people to feel when they get your website, and then you’ve got a couple of punchy colours in there that will ask people to do what you want them to, call to action buttons on your website. So hopefully, you found that part useful.

The third and final thing is the theme, the actual theme and template that you’re going to use, potentially, for your new website. So this is important, because a lot of websites out there use templates, use themes that have not been custom-built for their website. They do this for a few reasons. One, it’s really cheap. You know, you can get a theme for free, you can pay a little bit of money and get a good one, and there’s lots of online help and resources out there that will allow you to do your research before you buy anything.

A little secret in the web design space, when it comes to templates, is that a lot of web designers actually use templates to build websites. So if you ever went to a web designer, and you hired them to build you a new website, some of them might use a template. Now, it’s not necessarily a bad thing if they do that, but it happens a lot, especially if you’re paying kind of a low fee for the website. Generally, what happen is you pay them, tell them what you want, and then they’ll go out and find a theme that does what you need it to. So, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I just felt like I wanted to tell you, just in case you didn’t know. If you’re thinking of building your own website, or you’re thinking, “I’ve got £500 to spend, or maybe even £1000 to spend with a web designer, I might as well just get them to do it.” Just be aware that they may be getting a template, a theme, that you could buy for yourself for a fraction of the price. So just be aware about that.

Again, if you can’t do it, that’s fine. Hire a web designer to do it, but it’s best to ask them, are they using a template, which template are they using, and is it something that is within your budget. In some instances, this is a good thing to do. In other instances, we’ve known people who’ve not been told that they’re using a template, and then get a bit frustrated with the amount that they’ve spent, and the web designer’s just used a cheap theme and they didn’t tell them about it. So definitely something I want you to be aware of.

Another thing I want you to be aware of as well, when you’re looking for a theme, is try to find a pre-made theme. And what I mean by that is avoid page builders for now. You know you’ll stumble across a theme, or WordPress system called Divi. This is a page builder. This is an example of a page builder. Things like Thryve themes. These kind of tools make it look really easy for you to build your own website, but actually, it’s quite difficult for a beginner to get to know these tools. They’re kind of a theme within a theme, if that makes sense. So what’s important, I think, for you guys, is to have an open mind when it comes to your website, but make it as easy as possible where you can.

This is why I would probably recommend you find a theme that’s been pre-made for you. It’s okay if some of that theme includes certain page-building elements, but what I would say is there are plenty of templates out there, plenty of themes, that will allow you to build a website quickly without the headache of learning an additional system, as well, like Divi, like Thryve themes. Some page builders are fantastic, but generally, I like to use them after you’ve installed your theme. You know, you’ve found your theme first, and then if you want help building out the pages, then that’s where you can look up page builder. So just be aware of that.

So, the first thing I want you to do is think about your goals. Think about what you want to achieve when you launch your website. Go back to the first episode in this series. Think about your goals. Think about the structure. Think about how that’s going to work within your design. In the last episode, we spoke about structure of the home page, so you want to keep an eye on themes that will allow you to achieve what you want to achieve. We actually provided quite helpful documents in the last episode, where you’re able to download and fill out the different sections on the home page. So, try to find a theme that will allow you to do what you need to do, that will help you achieve your goals.

So what you can do is, when you … To get ideas for themes, you could search via industry. If you are a book editor, for instance, you could type in WordPress themes for book editors. That’s a way to go, although it’s not always necessary, you will get a few features if you do that that you may not already get with a standard theme. So it can be helpful, but don’t restrict yourself to just that options. What you could do is you could type in “best WordPress themes 2018,” or 2019, whenever you decide to do this. You could type in “easy to use WordPress themes.” Yeah, just anything, really. Search quite a lot of themes, get to know a few of them, and make a list of all of the themes that you like the look of, all of the themes that will represent your website, the way you want it to look and feel. And yeah, generally speaking, if you do your research, you’ll cover yourself.

So, don’t buy the first theme that you see. You want to read reviews. You want to make sure that if you do get a list of themes, and you want to shorten that list, a quick way to do that is to actually do reviews on the themes, and actually work out which ones are easy to use. Read what people are saying about them. You can also check the demo of the theme, as well, which is a good thing to do. Quite often, they’ll allow you to browse the back end of the theme as well as the front end of the theme. Again, you’re still going to have to build the website out. You’re still going to have to add your own images, and create the different pages, but a theme will generally mean that you can just worry about the images and the content, and then the theme will take care of the rest.

So you want to make sure it looks good. You want to make sure it looks like a website that you’d be proud of, and you also want to make sure that it’s easy for you to use, as well. So, does it come with documentation? Do they give you instructions on how to set up the theme? Do they offer ongoing support? Some of these theme websites actually have comments that are publicly viewable. You can actually see them without having an account with them. Look at some of the questions that people are asking. Look at some of the replies that the actual developers of the themes are giving back. Doe sit look as though this company are going to be able to support you in your efforts when it comes to creating a website? Again, we’re not buying anything at this stage. You’re just getting a list of themes that you like the look of, and you’ll quickly realize that when you start researching this, the same themes will be popping up, especially if you’re searching for “best templates,” “best themes 2018 or 2019,” or “highly recommended WordPress themes.”

Generally, you can give yourself quite a lot of choice on those ones. And don’t just look for the best-looking ones. You need to make sure that the support comes part and parcel with it. You don’t want to buy something just because it looks good, and then five months down the line, it stops working, because they’re not supporting it on an ongoing basis. So that’s something to be aware of, but like is say, don’t buy anything just yet. We’re just giving you things to think about before you sit down and start handing over your cash. Okay?

So there you have it. Again, it’s more of a technical episode, this one, but it is important. There’s things that you can do with your imagery, with your colours, with your theme, to give yourself quite a lot of power with your website. If you just take care of these three different elements, you can make sure your website looks great. It doesn’t have to look world class. It just has to look good enough so that you are bing represented in the best possible light. Your website will allow you to build more trust with your potential buyers. It will allow you to come across as more note-worthy. If you want to stand out from your industry, these three things are absolutely vital.

So yeah, a few things to be aware of there. So hope you found this episode useful. Let me know how you get on with these exercises. Don’t forget to download the workbook, as well. And let us know how you get on in the free Facebook group. If you didn’t already know, we do have a free Facebook group. It’s at JammyDigital.com/Facebook. We try to do training quite frequently, and there we’ve got website critiques that we do every Wednesday afternoon, which we’ll be picking up again in the new year. And we’d love to help you get better results with your website, too. So feel free to join and say hello.

And that’s for today’s episode. So we’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark Online podcast.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 24 – Planning Your New Website – Part 3/4 Design Elements appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Every year we hear the same thing from business owners and personal brands:

‘This year, I’m going to sort my website.’

But then clients and customers come first and the sliver of time you do have to work on your website is taken up by procrastination.

What’s my colour scheme? 
What should I write on my homepage? 
How do I do this bloody techie thing! 

If this sounds like you, you are not alone! We see business owners vow each year to sort their websites only to go into the next year with the exact same one.

You know your website is important. You know that you can’t continue with the website you’ve got and that #WebsiteShame is holding your business back.

So 2019 is the time to get it sorted! 

In this four-part series, we’ll be outlining the four key pillars to website success so you can get your website live ASAP in 2019.

In this second episode, we’re talking about the structure for your website. This structure is based on the goals you have for your website, which we talked about in the previous episode.

We’re going to go into detail about how to structure your homepage to get people to the right pages on your website. We’ll also be looking at how to present your services. This is exactly the process we follow with our clients to ensure website success!

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • Structuring your web pages
  • Prioritising your menu items
  • Mapping out your homepage (click below to download our diagram)
  • The first third of your homepage
  • Things to consider on your homepage

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Page Structure

Homepage Structure

Ep 22 – Planning your new website – Part 1/4 Goals

Big Bold Statement

Testimonials 

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

Welcome to the Make Your Mark Online Podcast, where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website.

Please welcome your hosts, husband and wife team, Martin and Lyndsay.

Welcome to Episode 23 of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. This is actually Episode 2 of 4 of this little December mini-series.

As you know, 2018 is drawing to a close, and 2019 is right around the corner. Part of what we’re trying to do with this podcast, and the Facebook group, and also the membership as well, is to help as many people as possible create a highly successful website.

The problem is quite often you’re just not sure where to start, especially if you’re trying to redesign your website, and it feels like there’s a mountain to climb. And this is why, over the next few episodes, for the rest of this month, we’re helping you plan your new website.

We’re gonna be focusing on four key activities that will help you get your website live quicker, so you can get 2019 off to the best possible start. Because, seriously, I want you to make your mark online in 2019, and stop fuffing around and putting off the website stuff, because I know it will be holding you back. And I don’t want it to. So, let’s do this together.

Now, before we get into the show, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online Membership. This is our signature membership community, where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Now, the doors for the membership are currently closed, but you can check out the details in makeyourmarkonline.net And you can actually join the wait list, and we’ll notify you as soon as we open the doors again in January.

So, let’s get into the show!

Now, the last episode was all about web cycles, and why it’s important to think about these before doing anything else. Now I highly recommend that you go back to that episode and listen to it, if you haven’t done already. There are worksheets with each of these four episodes. So make sure you check it out in the show notes as well.

Now, in this episode, we’re talking about structure, the structure of your website. What goes where, and how to do it effectively, so you know what you need to include. Now, why is this so important? Well, this is actually a really vital step that’s hardly ever done when people build their own website. Now, much like an architect creates a plan and a structure for a house, you also need to think about how to structure your website. You know, you need a plan. It’s gonna be a lot easier if you have a plan, and some blueprints to follow, so that you can build a website quicker, and make sure that things are going in the right place.

So this is kind of like a bird’s eye view of your website. And this is a really, really important aspect to it, so that you don’t focus on, you know, the minutiae, the focus on the little details. You actually focus on the big picture, and the broad strokes first, so that you can then focus on the finer details later on. And this will allow you to get off the starting block with your website a lot quicker.

Now there are two pieces to this puzzle. Okay. So when it comes to mapping out your website, you have to think about this on two levels. One level is mapping out all of the pages that you’re going to have, all of the core pages that are based on the goals that you have, and the goals that we went through in the previous episode.

You’re going to need normal pages. You know, you’re gonna need a home page, you’re going to need an about page, a contact page, maybe an FAQ. You know, the standard pages will probably need to be there. But we need to take what we discussed in the previous episodes about the services that you offer, about the goals for the website, and consider how they’re going to play a part in the blueprints for your new website.

So, if you have a number of services that you’d like to promote, ideally, we need a page for each one of these services. So again, at this stage, we’re not really thinking about anything technical, we’re not thinking about styles or colors, or content, necessarily. We’re thinking about where things are going to sit on your website.

Now, in the notes for this episode, we have actually included a quick diagram to allow you to kind of envisage how this might look, if you’re not sure where to start. So, it kind of … Imagine that we have a home page, you know, which is obviously a really key page on your website, and branching off from the home page, you’ll have all of the other core pages. So imagine what you might see on a website. You might see a main menu. You may see the about page, you may see a couple of service pages, you may see the contact page. These are kind of the secondary pages where at least, so the home page is kind of the first power page. And then branching off from the home page, you have all of these other core pages.

So you need to realistically know what you need to have on your website. And also, if you have a number of services as well, how might that work? You know, if you have one key service, and that’s all you do, then you may just have one menu item. But quite often what people do is they have a main topic, and then they have their sub-menu items underneath their main menu item.

So this is kind of the purpose of this first task, really, is to understand, based on the goals that we discussed in the previous episode, based on the most important. You know, we told you to put them into a priority list. What do you want to be doing more often? What do you make the most money from? What do you enjoy doing the most? You know, consider how those goals may be linked to services on the different pages.

So, using the diagram, think about … You don’t have to fill out all the boxes. This is just an example. But if you can think about the home page as the main page. You always need a home page. And we’re gonna be talking about that in a minute. But what does the big picture look like? If somebody was to look at a bird’s eye view of your sitemap, how would it look? You know, if you’re giving things kind of three different tiers, as in tier 1 being the home page, tier 2 being the other main menu items, and then the third tier being the sub-menu items.

So if you have services, you’ll notice on our website we have services, and then we have a website redesign, we have a personal brand website, we have started a new business website, we have maintenance packages, and we also have website critiques as well. So those are kind of our third tier of menu items.

So what we’re doing at this … We’re trying to put down on paper where these pages might sit, based on the priority of the goals. And like I say, you’re always gonna need an about page, you’re always gonna need a contact page. You might not always need to, but in general situations, you would have those pages. You might even have an FAQ page. Depending on your service-based business, and your industry, you might want to portfolio as well. That might not always be relevant, but consider what you might need on your website. You may have a case study section as well with individual case studies. This is your opportunity to plan out the structure of your website without thinking about the finer details.

Now this is the very first thing that you’ll need to do. And this is stage 1 of planning out your website, you know, the structure of it. So, yeah. You’ve got your goals from the last episode, and now we’re gonna actually put in some goals down on paper, and working out where they’re going to go. Is it tier 2? Is it tier 3? On some websites, they have more tiers, but again, this is just a general idea, really, to get you off the starting block. So that’s the first thing you need to do.

The next thing that we need to do when it comes to structure and planning, is to think about the home page. Now, quite often what will happen is lots of the other things that we’ve just been discussing, the services that you’ve got, you know, the contact us, and the about page … Quite often what happens on websites is they actually include sections on the home page that link out to these individual pages, these kind of tier 2 pages. And what we need to do, really, is to kind of use the document in the show notes, or just sketch out a kind of a design of a home page on a paper, so that you can actually plan out what’s going to go where. Because the home page actually acts like a little bit like a reception area. When someone lands on your home page, you want to imagine that people just wanna know where to go next. Quite often the mistake that people make is that they think that all of their information needs to be on their home page, whereas in reality, what matters most is you giving people the direction, pointing people in the journey in the path that they need to take to get to what they need to get to. So you don’t wanna overface people with too much content. You wanna give people an idea of what you offer, and where they need to go next to find out more.

So we’re gonna go through this in detail now. So, if you can imagine a home page from top to bottom, naturally, you’re gonna have a logo at the top, you’re gonna have a menu at the top. And the next section down, generally, is kind of the big impact area. This is what we like to call the hero section. Quite often, with personal brands, we’d have an image of you, you know, something that represents your business, so the people can connect with you better. This is your opportunity to include a nice image or something that people can relate to. You know, you want to stop people in their tracks, and you wanna stop people from clicking on the back button. So you need to consider what might go in this main section.

Now, if you’ve ever used heatmap tools, and heatmap software, there’s a few of them on the market, but you’ll have noticed that when you look at these tools, quite often, a majority of the people have stayed quite actively in that main top area. Not as many people as you think scrolled right down to the bottom of the page, which is why this area is so valuable. It’s so important. And if you don’t plan this well, you may waste that section, you may waste and squander your opportunity to get people to do what you want them to do, and to connect with them as well. So this is why this hero section is so important. And don’t treat the images as an afterthought.

The next thing in this section, you’ll also notice on most websites, they have this big, bold statement. They have a clear defining statement that clearly articulates what they do, and why you should care as a visitor. So you need to consider where that’s going to go. Generally, it’s the first thing people read on your website, and it needs to be quite big and bold, and we did actually cover this in a previous episode as well. All about how to create a big, bold statement, and we give you nine ways to do that as well. And we will link to that in the show notes.

Another really important aspect to this area is, potentially, a supporting statement. So sometimes, big, bold statements by themselves, can come across a little bit vague sometimes. So, quite often you’ll see like a line or two beneath the big, bold statement, below this key, clear, defining message, that actually explains, in a little bit more detail, a little bit more clarity, about what it is that you do. We use this on our website as well. So feel free to check that out.

Next, what you need is a button, a call to action. At least one button that will allow your visitor to be able to click on something when they get to your website before they scroll down, before they kind of lose interest, we need to give them a button to click. This will allow your visitor to start using your website, actually start going through some pages. And that’s why it’s really important that you think about what button that would be. Where are they gonna go? Is it schedule a free call? Is it download a free ebook? Or access some video content? Or maybe it’s just a contact page, or get in touch to find out more. Or maybe it’s a link to the service page. Whatever it is, it’s important that you have it. And it’s important that it’s as enticing as possible.

And again, it comes back down to the previous episode: Goals. What are your goals for the website, and can we find a way to include this within the main call to action?

As we scroll down the page, you may notice that, on some websites, they have media badges. They have, you know, signs of their previous publishing records. You know, where you’ve been published in the past. Is it BBC? Is it The Guardian? Maybe you’ve been … You’ve had a blog post published on a marketing, you know, if you’re in the marketing arena. You may be a popular podcast or something related to your industry that people will recognize. This is something else that you can do. It will allow you to build up a little bit more trust and credibility, so that you keep people around for longer. Especially if they don’t know who you are, and whether or not they can trust you.

So that might be something you wanna consider. Have a think about any places you have had things published, or you’ve appeared on things, and what could go there? Just write it down. Again, don’t worry too much about the details right now. We’re just trying to get an idea of where things are going to go.

And then, further down the page, we like to have something called a promotional area, or promo area, for short. And this should be a few boxes, potentially. Or a few things that people can see that clearly articulate how people can work with you. We try to do this on every single website that we build. We always tell people when we’re doing our free website critiques in our Facebook group, it’s really, really important that you use a section on your home page to tell people what you can do, and how they can benefit from working with you.

This is your website at the end of the day, and it is important that we focus your agenda as well, rather than just, you know, being completely free, and giving with all of our content and not have any structure to it. This is why this is … that is so important. We want to make sure that when we are creating content in the future, and we’re getting lots of visitors to our website, that people can actually see, “Okay, they do have services as well. Maybe I want to commit. Maybe I want to hire them. Maybe I want to work with them on an ongoing basis.” And that’s why this section is so important. And it’s not done enough, as far as I’m concerned.

Further down the page, you may want some home page content. You may want a little bit of text to go along with your home page. Just in case you need to reaffirm why people are still here. Maybe you’re just doing a little bit more of rapport building. Maybe you’ve got an image of yourself further down the page. Whatever it is, you may want some home page content. You generally find in most websites, especially for personal brands and small business owners, there’s a little bit of content there supporting, you know, reinforcing why people are on your website in the first place. You may also want to think about links to blog content that you might have, podcast episodes, any resources that you might have, like downloads and free give-aways, and videos, all that kind of stuff. You do want to entice people to stay on your website for longer. And quite often, content is the way to do that.

You may also want to think about video. You know, if you use a lot of video in your marketing, you might want to section out some space on that page for a video. You know, something that helps your business come across better. Video is phenomenal when it comes to marketing, because there’s so few people still doing it, compared to the number of websites on there. So if you look at your competitors, video often can be the one thing that people wait the longest to do, you know, because people are nervous about it, people are frightened. That’s why it’s so good when I come across websites that do use video on their website. It’s great for engagement. It keeps people on your website for longer, and it’s a lot easier to build about trust when they can see and hear you on camera. So you might want a section on your home page for a video to go there. Think about what that video might be, what it would be like, what would you be saying in that video? Just a general outline as to where it’s gonna go, so that you can start to think about, you know, the finer details later on.

Another thing you might want to be thinking about is building your email list. You know, are you hoping to gain more email subscribers? Maybe it’s something that you’ve not done up until now, and you know on the new website you absolutely want to make it a priority. So you’ve got entice people with a free give-away usually. You don’t just wanna say, “Please join our mailing list.” Or, “Subscribe for news and updates.” It’s not interesting enough. So consider where that would go on your website, and what you might consider as enticing enough for your visitors. That’s something that’s quite important, actually. If you are wanting to build your email list, don’t treat it as an afterthought. Think about it at this point, where it’s gonna go and, “What’s the best thing that I can give away in exchange for an email address?”

You may also be thinking about testimonials. Again, we want to build up more trust. Where are these gonna go? How many should you have? You know, these are questions that you should be asking yourself. Is two or three enough? Generally what you find is if you have too many, people get a little bit blind to them. So you wanna pick two or three, maybe four at the most, of your best. Make sure it doesn’t take up too much space on your website. You know, quite often you see these roller banners with testimonials go across. That will save you a little bit of space. But quite often, you know, a couple of testimonials is enough, as long as they are good enough, and as long as they’re not just kind of, you know, just saying how good you are, you know, actually getting to the content there, and say why people hired you. And actually we do have a testimonial, a podcast episode. I think it was around Episode 19? Episode 18, 19. But again, I’ll link to that in the show notes. But again, two or three is generally good enough for the home page.

And, other things as well. Things like if you’ve got a book. If you’ve got, you know, something that will build your trust and credibility. I know some people who are listening to the podcast have already got books out, or they’re planning or writing books as well. So, where would that go? If you’re selling a book, maybe you’re giving a free chapter away of a book in exchange for the email. You know, you can kind of use these in tangent with one another.

But that kind of structure is the kind of things that you want to think about when it comes to your home page. You notice there’s so much that you might stumble across on a home page, but these are the things that we think would generally go on a website that we would be happy to build. You know, we try to cut out any clutter. We don’t have things like social media feeds coming through. You know, I need my social media feeds. And if we have social media links, generally, they’re quite low down on the page. You know, people have to scroll to get to them. Partly because we don’t want anybody leaving your website at the end of the day. We want people on your website so that they can build up trust with you, they can join your email list, they can hire you for your services, they can pay you cash. You know, that’s what a website is at the end of the day. It’s a sales tool.

So, that’s kind of … covers it really. We’ve got the planning in the first section, which is mapping out all of the different pages on your website, how that might look in terms of a priority list. But we also have how the home page might look as well, and structuring that home page. And kind of sketching it out. Not spending too much time on the details, but actually considering where things are going to go, what order they’re going to go in. Use the downloads in the show notes for extra assistance as well. And, hopefully, you will now have more of a structure.

So, that’s pretty much it for this episode. I don’t wanna overface you with too much to do. We’re gonna be getting into, you know, the nitty-gritty in the next episode, and actually thinking about what we’re going to use to build the website, and how we’re gonna actually build it.

So, I hope you found this episode useful. This is such an important step, and that is often so overlooked, and it’s really important before we talk about tools and tech. So now, hopefully, you’ll spend less time, you know, fiddling around with the tools and the tech, and now you have a plan. You have a blueprint. You kind of have a bible to follow when it comes to your website. And again, this is related down to your products, your services. So we don’t have all the answers. This is just kind of a general, helpful episode about how to plan it. You’re the one who has to work out what your goals were, and what should go on this website. And, hopefully, this episode along with the last one, and the next two episodes, should help you create a website quicker.

Now, if you didn’t already know, we actually have a free Facebook group that we’d love you to join. If you head to jammydigital.com/facebook every week we try to do training, we try to do website critiques, and we’d love to help you get better results as well. So, feel free to join, and say hello.

So that’s it for today’s episode. We’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark Online Podcast.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Make Your Mark Online podcast where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Please welcome your hosts, husband and wife team, Martin and Lindsey.

Welcome to episode 22 of the Make Your Mark Online podcast. This episode is actually going to be a bit different from the usual episodes. As you know, 2018 is now drawing to a close and 2019 is right around the corner. And part of what we’re trying to do with this podcast and with the Facebook group and also the membership as well is to help as many people as possible create a highly successful website. The problem is is that quite often, you’re just not sure where to start, especially if you’re trying to redesign your website from scratch, and it feels like a big mountain to climb. And this is why over the next four episodes for the rest of this month, we’re helping you plan your website.

So we’re going to be focusing on four key activities that will help get your website live quicker so that you can get 2019 off to the best possible start. Because seriously, we want you to make your mark in 2019 and stop faffing around and putting off your website stuff which I know from feedback that I’ve got and is happening right now, they just keep putting it off and putting it off, and that’s kind of the reason that we wanted to do this kind of four-part series because we want to make sure that you make your mark online and I know it’s been holding you back. So let’s do this together.

Now, before we get into the show, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online membership. This is our signature membership community where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Now, the doors for the membership are currently closed but you can check out the details on makeyourmarkonline.net and you can join the wait-list and we’ll notify you as soon as the doors open again in January. So let’s get into the show.

Now, in the first of these four episodes, we’re going to be talking about a very, very important aspect to the entire web design process. Now, if you don’t do this, it can have a dramatic impact on how successful your website is and it can feel like you’re just missing a piece of the puzzle and you’re not really sure why your website’s not working and its goals. It’s understanding what your business goals are and how you can use your website to move you towards those goals so that you can make money and achieve everything that you want to do, your website needs to have a goal.

So what’s your goal for the website? Maybe you might have a few goals. For a lot of us small business owners and personal brands, it would be to get customers and to make money. And it’s okay to talk about that. We’re all friends. It’s about making money. That’s why we’ve all got business websites, that’s why we all pay for hosting, we pay for expensive plugins, we pay for really nice themes. It’s because somewhere down the line, we want to make money from it.

Now, that’s not always going to be the goal. You might win a charity and that might be to generate donations or whatever. It might just be to help people. You need to understand your goals, it doesn’t matter what it is. But for most of us, it’s about taking on clients, getting customers, taking on new members and getting booked for speaking, and workshops, all those kind of things. And you need to understand these goals before you can build a successful website.

So when you start to build your website or even if you’re paying for a web designer, you want to think about the techy stuff or you might start thinking about the style, or the colors, or the fonts, or the images, or adding social media feeds, or fancy features. And before you know it, you forgot why you needed a website in the first place. And this is so common. We like to focus on the small details partially because we don’t have a strategy. We focus on the smaller details and we end up procrastinating because we don’t really know what we’re doing, especially when we’re building websites ourselves. We have the best intentions in the world, we want it to look great, but quite often we forget about getting customers, we forget about making money, we forget about the ultimate goal and this is what tends to stop us in our tracks. We focus on the cause, the styles, and all the fancy features and we forget about why we even have a website in the first place. And like I said, this is very, very common.

Now, what really matters with your website is that we need to make sure we get our visitors to do what we want them to. You see, people visit your website for many reasons. It could just be to check on your prices, it could be to read an article, watch a video. It might just be that someone is checking out the competition and you are that competition. So you’re going to get lots of people to your website for many different reasons.

So everybody’s agenda, when they visit your website, is completely different but your agenda is exactly the same. Your website is a tool for you to make money and get customers. So that’s why it’s important to understand the goals so it’s as important to identify the most important goals and how we can take these visitors that may or may not be the right customers and make sure that we are funneling them through and making sure that they are in a position to know what services we offer, how we can actually make money from these people, and it’s your job to understand those goals first so that we can actually reverse engineer the website. And this is by far one of the biggest reasons that websites fail, it’s because they’ve completely missed out the understanding your goals segment. This is so important and that’s what we’re going to get into now.

Now, I’m going to give you a few questions that you can ask yourself and you can actually access a workbook with these questions on. As part of the next four episodes, we’re going to give you a workbook so that you can actually download it, print it off, and actually answer these questions that will help you come up with the plan so that you can launch your website in 2019. So for the worksheet on goals, go to jammydigital.com/22 and you’ll be able to download the PDF file there. And like I said, print it out, fill it out, and yeah, let us know what you come up with for your goals.

So the first thing I want to ask you is what do you have to sell. So what is going to actually make you money? What products and services are you able to provide to allow you to achieve your goals if making money is your number one goal? So what services do you have? Do you offer coaching? Do you offer workshops? Are you a paid speaker? Are you selling books? Are you selling physical items? Whatever it is, I want you to write down all of the services that you offer that make you money.

And this is one of the most important elements for you to do at this stage because it will help you focus your mind when you’re thinking about your website rather than getting the little images to line up and your social media links in there and making sure that you’ve got all of the stuff that you like to procrastinate about and actually focus on the things that are going to make you money. It’s a nice kind of triggering your mine, it’s kind of switching your mindset to think about the money in your bank and your website being a tool rather than getting distracted with the finer details. So that’s the first thing you want to do, write down what services you offer and what things you have to sell.

The next question is what do I need to have on my website to sell these services. So what we’ve really down when we’ve thought about the services and people giving you money at the end of it, we’ve kind of got the end goal there. And what we need to do now is to reverse engineer it. So what you’re going to have to have on your website to allow your visitor to buy from you and to hire you for this particular services.

So a nice little tip is if you up until now, if you’ve been thinking about you and you’ve been thinking about your website, imagine that you are the customer, imagine that you are the one looking to hire a speaker, you’re the one looking to attend a workshop or hire a coach. You’re the one who wants to buy a book. And you’re on this website, what are you going to need to see and to access before you’re in a position to buy.

So this is good because you’ve thought about it from your point of view and how you’re going to make money but you’ve also thought about it from a customers point of view and their goals are completely different from your goals. But if we’re going to convince them to buy from us, then what you’re going to need to have on your website. This is things like a specific page for each of these services.

Now, that sounds really obvious but I can’t tell you how many websites don’t do this. We were reviewing a website recently in our free Facebook group and that’s jammydigital.com/facebook, if you do want a free website critique, feel free. But we were reviewing a website recently that didn’t do this. They had one page for all of their services and they kind of used the services as bullet points. So there’s a couple of reasons that that might happen. They’ve not identified that their visitor might actually want a little bit more information about these services.

You know, if someone’s handing over their hard-earned cash, chances are they’re going to want a service page for each of your services. If I want to hire you as a speaker at my event, changes are I’m going to want to actually ask you some questions, I’m going to want to find out about your feels, and find out about what topics you talk about. And one page to cover all these services is never going to work and that’s why it’s important that you might want to think about having a page for each service so that you can answer those questions.

You know, this is where it gets interesting because you might have completely different audiences as well. So somebody who wants to hire you as a one-to-one coach is completely different from somebody that wants to attend one of your workshops. And that’s why you need an individual page for each individual service and that’s why it’s important to think about your goals first so that when it comes to structuring your website, you start to think about services for each individual product and service that you offer.

The next thing you might want to think about is, well, if somebody’s going to buy from me, the chances are we’re going to have to build up a bit of trust with them. We’re going to have to have maybe a portfolio, maybe some testimonials from people who’ve been in similar situations so that we can actually allow them to imagine what it would be like to work with those. And you’re only going to get to that point when you are thinking about the end goals first and then reverse engineering them. This is why you see so many testimonials that are a little bit vague. “We really enjoyed working with this person, highly recommend. Would use again.” These are the kind of vague testimonials that are not good for anybody. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like working with you from listening to a testimonial or reading a testimonial that you’re really gray. What I want to know is what kind of situation was that person in to hire you and what kind of situation are they in now once they’re hired you.

A couple of episodes ago we did an episode on testimonials and how to get good testimonials for your website so you might want to check that out and we’ll leave a link to that in the show notes. So another question to ask is what order of importance do you have for the services that you offer? Maybe you prefer to do coaching than you do workshops or visa verse. Maybe you prefer to sell loads of books rather than actually sell an online course. Whatever it is that you offer, you have to put it in some kind of order. This is really important because when it comes to prioritizing your menu items and your sub-menu items and where you place things on certain pages, this is going to be important. So think about the end goal first, think about what you want to make money from, what’s the most financially beneficial product that you want to sell. And then maybe that’s the one that gets the most, the highest in the hierarchy of services that you offer.

Do you offer too many services? Maybe you need to slim them down a little bit so that you can actually put more emphasis on a few key services. Maybe you need to scrap a few of them. We’ve actually got to a position with some of our clients in the past where they’re like, “Well, these are the services that we offer.” And if we hadn’t questioned it would have just built a new website with all of those services.

But we always have a discussion with our one-to-one clients where we actually say, “Well, are all these services still relevant?” Yes, it would be easy for us to just transfer over these five services so that you can sell them all, but do you actually enjoy doing them? Do they make money? Financially, is it worth it? And we’ve to positions before where we’ve had people kind of rethink what services they offer and scrap them all entirely.

So it is an interesting topic but you only get there from thinking about the end goal first which is what’s going to make me money and what am I going to have to do to allow people to give me more of that money or attract the right clients. Because sometimes, working with lots of people just for the sake of money is not the end goal. It’s definitely not for us. We want to work with the people who we really want to help and we don’t want to work with … For example, we don’t want to attract super big companies and corporations where we’re only dealing with a few people from a marketing department, with a company over 100,000 strong. We want to help small business owners and that’s what we really love to do. So that’s why it’s important that we articulate that on our website. So that’s an example of what I’m talking about with audiences.

So how many services do you offer? If you can’t get rid of any, then you have to understand that your website may feel a little bit … you’re going to have to dilute some of the key services. So if you have eight key services and you don’t want to get rid of any of them, then you have to accept that everybody’s going to be able to click on as many pages as you want them to. Whereas if you have two or three services, naturally, they’re going to get more eyeballs. That’s just how it works. So you may have to think about grouping some of these together.

We reviewed a website recently that had kind of eight key services, as an example. And after we reviewed it, we recommended that they kind of group a few of them together. Think about your individual services, could you group some of these together as coaching, could you group some of these together as done for you. Instead of if you’re a writer and you’ve got editing and proofreading and content creation, could you potentially just group them all together as done for you if you have too many services. So that’s something to think about as well. You don’t want to overwhelm your visitor.

Another thing to think about is what are your goals for the future? What is it that you might want to introduce next year, in 2019 that isn’t currently on your website. And it’s important to do this because say, for instance, you’re launching a new online course, let’s just say you’re launching a new services, maybe you want to do some public speaking or you’ve just finished your book and you want to sell a book on your website, you’ve got to write this down as well because you have to imagine what your website might look like with that product or service added. It’s okay cutting down your products and services but just in the back of your minds, you want to know how a future services might impact your website. So again, write any future goals down on here. We’re not talking five years down the line. Your website’s never going to stop changing but it’s a nice idea to write down any future goals you might have, maybe even three to six months or 12 months into the future so that you can start to imagine where that would slot in as and when you’re ready to sell.

So that’s it for the first episode. It’s all about you taking some time out to plan what goals and objectives you have for your new website. And this is just a really important topic. And I think, hopefully, you’ll all find it useful. And like I say, print out the questions as well in the worksheet jammydigital.com/22 and let me know what you’ve come up with. What are your key goals?

In the next few episodes, we’re going to be breaking down the next steps in the process so that you can have a highly successful website. And yeah, I hope you found this useful. Now, if you didn’t already know, we have a free Facebook group and we’d love you to join. If you got to jammydigital.com/facebook, we do weekly training, we do website critiques, and we’d love to help you get better results with your website too. So that’s it for today’s episode. We’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark Online podcast.

The post Ep 23 – Planning Your New Website – Part 2/4 Website Structure appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Every year we hear the same thing from business owners and personal brands:

‘This year, I’m going to sort my website.’

But then clients and customers come first and the sliver of time you do have to work on your website is taken up by procrastination.

What’s my colour scheme? 
What should I write on my homepage? 
How do I do this bloody techie thing! 

If this sounds like you, you are not alone! We see business owners vow each year to sort their websites only to go into the next year with the exact same one.

You know your website is important. You know that you can’t continue with the website you’ve got and that #WebsiteShame is holding your business back.

So 2019 is the time to get it sorted! 

In the next four episodes of our podcast, we’ll be outlining the four key pillars to website success so you can get your website live ASAP in 2019.

In this first episode, we’re talking GOALS for your website. Yep, before you jump right in with your theme or page builder or start choosing a new colour scheme, you need to understand your website goals first.

This is a process we do with all our clients, and it’s worth the time you put in. Not only will it make things super clear for you from the get-go, but it also builds you the best foundation for your website.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • Understanding your website goals
  • Why understanding your website goals is important
  • What can distract you from your website goals
  • The questions you need to ask yourself for website success
  • Reverse engineering your customers’ web journey
  • Honing in on your services

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Worksheet _ Planning your new website

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

Coming soon

Useful Resources and Links

Membership Community 

Free Facebook Community

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Transcript

Welcome to the Make Your Mark Online podcast where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Please welcome your hosts, husband and wife team, Martin and Lindsey.

Welcome to episode 22 of the Make Your Mark Online podcast. This episode is actually going to be a bit different from the usual episodes. As you know, 2018 is now drawing to a close and 2019 is right around the corner. And part of what we’re trying to do with this podcast and with the Facebook group and also the membership as well is to help as many people as possible create a highly successful website. The problem is is that quite often, you’re just not sure where to start, especially if you’re trying to redesign your website from scratch, and it feels like a big mountain to climb. And this is why over the next four episodes for the rest of this month, we’re helping you plan your website.

So we’re going to be focusing on four key activities that will help get your website live quicker so that you can get 2019 off to the best possible start. Because seriously, we want you to make your mark in 2019 and stop faffing around and putting off your website stuff which I know from feedback that I’ve got and is happening right now, they just keep putting it off and putting it off, and that’s kind of the reason that we wanted to do this kind of four-part series because we want to make sure that you make your mark online and I know it’s been holding you back. So let’s do this together.

Now, before we get into the show, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online membership. This is our signature membership community where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Now, the doors for the membership are currently closed but you can check out the details on makeyourmarkonline.net and you can join the wait-list and we’ll notify you as soon as the doors open again in January. So let’s get into the show.

Now, in the first of these four episodes, we’re going to be talking about a very, very important aspect to the entire web design process. Now, if you don’t do this, it can have a dramatic impact on how successful your website is and it can feel like you’re just missing a piece of the puzzle and you’re not really sure why your website’s not working and its goals. It’s understanding what your business goals are and how you can use your website to move you towards those goals so that you can make money and achieve everything that you want to do, your website needs to have a goal.

So what’s your goal for the website? Maybe you might have a few goals. For a lot of us small business owners and personal brands, it would be to get customers and to make money. And it’s okay to talk about that. We’re all friends. It’s about making money. That’s why we’ve all got business websites, that’s why we all pay for hosting, we pay for expensive plugins, we pay for really nice themes. It’s because somewhere down the line, we want to make money from it.

Now, that’s not always going to be the goal. You might win a charity and that might be to generate donations or whatever. It might just be to help people. You need to understand your goals, it doesn’t matter what it is. But for most of us, it’s about taking on clients, getting customers, taking on new members and getting booked for speaking, and workshops, all those kind of things. And you need to understand these goals before you can build a successful website.

So when you start to build your website or even if you’re paying for a web designer, you want to think about the techy stuff or you might start thinking about the style, or the colors, or the fonts, or the images, or adding social media feeds, or fancy features. And before you know it, you forgot why you needed a website in the first place. And this is so common. We like to focus on the small details partially because we don’t have a strategy. We focus on the smaller details and we end up procrastinating because we don’t really know what we’re doing, especially when we’re building websites ourselves. We have the best intentions in the world, we want it to look great, but quite often we forget about getting customers, we forget about making money, we forget about the ultimate goal and this is what tends to stop us in our tracks. We focus on the cause, the styles, and all the fancy features and we forget about why we even have a website in the first place. And like I said, this is very, very common.

Now, what really matters with your website is that we need to make sure we get our visitors to do what we want them to. You see, people visit your website for many reasons. It could just be to check on your prices, it could be to read an article, watch a video. It might just be that someone is checking out the competition and you are that competition. So you’re going to get lots of people to your website for many different reasons.

So everybody’s agenda, when they visit your website, is completely different but your agenda is exactly the same. Your website is a tool for you to make money and get customers. So that’s why it’s important to understand the goals so it’s as important to identify the most important goals and how we can take these visitors that may or may not be the right customers and make sure that we are funneling them through and making sure that they are in a position to know what services we offer, how we can actually make money from these people, and it’s your job to understand those goals first so that we can actually reverse engineer the website. And this is by far one of the biggest reasons that websites fail, it’s because they’ve completely missed out the understanding your goals segment. This is so important and that’s what we’re going to get into now.

Now, I’m going to give you a few questions that you can ask yourself and you can actually access a workbook with these questions on. As part of the next four episodes, we’re going to give you a workbook so that you can actually download it, print it off, and actually answer these questions that will help you come up with the plan so that you can launch your website in 2019. So for the worksheet on goals, go to jammydigital.com/22 and you’ll be able to download the PDF file there. And like I said, print it out, fill it out, and yeah, let us know what you come up with for your goals.

So the first thing I want to ask you is what do you have to sell. So what is going to actually make you money? What products and services are you able to provide to allow you to achieve your goals if making money is your number one goal? So what services do you have? Do you offer coaching? Do you offer workshops? Are you a paid speaker? Are you selling books? Are you selling physical items? Whatever it is, I want you to write down all of the services that you offer that make you money.

And this is one of the most important elements for you to do at this stage because it will help you focus your mind when you’re thinking about your website rather than getting the little images to line up and your social media links in there and making sure that you’ve got all of the stuff that you like to procrastinate about and actually focus on the things that are going to make you money. It’s a nice kind of triggering your mine, it’s kind of switching your mindset to think about the money in your bank and your website being a tool rather than getting distracted with the finer details. So that’s the first thing you want to do, write down what services you offer and what things you have to sell.

The next question is what do I need to have on my website to sell these services. So what we’ve really down when we’ve thought about the services and people giving you money at the end of it, we’ve kind of got the end goal there. And what we need to do now is to reverse engineer it. So what you’re going to have to have on your website to allow your visitor to buy from you and to hire you for this particular services.

So a nice little tip is if you up until now, if you’ve been thinking about you and you’ve been thinking about your website, imagine that you are the customer, imagine that you are the one looking to hire a speaker, you’re the one looking to attend a workshop or hire a coach. You’re the one who wants to buy a book. And you’re on this website, what are you going to need to see and to access before you’re in a position to buy.

So this is good because you’ve thought about it from your point of view and how you’re going to make money but you’ve also thought about it from a customers point of view and their goals are completely different from your goals. But if we’re going to convince them to buy from us, then what you’re going to need to have on your website. This is things like a specific page for each of these services.

Now, that sounds really obvious but I can’t tell you how many websites don’t do this. We were reviewing a website recently in our free Facebook group and that’s jammydigital.com/facebook, if you do want a free website critique, feel free. But we were reviewing a website recently that didn’t do this. They had one page for all of their services and they kind of used the services as bullet points. So there’s a couple of reasons that that might happen. They’ve not identified that their visitor might actually want a little bit more information about these services.

You know, if someone’s handing over their hard-earned cash, chances are they’re going to want a service page for each of your services. If I want to hire you as a speaker at my event, changes are I’m going to want to actually ask you some questions, I’m going to want to find out about your feels, and find out about what topics you talk about. And one page to cover all these services is never going to work and that’s why it’s important that you might want to think about having a page for each service so that you can answer those questions.

You know, this is where it gets interesting because you might have completely different audiences as well. So somebody who wants to hire you as a one-to-one coach is completely different from somebody that wants to attend one of your workshops. And that’s why you need an individual page for each individual service and that’s why it’s important to think about your goals first so that when it comes to structuring your website, you start to think about services for each individual product and service that you offer.

The next thing you might want to think about is, well, if somebody’s going to buy from me, the chances are we’re going to have to build up a bit of trust with them. We’re going to have to have maybe a portfolio, maybe some testimonials from people who’ve been in similar situations so that we can actually allow them to imagine what it would be like to work with those. And you’re only going to get to that point when you are thinking about the end goals first and then reverse engineering them. This is why you see so many testimonials that are a little bit vague. “We really enjoyed working with this person, highly recommend. Would use again.” These are the kind of vague testimonials that are not good for anybody. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like working with you from listening to a testimonial or reading a testimonial that you’re really gray. What I want to know is what kind of situation was that person in to hire you and what kind of situation are they in now once they’re hired you.

A couple of episodes ago we did an episode on testimonials and how to get good testimonials for your website so you might want to check that out and we’ll leave a link to that in the show notes. So another question to ask is what order of importance do you have for the services that you offer? Maybe you prefer to do coaching than you do workshops or visa verse. Maybe you prefer to sell loads of books rather than actually sell an online course. Whatever it is that you offer, you have to put it in some kind of order. This is really important because when it comes to prioritizing your menu items and your sub-menu items and where you place things on certain pages, this is going to be important. So think about the end goal first, think about what you want to make money from, what’s the most financially beneficial product that you want to sell. And then maybe that’s the one that gets the most, the highest in the hierarchy of services that you offer.

Do you offer too many services? Maybe you need to slim them down a little bit so that you can actually put more emphasis on a few key services. Maybe you need to scrap a few of them. We’ve actually got to a position with some of our clients in the past where they’re like, “Well, these are the services that we offer.” And if we hadn’t questioned it would have just built a new website with all of those services.

But we always have a discussion with our one-to-one clients where we actually say, “Well, are all these services still relevant?” Yes, it would be easy for us to just transfer over these five services so that you can sell them all, but do you actually enjoy doing them? Do they make money? Financially, is it worth it? And we’ve to positions before where we’ve had people kind of rethink what services they offer and scrap them all entirely.

So it is an interesting topic but you only get there from thinking about the end goal first which is what’s going to make me money and what am I going to have to do to allow people to give me more of that money or attract the right clients. Because sometimes, working with lots of people just for the sake of money is not the end goal. It’s definitely not for us. We want to work with the people who we really want to help and we don’t want to work with … For example, we don’t want to attract super big companies and corporations where we’re only dealing with a few people from a marketing department, with a company over 100,000 strong. We want to help small business owners and that’s what we really love to do. So that’s why it’s important that we articulate that on our website. So that’s an example of what I’m talking about with audiences.

So how many services do you offer? If you can’t get rid of any, then you have to understand that your website may feel a little bit … you’re going to have to dilute some of the key services. So if you have eight key services and you don’t want to get rid of any of them, then you have to accept that everybody’s going to be able to click on as many pages as you want them to. Whereas if you have two or three services, naturally, they’re going to get more eyeballs. That’s just how it works. So you may have to think about grouping some of these together.

We reviewed a website recently that had kind of eight key services, as an example. And after we reviewed it, we recommended that they kind of group a few of them together. Think about your individual services, could you group some of these together as coaching, could you group some of these together as done for you. Instead of if you’re a writer and you’ve got editing and proofreading and content creation, could you potentially just group them all together as done for you if you have too many services. So that’s something to think about as well. You don’t want to overwhelm your visitor.

Another thing to think about is what are your goals for the future? What is it that you might want to introduce next year, in 2019 that isn’t currently on your website. And it’s important to do this because say, for instance, you’re launching a new online course, let’s just say you’re launching a new services, maybe you want to do some public speaking or you’ve just finished your book and you want to sell a book on your website, you’ve got to write this down as well because you have to imagine what your website might look like with that product or service added. It’s okay cutting down your products and services but just in the back of your minds, you want to know how a future services might impact your website. So again, write any future goals down on here. We’re not talking five years down the line. Your website’s never going to stop changing but it’s a nice idea to write down any future goals you might have, maybe even three to six months or 12 months into the future so that you can start to imagine where that would slot in as and when you’re ready to sell.

So that’s it for the first episode. It’s all about you taking some time out to plan what goals and objectives you have for your new website. And this is just a really important topic. And I think, hopefully, you’ll all find it useful. And like I say, print out the questions as well in the worksheet jammydigital.com/22 and let me know what you’ve come up with. What are your key goals?

In the next few episodes, we’re going to be breaking down the next steps in the process so that you can have a highly successful website. And yeah, I hope you found this useful. Now, if you didn’t already know, we have a free Facebook group and we’d love you to join. If you got to jammydigital.com/facebook, we do weekly training, we do website critiques, and we’d love to help you get better results with your website too. So that’s it for today’s episode. We’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark Online podcast.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 22 – Planning your new website – Part 1/4 Goals appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Over the past 10 years, we’ve tried hundreds (probably thousands) of tools that help us and our clients improve their websites and processes.

Some tools are fantastic, helping us save time and money. Others, are terrible, taking ages to wrap your head around or costing too much for your business.

So in this podcast episode, we’ll be running through our favourite tools that we use all the time to improve your website and business.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • The best tools to create images and graphics for your website
  • The best video hosting software
  • The best email marketing tools
  • Our favourite page builders
  • The best tools for taking bookings over your website
  • The best tools for taking payments over your website

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

1.52 – Why are we talking about ego?
2.42 – Why personal brands fall into the ‘ego’ trap
4.02- Your about page is not about you
6.57 – Be careful of the word ‘newsletter’
10.21 – Using silly names for normal stuff
13.36 – Caring more about aesthetics than anything else
16.57 – Thinking too much about your competitors
20.04 – Using your blog as a promotional tool

Useful Resources and Links

Membership Community 

Free Facebook Community

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 21 – The best tools to improve your website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

We’re all human. And sometimes being human means our egos can get the better of us.

Generally, it’s okay when this happens. We can keep ourselves in check and try to be better people.

BUT, what happens when our egos creep into our business and, more specifically, our websites?

In this podcast episode, we’ll be going through our top ego-driven, website faux-pas that will drive your end-user insane!

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • Your about page is not about you!
  • Why you should steer clear of the word ‘newsletter’
  • Using silly names for normal stuff
  • Looking pretty is way more important than user-experience, right?
  • When your website is for your competitors
  • Using a blog as a promotional tool

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

1.52 – Why are we talking about ego?
2.42 – Why personal brands fall into the ‘ego’ trap
4.02- Your about page is not about you
6.57 – Be careful of the word ‘newsletter’
10.21 – Using silly names for normal stuff
13.36 – Caring more about aesthetics than anything else
16.57 – Thinking too much about your competitors
20.04 – Using your blog as a promotional tool

Useful Resources and Links

Membership Community 

Free Facebook Community

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Episode Transcript Below

Welcome to episode 20 of the Make Your Mark Online podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about how your ego can stop you from having a successful website. But before we get into the show, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online membership. This is our signature membership community, where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. The doors for the membership are currently closed, but you can check out the details at the MakeYourMarkOnline.net website, and you can join the wait list, and we’ll notify you as soon as we open the doors again in January.

Now, just before we get into the show, we just wanted to let you know that this is actually the end of season one of the podcast, as Lyndsay is now going off on mat leave.

I am, yes. And you’re going to be all by yourself, aren’t you?

I am, yeah. It’s going to be lonely.

It’s going to be lonely for you.

Yeah. But we felt that this would be a nice place to break up the episodes so that I can take it from here as a solo show for a few months until you come back next year.

Yes. And I’m hoping the listeners don’t double while you’re doing your solo show.

That would be really embarrassing, wouldn’t it?

It would, really.

We just can’t get enough of this manc accent.

Yeah. Get rid of her.

But we are actually continuing straight on with season two on the podcast, so there won’t be any gaps. So it’ll just be the next episode next week as normal, but it will just be yours truly instead of the both of us.

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

So yeah, let’s get into the show.

So Lyndsay, this episode is all about ego.

It is.

It’s an interesting topic.

Yeah, it is interesting because I think we can all have a bit of ego from time to time, and we all are human, and sometimes ego creeps in. But sometimes, it creeps into our websites, and this can actually make them less successful, and it can kind of harm your conversions and things like that. So yeah, that’s why it’s quite a good topic to talk about I think.

Yeah. I think you’re right. And I think it’s when we forget about the end user mor than anything else.

Yeah.

And you see it a lot on websites these days, and we focus on ourselves and our business rather than our potential customers.

Yeah, definitely. That’s pretty much the nail on the head of when ego creeps into our websites, and as Martin always says, your website is not about you.

No, absolutely.

So I have to say, this is actually something that impacts a lot of personal brands. When you’re a personal brand, it’s tempting to make everything about yourself. You’re selling you, which I get, so it’s quite difficult not to. But we can easily fall into the trap of kind of making everything about ourselves and our brand and kind of forgetting about that end user. So it’s quite a difficult one for personal brands, I think.

Yeah, it’s definitely a difficult balance, I think, isn’t it?

Definitely.

And it’s not just personal brands, as well. Big businesses also fall fowl of this, as well. It tends to be there’s a certain arrogance of being a big business or a larger business. Big business websites also tend to make quite a lot of mistakes with their website, too.

Yeah, definitely. It’s not just the little guys that, like you said, fall fowl of it. It is big businesses as well, so we see countless examples of this when we are just browsing the web all the time, and it kind of irritates us, doesn’t it? So yeah, it’s not just the little guys. Definitely not.

Okay. So from all of our research and all of the websites we’ve reviewed over the years, big businesses and small businesses, have we got a list of things that we can do to make sure that we kind of leave our ego at the door?

Yeah, I think the first thing that we constantly talk about is about your “about” page, and a lot of businesses make their “about” page just about themselves, and I get why because you think “about us”, “about me” is just going to be about you, and you see this sort of start of the page that says, “I graduated in 1984 with this thing, and I did this, and I’ve done that, and I am brilliant.” And it can kind of put your end users off, really. They’re not going to be interested in that information. Yes, they want to know you’re qualified and things like that, but that “about” page is just either going to be really boring for them or it’s just going to turn them off and make them think you’re a bit of a big head.

Yeah, but I don’t think it’s your fault a lot of the time, as our listener. I don’t think it’s your fault because people say, “About me. This is about us. This is our “about” page.” And this is the one page where you think that you can actually talk a little bit about yourself and not your customer’s problems, but that’s not true, actually.

No.

You don’t have a lot of wiggle room on this one. But yeah, the “about” page actually is one of the busiest pages on your website. It’s one of the pages that draws in a lot of traffic. So yes, it’s okay to be about you a little bit, but more than anything you have to remember that if somebody’s clicking on your “about” page, they still want to do business with you, and by having a big block of text saying all about you, it does put an extra barrier into play, in the waves, doesn’t it?

Yeah, definitely, definitely. And I think, yeah, you’re right, maybe sometimes it doesn’t come from a place of ego, it’s just a case of, “I’m unsure of what to put on this page, and I’m just going to talk about myself for the next paragraphs.” But yeah, I think that it just comes across as very self-centered when we just talk about ourselves on our “about” page. I’m not saying don’t talk about yourself at all, but you need to put the onus really on the end user, and more make it about how you can help them. We actually have an episode, a podcast episode about how to write an “about” page, and I’ll put that in the show notes because that explains it quite clearly in there. But that’s a big, epic one, really, that we talk about quite a lot, where your ego can creep in, and you can end up just being quite self-focused.

Yeah.

Particularly on that page. And as Martin said, it’s quite an important page on your website. It’s usually well trafficked, so you want to make sure you’re taking advantage of it and actually getting people to do something, and connecting with people, and getting them to actually convert into a customer or lead on that page, not just talking about yourself.

Yeah. It is important because every page on your website is a sales page.

Exactly.

Okay. So what’s next, and what else are we doing out there that may cause our ego to get in the way of getting customers and leads?

Yeah, another thing people do that really bugs us. This is just a big, giant episode of things that bug us. Is that people offer a newsletter-

Oh, that old [inaudible 00:07:08]

Yeah. People offer a newsletter. Sometimes it comes as a pop-up, which is like a double whammy of joy.

It’s like a double [crosstalk 00:07:16] around your face.

And I get why people do this, I do. A lot of people offer just a newsletter in exchange for someone’s email address, and sometimes you just say, “Sign up to my newsletter.” Sometimes we say, “Sign up to my newsletter and get my latest news.” Or thoughts, or whatever it is. But you have to think, how much do people really care about your latest news? Do people care that we got a new office plan this week? Probably not. I don’t know. And I think, yeah, I think newsletter just isn’t good enough really to get someone’s email address. You have to be respectful of someone’s personal information. If you’re requesting that information, you kind of have to give something in exchange for that. You can’t just say, “Sign up to my newsletter.” Because at the end of the day, people probably don’t care. It’s your ego coming into that, I think.

Yeah, and we’re not saying that you can’t tell people about your business and what you’ve been up to, but the idea of a newsletter and you saying the word newsletter makes it feel like it’s just going to be a bulletin about you and about what you’ve been up to.

Yeah.

So we’re not talking about, you don’t have to not tell people what you’ve been up to. It’s great to learn more about you and about how you run your business and let everybody get to know who you are, but try to avoid using the word newsletter because I just think it’s becoming … there’s a negative effect that it’s having out there, so you’ve got to be careful. When I see the word newsletter, I think I’m going to sign up, and I’m going to learn about what you think about things and what are your thoughts and feelings, and it’s very internal rather than thinking about your customers. So just something to be aware of I think [inaudible 00:09:09].

Yeah, definitely. And actually, some businesses offer really, really good stuff. They offer really good stuff in emails every week, but they just call it a newsletter, and I think if they called it something else, I think they would find that conversions on that call to action a lot better, definitely. But yeah, just newsletter, like Martin said just sounds like it’s going to be just about you and your company and what’s going on in your life, which is fine to talk about, but you don’t want to be talking about it all the time. So to get people’s email address, yes, I think you either need to give something away for free, something meaty in exchange for their email address or just reword what the actual newsletter is.

Yeah. Unless you’re famous like Ann Handley and Chris Kroeger and these people that just from saying newsletter, it’s like, “Oh, I’d actually like to know what they’ve been up to. I’d actually like to know if Chris has got a new video game playing on.” But again, we’re not all at that same level.

No.

So you have to think about your customers more than you think about yourself.

Yes, definitely, definitely.

Okay, so what else are we doing? What else are we doing that’s infuriating you today?

This is great. This is a great eight and a half month pregnant episode. Just rip into things. Another one would be using silly names on websites for normal stuff.

Oh God, yes.

It really, really irritates me. If I see the words “My Journey” instead of “About” on a homepage menu, I’ll go insane. Yeah, I think people have this idea of wanting to be kind of quirky and different, so they give things different names. I’ve seen “blog” called “growth zone”, I’ve seen all sorts of different things.

Yeah, or “our stories” as the blog. And I’m like, what?

“Our stories”, yes. That was a strange one.

That’s the most egotistical thing I think I’ve ever seen on a website. Crazy.

Yeah, I think it is. It is very much like that. And it’s a mistake that a lot of people do make because they want to be different, but if you think about it from the end user’s point of view, and I think this is the point that we keep making, it’s that they know immediately what “about” is, they know immediately what “blog” is, and they can easily get to those pages, and they don’t have to think about it. Whereas, if it says “my journey” or “my stories”, that doesn’t make any sense really to anyone.

Yeah. Imagine if you were to walk into a shop and they changed the aisles. Rather than “dairy”, they said “cow stuff”. That’s the worst example I’ve ever used in anything.

That’s terrible.

Okay, so “vegetables” is “plant stuff”, and you’ve just got to kind of figure it out for yourself.

I actually would like to shop there.

I know. That’s our next business. Settled that. But you see what we’re saying. It’s about not letting your visitors think, like, why are you making them jump through hoops to access information that they already know, like, and trust, you know what I mean?

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

We wouldn’t change the name “website”. We could just introduce a new way to say website, but it’s like, what’s the point? People know what it is.

And I think this is the thing of, like, big businesses do this a lot we find as well. They kind of use this weird terminology, and there’s absolutely no reason for doing so.

You’re still laughing at “cow stuff”?

I’m still laughing at “cow stuff”, you’ve made me giggle too much. So I think, yes, I think stick to the normal names for things, make it easier for your end users, and try not to be different and unique in that sense. It doesn’t mean in your actual copy you can’t be yourself and reflect your brand, but I think when you’re naming pages and things like that, try to stick to the normal stuff, really, rather than using “cow stuff”.

Yeah. Don’t forget about SCO as well, because if you have a service page where you offer, and we’ve said this before about, let’s just say that you’re a solicitor, and you offer will writing or whatever, and you decide to call it something completely different, then people searching online won’t be able to find it because they know the terminology that they’re used to.

Exactly.

So it’s kind of a negative impact in terms of traffic as well.

Yeah, definitely. So I think further on with this is a lot of businesses care more about how their website looks than user experience.

This happens a lot.

It does happen a lot. We see this with luxury brands all the time. So they use … if you go onto many luxury brand websites, they use really small text-

They do do that. Why?

It’s really difficult to read. They do.

Why is that just a luxury brands thing? It seems to be, doesn’t it?

I don’t know, they just … I don’t know whether the customers just have really good eyesight.

Yeah.

I don’t know.

30/30 vision.

It’s not aimed at us. We wear glasses. We’re not good enough for these luxury brands. I’m really not sure. I mean, I went on a luxury brand website today to try and look at this, and also their product descriptions are terrible. There was one who was advertising a suit for 3000 pounds, and the product description had six words.

I’ll buy two, please.

And I get, you don’t want words to reflect badly on your organization, to look ugly on the page, but people might want to know a little bit more when they’re spending 3000 pounds on a suit.

Might do.

I don’t know. Maybe.

Or maybe you want to live life on the dangerous side, you’re just like, “Yeah, it’s 3000 pound, and I don’t really understand what this is about, I can’t really see it because the text is too small, but yeah, let’s do it.”

Yeah, let’s do it. I think a lot of things like art, luxury brands, those-

Even photography-

Photography, yes.

It’s generally more-

Image based.

Imaged based, and branding. And what you’re saying really is that branding sometimes and design can get in the way of user experience when really we should be using users to come up with design. How a website’s built and constructed and looks should be based around your target audience, otherwise, it’s just about you, and that’s where the ego comes in.

Yeah, exactly. If you want a good example of this, Apple, their website is quite a good example of a website that is both beautiful, but also thinks about their users as well. They do it quite, quite well, and it is possible. You have to get that balance right, I totally understand that. It’s not good to have an ugly, user friendly website, but I think you have to think about your end user. If you have something so beautiful, websites aren’t a piece of art, they’re not there to be looked at. They’re there to actually do something, so don’t try and get so hung up on how it looks to much so that the end users are the ones that suffer really.

Yeah, no, that’s a great point, and I think it’s a fairly common thing. Especially when you’re building the website as well. This happens a lot because you’re thinking a lot about how you want to be perceived and what people will think, what your friends and family will think when they see your website, and you want it to look amazing. But while you’re thinking like that, you’re not thinking about your customers or the people that are going to give you money. And in some cases, you’re thinking about your competitors, which is very strange.

Yeah, definitely. And that actually leads us on to the next point actually, which is businesses that think about their competitors too much.

True, yeah. It does impact-

It does.

The way we think about our websites.

Yeah, and a lot of businesses do this. We know from working with businesses and talking to businesses that they are, a lot of them are quite bothered around, “Such a body’s got this thing, and such a body does this thing, and we’ve got to be better, we’ve got to do this, and we’ve got to do that.” And there’s a lot of focus on what your competitors do, particularly in our industry, so web design.

Definitely.

Web designers are terrible because we use sort of jargony language and try and look like we know exactly what we’re talking about and use really technical terms and try and show off in front of each other.

Exactly. Like PHP and having all these little weird languages on your website to try and appeal to your customers in the hopes that they’re going to be baffled and they’re going to buy from you because you know more than them is such an outdated way of looking at a website, and that’s what a lot of web designers do. We talk a lot about people in other industries. We talk about accountants and the way that they use their language, and sometimes they come across stuffy, and we talk about … we don’t want to leave web designers out of it because they do a lot of really bad stuff as well. So when we use examples sometimes, we might tend to focus on certain industries, but we’re not the best, the web design industry is one of the worst for this.

And I think sometimes it can be a bit like, “Well, we know what we’re doing, so you probably don’t understand any of this.”

So you shut up and sit in a corner and just give us your money.

Give me money, yeah, and I will do what I can do. Whereas I think there’s arrogance about it, but pretty much anyone who wants to apply themselves, could be a website, it could be an accountant, it could be any of these things, you can learn it, and there’s no need to be arrogant about it really, so we try to explain things in as simple language as possible, and I think that’s something you should do on your website. I don’t know, someone famous, I think it was Einstein, he said something like, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough.” Or something like that, which is true. You’ve got to explain it in terms of how your end user is going to understand it.

But it’s just such a difficult one because even now, even though we’ve tried to dedicate a hundred percent of our efforts in creating content for our customers, you still get in the back of your mind an idea for a blog post that is, this is going to make us look great with our competitors, and it’s difficult to get out of that role, but it is important, and when you do get the thought, “I’ve got a great idea for a podcast episode or a blog post.” Just ask yourself, did you come up with the idea because it will make you feel better, and it will make you look good with your peers and your competitors, or are you creating that piece of content because it’s going to help educate your customers or help make them into a potential customer like a lead or a sale?

Yeah, exactly, and that’s a really good point. And I think the final thing is when businesses just use their blog as a promotional tool. That really, really grates on me.

Yeah, much like the newsletter, isn’t it?

Yeah, it is. It’s so irritating. There’s a web design company that’s relatively [inaudible 00:20:09] to us, and their blog is just, “This is the awards won this week. This is who we’ve hired this week. This is the new client we took on this week.”

Office makeover.

Yeah, “Office makeover this week.” And it is just, why would anyone be interested in that? I just don’t understand it at all. I mean, they’re sort of aiming at bigger corporations, but I still think, you’re still speaking to someone, and it doesn’t mean that you can just show off about yourself. It’s unbelievable ego really that comes into that. A blog should be there to educate your end user, provide helpful content, and it doesn’t mean that you can’t try to get leads from that, we’re not saying that, definitely the opposite, but it definitely shouldn’t be there just to shout about yourselves because it’s just boring.

Yeah, exactly. And we don’t want you to not think about your experiences and your stories because we recently started introducing a little bit more about the internal running of our business as well, but we always do it from a customer point of view. So for instance, the last podcast that we released this week was how much money we had made from doing free website critiques. Now, on the face of it, that looks like a very egotistical blog post.

It did feel that way when I was writing it.

And we were a little bit concerned about publishing it, which is why it took us two or three weeks to hit the publish button. But an actual fact we were thinking about, how can this help our customers create better content? How can this help our visitors think about marketing in different way and how it works, and what can they learn from our experiences? And if we’d have blogged about every recent award that we’d won or our latest bean bag in our office, then how does that help anyone? So I’m not saying you can’t do it, you can’t talk about your experiences in your business, but think about the customer’s spin.

Yeah, definitely.

And I just want to add one more to this, actually because we’ve not mentioned it, but it’s about your logo.

Oh, the logo.

I can’t believe we missed it.

I need it nine foot, Martin.

Yeah. Actually, can you make people scroll down so that they have to get to the actual content because I want my logo so big.

Right. Logo is amazing.

Yeah. Make my logo bigger. No, this is just something that we get asked a lot, and we do joke about it quite a lot, but so many businesses still have a big logo. Someone recently hired us to redesign just their homepage because they had a current website, they were getting lots of visitors, but it wasn’t converting, so they had hired us to just design a homepage and then give it to their development team so that they can build it, and the only thing that they changed was the logo. Everything else was pixel by pixel perfect, exactly as we’d designed it so that we can increase conversions, but you know that she’s … this customer had obviously just said, “Actually, can you just make my logo bigger?” And it changed the entire design, really. It just pushed everything else down, and everything else was not in the right proportion. And I get that she was proud of her logo, but it does get in the way, and it’s important to remember that when someone’s on your website, they don’t really care about the name of your business or your brand. They just want you to help them buy from them. They just want your support as well.

Yeah. Definitely, absolutely, I agree. So I think in conclusion, what we’re trying to say is just think about who your customers are and what they actually need from your website and from you, and try to be a bit humble on your website. Try and think, okay, so what does my end user actually want from me? Do they want a huge logo and a blog that just talks about the awards I won? Or do they want something more? And just really just about helping people and not at all hyping yourself up, really. I think that’s what your website should be about, definitely.

Yeah. Fantastic. Well, I hope you found this episode useful. I know that we can all find ways to improve our websites and leave ego at the door. If you didn’t already know, we have a free Facebook group. We’d love you to join. If you go to JammyDigital.com/Facebook, we do regular training, we do free website critiques, and we’d love to help you improve your website as well. So that’s it for today’s episode and season one of the Make Your Mark Online podcast.

I’m going to miss everyone.

I know. I know, but I will see you next week for the start of season two of the Make Your Mark Online podcast. I’ll see you then.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 20 – How your ego can damage your website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Designing a website yourself can be a lonely and overwhelming process. You’ve got to figure out hosting, domain names, themes, plugins, content management systems as well as write new copy, figure out the design and get new images.

It’s no wonder when we speak to people, they tell us they’ve been working on their websites for months or even years.

We get it. Even as web designers we still question ourselves and take time making decisions.

In this episode, we’re going to tell you how to best avoid website overwhelm and make sure you get a good website up and working as quickly as possible.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • How choosing a good theme can make or break your website
  • Keeping it simple so your head doesn’t explode!
  • How to cheaply seek the help of a ‘techie’ for those annoying bits
  • The research you need to do before jumping into DIY websites that will save you so much time and money
  • Where to get answers to your questions
  • Where to find support from others

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

4.49 – What kind of images do you need on your website?
7.10 – Showing your personality through photographs
8.53- Think about your surroundings
5.15 – What kind of testimonial should you be looking for?
10.32 – Creating your own stock photographs
11.15 – Think about your location
12.03 – Think about your outfits

Useful Resources and Links

Membership Community 

Free Facebook Community

World Class Communication

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

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Episode Transcript Below

Welcome to episode 19 of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about how to avoid overwhelm when building your website. But before we get into the show, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online Membership. This is our signature membership community where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. The doors for membership are now closed, but you can check out the details at MakeYourMarkOnline.net. You can join the wait list and we’ll notify you as soon as we open the doors again in January. Let’s get on with the show. So Martin, overwhelm. Why are we talking about overwhelm?

Well, I think it’s inevitable when you are doing most things in your business. When it’s something new, when it’s something slightly more technical than you’re used to, it’s very easy to see why so many people get overwhelmed by it. We get overwhelmed by it. We do this stuff all the time, but when we take on new clients, new websites, different features, it’s okay to feel overwhelm sometimes because it’s just natural. If we feel overwhelmed, then anybody else building their own website should see it as a normal kind of day-to-day thing that happens, but people let it stop them in their tracks and it can feel really frustrating.

I think we speak to a lot of people who say actually building a website, they think it’s quite say to begin with. You know, you see things like Wix and Divi and it kind of looks really easy on the videos. Then when you actually come down to it, it can be a real struggle. People have a real battle with it, don’t they? Yeah, it’s very, very easy to get overwhelmed with it all, isn’t it?

Yeah. It’s so frustrating sometimes. You’re trying to get a plugin to work. You’re trying to get something to your theme to set up. Even with WordPress, you install your theme and you want it to just look amazing as it does on the demo, but it doesn’t. You have to actually do something to make it work, to make it look good. At every stage throughout building your website, there’s a chance you might feel out of your depth and feel overwhelmed, but that’s the same, like I said, for techies as well. If it’s new, if it’s new in general, then it’ll take you a while to get used to it.

It does require a little bit more patience especially because like you say, when you see these videos online and it’s like, “Oh, I’m a celebrity and I can build a Wix website in 10 seconds,” like shut up. You don’t do anything yourself.

Martin loves those adverts.

I have dartboards of all of the actors that Wix hire. It’s even more infuriating because my football club, Manchester City, are sponsored by Wix, which is just like a knife in the back. It’s not nice.

Do you think the players themselves set up their website?

Oh yeah. Every one of them.

Definitely.

Sergio Aguero clicking around, building his own website. I’m sure he does that.

Definitely.

It’s infuriating because everybody else says it’s so easy. You see all these amazing websites. Your friend might not be a great web designer, but they may have a great website. Maybe they’ve chosen a theme and you’re like, “Well, it was so easy for them,” but it’s not. It’s not easy. Someone once said something like “don’t judge your backstage by somebody’s front stage.” What they do in public might not always seem that easy. I think sometimes we’re all victims of that. We all sometimes think, “Well, they’re doing great things and their website looks amazing. How have they done it? They don’t know that much more than me,” but it’s because everybody struggles. They just don’t talk about it a lot.

Yeah, definitely. Do you have a few tips then that will help people avoid this overwhelm where possible?

Yes. We’ve given a few tips, one of which is to choose a good theme with great support. If you’re building your own website, chances are you’re going to use a template or a theme of some sort. It’s really important that you find one that’s got great reviews. It’s got good feedback. There is a support desk, and there’s people there to help you if you struggle. That’s quickly the worst thing in the world is when you get a theme and you just paid for it and you’ve spent hours trying to decide what theme you get. Then you buy it and you install it and you just don’t know what you’re doing. That can be really frustrating and it can quickly make you feel overwhelmed.

A lot of things as well. They come with like documents before you buy them, don’t they? These manuals of how to use it and things like that. It’s always good to look for those as well.

Sometimes we get excited when we see something, we just want to buy it before doing all the research and that’s where that comes in handy. Especially if you’re buying from a legitimate company, check on the documentation. See if there’s a demo. See if you can actually test out the theme before you actually buy it. Log in to kind of a demo portal and play around with it a little bit. I’m the worst for this. I’ll see something that kind of remotely does what I need it to and then I’ll just buy it before doing the research. But look …

You are the worst at this.

I am.

I can concur with that.

Lyndsay, I bought the wrong thing. Can you get a refund? I don’t think so. There’s got like a lot of like plugins and stuff that we’ve never used before that we’ve paid for. Ridiculous.

I’m one of those people that read the instructions for about six hours. We’re kind of both of extremes. We kind of meet in the middle though and that works.

Yeah, exactly. But if you do find a template that has great support, that can solve so many problems. Just by sending off a message at 8 o’clock at night, by morning you might actually have an answer to that question while you can get on with some other stuff in the meantime.

Definitely. Also look at where the template is from. I made this mistake once with actually a plugin. The guy was in New Zealand and then we kept having to wait 14 hours. It was just a nightmare. It was great, but yeah, that was a nightmare because 14 hours in our business is like forever. Well, it is for me. I’m very impatient, so yeah. Do actually look at where it’s from to see how quickly you’ll get an answer back.

There’s plenty of reviews online as well. Just do your research when it comes to your theme because it’s so important that you don’t want to make a bad buying decision when it comes to your theme.

Okay. What else is there? There’s obviously to look at the theme and support. What other things can we do to avoid overwhelm?

One thing is a little bit of a mindset shift actually. It’s in regards to how complicated or simple it is. We always recommend that you try to keep your website as simple as possible. I don’t mean basic black and white with no styling whatsoever. I’m just talking about when there’s an opportunity to keep things more simple and get things done quicker, that is nine times out of 10 the best option. We can always make it a little bit better. Your website’s never going to stop improving. It’s just you need to finish your website, get it out, and then make improvements once it’s live.

We’ve seen people actually just dwell over the tiniest insignificant kind of little hover effects and these fancy little features that somebody else has got on their website and you want on yours. Don’t do it. It is literally the biggest time suck and it can be the death of your project completely because people just spends two years building a website. Every time you speak to them, “How’s the website coming along,” “Yes, it’s coming. It’s still coming,” but they’ve not have anything to show for it. In the meantime, they’ve not got a website. They’ve not got leads coming through and that’s a problem. Your website needs to be up and live and out there as quickly as physically possible.

By keeping it simple and having that simple mindset when it comes to you designing your website, as long as you’ve got that key core information that people need, things that we’ve spoken about before in previous episodes like the big bold statement, like having your call to action buttons quite high up and quite prominent and your service is visible, as long as you do the basics, then the design to a certain extent doesn’t matter that much on the first round of getting your website up. Then you can make improvements as you go.

Yeah, definitely. I think that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s about making improvements as you go, but trying to just keep it simple and get something up straight away out there. Advertise is what you do in the right way and getting the basics right from the beginning. Definitely.

Exactly. This leads us on actually to the next point, which is when you really do need help, when you really do need a feature installed in your website, something that you can’t do, then seek the help of a techie. Now not just any techie. Techie, not Trekkie. We’re Star Wars fans and we’ll have none of that here.

Trekkies might be able to help.

We’ll have none of that here. Anyway, if you are struggling and you’re trying to do something, I mean … We had Rachel, one of our members, ask in the forum actually, “I can change words and images on my website, but I’m not sure about moving buttons and actually the design elements. What can I do?” We actually suggest that you have a look on Upwork or a freelancing website, maybe even Fiverr, to see if there’s anyone who specializes in that theme. I think it was Divi.

Yeah, I think for her it was quite easy because it was Divi and there were plenty of really good Divi sort of developers out there on perhaps Upwork. Yeah, she doesn’t need to spend a lot just to …

You’re talking $10, $20 the most to solve a problem-

Yeah. Yeah. Potentially.

… that you really, really need to solve. You shouldn’t have to do that a lot because not everything that you do needs to be that complicated, but there are a few things where you might need help. For Rachel, that was exactly what she needed.

It’s that time versus money issue, isn’t it? I mean you could spend all the time in the world trying to figure it out. But if it’s just going to take $20, $30 to solve that problem in five minutes for someone else to do it, then that’s going to be better for your business and you can start focusing on other things, more important things in your business that will move you forward definitely.

It absolutely will stop you in your tracks and it will make you feel overwhelmed if you’re trying to do this complicated thing. When you search for it on Google and you get this really complicated blog post where it’s telling you to go into your FTP and change this code and add this snippet of code and then something happens and your website goes down, like all that is really scary even for me.

Even for us, yeah.

You’ve got to be careful with your websites. We’re all susceptible to having your website go down or deleting something that you shouldn’t. It is sometimes necessary. Just stick to the basics and then hire someone if you really, really need some extra support.

Definitely. Okay. So what else can we be doing then?

Well, you spoke about this a little bit. It’s about doing your research. This doesn’t just to do with the theme. This is things like plugins. This is things like content management systems. If you want to use WordPress, you want to use Shopify, if you want to use something else, then do your research. It’s also the same for things like your email marketing system. Even tools like Canva, for instance. Do your research before you actually start downloading and actually creating new accounts and just signing up to stuff without actually doing your research. Because you can sign up to something and it’s like, “Oh, it’s a free trial. I might as well do it,” but then you get …

An hours gone by and you’re trying to set up an email marketing tool and you’ve not even got your big bold statement done on your website. You’re thinking so far ahead before you actually decide what’s important, what can I do to keep my website simple. I’ve got my theme. I’m trying to keep it simple. Then you go down a rabbit hole and we got the plugins and themes and content management systems and you’ve wasted all that time. It’s best to know what you want to do first and then do your research before you start delving into the tools.

Yeah, definitely. I think a good thing to remember is what is insanely popular. This is why we use WordPress for all our websites is because if we got hit by a bus, our clients would be able to google any problem and no doubt someone on the internet will be the answer to that problem because WordPress is so popular. Same with Shopify or with Canva or that email marketing software like MailChimp or ConvertKit, those kind of things. If they are well-know, if people trust them, if they’ve got good reviews and you’ve done that research beforehand, the likelihood is you’re going to be able to find quick solutions to your problems. If you use something a little bit out there that hasn’t been heard of before, maybe …

Even if it’s cheaper.

Even if it’s cheaper.

This is the point, don’t always go with the cheapest option-

Exactly. Exactly.

… just to save money when another tool might actually be built a lot better. It might be quicker to get something done. You might be able to go live sooner rather than you try and do everything for free and then spend a year trying to hook it all up because there’s no support. This is the same with free plugins, free templates, even cheap, really, really cheap freelancers. You’re not going to get everything you need to. You just need to do your research and don’t be afraid to put your hand in your pocket if it’s a ton here and there.

Yeah, definitely.

Another thing as well is, and this again is more of a mindset thing, when you are thinking about yourself and you’re thinking about your website and it’s easy to see how you can become overwhelmed, just try and remember that this is not for you. This website is not yours. It’s for your customers. This is something that we’ve been talking about a lot recently. It’s the fact that when you think about your customers as the audience and you only think about them and you think about what questions are they going to ask, what questions are they looking for online, then it’s easy to see how you can create a quick and easy website and get it live sooner rather than later.

But when you’re thinking about yourself and all the fancy features, then it does get a little bit more complicated and more time consuming. That’s when you can go down these rabbit holes. Try and remember that. Actually stick it on your wall in front of your computer and think that my website might belong to me, but it’s not mine. It’s for my customers. That is so important that people understand that.

I think people get very wrapped up in what their competition is doing. Oh, they’ve got a fancy hover feature. I want one of those. Really it’s about them and they’re not thinking about their customers. I can honestly say hand in heart that I hardly spend anytime thinking about who our competition is or going on their websites at all. It just doesn’t take a penny of our mindset, does it, because we know that that’s not going to be productive. We have to focus on what our clients or potential clients will be asking when they’re on our website, what do they actually need. Don’t start looking at your competition and thinking about, “Okay. Well, I need a Whizzy thing because they’ve got this Whizzy thing,” and that kind of thing.

This is why people make so many mistakes when it comes to websites because they end up copying people, “Oh, they’ve got a slider image. I want a slider image. They’ve got like a Twitter feed in the bottom of their homepage. I want a Twitter feed.” We go down a road that we shouldn’t be going down anyway. Never mind, “I just want this fancy feature,” that’s when we do start actually looking at competitors and trying to get what they’ve got. Yeah, it’s a great point actually.

Absolutely.

Okay. The next thing is actually really important. This is how we grew our business a few years ago. This was kind of the biggest shift that we made and it was to find a community, a supportive community, that can help move your business forward. Not just your website, not just a “I’m going to join a WordPress group,” actually join a community that’s going to help move your business forward, get your website live quicker. Maybe join an accountability group and actually have people around you that are going to move you in the right direction. There’s nothing worst than feeling alone when it comes to running a business. It’s even worse if you’re trying to do the techie stuff yourself.

You could ask a question in a forum that you’re a part of, this could be a paid community, it could be a free community, that you could spend eight hours trying to solve. Well, somebody else has already solved that problem. Find some communities that you can be a part of, whether it’s paid communities or free communities. We’ve got people in our community that ask questions all the time because they know that we’ll probably know the answer or somebody else in the community will have. They don’t have to spend all that time, an entire Sunday given up because they can’t get this plugin to work.

It makes you feel so much better, doesn’t it, when you got other people in the same boat and you’ve got experts to ask that are willing to help. It makes such a huge difference in your business. We’re part of … I don’t know how many communities we’ve got.

Like too many. Like five or six maybe.

Be our friends. Yeah, five or six communities. Honestly it makes a massive difference in our business because yeah, like you said, you can just ask that question and someone will know the answer.

We get great content ideas from this as well. On the flip side, we were talking a minute ago about having your website work for your customers and not just for you, it’s great when you’re in a community and somebody asks a question that you know the answer to and you’re like, “Actually I’ve answered this so many times myself to my own clients. I’m actually going to write a blog post about it.” A lot of the content ideas that we get are questions that we see other people ask as part of forums and communities as well.

People don’t just go in their normal Facebook page or Twitter and just say, “I’m struggling to get this plugin to work or why is my website not showing up in Google,” but they do ask those questions in sort of niche industry specific communities.

Definitely. Okay. What’s the final thing then what we can be doing to avoid overwhelm?

This is really important. This is to get a good host. A good reliable company to host your website. Not just somebody that can do it for the cheapest, but somebody who actually offers great support. We get people contacting us all the time saying, “Oh, we’ve been with this company for a few years now, but the website keeps going down and the support is really bad. Can you point us in the right direction? Can you help us? Can we move the website to you guys,” even though we don’t host websites. We don’t have a server in our back bedroom. We actually use companies to host as well. It’s just that because we’ve seen the good, bad and the ugly, people come to us and ask the question.

We do have a few companies we recommend, but more than anything, it’s about finding someone that’s going to be beneficial to you. If you have thousands and thousands of visitors coming to your website, then do some research about who the best person is to use. If you’re just starting a brand new website for instance, then we might have somebody else to recommend as a host. It’s all about finding someone that has a great support desk, somebody that can be there, someone who’s got live chat. They can pick up the phone and cal them if your website goes down. That should always be your first point of call and that would help you overcome that overwhelm if you are struggling because something has gone wrong.

Yeah, because you can guarantee you’re going to get overwhelmed very quickly if your website has gone down. We’ve seen it when people have launched major things. They’ve got thousands of visitors to their website. This one always annoys me as well. I think it annoys me because I think you pointed it out to me. When companies say, “Oh, we were so popular our website went down,” I’m like, “Mate, that’s not a good thing.”

Yeah. What is that about?

Like, “I’m really pleased I’ve lost all these sales. Woo hoo.”

I know. That’s like a badge of honor, ain’t it?

Yeah. We always find really strange. We just kind of shake our heads like get a good host then. You’re clearly not investing in a good host. That shows you up really. It’s not a good thing if your website goes down during a major launch. Yeah, I think it’s just something that you have to look at, invest, in do your research. But yeah, like Martin said, think about things like live … Live chat with hosts is just wonderful. If you can just speak to them and someone is there a minute later just replying to you and helping you, either they’ll solve the problem or just show you how to solve it, that’s just so incredibly powerful because it can save you so much time and so much stress as well.

I mean you’ve got to understand that when you’re building your own website, you’re the one who has to think about the domain name and where that is. You’ve got a domain name with one company. You’ve got your host with another. You might have your emails with somebody else. That’s why it’s great having a great reliable host because you can actually just contact them and actually say, “This is the situation. What do I need to do?” If you’re submitting a support ticket and they don’t get back to you for 48 hours and you want it to launch on Friday night, then it’s going to be tricky. That’s why it’s so important. We do have a company to recommend.

If you go to jammydigital.com/hosting, feel free to contact us and we’ll send you a tutorial video as well on that. It’s just a case of what’s best for you I think more than anything. But yeah, you do need a good host. Part of the reason a lot of websites get hacked as well is because of hosts. Again that’s another reason you might get overwhelmed. Okay, my website’s been hacked. What do I do now? Where do I start?

Why is my website in Russian?

I don’t remember selling these products. What’s this?

What are these dodgy things?

Getting a good host will prevent a lot of the ability for somebody to hack, but you can also install a software. You can get pretty cheap software from a good host that will scan your website for any malware and malicious kind of viruses and stuff like that. You don’t want to be overwhelmed by it, which is why you need to get a good host.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

That’s pretty much it. There’s a few things there that should help you avoid overwhelm. I’m sure there’s plenty of other things as well, but for you, it’s about growing your business. You are the business owner or you’re the marketing inside a business. It’s about you thinking about promoting your products and services, reaching your audience, and making sure that they’re becoming inquiries rather than just visitors. That’s what you should be thinking about. Not the technical stuff. Not your hosting and your domain name stuff. Yes, you might have to do it, but seek help when you need to and do your research.

I think the point is as well is that we’re not actually saying that you have to invest a lot to avoid overwhelm. If you are new to business and you think, “Well, I can’t do that because I’m just on my own. I’m just starting out. I haven’t got much money,” like Martin said, you can hire people off Upwork for quite cheap. Just go for a reliable host that’s well-known. You’ve got that chat support. These things don’t cost a lot of money-

No.

… but they are worth it because it will save you so, so much time and then you can go ahead and build your business. I hope you found this episode useful. Everyone has struggled with this in the past. Hopefully now you can use a few of tips to help you overcome it. If you didn’t already know, we do have a free Facebook group. We’d love you to join. Head over to jammydigital.com/facebook. We do training, free website critiques, and we’d love to help you get better results from your websites. Feel free to join and say hello. That’s it for today’s episode. We’ll see you next time on the Mark Your Mark Online Podcast.

The post Ep 19 – How to avoid overwhelm when building your website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Good photography can make or break a website.

If you have bad photos or you rely heavily on crappy stock images, it can really turn off your end-users.

We’re pretty terrible at the art photography, but, we’ve learnt a lot about the best way to present your photographs on your website.

In this episode, we’ll tell you how to prepare for your website photoshoot.

It doesn’t matter if you’re paying for a professional or getting a friend to help, by following these tips you’ll get the most out of your photography.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • Do you really need a photoshoot for your website?
  • Our tricks to make website photography easier
  • Why you should avoid the ‘suited and booted’ look
  • How to make your own stock photos that look cool
  • The need for different locations and outfits

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

4.49 – What kind of images do you need on your website?
7.10 – Showing your personality through photographs
8.53- Think about your surroundings
5.15 – What kind of testimonial should you be looking for?
10.32 – Creating your own stock photographs
11.15 – Think about your location
12.03 – Think about your outfits

Useful Resources and Links

Membership Community 

Free Facebook Community

World Class Communication

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Episode Transcript Below

Welcome to episode 18 of the Make Your Mark Online podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about personal brand photography for your website, but before we get into the show, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online Membership. This is our signature membership community where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. The doors for the membership are currently closed, but you can check out the details at makeyourmarkonline.net where you can sign up to the wait list, and we’ll let you know as soon as the doors open again in January. So let’s get into the show. So Lyndsay, I’ve had a bit of break last week. I was traveling, wasn’t I?

You were, yeah. You left me all on my own.

Left you all alone.

It was great. No, I’m joking.

Yeah I was traveling up and down the country, up to Edinburgh and then down to London.

I was very jealous but I did have the remote and that’s always good.

Yeah, you’ve always got the remote, I don’t know what you’re talking about. But yeah so we’re back on with it this week and we’ve got some great episodes ahead. And yeah we can’t wait to get into it.

Yeah.

So today we’re talking about photography but Lyndsey …

Yes.

… Let’s be honest, you’re a terrible photographer.

That’s horrible.

There’s no nice way of putting it.

That hurts my feelings, Martin.

I know but you say it yourself. I mean it’s yeah … it’s an interesting topic for you is what I would say.

It definitely is, yeah. I did see your face when I said, “I’m going to talk about photography.”

Yep.

Yeah if you remember like in the olden days whenever I went on holiday and you get those wind up cameras. You’d have to like go get printed after your holiday. Mine would just be 108 pictures of my thumb. That’s what I would end up printing. Yeah I am a terrible photographer, definitely but …

You’re the kind of person to take a picture of the sun. And like this is going to work out phenomenally well.

I just chop peoples heads off.

Yeah.

Yeah, no everyone was headless in a photograph of mine. But I do know the value of good photography.

You do, I’ll give you that.

Especially for your website, yeah. We’ve done a few photo shoots ourselves and I think we’ve picked up on some tips along the way. So this is definitely sort of a beginners guide to photography from the point of view of someone who’s terrible at photography.

Yeah that’s great. Okay but is it always necessary … do we all need to kind of have a professional photo shoot for our website? I mean we’re not all models.

Shocking.

Yep.

Believe it or not, me and Martin are not models.

You could be though.

Aww.

Cheesy.

I know, cheesy as ever. And I get that and we’re quite a few years into our business before we actually had a photo shoot ourselves. I’m not saying that you have to have a photo shoot straight away but you do need photographs of yourself on your website. And the best way to guarantee good phots is to book a professional photographer.

Makes sense.

We actually used our wedding photographer, didn’t we?

Yeah.

For our business photos. We’d already had that kind of relationship, they knew us quite well, they knew we’re quite weird so we didn’t have to reveal that to them. And it cost about £500 for half a day. Now some listeners might think that’s quite a lot but that was as I said, about 18 months ago and we used those photographs all the time, don’t we?

Yeah.

Not just on our website and our social media, in everything that we do we use those photographs. It’s just a really handy bank of photographs that we can always refer to. So it is, if you can, worth the investment because you will continually use them in your business.

Okay, so now that we know that we all need photographs, what do we need to get the best photographs for our website? Because that’s really what we’re talking about, it’s not photography in general, but it’s how to get great photos for your website.

Exactly, exactly yeah so it’s really important that you actually invest some time and energy thinking about the photography on your website so it really doesn’t matter actually if you’re hiring a photographer or maybe you can’t afford a photographer. So you get a friend with a half decent camera to come and take photographs of you, we’ll just be running through our advice to get the most out of your photography. So this is really from a web designers point of view on what they kind of want to see and what would work well on your website.

Yeah okay so might you say that it’s about … if you hire a photographer or even if you hire a friend or a family member, you still … the list that you’re going to give us today is actually beneficial for all circumstances …

Exactly, exactly.

… No matter what your budget. Okay, perfect.

Exactly.

So what’s the first thing that you can recommend?

Well I think one really handy thing we did before we met our photographers was actually to think about the kind of images we needed on the website. So a web designer will love it if you send them a really good selection of both portrait and landscape images for your website. So it’s good to have a good mixture of both because then you can use them in different places and you’ll find that they’ll slot in in different places much better. But think about specific images too so we always talk about the hero banner which is essentially the first third of your home page. Normally that’s quite a wide image and people sometimes really struggle to fill that gap. They often want a picture of themselves and maybe some text to the left or right. So have a think about how that would work when you’re coming to your photography. So obviously you need a landscape image but it needs to be quite wide. So think about where that would be and what you want in the background and things like that. But it’s just good to have these things in mind so you’re aware of what photographs you actually need.

Okay so have a look around at other websites, see how they’ve done it. Have a kind of mental note of the kind of size of the images. If you are talking about the hero image, then understandably you kind of have to be … there’d have to be a lot space in the picture for you to place text over the top, so if you do have an image that stretches like the full 1500 pixels of your webpage, if that’s the size you’re looking at it on, then you have to think, okay well do I want to be in the middle, where’s the text going to go. Do I want to be on the left, then is the text on the right going to fit, is there enough space in the image. If it’s a picture of you next to a wall, then have you got enough image of the wall in the background, that’s really what you’re talking about.

And Martin has this thing when he comes to design because he does a lot of the design of the website and I know that when people send you pictures, if they’re next to a wall you sometimes have to make more wall on Photoshop, don’t you?

Don’t reveal my secrets.

I revealed his secret.

What are you doing?

He makes more wall but yes, so you do have to …

I literally did this yesterday.

He did do this yesterday where he has to …

I’m practically a builder, aren’t I?

Yes, where you have to cut sort of … magic cut these things but particularly if you’re doing it yourself. If you’re designing your website yourself, you might not have those skills like Martin to magic up a wall. SO yeah it’s good to actually have a think about that before you go into it.

Okay that’s great. So we always recommend that people act like themselves in photographs as well and this is quite important especially because I stumbled across someone on Twitter the other day who had this great image of themself and they had a great bio. And I clicked onto the website and it looked like a completely different person. It looked like a completely different business altogether. And I think sometimes we get a little bit more personal on social media and then we link to our website it’s like okay we have to be formal again. So is this kind of what we’re talking about?

Exactly yeah it’s just about showing your personality and that’s so true. People feel freer on social media I think, particularly with photographs of themselves.

Which is great. It’s nice to see the business world be more personal.

Exactly yes but then when you get on the websites, all of a sudden this person’s wearing a suit and they’re kind of looking very, very serious in these photographs. And I think it just doesn’t work for your brand if that’s not how you are in real life and with your clients and in your business. So if you’re quite relaxed on a day to day basis then make sure your photography reflects that. Don’t get all suited and booted if that’s not what you look like on a day to day basis, wear the kind of things that you’d normally wear and just look how you’d normally look. I’m not saying go all pajamas or anything like that but just be comfortable and be true to yourself really, definitely.

If it was you, you’d be in your dressing gown on all of your images.

That’s because it’s winter.

Yeah. And pregnant.

Yes, exactly I’ve got an excuse. I don’t think anyone would buy from us if it was just a picture of me in a dressing gown.

I think it’s probably worth testing out.

No.

I’m going to wear my pajamas, my Star Wars pajamas all day, see what happens when we go on a Skype call.

So this actually also applies to your surroundings too. And you shouldn’t have to worry about a really professional looking set up. So we all had out our Star Wars crap, didn’t we?

Mm-hmm (affirmative) yeah. I don’t know about crap. Star Wars collectibles actually. Correction.

Sorry, Star Wars collection, we had out our Star Wars collection out and Harry Potter, important Harry Potter stuff as well.

Unapologetically out for everyone to see.

And our desks, they weren’t super tidy, were they?

No.

Or anything like that.

Although we did have to kind of tidy your desk. I was a bit more worried about health and safety than anything else because …

That’s mean.

Lyndsey is the messy one, she absolutely is. Honest to God, you kind of have to walk on tip toes around her desk just in case you crunch something on the floor, yeah.

I’m really not that bad, I’m not but yeah we did have to tidy my desk for the health of the photographers. It was important to us to do that.

Yeah you don’t want to come in here and go, “What’s that smell?” That sandwich has been there three days.

No, it really isn’t that bad. I’m going to make him edit this out. He’s not going to let me edit it.

I’m joking, I’m joking.

But the point is you do want it to be natural and give people an insight into who you are and how you work so don’t worry about hiding your Star Wars crap.

No.

Or your Harry Potter stuff or pictures of family on your desk or the drawings that your kids have done for you, whatever it is you don’t have to sort of make it really pristine if that’s not how you work in real life. I think just make …

No it’s nice to have a bit of personality isn’t it?

Exactly, yeah exactly.

Okay, so what else should we be thinking about when it comes to photography for our websites?

Well one thing actually accidentally happened and I can’t take credit for it because it was a complete accident was we kind of made our own stock photos when we had our photographer come visit us. So we had a lot of stuff out, our notes, our website’s frameworks, our laptops and plants.

And sketches of mock ups and websites that we …

Exactly, exactly and they made great photographs on their own. So what we ended up with was kind of like a bank of personalized stock images. Yeah so where you’d normally buy perhaps an image of a laptop on a desk, we already had that but it kind of had our twist on it because you could see all our stuff as well. And we’ve used those loads actually in all sorts of things.

We’ve used them in slides and for webinars and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah exactly, exactly. They are actually really, really handy. So it’s actually good to think about that in advance because you do get your own bank of stock photos which will save you money but it also makes it personalized as well, looks really professional and good. And I think another thing to think about is your location. So if you can try and think about three or four different locations of where you’d like your photographs to be taken. SO we had our photographs taken in different rooms in the house because we actually use different rooms within our house anyway for our business. But we also went to the beach, which was fun. We got a few weird looks.

I was freezing.

Yeah it was freezing and we got some strange looks. Yeah it was …

You have to be careful on Blackpool beach, there’s some questionable fol out there.

There are some questionable … including us actually. I think we were the most questionable folk on Blackpool beach which says more about us than anything I think. But try and think about different locations where you live that you like. There might be a nice park or next to a nice building or whatever it is, try and get some different shots so it creates something interesting on your website. And that’s another point actually because we actually also had outfit changes …

True.

… throughout the four hours. We kept getting changed and that really worked as well as the different locations. That worked really well because it kind of made it look like we had this photography going on over months of time.

We had our photographer living with us like everybody does.

Yeah, totally normal. And yeah so we had different outfit changes. So it looked like different days and then on your website it doesn’t get as boring, you’re always looking different. You’re in a different location wearing something different, looking different and it doesn’t get the same … kind of the photography isn’t the same all the time throughout your website so it’s always kind of interesting. And that did actually work really, really well.

Yeah I think so. And I mean from my point of view, there are a few things that I would probably change next time we have a photo shoot. I don’t think we really got enough head shot type photos. I think when it came to it and we got our photos back, we’re like, I can’t believe we didn’t get any normal, regular head shots. And I know the term head shot is kind of used in different contexts sometimes but just pictures that I can use for LinkedIn, Twitter, when I’m appearing on a podcast episode by myself for instance. We had plenty of images together and we had plenty of images of me working in the office looking at my computer or on the phone and you were on a Skype call and stuff like that, which is all great but actually remember you have to think about where your images are going to go. So that’s something I probably would change.

Another thing we did is we had a lot of photographs taken, we kind of wanted a lot so that we had lots to chose from. Partly because we’re not experts in photography so when we’re planning all of the different ideas that we have, some of them are not going to be great ideas, some of them are going to be really bad.

Some of them really didn’t work.

Yeah I think …

I remember getting some balloons at some point.

Yeah what was that about?

I don’t know.

I’m just like, “Yeah, you want some balloons? Yeah we’ll see how that goes. I don’t know, we’ll give it a go.” And we had some umbrellas at some point.

We did yeah. I just wanted to make you look as stupid as possible really on Blackpool beach.

I think that was your goal really. Yeah you don’t embarrass easily, let’s test that. So yeah we had a lot to choose from. That meant that the ones that didn’t work didn’t matter as much. We had a lot of them that we could pick from. So yeah it was a fun day and we …

Yeah definitely.

… do kind of look back on it and I think that’s what it has to be. It has to be a bit of an experience and if you’ve got a great photographer or a great friend who makes you laugh, makes you smile, makes you feel comfortable, then that’s going to come across in the photographs as well so yeah we had a great time.

Yeah absolutely.

I’m looking forward to the next one. I kind of want to book another one now that we’re talking it.

I know, I do as well. I do.

Not now, let’s wait until you’ve had the baby, shall we?

Yeah definitely.

I mean there’s no judgment, I’m just assuming that’s how you think.

Did you hear that listeners? You heard it here.

You look great.

I am slightly humongous right now.

Next photo shoot we might actually have a little boy in the photographs.

Yeah we might have him in the photographs.

That’ll be interesting.

Definitely.

Dressed up as Darth Vader, absolutely. And that’s it on that note.

Yes.

So yeah great tips there. I think you’re going to find this pretty helpful. I wish that we’d had something like this to listen to when we were preparing for our photo shoot. So yeah let us know if you have a photo shoot, send us your images. We want to see what you’ve done and yeah don’t take any balloons.

Balloons definitely don’t work.

So I hope you found this episode useful. I know lots of our listeners are looking to have a photo shoot so hopefully this should help. If you didn’t already know we have a free Facebook group. If you go to jammydigital.com/facebook and we will let you join the group. We do training, we do free website critiques and we’d love to help you get better results from your website as well so feel free to join and say hello. So that’s it for today’s episode, we’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark Online Podcast.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post Ep 18 – How to prepare for a photo shoot for your website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Trying to appeal to more than one target audience on your website is tricky.

It’s difficult to make sure our message connects with each audience we’re targeting. For example, a recruitment agency must appeal to businesses to work with, but they must also attract good candidates too. How would they go about appealing to both audiences on the one website?

There are methods of achieving this and it’s something we carefully consider when we build websites.

In this episode, we walk-through the ways you can do this successfully.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • Examples of business who appeal to more than one audience
  • Should you set up a new website for your separate audiences?
  • When you should set up your own website and when you shouldn’t
  • How to signpost your particular audience to the right place on your website
  • Using CTAs and your big, bold statement to appeal to more than one audience
  • Do you need different layouts and page designs for different audiences?

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

1.18 – Who would need to consider more than one audience on their website?
2.39 – Is it worth setting up a new website for each target audience?
5.52 – How to signpost people to the right page on your website
6.45 – Using your CTAs to direct your end users
7.52 – How to write a big, bold statement for multiple audiences
9.50 – Getting your promo area to direct people to the right place
10.39 – Having unique pages per service
11.00 – What to write on the services pages to appeal to your audiences
13.42 – Thinking about your users’ journey
14.12 – Do you need different page designs for different audiences?

Useful Resources and Links

Membership Community 

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Episode Transcript Below

Welcome to the Make Your Mark Online Podcast, where we help personal brands building grow a successful business website.

Please welcome your hosts, husband and wife team, Martin and Lyndsay.

Welcome to Episode 14 of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. Today, we’re gonna be talking about how you can use your website to appeal to numerous audiences.

But before we get into that, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online Membership. This is our signature membership community, where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. This actually launched on Monday, the 1st of October, and we’ll be closing the doors on the 14th of October, 10:00 p.m. in UK time. So, if you wanna get in at the lowest possible price ever, then visit makeyourmarkonline.net We won’t be opening the doors until January, and then we’re gonna be charging $39 a month. So, save yourself $10 a month if you sign up before the 14th.

So, let’s get into the show!

So, today we’re talking about our websites, and what we can do with them if we have a number of different audiences, different target audiences. So, Lyndsay.

Yes.

Why would somebody want to do this, or need to do it?

Well, actually, it’s more common than you think. And we’ve come across it so many times with our clients, and people that we talk to on a regular basis. A lot of business owners have to think about completely different audiences for their products.

So, recently, we had one lady ask about this in our Facebook group. She’s a fitness trainer and dance teacher who came up with a kind of like a new exercise routine. And her website needed to appeal to two audiences.

So, the first one was actually just getting customers through the doors to her fitness studio. But the second one was other fitness trainers looking for a new routine that she could franchise to.

Got it.

So, they had completely different goals. There was the customers who were looking to get fitter and healthier in like a fun way, and then there was the fitness trainers, who were looking for a new routine they could use to get more customers.

So, that’s completely different. And their needs were completely different. And there’s loads of examples of this. Kind of like if you think about recruitment agencies. You know, they’ve gotta appeal to the candidates, where they get people’s CVs and information. But they’ve also gotta appeal to businesses. You know the people that actually pay them and, you know, the people that they want to work with, and provide candidates for.

So, there’s a lot of examples of this. And this is something that comes up time and time again, and a question we get asked quite a lot.

Yeah. So, we see this when we’re building websites as well. Lots of our clients have different segments of their audience that they need to appeal to. And one of the questions that we get asked quite a lot is whether or not it’s worth setting up an additional website for the audience.

Is that the right thing to do?

It’s an interesting one. It’s always really tricky when people ask should they open another website. I’ve know business owners with five or six websites. And the difficulty is, is that websites take a lot of work. Or should I say, they should take a lot of work because, you know, you need to be updating your website constantly. You need to be adding content. You need to be driving traffic to that content. And that takes an awful lot of work. I mean, we know just having one website, that it takes a lot of work. Having more than one is difficult. It is tricky. So, you have to think very carefully about whether it’s worth setting up a brand new website for your separate service with a separate audience.

Yeah, exactly. And we’ve actually just been through this with our new membership. So, our agency, obviously, as you guys know is Jammy Digital. This is where we build websites, and we help people redesign or start a brand new business, and they need a website.

So, when we launched the membership, we had to think long and hard whether or not we wanted to include the membership on the main website, or whether or not we’d set it up elsewhere. And again, it’s not an easy decision, but in the end we decided, you know, it needs its own home. It needs its own membership site. It needs its own face, and its own branding.

So, although it’s very closely linked, it is separate.

Yeah, definitely. And that’s a really good point, actually, Martin. It needed its own brand. So, I think that’s always a clear indicator as to whether you need another website. Because if something needs its own brand, it needs its own close, it needs its own logo, it needs lots of pages of content, you know, that kind of thing, then that’s a good indicator that yes, it probably will work on another website.

If it just needs a page, and it can kind of fit into your brand already, then you might just wanna look at having it housed on your website itself. Because like we said, there’s a lot of work. You have two websites, that’s automatically double the work there.

Yeah. And that’s twice as much marketing, that’s twice as much Facebook posts, that’s twice as much LinkedIn-

Exactly.

… that’s another Twitter account, potentially.

Yeah, exactly.

So, I mean, we’ve very much kept it close to home. You know, we are using the same social media platforms. It’s just that we have Make Your Mark Online as a product, which is why it kind of works, because we can still kind of group it in, and talk about it on our main social media platforms.

We got away with it, didn’t we?

Yeah, exactly. But that’s what you can do if you create additional product within your business. But if you’re creating a separate business website altogether, then that’s where it might not be necessary. That’s what you’re saying.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Okay. So, let’s say we want to use our existing website. We know we can do that. We just want to appeal to more than one audience. How can we actually go about it? What kind of tangible stuff can our listeners take away and action today?

Yeah, it’s a good question, actually, because a lot of people get this wrong, but it’s so, so simple to actually do. And it all starts with a homepage. I mean, we talk a lot about the homepage. We could talk for hours and hours about it. But we need to use this page to signpost people to the right places on your website.

If you think of yourself and your website like you’re kind of directing road traffic. So, imagine you’re just … stood in the middle of the road with your little whistle, and-

Yeah, don’t do that. It’s dangerous.

No, don’t do that, please. But imagine you are and, you know, you’re directing cars left and right, and straight on. That’s exactly what you need to do with your website. You need to sort of stand there and say, “Okay, you need to go over there. You need to go over there. And you need to go this way.” And people always get that wrong on their homepage, but that’s the biggest thing that you can do. If you’re appealing to more than one audience, then you need to quickly get them to the areas that they need to be on their website.

So, for example, we’ll often have two call-to-action buttons in the big, bold statement area. And, basically, the first third of the homepage, where you see it kind of straightaway. So, if I’m using a recruitment agency as an example, then you might have two buttons. One might say, “Looking for an exciting, new career.” The other might say, “Looking for the perfect candidate.” And automatically then, the audience knows, “Okay, I need to click on that button to get to the right place.”

It’s very, very, very simple, but a lot of people forget to do it.

Yeah. It does sound simple, but that’s because it is. I mean, we’re not talking rocket science here. We’re just talking about giving people the information that they need, and making it easy for them. And a minute ago, we were talking about redesigning an entire new website for a new business. But actually, just by labeling these buttons, and giving people that clear direction, that’s generally enough. That’s what you’re saying.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Perfect. It’s interesting, actually, that you mention the big, bold statement, because we talk about this a lot. But actually coming up with a big, bold statement is a little more tricky when you have two audiences, isn’t it?

Yeah, definitely. It is. So, just so our audience knows, a big, bold statement is essentially the sort of summary of your business, and what it is that you do. So as soon as someone lands on your website, they should be immediately hit by a sentence that kind of summarizes what it is that you do, so your audience knows they’re in the right place.

And, yes, if you are appealing to more than one audience, then this can be a little bit more tricky, ’cause you kind of have to be a little bit more vague with your big, bold statement, I think.

Yeah. So, it might take you a little bit longer than it normally would if you have a number of different audiences. But it is actually quite interesting because we did an episode just on the big, bold statement, and we’ll link to that in the show notes. And we came up with nine different ways to create a big, bold statement. And some of these, you can’t actually use if you have a number of audiences.

So, for example, if you do blog-writing services for start-ups. If that’s your products and service that you offer, and you have an additional audience, maybe you are trying to appeal to agencies, maybe you offer white label, then you can’t just say, “Blog-writing services for start-ups.” It’s important that you actually think about both of your audience.

And so, for instance, you might come up with something like, “Creating better content for the world,” or whatever. That’s a really bad example, but-

Yeah, but it’s about making it a little bit more … having that bit more broader appeal, isn’t it?

Yeah. So that you can reach the two audiences, I suppose. The more specific you go, the more direct you can go, which is great. But if you do have two audiences, then that’s when you have to kind of step back a little bit, and think about your communication, in general, what it is that you do.

Yeah. But then, if you have two buttons underneath that, so you have, you know, “Writing for start-ups,” or “White label service,” then it kind of clarifies then what it is that you do, and then gets people to the right place. So, you can start with a more broader, I think, big, bold statement. That’s absolutely fine.

And the promo area too. The promo area is essentially the area where you kind of house your services. So, normally, this is under the big, bold statement, and you have your sort of three or four key main services, and people can click on them and go to the right sort of page. So, that’s where you will, again, start to direct people where they need to go.

You don’t just do it once on your homepage. You kind of need to keep reminding people, “Okay, you’re here, and you need to go over here,” you know. It needs to be a constant reminder on your homepage. Get your audience to the right part of your website. We always say this: “Your homepage is just to get people to the next page of your website. That’s all you need to do.”

So, constantly remind them on your homepage to get to the next page of your website.

So, you mentioned all the pages, actually getting your visitor to another page on your website.

Yeah.

Are you saying that we should have a unique services page for each service?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think this is another thing that people get wrong. Because people just have, sometimes, just one page that kind of appeals to both audiences, which is-

Yeah, we see that a lot, don’t we? And especially on website critiques-

Yeah!

They kind of group their services and their audiences together, and-

Yes. Yeah. We’re constantly telling them, “Keep it separate.” Because there’s no point. You know, if you’re a recruitment agency, and you’ve got a candidate who’s looking for information about what jobs you’ve got, there’s no point in them learning about what you can do for companies. There’s absolutely no point in them even looking at that content. So, why are they on that page? You need completely separate pages. And you need to think about, on these separate pages, the kind of needs and problems that the people are having, that your audiences are having, and write that content specifically for them.

So, for example, on the page for people looking for a new career on a recruitment agency website, you need to say, “Okay, so you might be feeling underappreciated at work. You might be looking for something new. This is how we can help you.” Everything should be geared towards that person, and there should be no content that isn’t specifically for them on that page.

Yeah. This is where we come back to each of your web pages is kind of its own tool. It’s kind of its own salesperson, really, to get people to fill out the contact form or, in your example, submit your CV. Like you are the recruitment agency that I go in to find me a job that I am appreciated in. You’re talking about using your copy to convert these people to become leads.

Yeah. It’s not just your content as well, it’s actually everything on the page that you need to think about. So, if you were having testimonials on that page, don’t just have any random testimonials on there. So, if we take recruitment agency for an example, and you’ve got a candidate thinking, “Should I work with this recruitment agency? Will they find me a good career?” There’s no point in having a testimonial on there for some, you know, CEO of a big business. You’ve gotta have a testimonial on there from someone who was a candidate, who has found your service really helpful. And you’ve gotta think about all these things. If you’ve got links to your blog content on there, make sure it’s relevant for the actual person that’s on the page. So, you have to think about all these things, and really appreciate that every page on your website should be geared towards that particular audience segment. And this is even more important if you’re appealing to lots and lots of different audiences.

Yeah, ’cause each of these audiences has their concerns, their problems, that they faced in the past. And they have a … yeah, essentially, a problem that they need you to solve. And if you just start speaking to them in general terms about the fact that, “You know, we do recruitment, and we are great people.”

“We’ve done recruitment for 25 years,” and all that kind of stuff. No. Make it really specific. Exactly. Don’t make it general. The most of it can go on your individual pages on your website, the better. Definitely.

Yeah. It’s about thinking about your visitor and their journey. What journey are they going to go on? When I say journey, I don’t mean philosophical. I mean, actually, what pages are they gonna click on, what images are they gonna click on, what length, where they’re gonna go. And map out all of the different sort of points of that journey, until they get in touch, and then how you use their recruitment agency.

Exactly. Exactly, yes. Yeah.

So, this seems like quite a lot of work. That’s the only problem. That’s the only thing-

That is the only problem.

… our listeners might be concerned with. So, if they’re creating lots of page designs, and lots of different things for each audience, do they have to create a completely unique design? Are they gonna have to kind of contact the web designer, or create a new page completely?

No. Definitely not. And, you know, if you’ve got sort of different audiences, there’s no reason why you should have a completely different design. I mean, in an ideal world, it might be nice, it might work, but your time is precious. So, you can keep the same design. You have some content, you have some images, you have testimonial, you have links to your blog post. That’s absolutely fine, you know, to keep that on every page. Just make sure the content is different. Make sure the content and the call-to-actions speak to your individual audiences.

Yeah. So, think about your images, and what your audience are gonna connect to. It’s gonna be different things. It absolutely is.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You just have to switch them out really. You have to switch out the content. You have to switch out the images. You probably have to switch out testimonials, and the blog content. But you don’t have to kind of make each page a different design.

No, it can follow the same layout, and structure.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which is gonna save you a little bit of time. And know that it’s time-consuming this way, and know that it’s easier to talk in general terms, and have one page that tries to suit everyone. But it’s just not gonna convey as well. So, it’s worth putting the time and effort into actually thinking about your different audiences, exactly what they need, exactly what problems they’re facing, and writing specific pages for them.

Okay. Well, that all sounds quite achievable. I think it’s … We’ve given a few tips away there for somebody who does want to introduce additional audience, or is concerned that they might need to pay out for a new website. Clearly, you don’t. I mean, in most scenarios, we would very rarely recommend that someone has an additional website. It’s quite easy when you think about things the way that we’ve explained, to actually imagine how it might look if you do have completely different audiences. And, yeah, I think our listeners will find that valuable.

Yeah, definitely. I think it can seem very complicated, and kind of scary, but it’s not really. And if you think about like you said, your customer’s journey, that person’s journey, you know, starting at the home page, okay, how are they going to then try and get in touch with you? How are you gonna get them to do that? And what pages will they click on? What process will they take?

If you think about it from that point of view, you can easily kind of plot it out, generally, and get them to the right place.

So, hopefully, you found that episode useful. Let us know if you have any questions at all. Join the Facebook group as well. If you go to jammydigital.com/facebook And ask us any follow-up questions about it. We don’t ask this enough actually. Get involved in the community. Share a link to your website, and let us critique it. At the minute, we are doing free website critiques in our Facebook group every Wednesday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. And we’ll happily take a look at it, and point you in the right direction, and tell you how to improve it.

Don’t forget, there are only a few days left until we close the doors for three months for the Make Your Mark Online Membership. This is our signature membership program, where we teach personal brands how to build and grow a successful business website. We teach you all about WordPress. We teach you all about SEO. We teach you how to define your personal brand, and really build a website that you could be proud of as well.

So, check that out at makeyourmarkonline.net

And we’ll see you in the next episode!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post Ep 14 – How to appeal to more than one audience on your website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Converting your website visitors into paying customers doesn’t just happen by accident. There are so many things you can do to increase conversions on your website.

In this episode, we’re going to be going through eight very simple tweaks you can make on your website that will transform your readers into leads.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• What is a conversion
• Are there a simple set of rules to increase website conversions?
• How to make your buttons stand out
• Why you shouldn’t use ‘sign up to my newsletter’
• How to create conversion-friendly forms
• Signposting on your website
• Making sure every page on your website has a purpose

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

1.12 – What is a conversion?
2.28 – Is there a simple set of rules to increase conversions?
3.24 – What can we do with our websites to get warmer leads?
3.45 – How to make your buttons stand out
6.14 – What to have instead of a ‘newsltter’
9.20 – How to create conversion-friendly forms
12.13 – Adding your images to your website
13.41 – Having no call to actions
16.24 – SSL Certificate
17.55 – Your Big, Bold Statement
19.17 – Too much clutter

Useful Resources and Links

Jammy Digital SEO webinar 

How to Create a Big Bold Statement

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Episode Transcript Below

Martin:             Welcome to episode eight of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. In today’s episode, we’re going to talking about conversions, and we’re going to give you eight simple rules to follow to improve the conversions on your website. Now, before we get into the show, I just wanted to remind you that we are hosting a brand new webinar on the 6th of September, and it’s going to be all about SEO and how to improve your search engine rankings for your website. It’s going to be really fun, isn’t it?

Lyndsay:           Yeah, yeah. Really excited about it. It’s going to start at 8:00, that’s UK time, or 3:00 p.m. EST. Make sure you pop it in your diaries, and go and visit the webpage which is JammyDigital.com/webinar, to actually get your unique link for the actual webinar, because you won’t be able to get in without that.

What is a website conversion?

Martin:             Yeah, and make sure you turn up early as well, because we do only have a limited number of seats, so it’s really important you show up 15 minutes later. We’ll be there. Okay, let’s get into the show. So Lyndsay, when we talk about conversions, what do we actually mean? What is a conversion?

Lyndsay:           It’s a good question, actually, because we work within obviously web design, so we talk about this quite a lot. But I think it’s a little bit of a jargony term really, because it’s not quite obvious what it is. But it’s essentially up to you, the business owner, what you classify as a conversion. It’s getting your reader of your website from the status of reader and actually taking some action.

Lyndsay:           You decide what the action is. That could be signup to your email list, it could be get in touch with you, it could be to buy something from you. Ultimately, that’s actually your decision, but it’s essentially about getting your reader to take some form of action with you.

Martin:             Okay, so it’s about taking someone from potentially a cold lead on your website to making them into a warm lead or maybe a hot lead where they’re ready to buy.

Lyndsay:           Exactly.

Martin:             It’s about taking somebody through that funnel really, to become more of a customer or more of a potential customer at least.

Lyndsay:           Exactly, yeah.

Martin:             Okay. That makes sense. It’s pretty straightforward then. It’s just yeah, there’s lots of info on the internet that makes it more complicated than it needs to be.

Lyndsay:           Yeah. It doesn’t need to be complicated at all, no.

Is there a simple set of rules to increase conversions?

Martin:             Okay, that’s pretty self-explanatory then. Okay, so with SEO, and with web design, we like to give quite a few tips away. In terms of action steps that our listeners can do with their websites, is it easy to give that away with conversions? Do we have a simple set of rules that people can follow to be able to improve their website conversions?

Lyndsay:           Yeah. I mean, broadly speaking, we do go through this with our clients and also in website critiques as well, about how you can actually improve conversions. Now, conversion, it is all about testing, so your business is unique. Your audience is unique, your brand is unique, so one thing that might work for one person might not work for the other, but in this episode we’re going to be speaking very broadly about what will work for 99% of businesses. Everyone will be able to get something from it.

Martin:             Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so let’s get into the juicy bits then. What can we do with our websites today to improve the conversions? How can we get people to become a warmer lead?

Making your buttons stand out

Lyndsay:           Yeah, well there’s plenty of simple things that you can do, and I’ll focus in this episode on really simple tweaks that you can make. You can probably just go in today to the backend of your system and make these tweaks. The first one is your buttons. Now, what I mean when I say buttons is essentially mean your call to action buttons.

Lyndsay:           This might be like, “Get in touch with us” or, “Sign up to our webinar” or any of those kind of buttons on your website. It’s about actually making them really stand out, because making them stand out really does improve conversions. You see this, I always give this example of Amazon. Amazon is a really ugly website. No offense website. Not that they’re going to be bothered, they’re making a lot of money.

Martin:             Yeah, don’t sue us, Amazon. Please.

Lyndsay:           We can’t afford that. But if you look at their website, it isn’t the prettiest, and their buttons really stick out like a sore thumb. They’re not attractive at all, but they get people to click, and that’s what you want to be doing on your website in a way. I mean, we see a lot of people that make their buttons really go in with their color scheme, they’re nice pastely colors, you can’t really tell.

Lyndsay:           Or, they don’t have any color in the background of them, they’re not in a box, it’s just a text link and all things like that.

Martin:             Yeah, ’cause sometimes they don’t actually look like buttons.

Lyndsay:           Exactly.

Martin:             We were doing a website critique last week and we were like, “Oh, didn’t realize this was a button.”

Lyndsay:           Yeah, suddenly you accidentally click.

Martin:             ‘Cause it blends in. Yeah.

Lyndsay:           Because it blends in so much, and I think this is about really making those call to actions stand out, and that will definitely improve conversions.

Martin:             Okay, that’s a good point. It doesn’t necessarily matter what color you use. I mean, on a broad level-

Lyndsay:           On a broad level.

Martin:             … it’s just about making it stand out.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, on a broad level, no. Actually there’s a pile of research to do with button color psychology. If you’re a geek like me, it’s all very interesting. But it is dependent on the business. Once you’ve actually made your buttons stand out on your website, then you can start testing things. Is green better? Is orange better? You can start testing these things out, and believe me, big corporations spend hundreds of thousands of pounds actually doing this.

Lyndsay:           You can certainly do it yourself, but the first step is just make those buttons stand out, and it’s amazing how many people just don’t do that.

Martin:             Yeah, so that by itself is such a big action step for our listeners to be able to go onto the website now, change the button colors, make sure that they stand out with all the other stuff on the website, and then see some improvements, which is great.

Lyndsay:           Yep, definitely.

Martin:             Fantastic. Okay what else have we got?

Sign up to our newsletter

Lyndsay:           Another thing that we constantly say, don’t we Martin, is about sign up to my newsletter? We see it all the time, don’t we?

Martin:             Absolutely love it, we do.

Lyndsay:           I think we’ve mentioned this before. I probably mention it on every episode really, but a lot of people say on their website, “Sign up to my newsletter to get my weekly thoughts” or something like that. We always say, “No one cares.” Unfortunately, as much as we’d love to think that people care about our monthly newsletter where we talk about the award we won in 2014 and our new office plant, no one does care, unfortunately.

Martin:             To be fair, you are partial to the nice office plant.

Lyndsay:           I am. Well, I always kill them, don’t I?

Martin:             You do.

Lyndsay:           I always buy them and kill them. I could put that in a newsletter, no one would read it. But yeah, unfortunately no one really cares that much about your updates in your business. Now, you might, I don’t know, you might be giving away the best content ever in this newsletter. I don’t know, but if you’re calling it a newsletter, I’m just going to be bored.

Lyndsay:           The way to increase conversions in terms of email signups is to offer something for free in exchange for someone’s email address. This could be anything. It could be an eBook, it could be a video series, could be a guide, could be anything. I’m not saying it has to be really extensive. Just give away something.

Martin:             Okay. That’s great. We’re talking about making it I suppose, if we’re making it really clean and simple, this information, it’s about making it customer focused rather than focused on what we have, which is our newsletter, our news, our information, our updates, and about this is your guide, this is your free giveaway, this is your action step, this is your cheat sheet. We’re talking about flipping it, aren’t we?

Lyndsay:           Yep, absolutely. I absolutely agree with that. It is taking the focus from us and putting it onto them. When you make something about the customer, and make them feel special and that they’re going to gain something from it, then you’re going to increase conversions.

Lyndsay:           Again, this could be tested so once you’ve gathered that, once you’ve got rid of the newsletter, you’re replaced with something else, perhaps a cheat sheet as you said, you could test different things and think, “Well, actually a video series works a lot better for conversions and getting email addresses than my cheat sheet.” You can test different things, but the first step is get rid of the newsletter, replace it with something juicy.

Martin:             Yeah, unless you’re Richard Branson, newsletter isn’t that appealing.

Lyndsay:           Yeah. I mean, I have seen the big guys do it. When you are Richard Branson, or any number of these huge influencers, yes you can get away with saying, “Sign up to my newsletter” because people genuinely do have an interest in your daily life and what’s going on, but until you’re there, until you’re Richard Branson, just hold off on that.

Email sign-up forms

Martin:             Okay, no problem. Okay, so before you mentioned getting someone to get in touch with us as well, and I suppose that could be related to email signup forms as well, but what tips do we have in regards to getting people to fill out forms on our website?

Lyndsay:           Yeah, that’s a really good one, because we’ve seen from … We’ve done hundreds and hundreds of website critiques haven’t we, over our years? And we’ve seen a lot of people put forms on their website that are very long. They ask for name, address, your pet’s name, your blood type, and your favorite film.

Lyndsay:           No, they don’t really ask that much, but they ask for so much information. I mean, seriously, just completely useless information. Ask yourself, do you really need someone’s address when they’re filling in your form on the website? Are you going to send them a letter? Is it 1952? Well, maybe not that early, but you know what I mean. Do you really need to ask all these details?

Lyndsay:           Think about what you actually do need to ask, and this is good for obviously GDPR, as well, because you have to ask for the maximum amount of data that you need to actually do the process that you need to. If you don’t need an address, don’t ask for it. If you don’t need someone’s website URL, don’t ask for it.

Lyndsay:           There’s no point. It’s tempting to get as much information as possible, but if someone sees a big huge form and they think, “I can’t be bothered with that. I’m going to come back to it later” and they’ll just hit the backspace button.

Martin:             Okay, and I suppose as well, as we noticed in the past, is there can even be a difference between asking people to fill out two fields on the form versus three fields on the form. I’ve seen MailChimp as well, their standard signup form for an email list is actually first name, last name, and then email address. Now, that last name you have to ask yourself, is that actually vital? Do we need somebody’s last name or can we speak to people normally on our email list by just saying, “Hey Lyndsay, here is the thing you requested.” Do you really need a last name?

Lyndsay:           Yeah, exactly. It’s the same with asking for Mr. Or Mrs. Or Ms. Like, do you really need that? Again, are you writing them a big long letter? Because most of the time, you don’t refer to people as Ms. Cambridge or Mr. Huntsbatch in email, so it’s completely useless. Yeah, have a think about that and make it as short and easy for your end user as possible.

Martin:             Yeah. On the flip side, I would say that there is an argument to say that you should get more than an email address, so asking for somebody’s first name actually might help as well.

Lyndsay:           Yeah. I definitely agree with that actually, because yeah, you would need a first name and an email address. Don’t just ask for an email address, ’cause certainly when you’re emailing people, you want it to be personal, so you want to say, “Hi Lyndsay” or “Hi whoever.” You don’t want to just say, “Hi subscriber” because that just makes it very, very impersonal.

Martin:             It limits things.

Lyndsay:           Exactly.

Martin:             I’m sure it works, I’m sure you’ll probably get more signups, but how personal can you be if you’re just asking for an email address?

Lyndsay:           Yeah. It’s fine in that balance, but yeah definitely.

Martin:             Exactly. Okay, perfect. What else can we do to improve the conversions on our website?

Lyndsay:           I think another thing that we try and push a lot of people to do, and they’re sometimes quite reluctant, is put pictures of themselves on their website. This is particularly important for personal brands, but for any business I would argue, to put your picture on your website. There’s nothing worse than going to a website and feeling very cold and clinical about it.

Lyndsay:           We hear the phrase all the time, “People deal with people.” We want to actually see who we’re dealing with.

Images of you

Martin:             Okay, so this is a really interesting one, because when we talk about conversions, we talk about signing up, we talk about buttons, we’re talking about email lists, but this one is a bit different, because it’s like, well, before they even get there, they need to trust you. You they need to know you. They need to build up some kind of rapport via your website, wherever they are in the world, and actually getting somebody to fill out an email list and sign up to do this or buy a product is a lot easier if you think about it from a person to person perspective, which is why having an image of yourself is so important if you’re a personal brand.

Lyndsay:           Exactly, exactly. As you said, it’s just all about building trust, isn’t it? You have to get that trust built before someone takes action with you. A good way of doing that is obviously featuring your image on your website.

Martin:             Okay. Perfect. That will absolutely help someone take the next step with with you.

Lyndsay:           Definitely, definitely.

Martin:             I agree. Okay, no problem. What else can we do?

Signposting

Lyndsay:           There is another thing that people do in the fact that it’s not even about button colors now. It’s the fact that there is no call to action on your website at all. A lot of people rely on the fact that they just have a contact me button perhaps in their main menu header, but they have nothing on their website that tells people what you want them to do.

Martin:             Yeah, that direction you want people to take.

Lyndsay:           Exactly. It’s really not good in terms of conversions. What you want to do is actually tell people what you want them to do. Be a bit bossy about it. Say, “Get in contact with me now” or even just signposting them around your website. We always say on the homepage, signpost people where you want them to go.

Lyndsay:           If you’ve got three different services, feature those three different services on your homepage, and get people to the relevant pages that they need to go to. I always say think of yourself like a traffic, like you’re directing traffic and you’ve got a little whistle in the middle of a street.

Lyndsay:           Imagine that’s your website and you’re the person who has to direct the traffic. You need to be really clear, “Okay, you need to go over there, you need to go over there, you need to go over there. You can get in touch with me if you want” and you need to be that explicit with people.

Martin:             Yeah, it is about taking control of the buyer’s journey throughout your website, and one thing we’ve done actually is with our webinar coming out over the next few weeks, I don’t know if I’ve plugged it enough, but what we’ve actually done is we’ve gone through all of our previous blog posts related to SEO, and we’ve actually signposted a few of those and included these little redirection sections, which is, “We’ve got a new webinar coming. Click here.”

Martin:             They’re reading the blog post, they’re actually consuming the content, and then they see a call to action which says, “Please go over here if you’re interested in getting an SEO webinar.” That’s what we’ve done and that’s something that you could potentially do, especially if you have a relevant offer on now that might not be there in the future. You can still go back through your content, and start redirecting these people while they’re consuming your content.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, that’s a really good point, actually, Martin. Because a lot of our content gets a lot of our traffic and you might be the same. You might find that your blog content does get a lot of your traffic, so don’t miss also your blog posts for those clear call to actions. A lot of people write these amazingly wonderful blog posts which are full of great content, and then there’s nothing for the audience to do at the end.

Lyndsay:           Or even you can put it in the middle of the blog post, where you have, “Sign up for my email list” and give something in exchange for that. But to have a purpose for every blog post, have a call to action, yeah, is extremely important and that’s another really good point.

SSL Certificate

Lyndsay:           Another thing that’s important for your website is something that’s nothing to do with design, but it will really help conversions, and that is something that we recommend now that every single website has, and that’s an SSL certificate.

Martin:             Got it.

Lyndsay:           Now, this was mainly applicable for more eCommerce websites, because people were going in and they were paying for products and an SSL certificate just shows that your website is secure. You’ll notice a little padlock in the top left hand corner saying it’s secure. But now I’d recommend that all websites have it. Because it makes people feel more secure when dealing with you.

Martin:             Yeah, and obviously Google are making people aware now that your website isn’t secure if it’s not showing the green padlock, if you haven’t got yourself an SSL certificate. It will actually prevent people from becoming a conversion on your website if you don’t have it. It’s important because people are expecting to see it.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, exactly, exactly. I think people are becoming more and more aware of it.

Martin:             Yeah, with GDPR, which we hate talking about it, but people have got that in the back of their mind, that when they fill out their name and email, how secure is this data? Is it just going to you for what I want to give you for, or is it potential that your website’s going to be hacked? I mean, not secure is a very, very strong statement that somebody might be reluctant to even spend anytime on your website if it says it’s not secure.

Lyndsay:           Exactly. Just don’t give them an excuse to leave.

Martin:             Exactly.

Lyndsay:           A nice and easy fix, as well.

Martin:             Course it is, yeah. Perfect.

Big Bold Statement

Lyndsay:           Another thing that you can look at as well, and we’ve talked about this before actually, in episode five of our podcast, is a big, bold statement. Now, a big, bold statement is essentially the first phrase or sentence that your end user will see when they land on your homepage. It’s normally in the first third of your homepage, above the fold, and it’s essentially a summary of what you do and who you help.

Lyndsay:           If you don’t have that on there, it’s crazy how many people don’t have this, because it’s really not clear what it is that they do, is it?

Martin:             Yeah, and much like the image of yourself as well, this becomes well before a conversion takes place, but it’s absolutely vital. If somebody clicks on your website, or finds you online, or however they get to your website, if you don’t have a clearly defining statement that explains who you are and why they should care, then they’re not ever going to get to the level where they are giving you their email address, or buying a product for you.

Martin:             It’s more about the psychology of making people feel welcome when they get to your website, without using the word welcome, which we hate. It’s about making sure that they’re in the right place, so that when it comes to a conversion, they’re much more likely to take it.

Lyndsay:           Yep, definitely.

Martin:             Okay, perfect. That’s a really, really good point. That brings us onto the final point. What’s this last thing that’s really important that people cover on the website?

Too much clutter

Lyndsay:           Okay, so the final point that we want to talk about is something that we see quite often on websites and that’s that there’s too much clutter. There’s just too much crap on your website pages. What we advise everyone is to make sure that every single page on your website has a purpose. There is a reason why that page is there, there is one topic that that page is talking about, and there is a clear call to action of what you want someone to do.

Lyndsay:           We see this on homepages quite a lot, where people want to tell you all about all their services that they offer, all about who they are and why they’ve started this business. Everything from all their social media links to how to contact them, all these different things rammed into a homepage. It’s just so overwhelming for the end user, they just don’t know what to do next.

Martin:             Yeah. It’s like having a business card that’s just completely filled with text and content. It’s not the purpose of a website, is to just dump all that information on people.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, exactly, exactly. There’s just this temptation in trying to convert people, we speak too much. Imagine a sales call and you’re going on and on and on and on, and your person that you’re talking to, your customer’s droning out, because you’re so desperately trying to convert them that you’re actually putting them off by telling them all this needless information. You just need to be very, very clear and like I said earlier, make sure every page has a specific topic and a specific purpose that you want to talk about. Don’t start going on about lots of different things on your pages.

Martin:             Yeah. It’s definitely a case of less is more, and understandably when we’re talking about business and we can’t to convince people to become customers, we think that more information is going to be better. The more informed that people are, the better, which means that it needs to be an extremely long page, filled with content, filled with images, filled with links, and then what happens is we dilute the main messages that we want people to take and the next steps we want people to take.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely. I think this is also an argument of where your content should come in as well. Because a lot of people who write all this extra crap that goes onto their homepage or main webpages could actually be made into really great content. People talk about their processes, or what they do during their service, whatever that might be. That could also make great blog posts if you want it to. Not everything has to be a webpage. Think about what could also make a great blog post as well, and don’t be scared to make it into a blog post. There’s no problem with doing that.

Martin:             Okay, so clean, simple, directive design, as in which direction you want people to take, is much better.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely.

Martin:             Okay, perfect. Great tips. I think our listeners have probably got a few notes there that they can actually go back to their website and actually make some adjustments.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, I think it’s difficult with this one, because there is so much we could talk about, and like I said, for button color, I could just talk two hours just about button colors, but these are meant to be very broad strokes, about what you could do really quickly to increase some conversions on your website.

Martin:             Yeah, and you could literally talk about buttons ’til you’re blue in the face, but I don’t think our audience want to fall asleep right now.

Lyndsay:           No, they definitely don’t. Let’s not do that to them.

Martin:             Especially not if they’re driving. Okay, perfect. That was episode eight of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. I hope you found it useful. Please don’t forget to register for our webinar in the next few weeks on the 6th of September, and that’s JammyDigital.com/seo-webinar, or /webinar. We’ve got both, we’ve covered ourselves.

Lyndsay:           We have both, we’ve covered ourselves, yes.

Martin:             Definitely. Like I said, there are limited spaces available and please turn up early to get a space. That’s it. We’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark Online Podcast.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post Ep 8 – 8 Tips to Increase Website Conversions appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Transitioning from a traditional business to a personal brand: what you need to know

Transitioning from traditional, service-based business to a personal brand can seem super-scary.

Often, we’re afraid to get out from behind our logos and let our audience get to know the real us.

When you have a personal brand, you can build trust, charge more for your services and become an authority in your industry.

In this episode, we look at how you can transition into a personal brand and what how your website should reflect this.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • Why someone would want to transition into a personal brand
  • What are the risks in becoming a personal brand
  • How someone can transition into a personal brand effectively
  • How someone should change their business name/domain name

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

3.40 – Why would someone want to be a personal brand? 
5.05 – Neil Patel: I wish I never built a personal brand – what’s our take on this?
6.16  – What are the risks involved in transitioning into a personal brand?
6.45 – Changing the name of your business without warning your clients
8.20 – How cutting your services entirely might cause issues
12.10 – Issues with changing your niche
12.45 – Difficulties selling your personal brand
15.00 – How might someone transition into a personal brand?
16.23 – Try to avoid changing your niche
17.30 – How would someone change their name domain name?
19.12 – Putting your face on the website
22.10 – Having a personality

Useful Resources and Links

Neil Patel: I Wish I Never Built a Personal Brand

Jammy Digital SEO webinar 

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Episode Transcript Below

Lyndsay:           Welcome to episode seven of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. In today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about how to transition your business into a personal brand and why you might want to do this. Before we get into the show, we wanted you to know we are running a free online workshop all about SEO for personal brands. Truth be told, the stuff we’re going to be talking about in the workshop will be valuable to most businesses. This is taking place on the 6th of September 8 P.M. or 3 P.M. EST, and it’s going to be really good, isn’t it, Martin?

Martin:             Yeah. It’s going to be absolutely awesome. You’re not going to want to miss it, but it is kind of worth pointing that we’re in 2018, so it is this year. If you’re watching in sort of two years time-

Lyndsay:           Oh yeah. Good point.

Martin:             … you probably missed it. Put your diary away, but yeah, we’re really excited about it. It’s one of the most common topics that we get asked about SEO and we wanted to make sure that this was our first proper webinar.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely. We’ve sort of joined a few free webinars, haven’t we, Martin?

Martin:             Yeah, in the past.

Lyndsay:           Over the past five years. We have noticed sometimes it can be sort of 45 minutes of sales pitch and then five minutes of actual actionable tips. This is something on this webinar we really wanted to avoid. We really want to give you guys real actionable tips that you can takeaway and you use in your business straight away. We’re going to be giving you a workbook about a week before the webinar goes live, so you can actually work through that on the actual webinar itself. It will be really actionable, really juicy for you.

Martin:             Yeah, definitely. We don’t actually have anything to sell you right now anyway, so that’s why it’s just going to be content-driven. I mean obviously you already know about the membership and we’ve got a wait list for that, but other than that, we don’t have anything to pitch here. That’s why we’re focusing the majority of this time just giving you valuable tips.

Lyndsay:           Exactly. Exactly. You do actually have to register for the webinar because there are limited spaces available. If you just head to jammydigital.com/webinar, add your name and email on the page, and we’ll send you your unique link to join the webinar. That’s all you need to do. Head over there now if you can and let’s get on with the show. Before I begin the actual show, Martin, we both had really bad colds this week. I was kind of hoping that for this podcast I would have like sexy Phoebe Buffay voice.

Martin:             I think you do definitely. I could just imagine you singing Smelly Cat.

Lyndsay:           This is Martin sweet talking. No.

Martin:             Hopefully our listeners have actually seen Friends before. Otherwise, that’s not really going to make sense.

Lyndsay:           They’re going to be so confused right now.

Martin:             Yeah.

Lyndsay:           I sound a bit more like a squeaky frog I think.

Martin:             You’ve given me a cold, which is just glorious.

Lyndsay:           I like to share. Today we’re going to be talking about transitioning from a service-based business to more of a personal brand. That’s right, isn’t it?

Martin:             Yeah. This is a common concern that quite a few of our clients have had in the past. It’s the idea of transitioning from a traditional type business, maybe a freelancer or a service-based business where you’ve really kind of had your logo stand in front of your face really, and actually moving more into a personal brand can be a bit concerning. You’re not sure if you’re going to lose clients. You’re not sure if they’re going to sort of like the switch. All these kind of things go through our heads and that’s kind of why we wanted to do this episode. We wanted to kind of go through these and see if there’s any actual validation there if you need to worry at all.

Lyndsay:           I mean why would someone even bother doing this? It seems like a lot of work just to transition. What are the actual benefits of it?

Martin:             Well, I think it’s kind of the benefit of a personal brand really, which is very, very powerful. I mean you want to stand out. There’s so many businesses out there who hide behind a logo. It’s a lot more easier if you stand out if you are a person. Few businesses are just too scared to sort of get out and say, “We are the expert and we’re prepared to stand in front of you and show you our face and be more of a personal brand.”

Lyndsay:           It makes you more memorable, doesn’t it?

Martin:             You see, we’re built to connect with people. It’s what we do. We see faces all the time. Being on a personal brand website, it allows you to connect with that person more and feel like you … You have a little bit more rapport with a person if you can actually see what they look like. It’s amazing, especially when we get phone calls all the time and they say, “Hi. Can I speak to Martin? Can I speak to Lyndsay,” and having that face on your website is extremely powerful.

Lyndsay:           Yup, definitely.

Martin:             Maybe you want to offer coaching and consulting, maybe you want to speak on stage, all these different types of scenarios, that’s how a personal brand can help really. You can charge higher fees because people want to deal with you as the expert. I don’t think anybody would argue that being a personal brand isn’t more beneficial to your business. It just is. We’ve seen it time and time again. I know we read an article this week about Neil Patel who sort of brought up the question really about … Yeah.

Lyndsay:           That was a really interesting one actually because he said that he sort of regretted building a personal brand. I think that was more and we’ll come onto this later sort of risk involved with building personal brand is that it’s attached to you and your name. There can be sort of disadvantages to that, but we’ll come to that a little bit later. For anyone who is listening, perhaps go and check that article out because yeah, I mean we talk about the advantages of a personal brand, but we also want to talk about the disadvantages of it as well.

Lyndsay:           It’s not just clear cut that it’s the most amazing thing ever, but we’ve certainly seen I think from our clients that the benefits do outweigh the disadvantages.

Martin:             Oh yeah, definitely. Personally, from my perspective, I suppose that kind of article was maybe a little bit click bait. Maybe he doesn’t actually believe it, but he has an opinion about the pros and cons to it essentially. That’s more of what the article is. Without the article, we wouldn’t even be discussing it. Without him being a personal brand, we wouldn’t be discussing it.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely. Okay. Since we’ve talked about the risks, what are the risks involved with sort of building a personal brand?

Martin:             Okay. I don’t actually think there are a lot of risks involved with becoming more of a personal brand because you’ve already got the business behind you. You’ve already got a steady stream of customers hopefully and becoming more of a personal brand can only benefit you. However, there are a few technical reasons that you might want to be careful. For instance, if you change the name of your business completely without warning your clients, maybe you go from webdesignservices.com to martinhuntbach.com and you don’t tell your clients that that’s happening, then it might actually cause a little bit of a disconnect.

Martin:             I’m not saying there would be a problem, but if you don’t tell people and somebody googles the name of your business and it’s not there anymore, then that’s a problem, but it’s not from a customer sort of mindset perspective. They’re not going to be that bothered, but not telling them might sort of … Warning signs might flash really.

Lyndsay:           Okay. That’s quite interesting. Yeah. I think obviously it’s best to sort of tell your clients in advance if you are changing the name of your business. If they’re used to dealing with you everyday, then they’re not going to be bothered so much that you’ve changed your name to you because they know it’s you anyway. Yeah, I think that most clients …

Martin:             Just about informing them. Just about being upfront about it really.

Lyndsay:           Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Martin:             The same goes for your domain name. If you do change that domain name, from a technical standpoint, people are not going to be able to find you online as easily. That’s why it’s important that if you change your name, you change your business and things like that, you really do want to be careful about how you go about it. It comes down to planning. It comes down to communication. Like I said, most people don’t mind if you are becoming more of an expert and you’re putting your face on your website and you’re offering different types of services. They just care if you don’t tell them because it just wouldn’t make sense to somebody.

Martin:             Well, cutting your services entirely might cause problems. If you’ve got clients paying you for a certain service each month and you want to keep them happy, just by swapping your services entirely from one day to the next, it might concern a few people if they’re continuing to pay you. Well, it’s like, “Are they still offering this service anymore?” That’s why we kind of suggest that people drip feed new services in potentially.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely. We find this a lot with people who want to sort of transition from a done for you into a more of a coaching role, a consorting role, more speaking, more that kind of business. They do need to change their services slightly. I mean even from a business point of view, you can’t just switch completely from one to the next because you’ve got to kind of slowly build one and then sort of face the other one out. You kind of got to think about it that way anyway, haven’t you?

Martin:             Yeah. I mean we got a little bit of experience in this. Although we are personal brands, we very much stand behind Jammy Digital as the agency, but we actually did this with a service that we have and had and still have clients paying us for SEO, but we stopped selling SEO. That’s another thing that you need to be aware of. If you stop services entirely, then you may have to have some quite difficult conversations with some clients. Maybe you’re taking them clients off your retainer, maybe you stopped dealing with that service entirely, or maybe you are stopping to advertise that service, but you’re still keeping your existing clients on.

Martin:             At any given stage, as long as you speak to your clients about it, you’ll probably be okay.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely. We actually wrote a blog post, didn’t we, actually saying why we stopped selling SEO. I actually at the time thought, “No one’s really going to be bothered,” but people actually did read it and take the time with some wine. I think that’s quite a good way of dealing with it. If you’re really open and upfront about why you’re perhaps transitioning or changing your services, if you’re open and upfront about it and say why, then people are a lot more understanding, aren’t they? They actually find it quite interesting. I was really surprised at how many people actually read that blog post and commented or got in touch with us.

Martin:             That’s the thing. If you do it secretive, then that’s the problem.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely.

Martin:             If you are quite like smoke and mirrors about it, then that’s when people will be like-

Lyndsay:           Hiding like a ninja.

Martin:             …”Don’t you offer SEO? I can’t see on your website at all now.” Yeah, it can be a bit concerning, but again it all comes back to communication. It’s more of a business decision that you have to make if you are cutting services because you’re talking about money, you’re talking about income, you’re talking about all of the extra stuff that comes with it. Be careful of that without the communication.

Lyndsay:           As well, you need to make sure that you still tell people that that was a service that you did because it actually works in your favor. If you’re say going from a done for you service into consulting, you need to tell people that you’ve had 10-15 years experience of actually doing this for companies, of actually making a change in their business, and actually have a proven track record of actually doing the thing that you say you can advice people about. It’s a know about thing that you’re saying that you transition from this into this. Don’t hide it.

Lyndsay:           Actually be proud of it and say that’s what you’ve done before. This is what you do now, but you’ve got this experience under your belt.

Martin:             Too many people start businesses. Everybody’s a coach these days. I mean it’s nice to actually know that somebody out has done it there like Lyndsay said-

Lyndsay:           Yeah, exactly.

Martin:             … because so few people have and just say that they’re an expert, and everybody’s a social media expert these days. It’s a real positive.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely. Sometimes it’s nice to know that that person has got 10 years of actually doing it for businesses and it’s really worked for them. Okay. Is there any other things, any other risks that might be involved with this?

Martin:             I think kind of leading on from that one really is if you change your niche entirely, rather than just chopping services off and swapping them about, if you change your niche entirely when you become a personal brand, then you’re essentially starting from scratch again. You need to know that. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing occasionally. If that’s the avenue you want to take, then go for it, but just be aware. If you’re dealing with solicitors one day and then you decide to deal with estate agents, then you’ve got to start from square one really. Building up that audience again is going to be vital.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely. I think the one sort of final thing really is kind of what Neil Patel touched upon in his article was that he found it more difficult I think to sell his personal brand. I think if you’re building businesses just to sell them, then maybe a personal brand isn’t the right direction. Most clients that we speak to are more passionate about the big … They really want to kind of have it forever type thing. They don’t envisage sort of selling them.

Lyndsay:           That’s not to sell that they won’t do at some point, but I suppose if you’re building businesses up just to kind of sell them on, then maybe a personal brand sort of business isn’t right for you, although it kind of does work for helping to build a business up. It’s kind of like that catch 22 really. You’re sort of stuck with it. As you said, it is harder to sell because if I’m selling lyndsaycambridge.com, no one else can take that on really but me.

Martin:             No, because no one spells Lyndsay the way that you do.

Lyndsay:           No one spells Lyndsay the way that I do, so it’ll be impossible for starters.

Martin:             My name would be impossible.

Lyndsay:           No one would know that, Martin.

Martin:             I can’t even spell it.

Lyndsay:           No. Neither could I.

Martin:             It’s basically the reason you didn’t take my name when we got married.

Lyndsay:           Exactly. I don’t know how to spell that.

Martin:             Nope. Not worth it.

Lyndsay:           Exactly. Yeah, that’s a major sort of downside to it. However, one of the plus sides to having your name attached to your business is that that follows you wherever you go. If you want to set up a new business, all the contacts that you’ve made, everything that you build up through your content marketing through your name, everything attached to that actually follows you. If you want to set up something new, then that audience knows who you are. They know of your reputation. They know how good you are, and they’re going to follow you wherever you go. That’s a great thing.

Martin:             Yeah, it definitely is. It’s true. I mean people search for people on the internet these days, don’t they? I mean what happens when somebody googles your name? It’s nice to know that there are lots of different things that have happened in the past. Maybe you’ve had guest posts here, here and everywhere and you’ve appeared on podcasts and you spoke on stage. Nobody googles the name of your business unless it’s really, really memorable. I think it’s important, that personal brand. We’re not really debating whether or not you should move into a personal brand. We’re just kind of going through the concerns really.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely.

Martin:             I think we definitely covered a few of those concerns if our listeners have them.

Lyndsay:           Definitely. Okay. Say if someone is quite committed then to transitioning into a personal brand, how might they do this quite well? How might they do this effectively?

Martin:             I think once you’ve listened to what we’ve just been talking about, hopefully a few of the concerns have sort of gone really because you shouldn’t really be that concerned. You have free reins really to do what you want to with your website. We do have kind of a set strokes really on what you could do. One of them is try introducing the services bit by bit. We spoke about this a little bit. We’ve actually done this recently with our website. We’re just offering the membership coming up soon. We’ve not got rid of any services and we don’t intend to, but we have moved our website around a little bit to make room for it.

Martin:             If you are wanting to change direction and become more of a personal brand, maybe offer coaching, speaking, things like that, just add the new pages to your website. Introduce them gradually, rather than to just get rid of everything and swap it all out. That might scare your visitors. Introduce services bit by bit. That’s one of the tips that we have.

Lyndsay:           Okay. That’s a really good point. What else can you do then to transition effectively into a personal brand?

Martin:             Well, most people don’t change their niche when the transition into a personal brand. If you are offering marketing services for solicitors and now you’ll be marketing advice to solicitors, then use the same language. If you have a big bold statement that says what you do, then tweak things rather than start from scratch again. Just be careful. That’s all. That’s all I would say. Just use your website as what it would be if you were to speak to that person on the phone.

Martin:             “Hi, Mr. Customer. Up until now we’ve been offering services to help you with so on,” whatever it might be, “And now we are also offering advice and coaching. I just wanted to make you aware we are having a change around with our website.” If you are that concerned, then have that conversation with somebody, but use your website to do the talking as well. I’m not saying you have to justify that you are offering coaching, but if you have those clients who are paying you a certain amount a month, they are the bread and butter of your business, then feel free to have a conversation with them and use the same sort of language that you would on the phone call on your website as well.

Lyndsay:           Okay. That make sense. I actually have a question for you, Martin.

Martin:             What?

Lyndsay:           What would you do about a domain name? Say if someone had, like you said, like webdesignservices.com, that’s an awful name-

Martin:             Yeah, it is.

Lyndsay:           … or speakingcoach.com or whatever, would you advise that they change their domain name? Is the risks of doing that … How would they go about doing that?

Martin:             That is one of the things that pops up, whether or not you keep your business name and you just become more of a personal brand, or whether or not you set up a brand new website all together. If you do change the business name and you change the domain name, make sure you speak to your web designer or your SEO company and make sure that they’re aware of it, so that if somebody does type in your business service website, it redirects to your personal brand type website.

Lyndsay:           Because you don’t want to lose any traffic, do you?

Martin:             Exactly. That’s really important. You can set up redirects and make sure that when somebody types into Google or finds that on search results, they’ll automatically get redirected to the website that you want.

Lyndsay:           That’s good because I think a lot of people are really scared to think of using that traffic. Yeah, I think that’s really good advice. They make sure they have someone there to help them with that transition.

Martin:             Yeah, exactly. There’s probably too much on that topic to cover in this episode, but it is important that you don’t just set up from scratch again and don’t tell anybody. Really we’re talking about sort of transitioning your current website into a personal brand, but you can change your domain name whenever you like. You just have to make sure that you tell Google Webmaster Tools or Search Console and you actually set it up on your website. Like I said, there’s a lot to it, but it’s important that if you do, you are redirecting people.

Lyndsay:           Okay. Good point. Okay. Is there anything else that we need to do perhaps with our websites to make that transition a little bit more clear?

Martin:             If you are becoming more of a personal brand, then that means you’re going to have to show images of yourself on your website. Up until now you might not have done that or you might just have a meet the team page. Part of becoming a personal brand is people knowing what the hell you look like. Show your face. You’re going to have to make sure that you are owning that on your website.

Lyndsay:           Okay. It’s interesting actually that you said the meet the team page because I think a lot of people really struggle with, “It’s my personal brand, but I actually have a team of people behind me.” Maybe they use a team of freelancers. Maybe they have staff. How does that play into it because they’re not just one person? How does that work?

Martin:             Well, like I said, people connect to people. This is why it’s important to show images of yourself, but it doesn’t mean you can’t show your team as well. Maybe you show a couple of images of yourself on the homepage, but one of the images might be you with your team. You have to understand that people, they want to know that there are people behind a business because it’s more trustworthy and they can connect to it. We know that. You’re the captain of the ship and people don’t mind if you have a crew behind you as long as you are the expert and you are the leader as well. You can be a personal brand, but also have lots of people in the team. Look at people like Richard Branson for instance.

Lyndsay:           Well, yeah. That’s a really good point actually because I think that a lot of people when transitioning to personal brand, they do worry that they’re going to lose that credibility, particularly if they work with sort of larger companies or really corporate companies. They think, “Are they going to think that I’m just like a freelancer? Are they going to think I’m too small?” That’s a really good point, sort of you’re the captain of the ship type thing. If you try and get that across, then that should put people’s mind at ease.

Martin:             It all comes back to communication. I mean if you have those clients, those five or six clients, that your business can’t live without, then have a chat with them. You can even make a positive out of it because there is a positive and say, “By the way, we’re also offering coaching services as well. If you are wanting anything from us, generally people hire us on an hourly basis or a monthly retainer basis. I do a bit of speaking on stage. The website’s getting a bit of a makeover, so I’d love to know what you think.”

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely.

Martin:             Just by saying that, having that conversation, people don’t care. They don’t because they want to work with you because you are the expert.

Lyndsay:           I think that’s a really good point. When people do work with large sort of corporate businesses, they kind of make them into something that they’re not because you still have to deal with whoever you’re dealing with within that business. They’re still working with a person and they still know that they deal with you day in, day out. There shouldn’t be really anything to worry about.

Martin:             Yeah, but the great thing about a personal brand and making sure that you are the personality that is leading that ship, you get to have a real personality as well. Your clients know you quite well and they get to know your little personality quirks. It’s okay for that to come across. Occasionally what we think is if we don’t have a personal brand business and we have a traditional business with a logo and we might even write about ourselves in third person, which is never a good idea.

Lyndsay:           No, don’t do that.

Martin:             But when you actually step out and people actually know that you are the person who is behind the business, people connect with you more anyway, but you get to be yourself more. You get to have certain content your website that you might not have done before. You’re able to connect with people. It just all comes back to when you have a personal brand and it’s done effectively. You do generally have a better sort of connection with your website visitor.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely. We find that personal brands find sort of their website much easier, especially writing content because then they kind of write it … They write it in first person, but they kind of can put that personality into it, which is a lot harder to do when you’re kind of a business brand rather than a personal brand. I think that’s a really good point actually that you can actually start to have a real personality actually within your business and people start to get to know you and who you are. That’s a really good point.

Martin:             Definitely. It’s really important as well and we always talk about the C word, we always talk about content.

Lyndsay:           I didn’t you were going to say that.

Martin:             Sometimes I like to surprise you. We have content on our websites that can do a lot of the talking for us. That’s why we created our SEO blog post, which was why we stopped selling SEO services. We’ll continue to do that for any transition that we make in our website. You show your blog posts and you show a podcast episodes, if we decided to stop doing this podcast for instance, which we’re definitely not doing because we love it, but if we did, we’d probably have an episode where we said why we’re stopping the podcast and what we’re doing instead, but we’d always use the content to communicate what it is that we’re doing.

Martin:             The last thing you want to do is just do it and hope that people don’t notice because people will and they just won’t tell you about it. They might just start visiting your website or they might just hire somebody else for instance. All about being open and honest.

Lyndsay:           Yeah, definitely. Most people are so understanding, aren’t they?

Martin:             Mm-hmm (affirmative). They really are.

Lyndsay:           They get why you’ve made certain decisions. They just get totally behind you. I think it actually further builds trust, doesn’t it, rather than stops any trusts.

Martin:             Yeah. Because you are a personal brand, this is a really nice side effect that we found when we’ve been offering coaching and consulting and things, is that your existing clients will see you in a new light. They’ll see you in this kind of, “Oh, they’re in demand. They’re exclusive.” It has a real positive impact on how your current customers view you, as well as the new customers as well. That’s the power of having a personal brand is that exclusivity. It’s that okay, they know what they’re talking about and I’m prepared to pay for it.

Lyndsay:           Yup, definitely. That’s a really nice point to end on, and I think we’ve really highlighted the sort of benefits of a personal brand. If you are thinking of transitioning, don’t be scared about it. If you do need help, just come and join us in our Facebook group if you need advice on that. I’ll pop the link to that in our show notes as well so you’ll be able to join us. Ask us some questions about it because I think a lot of people find it really scary, don’t they?

Martin:             Yeah.

Lyndsay:           We’ve only have seen sort of clients get a real benefit out of it. Not just clients actually. Just people that we’ve talked to in general have told us that they’ve seen real benefits from doing it. Hopefully you’ll have a really good transition into a personal brand. That was episode seven. I hope you found it useful. Just before you go, don’t forget to register for our SEO webinar, which takes place on the 6th of September. Like I said, spaces are limited. If you don’t turn up early, you might not get a space. Make sure you turn up nice and early with your workbook and pen at the ready.

Lyndsay:           Just go to jammydigital.com/webinar. We’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark Online Podcast.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post Ep 7 – How to Transition into a Personal Brand appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

When you hire us to build your website, the cost of the project may change from what we initially agreed.

Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

I hear you, and we hate doing it, but occasionally we simply HAVE to.

Truth be told, most projects go as expected and 90% of the time, the price we quote at the start of the project, is the final price.

But that still leaves 10% of our clients who end up paying more.

In this post, I want to explain why this might happen and how you can prevent it.

The cost of a website

We do our best to be as transparent as possible with our prices, and we even display our fees clearly on our website to avoid confusion.

To give you an idea of how much we charge, most of the websites we build cost between £3495–£5497 but some websites cost upwards of 10K–15K.

It depends entirely on what you need and how much time it will take.

Information gathering

Before we start working on the project, we do our best to gather as much information as possible so we can fully understand your requirements before we give you a quote.

We’ll ask you about:

• The website features you want
• Your design preferences
• What pages you want on the site
• How much advice will you need
• How many people will be working on the project
• What you want to accomplish with your new website
• And much more

The reason we spend time asking these questions at the start of the website project is because each answer you give can dramatically change the amount of work involved.

The more we know, the more accurate the proposal.

Now that you understand a little more about how we price website projects let’s discuss the elephant in the room.

If we spend so much time working out a specific price for your individual needs, why should this change?

Below, I’ve broken down the main reasons why this might happen.

1. Extra features & services

This one is to be expected. Adding extra features or services to the original package will understandably, increase the price.

Obviously, things will alter slightly throughout the build, and you may change your mind and want to tweak some bits. That’s ok. We always try to be as flexible as we can be.

However, we will have to charge for some things. Let’s say you start the web design process wanting a standard website to advertise your freelance services. But later down the line, you decide you also want an online shopping page to sell some physical products. This will need to be charged separately as it’s something we didn’t include in the original package and it takes more time.

Or let’s say you want us to set up a booking calendar for you so you can take online appointments, we may need additional tools for this, and it will take more time for us to configure. If this is the case, we’ll have to charge more.

The same also goes for:

• Additional pages you want to design
• Landing pages installing
• Email integration
• Changes to page layouts
• Extra support, e.g. online coaching from us

Essentially, anything that you didn’t agree at the start of the project could increase the final price.

2. Changing the schedule

Before we build your website, we try to establish how long the process might take. Most of our projects take between 12-16 weeks from start to finish, but this isn’t set in stone.

Every project is different and based on your requirements, it might be sooner than this, or it may take longer. Either way, we’ll give you a good indication of the time scale at the start of the process.

Once we’ve got started on the project, we’ll work with you to set a launch date for your new website. We’ll book it in the calendar, and we’ll schedule our other projects around yours. This way we can ensure we have a good amount of time to complete your website and get everything finished ready for launch day.

However, if we do agree on a launch date and you decide to change it, it may alter the final price.

Let’s just say, you want to bring the launch date forward and go live sooner than we initially agreed. This generally means we’ll have to re-arrange our calendar and block out some extra time to complete your website. If this is the case, we’ll generally have to charge more.

Alternatively, if we set a date to go live and then we have to move the date back due to delays on your end, this can sometimes change the final price of the project. In our experience, when a project is delayed we’ve found that this leads to more amendments later down the line and more work on our part.

3. Design Changes after approval

Before we build your website, we try to take every precaution to get your website exactly how you want it.

After our initial research and discovery phase, we’ll move on to the design stage. This means we’ll design all of your core pages on photoshop before we build them.

Once we’re happy with the designs, we’ll send them to you so you can see them too. You can then tell us what you like, what you don’t like and what you want to change, delete or add.

We’ll make another round of changes based on your suggestions. Once you’re happy and you approve the designs, we move on and get those pages built.

This design stage is your opportunity to tell us if you want to make any changes so that we can make them before we code anything at all.

If you change your mind AFTER we’ve started building your site, we may have to charge extra as this will take more time to rebuild some elements.

This doesn’t mean you can’t make some changes. Understandably, there will be some tweaks you might want to make, and if they’re small, that’s usually ok.

However, it’s always best to make sure you’re happy before we build anything to avoid any extra fees later down the line.

How to make sure the price STAYS the same price

If you are on a budget and you want to make sure the final price is what we agreed at the start of the process, then take the time to plan your project as much as possible before hiring us.

Download our website buyers guide and go through it step by step, making notes along the way.

This will ensure you are fully aware of what you might need to consider before we have our initial consultation.

We created the website buyers guide to protect you when hiring a web design agency. It will also help you get a better idea of how much budget you should allow and what features you might need.

Summary

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of why the price might change throughout the website build.

No, we don’t charge for every little thing. There are some larger agencies especially, who charge for extremely small amendments. We are pretty fair and understanding. But, we may have to charge if it takes us a lot more time.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why the cost of your website might increase during the build? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Are you a personal brand struggling to build and grow your website?

This is the introductory episode of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast with husband and wife team, Martin & Lyndsay.

In this episode, we’ll be talking about:

• What topics we’ll be covering in future episodes
• Who the show is for (so you know you’re in the right place)
• A little about us and our background
• How you can get your website reviewed for FREE
• How you can find more relevant content

If you want to grow your online presence, drive more visitors to your website and make more sales. SUBSCRIBE and download the first 4 episodes right away.

The Make Your Mark Online Podcast

The Make Your Mark Online Podcast tells you how to create an online presence you can be proud of. We’ll be going through all sorts of juicy topics like conversion rate optimisation (CRO), copywriting for the web, search engine optimisation (SEO) and content marketing.

We’ll be breaking these topics down, making it easy-peasy for non-techies like you to understand and implement in your business straight away. Head on over to episode one of the podcast where we delve into whether you should DIY your website or pay an agency to do it for you.

Meet Your Podcast Hosts

The Make Your Mark Online Podcast is hosted by Martin and Lyndsay, a husband and wife team who have spent the last seven years designing websites through their digital agency, Jammy Digital. You’ll hear lots of laughter, some disagreements and a few interruptions from our unruly cats.

We’re honest and upfront, and won’t shy away from telling you where to save money and where you should invest it. This isn’t about us getting you to spend thousands on a website, in fact, often it can be quite the opposite!

How To Get In Touch With Us

Most of all, we want to make this podcast as actionable as possible, so you can start implementing exciting new things that will grow your business. If there’s a particular topic you want us to cover or you have any questions then don’t be weird! Just drop us an email at hello@jammydigital.com

Feel free to also check out our resources on our blog and join our FREE Facebook group by visiting jammydigital.com/facebook

As of recording this episode, we’re offering free website critiques in the group, where we tell you EXACTLY how to improve your website. So join a thriving community and put your website forward.

Bye for now!

Episode Transcript Below

Martin: Hey, guys. Welcome to Episode 0, or the intro for the Make Your Mark Online Podcast.

Lyndsay: So we’re gonna be covering a lot in this podcast, aren’t we?

Martin: Yes.

What Will We Cover in Our Podcast?

Lyndsay: And we’re really excited to actually start it. We’re going to be talking about personal brand website design. We’re gonna be talking about search engine optimization, copywriting, content marketing, pretty much anything that will help build your online presence as a personal brand.

About Jammy Digital

Martin: Yes. And we’ve been building websites for years. We’ve got the agency, Jammy Digital, and we’ve just realized that there’s so many business owners out there who are making the same mistakes with the website. Maybe they want to generate more traffic, maybe they want to convert their customers to be able to hire them. Whether they’re coaches, they’re speakers, they’re authors, ultimately, we want take all of our knowledge from all of our years of helping business owners like you, and tell you what to do with your website to make it more successful.

Lyndsay: Exactly, yes. I mean, we’ve essentially had years of practice, haven’t we?
At seeing what works, and what doesn’t work. And so we’re bottling all that information up into this podcast.

Martin: This is our opportunity to actually just teach more.

Lyndsay: Exactly, yes. Which we really love to do.

Join Our FREE Facebook Group

Martin: And another thing before we let you get your teeth into the content is we wanted to invite you to our free Facebook group. This is at jammydigital.com/facebook

Martin: Now this is our Facebook group where we answer sort of questions, and we give tips, and lots of tools away. But we’re also doing free website critiques at the minute. Now I’m not sure how long we’re going be doing it for, but if you head over to jammydigital.com/facebook every Wednesday we are reviewing websites completely 100% free. So we spend around an hour on a Skype call, and we actually review up to five or six websites an hour, don’t we?

Lyndsay: Yes. We really love it, don’t we?

Martin: Yes.

Lyndsay: Every week, we get so excited for Wednesday afternoons-

Martin: Exactly.

Lyndsay: … because then we can start reviewing some websites, and giving people pointers of how they can improve.

Martin: Definitely.

Lyndsay: And it’s great to see, actually, of the time that people have made these changes, and start seeing improvements. And that’s really nice to see-

Martin: Exactly.

Lyndsay: … isn’t it?

Martin: And we’d love to see your website make those improvements as well. And one last thing we’d be really, really grateful for is if you subscribe to our iTunes podcast, and maybe leave us a review? We would love to hear what you think of the podcast, and it will help us reach more of our ideal listeners like you.

Martin: So I’ll see you in Episode 1.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post EP 0 – Introduction to the Make Your Mark Online Podcast appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You’re ready to get the ball rolling and kick off the new project.

Just one more question…

How long will it take?

It’s one of the most common questions we get asked.

In this blog post, I’ll be breaking it down so you get a clear understanding of when your new website can go live.

So, how long does it take us to build your new website?

The short answer is websites that we build take, on average, 8-12 weeks.

The long answer is, it depends…

In all honesty, there are two parts to this question

How long will it take us?
How long will it take you?

That’s right, in some cases, the length of time it takes US is not the right question to ask.

More often than not, websites tend to take longer due to things outside our control.

Additional website features

For us to give you an approximate amount of time, we’ll need to understand exactly what you need from the new website. What extra features might you need that aren’t included in the core package?

Understandably, the more features you want us to build into your website the more time it will take.

What extra features add time to the website?

These are just a few examples of the kind of features that will add time to your website.

• A shop – we design your shop from scratch which needs your approval, plus we transfer all your products, including descriptions, images, stock levels etc.
• Specific page designs – such as a bespoke design for your about page or speaker page
• Portfolio – we’ll need to design this from scratch
• Website content – we can write your content for you if you wish
• Landing pages – we can either integrate Thrive Themes or design your pages from scratch. The costs vary but either way, this takes time
• Features like a booking calendar, email marketing integration, video library etc.

We understand that you want your website to be perfect and some, or all, of these features might be needed. Be aware that the more features you have, the longer it will take to complete the project.

Based on your requirements, we’ll always make you aware upfront how long we think it will take to get your website live.

Top tip

Be very specific at the start of the process with exactly what you need. Knowing all the information upfront will allow us to build this into the package and give you an accurate timescale. Changing things, later on, will delay the project further.

How many people are involved

This is something we’ve noticed over the years, the number of people involved in the project WILL impact the timescale of the project. It’s just a fact.

Dealing with one person will be quicker as there is only one person giving feedback and making decisions. On the other hand, if there are more people working on the project, they’ll generate more ideas and opinions. This is a great thing, as you get a wider range of perspectives and ideas. However, it does take more time.

Top tip

If you are part a team who is working on the project in-house, try to have one key person who will act as the contact and liaise with us throughout the process. Dealing with multiple people from your company might cause information to missed and feedback to be different.

Try to get your team to agree with feedback and suggestions before sending them over to us. In the past, we’ve been sent information from multiple team members with dramatically different suggestions, which has delayed the project.

How long does it take for you to get back to us

You want your website to be perfect (we do too). This is why you might take your time getting feedback to us.

While working on your website, we’ll send you some video updates, screenshots and emails. We’ll ask you questions, and we might need you to give us some feedback so that we can move on to the next phase of the project.

The time it takes for you to give us feedback can dramatically affect the timescale, and in some cases, it can halt the process entirely.

In the past, we’ve waited two months for someone to tell us they were happy with their homepage design.

Top tip

It’s important that you take some time before offering feedback on designs, sleep on it and take another look the next day. It’s surprising how much your opinions might change the next time you look. However, if it’s taking longer than a few days to hear back from you, this will delay the process.

Waiting for stuff from you

During the web design process, we’ll need some things from you to allow us to complete the website.

This could include;

• The copy for your website pages
• Images for the different pages
• Contact information
• Videos that you want to include
• Your logo in the correct file format
• Product information and pricing (for online shops)
• Staff timetables (for booking calendar)
• Event information (for selling tickets)
• Login information (e.g. your website, Mailchimp, Stripe)

In the past, we’ve been waiting 12-18 months to get content from clients. Meanwhile, your website project has completely stalled.

Top tip

Try to be extremely organised and proactive with this task. The quicker you get this done, the fresher it is in your mind, and it will keep the project on track. When it comes to getting the information together, use one main tool for storing all the documentation such as a Google Drive or Dropbox folder.

We do offer website copy as a service. If this is something you’re struggling with, then we can build this into the website package.

We are constantly testing new methods to make this process easier too, and we’ll have more information about this coming soon.

Things change dramatically throughout the process

The benefit of our process is that you get to see all page designs before they’re built. Nothing is done without your prior approval. That way you can have a look, make some notes, give feedback and we’ll make amendments.

Once you’re happy, we can then build the website based on those designs.

There are bound to be changes you’ll want to make, and that’s completely fine, but these are usually small tweaks that don’t impact the overall structure of the site.

If we agree on a design and later down the line things change dramatically, this will, understandably, extend the process, and in most cases, the cost of the website.

Top Tip

Before starting the project, make sure you are fully aware of what you want. This includes…

• The features of your website
• Your key messaging
• The key products and services you want to promote
• Your brand and style
• Your target audience

If you haven’t already, check out our website buyers guide for extra help on this.

The more preparation you do, the better the starting platform for us to build you a high-impact website.

Much like the previous point, it’s always best to take some extra time before giving feedback on the initial designs. It’s important that we have included all the features you need at this stage to avoid adding more time to the project later on.

Website timescale examples

Below, I’ve given some examples of how your project might look depending on your requirements

10-week example – Core package

• One person involved
• 2-3 unique pages designs
• Feedback within 1-2 days
• Three online meetings
• You already have content for the new website

16-week example – Core package + Additional features

• Two people involved, for example, an extra designer
• 3-6 unique pages designs
• Feedback within a week
• 3-5 online meetings
• 3-5 additional features, for example, a video library, booking facility, email marketing integration
• You might need to create new content and send images for the new site

26 week example – Bespoke package + 3+ staff

• 3-5 people involved
• 6+ unique page designs
• Feedback within two weeks
• 6+ online meetings
• 5+ additional features, e.g. video library, booking facility, online shop, email marketing integration, event calendar
• New content pages

Summary

As you can see, the timescale of your web design project depends on many factors, and it can change dramatically during the process.

There’s no clear answer to how long it will take. It could take eight weeks if we have everything we need upfront or it could also take 18 months+ if we’re still waiting for things from you.

At least now you have some handy tips to keep the timeline as short as possible so we can your new website live sooner.

Plus, we’re always super excited about getting your website on our portfolio, so it’s our best interest to keep you on track.

Over to you

Do you have any top tips you want to add? Maybe a productivity hack or a team management tool? We’d love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post How long will it take to build your website? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It’s taken months of planning, designing and building and it has cost a small fortune.

Now it looks exactly how you want it to, and you want to keep it that way.

The problem is, websites are prone to tech issues, downtime or even hacking.

Scary I know.

So what can you do to keep your website safe and secure?

In this post, I want to tell you why setting up a maintenance plan for your website can save you lots of time and money when things go wrong.

What is a maintenance plan?

A maintenance plan is something you can set up with your web design agency for an additional fee. It’s a monthly service that they charge to keep your website up-to-date and secure.

Usually, prices range from £50–£200 per month depending on what’s included in the package and how much support you need.

We don’t sell maintenance plans. Sorry

Before you ask, this is not a sales pitch. We don’t sell standalone maintenance packages unless we have built your website.

We only offer this service as a special offer to our web design clients.

The reason I wrote this post is not to sell to you but instead explain all the potential risks of managing your website without extra support and guidance. Read more about why we won’t touch your website unless we’ve built it.

1. You might break something

When you get access to your website, it’s understandable you’ll want to have a play around and make some updates and amendments. After all, you need to feel confident that you know what you’re doing.

The only problem is, you might make a mistake and accidentally delete something that you shouldn’t or change the layout when you didn’t mean to. It happens to the best of us. But this does mean you might spend hours trying to get it back to the way it was.

Surely your time is better well spent building and growing your business rather than sifting through your website working out what went wrong.

If you have a maintenance package, this often means your web designer (or the company you’re paying) can fix it for you. At the very least they’ll be able to restore a previous version of your website to put it back the way it was.

2. Save money on hosting and domain name renewals

Hosting is like renting space on the internet, every website needs it and you have to pay annual fees to keep your website and domain name live.

Normally, this would cost you anything between £50–£500 per year depending on who you choose.

Some web designers include these fees within their monthly maintenance plan so you don’t get a surprise invoice every year.

This is exactly what we do with our clients and they save between £100–£150 per year on hosting fees. A nice little bonus at no extra cost.

3. Protection from hackers

The security of your website is VERY important, and you as the website owner need to take this seriously. I don’t mean to scare you but websites get hacked all the time. It sometimes happens without you knowing and it can cause a lot of damage to your site. Not fun.

It’s not just your website that’s at risk. Most websites collect and store personal information about customers and potential customers. If you don’t have efficient security on your website, you could put all this data at risk.

With a maintenance plan, you will have an extra layer of security to protect your website. This could include:

• Spam detection (that detects any suspicious activity)
• SSL certificate (this helps protect passwords, credit card details and other data that you and your customers use on your website.)
• Monitoring AT RISK plugins and extensions (that could cause your website to be hacked)

Those are just a few of the things that a maintenance plan could include to help keep your website safer and more secure.

4. Website Backups

A website “backup” is a saved copy of your website from a previous time e.g. a day ago, a week ago, a month ago and so on… This can be stored in the website files and can be restored if something goes wrong with the website.

If you don’t have regular backups of your website then you are leaving yourself open to one big headache if you break something or you get hacked.

When you have a maintenance plan, a backup of your website will be stored (usually daily) so it can always be recovered if need be.

In the past, we’ve had customers call us and say, “we accidentally messed up the website and can’t get it back” in that case, I can go back to a specific date and recover all the previous settings.

With our maintenance plans, we actually do two backups of your website every day for extra security. One backup with the host and one stored AWAY from the website, so it can always be recovered if your website is not accessible.

5. Software needs updating constantly

Your website is ever changing. Even if you don’t make website changes yourself, the tech behind the scenes will need to be monitored and kept up-to-date. Most websites have additional plugins or themes that have new releases all the time. You NEED to stay on top of these to keep your site running smoothly.

Content management systems (like WordPress, Joomla and Opencart) should also be kept on the latest versions too to prevent any potential issues.

Trying to manage all these updates yourself can be a tedious and time-consuming task, especially if you’re not a techie.

With all these updates you have to do, it’s not uncommon that something can go wrong. Plugins can stop working or they’ll stop playing nicely with other plugins. In the meantime, your website might not be working properly.

When you have a maintenance plan, these updates are done for you so you don’t have to worry. They’ll be kept up-to-date and if something goes wrong during an update, it will be fixed and your website will be back to normal in no time at all.

6. Additional support and questions you might have

If you’re a forward-thinking business owner, you’ll be learning about new ways to promote and market your business online such as social media, SEO and content marketing. You might have lots of questions and want some advice on how to use these tools to your advantage.

Some maintenance plans include email support and/or phone support as part of their package. This means if you have any nagging questions or need some extra guidance you’ll always have someone on hand to help.

The level of support you need will determine how much the maintenance plan will cost each month. For instance, we have some clients who pay hundreds of pounds per month for regular online coaching sessions as part of their support plan.

7. Ad hoc website amendments

In addition to support and guidance, you might need someone to work on your website on a regular basis. This could include, creating new pages, adding images and text and making structural changes.

You can try and do this yourself if you like but if you have better things to do and you have the budget, you can pay for a maintenance plan that includes a certain amount of development hours per month. If this is something you think you’ll need, my advice is to start with 1-2 hrs per month and go from there.

8. Peace of mind

You’re in safe hands. Managing a website can be very time-consuming, especially if something goes wrong.

It’s nice to know someone is there taking care of your website behind the scenes. Even if they’re simply keeping track of the basics. Having an extra pair of eyes look over your website will help you sleep easier at night.

Summary

I get it. You’ve spent potentially thousands on a new website, and you don’t want to spend more each month. However, investing in a maintenance plan only serves to protect your original investment. Unfortunately, we cannot leave websites. At a minimum, we need to keep them healthy and up-to-date. You have to decide whether you want to spend the time doing this or pay for a maintenance plan. Either way, you’ll have to take some action, or you run the risk of damaging, or even losing your website.

Please note, having a maintenance plan doesn’t guarantee you won’t get hacked or lose some of your work. Every website is susceptible. But it will significantly reduce the chances of it happening and limit the damage if it does.

Like I said before, you CAN’T sign up with us unless we’ve built your website but spend some time researching different companies.

Over to you

Have you ever been a victim of hacking? Maybe one of your out-of-date plugins caused your website to go down. I’d love to hear from you, please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why you NEED a maintenance plan for your website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

A ‘personal brand’ is someone who markets themselves and what they do as their brand. Their knowledge and expertise IS their product and they’re able to charge money for it. Examples of personal brands include Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, Chris Ducker and Janet Murray.

With the rise of social media, it’s now easier than ever for personal brand businesses to connect with their audience, however, it’s also becoming increasingly competitive.

What’s the difference between a personal brand website and a standard website?

Personal brand websites should have their own set of unique features. These features should help you:

• build an audience
• build trust
• inspire action

Ultimately, there’s no difference between what a personal brand website and what a service-based/ecommerce website should achieve. You’re still aiming to solve your customers’ problems. The goals are the same, but it’s how you get there that’s slightly different.

What should a personal brand website include?

Your website should reflect you and be unique, but if you are a personal brand, you might consider including some or all of these on your website.

1. Images of You

This is a no-brainer. I’d argue that EVERYONE must include pictures of themselves on their website, but for personal brands, I’d say it’s essential.

What’s the difference between images of you for your personal brand website and images of staff on a service-based/ecommerce website? Remember, you’re selling ‘you’. People need to buy into you and trust you, so your image needs to be displayed prominently throughout your website.

A service-based/ecommerce website can get away with having images of the team on the about page, but you can’t.

How to Display Images on a Personal Brand Website?

If you’re planning on having a photoshoot for your business, check out our blog post on What We Learned on Our Business Photoshoot, for some hints and tips.

– Images need to be on brand

You need to think about who you are, and who you’re not. Your images should represent you. If you’re relaxed, fun and adventurous, then don’t, whatever you do, dust off your suit for your photographs!

You might think this is obvious, but we often see people get this wrong. I get why. It’s ingrained in us to look our ‘best’ for a photographer (especially a professional one).

If you are suited and booted for your work, then great, but if not, avoid looking too smart and causing confusion about who you are as a brand.

Finally, think about the setting of your photography–what do you want your reader to see? What props/set best get across who you are?

– Images need to be of good quality

Investing in high-quality images for your personal brand is a good idea, and ideally, you’ll use a professional photographer to do this.

For service-based/ecommerce websites, I’d say they could get away with just using a good quality camera, but for personal brands, your image is everything. If you’re deciding where to invest, I’d say professional photography should be up there on your essential list.

Good Examples of Imagery on a Personal Brand Website: Amy Porterfield

We love the use of images on Amy Porterfield’s website. She hasn’t overloaded her site with too many images of herself, but the few that are there are of good quality. They’re relaxed and give you a sense of who she is.

2. You Need to Build an Email List

Every website should encourage your end-user to do something, whether that’s sign up to your email list, give you a call or hit that ‘buy-now’ button.

However, more often than not, personal brands focus on their email list.

Your email list is important because it’s yours. You don’t have to rely on a platform like Facebook or Google. Even if you’ve got thousands of Facebook followers or impressive search results, things could change in an instant.

Your list is controlled by you, and it’s a base where you can grow and nurture your followers. For personal brands, nothing is more important.

How to Grow Your Email List on Your Website

Your website is the main platform you’ll use to grow your email list. Below are some ways you can do it.

– Call to Action Above the Fold

You should also include a clear call to action in the ‘above the fold’ area of your website. This is the first section of your website your user will land on, and, if you can, you’ll want to encourage them to sign up for your email list.

We always recommend giving something away in order to encourage sign-ups (just make sure you’re GDPR compliant!). One thing we don’t recommend is a generic ‘sign up to my newsletter’ call to action. One, it’s boring, and two it says nothing about how you’ll help your target audience.

– Add Your Call to Action within Your Content

Content is particularly important to personal brand businesses, and I’ll talk about that in a little more detail later.

Each piece of content you produce, whether that’s a blog, podcast or YouTube video, should encourage users to subscribe to your email list. On a blog, that’s fairly easy as you can include little reminders throughout your blog post, encouraging your end-users to sign up.

Example of Building Your List on A Personal Brand Website: Chris Ducker

Chris Ducker does a great job of encouraging users to join his email list. He hits you with it as soon as you land on to his homepage and he clearly outlines the benefits of joining. He also has call to actions throughout his content as well.

3. A dedicated speaker page

A lot of personal brands want to showcase themselves as leaders in their industry, and there’s no better way of doing that than through public speaking at events, workshops and seminars.

If this is something you’re doing (or want to do in the future) then it’s worth having a dedicated speaker page on your website.

What Should Your Speaker Page Include?

A speaker page is slightly different to the other pages on your website and should include some different elements, including:

– Images and video

For someone to book you as a speaker at their event, they’ll need to see you speak confidently on stage and deliver an engaging presentation. That’s why it’s important to include images and video on your speaker page.

Even if you’ve only spoken at small events, it’s worth getting someone to take pictures or record a video of you in action. Just seeing you speak to a crowd builds instant credibility.

Many successful personal brands have a speaker reel (a short, snappy video of them on stage) or even a full forty-five-minute keynote.

– Topics you cover

Don’t assume people will know what you speak about. It’s helpful to give people an idea of the topics you cover and also the kind of talks you deliver, e.g. are they workshops/seminars/presentations etc.

This is where you can be ultra-specific in what you offer, and the more detail you can give, the better.

Also, try to give an indication of how much you’re likely to charge. There’s no point people contacting you with a budget of £100.00 when your price is £1000.00. Learn more about why you should add your prices to your website here.

– Call to action

Don’t forget to include a call to action on this page. This is your opportunity to get people to get in touch with you directly or check your availability. Encourage them to book a call with you to discuss how you can help them.

Example of a Good Personal Brand Speaker Page: Ann Handley

Ann Handley has a fantastic speaker page. She encourages you to check her availability and she outlines the kind of topics she covers. She also features images and videos of her speaking.

4. Put Your Content at the Forefront

Creating consistently good content is a sure-fire-way to position yourself as a leader in your industry. How are you going to build loyalty and get people to trust you, without proving you know your stuff?

Content marketing works to benefit most businesses but for personal brands, I’d say it was essential.

How to Showcase Content on a Personal Brand Site

Content is a key component of the websites we build for personal brands, and it can be somewhat different to how we present content on service-based or ecommerce websites.

– Feature Your Content on Your Homepage

To show your readers that you are knowledgeable, it’s a good idea to showcase your content on your homepage. This could be in the form of your most recent content or the best resources you have. The reason it’s important to put it on your homepage is so it’s easily accessible for your end-user.

This is better than having a simple ‘blog’ link in your main menu, as (hopefully) your content will encourage your user to click through.

– Build a Learning Centre

If you want to get really fancy-pants, then build a learning centre. I’d like to say this was my idea, but actually, it came from Marcus Sheridan, who we’ve learnt so much from in terms of content marketing.

A learning centre houses all of your content (podcast, blog, videos, guides etc) in one place. It’s a space for people to explore more about what you offer and how you work, as well as learn from you.

Example of a content-driven personal brand website: Andrew and Pete

Andrew and Pete are expert content marketers, so it’s no wonder they feature content marketing at the forefront of their website. Their website is a showcase of their (vast) knowledge and expertise. It’s a great resource we use often to learn more about marketing.

5. Online Shopping page

A lot of personal brands also sell physical products as well as their coaching, speaking or membership. But even if you don’t sell physical products you might want to sell event tickets and ebooks. It’s, therefore, a good idea to include an online shop on your website.

How to present your products on your website

This will depend on the platform you’re are using but here a few tips to ensure your shop works well.

– Use amazing photographs

When it comes to selling products on the web, good quality photos are essential. People won’t buy your products if you don’t take the time to showcase them properly.

If you’re selling books and diaries, pay a designer to create mockups. Alternatively, pay a professional photographer to make your shop items look amazing.

Even if you’re selling eBooks or event tickets, make them look good. Just because they’re not physical products doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put the effort into presenting them well.

– Create great product descriptions

We wrote an entire article on how to perfect your product pages and product descriptions are one of the most important elements. Creating persuasive descriptions for your products will go a long way to convincing your visitor to buy from you. Not to mention that the words you use will help you get found on search engines.

Example of a Personal Brand Shop Page: Janet Murray

Okay, we’re not just saying this because we built the site! But we love Janet Murray’s online shop (and the products too!)

The effort that Janet puts into marketing her products is incredible and the items on her shop look fantastic. Janet knows that the products need to look the part for people to buy, which is why she takes the time having them professionally designed.

6. Sales Pages

Most personal brand websites sell online products such as video courses, memberships, eBooks, etc. As a personal brand, you’ll need to be able to create sales pages quickly and easily in order to promote your products.

How to Create Sales Pages

Sales pages are quite different to content pages. Rather than having a very helpful page with links to other pages on your website, you want your visitor to stay on the page and take just one action.

– Get Rid of Distractions

You’ll need to change the layout of your page so it’s more conversion friendly, potentially getting rid of menus and other links across your site. This is the page where you need to maximise conversions, so you need your reader to do just one thing.

– Think about the Copy

The copy on a sales page is often slightly different to the copy on your main website. You’ll want to feature stories from people who have benefited from the specific product or service you’re offering (rather than just you in general). You’ll want to use persuasive and emotive language, and an exclusive offer to hook them in.

These are just a few of many examples of what you can do on a sales page!

Example of a Good Sales Page: Gavin Bell – Amplify

Gavin Bell’s Facebook advertising course is an excellent example of a sales page, it includes video testimonials, persuasive copy and impressive social proof. There are no distractions in the form of links to other pages or social media. It convinces you to take just one action.

7. Include Social Proof

Social proof is important for every business. Having testimonials, reviews, press, expert endorsement and awards etc, all go a long way in building trust in your brand and products.

This is doubly important for personal brands as the key to your success is showing that you have the knowledge and skills worth investing in.

How to use Social Proof on Your Personal Brand Website

Social proof is essential if you want to build instant credibility for your personal brand website. Here are some ways you can use social proof on your website:

– Media/publication logos on the homepage

It’s quite common to see media/publication logos on the homepage of a personal brand website, usually within the first third of the page (right under your big, bold statement).

These logos are usually from places you’ve been featured in the press, such as the BBC, Guardian, Huffington Post etc, or where you’ve been speaking, such as Social Media Marketing World. People trust these brands so if you include these on your website, you’ll be seen as an authority in your space.

– Genuine Testimonials

Make sure you feature GENUINE written or video testimonials on your homepage.

Video testimonials are golden, and if you can get video testimonials from your clients, it shows clear evidence that you know your stuff. And of course, you can create text testimonials out of these too.

If video testimonials aren’t possible, then try to get someone’s picture at the very least, include their full name and maybe a link back to their website.

Example of Good Social Proof on a Personal Brand Website: Content Marketing Academy

Throughout Chris Marr’s (Content Marketing Academy) website, you see little video testimonials dotted through the copy. This is a great way of integrating social proof. Chris clearly has a lot of fans (including us!) who are more than happy to get themselves in front of the camera and sing his praises.

This is really powerful stuff that goes a long way to building trust in your brand.

8. The Copy Must Reflect You

This is your opportunity to speak to your audience. When your users read your web copy, they should have a sense of who you are. Your reader should feel like they’re having a conversation with you personally.

How to Write the Right Copy for Your Personal Brand Website

This is vital for personal brands to get right. You’re selling you, and it doesn’t matter whether you want to develop a friend, teacher or influencer relationship with your audience, they still need to feel some kind of connection.

– Talk to them like you would your clients

It’s tempting to go formal when we start writing, but often this isn’t a reflection of how we communicate.

Before you start writing, have an idea of who you’re talking to. I create a profile of my ideal client. I give them a name, think about their goals, their issues and what keeps them up at night. Only then can I speak to them on their level.

– Make it about them

The word ‘you’ is your new best friend. You need to consider what problems your audience is having and address them within your website copy.

Don’t say generic stuff like you’ve been doing what you do for twenty-five years and blah, blah, blah. It’s dull. Address your audience’s issues head on and tell them how you can help.

Examples of good personal brand copy: Hot Content

Natalie from Hot Content is a great writer. When you read Natalie’s writing, it feels like you’re in a coffee shop talking directly with her. In this snippet, you gain a real sense of who Natalie is. Her writing is informal yet professional. She doesn’t patronise. Or like she says, make you feel stupid. She does a great job.

9. Give a Personal Touch

The majority of the copy on your website should be geared to your target audience (what problems they’re facing and how you can help). However, for personal brand websites, it’s nice to have a personal touch too.

How to Add the Personal Touch to Your Personal Brand Website

It’s cliche, but people do business with people, so give your readers a glimpse into who you are.

– Talk about your story

A good story is a great way to build a connection with your reader, especially if your story starts with the same problem your audience is facing. You can tell them how you overcame your problem and how you like to help others do the same.

Make sure the story is genuine. It’s easy to spot someone who’s disingenuous. We know that you need to make a living and you’ve not set up your company out of the goodness of your heart. However, it’s also good to show people that you do care about their problems, that you’ve been there and that you have a genuine solution that can help.

– Use Your About Page

Don’t talk about yourself on your homepage. Keep it reserved for a section (not all, just a section!) of your about page. Not everything should be about you, but it’s good to give an insight into your life if you feel comfortable.

A Good Example of Including a Personal Story on Your Personal Brand Website: Pat Flynn

I love Pat Flynn’s about page. I love how he talks about the downturn in the economy in 2008 and how it impacted his life. He also shows pictures of him and his family. From this, you get a sense of what he’s like personally, making it easy for you to develop a connection with him.

Summary

Your personal brand website should be unique and be completely different from other personal brand sites. However, there are many similarities when it comes to how your website should work to promote your products and services. Hopefully, you now have a list of things you can add to your website to improve it.

What do you think?

I hope this post has helped you think about your personal brand website. Do you think there’s anything I’ve missed off the list? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post 9 Essentials of a Personal Brand Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Yes, you definitely should put your prices on your website. Why? What’s the first question you ask yourself when buying a product or service? Yep, How much does it cost? Now, imagine you answered that question on your own website – you get tons of traffic and build up so much trust and credibility.

But, even with all this, the majority of business owners still shy away from displaying their prices online. It’s a debate we get into often. So, we’re here to put forward our view on why you SHOULD display your prices on your website.

Prefer video? Watch our Video on Why You Should Put Your Prices On Your Website

You Don’t Need a Pricing Table

Before you run and hide, hear me out. I’m not saying you should have a pricing table on your website that clearly defines what you charge. That would be bold. However, the least you can do is talk about your prices.

If you take a look at our pricing page, you’ll see we don’t tell you exactly how much a new website will cost. Not because we’re sneaky, but because it depends on a number of factors.

We say our prices start from £3497, and we tell you what that includes. We also describe what will add to that cost, for example, an e-commerce shop or a booking system.

You don’t HAVE to be too specific, although the more detail you give, the better. The least you should do is open up the conversation and give your reader an idea of your prices.

What About E-commerce Websites?

It’s worth noting that I’m not talking about B2C e-commerce websites here. Hell, if you’re wondering whether to display your prices in this instance, the answer is absolutely and unequivocally, YES!

If you run a service-based business and you’re currently not displaying your prices on your website, here’s why you should:

1. It Builds Trust

The biggest benefit to displaying your prices on your website is it builds trust with your audience.

Your potential audience will feel comfortable dealing with you if they know what you’re likely to charge. They won’t have those thoughts. You know the ones I mean: ‘Will this guy rip me off?’ or ‘Will they charge me more than someone else?’

By displaying your prices, you smash your potential customers’ protective barrier, and they’ll feel more comfortable in dealing with you over your competition.

2. It Avoids the Awkward Conversation

Customer: So…er…what are we talking?

You: Well, that depends. I mean, what’s your budget?

Customer: Well. I’m not really sure. What do you normally charge?

You: Well, erm….it all depends really.

I hate that conversation. You hate that conversation. And most importantly, your customer hates that conversation. So why the hell are you having it?

Since we started displaying our prices on our website, it’s so easy to talk money. Nine times out of ten, the potential client already knows how much we charge. We don’t have to ask them how much money they’ve got (it’s none of our business), and we get to delve right into the good stuff of learning more about them and their business. No awkward conversations. It’s a win/win for both.

3. It attracts the customers you want

Displaying your prices on your website helps attract the kind of customers you want. You may think that your potential audience will go to a cheaper competitor, but often that’s not the case.

By displaying your prices, you’re making it clear who you’re targeting.

We’re not cheap by any means, but we also don’t charge ‘high-end’ agency prices upwards of 10k. This makes it clear that we work well with established small-business owners and personal brands. We’re not the right fit for new business owners or huge corporations.

We find that our target market responds well to our prices, and you can do the same. If you’re cheap as chips and wanting to attract the very price conscious, then fine, say it! If you’re more expensive and want a different kind of client, no problem, but explain what makes you different, and why they should choose you.

4. It Could Save Hours of Admin Time Per Week

Before we started displaying our prices on our website, we spent approximately two-three hours per week having calls or replying to emails to people who were completely wrong for our business.

Some had a budget of five hundred quid, and some had a budget of twenty grand.  We spent time getting to the bottom of what they wanted, when in the end we were either too expensive or not the right fit. We wasted our time, and there’s too.

5. It Will Make You Stand Out

One of the most common concerns business owners have when it comes to displaying their prices on their website is this: It’s not the done thing in our industry.

Our response?

Well, that’s bloody fantastic.

Imagine being the first in your industry to say, hey! You know all these guys (this is where point to your competitors), they’re not going to tell you their prices. But guess what? I am. I have nothing to hide. I want to be upfront, open and honest with you.

Do you know how powerful that is? It’s huge! We’ve seen countless examples of this working, and your potential customers will respond positively. It makes you stand out from the competition and positions you as a leader in your industry.

6. Search Engine Optimisation

How on earth does displaying my prices help search engine optimisation?

Good question. Do you know what’s likely to be one of the top questions about your industry? How much does it cost?

How much does it cost for a website?

How much does it cost for an editor?

How much does it cost for a business coach?

Cost-related keywords and phrases are highly popular search terms. If you discuss your prices on your website, especially when much of your industry shies away from it, then you could be looking at so much more traffic to your site from Google.

But more than that, you can write articles about it. Yes, entire articles just about your pricing. We do it all the time. Look at…

Why are we so expensive
Why are we so cheap
Why New Businesses Shouldn’t Spend 1000s on a New Website
How Much Does it Cost For a Website

Not only do these articles get huge amounts of traffic from Google, but they also explain what makes us different, attracts our target audience AND builds trust.

Where did we get the idea?

We’d love to tell you that this is all our idea, but it’s not.

If you want to know more about why we started displaying our prices on our website, then check out Marcus Sheridan’s book, They Ask, You Answer. This book has been hugely influential in our lives and has transformed our business for the better. We couldn’t recommend it enough.

I hope this article has shown you the benefits of displaying your prices on your website. Are you still considering it? Is there anything holding you back?

I’d love to know your thoughts. Let me know in the comments below.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post 6 Reasons You Should Put Your Prices On Your Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

“Can we pay you to make amendments to our website?”

In most cases, the answer is, no.

Unless we’ve built the website, we DON’T take on clients to make ongoing changes or odd jobs.

Please note, this post DOESN’T apply to you if we’ve built your website and we will certainly help you with ongoing changes if you need them.

Honestly, we hate turning customers away. We always feel terrible about it.

Up until recently, we’ve tried to help as many customers as we can, but we’ve now made the decision to focus entirely on building websites from start to finish.

In this post, I wanted to explain why we made this decision.

1. Every website is built differently

No two websites are built the same, even if they’re both built using WordPress they can be created using entirely different methods and frameworks. This makes it very time consuming for us to get to know your website and make quick changes.

You might want to pay an hourly fee for the work to be done, but it could take a few hours just to get to know your website before we even think about tweaking things.

Not to mention that most WordPress websites use child themes and 3rd party plugins that can change as time goes on. If these aren’t kept up to date, it can have severe consequences on your website. This could cause even more headaches and slow the process down even further.

When we build websites from start to finish, we use the same method every time. We use a framework and tools that we trust, and we wouldn’t use anything else. We know what to expect and can make changes easily.

Chances are, your site is not built this way, which is why we can’t begin to know how much time it might take, and how much we might charge.

2. We want to focus on what we do best

We specialise in full website redesigns, and we love every minute of it. The process we use to create websites has proven to work over and over again.

However, this process takes up all of our time, and we can’t stop doing this to make website amendments.

All of our time is spent either:

• Speaking to existing and potential clients
• Planning out projects and schedules
• Sketching grid layouts to come up with page designs
• Designing websites with tools like Photoshop or Illustrator
• Coding websites to make it look like the designs
• Migrating existing content onto the new site
• Moving physical products onto the new website
• Transferring over your SEO settings

As you can see, there’s a lot of work to do, and we want to make sure we don’t let our process suffer.

We love to take a website that may not be performing well and redesign it piece by piece to bring it back to life. We need to focus 100% on this for us to be effective.

3. There are only two of us

Let’s be honest, there are only two of us and how me and Lyndsay spend our time is very important. Building websites takes on average 2–3 months and every website is unique and comes with a different set of challenges. We have to plan our projects months in advance to make sure we build high performing websites and keep to deadlines.

If we were to take on small, random jobs for additional clients, it just couldn’t work. Our schedule would be put on hold, and our web design projects would be delayed. Even if we plan it in months ahead, we would still have to rearrange other projects around yours.

This simply isn’t feasible and we would never want our core services (e.g. full website design.) to be affected.

4. We might not agree with your suggested amendments

This is a tough one. We try to be as helpful as we can and we always share our knowledge and experience with our clients when they ask.

Occasionally, we’ll get asked to make website amendments that we DON’T think are a good idea. Certain changes may impact your website in a negative way, and user experience or SEO may suffer.

Other companies may say “no problem, whatever you want” and then make the changes.

We can’t do this, we’d rather explain why it’s a bad idea and then come up with other suggestions that might work better. We would hate for you to hire us to make changes and then leave with a worse-off website.

Unfortunately, this takes more time for me to explain and then implement the changes we agree. All the while, we’re not working on our main projects.

We still offer advice, of course. If you need some direction on what to change on your website, then check out our website critique page. We’ll review your website and tell you how to improve it.

Summary

Ultimately, it comes down to time. If we had more time in the day, we’d happily help everyone.

At this point, we want to focus 100% on creating epic websites from start to finish. We love getting fantastic results for our clients, and if this means we lose a bit of extra money here and there, that’s ok.

Building stronger relationships with fewer clients is our goal with Jammy Digital and we’d love to work with you in the future.

Over to you

Hopefully, now you’ll understand why we don’t take on more clients for ad hoc amendments. If you do need some help and advice, why not join our Facebook group… Website Tips for non techies. We’re a lovely bunch and we’ll help where can.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why we DON’T do ad hoc website amendments appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Wrong!

Your product page is the final page your customers look at before they hit that buy now button.

When optimised correctly, it’s also a page that can rank highly in Google for certain keywords.

I’m amazed by how many business owners put such little emphasis on their product pages, viewing it as an afterthought. But I get it. If you have so many products it’s difficult to keep up the motivation. Or you might be unsure how to create a good product page.

This post can help. Below, I give you my guide on how to perfect your product page, with examples of how to do it right and how to do it wrong.

Get yourself a brew and let’s get started.

• Product Title
• Product Descriptions
• Buy Now Button
• Product Images
• SEO Elements
• Social proof
• Video
• Related Products

Select the Right Product Title

A million years ago, Martin and I set up an ecommerce site selling gifts. We offered adorable cushions for kids in the shape of owls, monkeys and lions. I gave them product names like Sebastian, Matilda and George.

Cute, right? There was just one HUGE problem. No one in their right mind would search for Sebastian when looking for a cushion, so we were never found on search engines.

It’s tempting to be creative with product titles. But try to think about what your audience will search for too. Don’t make my mistake by naming your products something completely unrelated to what they are.

Bad Example: Chanel

Chanel has tons of watches with funny names like J12. For them, it’s easier. They can get away with pretension because they’re a well-known, high-end brand, and their customers likely search for ‘chanel watches’ rather than just ‘watches’. You might not have this luxury. Until you’re a huge powerhouse, dial down the pretension and name your products what they are.

If you insist on giving your product a funny name or number, then do something like this:
‘Luxury Black Watch – J12’.

Good Example: Hugo Boss

Hugo Boss does a great job with their product descriptions. The product title is a great place to describe the features of your products using keywords consumers might search for. This watch appeared on the first page of Google for the search terms, ‘sliding buckle watch’ and ‘blue plated watch’.

So Is Boring Better?

Yup. It pains me to say it because the creative in me doesn’t want to concede. But in this case, boring is better for search engine optimisation. It doesn’t mean you can’t be creative at all. Just make sure to include your specific keywords in the title at the same time.

The product description is where you can get a little more creative.

It’s also a good idea to do a little keyword research before naming your product. Keyword research is the process of looking at the search popularity of certain words and phrases. Learn how to check your keywords for free in Martin’s blog post.

Product Descriptions: Time to Get Creative

When reading your product description, your audience is asking themselves questions such as: will this product be suitable for me? Is it worth the money? Do I really need it?

Your job is to answer those questions so your reader feels comfortable enough investing in your products. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling. Your users need to trust you.

So, how can you build trust through your product description?

– Write for Your Target Market

Identify who your target market is and write specifically to them. Picture your buyer in your mind. How old are they? What do they do for a living? What do they struggle with and what do they hope to achieve? What attributes and hobbies do they have?

This exercise helps you build up a ‘buyer’s persona’, and you should use this persona when writing your product descriptions. Talk to your buyer as you would do face-to-face.

Don’t just use your buyer’s persona in your product descriptions, use it throughout your content marketing, social media marketing and even in email correspondence.

Bad Example: House of Fraser – Wedding Shoes

Oh dear, House of Fraser. Is that it? This is a classic example what not to do. What they needed to do is connect with their reader. This is probably the most important shoe purchase of a woman’s life, and they need to sell it much better than this.

This is something we see a lot of. It’s amazing how many companies list the features of the product only, and it’s a bad idea.

I’m not saying negate the techy stuff. That’s always needed. But place it outside of the product description, under a ‘specifications’ tab, for example. You don’t want to clog up your valuable description space with boring stuff like measurements or materials.

An instance where this rule might not apply is if the specification is something your customer really cares about. For example, the engine size of a car, or the amount of RAM on a computer. If it’s something your customers search for, you might consider adding it to the product title too.

Good Example: Think Geek

Think Geek is genius with their product descriptions. I highly recommend you take a look at their website and go through their products for inspiration.

Think Geek speak to you as a friend. In this instance, they use humour by suggesting that you wouldn’t want to go grocery shopping in their shoes, but to send them a video if you do. They also use slang to connect with their reader, such as the word ‘plz’.

Now, obviously, this wouldn’t work for every company, but it works for their specific market. Your job is to figure out what works for yours.

– Show me the benefits

It’s your responsibility to make me care about your product or service. And the best way to do this is by selling the benefits. How will your product benefit your target market?

Features are exactly that, they are facts about your product. Benefits tell your potential customers why your product’s features are worth investing in.

What you need to do is tell the reader the benefits of your product, and make sure the benefits relate to your target audience.

Let’s use the example of an internal locking system on a car.

The feature is the internal locking system. The benefit is safety. But when you add your target market to the mix, you might want to think how you convey this benefit.

For example, if your target market is busy families, you might say ‘the car features an internal locking system, so you don’t have to worry about the kids popping out while you’re doing 70 on the motorway’.

If your target market is single women in their twenties, you might say ‘the car features an internal locking system, so you can feel safe on your journey home after working late’.

Bad Example: Marks and Spencer

Meh. Marks and Spencer’s description lacks oomph. There’s nothing that tells you the benefits of the product.

You might think, so what? It’s just men’s underwear. The benefits of underwear are pretty obvious, right? Well, as you’ll see from the example below, focusing on the benefits can really help you stand out.

Good Example: BN3TH

BN3TH make men’s boxers. And what could possibly be said about the benefit of boxers? Well, lots apparently, such as the ‘3-dimensional pouch provides for amazing support for your man parts and reduces the need for shifting and adjusting’.

Yep. They’ve really sold the benefits of their product. But it works, both for connecting with their audience and differentiating themselves from the competition.

You could argue that this would alienate some readers. People may be put off by BN3TH’s description. It’s up to you to weigh up that risk. You don’t want to offend but equally, you can’t appeal to everyone. If you try universal appeal you’ll only come across as boring (exactly like Marks and Spencer).

– Give me sensory details!

Get your reader to smell, taste and see your product. This is especially important for products like perfumes, bath products, chocolate and drinks. But also, holidays, furniture, gardening products, and things like surfboards or musical instruments. By doing this, you get your reader to visualise what your product will do for them.

Try writing down words that describe what your product (or the result of your product) smells, takes, looks, feels and sounds like. Keep writing and you’ll soon have a great list to work from.

Bad Example: Hotel Chocolat

Hotel Chocolat’s copy fails to get me excited. Their products taste amazing, but I can’t get a sense of anything in the example above. I don’t know what it’ll be like to taste their products (well, I do, but only because I’ve eaten my own body weight in them). But the product description feels like a lost opportunity to really capture their reader.

Good Example: Innocent

If you’re looking for good product descriptions then look no further than Innocent. This product description wakes you up! Even when you don’t have the image next to it, you still get a real sense of what the product looks and tastes like.

It’s memorable, and they use words like tangy, zing, bold and bright to really give you a sense of the flavour.

– Don’t Use the Manufacturer’s Description!

We see this all the time. If you’re using dropship or a manufacturer that supplies products to other companies, it’s best not to use their product descriptions. This is because other businesses might use the same copy too. Not much of a problem on the face of it, but it runs the risk of being labelled ‘duplicate content’ by Google. If your text is labelled as ‘duplicate content’ then there’s less chance it will be displayed in search results.

For example, we found these two product descriptions by two major retailers. It’s amazing how much it happens, and even big companies are guilty!

Plus, you can probably do a much better job than the manufacturer because you know your audience.

– How Many Words?

As you can see from the examples above, some of the product descriptions are a little sparse.

As a writer, I try to use as few words as possible to make my point. There’s no point having ten words when three will do, right? However, for ranking in search engines, you’ll need a minimum of 300 words.

This often means that copy is at odds with SEO. I’d never advise you write for Google, always for your end-user. But if you include all of the points I’ve made above, along with the specifications of the product, you should hit that easily.

Conclusion

That’s a lot of information to take in about product description. But to summarise, you should:

• Create a buyer’s persona and write for them
• Sell the benefits
• Tailor the benefits to your target audience
• Use sensory details
• Create an original description
• Make sure there’s a minimum of 300 words on the page

So what would a product description look like that incorporated all these things? Remember the first bad example I showed you of the wedding shoes? I’ve had a go at rewriting their description to include everything we’ve discussed above.

Wedding Shoes Product Description Example:

“So you’ve finally found the one. No, we don’t mean your future husband. We mean your dress, of course! And what’s the second most important wedding purchase after the dress? The shoes.

The last thing you want on your precious day is achy feet, which is why these shoes are designed for extra comfort. So slide your feet into the soft satin lining and dance the night away in these beauties.

These shoes come in a beautiful presentation box so you can keep them safe forever as a memento of your special day.”

How to Create a Compelling Buy Now Button for Your Product Page

It’s easy to miss the importance of your main call to action, but it’s vital you get it right. Your job is to make this button irresistible. It should coax your reader to click it.

We put a lot of thought into our client’s call to action buttons. A call to action is essentially a button that gets the reader to take action, and in the case of your product pages, these would be your buy now buttons. Here are our rules for creating the best buy now button.

– Buy Now Button: Make the Colour Pop

A lot of research has gone into what colour your buy now button should be, but ultimately, you want your colour to stand out. Make it different to what’s already on the page.

I’ve seen a lot of companies use transparent buttons, or text with just a border, or simply just text. And although they may be pretty, they don’t pop out to the reader.

Bad Example: Lush

Lush is one of my favourite companies, and yet, my eyes still roam around the page looking for the buy-now-button. From the screenshot, you can’t tell too much, but it’s just not clear enough! If I was them, I’d recommend they test filling their ‘Add to Basket’ button in a different colour. Perhaps all white with black text and icon.

Good Example: ASOS

Look at this example from ASOS. It’s not exactly the most exciting of product pages but see where your eyes are drawn? Straight to that green button that sticks out like a sore thumb!

– Buy Now Button: Above the Fold or Below?

Above the fold means everything your user sees without having to scroll down the page.

Now, the jury may be out on this one, but I still maintain that buttons above the fold work better. Sometimes, your users only want to scan the basic information before they click to buy.

It’s a little more difficult when it comes to complicated products that need to give the reader a more in-depth description and understanding. But I still think that a buy now button should go above the fold, mainly because users expect it to be there.

Bad Example: Not On The High Street

Ah! Not on the High Street, so pretty, right? Yes, it is. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. I often click the favourite button thinking it’s the add to basket button.

Good example: Amazon

Amazon’s product pages aren’t pretty. But they work. They keep their ‘add to basket’ button way above the fold, even on long-winded product descriptions.

– Buy Now Button: Give it Some Room

It’s a good idea to let your button breathe a little, away from the product description and image so it doesn’t get lost.

It sounds obvious, but a lot of companies get this wrong.

Bad Example: Next

Next’s Add to Bag button kind of gets lost because they’re also trying to promote their store card. Save it for the next page, Next! Leave the space around your button clear.

Good Example: Staples

Staples do a great job of this. The button is to the side with plenty of white space around it, plus the colour just makes it clickable.

Pretty isn’t everything

What you’ll notice from these examples is that it’s not necessarily the prettiest websites that get it right. Sometimes there’s a battle between what looks good and what increases conversion. I’m not saying make your buy now button ugly. But make it stand out. Your job is to find the balance between what looks good and what attracts attention.

Images

Product photos are one of the most important elements of a product page. If you’re anything like me, you’ll head straight to the images first. It’s vital that your product images are of good quality.

There are two kinds of product photo; isolated images on a clear background, and ‘lifestyle’’ photographs such as an image in the garden.

You’ll know what kind of photographs are best for you to use. I’d recommend, where you can, using a combination of both styles so your users can see it close up, but also in action.

If you’re taking the photographs yourself, check out this post from Shopify which shows you how to do it and what tools you might need.

Once you’ve got your photographs nailed down, it’s time to get them on your website, and trust me, your hard work hasn’t finished yet.

How to Optimise Your Product Images

Search engines can’t see your images, but they can read ALT text and what your images are called.

To maximise your chances of getting seen in search results, you need to optimise your images correctly.

Image File Name

When we take pictures, our camera automatically assigns the image a name. It could look something like this: IMG_738736

But what does that tell Google? Absolutely nothing.

Here are our three tips for naming your images:

• Keep your file names to two-three words maximum
• Separate your words using a hyphen (-) – not an underscore!
• Try to include your main keywords

A good example of a file name might be: Ceramic-Cat-Mug.jpg

Image Size

Make sure your images are a minimum of 800×800 pixels, so when someone clicks on the thumbnail of your image they can view the image much larger.

The biggest mistake people make when it comes to images is resizing the image in the backend of the site. This should be done BEFORE it’s uploaded the website.

An iPhone picture might be 1.5mb, and 3000×4000 pixels. Triple the size of what you actually need.

If you continue to do this, your website will run slow and sluggish. You’ll run the risk of irritating your end-user and getting punished by Google. Ouch.

So, before you upload your image to your content management system, use a website like PicResize to reduce the size of your images without losing the quality.

ALT Text

When you’ve uploaded your images to your website, it’s a good idea to give it some ALT Text. ALT Text, which stands for alternative text, is a phrase or sentence that describes your image. You’ll be given the option to fill this in when you upload your image to the backend of your site.

ALT text is what Google uses to rank your image in their image search results (the image tab on the search engine).

Here are our tips for assigning ALT text to your images:

• Use sentence form, not words
• Include your keywords
• Describe the image as if you couldn’t see it

A good example of ALT Text might be: A ceramic mug featuring a funny black cat

SEO Elements

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that their customers will land on their homepage directly from Google. But with ecommerce websites, you’ll often find that people access your site via your product pages first. This is because they’re searching for the product you’re selling. Your job is to increase your chances of getting your product pages to appear higher in search results.

So how do you do this?

Well, we’ve already covered the product title, image file names, image size and ALT text. But below, I’ve highlighted some further ways to optimise your pages.

Every good content management system or shopping cart will allow you to edit these elements of your product pages.

– Title Tags

Title Tags are what appear in Google when you search. It’s the title that introduces your page to the user from Google. It also tells Google what your page is about, and it’s important you get it right. Here are some points to keep in mind:

• Make it Keyword Friendly
  Consider what your customers will search for when looking for your product and include these in your title tag. But do it naturally.
• Avoid Keyword Stuffing
  When you read it does it sound spammy? If you’ve stuffed a bunch of keywords in so it doesn’t make sense then Google may punish you. Don’t do it. An example of this would be: Red dresses, dresses that are red, red dress. Eugh.
• Keep it 50-60 characters long
  Typically, Google will display 50-60 characters of your title tag. Make sure you keep within the 60 character limit, that way it won’t get cut off partway through.

Example Formula

If you’ve got a lot of products it can be tiring assigning a title tag to each and every one. Here is an example of a formula you could follow to help you.

It might look a little something like this:

Little Black Dress | Going Out Dresses | Topshop

We often use this symbol |, called a pipe to separate phrases just because it looks more attractive. You could also use a hyphen if you wanted too.

– Meta description

A meta description is the text that comes directly under the title tag in search results. It has little benefit to SEO but it’s still worth spending some time on your meta descriptions. It’s that nice bit of copy that will coax your reader to click. Think of it as a piece of advertising for your business

• Keep it between 100-200 characters
  Google increased its limit for meta descriptions in December 2017. Technically, meta descriptions should be less than 300 characters, but it’s best to keep it below 200. Shorter and sweeter is far more beneficial for your end-user.
• Make it natural
  Your meta description should talk to your reader. It is not an opportunity for you to stuff every keyword known to man in there. It should be in sentence form and flow naturally.
• Coax Your Reader to Click
  How can you stand out from the other people on the first page of Google? I’ve given an example of one below:
  Need a little black dress that stands the test of time? One that will work for every occasion, both formal or informal? Well, we’ve found it for you…

Conclusion

I get it. If you have thousands of products, this can look like a daunting task. But try to come up with formulas you can stick too. Make sure you do it on products going forward and fill in the backlog as you go. It’s not a fun task, but it’s worth it.

So Far, So Good!

What I’ve covered so far is everything that makes a good product page. Below, I’ll go into further details on how you can add more oomph to your product pages. These are just examples and you certainly don’t need them all!

Social Proof

Social proof is a way of showing your audience that other people have benefited from your product. Common forms of social proof are customer reviews or testimonials.

Including social proof on your product pages can help make a sale. It can give your user that little push (or hard shove) to click that buy now button.

Below, I’m going to outline ways you can incorporate social proof into your product pages.

– Customer Reviews

This is where customers give your product a rating. It’s usually between one and five stars and they’ll also be asked to volunteer a review. If you want to get super helpful, ask your customers to rate you out of five for specific things such as value for money, delivery, quality, appearance, etc.

Pros

• You don’t have to do anything – it’s all automated
• It’s easy for your customer to do too
• Your customer can do it anonymously, making them feel more comfortable giving an honest review
• You can gain valuable feedback

Cons

• You could get negative reviews
• You could get no reviews, which makes your site look like a wasteland!
• Often you don’t get an effective review that describes how the user has benefited from your product

I recommend using customer reviews when you plan on shifting a lot of products. Far too often, I see websites with no reviews and it looks like no one is buying! A good tip for gaining customer reviews is to send your customer an email after their purchase requesting they leave a review on your site.

– Featured Testimonial

Kidly do a great job of featuring a customer testimonial in the form of a ‘parent test’ section on each product page.

A featured testimonial allows you to have more control than you’d have with customer reviews.

These testimonials allow you to ask your customer specific questions, giving you the opportunity to shape a really good review.

Pros

• You only show good testimonials, obviously
• By asking questions, you can create compelling customer stories
• With your customer’s permission, you can add their face or a picture of them using your product to the testimonial, enhancing your social proof further

Cons

• This is a time-consuming task
• It may look more disingenuous if you only use customer testimonials, although featuring their image should combat that
• This kind of feature is quite advanced which means it might cost you more money to develop

To me, the benefits of featuring customer testimonials on each product page far outweigh the headache of actually doing them!

– Your Thoughts/Staff Picks

Giving your thoughts about what you love about your products can be a great way of connecting with potential buyers. This is especially true if you have a lot in common with your target audience, i.e. your target audience is essentially you!

For example, if you’re a mum who sells kids’ clothing, you can talk about how your products have benefited you and how much your children love them. This adds social proof but also gets your reader to connect with you on a personal level. They’ll feel like they’re buying from you and not just your logo.

Pros

• Requires no research and little effort on your part
• No bad reviews!
• Gets your audience to connect with you and see the benefits of the product

Cons

• • Not as authentic as reviews from your customers

Even if you decide to use customer reviews or testimonials, there’s still no harm in adding your own thoughts as to why you love your products.

I’m on the fence whether this is technically classed as social proof, but I do think it would be beneficial.

– Good Press/Awards

Good press and awards are a great way to show social proof. Even just an ‘As featured in…’ with links to said organisations, are enough to show your potential customers your products will benefit them.

But have you considered gaining reviews and opinion pieces about your products outside of mainstream media, such as BBC/Guardian/Daily Mail etc? Research bloggers and key influencers in your area and see if they’re willing to do a review of your product.

Pros

• High-impact social proof
• The added benefit of sending traffic to your website
• Improved SEO (if they include a ‘do-follow’ link to your website)

Cons

• It takes a lot of time and effort to go through the awards process
• You may have to learn how to write a press release and approach journalists
• You might have to give-away or highly discount some of your products in order to have them reviewed

Conclusion

The above might appear daunting, but try to feature at least one on your product pages. It might be tempting to try to cover all four but you can always test out others later.

If you already have reviews on your website but you’re only getting very few or none at all, try adding your views of the product as well.

Video

As well as having images why not use video too? This is becoming increasingly common. People have different preferences as to how they want to consume content. Some (like me) prefer reading, others (like Martin) prefer video.

To maximise sales, it’s a great idea to include both platforms. Depending on your content management system, you can add video to the same place you add images. Or you could add it to your product descriptions. Have a play about with it and see works best.

Ways you can use video on your product pages

– To Run Through Features and Benefits

You can use video to describe everything you’ve included in your product description. The only difference is the platform you’re using to communicate. You often see this with things like washing machines or coffee makers, but you can pretty much use it with anything. I’ve linked to an example of this from Currys here.

– To Showcase The Product

It’s often hard to visualise a product using only images. That’s why you find a lot of clothing/shoe companies showcase their products in video. Your audience gets a sense of what your product would look like on the move.

I’ve linked to an example of this from ASOS here.

– To Explain How the Product Works

Often consumers can be put off by installation and setup. If you can show your readers how easy it is to set-up your product by walking them through the steps then you’re onto a winner!

Not a lot of companies do this, which is a surprise because I think it would really help push sales.

Related Products

By including related products at the bottom of your product page, you will encourage your end-user to explore your site and products further. Some people worry this takes your user away from their purchase, but if they do want to buy they will find their way back. This is about you presenting them with all the buying options, which can only be a good thing.

There are numerous ways of presenting your related products, such as:

– People Also Viewed

– Customers Also bought

– My Recently Viewed Items

– Related Items

What you can achieve is really dependant on how advanced your content management system/shopping cart facility is. But most good content management systems will at least give you the option of including the related items. You can usually add related items by using your product category tags. This is by far the most popular version.

Conclusion

I know there’s a lot to think about. I’ve also designed this as an easy-to-follow checklist that you can use when creating your product pages. Eventually, this will become second nature, but this will help in the meantime.

You certainly don’t have to include everything, particularly of the social proof and featured products sections, otherwise, your product pages might become huge!

If you have thousands of products, please don’t worry! Just start slow and incorporate some of what I’ve talked about going forward with any new products. You can always backfill at your own time and pace.

Good luck.

If you think I’ve missed anything, please let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear your thoughts

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post The Ultimate Guide to Perfecting Your Product Page appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It could cost you anywhere between £500–£5000+ depending on who you choose and what you need.

For example, when we build websites we charge between £3,500 – £5,000. That being said, we usually work with established businesses who are already making money. For more info check our web design pricing visit this page.

But what if you’re just starting out in business? You might not have a big budget and every penny counts.

This is why I wrote this article; I wanted to give you five ways to get a cheap website and talk about the pros and cons of each.

My advice for anyone when starting a business for the first time is to set up a cheap website so you can test your idea and see what works.

1. Free website builders (Free – £20 per month)

Head over to Google and type in “free website” and hit enter. You’ll be presented with lots of companies that allow you to sign up for free and create a website DIY style.

Companies like Wix, Weebly and 1and1 allow you to pick from pre-made templates and get your website online fast.

You can even create your website from scratch if you’re brave enough. You can use their drag and drop software to move your images and text around the page until you’re happy.

Pros of using cheap web builders

• It’s free or very cheap to get started
• Most of these platforms are user-friendly
• Because they’re bigger companies, they usually have support departments to help you if you get stuck
• Hosting and domain fees are usually included

Cons of using cheap web builders

• The cost can increase with every additional feature
• If you do stay on the cheapest plan, they will usually advertise themselves on your website
• The added software that comes with drag and drop can sometimes slow down your website
• Some of these platforms don’t have search engine friendly system which means you could have lower rankings
• You don’t get any 1-2-1 advice about how to build and grow your website like you would if you were working with an agency

2. Use a cheap WordPress template
(Free – £30+ plus hosting)

WordPress (.org) is the most widely used system of its kind. This is the system that I use to build all our clients websites, and I love it.

As long as you have paid for hosting with a company like Siteground, you can install WordPress for free and add a cheap pre-made template for around £30. You can then customise the template and add your content.

WordPress also allows you to add lots of additional add-ons (plugins) for things like image galleries, social media sharing buttons, emails signup forms and lots more.

WordPress websites are also set up for blogging too, which means you can keep your website up-to-date with new content all the time.

Pros of using a WordPress template

• You have a huge library of FREE and paid templates to choose from. Just Google “WordPress templates”
• There are 50,000+ FREE add-ons (plugins) available for all your extra functionality. There are thousands of websites online that help with WordPress problems so you’ll always have help if you need it. Including the WordPress forum which is free.
• WordPress is widely recognised as one of the most search engines friendly platforms

Cons of using a WordPress template

• WordPress comes with a learning curve. Although you don’t have to know code, this can take more time than the DIY option.
• Most templates are built differently, which means if you change it in the future you might have to spend some time learning the new framework
• Like the DIY option above, you don’t have advice along the way. Yes, you can ask questions online, but you don’t have someone guiding you like you would if you hire a company

3. Find a cheap web designer (£100–£300 plus hosting)

If you really don’t want to do it yourself, you can hire a very cheap web designer. There companies online who will build you a website for around £100-£300.

This means you don’t need to spend your time building a site and have the headaches of trying to make it look how you want it to.

These companies can vary from freelancers just starting out or big companies who sell hundreds of these websites a month.

This could be an option for you if you really hate technology, but you only have a very small budget.

Pros of hiring a cheap web designer

• You don’t have to do anything yourself
• It’s cheap; there are many web designers who charge between £100–£300

Cons of hiring a cheap web designer

• The quality of your website will vary dramatically depending on who you choose
• The level of support you will get will be limited. You can’t possibly get much support for such a low price
• You might not have access to update the website once it’s been built
• They might charge you for additional changes which will cost more
• These companies probably won’t take the time to make your website search engine friendly
• For the price you’re paying, they will usually use a pre-made template

4. Ask for favours from friends and family (Free–? plus hosting)

Another option you have when trying to keep costs low is to ask a friend or family member to help design your website.

Everyone knows a “techie”; it’s usually someone’s cousin, niece or nephew. You might think that because someone uses technology more than you, they’re able to design a website for your business. You might get lucky and end up with a half decent website saving yourself hundreds of pounds in the process.

On the other hand, it might take you a lot longer if you’re asking for favours, and you might not get a website that isn’t of the highest standard.

Pros of asking for favours

• It’s free or at least very cheap

Cons of asking for favours

• Your “techie” friend probably doesn’t know how to build websites properly which means there might be lots of website errors
• They probably won’t understand SEO either, so your rankings might suffer
• They might not understand the basic principles of design which will impact your user experience
• If anything goes wrong, they probably won’t know how to fix it.

5. Outsource your website overseas (£50 – £100 plus hosting)

Over the past few years, businesses have become more open to outsourcing certain jobs overseas.

If you’re looking to save money on a website, you can hire a web designer at a fraction of the price of one back home.

Companies like Fiverr and Odesk allow you to browse through hundreds of freelance web designers who are all eager to work with you.

Pros of outsourcing abroad

• It can be a lot cheaper than working with someone in the UK
• You have “some” protection if you use a marketplace like Fiverr

Cons of outsourcing abroad

• The quality of the freelancers work can vary dramatically
• There could be a language barrier which makes communication difficult
• It can be difficult to vet the freelancer or company
• Freelancers will generally do what you ask but won’t usually offer advice or suggestions
• It can be risky if you hire the wrong freelancer and they don’t complete the job
• All round, it can be a bit of a minefield if you don’t know what you’re doing

My thoughts on the cheap web design options above

So there you have it, five ways to save money on your new website.

None of these options are ideal, but if you’re just starting out and budget is an issue, they can be a great starter platform until you start making money.

It depends on your circumstances, but my advice is to use option 2. Use WordPress and install a cheap template.

Spend some time playing around and learning the system; it will allow you to grow your business at your pace.

If you do decide to hire an agency in the future, chances are they will also use WordPress, so you don’t need to learn a brand new system all over again.

My clients have seen great results simply from switching from a DIY website to a WordPress website.

Over to you

Have you tried any of the options above, how did you find the process? I’d love to get your opinion so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 5 Ways to get a CHEAP website designed appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Does the following sound familiar?

Send invoice. Wait for reply. Check bank account. Email client. Repeat.

A bank transfer is the cheapest and most common way of getting paid. However, it’s not always that easy as it requires your client to go to the bank or login to online banking.

Wouldn’t it be better if you gave your clients an easier way to pay you, meaning you retrieve payments quicker and it saves time for them?

It’s really easy to take payments via your website, and in this article, I give you four ways to take payments.

One-off payments for services e.g. Consultation fee

Taking online payments is useful if you run a service-based business and offer ad-hoc services such as:

• Consultations
• Website critique (like we offer here)
• Logo design
• Social media audit
• Book editing

Essentially, this includes any service that you’ll want to take a one-time fee. In most cases, it’s not worth adding a heavy duty shopping cart facility such as Woocommerce (a WordPress plugin) to your website. It’s far better to keep things clean and simple so it doesn’t slow your site down.

4 Ways to take payments online

PayPal Buttons – free + selling fees
Stripe – free + selling fees
SamCart – $19 per month + selling fees
GoCardless – Free + selling fees

PayPal Buttons – free + selling fees

PayPal needs no introduction and I’m sure you’ll already have an account open with them.

I occasionally use this method to collect one-off payments. PayPal makes it easy to display a button on your website so you can take a fast payment.

You can even email your client a direct link which sends them straight to PayPal to make a payment. You can also set up subscriptions very easily too.

How to add a PayPal button to your website

Please note you’ll need to open a PayPal account first. You can do that here: PayPal

1. Log in to your PayPal account and you’ll see the dashboard
2. Click the “tools” tab on the main menu
3. Click on the item named “PayPal Buttons” on the third row.
4. Click “Create new button” on the top right
5. Click the “choose a button type” and select “buy now”
6. Give the item a name in the “item name” field (The ID is optional)
7. Select the price you want to charge and select your currency
8. Then select “create button” (nothing else on the page is required)
9. On the next page, you’ll be able to get the button code and copy and paste it on to your website. Alternatively, you can click the email tab and send the link directly to your client.

PayPal Fees

If you sell less than £1500 per month then PayPal charge 3.4% + 20p per transaction.

So for example, if you charge £200 for a product, PayPal will charge £7.00 in fees.
If you charge £1000 for a product, PayPal will charge £34.20 in fees.

If you sell more, between £1500–£6000 per month through your account then the fee is reduced to 2.9% + 20p per transaction. The more you sell, the less your fees will be.

Pros of using PayPal buttons

• It’s free to set up an account
• Quick to set up a button (less than 20 seconds)
• Payment is in your account immediately

Cons of using PayPal buttons

• It is more expensive than other options
• PayPal have been known to keep a hold on your funds for no reason
• PayPal always favour the buyer if a dispute were to arise
• Paypal will try to persuade your customer to pay via their PayPal account, and if they don’t have one it can be frustrating for them
• The PayPal dashboard can be difficult to use although they have made improvements.

My thoughts on PayPal buttons

Although they are very popular, PayPal is not my favourite method of taking payments. I would generally use them as a last resort. I’ve had my funds held in the past for no reason and their fees are a lot higher than other companies.

Stripe – free + selling fees

Stripe is the new-ish kid on the block and is a great alternative to PayPal. It has a very nice dashboard area and it’s simple and easy to navigate.

Unlike PayPal, Stripe does not have an easy to use button you can place on your website. It’s slightly more advanced and I wouldn’t recommend doing this unless you know code.

But don’t worry there is another option. If you use WordPress there is a free plugin you can download that allows you to add a “PayPal style” button to your website.

It adds a nice popover box where your user can fill in their card details without leaving the page. *Note, you will need to ensure you have an SSL certificate installed on your website so your customers’ details are safe.

How to add the stripe plugin to your WordPress website

Please note you’ll need to open a Stripe account first. You can do that here: Stripe

1. Visit this page and download the Plugin Simple Pay Lite for Stripe
2. Activate the plugin and visit the link on the left called “Simple Pay Lite”
3. You’ll notice that the WordPress page is showing an error and asking you to enter your Stripe API keys. These can be found by logging into your Stripe account.
4. Enter your test codes and live codes in the settings tab
5. Select your currency by going to Settings > General > Currency Options
6. Click the “Add new” button to create a new payment button
7. Insert the amount of the product or service and click “Create”
8. Feel free to add specific preferences to add more info to your payment form
9. Take the shortcode from the right and insert the code onto your chosen page or post
10. As you can see the form show a “test” marker. This is so you can test the payment button before making it live.
11. Once you’re ready to start taking payments disable the test button via Settings > Stripe Keys

Stripe fees

Stripe is much cheaper than PayPal charging only 1.4% + 20p per transaction.

So for example, if you charge £200 for a product, Stripe will charge you £3.00 in fees.
If you charge £1000 for a product, Stripe will charge £14.20 in fees.

So you can see why more people have started to use Stripe as an alternative to PayPal!

Pros of using Stripe

• It’s free to set up an account
• It’s cheaper than PayPal (less than half the price)
• It has a nice clean dashboard

Cons of using Stripe

• Here in the UK Payments take 7 days to reach your account which is not ideal
• Not easy to insert buttons without extra plugins
• It’s not easy to change the design of the checkout, which means you’re stuck with the default plugin options

My thoughts on Stripe + the WordPress plugin

In my opinion, everyone should have a Stripe account. More and more companies are integrating their software with Stripe, which will make things even easier going forward. However, the process of adding a button to your website can be tricky. Even with the extra plugin, it’s still not 100% reliable because the plugin is not owned by Stripe. This requires the plugin author to keep on top of any updates.

All round, Stripe is a great service but you will probably need other tools to make it work.

SamCart – $19 per month + selling fees

SamCart is a bit different from the previous options as it isn’t actually a payment processor. It acts more like a sales page. It’s my preferred choice at the minute and for good reason.

The great thing about SamCart is that it comes with really nice checkout pages. This means rather than using the standard (boring) PayPal or Stripe pages to process payments you can have something a bit more attractive. There are lots of templates to choose from and it only takes seconds to create a payment link.

The reason SamCart is slightly different is because it works alongside your Stripe account. This means you’ll still have to pay Stripe fees but you won’t need to mess around with plugins or code to display the payment buttons on your website. Your SamCart checkout page is hosted by them, so the only thing you need to worry about (from a technical perspective) is including a link on your website to your SamCart product URL. Easy.

How to set up a SamCart product

Please note you’ll need to open a Stripe AND a SamCart account first. You can do that here: Stripe and SamCart

1. Login to your SamCart account.
2. Click products in the menu on the top
3. Click “new product”
4. Enter the name of the product, the price and a short description of the product.
5. On the next screen, you can choose a template that you like and use the “preview” button on the top right to see how it looks.
6. At this point, you could publish your checkout page but you can also edit the sales page as much as you like by adding images, bullet points and a guarantee.
7. Once you’re happy with it, you can include a link to this page on your website.

SamCart Fees

SamCart could work out more expensive as there is a monthly fee. You have to pay $19 per month + 1% transaction fee, and then the Stripe fee on top.

So for example, if you charge £200 for a product you will have to pay around £4.97 in fees (combination of both SamCart and Stripe fees) AND the $19 (approx. £13.84) subscription, which is a total of £18.81

If you charge £1000 for a product, you will have to pay around £24.06 in fees (combination of both SamCart and Stripe fees) AND the $19 (approx. $13.84) subscription, which is a total of £38.01.

However, do remember that the $19 cover all transactions in one given month, so your second transaction would be far cheaper than what’s outlined above!

Pros of using SamCart

• It’s the best looking tool for customers
• It’s really quick and easy to set up a link (less than 20 seconds)
• Great looking dashboard with lots of data
• You can use coupons for your products

Cons of using SamCart

• There’s a monthly fee of $19
• You have to pay 1% as well as the stripe fee
• Because they use Stripe you will still have to wait approximately 7 days to receive the payment

My thoughts on SamCart

I love SamCart, it takes a few seconds to set up a product and sales page that you can send to your clients. You can easily add a link to your website and send people straight to the sales page, and it comes with beautiful templates that are customisable.

They do charge a $19 monthly cost, which means you have to be making monthly sales to justify it. For me, it’s completely worth the money. SamCart is my preferred choice for taking one-off payments. Combining SamCart and Stripe means I have the stability of Stripe and the ease-of-use that comes with SamCart.

GoCardless (UK and EU) Coming soon to USA – Free + selling fees

GoCardless is a wildcard option as it’s completely different from all the others but it’s very cheap so I decided to include it in the list.

GoCardless is different because it charges your customers via a direct debit rather than using a credit/debit card number, expiry date etc like you would with Stripe.

Fundamentally, this service is ideal if you offer a subscription type service where you charge a customer on the same day each month, however, you can also use GoCardless for one-off transactions too.

How to set up a product with Gocardless

Please note you’ll need to open a GoCardless account first. You can do that here GoCardless

• Once you’ve logged in, click plans on the left-hand side
• Click create plan on the top right
• Fill out the name of the product, the currency, the amount and the reference
• Select a recurring interval (choose either weekly, monthly or yearly, it doesn’t matter)
• Select the option to “take as soon as possible”
• Then click “continuing” and select for a specific number of payments
• IMPORTANT: The next box that appears will ask you to specify a number of payments. You simply enter “1” this will ensure the customer is only charged once rather than a recurring payment.

GoCardless fees

GoCardless only charge 1% which makes it the cheapest option by far. They have a maximum fee of £2 per transaction.

So for example, if you charge £200 for a product, GoCardless will charge you £2.00 in fees.
If you charge £1000 for a product, GoCardless will  still only charge you £2 in fees.

Pros of using GoCardless

• It’s the cheapest option at only 1%
• Direct Debits are more secure and less prone to fraud
• They have maximum fee of £2 per transaction

Cons of using GoCardless

• It is not really supposed to be used as a one-off payment tool
• The checkout pages are very basic and you can’t customise the design.
• It takes 7–10 days for the money to hit your bank account which is the slowest turn-around of all the options

My thoughts on GoCardless

GoCardless is a very good service and it’s cheap. However, it’s not really set up for taking one-off payments which means you’ll have to be careful when setting up a plan for your customer. You don’t want them getting charged every month. It’s nice to have another option but I wouldn’t generally use GoCardless as my first choice.

Summary

I hope you found this article useful. Over the years, I’ve tried lots of ways to take online payments and these are the few methods that I use on a regular basis. I currently use the Samcart and Stripe combo more than the other options, but you’ll have to decide which option is best for you. It’s completely dependant on your circumstances but at least now you’ll have a better understanding of the options available.

Also note, it’s best to have an SSL certificate on your website. The third party processors I’ve listed above are the most popular and reliable, however, it’s always best to have that extra layer of security.

Over to you

Have you tried any of these methods before? How did you find it? I’d love to hear your comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post How to take payments online for services. PayPal vs Stripe vs SamCart vs GoCardless appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But when you’re not pulling in enough enquiries or sales, it might be time to examine what’s going wrong.

The only thing is, it’s often difficult for you to identify any issues with your site, especially if you’ve designed it yourself, and haven’t had a professional to help.

When you’re building a website yourself, you tend to focus on one thing…how it looks.

This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s only ONE of the MANY factors that go into a successful website. And if you’re not careful, you could be missing out on business.

Over the years, we’ve noticed that many business owners make the same mistakes with their websites. Consequently, they see limited results.

This is why we launched our “website critique” service. This is where we review your website and send you a 30-minute video with our advice and feedback so you can make improvements.

Over the past 12 months since starting this service, our clients have experienced dramatic growth as a result of our feedback.

But how do you know if YOU will benefit from a website critique? Below, I’ve listed the six main reasons you might need some honest feedback about your website.

1. You need some honest feedback on the design

The way your website looks is SO important, and it can make the difference between generating sales and hearing crickets. If you have an attractive, easy-to-use website, then more people will stick around and potentially do business with you.

However, if your website looks dated and it’s difficult to use, it WILL affect your bottom line. It’s a real shame because you might have spent time creating a useful website, but an unattractive or un-user-friendly design will put people off.

How will a website critique help?

We’ll give you some honest feedback about the design of your website. From our years of experience, we understand what makes a good website and what doesn’t.

In a website critique, we will tell you what we think about your site and what we would change. It might be as simple as changing a few colours or fonts, or we might suggest changing the layout and style to make it more user-friendly.

2. You’re not ranking well on Google, and you don’t know why

Every day, people are using search engines to find products and services like yours, and people trust Google to deliver the best results. This is why it’s so important that you are found online.

If you’re not ranking on the first page of search results for relevant key phrases, you’re likely missing out on visitors and sales.

For most businesses, organic search is the number one source of traffic, so it’s understandable why so many people need help increasing their rankings.

How will a website critique help?

We will analyse your website from a search engine perspective and give you specific changes that you can make to improve your search engine rankings.

We’ll look through your website and tell you if you’re making any mistakes and how to correct them.

We’ll also run a full technical audit to see if there are any underlying issues that are preventing you from being found online.

3. You’re not converting visitors into leads

Your website is not just an online business card, it has a job to do. It should be delivering a steady flow of new enquires all the time. The type of lead or enquiry depends on your business but here are a few examples:

• Contact form entries
• Phone calls
• Free online consultations
• Email subscribers

Whatever it is you want your visitors to do, your website needs to encourage your users to take some kind of action.

Far too often we don’t give our users clear direction. We leave them to wander around our website in the hopes that they will get in touch, and they rarely do.

How will a website critique help?

We’ll review your website fully and assess how you can increase your lead generation. There could be a problem with the design and layout of your website, or there could be an issue with the copy you’re using. We’ll give you some tips to improve your leads and enquiries.

4. You’re not making enough sales

You could have the best-looking website in the world, but if nobody is buying from you what’s the point? There’s nothing worse than spending time and money building a new website only to have it generate no sales.

The old adage “build it and they will come” is simply not true when it comes to your website. There is so much competition out there you have to be extremely focused on making your products and service stand out from the crowd.

For someone to feel confident buying from you, you need to build up a certain amount of trust. Your prospects want to feel like they’re making the right decision and it’s your job to make them feel safe when handing over their cash.

How will a website critique help?

There are a few key things you can do on your website to build trust, that you might not already be doing. We’ll review your website and identify any opportunities to improve this and increase sales.

We’ll also take a look at you sales pages and product pages to see if you’re including all the right information and addressing your visitors objections.

Another reason people might not buy from you is because they have certain questions that you might not answer on your website. We’ll help you come up with a content plan so your visitors learn more about your products and services, which should lead to more customers.

5. Users are leaving your website quickly

You only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention when they visit your website. Fail to do this, and they’ll lose interest and click the back button. You probably do this when browsing online too.

There are many reasons someone might leave your site quickly, including a lack of clear direction, inability to communicate what it is you do, messy design, etc.

All of this will impact user experience and cause your visitor to be frustrated and leave quickly.

How will a website critique help?

We can advise you how to captivate your audience before they leave your site. There are certain design principles you can do to engage your visitors and keep them around for longer.

We’ll take a look at your website and tell you what you can do to help your users consume more of your content.

6. Your traffic numbers are low

If your website isn’t getting a lot of traffic, it can be really frustrating. You’ve spent time creating a website, and nobody is visiting it. The more relevant visitors you have, the more potential buyers you have.

It’s also worth mentioning that without a consistent flow of visitors, you won’t be able to get a good understanding of how people are using your website, what you can improve and what you may need to get rid of.

Having the data will allow you to make certain adjustments to your website that will increase sales.

How will a website critique help?

There are many things you can do to start generating more website traffic, and I’m not talking about paying for advertising.

We’ll help you come up with a strategy so you can start reaching more people. This might mean making your website more search engine friendly, or we can spend some time looking at your content to see if it’s good enough to attract more visitors.

Summary

If you’re concerned about your website and think it might not be performing well enough, let us know. We can tell you if we think a website critique is the right way to go.

If you want to book your website critique now, then click the button below and get started. We’ll send you your 30-minute video in the next seven days.

Over to you

Have you suffered from any of these website problems before, how did you overcome them? I’d be interested to know in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 6 warning signs you need a website critique appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Thinking about the colours, the styles, the layout, the endless possibilities.

It’s understandable that you would want to jump into it feet first and hire an agency quickly to build your new website.

Before you do, I wanted to make you aware of a few hurdles you might face.

I’ve been running a web design business for over five years, and I’ve noticed a number of frustrations and problems with other web design companies.

I’ve made an effort to listen to what people say so I can understand their frustrations, that way I don’t make the same mistakes with my business.

What are the main problems you might face when hiring a web design agency?

1. They don’t put their prices on their website

Most web design companies don’t display any pricing information on their website. They expect you to call them up or fill out an online form to be able to find out what they might charge. This is pretty frustrating.

You might have a budget in mind, it might be high, it might be low but if you can’t find any information on their website you could spend hours contacting a number of companies and explaining what you want, only to find that they are way out of your price range.

Obviously, websites are not all built the same, they have many different features, and the price for one can be completely different for another. However, wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if they gave you some indication at least without having to contact them. Even if they said “starting at £5,000” if you only had a budget of £1,000 you would know they are not the right company for you.

What we do instead

Like many other companies, the price for our web design packages varies depending on what you want. But we know that most of the websites we build cost between £3K–£5K. This is why we clearly state this information on our website. There are rare occasions that we might charge outside of this range, but at least you know what kind of figure we’re likely to quote.

We’ve also written a number of blog posts about our pricing structure and what you get for your money. We allow you to compare our service with other companies in your own time. You get to see our entire process from start to finish and make your own decision.

2. They might use a lot of jargon

Website design is a technical skill, and it can get pretty complicated at times. Web design companies like to use lots of jargon, some of which ends up on their website.

Phrases like CSS, HTML5 and PHP may sound impressive, but they don’t mean anything to ordinary business owners looking to hire a web designer for their new website.

It’s more likely going to confuse you and leave you with more questions.

What we do instead

We know that your website needs to look good, work well and deliver traffic and customers. You shouldn’t need to worry about the technical aspects of how it’s built. You just want results.

We understand that what we do may seem complex. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be complicated for you. We do our best to eliminate the fancy jargon when speaking to you about your project via Skype, email and phone and make things easy to understand.

We also created a jargon buster on our website which will help you understand all the fancy lingo that techie folk like to use.

3. They might not understand SEO

Search engine optimisation or SEO will play a big part in the success of your website. It’s about how well your website follows the guidelines that Google set.

Some web design companies focus entirely on DESIGN. They tend to focus on making your website look good and leave the SEO stuff to you.

That’s ok if you know what you’re doing but wouldn’t it be good if your web designer at least thought about search engines while building your website.

After all, you could have the best-looking website in the world but if nobody can find you on Google then what’s the point.

What we do instead

We have an extensive knowledge of SEO and have been lucky enough to work with hundreds of clients over the years. We teach SEO, run workshops and offer 1-2-1 private coaching.

We build every website with SEO in mind, everything we do will have some impact on your search engine rankings. This is why we take our time throughout the design process. We think about website content, page layout, menu structure, technical SEO, page speed and much more.

Yes, we STILL design great looking websites, but we also build search engine friendly websites too.

4. You don’t get the support you need when you go live

Another major problem with web design companies is the level of support you get from them once your website has gone live.

It’s only natural that you’ll have a few questions once your new site is live and you’d expect to be able to contact your web designer for a little support.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Some agencies feel that once your website is live, you are now on your own. They may even try and charge you hourly for any additional support time, every email or phone call.

It’s sad, but it happens.

What we do instead

We love helping clients with their website. Especially after you launch. There may be the odd tech question you want to ask, or maybe you want some advice about blogging. We are always happy to help.

Depending on the level of support you need, we may suggest taking out a maintenance package with us, but this is optional.

Some of our web design packages include a 1-2-1 coaching session once the website is live so we can help you make the most of your new website.

We also send you a series of video tutorials showing you how to update your website yourself without having to speak to us.

Whatever you need we are here for you.

5. They don’t take the time to understand your business

A lot of web designers don’t take the time to truly understand your business. They tend to focus on surface-level information, e.g. how many pages do you need, what do you sell, how can people get in touch.

By only focusing on the basics, they will miss some really important information that could lead to you getting more enquires and sales later down the road.

To design a high performing website your web design company should understand:

• Your target market
• The features of the products/services you offer
• The benefits of these products/services
• What makes you different from your competitors
• Your future goals for the business
• Any much more

Without gathering this information, it’s pretty much impossible to create a website that’s good enough to do what you want it to.

What we do instead

Before we start building your website, we arrange a video call so we can gather as much information as we can. This usually lasts for an hour.

Once we have done this, we’ll send you a questionnaire to fill out where we ask more questions about your business. This will allow us to get a clearer understanding and set an action plan for moving forward.

Once we have all this, we’ll then do our own research into your competitors and your target audience and come up with a plan to designing a website that truly works for you.

Summary

As you can see, there are many key issues you will want to look out for when approaching web design companies about your new website.

Be very careful to do your research before hiring a web design agency for your new project.

Over to you

Have you ever hired a web design agency? What were the problems that you faced? I’d love to you hear from you, so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 5 common problems with web design companies appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Images are one of the most important aspects of your site. Even if the design, copy and user experience are perfect, if your images are poor the whole site is going to look naff. Images are the first thing your user will see when they land on your site. It’s vital you get them right!

We recommend our clients use a mix of photographs from their own collection and stock photos. Stock photos work well, but more natural images give the user an insight into you and your business, particularly with images of yourself and your team.

We hired Rustic Lovebirds, a team of two professional photographers – Matt and Sabina, to help us create brand new photographs for our new website.

We learnt a heck of a lot from the experience. So we’d like to share with you what we learned, as well as a sneaky-peek of a few photographs too!

Send Your Photographers Photos You Like

In preparation for our photoshoot, we sent Matt and Sabina some photographs we found appealing. These were surprisingly hard to find as we wanted a very informal business photoshoot, when it’s mostly serious headshot photographs out there.

I created a board on Pinterest with the kind of photographs we were looking for. It worked very well, with Matt and Sabina taking inspiration from the relaxed and natural style!

Don’t Leave It Until The Day

Preparing for website photography is hard. At first, I tried to think about the exact shots we needed, and where they would go on the site. But this quickly became a tiresome task and one that was futile. Any good web designer should be able to work photos into the design; they just might take a little editing.

But I did think about the following:

What do you want to feature in your photographs?

For example, we knew we wanted photographs of us on the phone, poring over our laptops and web schematics, presenting and showing our training sessions.

Where will these photographs take place?

We used many different locations for our photographs – Martin’s office, my office and even the beach!

What props do you need?

Props made the photographs look more natural and colourful. Even simple things like plants, a couple of coffee mugs and some glasses really brought this shoot to life! As you can see from one of the photographs from our shoot below…

Do You Feel Comfortable With Your Photographers?

Let’s face it; sometimes photography can make you feel a little awkward, so you need to find photographers that put you at ease. Matt and Sabina had previously photographed us for our wedding, so we already had a great relationship with them.

We felt completely comfortable being silly in front of Matt and Sabina and you should with your photographers too! A photoshoot can be (and certainly was for us) an enjoyable experience, but having the right photographers is key.

Make Sure You Don’t Over Organise

It was tempting to over organise during the prep stage for our photography. I tried to think about every shot and everything we needed. But some of the best photos were the ones I’d never even thought of! Ones where our photographers used their skill and imagination – because at the end of the day, they’re the experts and they certainly knew what they’re doing!

Have Several Wardrobe Changes

So, I’m giving away the secret here!

The shoot only took place over the course of an afternoon, not a few days!

So if you’re planning on photographing yourself and staff for the whole site, it’s a good idea to have wardrobe changes. This makes it look natural, as though the images give a snapshot of you during different days and times.

Don’t Underestimate the Time it Takes

I remember looking at my phone and being shocked that two hours went by. It felt like two minutes!

Don’t get me wrong, we’d gone through a lot of separate locations and types of images by that time, but with wardrobe changes on top of everything else, time flew by.

It may be tempting to save on costs and book a photographer for only one or two hours, but remember that this time will go quickly. Your photographers are there anyway, so you may as well pay that little extra for more shots.

Show Your Personality

Like I said before, it was difficult for us to find relaxed and natural business photographs. A lot were of people are suited and booted and standing straight and tall. But that’s just not us. And it’s certainly not how we work every day.

So we decided to keep our (slightly messy) offices as they were, complete with star wars toys and sweets, family photos and paperwork. It shows a little glimpse of our personality.

I’m certainly not saying you have to show people what you’re up to at home on a Saturday night. But try to show a little bit of yourself.

Don’t Forget To Check the Weather

If you’re thinking of shooting outside, don’t forget to check the weather. Sabina, one of our photographers, was kindly chatting to us the night before our shoot to arrange the best times to go to the beach. We also checked the tide times too so we had some sand!

But hey, this is the UK and we all know that weather reports are no guarantee of anything at all. So have a backup just in case it pours down with rain. If worst comes to the worst, brollies make great props!

Photograph Objects

Matt and Sabina had the great idea of photographing little details, such as our keyboard, the computer and our offices in general. These will be really handy going forward as our own version of stock photographs. A great idea!

Use More Than One Location

Having photographs taken in the same place can get a little dull.

So if you can, try to use different rooms or areas. Even if you just use different corners of the room to maximise your space.

If you can, get outside too!

Make Sure You Have Lots of Natural Light

This was a great tip from our photographers! Make sure you open all blinds and curtains and select rooms with plenty of light!

The more natural light you have, the better the photographs will be.

Summary

Is getting professional website photography worth it? Absolutely yes! We cannot wait to get our new site live with these new photographs. If this is something you’re thinking of doing, just make sure you showcase your personality, allow yourself enough time, and plan ahead with your photographers.

So what about you? Have you ever used professional business photographers before? How did you find the process?

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Lessons We Learned From Our Business Photoshoot appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It’s a decision that we didn’t take lightly but one that we are happy with.

SEO has been a huge part of our business, and it’s going to be an interesting transition going forward.

Did we fall out of love with SEO? Did we have a bad experience? The answer to both questions is NO.

We love helping our clients get incredible results (who wouldn’t) this is why it took us a long time to make this decision. Stopping something you enjoy doing, and are good at, is difficult for anyone.

Even if you’re doing it for the right reasons.

1. We love building websites

We want to focus all our efforts on building the best websites possible.

I actually started my journey as a web designer 5 years ago. I only added SEO to the mix later on once I learned as much as I could about it.

Learning SEO and getting great results for our clients has helped us build better websites. They tend to rank better, they’re more user-friendly, and we can advise our clients what they could do to improve SEO.

My real passion has always been in building websites. Taking an idea or basic sketch and turning into a reality is what excites me. Creating a website from nothing and see it make money for a client is the best feeling in the world, and we want to spend more time doing this.

Another part of what we love about building websites is seeing the finished product. It’s true; a website is never truly “finished” but there is a point where we launch a new website and hand over the reigns to our clients.

At that point I feel a sense of accomplishment.

However, the very nature of SEO means, it’s never-ending. It’s a continuous service that happens month after month and it never really feels complete. Although this is very profitable, I still miss that sense of completion that I get from my web design projects.

2. We didn’t want to hold anything back

We’ve always tried to be as giving as possible when it comes to our knowledge. SEO is a topic I personally love to talk about and could do so until I was blue in the face.

However, when you offer a service like SEO, there’s always a feeling that I should be saving some of the information for my paying clients. Surely the REALLY valuable stuff should be given to paying clients only…right?

NO!

This is another reason we gave it up. We didn’t want anything to be held back when speaking to clients and prospects.

Our goal is to be 100% transparent with our audience, and now we’ve taken money out of the equation, we get to spread our message without any filter.

And I feel really excited about it.

3. We want YOU to learn SEO rather than pay for it

SEO is easier than you think.

Over the past 4 years since I’ve been offering SEO, I’ve realised that Google are making it easier for small businesses to have an impact on the web.

SEO is easier to understand and less technical than ever before.

There are thousands of SEO blogs out there giving free advice on how to optimise your website for search engines. Not to mention all the books, video courses and podcasts that offer guidance too.

Content management systems like WordPress, Weebly and Shopify allow you to optimise your own website easily and start seeing results within weeks.

It’s far more cost-effective for you to learn and understand the basics and try your hand at at it first.

Even if you decide to hire an SEO agency later on, you’ll be able to understand the work that has been carried out. You’ll have a better grasp of what and why things have been done and save yourself some time and money in the process.

4. We get to spend more time helping our clients

We’re developing a new online training centre for our clients where we’ll put together a series of videos and downloads that will help them understand SEO better.

When you hire us to build your website, you’ll have the opportunity to join the training centre and learn everything you need to know to drive more organic traffic to your website.

We’ll teach you everything we’ve learned over the years, and you can implement it yourself without the need for an SEO company.

Now that we’ve stopped providing SEO services, it means we have more time to invest in training.

5. We are still offering SEO consulting

Although we are not taking on new SEO projects, we are not going anywhere, and we can still help you with your SEO strategy.

We offer hourly 1-2-1 coaching via Skype, and we also offer a website critique service where we’ll review your website and send you a video with our feedback.

These services allow us to help more people for a one-time fee. No contracts, no monthly fees, just 100% help and advice tailored around your needs.

What happens now

So what does this mean, is the last time I’m going to talk write about SEO?

Nope.

I’m planning on writing a lot more SEO content for my audience; I want to start recording more videos and creating ebooks too. I just want to give away my knowledge, rather than save it for my SEO clients.

Summary

It’s never easy cutting a service from your business. Especially one that’s been very profitable over the years. I made this decision even though it went against my business instincts. I went with my heart instead. And I’m happy that I did.

If you want to take advantage of our website critique service, hit the button below. We’ll send you a 30-minute website critique video telling you how to improve your SEO.

Over to you

Have you ever made a decision that didn’t make sense on paper? Maybe like me, you chose to go with your heart rather than your head. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why we’ve stopped selling SEO appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You know you need to hire a web design agency to create your new site, but you’re not sure where to start.

You could work with a small agency like us, or you could hire a big agency with a fancy office.

But what’s the REAL difference?

I’ll be honest; I would never class us as “cheap”. We charge between £3K–£5K for a website, which is significantly more expensive than WIX and your bog-standard local web designer. People often ask why we are more expensive. You can find out why we’re more expensive by reading this blog post.

That being said, we have ALSO been asked this question too…

“Why are you so much cheaper than larger agencies?”

You may be thinking:

• Are they cheaper because they’re not as good?
• Do they have the right skills?
• Can they handle my project?

How much do larger agencies charge for web design?

Many of our clients have been quoted 5K-10K for a basic website and upwards of 15K-20K for a website needing additional features. Comparatively, we usually charge between 3K-5K on average.

What’s the difference between us and them?

In this post, I’ll explain exactly what you will (and won’t) receive from us when it comes to getting a new website. And why I think we’re cheaper than other agencies.

1. No big fancy office

We work from home.

We make no bones about it. We love working from home. There’s no traffic for one thing, and my wife and I each have an office with all the space we require.

But many website design agencies rent spaces. Depending on the agency, some of these spaces can be extra fancy, complete with cool bean bag chairs and coffee machines.

After a brief search on Rightmove, renting a decent space, suitable for meeting clients, could set me back £2000 per month. That cost, along with public indemnity insurance, furniture and heating/gas costs, would need to passed onto you, the client.

With the exception of the slightly higher utility bills from using the kettle 18 times a day, there’s very little extra cost from me working from home.

Working with us:

• Overhead costs are lower, and these savings are passed onto you

Working with a larger agency:

• You get that ‘red carpet’ experience
• Bean bag chairs!

Understandably, some people are put off by this. They like the idea of a big agency who can roll out the red carpet for them in the style of a dedicated office space. And I get it, I really do. Having a website designed is exciting, and a fancy office adds to that experience.

But a lot of our clients, most of which live over 3 hours drive away, don’t really care that we work from home. They just want a good product.

Which brings us nicely onto our next point….

2. We don’t do in-person meetings

“Will you come and meet us?”

99% of the time, the answer to this question is no.

It’s not that we don’t want to see you. We love communicating with clients. And personally, finding out about you and your business is the favourite part of my job.

But we still won’t come and meet you. Instead, we communicate via video call, phone, emails and recorded videos.

Why do we do only communicate online?

How does this make the cost cheaper for you?

It’s true, the cost of travel isn’t much. Travel from Manchester to Edinburgh for two people is £150.00 (ish). A hotel is about £100.00.

So you’re probably thinking, ‘well £250.00 out of the three grand you’re charging for the website isn’t bad, right?’

And you’d be right.

The biggest issue for us is time. Say we did that two or three times a month. We could lose 4-6 days out of each month travelling and in meetings. It’s just not feasible.

Time is money, unfortunately. And the more time we spend dedicated to travelling for your project, the more we’d have to charge and the longer the project would take.

We’d have significantly fewer clients, which means we would have to charge a smaller pool of clients more for each project.

Plus, we’ve found a whole host of benefits when communicating online compared with face-to-face.

Working with us:

• You get to see your website and the progress as we go along. There’s not just one meeting and then a brand new website, we have a few video calls throughout the process.
• We’ll send you training videos which will last forever. If you want to update your website at 8 pm on a Friday night and you forget how to do something, you don’t have to wait until Monday to find out!
• You have time to formulate feedback – you’re not put on the spot as you may be in a face-to-face scenario
• Cheaper overall costs, which are then passed onto you.

Working with a larger agency:

• Sometimes it’s easier to explain what you want face-to-face, but we find a video call is always good for that too! Especially with our screen-sharing software.
• Free coffee – we can’t give you a frappuccino through the computer screen, but we are hoping technology catches up soon!

3. We don’t have lots of staff

A lot of agencies have project managers, a sales team and administrators as well as web designers and graphic designers, etc. This varies from agency-to-agency, however, comparatively we’re very small.

The obvious reason our projects are cheaper than other agencies is because we don’t  pay for a team of staff.

As well as the research and design, we also do all the admin, accounting (alongside an accountant), marketing and brew-making between the two of us.

This means we have to carefully plan-in each project, and a single web project usually spans over two months.

Working with us:

• You speak directly to the person designing your website – Martin. There isn’t a number of people you must go through in order to talk design.
• You don’t have to explain your point to numerous people
• You get to speak to the people at the top! We make all the decisions – there’s no waiting around for things to be signed off by managers
• We’ll never put you on hold with crappy background music
• You don’t get lost amongst so many different projects
• And the biggie…it’s cheaper

Working with a larger agency:

• It may take them less time to design a website – our websites take a minimum of two months to create (from research to launch).
• As long as you have the budget, larger agencies tend to be able to work with anyone. Whereas we work with fewer clients who we can truly help
• If you don’t like your account manager personally, you can usually request another one.

4. We provide one main service

We offer one service: Bespoke WordPress website design.

Don’t get us wrong; this service encompasses a lot of different things. We think about the whole process your user must go through, and how best to get them to do exactly what you want them to!

We don’t just design, there’s so much that goes on in the background, such as email marketing integration, online payments integration, and crafting attractive copy to increase click through rates, for example.

But, we still only offer one product.

Why does this save you money?

Firstly, this saves you costs because we don’t have to spend time and money learning and keeping up-to-date with many different things.

The second reason is that we don’t bundle in lots of services under one roof like many integrated digital agencies.

We’ve had to learn this the hard way.

In the beginning, we offered too many products and stretched ourselves way too thin.

However, a larger agency doesn’t have this problem. So you may find that many of these items are bundled into a large package, which of course, increases the cost, but can be a good thing depending on what you need.

Working with us:

• Highly in depth knowledge and skill about one particular subject – how to turn your visitors into customers using a bespoke WordPress website.
• Staff training costs are low
• No added extras bundled into our packages

Working with a larger agency:

• Can usually handle all of your marketing and branding under one roof
• No need to go to multiple suppliers – such as a web designer, logo designer and copywriter
• Your marketing and branding is consistent as it’s all completed in one place

5. We hate suits

There. We said it. We hate them.

We don’t wear them, and we don’t expect you to pay for them.

Summary

In some ways, we’re quite a low key agency.

We’ve created a business that we love, and it never feels like we’re working (except when we’re filling in a tax return). We don’t have any ambitions of becoming a huge agency complete with a team of staff and a fancy office.

That’s ultimately why we’re cheaper than some others out there. However, that’s not to say we’re the right agency for you.

It’s not just about the cost.

There are advantages and disadvantages to working with us over other agencies, and we hope we’ve made this a little clearer for you! Our aim has always been to minimise the small agency disadvantages as much as we can.

Over to you

So, have you ever worked with a smaller, cheaper agency? What did you like about it? Or perhaps you prefer larger agencies with a strong presence and name? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why Are We So Cheap? Working with us vs a Larger Agency appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

WordPress makes everything easier.

Within seconds you can copy and paste your content into the editor and publish a brand new blog post for the world to see.

There’s only one problem, how can you make it look good?

Design is important

Good quality content is one thing, but DESIGN is important too. Especially if you want people to read your articles properly and share your content online.

The standard WordPress editor is easy to use but VERY basic. You can barely change the font size without knowing a bit of code. This makes it very difficult to create something visually appealing for your readers.

So what can you do about it?

Realistically, you’re not going to learn how to code; even the basics would take months to learn.

You don’t want to rely on your web designer for every little change. That could cost a fortune.

You may be tempted to add some drag and drop software to make things easier, but that’s going to affect your page load speed.

Good news

Luckily, all is not lost. WordPress allows you to make lots of visual changes to your articles within their editing system and you won’t need ten different plugins either.

All you need is one handy little plugin, and you’re all set.

Within a few steps, you’ll have everything you need to make your blog posts look amazing without spending a penny.

Install Tiny MCE advanced

Before reading the rest of this post, you’ll need to install this plugin. I always try to avoid adding more plugins where possible, but this one is going to be worth it. It will make your entire blogging life easier.

As you can see, it comes with so many extra options, and I now install this plugin on every website we build.

WordPress Blogging Tips

Now you’ve installed the plugin you can follow along with these 15 steps to make your blog post look epic. And if you want to understand what to actually cover in your blog post, have a look at our article on how to write a blog post.

1. Never create content within WordPress

Never. Ever create your content in WordPress.

Never.

You could spend hours writing a post, and if something goes wrong with your internet, you’ve lost it. I learnt this the hard way and so have many others.

I create all my content using Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Whatever you use, save it often until you’re 100% finished.

How to add content

Once you’ve written your blog post and you’re happy with it, don’t just copy and paste it into WordPress. It sometimes transfers over some messy code from the text editor you’ve used.

Instead, you want to right click in the white space of the blog post and select “paste and match style.”

This will clear all of the previous formattings and give you a clean post to work with.

2. Use Headings and Subheadings

The headings and subheadings on your post will help your reader consume your content easier. They will also allow you to break up your content with little milestones.

Headings are usually much bigger than the normal text, and your readers will often skim your headings before reading the content fully.

Adding headings is the first thing I do after adding the content.

How to add proper headings/subheadings

Highlight the text you want to use as a heading or subheading and use the drop down list in your editor (pictured below) to choose the relevant heading style.

For more information on how to choose the correct WordPress headings, read this article here.

Depending on the theme you’re using, each heading will have its own style. This means that it might not look how you want it to, but don’t worry, you can change this without knowing any code.

Once you’ve chosen the appropriate heading, simply highlight the text again and use the editor to change the size, colour and style of the font.

3. Create a main featured image

WordPress allows you to add a “featured image” to each blog post. This is a dedicated image that often gets shown when your article is shared online. I always upload a unique image for every new blog post and ensure it’s included within the blog post article too.

These big images are the visual representation of your article and, like it or not, people still judge a book by its cover. The better the image, the more people will take notice and share it online.

I also include this same image within the post too, usually right at the top, above the entire article. Just like this one.

How to add a featured image to WordPress

When editing your blog post scroll down to the featured image section on the bottom right of your sidebar.

Click the “set featured image” link and add the image via your media library.

4. Use short paragraphs (My English teacher would kill me)

I love short paragraphs.

Just like the one above.

And this one.

They make it easy for people to read and it doesn’t feel like a novel.

It’s more important earlier on in the post. It’s about easing your reader into your blog post with short, snappy paragraphs to keep them engaged.

I very rarely use paragraphs over 2-3 lines of text and instead, I choose to show more white-space on the page.

It makes the process of writing easier too.

Give it a go and see how you like it.

5. Use a larger text size

The size of your text is very important. If it’s too small, it makes it very difficult to read, and this may cause the reader to lose focus.

I use size 20px (15pts) text for my blog post, and it works well and allows most people to read it clearly.

Anything below size 16px (12pts) is probably too small, and you might want to increase it.

How to change the font size

As you can see below, the new WordPress editor will allow you change the font size for each blog post. Simply highlight the text you want to edit and select your font size.

Note:

Ideally, you would change the text size within the theme code for your website. This way, you wouldn’t have to manually do it every time you created a new post/page. However, if you don’t know how to do this, this can be a good backup option.

6. Use dark coloured font on a white background

My best advice when it comes to text colour is to make it stand out. Using black or a very dark grey will allow your text to be read easily on a white background.

Many websites use a lighter grey colour for the main content, but it’s more difficult to read and will require more concentration from your visitor.

Make things easy and keep your text as dark as possible.

How to change the colour of your text

Highlight the text you want to change and select the colour from the colour swatch like in the image below.

7. Use a clear font style

Always try and use a clear font style for your blog posts. This will make it easier for your readers and will keep them around for longer.

The font will be set by your theme, but you can change this for each post using the WordPress editor.

How to change the font style

Simply highlight the text and change the font style as you can see in the image below.

8. Use images throughout your post

Using images within your blog post is an excellent way to keep your visitor engaged while they’re reading your blog post. It will help you communicate your point on a more visual level.

Try to avoid using cheesy stock photos where possible and opt for more helpful images like I’ve used on this post.

How to add images to your post

Place your cursor where you’d like to add your image and click “add media.”

You can then select the image from your computer or image library.

Once you’ve selected the image, you can use the image align tool to make it centred or left/right aligned.

9. Use links throughout your post

Where relevant, try to include internal links to the other pages or posts on your website.

Helpful links will allow your user to navigate through your website easily and consume more of your content.

The hyperlinked text is usually a different colour too which makes it stand out.

How to add links to your blog posts

Highlight the word or phrase you want to hyperlink and use the link icon in the editor and insert the destination page

I always try to hyperlink a related word such as SEO for Blog posts rather than use the words “click here” or “find out more.”

You could also list recent blog posts and hyperlink to the relevant page as I’ve done below.

The Ultimate SEO Checklist for your Blog Posts

7 mistakes you’re making on your homepage and how to fix them

Web Design & SEO Jargon Buster

10. Embed videos within your blog posts

Adding videos to your article will dramatically increase the value of your content.

By including video, you can keep people on your post for longer and engage more of your audience.

How to add a video

The most common way to include a video within your post is to upload it to a video hosting platform first, like YouTube.

You can then get a snippet of code from YouTube and paste it onto your website.

11. Use Bullet points

Adding bullets or numbered lists is a great way break up your content in a different way.

How could you use bullets?

• Listing pros and cons
• Giving step by step instructions
• Listing product features
• Listing benefits of a service
• Making a list of items
• And many more

How to make a bulleted list in WordPress

1. Add the list of items, one line per item
2. Click at the start of the line
3. Click the bullet or number button in the editor
4. Do the same for each item

12. Include Tweetables

A Tweetable is a shareable link which you can insert into your blog post.

You can ask your readers to tweet a sentence from your post which helps it reach more people online.

It looks good and makes it easier for your audience to spread your message on Twitter.

How to add tweetable links within your website

I’ll be honest; I use a plugin for this. It comes as part of my social media sharing plugin, however, there are many other plugins that will allow you to add “Tweetables” to your posts.

Click To Tweet is a popular choice and it’s free.

If you’d rather not use a plugin, there is a free online service you can use by the same company.

Simply authorise your Twitter account and add the text to field like in the image below.

It will give you a short snippet of code, and you just need to add it to the HTML of your post.

13. Add coloured boxes

Placing a box around sections of text is a great way to highlight it and change things up for the reader.

How to add a coloured text box

To add a simple text box within the WordPress editor, you can select the “Table” option and choose 1 cell.

You can then type in your text within the table.

Then click “table properties” and select advanced.

Using the field at the bottom, you can assign a background colour

14. Use horizontal lines to separate paragraphs

Adding a simple line in between your content is another way to break up your text in an interesting but subtle way.

How to add a line between paragraphs

Press enter after you’ve finished writing a paragraph and click “insert” on the editor menu and select horizontal line.

15. Lead captures

One of the more interesting ways to bring your blog posts to life is to include some kind of lead capture.

This could be an email signup form like the one below, which is used to capture your reader’s contact information in exchange for a free giveaway.

How to create lead captures in WordPress

To be able to collect your prospects email addresses on your website, you’ll need an email marketing tool such as Aweber, Convertkit or MailChimp.

These are 3rd party tools that allow you to easily add a signup form to your website.

Simply create a new form within your chosen tool, and they will give you the code to copy and paste onto your website.

Most of these tools do have a WordPress plugin you can install to make the process easier, but it’s up to you if you’d prefer to copy and paste some code.

You may have to switch to the text editor to paste the form code, but you don’t have to do anything.

What’s Next?

Making your website and your content look attractive is the best way to keep your readers interested and willing to share it online. Now you have 15 tips to make your blog posts look fantastic.

But, you also have to write a blog post that’s engaging too! Have a look at our article on how to write a blog post that people will actually read.

Over to you

Do you have any tips of your own that make your blog posts look better? Share your thoughts and comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 15 tips to make your WordPress blog posts less boring appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

A lot of these mistakes occur on the homepage. Most people spend the majority of their time thinking about their homepage design, how it will look and what impression they want to give. But they forget the simplest rule:

The purpose of your homepage is to get your user to the next page.

It’s rare that someone will land on your homepage, pick up the phone and buy from you. Your homepage should act as a hub for your website. A reception area, if you will, which is designed to guide your user to the places you want them to go.

So, with this in mind, what are the most common errors we see on homepages?

1. You don’t make it clear what you do

This is the number one error we see. You haven’t told us what you do and why we should care.

The second we get to your homepage you need to clearly describe what it is that you do.

We call this a BIG BOLD STATEMENT.

Thinking of one for your business is harder than it sounds, so I’ve included some great examples below.

Freshbooks

Freshbooks say they offer ‘Small business accounting software that makes billing painless.’

You gain so much information from this one statement alone: their target audience (small businesses), what they do (accounting software) and their USP (painless billing).

Imagine if they didn’t have that statement and you had to figure out what they did from their business name?

Content Marketing Academy

CMA asks, “Ready to grow your business with content marketing?” and their sub-headline is “At the CMA we teach forward thinking business people and marketers to master content marketing, get better customers and increase revenue.”

Again, you get so much information from their statement: their target audience (forward-thinking business people and marketers), what they do (teach you how to master content marketing) and their USP (help you get better customers and increase revenue).

Users are lazy and impatient, and I can get away with saying that because I’m the worst. If I don’t see what I’m looking for within the first 3 seconds, I’ll hit that back button and go to another website. Don’t lose potential customers through something as simple as not explaining what it is you do!

How to fix it

A handy little tip to create a big bold statement for your business is to think about your products or service as a solution to your prospective customers’ problems.

We help [these types of people] get [this solution] by [feature of product]

We help [kids] get [more exercise] by [making it fun]

We help [business owners] get [invoices paid on time] by [sending reminders automatically]

There are many ways you can come up with your own statement, but the most important thing is clarity. Do you make it obvious who you can help? And how you can help them?

2. No Call to Action

Remember what I said earlier about your homepage acting as a reception? We’ve come across so many websites that give their users no clear direction.

I’m not talking about the top navigation bar; I’m talking about the pages you want to show your user. It’s best to keep these call to actions above the fold, so your users know where to go once they land on your homepage.

You could send them to service or product pages or your latest blog post. But think about the buying cycle. Don’t just shove your about page there because you feel that’s where it should go. Your user is on a journey and your aim is to shimmy them along to the end.

Good examples of this include:

SEO Moz

SEO Moz does a fantastic job of this. They combine both a call to action and clear instruction. As soon as you land on the homepage you have two options: one, ‘Get Started with Moz’ and two, ‘Get my free listing score’ – a very tempting call to action, especially with the word free!

They’ve clearly thought about their user’s journey, which goes a little something like this…

Homepage ——– Get Started With Moz ——— Start My Free 30 Day Trial

And that’s it. 3 steps and they have your details (including your card details).

Hotel Chocolat – ‘Exam Success’ Call To Action

Marks and Spencer ‘Back To School’ Call To Action

I always hear how e-commerce websites are different to ‘standard sites,’ but there’s no reason e-commerce businesses shouldn’t be directing their customers to their preferred web pages.

Both Hotel Chocolat and Marks and Spencer do this well. On their homepage, they’re predicting what their users will need. It’s Summer holidays, so both have identified that ‘exam success’ chocolates and ‘back to school’ supplies, will be something that their users will be looking for. Instead of having to traipse around the site, the user is presented with exactly what they want on the homepage.

Of course, getting a designer to design new images and then uploading them to your site can cost time and money, but it’s worth it.

How to fix it

Think about the one thing you’d like your users to do when they visit your website. How will you convince your visitor to take the next step with you?

Ideally, it would move them closer to becoming a customer, e.g., book a free consultation, check availability, etc., but at the very least your call to action would allow them to build up more report with your business and help them to consume more of your content.

3. No Lead Capture

Your website users will very rarely buy from you straight away. You’ll need to build up some trust before they do. This is why it’s a good idea to offer them something in return for their contact details.

This could be in the form of a tempting offer such as a discount on the first order, free delivery, free trial, free e-book/video, etc. Not only do you get their contact details but you also build trust, getting them comfortable with potentially making that first order or enquiry.

Good examples of this include:

Hubspot

Like Moz, Hubspot instruct what they want their users to do with an attractive call to action, offering free access to their products with a clear ‘Get started’ button. From here, they capture your details, and you’re now in Hubspot’s (very helpful) email machine!

If I could only critique one thing, it would be to make the text, ‘Free versions of every HubSpot product. Start now and upgrade as you grow’ larger, as I didn’t spot it right away. But, hey. They’re Hubspot. They know what they’re doing!

Also, notice how they also use the same, ‘Get Started’ button on the top right and bottom left? As the user’s eyes roam the page, they’ll be hit with both call to actions loud and clear.

Mum’s Meal Planner

We did a similar thing when we designed the Mum’s Meal Planner website. We crafted the words ‘Weekly Meal Plans Straight to Your Inbox’ along with a tempting lead capture offering a free sample in exchange for the user’s email address.

Notice again how there are buttons to sign up on both the top right and bottom left? Similar to how Hubspot does it, and yet they look completely different.

How to fix it

To be able to capture your prospects contact information, you can use anyone of these popular email marketing tools;

Aweber – Free Trail
ConvertKit
MailChimp

Each of these services will allow you to add an email signup form to your website and start gathering contact information.

Don’t forget to tempt people with a freebie of some sort in exchange for their information. And yes, it does need to be more appealing than “join our newsletter”!

4. Contact details

How would you like your customers to contact you? A phone call, contact form, carrier pigeon?

Whatever you decide, you need to make it obvious for your website visitors. I can’t tell you how many websites get this wrong.

If you want someone to pick up the phone and give you a call, put your phone number in a very prominent position on your homepage (and on every other web page for that matter).

Good examples of this include:

Jammy Digital

On our website, we feature a clickable phone number and option to contact us for a ‘quick chat’ via our contact form.

You have to be careful not to overwhelm people with too many ways of contacting you, but it’s a good idea to feature two or three. This is because some people may prefer phone or skype, but they might like to email instead.

How to fix it

You need to respect your visitors time, and making them scour through your website to find your details is going to frustrate them. This goes back to your call to action. Make your intentions clear and direct people without pissing them off.

Get your web designer to add your contact details on the top of each page including your homepage. 50% of searches are now completed through a mobile device. So please, make it easy for people on the go! Display your phone number clearly (as text, not an image) and make it clickable for people to call you

5. Attack of the logo

Logos are important. There’s no doubt about it. They encompass everything you are as a brand. People are proud of their logos, and I get that. But your web user is looking for information fast. You don’t need a humongous logo on your homepage, taking up all that valuable space!

Have a look at the brands below with logos hailed as the most iconic logos in the world. Look how small they are in comparison to the rest of the website. That’s exactly how logos should be displayed.

Good examples of this include:

McDonalds

FedEx

BMW

How to fix it

Speak to your designer or web developer about resizing your logo if it’s too big. Our logo at the top left is 317px by 65px.

It’s big enough to see and read but not too intrusive.

6. No Unique Selling Points

Yeah, I know, industry jargon. But highlighting your unique selling points is a grand idea. You don’t have to do this high up necessarily but have it somewhere on your homepage. And actually think about what makes you different from others. This does NOT include the following:

• Delivers excellent customer service
• Have been in business for over fifteen years
• We provide solutions to your problems

Think about what makes you stand out from your competitors and list them on your homepage.

Good examples of this include:

Grammarly

Take Grammarly, for instance. They state that they’re far better than a normal word processor and they that they can correct your grammar and spelling in email and everywhere across the web.

How to fix it

Think of what will appeal to your target audience and what concerns they may have about working with you – address those concerns head on.

You’ll need to think about what you do that no one else in your industry does and shout about it.

7. Social Proof

The term ‘social proof’ is not to be confused with social media. Social proof is about influencing people in a positive way. In business, social proof is used to make your potential customers feel more comfortable investing in you. It’s about gaining trust by providing proof that your product or service will be valuable to your audience.

Good examples of this include:

Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner uses some compelling phraseology to get you to sign up to their free report. They say ‘Join more than 620,000 of your peers’.

How powerful is that? It’s the kind of thing to get you thinking, well if so many other people like me have joined, why shouldn’t I? It’s a hugely influential phrase, added in bold for extra oomph!

Marie Forleo

Okay, so it might not be possible to get a photograph with Oprah Winfrey or Richard Branson. But Marie Forleo does a great job at presenting her social proof on her homepage.

If you can gain the attention of industry leaders, then it’s certainly a good idea to feature them on your homepage. This also goes for big companies you’ve worked with too.

How to fix it

There are many different kinds of social proof you can feature on your homepage, including:

• AUTHENTIC Customer testimonials
• Links to case studies
• Feeds from review websites such as Tripadvisor or Trustpilot
• Think about what will build trust in you and your business and showcase this prominently.

Summary

These are just a few examples of common mistakes people make on the homepage of their website.

However, please be aware that we’ve barely scratched the surface!

If you’d like us to tell you what costly mistakes you’re making on YOUR website, then book a website critique and receive a 30-minute, personalised video.

Over to you

Have you encountered any of these mistakes on your website? Or, is there anything you think we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments below…

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 7 mistakes you’re making on your homepage and how to fix them appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

And I don’t blame you. Getting a new website is expensive.

After all, you might be pretty IT savvy. How hard can it possibly be?

I just want to make one thing clear.

Creating a good website is NOT about technical skills.

It’s about much more.

There are many experienced IT companies out there that have terrible websites. IT skills alone won’t deliver a profitable website.

So if you’re thinking about creating your own website, please take a few minutes to read this post. It could be the most important article you’ll read all year.

Drag and drop web design

For those who have limited technical skills, it may be tempting to design your website using drag-and-drop software via companies like WIX, Weebly or Squarespace.

These companies would have you believe that you can knock up a quick website within a day, sit back and let the money roll in.

It might seem easy enough to get started but you’ll quickly realise that there is a LOT more to it. Especially if you want to add or change anything which is outside of their restrictive templates.

Even if you do spend a few weeks or months getting it to look exactly as you want, chances are the final design is not what you’d get from an experienced web designer.

This is why I wrote this article. I wanted you to be fully aware of the complications before you waste time and money trying to build your own website.

Here are the 7 main reasons why you should avoid building your own website without any help and support.

1. Design limitations

Design is not something you can simply pick up in an afternoon. You can’t learn how to design a website without years of experience.

• It’s about how it looks
• It’s about how it makes people feel
• It’s about how it makes people act
• It’s about user experience
• It’s about the character of your business
• It’s about your message to the world

Above all else, website design is about building TRUST.

Without a solid understanding of design, you’ll almost certainly get it wrong. Your competitors on the other hand, might choose to hire a professional web designer and avoid any mistakes.

If you feel like your design skills are limited, then it’s best to stick within the confines of a theme or template. Most people go ahead and try to change a lot about the theme, but this is where you can look amateur.

And if you can, get feedback on your website from a professional website designer, even if that means paying for something like a website critique.

And if all that scares you, then hire somebody to help. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and get something that looks professional.

2. Lack of SEO knowledge

SEO or search engine optimisation is an ever-changing landscape. Search engines change their rules all the time and what worked last month might not work this month.

I’ve been helping clients with SEO for years and I’m still constantly listening, watching and testing to see what’s changed with Google and the other search engines.

I need to have my ear to the ground to be able to keep up to date and build search engine friendly websites. Not only that, if you build your own website, you’re going to have to have an understanding of:

• 301 redirects
• Backlinks
• 404 error pages
• Schema markup
• DA and PA
• Anchor Text

If you don’t feel comfortable with SEO, you could be making some critical mistakes with your website. Mistakes that could cost you 100’s or 1000’s of monthly visitors to your website. We at least recommend you get to know the basics of SEO if you’re designing your own website, such as investing in our SEO Starter Pack.

3. You are NOT your customer

Nobody knows your customers better than you. You live and breathe your business every day and it’s fair to say you know your stuff. We like to think we’re exactly the same.

However, when you’re so involved with running the business, it’s sometimes difficult to see things from your customers’ perspective. It’s difficult to imagine what it might look like seeing your website for the first time by a prospect. This is known as “the curse of knowledge”.

That’s where we can help. We run a membership community where we help and support people building their own websites (and our own plugin page templates to help!) We give regular feedback to our members on their websites. Here are just a few of the common errors we see on websites, just within the first third of your homepage!

• No prominent contact details
• No clear call to action
• No statement explaining succinctly what it is you do

4. You might need help along the way

Like anything technical, building a website is not easy and there will be hurdles along the way. You might be able to pull something basic together with some tutorials and the odd YouTube video, but what happens if something goes wrong?

How will you be able to fix it?

You could try to figure it out yourself by digging through lots of forums and using trial and error, but this could take days. You could hire a techie and pay for a 1hr consultation but this can cost hundreds of pounds.

It’s worth either using a web designer or joining our membership where you get help and support along the way.

We’ve spent years educating ourselves on the technicalities of designing websites and have come across plenty of problems and solutions over that time.

There’s no need for you to do the same.

5. You won’t have the right tools for the job

Designing websites is a specialist skill. Like any creative skill, it requires a number of tools to ensure the job is done correctly.

Here is a list of tools we use to build highly successful websites;

• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Illustrator
• WordPress
• FTP
• Premium Plugins
• Technical Audit Tools
• Rank Tracking Software
• Competitor analysis software
• Email Marketing tools
• Landing page software
• Cross Browser Software

Most of these tools are expensive but they are necessary. Especially if I want to create high impact websites for my clients that perform well in search engines.

If you don’t have these tools and/or know how to use them, then you might not get the result you’re hoping for.

It took me a good few years to learn how to use these tools and even longer to use them effectively.

Hiring a web designer or joining our membership will help. A web designer will already have such tools and in our membership, we give you access to tools and templates which make your life so much easier.

6. It will take you much longer than it needs to

Learning to build a website from scratch can take a long time, especially if you aren’t very technical. Even if you’re using drag and drop tools you may need to do a lot of tweaking to get it right. Not to mention all the image editing and resizing to make it look good and load quickly.

As you know, time IS money and whilst you’re learning how to build a website, you’re not managing or marketing the business.

In our membership, it takes our members around 2-3 weeks to build their website and that is because they have our support. A web designer will probably take longer but your time isn’t taken up with building the site yourself.

7. Your competitors

Even if you do have the time to create your own website, chances are your competitors’ websites will look superior. I’m not trying to be mean, but if they have paid for a professional website to be designed and you haven’t, the likelihood is that theirs will work better.

Many businesses understand the importance of quality, which is why they choose to pay a web design company instead of doing it themselves.

If you are trying to stand out then you’ll want a high-quality website then looks better than your competition.

When you should build your website yourself?

Now it’s not all doom and gloom. Not every business owner should go to a website design agency or freelancer to build their website. Some can and should build it themselves. These are business owners who are just starting out, or who aren’t clear on their audience, products or services just yet.

Also, remember, it doesn’t have to cost thousands for a new website. You can get a website at £1000 or even £500.

For those who are wanting to learn and don’t want to spend thousands on a website, our membership is a great option.

And for those who do have the funds, we recommend using a good web designer to help you.

My biggest frustration

This may appear like a shamelessly unbiased blog post. And it is! But the reason I’m writing it is that I’ve had client after client tell me their frustrations when trying to build their own website completely on their own with zero support.

Believe me, at some point you’re going to have to pay a professional (even if it’s just a small amount) if you want your website to be a success and not a time-suck!

Over to you?

Remember, the next step once your website is live (whether you build it yourself or get someone else to do it) is to drive traffic to that website! And you can do this through something like our SEO content writing service.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 7 reasons you SHOULDN’T design your own website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It’s not always easy to answer this question. If you’re not a designer or a techie, then how would you know where to start?

You might like the colours and images, or the general layout and design but a website is so much more than that.

Friends and family could offer feedback and tell you what they like and don’t like, but with so many conflicting views, who should you listen to?

In most cases, you’re going to trust that your web designer has delivered a high-quality website, or that the software you’ve used to build your site is good enough.

But what if it isn’t?

What if you’re missing out on enquiries or what if your design is turning people off?

What makes a website great?

From experience, it’s not enough to simply HAVE a website. A website should deliver you results, and if it’s not, then something is wrong.

I’ve created a website self-assessment tool. You can use it to grade your own website and get immediate feedback on what you can do to improve.

How does it work?

Having reviewed so many websites over the years, I realised that most businesses make very similar mistakes.

I’ve put together a list of the 30 questions that you can answer about your website. The answers will give an indication of how well your website is performing.

Each topic has three scenarios. All you have to do is read through each of them and select which statement is most accurate for you.

Once you’ve done you’ll be given your score.

What do the scores mean?

Please be as honest as possible when answering the questions. If you need any clarification feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Let’s get started.

Grade my website

Or…

use the guide below and add up your scores

Q1 – How would you describe your use of taglines?

Q2 – How accessible are your contact details?

Q3 – How does your logo look on your website?

Q4 – Do you have a strong call to action?

Q5 – How would you describe your use of images?

Q6 – Are you clear about what services you offer?

Q7 – How much content do you have?

Q8 – Is your website customer focused?

Q9 – Do you use jargon on your website?

Q10 – Do you capture your customer’s email address?

Q11 – How useful is your blog?

Q12 – How would you describe your menu/navigation?

Q13 – How would you describe your use of colours?

Q14 – How readable is your content?

Q15 – How would you describe your choice of fonts?

Q16 – How do you use internal links to your advantage?

Q17 – How quickly does your website load?

(Note. You can check your page load speed using GT Metrix)

Q18 – Is your website mobile friendly?

(Note. You can check if your website is responsive by using the mobile friendly tool)

Q19 – Do you use a variety of media throughout your website?

E.g. video and audio podcasts

Q20 – How do you use social media within your website?

Q21 – Do you use testimonials on your website?

Q22 – Do you use case studies on your website?

Q23 – How unique is your content?

Q24 – Do you use added software on your website?

E.g. drag and drop software that may slow your website down.

Q25 – How many content web pages do you have?

*Not including shopping pages.

Q26 – Does the personality of your business shine through?

Q27 – Do you show your staff/team on your website?

Q28 – Do you answer customer questions?

Q29 – Does your website look cluttered?

Q30 – Do you discuss cost or pricing on your website?

What score did you get? Comment below!

Summary

Hopefully, you now have a better idea of how good (or bad) your website is. You shouldn’t be disheartened if your score is low, but you will certainly want to look at the questions again and spend some time planning how you’re going to improve it.

If you would like our help, why not book a website critique via the link below. We’ll record a personalised video telling you exactly what you can do to improve it.

Book a website critique

Over to you

How did you get on with the self-assessment? Were you surprised with your grade? I’d love to hear from you so please let me know in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post How good is your website? Grade it yourself appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

I totally get it…you’ve got a great-looking website, you’re proud of it, but you’re frustrated.

No one can find you on Google.

You could have the best-looking website in the world but if people can’t find you online you won’t get any enquires or sales.

As a web design agency who ALSO specialise in SEO, we get asked these questions all the time by potential clients:

– Why can’t our prospective customers find us on Google?
– What do we need to do to get our website on the 1st page of Google?

Google is the number one most visited website and it drives the majority of search traffic to websites in the world. That’s why it’s so important to have a strong presence in search results.

It’s really important that you as the business owner understand what’s wrong with your website and what you can do to fix it.

Having reviewed hundreds of websites over the past few years, I’ve found that there are 11 main reasons why your website is not ranking well in search results.

So, if you are frustrated with the performance of your website, and you want to fast track to the solutions to fix it, you’ve come to the right place.

1. Competitors

Let’s face it. Some industries are more crowded than others, and some of your competitors might have a huge marketing budget behind them. This is why you might not be ranking on the first page for your main keywords.

How can you check for competitors?

A simple Google search for your main products or services will give you some indication of the size and weight of your competition.

Take a look at the search below for “beds for sale”.

As you can see, the number of results is ridiculous (over 173 million). Although lots of these results aren’t relevant, you’re still competing with the likes of DFS, Argos and Dreams. These are all huge organisations, and the chance of you getting your small-business website on the first page is slim to none.

What can you do about your competition?

You could try to focus on a particular segment of your target market.

Rather than trying to rank nationally for the keyword “Beds for sale” you could instead focus on a local audience, such as “Beds for sale in Manchester”.

If you go after a smaller market, there’s less competition and more chance of ranking higher for that geographical location.

Another option would be to find a niche within your industry. Rather than aiming for “Beds for sale” you could go for “Children’s beds for sale”.

There is far less competition for more specific searches, and you stand a better chance of performing well in search results.

You have to be realistic, and if your competitors are all large organisations, then you may have to adjust your strategy. You’ll thank me in the long run.

2. Google has not indexed your website

If you have a brand-new website and you’re not showing up on Google, it may be because Google hasn’t listed you yet.

How to find out if your website is indexed.

So, how would you know if your website is listed on Google?

You can find out by using the following prefix in a google search.

site:yoursite.com  (without the “www.” and “/”)

If you can see your website showing in search results and you’re at the top, you have nothing to worry about. This means you are indexed. Usually, you will see a full list of all your web pages, and that’s what you’re hoping for.

On the other hand, if you’re not at the top or showing up at all then the likelihood is that Google hasn’t indexed your website yet.

How can you index your website with Google?

Google should eventually find your website anyway, but it can take a few weeks. Not only that, if something is wrong with your site you won’t know about until weeks down the line.

The best thing you can do is to add your website to Google Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools) and provide them with your sitemap.

This will tell Google which pages you want to show up in their search results and speed the process along. It will also tell you if there are any technical errors on your website.

3. Your website is not mobile friendly

There’s no doubt about it. Mobile usage is overtaking desktop, which is why having a mobile friendly website is vital. If you don’t, it will seriously impact your rankings in mobile search results.

Ideally, your website should be “responsive”, this means when your site is viewed on a mobile phone or an iPad it will take the shape of that particular device. It shouldn’t be hard work and require any dragging and pinching. This is bad user experience, hence the reason Google will punish you.

How to find out if your website is responsive

To find out if you have a responsive website visit Google’s very own Mobile Friendly Test tool and enter your website URL.

It will show you either as a pass or a fail.

How can you make your website responsive

If a web designer created your website, speak to them about making it responsive. If you’re lucky, it won’t be too expensive!

If you use WordPress and manage your website yourself, you could install a new WordPress theme that is responsive. You may also be able to keep the same theme but buy an additional plugin to make it pass the mobile-friendly test.

Worst case scenario, you may have to have your website re-designed. It’s not always easy to convert an old website, and it might be easier to spend the money on a new design entirely.

It is extremely important to have a responsive website, for both SEO and user-experience.

4. Meta tags not optimised

Search engines use Meta data to work out what your website is about. Each one of your webpages will have its own set of meta tags and they can be optimised to describe the content on that page.

Some of this information will actually show up in search results so you need to know how to change it as it’s often the first thing your visitors will see before they click through to your site.

Your Title Tags and your Meta Descriptions

How can you check you meta-data?

You can use this tool to collect a list of your pages along with their meta tags. Simple paste your URLs into the box and click submit. You’ll be able to download the full list and see what Google can see.

Provided you are using a Content Management System such as WordPress you will have access to update your meta tags very easily using the settings for each page.

How can you improve your Title Tags

Your Title Tags are extremely important and they WILL impact your search engines rankings depending on what you include within them. Here are a few tips:

• Include the keywords you want to rank for
• Keep the length under 55 characters to avoid search engines cutting it short
• Use a sentence structure like “Bed Sales On Single & Double Beds” rather than “Beds | Single Beds | Double Beds | Cheap Beds”

How can you improve your Meta descriptions?

You meta descriptions don’t count towards your rankings but they do count towards your click through rate. This is why they are important. Here a few tips:

• Ask a question? This is a good way to entice your potential visitor e.g. Why is my website not ranking in Google?
• Keep the length under 155 characters to avoid search engines cutting it short
• Include a call to action to or phone number to make it easier for people to get in touch

WordPress SEO

If you are using the WordPress platform, then you can install the Yoast SEO plugin and make changes very easily.

For more On-page SEO tips you can read this article.

5. Poor content optimisation

Have you optimised your website content for search engines?

Believe it or not, Google does actually need your help. We’d like to think that they have all the answers, but in fact, you have some work to do yourself.

There are over 200 indicators that Google use to rank your website in search results. Most of which can be improved by adding and editing different elements on your website including your meta tags like we mentioned in step 4.

How can you find out if your on-page SEO is bad?

You can use my free tool to check your SEO Score. Input your website URL and place the keyword you want to rank highly for and hit enter.

It will give you a score out of 100 and tell you which areas need your attention.

How can you improve your on-page SEO?

I would recommend that you focus on one main topic for each page of your website. Everything from the page headings, image file names and internal links will need to be considered if you want strong search engines rankings.

6. Not enough quality content

I honestly believe that high-quality content makes the biggest difference in how well your website performs when it comes ranking highly.

Your website needs to have a good amount of content to perform well in search results. I’ve seen this time and time again. People pay £1000s for a brand-new website and then let themselves down with poor-quality content.

It’s recommended that each page on your website should have at least 300–400 words of content. This will give Google enough confidence that the information on that page is somewhat valuable. Any less than that and your website is probably not going to rank well.

How to check the word count on the page

You can use this tool to count the number of words on each web page. I would recommend that each page on your website should have at least 300–400 words of content. However, there are no hard and fast rules about this.

For instance, most of the pages on my website contain 500–1000 words, and some of my blog posts are over 2000 words long (including this one).

I personally find that the longer the content, the more helpful the information. There is an extra SEO argument for more content. The more content = more opportunity to include more keywords.

How can you fix it?

You can simply edit your existing pages to increase the number of words. You could even pay a writer to produce your content on a regular basis. Prices for a copywriter tend to be around £100–£200 per page depending on the time it takes and the research involved.

Here are my four tips to writing better content.

• Create helpful content that educates your audience.
• Direct your writing at your ideal customer
• Focus on your customers problems and help them fix them
• Stop talking about you so much

7. No high-quality backlinks

Backlinks are exactly as they sound. LINKS that point BACK to your website.

The quality and volume of your backlinks are a strong sign of how trustworthy and reliable your website is. Search engines take this into account when listing your site in search results.

Quality is far more important than quantity when it comes to gaining backlinks. A link from a relevant website in your niche is a lot more valuable than 100 links from low-quality websites.

How to check your backlink profile.

There are a few tools that will show you which websites are linking back to yours.

Free Backlink Checker is a free tool that will give you a list of websites link back to yours.

Open Site Explorer, Majestic SEO and Ahrefs are paid services that will give you a lot more in the way of metrics and will show you which links are your most powerful ones.

Usually, you can start a free trial to test out the software.

How can you build more high-quality links?

Over time you may naturally gain some links from other websites. However, you can’t rely on this.

How to earn backlinks

If you focus on providing valuable and high-quality content, you will increase your chances of exposure. Providing the on-page elements are optimised as I discussed in step 4 and 5, more people will find your website and want to link back to it.

You can also reach out to other website owners in your space and share your content with them. Hopefully they will link back to it. At the very least you could ask them if they would allow you to write a piece of content for their website and include a backlink within that.

8. No social media activity

If you have a website but don’t use social media, it could impact your search engine rankings. A lack of social media activity is another sign that your website might not be as credible as your competitors. Much like backlinks, social media engagement adds to your overall trust factor. In a nutshell, the more social, the better.

How to audit your social media activity?

Visit BuzzSumo and paste your website URL into their search field. This will show you the most shared content on your website. It is a paid service, but they will show you some information for free.

How can you improve social media engagement?

Make sure you have social media profiles for your business, and you update them regularly with links back to your website. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram are the most popular social media platforms so it would be good to start with these if you haven’t already.

Social media tips

• Focus on providing consistent, high-quality or entertaining content that will increase shares.
• Share your new AND old content across your social media accounts.
• Add social media sharing buttons to your website
• Add Tweetables within each article in order to increase engagement further.

9. Bad Website Builder

If you have built your site yourself using a DIY website builder, you may have difficulty ranking in search results.

I understand the appeal, drag and drop website builders provide an easy and cheap way to create a website within minutes. There’s one problem: I’ve rarely seen a high performing DIY website in search results.

I believe it’s because these tools create a lot of excessive code that will impact the performance of your website.

Here are a few reasons why your DIY website may not rank well.

• Your basic SEO options are limited
• Your web pages generally take longer to load because of all the extra functionality
• You get far fewer SEO plugins compared with other platforms

What can you do if you have a DIY website?

Try your best to optimise your website using the previous steps in this article and make sure your page load speed is under 5 seconds. Aside from that, there’s not a lot you can do. It’s a quick and easy way to get online but don’t expect a flood of traffic.

We recently wrote an article where we compared DIY websites vs web designers. Feel free to take a look to find out more.

If you love your DIY website but are worried about losing the style, then don’t be. Most web designers will be able to build you a website that looks the same, but it would be a lot more efficient.

10. Poor page load speed

Google expect your website to load quickly to keep their users happy. This means under 5 seconds. Any longer than that and you could risk being penalised by Google.

How can check your page load speed?

You can find out how long your website takes to load by visiting Gt Metrix and entering your URL. It will give you a time, and as long as it’s under 5 seconds you’ll be OK.

How can you speed up your website?

Along with the load speed in seconds it will also give you a score out of 100 and give you the exact issues with your website.

You can then take the relevant steps to speed up your website. This may involve,

• Leverage browser caching
• Optimising images
• Enable gzip compression

If this sounds a bit too technical, we can help. We do offer a website speed up service if you’d like us to help. Feel free to contact us to arrange this.

11. A Formal Penalty

Not to confuse you but there is a difference between “having your website penalised” and “being hit with a penalty”. Up until this point we have only discussed issues that will cause Google to devalue your site. On occasion, Google may issue a formal penalty.

Getting your website hit by a penalty is rare. But if you have performed well in search results in the past but not anymore, this may be a sign that Google has taken action against your website.

The two most common ways to get your website penalised by Google are:

Over optimisation (on-page): This usually means you’ve tried to cram your keywords into every URL, Heading, Title tags, Alt Text, etc. This kind of tactic isn’t natural, and it doesn’t work anymore. Using the same keywords robotically throughout your website will raise a red flag with search engines.

Unnatural link building (off-page): Gaining links back to your website is important, but you have to do it the right way. Buying links, swapping links, poor-quality links and unnatural anchor text is another way to get your site penalised.

How to see if your website has been hit with a penalty?

Login to your Google Search Console account. Once you’ve selected your website from the list, you can use the menu on the left-hand side to navigate to:

Search Traffic > Manual Actions

Hopefully, it will say “No manual webspam actions found,” which means you have NOT been penalised.

How to recover from a penalty by Google

If you have suffered a penalty, it is NOT the end of the world, but it will require your immediate attention.

Google will inform you why they have penalised your website. Once you have fixed the particular issue, you can then submit a “reconsideration request” to Google. Google will then check to ensure you have corrected the issue. If everything is OK, they will remove the penalty.

In Summary

There are so many things you can do to improve your visibility in search results. Most of which can be done by you without the need of an SEO company. The more you understand about your website, the easier it will be if you do decide to hire someone later on in the process.

Over to you

Are YOU finding it difficult to climb onto the first page of Google? Now that you’ve read the article, do you feel a little clearer about what you need to do? If you’d like a step-by-step action plan to rank on the first page of Google then, check out our SEO Starter Pack below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 11 Reasons You’re NOT Ranking in Google & How To Fix It appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You might have a number of questions and concerns, but, without spending hours on the phone speaking to dozens of web designers, how will you know who to choose?

This is why I wrote this article.

I wanted to lay it all out on the table and show you our entire process from start to finish, so you know exactly what you get when you hire us.

Below, I’ll walk you through the 31 steps we use to create a high-performing website that works FOR you!

1. We talk, usually via Skype

Before we start working together, we’ll book in some time to have a chat about your project. We’ll usually do this on a live video call and discuss what you want to achieve from your new website.

We’ll take a look at your existing site (if you have one) and we’ll go through your ideas for the new site. We can use this time to talk about your goals and objectives so that we have a better understanding of how we can help.

Essentially, this call is to work out whether we are a right fit for each other. I work only with clients who I can truly help, which is why this call is important. We’ll also discuss your budget, and I can give you an indication of what we charge.

2. Questionnaire

Following on from our initial call, we will send you a website questionnaire to fill out. This will allow us to gather additional information so we know as much as possible about your business before we start designing and building it. The more information we have, the better the finished product.

3. We send you a quote

Once we have all your requirements, we will send you a full proposal for our services, including all the website features you requested. We may also include additional elements that we think would work well for your website. More often than not, the fee for our services is similar to the price we discussed on the call.

We can also include a quote for creating your website content. Most of our clients hire us to write the text for their new website. This is an option for you, too.

4. Research

Using the information you provided on the initial call and the questionnaire, we will begin our own research. We will do a deep dive into your world, learning as much as possible about your industry and your competitors. We’ll perform some keyword research to find out what your customers search for online. During this time we’ll look at dozens of different websites, leaving no stone unturned before moving forward with any designs.

5. Initial concepts

Once we have enough information from the research, we then move onto the planning stage. This is where the fun begins. This is the creative part that I personally love the most. We’ll start by sketching out some layouts on a whiteboard. We use a lot of post-it notes and marker pens to come up with a basic wireframe of your pages. This begins the initial framework of your new site.

We’ll also discuss the main colours we’ll be using and taking into account what you already have and what we would recommend. We’ll decide on the best use of fonts and where to place your headlines and content for the most impact. We’ll also decide where your calls to action will go and how to ensure they are clearly displayed for your users.

6. Mockup

The next stage of the process is to take all the rough sketches and post-it notes and turn them into a work of art. Your website. We use Adobe Photoshop to pull together all of the pieces from our planning to create a mockup. We’ll position each element one by one and add some content to bring it to life.

Everything from your logo to your social media icons will have its own rightful place. Every inch of the design will be considered, informed by the research and concepts we’ve previously completed. Some of the initial ideas won’t work when we add them to Photoshop. And that’s fine. At this stage, there will be a lot of testing and trial and error along the way.

Chances are the design will change numerous times throughout the mockup stage until we are happy. This is one of the most import steps, and we’ll keep working on it until we have something that looks spectacular, is user-friendly and ensures maximum results.

Here’s an example of us building a mockup

7. You see the design

This is the fun part for you. This is the first time you get to see the design since we’ve started working together.

Once we are happy with the mockup, we’ll send you the homepage design via a video link. In the video, we’ll walk you through the design and talk you through each element one by one. By using a video, you get to see the full design as if it were a real website. We’ll explain why we’ve designed it the way we have and you’ll get to experience it before we move forward with the rest of the project.

Please note

Some of the items on the mockup will act as placeholders. This means if we are waiting for images and text from you, we may use stock images temporarily until we have all the correct information. Currently, your mockup is still a static document; the extra content can be added later on in the process.

8. Feedback

Once you’ve watched the video and had chance to reflect on what you’ve seen you can tell us what you think. You can also ask us any questions, and we can discuss what you want to change, if anything. This is your opportunity to let us know if we’ve missed out any key information so we can add it before moving forward with the build.

9. Continue with designs

Once we have the homepage nailed down, we then design the layouts for your other pages. You will generally have 3 unique layouts to choose from for your website. A homepage, an inner page and a blog page. We’ll design the additional pages using Photoshop like we did before. The colours and style will match the homepage, but the structure will be different.

10. Domain name

When we are happy with the designs, we then move onto the technical aspects of the process. We will register your domain if you haven’t already done so. If you have already done this, then we will use a temporary domain, which we’ll work on while we’re building your site.

Please note

Even though we register (and purchase) the domain for you, you will own it. It will be registered in your name.

11. Hosting

Along with your domain name, we’ll also purchase hosting. This will allow us to install a coming soon page and set up your email accounts so you can use them while we’re building your website.

Please note

If you already have an existing site, this will already be set up for you.

12. Setup of emails

It’s time to register your email accounts. This is where you get to decide which emails you’d like to use. You can have as many as you like. A few popular choices are yourname@yourdomain.com, info@yourdomain.com, sales@yourdomain.com and enquiries@yourdomain.com.

13. Install WordPress

The very first thing we need to do before we build your website is to install WordPress. WordPress is the content management system we’ll be using for your site. It will allow you to make changes easily, so you don’t have to pay us every time you want to add something. If you want to know why we ONLY use WordPress, then this article will explain all.

14. Add coming soon page

Once we’ve installed WordPress, we will add a “coming soon” page. This means we can start working on your website and we don’t have to worry about your customer stumbling across a half-built website. Instead, they’ll be greeted with a nice, warm welcome in anticipation of your brand new site.

15. Install the Genesis Framework

We use something called “Genesis” to build your website. It’s a WordPress framework that allows us to have 100% control over the technical aspects of your website. It also allows us to take your truly bespoke design and turn it into a fully functional website without additional “drag and drop” software.

16. The techie bit – Photoshop to website

We then take the Photoshop files we created for your mockup and your other pages and add them to your website. To do this, we create page templates for each unique design using a number of fancy tools and techniques (Code editors, FTP, CSS and PHP).

This sounds complicated and confusing, and it often is. It can take a lot of trial and error and is probably the most time-consuming part of the project. It needs to be done properly otherwise the website won’t look like the initial design you fell in love with.

We also have to prepare the site for mobile devices. The website will need to look good no matter what device is used to view it. We’ll assign a specific layout for mobiles, tablets, laptops, etc,.

17. Add pages and assign templates

We will then create all of the pages for your website within WordPress. Usually, we’ll just add blank pages with the titles, to begin with.

If this is a redesign of an existing site, we’ll also need to make sure that the URLs for these pages are the same as the old site. This isn’t always possible, so we’ll need to be extremely careful setting up redirects as we don’t want any broken links when you launch your new website. More on this in step 25.

18. Choose page style

Once we have added your blank pages, we then need to choose how each page will look by selecting the relevant template which we created in step 16. Generally speaking, the homepage and the blog page will be unique, but most of the inner pages follow a very similar style.

19. Add menu items

We then add your menu items to their assigned position. This is where we choose which pages will appear within the main navigation area of your website and order them appropriately.

You may have more than one menu on your website (e.g., sidebar, header, footer, etc.) so we’ll need to be careful not to duplicate pages. We also need to keep in mind the end user and how they can navigate through the site easily.

20. Add content

Once we have added all the menu items to your website, we can then add the content. We take the text and images for each section of your site and place them on the correct page.

We will arrange your content in a way that makes it easy to consume. There’s nothing worse than blocks of text with nothing to break it up. We’ll use images and headings to make it as readable as possible.

21. Plugins

We then install any relevant plugins to your website. Plugins are like website add-ons, and we’ll use them for most of the advanced features on your site. There are over 45,000 plugins to choose from, another great reason to use WordPress. Things like image galleries, contact forms, and social media sharing buttons can all be added by using these pre-made applications.

We may also adapt the plugins to make them look more in keeping with the style of your website.

22. API integrations

Aside from using plugins, we may also need to integrate additional applications from third-party websites. Services like MailChimp and PayPal use APIs so they can communicate directly with your website. Think of them as plugins on steroids. They will make your life easier and most major companies make their software WordPress friendly.

23. Test contact forms

We’ll go through your website, testing all of the contact forms, ensuring that they work properly and that emails go to the right place.

We can edit the form so you can gain any relevant details you’ll need from your prospect. We can also add more email recipients, meaning multiple people can receive your enquiries.

24. 301 redirects

If this is a redesign of an existing site, we’ll need to ensure all of your old pages are correctly transferred over using 301 redirects as we said in step 17. On occasion, you may not want to keep the old pages, or you might want to change the URLs. That’s fine. But we will need to set up 301 redirects for each page you plan on changing.

Essentially, we’ll communicate with Google exactly what you’re changing, so it knows where to redirect traffic if users land on a specific page in the search results.

Take this example below:

Old URL: exsistingwebsite.com/about-us
New URL: exsistingwebsite.com/about

We’ll make sure that if your old URL is displayed on Google, the page will automatically redirect to the new one. So no lost traffic.

25. Mobile friendly test

We will then test your website on different sized screens to see how it looks. During the website build stage (step 16) we assigned a different layout depending on the size of the device e.g. iPhones, iPads, laptops and desktops. However, we’ll still need to check it to make sure looks OK now that we’ve added plugins.

26. Page load speed

We need to check one last thing before we feel comfortable releasing your website to the world. We want to test your page load speed to make sure the site is running as quickly as possible. Google advises that all websites should load within 5 seconds to avoid any kind of penalty.

We use a number of tools to confirm your new website is as quick as it can be and we might even install some additional features to improve it if it needs it. The quicker your website loads, the better the experience for your users.

27. Cross browser test

There are many different web browsers, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer to name a few. Each browser will display your website slightly differently. There’s no real way to avoid this but we do make sure to catch any major differences and glitches.

28. Yoast SEO plugin

We will then install the Yoast SEO plugin to your website. This is the tool that will allow you to optimise your website so that search engines can find you more easily. We will set it up for you and use it to verify your website with Google in the next step.

29. Submit sitemap to Google Search Console

Using Yoast, we can connect your website directly to Google. This means they can provide you with extra data about your website, and send you an email if you have any errors going forward.

We then provide Google with a list of web pages from your site so they can start listing them in search results. This is known as your “sitemap”. Chances are they would find your site over time anyway but this way they will keep their records up to date every time you make a change to your site.

30. Google Analytics

Once we have given your site to Google, we can then create your visitor tracking account. Instead of using fancy plugins for this, we use Google Analytics. This is a free tool that Google provide to show you everything you need to know about your website visitors. This will show you everything from monthly visitor numbers to the most popular pages. It’s a very valuable tool which you want to keep an eye on.

31. Rank tracking

We’ll add your website to our rank tracking software and keep an eye on how well you perform. From the day we launch we’ll have a record of your Google rankings and keep track of how they adjust within a month of launching. The main reason we do this for you is to make sure there aren’t any technical issues affecting your website’s performance.

Summary

So there you have it, our entire web design process from start to finish. I didn’t want to focus on the technical aspects of what we do. Instead, I wanted to show you the broad outline so can see what’s involved when designing a website. Hopefully, I’ve answered a few questions along the way. But if you have anymore, feel free to comment below!

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post How we build your website from start to finish appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You see this all the time, small businesses using stock images of smiley, shiny people in board rooms. You see fluffy jargon and taglines on their website like, “We’ll help you prosper”. They use words like “solutions” and “consultancy” all the time, when they might just be “Steve” who works from his home office and helps people save money on their mortgage.

This kind of tactic might have worked well ten years ago but not anymore. Your customers can spot bullshit a mile off, and it’s time to start doing things differently.

Now’s the time to step out from behind your logo and cheesy stock photos and show everyone who you are.

People buy from people

It’s much more than just showing people what you look like, it’s about creating a culture of honesty and choosing to be approachable rather than sophisticated.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a one man band or a big organisation, I want to get to know a little bit about you before I get in touch. This all starts with your website.

Get over yourself

I know the feeling. You’re about to hit publish and add your image to your website, but it’s not quite right. It’s not your “good” side, and that plant in the background needs watering. Sigh.

I’ve been there, I know the feeling and guess what? I got over it. And you will too. People don’t care what you look like, they only care that you can help them.

The quicker you get past this, the faster people will trust you and will want to work with you.

People love small businesses

If you are concerned that people won’t do business with you if they know the truth, then don’t be. There are so many benefits to working with a smaller team or a freelancer as oppose to a bigger business. For instance:

• Bespoke service
• A personal approach
• Lower fees
• Less red tape

The worst thing you can do is to misguide people and claim that you are big business with lots of capacity.

It’s much better to be honest and attract people who are right for your business rather than wasting someone’s time.

Your website

So what can you do with your website to become more approachable?

Include an image of yourself on your homepage

If possible, include images of you and/or your team on the homepage. Your homepage is the most visited page on your site, so you may as well build up some trust immediately. I do this myself and it’s always nice when someone calls and asks to speak to “Martin”. They know who I am and what I look like before we even speak.

Staff profiles on the about page

Have an image and bio for each staff member on your about page. If you take a look at your Google Analytics stats, you may be surprised by how popular this page is with your visitors. It just goes to show that people actually care about who they do business with. Who’d have thought, eh?

You can have fun with it too. Talk about hobbies, interests or your favourite Disney films, I don’t really care! But try to be as human as possible and stay away from the “Linkedin bio” approach.

You might think that your business is “different” and this kind of approach is not appropriate. I’m currently working with one client who is a funeral director. His customers have commented how nice it is to see a smiley face on his website, as they’re accustomed to seeing glum, grey pictures everywhere else. Don’t be afraid to show the real you, no matter what industry you’re in.

Check out the team page for video hosting company Wistia to see how they’re using their individual personalities. Not a grey suit in sight.

Include a group shot

If there are a lot of people who work at the organisation, then you might want to consider a group photo. Make it fun. Something that shows a diverse group of individuals with their own personality. This will go a long way in breaking down the corporate image that so many websites try to portray.

Show people behind the curtain

It’s always nice to see you and the team in action. Showing the team working away gives your customers an insight into how your company is run. You could include images of the office, people working, people chatting on bean bag chairs, whatever you like! It’s nice to see real people in a natural office setting.

Include a video

There’s no doubt that people love video, which makes it a very useful tool in building trust online. Why not include a video of yourself or your team on your website? It could be a simple welcome video or you could use videos on your blog to answer questions that people might have. Either way, video can be very powerful.

Social Media Tip

I use my personal Twitter account for Jammy Digital. I tweet about design, SEO, walks on the beach, cats and Star Wars. (Follow me here you should) The point is, I don’t hide behind my logo or the twitter egg. If you have an egg as your twitter picture, please remove…right now. People want to see and hear from the real you. So show it to them.

Summary

The internet can feel like the wild west sometimes. Your customers know this and it makes them very cautious. This is why it’s so important that you make it easy for them to trust you. Transparency is the only way you can set yourself aside from your competitors and make people feel at ease.

Over the you

Do you find it frustrating when companies do this kind of thing? Or maybe you ARE one of these companies and you’re kicking yourself. I’d love to hear you thoughts on this so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Show Us Your Face appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But wait!

Before you run off and hire the first web designer you find, you might want to take a minute. Over the years I’ve reviewed hundreds of websites and had many conversations with customers who have been burnt in the past. There are quite a few mistakes people make when getting a website and I want to help you avoid the pitfalls as best I can.

1. The final design doesn’t look how you want it to.

This happens a lot. You pay for a new website, and you wait weeks or even months to see the final design before it goes live. It’s only then you find you don’t like it or it doesn’t fit within your style or branding.

This is a common issue. It’s too late to start the project again and trying to change it to something else entirely can take just as long. You’ve spent money, and you’re now stuck with a design you don’t like or want. It’s not your fault, you trusted a designer and their expertise.

We’ve heard this story plenty of times, and in most cases you’ll end up sticking with what you have. A lot of people end up resenting their website. Not much fun all-round.

Before committing to a project, ask your web designer how they will prevent this issue from happening. Will they show you a mockup or at least a wire frame of their proposed design before you invest too much money?

What we do to solve this problem.

At Jammy Digital, we don’t take a penny of your money until you know exactly what your website will look like. We design a mockup of your homepage before we send you an invoice. That way, we can talk about the design together and what you like/dislike about it before we build it.

If you decide you don’t like it, you can simply walk away. No harm done.

2. The website doesn’t appear in search results

Your website is live and has been for a few weeks. But there’s just one problem. You can’t find your website in search results. Maybe you’ve searched for your business name and you’re nowhere to be found on Google. Understandably, you’re a little concerned.

This can happen for a number of reasons, there might be a technical issue preventing it from being indexed by search engines. Your site might not have been released to Google or maybe there is an underlying issue with the website that’s causing search engines to ignore you.

What we do to solve this problem.

All of the websites we build appear highly in search results. This is because we use our extensive knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO) to plan and build your website.

The way your pages are laid out, the menu structure, the URLs all count towards a search engine friendly website. This means that you will already have a solid foundation to start with, even if you don’t hire an SEO company further down the road.

On the day your website goes live, we create an account with Google Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools). This is the system that communicates with Google and tells them that your website is live. We then give them a list of your website pages so they can start listing them in search results as soon as possible.

If there are any technical issues with your website, we will receive an alert directly from Google. That way we can address any issues immediately.

3. You don’t have access to update the website yourself

It always surprises me when business owners don’t have access to update their own website. I understand if you’d rather NOT do it yourself if you haven’t got the time or skills, but still, the choice should be yours.

These days you don’t need a web developer to make minor changes to your website. Most websites come with some kind of editing system which makes it very easy for you to change text and add images.

Your website will continue to change and evolve, and you will need to be able to update it when you want. You really don’t want to have to ask your web designer for every simple edit. Knowing how to make changes yourself will save you time and probably some money too.

What we do to solve this problem.

Every website we design is built using WordPress. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that makes it very easy for you to make changes. Even if you’re a technophobe (like my dad).

WordPress is by far the most popular CMS and it’s used by some of the biggest companies in the world.

The main reason WE use WordPress is so you can update the site yourself whenever you like. We will also send you a training video on how to make changes. You will get to log into the backoffice of your website and edit things as you wish.

4. The website is difficult to use on mobile devices

Over the past couple of years, search engines have made it essential to have a mobile friendly website. This means if your site doesn’t work smoothly on mobile devices (smart phones & tablets) then you are less likely to appear in mobile search results.

Although your site may work on mobile devices, it may not be classed as responsive. This means that it’s more difficult to use than it should be.

To check if your website is “responsive” you can use Google’s very own mobile friendly test.

Some web designers treat this as an afterthought, so they don’t spend the time and effort to make an effective mobile design and opt for a “smaller version” instead.

Before you hire a web designer, tell them that site will need to be RESPONSIVE – no, you don’t want a “mobile version”, you don’t want the website to be just “accessible”, you need it to be responsive. You shouldn’t really have to ask as it should come as standard. But you’d be surprised by how often I see new websites that are terrible when you use them on a mobile device.

What we do to solve this problem.

We build responsive websites that pass the Google test every time. Simple. This means that you are more likely to appear higher up in mobile searches.

However, we go one step further. We build your website with a “50/50” mentality. This means that when we design your desktop site we are also considering how this will work on a mobile phone or an ipad.

Your site will not only work on smaller screens, it will be user-friendly and convert more visitors into enquiries.

5. Your traffic numbers are low and you don’t know why

This happens all the time. Your website is finally live and has been for a few weeks but when you check your visitor numbers you want to cry. Nothing but crickets.

Yes. It can take time to build up your numbers, but there are things you could be doing to speed the process along. You shouldn’t be waiting around, hoping that it will naturally increase by itself.

Ideally, you would have a strategy in place before you launch. Marketing is much more than clicking “go live” and shouting about it on social media, which is why having a plan as vital.

What we do to solve this problem.

When we take you on as a client we first spend some time understanding your business. We send you a questionnaire to fill out before we begin building your site so we can discover your goals, your target audience, your place in the market. This will help us develop a site that performs well from day one.

As well as this, we also include a free digital marketing strategy session which consists of a 1 hour Skype call to enable you to get off to the best possible start once you’ve launched. This is where we’ll discuss a plan of action to increase your visitor numbers and enquires as quickly as possible.

This might consist of things like:

• An email marketing strategy
• How to develop a content marketing plan
• How to use videos to reach more people

This will be a unique plan built around your business. We’ll only give you the advice that will work for you.

6. You don’t know how to track your visitors

So you have a new website which you love. There’s only one problem. How do you know if anyone is visiting it?

You should be able to check some statistics on how your website is performing. Things like:

• Visitor numbers
• Popular pages viewed
• How people found your website
• How people are accessing your site

These are basic stats that will allow you to measure your success and it’s important that you know where to find this information. In my experience, what gets measured gets improved.

What we do to solve this problem.

Every single website we build will have visitor tracking enabled. We will create a Google Analytics account and link it to your website so you can view your stats any time you like.

We will also send you a free training video on how to use Google Analytics, so you don’t have to scratch your head trying to work out how to use it.

7. Your pages take too long to load

If your website runs slowly, you might have a problem. Slow loading websites can be very frustrating for your visitors who won’t stick around if they have to wait.

Search engines care about their users and want to deliver the best possible experience. This means you have to keep your site running smoothly if you want the best possible rankings.

There are many reasons your site may take longer to load, such as:

• Images not optimised properly
• Bad web building software
• Low quality hosting
• Too many add-ons or plugins
• Unnecessary functionality and code.

All of these are contributing factors in slowing down your website.

You can check your page load speed for free using GT Metrix. It will measure your load speed in seconds and will also give you a performance grade out of 100.

What we do to solve this problem.

All our websites are built to be lightweight. This means we’ll keep the site updated and free of any excessive plugins and extravagant code that may slow the site down.

We’ll optimise your image sizes individually before we add them to the website so they are the smallest possible size without losing the quality.

We also use a high quality hosting company to keep your website running smoothly. Our hosts come with unlimited bandwidth, 20GB of disk space, 2GB Ram and 99.9% uptime.

Wow, that sounds geeky!

Essentially, it means our websites are speedier than a Gazelle, and yours should be too!

8. Your website isn’t generating any leads or sales

Getting traffic to your website is one thing, converting your visitors into enquiries is another. Your website should have one main purpose and that should be to generate its own leads and sales.

Here’s a list of things you might want from your website:

• More phone calls
• More email enquiries
• More call back requests
• More applicants
• More donations
• More prospects to build your database

Whatever your intent, if you haven’t thought about this before your website has been built then you may find it hard to convert your users.

What we do to solve this problem.

As part of our discovery session at the start of the process, we’ll find out what the overall purpose of the website is.

Before we even think about coding, we will know exactly what you need from your site, meaning we build it with your overall goal in mind. This will then inspire the whole design, including the layout, the colour scheme, menu structure, images, the headlines. Everything.

Before we begin building the site, we’ll design you a mockup of the homepage and record a video walkthrough explaining the different elements of the site. In this video we’ll show you how the design will persuade your visitors to do what you want them too .

Summary

Take your time to find the right web designer for you. Please don’t buy based on price alone. It’s almost always the wrong thing to do. The majority of the issues in this article can be avoided as long as you find someone who really understands your business goals and has the experience to advise you correctly.

Over to you…

Have you faced any of the problems listed above? Or have you encountered any other problems that gave you a headache. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Problems that occur when you get a new website… and how we prevent them appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

1. “I don’t have time.”

Ahhh that old chestnut.

This is the one I use most. How can I possibly find the time to do all this content marketing stuff!

There’s one very simple answer…

Make time.

I know, I’m sorry. I wish I could give you a magical machine that would stop time, but if I had one I’d probably be swanning it in the Cayman Islands drinking cocktails or something.

Content marketing should be an integral part of your marketing strategy. It builds your brand, helps SEO, and creates authority and trust with your audience. The benefits far outweigh the time.

But I would say this. Be smart about your Content Marketing. Don’t join eight different social media sites if you can’t keep up with them. Just have two or three you do really well. And aim to create a video/infographic/blog post etc. in realistic times frames. So if that means once a week/fortnight/month, then so be it. But make sure you do it.

2. “I don’t know what to write about”

Sure you do.

YOU are an expert in your field. Whether that be; gardening, roofing, hair and beauty, money management, budgies, cosmetic surgery, divorce settlements, underwear or spider monkeys, you are unique because you know more about your industry than the average man or woman out there.

So what does this mean?

It means you get to talk about the thing you love!

I love writing and content marketing. But often, when I start yabbering on to my friends/family about it, they roll their eyes and their head hits the desk.

But online, it’s different. Your audience are after the very thing you’re passionate about. And you get to talk about it without someone snoozing! How amazing is that?

3. “My writing isn’t good enough.”

Content isn’t just about writing. There are plenty of other things you can do. You can tweet about it, use Facebook, do videos, interpretive dance, create infographs, and take photographs.

If all that seems a tad scary and you do just want to stick to writing, remember, the majority of people are just after great content – answers to their questions, entertainment, something to make them laugh or cry or both.

They’re not going to be going through you’re work with a red pen giving it a big fat ‘F’.

And so what if you make a mistake? And some smartarse in the comments section tells you you’ve spelt necessary wrong (*cough* true story *cough*). Then just say, ‘silly me!’ and move on.

You will notice that as you keep writing it will improve over time. I recommend everyone use Microsoft Word for the handy spell check. Just remember to select the right word. For example: definitely and defiantly are often confused via spell checker!

You can also use software such as grammarly, that will check your spelling and grammar for you.

4. “What if people just do it themselves?”

So many clients say this to me and I always go back to the same example.

I had this discussion some years ago with a lady who now owns a successful bakery. I advised her to do YouTube videos on how to make and decorate cakes. She looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Won’t they just go away and do it themselves if I tell them how to do it?” she asked.

And she was right. There’s always a risk that some of your potential customers will go away and do it themselves. But the risk is very small.

Do you think that anybody will be able to copy what you’ve spent years and years learning and crafting? No.

Do people have the time to spend learning what you’ve learnt? Generally, no.

So she did it. And it allowed her to become an authority as a cake making extraordinaire and her business grew from strength to strength. She’s even introduced bakery classes!

5. “I’m afraid of putting myself out there.”

Now, this one I can sympathise with. Putting yourself out there is scary and there’s always that niggling feeling that people will judge you.

But trust me when I say this, I have only ever seen a hugely positive response to people putting themselves out there, if they do it in a helpful and engaging way.

People are generally good people. Yeah, the Internet is full of a few weirdoes but they’re easy to spot and ignore. But what if someone disagrees with you view? Then great! That means what you’re doing is working; you’re creating conversation and debate.

The hardest thing to do is that first blog post or video. You want it to be perfect and wonderful and for everyone to just love it. Well, that would be lovely but the chances are it won’t get all the attention you want it to. Content Marketing is a slow game and you will improve immensely over time. But the trick is to keep going, make sure your work is the best it can be but don’t overthink it. Just shut your eyes hit the post or upload button and I swear only good things will come of it.

No one ever got anywhere by being too afraid.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Top 5 excuses to get out of content marketing – and why you should ignore them. appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.