How a VA Can Support You in Growing Your Online Business

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As a solopreneur hiring team can be an exciting and scary time.

You've probably already heard the message that hiring a team member, specifically a Virtual Assistant (VA) is good for business.

But, if you're anything like me you're probably feeling a little lost with what to outsource that is going to create the biggest ROI for your business, especially if you're not currently paying yourself a full salary!

My first hire was for $45 to update a landing page for my upcoming launch. That was in 2017. That one moment freed up over an hour of my time, and a few choice curse words on the computer screen, and I instantly saw the benefit.

I slowly increased the support I was receiving to grow my business, often from contractors who would support me with projects, until in 2019 I brought on a team member.

Delana serves as Operations Manager of Brandmerry and today she's joining me on the podcast so we can share more ways a VA can support you in growing your online business.

So even if you only have a few hours a week where you need support, or you're gearing up for a big project, you can feel confident in bringing on someone to support you.

Tune in now to Episode 76 to learn how to outsource parts of your business to a VA.

Tune in now to hear:

• What I consider to be the area most entrepreneurs will experience the largest ROI for their investment in team.

• The 3 core areas a VA can support you with the day-to-day activities of your business (hint: most are money-making activities).

• How to get started working with a VA if you're a bit of a perfectionist, like things a certain way, feel disorganized or are on a tight budget.

Resources mentioned in today's episode:
Apply to work with Delana
Rev - Transcript service
ClickUp - Our preferred task management software
Descript - A great tool for repurposing content
Kajabi - Where our courses, membership, and products are housed. This all-in-one platform is amazing. Try it for 30 days here.
Honeybook - Client management software
Convertkit - Email marketing platform

Tune in now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to hear the full episode and all the tips.

P.S. Doors to Brandmerry Academy are opening soon. This advanced marketing membership is designed for entrepreneurs who are tired of wasting time and energy on social media and looking for a more sustainable way to grow their audience, get leads, and make sales. Join the Secret List here.

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DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

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LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

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MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

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Hey there, I’m Michelle Knight!

I’m an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I travel the world (sometimes in an RV) while running my business.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation, productivity, and more.

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Must-Reads on the Blog

How to Write An About Me Page

How to Write An About Me Page

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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Today, on The Brandmerry Podcast (yep, this is the full transcript, choose to listen above or continue reading) we're talking about your 'About Me' page. My goal is that you have everything you need to craft an ‘About Me’ page that is going to work FOR your brand, not against it!

One of the key beliefs we have over here at Brandmerry is that your website is important and should work FOR you. It's not enough to just get views. You want your website to actually convert into revenue.

There are a few things that we know about websites. 

Number one, we know that the homepage is typically the most visited page, especially if you're utilizing SEO strategies, search engine optimization, which is one of our trainings inside of Brandmerry Academy.

Number two, the second most visited page is your 'About Me' page. That tells us a lot of juicy information about your 'About Me' page, including that people care about the story and the person behind the brand.

If you've ever asked yourself, "Well, I don't think people care. Do people care? Do people care why I created this? Or do people care what has led me to this moment in my life and why I launched my business?" 

The answer is, "Absolutely they do.” 

It also tells us what we should include on our 'About Me' page. 

A lot of other branding and marketing experts will tell you that your 'About Me' page should be 100% about your ideal customer. I do not believe that is true. I have not believed that from the beginning. And I stand by that five years later.

So, today we’re diving into your ‘About Me’ page so you feel confident crafting yours. This is a continuation of episodes and blogs where we’re giving you fundamental pieces for building your brand.

We have talked about your brand’s mission.

We have outlined the difference between branding and marketing and where you should start. 

We have talked about your brand values. 

We've talked about jumping ship in your marketing and today we're going to talk about your 'About Me' page because it is incredibly important.

YOUR ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE IS ABOUT YOU

Let’s just set the record straight that your 'About Me' page should be about you! 

It should be about the person behind the brand or the people behind the brand. 

If I'm a consumer and I'm on a website and it says, 'About Me' at the top and I click on that, and then the whole entire page tells me nothing about the person behind the brand, why they started their business, why they choose their products, anything like that, I’m incredibly turned off. 

I didn't click through to learn more about myself. 
I clicked through to learn more about you. 
It's helping me in my decision-making process. 

Over on the Brandmerry blog, we have a blog post on the consumer buying process and the different stages customers go through before making a purchase decision. 

When someone is at the evaluation stage, where they are looking at the different solutions to their problem, that's when we find that people love to visit the 'About Me' page of a brand because they want to know who the person is, the mission, and the values behind a brand. That information can help them with their decision-making process.

So your 'About Me' page is incredibly important. It is often what I recommend to be the second page that you create on your website, as it's the second most viewed.

YOUR ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE FOR CONSUMERS

You also want to think about writing your ‘About Me’ page for a consumer. 

Think about if you're buying a skincare product and you're at a place where you're looking at two or three different brands and you go to an 'About Me' page, what do you want to see? 

What do you want to read? 

Last year, we were buying a new mattress. I was going between a few different companies. I had narrowed it down and I was looking at the story behind each one and that's how I ended up choosing the bed that we went with because I loved their story and I love their mission and I love the way that they shared that. That pulled me in and it made my decision for me.

The decision was because of their story and I even went with the most expensive option!

3 TIPS FOR WRITING AN 'ABOUT ME' PAGE

TELL A STORY

As we talked about in the brand storytelling episode, don't miss the opportunity to tell a story. 

Storytelling is incredibly powerful and incredibly important. It's going to build that connection, that trust with your audience. 

I've signed clients because of my 'About Me' page. 

I have had people reach out to me and submit an application for 1:1 consulting. We’ll have a conversation via email and I’ll answer questions to support them in their decision. Then I'll get an email from them 24 hours later that says, "All right, I'm ready to go. I just read your 'About Me' page, sign me up." 

Your ‘About Me’ page can be one of your most powerful assets. And you're going to get the most out of those pages if you are actually telling a story. 

Keep reading for my top tips for writing yours.

INCLUDE PERSONAL PHOTOS

I love brand photography. It's one of my favorite ways to enhance the branding experience and I encourage my clients to have a professional photo shoot for their brand because photos are incredibly powerful and we know this. 

Photos are also linked to improving brand affinity which is a deeper level of connection, typically through mission, values, and trust that a consumer has for a brand. 

Photos are a great way to build that brand affinity because through photography, you can share different moments and experiences in your life that allow your audience to say, "Oh my gosh, I know them." Instagram's a great example of this in action.

Utilizing photos to showcase whatever story you're telling.

So showcasing these different photos is a great way to build that connection. 

For your 'About Me' page I recommend not loading it with a bunch of professional photos, but putting in more lifestyle-type photos. Showcase photos of you at different places, in different outfits with different facial expressions, maybe you with your children, with your dog, on a trip or with a glass of wine. 

We follow people and we're like, "Oh, I know them," or "They did this," or "This is so-and-so's favorite wine," or "Did you know, so-and-so's dog?" and we feel like we know them!

Focus on showcasing what you're saying on the page, through your storytelling in the photos; not just typing out your story, but showing your story visually through photography. 

HAVE A CALL TO ACTION

When it comes to brand storytelling to move someone through to purchasing a product, we can't just tell stories to tell stories. We have to have a call to action. 

On an 'About Me' page, I love to have two CTA’s.

The first CTA is a click-through to your product or your service. If your ideal customer has read all the way to the bottom, they're probably pretty committed. And if they're further along in the buying process, say stage three or four, they're ready to make a purchase decision and having that button there can be incredibly powerful.

In addition to that, and below that, I love to share a lead magnet. The second CTA should be your free gift/ lead magnet to capture their attention.

Again, if someone has read your full ‘About Me’ page they're committed, but maybe they're not at a place where they're ready to invest. So having a way for them to opt in to your email list through a lead magnet can be incredibly powerful for capturing their information and being able to stay in contact with them.

So those are three must-haves for your 'About Me' page. 

Your story, having photos that show different moments in time, not just professional photos, and a call to action. Typically, a link to go purchase your product, your service, or your product suite page, and your lead magnet opt-in.

HOW TO WRITE YOUR 'ABOUT ME’ PAGE

Now I'm going to share with you my insider, super complicated, never-before-released method for writing your 'About Me' page! 

Brace yourself because it's easy. We overthink things all of the time when it comes to writing our copy, and one of the reasons that I encourage my clients to write their 'About Me' page, in the beginning, is because it's great practice in writing your story and pulling in pieces, like your mission and your values.

STEP ONE: IDENTIFY 3 TRANSITIONS

To begin, think about three transitions that have happened in your life. These can be three moments that are close together in your timeline or they can be spread out over the years. The timing does not matter, but I want you to think about these three transitions as a launching-off point.

Identifying these moments can include:

• A moment where something changed in your life. 

• Something happened to you and you had to change course or direction. 

• You made a decision and you changed course. 

• You learned a valuable lesson and you decided to do something different.

Think about these pivots or transitions. No more than three for our purposes here.

Write each of these out!

STEP TWO: PIECE IT TOGETHER

From there I want you to write out each of those different things and then piece them together and you have an 'About Me' page!  

There's one last part of the process, but I want to share my three with you first as an example of steps one and two. 

My first transition was when I decided not to go to college right after high school. I was the Salutatorian of my class. I had gotten an incredible scholarship to Loyola University, and I decided that I didn't want to do that. I had a long history with perfectionism and was just at a place in my life where I was not happy and was ready to take bold action and do something that felt good for me. It was the first time in my life that I had made a decision that went against what everyone around me wanted for me. And it was a big deal.

In this first transition, I'm setting the tone. I'm saying, "Oh, this is who I was and then this happened in 2005." The more dates that you can use, the better. Those are incredibly helpful for markers and a great way to keep your audience engaged. 

Next, I talk about how I wanted to be in musical theater. To be a star on Broadway, and was going to school for that in 2008 when my brother was diagnosed with cancer. I go on to talk about going through that experience. I don't go into every detail about that event. It's not necessary. It's sacred to me. I don't need to share it with everyone, but that was an important part of my life and did impact the business that I have today. So I share that piece of the puzzle.

Then I talk about after losing my brother, marrying my husband and finally present the third transition which was the birth of my son. This transition is where I focus the majority of my energy because that is what ultimately led to my business. 

The birth of my son got me thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, what I wanted to create, how I wanted to be home with him and that ultimately led to the creation of Brandmerry. 

You can head here to read my full ‘About Me’ page, in fact, I encourage you to do that! 

It's a great case study. 

What I want you to focus on is that I've led the reader through three transitions. I've also recognized how my audience can connect with those pieces and highlight those elements throughout.

Some of those elements are:

• Perfectionism. So many people in my audience and my ideal customers are recovering perfectionists or perfectionists, or they are starting their business or doing something that's different from what they originally were doing. So by sharing that first transition, there's that connection piece. 

• Grief and Loss. We've all experienced grief and loss. Maybe it wasn't your sibling, it was someone else or something, but we can all relate to that feeling. And that is something that connects us and many of my clients and my customers who have had these moments that have triggered the mission that they have, or has triggered them to do the work that they do in the world. 

• Starting My Business. My community is also made up of people who want to start businesses or have businesses. So we all have that moment where we're like, "I'm going to do this dang thing," and that's why I share mine. 

Choose your moments very strategically based on the connection for your audience. 

And then finally, what you want to do is lead to where it is now. 

We always talk about a beginning, middle and end to storytelling. But with an 'About Me' page, it's like a beginning, middle, and here we are now, continuing into the future. 

STEP THREE: SET UP THE BUSINESS

Don’t think about an end to your ‘About Me’ page, but rather the next steps!

This is where you want to share your mission statement, talk about the work that you do, and lead to that work-with-me page. 

It’s also where I recommend including your Hook, i.e. who you are, who you serve, their struggle and their desires.

If you sell a product, you can talk about when you recognized there was a need for your product. Maybe you went through a period where you talked about where you tested a bunch of stuff and it didn't work and you felt defeated and then you finally got the prototype that worked and you put it out into the world. And here's where you are now.

If you have a t-shirt clothing line that uses organic cotton, why did you decide to do that?

There are so many different things that you can do. Don't limit yourself because of the product and service that you sell. Focus on telling that story about the person or the people behind the brand because that's what the 'About Me' page is ultimately intended for.

Inside of my program, Brandmerry Academy, we take a deeper dive into what we call the heroine's journey, which goes into more detail on crafting your story, showcasing multiple peaks and dips in your story and how to craft it! 

However, for years and years, the three transitions were all I taught and used and still to this day it’s the structure I use for my Brandmerry ‘About Me’ page.  

LENGTH OF YOUR ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE

Here's the last thing that I'll share with you before you go forth and write your 'About Me' pages. 

Don't stress about how long it is when you're writing it. 

Just write it. 

Either write it in a Google Doc or record it and transcribe it if you find that you filter yourself. Whichever strategy works for you, write it and then clean it up. Don’t filter yourself to start or you’ll miss out on crucial elements of your story!

We limit ourselves in our storytelling abilities by trying to create the finished product when we first write it. And it never works that way. 

People don't write their finished book when they first write their book. It goes through tons and tons of rounds of edits. And I'm not saying you're writing a book and we don't need to spend months and months on your 'About Me' page, but just write it, tell the story, focus on the connection then go out and make sure you've touched on these pieces I shared in this post. 

CONCLUSION

I hope that you now understand how important your website is and how powerful your ‘About Me’ page truly is. And that your 'About Me' page is meant to tell the story behind the brand, not to say, "Oh, and I'll help you do X, Y, and Z," and that's the only thing on that page. Please don't do that. 

Utilize the steps outlined in this blog post today and share your new ‘About Me’ page with me on Instagram @michelleknightco so I can celebrate with you.

If you want to take a deeper dive into building your brand make sure you sign up to watch the Build A Better Brand Method. It's a free on-demand training and you can go to betterbrandmethod.com to get signed up.

Inside of that training, I talk about identifying your story and the importance of your story inside of the branding process, as well as giving you my six-part framework for building a better brand.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

The Truth About SEO - Does it Really Matter?

The Truth About SEO - Does it Really Matter?

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

I stumbled into SEO, Search Engine Optimization, when I first started blogging. I was implementing tiny bits of information I would find online and crossed my fingers that it might work.

Honestly, I knew nothing at the time but did know that small changes could yield big results. Within months I discovered I was on page one of Google - that’s when I knew it was working. 

I continued to put more emphasis on my strategy heading into 2019, learn as much as I could about SEO and over time I discovered that the majority of my leads were coming from Google and Pinterest.

Today, thanks to effective SEO strategies I experience thousands of website visitors every month.

Here’s a sneak peek at what happened from 2019 to 2020.

VS.

But, let’s not just talk about SEO, let's strip away all the mystery that we see in online marketing and have a real conversation about why every single business, no matter what you sell, should have a solid SEO strategy inside of your marketing.

What SEO Means

Let's first just break down into everyday terms what SEO is. 

It's essentially search engine optimization, which you probably already know, but what is that exactly? 

It means that when you are on search engine platforms like Google or even platforms that you might not think about, like Pinterest and YouTube, you can go to those platforms, type in questions, keywords, or a single word, and the algorithm will pull all of the resources that match those terms. 

As a marketer, if you want to show up for people who are searching for those things, you want to make sure that you're paying attention to the SEO in your content.

This tool is giving the algorithm the information that you are sharing on your page so that you show up in your ideal client’s search results. 

And yes, ranking on page one is kind of a big deal, most people don't scroll past page two or three, but even showing up on those early pages, page one, two or three can be super beneficial for your business. 

Obviously, we're all shooting for page one and we're going to talk about how you can do just that for your industry.

The Consumer Buying Process and SEO

A few blogs ago, I introduced the consumer buying process and I presented the different phases that a customer goes through before they purchase.

Stage One: Problem or Need Recognition
Stage Two: Information Search
Stage Three: Evaluation of Alternatives
Stage Four: Purchase Decision
Stage Five: Post-Purchase Evaluation

We also broke it down as it relates to content creation. So, make sure you go back and watch that video. That's going to specifically tell you about each of those individual pieces so you have a better understanding of the client buying journey.

What I want you to focus on when we're talking about these five phases is that people are finding your content at different points in their journey. 

Not everyone is going to be coming to you and discovering your brand with a credit card in hand, and not everyone is going to be coming to your brand wondering, "What am I supposed to be doing with my life?" 

There are a wide variety of different stages that a consumer might be sitting in at any given time and that's why SEO can be incredibly powerful. 

It allows you to create multiple resources, as well as the SEO on your site as a whole, to make sure that you are showing up for people at multiple stages of the buying process.

SEO MARKETING: 3 SEO ACTION STEPS

SEO TIP #1: SITE-WIDE SEO

The first thing you want to do is make sure that you have your site-wide SEO set up. 

As I mentioned before in the consumer buying process there will be people looking for your services and industry specifically at stage four or five. Now, this is where your website homepage comes into play because when you set your site-wide SEO, and you rank on Google for specific keywords, the traffic is going to go to your homepage. 

So, you want to make sure that your homepage is set up and ready to rock and roll. Last week I shared my 4-part framework for increasing conversions on your homepage, you can check that out here.

A lot of people miss this piece of the puzzle, they start to rank, and then they realize, "Oh, crap, everyone's just landing on my homepage which isn't optimized to collect leads or direct people to my offers, or send them to resources like my blog." We don’t want that so make sure you have an optimized homepage to start.

Ok, back to site-wide SEO.

I use Squarespace in my business so there's an actual section in Squarespace for site-wide SEO. Kajabi is another tool that I use and they have a section for site-wide SEO as well. No matter what platform you're using, there is going to be a section to set up the SEO for your website as a whole, typically found in the settings section.

Now when you’re choosing what to include in this section, I want you to think about those final stages of the buying process. The stage where someone already understands their problem, already understands their solution, they've looked around, and now they want to purchase. 

That's what I want you to focus on when it comes to choosing keywords for site-wide SEO - think about your industry or product. For instance, “chemical-free skincare” or “business coach” or “wedding photographer Australia”.

In my case, if someone is looking for a branding coach and they're ready to invest in a branding coach, they might Google “branding coach,” and my website is going to pop up. 

If someone is looking for a personal branding consultant, they might type in “personal branding consultant” and my website will pop up. 

It's much easier to convert those individuals because they are ready to invest and by having this SEO in place you can create a consistent stream of clients.

You’ll use these keywords to format your Site Title and Site Description, which is another place to include some of those keywords but typically is written more conversationally and enticingly.

In addition, you can give it another boost but also include those keywords on your home page individually as well. 

I'm not going to go into that entire strategy today. That's something I teach inside of Brandmerry Academy, but if you’re choosing to do it yourself then you want to keep in mind that research is everything.

It's a mistake that many entrepreneurs make. They might say, "Okay, fantastic, this is my title. I'm a unicorn princess coach," and that's what they put for their site title.

No one's Googling that, right? And this is where I often say that your titles shouldn't be fluffy, they should be rooted in data and research. So, using some of the tools that I mentioned in a previous post on my favorite marketing tools, Ubersuggest or Keywords Everywhere are great tools that you can use to see how much traffic a particular keyword gets.

Now ranking for an industry doesn't mean that you need to have like 10,000 or 30,000 searches every single month, it could be as simple as 150 to 500 because those people are further along in the buying process so they are looking for a very, very specific solution to their problem.

TO RECAP:

• Do your research to discover what people are researching at stage four of the buying process

• Implement a Site-Wide Title and Description

• Add those keywords to your homepage in your copy

• Optimize your homepage for conversions

SEO TIP #2: BLOGGING AND PINTEREST

Number two is supporting what you're saying you're known for, i.e. Site-Wide SEO, with additional resources on your website through blogging.

Blogging does a few different, incredible things for ranking your website. 

Number one, blogging is an awesome resource. So, if someone wants to get to know you, you want to support them in moving through the buying process, blogging is a great way to showcase your expertise. 

In addition to that, many people who are at stage one of the buying process are just looking to understand their problem, looking for solutions to their problem, or just trying to get some information about what they are experiencing.

That's where blogging could be incredibly helpful. And if you use SEO on your blog strategically, then your blogs will show up in Google Search. For instance, my ideal customer at Stage One might be searching for content creation strategies and one of my blogs will show up. 

It is, I would say, much easier to rank for your site as a whole, which is why that's number one than it is to rank individual blog posts. But the more that you get into SEO and the more that you practice utilizing keywords in your headers and optimizing your title, then it is more likely that your blogs will rank on Google. 

In addition to supporting your ideal customer on their journey, Google also loves content that supports what you ultimately say you are doing. So, if I say I'm a branding coach and I have a lot of blogs on branding, Google likes that a lot, and they're going to use that to help me show up on their search engine. 

It also helps with other search engine platforms as well.

Think about Pinterest! Remember, Pinterest is an SEO platform and a great place to feature your blog content to get in front of your ideal customer.

Putting your blog content on your website, sharing it on Pinterest and making sure it's optimized there as well can help drive consistent traffic to your platform. 

Many of those individuals on Pinterest are at the beginning stages of the buying process where they're just looking for solutions, and your blog can show up for them. So, making sure that you're creating supporting content within your niche, within your industry on your blog, and that's a consistent part of your marketing strategy.

SEO TIP #3: SEO RESEARCH

It's one thing to blog, it's another thing to do your dang research. 

So, one of the best pieces of advice that I could give to you when it comes to content as a whole is to do your research and make sure that you're optimizing your content on Pinterest, on your blog, and YouTube for SEO. 

What does that mean? That means that you might have a fantastic idea in your head of something that you want to share and I want you to research that topic to make sure that you're choosing the best title and the best keywords so people find it.

On the flip side of that, you might not know what you want to talk about at all and you can use these tools like Ubersuggest and Keywords Everywhere to search for specific topics that you know are relevant for your ideal customer and get a plethora of topic ideas and content that you can share that you already know is going to do well on search engines.

When planning your content give yourself some extra time to do your SEO research.

There are so many resources out there that will give you the answers, you don't have to just wonder, "How many people are searching for this?" 

The data is there. 

If you take an extra step when you're mapping out your content for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, like I like to do over here at Brandmerry, you're making sure that the titles, the URL that you're creating, and the keywords on your content are going to show up for people.

CONCLUSION

Remember, so many people create their website and then it just sits there because they're not getting traffic. 

SEO is the answer to getting consistent traffic, leads and conversions. And utilizing search engine platforms like Pinterest, Youtube and Google will allow you to continue to scale your business with ease.

I hope that this was helpful for you in understanding what SEO is and why it's important. Make sure you go back and read those previous posts specifically on the client buying journey and optimizing your homepage. 

And if you’re ready to learn how to market your business with ease, without relying on social media and implement the strategies we talked about today with SEO, Pinterest, blogging, video marketing and more, then check out Brandmerry Academy and how the membership can support you in scaling your business.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Layout a Website Homepage in 4 Easy Steps

How to Layout a Website Homepage in 4 Easy Steps

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

You’ll typically find yourself in one of two boats when it comes to having a website as an entrepreneur.

In one boat, you spend a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of energy on creating your website. Whether you've done it yourself, or you hired a team, bought a course, bought a template, or bought add-ons, you’ve spent the time, money and energy to have a website for your brand.

With boat number two, you are waiting to create your website, and it just keeps getting put on the back burner because it's incredibly overwhelming. 

And no judgment, I spent, eight months creating my website, only to scrap the entire thing and start over because I didn't know what I was doing. Turns out your brand plays a really big role in your website, something I didn’t realize 5 years ago. It’s one of the reasons I teach the importance of having a solid brand foundation BEFORE you build your website.

If you need a little more love in the branding department, make sure you watch my free on-demand class where I’ll teach you my signature Build a Better Brand Method. Watch it here.

For our purposes right now, let's just assume that you've done the branding work because it is necessary. Don't think that you can jump in with this 4-part framework I'm about to give you, without knowing your brand and your message and your mission and your ideal customer, because it's just not going to work. 

That's my disclaimer. It's out of the way.
Now let's talk about the 4-part framework.

WEBSITE HOMEPAGE TEMPLATE: 4-PART FRAMEWORK

Now, one of the things that I learned when I started implementing more SEO, search engine optimization, into my business is that my homepage was getting a lot of traffic.

One of the things that I teach inside of Brandmerry Academy is getting your homepage to rank in search engines for your industry because the quality leads you get are just perfection!

Things like site-wide SEO, your site title, your site description and more all help you rank on Google and all of that traffic is going to lead to your homepage. Sometimes we think about SEO only working for blogs, but one of the easiest things that you can do when you're starting your business is focus on the SEO traffic for your industry and ranking for your industry.

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, people who are in the fifth stage of the buying process are ready to buy and they're coming to your homepage where they will decide if you’re the right brand for them.

So that homepage better be working for you.

I realized pretty quickly my homepage was not working for me and I needed to switch it up a bit. I implemented what I now call my 4-part HOME framework, you see what I did there?  HOME is the acronym that we're going to dissect for the homepage.

I discovered this by accident and fine-tuned it. And I've been teaching it ever since. So let's dissect the HOME 4-part framework for your homepage.

Homepage Framework Step 1: HOOK

H is for hook. 

Listen, if someone's coming to your website, they are probably going to peace out in like eight seconds if you don't hook them. That's why this is one of the most important things that you can add to your website. 

This is typically right at the top before anyone has to scroll down or take any action. And it tells the person who is viewing your page, exactly who you are, who you serve, and why you are going to support them in solving their problem, or how you support them in solving their problem.

Remember, as marketers and business owners, we're solving problems. That's what we do. 

That's why people invest in our products and our services.
They have a problem
They're aware of the problem.
They're seeking a solution and ta-da, they're finding you as a solution, or your product, or your service to their problem. 

Your goal with your brand is to attract or repel. You want to make sure that your hook is hooking in the right people and sending away anybody that isn't the right fit for you. 

So, to recap your Hook should outlines:

• Who you are

• Who you serve

• How you help them go from struggle to desire (the goal they ultimately want)

This is something I teach inside of Brandmerry Academy. One of the first bonuses you get is all about writing your signature Brand Bios and one of those is your Hook.

Homepage Framework Step 2: OPPORTUNITY

Then we move down the page a little bit to O. 
O is for opportunity. 

You want to give anyone that has now been hooked an opportunity to learn more and to join your email list.

This is where I love to include your freebie opt-in. 

Now inside of my program Brandmerry Academy, one of the first things that we focus on is creating some sort of freebie, or lead magnet, so that as you increase traffic to your website, people are taking advantage of your lead magnet and joining your email list. 

Your email list is gold. This is how you stay in contact with your brand. This is how you share important promos and updates. 

People who land on your website, then disappear, are hard to stay in contact with if they aren't on your email list. 

The best thing to do is include a button to a landing page or a form embedded so they can sign up for your free gift and join your email list.

Homepage Framework Step 3: MEMORABLE

Then that moves us down the page a little bit more to M.
And M is for memorable.

Listen, I teach storytelling and how we can apply it to our branding and marketing. It's kind of my thing. And one of the things that I love about storytelling is the fact that integrating story into your content, into your copy, makes it 22 times more memorable than if you didn't have any.

So, this is the point at which you become memorable to your ideal customer. 

To do this, you also share a small ‘about me’ section and your mission. I call this the Bio Blurb and it’s something we teach inside Brandmerry Academy.

The goal here is to give your ideal customer more insight into who you are, your mission, the work that you do, and allow them to read more on your full ‘About Me’ page.

This is a great opportunity where you can connect through empathy and build authority, which leads us to the final stage.

Homepage Framework Step 4: EXPERTISE

That leads us to the fourth part of the homepage, which is E for expertise. This is where you want to continue to elevate your authority. 

Remember, people are seeking us out to solve problems through our products, through our services, and they want to know that we can guide them and we can support them. 

So after you've hooked them, you've given them an opportunity to get a valuable free resource, you’ve shared your story, let’s just amplify that expertise, shall we? 

This is where you can share really popular blog posts that provide education for your audience, and can ultimately help them make small little micro-changes with their problem. 

You can show your expertise by highlighting features that you've been on. If you've been featured in Forbes, or you've been featured in Business Insider, or relevant podcasts for your industry those logos can be beneficial. But, it doesn't have to be those big players that we always think about. Sometimes those niche-down outlets, media outlets, podcasts, things like that, can mean even more to our ideal customer.

If you have a podcast, you can share podcast episodes so they can explore additional resources from you.

You can also share testimonials. If you've had clients who have seen tremendous results, you can feature those on your homepage.

E is all about elevating your expertise and authority!

CONCLUSION

This is it. 

These are the four things that I want you to have on your homepage. No more. 

Don't overwhelm people with a million different options. Keep it simple. 

Ultimately, when people land on your homepage, we either want to attract them or repel them. 

Once we've attracted the right people, the ideal customer, because nobody else matters, then we want to give them an opportunity to join our email list, to learn more, or to buy almost instantly. 

And creating a homepage like this is going to support you, in sending people in the different directions that you ultimately want them to go, while keeping it simple and not overwhelming.

Overwhelming your audience from the first thing that they see is a surefire way to lose them. 

If you are ready to dive in to increase those website views and ultimately those conversions, this is exactly what we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy. Learn more at Brandmerry.com/academy.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

3 Ways to Improve Your Online Marketing as a Female Entrepreneur

3 Ways to Improve Your Online Marketing as a Female Entrepreneur

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

A core pillar of a successful marketing strategy is branding.

When we start our business we typically dive into both simultaneously, but I promise your marketing strategies (like the ones we will talk about in this blog) will work better if your brand is ready to rock and roll.

Your brand allows you to determine your niche, ideal customer, core messaging and your signature offer because you have to start somewhere, 

If your branding is lacking you’ll struggle with your…
...Facebook ad strategy
...email marketing strategy
...advanced funnels and evergreen
...content creation
...and so much more.

So, I’m encouraging you to take a quick pause, think of your brand, and determine if that’s where you need to start.

If it is, then you can hop right into my free class where I’ll teach you the Build a Better Brand Method. You can get signed up at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass.

Save this post and come back to it after your brand feels ready.

Ok, if you’re still with me and are ready for three awesome ways to improve your marketing let’s get into it.

THE PURPOSE OF MARKETING

The purpose of every marketing strategy should be to build trust.

Trust is why people not only buy from you over another brand but also why they keep coming back and refer you to their friends and family (aka marketing gold).

So the reason we actually show up, create content and market our business isn’t just about making money...that is a byproduct of building trust.

The question we need to start asking ourselves, and what we will discuss further in this blog, is “How are you building trust with your audience?”

How are you saying, “I know that you've seen like maybe six other people who do the same thing that I do. You've probably seen like six other ads today of people who do the same thing that I do, why should you trust me?” 

And that's essentially the question you want to answer with your marketing.

You want to make it a priority to build trust with your audience at every single step of the client journey. 

Zig Ziglar states, “If they like you, they'll listen to you. If they trust you, they'll do business with you.” And this quote has stuck with me since 2016 because truly that is what I want you to remember from this blog.

It’s one thing for people to like your content.
It’s one thing for people to think to themselves, “this is great!”
It’s one thing for people to message you and say, “thanks so much for your content!”

It’s another thing for people to trust you so much, having never met you in person to pull out a credit card, or a debit card or whatever kind of card they use, and pay you for your products and your services! 

When we actually think about what we're asking people to do as an online business owner, it's kind of crazy. We’re asking people to trust us enough to pull out their card without having met us or physically seen or touched our products and services and pay us...online!

That’s why the next three things I’m going to share with you around improving your marketing are going to change the game for you. It isn’t another strategy that you do once and forget about. These are three proven ways to build trust quickly with your audience and increase your sales.

3 Ways to Improve Your Marketing

1. Become a Better Storyteller

2. Take Care of Your Clients on Their Journey

3. Consistently Show Up and Deliver Value
   
   

Now that you have the overview let’s dive into each point.

1. Become a Better Storyteller

If you’ve read my blogs before then this tip shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, it’s literally how I’ve built the half-a-million-dollar business I have today.

Learning how to tell better stories is going to improve your marketing across the board, whether it's on your website, in your freebie funnel, live video, social media, blog, Pinterest, I can keep talking and going on and on about every single aspect, but you get the idea. 

And there are a couple of the core reasons storytelling works so well in marketing.

Your content is 22 times more likely to be remembered If you incorporate storytelling.

I know you spend time creating content, right? It is probably the most time-consuming part of running your business and it's an important part of running your business. So don't you want to make sure that when you take this time, and you put the content out into the world, that people actually remember what you said? Don’t you want to know it’s making an impact? That it’s not just consumed and forgotten in 48 hours?

Incorporating storytelling allows you to do that. 

In addition, storytelling does some cool stuff in our brains

When we read or hear a story dopamine is released in our brains. This release makes us feel an emotional connection to the story instantly. If it’s a great story it might even allow us to connect with the storyteller. This emotional connection is important because it’s why people decide to buy.

It has been proven that logistics aren’t enough on their own. When we share the price, the savings, the number of modules, etc...it isn’t going to get someone to commit. The emotional connection, what’s happening on the subconscious level, is the reason someone makes a purchase decision.

And, finally, if you’re not already convinced, one of the fundamental pieces of storytelling that I love to teach is that your story is actually not about you as the marketer, it's about your ideal customer. 

One of the ways to become a better storyteller is to remember that every single story that you share needs to be about your audience and connect to your audience in some way and invite them in. When we do this with our storytelling, we continue to neural coupling.

Neural coupling is the firing of mirror neurons that create coherence between a speaker's brain and the brain of his or her audience members. And inviting your audience into the story is actually quite easy. Look for ways to ask questions like, “Have you ever felt this way?”
“Does that sound familiar?”
“Have you had this experience?”

Just those simple one-liner questions can Invite your audience into your story.

These are just three reasons why integrating storytelling into every aspect of your marketing is so important, because it will actually allow you to build trust quicker, leading to the sale. 

2. Take Care of Your Client’s on Their Journey

Yes, I mean every single step of the way. Your client journey doesn’t just start when they purchase a product from you, it starts the second they learn about you and your brand.

The client journey isn’t talked about enough and as a result, people market the crap out of their business and they do an amazing job, but after the sale, the client is just not satisfied. It’s because they didn’t spend the same level of care on their client as they did selling.

So, I want you to think about a couple of things.

• When someone opts into your freebie, what happens? What do they get? What do they hear about?

• When someone gets an email from you or sees on social media that you have an offer and they go to your sales page, what does that process look like?

• When someone buys from you, what does that process look like?
  
  

You want to really break down each of these different processes every step of the way.

I'll give you an example of the onboarding process for my program Brandmerry Academy.

When someone is ready to join The Academy, during a launch, they go to the sales page, they choose their offer, then they go to the checkout page.

On the checkout page, I have a video of me walking them through the process. After they enter their payment information, they are immediately taken to a confirmation page that says, “You did it! You're in!” and it includes another video from me sharing the next steps.

Under the video, I tell them exactly what they need to do, which includes checking their email for their login and looking for another email from me with all the details they need. Then, while they wait for the emails, I’m directing them to the New Member Survey. 

After the survey, they check the email and have everything they need to get started. They have a link to the Facebook Group. They can log-in to the membership site. They have a walkthrough video of the membership site so they can get started. They have a New Member Roadmap.

There is no guessing as to what they need to do and as a result, my clients feel 100% supported from the second they choose to buy. 

Do you see how powerful this is? I made it a point to maintain trust the entire way through the process.

A few questions to start asking yourself to clean up your process:

• How can I make this a memorable and easy experience for people from the second they hear about my business?

• What happens when someone lands on a sales page? Do my buttons work?

• When someone wants to schedule a call, what is that process? 

• When someone buys a product what is the step-by-step process?

3. Consistently Show Up and Deliver Value

If you want to make it in marketing, people need to know who you are.

Consistently showing up for your audience, is just another way to build trust with them. And no, consistency does not mean posting every single day, that’s so old school, what consistency means is finding a rhythm that works for you and sticking to it.

Building trust and credibility with your audience so they know you’re showing up during the week. When you focus on consistency you are less likely to get lost in the mix of information.

This is one of the reasons I love email marketing and I make it a goal to send at least one email a week. Email marketing allows you to get directly to your audience without having to compete for space on social media. And when you’re showing up on the same day every week, they know to look for you!

When we’re talking about consistently showing up, no matter what platform you choose to share your content, you need to have core systems in place to make your life easier. Consistency is a really big struggle for so many entrepreneurs and that’s because they don’t have clear systems in place to create content weekly.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, states, “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”

This line spoke to my soul because it's not just about hitting your goals, it's about having the systems in place so that you can get back on the horse when you inevitably fall off. It’s going to happen so having these systems allow you to pick back up and get right back into it.

If you don't have these workflows and these systems and you don't know how to create consistent content, you don't know how to write content quickly, and you don't know how to come up with content ideas, and you don't have these systems that you can essentially rinse and repeat you will struggle.

It’s one of the reasons I created The Consistency Guide for entrepreneurs. I’m finally solving the problem so many entrepreneurs have by addressing the mindset and systems of it all. You can learn more about The Consistency Guide here.

CONCLUSION

Marketing is so much more than just a cool new strategy, it has to be rooted in trust. If you focus on these three elements in conjunction with some of my favorite tools like video marketing, Pinterest and SEO you’ll be setting yourself up for major success as an online entrepreneur.

If you want to learn more about the importance of storytelling because I know it’s such a hot topic, and rightfully so, I’ve got a blog post on The Art of Storytelling in Business here.

P.S. Don’t forget to check out The Consistency Guide and learn The Consistency Framework that has supported me in creating a half-a-million-dollar business, but also my clients in reaching $5k+ months. Learn more and grab your guide at brandmerry.com/consistent.

WATCH THE TIPS AND MORE HERE.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.