“I’m looking at the home page of your website. Elizabeth … what exactly do you do?”
And therein was the problem.
It was February 2010, a late Friday night video skype meeting with my then-consultant, now-COO Ken Moorhead, going over my product lines and website and figuring out how to take this stuff that I do and make it into a real business.
(Yes, turning something into a real business is part of what I do with my clients. But, of course, I can’t do that for myself.)
And as I looked at my website/blog through Ken’s eyes, I started rolling with laughter as I realized some horrible & hilarious truths:
- It was impossible to buy anything from me.
- There were 60+ links off the homepage, including 17 blog posts.
- I never explained what I meant by Live Your Truth.
- There was no picture of me ‘above the fold’ on any page.
- The site was full of clutter, distractions, confusion, and tons of places for people to leave my site.
- No one could look at the site and know what in the world I did there.
- It functioned like a personal blog. Not like a real business.
And that was the bottom line. This site had originally been designed as my personal blog, back in 2006 when my business was on a separate website. But as my personal brand developed, and I dropped my business website/name to put everything under the Elizabeth Potts Weinstein umbrella, I never changed the site.
I only made money in spite of myself.
And now, with my business finally profitable & growing & aligned with me & my tribe & what I’m stepping into … the site needed to be blown up.
And replaced with a real business website.
Yes, a business website that is still me. Still fun and real and full of truth and personality and casualness.
But a website that’s designed to actually make money. Because, dude, this is not a freaking non-profit.
So here’s what I kept in mind with this website redesign:
I have two entry points into my site: the home page and single posts. Everything was designed with those two entry points in mind – making sure that the most important pieces of information & calls to action were prominent regardless of how someone came into the site.
There is one primary call to action: sign up for the EPW Newsletter. Everywhere on the site, this is the #1 thing we want people to do – give me their name & email & permission to send them my weekly raw truth. It’s in the top right side bar of every page. Featured in the slider on the home page. And I drafted the copy to be simple & straightforward & easy to understand.
I make it easy for you to give me money to solve your problems. On the home page, on every page on the site (the sidebar graphics), on the Product/Events page … you can learn about how you can buy stuff that I sell. Imagine that – actually selling on my website! Shocking!
I answer the question: what do you mean by Live Your Truth? Now, this is pretty profound stuff, because when Ken asked me that question back in February I didn’t have an answer. Well, besides “living your truth is like pornography, you know it when you see it.” Um, yeah. Not exactly good marketing copy. So he yanked the answer to that question out of me that night. And now that most important question is answered on every page.
My picture is in the header. I used to hate the idea of my face on my website – seemed weird and egotistical. Then, even when I started branding myself as the business, I still felt weird about putting my picture up in the header, like the website shouldn’t be about me, it should be about you (um, even though it’s my name on the site?). Yeah. I got over that. You need to know who in the heck is EPW. And with the photo montage put together by CouchSurfingOri, now you know me.
Let’s take advantage of what I have going on. I’m not quite sure how this happened, but starting back in November, I get a lot of comments. Sometimes just a dozen, a few times up to 100. That fact is an inherent, powerful testimonial for the cohesiveness and responsiveness of my tribe. So we highlight comments both as per each post (on the homepage, the blog page, individual post pages) as well as using the Recent Comments widget in the sidebar of all pages & posts.
Simplify everything. No clutter. Only a few menu choices. Only 3 blog posts on the home page. No unnecessarily widgets. No unnecessarily plugins. Nothing to bog down the site. Only a few options to click away. No confusion or distractions. Every single thing, every option, every widget, every menu, every plugin, every section has a specific purpose necessarily to the site.
So I ask you, when was the last time you looked at your site though the eyes of an outsider?
Do you make it possible for people to buy from you?
Does everything on your site have a reason?
Can anyone tell what in the world it is that you do?
And … what do you think of my new website? I’d love to hear from you!
Thank you so much for your comments, questions, feedback. Thank you so much for your help in passing this site onto your followers, friends, and subscribers. I am so honored that you chose to give some of your attention to me and this work. You are freaking awesometastic. That is all.
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I'm Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, a writer, teacher, and coach.