Watch These 62 Minutes To Fix Your Useless Website (Harsh but true)

If you're like 95% of entrepreneurs your website is like a Salesman who can't close a deal failing to bring in traffic failing to get you leads and saddest of all it's failing to make you money and if you're like that 95% of business owners it's this same common mistakes that are holding you back mistakes that are really easy to identify and even easier to fix when you know about them so in this super thorough video I'm Going to show you the common mistakes that you're probably making with your website that easy fix for each and

I'll even show you example website before and afters where I've gone in and fixed the mistakes myself so you can see the differences with your own [Music] eyes you offer a valuable service and you want to charge a higher price for it but if you want to put a premium price tag on your offers there's really only One thing standing in your way your website looks cheap in this video I'm going to get to the bot bottom of the biggest differen makers between websites that look and feel high-end versus low rent because here's the thing

even if you're not on the high end of your industry price-wise the things that can make a site look cheap just so happen to be the same things that can make it feel untrustworthy too so this stuff actually applies to you in either case we'll go Over the most common elements that business owners get wrong and what to do instead so your website can go from this to more like this this or this and if you think a simple high-end marketing makeover can't influence how people think of your business let's jump back to the Bronx

in the early 60s Reuben and Rose Mattis were trying to get their little ice cream startup off the ground but with every other ice Cream brand buying for freezer space and competing on price Rose and Reuben decided they'd actually go the opposite direction up as in let's be the most expensive ice cream out there see back in those days a pint cost less than 15 cents but they were going to charge 75 and they were of course planning to use nothing but the best ingredients so the quality would be there but how would they communicate

that quality before someone had the chance to taste it the Marketing strategy was simple they'd brand their ice cream as something exotic with oldw World European sophistication and just like that hogendas was born not here here Serenity Now all it took was a little marketing magic to have people screaming for their ice cream even when they were charging five times what everyone else was so how can you apply a similar strategy to your website well one of my web business besties Nicole Lives and breathes luxury web design so I decided to give her a call

hi there thank you for having me uh my name is Nicole Heimer I am the owner and creative director of glorian brand and we designed and build websites specifically for interior design firms so what do businesses need above and beyond normal websites when you're in that more uh luxury Niche or higher price point so anytime that someone is going to hand over any money to anyone They have to trust them but we are talking about really big ticket items here you know an interior design project no matter what the business model it is a luxury

service it is not necessary like water or food or shelter itself so the trust Factor The credibility factor is really important and the design has to be tight and what that means in practice is actually things like lots of white space and making sure that everything is designed on a perfect grid If things are a little off if the website looks homemade at all if it's off-kilter or something is a little bit messy it's just going to feel unsatisfying to the human brain and it won't feel luxurious and it won't feel trustworthy and it feels

just a little bit cheap which doesn't align with the product that they're buying in research backs Nicole up here one recent study analyzed the user reactions to the design of 78 different websites and they Found that a few elements were consistent in creating that elevated perception of prestige including lots of white space like Nicole mentioned and they also found that color plays a really big C in how high-end your website comes across specifically more subdued color palettes tend to read as more premium and expensive than really bright ones so you want to be careful because

we don't want to be like redoing our website or our brand every 5 seconds So going neutral and sticking with Black and Whites is actually like the best way to go Navy is also nice you just want to go like super classic if you want to go with those brighter colors be prepared to put some work in and to like making it work you're going to need need a more skilled designer on your side to like you know keep it tight and make it fit Tam calm down I see a problem and the reason you

want to keep it tight has to do with a little something called the Halo effect so it's a simple psychological principle that says that one trait influences how you feel about other unrelated traits so when your prospects see how tight and together your website is they'll apply the halo effect to it and start to assume that other parts of your business are equally as tight and together things like the quality of your service and when they think your quality is better than the next guy they'll be happy to pay more For it so what else

should you really pay attention to if you want your website to really feel more high-end photography is incredibly important it has to be well lit you probably can't take the photos yourself unfortunately you really need to get a professional involved I always say you know if you have to prioritize getting a profession professionally made website paying someone to build it for you or getting professional photography done always Prioritize the photography always yes I completely agree with that um but what if someone can't really afford to hire a photographer how do you feel about using stock

photos I have found surprisingly that some of I know this is crazy but some of the free stock sites we've had better luck than some of the paid stock sites so like on splash. is a really good freest stock site like we find great stuff on there all the time and then if you're going to pay for it like I stock is very good but check the free ones first cuz you can find some really good stuff so let's go over some general rules when it comes to choosing stock images that will sell you in

the right light so first of all always go with natural facial expressions and Body Language over things like Sky reaching fist pumping and literally jumping for joy because contrary to what these photos might have you believe nobody reacts This Way in real life we've Actually saved you $300 this month this is good this hello this is normal but it wasn't also make sure that your image choices have a really consistent look and feel from one to the next so don't put a really bright colorful photo right next to a dark and Moody one and always

get images that are the right size I see so many otherwise greatl looking websites that choose a photo that's too small and it ends up really pixelated and blurry not a great Look obviously higher priced businesses are going to have a longer sales cycle for people to make up their mind so it makes sense to really warm people up over time so what are some really good lead magnet types that people can offer on their website that you've personally seen some success with lately before we get into examples of lead magnets I'm going to tell

you about a client that I met with the other day who told me that she had a woman reach out to her about a Project who has been on her email list since 1997 so point being yes people can like stick around in your email list for 3 months a year 2 years 3 weeks before they actually get in touch with you um so it's it's a great when you've got these big ticket services like email is it's always good but it's especially good for that we've been creating lead magnets for uh over 10 years

and uh for a few years now it's been interactive Stuff is the thing that works so in our case this would be um style quizzes um things that are kind of like style quizzes where people pick something and then we send them something custom based on their selection calculators can work really really well for driving traffic to your website and then also for Gathering email lists we've done that for like you know ballpark pricing for a contractor fill out this you know information and we'll send you a Ballpark quote automated that kind of stuff is

going to be your best bet so I asked Nicole about any specific results that she wanted to share and she had to dig into her numbers a little bit but she did email me back the next day about a client that she created a lead magnet quiz for that was able to quadruple their leads from 666 to 3,852 in less than a year and that is really the secret to building your Runway of high ticket clients your homepage is usually the first impression any New Prospect has with your business once they get there you've got

about 5 Seconds to either capture their attention enough to keep them scrolling toward working with you or lose them forever so yeah your homepage really is that important but are you making a critical mistake that could lose you that client in this video I'm going to show you the biggest Homepage mistakes I see over and over again on websites they can absolutely kill your chances not only that but I'll show you the fix too so if you apply what I'm going to show you here you'll be able to successfully capture their attention hold it and

if you play your cards right impress them enough to win their business okay so let's start right off the bat with capturing attention so the first thing that anyone's going to see When they get to your website is usually this right here it's called the hero section and one of the worst most damaging mistakes that I see over and over again is simply missing the point of the hero section so what is the point of the hero section anyway well it's really simple all it needs to do is tell people what you do why it

matters and what they need to do to get it and when businesses get the section wrong which let's face it they almost always do this Can happen in any number of ways so the first way I want to bring up here is it can just be super unclear what you actually do maybe the language you're using is overly vague or like this filled with techno jargon that nobody but you really gets like look at this headline and sub headline here and I challenge you to see if you have any idea what this company actually does

or maybe you're like those businesses who fall into that SEO trap or you just Keyword stuff your headline to death to the point where you know sure Google might pick up on it but when actual human beings land here you know who I mean I'm talking about your clients they're just left cold because nothing about this headline says anything to them there's no benefit there's no real reason they would want to work with you based on this and another way the businesses missed the Mark here is making the hero section all about them Here's the

thing some harsh truth now nobody really cares yet about you or your business they came to your website because they're hoping that you can help them solve some kind of a problem they have not to read you know that you your voted uh top dentist or your award-winning or anything anything like that so how do we fix the hero section I'm going to give you one really simple formula that works for any service business that you can use right now and That's to use your main headline to Simply State what you do then use your

sub headline to briefly say how you improve your client's life doesn't have to be an earth shattering Improvement this works if you solve any kind of problem for clients whether it's a big life transformation or a smaller problem high class you know what I call champagne problems or even emergencies just be really really clear here because not only will a confused mind not buy It's actually even worse than that if you confuse people at the top of your homepage they're not going to scroll down to get clear on what you do in other words if

you confuse them here you will lose them here okay so what is this actually going to look like in real life well let's take our dentist example who has the very uh business Centric you know voted Philadelphia's top dentist 5 years running what if we replace that using the formula I just gave you with Modern Dentistry with a smile from routine cleanings and fillings to full mouth makeovers we're here to keep your smile happy and healthy see how this hits on all three things again so what we're doing with this headline is we're saying exactly

what we provide then here we talk about how that makes in this case their patients lives better okay so now it's time for mistake number two and that is using the wrong images on website so take a look at this one for Instance we're still on our dentist example we fixed the headline and subheadline but the image still needs some work because this particular image is again very focused on the business it's showing the dentist at work not what the patient is going to experience after having worked with them so this is one way it

can go wrong I see this a lot another way images can go wrong is by choosing stock images that are very cheesy they're very overly posed they Show really unnatural emotions does it check the box of actually showing the aftermath that your client is going to experience it does it does show people meant to represent your clients but in no way does this feel like a real moment in time that was captured this feels very staged very phony so my fix for this is just to choose better stock images choose smarter so something like this

is going to be much more of a slam dunk when it comes to connecting with People because it feels like this is a real moment captured in time right anytime you can choose a photo that feels more natural it's automatically going to connect that much better and by the way there are many places online where you can find photos like this I actually recommend um Adobe stock and you can just choose their free option they have a ton of really amazing free stock photos that you can use um just like this one and speaking of

images Let's go on to mistake number three which is mismatching those images so let's take a look at a little Services section right here you might notice that these three photos don't really look like they belong together do they this one has that kind of instagramy you know filter on it this one's black and white and then this one's super colorful and vibrant so all you really need to do is just make sure you're choosing images that look like they belong to the same Family whether that means um choosing all from the same photographer or

just being really mindful of okay do they have the same vibrancy level do they have the same energy level more or less what I'll actually do a lot is if I find the photo I want to use that I know I want to use I will actually just click through to that photographer's whole portfolio on the stock site and see what I can find within that it's much more likely to match up if you do it that way And if you're getting stock icons you want to avoid style mismatches there too so to be safe

just choose from the same icon pack okay so time for our next mistake which involves these call to action buttons so here's the thing when people are coming to your website you want them to actually do something there right like schedule a consultation or book an appointment or even just call you problem is when you make your call Action buttons confusing like right here We have 1 2 3 four call the action buttons and none of them say the same thing or look the same and that's a big problem and it's one that I see

all the time so what do we want to do instead well the first thing you want to do is figure out exactly what you want your call action button to say specifically you want it to be specific so we don't want something like get started or you know book now is okay but what we'd really Rather have is something like book an appointment or book a free consultation something that's very specific that tells them exactly what's happening next and then once you've got the verbiage figured out what you want to do is make all of

your buttons incredibly consistent from one to the next so that means you choose a color that goes with the rest of your website's branding but also stands out what I mean by that is you're not going to use your button Color anywhere else on your entire website okay let me say that again CU nobody ever listens to that advice when I give it you don't want to use your button color on your logo or on your icons or in any design treatments on your website just your button and that's it that's going to make it

incredibly clear to people that this is the next step that they need to take if they want to work with you and then ideally you want to repeat that call to action in Multiple points on your homepage to make sure that once they've gotten enough information and they're actually ready to click it it's right there for them ready to go okay so now it's time for our next mistake and that is chaotic spacing I cannot tell you how many times I see this um anything from you know text being too close to the borders or

buttons being too close to the content and again you know just there's just not enough padding here for people's eyes to Rest cuz here's the thing if you don't leave any space anywhere or if you leave too much space for that matter um people's eyes are going to tend to wander or they're just going to feel overwhelmed and they're going to get the heck out of there so don't worry though I'm going to show you exactly how to fix it so what you want to do ideally is you want to give it at least 80

pixels of padding inside of a section so if you're using Elementor you just go to padding And I'll just type in 80 and that already looks much better there and then you want to give some breathing room for this button so I'm just going to click that go to advance and padding I'll give it and I'll just zero out the margin and see what that looks like that already looks better then we also need to give it a little bit of a margin on the bottom so let's do 80 there see how much more nice

and breathable this already feels and then I'll do the same thing Right here and that feels pretty nice already okay so time for our next mistake and that is not telling a complete story right there on your homepage so so many business owners what they do is they they make all these different pages I've seen as many as like 50 different pages on a website thinking people are going to click through they're going to read all these different pages they're going to Get what they want you know when they want it which that is a

double-edged sword actually what you don't want to do so much is let people wander around on your website on their own because they're going to start coming up with their own story at that point once people start clicking all these other pages and they start going wandering the woods on their own now they're taken out of that path to conversion so what I'd rather see you do is tell a much more Complete story on your homepage from top to bottom this is a blink about 50 milliseconds and that's roughly how long it takes someone visiting

visiting your website to form their opinion of your business sure everything about your website from its design to its loading speed has a big impact but one of the key factors in determining whether a potential client sticks around isn't what your website looks like but what it Says it's not about clever phrasing and super polished messaging either it often comes down to a simple question is your website's content specific enough to make an impression so let's back up what does it mean to be specific in short it just means you get really precise with your

language so you can cut through the digital noise the more specific you are the more your words are going to lure people in almost like a zoom in effect and why does it work well the answer is Surprisingly simple and it comes down to basic internet behavior let's call it reading versus scanning the average person actually reads your website only about 16% of the time and this might sound crazy low but according to research web users aren't reading the way you imagine they would if you curl up with a good book that's reading but on

your website people are quickly skimming around with a goal in mind maybe they're looking for a great house Cleaning service maybe they need the name of an exterminator in their area or maybe they're browsing product reviews before they buy a stand mixer whatever they're doing it all boils down to one thing info Gathering and now that you know what your site visitors are looking for for that is a huge opportunity for you to lean into it and succeed where all your competition is very likely failing so here are three ways you can get hypers specific

on your website and Catch the attention of all those skimmers headlines are key when it comes to skimming a website for quick answers and they're a great opportunity to put something relevant front and center the best headlines are really specific to your business so how do you write a great super specific headline it's probably going to be easiest here just to show you a few examples of what's bad and what's good so don't write testimonials when you can write why People love our dog sitting service don't write about us when you can write why we

obsessed with keeping your pet healthy you know client testimonials is accurate but boring you know why people love our dog sitting service is vivid and descriptive it tells people who you are it hints at the enthusiasm that your clients have for your business yes it's only the difference of four words but that's the power of specificity and being specific doesn't Just liven up your headlines either it can get more of your keywords into those all important header tags for search engines too win-win if you've ever read a headline in a website like this one or

this one and your eyes just kind of glaze over it's probably because you've heard it all before and cliches are really interesting because theoretically they should work you know every cliche started out as a good idea at one point The first person to write that you have to read between the lines honestly had a pretty good metaphor on their hands but here's the thing cliches are by definition played out scanners ignore them and readers just roll their eyes so let's look at an example here the Apple website so apple has a section on its website

where it advertises the Apple card you know it's a credit card that you can get directly from the company if Apple's copywriters had used a cliche They might write a headline like apple card spend more earn more on the surface that sounds like a pretty good headline you know everybody wants to earn more but it's wording that we've all heard before from just about every credit card company that came before rendering it practically invisible but instead Apple ditches the cliches and focuses on a really specific numerical benefit to using their card Apple card get up

to 3% daily cash back with every purchase That's not a slogan that's an actual promise but you know that's Apple so how to overuse cliches work themselves into your typical Small Business website ironically enough it usually happens when you try to talk about what makes you so unique how many times have you seen a business say something like customer satisfaction is our top priority the problem is that phrase has been overused to the point where it just Doesn't carry much weight now compare that to we guarantee a 1hour response time for all customer support requests

so that your issues solved fast that's better because it actually says something right or what about a catering business who says we go the extra mile compared to Beyond simply delivering delicious professionally prepared meals we work closely with our clients to tailor our menus to the dietary preferences and restrictions of their Guests ensuring everyone can enjoy their meal or my personal favorite the digital marketing agency who claims we're the leading provider how about we rework that one to where we're known for our creative projects that boost our clients's website Visitors by 35% on average within

the first 3 months and speaking of numbers let's talk digits a study found that in the world of news using numbers increases story credibility and this doesn't just apply To the news so in other words the simple Act of dropping specific numbers will make the statement itself appear more credible let's take a look at some examples here so at Dropbox the main headline doesn't say lots and lots of people love using Dropbox it says join over 700 million registered users who trust Dropbox a big difference you know now Dropbox sounds credible and like something we

really want to have at zendesk it Scrolls through several hero Images along with specific stats that highlight the statistical improvements that their customers regularly see and it actually works even better if you don't round your numbers so this is something that scientists call the Precision bias it just says that people tend to think that exact numbers are more legit or trustworthy than rounded up or rounded down ones it's like when we see an exact number we think oh that's way too specific to be a guess They must have really crunched the numbers you know makes

it feel much more solid and believable but what if you don't have specific numbers you know just start Gathering them sooner the better ask previous clients about their results what tangible benefits can you take from them and quote on your website or just research statistics that are commonly found in your Niche and adding numbers doesn't just add specificity it lends credibility to any claims that you Make and for all this specificity to do its job best you actually need to put it all in the right order from top to bottom to make a really airtight

case for your business hey I want to ask you something are you trying to sell something on your website are you talking to me yeah who else would I be talking to are you trying to sell something on your website of course Wes that's the Point of a website well then let me ask you this and this is for everyone watching when a visitor lands on your website what's the main objective that you want to meet usually it's to give a little bit of info on what you do and how you're going to help your

potential client then once they've absorbed all that information there should only be one question that they have left to ask from their experience in your website and That's how do I get what you're selling me how'd you get in here it sounds simple enough but I kid you not this is the single biggest piece of advice I give on my channel that everybody ignores so click right here and I'll show you how sorry what now and that is not giving your CTA enough off attention and if you don't know a CTA is your call to

action you know those buttons that tell you what's next and that you want your users to actually click on to get Started in working with you in fact 70% of small businesses don't even feature a call to action on their homepage at all now this is a massive missed opportunity because a call to action true to its name encourages your users to take action which is what drives conversion bleed generation and sales however despite it being an indisputable fact that ctas are a necessary part of any website hardly anyone actually treats it that way and

the ones that do use one Almost always get it wrong now there are many ways you could have faster call to action button and these mistakes generally fall into two main categories messaging and design so let's talk about those messaging mistakes first because it's not enough to just put without any call to action and hope that everyone's going to bite right you have to use the right bait and vague passive language just ain't going to cut it I'm not [Music] ready do I [Music] though yeah what was the question here is a truth for you

if your ask is in any way unclear that's no sale so to combat that and make sure that your call to action is incredibly clear and specific here are a few tips and best practices that I've always used on my own and on my clients's websites as well so first you Want to use specific action words whenever possible words like book get or schedule show initiative and will'll always outperform words like submit contact or the dreaded learn more because when you see a button that says contact us or learn more how clear are you on

what the next step is when you click that little button are you going to be filling out a form and then just wait for an email back uh does the button open up a chat window or dial Them up directly on the phone and what's that conversation even going to be about and see that lack of clarity right there is going to subconsciously stop a huge percentage of your visitors from going any further with you so be specific and emphasize the action step and what they're actually signing up for next you want to pay attention

to the words you and me in your calls to action so conversion rate optimization expert Michael aard did a study where he just Changed a single word in his call to action just due to a hunch and he saw a pretty incredible and unexpected result so he changed the button text start my free 30-day trial to start your free 30-day trial because he thought that since the whole page up till now was using second person language talking to visitors using the word you suddenly you know switching to first person and the word my would be

jarring and his hunch told him that that would make Click-through rates worse turns out he couldn't have been more wrong so that one simple well-meaning change made clickthrough his plummet and when he changed it back to start my free 30-day trial clickthrough shot up by 90% so maybe jarring is good in this case and that just goes to show you sometimes you need to do something unexpected to get the results you want and continuing on with that last example maybe you noticed he included the word free in his CTA Well that just happens to be

my next tip so the word free is an incredibly powerful motivator and maybe you're not offering anything for free in which case fair enough but if you're a service provider the first step toward working with you is often some kind of free consultation or call so if you were to Simply include the free word in there uh you'll be surprised how much extra that can count for okay so now let's move on to the call to action mistakes that fall More into that design category so your main CTA needs to do a few things it

needs to be really obvious and it needs to be consistent by obvious I mean it needs to stand out amongst everything else in your site in other words this isn't the time for subtlety make your call to action button a bold color that works with your color scheme but very clearly stands out from the other colors and what this also means is you don't want to use that same color anywhere Else on your entire website not in your logo or in your icons or in your uh text nowhere but your call to action button and

the other part of this is consistency so part of making your CTA obvious is repeating it over and over again in various places around your site and when you do that that that button should be 100% the same each and every time you use it I'm talking same color same text same overall style cuz you want your calls to action to be Recognizable across all of your pages that gives you the opportunity to include it in multiple places without overwhelming your visitor think of it like the traffic light of your website so without question you

know that green is go and red is stop right let blue or you know whatever color works best with your brand on your website undoubtedly mean book a [Music] call how many websites do you think You've seen at this point in your life probably tens of thousands at least and if I asked you to draw a layout of a website for a business in your Niche it'd probably look a little something like this pretty typical so if this is exactly what you'd expect a website like yours to look like shouldn't you subvert those expectations and

take a hard pivot into something more creative actually no and hear me out this isn't just my opinion it's Completely backed by Google's own research so we know that having a beautiful site or at least an attractive one makes you look more credible as a real business therefore more trustworthy well what Google found was that site visitors will judge your website is beautiful or not within 150th Toth of a second but get this it's where things get really interesting visually complex websites were consistently raided as less beautiful than simpler ones not Only that but highly

prototypical sites you know those with layouts that are similar to other layouts in their category that also had a simple website design were rated the most beautiful in other words the study found that the simpler the design the better so what exactly is prototypicality it's basically the mental image your brain creates to categorize everything you come across whether it's cars interior design or websites your brain has a Template for how things should look and feel when it comes to website prototypicality there are different mental images that you might have for specific types of websites for

example you probably have a mental image for uh you know travel booking sites e-commerce stores blogs and yeah service businesses if any of these websites looks too different from your mental image it just feels off and brain will reject it on a subconscious level that is why it's so Crucial for websites to meet certain expectations but what exactly are those expectations well that's where Simplicity comes in so our brains would rather think about the things that are easy to think about it's not laziness it's just how we're able to prioritize and sort through all the

crap that we see every minute of every day the average adult brain Can Only Hold between 5 to 9 chunks of information in their short-term or working memory so Working memory is what helps us focus our attention resist distractions and make decisions so on a website that's low in complexity and highly typical their working memory is freed up to process all the important stuff that you actually want your site visitors to see you know things like benefits your unique value proposition guarantees and testimonials but if you deviate from their expectations with a layout that's a

little too creative for its own good Uh their working memory is going to be too busy processing that instead of what you really wanted him to notice so when it comes to websites we naturally prefer the ones where we instinctively know where everything is and what actions we're supposed to take that's why it's important for websites to really stick to certain design standards for instance it's common for service business websites to have a big wide screen hero image a three column layout for benefits And a section that showcases their different Services these layouts have become

prototypical within the category and they just help create that cozy familiar feeling for everyone but it's not all about just playing into layout expectations the science of Simplicity is also about the overall design of your site and while taste is subjective you know what I think is a nice looking site might be really different from what you or your client thinks looks good there's A very sciencey rule of thumb for that too a joint study found that there was one thing that is universal the more visually complex websites they showed to all participants across a

really vast variety of people had less visual appeal across the board so A Simple and Clean design is more likely to be visually appealing to a much wider range of people and there's a reason why less visually complex websites are considered more beautiful they don't require our Eyes and brain brain to work nearly as hard to decode store and process that information but what happens more often than not is when you're planning out your website it might start off simple but then you'll start to say things like it feels like something's missing or something should

really fill in this space here it looks empty so you start to add unnecessary copy or images which just adds to the visual complexity of the website and takes away from what Made it so beautiful in the first place we do this kind of thing where we expect more of ourselves than of others all the time we look at someone else's website which looks perfectly nice to us but when it's our website we suddenly become hyper critical of every little decision especially if you're hiring a designer and you think that they need to earn their

paycheck by using every single available square inch for More Design in the book don't make me think by Steve Krug he says good design when it's done well becomes invisible it's only when it's done poorly that we notice it and that doesn't mean there's not room for Unique design choices you can still make your website stand out from your competition while still having a conventional layout that's really easy for users to navigate you just need to infuse creativity within those limitations and one way to be creative is through visual design while you Definitely should stick

to Conventional design layouts that users are familiar with you can still play around with color schemes and fonts spacing and imagery to create a unique look and feel for your website so think about your brand and what makes it different from others in your industry then use those unique qualities to inspire your web design you can also add unique features to your website that go beyond the conventional layout consider Adding interactive elements like quizzes little animations instead of icons and video instead of static images to engage your site visitors and create a much more memorable

experience you know these elements can also help users remember your brand and return to your website in the future picture this you've poured your heart and soul into creating the perfect website for your small business but instead of skyrocketing sales it's Actually sabotaging your own success now since this is such an important topic I knew I needed backup so I asked my friend and fellow website Coach Josh Hall to help me out here so that we can expose the seven hidden traps that even Savvy entrepreneurs fall for with their websites and even better you'll find

out how to turn the tables unlock your website's true potential and save your business and if you're thinking come on Wes my website's not going to make or Break my business I'm here to tell you firsthand that yes it can my students businesses routinely see lifts in both traffic and conversion rates when they implement this stuff you know they get more calls from people who've been to their website and they even get clients booking appointments and consultations right from the website and those are clients they weren't getting before that they are getting now so yeah

the stuff's that powerful okay Josh you're the guest So I'm going to let you go first what is the biggest mistake you see that holds most business websites back I think the the biggest mistake I see nowadays especially with small business owners is they make a website a small book uh the big thing to remember is that people scan websites and there is a time to get very wordy and have a lot of copy and a lot of messaging and to get really detailed but those are in forms of blog posts when it comes to

your homepage and Your sales Pages brevity is key so get to the pain points really quick get to the benefits and make it very clear what the offer is if the offer is vague and people don't understand what's in it for them and what the result is then that's a problem and maybe you do articulate that but it's like really far down on a page and it's kind of like having a really good point in a book that's 300 pages in like no you want to get the point as quickly as possible to keep Somebody

engaged so yeah I would try to cut out half of the words that you have right now and just make sure it is it's the good stuff so how do you cut your homepage in half without losing any of the good stuff sounds like a case for chat GPT within chat GPT just use this prompt I'm trying to make my homepage less wordy I'll paste what I have now and give me back a condensed version keeping all important points just cut out the fluff try to make it half as Long as it is now are

you ready for the text when it confirms that it understands what you're going for just paste in all the text from your page and let it do its thing you may need to do a little bit of manual rewarding to still sound like you but you'll be amazed how good a job it's going to do all on its own have you heard the saying that a confused mind always says no yet everywhere I look I see these websites that are unintentionally shrouded in Mystery I have no idea what the company actually does because they hide

it behind vague or overly corporate language or even worse those generic welcome messages this is a huge problem for these businesses because science tells us that people need to be crystal clear on what you do and how you can help them in 3 to 5 seconds and you need to do it right up top here in what we call the hero section otherwise they're not going to scroll down any further to Try to solve the mysterious case of what you do so what's the secret sauce for an irresistible hero section first you need a clear

and concise headline that instantly communicates your unique value ditch the jargon and complicated phrases and just be real about what you offer next complement that headline with a powerful image or visual that resonates with your audience the best thing to do here is just just use a photo that's meant to show that happy after state That your customers are in after you've helped them and last but not least don't forget to include a really strong call to action guide your visitors toward the next step whether it's scheduling a free consultation or checking out your products

and in the spirit of being crystal clear with your prospects there's another way that your website can drop the ball which is making a brand vague with who's behind it you may be afraid to look like you're a smaller Company and you want to look bigger you want to look like an agency or you want to look like you have a huge team but if you don't have a huge team and you're not an agency that's fine give the brand some loyalty and trust with who the heck is behind it and one of the easiest

ways you can do that is with a Founders note and something that I added to uh a sales page that I designed recently right after the pricing table section there's a little section of me that just has a Personal note uh it's kind of my version of a Founder's note that just says hey if you're here you made it to the the pricing table I just want to let you know when you join this is what to expect and this is what we're all about so I would encourage everyone add a Founders note to a

homepage and a sales page that's a cool idea it actually does solve that problem of you know is this a real business am I going to be dealing with a real person or what so how should Somebody write a section like that oh that's a great question Wes my tip for writing a Founders note would be if somebody were ask you why should I sign up what would you say in a minut and that's your bers so you're browsing the internet looking for I don't know a lawyer and you stumble on a website that looks

pretty Sleek then you start reading it and it feels like you're reading a legal document or an instruction manual you Know it's so stiff sterile and professional that you can't even connect with the message so you get frustrated and you click away to continue your search the problem here is that the website's copy failed to make that human connection you know it's like meeting someone at a party who only talks in technical terms and never cracks a smile say is that your dog it's a dog pretty soon you're looking for an Escape Route so what's

this solution well it's just all about using casual friendly and conversational copy on your website here's why when your copy feels like a conversation between friends it's easy iier for your visitors to relate and connect with your brand and that connection leads to trust it's like having a chat over coffee with a helpful friend who's got your back plus as Einstein once said if you can't explain it simply you don't understand it well Enough subconsciously people will feel like you have a much better grasp on your expertise when you can put it in simple terms

unfortunately so many businesses feel like they need to do the opposite to prove their experience and how smart they are so if you insist on doing the smart thing listen to the smart guy so when's the last time you bought anything or hired any kind of business without reading any reviews or testimonials first just doesn't happen Anymore right we're pretty much hooked on testimonials and for a good reason we need to know that others have gone before us and gotten a good result and your clients are no different they need to read testimonials about you

too but you know that this isn't news but when you put testimonials on your site do not do what I used to do which is to just load a huge like multi-paragraph blob of text on there because no one's going to read that and it 2023 now when you do Social proof of any kind you really have to make it again with this lens of scanning websites you have to make it quick and snappy so one thing I would recommend doing is if a client gives you an amazing testimonial but it's three paragraph RS and

you're like well this is great but no one's going to read this grab a little catchy sentence out of it or a little catchy headline and make that a header oh I love this so what else can people include to make their Testimonials more powerful ideally if you can the picture of the person that really like most people just blow right past testimonials if they're just text so I know we've talked about this West if you can have a picture of the person it goes such a long way when I was putting together the sales

page of my new web design membership I got a lot of great testimonials but it was this case exactly they were huge paragraphs often one of my students said she she sent Kind of a couple paragraphs of text but in in one of those paragraphs she said only join if you want you to go up to the next tax bracket and I was like that's a great line but based off of everything we've talked about so far it was hidden it was hidden in that paragraph so I just took it out made it a headline

and now when you'll see her Maggie on on my uh on that sales page that's the headline and and then there's the rest of her testimonial right after Social proof and testimonials there's another type of content that future customers and clients are definitely looking for on your site but most businesses are really hesitant to actually include it but if you want to increase conversions and truly put your website to work for you as your number one salesperson you have to address pricing if you don't trust me they're just going to keep looking around on your

competitor's websites until they Find something that helps answer those pricing questions in other words they're going to find what they want so wouldn't you rather be the one that gives it to them I feel like a lot of people are afraid to make it really clear what their packages are and you don't have to necessarily put your pricing depending on the service like in my case for web designers we're often offering somewhat custom pricing um so we don't necessarily want to put like5 or $10,000 On our on the home home page or a service page

but you can still articulate your packages and the reason I say this is no matter what industry you're in if people don't really know number one what you do but like how you do it like what the process is or what the deliverables are at at least it's a it's a conversion nightmare because they're like well I'm not even sure like how this works or what like what's this include if it's like a digital marketing Service goodness it could be could be everything or anything so my recommend ation on that would be to really really

get clear about your packages and your offers and do not be afraid to put those on there clear as day you could also always do ranges so you could say tier one are the typically these ranges tier two these ranges and then tier three is is this [Music] range not to freak you out but 61% of Your potential clients will leave your website to go to your competitors in under 5 seconds if they don't see what they need to on your site so today I'm going to reimagine three small business websites submitted by you my

YouTube audience so you can see what really makes people leave some sites and stay around long enough to convert on others these new versions have much higher conversion power than the originals so you're going to learn a ton about what You can tweak on your own website to get those higher conversions too okay so let's start off with Steven C Shepard site so the good news is here is I can pretty much tell what he does right away thanks to his logo right up top and through his images you know I can tell he's an

architect and it looks like he mostly works on residential homes but there's a lot that could be improved here and I guess I'm just going to start with the obvious which is that the site Just feels very dated you know this isn't how websites are generally laid out anymore we have this big space for photos right up here and the text is just pushed off to the side in this extremely small and kind of hard to read font and what's worse this text that's over here it's pretty much just a welcome message that ends up

being all about him and his business he doesn't really talk about the problems that he solves for clients at all which is a Huge missed opportunity because that is what sells services and I'd say the images here aren't super sharp you know some are just snapshots and some are actually let me find one some are just kind of like oil paintings almost like this one I think people really want to see those highres Crystal Clear sharp photos especially when what you're selling is so visual and let's say I wanted to actually work with Steven I

would have no idea how because there's No call to action button all I'm seeing is this contact button but it Blends right in with the main menu so most people are just going to skip it so what would I do differently so here is my reimagine version and you can tell a few really important differences right away first of all this new layout just brings the site into 2023 right you know and the main image is it's nice nice and sharp and it has a layout that people are used to which really just helps them

Be able to focus on the content and know where to go and what to do and this headline is completely client focused and results driven and this sub headline makes it Crystal Clear exactly what he offers and now the call Action is super clear too and when we scroll down you can see that I did opt to keep the dark background that he had on his old site just to keep some kind of brand consistency there and I just wanted to show you that this actually can be done You know a couple years ago I

was pretty against having light text on a dark background but the thing is so many people are using dark mode on their apps these days that I really do think people are getting more used to this and some people actually prefer it so it's really just a judgment call on what's going to work best for your business and for your brand and it's not like you can never talk about yourself on your website you know Steph's little section um on the Old site was pretty focused on him you can still talk about you and your

business but I just brought it a little further down the page where it's a more appropriate time to you know introduce yourself as the solution that they're looking for but you can't do that before you've made it about your client and their needs first and then we've got a few more sections that just continue building the case for the business you know what's in it for the client we've Got this benefit section here you know using another opportunity to show more photos cuz this is a very you know visual based business we have a great

section here which just kind of lays out the process for work with you and we have some testimonials for increased trust and proof that you can really do what you say you can so if you're website has kind of a funky layout or it's outdated or the messaging is really mostly about you and not your clients This is what's going to work much better to get those higher conversions for you okay next we have a website that definitely feels more modern in its design you know it's definitely nice and clean but maybe it's a little

too clean because I can see a really big problem right here at the top of the website I see a really big logo and that they offer counseling and therapy so it is clear what they offer but that's really only half the equation for what makes a Strong hero section like this because you know while Clarity is great you need that the Y is probably even more important in other words why choose the tiny room over somebody else you know why does it matter to me and how's it going to make my life better and

don't get me wrong you know people do scroll down websites but if you don't give them those two things what you offer off and why it matters right here above the fold most people won't make it any further Than this and if you do scroll down you'll get the basics of what they offer and kind of like their origin story here but there's honestly nothing here about why us what's the unique selling proposition you know I'm not seeing any benefit section or anything that outlines it in a really easily skimmable way I mean it might

be buried somewhere here in these kind of paragraphs of text but people don't read websites they skim them so let's let's take a look at my Revised version so here it is and the first thing you'll notice I got rid of the big logo taking up all the space here and just put it where it belongs right up in the top left and that leaves us all this room in the top hero section to say all the stuff that really matters so the headline here once again talks about results or the transformation that's possible then

the sub headline gets more specific about how that's possible you know through specialized Therapy services online online and in person and we also make it known here um who they specialize in you know tween teens adults and corporate professionals and since um they specialize in all those different age groups and demographics it's hard to just go with one overall hero image to sell that so I decided to play around and have fun with this kind of treatment where we're showing a more of a variety of customer photos cuz another common trap here Would be to

show photos of yourself as the therapist you don't again you don't want to do that here you want to make the hero section all about your customers or I guess I should say patients in this case and then you know if you go back to their site so they basically have this section where it just kind of lists out all the different things they offer but I decided to you know plus one that a little bit by having a whole wellth thought out Journey here based on what I call the customer Saga framework we start

by showing the problem they're facing then the solution which is us right then we have benefits how it all works you know the the step one two three for getting started working with us and then finally testimonials then you know all that stuff about our story our origin story um all that good stuff that can just go on your about us page so if your website doesn't really say much at the top of Your homepage like if it's a giant logo like this or if it's you know just a kind of generic welcome message like

this this is a much better way of handling that hero section or above the fold section to get more consultations appointments or bookings because you're actually hitting on all the important beats that make people want to take action okay next next up this is evolver agency website so overall I would say they have a nicely designed site you Know I would say it's pretty clean and sophisticated in its design but there are a few problems that I want to point out so first if we go back up to this top section here um we have

a hero section that just doesn't really say much other than these like rotating kind of taglines so the problem is when I when I read these taglines I still don't know what they do exactly you know these are all fairly fluffy statements which can work right but only if you Immediately follow it up with something that's much more concrete that says how so we're definitely missing Clarity for sure and we're also missing that call to action button there's not one here in the hero section there's not even one up top in the the navigation menu

which I always like to see so if I wanted to work with them I don't know how to get started and honestly this video background while it's cool it's way too busy there's just too many Cuts between Scenes and it ends up being pretty distracting you know it certainly takes away from the messaging because most people are just going to be focusing on the video itself and we have to scroll down to the next section to see any kind of a call action button and the problem there is it it's black it doesn't really stand

out very much and then we have to go to the next section after that before we get any mention that they're a marketing agency and even here pretty Buried in here like I think okay so we have like brand markeet so yeah it's pretty buried in that in that uh paragraph and when it comes to making conversions we have a a big problem here so see these we've got three different services on offer we have brand strategy marketing strategy and comprehensive strategy the problem is lots of people who might be interested in their overall approach

might not know which of these they need which can be a really big Hurdle to jump over and what might happen is they might just freeze and not do anything at all but here is how I would fix all of these problems this is my my reimagined version you know I wanted to keep the overall feel of that first website with the neutral colors the sophisticated fonts and I also chose to keep a video background because I think they they wanted something like that but this one doesn't it feel a lot more calm and purposeful

it's definitely Not distracting away from the message anymore and I think it pairs perfectly with the new headline and sub headline which is all about Marketing in an authentic Integrity based way which is what they seem to be about from digging into their old site and focusing on just one key message and one nice ambient video background this feels way less chaotic than the other version right so with this new top section it's pretty clear what they do and what the result Is and scrolling down here we see more uh customer Saga based content that

hits on all those buyer Journey beats but this is what I really want to uh highlight so remember how they had all these services that people might just be a little confused about what I did here is I added a simple section that's prompting people to take a simple quiz that would end up telling them which package is the best fit for them right now and this actually has a bonus effect Too because if you do a quiz like this and you make them put in their email address just before you reveal the results to

get them this can be a great email list Builder too and that is super important to have some kind of lead magnet like this on your website to get more of your first time traffic to come back again again and again which has been shown to lead to eight times as many conversions and after that we've got a client Centric benefit section and Of course the three-step plan to getting started to working with you and a nicely designed featured testimonial block so now that you know it needs to change on your website you may be

left with even more questions like okay Wes but how can I make these changes myself without spending a ton of money on writers or designers well I've got you covered in my free on demand masterclass training where I'm going to lay it all out clean and simple exactly what your website Needs and what it should leave out if you want it to attract you New Leads every single day all on its own so click right here and I'll save you a seat in the masterclass training it's everything you need in one easy to sit through

session so click here and I'll share the entire system with you