Website Review: Boosting your business impact with website optimization
On this episode of Process to Profitability, I had the pleasure of reviewing a Squarespace 7.0 website with my friend Mikki Wilson, founder of Dot Connector Consulting. We delved into the details of her consulting business and discussed ways to improve her website for better client conversions. From enhancing the about page with an extended bio and showcasing credibility to optimizing the contact page with customized forms, we covered a wide range of strategies. We also explored the importance of a strong personal brand identity and a targeted marketing plan in achieving peaceful prosperity as a CEO. Overall, it was an insightful conversation, filled with valuable tips and insights for anyone looking to boost their online presence and make a positive impact in their business.
Timestamps:
[00:01:25] Mikki's target client
[00:05:38] How Mikki is currently finding clients
[00:06:19] Overview of search results for the website
[00:07:07] Homepage design
[00:09:02] Footer and opt-in design
[00:09:27] About page design
[00:13:06] Services page design
[00:15:37] Contact page design
[00:19:43] Opt-in page design
[00:21:29] Make a plan for moving forward with a website redesign
Key Points:
1. Critique of the homepage design, including suggestions for improving search engine optimization and providing more information about services and target audience
Focusing on the three main services, encouraging action, and featuring testimonials for each specific service
Making the about page longer, highlighting experience, success statistics, and credibility-building elements like speaking engagements and podcast appearances
Creating a simplified workflow for applications and workflows for efficient communication and bookings.
Resources:
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: Today I am talking with my friend Mikki Wilson. She is the Dot Connector Consulting, and we are going to be reviewing her website.
[00:00:12] She has some amazing clients who've gotten amazing results from working with her and some really great offers, and as she's pivoting her business a little bit, she wanted to make sure that her website was more than an informational website, but it was actually going to convert clients into the right offer for them in their business so that she can really make an impact in helping them make a difference, make an impact, and see how they can grow their business in a really peaceful way.
[00:00:46] So she's gonna talk all about the people that she works with and how she helps them grow their business peacefully and become the CEO of their business.
[00:00:55] And then we're gonna dive into her website and give her some suggestions on making tweaks based on what she already has so that she can continue to grow her business and see more clients come through the site.
[00:01:15] Hi Mikki. Thanks for joining me today.
[00:01:22] Mikki Wilson: So excited, Samantha. Thank you for having me.
Mikki's target client
[00:01:25] Samantha Mabe: Before we jump into your website, can you tell everybody what you do, who you work with, what your services are, so we have an idea of what we're gonna be looking at?
[00:01:35] Mikki Wilson: Yes, I'm so excited because especially going into 2023, I am launching my shift that I went through in 2022.
[00:01:45] So I am Mikki Wilson. I'm the Chief Energy Officer of Dot Connector Consulting. People know me as the Dot Connector, and I partner with Purpose-Driven Pathfinders to basically connect the dots with a personal marketing plan that helps them achieve peaceful prosperity.
[00:02:11] And I believe that a strong personal brand identity, combined with a personal marketing plan, really helps a CEO achieve that peaceful prosperity in their business. But even more importantly, it helps measure the CEO's impact on the business in tandem with the actual marketing plan for the business too.
[00:02:39] Who I love to work with: primarily women are my target market, but really I love working with any CEO, solopreneur, or small business that is wanting to elevate and amplify their value, their voice, and visibility.
[00:03:01] So my clients tend to have a corporate background, and what's very important for them is that they don't project any toxicity or trauma from a corporate career onto this new business or side hustle.
The background of the businesses that Mikki works with
[00:03:17] Samantha Mabe: Awesome. Generally, like how long have people been in business, you said some of them are solopreneurs, some of them have teams, but like how long have they been in business before they're coming to work with you?
[00:03:28] Mikki Wilson: There's a good range and I'll say it's anywhere from three to 10 years. And what I've identified most is in that time span, people are doing great. There's profitability in the business, but what they're finding they're struggling with is this ease of increasing sales and attracting clients.
[00:03:50] So what I find is in kind of this three to 10 years, even startups too, but they need a little bit of time to figure out what they're doing, who their target market is. So this three to 10 years, the piece of that I identify most with are people that are really seeking clarity in who their target market is, most importantly, who, like their sole client is their dream client, their champion client. We call it all these things, but identifying who that sole client is.
[00:04:24] And also really articulating their values, their vision, and their purpose, because we have all these great, what I call thought dots in our head, but part of elevating your value is really articulating that purpose. Who are your people that you're trying to serve that purpose to? What is your vision for yourself, for the business? What are your values? Because that really aligns with the target market too.
[00:04:55] So the sweet spot right now seems to be three to 10. If I had to narrow it down to one number, I think five is gonna be the average, because that's when we figured out the business, but maybe we've hit a little bit of a plateau and we're trying to figure out, instead of dumping more money into maybe pieces of the marketing plan, which is important, how can we really elevate, hone in, magnetize our market, but in a very peaceful way that doesn't mean that we're doing more, it actually means that we're doing less?
[00:05:28] Samantha Mabe: Yep. That makes perfect sense.
[00:05:30] I am gonna share my screen with your website and let's get started.
How Mikki is currently finding clients
[00:05:38] Samantha Mabe: Before we dive too deep into here, how did most of your clients find you?
[00:05:43] Mikki Wilson: For the last couple of years particularly, it's been one-on-one, the Dot Connector, right? So a lot of referrals, word of mouth. I do public speaking, so they tend to come through me sending the coffee chat links and things like that.
[00:05:58] But through this elevated visibility I have now more people coming to the website. And so that wasn't really happening before. I was like an in real life entrepreneur, right? Yeah. And then the pandemic, I found this whole online world and could expand everything. So now yeah, people are visiting the website more.
Overview of search results for the website
[00:06:19] Samantha Mabe: Okay. I did a little bit of research into like where you're ranking on Google and you show up for the Dot Connector Consulting, you show up for Mikki Wilson. The whole first page is all about you in different places.
[00:06:35] Mikki Wilson: Brand identity people.
[00:06:36] Samantha Mabe: Yes. So I think it's really honing in on other keywords that people might be searching for if you want to have more people finding you through that. And I think some of that might be difficult for you 'cause you're talking about CEOs and marketing and that's a big market of things. So it's going, I think it's really gonna be finding those people and then the website is gonna be what sells them on who you are and how you do things.
[00:07:05] Mikki Wilson: Yep. I love that.
Homepage design
[00:07:07] Samantha Mabe: All right, so this is your home page and you're on Squarespace 7.0 for everybody.
[00:07:14] We've got this prosper peacefully with a CEO marketing mentality.
[00:07:20] The first thing I would say, I like how much white space you have. I like the size of your fonts. They're easy to read. All of that's really good. The buttons are really bright.
[00:07:31] I would say, it looks like this first one here is just an image that you've placed in. So what's a better option is to make that background image, like the dots, a background. So you can actually have the text as text and then Google can read it.
[00:07:49] And most of your pages are pretty short. What I would recommend for your homepage is to give people, 'cause you have so many ways to work with you, give them a little bit more information about the types of people you work with and maybe the types of services so they can see that right when they land on your site.
[00:08:08] Mikki Wilson: Okay, that makes sense.
Including your blog content on your homepage
[00:08:10] Samantha Mabe: And then you do not have a blog currently, correct?
[00:08:15] Mikki Wilson: I do on the back end. Yeah, I do on the back end. I'm filling it with a little bit more meaningful content. So any advice you wanna give me on the blog, feel free.
[00:08:26] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. So the way I would lay this out, you would have your headline, you'd have kind of this first statement with your button to go to the next step. You can share then a couple of ways to work with you. Then I would give just a really short bio of you and a headshot of you on this page.
[00:08:46] And then as you get that blog up and running, just either your most popular posts or your most recent posts, just give people that at the bottom of the page so that they have somewhere else to go if they're not ready to invest quite yet.
Footer and opt-in design
[00:09:02] Samantha Mabe: And then you've got your footer with your newsletter and all of your important legal links and all of that stuff. So I think this is really great. It stands out. I would try to make this button if you can, maybe that same pink or something that's a little bit different from the yellow. But other than that, I think it's really fits with your brand. Everything's pretty consistent here.
[00:09:25] Mikki Wilson: Okay. Perfect.
About page design
[00:09:27] Samantha Mabe: Then we've got your about page. And this is really like about you and how you got into your business. So I like to make these pages a little bit longer as well so that you can talk about you, but also about like how what you've done will help your clients.
[00:09:51] So start with a similar layout as the homepage with that background image and a headline. Talk about your journey. I think you could really talk here about, give some numbers as far as I've helped this many clients, or I've helped my clients achieve these sorts of results. Because you have that information that gives you some credibility.
[00:10:14] And you can also include here places you've been a featured speaker or podcast you've been on 'cause you've got a lot of that too. It gives you a place to link to other websites, which helps your SEO and gives you a lot of credibility with the people that you're going to be working with because they're gonna say, oh, I know that person. I know that organization that she has worked with.
[00:10:39] Mikki Wilson: I love this. I love hearing this from you because I'm like, yes, this makes total sense. And then at the same time, I'm laughing and I'm like, it's like this piece of my corporate background.
[00:10:49] The above the fold, right? Just make it so they can see the above the fold. So I actually love that you're telling me that I can add more depth and content to the pages.
[00:10:59] Yeah. So this is great. This is great.
[00:11:01] Samantha Mabe: Yep. And I love that you have your Instagram here. I think it makes a lot of sense for you because of the way you use Instagram. It's not your marketing channel with these super fancy graphics all the time. It's more of a way to connect with you personally and as a CEO, so it makes sense to have it here and not on every page of the website with your feed.
[00:11:24] Mikki Wilson: Right.
[00:11:27] Samantha Mabe: I think you could just build this page out a little bit more. Build in some more connection with your dream clients. And then give them some stats and facts and all of that trust building stuff because you've got it all. You show up on the first page of Google for everything.
Building your search engine ranking with relevant content
[00:11:45] Mikki Wilson: So I was writing a presentation and I was like, let me Google my brand and see how strong it is. And then I was like, oh, okay. We're doing good. We're doing good.
[00:11:53] Now, especially with this shift, because I used to talk a lot about general marketing because my former career was more of a marketing generalist, like a solo, what I call a solo CMO. But now going and leaning into this like CEO brand identity and how you can really compliment your traditional business marketing plan with that.
[00:12:17] I really wanna show up for some other keywords too. So this is very insightful and I'm happy because it's not like the total train wreck sometimes that you think it is in your mind. I'm like, okay, it's tweaks and tweaks for now, and we do a total rebuild.
[00:12:31] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, and I think giving yourself more room for content, you're gonna have more places to talk about those things that you're working towards, and it's gonna have more of those keywords.
[00:12:42] Especially as you build out your blog, because I think it's going to be something you're going to have to explain to people like, okay, what does this mean? Why does it matter right there? It's not, oh, you need a marketing plan, and everybody goes, okay, I know what that is. I know I need it. This is a different way to approach things, so you have to have more room to explain it.
[00:13:03] Mikki Wilson: Totally.
Services page design
[00:13:06] Samantha Mabe: So then we have your services page, and right now you've got four services on here. Are you thinking you're gonna keep these, change them?
[00:13:18] Mikki Wilson: Three of them are my core foundation services, so I'm keeping those, that's really the primary offerings. They can be packaged up. The fourth one's really more Leans into more of an email list building. Because it's more for just if I do virtual webinars, workshops, in real life experiences. So if people are just interested in mixers or coming together virtually or in person, then they can join the list for now.
[00:13:51] Samantha Mabe: Okay. So what I would do here is again, have kind of your background image, your headline. I think this makes a lot of sense. Talk about your purpose.
[00:14:03] And then give them those three core offers with a little bit of information as far as who it would be a good fit for. So you could have it like in these dots, but then just a little bit of who this is a good fit for, maybe where they are in business, that sort of thing. And then link them either to your onboarding where they can just pay and book because it's a lower priced investment. Or for your VIP Day, then you could have a sales page that really goes over, okay, what's gonna be included? What are we doing? And has more information there.
[00:14:38] So I think your services page is gonna be a landing page for your three main services. So that you're gonna get people to take action on whichever one is the best fit for them.
[00:14:50] Mikki Wilson: Yep.
[00:14:52] Samantha Mabe: And I think I would leave the events and that kind of stuff, since that's what you're building your list around, you could always have that as a separate link somewhere. Or you could change your footer to say get connected if you're interested in this type of thing, sign up.
[00:15:09] But because it's not like an event they can sign up for right now, we don't wanna confuse people by saying, Hey, here's how you can hire me, but actually just sign up for this email list that I'm building.
[00:15:20] Mikki Wilson: A hundred percent.
[00:15:22] Samantha Mabe: And it's also good, always include testimonials. I would, so I would include some of those here and then more of them for the specific services that you offer when they're learning about those.
Contact page design
[00:15:37] Samantha Mabe: your work with me page is actually more of a contact page, right? Because it's got this form to work with you and it's got all of that information. So when people fill out this form, is this kind of going to any of those services, is this more specifically for your VIP Day?
[00:15:59] Mikki Wilson: This kind of qualifies them in general and gives me a picture of where they're at in business. But again, with the more going with the more solid foundation. Yeah, I'd love to hear your recommendation on this because this was just, again, as it went from nobody really visiting the website because it was just an informational website at one point. Who am I? I have a legit business. This is what I do.
[00:16:25] But as more people started visiting the website, I was like, oh, okay, let's give them something that they might grab onto and fill out. But I've seen connections from everywhere else. Nobody's filled this in yet. So yeah, I'd love to hear any feedback you have on this page.
[00:16:46] Samantha Mabe: Okay. So I, my thoughts here are, it depends on the service. So for your epiphany session, which is like your 90 minute session, is that something you really need to qualify people for or are you okay if they pay book fill out a form and they're on your calendar?
[00:17:05] Mikki Wilson: Yeah, they don't really need to fill out a qualifying form for that. Yes.
[00:17:08] Samantha Mabe: So for that one, I would just let them do that. So when they click to learn more about it, you just send them to HoneyBook, I think is where you're at. And then fill that out. They pay you, they're on the calendar.
[00:17:21] Mikki Wilson: Perfect.
[00:17:22] Samantha Mabe: What about for the one-on-one Voxer support?
Avoid using your contact form as an application
[00:17:26] Mikki Wilson: Because I'm so one on one with people right now, and I don't have really a huge amount of people just paying and booking through here. That's a good question for me to think about. Yeah, for 30 days, I may want to qualify them for Voxer if I've not done an epiphany session with them.
[00:17:49] Because how it's been going now is people that start with an epiphany session usually add on Voxer or end up doing Voxer later because it's more of a support. But if somebody were to just say, Hey, I just want Voxer, I would at least wanna know why they want 30 days of boxer and what we're building towards. So I have an intake form for Voxer, but it doesn't reflect this.
[00:18:15] Samantha Mabe: So I think then what would make sense for both that and your VIP Day? If you could use the same questions to get the information you need, you could always set this form up where you're just saying which of these services are you interested in? That goes into your HoneyBook. You can then email them whatever workflows you set up to review that information, get them booked, or have a sales call.
[00:18:46] And then on this specific page, I would make this more of a contact page where there is a general contact form for people who have other questions.
[00:19:00] You can still ask what are you interested in? My contact form is are you interested in the podcast? Working with me? You just wanna say hi? And that way I know from the start like what are we talking about here? But it gives them a way to get into my world without filling out all this information that might not be relevant to their question or their inquiry.
[00:19:22] Mikki Wilson: That makes sense.
[00:19:24] Samantha Mabe: So that way it would be like a contact page, whereas the other things are housed under your services and if they need an application, you've got an application that then you could take whatever action you need to on.
[00:19:37] Mikki Wilson: Yep. That makes sense. Okay. This is good.
Opt-in page design
[00:19:43] Samantha Mabe: And then this last link is for you, I think this is an email signup as well, correct?
[00:19:52] Mikki Wilson: Yeah. And this is gonna be changing too. With the shift it doesn't make as much sense, but it was basically my freebie. But where I'm going next with the freebie is, it's probably gonna be like just a free webinar that they could download, like a mini webinar.
[00:20:13] So yeah, I feel like it'll be easier to get to versus having that one extra step of filling out and then like saving or those two extra steps. So that's the plan.
[00:20:26] Samantha Mabe: That makes sense. I think I would just make sure that whatever the main action you want them to take is what's in that button. So if you think, I want people to watch this webinar, sign up for my email list, and then I can sell them from there, put the webinar or whatever the freebie is in that button.
[00:20:43] If you would rather everybody sign up for an epiphany session first, then highlight that one there.
[00:20:50] Mikki Wilson: Gotcha. Yep. Because that's what it was before this one. Yep. Makes total sense.
[00:20:55] Samantha Mabe: Okay. And then I think really what you can do is just add some more graphic elements by saying, these are the types of people that I work with. These are the numbers that we see. This is my headshot and a little bit of information. Here are some testimonials. So that it's not just a paragraph of text and a button.
[00:21:19] That gives them more information to make a decision. It also helps on your search engine results 'cause there's just more words there for Google to look at.
Make a plan for moving forward with a website redesign
[00:21:29] Mikki Wilson: Totally makes sense. I'm excited 'cause I have some of this stuff in place and yeah, the numbers part's so big. Like I have all this extra data and information behind the scenes that I manage. And yeah, being able to have a bullet point now and actually pull that in a meaningful way to put on the website. It makes sense.
[00:21:51] And thank you for this because this actually just gives me a more structured way to go about it because I think we've all been there. We look at websites we like and elements we like and we think, oh, we'll do this and we'll do that. But then it becomes this like mishmash of things that may not necessarily work for your website.
[00:22:08] This is very helpful and very valuable because yeah, I can probably just do some of the things you mentioned quickly. Just an hour is like a big difference. I have a few tweaks that I can make in a more meaningful way that's a better experience for my prospective clients coming on too.
The most important piece of your website stratey
[00:22:26] Samantha Mabe: The most important thing when anybody's doing a website is just think about what action do you actually want people to take and highlight that because you want it to be easy for people. And we sometimes bury it because there are so many options. We want it to be simple, but we also want them to have enough information to actually make that decision and pay us money or fill out an application.
[00:22:49] Mikki Wilson: That's so true. Savvyer clients now, which I love.
[00:22:52] , As a marketer this is like a good lesson in practicing what you preach. I felt like the website was a little bit more dynamic than like the informational website, but it's still me transferring just being a marketer, having to do like that old company's website versus some seeing it through an expert lens.
[00:23:17] This is gonna be fun to just make many tweaks to, and then, big picture, I look forward to the future of what this could potentially look like in somebody else's hands.
[00:23:28] Samantha Mabe: I loved chatting with Mikki today about her website.
[00:23:34] If you have been struggling to get your website to convert clients for you, I would love it if you would check out my VIP Day service. We can design a strategic website that will convert new clients for you in just a few weeks, and it's all done in one day. And the whole point is having a website that strategically moves people from browsing to buying with a simple design that they are ready to take action.
