The Pathway To Website Success

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS

Witnessing the Northern Lights

Happy Friday. Hi.

So, I, saw the Northern Lights last night, which was really exciting. My cousin lives down the road and I saw on her Facebook page, had pictures of them looking at the Northern Lights.

And so I was very excited. I was like, what, wait, wait, is this happening right now? Because I missed it last time. And I was so gutted because I missed it.

I went out in the garden and I was looking, I was like, trying to turn off the lights, the garden light for a start because that's everything is a bit too light around here, but I could kind of see a pink glow on the house behind.

I could kind of see a bit of a pink glow and I was like, I'm not sure maybe. So I thought, right, I'm gonna get the dog and go for a walk. I was in my pajamas. So I went and put some joggers on and just like put my coat on and went for a walk around the village and went to like the one of the darkest points down by the playing field.

And it was amazing because he could really see it, but not too much. Like you see bits with the naked eye, but it was mainly that you put your phone up and it's a bit like having a ghost detector or something. So you put your phone up and all of a sudden you can see this patch of the sky that looks really red.

And then you look at another bit and it just looks pitch black. So it was really good. I'm so glad I saw it. It was really cool. I hope you all got a chance to see it as well.

And yeah, I mean, it's, It's weird how all of a sudden that we, we're seeing this it's I don't know if it's a climate change thing or why suddenly we've got lots of it happening at the moment, but I'm sure we will have some more chances to see I've got an Aurora watch on my phone, it does tell you when you're, they're likely to be visible with the naked eye, really.

So, yeah, it's all good. It's all good. It was fun. It was a nice way to come into Friday seeing that. It was really cool.

Introduction to Website Success

Today I want to talk about the pathway to website success. This is something I've been working on for quite some time in the back end.

And these conversations on these Friday lives are often sparked by conversations that I have with people throughout the week. So I have a massive list of topics that I want to talk about on the podcast and new things come up all the time.

I'm always getting ideas. I've got a notion board with all of my content stuff together. And I use that to just when, when ideas come up, I put them in there.

Because that was one of my things when I started podcasting was I was worried about running out of things to say. And actually, I know that's never going to happen.

There's always new tech coming out. There's always new things happening, but often things then get bumped down the list because I'll have a conversation with somebody throughout the week and then that sparks something that's more important for me to talk about. So I, yeah, that happens fairly regularly, really.

Understanding the Bigger Picture

So I was having a conversation with somebody I was networking last week and having a conversation with somebody about their website.

And we've been, we've been sort of chatting on and off about her website for a while, like across the summer, about what she can do to improve her website, she's a local business owner, and it kind of just sparked that thought in me.

The fact that we, we don't always realize as business owners, how much of a bigger picture there is in terms of if we're just, I mean, there's a bigger picture in business anyway, but in terms of even just focusing on what's happening with our website, if we can understand that, I think it makes it a bit easier to see how the stepping stones are there and what we need to do to kind of get along that path.

So this person, she's, her business is busy. She's doing well. She, you know, her business is successful, she's got a website that's not particularly helping her right now.

It's not necessarily, her biggest priority and because she is so busy, I know she said that before that actually even just finding the time to sort these kinds of things out is a bit of a frustration for her because she's, she's not sure what she needs to do.

She doesn't know what to sort of prioritize first, and she's busy trying to run her business and look after her family as well.

So when we were chatting, we've been back and forth chatting about what she's trying to achieve and she's sort of focusing more on the, she can see that her website needs visually updating. It needs changing in terms of the visuals and the user experience and, and just for it to, to be a better representation of her brand, really.

And I'm trying to sort of, I, through our conversations, I'm trying to sort of, focus it a bit more on the bigger picture. So thinking about, okay, what are the, what are the things that could help her?

Not just the website, but could actually help her in her business. So what are the things that could help her to save some time on, on what she's doing already?

What are the things that could help make her the customer service part of her business easier? What are the things that she could do, not just to have a website that's bringing in sales, but it's also making her life easier as well.

And I saw her a few days later and she said that she'd been advised to maybe have some professional photos done.

She was having a conversation with somebody else about their website and they had a look and they said, get some professional photos done. And as much as that would benefit her website, I think it's good to have professional photos done.

I definitely feel with the kind of business that she has, she's a product based business and is quite visual. What she does is quite visual. She could definitely take pictures with her phone , and that would be a big upgrade on the pictures that she's got on her website.

So I don't necessarily feel like, yes, I definitely think investing in professional photography for your business is great, but I don't feel I, she could, she could get some photography wins, even just with using her phone.

We've all got these amazing cameras in our pockets. And I think even just thinking about that, maybe just thinking a little bit about how you can set the photographs up to, to look better on the website is part of it, but that wouldn't be my, place where I would prioritize really.

It probably would, if , if we were talking about the website as a bigger picture, it would be definitely there up on the list as being one of those conversion things that she could make those changes. It's probably quite easy for her to do that and it will make a difference.

But. It's not where I would be telling her to focus the priority right now.

I talked about in episode 29 about the other business problems that our website can solve. And I think this is partly where understanding that, thinking about, okay, what things are going to make the biggest difference? What things are going to make her life easier?

What things are going to allow her to then do the parts within her business that bring the money in what's going to help her to not have to constantly be so posting on social media and be constantly trying to get new customers in all the time.

So even things like thinking about having a place for her to gather her customers, like a client relationship manager, a CRM, even having something like that could make a big difference.

It's not necessarily going to make this big difference right now today, but it means that she can then build a customer database and we only need, especially if we've got a consumable business where something where people need to buy what we have, once they buy it, they use it, it's gone.

It's not like a one off purchase.

Then if we've got that group of loyal customers who we communicate with regularly, and remind them that we exist, they know what we've got going on in our business.

We remember, especially if it's this kind of business where they are seasonal and tied in celebrations. So if we can then remind them when they've got a celebration coming up, you know, I get a reminder from moon pig telling me that somebody's birthday is coming up and I need to order them a card.

If we can do that kind of thing and build up that client base, not only does it make it easier because then we're not out chasing new customers all the time, which is always harder to get a new customer than trying to retain an old customer and get somebody to spend more money with us is easier than trying to get somebody to spend that first pound with us.

We could do that.

Then that would allow her to firstly build up more profit in her business because she's then then not having to spend quite so much time marketing.

But also that then becomes a valuable asset to her business if she's got an engaged email list and engaged list of customers. That makes her business, if she did get to a point where she decided to sell the business, or she wanted to get some investment in the business, that immediately makes your business so much more valuable.

So even if you are a local small brick and mortar business, if you've got an engaged email list of your customers, then that's really, really powerful.

So that's something that we were talking about that. So I was thinking about how could we fit this into the bigger picture to help her to use her website to grow her business.

And this leads me on to the fact that thinking about these things and thinking about how we can then tie SEO into that and actually getting more traffic and sales through our website. It's one of those things that can be really frustrating.

I've done lots of discovery calls this week and the thing that comes up time and time again is that people don't necessarily realize how many steps there are to get into the point of actually getting your SEO working for you, getting your website working for you.

I think, definitely, coming into business, I didn't realize or even have a clue how much was involved in that, how much even like the mindset work behind it, let alone the actual physical things of getting things set up, let alone actually getting really good at your craft and knowing how to sell that.

I think, had I realised how much work it was, involved or I don't know. I don't know where I even, I think definitely having a vision of the big picture and having a checklist is definitely helps me knowing, okay, this is where I'm trying to get to, and these are the steps along the way. I think that's really helpful.

And that's why I've created this pathway website success so that potential clients and people who are in my world can just understand those different phases that you go through before you get to the point where your website is actually bringing in regular money every single day.

You've got new visitors, finding you organically through search without you having to, keep posting all the time. And those people are then becoming customers or they're joining your email list and you can nurture them and keep selling to those people as well.

I think we can often end up doing lots of different little bits of everything and not then ever feeling like something is actually making a difference.

Whereas actually I think having a plan, having a structure, focusing on the most important things first can make it make a massive difference really.

The Pathway to Website Success

So I'm going to talk about the pathway to website success.

If we think of our website, like a garden and we want it to be beautiful. We want to be able to harvest the fruits of our labor and trying to navigate that pathway through the garden isn't always easy.

And that's why I created this pathway to website success. And I'll talk you through the pathway and the different phases and the different things that we need to put in place, before we get to the next milestone and we can move on to that next phase of website success.

Pre-Work Essentials

This was actually the easiest part to do because I think I've worked with so many people over the last couple of years who are kind of just getting started and just getting established in business.

And that's one of the things I think that is a real eye opener when you first come into business is realising how much stuff you need to have in place, before you're probably even ready to start diving into to more advanced stuff with your website.

And yeah, that's it. this is kind of the pre work stage. So it's the things that we need to have in place before we're ready to take that first step onto the pathway to website success.

A Proven Offer

So it's really important, that we have a proven offer. I think, that's probably the first thing to say is we have an offer that people want to buy and people have bought from us already. And we know that that offer is going to sell.

We just need to get more people to understand what it's about and to get more sales of it, really. So we have a proven offer.

Understand Our Customers

We understand who our customers are, so we understand who's going to want to buy it or who wants to buy it already.

And we understand what kind of people they are, what they, not so much the whole ideal client avatar she's a woman in her forties and she's got a dog called Poppy.

More like the general thing of where those people are going to be hanging out, what kind of problems those people have, what other problems those people have, that it's not necessarily that our offer solves. But how we can then get in front of those people.

Understand What Problem Our Offer Solves

And we need to really understand what problem our offer solves. And with some businesses, you might not think of it as a problem, especially if it's, more of a lifestyle business or something where it is a luxury, but the problem it's solving is people want to live a better lifestyle.

So it's working out those kinds of things as well. So we really need to be really clear on that. So, it comes back to that thing of what we do, how we're going to make people's lives better, and then what they need to do to get it as well. So we get clear on that.

Simple Branding

We need to have a branding. We need to have a visual identity established and that hasn't got to be fancy.

Definitely, I think when just getting started in business is good to have some simple, basic branding in place that you follow and you stick with for a while, at least until you get to a point where you can invest in some professional branding, or you need to then upgrade your branding at that point.

But it is really important to have things like a logo, have things like your colors. And again, I, this is something that we can often get caught up in, I know I definitely got caught up in this when I first got started in business in terms of spending way too long choosing colors, faffling about with my, logo, but getting something there so that you've got something to work with.

Website & CRM

And then also having a basic website and client relationship manager in place. So you've got a very simple website. It doesn't have to be very simple, it can be a beautiful website, but it's, you've got a website in place and you've got a place where you can keep track of your customers.

You can send marketing emails, or you can send information out to them and keep track of what they've bought. You can tag them. You can basically, you can just keep your customers organised.

It's like, it's your customer database essentially. And you've got that in place.

So those are the three key things that I think you need to have in place for your pre work. So once you've got those, you've reached your first milestone.

The First Milestone

You've done the groundwork, you're ready to get started on the pathway to website success.

Tech Platform

And I use, I would say when I'm talking about just quickly on a side note, I use FEA Create for my website platform. It does, it's an all in one, so it does everything.

It's, so I built, I've got my website built on there. I've got my landing pages funnels. It does email marketing.

You can, if you want to use social media, you can do your social posts on there. You can tag your customers. You can do all your automations and everything in there and it's really, really clever.

It's not perfect. Definitely. There's things, there's bugs, there's annoyances as there is with all website builders, with all platforms.

I was talking with somebody about this the other day about there's not a website builder out there that isn't annoying in some way or other really. So I think it's one of those things that there's always going to be some downsides to things, but that's definitely the one I recommend.

If you're starting to think about, okay, I want to have a CRM. I want to start email marketing. I want to get these things together. I want to make my life easier. I want to get some automations in place. Then I would definitely recommend checking out FEA Create.

I'll put my affiliate link in the show notes, it's a great platform and you also get access to the Female Entrepreneur Association as well. And I love that. That's been such an amazing community that the relationships I've bilt from being part of that community has been absolutely incredible.

So that was a little side, just about that pre work stage. If you're thinking about, okay, what should I use to get to that point of having that website, the CRM in place, then that's my recommendations there.

And. I did talk about migrating platforms that just probably just as a quick side note as well in episode 10 of the podcast, I talked about making informed decisions around migrating platforms, because if you already have a website, then it's definitely worth understanding the SEO implications of then if you decide to switch.

A lot of people don't have their website in FEA Create, they will leave the website where it is. They've already got a WordPress website. They will leave that where it is certainly for now and just use FEA Create for taking sales, using the CRM, using the automations and that kind of stuff, really.

So it's one of those things that I often I will see people in different Facebook groups I'm in talking about moving their website. And I'm always there, like, oh, have you thought about the SEO part of that?

And people often haven't thought about it, and the reason I like to point that out is because I've had a few clients who've come to me because they've lost all their SEO because they've moved platforms and it's been a disaster.

And that's what I talk about in episode 10. So you can check that one out if you want to find out more about that.

Phase One: Loved Not Leveraged

So once you've got to that first milestone, then you're ready to move into phase one of website success. And this is where you have a loved not leveraged website.

So this is where you can begin transforming your website and setting up your foundational SEO and content organisation. And there are things that you can do here to get some quick wins.

There are definitely some essential tasks within this phase as well. So if I'm working with clients and, we realise that they're at this phase. And usually because people do usually come to me when they're just getting started with SEO.

They're not just getting started in business, but they are actually a point where they've been in business for a while. They've had their website for a while, and now they're ready to actually get that website working for them and get some organic traffic through Google.

Quick Wins

So the quick wins that we can do at this phase is we can, use Google business profile so we can claim and optimise their profile, make sure that that's set up. I love that because it means that you can get those quick wins.

With SEO the work we do on SEO takes three, six, nine, 12 months before we're really going to start seeing some traction on that, whereas you can make a change to your Google business profile and that happen straight away.

You can make a change today and your customers can be seeing those changes and seeing you on Google straight away the next day.

So that's why I love it. I definitely, it's one of those things where, I'm all about creating content you own first, so I would never say to rely on something like Google business profile as your only method of marketing your business, or even as a primary method.

But I think it's just a good way that's often neglected and something that you can then get that sorted, have that working for you quickly in the background as well. And then focus on your website, as your main, place to target your focus.

Also, if people podcast, then we can use that for quick wins as well. So making sure your podcast is set up for SEO. So your podcast is searchable, within the podcast platforms like Apple podcasts and Spotify.

And that's another one where you can make those changes in your podcast setup, and that can have an effect straight away as well.

So that's another one where I love that, because you can literally make changes to your show name, your description, and that those changes will happen and your people can find you straight away from that.

Essential Tasks

And then the essential tasks are making sure that there aren't any key stumbling blocks that are going to prevent Google or people from finding, reading and understanding your website's content.

So that's really important to make sure that there's nothing that we need to solve first. And that can be things like, if you haven't got a site map submitted to Google, which sounds technical, it's actually really not.

And those kinds of things that are often people do come in and they've had a website live for three years but nothing much is really happening. And that to me is an immediate red flag that there's something going on in the backend that's preventing Google from being able to see and read that site.

Otherwise Google is pretty good at actually, if a site is indexable, if Google can read it, it's pretty good at creating some kind of impression of what that site is about. It might be completely wrong depending on how it's set up and that's why we can see random stuff appearing in our Google search console.

But I can often see if somebody comes in and they've literally got nothing going on with it. SEO, we can't see anything where they're actually showing up for any kind of keywords at all. Then that is, normally a red flag that we need to go in and fix that first before we start diving into the, main strategy really.

So we do that, we'd work out where we are right now as well. So we establish the current status. We look at your data, look at what you are already ranking for, look for opportunities for quick wins and low hanging fruit essentially.

And then act on those first, and then depending on where you are in your business, you can have an SEO focus, a conversion focus, or a content focus.

Where To Focus

So if you've got no traffic coming into your website at all, you're not doing anything on social media, you're not paying for ads you've basically got no one visiting your website. Then making sure that we've got some key things in place that can start to help improve that visibility is usually going to be the first thing we'll do.

And I think, these three sub parts are rarely ones that somebody will go through that pathway and do the whole thing. I am a firm believer in making sure that we focus on your SEO and your conversions, and then you're going to be creating content as well.

Because otherwise, you can just be sending traffic to your website, but if people aren't then going to take any action, or if you haven't got any calls to action on your pages, so there's nothing that actually encourages people to make a purchase or join your email list, then spending some time on each of those things is really, really helpful.

So what we essentially do in this phase is we make sure we look for those quick wins. We serve that solve those technical issues. We optimise three to five pages of your website for SEO and conversions.

And depending on what type of business you are would depend on what three to five pages we optimise. Also, if we identify some pages that are real low hanging fruit, then they may be the ones that we optimise first.

Usually it's your homepage and your about page, because, the homepage is one of your most visited pages of your site. So if we can optimise that, then great.

Your about page. It's always really important for people who already know about us to be able to find us and to be able to take action on our websites. So I think that's really important for us to. Look at those pages first as well. but as I say, every business is different.

So it will all depend on where you come in and what you need straight away really. At this point as well, we'll also make sure that you've began to create content to show that you're an authority in your field.

So we make sure that Google can read your website and people as well. It's always, always about the people, but essentially what happens is that people and Google can look at your website and understand that you are an authority.

That's all about, depending on what type of business you are at, not necessarily blog posts, but just making sure that your website is actually showing what you do, again, how you're going to make their life better and how they need to get that as well, really.

Understand The Next Step

And then you also have a plan in place as well for the next steps.

I think that's one of the most important things with all of these phases of website success is always really important to understand what the next thing is to do rather than always be thinking 20 steps ahead, where it just makes everything feel so vast.

If you're looking at what you need to do in three months time, and not worrying about what you need to do in this hour right now, then that's where we end up getting stuck in overwhelm, decision fatigue, and not actually getting on and making progress.

So once you've got those things in place, so you've looked for the low hanging fruit, you've got your Google business profile optimised, you've solved those technical issues.

You've got your three to five pages set up for SEO and conversions, and you're creating some content to show you're an authority in your field.

Then, you've hit milestone two.

You've sown the seeds of website success.

Phase Two: The Website Wake Up

And then you can move into phase two, which is the website wake up phase, in this phase, we implement key actions that are going to drive traffic and conversions, whilst also optimising your customer's experience as well.

So this is where we build on those SEO foundations. So we expand the optimisation across more pages of your website again focusing on the most important ones first, and working through all the pages on your on your website.

We look at things like making sure your website loads properly and loads fast and is mobile optimised, all of the things that are going to help to raise your authority in the SEO foundations and really build on those first foundations that we put in place in phase one.

We're looking at the conversion focus of turning more of those leads into customers. So we're starting to get some traffic through the website now, and we want to make sure that more people that are coming through are actually then turning into customers.

We're making sure that we are collecting some feedback from our customers and making improvements based on how people are using our site, making it easier as well as streamlining things like your navigation and making it easier for people to take the action that you want them to take on your website.

And then with the content focus, we're building up more authority. So we're updating those main articles that we've created in phase one, we're updating those to build on those foundations. And we're adding new blog posts, new case studies based on keyword research that we've done both in phase one and in phase two, and just regularly check into and improving any old content that we've got.

We're now starting to think about how can we also make the most of that and really maximise that content. So phase two checklist for getting to the end of phase two is our website is now optimised for both SEO and conversions.

We're seeing more people visit and take action on our site. And our website is creating momentum that keeps going.

So the third milestone is

We're nurturing the shoots of website growth.

And then we move into phase three.

Phase Three: Traffic and Sales Growth

Phase three is the traffic and sales growth phase. This is where we begin to move into more advanced SEO strategies and continue growth in both traffic and sales. So we're beginning those advanced SEO strategies, we're also looking at things like broken links, slow loading times, outdated content.

So in phase two, we begin building some backlinks, as well, into the site. And in phase three, we're going to keep building high quality backlinks to increase our site's authority.

We're going to refine our keyword strategies and we're going to look at new search trends emerging. And as things evolve and as our site is progressing, we can look at new opportunities for new rankings.

Conversion. We're looking to look at advanced conversion rate optimisation strategies as well. So this is where we may move into testing different variations of the key pages of your site, looking at what content brings in the best results.

Keep working on how to move visitors through your site and improve their experience, that is more likely than to turn them into paying customers. And we're using data and customer feedback to make tweaks, to maximise those conversions that we get through the site.

And then content. We're making sure that we're building out our content & we've got a real strategy in place. Now we understand the content that we need to create as well. We're making sure we update the old content and we're really diving into topics now as well, so that we can become that authority on what we do and what we sell.

So the end of phase three, your website traffic and sales are growing.

And that's the most important things, that we're starting to see that real difference in traffic and sales. Our customers are telling us that they're really enjoying using our website and it's having a positive effect on our business. And our ongoing content strategy is working.

So this is where we've reached the fourth milestone,

We're pruning and refining our website strategy.

Phase Four: Sustainable Success

And then we move into phase four, and this is where we're aiming for. This is the goal. when we start thinking about a website, whenever we build a website, phase four is really where we want to get to.

So this is the sustainable success phase, and this is where we maximise results and expand into new opportunities as well.

So we have ongoing SEO strategies. So again, we're regularly checking our website for things like broken links and slow loading time, things that we need to update. and we're building on those authority and backlinks coming into our site as well.

And this is where we can start moving into looking at more competitive keywords as well. So ones that have got higher search volumes, but also higher difficulty because we've now built out that bank of content and Google and people can understand that we are an authority on those topics and we can compete with the sites that have got more authority as well.

In conversions, we have our ongoing conversion testing. So we're regularly checking how visitors are interacting and using our website and making adjustments to improve the experience and increase those conversions as well.

And then the content, we're really expanding our authority through our content now. So we make sure that we have these cornerstone pieces of content, as well as supporting articles. that are regularly refreshed and updated with information to stay relevant.

And we're basing everything that we do on data. So we're using data to confidently then launch new products and new services, knowing that our website will support those new things.

And this phase is all about our website attracting and converting new customers every single day, we can launch with confidence, knowing the expected outcomes.

And all we're doing is making tweaks to design and copy that help to maximise our traffic and conversions.

So the fifth milestone

Your website is a powerful tool in your business and it supports long term growth and a life that you love living.

So I think that's really important to have that fifth milestone, I think is the most important thing, if we focus just on the next step on the phase that we're in and have that fifth milestone there as where we're trying to get to.

I think that makes everything a little bit easier. We don't have to think about all the steps in between, all the time. All we're thinking about is that next step.

And that's what all this hard work's for, right?

So we want to get to phase four. That's why we're putting all this hard work into our websites and SEO. And working on our websites isn't a quick fix. it's one of those things that it takes time. We do need to put some work in and it's also not the only thing we need to do in our business.

So we need to think about things like email marketing, building relationships, actually delivering to our customers as well. So I'm not saying that website success and focusing on our website is the only thing that we need to think about, but it is important to continually improving and continually moving along those steps to try and get to that point where our website is our most valuable business asset.

Conclusion and Next Steps

So coming back to our website being a beautiful garden, I think this is a really good metaphor actually for looking after what we own first, look after our own content first.

So we can be neglecting our garden (our website) and instead tending to social media.

So we're over there tending to Facebook and Instagram's garden we're planting our seeds there.

We're creating content there rather our own garden, for our own website.

And we end up with not a lot to show for it, we get no thanks, little return on the time invested.

We're not reaping the rewards of looking after our own content and our own garden first, essentially.

And taking those first steps on the pathway to website be really tough. We don't know which direction to turn in, what to focus on, what to plant, what to weed out.

And so my goal is not to lead you up the garden path.

It's instead to take your hand and help you get from stepping stone to stepping stone so that you can make progress.

You can understand where you're trying to get to, but you also understand that there are many steps to getting there. And I just want to help you get unstuck.

So just literally get to that very next step and plant the next seed, prune where you need to, look after your garden, which is your own website, and ultimately create a more sustainable way to get more visitors and more sales through your business.

So if that sounds like something you'd like to explore, I'll be adding more content around the pathway to website success over time.

You can find out more about my content and services here. And you can find out more about my services, my online courses and how I can help you.

And you can also book a free 20 minute website success discovery call. And what we can do in that time is look at where you are right now on the pathway and look at how you can get to the next steps. And hopefully how I can help and guide you along the way.

And if I can help you get there a bit faster as well, then I'll let you know.

And, I hope you found this helpful. Let me know where you think you are on the pathway to website success, and you can text the show, if you're listening on the podcast.

And if you've enjoyed this episode, then please do remember to spread the word and share it with a friend. I'm trying to grow this podcast without promoting it on social media and people sharing it actually really, really helps the show to grow.

So I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll see you soon.

Bye.