If you’ve got a business you need to have a good website.
It doesn’t have to be fancy, it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to design, or any money for that matter, but it does need to be well thought out and give the right impression and the information that your potential clients or customers are looking for.
April Hiatt is with us today with ALL the tips to make your website shine!
She explains why social media is not the same as a website and why you can’t rely on a fb page or Instagram profile to be your home on the web.
She is sharing the 5 things that every website needs to include, website do’s and don’ts and how to maximize your site to increase your email list signups.
If you have a website already or if you are just planning your site – you will get at least a few tips from this episode that you will want to implement right away.
And April is wrapping it all up with a free design your website mini course – we’ll talk about it at the end of the episode.
Its time to get your website sorted - so lets get into it!
LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:
Connect with April: https://www.aprilhiatt.com/
Make this the year that changes EVERYTHING.
Now offering limited spots in our full day “Done with You” Success Blueprint Days for personalized marketing and strategy to propel you to your biggest year ever!
CLICK TO: BOOK MY DAY
If you’ve got a business you need to have a good website.
It doesn’t have to be fancy, it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to design, or any money for that matter, but it does need to be well thought out and give the right impression and the information that your potential clients or customers are looking for.
April Hiatt is with us today with ALL the tips to make your website shine!
She explains why social media is not the same as a website and why you can’t rely on a fb page or Instagram profile to be your home on the web.
She is sharing the 5 things that every website needs to include, website do’s and don’ts and how to maximize your site to increase your email list signups.
If you have a website already or if you are just planning your site – you will get at least a few tips from this episode that you will want to implement right away.
And April is wrapping it all up with a free design your website mini course – we’ll talk about it at the end of the episode.
Its time to get your website sorted - so lets get into it!
LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:
Connect with April: https://www.aprilhiatt.com/
Make this the year that changes EVERYTHING.
Now offering limited spots in our full day “Done with You” Success Blueprint Days for personalized marketing and strategy to propel you to your biggest year ever!
CLICK TO: BOOK MY DAY
Kristy: Hi April. Thank you so much for joining us on
the
April: podcast today. Hi, Christy. How are you? I am
Kristy: great.
April: Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks. I'm excited. Now today,
Kristy: we're gonna talk about all things websites, and we're gonna give everybody listening tons of actionable takeaways that they can use to either build or improve their websites.
But before we do that, can you tell us a little bit more about how you started before you became the website guru and exactly what it is
April: that you do? Yeah, you bet. So I kind of have an interesting backstory. So a couple of my, I have three kids and my youngest two have some mental health, struggles.
And so when they were teenagers and I was trying to find them help, I went online and I searched and I searched and I searched and I could not find. What I needed for them. Like I searched for months and could not find the [00:02:00] help that I needed. And so eventually, I was talking with a friend and she said, well, Hey, have you, you know, do you, have you heard of this company?
And I said, well, no, I haven't. Let me go look, 'em up online. So I did. And they had a horrible website, like horrible way back in the like blog spot days. And there was nothing on it. And, and so I looked and I said, and so then I saw her a few days later and she's like, Hey, did you check out this company?
And I said, I did, but I don't think they're what I'm looking for. Like, that's just not what I'm looking for. And she's like, no, it is. I promise you, you need to call them cuz this is exactly what you're looking for. And I thought, okay, I know you and I trust you, so I will give them a call. So I did, I called and they really were exactly what I was looking for.
And my, children got the help they needed. They had like programs for moms and they had all this cool stuff. And so I started working with them just in that realm. And while I was doing that, I thought you guys need a better website, cuz I would have never [00:03:00] found you. If somebody hadn't told me who you were.
And I've never built a website before. I've never done it. And so I said, really, you guys need something better. And they said, okay, go ahead. Why don't you do it? And I was like, oh, I meant somebody else do that. Like, you need a better website, but that wasn't gonna be me.
And they said, no, really? Who, who else? Like, you know what people are looking for? You're a mom. You knew what people needed to hear and what they needed to see and read or whatever. So really you're the best person to do it. So if you could go figure that out, then we will hire you to build our website. So I did, and I went and went through like tons of courses and learned lots of stuff and whatever, and turns out this particular business had like 10 different programs and.
You know, lots of stuff. So this one little project turned into a big project and then they had, more people that got referred to me. And so I just, I, I found in doing that, that I loved it. I [00:04:00] thought, wow, why have I not been doing this my whole life? I totally loved this. And so anyway, one thing turned into another and I just kept learning and learning and built a business out of it.
And six years later here I am. So. There we go, oh, I love that. That's amazing.
Kristy: So rather than having hiring a web designer to build a website for their ideal customer, they had their ideal customer build them a website.
April: yeah. That's exactly what they did. Yeah. Because I knew what moms were looking for and I knew what was missing and what I wasn't finding when I was searching the internet.
So they're like, yeah, you're the perfect person. You know, to put on there, what people are looking for, cuz you know exactly what it is.
Kristy: That's amazing. That's amazing. So now you have, ,a range of clients and you do a range of, of services on, on building websites, right?
April: Yes I do. I work mostly with service based businesses.
To be honest with you as simply because. In all honesty. I can build the product based ones. I just don't like it. It's more genius . [00:05:00] And so, and when I was, was in the service realm, my kids needed counselors, they needed help. And so that's just the area that I've specialized in, but the basics for building a website, no matter what your business is, are pretty much the same.
Yeah.
Kristy: Yeah. Okay. And we'll dig into that too. Before we dig into your web genius, I think a good place to start is to explain why it's important. Although you did a little bit there with your story, why it's important to have a website and not just social media links. And we, we talked about this before. I do a whole thing on, , on one of our live trainings where.
I don't care what business you're in. You need a web presence, even if you never sell a thing online, you need cuz that's the first thing people do is they go to your site to check you out. It needs to look professional. It doesn't have to be a hundred pages. It can be one page, but it needs to look good and it needs to give them information.
Right. Right. It's one of my pet
April: pees because people get, they get overwhelmed. Right. They think
Kristy: they need like the, you know, the $20,000 website and they [00:06:00] don't, but they need something. Right. So. So why, why do you say that it's important to have not just social media
April: links? Well, the biggest thing is, is you don't own your social media so they can shut you down anytime you want.
The other problem with just social media is social media is. Scrolling like people, if they find your Facebook page and they follow your, whatever, they're sitting on their phone, they're sitting at the doctor's office or, you know, wherever and they're scrolling through it and they see something they're like, oh, okay.
And they just keep scrolling. But if they really wanna get to know you, they're gonna go to your website and check you out. I mean, if we, and, and you said this Christie, if we think about how we do things, when somebody says, Hey, you should really go try. Thing or, you know, even if a friend recommends a business to you, what is the very first thing you do?
You don't go to Facebook or Instagram and look them up. You don't, you go to their website first. That's almost always the first thing that we do when we're [00:07:00] trying to find out about a business. So that's where, I mean, it is the face of your business online. that's where people find you, they find out about you, they find out your services and then yeah, you wanna have social media, but you always wanna direct people back to your website, because again, you own it.
You decide what goes on there. You don't have, you know, Facebook people telling you what can go on there and what can't go on there. Um, and it's a place to send people. If somebody says, Hey, Christie, what do you do? You can say, Hey, you know, I do this amazing thing here. Go check out my website and then they can go look you up
Kristy: right away.
And I know if, if somebody and I, I run across 'em sometimes too where people just have their social media, it feels like they're not really serious about the business, right? Like it's, it's, it's kind of their one foot in one foot out. They haven't got around to doing a website yet. And in reality, they could have a site or at least a landing page.
April: You know, in a day. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You, I mean, I'm a website designer, but you don't have to hire me to create your website. You really can. [00:08:00] There's so many non-coding page builder things out there. Get something up and then yeah. It, it, it to, it just doesn't look professional. You don't look like a real business if you don't have a website.
Yeah. Agreed. So
Kristy: what should every website have at the bare minimum? What elements should we have?
April: So I'm gonna talk about five specific things that every website should include. And then after that, I'll talk a little bit about some of the pages that people should have. And again, you can have a one page website that's totally fine.
And then if you do it in a one page website. So when I get to the point that I talk about pages, just know you could have sections in your website as people scroll down. So I'm gonna start first with the five things that your website should include. And the number one is. A clear hero section. And let me tell you what a hero section is.
So a hero section is the very first thing that people see when they get to your website. [00:09:00] So they get on their computer or they get on their phone, they type in your website address. What's that very first part that pops up at the top of the page. And you, I mean, that is prime real estate right there.
That's the first thing people are gonna see. So make it count, like, make sure that that has the information on it that people are gonna need to know. So I call it the five second test. When somebody gets to your website, do they know who you help, how you help them, how it benefits them and what they're supposed to do in the first five seconds.
So they get there and they look and they're. Oh, I'm looking for an accountant who helps me with my taxes. And so then they look at the website and they go, yep. This is, this is an accountant. And she does personal taxes and she'll help me with my LLC. Yep. This is the person I, I, this is the right website.
If I get there. And it says like, I don't know, something like, turn your money into cash tomorrow. I'm like, you know, that's not what I'm looking for. And then I'll move to the next website [00:10:00] or something else. Five seconds. And the best way to do this test is to. Find a person who's never looked at your website before, pull it up, let 'em look at it literally for five seconds on a screen and then turn the screen away and ask 'em Hey, what, what do I do?
Can you tell me what my business is? And then, you know, if you wanted to work with me, what are you supposed to do? So just ask them those basic questions and you'll know really fast. If, if you have a clear hero section and remember you can't scroll, that's the thing. Like they have to be able to get there and not scroll.
And be able to answer those questions. So that's number one, a clear hero section. Number two, kind of goes along with the hero section is make sure that you have an obvious call to action. Like what is somebody supposed to do when they get on your site? Cause if they get there and you don't tell them, they don't know, they're like, oh, well this is interesting.
Huh? She's a really cool accountant. Nice. Okay. Moving on. And then [00:11:00] they'll just go to the next one, cuz you didn't tell 'em how to get ahold of you or what they were supposed to do or whatever. So make sure you tell people what to do. And that could be something simple. Like if, if you're, for example, if you're a coaching business, a lot of times people aren't gonna be ready to sign up for your coaching right away.
They don't know you. They don't know anything about you they're they don't trust you yet. So give them something else to do. This is a really good place to put your freebie or your lead magnet, right in the beginning, give them something simple. And then they can start to get to know you. You can nurture 'em through your emails.
So your call to action can be something really simple, like your lead magnet. That's what mine is. You go to my website, the very first thing you're gonna see a lead magnet. You're gonna see to opt into that. Cause I get it. You don't know me. You don't trust me. You don't know anything about me, so I'm not gonna jump right to.
Hey, let's go spend a whole bunch of money with April and have her build my website. It's gonna be more like let's find [00:12:00] out about her and see who she is first. And then let me see if I wanna work with her or not. So anyway, have an obvious call to action and it's gotta be
Kristy: that first small, next step that they're gonna be comfortable with.
Got
April: it, right? Yeah. So something simple. All right. Number three. Be sure to tell people what services you offer. Don't assume that people can guess that because you're an accountant that you do taxes. Like I know that you would think, oh, that's so obvious, but it's really not obvious all the time. So one of the, I work with a lot of coaches and therapists and kind of in that realm, but one of the mistakes I see often is people up in their little five second session will say, hi, I'm a life coach.
Okay. What does that mean? Like that doesn't tell me anything. I, I have a life. I don't need a coach like . And so that, that's what I'm thinking. I'm looking at it and I'm like, wow, I don't need a coach. I'm good. But maybe I'm struggling in my marriage. And so you could say. [00:13:00] I'm a relationship coach who helps people in their marriage.
And so then the services that you offer are coaching, or you offer a course or you offer a, you know, like a group coaching program or you offer a workshop or you offer like, What are the services that you offer that are specific to what it is that you do? So just tell people what, what you do and the services you offer.
So they know, okay. If I work with this person, these are the things that I can do for them.
Kristy: Yeah. And use the language that they would use. Right. So that they recognize that we, we tend to use. Industry jargon sometimes, or words that we're familiar with that may not resonate. Just like you said, if I see life coach, I may not know exactly what that means, but if you spell it out for me, what you're doing in my own words, then it's a lot easier to.
Okay. Oh
April: yeah, for sure. Yeah. That's gonna be one of the, the don'ts I talk about too, but yeah, that jargon in words. And like, I, I see that really often somebody will say something I'm like, I don't know what that means. And [00:14:00] E and I find myself doing it. Okay. So I'm in the website world and I'll say SEO and people are like, , What is SEO again?
Like what does that mean? So I have to catch myself too. Like, it's something we all have to look at, so for sure. , all right. Number four, visually display the success of your customer. So I'll give you an example really quick. And then, , I'll anyway, I'll tell you what that means, but I went to a website and , the gal was she called herself a gut coach.
Like she helps you with like stomach pain or whatever. And every picture was like, people doubled over in pain, like hunched over. And I was like, well, I don't want that. Like, cuz the first thing you see when you get to the website is you see, before you read, like the images are gonna click in your head, your brain's gonna see the images before you actually read the text.
And so I just like glanced at the website and I. Oh, my gosh, all those people are in so much pain. Like, I dunno what a vet coach is, but I don't want [00:15:00] it. right. Yeah. I'm like, I, I have that pain, but I don't want anymore. Those people are way worse off than I am, like no way. So make sure you include images of your customers having success.
Like you could have a before and after, you know, you could have had the, you know, with like, Gut this lady that helped with, you know, gut pain, you could have it before, but make sure you have a really big after. So, you know, just show your clients, having success, cuz remember, people are gonna see before they read.
And the reality is not. Everybody's gonna read everything on your website. There's a lot of words and they're gonna scan it and they're not gonna read it all. But they will see the pictures. So make sure you have really good pictures. and just a little tip. , since I'm really big on this. If you're looking for images, there are like several websites that you can get stock photos for free.
Just make sure they're royalty free and able to use on a commercial website. But three of my favorites [00:16:00] are Unsplash. So UN S P L a S H unsplash.com. P pixels and it's P E X E L s.com and PAB bay. So P I X a, B a y.com. Those are my three go-tos. There's like six or seven others out there, but they're all free.
They're all. I mean, they're free to download. You can get different sizes. You can change 'em up. You can, you know, and there's tons and tons of images. What you don't wanna do is go to Google and find one you like, and copy it. Don't ever do that. Go to a, go to a place where you can get the free ones for so many
Kristy: reasons for copyright issues, for image equality, for, for all the reasons.
Yeah. I really like Unsplash I use that one a lot too. It's cuz it's got, , really artsy kind of looking photos sometimes. Yeah. Good one. Okay. Yeah.
April: Unsplash is awesome. It's one of my favorites. So anyway. All right. And then the number five is. Make sure that you tell people how they can hire you, how they can contact you.[00:17:00]
I've gone to a lot of websites. There's no contact information. I look on it and I think, oh, this is awesome. Yeah, this is great. I wanna talk to this person. Where is it? Like I can't find it. There are some places they are intuitive. So a couple of tips. When you put your contact information in there, make sure it's in a place that's intuitive.
Either at the very top of your website, you can have it front and center at the top, or you can have a contact page or also at the very bottom and you can put it in both places. Don't feel like you can only put it in one or the other and then give people steps. So as they're scrolling through your website and they're on, you know, maybe section three or four and they're like, yeah, you know what.
I really like this. This is, you know, I wanna hire this accountant today. What do I do next? So give them steps. Number one, number two, number three, tell 'em exactly what they're supposed to do every step of the way. Don't think people will figure it out because we're all lazy. When we get on websites, we just, well, at, at the end of the day, we always just want somebody to tell us what to do.
[00:18:00] Just make it easy for me. Tell me how to contact you. Tell me what to do to hire you. Just 1, 2, 3. Tell me what I'm supposed to do and what's coming. And that's it. Your website doesn't have to look perfect, but if I know what I'm supposed to do, I'm there, I'm gonna do it.
Kristy: Yeah. And you know, and people they take in information differently.
Right. Because some people will read a lot of the text mm-hmm and stuff like I'm a scanner. So I'm gonna read the headlines. And I'm gonna infer from that, what I need to know as well. So to, have that information presented both ways, I think is important too, right. To have the headlines really hit the, a summary of the information that's under it so that people can scan through, because I will, I will scan right through to the bottom.
And if I didn't get the information I needed, I might go back. I might not .
April: Right. Yeah, for sure. And you know what, the another thing you can do. To help with the scanning, as you can bold certain phrases. So if , you wanna have, like you said, Chris, you wanna have the headlines on there that most people will read the [00:19:00] headlines and then they'll kind of scan through the rest.
But if you've bolded out certain words in the paragraphs below, Almost guaranteed. People will see what's bolded just because their eye is drawn to it. And then another thing, this is just a little tip since we're on that, but when you put images next to text, make sure the images are pointing to the text.
If you have a person that's looking a certain direction, so if they're looking to the right, make sure the words are to the right. You're kind of directing. where their eyes go. And sometimes what I've had to do is like flip the image. There are, , I don't know, different places online. You could do, it's all free, but if you find an image that's technically pointing the wrong way, just flip the image around and then you have it pointing the right direction.
But anyway, just a little tip
Kristy: since we're right there, tip, I've never noticed that, but I'm sure, subconsciously I've noticed it. That's a great tip. Okay. Thank you. So one of the key functions for, for [00:20:00] our site is to collect emails, right? So that people can stay in touch with this, and we can build that relationship with them.
Most of us do that with a lead magnet of some kind. Can you walk us through that
process?
April: Yeah, you bet. A lead magnet or a freebie, or, like you said, you wanna have something to collect email addresses because again, people probably aren't gonna, , schedule a call with you right at the beginning.
So you wanna have that front and center at the top of your website at the very beginning, you get people on your email. But don't stop there. One of the mistakes that I see is people will put their lead magnet in one place and then never talk about it again. Put it at the top of your website, put it in the footer, put it on every blog post.
If you have blogs on your website, you should have a sidebar that has a picture of your lead magnet that people can click on it. There. You should talk about it in the blog post. If you have, a blog about, oh, I'm gonna say about [00:21:00] websites that you're talking about dos and don'ts for your website then, and you have a little download on like planning or something, how to plan your website, or you have like a website audit.
Put it right there in the blog post that they can do it. You can have on my website, I have in my footer, I have a couple of different freebies, but I have in my footer, like a picture of every single one of them. So it is on every single page. You always wanna make sure you're collecting email addresses.
That is where your business is gonna come from. Most people are gonna go to your website. They're gonna get the information they're gonna find out about you. But the sales that you make are almost always gonna come from your, your email address. So get every person that gets on your website, your number one goal is to get them on your email address list to get 'em in there somewhere.
Cause life is so
Kristy: busy. we see some and even if I'm interested in something. I'm gonna forget in five minutes and certainly five days from now when I'm like, oh, what was that thing?
April: I won't
Kristy: be able to remember who you were or how [00:22:00] I found you. I'll actually, sometimes I'll go to a site and even if I don't want the lead magnet necessarily, it might not be something specifically that I'm interested in, but I'm interested in.
Remembering that website as a whole, I'll just sign up for the lead magnet so that it'll come back into my inbox and remind me in a week, , and I'll get their emails so I can stay in touch with them that way. So, yeah, that's so important and I love the, the idea of just putting it in the footer, because then it automatically shows up on every page of your site rather than you having to, and then popups too.
I mean, it's got a, if you've got an
April: email
Kristy: platform that you use, like mail chamber Clavio, or those guys, they they'll, they can do popups or the, some of the site, Platforms have popup functionality built in, right?
April: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And popups are great. It's kind of nice on a popup. If you can set it to wait like three seconds before it comes up, because popups are annoying, but they're very effective.
Like everybody hates them, but they are really, really effective, but it's really nice if. Like, if somebody gets to your [00:23:00] website and the pop ups right there, you just click away and you don't even look at it cuz you haven't had a chance to even look at who they are yet. So if you can delay the popup like three to five seconds, like five seconds, right.
We have the five second rule on the beginning of their website. Delay it about that long and then have it pop up or you could have different popups that come up on a related page. If you happen to have two, you don't have to have more than one freebie, but if you did, you could have a freebie, you know, one that pops up on your main page.
And then if you have something that's specific to another page, you could have a different popup, but give people a second to look at your page before the popup, and then they'll be more interested in what it is. They'll be like, oh, oh yeah. I was reading about Christie. Okay. This is really cool. Yeah. Let me go ahead and sign up for this and then they'll go ahead and do.
I really like , if you have
Kristy: it, the capability on your platform for it is the exit intent ones too, where it can tell if you are about to leave the page with your mouse and then it, you have a [00:24:00] relevant popup that comes up and says, Hey, before you go, I think those are great too, because then you are you're on your way out anyway.
April: So you may as well sign up for something before you leave. Yeah, those are awesome too. Thanks for that. Those are great. So what
Kristy: are you, I know you've probably got a ton of things that you see working on all of these sites that you're like, oh my gosh, what is going on here? So tell us what are some of the common mistakes that you see that we should avoid?
And if we've got them, if we recognize
April: ourself in this and we , we realize that we
Kristy: have this on our own website, that we should probably
April: go back and have a look. Right. You bet. Okay. So let me start with some, we'll start with the positive, you know? Okay. Like, do you want the good news or the bad news? So we'll start with the good news first.
, a few website dues, make sure that you're doing this. And, and a lot of these we talked about, so I'll say 'em and then, you know, I'll go quick, but make sure you that your website is clear and easy to understand it doesn't do anybody any good. If you're just. Talking in generalities, if you're, you know, [00:25:00] whatever, just make sure it's clear and easy to understand clear beats, clever every single time.
If you have a niche statement, which you should have a niche statement. And if not, I know Christie has a podcast on it, a few back, cuz I listen to it like not too long ago, go back and get that. Make sure it's on there. Tell people who you are and what you do. If you help moms with school-aged kids who wanna learn about crafts and activities, say that by help moms with school-aged kids who wanna learn crafts, like tell people, but you, you don't have to be, Really clever about it.
Just be clear, don't be vague people. Don't figure stuff out. I'm sorry. We're all smart, but when we're on the internet, we just want things handed to us. Like, I don't know. That's our culture nowadays. , talk about people's problems and how you solve them. If there's a specific problem you're solving.
Tell me what that is, because if you think about it, when you're looking for something, you're looking for a specific solution. So for my example, when my kids were having some mental health [00:26:00] struggles and they were teenagers, I was specifically looking for somebody that worked with teenagers and worked with their specific mental health issue.
That's what I was looking for. And when I was looking and the websites are like, we help anybody. And I work with, all ages and all. Modalities is the big word. And I'm like, I don't even know what that means, but okay. And then there's like all these things I'm reading. And I was like, Nope, Nope.
I don't know what you're talking about. So, Nope. Like I just needed somebody just talk to me in English and talk about my problem and say, I can fix this problem. Tell people what problem it is that you solve. So, all right. And then a couple other things we talked about collect email addresses every single time, make your website scanable instead of big paragraphs use bulleted items, you, you know, use, , bolding, you can change up and use AALS.
Those types of things, , make sure that you're really consistent with your branding. I always tell people before you ever build your website, [00:27:00] Kind of get your brand guide together, make your logo, pick your colors, pick your fonts, decide on what that is. And you can change it down the road.
Don't spend five weeks on this. Just pick something, go for it and then make sure you're consistent all the way through. Don't pick 12 different colors and change all the, you know, the fonts to different things. Pick two and just go for it. It matters.
Kristy: Right? And because , you think, oh, it doesn't matter what font I pick and I can change it here and I can change it here.
And maybe no one will actually consciously notice it, but unconsciously, they notice they notice if it's consistent and if it's consistent, not only throughout, but if it's consistent with your branding, if you've got fun fonts and you've got an elegant. Logo. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't feel
April: right.
Right. And you know what the, and, and what you said is, is exactly what happens is people look at something and they go, I don't quite know why this feels weird, but it feels weird to me. Yeah. And they can't figure it out, but it may be because you [00:28:00] have. An elegant, like you said, an elegant theme and then some weird, , font that just, doesn't match the tone that you're trying to give.
So figure all of that out first and then be consistent. Every single page should kind of look like the other ones. They all wanna look the same and your website should look like your Facebook page should look like your Instagram. Should look like everything that you're doing should all be consistent and look the same.
And then people know right off the bat, they're in the right place. They're like, oh yeah, there's April, she's the purples or, whatever colors. And they just will mentally like, without even consciously thinking about it. They know they're in the right place and then they don't have to think it.
Couple of other, tips for you are, um, link your pages to each other. A lot of people don't do this, but if you're on your main page or whatever, and you say a little thing, like if you want to schedule an appointment, contact me. Link it to your contact page. Link your pages to each other.
If you have blog posts or [00:29:00] blog articles, link the articles to each other, and that actually helps with the search edge and stuff. And this, this podcast isn't about that, but just link to yourself. It will help you is basically what I'm saying. , couple of other things make sure you've got testimonials include those.
Use easy to read fonts. There are some fonts, especially cursive ones that are really hard to read and us women. I don't know what it is about women, but we love our cursive fonts and there's a lot of websites with cursive fonts. And cursive fonts are okay if you can read them. But again, take that and, and like show it to somebody who's never read your website and ask them if they know what the word is that you've written in cursive, cuz some cursive fonts are easier to read than others.
Just make sure your fonts are readable. Guys have a really hard time reading cursive font. So if you, If your target market is men. just don't use cursive phones or kids
Kristy: or kids because now that they don't even learn it in [00:30:00] school anymore. Right. It's like a, it's like a secret code for kind of what is it?
Like 1820 plus mm-hmm so if, if you don't want the kids to be able to read
April: it, then maybe use cursive. Right. You know what? You're right. That's totally true. Yeah. Yeah. My kids get read cursive at all. It's so funny. . Couple of other things, uh, this is a big one. Make sure your website is mobile optimized guaranteed.
Like 75% of the people looking at your website are looking at it on their phone. They might look at it on a computer, down the road, but they're gonna be looking at it on their phone. So make sure it looks good on a phone. And one of the big mistakes that I see often with that is. When people put words over the top of a picture, you gotta make sure you can read the words.
So it might look great on a computer, but then when it gets smaller and it goes on a phone, if you can't read the words over the top of the, then move them down, do something, but just make sure words on top of a picture can be [00:31:00] read really well. And you don't want words on somebody's. We just don't need it to say hi, I'm April over the top of my face.
I just, just don't put the words there, so make sure it looks good on a mobile. And then the last thing is, this is one that people don't really think about. It's okay to repeat things like, for example, your lead magnet, put it on there more than one time, have it in a popup, have it in like 12 different buttons, have it on a sidebar, have it in your footer, like have it in lots of different places, because remember people are coming to your website from different places and they might come into a different page or not scroll all the way down on one and click over to another.
And just don't assume that everybody's reading everything. So give them lots of opportunities. To do the things that you really want them to do, either sign up schedule with you or, you know, get on your email list. So don't be afraid to repeat things. And then I'll just go a couple of things to watch out for.
We talked about not using [00:32:00] the jargon words or making it vague. Couple of other things. Don't make your website all about you. People don't really care. I know that's totally harsh, but I, they just don't care about you. They wanna know if you can help them. So you wanna tell your backstory, but make sure that you relate it to them in.
And what that means is like, you can talk about. Here's where I started and here's how I overcame that. And now I can help you with this problem, and now you're talking to them. So make sure you're talking about them, especially about pages, about pages are like the number two red website page. So the number one is the homepage and the second most red page is the about page.
But again, your about page really? Isn't about you. Like, I don't care if you started your business with your grandma a hundred years ago, and you're the number one, whatever, like, I'm sorry, I just don't care about that. How are you gonna help me? That's really what I wanna know. Like, tell me a little about maybe where you came from and then related to me and make [00:33:00] it about me, cuz I'm really selfish and I wanna know about me so I didn't
Kristy: know.
That was the second most red page. That's interesting.
April: Yeah. Yeah. And, and so it's a big one. If you have an about page and you should, make it work for you, like that's a really good page that people, and in the about page is the most red page. Like people will skim the homepage and decide, yes, I'm gonna learn more about this person.
If they click your about page, they're actually interested in what you have to say, and they're gonna read it more than scan it. So make what you put there worth something and make it about them. Just remember it's about them.
Kristy: Valuable real estate. Okay. Noted. I'm gonna go back and look at our about, about
April: us page.
right. And then just my very last tip is. Don't feel like you have to put everything you do and everything you offer on your website. It's too overwhelming for people. Less is more so if you do 20 things, pick your top [00:34:00] three. What are your, the top three things that most people are asking you for? What are the top three services and list those?
It doesn't mean that people won't ask you about other stuff. It's just too much. If you throw everything on there, it's like a buffet. You're like, oh my gosh, this is so big. But you know, or have you ever eaten at, cheesecake factory? Okay. Their menu is like giant norm. What is it like 20 pages or something?
I sit there forever and can't decide what I want to eat. Cuz I'm like, this is way too long. So just, you know, gimme like three things and then I can pick something. But if there's too many on there, I, I just I'm too overwhelmed. I can't pick anything. Or even to categorize
Kristy: things, we just actually had a, um, ,a woman.
I was mentoring and we were looking at her website and she had. 30 different things that she offered. And she had them all listed on her homepage and it was like, wow,
April: you open up the page. I can't even read all of
Kristy: these things. Never mind decide what I want. So we broke it down and we categorized it really, they were three different [00:35:00] categories of services and that's what she put on the homepage.
And then she brought them down on a, on a later page. If they click through to that service, then she broke it down kind of more. But yeah, it's overwhelming when you get to that homepage and. You know, a million things,
April: right? Oh yeah. Yeah. And that's perfect. If you can categorize it and then have like a learn more and people can go to that page and learn just about all the services in that category.
That's perfect. But yeah, otherwise it's just really overwhelming. And then the other, just the last thing you wanna do too, I said the last one was the last one, but I really have one more, sorry. Is just make your website intuitive. A lot of people are trying so hard. To be creative and make it look amazing and do all these new cool and fancy things.
But remember when somebody gets there, they're gonna look at the top for the navigation. Like if they want a menu, they're gonna look at the top. If they wanna contact you, they're gonna look for a contact page. If they, I mean, there are some things that are intuitive for people don't hide that stuff.
[00:36:00] Don't put it in weird places or they can't find it. They get frustrated and they'll just leave your website.
Kristy: Right. Any way you can decrease resistance. And that goes with the, script fonts, right? The cursive fonts makes it harder to read. It's they're not gonna read as much, or if they can't find the navigation, anything that makes it harder, no matter how cool it is, is not helping.
April: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Those are
Kristy: great tips. That is so much great stuff there to unpack. Thank you so much for that, information, because that's really useful, especially, and it doesn't matter if we're starting our site for the first, it's actually great. If you're just starting your site,
April: because now you can do it right, right from the get go rights.
Fabulous.
Kristy: But I am willing to bet that every single woman entrepreneur that's listening to this has heard something in this podcast and gone.
April: Ooh. I should look at that. I know I heard a couple, but I'm
Kristy: gonna go back and look. So I really, really appreciate that. Now, before we, before we sign off here, one more question for you.
April: Okay. And this does not have to be related to websites or it can
Kristy: be, what is your best piece of advice [00:37:00] for newer women entrepreneurs?
April: My best piece of advice is just to go for it. Like, what you wanna do, you know, you wanna help people don't wait, just jump in, just go for it. And if you're like me, you're kind of a perfectionist and you're like, well, I gotta get this done first.
And I gotta get this done first. And I gotta do this first. And no, you don't like you don't just, just go for it. Just put something out there and just, just go and, and you know what, here's the thing. If you're a perfectionist. You can change stuff. It's okay. What you do on day one? Doesn't have to be what it looks like a year from now, because the reality is when you start your business.
You're kind of putting a hypothesis out there. You're kind of saying I'm, I'm pretty sure this is what I wanna do. And I'm pretty sure this is my niche statement, but let me put it out there and test it and see what feedback I get from people that I talk to from people actually going to my website from people that I'm working [00:38:00] with and then make adjustments along the way, my business doesn't.
Anything today, like it did three years ago or even one year ago, it's always kind of adapting and changing as I see what people react to and what they don't. So the only way you're gonna find out what's working for you is to put something out there and see if it's working for you. So don't hesitate.
Count down 3, 2, 1, and just go, just go for it.
Kristy: That is great advice. Cause so much learning in the doing of it. Right. Love that. Oh,
April: absolutely. Now April has, which is absolutely perfect.
Kristy: If you, are you listening today? And you've got some, some. Website planning website, tweaking that you wanna do. April has a free minicourse on planning your website with worksheets and a planning guide download and all of those things.
So she's got that for us for free, which is amazing. Thank you April. And it's right on her site. What is the site? April? Give it to us. Now, and then I'll also put it in the show
April: notes. All right. You bet it is. It's [00:39:00] really creative. It's April hyat.com and Hyat is spelled H I a TT. So it's April, just like the month Hyat but I'll, I'll tell you one other little, little trick.
If you have a name like mine, where people often spell it wrong. By both domains. So really if you typed my name wrong, April Hyatt, H Y ATG, it would just take you to the real place. So yeah, April hyat.com and you just set up a redirect. That is clever. Yes. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
Kristy: use that. I'm gonna add that to my notes.
So we're gonna put that in the show notes as well. So you don't have to remember that it will be in the show notes, but if you're on a platform where you can't. See the show notes. You can also always go to our podcast website, which is the same as the name as the, as the podcast. It's one step empire.com.
The episode, the links, all the good stuff. Is there all the other episodes are there. So one step empire.com. it is there for you 24 7. Well, thank you so much for being here with us today, April. I really,
April: really appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for having me. This was great.[00:40:00]