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Episode 67: 10 Common DIY Website Design Mistakes
214 Plays5 years ago
Krista and I are back continuing our mini-series on brand and website design. And we’re chatting about the 10 most common mistakes we see on DIY websites, or in other words, websites people build or customize themselves.
Just to be clear, we’re not suggesting that people shouldn’t DIY their websites. We think customizing your own website can be a valuable experience. We’re simply pointing out a few mistakes we see people make, and making some suggestions on how to fix those mistakes.
Also, our Black Friday/Thanksgiving Sale starts THIS Friday, November 22nd and runs through Cyber Monday. We’ll be offering some crazy deals on website templates and add-on pages, and the best deals will be available that first weekend, so be sure to check that out. Again, that’s this Friday, November 22nd 2019.
For the show notes, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-episode-67
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Importance of Social Proof
00:00:05
Speaker
If it's incorporated on really every page of your website, every page that you make a claim on your website, whether that it's, you know, you're good at what you do or you can do something, certain something for your clients, you should back up that claim with some sort of form of social proof.
Welcome & Purpose of the Show
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients.
DIY Website Design Mistakes Discussion
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:36
Speaker
Chris and I are back continuing our miniseries on brand and website design, and we're chatting about the 10 most common mistakes that we see people make on DIY websites, or in other words, websites that people build or customize themselves.
Black Friday Sale Announcement
00:00:51
Speaker
Just to be clear, we're not suggesting that people shouldn't DIY their websites. We think that customizing your own website can be a valuable experience. We're simply pointing out a few mistakes that we see people make and making some suggestions on how to fix those mistakes.
00:01:06
Speaker
Also, our Black Friday Thanksgiving Sale starts this Friday, November 22nd, and runs through Cyber Monday.
Call for Podcast Reviews & Feedback
00:01:15
Speaker
We'll be offering some crazy deals on website templates and add-on pages, and the best deals will be available that first weekend. So be sure to check that out. Again, that's this Friday, November 22nd, 2019. That's a full week before Black Friday.
00:01:33
Speaker
Anyways, before we get to the episode, I have a request. If you've enjoyed the Branchette Book Podcast, would you take a minute to rate and review the podcast on iTunes? Doing so will help this podcast get more visibility and it mean a lot to me. Be sure to check out the show notes at DavianChrysta.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode. And like I said, we want to hear from you. Let me know what kind of content you'd like to see on the Branchette Book Podcast as we move
DIY Website Design Tips & Pitfalls
00:01:54
Speaker
forward. To leave your feedback, head on over to the DavianChrysta Facebook page and send us a message or you can DM us on Instagram at DavianChrysta.
00:02:02
Speaker
Now, on to the episode. All right, welcome back to the brand set book show. I've got Krista here with me again, two episodes with Krista or two times you've recorded with me in the last three episodes. I know, I feel special. We've gone over 60 episodes without you on the podcast and now
00:02:27
Speaker
two in the last three. We're on a roll. But we're also continuing our sort of mini series around branding and website design. And today we're taking a look at some of the top DIY, do it yourself website design mistakes that we see people make. And we want to be clear, I think at the outset, that we think it's okay to build your own website.
00:02:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I think it's a great idea, especially if you're just getting started, if you don't have a big budget for design, or even if you're just trying to figure out what you want to do. I mean, we work with a lot of people who start their website and it's kind of like when you're just getting started in business, you have to figure out who you want to appeal to. And so that first website is kind of a testing ground before you maybe invest more money and hire somebody to do a custom site for you or at least like a more professional looking site.
00:03:19
Speaker
Sure. I mean, I think at the very least, it helps you refine your messaging, understand your goals a little bit. But again, it's just especially when you're first getting started. Sometimes, I think that money is better spent in other areas, maybe on equipment, you know, if you're just starting your photography business, then it is on a website, I would say. And I guess we wanted to mention that at the outset, because we don't want people to listen to this.
00:03:45
Speaker
and think, oh, you know, I can't design my own website. You know, really, we're talking through a lot of the mistakes that we typically see people make. But we're going to include solutions here, you know, ways to avoid those mistakes for sure. Right. I would say that unless you are a designer, you shouldn't start from scratch.
00:04:05
Speaker
Oh yeah, I mean that just takes so much time anyways and you don't know what to put on what page and I think it can be really overwhelming and maybe prevent you from getting started sooner. So I definitely recommend starting with a template. I mean I start with templates for all sorts of things, not websites obviously, but like if there's a way that I can save time by starting with something else that someone has created, I definitely do that.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And you just want to make sure that as you go about choosing a template, and we have this conversation a little bit during our last conversation about brand design, but that you're choosing a template that has a good structure. And that means on one hand that it's visually appealing to you, it fits your aesthetic, of course. But in addition to that, that the designer who created it knows what they're doing when it comes to website design. Because I think this is even more true of website design than it is a brand design.
00:04:56
Speaker
And maybe that's not true, but I would say that, you know, again, hiring just a designer, all right, somebody who's Oh, well, I really like their graphic design, so they can build my website. That's simply not the case, right? You know, each design has its own competencies. And so you want to make sure that when you find a website designer, that you find somebody who really understands websites.
00:05:19
Speaker
Right. And how things need to function, what size buttons need to be, where things should click to and lead and how things should look on mobile and all those things. Yeah, I mean, there's so many considerations, especially when it comes to things like search engine optimization, for sure. But you know, also a print designer, things look different colors look different, for instance, printed, then they then they sometimes do on the web. Right. So all that's good to keep in mind as you go about choosing a template if you do decide to start with a template.
00:05:49
Speaker
All right, so the first mistake we see a lot of people make is to make the text too difficult to read. So I've seen text that is like a really pretty light pink. And so that may look really good as a part of your brand, but that light pink may be really hard to read on mobile devices that have the brightness lowered or on older PCs where there's not a lot of contrast. And so that font may not be legible at all.
00:06:15
Speaker
I would avoid lighter colors for fonts and try to keep them high contrast with the backgrounds so that they're easy for people to
Best Practices for Gallery and Typography
00:06:22
Speaker
read. And this sounds like such a common sense thing, but I feel like there's so many ways that people go wrong with text on their website.
00:06:32
Speaker
Oh yeah, like putting too much text in calligraphy, like calligraphy that's really hard to read or like a big block of calligraphy that like, if you can't like skim something quickly and get the gist of it, it's probably hard for other people to read. It's a better accent than it is, you know, a font that you predominantly use on your website.
00:06:49
Speaker
Another mistake I see a lot of people making is doing big blocks of centered text because they think it looks pretty imbalanced. I would justify, and that's like a setting in most websites justifying your text, I would justify text over centering big blocks. Really, you just want to center headlines or like little descriptions, anything less than a couple lines. If you get over like the four line mark,
00:07:12
Speaker
I would definitely turn it into either a justified paragraph or just a normal paragraph. Because the eye has trouble skimming through the line of centered text. It's really hard to follow. And so I definitely would not do big blocks of centered text, especially in blog posts. I've seen people do that before. And that's really, really hard to read. Yeah. And you might not think so. Like Chris has said, you might think it looks balanced. But try reading long blocks of centered text on mobile, especially. It's difficult. Something else, orphans and widows.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah, so this is like impossible to avoid with some text like if it's dynamic. So if it's like updated from your blog, you may not have a lot of control over this.
00:07:49
Speaker
But you don't want to have one word hanging on a line, ideally, by itself. So if you have five lines of text, and then you have a sixth line, and there's just one little word hanging down by itself down there, that's not ideal. It looks unbalanced. It doesn't look polished. So I try to avoid, in typography, you want to try to avoid having a little word by itself on its own line.
00:08:11
Speaker
Yeah. And so you can actually Google this when we say avoid orphans and widows. And this is actually kind of funny. We had posted a design tip. So if you search our blog, one of our design tips in the last couple months has been avoid orphans and widows. And I think I put in the caption like only in in typography or only on your website or something like that. This is not a term we came up with somebody commented and they were offended.
00:08:33
Speaker
that we were saying avoid orphans and widows, calling them orphans and widows. But this is like a general typography. I think it may have come from newspaper. This is like just standard what they're called. So if you look up in the MLA handbook, they have a section on avoiding orphans and widows. So this is not us being crass.
00:08:52
Speaker
Right. So somebody was outraged. So I apologize out there if I'm not really sorry because it's an actual term. But anyways, one more thing about fonts is that sometimes I see people make lines of text too wide.
00:09:07
Speaker
You don't want the lines of text to span the whole width of your page. The eye has trouble following along long lines. Like if you think about the width of a book, it's easier to follow kind of like a shorter maybe 600 pixel, 700 pixel width of text. So don't make the text span too long because the eye needs to be able to jump down to the next line in order to read through it.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would say that so the fix for this, of course, is using what we call the grandma test, making sure that grandma can easily read it.
Effective Contact Forms & Communication
00:09:35
Speaker
If you feel confident that your grandparents can read the text easily, then it's probably good to go. I would say that font
00:09:44
Speaker
airing on the side of having larger font than smaller font. Chris is smiling right now because we go back and forth on this all the time. I'm always saying, hey, make the font bigger. And she's saying, no, it doesn't look good. You know, but and design is important. But I'm also one for functionality as well. And people actually be able to read what's on your website.
00:10:04
Speaker
That's why we balance each other so well. But literally, if you have an old person in your life, sit them down in front of your website and see how quickly they can read what's on the screen. And I want to emphasize, this sounds like such a simple tip, but it is one of the most common ways that we see people or one of the most common mistakes that we see people make on your website. And I think that how you format the text on your website, I mean, the two biggest components are the text and the images. And I think we talk about the images later. And if people can't read your text, that's half of your
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's like one of the biggest components of your website. So it's very important to pay attention to this. And I know sounds like such a simple thing, but it can go a really long way. So if mistake number two, this is one of my favorite things to talk about. It is not having mixed galleries on your website, because it creates an inconsistent aesthetic.
00:10:55
Speaker
So Davey, what is a mixed gallery? So basically, having galleries on your website that are organized by type, maybe instead of event or session. And so if you like one big weddings gallery, exactly engagement sessions gallery.
00:11:11
Speaker
Exactly. So, you know, your weddings, for instance, all the weddings that you shot, and again, I'm speaking primarily to photographers here, but this applies to anybody who's showing off work, right? Your work in general, it's going to share a similar aesthetic, or it should, right? But
00:11:26
Speaker
each event or each session or whatever it is that you do, each product that you create probably has its own aesthetic too. And so we think that grouping galleries, for instance, if you're a wedding photographer by wedding instead of by weddings, that makes more sense.
00:11:43
Speaker
We typically recommend uploading like 25 to 40 images. I think another big mistake when it comes to galleries, even if people do a featured client gallery, is they feel like they need to upload every single part of the day and have like 150 images. And we definitely don't think that's the case.
00:11:58
Speaker
One that's going to slow down your site. It's going to be really hard for clients to load. They're probably not going to make it to the end. So you really just want to put the best images from that day. And like if the ceremony took place in a not so pretty church that doesn't have great lighting, like you don't need to show the ceremony. You can just show the good parts of the day. What we did as photographers was when people emailed us, we said, okay, if they're getting married at
00:12:21
Speaker
a Chesapeake Bay Beach Club, we'll send them galleries to three Chesapeake, like full gallery links to three Chesapeake Bay Beach Club weddings that we shot so they can see exactly how we shoot weddings at their venue or a similar venue. But this is after the inquiry and those galleries weren't hosted on our website. They're hosted by, you know, whatever gallery system we use, CloudSpot.
00:12:41
Speaker
So, you know, another word about those galleries, Krista said 25 to 40 images, again, the me being the more functional person, I think, if the closer the less amount of work that you can throw in there, obviously, it needs to be more than 10 images probably. But I would say the closer you can get to 25 images, not 40. 40 still sounds like a lot to me.
00:13:04
Speaker
It's really hard for people to cut down. Oh, I understand. Somebody sent me 1000 images to upload to their galleries. But but I think that in whittling stuff down, we really get at our best work. Somebody once shared with us and this is something that I think served us really well, especially as photographers. But I think even now is the best photographer shared the least amount of work. You only want to show off your very best work. And that's not to be misleading. But it's simply like,
00:13:33
Speaker
you know, 1000 images is a lot to look at. So I mean, nobody's looking at that many images. And I think that's I mean, I think that's true of almost anything. I'm thinking about my united keynote presentation that I that I just gave. Originally, it was a lot longer than it was. And I had to cut it down in part just because of time constraints. But I think by just literally taking the large sections out, it got better because I was only sharing the best of the content that I was putting together.
00:14:01
Speaker
So I was thinking about your 10,000 word blog post that you're writing. Well, I think that words are different because they don't slow down your website. I would also say that certain topics require somebody to be thorough. But again, I think that's the truth of blog posts, too, is that people always want to know how long a blog post should be. It should be as long as it takes you to convey an idea. If that's 3,000 words, first of all, I can't remember the last 10,000 word blog post I wrote. But if that's 3,000 words, that's 3,000 words. If it's 300 words, it's 300 words.
00:14:30
Speaker
So you want to offer value, but you don't want to just write for the sake of writing. It reminds me of that one quote. And I forget who said it, but they're writing a letter and they said something along the lines of, if I had more time, I'd write a shorter letter. So again, I think whittling down the images that you show on your website, especially in your galleries to make them the very best images is the way to go.
00:14:53
Speaker
Alright, mistake number three is having no text on the homepage, only images. We think that the homepage is a great place to communicate who you are and what you do and who you do it for. So some sort of brand positioning statement. It's also a great place to introduce yourself briefly and encourage them to get to know more about you and your business on the about page and your services page.
00:15:16
Speaker
It's also really good to have words on your homepage because that's something that Google looks for.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And so Krista mentioned a brand positioning statement, which is super important. So if you go to our website, Davey and Krista.com, our brand positioning statement would be building a brand that books, but we also have texts that clearly indicates what that is about, right? Brand positioning statements are great, but you want to make sure that you also offer a lot of clarity in what you actually do. So building a brand that books could mean a couple different things. But through other texts on our website, we make it very clear that it's through brand design.
00:15:54
Speaker
and website design. And so within the first eight seconds of landing on our website, you should be able to recognize that we are brand and website designers. And that's predominantly what we do. So if you're a photographer, making sure that people know that, you know, what kind of photographer you are, I mean, it should be somewhat obvious just from the imagery that you choose. But in addition to that, making actually saying that you are a, you know, film wedding
00:16:19
Speaker
and portrait photographer in Nantucket. Right. I think that's a big mistake we see a lot of people make too, is that they think, well, if I don't say where I am located, maybe people will fly me all over and travel. When I think that's
Enhancing Trust & Credibility on Websites
00:16:33
Speaker
not true for most businesses, I think most businesses are going to serve the majority of people who are located around them.
00:16:39
Speaker
So, I definitely think that photographers should list where they're located. But you can always say, available worldwide or serving couples all over. And especially like wedding venues, you should definitely make it very clear where you're located. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for those of you who work in destinations, I think a lot of even the friends that I'm thinking of that travel all over the world shooting, they got to be able to do that because they serve specific locations really, really well. And they're very clear on their website. So, I'm thinking of James and Jess who we had on the podcast.
00:17:09
Speaker
either earlier this year or last year. It's been a little while since their episode. It's a great episode to listen to because we actually talk about marketing in two different cities. But if you go to their website, they have the RAM positioning statement in the hero spot of their website, that area that you see load above the fold, you know, it's the area that loads on a website that you initially see. Right below that, even though they're traveling all over the world, they mentioned that they serve Santa Barbara,
00:17:33
Speaker
and New York City. So be clear about those things so that people understand that they're in the right place. So you want to make sure there's a lot of clarity on your homepage. A lot of that comes through, not only picking the best images, but also the text that you include as well.
00:17:50
Speaker
I can't help but share. This is my 3000 word blog post issue. But about that, text doesn't have to go over the hero spot image. So again, the hero spot is that area that you see initially load on your phone or on a desktop computer, it can go underneath. I think especially if you're a photographer and you want to let you know, kind of that initial image speak for itself.
00:18:13
Speaker
or if your images are busy and there's not a lot of space to add text. Exactly. So I just wanted to make that clear just so people don't think they have to overlay text on images in their hero spot. Good point. All right, what's next? The contact form complexity is hurting conversions. Another one of my favorite. This is a Davey. I feel like the last episode that we did together was more of a Krista episode. I was there more as just a
00:18:41
Speaker
I'm pretty sure we timed how much we talked. You would still have talked with me because you talk so much. All right. Well, do you want to talk about the contact form? No. This is your favorite thing to talk about, so go for it. Okay, awesome. You like to say this is where the magic happens. It is where the magic happens, absolutely. Because this is the conversion that we're looking for on our websites, right? I think something that's useful to keep in mind any time you were doing anything in your business is what is the next step?
00:19:10
Speaker
You know, we often think that we have to completely sell our service on our website. And that's not really true. What we need people to do is fill out the contact form to get in touch with us. And then we can get them the rest of the way to signing a contract or, you know, or booking us or whatever that looks like for you. Now, obviously,
00:19:28
Speaker
If you're an e-commerce business and you're selling products on your website, yes, you actually do need to do 100% of the sale on your website. Yeah, you probably don't want them contacting you to buy. Exactly. You don't want to necessarily have to answer a question before everybody purchases something. But for those of you who are service-based businesses, that often means that people are going to fill out a contact form, maybe schedule some time on your calendar, whatever that looks like. For forms in general,
00:19:53
Speaker
The more questions you include, usually the less likely it is for somebody to complete the form. So in general, the more questions, the less likely it is somebody to complete the form. So only include questions that you absolutely need the answer to.
00:20:10
Speaker
Because think about it. If you're emailing them, you can ask them a lot more questions once they email and then you start more of a conversation as opposed to putting a whole lot of questions on that contact form and making it like if they have to think about too much when they have to fill in that form, it just decreases the likelihood that they're going to contact you. Yes. And so the questions that you need answers to, it's probably five or less, I would think. Your email.
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah, date of the event or how'd you hear about us? Yeah, definitely. How'd you hear about us? I would say that's the most important question to include on a contact form so that you understand what's referring people to you. Obviously, it's not going to be an exact science because someone might have heard of you through Instagram, but they actually filled out your form because they were reminded of you because they saw a pin on Pinterest or something like that.
00:20:57
Speaker
but still give you an idea of where people are coming from. This is especially helpful if you're doing some sort of marketing that's not easy to track. So, for instance, if you're doing a paid listing in something like The Knot or Wedding Wire or Style and Be Pretty, those aren't easy to track exactly, you know, whether people are finding you through that. So, having a how did you hear about this question on your contact form is super important. What else am I missing for on contact pages? It's questions that you don't like to see.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, questions I don't like to see. I talked about this a little bit at United. You know, qualifying questions, I really don't think that qualifying questions really belong on a contact form. I would say that unless you're getting so many inquiries, you can't even keep up, then start adding qualifying questions to your contact form. So to me, a good qualifying question if you're a wedding photographer is something like, what are the most important photos to you on your wedding day? Because we asked that question back when we were photographers and this is
00:21:51
Speaker
But not in our form in the first email. Exactly. And this is why I don't think this belongs on the form. We asked this and like Chris has said in the first email. But the nice thing about that question is that people would respond to us and say, well, pictures aren't really important to me. You know, and so that's a clue that maybe we're not the best fit for them, you
Client-Centric About Page & Mobile Design
00:22:08
Speaker
know. So if you're getting that many inquiries that you can't even keep up, it's probably time to raise your prices a bit and put like your average couple spends price on your website.
00:22:17
Speaker
Sure, sure. Putting pricing on your website is a whole other conversation. Right. That's what I said. Put average couple spent. We have an article about it if you go to our blog and search for pricing. Absolutely. But questions like, you know, how badly do you want to work with me? I would avoid those in every place. You know, I would never send something like that because it's not a it's not a good qualifying question.
00:22:35
Speaker
And be like, you know, this might be the first time this person's heard of you, right? And so kind of makes it all about you when it's really about them and their wedding. Absolutely. And they might end up really wanting to work with you, but they just have to get to know you first. So yeah, probably not a question that belongs on a contact form. The only other two things and we'll move on because I know I'm just I'm really, really elaborating on each of these points. You are.
00:22:59
Speaker
including the image of either yourself or one of your best images on your contact page and a testimonial, just to reinforce, one, that there's a person behind the business, and two, to remind somebody that it is worth their time to reach out to you.
00:23:14
Speaker
Cool. All right. Number five? Not giving your pages a name. So by default, in a lot of website builders, if you don't give your page a name, it's just going to have a standard like home about it might even pull in text that you didn't choose.
00:23:30
Speaker
And so that doesn't like if that page gets shared on social media, it's not going to say who you are or what you do. It's not great for search engines. So in show it in Squarespace and WordPress and all of those different editors, you can edit those page names to be more descriptive.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, if you're using a good website builder, all right, so pretty much any of the modern ones out there, maybe not any, but the major ones, show it WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, even, you can change the page titles. If you don't know what your page title is, go to Facebook, put that link into like
00:24:05
Speaker
the link of that page. Yeah, put the link of that page into the post and see what populates. If home populates in the thumbnail, then this tip is for you, all right? Or about or whatever. You can take advantage of that page title, right? You can say Annapolis, Maryland wedding film photographer, you know, on your homepage so that when your homepage is shared, that's what people see instead of just seeing the generic home. We talk about this a lot in the SEO episode. This is also super important for search engine optimization.
00:24:35
Speaker
But I think even search engine optimization aside, this gives your website a more polished, professional look and lets you take advantage of valuable real estate.
00:24:45
Speaker
Plus, if somebody is clicking on a whole bunch of photographers' websites at a time and all of those tabs are open in their browser, instead of just seeing home and not knowing who it's for, it's going to be more descriptive about who you are. Yeah. And so we won't spend a ton of time on that. I mean, if you go to, for instance, and show it, if you go into the builder, you click on a page in the right-hand side, you'll see something like SEO settings. It's advanced.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, it might be under the Advanced tab, but you'll see SEO title, SEO description. That's where you would edit there. And then on WordPress, pretty much the same thing. If you are using Yoast,
Engagement & Conclusion
00:25:18
Speaker
you would go down to the Yoast box and edit there. But we talked about this more in the episode on SEO. And there's even a fancy PDF, like another 10 page PDF or so, that has photos showing you how to do it. Yeah, so I highly recommend that because I just think it's easier to follow a guide.
00:25:36
Speaker
All right, number six, there's no photo of you or there's one that doesn't match your brand. So most likely your business is a personal business and so a big mistake we see a lot of people make is never putting a photo of yourself anywhere on your site. Either that or it's like a maybe more headshotty photo or not a professional photo or just one that doesn't match the look and feel of your website. Your headshot should look a lot like your work. You really want it to be consistent with you and what you produce.
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Like if you are a light and airy photographer and your headshot stark and moody, it just doesn't fit on your website. Taking your LinkedIn photo from your corporate days and putting it on your more fun and laid back, you know, brands website again, just doesn't fit. I don't think there's much more to say about that. Oh, well, just that I think it's important for building relationships with potential clients for them to see your face pretty quickly when they come on your website or like a face of your team, for instance. So like on your toe website, there's a photo of the three of you.
00:26:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And on the homepage, that's what we're saying even in it, right? Yeah, including an image of you on your homepage or your team on your homepage. And of course, this differs from industry to industry. I would say that though, for probably 99% of the listeners to this podcast, unless you're a business like
00:26:53
Speaker
Amazon, right? Like, it wouldn't make sense for Jeff Bezos to put his team on the homepage of Amazon. Yeah, it wouldn't fit. It doesn't work for that industry. But my guess is that 99% of the listeners of this podcast work in very personal industries. So headshot of you and or your team on your homepage, in addition to your about page, of course, just to remind people that there is a person behind the business.
00:27:13
Speaker
Do you want to give the next tip? Because I feel like this is another one that you like to talk about. Oh, yes. All right. So giving every element its own page. So the elements that I'm thinking of are like social proof and galleries. Testing testimonials, details.
00:27:33
Speaker
Exactly. So those are the things that come to mind. I think when we outline like what should go on a website, we think, okay, well, we need testimonials. We need badges of places we've been featured. We need details of working with us. We need to include like the pricing, which again, going back to we have a whole thing on pricing. I don't think you should put pricing on your website. But anyways, again, not the point. But we think about all these things. And then we think, oh, we need to make a page for each of these. And that's not the case.
00:28:00
Speaker
So for instance, social proof, you know, we occasionally see websites and there's a page on the website that says like kind words or testimonials. I think very few people are probably going to click on that to look at them. Most likely they're going to want to see your work and your prices and that's it. And so they may never look at what other people are saying.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess the point is that social proof is going to be more valuable if it's incorporated on really every page of your website. Every page that you make a claim on your website, whether you're good at what you do or you can do a certain something for your clients, you should back up that claim with some sort of form of social proof. So on the websites that we design, there's going to be either testimonials or some other aspect of social proof on every single page of the website.
00:28:46
Speaker
We're working with Little Z Sleep right now, and we have two separate testimonials, not even ones that you click through on the homepage. And then we have at least one on the about page. And we haven't even gotten to her actual product pages yet, which will have a lot more on them. Yeah, absolutely. And social proof is so important in reminding people that other people think you're good at what you're doing. And so I think that social proof loses its efficacy when it's relegated to its own page.
00:29:14
Speaker
So and the same thing is true with galleries, like, you know, galleries of your work, present those in the context of presenting your experience, you know, like, I don't want people to see, you know, anything, whether it be like galleries or pricing or whatever, outside of the context of the experience that I'm providing them.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah. You talked about this on your episode this week with Jester or Dana, but each services page should be its own sales page. Ideally, starting with the philosophy and giving some of the details, maybe walking people through the process and what to expect, sprinkling in testimonials and social proof. If you're
00:29:50
Speaker
you've been published or featured or you've run awards, listing that there. Showing off the galleries, and like we said before, signature client galleries. And then at the very end, after people have seen just how amazing you are and all of your services are, then you hit them with, if you're going to do pricing, very basic pricing.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah. And again, pricing is a whole other conversation we should have that might have to be part of the series is talking about incorporating pricing into the process. Because again, unless you're selling things online, like people can go to your website and purchase without ever talking to you, I really think that pricing usually doesn't belong on your website, at least in the way that most people incorporate it on a website, which is like full pricing menu style.
00:30:34
Speaker
like you don't even have to contact me just to know exactly what you can get. Yeah. And the truth is, is that even if somebody says they're just looking for pricing, nobody's ever just looking for pricing, right? They have questions, they have concerns like so but again, I think that really does deserve its own its own episode. So tip or mistake eight that we usually see.
00:30:53
Speaker
We kind of talked about this a little bit, not including any testimonials, reviews, or features, which I think that it can be hard to get features, but I think it's really good to get in the habit of submitting your work. And so apps like Two Bright Lights make that really easy to submit to a bunch of places all at once. A lot of publications don't mind featuring things that have been featured elsewhere. So you don't have to say that the same shoot was featured in
00:31:19
Speaker
10 different blogs. But on your website, you could list those 10 different blogs that you had been featured on. And so that gives you credibility within the industry. I think it's also a really good idea to get in the practice of asking for testimonials after you have worked with someone.
00:31:33
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, and that's the thing is that social proof is so, so important. I think that social proof can cover like a multitude of other mistakes that one makes in their on their website, because I think that's what we naturally lean on as people more than anything else before booking somebody.
00:31:51
Speaker
Especially, I feel like Amazon has helped train us to work like that. Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, I was looking at something like paper towels the other day on Amazon and I still – you know what I sorted by? Reviews. I didn't go and actually read reviews for paper towels, but I still sorted by reviews. I mean, we lean on other people's recommendations so heavily and so this is why things like testimonials are so important.
00:32:13
Speaker
And a word about publications too and getting your work published. And this doesn't just go for photographers. I think sometimes people give up because, you know, they submit their first couple shoots or whatever it is that they're submitting to the biggest publication that they can possibly think of. And then it doesn't work out because it often doesn't on the first try.
00:32:31
Speaker
And then we give up. Or we think that, oh, the local publication down the street just isn't good enough for my work. And that's just not the case. First of all, pretty much any backlink to your website is a good backlink. I mean, within reason, like it needs to be something that's relevant to your industry and not from a spam website. But like that local, you know, wedding publication
00:32:53
Speaker
featuring your work on their website, linking back to your website. That's a good thing. If anything, that's going to send more qualified traffic to you than maybe the not would, because they're not serving people worldwide. And they're probably appealing to people right in your market. I know that we used to submit our work to the local wedding magazines. And not only did that help people in our area see more about us, it made our clients feel really, really special. So yeah, I mean, client and, and again, I think clients
00:33:19
Speaker
Probably don't care as much as we do about whether the work is featured in what's up in a police or me right and you have to start somewhere so for us like we found a place for each of our sessions to be.
00:33:35
Speaker
Maybe not sessions, weddings. Sure. But like almost every wedding, at least towards the end, especially, we tried to submit if it was permissible by our clients, of course. Right. So I would encourage you don't just give up because like the style because the style me pretties of the world or whatever, have turned you down a couple times. Those are one of those things where it just takes some repeated practice and learning from
00:33:57
Speaker
you know people like megan brown of two bright lights who does a lot of education around you know what applications are looking for yeah i think that it took me a while to figure out exactly what publications were looking for i used to think they wanted all the different parts of the day but that's not exactly true and different publications are gonna want different types of images different styles
00:34:16
Speaker
And you just kind of have to learn what your image is, like what to shoot and then where to submit that particular wedding. I also want to add for reviews, if you feel like people aren't leaving them, it could be good to give email people and ask them questions. So like ask them to talk about, what did you enjoy most about working with me? Or would you reckon then work me to a friend or questions like that to give people a starting point? Because a lot of people
00:34:41
Speaker
maybe writing isn't their strength. And so if you give them a few ideas of what they could talk about in their review, I think they're more likely to leave one. And even sending an example, you know, a lot of people will ask for an example. So sending over an example that's readily available. Moving on, we are in the last two here, we have number nine, one of the most common mistakes we see is making it about you and not the client you're serving. And this is specifically true when it comes to the about page.
00:35:10
Speaker
I think we see a lot of people talking about how they got started, their favorite things, the fact that they love cats and friends and Starbucks coffee. And while all of those things are great and it's great that that makes you you, I think most people forget that the point of this entire website is to appeal to your ideal client to
00:35:31
Speaker
anticipate their needs and their thoughts and their questions in the hopes and fears that they have and try to address that. And so just listing big long list of arbitrary facts like random facts about you that don't connect with your brand or your ideal client or where they might be in their life. I think that's a big mistake we see a lot of people making.
00:35:50
Speaker
I think the last episode that aired with Jess Radonna of Jess XO, that's a good episode to refer back to. She shared some really great tips, I thought, for determining whether something that should go on your website or not, or really whether something should be part of your brand or not. And what she said, and again, I would go back and listen to the whole episode, but what she said was, does whatever you're including help people imagine
00:36:14
Speaker
you doing whatever it is that you claim you can do. And I think that's such a powerful criteria for determining whether something should be on your website. And if you are going to include a list of your favorite things, which we generally tell people to avoid because we feel like a lot of times people include those lists just to fill something, just still space on their website.
00:36:33
Speaker
Or because they feel like it's going to help people connect with them and see them as people. But a lot of times those facts end up being kind of arbitrary, not really tying into your brand and the person you're trying to reach. Yeah, absolutely. And so it's not that these things are bad. It's simply that you want to make sure that the things you include in this list help people imagine you doing whatever it is that you do. Like if we list Davey's favorite things on our website, nobody would ever hire us again.
00:36:59
Speaker
That's not true. That's not true. I happen to like eating a lot. Yeah. All right. But you don't like good food. You like the hoagies. Hoagies are good food. There's nothing like a good Italian hoagie. But I feel like that doesn't really, a hoagie doesn't go with our brand. Hence why it's not on our website. All right. I mean, like I agree. But to say it's not good food. Okay. Somebody out there vindicating me. I mean, there is nothing like a good hole in the wall Italian deli.
00:37:29
Speaker
Mm-hmm. As long as gluten doesn't make you sick like it does me. Yeah, I love gluten. Anyways, so it's not about you. It's about the client you're serving. One of the biggest mistakes that you can make is making it about you, right? So the about page, great place to put into words what your client feels or believes.
00:37:50
Speaker
Alright, last tip, mobile design is an afterthought. We see this a lot on show it websites where it's easy to just turn off the mobile view of your website and just to make everything look exactly how you want it to look on desktop.
00:38:06
Speaker
And then you go to look at your mobile maybe before you launch and you realize that things are overlapping and the fonts are too tiny and text is all running into each other. And then it's kind of overwhelming to figure out how to fix it. A lot of times we see fonts way too small for mobile or images too small or maybe even things are way too big. And so if people like we recommend as you're designing your website to do maybe a section on
00:38:29
Speaker
the desktop and then turn on the mobile and check how that looks and make sure it's easy for people to read it. A lot of times with mobile, you want things to be stacked and not as all over the places you would want it maybe on a desktop view. Yeah, I think the common advice that one might hear is that we live in a mobile first world and that you should design the mobile website first. I don't necessarily think that's the case because the desktop version of your website is generally going to be a fuller version.
00:38:57
Speaker
So I always think that it's probably easier to start there. But I would say, as you just mentioned, taking care of the mobile version as you build the desktop version, and it not being this last minute thing that you have to rush to do. And then also just keep in mind that certain elements on desktop might not render as well on mobile.
00:39:18
Speaker
Yeah, like on Jessica Husted's site, we just launched like last month. Which is one of my favorites, so you should check it out. There's this really pretty interactive map of all the national parks that she wants to shoot at because she's like adventure, elopement sort of photographer. But if we had put that map on mobile, you wouldn't have been able to read any of the little tabs. They just all would have been overlapping. So we just instead of trying to make it impossible for people to look at or really like identify with, we just hit it on mobile.
00:39:47
Speaker
And in even videos, like if somebody's on a desktop computer, they probably have access to Wi Fi. And so videos probably load pretty quickly on mobile, though, people might not have great cellular network wherever they live. So they may have very limited data plans. Yeah. And so mobile can cause a website to load a lot more slowly. So maybe not the best thing to put video on the mobile version, although we do occasionally.
00:40:11
Speaker
And then some other things like drop down menus, we try to avoid drop down menus when we can sometimes they're unavoidable. But if you do have a drop down menu, just making sure that when you get on your phone, that drop down menu still works. And I would test it across different devices to not just your phone, because it's crazy how different a website can look on Android and iPhone, you know, even though they're both using similar technology.
00:40:36
Speaker
Right. Those were our tips. Any final thoughts before we wrap this up? I don't know. I mean, this blog post that we based this episode on has been, you know, it's probably over a year old, but I still feel like these tips are still relevant. Right. I think they're mistakes that we just see time and time again, people making.
00:40:56
Speaker
Anyways, so if you're thinking about doing your website this winter, feel free to reach out to us if you want help. So one of the options that we offer people is what we call a semi custom design. And a semi custom design starts with a website template, but we treat it like a custom project. One of the key differences between that and a fully custom website is that we are starting
00:41:16
Speaker
with a template. So that's an option to keep in mind if as you start to DIY your website you realize this is just not for you. The other thing too is I would encourage you to find a template that you like and whatever template you find, stick to the bones of that template. I think people get caught up because they want to add something really, really creative to their website.
00:41:40
Speaker
But oftentimes, when we try to get too creative with things, and I think this is true across different online assets, not just your website, but sometimes we try to get too creative or too QT with something, it often results in confusion. So I just think that some of the best websites that we come across of people who have taken one of our templates and made it their own is they, for the most part, have stuck to the overall design of the website.
00:42:04
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I think when people try to do too much or change too much, even though you can change anything, I think that's where we see things getting hard to read or just not flowing quite as well.
00:42:16
Speaker
Yeah, and everything on and that's one of the great things about show and WordPress for that matter is that everything's customizable. You know, I also think that that's the downfall to you know, and so in general, I mean, whether I'm doing Facebook ads or whether I'm, you know, helping with the website design, we will always err on or I will at least always err on the side of functionality and clarity over being, you know, to QT.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Good for you. Thank you. Okay. Anyways, we are going to continue this series next week and through the rest of November and early December. If you have questions, feel free to drop those in the show notes, send us a DM on Instagram, reach out on Facebook, send us an email.
00:43:01
Speaker
But we'll be sure to answer those questions in future episodes. And if you haven't, take a second and rate and review the episode on iTunes. It would mean a lot to me. But in addition to that, it would just make it easier for people to find this podcast as they search for topics related to website design or branding or booking more clients. Cool. Well, thanks for having me, Davey. Yep. Bye.
00:43:27
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.