Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
How to DIY Your Website with Kate Hejde
When I’m looking for a service, the website truly makes or breaks whether or not I’ll take the next step with a company.
However, when we’re busy with the day to day of our business, it can be difficult to find the time to work on our website and keep it up to date. Because we aren’t searching for our own services, our websites can tend to be well .. out of sight, out of mind.
So today, I brought on my friend Kate to chat about what’s important when you’re DIYing your website, and how to know if your website is actually selling your services for you.
Kate Hejde of Dear Kate Brand Strategy, is on a mission to help you launch a website that not only sells your services effortlessly but also is a site you’re proud to show off! She empowers service providers to build the thriving business they imagined, through website coaching, showit templates, and her podcast How You Pictured It.
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Want even more help simplifying your marketing and business? Love the Chasing Simple podcast? If so, I want to invite you to join me on Monday evenings at 4:00 pm Pacific time/7:00 pm Eastern time for my weekly YouTube Lives. Each week I’ll have a topic for the week, but after my short 5-minute teaching, you’ll have the chance to ask me questions about your marketing and get an answer from me in real time. Until now, the only way to get this kind of access to me was through my membership, courses, or 1:1 services. But now, all you have to do is show up live with me on Mondays! You can find my channel by searching for my handle on YT – @mrsamandawarfield or by heading to amandawarfield.com/youtube/ – I hope to see you Monday!
- HotJar
- Get a Month of ShowIt Free
- Kate’s Website Launch Accelerator
- Listen to Episode 40 of the How You Pictured It Podcast – The Choose Your Own Adventure Guide to Building a Strategic Website
- This week’s action step if you don’t have a website yet: Choose a platform (we both recommend ShowIt) and Snag Kate’s Website that Sells Workbook
- This week’s action step if you do have a website: Add a quarterly review to your calendar and snag Kate’s Website Report Card
- This week’s book recommendation: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and Made to Stick Chip and Dan Heath
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
Kate Hejde (hide) of Dear Kate Brand Strategy, is on a mission to help you launch a website that not only sells your services effortlessly but also is a site you’re proud to show off! She empowers service providers to build the thriving business they imagined, through website coaching, showit templates, and her podcast How You Pictured It.
Social Links:
Instagram.com/dearkatebrandstrategy
Did you love this episode?
Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.
Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic
Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
Amanda Warfield: When I’m looking for a service, the website of a company truly makes or breaks whether or not I’m going to take the next step with them. However, when we’re busy with the day to day of our business, it can be difficult to find the time to work on our website and keep it up to date. Because we aren’t searching for our own services, our websites can tend to be, well, Out of sight, out of mind.
Amanda Warfield: So today I brought on my friend Kate to chat about what’s important when you’re DIYing your website and how to know if your website is actually selling your services for you. Kate Hyde of Dear Kate Brand Strategy is on a mission to help you launch a website that not only sells your services effortlessly, but also is a site you’re proud to show off.
Amanda Warfield: She empowers service providers to build the thriving business they imagined through website coaching, show it templates, and her podcast, How You Pictured It. You’re listening to episode 211 of the Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.
Amanda Warfield: com / planner.
Amanda Warfield: How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?
Amanda Warfield: Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head. When you think of marketing welcome friend, this is chasing simple or practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content, marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of chasing simple marketing.
Amanda Warfield: I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. So that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.
Amanda Warfield: When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as the Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.
Amanda Warfield: Reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing isn’t there.
Amanda Warfield: is the thing that they started their business to do. Which is why I’m here. To help make marketing simple and less time consuming. So that you can spend less time on your marketing, and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.
Amanda Warfield: So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we? Want even more help simplifying your marketing and business?
Amanda Warfield: Love the Chasing Simple Podcast? If so, I want to invite you to join me on Monday evenings at 4pm Pacific time, 7pm Eastern time for my weekly YouTube lives. Each week, I’ll have a topic for the week, but after my short 5 minute teaching, you’ll have the chance to ask me questions about your marketing and get an answer from me in real time.
Amanda Warfield: Until now, the only way to get this kind of access to me was through my membership, courses, or one on one services. But now, All you have to do is show up live with me on Mondays. You can find my channel by searching for my handle on YouTube at Mrs. Amanda Warfield or by heading to amandawarfield. com slash YouTube.
Amanda Warfield: I hope to see you Monday. Kate, I’m so excited to have you on finally. I feel like When we initially started talking about having you on, I was like, how is it possible that I haven’t had Kate on yet at this point? And so now that it’s been, I think, a year since we started talking about having you on, um, I really can’t believe I haven’t had you on yet.
Amanda Warfield: So for everyone that’s listening, just introduce yourself and what it is that you do.
Kate Hejde: Yeah, I’m Kate of Dear Kate Brand Strategy. I’m excited to be here. I am a brand strategist, a website coach, and a copywriter. I help people DIY their websites so that they can start selling their services without the social media hustle and get back to like the life that they really pictured when they started their business.
Amanda Warfield: I love that so much. Obviously, you know that I’m all about keeping it simple and I had a community call this morning with my membership and we were talking about the fact that social media is just not getting engagement and that it feels like you put so much work in right now and you’re not seeing the return and it just, it aligns so well with this because it is so important that you have a website.
Amanda Warfield: So, can you kind of tell the listeners why it is important that they have a website though? That actually is a conversation that came up with a potential client yesterday of just do I actually need a website? Can I just have a landing page or can I just get word of mouth? So why is it that a website is so important?
Kate Hejde: So if nothing else, a landing page is something. But having a piece of the internet that you own, that you can send everyone back to, is so valuable. It creates a place that Builds credibility and authority for you as a business. It’s a place where you can put all of your content, um, like your long form content, your blog posts.
Kate Hejde: If you’re a YouTuber, you can put your YouTube videos on your own website and that brings traffic to you. A website is a way that we can get traffic without having to like constantly put something out. It’s a long form or like not long form, long game way to get people into your business. So having like that SEO, that search engine optimization drives Google to your site and brings people in without, um, that constant like hustle.
Kate Hejde: It’s also bringing in people that are looking for you and your services. So they’re already like. I’m looking for a photographer. I’m looking for a coach. I’m looking for a copywriter. Whoever they’re looking for, they’re searching Google for you and they’re finding your website and they’re coming in as worm leads ready to buy.
Kate Hejde: You don’t have to convince them that they’re, that you’re something that they need. They already know that they need your service. So they’re coming in like ready to go and you just have to show them that you’re the right person with your website. Also, we know that like social media crashes constantly.
Kate Hejde: We’ve had a couple of Instagram crashes recently where it’s just gone down for hours during the day and your website is a place that you can drive people back to. I know that a lot of people find business through Instagram or through referrals, but you still have to have that website to back up those other sources.
Kate Hejde: If somebody goes to your Instagram and sees these beautiful photos or, you know, this great content and then goes to your website and your website doesn’t match, it Like really pulls back that like trust factor and makes people question if you’re a legitimate business. So having that, um, credibility in a website is huge.
Kate Hejde: And then the same thing with a referral. If I refer somebody to you and they go look you up and you have a horrible website, my My, like, friend that I referred to is going to be like, what were you thinking? Like, you know, like we want, we want to have a website that creates that authority and credibility.
Amanda Warfield: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you think about anytime a friend tells you about anything, you automatically Google it, right? Like, it’s never just a, okay, let me buy it immediately or let me book this person immediately. You. Always go look at a website, whether it’s a book that they’re talking about or a service like this.
Amanda Warfield: And so it is so important to have a website and one that actually works for your business and feels professional, because we have Um, tried to work with service providers in our area, particularly around like lawn care or home services, construction, things like that a lot in the last few years. And every single time, the one we book with is the one with the better website.
Amanda Warfield: It just is the way it is. And it’s not a conscious decision. It’s just, it really builds more know, like interest, which I feel like maybe isn’t talked about all that often as far as like, here’s why a good website is so important because In this day and age, it’s 2024. If your website looks like it was built on HTML, people are going to wonder, are you still in business?
Amanda Warfield: Are you legitimate? Are you just running a business outside of your truck? Which maybe they are, but you don’t necessarily want to look at it, right? You want to look like you have some kind of professionalism. Are you going to show up on time? Are you going to get the job done on time? All of those things.
Amanda Warfield: Subconsciously, if your website isn’t Looking nice, if it’s not professional, those are the thoughts that are going to be going through someone’s head.
Kate Hejde: Right, and it’s more than just how it appears to, it’s the words on the site and how you drive people through it, how you like lead them from like interested to buying and like create that connection before they even ever contact you.
Amanda Warfield: So how do you do that? That is something that I think we get wrong a lot in the creative industry. I know I struggle with this too with my website where. I’ve bought into the idea that it needs to look beautiful. I’ve got the shop website. It looks great, but every time I’ve gone through and done a major rebranding of my website, or just.
Amanda Warfield: You know, starting from scratch, I always struggle with the pathways and how to know what do I post on each page and what, how do I create a pathway and does that mean I can only put, you know, I, there are just so many questions that it feels so overwhelming. So when it comes to deciding how to lead people through your website, where do you even begin?
Kate Hejde: Well, there are really great like frameworks that exist in copywriting. So there are ways that we work people through each page and from page to page, like what kind of flow we want them to go through. But we also don’t have control over where someone lands on our website. Google might show them a blog post first or, you know, your services page or your homepage.
Kate Hejde: We don’t know. They could land on your about page. So we have to kind of have that in mind and make sure that we make all of our navigation really clear. And like easy for people to understand and a lot of it is testing and seeing like once you’ve built the site, great, but let’s also like look at the data and make sure that people are following the path that we think that they’re going to follow and then tweak from there.
Kate Hejde: But again, back to like the frameworks, there’s ways that you walk people through, like you start with getting their attention and then like making them understand that you understand them and then move into how, um, they can start to work with you or what driving them towards the paths that of information that they might need to know to make a buying decision.
Kate Hejde: And always having a lot of calls to action throughout to make it easy for them to click to the next thing. Now, not too many. We don’t want to give them overwhelm. We don’t want to be that cheesecake factory menu. We want to be like the nice like boutique restaurant with that prefix menu, you know, like that you’re going in and the meal is already like planned and you don’t have to worry about like, which, um, 17.
Kate Hejde: entries I’m going to choose from, there’s two options. Like we want to make it really clear and easy for people with our navigation and our calls to action throughout our site. That’s another big thing. Um, and then just thinking about how people talk. We talked about having a professional website, but we also want to make sure that we’re reaching them on their level and not using like jargon and words that they don’t understand.
Kate Hejde: We want to use conversational language and connect through that language. And that really does help drive that path forward as well through your site.
Amanda Warfield: So, if we, we want to drive people, the ultimate end goal is to our services page and we want to book more clients. What does that pathway look like if we’re trying to set up a pathway through our website to actually get people onto the services page?
Amanda Warfield: And what navigation, you mentioned that specifically, what navigation should we make sure that we have on our website?
Kate Hejde: Yeah, so I think it’s going to depend a little bit on what you do. Um, I recommend either having individual services pages if you have services that may target to different audiences. Um, like for a photographer, you might have newborn photography, wedding photography, and boudoir photography.
Kate Hejde: Those are three very different clients, but they can exist all on the same website. So in that instance, in my navigation, I would have newborn. boudoir wedding so people could find what they were looking for. The other option is if you have multiple services but that all kind of cater to the same person.
Kate Hejde: I would do like a work together page where you’re talking about the problem that you solve and then the three ways that you solve it as your service is all on the same page. Basically, with a services page, you’re talking specifically about one offer, how you’re going to help somebody with it. You’re going to put, uh, testimonials there.
Kate Hejde: You’re going to build credibility. You’re going to build that kind of like, no, I can trust factor. Tell them who you are, but that’s further down the page. So you’re just kind of like thinking through like, okay, if somebody lands on this page, what do they need to know first? First, they need to know that I know what their problem is.
Kate Hejde: Second, they need to know that I understand their problem and that there’s a different way to look at it or a way to solve it. There’s a different way that life could be. And then I can throw in some testimonials, throw in a little bit more about the offer, and you just kind of build upon that. You like go emotional, logical, emotional, logical, back and forth down the page and make sure that you’re putting those calls to action.
Kate Hejde: So once something triggers them, that they’re ready to click that contact button, it’s there for them to get to that contact page and start booking you.
Amanda Warfield: So if you have essentially one type of audience, and you’ve got multiple services, do you have the one page that’s like, here’s what I solve and all the ways I solve it, and then when they click on that, it takes them to another service page, or is it just that one service page?
Kate Hejde: It kind of depends on the offer and how complex it is. Um, in some instances, it’s just like one work together page. Here’s what I do and contact me to get more information. In other instances, you might have a sales page for a specific offer, um, that you lead them to from that, uh, services page. You could also even have like a button that says contact me or Learn more so they can either go straight to booking with you or get more information on a sales page depending on the person.
Kate Hejde: Some people want a lot of information, some people don’t. So you kind of have to think through like all of the different people that are visiting your site and how they might want to interact with it.
Amanda Warfield: And this is kind of going sideways a bit from what we’re talking about, but with CRM tools, how do you recommend that those work with your services page on your website as far as, well, HoneyBook has lead forums and brochures and, you know, is it something that Should your services page on your website be shorter so you can get them to those brochures or vice versa or yeah?
Amanda Warfield: What are your thoughts on that?
Kate Hejde: Yeah, and again, it kind of just depends on what you offer and who you’re offering it to. I always find that having at least like a starting price on your website is important in giving people an idea of like what you’re offering. You know, are, are we looking at something at a menu that says market price and I have no idea how much that steak’s going to cost me or am I looking at it and knowing like, okay, I’m in this range and it’s affordable for me.
Kate Hejde: I find when you don’t have pricing at all, it either makes people think they can’t afford you and so they don’t contact you or the opposite, like they have the budget, but. They don’t want to be bothered with asking. So going back to the CRM thing, I like to duplicate information a lot. So everything that’s on my site is kind of in my CRM proposals as well.
Kate Hejde: I want to make sure that I’m like talking about it in a different way a little bit. It’s more personal when I send it through the CRM, um, than when they’re landing on my website. My website has more general information for everybody. And then that contact form, like proposal stuff that I sent through Dubsado.
Kate Hejde: Has more like tailored information and I always tweak my like response emails to be a little bit personal Get to know them a little bit But I have like a form letter or form email that I send candy mail That I go in and tweak and like, you know Taylor to what they’ve sent me so that I I’m Making sure that I hit all of the points that I know that I want to hit In my email, but also adding a little bit of customization and personalization to it.
Amanda Warfield: I cool. So basically you’re using the same information on both and really just making sure they have all of that information. Okay.
Kate Hejde: Because we don’t know that they’re going to see the pricing information on our website or, you know, like all of those details of like our three step process or whatever. We want to make sure that we’re hitting them with it twice.
Kate Hejde: And the other thing is like they are probably looking at multiple pieces of people’s websites So they don’t remember which one you were when they contacted you and you contact them back. They don’t have like the full picture when they’re getting that email. So you want to make sure that you’re like driving it home again and reinforcing it.
Kate Hejde: People need to see things multiple times to get the, get the message.
Amanda Warfield: You know, I’ve heard that part of it before where, Oh, they’re looking at multiple people, this and that. I’ve never heard anyone say the fact that they may not get to that place on your services page. I’ve never thought about it from that perspective, because as I go through and I create my services page, I’m like, well, I’ve got this on here and this on here and this on here.
Amanda Warfield: But realistically, hopefully, fingers crossed, they’re using one of those calls to actions towards the top of the page and not even getting there, and I’ve never thought about that before.
Kate Hejde: Yeah, and it happens a lot. I like, I’ve had people contact me even for websites and they’re like, Oh, I had no idea what you did.
Kate Hejde: I just like liked your homepage and then clicked to contact you. And that was where, where we met. And so making sure that you’re like filling in the gaps for them, regardless of if they already have the information, it’s not going to hurt them to read it again.
Amanda Warfield: That’s such a good reminder. Okay. And so often I feel like, Oh, I don’t want to bother them.
Amanda Warfield: I don’t want to, you know, be annoying. I don’t want to over communicate. But I do think you’re right. It’s totally important to make sure that no, this is what you’re getting because I have had clients who’ve been like, I booked with you because I like you. I don’t even, I don’t know what you’re giving me.
Kate Hejde: Yes. And it’s creating ease for them by giving it. all the information in one place. So any way we can like reduce that friction, make it easier for the client and give them everything that they need, uh, super helpful.
Amanda Warfield: That’s so great. So you also mentioned data and looking at the data to know what it is that’s happening on your website.
Amanda Warfield: How do you even go about finding that data?
Kate Hejde: I think the easiest way, especially for like creative brands, is a tool called Hotjar. It’s, there’s a free option, it’s something that you install a little piece of code on the back end of your website and then you can watch videos of how people interact with your website.
Kate Hejde: Which sounds a little creepy, but it’s, like, There’s no personal data showing, you don’t know who it is on your website, but it’s like literally a video of someone scrolling, someone clicking, you can see how long they spent on each section, and that helps my mind see like how people are interacting. It also helps me catch mistakes, like sometimes I’ll publish a page and not realize that I didn’t fix.
Kate Hejde: The thing on the mobile or, you know, like I, I’m not like thinking through how someone else is reading it until I see them interact with it. And I realized like, oh, I should put the contact form or like the opt in form after this piece of text or whatever. Like, just seeing how they’re scrolling through it and interacting is huge.
Kate Hejde: The other thing is just. old school Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Those help us see like what terms people are searching to get to our site, which pages are growing and getting better, um, interaction. But that Hotjar one really is just like a visual, easy to understand way to look at things.
Amanda Warfield: So when you’re looking at Hotjar, which we’ll link to in the show notes, guys, but when you’re looking at Hotjar, you look specifically at the actual videos. That
Kate Hejde: it sends you? I do look at the videos, um, and especially if I’m like in the middle of a launch or like trying to promote something in particular, um, I make sure that I’m looking at those specific pages.
Kate Hejde: I also look at the heat maps, which show like how far people scroll down the page because like sometimes you’re like, why is no one buying this? And then you realize that they’re not even getting to like the pitch. part of the page. And so it’s like, Oh, you need to make my sales page shorter or like get to the point faster.
Kate Hejde: Um, or you see that they’re scrolling all the way to the bottom and they’re still not buying. And you’re like, okay, what is missing? What’s not connecting with people? So that’s a really good way to like, kind of interpret that data. I also like to use AI and say, like, like you could put in a screenshot of the page and say, or even the heat map and say like, what could I do to improve this page and make sure more people are clicking the call to action.
Kate Hejde: And I think like
Amanda Warfield: chat
Kate Hejde: GPT.
Amanda Warfield: Okay.
Kate Hejde: Yeah. If you have chat GPT plus you can upload a photo, um, and it will help you analyze kind of the data on the page and figure out what’s going on.
Amanda Warfield: That is so fascinating. I had no idea that you could do that.
Kate Hejde: Yeah. There’s so many cool uses for AI that we are not using yet.
Amanda Warfield: Yeah. That’s amazing. Okay. So you’ve got the heat maps. You’ve got the videos. So in the videos. What do you see often, and how do you interpret that data?
Kate Hejde: Yeah, I think mostly it’s seeing, like, I like to see where people came from. That’s a huge piece of it. Like, you can see if they came from Google, if they came from a Facebook ad, or Instagram.
Kate Hejde: And then seeing, just, I like to see how they’re interacting with the pages. I’ve got somebody coming to a landing page that’s an opt in page, and then they’re clicking something in my menu, I’m like, oh, I just need to take the menu off this page, I’m distracting them. Like, that’s helpful. Or, you know, if they’re landing on a page, reading it, and still not opting in, And then clicking out of it completely, I know that, like, my messaging’s not connecting at all.
Kate Hejde: Like, they’re not interested. So either there’s a disconnect between the ad copy and the landing page, um, or it’s, I’m not targeting the right person. The other thing would be if they land on that landing page, the opt in form, and then they click to something else, I’m not giving them enough data in the landing page for them to trust me.
Kate Hejde: So just different ways to, like, think through what is it, what is it that they’re doing and what does that mean.
Amanda Warfield: So essentially you have to know what your goals are for each page of your website. Absolutely. In order to really understand and interpret that data.
Kate Hejde: Yeah, yeah. And I think you need to know what the goals are for that page before you build it too.
Amanda Warfield: How does knowing what the goal is for that page help you build it?
Kate Hejde: So, you have to kind of think through like, is the person landing on this page a worm? Yeah. audience member, like somebody that’s already knows my offer. Are they coming in cold? Do I, how much information do I need to give them to build that trust?
Kate Hejde: Do I need to give them more logical information? Do I need to give them more of the emotional information? So thinking through like where they’re coming from and then what you want them to do at the end of it. And thinking through what information needs to happen to get them from point A to point B is really where that strategy comes in with building the page.
Amanda Warfield: So, when it comes to services, do you have two different types of services, Paige? One that’s for warmer, yeah? Yeah, I will. I
Kate Hejde: don’t know not for not for warm audience versus cold audience. I do want like all of the same information to be there. Um, I think that the way that you lay it out helps, um, people track through it.
Kate Hejde: So like if they land there and they know that they’re interested, they’re going to scroll past that first part. That’s like warming them up
Amanda Warfield: to the more
Kate Hejde: like logical informative parts. And I think Thinking through like how you lay out like those logical informative parts and make it clear like, like, here’s the data come right here, you know, like it’s, it’s easy for people to see that signal as they scroll down a page to get to the data if they’ve already kind of like been warmed up and opted in.
Amanda Warfield: Is there anything you do that kind of signals like, hey, this is the, the data, the information, the step by step, the price? Yeah, a lot of that is just using numbers.
Kate Hejde: So, like, if I have, like, here’s how it works, and like, clear headlines, here’s how it works, step one, step two, step three, um, and then having, like, headlines that say, like, well, how much does it cost?
Kate Hejde: And, like, breaking it down, what’s included, like, making sure that you’re signaling in big text and, like, with numbers or logos or, like, symbols throughout to make it easy for people to find that information as they skim and scan, because people do not read it. A whole web page like they’re going to skim and scan.
Kate Hejde: So finding ways to make your copy more skimmable, um, and using headlines, bolds, things like that to break it up and make it easier for them to do that is huge. So
Amanda Warfield: simpler, more effective copy. Yes. Yes. Okay. Are there any other tips that you have for helping create a website?
Kate Hejde: It’s I think really about connecting with the person on the other end, and a lot of that is doing some market research, um, figuring out who you’re talking to and how they’re speaking, using their language, and then figuring out, like, what, What it is about you and how you offer your services that’s special, that’s unique, and that will tie to that person.
Kate Hejde: So, uh, for example, I have a lot of photographers in my audience. I do a lot of photographer websites, but one particular photographer that I worked with is a speech pathologist also. So we, uh, In her previous website, she hadn’t really talked about that part of her life, and it’s her full time job. Like she has a full time job as a speech pathologist and is also a photographer, and she works with kids in that job.
Kate Hejde: It’s like, well, that is the perfect opportunity to tie in talking about like how important communication is to you and how like communication is more than verbal and how we connect with each other physically and communicate physically. and tying that all in. So that was the way that like throughout her website we used that kind of thread to tie her to her ideal client and show that she was different than the other photographers that they were maybe looking at.
Amanda Warfield: Okay, when it comes to a website, I think a lot of times we can think, okay, I got my website created and now I, I’m going to wipe my hands and I’m done with it. But as with everything in business, it’s just another iteration on top of another iteration on top of another iteration. How often do you suggest that creative entrepreneurs review and adjust their websites?
Amanda Warfield: Do you have a timeline for that? Do you have any suggestions for that?
Kate Hejde: Yeah, I think a quarterly review is probably plenty for most people. I do suggest having content that you add to your website fairly regularly in the form of a blog, um, because Google loves that. Google loves fresh content and talking to your people and answering their questions through blog content will definitely increase your rankings on Google and drive more traffic.
Kate Hejde: It’s also a great way, like, I don’t know about you, but I always see posts in. Um, Facebook groups or whatever, where someone’s asking a question, it’s like, I have a blog post for that and I can share the link to that and get people to my website again. And then maybe later they’re like, Oh yeah, I remember that girl that’s shared that article and she can help me with this.
Kate Hejde: So having those articles that you’ve written is another way to build credibility, authority, uh, and trust. More traffic. But so having that like regular content that you create is great. Either way, at least like quarterly going in and checking and make sure your links aren’t broken, update your pricing, whatever needs to be like touched.
Kate Hejde: Um, swap out some photos just to make it a little bit fresh for Google to crawl again and see like that you’re still active and that you’re still going. Um, I will say my photography business website has not been touched in quite a while and I still get. traffic to it and get inquiries from that website.
Kate Hejde: So it’s, you know, best practices. Every quarter. Sometimes it falls behind.
Amanda Warfield: Oh, I’m so embarrassed to admit this, but yesterday I was looking at the back end of my website on ShowIt, and I realized that one of my services page was not published. It was turned off. I have been promoting this service, For six months now, I’ve been booking it.
Amanda Warfield: I now I’m like, how in the world was I actually booking it? Because where were they finding it? I must’ve been linking right to the lead form on Instagram, but this whole time I’ve been promoting this service and I created this service page and I never. Published it. It still had the little closed eye and I was like, oh my gosh.
Kate Hejde: Well, now it’ll promote even better, right? It will,
Amanda Warfield: but a good reason to go and look at the back end of your show more often because that’s embarrassing.
Kate Hejde: Yeah. And I think like we forget what’s on our website. So like. It’s a good idea to check like once a quarter and go through and like read everything because we change stuff so frequently in our businesses without even like realizing it.
Kate Hejde: So go back and just check once a quarter, read every page, have a friend look through it. And like, it’s a good idea to have a friend look through it once a quarter too anyway, just to like, make sure they click all the buttons and test it for you and just, Does this make sense? So
Amanda Warfield: I’ve also had, I know a lot of web designers will use the whole, don’t be embarrassed about your website any longer.
Amanda Warfield: And I’ve had those moments of, I have a beautiful website. Like I said, I’m embarrassed because I haven’t updated my services page. And that’s not even what I do. You know, like I’ve had those moments. So don’t be me guys go in quarterly.
Kate Hejde: And like, if it’s not something that’s like, a zone of genius for you, or even like a zone of competence, hire somebody, like have somebody that you can just reach out to and be like, Hey, um, can you update this and send them a voice note of what needs to be done?
Amanda Warfield: My strategy, like my plan. Yep,
Kate Hejde: yep. Add it to your, add it to your calendar. Like once every few months to check in on your website.
Amanda Warfield: Yep, that’s gonna be, that’s my action plan for this week. Yes. But if you could tell the listeners what action step to take after listening to this this week, what would it be?
Kate Hejde: I think the easiest thing to do is to go look at your website. If, okay. If you don’t have a website yet, that needs to start happening. Like, start thinking about what, um, what platform you want to use. I recommend ShowIt, and you, Amanda, use ShowIt as well. It’s very user friendly, um, and very customizable.
Kate Hejde: But, like, start thinking through, like, how you’re going to get a website. I have a podcast episode on my podcast, How You Pictured It, that’s all about the different ways that you can get a website. If you have a website, I have a website report card you can run through, but the easiest thing is going to be look at your menus and make sure that you have it simple.
Kate Hejde: Six things at the most on your main navigation and make sure that you’re using words that people are searching for. So please don’t use investment. Um, no one is searching for the investment for a coach. They’re searching for the price. So, simple things like that are first steps, making sure that it’s clear who you are, what you do, and how to get to the different pages on your website.
Amanda Warfield: I will say, just for all of those that don’t have a website in our immediate, like, no show it’s expensive, that was my first thought for a very long time. It is worth its weight in gold. I spent years on a not user friendly platform, and my website always looked terrible. It cost me money in sales. I know for a fact it did.
Amanda Warfield: And it was so hard to update that I never updated it. Now I don’t update it because I don’t have it in a routine. But it’s really easy when I do go in and update it, not show it’s fault. Um, but I will just say, I know that was my biggest hurdle was show it. And in reality, it’s not actually that much more expensive.
Amanda Warfield: I just, when I was starting out was like, Oh, any extra money isn’t. Yeah.
Kate Hejde: Yeah. It feels like a lot, but, um, it’s definitely worth it to be able to access the tool. Um, but I have a pet peeve of like, WordPress is the best website platform for SEO, right? But if I can’t use WordPress, my SEO is going to suck because I’m not going to go in and update my stuff.
Kate Hejde: And overall, like the layout, everything is going to be rough. So therefore, WordPress is not the best platform for SEO for me if I can’t use it. So that is like using a tool that That you can actually function with and use and understand is huge for having a website that works for you.
Amanda Warfield: Yeah, absolutely. I just want to put that plug out there because I, I was that like, Ah, this one’s this much and show it’s this much, show it’s not the cheapest, so I can’t do that yet.
Amanda Warfield: Just do show it. Yeah, just do
Kate Hejde: show it. You’ll, You’ll save so much time and energy by having a platform that you can actually use and understand, um, versus like investing in building a website on something else. And then having to do it over again. Yep. I mean, I’ve built so many websites for my, in my photography business, I, um, have probably had seven or eight over my 12 years in photography.
Kate Hejde: So, and I’ve had the show at websites since 2019. So that tells you how often I was changing platforms before that. It was a lot. You also mentioned your website report card. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. So it is a, um, way for you to audit your own website and it’s like beyond the basic like SEO audit.
Kate Hejde: It’s more talking about how like how your website is connecting with people, um, making sure like you have calls to action throughout. It’s making sure that your menu is user friendly. And it’s a It’s a, it’s built in like a Google Sheet and you just go through and put it side by side with your website, click through each page, answer the questions, and it spits out a grade at the end and gives you like the information of like where you can improve.
Kate Hejde: That’s really cool. Yeah. So it will help you. I’m going to
Amanda Warfield: go download that. Yeah. It’s really, it’s
Kate Hejde: a handy tool to like see like, maybe I just need to start over or, you know, like I just need to fix this, this and this.
Amanda Warfield: Okay, so if you already have a website, that’s your action step for this week is to go grab Kate’s website report card.
Amanda Warfield: I will link to it in the show notes. If you don’t have a website yet, you also have a freebie that helps you get started with creating a strategic website. Tell us about that.
Kate Hejde: Yeah. So it is a, um, checklist. It’s a workbook style checklist fillable, um, document that you. That walks you through the three phases of building a website.
Kate Hejde: The first is strategy. So figuring out, again, who you’re talking to, um, how to talk to them and writing the copy for it and how to lay out your pages. Then the second step is the site design. So actually like building the pages, it walks you through each step of that. And then finally, it’s getting seen or showing up.
Kate Hejde: And that’s with SEO and launch strategies, walking you through those basics. It’s a. Like hefty freebie. I’m not very good at having like simple freebies. I always want to give you everything. So it is what I walk my students in the website launch accelerator through, um, with website launch accelerator.
Kate Hejde: You get a lot more handholding, you get my AI copywriting tool, my copywriting workbook and a show it template as well as twice a week office hours and live zoom calls to help you through the process. Um, so. That is just like a part of the, the launch list is just a part of my larger program, but I do offer that as a freebie, uh, to help people out if they’re really DIYers and don’t need any more assistance.
Amanda Warfield: Okay. We will link to all of that in the show notes as well, but I cannot let you get out of here without giving everyone a book recommendation first.
Kate Hejde: Ooh. Um, okay. My very favorite book is not really business y, but is, and that’s Big Magic. It’s by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s about inspiration and creativity and living with inspiration and living in that like big magic inspired life.
Kate Hejde: That is a book that I love as an audiobook and will listen to over and over again. More business related, um, people always recommend StoryBrand as an alternate, a better option, in my opinion, um, is Made to Stick by, uh, Dan and Chip Heath. It is about, uh, writing and using marketing in a sticky way. uh, draws people to you.
Amanda Warfield: Okay, I have not read that one yet, so I’m gonna go add that to my libby
Kate Hejde: right now. Yeah, it’s a good one. It, like, it’s way more actionable, I feel like, than StoryBrand. Like, StoryBrand is, like, kind of, like, big ideas wanting you to buy into their program. I feel like, like, my opinion of StoryBrand is not great because I feel like it’s, like, like, an MLM.
Kate Hejde: Like, I feel like it’s, like, here’s a teaser, buy our 3, 000 program. Whereas Made to Stick is an actionable usable system and tool.
Amanda Warfield: Yeah. Okay. Cool. I’m going to check that out. Well, Kate, thank you for being here. Finally. Finally, I got you on here. Um, where can everyone find you?
Kate Hejde: I am on Instagram at DearKateBranchStrategy.
Kate Hejde: Same as TikTok. Um, I prefer to be on TikTok, but I am trying really hard to be an Instagram girly. And then my website, of course, at, uh, is DearKateBranchStrategy. com.
Amanda Warfield: Perfect. Thank you again for being here and for sharing how we can, you know, focus our website so that we’re making sure our services page is selling for us.
Amanda Warfield: Thank you, Amanda.
Amanda Warfield: Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode’s show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.
Amanda Warfield: Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.
+ view comments . . .