Meredith's Husband: 0:42

Hey, this is Meredith husband. I've got some SEO advice for you. But I'm gonna keep it really simple so that you can understand it. So make sense. And most importantly, so you can actually use

Meredith: 0:57

have to click that. Got it. Hi, Meredith. Hello. How you doing? I'm doing pretty good. Yeah. Can you see me?

Meredith's Husband: 1:09

Yeah. Can you see me? Oh, you see my screen? Oh, I

Meredith: 1:12

see a screen. That's fair enough.

Meredith's Husband: 1:13

That's right, because we have a special special treat today. Oh, we

Meredith: 1:17

do? Yeah, we're

Meredith's Husband: 1:18

gonna look at somebody's site, oh, just do a review. Not really, in terms of SEO. But I think because there's so many different ways you can again, review and look at a site, so many different aspects. But I think one of the one of the best ways to increase conversions quickly is to look at your, your UI, your user interface, in terms of navigation and conversions, some pretty simple things that you can do. And if you can just improve your conversion rate a little bit that can like to give you an idea of conversion rate, let's say 100 people are visiting a website and you have a 1% conversion rate, that means one out of every 100 People are contacting you. Okay, if you can do something to increase your conversion rate from 1% to 1.5%. You might you might think, well, that's kind of that's not a big difference, right? But technically, you're increasing your business by 50%. Sure, you're going from one to 1.5. That's a, that's a huge increase. What are you into 2%, you'd be doubling your business. And you can make small changes like this, that, you know, they've been, they might not double overnight, but you can do things that will have a dramatic impact, like literally overnight. Whereas things doing things like getting double the amount of traffic. You can't do that overnight. That takes more work. Yeah. So this is a good place to start. Okay. So, we have a website here, this is a friend of yours, this person has not asked for this, right. I hope they do not sue us,

Meredith: 2:59

Canada. Hi,

Meredith's Husband: 3:00

this is a public though. I mean, I could do this to apple.com. Right? They probably would sue me. Yeah. Anyway, so what I'm going to do, again, I'm just going to look through this site, I'm not going to go into SEO, I'm not going to talk about how to get more traffic, I'm not going to touch on the content or the wording or, or anything like that. I'm just going to look at navigation and usability. Okay, how that how that how that we can make some small tweaks to improve conversion rate. Awesome. Great. So I'm just gonna go through this, I think page by page. So there is obviously a video component to this podcast, right? There's

Meredith: 3:38

a video when you when you when you open the page for their website, it starts with a video, which is really cool.

Meredith's Husband: 3:45

No, I mean, there is like this podcast that we're doing has a video component.

Meredith: 3:49

Oh, it does? Yes. Are we going to be videoing this? We are videoing

Meredith's Husband: 3:53

this? I don't know how we're going to show it to people. But I'll figure that out later. All right. I'll put it on again. Just go to Meritus husband.com. Episode, but I'll have it on there somewhere. All right. I'll have it. There's not much on there. There's nothing on there yet. So Right. It won't be hard to find. So we're looking at the homepage here. First off, I like the design. I think it's no very nice. It's consistent. I kind of liked the logo. It's very simple, but cute. Has some personality. Yeah, I like the color scheme, the fonts. I think the design is nice. It gets clean, it gives a feel of at least I think kind of who this person is a little bit you know?

Meredith: 4:39

It's very lovely.

Meredith's Husband: 4:40

Yes. It's I feel very comfortable. I feel very, like, Yeah, I know what this person is at least aiming for. Yeah. So I like that. So let's look first at this is exactly what uh, if somebody's coming to this website for the very first time, this is what they're going to see. In terms of the navigation, we got a drop down on the on one end menu item to menu items. So there's five links at the top two of them have dropdowns. My first thought is the color of these drop downs. This is hard to read. Right? So the background should be darker, right? Again, this is something you never want to frustrate your users, right? Ever. That's like no, I really don't want to do that. So I would just make squinting. And I realized that this is the color scheme so maybe if you didn't want to who make the background here darker than you can make the text dark something so that it

Meredith: 5:42

stands out? A little bit more contrast, very funny

Meredith's Husband: 5:45

because as I'm looking at this, this is not going to meet a sensibility standards. So this is something that you technically could be sued for. What does that even mean? Oh, there's all sorts of lawsuits out there could there. They're mostly bullshit lawsuits. But I've seen these a number of times, accessibility like for visually impaired people. One thing you want to make sure is that the text in the background have ignited contrast so that they're easy to see. If they're not a vision impaired person can sue you. Holy smokes. Okay. I don't think that's very often, that happens very often. But there, what does happen often is lawyers, yeah, we'll find a vision impaired person to sign off on whatever they give them. And then lawyers are going to sue websites by the dozens, hundreds or 1000s. This is not a joke. This happens every day. Wow. And all they want is a settlement. They just want 10k to go away. Wow. And if you don't give it to them, they're gonna try to take you to court. So anyway, just it just Yeah. I thought of it because I had just mentioned lawsuits. And here's one, you know, this is not the only thing but whatever. Okay, so that's my thought on the navigation. Yeah, otherwise, I think this is fine. Um, you know, about work, investment, journal and contact are the links. I'm not. I'm not thrilled with journal, I don't really know exactly what that is. I assume it's the blog. I very much assume it's the blog. But what if I'm a user, you got to imagine that all your users are dummies? Not necessarily because they are dummies, but because people don't want to think about anything. So you need to tell them exactly what they're going to see and what to expect. So journal, if I have to spend this fraction of a second thing, a journal, do I want to read this person's journal? I don't know. So, I would I'm not crazy about journal. I like, I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's got some character, and I understand not wanting to say blog. Right, right. But also journal can be, I think it could be better. So yeah, it's just an observation. So now I'm going to scroll through the site. And, again, I'm not gonna get into the design of things. Although, like I said, I do like the design. So lovely. And so as I get down to the bottom here, a couple of thoughts here. So at the bottom, there are, there's a get in the know, newsletter subscription. And then there are three links. These are what we would call calls to action CTAs, these links at the bottom. And there, whatever you want your users to do, whatever action you want them to take, if somebody gets to the bottom of your page, any page on your website, that's a good thing they've stuck around, they've scrolled through, so they are showing some interest. So you want to give them a next step. That's usually why there are links at the bottom links in the footer, etc. In this case, a newsletter subscription. What I would do with this newsletter subscription is move that all the way to the bottom right, I would put that at the very end. Right. And I would also say I would I would give some description as to what this what someone might expect to receive in this newsletter. So right now it says sign up with your email address and receive news and updates.

Meredith: 9:07

To receive news updates.

Meredith's Husband: 9:09

Yeah, what about what? So again, your users are dummies, you know that they're not dummies, but tell them exactly like, do I want news and updates? What am I going to get updates about what you had for breakfast? Right. I don't care what you journaled. Yes. Well, I mean, it could be Yeah, whatever. You just want to be very clear, you're going to send out coupons. Are you going to send out tutorials? Are you going to recommend lottery ticket numbers that you know, whatever you're going to send? Tell them tell them exactly what they're going to get by. And then at the bottom these, these CTAs. So again, remember, somebody has come to your website, they've made it to the bottom, so they didn't bounce. They didn't leave the site. They have at least a little bit of interest. What do you want them to do next? So one thing that I think you always want to have probably at the bottom of every page is how do I book a session? Right? Let's say let's say somebody comes to your website, and they they're already the book. And they they're just looking for the book now button, whereas I don't see it. It should be here somewhere up at the top there is contact but you know, what, if I'm ready to I just want to book a session, right? There always should be a book a session. You know, Oh, I'm of the opinion that whatever you want the next, whatever you want your users to do, focus on that and just just have one CTA, I understand though you want, you might have you want to have more, this looks nice and looks balanced, etc.

Meredith: 10:50

But the magic number for one or three, they say odd numbers, surely

Meredith's Husband: 10:58

what? Oh, no, I do care. I mean, design. I understand I understand. And I understand, especially when you're some sort of visual artists that your website has to also get ugly. Yes. So you know, if I'm selling iPhone covers, I aesthetics are not as important. But yeah, so I do get that. But certainly one of these, I think no matter what page you're on, should always be book a session, or whatever it is, you want that person to do, chat with me, call me. do jumping jacks, whatever it is you want the person to do. That should be one of these options, right? And then my other thought on on these particular links, so we have three links at the bottom, learn more about family photos, view my work, discover family films. So I'm not exactly clear what the difference. You know, I understand one of these is going to be about films and one is about photos that but they're both about family. But view my work. Is that different from these other two? How is it different? Again, make it clear, personally, yeah, I would probably say one of these should be book a session or a middle one, right? I would I would do that. Yes. Because that's the one you you want people to focus on, I might even cheat and make it a little bit bigger. Another one is probably going to be investments, or prices, you know, people are going to want to check that. And then I think up at the top here underneath about is kind words. I'm sure that's that's probably testimonials. I you know, I always think you should be ready to show your testimonials that people like your work. That's, uh,

Meredith: 12:43

yeah, well, what they have here above next to the photos, right? You know,

Meredith's Husband: 12:48

they have one to one. And, you know, whatever. That's, I think that's if you're at a loss of what, what to include at the bottom? I don't think you know, nobody is you can't really go wrong with testimonials. And, and to be honest, if one of these is contacting others rates, and one has testimonials, probably not many people are gonna click the testimonials. They're gonna go to the Yeah, it's in contact. So it's kind of like a dummy choice. Now see, my work is important. Yeah, but people have a feeling. If they want to see your work, they might use one of these top links. That's just just my feeling. Again, at the end of the page, I think your CTA is want to be aimed towards converting people showing them more of your work. If they want to see more of your work. They get the whole rest of the website here. But if they're scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page, you know, you kind of have their interest. So strike while the iron is hot, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so let's go through the inner pages. So underneath the about section is meet Carmen. So this is going to be I assume an about page and wow, that's a strong core. So I, I do enjoy the photography. Okay, so here's a so here's a, here's a perfect example of a call to action by the schedule your FREE PHONE CONSULTATION. And this looks like it goes to just a click a scheduling, can you cook it? So you schedule a time? Great. That's a super call to action. That's the that's the link I would think you would want to put right down here at the bottom of every page right in the middle. Yeah, it doesn't have to be a button. buttons work. Great. People love to click buttons.

Meredith: 14:42

Do we do we do clicking a button?

Meredith's Husband: 14:45

It's like, satisfying.

Meredith: 14:47

It is like pushing the button for an elevator before we had to use our elbows during COVID.

Meredith's Husband: 14:52

Yeah. You know what I would do with this button, I would actually take this button. And I would replace this contact link up at the top with that, oh, I put that button right there. That if I'm assuming that that action is what Carmen wants people to do, that's the next step. Right. So whatever the next step is, whatever the next step is, make it obvious, make it obvious and make it easy, right? You want to you want to you know, whatever you're doing or selling. You have an idea of what you want your website visitors to do. Make make that make that option obvious and easy. Right, and repeat it, you can repeat the same thing. There's no harm in that don't like put it 10 times on one page, but Right. Click. Yeah. But if you just make this button consistent on every page, right, it's gonna make it obvious and easy. Right? The next step is, right. And it's not really, you know, it's a button. So it's, it's going to jump out more than anything else on this page. But it's not like so in your face. It's not flashing and with bells and circles on it. Right? Right. It's done tastefully super cute. Yes. So next page kind words. This will be the testimonials, I'm assuming. Yeah. Looks like it. Fair enough. Again, same same recommendations at the bottom of this page, I would make the the these buttons consistent across the website. Of course, they're good. They're going to be some pages. If you're already on the investment page. You don't need a link to the investment page. You can replace that with something. Right, but But same thing I would have down here in the bottom, one of your CTA buttons or one of your CTA links would be to schedule a session. Right. And the FAQ. So cute.

Meredith: 16:55

I knew an FAQ page.

Meredith's Husband: 16:59

Do you have anything now? We're not we'll take your site next week. Okay. Oh, no, relax. Okay, so same thing. Let's see, is this a very similar format to the testimonials page? Again, same same recommendation cross the site may call the CTA links at the bottom, the same? I probably so next we're gonna go to the Work page. I probably will not have any recommendations here. So sadly, it is it's a it's a really lovely site. Yeah, I really, really do like it. Yeah. And this is a WordPress site. If you're curious. So the investment page. So the investment, there are two looks like there are two investment pages, one for films, one for photo packages. So we're on the film packages. Let's see. So I'm just scrolling through here. Okay, I have a couple, I have a good recommendation on this page. Number one, so if people is coming people, if people is coming to this page, people is coming. That people is going to this information, this is what they're coming here for. Right? They want the prices, this information should be at the top. Right. So this should be right after having the header here is fine. No problems. Really. Yeah, I really I like that. But after that, have your prices? What are the pricing packages? I mean, that's the name of this page, isn't it of film packages? Film films packages? to probably be film packages? Yep. All right. I don't know. Who knows, I don't I don't know what I'm talking about. And then after you have what it is that people can buy, then you have, I've got you every step of the way, then it's the process. But if somebody comes to this page, they, you know, they want to know this information. The you know, step one, step two, step three, only after they look to see what you're selling. And if it's the price is right for them. Right. So this information

Meredith: 19:55

tire kicking. Yes,

Meredith's Husband: 19:58

that's true. This is the information people want put that first than then kind of, you know, make them feel good. Like don't worry about it. I've got you every step of the way. And then after that, Oh, there's another package here. I would probably

Meredith: 20:19

biggest one first.

Meredith's Husband: 20:22

Perhaps Yes. I don't know there's there's different strategies there.

Meredith: 20:30

I've heard that you put the biggest one first, and you have kind of one package that's unattainable. And then so then that kind of takes the sticker shock off and then afterwards, then they go, Oh, right. Oh, this isn't

Meredith's Husband: 20:44

that well, that gets a little more into pricing strategy. I'm not going to we can certainly talk about that at some point. But I'm not going to get too much into that because that opens up a big sort of tangent potential tension. But I would say you just want your prices first. There's probably an argument whatever what is what is most popular, probably put that one first. Then followed by the others and then and then following up with the information to make people feel at ease. So that's going to be a nice easy process. Right? And then and then and then have your button. Right book a free phone consultation, testimonial. Always nice, like I said, and then let's look at the other investment page. Cool. Very cute. Again, same same thing, I would follow the format. You know, if somebody clicks on investment photo packages, they first thing they should see it'd be the photo packages, right? That's what they want to see. That's what they're here for. Show it. Then if they're like, Okay, looks fine, then here's what the steps are. And then after the steps, take, you know, get started, click the button, and we'll do a phone consultation. Yeah. And then I would probably on this page has a bit extra about the film, I would probably put that. Then, after the after the button, that's a kind of a judgment call. Not as important. But okay. So then journal, I'm not going to touch on the journal because that is the that's the blog. Blogs don't typically have calls to action. At least they probably shouldn't. That's a topic for another day. But let's look at the look at the contact page. So this is nice. I like this. So one thing that I was interested to see, there are no links at the bottom. That's great. You don't want to put links once people get to your contact page. Yeah, don't link don't link away.

Meredith: 22:48

Oh, right. Because that's where you want to get everyone to

Meredith's Husband: 22:50

Yeah. So you notice a little talk again, about Amazon, once you go once you start the checkout process and Amazon, all the navigation disappears, you're in the checkout process, right? You can't click away, you got to like literally back out.

Meredith: 23:03

Right, you have to close out, you have to close out. And

Meredith's Husband: 23:07

so once you once people have reached your contact page, they are hoping we assume that they're interested in contacting you. And I've had a lot of clients over the years, want to put their social media links here, right? Which, yeah, be honest, take us away from it. It's the dumbest thing ever. It's like, somebody is knocking on your door, and you open and tell them to go down the street? No. Because when somebody clicks on your social, you think they're gonna go and check out more of your work there. Don't have stuff on your social media first that you don't have on your site. So once people have gotten to your site, you should have all the content here that you need to convince them why they should hire you. Remember why? Number two, once they go to social media, chances are pretty good, they're not coming back. Because guess what all your competitors are also on social, right? Just keep scrolling. I had one client actually who did not believe me. And we actually rent we set up a kind of complex test to see exactly what would happen. And I think something like 20%. So the people came to his contact page and who left and went to his site, his Facebook page, only 20% actually came back to the site.

Meredith: 24:22

So those are lost. That's a large those are

Meredith's Husband: 24:24

those were, those were 100 people who were who are knocking on his door, and he told 80 of them to get lost. Wow. That will even say get lost. But that's what happened. Right?

Meredith: 24:34

That he didn't want to hold their interest. Right? Or somewhat?

Meredith's Husband: 24:40

Yeah. Okay, so like I said, I liked this contact page. It's simple. There's the schedule a call, this is obviously the the next step that she wants people to take scheduled. Like I said, I would take this button, and I put it right up here, right? Sure. Because I'm sure this contact button just goes to this page anyway. Right. So just have scheduled a call, right. And the other thing that what a lot of people do is instead of having an email address, they have a contact form, because you can track contact forms. And then you can say, Oh, I got a, somebody emailed me and they came from Google, or they came from Facebook, or they I paid for them with this ad. If you just have your email address, you can't capture any of that information.

Meredith: 25:27

Also, also, I know that in my site, so I have I have the contacts. What did you just call it? Contact Form? Yes. Yeah. And then that goes directly into 17 hats. Yeah, you can integrate it so then it'll that will select then. Then for me, it goes into 17 hats and then I get oh, you have a lead. And it's all ready. All the information has gone to the correct places and 79

Meredith's Husband: 25:55

Right. And it can Yeah, it can go into you'll be able to integrate your contact form with whatever you know. Yeah, CRMs MailChimp, your what is the one you use flow flow desk flow desk?

Meredith: 26:07

Well, I use 17 hats for the CRM. I know also, there's dubsado that Koli James loves

Meredith's Husband: 26:13

Yeah. Well, whatever you're using a form

Meredith: 26:17

of like, zillions, HoneyBook Yeah,

Meredith's Husband: 26:21

an email address will not do that. And then the final reason probably to not use an email address is like bots are out there. Scraping websites for email addresses. So this will this will start to get junk mail, whatever address you publish online like this, right? If it's real text, and it is, that'll probably start getting spam to that inbox.

Meredith: 26:41

Good to know.

Meredith's Husband: 26:43

So that that's the site. That's, that's great. Yeah,

Meredith: 26:46

that's super helpful, what

Meredith's Husband: 26:47

I would do, and I would, I would think with those, you're probably not going to double your your business, but there would probably improve the conversion rate. So whatever traffic you are already getting, a slightly higher percentage of those people are going to reach out and contact you. That's awesome. Thank you, Chris. You are welcome.

Meredith: 27:08

I'm wondering if this will be something maybe we offer, like we could hold raffles or something. That's something to offer for our listeners.

Meredith's Husband: 27:17

Yeah. I mean, we have so many listeners, that's gonna be hard to choose. You know,

Meredith: 27:24

we have Marcel our puppy. And I think now we'll probably have Carmen.

Meredith's Husband: 27:28

Yeah. Well, you know, what, if you want us if you're if you're listening to this, yeah, you want me to look at your website? Yeah. Go to maris husband.com. And there'll be some way there to submit a message to us and say, hey, please look at my site. I'm not guaranteeing we can do it. But right. Right. That's how we will go about this, at least

Meredith: 27:48

for them. Awesome. Well, this is super helpful. It's also helpful for me, it's always good to look at other websites. And just to hear from you. Because what happens with me is, I have a tendency to look at other websites and think that's how I need to do it. Yeah. And change everything.

Meredith's Husband: 28:08

Right? Yeah, well, you're not alone. We I think we all do that to some extent. So it's, you know, my, my own advice has to do that way. If you're going to redo your website, look at competitors, get some ideas, think about, you know, remember, jot down notes about the things you like, then shut them all, don't keep visiting, and then go back to your own site. Don't keep looking because then every site that you look at is gonna be fine. It's gonna give you a new idea. And it's a never ending process, and you're never going to actually finish your own website. So plus, plus, your website should be yours. It should be a reflection on your voice and what you want to say not don't regurgitate somebody else's. Right? It's not going to end well. Yes, it's true. Thank you. Okay. I hope that helps.

Meredith: 28:56

Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Yeah, see at dinner,

Meredith's Husband: 29:00

okay. I hope that helped. I hope that helped your website. I hope that helped your business. I hope that helped give you a little bit of confidence that SEO is not this convoluted, cryptic, crazy thing that nobody can understand. If you did like it and you found it helpful. Please share it with a couple of your colleagues. Tell them what you like. Or more importantly, tell me what you liked. Let me know interview. leave a review on Apple. Tell me what parts you like. And I'll try to do more of those parts. Again. Thanks for listening.