5 tips to ramp-up your website
to connect powerfully and authentically with your perfect clients
These are 5 great tips for you to use on your website (or future website) to see if it’s connecting with your ideal customers. This will help you decide if your site is letting visitors get to know the real you, what you stand for and how you can help them!
- Lead with your results
- Have a goal
- Be succinct
- Have a stance
- Be real
Video Script
I’m JoDee Mittlestadt of Elevate5 Web Design and Branding. So as the name suggests we focus on websites, we focus on logo design and branding and we also focus on messaging. We help our people really know how to strategically connect with those they serve and that’s what our video is about today.
So if you’re here watching this you’ve either come across our website or maybe a social media post or potentially you heard myself or my partner and I, Cara Christenson, speak. Either way welcome; and that’s what we’re going to dive right into. I want to be very respectful of your time and just give five solid tips of what we use anytime we go into a website to see how it’s functioning, how it’s connecting with people and how we can ramp that up to make it connect even more powerfully.
So number one, what we do when we dive into these websites, and these are, you know, do they cover everything? No, you need certain things in place already, but they certainly give you an excellent starting point so that you can make sure that the people that are coming to your page are getting to know the real you, they’re getting to know the story and what you stand for and they’re getting to know why they would want to work with you above and beyond anyone else that they might have heard of or met or being referred to. So that’s really the stage we want to set is so that people come in and they get to know who you are, they get to know a little bit about your business, and they get to know why they should care because once that is set, then the conversation becomes very simple, then it’s just can you accommodate them, are they a good fit for you, do the budgets align, so on so forth. But first we need that initial engagement in connection to be powerful so that you can go on with that piece.
So okay number, one I promise five tips, number one. All right when you have your website and the person comes to it above the fold, that’s an old newspaper term, I’m showing my generation here I guess, but is above the fold so that would be on the main screen, you want to not only have a good design and presence, yes, but you want to lead with your results so lead with the end in mind. You want to tell them right off in that that intro, whether you have a hero you know with a beautiful image or whatever it might be, you want to tell them this is who we serve, this is how we serve them, and these are the results we create and guess what you get a couple sentences to do that in.
So it might be a you know we’re Elevate5 we help small business owners, Christian women, entrepreneurs, and service providers that want a powerful message to connect with their audience through a website and a brand. We help them craft that beautifully. So that was a little butcher, but once we put it on the website if you go and look at the site it lets people know as soon as they’re to your website that they are exactly where they need to be, you can solve their problem. So all that does is it tells them yes I’m in the right place and I can look further for more information. But what happens if they come to their site your site and they don’t see that is they’ll go look somewhere else. We all know how easy it is to ping pong off of sites and go find something else that resonates.
So right off the bat, along with that beautiful design and logo yes, but right off the bat you want to tell them what your results are. So that first tip is lead with your results.
Okay the second tip: always have a goal for your website. So we’ve all we’ve all been to a site that you visit and it’s a beautiful site and they might have beautiful messaging they might have different things that you can look at and you just kind of get lost in there and that certainly happens especially if you have a site that has you know multiple pages so maybe over ten twelve plus pages. Most of our clients are under that to be honest. I’m not including the blog or their blog if they have that but the reason you want to have that goal established right off the bat is your whole website should funnel towards that goal and it’s going to be different for different people. It might be a contact that they fill out a contact form and engage you for a conversation; it might be if you’re a coach it might be that they book a discovery call if you are creating a site to build an audience it might be that you actually link them out to your social media, it might be that you want their email address so that you can build your email marketing campaign.
All of those pieces are valid goals it just depends on how you’re choosing to grow your business, but once you’ve honed in on that goal then your entire website is crafted so that all roads lead to that goal. So for us you know if our intention is that we want you to contact us at the end and inquire about a potential website or a logo or a class – excuse me strategy and clarity session, then we want to invite you to fill out that contact form and do that and sometimes we forget to directly ask folks what we want them to do and we can’t forget. So always remember number two is have a goal and then streamline your whole website towards that goal. That’s an important piece.
Okay number three: be succinct. This is so so hard because as a business owner we know the details, we know every little nuance of how we serve our people and we know they’re all important and they’re all part of it and we know exactly what they need and also what they don’t, but if you have all of that on your website at least on a surface level of your website, you might have sub- pages where you can have those additional details, but if you have all of that right on the first few key pages of your website you overwhelm folks, you overwhelm them, it kind of shuts them down it becomes harder to make a decision.
And we’ve all done this, I’ve been guilty of this, maybe you’ve also done this in a sales call potentially. I’ve certainly done this too, where you’re speaking with someone and you just want to be honest and you want to be really you want to tell them all the things. Don’t do it. Don’t. They need the high points. They need to see that you can help, and this is really tied into number one now that I think about it, they want to see that you can help them, they want to see that they can trust you, they want to see potentially a surface level of the process, and then they want to have a conversation with you. And even in that conversation they may or may not want to know all the details. It depends on the personality type. You know there are those personality types that want all that at that stage and some don’t, but here’s what I would suggest.
Don’t over share on your website and that might be something that’s difficult for you to do being the expert in your field. I know it’s hard for me to do for us because I know I want to share with you about Word Press, I want to share with you about the structure that we use, I want to share with you all the process pieces, and the thing is just make sure you’re answering their specific questions and not sharing too deep, that you actually shut down their ability to soak in the information and make a solid decision. So remember you’re the expert and they don’t need to be. So it’s not a training, it’s a sharing of understanding their problem establishing trust and then inviting them to the next step forward. So remember that’s what your website is about unless of course it is about training which then you could moot that point and go forward, but you hear what I’m saying being succinct is important for engagement on a website. You don’t want to overwhelm people with too much information.
Okay that was number three. Number four: have a stance. So having something to stand for on your website is important because then people can see people can see why they would want to work from you. So what do I mean by that, what is a stance? Well what sets you apart in your industry? How do you feel like the industry you are working in, maybe the industry standard of how you how others operate is not something you agree with. Maybe you feel like your method your proprietary method is better because of X Y Z. So a good example of this for us would be we feel like the website industry does not approach really helping clients at the depth that they need. At least maybe our clients I should I’ll narrow that broad statement just a little bit. So here’s what we find in the website industry as a whole. Our clients are many people in general they go and they get their website estimate and they find out oh great you know they’re going to make me this beautiful 5 to 10 page website it’s going to have XYZ functionality. Great perfect they’re all excited to get it done, they sign on the dotted line, and they find out oh man is copy included or not. So I’ve I’m not a copywriter, now I got to go figure out how to write copy. So it was one of the first things we thought was broken in the industry.
So we made sure that was included and we had depth in our in our team to cover that. So in our marketing we share, copy is always included. Website, content, and copy is included. And if they come with copy we work with that too. But the important thing is we change that in the industry. The other piece that we feel is broken is that within the industry if you are not completely clear on how you want to bring your business forward you cannot be completely clear on your website. So you might have questions on your messaging, on who exactly is your target market. You might have questions on how you can be strategic and how you could package your services in a way that helps you stop exchanging time for dollars. You might want to change your demographic, your target market slightly and tweak some of that or understand them better. You might want to create a funnel, a more intentional funnel or client journey of how people move through your through your business. All of those things kind of bubble up at the same time that someone wants a website so we find that when someone wants a website they’re really looking to get clear on a lot of these things and the website is really the end result of all of that. So by going after a website they think they’re taking care of it in our industry that’s not necessarily true. Some of those some folks will come and you know they’ll do the website and the website only.
As I mentioned with the copy but also with all those strategic pieces so what we do is we also include that and that sets us apart. So for us I think what’s broken in the website industry currently is that they don’t offer some strategic services that are marketing directed but authentic and then also back that up with surrounding services that are needed around the website: branding, graphic design, and that web site content creation that we talked about. So that sets us apart in our industry and we want to say that on our website.
So tell that whole great big story in all those examples so that you can see where if I didn’t mention that on our website especially in key areas, if I didn’t mention that you wouldn’t know what would set us apart and if you came and got an Elevate5 estimate for a website and then you compared that to someone else’s you wouldn’t understand that they might not be apples to apples it might be apples to oranges because Elevate5 brings all this business strategy planning, all of the graphic design services, the branding of the website copy creation. There’s all of this expertise on the team that helps us that helps to set us apart and those pieces were added intentionally because they light up our souls and we’re excited to serve with them but it’s also because it serves our clients our target market in a very real and authentic way so that their result which is that website is really powerful. I’ve got to be able to share that on the site so that people can see what sets us apart. So okay that was number four.
Okay so have a stance was number four and having that stance is where you think you are set aside or where you set yourself apart from an industry that you that you work within so have a stance number four.
Number five. Okay the last one: be real. Okay and this if you’ve ever talked with me if you’ve ever talked with my business partner and sister Cara you know that we are very much about being real and that sounds maybe a little bit fluffy maybe a little bit like lip service and I think a lot of people are saying that. I don’t know that that necessarily sets us apart but I think the depth to which we live it does set us apart. So I mean be real in your story, be real and how you show up, be real in the humor you use on your website.
You’ll see humor. Cara and I love a dry sense of humor and that’s on our site because the people that really connect with us they’re going to connect with that and we want them to be served too. So they must they must be able to see whether that speaks to them. So kind of my weird attracts my tribes weird and I’m okay with that right like I think you get to a certain stage where you start to see that. So that’s a piece of being real but there’s also a story piece attached to this and this is where it gets a tad bit scary because we all have our stories I believe I’m a firm believer that our stories shape not only our lives but our businesses. If you own a business there is no way that that is not a significant part of your soul and I also believe that that’s how we’re called forward in this world. Your callings, your gifts, all of those pieces should be wrapped up in your business and a lot of time’s your story is the tugging thread that I think God will use to pull us along and be like this is where you need to share.
So the intricate piece is to have someone that can look at this and help you weave your story into your business in a way that’s that makes it look very intentional, because I think in our own mind similar to kind of knowing too much about our businesses sometimes to be able to succinctly share to have someone reflect that back to you is powerful because that that neutral bystander can see oh yeah you know here’s how your stories all tie together and how they tie into your business and how they can powerfully connect with your client or your potential client. If you can nail those things down then all of a sudden your story begins to really matter and your path will start to just unfold in front of you as you go forward and not to mention if you’re doing that in a real authentic way then your gifts are part of that you’re, calling steps forward, it’s this really beautiful unfolding. Again it feels a little bit maybe soft, but yet it’s not. It is the icing on the cake of what really helps people see what you’re about and I would invite you to you know we try and embody this I think there’s always room for improvement but you are invited to go and see the elevate5.com website, check out our blog.
You’ll see I don’t believe in heavy polish. I try and write like I speak so it’s certainly not a master’s level thesis in there but that’s intentional you know so that you can connect. And we’re weaving that story in both in our lives and our business so that we can connect with their clients and hopefully help them to better navigate the challenges and the business and life challenges that that we’ve navigated. So I think that’s important so that that fifth and final one is to be real and share your story or share your truth.
And now you might say okay I’m a coach I can see where my story is important I’m going to weave it in this way. Or you know or I’ve gone through this in my life, you know maybe I’ve gone through a severe health crisis and I’m now going to coach those people so I can see where my story makes sense. Where I think people get hung up is when they you know maybe they do websites and they’re like how does my story matter? Well it does and once you look back and you start seeing those steps you can start seeing how you how you apply that. So like for us Cara and I have a very intense and powerful story over the last few years that involved, okay we are lovers of small business owners, like we get these people we understand, we were raised by them, we were married to them, we are around them, our families are steeped in small business.
We know these people, so what we did is we developed our business to serve them. So that was part of our story. So you can see on a very logical key level there’s that story. Well I also have personal struggle as part of my story and that’s been and that’s something that I’ve brought forward into some of my speeches and it helps me connect more powerfully with women, adult women that that I admire and I’m around. I don’t know one of them that haven’t gone through something. The flavor might be different but I think a warrior recognizes a warrior. So after you have been through these pieces you say okay I see you over there and you’ve been there and you’re showing up authentically so that trust piece comes in and I connect with your story.
So now all of a sudden when I step forward and I want a website and a branding company to work with, I really feel engaged by you and I like the work you’re doing, let’s at least have a conversation. So that story even helps build connection there even if they haven’t shared the same life challenges I personally have, they connect because life can be a challenge. So I hope that makes sense. So number five is that share your story, share your truth.
So number one, just to recap quickly in case you missed something. Number one: lead with your results. So tell them the problem you solve and why they should care right off the bat, above the fold, so to speak. Number two: have a goal. Have a goal for your website and craft your entire website towards accomplishing that goal. Number three: be succinct. That’s a challenge for me when I’m speaking to people but I always try and follow it on the website. So do as I say not as I do, right. Number four: have a stance. What sets you apart from your industry and really be sure to share that and then be real. Share your story or share your truth and make sure that’s woven in your website so people get to know the real you.
So okay those were our five tips today. I hope you enjoyed it. I was trying to keep this under 20 minutes for you and we did so yay success. After you’ve watched this webinar you are more than welcome to step forward and check out our Business Breakthrough Masterclass.
That masterclass is designed specifically to help you dive into the story piece so if you feel a little confused about how your story could be woven into your business or how you could both tie that into your messaging, but then also scale, create packages, the Business Breakthrough Masterclass dives into all, it’s really the heart of where each of our clients starts. It’s open to all of our clients so we’re breaking it out if you would like to just review that masterclass and see if it might solve some of the questions you have in your business it’s a great place to establish clarity. It’s about three weeks, you can take it at your own pace, doesn’t have to be done in the three weeks. But it’s very quick. Short videos a nice, in-depth workbook you can print it out and write on it, it’s beautiful so it’s fun to do. Simple, simple. But you are more than welcome to go and check out that resource and see if you’re interested. We would love to have you join our masterclass.
So all right, thank you for your time today and please send an email jodee@elevate5.com. That’s my personal email. Obviously please send an email, let me know if this webinar resonated, if you got value out of it, if you have additional questions. I would welcome all of that. Somebody will absolutely get back to you if not me personally. So thanks a bunch, have a good day.
Want more? Need some help establishing clarity around how to weave your story into your brand and business? We offer the Business Breakthrough Masterclass to our clients and are now breaking it out for you to help you dive in and solve some of the questions you have in your business. Check out the Masterclass here: