This episode is all about websites, and the potential that a good website has in giving your business greater market growth and brand presence.

Why do I need a website for my small business? [00:46] 

We found out that COVID-19 kind of affected the world in a positive and negative way. Negatively, it shut down a lot of traditional businesses that were operating offline, and that didn’t have a website. And in a positive way, it helped everyone realize they had to build a website or an online presence to be more successful online. People were not visiting a store anymore. 

So why do you need a website? It helps you build more brand presence. It helps you build more domain authority. But above all that it helps you build either a personal brand or a brand for your company. So you can be seen in more places.

It helps you give out digital business cards to people, where they can visit your website, and find out more information about your services and your products. If you’re an e-commerce store, well, you need a website now because it’s how you could sell your products.

In our case, we work with personal brands and content creators. We work with a lot of local businesses that may not be used to having a website, or if they do, it doesn’t showcase everything that they offer.  

You get to showcase who you are, show the career part of your website, and also show other things that may not be visible without having that website, without having that brand presence to show that: hey, there’s more to your business than meets the eye.

How can I generate leads through my website? [03:10] 

Today, customers are constantly looking for things on their smartphones, on their tablets, and on their laptops. But more importantly, they’re looking for stuff on Google search, on YouTube, and in various areas. There is always a converting destination, and that should be through your website.

You can generally get leads through your website by offering a form on there, a phone number on there, some sort of call to action, maybe a lead magnet. We call these MQLs, which are marketing qualified leads. For people who come to your website, you can generate interest in them in either a product or service, by using some sort of lead-captured device.

We like to use sales funnels that take people to maybe a free Masterclass where they can watch you. And this would be full-time. This would be a really great e-course, really super high quality. We found that a lot of people like watching a lot of free stuff that they can’t find on the internet, or if they can find it, they can’t find the best information. This is where you can generate leads on a website, and a website could be a sales funnel, which is composed of a landing page plus multiple pages after that first landing page. 

If you are running a service-based business – maybe you’re a plumber or maybe you’re an arborist and you cut down trees for a living. You want to be able to get maybe two kinds of leads on your website. Either people call you to get a quota of your services, or two, or maybe people fill out a form. 

If you run a service-based business and you run it from 9 to 5, or 9 to 6 PM, you may not be available at 9 PM. If you’re a chiropractor or a physiotherapist and your business stops at 7 or 8 PM, what happens if someone gets knee pain at 2 PM, at two o’clock in the morning?

They’re not going to call your business and they may not even leave a voicemail. They’ll visit your website. They’ll fill out a form and you’ll get that lead in the morning when you wake up, and you’ll be able to follow up with that customer. 

How can I build credibility to my site? [05:52]

The website must have great content, and great content is composed of transparency. 

When we build websites, we like to include topics. We like to include information about the business owner. The two most important parts of any website are the homepage and the About Us page. Specifically speaking, whether you’re running an e-commerce store or a service-based website.

If you run, let’s say, a painting business in Atlanta and you want to build credibility on your website, you’ve got to tactically think: what does your customer want to see when they visit your site?

In most cases, it’s going to be three things. One, what kind of services do you have? What location are you in? And then three, who are you and what kind of services can you do? 

On the Homepage, they’ll find out who you are. They’ll find out more information about your services. On the About Us page, they’ll find out who you really are.

Who’s going to be working? Who’s the crew? Who’s the owner of the business? And how are you going to be painting in their house? And so you want to be able to establish credibility as a business owner, using the About Us page. 

Or on the flip side, you have an e-commerce store and you sell food and beverage services. Maybe you sell a drink – that About Us page will help you build credibility on your website because it’ll showcase who you are.

Next, when people leave your website, they’re going to do some research about you. They’re going to find you in other places on the web. They’re going to find you on social media on Facebook, and Instagram, and maybe they’ll find you on TikTok. Maybe they’ll find you on LinkedIn. And that’s where you want to have your digital presence.

That’s where you’re going to be able to establish a lot of credibility with your digital presence, by having this website, which acts as a pillar to the rest of your digital presence.

How can I grow my business through my website? [08:37] 

There are multiple ways to grow your business through your website. If you’re selling e-courses or maybe you’re a content creator, you may want to use a sales funnel.

In a sales funnel, you’re using SamCart click funnels, Elementary Pro, or using a WordPress website. Or you’re using a form where you’re building a landing page, as a lead page. And then you are using lead magnets, which are virtual digital objects that people can download and watch.

So if you’re doing a Masterclass, you can build and grow your business through your website by offering a sales funnel. That is, showcasing who you are, what you’re offering and what your product is and giving something away for free. And that’s how a great sales funnel can work. If you’re not a content creator and you’re not a personal brand, you can grow your business through your website by collecting leads.

If you run a service area business and you provide a service – let’s say, you show up at someone’s house with a chainsaw to cut down the trees, if you’re a plumber if you’re maybe a chiropractor or physiotherapist: how can you grow your business through your website? 

Well, the one thing you should focus on is building great content. So, what that means is, well, your target audience, your buyer persona, and your visitors are going to have questions.

These might be Frequently Asked Questions that you get on a day-to-day basis. For a chiropractor, it might say: I’ve got back pain, I’ve got knee pain, I’ve got ankle pain. I don’t know where it comes from and I don’t know what to do about it.

And so, you can grow your business by answering these Frequently Asked Questions. As a chiropractor, you might ask someone a question like, well, do you feel pain in your trap? Do you feel pain in your arm? A lot of people have been suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome throughout COVID because they’re working from home.

They don’t have ergonomic equipment, so they have to go see more chiropractors and physiotherapists and they’ve got to go down that route. So you can grow your business through your website by creating content that people are searching for. Whether they’re searching for you on Google search, or they go to YouTube, which is the second largest search engine in the world – that’s where you can have your content. You can then create embedded versions of your YouTube videos directly, right on your website to provide people with answers. 

And going back to our previous question, this establishes credibility. You can establish credibility when you show someone what you’re doing.

If you’re working on someone’s knee or if you’re working on someone’s house and you’re painting, you can show how you paint the garage doors, how you paint the exterior, and the interior. 

If you’re a food and beverage brand and you sell pop cans or you sell a unique liquid or syrup, you can show how it fizzes. When you pour it into a glass, you can use TikTok videos. All that helps you build your business through your website because you’re giving people the experience you’re going to get with your product or your service before they get it.  

How can my website stand out from the competition? [12:28] 

It’s important to have a great website too, but if you don’t do anything with it, it’s not going to grow and you’ve got to continue providing evergreen content on there. That’s how search engines are going to pick it. 

So if you want to stand out from everyone else and look around at your competition, do a competitive analysis. Who are your five closest competitors? What are they doing? Are they running any Facebook ads, or Instagram ads? Are they running anything on Meta? Are they running any digital marketing, or paid ads? Do they have SEO? And honestly all that may not be right from the get-go, because you may not have the tools to get you there.

If you want to really stand out, have a great brand and that’s more than just having a good logo. You want people to recognize you when they see you offline, when they visit you in a store or when they see your brand on the shelf at the local grocery store.

And when they visit your website, they want the same experience. You can stand out from everyone else by having that unified experience. When people go to the website, they can get the same experience and they can see the same colors, the palette, they can see everything they would see in a store or when they buy the product. It’s all part of that same marketing.

For that reason, you need to have great branding. A full brand standard that communicates that messaging to the target audience that you’re going to be dealing with. 

Take a look at your target audience. In the past few examples, we’ve really talked about personal brands or service-based businesses. You’ve got to take a look at content because people are looking for your content every single day. They’re going on Google search, they are typing in questions, they are looking for queries. And if you can answer their queries with Frequently Asked Questions, you’re going to get more found online, whether it is on YouTube or if it’s on Google search, or if it’s on TikTok. 

And if your website shows people the content they’re looking for, you’re going to stand out from the competition. You’re going to get more market share. You’re going to get more business, and you’re going to be able to grow your online presence.