Episode 72: SEO and Your Website with a Conversion Copywriter

Kendra Corman: 

Thank you so much for tuning back into another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I'm your host, Kendra Corman, and I am excited! Today we have a conversion copywriter, copywriting coach, words slinger, wing woman. No matter what you call her, Erin's job is to step in and show the world just how incredible her clients truly are.

She has over 15 years of publishing experience and a master of fine Arts MFA, right? In creative writing. She gets what it takes to ideate, create, and implement smart SEO web copy and strategic content campaigns. 

Which are definitely things that I love to talk about, so I'm super excited. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Erin Ollila: 

Thank you so much for having me here, Kendra. I'm so excited to talk to you. 

Kendra Corman: 

Let's go ahead and just jump right in. So when we're talking about SEO, the opportunity and the end goal is ultimately conversion, right? Because we don't have websites so that people can just look at them. 

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah, no, I love that.

I love the way you explained it. What I usually hear people explain it is completely different thing, and I'll explain what that is. Usually I hear people say, you know, the end goal of SEO is to be found. It's to attract leads. 

That could be true. I mean, like if we think about it, search engine optimization is just so we can get leads to our websites. But I think any business owner with a website would tell you like, what do you want them to do when they get there? You want them to convert to be clients. Right. 

And that's where a lot of, not misconception, but I think that's where a lot of lacking happens when it comes to marketing plans. Is people either invest so much time or finances to get people to their websites, but then they stop and don't figure out how to move them through the website or pass the website into a conversion factor, like joining an email list or even booking like a discovery call with the service provider.

Kendra Corman: 

No, I think that that's great. Again, you're driving people to an action. So how can small business owners encourage website visitors to move through their site? 

So say, you know, their SEO's awesome, they were found, but now we want 'em to move through the site to some of their more important pages. I do a lot with landing pages and things like that. But if people find your site, which is also another good thing, how do you move them?

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah, that is a super question because, so we talk about SEO, let's get you to the website. But then what do we do there? And we talked about the end result, which is the conversion, but how do we get people from learning about you first to suddenly like paying for you? 

And that's really through a good site architecture, which isn't the sexy thing that people like to talk about. Right?

Like when it comes to SEO, I could geek out about it all day long, but it's the behind the scenes thing. It's where you don't feel urgency as a business owner. Why? Because it's a longer term process. 

When we do things like social media or ad campaigns, we can see short term results. But when we look at things such as website architecture or search engine optimization or tech optimization, we don't see the immediate gratification that we see with those other things. So, it so often gets ignored. 

But when someone finds their way to your website, I always remind them that we cannot leave the job to them to decide where they want to go. We as the business, or we as the copywriter who's writing for the business, needs to direct the traffic.

So it's just like if you were to go to like a hotel and they have the concierge there you could go anywhere. You could go to Paris, let's say, and go to a hotel and then wander around to try to find restaurants or attractions on your own. But you're going to be limited to the direction that you travel. You're going to be limited to your own interest and you might completely not say something that you would love just because you are not aware of it.

So if we look at our website like that, we can be the tour guides, we can be the concierge for the people who are coming to our website. And there's many ways to do that, which is the good thing, right? 

Like if you are just listening to this and you're like, I've never thought of site architecture at all. Which most people don't. There's easy fixes and then there's some bigger, more strategic things. 

So an easy fix would be to look at your navigation bar, the main navigation bar on your website. Are you showcasing like an about page, for example? Do you have your services or products listed as a potential page? You wanna keep your main navigation bar as simple and as clear as possible.

You do not want to give them a million options because again, if you're in a hotel and you go to the concierge and the concierge says to you, well, if you want Spanish food, here are four restaurants. If you want Italian food, here are five restaurants. If you want Asian food, here are six. If you're walking away with a list of 25 restaurants, you're not going to feel like you know exactly what to choose, right?

So as the concierge of your own website, we want to direct them to the main pages that are going to help them learn about us and make decisions about how they can work with us. Other types of ways that we can look at site architecture are the calls to action on our website pages. You can have multiple calls to action on a page, but you really wanna think about why you're doing that and like what the purpose serves.

So a homepage is an example where there's usually many calls to action. For a small business owner or a solopreneur, as an example. Maybe you have a section midway down the page that's like a small about section, and there's a button that leads to the about page so they can learn more about you.

If you have a podcast as an example, maybe you have a section on your homepage that showcases your podcast and there is a button that leads to the podcast page on your website.

If you have lead magnets, maybe there is a form that they can fill out. 

So these are all calls to action that we're asking someone to make a decision on what they want to do next. So again, you can have multiple calls to action, but you have to think, why do I have these? And is it a good idea to have many? 

Because for some pages, you absolutely only want one call to action. You want to encourage them in some instances to book a call with you. In other instances, you want to encourage them to purchase right then and there. Like, don't book the call, don't think about it. Like, Make the purchasing decision. 

And then for things like blog content or case studies or podcast show notes, you want to encourage them to spend more time on your site. So, a call to action could very well just be to read something else, to view something else. 

So, I know that was a very long-winded answer, but I think when it comes to site architecture, it's, let's make this as simple as possible. So, let's not do a million website pages. 

How can we reign that in? How can we navigate to these pages within them, within each other and within the navigation bar?

And then how can we be the directors that ask our website audience to take this like specific walk with us to a new page? 

Kendra Corman: 

I love that. 

In late 2022, I listened to the StoryBrand podcast, and one of the things that they said is, when you look at your website, is it easy to do business with you? 

I mean, that's the question you have to ask, and you might be too close to it.

Erin Ollila: 

Absolutely. And I, everyone is too close to it. I just did a little bit of a rewrite on some of my website pages because I switched hosts. I have been a website copywriter, like in business for over six years now. And I was tortured through this process. 

Like I write copy for clients with no problem. But to do it on my own? It was. Oh, it was the worst thing ever, and I really hope I don't ever have to touch my own copy for a little while.

Because it is so hard to step out of our own business. We have our own blinders, we have our own biases, and you know, when I do copy coaching with clients and they're writing the copy on their own and I'm like helping edit and audit their copy, what we talk about is.

The reason it's a struggle is we have all of the knowledge of our businesses within our own head. For some people, it's tough to distill that and get that on the page because it's a little convoluted in their head, right? Like they know all the things they do, but they haven't organized it. 

For other people, it's that they are very well organized. They know exactly what they do, but it's tough to describe it from a perfectionist standpoint is. They want so much for it to be done well. So there's like a hindrance there to be able to follow through on it cuz they're just worried, you know, they're not going to say it as well as they could. 

Or, and then there's a final camp, right? And both of these two groups could fall on it as well. It's, we assume our audience knows what we know. And we, and they don't. Right? 

Some people might be really understanding of different marketing things, so when they go to hire, let's say an email strategist, they know exactly what they want from the email strategist, but they don't know exactly what the strategist does. They don't know email tech, they don't know automation sequences, things like that. 

They understand the terms. They understand why, like, why they do the things they do. But they still need your help to make it work in the way that they need it to. So yes, writing your own website is extremely difficult and I think that it's possible. Sure. 

But one thing I always recommend everyone does is to audit their own website one to two times a year. The first time you do it, it's gonna be difficult cuz there are million steps that you need to take. Every single time after that first time, it is gonna be easy as can be because you'll have all of the data, all of the like steps in front of you.

So, I do it every March. I call it Spring Clean Your Site, and I do it with alongside my own clients and I review all of my webpages. I click to make sure all of the buttons work on my website. I sign up for my own email list so I can see what the process is like to get, you know, your email web welcome sequence, things like that.

Because you don't know when things break down within the tech. Or you don't know when messages might have kind of gotten stale if you're not checking it. 

So it's easy to ignore our own marketing, but I think the best way to Hyperfocus on the words or the messages that, or the design that we have, but still focus on it, is to just commit to doing it once a year.

So you know that your message still resonates. Your audience itself can still hear that message and want to work with you. And all those little tech tiny gremlins are not getting in the way of doing business with your clients.

Kendra Corman: 

Yeah, I think that that's really important. And even though it's super simplistic, It just makes sense.

Like I tell people to go ahead and, and I mean this I think was really clear in 2020, but with the pandemic and everything. But I tell people, I'm like, every quarter, set a reminder to look at some of your automations and make sure you're not being tone deaf. 

I have my office. My landlord in, I think it was April of 2020, sent their normal, like my annual statement of the stuff that I have to pay for operating expenses or whatever. And it's got your percentage due and everything like that.

It was the same exact letter that I got in 2019, in 2018, and by the way, it's the same letter that I got in 2021 and 2022. 

But in 2020 they needed to say just one little line is all they had to change. We hope this finds you and your family, friends and family, whatever, you know, happy, healthy, or staying healthy or you know, just one little line.

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah. You know, and like I, I'm with you there. I think that one bone that I have to pick with when it comes to marketing is that client or customer experience is not considered as it would be when we look at bigger businesses or tech or things like personalization and automations and things like that.

It is so easy to give a great client experience. Just using that example, like you add one sentence into a standard form and it can completely transform how your clients feel about working with you. So, there's my bone to pick.

On the backside, I think the reason this this happens is it's so easy for us to ignore our own businesses. Now, I'm not advocating for that in any way, shape, or form. 

But I think it's, this is why it's really healthy to set these tiny goals or these tiny, regular things that we do at different times of the year. So that way we're not overwhelmed and feeling like we need to either reinvent the wheel or like do a massive undertaking of marketing at one specific point.

Right now when we're recording, it's the beginning of the year, so everyone has these like, Lofty goals. Huge marketing resolutions that they're gonna do. And I'm seeing my clients or my peers with things that I think are pretty unreachable goals. And it's not because they can't achieve them, it's because they don't have the bandwidth to work on the goals.

And I fall into this myself, so this is why I feel okay picking on them. I just think I've learned over time of like just life happening, that we can only do so much and if we're going to set goals, we need to be realistic based on what's going on in our life and in our business on whether we can achieve them.

So, If we looked at marketing from an annual perspective where we did all of these things in January, we would not be able to accomplish them and we would burn out. So again, if you set March as your like, month where you're gonna audit your website. And maybe you set April as the time when you check on all of your like, business/ client experience things.

Maybe you look at a welcome email that you send a brand new client. Maybe you look at a services guide. People forget that copywriting goes into these things, right? Like I think when they think copy, they think things like sales pages, emails, and websites. 

But what about that, like how you talk to a new client, how you onboard them, or even more important sometimes how you offboard a client? Like we should have touchpoints that don't need to be done brand, brand new for each and every client. We can create automation, but we should personalize them. 

And I think it's as simple as just maybe like tagging a reminder in your calendar that says like, this is what I look at this month. So you can spend an hour, on like a CEO Date, to just review what you've already created to see if there's any way that you can improve it or make a slight shift because like, you know, your example of your landlord. It's the same thing every single year. It's just as easy to add a sentence every year like, 

"Hey, it's 2023. Doesn't it still feel like 2019? It sure does for us. But here we are, four years in the future and you're still with us. Thank you so much for your patronage!" 

Right? Little things like that go a long way when it comes to clients. So just another example of how you can kind of step up better as a business owner by adjusting the words that you write in your own business.

Kendra Corman: 

I love that. I feel like I need to tag my landlords so they can get some suggestions there because just that little line would make me feel a connection to them and not like, "ugh. She sent me the letter again." 

Erin Ollila: 

And it's a big bill like the, this is the other thing I think we need to consider. You know, like there are tiny bills and there are big bills. Like paying rent in an office space is a big bill. And that's an indicator that you need to do a little bit more personalization.

If someone were purchasing a product from you that was like a $17 product, not that I think you should ignore them, but if it's a one-time teeny tiny product, they might never buy from you again. You don't have to go above and beyond. But the higher the purchase, the more you do have to take some effort to personalize how you talk to your customers.

Kendra Corman: 

Well, and I think for service providers especially, that they really need to look at, you know, service providers like you and me. We really do need to focus on the words. Because, you know, a lot of our clients we're dealing with over the computer, over email. Those words matter and they start the formation of the relationship and that makes it so key.

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah, I agree. And you know one thing that I do a lot with my clients is things like case studies and testimonials. And the question I always get is like, how do I get a really good testimonial? Well, you know how you? You talk to your clients from the very beginning with the end goal of providing a quality client experience.

It sounds simple and complex, right? So like when I say that, a lot of times I get that dumbfounded look by clients. So they're like, "but I asked you about testimonials. Like, why are you talking about client experience?" 

But the truth of the matter is there's a, usually many touchpoints during a, like a client's project where you can ask them questions that one, indicate how it's going, right? The beauty of that is even if it's not going so well, it gives you the immediate opportunity to pivot and adjust so that you can better the client experience.

And two, if it is going well, ask questions that you can use to get longer form sentences from your clients. Like, you know, what, what am I doing really well at this point?

You know, like, "what would you change? 

Or "what would you say to your friends right now about what it was like to work with me?"

 because then whatever they say, you can use that later in a testimonial. You can use it in a case study. So it's not just wait until a project ends. Cross your fingers, send a questionnaire, and that is how, I mean, I did it forever, to be honest with you, until I really sat down and started focusing on case studies and learning about my actual clients. 

But that's how everyone does it. You know, they keep their fingers crossed and then they feel frustrated. When the case study, I mean, excuse me, the testimonials that their clients write, say something like, "wow, working with Kendra was great! She's an awesome service provider. I loved everything about the experience.”

That's complimentary. Sure. But what does it say about working with you? Absolutely nothing. It says nothing about your skills. It says nothing about the particular offers you have. It says nothing about your process. It says nothing about the wins that they might have had when working with you.

So earlier we talked about how to get someone to your website and then move them throughout it. And I mentioned we want to guide them, right? We don't wanna just let them like off in Paris and explore on their own. It's the same exact things when it comes to testimonials. 

Like if you just send an email that says like, Hey, I'd love a testimonial from you.

Like, what do you like? Could you fill one out? They're like looking at a blank page and they're seeing that cursor blank and they don't have the nudge to say like, this is what would really help Kendra if I said these things. 

Right? So, if you ask leading questions, if you ask questions that are open-ended throughout the time that you're working with them, you're gonna get those quality nuggets that say like, "Hey, before we started working together, I was really worried about X, Y, Z. And now even just halfway through the process, like I am blown away at the effort that you've put in."

So all these little nuggets, like you add them up at the end, and not only do you have a testimonial, but you have an entire case study that you can use just from communicating.

Period. Like literally just being a human and communicating with the people that you're working with. 

Kendra Corman: 

Well, and I like what you said about the fact that they're staring at a blank piece of paper, a blank area on a screen. They don't know what to write. They're just sort of gonna phone it in. 

Erin Ollila: 

Right. And I think we understand that too, right?

Like you've hired people yourself, and I'm sure people have asked you for testimonials. Maybe this is really the turning point for me. Like I've always struggled with testimonials as a website copywriter because I have clients who don't have strong testimonials yet. They are like, like keynote speakers on huge stages, right? So, you know, they have the qualifications. 

So that is like, what caused me to care. But I think it was when I finally was in the shoes of hiring out a lot of service providers and they asked me for testimonials that I saw sat and I thought like, wow. 

It's funny, I'm a copywriter. I have an MFA in writing. So, I run an online literary journal for over a decade now. Like I know how to write sentences, I know how to be creative, and if I can't figure out a complimentary thing to say, What about all those other people that don't feel like they're good writers, right? 

Because that adds a whole nother level of stress. So I think that was the key where I was like, I have to study this. Like, I really have to figure out like the laws, the regulations, like the, the process of asking for a testimonial so my clients feel more comfortable. 

Because it makes my job easier and it really helps other people understand how to go about doing this because we need, we all know we need social proof, right? But if you put yourself in the role of the consumer, two things happen. You recognize how hard it is to come up with detailed notes, and you also understand. 

I think there's this thing with testimonials that people feel so anxious about asking. They feel as if they're like putting this huge weight on the client to provide like a good testimonial. But being the client, when people have asked me for testimonials, I've always been excited to help them, right? 

Of course, if the relationship didn't work well, you wouldn't want to ask that person for a testimonial no matter what. But in most cases, like the people you ask for testimonials truly want to support you. They just don't know how to do it. 

So here's where we step in, again, like the tour guide, and we give them leading questions based on what we need when it comes to like the testimonials that we share on our websites on social and sales pages, things like that. 

Kendra Corman: 

Yeah. When people ask me for testimonials, I say, okay, do you wanna go ahead and like draft it and then I can edit it later?

Just give me some highlights on what you wanna cover, because odds are they know what we want. What I would talk about, because it's what I did, they're not gonna send me something that's totally way off base and then I can tweak it so it sounds a little bit more like me, and it's just so much easier.

But yes, letters of recommendation, testimonials. I make people write them themselves just simply because of that struggle. Right. 

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah. And that's a great way to go about it. The other reason why I think that works well if you're a service provider and you're willing to write some things for your clients, is you can shift the testimonial to be what you need it to be.

So for the longest time, I had zero VIP Day testimonials because most of my clients were talking about what we did when we worked together. They weren't talking about how long it took or like meaning, like how short it took really, right? Being a VIP Day. 

So I then had to like redirect them to say like, I wanna use this on my VIP Day page. Can you talk about like How you were like, like using this instance, like how you were amazed how quickly this happened. Or like what you were able to see transformed in such a short period of time. Like that's what I want this testimonial to be. 

And I think if you do that and you give that to the client, they're able to like, mold it so that it benefits you as the business owner and they're still being truthful.

Like there's nothing, asking for a specific thing is not a bad thing. You can totally do that. So you're both feeling like excited to do it and like you're approaching your testimonial from an ethical standpoint.

Kendra Corman: 

Well and it feels easier for the person being requested of the testimonial. It's like, oh, okay, what do I write about? You know, again, it just makes it easier. So much easier. 

Okay, so let's go backwards to one of the things that you talked about and that's, you know, the spring cleaning. So, we talked about that. So, let's start spring cleaning a website through an audit. 

How do you recommend someone does that themselves?

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah, so remember I told you the first time it's there, it's a heavyweight and I won't try to act otherwise. If you're going to do it correctly, there's a million steps to take, but I'll talk about some of the like easiest things to do on your own. 

The first thing is to look at the main pages of your website and read them. And it sounds silly, but indicate like, while you're working on it, does anything feel really stale? Like if I were a client, would I relate to this? 

Over time, everyone's message needs a little bit of re-shifting. That doesn't mean your whole website copy needs to be updated, but you might find that you work with a slightly different client than you worked with when you first wrote the website copy, and they need to be spoken to in a different manner.

So read through the copy to make sure if the overall message on that particular page still works. That is the, an easy job, but it, the end result might mean you have to do a little bit more work, you know, to adjust it. 

And I'm gonna rewind for 10 seconds. When you audit your website, do not do the work at the same time as the audit, you will get incredibly derailed and incredibly overwhelmed.

You want to look at this as I'm gonna make a monster of size to-do list, and then I will spend the next 12 months checking these items off of my to-do list. It does not have to be done all at once. Okay, so we'll fast forward now. 

We just reviewed the copy on the pages and the messages. I really want people to start clicking on anything that they can click on in the website. They wanna make sure the pages are working, that they're directed to the right areas. I see this a lot of the times when I'm doing audits of my clients, like marketing or website is that they might say something like, learn more about me and it's the business owner, but then they send 'em to the contact page just accidentally.

Those things happen and we don't know that they're happening. And it, you know, there is, there's a barrier there. We wanna make sure that the links that we're doing within our own website are staying with our, within our own website and that we're choosing. Like opening up a new tab when we send people off of our website.

Kendra Corman: 

That's one of my pet peeves. Make sure you are opening the link in a new tab or new window or whatever the click box is gonna be. It's super easy to do. You just go into the settings of the link. You wanna make sure you're doing that for sure. 

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah. Cuz we don't wanna lose the people, right? 

Like, so it's great to actually direct them elsewhere and it, you know, you specifically wanna do this in blog post or case studies where you're able to show stats from like high quality websites, but you don't want the person to stay on that website. You want them to stay with you and to continue to read whatever it is that you're showcasing.

So click through everything and then absolutely look at the footer. The footer is one of the most neglected areas of the website, where the most mistakes often are found. You know, is the copyright year correct? Do you have a terms of use page on your website? Do you have a privacy policy, which is a legal requirement for websites?

Depending on the field you're in, you have a disclaimer, which is extremely important. Like in the field of coaching, for example, you know, you need to put a disclaimer that you are not a mental health treatment like facilitator, right? Like you, or like other instances you might wanna say that you're not a lawyer.

So that people understand that when they're viewing whatever it is that you're offering them on the website, you're doing it from, you know, the best way that you can. But not necessarily from, you know, getting mental health advice or getting legal advice. 

The same thing that comes with it, it comes to financial disclaimers. And that's actually part of testimonials. The FTC has very clear rules that like when certain money claims are made, that it's indicated that this may not be the same type of ROI other people can make. Things like that. 

Like you, you want to just check in general that you have the legal protection that you need on your own website. And that you are providing it in a way that's clear and easy for your end user to see. 

And then you wanna do a security update as well. So you wanna make sure that once a year you update your, at least once a year, you update your own passwords. No one remembers to change their website, login password, ever, ever, ever.

They might change their emails and other passwords, but you really wanna make sure that you don't get hacked and lose all of that hard work that you've done on your website. So change your passwords and then use a tool like GT Metrics or Page Speed Insights to see like, What tech breakdowns that you have you might need to resize your images, things like that.

But those I think, are some of the easiest things to understand, whether you are doing it manually or you're using a tool to review what's happening on your website. 

Kendra Corman: 

And I think it's important to think about when you're doing an audit, to also bring in somebody else, because again, we've talked about the fact that you are really close to it.

You're probably too close to it, so don't be afraid to ask a client to take a look at it, or a friend that knows and understands what you do, or maybe even a friend or family member that doesn't understand what you do because you want them to understand who you work with and what you do, and be able to get to the right places.

I just recently went through my website and I'm still going through it now, but I went through it, and I changed some of the headers. One of the headers now says, work with Kendra. And it used to have like no links to anything. And now it does, it actually has, you know, nice, nice links and anchor links and places that you can go to find the different services that I offer, whether it's coaching, VIP Days or my courses.

And I think, again, I went back through it and I thought about it as a user, how easy is it to work with me? It wasn't. 

Erin Ollila: 

and in the marketing field, I think we fall, fall blamed this many times, and it's not just us, right? Like it is mostly a small business thing because, you know, it's like once the website is live, it's like a checkoff mark.

Like, okay, that's done. I can just go about my life when in fact usually like, you know, I, I like to consider a website is the foundation everything leads back to. Your social goes to your website, your e emails, go to your website, networking in person goes back to your website. The foundation has to make, be made sure that it's secure, and that's why it is important to adjust it all the time.

And you're absolutely right that we have our own blinders. You know, when I started by talking about messaging, I said things like, maybe your clients have shifted, or you wanna make sure your messaging is could be received by that, that group of clients. 

But here's the problem, we cannot determine what our clients need because we are not our clients.

This is where it is extremely difficult to like write copy because we have preconceived notions of what we think our clients need. A lot of the times when people create content, not copy as in pages, but like content as in blog post or even social media content, they're doing it from a very preconceived place like, Oh, I know we'll take my own business.

Like I know people need SEO O, so I start talking to them about how SEO works. But what I really need to do is convince them that they need to attract more people to their business. So I don't need to talk to them about the SEO. I need to talk to them about. Attracting new clients. And that's just an example of how like other businesses can think of.

Like, this is what I know you need. So, this is what I'll talk to you about, where we really have to dial it back and think about what it is they're searching for, what it is that they're interested in, and then presenting how we can help them. 

So, a photographer as an example. You know, like maybe When it comes to like weddings, they know that they eventually are gonna need a wedding photographer, but they might not be engaged. So how can we get people to consider looking into you for a future wedding photographer? 

Well talk about engagement sessions. Maybe there's even posts about like, what's the first thing to do to announce your engagement, right? Like get them from those early stages where they're going to be looking for you before they're ready to purchase, and then present yourself as an option of someone you can work with at that point. 

Kendra Corman: 

I love that, and I think it's really important to talk about the one thing that you said is that, yes, you as a business owner, as a service provider know exactly what they need. Most of the time it's not what they want, and people buy what they want, not what they need.

That is just, it's so powerful and it's so underrated. You know, and think we're all guilty of doing it. I don't think anybody's innocent here, especially me. Because when I was building my email marketing course in, in 2022, and I wanted to build a course on email. 

News flash. Nobody wants to do email marketing. Nobody wants more email. Nobody wants to do email marketing. Nobody wants any of that. 

People wanna build their list so that they have more prospects, so that they can get more clients. That's all people care about. Now, the course itself was the same. I mean, it's the same information no matter what. 

The thing is that nobody wanted to buy a course on how to do email marketing. They wanted to buy a course on growing their list so that they could monetize and grow their business. That's it. 

Erin Ollila: 

I a hundred percent agree with you here on this one, and I this, I see every industry doing this. 

Kendra Corman:

It's a small tweak. It's a small tweak. So again, don't think about what they need. Think about what they want and how what you provide solves that problem. I love answering questions. Questions are always the key for all the content that I tell my clients to create and the questions, you know, that I like to answer. 

Write down the frequently asked questions. If someone asks a question of you, write it down. Take a minute and then answer it. Cuz guess what? Somebody else is probably asking that same question. 

And that's one of the phases of the customer journey that people are going through. They're asking a ton of questions as they continue to research, as they get more and more specific before they find out you even exist.

Erin Ollila: 

Mm-hmm. And two things here. Like, you know, if we're gonna keep using the idea of a tour guide, what do tour guides do? They answer questions, but they also answer them in an organized manner, right? 

Like, let's pretend you're doing one of those like trolley tours where they take you through like a fancy city and they point out houses and let's, you know, just locations. Well, you're not going to talk about a location that's 10 stops ahead. When you ask a question, you're going to talk about where you are right then and there. You know, they'll ask the tour guide, well, what about this? 

If we look at like literally a frequently asked questions section on our website, the questions are gonna be laid out in the exact same way. Like you wouldn't just say like a high arching question as number one. You're gonna start with basic questions, and maybe they'll get a little bit more complicated as the questions go on. 

But by providing them the answers straight away, you are preparing them to be a better client. You know, service providers, especially ones that offer discovery calls, I hear a lot of friction from my clients when we talk about what the call to action is on a website page.

And a lot of my clients will say, oh, I wanna do less discovery calls. And I'll say, why? And, you know, I'm not necessarily an advocate for discovery calls. Like, yes, I can take 'em or leave them, but I like to know. makes people's decisions for them because there could be a good reason to have them. 

And we can decide then like how to remove the people who are not good for the discovery calls. Because it all boils down to the people they get on calls with. They have to educate them before they sell to them, and that's not what they want to do. They're wasting all this time talking to on ideal leads.

Well, if we can use our website pages as a way to completely inform our leads. When they do get on a discovery call, we can one focus strictly on building like a connection with our leads, and two, sell to them in a way that doesn't feel salesy because we're like building a connection and we're talking to them about how we can help them.

They're already informed about what you do and how you do it because you've provided maybe like a process or you're at least, you at least have explained what the project will be like. And you've answered those frequently asked questions, so you're not answering basic level things when you do the one-on-one work.

So again, I'm not saying discovery calls are for everyone, but if you are, especially like a higher ticket item where clients do want to get on the phone with you before they decide to go ahead and hire you, do the prep work on your website pages so you get people who are already prepared to talk with you when they get on a phone.

Kendra Corman: 

I think that that's fantastic. I work with a lot of nonprofits and I work on their websites and I'm always like, so what are the questions that are coming in over the phone? Because they're resource constrained more than anybody else, even. And I think that nonprofits especially, I mean, if you think if it works for nonprofits, it works for you too.

Answer those questions. They don't have to call. Now, don't get me wrong, there's gonna be plenty of people that don't read, but a lot of people do wanna read and don't wanna call, so they will actually read, make sure that that information is there. . 

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah, there's no, there's nothing wrong with too much information, pending it is clear and organized, right? Like we don't wanna overwhelm anyone. 

But the idea I love frequently asked questions. I mean, I say, I'm like, you know, not pro or con for discovery calls, but I am a pro when it comes to like frequently asked questions because, You don't have to have them all in one place.

You can choose just a few. But besides literally being able to help a lead become a client by providing them with quality information, you're also helping with SEO. 

You know, like it is giving Google an indicator like that, you know the answers to all these questions. They're better able to list you on the question and answer type of fields that come up because you have an FAQ indicated on your website.

So, you know, just, it helps with qualifying people, it helps with educating people and it helps you too for your website to like technically to get better leads there. 

Kendra Corman: 

So just so everybody listening knows, I have seven more questions that I want to ask Erin , but I know that we all have a limited amount of time in our days, and so hopefully I'll be able to bring you back again soon because I think this is so helpful .And just really easy, actionable things that people can do to make their customer experience better. 

And the user experience, customer experience is, should be at the core of everything that we do. And I think that this is just so much stuff. Again, I have like, A ton more questions that I wanted to get to that. I know we didn't, but this was so valuable that I didn't want to stop and go off of this track at all.

Because again, I do think that it's a lot of the same stuff that I, that I preach on a regular basis. And I use my landlord example all the time. But again, refreshing your content, auditing all of your marketing. In, but doing it in a way that you don't get overwhelmed. I think that that was really important to share and I love that and I love the analogy of the concierge and the, and the tour guide for really what you need to be doing in your website, and I think that that's so important and so insightful, and I do appreciate it.

before I let you go, I do ask a question of everybody. This show is called Imperfect Marketing cuz as you and I both know, marketing is anything but perfect. 

Erin Ollila: 

Absolutely. 

Kendra Corman: 

What has been your biggest marketing lesson learned? 

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah, so I think if we're gonna talk about mistakes here, I'd say my biggest lesson learned is that you need to market even when you don't necessarily have like, space in your client roster. I am very fortunate that the majority of my clients that come to me are done via referrals. I work with one client who loves me, who sends me to a friend of theirs, and I love them because they're like my other client.

So it's like this wonderful, loving, like great time, but in that, I forget that eventually, like all businesses, we need to continue to market ourself because referrals dry up completely naturally. Like if you think to yourself like, "oh, I'm gonna recommend my hairdresser to someone." 

They might have their own hairdressers. They might have just gotten their haircut, right? Like not every single one of your friends would automatically book a call with your hairdresser. 

And the same goes when it comes to being a service provider in any industry. So I think where I've went wrong is I've marketed when I've needed clients instead of marketing consistently. And in a way that was easy or light enough, so that way I was always attracting people, whether or not I needed them in that moment in time.

I have found that the more consistent I can be with my own marketing. Even lightly marketing, like the tiniest touchpoints of just showing up on social lore, sending an email once a month. Not that I'd recommend that, but like just being a consistent name in their inbox. Allows people to remember who you are, to know what to expect from you, and to just kind of stay top of mind.

So if they needed you in the future, they'd know that you were available to them and they'd know where to go. Because if you are just popping up in your leads in boxes every few months when you need them, you're going to be selling to them in that moment, and it's gonna feel ungenuine to your leads.

So, For my own mistakes, it is to make sure I'm marketing on a consistent time, and I just wanna reassure to everyone. You don't have to be selling marketing this whole time. You just have to find a way to be visible in your business so that way you are top of mind for potential clients. 

Kendra Corman: 

This might be my favorite answer ever because. 

Erin Ollila: 

Yay!

Kendra Corman: 

Well, we have a tendency to work so much in our business that we forget to work on our business. And then by the time we have time to work on our business, all of a sudden, it's because there's, you know, we have a hole in our schedule or something along those lines. 

And we can't wait for that. When I started out, I was totally and completely guilty of that. I would, you know, oh, I'm so busy I can't go to these networking meetings, and I'm so busy. I couldn't send emails and I was so busy, so busy, so busy. 

And then it was like, oh, now I need stuff. 

Erin Ollila: 

Yeah. 

Kendra Corman: 

Well, everybody forgot about me. 

Erin Ollila: 

Mm-hmm. Right. And for me it was like I've done this like twice in my business actually, and again, it's been six and a half years now, so I've hopefully have learned my lesson. 

I can say for sure I am marketing more regularly, but when it is something like getting referrals. What happens is you just assume they will come because they have come so naturally, like you're always getting someone in your inbox asking questions. 

Or this person is sending someone to you via a group message. And it, you forget that if you are not consistently booking into the future, which if you are a high ticket price, it's very hard to say like, oh, I'm consistently gonna be three or five months booked ahead because no one wants to drop $10,000 and not hear from you for five months, right? 

I think it's like we don't recognize that they can immediately dry up, not like short term. And you, and you notice clients are slowly ending their projects, so you know, you have to ramp up a little. If you do referrals, they can just stop. 

And it doesn't mean people don't like you. It doesn't mean that they don't potentially have someone for you in the future, but it isn't your referral's job to be the lead acquirer for your business, either. 

People are referrals, just kind of like testimonials and case studies. They refer clients to you like they're leads to you because they like you.

I just think it's really just imperfect effort, right? To do the smallest thing to stay top of mind. 

Kendra Corman: 

So I've been in business and it'll be, I think it's nine years this year. Wow. It's been a long time. 

And I would say that the first like seven years I did the bare minimum cuz everything was referral. Everything was referral. And until I changed a little bit of my business path, that was when I finally was like, oh. I probably need to do some things.

Because I hadn't had to do anything really much before. I needed to, but I did find that I needed to stay top of mind even for those referrals. Because people forget you're not like the most important thing to everybody, even though you should be. At least I should be, right? 

So I think it's, I think that that is just so important to think of. Make sure that you're spending time. I have at least two hours a week and I try for more of time an appointment booked with myself to work on my business.

It's a new thing that I rolled out in 2023. I mean, I had it here and there and before that, but in 2023, I have a two-hour block of time every week that says to work on KendraCorman.com work. And it's super important to me to have that because without it, it gets overlooked. 

Erin Ollila: 

Totally. And if you take it from the earliest part of our discussion where we talk about like just booking things into the future. Let's say March, you look at the website and you just take notes and that's all you're doing During that two-hour timeframe. You're not fixing everything; you're just taking notes.

And then maybe April rolls around and in April you, you're just reviewing your client facing documents for things like client experience, right? So if you can kind of give yourself a task, then you're not sitting there thinking like, "oh, let me create all the social content in the world and every email for the next six months of my business."

Cuz when we do things like that, it is very overwhelming, and it stops us in our tracks and we don't get things done. So if you can give yourself small tasks, even if you check them off and just work down the list of small tasks, I think that you'll use that time more wisely and really take those baby steps necessary to see huge improvements.

Kendra Corman: 

Yes, I am. I'm with you a hundred percent. And I can even tell you just as recently as 2021. No, it was 2022. Oh, my goodness. 

At the beginning of 2022, somebody reached out to me and said, "Hey, I know you're supposed to be speaking to my group. Are you okay? I went looking on your social profiles and there wasn't anything there."

Erin Ollila: 

No. 

Kendra Corman: 

I was like, dang it. Actually, I think it was 2021, but when I, but what happened was is I was too busy to even worry about my own social media. It always fell to the background because I was working on my client's social media. And then I was done with social media. 

But again, I think. People were even asking me, "Hey, are you still okay in presenting?"

And I was like, well, yeah, why do you ask? 

"Oh, well, because I don't see any of your presence anywhere. And I went looking." 

And I was like, that's not good. That was one of the wake up calls for me, that I needed to work more on my business on a consistent basis. 

And I think that that is a huge takeaway for anybody listening.

Make sure you are spending time to work on your business, not just in it. And you know, again, taking those small tasks is a huge opportunity to go ahead and review it. 

This has been a fantastic conversation. I love the rapport that we had from the beginning, Erin, and all of the tips that you've offered. And again, like I said, your biggest marketing lesson learned might actually be my favorite because there's just so much in that. So, thank you again. So much for your time. I can't thank you enough. 

If you wanna connect with Erin, get some of her lead magnets and freebies and even work with her, and we'll have some links in the show notes for you so that you can connect with her because I think she's got so much value that everybody can learn from. Again, thank you for sharing your information and experience and expertise with us today. 

If you learn something on today's show, please like, subscribe, rate, whatever in whatever podcast software you're listening in, and I will see you again on another episode of Imperfect Marketing.