Why Your Website is Repelling Clients

Episode Transcript: 

Welcome back to another episode of the Book Your Dream Clients podcast. Today, I want to chat with you about why your website is repelling clients. So sit back, relax, and enjoy it.

This is kind of a sensitive topic because I know your website is your baby. And to hear criticism about it kind of hurts, but if your website isn't attracting clients when they land on it, there's something wrong with it. So we need to dissect it to make sure that we can fix it. We can not only fix it. We can improve it. We can just tighten it up a little bit. So without reading all of your websites, what I can do is give you some insight as to what I look for when giving feedback on different client’s websites, or students, or even mine. Sometimes I think it's important as business owners to go into your website every once in a while, and just remove the CEO hat and put on a first-timer hat so you can really look at what your website really does. 

Is it simple to go through? And is it effective now? The biggest mistake I think people are making now is putting way too much clutter on their website. It is not 2008, we don't need all the things on there in our niche for coaches. We absolutely do not need to have all the weird advertisements back in the blogging days. I remember when I first started blogging, we had just all these random announcements and advertisements, and it was just so much noise. We cannot have that on our websites anymore. So if you have a lot of clutter from outside sources, get it off. It is showing people that you're not relying on yourself to build your business. I feel like you don't trust yourself to build your business.

So you're relying on all these other things, get all that noise off, especially if it's not working for you. Goodbye, too much clutter and too many paragraphs. Don't have so many big paragraphs. But I'm serious- break things up. Don't have, especially on your homepage, on the other pages, that's probably okay, but your homepage, I don't think there should ever be jeez, these long stories of who you are and how you came to be. Nobody cares about that right now. And as rude as that just sounded, it's true. People are on your homepage because they want something. They weren't looking for your life story. They weren't, they're not quite into why you're inspired to do what you do there. They don't care about your journey right now. If they want to know about your journey, they know that they can go to your about page. So your homepage should just be super simple. 

Number one put an announcement bar at the top of your website with a call to action that will build your list. Number two, have a header that if you can put yourself in there or something that's related to your business, a nice photo, that's not pixelated and it's bright and happy makes people feel good when they see it. Put that in your head or image. Number three put a call to action in your header. You should have at least two ways for people to get on your list before they even scroll. When they're on your homepage. The first ones, you know, so far, the second one is the header. So for me, I'll have my best freebie up in the header and I can build my list from that. So I don't expect people to dig and search for things.

I have to put it in their face because otherwise, they'll miss it. So the first time there, we have to make things very simple and broken down. Number four, I'm losing count already. That's impressive. What you need to do is give them three ways that you can help them. So for me, I will put the Confident Coach Club, one-on-one coaching, and Standout Coaching Academy. And it's almost like a choose your adventure story. Do you remember those? I loved those books. I would always do all the adventures just so I knew what happened in each one. But I think that applying that methodology to your homepage is really effective because it's giving people direction almost on where to go next. So if you want a clear example, just go to Lindseymaloney.com and see what I'm talking about. It gives them a choose your adventure option.

If you don't have three options, like a club, a program, and a one-on-one, add your Facebook group in there, or maybe put a freebie in there. There are lots of things you can substitute in there, but you should have your one-on-one coaching in there. And if you don't have a group program yet, send them to a waitlist for an idea that you've been thinking of. Cause I know you want to create one anyway, have that there. And then if you don't have a membership or a smaller priced offer, you can do a freebie or your Facebook group, or maybe even Instagram or podcast blog, whatever, I would prefer it to be with. You can not only grow your income, book, and grow your list. But you do you, then I would maybe scroll down a little bit more and you can give them a taste of your newest content.

So for me, I put the latest podcast episode, and that updates every single Monday without me having to do anything. So putting your latest new work that they can dig into and then for digging further, that is going to be your next one. And then maybe you can put them on masterclass or something on the bottom, but that's really all you need on your homepage. Have some beautiful images on there. You don't have to go get this, you know, an amazing photographer and go crazy. You can create awesome graphics on Canva. That's where I create all my graphics. Go and just go take a look at your homepage. Is there a ton of copy on there? If there is, clean it up, copy and put it on a word doc, so you don't lose it, but clean up your homepage. So it's really easy and it'll make them want to click on the website, not make them want to leave.

So then that about page that you have, that about page should not be entirely about you. It should be very relatable, almost in the form of how we write sales copy. We're showing them that we understand where they are right now. We're starting off with that. The pain points, struggles all of the things at the beginning, and then we're going into, I remember all that and this is where I am now. And this is how I got to be where I am. And that's where people really soak in all the copy. So if you feel like you need to really pour your heart out, then you can absolutely put that on the about page because that's where people expect it to be. And of course, make sure you have calls to action on your about page. And you break up the monotony of a lot of texts with buttons, images, maybe some sections with different colors, things like that. Make sure it's pleasant to scroll through to not just like one giant novel that they have to read. Cause they won't. 

The next thing I would love for you to have for your people is just a simple contact form, easy. This might not get filled out a ton, but at least it's there. And Google wants to see it there too. So make sure you have that then you need a one-on-one sales space. So if you have multiple things on your navigation bar, different ways to work with you, one-on-one put that all on one page and just simplify your life and just create three different packages to work with you. My One-On-Ones don't have all these different one-on-one packages on separate pages. Cause you're just going to confuse people. Trust me, I highly recommend you just have a private coaching tab. People can click on it and see how they can work with you all in one place.

Then you can have your page to work with you in your group program. If you have one if you don't and you want one set up a waitlist and see if there's interest for it, if you have questions on what a waitlist is, just ask me, I will let you know, waitlists are very effective and it's almost like a placeholder. If you have an idea for something in your business, maybe it's like a podcast or a group program membership, whatever, and you're really excited about it, but you haven't had time to dive in, just create a cover page on your website with a link to a waitlist. Get people excited about what's to come. And then pretty soon you'll see your list is growing with people who are excited about something that doesn't even exist yet, which will then give you the inspiration to make it happen.

Cause there are people you don't keep your good ideas to yourself. The next thing I would recommend you do is to simply have your content medium, whether you blog podcasts or you do video, make sure you're providing new updates. Google loves to see a blog on your navigation bar. So if you have a podcast, you can turn them into a blog post by getting them transcribed. We do that. We use Temi and it's not perfect, but it's long-form copy and that's all that I care about. And it does increase your traffic to your website. So make sure you're doing that. You don't really need anything else. My dear, you don't need to have all these crazy things where people can just get lost. That's not where we are. We want our website to book clients and get people into our program and onto our list.

We don't want them to come onto our website and leave because they couldn't find anything. So the one thing, another thing, the bonus that you could absolutely have on your website that I do that works really well is my freebie volt. So I have a tab on my website on my navigation bar, this is a freebie. And so when they open that up, they can find free workbooks, and then they can also find different free masterclasses that they can sign up for. This works really well because Google sees new information on there and then people who are on my website will binge download all my stuff, which I love to see. So don't leave. 

So this is a big mistake. People will create landing pages and lead pages, and then, then they don't even, make it on their website at all. What about if you put that information on your website too? I had a student who had her one-on-one sales page built on lead pages and I advised her to also put it on her website. So she can't actually get the traffic sent to her website, especially since, you know, sales pages are long-form. And so we definitely want to have that on our website. Don't put all your stuff on some landing page builder, even though we should have it there, but the work on your website too. If you want to see what my freebie vault looks like, just go to my website and click on that. And you can see, I have just images that are linked to my landing pages. And then for the masterclasses, I have also embedded lead page buttons and put a copy on the page.

So Google sees that too because masterclasses are the primary way where I will book students into my program. So I have gone above and beyond putting that on my website. So that's kind of all I have for you. I think it's just keeping things simple and clearing the clutter and going through your website with beginner's eyes and looking at how easy this actually flows, is it clear on what you do and who you serve? Is it confusing? Is it just like a bunch of contact forms? Nothing drives me crazier than that. Always lead people to results and whether that's through an application, a waitlist, a landing page always lead them to something and your goal should be to get them on your list. So you can work with them. If your website isn't doing that and you need help, how about you join our free Facebook group and ask me for some feedback? I would love to help you. I think it's important to have a second set of eyes. And instead of Coaching Academy, every single Friday, we do a feedback Friday where I will come through whatever you want me to come through. If you need help with your website, a landing page, whatever it is, that's what I do on Fridays. I give feedback on many, many different pages. So I would love for you to even take your business to the next level and join that. 

But I hope you have some inspiration to go through your website. And again, if you have any questions, please let me know. And thank you so much for listening to this. I hope it was exciting for you and it can give you a lot of potential, different improvements to your site that can make a big difference in client conversion. So anyway, thank you again. I am so grateful you tune in every single week to listen to me. If you need any help with your business, you know where to find me. And of course, I will see you on the next episode.