Key Notes:
- (00:39): Wix Vs. Squarespace
- (01:48): Purpose of “Book Now” Section in the Website
- (03:05): Website Menu
- (03:19): Gathering Answers Using Coaching Application Forms
- (04:40): How to Make Website Name
- (05:25): Managing Website Menu
- (07:04): The Importance of Reviews
- (08:24): Blake’s Main Goal
Bite-sized action items to go from dreaming to streaming your podcast.
Video Transcriptions:
Misbah Haque 00:00
My client had his episodes ready and scripted, recorded, but he was like, Hey man, I don’t feel comfortable putting this podcast out there until my website is ready because it feels like my shop isn’t quite developed. And I’m inviting people to come to the shop. And it’s about to be opening day. That made sense to me because he is a fitness coach. And he wanted podcasting to connect back to a purposeful goal of his and his coaching business. I was like respect, let me do it for you. And I have his permission to critique this, if you are in a similar position where you’re waiting on building a website, and it’s taken me months and months, and you want to do it in a couple of days.
Wix Vs. Squarespace
If you watch this video, it’ll give you all the main points that you need to know to build a website that is ready for monetization, no matter if you’re a hairdresser or your fitness coach. In this video, obviously, I’m gonna use the example of a Fitness Coach. Wix and Squarespace are both great tools that are out there for you to quickly develop something that is visually appealing, and most importantly, is user friendly, because I don’t just want to build this website and have it be something he doesn’t know how to work. He wants to be able to upload his podcasts and blog posts and update his offerings and things of that nature himself.
Yes, you are trading off this customizability with using something like let’s say WordPress, but you’re getting this no headache version of a website with something like Wix. So using that as an example, I’m going to show you the mobile version, we really want to prioritize that experience. Because if they’re clicking through from YouTube, or Instagram and they’re watching it on their phone, you want to make it really easy for them to consume exactly what you want them to see, the most important area on your entire website is going to be the homepage, and the area where before you even have to scroll.
Purpose of “Book Now” Section in the Website
As you can see, it says book now. And book now is a great goal for a lot of coaches, because you do want to get on the phone with people, you want to see if they are good applicants for coaching. But this is the area where whatever your main call to action is, this is what you want to present. So for Blake, clearly it is getting people onto a call. But he’s in a place where that’s evolving. He does want that to happen. But he wants more qualified people. When we first started working together, he had 12 online clients, and now he has about 42.
So if he hops on a call with someone who isn’t serious, it’s wasting his time. And yes, for some people that book now is like, hey, hop on right away book through my calendar. But there are a lot of steps and decision-making involved if you think about it, where people could easily abandon the process while they’re selecting the date vs. if you enter your email for maybe a couple of free workouts or recipes, something you get right away.
But you’re also like, okay, I’m going to hear from Blake, I’m sure he’s going to do some email marketing to me. So I would remove the booking button for now and replace it with the name and email because in the first email, the welcome email that we’re going to send them, we’re going to be able to include the link to book a call anyways.
Website Menu
Now on the rest of the homepage, you want a couple of key areas like maybe your podcast, what services you offer, a couple of your top blog posts or your podcast episodes, and links to them. If somebody landed on this page, and it was like, hey, start here. What would you want them to see?
One of the things that Blake asked me to help him with was coming up with a couple of great questions that we can use for a coaching application form.
Now, it’s very easy for this to not work because if you have too many questions, you make it too hard to answer, people will abandon it, there’s too many steps. But for someone who’s serious, if we put three to five questions that are easily selectable or answerable, people will do that, if they are interested in working with you. So as you can see these questions that we’ve designed, are for Blake to get as much information as possible before he decides, am I going to hop on a call with this person? Is this person a good fit for my roster and team?
And every question that this person answers is not only helping them explore value in their own mind of oh, how do I feel about this? What equipment do I have? What days can I train? What foods do I have so there’s a value add for the person filling it out? But there’s also a lot of information that it gives Blake Hey, how many meals do you cook per week? This question is going to help you understand, do they have a lot of takeout? Do they know how to cook? Is that a skill? Is it going to be a big obstacle in our way because we can prepare for that. But it’s good to know that before maybe going on to the call. So as you can see, with a couple simple steps, you can dramatically improve your homepage. Most of your traffic is going to go here.
How to Make Website Name
Let’s really quickly discuss the name, blakescheidt.com. That’s really important for now because your name is something you always want to own the domain for right it doesn’t change. People can search you up and Google you and you want to own that asset, especially if you’re unsure of a brand name or you’re afraid of looking into something that’s So this is going to be my niche forever. So there’s a lot of pressure with picking the perfect name for your website. I totally understand that. Because that dramatically delays your timeline, I recommend starting with just your name in some format. And keeping it short and simple doing coaching with Blake shape is too long. But blakescheidt.com is just perfect.
Managing Website Menu
Okay, let’s talk about the menu. Because this is really important for helping people find the other things that you’re doing, if it’s not on the homepage, or if they are actually willing to take the next step and explore the rest of your website, which is what you want them to do, you want to make sure that experience is set up properly.
The first thing I would do is rename the home title on the menu to start here, because start here is an action, it tells somebody that hey, you’ve thought about this experience beforehand, and home doesn’t really add much value or tell me what I’m going to get.
The next thing I would do is rename the coaching thing. I like one-on-one coaching because it’s easier to understand. And for somebody who doesn’t know remote coaching or customized or personalized, it says something that’s okay, let’s work together, it makes it feel a little more personal. Now the next page that’s really important is testimonials, because a lot of people are going to be looking into your work. And so you want to make sure that you’re always updating this and adding relevant projects and people that you work with and actively making sure that you’re documenting people’s experiences. It’s not just the finished perfectly polished video that you’re going to try to make. It’s trying to capture what it’s like four weeks and working with you what it’s like 12 weeks and working with you. What were some really big obstacles, what made them feel like they were on the fence, that’s a really good question for eliciting a good testimonial.
But something that I would change here on the menu is instead of testimonials, we call it case studies. I like that term better for coaches and freelancers because it shows that hey, I am going to teach you something at the same time. It’s not just me showing how great I am. Something in this is going to also teach you something, which is the goal of a really good put together testimonial.
The Importance of Reviews
Another term that works really well is reviews. So changing to reviews is perfectly acceptable. And of course the podcast we want to be easily accessible in the menu. Now you could link this to a couple of different places, I have a client who prioritizes Apple podcasts and so in the menu and directly sends them there vs. for Blake we have made a page itself that has his album cover art, it has links to Apple, Spotify, and then maybe a listener has landed on it or they’re feeling really moved again, we have the coaching application, easily accessible for them to fill out.
Blake's Main Goal
Blake’s main goal is to get more coaching clients. So we want to have an email list. Not just any random email list, but a freebie that gets people on the email list that is very connected to his coaching service. As you can see, free workouts or recipes. If somebody signs up for that they are likely interested, in more health, fitness, and wellness information. This is more of the strategy of how do you take a podcast listener? How do you take a YouTube viewer? How do you take a really dedicated Instagram follower? And how do you convert them into a customer or client or get them onto your email list so you can build a deeper relationship? Your website is the one place that you own.
There are no other distractions. There are no algorithms that are really mediating your website right now at least. So it’s a great destination that you want to pull people to. I hope that showing you Blake’s website really helped out in terms of hey, what do I not need to focus on and what is really crucial that I focus on, because if you do that, I guarantee you can have a website in a day or within a few days. And I’d love to hear from you. If you want to commit to that in the comments or you need any support with that. Definitely reach out to [email protected].
👋🏽 Connect w/ Misbah:
- Website: https://podmahal.com/
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Inside The Mind with Misbah Haque
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Purebred Weirdo Podcast
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