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[00:00:00] James Marland: it's James Marland here. And before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to tell you about my new mini course, Overcoming Self Doubt and Transform Your Mindset to Realize Your Dreams. This course is packed with strategies to help you identify your core values, set powerful goals, and build your unshakable confidence.
[00:00:30] James Marland: If fear and doubt have been holding you back from launching your online course or achieving your dreams, this is a chance for you to break free and make it happen. Join us and start your journey towards a more empowered and fulfilled life today.
[00:00:45] James Marland: Sign up now and put your mission in motion.
[00:00:49] James Marland: Thanks for joining me in the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is the show where we empower mission driven leaders and helpers to launch life changing online courses. Today we're going to talk about web pages. Almost all my knowledge about webpages comes from StoryBrand and Donald Miller and his Marketing Made Simple and his Business Made Simple podcast. So if you have any questions about that, or if you want to go deeper with the content, please check out those podcasts.
[00:01:21] James Marland: Please check out the Marketing Made Simple. And there was a recent one that really highlighted. Your webpage and the things you need on it. So I'm going to put a link to the show notes in that for that webpage. And I will reference that heavily in this episode as a summary, but if you wanted to go deeper with that, definitely check out the StoryBrand and at the end of the episode or in the show notes, I'm going to give you a couple options for therapists and mission driven people for support to build their webpage from professionals, as well as the StoryBrand people.
[00:01:59] James Marland: First off, let's talk about the importance of a website. The website is where current business gets done in this age, where there's fewer and fewer people going out and the ability to get things done online, even grocery shopping, you can do that online now. And have it delivered to your house and with the Amazon and Walmart and all the other places it just makes sense to put your business, your small business online, especially if you are launching an online business or an online component to your business, putting it online is.
[00:02:36] James Marland: It's essential. It's important. It helps you attract and retain customers and it helps them know you and it builds a brand. Now, if webpages aren't effective, it could be because you're confusing them. One of the things from story brand is if you confuse you lose and webpages Are very their attention span of customers is very short lived.
[00:03:04] James Marland: They're scanning the headers. They're scanning the pictures. They're trying to figure out is this the type of brand for me? First impressions are made up within the first 3 seconds. And so you're. Your web page has to capture the attention of somebody in just an instant in under 3 seconds and 80 percent of website visitors.
[00:03:27] James Marland: Just read the headlines. They're only scanning for the information that is that they're looking for. They're looking for something. that connects to them. They're looking for why should I stay on this page? They're looking for the benefits. They're looking for how you can solve their problem.
[00:03:45] James Marland: So websites need to be clear and concise to capture the attention quickly of your audience. There are some common mistakes that web pages make. One would be too much information. You overload people with paragraphs of texts. How, when was the last time you sat down and read a paragraph of text on a web page?
[00:04:08] James Marland: Just think about your own buying habits, your own search habits, especially on like cell phones and things like you don't. So you don't have being in the slightly older generation, I'm almost 50 now, my eyesight's not as good. So if there's a website with a lot of text or nothing's bolded or it's hard to read, I just skip over it and go to the next one.
[00:04:30] James Marland: So that's one of the common mistakes. Another common mistake is people don't know how to do business with you because you're not calling them to do something. You're not asking them to do something. It's called a call to action or a CTA. You don't have a clear call to action. People don't know what their next steps are, and then you're confusing them, and then you lose out on the business.
[00:04:52] James Marland: Having a clear call to action the StoryBrand people recommend on the top right, because people read in a Z pattern, they look at the top left to make sure they're at the top in the Western society, they look at the top left to see the logo, to see if that's where they should be, then their eyes zag to the right, and That's where your first call to action is.
[00:05:17] James Marland: It's a button that looks different than other buttons. It's called out. It's bigger, it's bolder, it's a different color, and it tells them their next step with what to do. Just as an aside, I was looking at my web page and my next step is sco schedule a discovery call with me, but I'm just thinking maybe that's not the right next step because that's maybe that doesn't clearly identify what the benefit of scheduling that discovery call is.
[00:05:47] James Marland: So as I was reviewing this information, I'm thinking maybe I need to have a different call to action. And as they continue with the Z pattern, For how people read web pages, they suggest right under your header, you put another call to action, the same button, same font same wording so that people read it twice.
[00:06:09] James Marland: They read the logo to let them know that they're in the right place. Then they zag over to the right and they read their call to action. They zag down and they see your headline and the benefit and what you can provide for them. And then. Right under that, as they go to your next section, they see the call to action again.
[00:06:28] James Marland: Having a clear call to action is important for capturing the business of your audience. How do you do business with me? And then the last common mistake is using industry jargon. Clever phrases and being cute instead of clear clarity trumps clever all the time, especially when you are trying to capture the attention of somebody in three seconds or less.
[00:06:53] James Marland: So be clear with what you want them to do. You help people. What you helping people do? They suggest that, If somebody who doesn't understand webpages, like a caveman, looks at your webpage, could they grunt out who is this for, and how can they help? Does your webpage do that? The Storybrain people suggest that there are eight essential website sections.
[00:07:22] James Marland: The first and so it's the header, the stakes section, the value proposition, the guide section, the plan section, a paragraph of who you are. And then there's some optional sections. So the header you're going to find if you read and at all any website support or tech people that the header is the most important section.
[00:07:46] James Marland: It answers what you do, how you benefit the customer and what action they should take. And as they, as stated above, 80 percent of the people only read headers. So your header has to be clear. If it's too cute, if it's filled with jargon, if it says something like we've been in business for 80 years, that doesn't tell people who you are or how you can benefit them.
[00:08:08] James Marland: And 80 percent of your people will be confused. The next step section is the stakes section. It's the pain points that the customers have. What are they? What are they searching for? How do you identify with them? What are they struggling with? You get this from your research of your topic and from conversations with people and keeping your eyes open and your ears open and go into discussion groups on Facebook or in person groups.
[00:08:40] James Marland: About your subject and listening to what people say about what their pain point was their exact words, and the more clear you are able to identify what's at stake for them, the easier it is for you to communicate with them. For me, I hear people say they're chained to the desk, or they don't have freedom, or they want to earn more money, or they are tired of doing client facing.
[00:09:05] James Marland: Activities, but they still want to be involved in therapy and helping people. But how can they go from one to one to many? So I try to put that sort of language in my stake section. What's at stake? Do you want to be chained to your desk for the rest of your life? Do you want to be stuck trading your time for dollars?
[00:09:23] James Marland: Those types of things. The next is the value proposition. The next section you're putting in is the value proposition and you're highlighting the benefits of your product or service. A lot of people get confused the difference between benefits and features. So, a feature of a car might be its price or a feature of a car might be its miles per gallon.
[00:09:45] James Marland: The benefit is luxury transportation or what's another benefit of a car? It's It needs few repairs, the, a feature would be the leather seats. A benefit is comfort while you are riding in your car. Try to define the benefits that you have rather than the features. People get lost in the features.
[00:10:11] James Marland: One of the books, one of my favorite books is Start With Why by Simon Sinek. And he says people. Don't buy people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it. And if you can connect with that, why, like, why does somebody want a luxury car that costs twice as much? It could be prestige or it could be comfort.
[00:10:29] James Marland: It could be they want the benefit of something that doesn't break down. My father in law taught me, buy the best car that you Can maybe even more than you can afford because the, in the long run, it will save you money. And I always bought the cheapest car because that's what I could afford, but it always ended up costing me double or triple in the end because it was always breaking down and loss of money, loss of revenue, loss of transportation, and just the aggravation and frustration.
[00:10:59] James Marland: And the benefit I was looking for was something like a Honda or a Toyota that might cost a little bit more. But we'll last a longer time. Like it, somebody needed to speak the benefit language to me, not cheap, but cheap in the long cheaper in the long run anyways. So what's your value proposition.
[00:11:22] James Marland: Then the next section recommended by story brand is your guide section. Introduce the brand with empathy and authority. What is your solution to their problem? And they have they have a brand guide. on their webpage and you can go to the storybrand. com website. I'll put it in the show notes on how to write out your brand guide.
[00:11:48] James Marland: The next section is a simple three to five steps of what your solution is. How are you going to help them? You're going to outline The steps the customer needs to take to solve their problem for your course. What is the steps to start the process of getting the benefit from your course, your online course for your service industry?
[00:12:13] James Marland: What do they need to do? Do they do they do an intake, make a plan, work the plan. What is, what are the things that you do that help them get the benefit from your service or solution? The last three sections are a little bigger. There's a explanation paragraph. You offer more details in a description of what you do, and this is where you Input some search engine optimization language.
[00:12:42] James Marland: One of the, one of my favorite places to do SEO research is Neil Patel. And I'll put a link to his thing down there. He has a website answer the public, which you can put in a word or a phrase, and it will give you a graphical representation of all the questions that people are asking about that subject is really awesome to look at.
[00:13:04] James Marland: I also subscribe to some of his his webpage monitoring services that helps me do keyword research. And I'll put that it's not an affiliate link or anything, and I'll put that in the show notes for you to look at and get more information about search engine. The last two sections, there's an optional section for videos and pricing information.
[00:13:24] James Marland: So if you have some videos or a longer form explanation of what you do, put that in there. As a viewer of web pages, especially when I'm looking for something to buy, I do appreciate a video. I've seen many nice videos on therapy websites where they explain who they are and why they're there. And viewing them makes me feel better.
[00:13:47] James Marland: I don't know about you, but I just like to see the person's personality and attitude, especially when I'm looking at a therapy website. Do a video in the pricing information. And then the last section, they recommend Which is they call it the junk drawer. It's your miscellaneous information, like contact details, blog links, uh, other information that you might want to have your social links.
[00:14:11] James Marland: You put that all down there and that's optional. You can put that in there. So that is your webpage. You have the header, the stakes section, the value proposition, the guide section, the plan section, the explanation, paragraph, optional sections like videos and pricing information, and your junk drawer.
[00:14:30] James Marland: Some practical steps for improvement. Simplify and clarify your website. Make sure it passes the grunt test. Use strong call to action and continually update your website. As feedback as necessary. A little bit of an action step to take is look at your header. If you are going to do anything, look at your header of your website.
[00:14:54] James Marland: Does it clearly articulate what you do? Avoid the clever or cute taglines, but be straightforward and clear. Instead of saying coaching that helps you grow your business, say, I'm going to cut that out. I'm not exactly sure. I don't have an example. So instead of being cute, be clear. The next tip for a headline is explain how life could be better.
[00:15:23] James Marland: You could use your header that clearly explains your business and then use a subheader to describe the benefits of your product or service. This is where you highlight the value you bring to your customers. For example, you could be saving them time, you could be a shortcut, you could help them do things quicker, you could save them frustration, of headache of if you're a tax preparer, you could really hit on the fact that don't do taxes by yourself.
[00:15:51] James Marland: I can save you time and money with my tax preparation services. So in your header and in your subheader, explain how you can make things easier. Also under the subheader, you have a clear call to action. What's the next step that they take to do business with you? It could be by now by now shop. Now schedule an appointment.
[00:16:18] James Marland: You place a clear call to action prominently in the center of the header. And then another one on the top right hand corner of the page. Another thing to do for your header is instead of using an image that doesn't show the benefit, look for an image of people using your product or service and experiencing the benefit.
[00:16:42] James Marland: If you have a course on happy families, put a happy family on top. If you have a course of, for a student parents helping their. Child with schoolwork, put a picture of a happy kid doing schoolwork, whatever you're trying to evoke, whatever emotion you're trying to evoke, put that image in your header.
[00:17:05] James Marland: This will help people just identify with you and they will see themselves using your product. It's better than putting something that doesn't relate. To them if you have a coaching business putting a picture of a building or a nice cityscape might look nice, but it's not necessarily what evokes any emotion that connects them to your product or service.
[00:17:28] James Marland: And then, of course, just be simple. Make sure the header is not paragraphs of information, which I've seen several times where people try to explain everything in the header, and then it just looks jump like a jumbled mess. And if you only have three seconds to get people's attention, they're going to skip right over that.
[00:17:47] James Marland: So make sure you. be simple and clear.
[00:17:55] James Marland: So I'm going to give you my advice. If you're looking for support for doing the, your web page, instead of thinking, and I learned this from the book, 10 X is better than two X and who, not how, but instead of thinking, how am I going to do this? Think who's the best person to help with this, or who can I get to help with this?
[00:18:17] James Marland: You might spend a week making your webpage and that's a week of your time. And that's good if you have the time, but if you're already a busy professional, it would probably benefit you to seek out the advice and support of a, an SEO company. I have used the story brand. Like I referred to them almost exclusively when I'm doing webpages.
[00:18:40] James Marland: So I'll put a link to their site. They have story, brand guides there, and there's a bunch of free resources. You can start DIY in it yourself. If you're looking for people to help you maybe find a story, brand. account coach. The other people I recommend that I met and I know them in person and I like them is private practice elevation with Daniel Fava.
[00:19:05] James Marland: He has a webpage and some done for you services, also a done with you service. He launches a couple of times a year for your webpage. So take a look at Daniel. He's a, he's an excellent guy. He also has a podcast, private practice. Practice elevation. And then the second one is simplified SEO consultants.
[00:19:21] James Marland: That's with Jessica Tapana. She's also, I've been to several of her trainings. I've worked on one or two of her worksheets. I did one for her SEO course, and I've learned a lot from her and just how, Her and her team have been a great benefit to me as I understand SEO. So that's Jessica Tapana at Simplified SEO Consultants.
[00:19:41] James Marland: And then the third for the fourth one I get their newsletter and I really like them and that they also have a podcast. It's a clear brand. They are a story brand affiliate. So you might they have a ton of examples of web pages and some resources for you there. Take a look at that. So there's some resources for you for your SEO and your webpage.
[00:20:01] James Marland: You definitely need a webpage for your online course business. And if you follow these steps and then maybe get some coaching or consultant, you're going to be well on your way to making a lot of money with your webpage instead of it being an expensive business card that nobody sees or uses.
[00:20:31] James Marland: Thanks again for listening to the show. Thanks again for listening to the show. Make sure you visit the Apple podcast page, and review, share this page with your friends. I'm going to, as a reminder, I am going to have a mini course on mindset coming out. One of the things I certainly struggled with is Mindset of a creator. And I have, I feel or I felt like I had things to share, but then I get, I have negative thoughts in my head.
[00:20:58] James Marland: Like who are you? Who's going to listen to you? Why would anybody pay for anything that you offer or serve? So I have some worksheets that I've created that helps with mindset, helps identify values and strengths, and there is a. a mini course signup coming up. Just look for it in the show notes and that's coming out before July, 2024.
[00:21:24] James Marland: Secondly, there's going to be a, I'm going to put this on the homepage soon. Maybe by the time that this episode goes live is If you're thinking about doing a course, but you don't want to spend too much time or money and you're not really sure, but you're scared of the technology. Do I have something for you?
[00:21:42] James Marland: I'm going to be running a two week challenge and mini course on getting your first mini course up and running in Kajabi is really easier than you think it is. And I'm going to have step by step challenges to get your first mini course up and running in Kajabi in two weeks with with all the tools that you need to get started.
[00:22:04] James Marland: Kajabi is a great platform to run this on because they have a webpage, blog, an email list, podcast, hosting platform, your course hosting platform, coaching. You can have a coaching program where people pay you money for your. And they have a video meeting room for you is also coming up. It's going to be released.
[00:22:27] James Marland: I don't know if it's live for the general public yet, but a cohort program where you can have cohorts of people or a group cohort where people pay you in the group setting for your content. And that is something I'm going to be doing later in the year. First, I'm going to do the mini course on mindset.
[00:22:48] James Marland: Then we're going to do a two week challenge for getting your content into just out in the world. And then we're going to do a cohort program. So that's all coming up. In the next couple of months, but yeah, I recommend Kajabi. There'll be a link to Kajabi in the show notes. It is an affiliate link and it does support me and producing this content.
[00:23:09] James Marland: It also supports the mini courses and the other courses as I produce them. So take a look at that. Look at the things that we are putting out. in the near future. You will be happy to do it. And my commitment is to make it easy and accessible for you so that if you're interested in it, you can take a look at it and get some support that you need.
[00:23:32] James Marland: And my goal is to help you rapidly work through some of these things. So you're not languishing away for months and months, not releasing your course or your support group, but I can help you get it out quicker.
[00:23:53] James Marland: So and review the show. Remember the scaling therapy practice is made up. Remember the scaling therapy practice is for information and educational services only. If you need a professional. Like a, an accountant or a lawyer, please look them up.
[00:24:16] James Marland: The scaling therapy practice, the scaling therapy practice,
[00:24:25] James Marland: scaling therapy practice is the opinion of the hosts and guests. And if you need a professional, please seek out a professional in those areas. The information is for education and information only everybody's situation is different. So if you need specific advice for your situation, please seek out a professional.
[00:24:46] James Marland: Bye now. The Scaling Therapy Practice is a proud part of the SciCraft Network, and you can find them at SciCraftNetwork. com. The Scaling Therapy Practice is a proud part of the SciCraft Network.
