Episode 030: Why Your Website Is Your Best Business Asset with Samantha Mabe

Are you using your podcast as an asset in your business? In my opinion, your website could be your BEST business asset. In today’s episode, I’ve brought on Samantha Mabe of Lemon and the Sea to share how you can build and optimize a website that is your biggest business asset. Listen in as she shares how to get started, what to consider for Search Engine Optimization, and her own process to creating a quality website for her clients!

The Business-First Creatives Podcast is brought to you by CRM and Dubsado expert Colie James. Join Colie each week as she discuss how to build a business that brings you joy and a paycheck! From business advice with fellow entrepreneurs to sharing automation tips and tricks, Colie and her guests are sharing industry trends and resources, along with a little bit of sarcasm.

SUBSCRIBE ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST PLAYER

Apple Podcast App | Spotify | Amazon | Google Podcast | Youtube

Guest Bio

Samantha Mabe, creative director and designer of Lemon and the Sea, helps service providers and coaches who are ready to launch their signature offer and need a website that matches the high-caliber work they’re doing. With her signature framework, Samantha has designed and customized websites for all different types of entrepreneurs. When she is not digging into design and strategy, Samantha loves true crime podcasts, adventures with her toddler, and trying to keep up with her Netflix queue.

Here are the highlights…

[:32] Meet Samantha

[1:02] Why You Need a Website

[2:20] 3 Important Things to Include on a Sales Page
1. Your Headline
2. Space
3. Calls-to-Action Throughout

[5:18] What to Do & Not Do with Your CTAs

[7:50] Professional Written Copy on Your Website

[8:30] Outlining the Website Copy for a Copywriter

[9:52] Website VIP Day Process

[11:30] Benefits of a VIP Day

[13:09] Pages on Your Website

[16:22] SEO Tips
– Complete your page descriptions with complete sentences
– Submit your Site Map to Google Search Console

[20:10] Timeline & Impact of SEO

[26:12] User Experience and Understanding Analytics

[29:26] Publishing Blog Content

[31:27] Menu & Navigation

[33:00] The Web Design Process & Incorporating Clear Content

Mentioned in This Episode

Google Search Console
Google Analytics

Connect with Samantha

lemonandthesea.com
instagram.com/lemonandthesea
lemonandthesea.com/process-to-profitability
https://www.lemonandthesea.com/website-review

Review the Transcript:

Colie: Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. So today I am chatting with my friend Samantha Mabe. She is an amazing podcast host and Squarespace website designer. Her podcast is Process to Profitability. Samantha, welcome to the podcast.

Samantha: Thanks Colie. I’m excited to be here.

Colie: I’m excited to chat with you cause you talk about my favorite subject outside of CRMs and that would be websites

So Samantha, why don’t you tell the listening audience, where you’re located and who you service.

Samantha: So I am just outside of Richmond, Virginia, and I work with service providers and course creators. Really, they are experts at what they do and they need to show that off online. And generally they have like a signature offer that we can highlight on their website.

Colie: So let’s get down to the nitty gritty because this is the one thing that you and I agree on is why does everyone need a [00:01:00] website

Samantha: it’s your online home. I know there are so many people out there who say you don’t need a website to sell your packages, but I don’t think a business is very legitimate if they don’t have a website. I won’t go to a restaurant, I won’t hire a plumber. I won’t hire a photographer if they don’t have a website that’s really showcasing all of their business.

And it is the place that people go to after they’ve kind of found you on social media so you don’t have to worry about everything being on a platform that could go down or change, or the algorithm changes and you never show up anymore like it is. there online. It’s your space where you can really show off who you are.

Colie: I mean, Samantha, you like cut me off at the knees for my next question, which I was gonna be like, yeah, but like I have an Instagram account and all of my clients find me on Instagram. And you’ve already said, you know, even if you have [00:02:00] great social media, you still need your website because it’s what legitimizes you.

It’s what makes you seem like a professional. But, so let’s get to like who you service and why we need a website from the perspective of a sales page. So first of all, why don’t you tell me three things that are most important to have on a sales page.

Samantha: Your most important thing is your headline, cuz that is going to determine whether people keep scrolling or not. The next important thing is more of a design thing, so you just need to have space. , you can’t have everything clumped together in really long paragraphs. People aren’t gonna read it. And then make sure you have calls to action throughout

Colie: I, so, okay. I’m glad that you added the word throughout. So let’s talk about this, like if my, let’s say that it takes six scrolls. To get from the top of my sales page to the bottom, how many call to [00:03:00] actions should I have and like what’s the best call to action that you’ve ever seen on a website?

Samantha: Oh, well, I tell people to have a call to action button every two to three scrolls. I think that’s a good ratio of not bombarding people with it all the time, but they don’t have to go up to the bottom or top of the page. And the best call to action I have seen. I just really like the fun personality branded ones.

I did a website for a copywriter and she had some really fun ones that were like super on brand, but still got to the point.

Colie: So, I mean, like you said, it was kind of filled with personality. Do you happen to remember what the actual call to action was?

Samantha: Let me look it up.

Colie: Okay. I mean, and the reason that I’m asking is because I can’t be the only one that struggles to tell people interesting and fun ways to just fucking hire me. I can’t be the only person that struggles with this.

And so [00:04:00] sometimes I have legitimately wanted to put on a button, just fucking hire me And I know that that would be really bad. And Samantha’s like, oh my God, next time I look at your website, is that gonna be on there? But

Samantha: she has one that says, sos, help me please.

Colie: Now see that is really awesome. I love that.

Samantha: Yeah. And then in her services page where she’s got like the three main services she offers, I like the one she has. I want you to fix this spicy disaster

Colie: I mean, and so your call to actions don’t necessarily need to be the re, you know, the really common ones that we see are like, learn more.

Samantha: Mm-hmm.

Colie: Contact me, book your consultation call like I feel like those are so plain and lack personality, whereas, I mean, I know that there are a lot of copywriters that write a lot of great copy and it’s something that I see on websites.

It’s like, you know, you have this really great about me section, and then the [00:05:00] call to action is learn more . And it’s like, but you had all of this really great copy and then you expect me to click where it legitimately says, learn more.

Samantha: I think it’s something we just leave. We don’t think about that part, even though that’s where you actually want people to take an action. So it needs to drive them to do that.

Colie: So in terms of call to actions, I feel like there’s always like three pieces to a really good call to action. First of all, it should be a button, right? Like it should be a button that’s visual, which means you have to choose. The size of the button, the color of the button, the font on the button, and then there’s the actual copy, which is the words that we’ve been talking about.

So are there any do nots in terms of choosing your button size, your fonts, your colors, anything like that? You know, I’m sure you have horrible stories where you’ve gone through someone’s website and you’re like, oh my God. Like why are you using lime green for that call to action?

Samantha: Yeah, the biggest thing, so you said it needs to be a button, not just a [00:06:00] link. I think a lot of people make that mistake. A bright color is going to stand out more. So people will tell you that reds, oranges, yellows get people to click more often, but if that’s really outside of your brand, you can do something like a teal or a green, as long as it stands out from everything else that’s on the page.

And then you need to make sure there’s space around the copy of your button. So give it some breathing room and then make sure the contrast between your font color and your button color is high enough for people to read it. So usually that means if you’re using like a yellow button, a white font looks really nice, but people can’t read it.

So it needs to be a darker color.

Colie: I totally understand and I’m glad that you said teal, cuz I think, you know, most of the buttons on my website are teal. So good job cause um, red buttons do not belong [00:07:00] anywhere on my

Samantha: Yeah.

Colie: And the one thing that you didn’t mention that I feel compelled to say is that you should make sure that that font is legible.

I mean, I have seen buttons that have a font. And I’m like, why would you put a script font on that button? Like, I can’t read that, so why would I ever click that? Like I just, it baffles my mind when people do.

Samantha: yes. I think I forget people even do that. Font scripts if you’re going to use them, really only belong in like small headlines that have like four words,

Colie: Okay, so let’s talk about copy. Because one of the things that I’ve never heard you harp on, but like other website designers that I talk to, like, it’s like they draw a line and they’re like, if you do not have professionally written copy, I will not work with you. So Samantha, let’s talk about the importance of professional copy.

First of all, do all of your clients have their copy professionally written?

Samantha: No,[00:08:00]

Colie: So when it comes to designing a website, is it easier for you to do your job if they have professional copy

Samantha: Yes, like a hundred percent easier

Colie: do you have like a list of copywriters that you will send your clients to if they don’t have professional copy? Like how does it work out when someone comes to you and they’re like, I know I need a. But I don’t really know what the website needs to say and I don’t have any copy to go along with like, you know, these images or whatever my offer is.

What do you tell them?

Samantha: That’s very common, so I give them a couple options. One, I’ve got a list of copywriters that I’ve connected with. Who work with different industries so they can kind of pick somebody whose personality meshes, who understands the industry that they’re in, or they can go through and I have this super detailed outline with, you need a headline, it’s gonna say something like this.

Here’s an example. You need an introduction, [00:09:00] like every section you could possibly need. I have outline. Obviously I’m not a copywriter, so I’m just kind of giving them the sections that are really popular. And then a couple examples of ones that I’ve really liked. And I will be working with a copywriter to kind of refine that template so that they’re getting kind of the in between of working with a copywriter without the overall investment, but having it laid out that way helps a ton when I’m designing.

I have found if you write it all yourself, I am going in there and like breaking text up and making bullet points and like basically rewriting it because I can’t stand to have it not convert, which is just a lot of extra work for me, which means you don’t get as much fun design stuff

Colie: So I know one of your offers is a V I P day, cuz of course that’s how you and I met. We were both in the done in a day program, [00:10:00] but I know a lot of people that are like, I don’t understand how you do a v I P day for a website. Like how do you get all of the pages that you need? So let’s start with, are most people that are coming to you for a V I P?

Is this their first website or are they getting like a brand new iteration? Or are you basically going in there and like refining and optimizing the website that they already have? What is more common for the people that you work with?

Samantha: Most of the people I work with have a website already, and we are creating a new one. We’ll be keeping some of what they’ve already got, but. Sometimes we’re moving platforms and everything, so we’re basically starting from scratch.

Colie: And so what are the common website pages that you could actually get done in a V I P?

Samantha: I tell people that I do a homepage and about page A services or a short sales [00:11:00] page, a contact page, and then I will set up a template for their blog. in one V I P day. If they need more than that, we can add on a second.

Colie: So those five pages are basically what everyone could expect to get if they were hiring for like a website in a day. What’s the benefit of doing it as a v I P day instead of. Like a full service that you know often takes six weeks to two months.

Samantha: The biggest benefit that I have seen is for me, both me and my clients, is we get it done. So at the end of the day, your website’s actually finished. You’re not. What happens is, even if it’s a six week process, if you’ve got that time, things get delayed over more and more on that. It doesn’t matter if I say we’re gonna be done in six weeks.

Somehow something always comes up and you can’t get feedback back to me, or we need to change a whole lot more stuff. When we’ve got that one day [00:12:00] container, it’s really easy to say, we’re gonna get it done. At the end of the day, it’s gonna be finished. Generally, people don’t spend as much time nitpicking over.

We need to move this over to pixels. That’s really not going to affect anything on the conversions of their site.

Colie: Because at the end of the day, right, that’s really all we con, all we care about is, is the website going to convert? And I feel like. Having a V I P day as the provider helps you, you know, stay on track, helps you give your clients your full brain capacity for that one day. But I feel like people often overlook the benefits to them, which is you have bullshitted around. And pushed this down the road for three months and you’ve been trying to sell this offer and you’ve been doing it, you know, you haven’t been doing it well because you didn’t have a website that explained what you do and what you offer and what transformation that client’s gonna have. But if you end [00:13:00] up doing your website as a v I P day, I always tell people like, this could just be a starting point, like you said.

I mean, cuz basically to have a website that. You need your homepage, you need your services page. I would argue that you don’t even need the about page, but like I get, you know, everybody wants to hear the backstory. I love my new about page I, I will admit, but like I feel like I don’t need that in order to sell my services, but I absolutely need a homepage.

A services page and a freaking contact page where you land on it. And it’s clear that your only job when you get on this contact page is to give me your information so that we can start the process of whatever services it is that you wanna hire me for. But like for the website, we just want it to convert.

And even if the website that you have at the end of the day is not the website that you may have down the road, at least it’s. At least it’s live. At least you’ve had a professional help you with it so that you know that it’s going to [00:14:00] convert. You know that all of your buttons work. You know that it’s laid out in a way to where it’s easy for people to understand.

I feel like sometimes people really overlook the benefit of having a professional help you do it and lay it out so that at the end of the day you have something that’s functional.

Samantha: Mm-hmm.

Colie: If you offer, I don’t know. I mean, of course I’m a big believer in, you know, you. Create this one service and you sell the shit out of it until you can actually like do your more services.

But like at the end of the day, if you have a services page for one of your offers, at least that is out in the world and you are able to sell it. And then if you have service number two, service number three, service number four, you can always add those on as you go. But get the website done, get it live so that when people are looking for.

You know, they can find you. As you said, it’s professional. It’s like your online address to the world. For those of us that are in online business, we don’t have a store to people, for people to come to. So that is like your, you know, [00:15:00] it’s your storefront. It’s the location where everyone can find you.

Samantha: absolutely. And no matter who designs your website, it’s going to change over time. You’re gonna have to test things out, test out your copy, and unless it’s actually out there in the world, you have no data. So you might think this is the greatest design ever, but until people are actually coming and you can see if they are clicking on those calls to action and hiring you, you have no data to say that it’s a good design.

So you’ve, you’ve always gotta start somewhere and you’ve gotta get it out there if you want to improve down the road.

Colie: And I mean, let’s talk about Google cuz you know, I feel like that’s always the elephant in the room. You need a beautiful website. You need one where when people land on it, they know that you’re a professional and they’re not automatically turned off by the way that you use like 12 different fonts on one page, , and you know, everything is together and your eyes are like darting back and forth and don’t know where to land.[00:16:00]

But there’s a benefit to getting your website done as quickly as possible as well, so that Google can start to, to, you know, work for you. You can start to optimize your website for, you know, search engine optimization. So what kind of things, like, tell me two things that everyone should do in order to optimize the SEO for their website.

Samantha: Well, the first thing you want to do is get your. Or page descriptions up for every page. They need to be like sentence form. We’re not just keyword stuffing. Actually write those out and then submit your site map to Google Search console so that it forces Google to take a look at it. It will tell you if there are any weird issues that Google doesn’t like, because they have been adding lots of stuff that they’re evaluating.

and you know that they are looking at your site, they’re going through it. So you’ve got a higher chance of [00:17:00] ranking than if you just put it online and you hope somebody stumbles across it.

Colie: You know how I feel about Hopeful Marketing. Samantha . You just, guys, if you haven’t listened to that episode of the podcast, that’s just when you put your offer out there and you just hope that someone’s gonna miraculously hire you. It, it bothers me a lot, but I will say, One of the things that I discovered when I was kind of transitioning my business from doing only photography and mentoring for photographers, and now that I’m, you know, doing all this setup services for photographers and other creative professionals using Dubsado. I don’t know why I didn’t have a website for that service until this year. It is still baffling to me that I went like an entire year of offering my Dubsado services and it didn’t actually have its own website because I will say that, you know, from when I started my photography business, My first one to three years, I think like 80 or 90% of my clients came from Google.

So I know how [00:18:00] important it is to have a website. I know how important it is to have a really good SEO so that when people are searching for Boulder Family photographer, my amazing face is smiling at them on the internet. I know how important that is. But when I started transitioning and offering doa. I was like, oh, I don’t need a, I don’t need a separate website.

Like my photography website had a page for Dodo, and that’s good enough. Like when someone searches for Dubsado. I was on page one, but I wasn’t thinking of how much better it could be if I had a separate website for that, because. Customer confusion is something that you want to avoid at all costs, and I just felt like if someone didn’t know who I was and what it was that I was offering and they were searching for a Dubsado specialist and they ended up on my photography website, even though the page was very clear about how I set your Dubsado up.

They were probably confused when they looked at the menu, and it’s like family photography, newborn photography, [00:19:00] commercial photography. Like what does that have to do with my Dubsado setup? So earlier this year, I ended up just taking the sales page that I had on my photography website and I stuck it on coley james.com.

And then I was like, but holy shit, there’s no homepage. There’s no about page, there’s not any of these pages that Samantha is telling us that we all need. So this year I did go through the process of actually creating a full blown website for CO James and I will say it’s already ranking, like if you search Dubsado, set up for family photographers or Dubsado for photographers or basically any of those things.

I’m on page one, baby still. On my other keywords, but I mean, that’s how quickly these things can work for you guys. But I do just wanna put it out there. This is a long game, right Samantha? So when someone launches their website and they look the next month and they’re like, oh, I’m still not appearing when someone uses my keywords, like on average, how long does it [00:20:00] take someone to be able to see the results in terms of search engine optimization for a website that they’ve just publish?

Samantha: That’s a hard question because it really depends on the keywords you’re using. So if you were trying to rank for newborn photographer, it’s gonna take forever. You probably will never do it. Like there are people that pay money to rank for that. If you are really specific, like Dubsado set up for family photographers, you can rank a whole lot faster because you’re very specific in what you’re trying to share.

And when people are coming to look for something like that, they’re probably more ready to take action than if they’re just searching. How do I set up my dev sodo or like any of those more generic terms? Cause they, they know what they want and so they’re, if they land on your site, they’re more ready to take action.

Colie: But [00:21:00] I mean, in general, it’s a long game. like no one should publish their website and feel like the next week it’s gonna have worked its magic and Google is gonna automatically recognize you as the expert in your field and start showing your website to everyone. So that’s why it’s important. To get it done as quick as possible so that you can start to build longevity on your website.

You can start to have people that are looking for you, and you can start to build those things that make your SEO great so that when someone hires you, you’ve got this high converting website where it talks about what your offer is, how you’re going to help them, and it makes it easier for them to just click that button.

Contact you, schedule a consultation, call pay you real American dollars, whatever it is that your goal is for that website.

Samantha: Yep. Yeah. I tell people to give it at least 30 days to make sure that it’s even starting to rank, and then you need to be [00:22:00] publishing content. if that’s really what you’re concentrating on is fi, having people find you on Google, you need to be publishing something like blogs or podcasts through your.

So that there’s always new content that it’s looking at. There’s always more keywords. You are providing really high value, so on your homepage, you’re not providing super high value for your clients because you can’t teach them anything there. You’re not really answering questions. That’s where something like a blog or a podcast with show notes comes in.

Get your website up there and then that’s part of growing is to continue to like publish those things as you are already set up to have the conversions once they get there.

Colie: And when I was still doing just photography, cuz like I said, I mean I really focused on my website from day one. Like that was my marketing like technique, if you will. I wanted to make sure that anytime anyone Googled [00:23:00] anything related to my services for photography, I was on page one. But how I got there was, I mean, I have hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts on my photography website.

Some of them are sessions. You know, some of them just talk about people that I’ve worked with, but then I have those really informative blog posts. Like, okay, what can we do for your documentary family photography session? What is it like to have a photography session on vacation? Like all of those things that people are gonna be Googling.

To find out more information about. I tried to have a blog post answering that question so that Google, and of course all of the people who are looking for a photographer and are searching for these things would have someone that they could see as the expert in order to get my website ranked higher and higher.

And it’s really interesting that you mentioned the podcast, because you and I are both podcasters, we are both one-to-one service providers and. People don’t really understand that one of the benefits of [00:24:00] having this podcast is that it does help visibility. It does help people see me as the expert in that service.

Which guys, in case you’re listening, and you actually don’t know this, I set up people’s Dubsado accounts. Are you surprised? . So, I mean, but every time I publish a podcast episode, every time I put the transcript in there, that is just information that Google can look. And you know, rank and figure out whether or not I am a good person.

And the more people that are visiting your website, the longer they spend on your website, that is how Google determines whether or not you are an expert. I used to have a great bounce rate. I mean, Samantha, can you believe that? For the longest on my photography website, my bounce rate was under 15%.

Samantha: That’s crazy.

Colie: Everyone came to my photography website and they would hang out for like five to 10 minutes cuz you know, I’m a data whore. I was like in Google Analytics all the time looking, I will say it’s not that [00:25:00] way anymore. I mean, my bounce rate is way up to like 50 or 60% where normal people hang out. But for the longest, when people would ask me my bounce rate and I’d be like, oh, it’s under 15%, their jaw would drop and they would kind of be like, yeah, that’s not right.

And so I would have to like keep screenshots so that I could tell people no, I. I do know what I’m looking at. People come to my website and they don’t leave. Now that you know what, Samantha, I just thought of a really good question to ask. We talked about the different pages that you set up during a V I P day and different pages that you think are important, but what do you think about one page websites?

I feel like every time I talk to a website expert, I should talk about one page websites because a lot of people don’t understand what they are and they don’t understand why they can actually be harmful to your seo.

Samantha: I think if that’s all you can get up to get started, it’s better than nothing.

Colie: Okay.

Samantha: Once you are really committed to your business, you [00:26:00] need more pages. It drives me crazy when I go to a website and I like hit the menu and it just scrolls me down the page. I’m like, I already read that. I read the whole page the first time.

I don’t

Colie: what else do you got?

Samantha: Yeah. And when you’re trying to give them a lot of information, like and about page isn’t a good example, that bio that you get on your homepage, if that’s all you’ve got, people are gonna be like, okay. There has to be more. Right? And you can’t include that on a one page website because no one’s gonna keep reading.

So I want, I like people to keep it simple. You know, we don’t pack our main menu with like seven different pages, but at the same time, you’ve got to have steps for people to take on that journey. And part of that is, Buy in when they actually have to like click on the next thing and they’re learning more.

The more pages they click on, the more likely they are to take that action to apply, to work with you or schedule a [00:27:00] sales call, pay you money. So you’re building buy in with like those micro decisions,

Colie: Ah, micro decisions. There you go, Samantha. Every time someone reads something on your website and they shake their head yes, and they click the button. They are one step closer to paying you actual money for your services. Because they said yes, yes, yes, and so by the time they get to that contact form where it’s like this is the next step to work with me.

They’ve been nodding their heads so much. It’s a yes. And I do wanna flip this back to Google though, because one of the reasons that I was asking you about the one page website is when I was still mentoring photographers, I would get photographers that had a bounce rate of like 99%. You have no idea how many times I worked with someone that had a bounce rate of higher than 90% and they’d be like, Colie I don’t understand why my bounce rate is so.

high And so I go to their website and you’ve got a one page website, and I tell

Samantha: for them to go.

Colie: where were they supposed to go? And they’re like, well, what do you [00:28:00] mean? I’m like, of course you have a bounce rate that’s almost a hundred percent. You don’t have anywhere else for these people to go. So Google sends them to you.

They, you know, they look at your page. They’re not ready to work with you, but they’ve gotten every piece of information that you have offered and provided on that one page, and if there’s nothing for them to click on, when they close your website, that counts as a bounce. It does not matter if they spent 15 minutes or 30 minutes looking at everything that you had on that one page.

If there is nowhere for them to go next and they just leave your website, that’s a bounce.

Samantha: Google doesn’t know what you’ve got on that. They don’t understand that like this is everything that there is. All they’re looking at is did they go to another page?

Colie: And if they don’t and they leave, if you keep, if you continue to have a bounce rate that’s that high, Google is gonna be like, oh. They must not be an [00:29:00] expert. They must not have valuable information. And you know what happens? Google stops sending those people to your website. Google brings your ranking down from like page one, two, and three, all the way to page 20 because everyone who’s come to your website has basically told Google this information is not worth it.

Please stop wasting other people’s time by sending them, you know, to this website.

Samantha: Yeah. And that’s where something like a blog or podcast is also helpful because it gives them more content. So if you have your podcast, they go, they check out one episode and they’re like, oh, well here’s another episode that you’ve listed. I’m gonna go listen to that one. That improves your bounce rate because they’re just, they’re wanting more stuff and Google sees, okay, they’re staying here, they’re checking this out.

They want to learn.

Colie: And the longer that you can keep someone on your website, the more valuable they are actually telling Google that your information is. I know that there’s [00:30:00] no form, guys. I just wanna make sure that I’m clear. There’s no form where they’re telling Google, oh, this was really interesting, this was great. No, Google is using the metrics that it has, you know, available to it to figure out if you are valuable.

And one of the metrics that it uses is how long people stay on your website. That’s why it’s really important when you’re setting up your website and you’re writing your blog posts and you’re doing all of this, that there is a clear path that you want visitors to take in order to figure out who you are, what you do, who you service, and why the transformation that you provide is really beneficial and valuable.

So like, Like Samantha said, you know, you have your menu and you have the homepage, and then you have the about page, and then you have the services page. Guys, if you’ve ever been on a website, that is why those are in the order because if you look at the homepage and you get an overview, And then you’re like, oh, well I wanna know more about this person.

So then you click on that [00:31:00] about, and you read all about them, and you’re like, okay, this is someone that I could have a drink with. This is someone that might be able to help me with whatever my problem is. And then you look at their services page. That is why it’s in that order, is to keep the visitor interested, to keep them on the website as long as possible so that Google knows that you have very valuable.

information to offer the clients that you’re trying to service and just, you know, your audience in general.

Samantha: And that’s why we keep that menu simple too, is so that those steps are really strategically directing them to where you want them to. So when you had your Dubsado services on your photography website, people who were looking for photography would be like, I don’t even know what that is. Why is she doing that? And people who were looking for Dubsado setup, they might be like, interested, but if I were to go there, it’s like, well, I’m not a photographer, so can she really help [00:32:00] me? And that’s where. Keeping things simple, having like that one signature service and if you’ve got something totally different from that, then put it on a different website.

You could still link it like on your about page or something. I also do this, but I’ve been to so many websites where I’m like, okay, they’re a website designer. I wanna see like what they do. Oh, well they also offer VA services and Dubsado setups and they’re a photographer and I’m like, can they be good at any of these things?

Colie: That’s a lot of stuff guys. Wow. I mean, Samantha, we weren’t even gonna, gonna gonna go down with the kneeing down conversation here, but let’s, let’s actually talk about the offer. So when you’re creating a website and people are presenting their offer to you that you’re highlighting on this website, what are some do’s and don’ts that you see related to the offer, to where you look at the offer and you’re like, oh, that’s high converting, or It’s not high converting.

Like as a website designer, what is [00:33:00] your role in evaluating someone’s offer before you actually put it on their.

Samantha: Hmm. Usually the big piece of that comes in when I’m talking to them before we actually get into the design. So I’m asking them like, what is this thing that you’re offering? What are you trying to do? and if they are not clear on what that is or who they serve, usually I’ll tell them, okay, well why don’t we wait until you get a little bit more clarity on that.

Or you can work with a copywriter who can at least give you the words because you don’t have the specifics, even if you kind of know them in your brain. So we do that evaluation. and then once I’m actually designing, what I’ve found a lot of times is if somebody has multiple services and they’re trying to like list out the differences, it’s very common.

Like they might have different package levels. I will, a lot of times I’m emailing back going, okay, [00:34:00] we need to make sure it’s very clear like who gets, which one of these, how are they as distinct? That’s the piece that a lot of people miss is making sure it’s very clear who this specific package or service is for, and then the overall transformation.

And if you don’t have those and you can’t be clear about them, it’s not going to convert because people are like, well, I, I don’t know if this is what I need or not.

Colie: And the reason that I ask you this, Samantha, is I know that you and I have talked about this at length, but even though I set up people’s Dodo accounts and you create websites for, you know, business people, we have a bigger job. Because when I’m asking people about what their business is, who they serve, what their offers are, if you can’t make it make sense to.

So that I can set it up in Dubsado in a way to where when you send this proposal to your client, they’re gonna say yes and pay you money. If I don’t understand what you’re [00:35:00] offering, I can’t create a proposal for you to where other people are gonna tell you yes, like just point blank. This is not really my role as your Dubsado set up specialist, but I damn sure have to make sure that I understand what you’re offering before I can help you.

Samantha: Yes,

Colie: and I, I feel. I feel like people overlook our skill as like counselors in a way, like when they’re, when they’re giving us the information. I would imagine that you, as the website designer, if their process doesn’t make sense, if you can’t figure out exactly what they’re offering and who they’re offering it to and how you can make it clear to their website visitors which path they should take, depending on who they are and what they. you are just doing a disservice to them to like create their website without getting clarity. And so sometimes we really do tell people, listen. You’re not ready for me yet. These are the things that you need to think about and that you need to get clear on. And as soon as you are, please [00:36:00] come back because then I’m, I’m absolutely ready to help you.

But if I can’t figure out what it is that you’re offering and how to put it forth in a way that makes people say, yes, you’re not wet, you’re not ready for me to set up your client experience or your customer journey in Dips auto, and you’re definitely not ready for Samantha to set up a website.

Samantha: Yeah, I have worked, I see this a lot with photographers, but I also worked with like a leak detection company, which was a fun website to design, and they were adding more services and I said, well, as we add more services, we have to adjust the entire website so that people understand that you offer multiple things that, and they can fi figure out which one they actually need.

It doesn’t make. For your headline on your homepage to talk about leak detection, if you also offer these other things. So you’ve really got to think about that as you design and as you grow too. That might, [00:37:00] it might not just be throwing up another sales page. There will also be changes on your other pages that need to happen so that people get to the right place.

Colie: And you know what I just thought about Samantha? Like this is front end and back end offers . So listening audience, if you’re not familiar with this, we should totally have a conversation about this on Instagram. But not every offer that you have needs to be on your website. There are some offers if it what we’re, what we’re defining as a backend offer.

Like if you’re offering leak, detect. And then while you are doing that, you can help them with these other things. It might not be that you need to highlight those things everywhere on your website or in the customer journey or the process. Then, because if people need to hire you for leak detection first and those other things come after, it might not be that those need to have, you know, main keywords for search optimization and all these things.

That’s the other thing about getting ready, really clear on your offers [00:38:00] is if everyone needs to hire you for this one thing before you will help them with other things, then that’s what you need to be optimizing your website for. It’s what you need to put forth all your effort in when you’re setting up your Dubsado and you’re doing proposals and all of that, and then you can figure out a way to keep them as customers and increase your lifetime value after.

I’m sorry, I just had to throw that in because as you were talking, I was like, I think a lot of people don’t realize that there is nothing wrong with you having 10 offers. You just don’t need to offer every single person. All 10 of those offers

Samantha: correct. Well, then they can’t make a decision. So I took website customization off my site altogether because I will only do it for somebody that I have already worked with and set up. So that used to be something that like, I would highlight and now it’s not there. You can only get it if we have a conversation and I’m like, okay, yes, I like working with you.

I know that you’ve got the right setup, [00:39:00] so I offer it. People ask about it all the time, but it’s not something I will do just for anybody who lands on my website.

Colie: Because it’s your business, you get to make the decisions. Just because someone asks you for something doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to offer it. , Samantha. I think that’s actually a really great place for us to end this conversation because I like it when my guests are telling everyone decisions that they have made in order to build a business that works for them.

But let’s remind everyone where they can find out more about your services. I.

Samantha: My website is Lemon and the Sea dot come, and I hang out on Instagram at Lemon and the sea.

Colie: And guys, I know I said it at the start of this podcast, but she has a podcast and everyone should be listening,

Samantha: Yes,

It’s also on the website and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Colie: All right guys, that’s all for this episode. Thanks so much and we’ll see you next time.

Samantha: Thanks.