Your website is a work in progress!  Penelope shares what her struggles are and we work through how to brand herself and get more conversion on her website.

Time for another hotseat!  This week I'm talking to Penelope Silver about how to maximize the impact of her website.

We talked about how her in person business and her new online business can be represented so that she can reach the right audiences for each.

Penelope Silver started her business just over 2 years ago.  When she first started she was a Reiki master and doing hands-on treatments.  As the business has evolved she realized a few things.

1. Doing 40 hours a week of hands-on treatment is not sustainable.
2. Only doing one-on-one treatments caps her income.

So she decided to take her business online, but her website hasn't caught up with that.

She's a wellbeing coach, and coaches through chakras. And through this she hesp you determine your life's purpose.  So far it's 1:1 but the aim is to take it to group coaching, all over the world.

Rebrand?

When Penelope first started out she built the website herself.  It was great at the beginning. She didn't know anything about websites and couldn't hire anyone to do it for her.  So it was an easy drag and drop platform.  Now, as her business has grown, she's finding that it's limited as far as how she can customize it.

Her initial branding used the colors of the chakras, which are the colors of the rainbow so it's all very bright.  Where she's going, she wants it to be a more “grown up.”  She wants it to feel more luxury.

Sami's thoughts: make sure your branding is in line with who your ideal customer is.  We tend to do things that we like that make us feel good.  Sometimes we are our target audience and it works.  But challenge yourself to think outside of yourself and through the lens of your ideal customer.

Ideas for tweaking her homepage.

It's hard to know what it is that Penelope does.

The first thing you want people to see is the problem you solve and how you solve it for them.

Make sure it is above the fold, before people have to scroll.

After that, you can go into why you're qualified to do that for them.

One of the struggles Penelope has is that she's using her website to drive traffic to her in-person practice, while also creating a place and community for her coaching practice.

Sami's advice: make sure it's super clear what you do.  Wellbeing coach can have lots of different meaning to people.  If it's important to you that it's a partnership and they have to put in the work, then that needs to be clear.

Reiki work is almost secondary here and a qualification, but can be confusing if you're trying to marketing to a global audience.  And this is important when it comes to search visibility.

Might be important to have 2 different websites that target both audiences.

Separating out the websites!

Penelope has purchased penelopesilver.com and can easily create an additional website that supports her online coaching.

It's best to use penelopesilver.co.uk for her Reiki practice because it has a location signifier in it.

People will be looking for both products in two different ways.  So keeping the websites different will allow you to tweak your messaging for the people that you're targeting.

There can also be language that links people back and forth between your businesses to drive traffic.  That way they can get everything they need and dive deeper with you.

We all have short attention spans, and the markets are saturated.  What will set you apart will be making your messaging super clear so they scroll down and diver deeper into your site.

There isn't' such a thing as too much information.

Especially with a newer website.  Content is what is going to help search engines understand what your website is about.  The more words the better.  But make sure it's laid out visually so that people can scan.

Use headers, use icons.  Give visitors an easy way to see what each section is about so they can pause on the areas that are most important to them.

Internal linking is also important so you can lead people to important pages on your website.

On the Reiki site, having lots of information about what it all about allows search engines understand what your website is about and increases the likelihood that you'll show up higher in search for those introductory keywords people are looking for information about.

How can she leverage testimonials best?

Penelope had a page that was just testimonials and someone told her not to do that.

Sami's advice: it's more impactful with the testimonial is on the page where the product/service lives.

People don't tend to read a whole page of testimonials.

People need to see things 10-14 times before they're ready to make a purchase.  So having the information they need all in one place on one page makes it easier to make the purchase.

Penelope doesn't like the long sales pages that you have to scroll forever for to find the price.

Should you do a long or short sales page?

We have two versions when we do a launch.

The long version is for our colder audience.  It gives them more information because they don't know us as well.

The shorter version is where we drive traffic from webinars, email and challenges because they already know a bit about the program.

Email optin

Penelope has an optin at the bottom of her email list, but is she consistent with sending emails?

She struggled with niching down because her clients run a wide spectrum from age to what their ailment is.

It was a struggle to create an optin because of the variety of patients.

She finally created a guided meditation that is in the process of being uploaded to the website.

Sami's thoughts: people feel that they can't go out and do it unless it's perfect.  GET STARTED!  DO SOMETHING!  The ball will start rolling and momentum will increase.  Great job getting this optin going and moving the needle forward.

Some other optin ideas:

• 8 ways Reiki helps support your overall health
• 8 ailments Reiki is great for

The meditation one is great because they're getting immediate help and how Penelope works.

It's frustrating starting at the beginning again.

Penelope struggles with the fact that she's been in business for 2.5 years and it seems like she's having to start over again.

Sami's advice: we rebranded and created The First Click in January.  It was adding online courses and memberships into our model.

It's OK to start from the beginning and kind of exciting.  I'm taking what I've already learned and mistakes I've made before and growing from them.  Doesn't mean I'm perfect now, but I can settle into it differently.

2 years in yoru business isn't a long time to hone in on exactly what it is that lights you up on your business.  it changes all the time.

I tend to compare myself to people that are 3-5-10 years ahead of me.  I have to remember that I'm newer and settle with it and keep doing the things I need to do and trust myself and the process.

A great optin for the wellbeing coaching side would be a quiz.  If that's something that you feel comfortable doing.

Start Simple

Get your website up first and make it something that works for your business.

Find out where your ideal customers are and market to them there.

Add one thing on at a time.  Utilize a VA to help you with some tasks.

Should she use Silver in her branding to match her name?

Totally depends on her overall look.  It could be a highlight color or an added texture.  We recommend 3-5 colors and 1-2 main colors.

Time Stamps

(3:00) Who is Penelope and how can I help her?
(5:25) Rebrand?
(7:48) How can she tweak her homepage?
(11:20) She has two different URLs
(15:45) What about testimonials?
(17:50) Pros and Cons to sales pages
(18:44) Email list
(22:21) Starting back at the beginning is hard
(25:50) Start Simple
(31:00) Should she use Silver in the branding since it's her last name?

Resources

5 Day Challenge – Get More Traffic To Your Website
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