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Ep 132: Overhaul Your Web Copy: Secrets to High-Impact Messaging THAT SELLS | Guest Expert: Caitlin Lang

• Sarah Noel Block

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Are you hiding your website URL because it's not bringing in clients? You're not alone. Most service businesses are making two critical messaging mistakes that prevent their beautiful websites from converting visitors into paying clients.

In this illuminating conversation with website expert Caitlin Lang, founder of Liquid Form Design, we dive deep into the psychology of website copy that actually sells. Rather than leading with photos of yourself or vague aspirational statements, Caitlin reveals how to position yourself as "the painkiller" your ideal clients are desperately seeking.

The magic happens when you speak directly to your dream clients' emotional state and pain points before quickly transitioning to the transformation you provide. As Theodore Levitt wisely noted, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole." Your website needs to sell outcomes, not services.

We explore the elements of a conversion-focused homepage, from powerful headlines that spark emotional connection to strategically placed testimonials that address common objections. Caitlin shares specific prompts for exit interviews that generate testimonials with selling power, plus frameworks for crafting copy that converts – including AI prompts you can steal.

Surprisingly, most website visitors never leave your homepage, making those first few sections critical for conversion. Learn how to structure your content with scannable headlines, proper hierarchy, and mobile optimization that maintains impact across all devices.

Whether your current website is gathering digital dust or you're embarrassed to share your URL, this episode provides the exact strategies you need to transform your web presence into a client-generating machine. Don't miss Caitlin's frameworks, examples, and actionable advice that will have leads flowing from your website without requiring giant marketing budgets or huge teams.

Ready to create a website that actually sells for you? Download the show notes for Caitlin's recommended resources, and subscribe to Tiny Marketing for more actionable strategies that help B2B service businesses do more with less.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Tiny Marketing. This is Sarah Norrell-Block, and this is a podcast that helps B2B service businesses do more with less. Learn lean, actionable, organic marketing strategies you can implement today. No fluff, just powerful growth tactics that work. Ready to scale smarter? Hit that subscribe button and start growing your business with Tiny Marketing. Growing your business with tiny marketing.

Speaker 1:

I've got DMs blowing up right now inside of the tiny marketing club asking the same question Is my website supposed to sell for me? Because it's not. Well, good news. Today's guest is Caitlin Lang. She is the founder of Liquid Form Design. She's a one-stop shop for branding website and copy that actually converts, especially for women-owned service businesses. A lot of you that are listening actually do work. Actually sell for you. The two biggest messaging mistakes most service providers make what your homepage needs in order to convert traffic to clients, how to speak directly to your dream clients, emotions and pain points. And Caitlin is not holding back. She's dropping frameworks, client examples, even AI prompts that you can steal. So if you've got a gorgeous site that's gathering dust and not converting clients, or you're hiding your URL like it's a bad axe, this is your episode, hi.

Speaker 2:

I'm Caitlin Lang. I'm the founder of Liquid Form Design. I do branding and websites for women-owned service businesses and I am a one-stop shop for all things branding web design, which means I also do the copy, because I think that the words in your website are just as important as the visuals. To make sure you sell and that's what we're going to be talking about today yes, sell with your website and that is so important.

Speaker 1:

So many people come into Tiny Marketing Club and they're like is your website supposed to sell? Because I've been doing it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I want if people work with you and get all the awesome marketing expertise that you're bringing and people are getting driven to someone's website, then I want that website to then convert and sell. Yeah it should, it should sell for you.

Speaker 1:

You should be getting inbound leads if you're doing it right, so let's first get into what are the biggest mistakes that people are making with their messaging.

Speaker 2:

I think the two biggest things I see the most in service provider websites and my expertise is in service provider websites I'm not going to go into everybody that listens to this show is in the provider websites and my expertise is in service provider websites.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to go into-. Everybody that listens to this show is in the service space, Okay good.

Speaker 2:

So with service providers, the one I see the most is someone will lead their homepage with a big, beautiful photo of themselves and copy this as something like hi, I'm Caitlin, I'm an amazing graphic designer and I do this kind of branding work and it's what a lot of people do. So people just keep doing it. But when you're just talking about yourself, your target client can't see themselves in what you're offering, and there are lots of great graphic designers who do branding for these kinds of industries. It's not differentiating. So that's one.

Speaker 2:

The second one and this is really common with coaches and therapists and I mean a lot of different service businesses will there be a beautiful nature photo and a vague aspirational quote or statement that says something like unlock the authentic nature of your brand. And what does that mean? Right, what does it mean? It's too vague. You're not speaking to your. You know your target clients' pain points and you just you see a lot of sites like that and they all start looking the same, and so it's really hard then to you're not differentiating yourself and you're not. You can't sell if you don't, if the person doesn't even know what you're selling. So those are the the two biggest problems that I see, and I'm sure that you've seen a lot of those.

Speaker 1:

I've witnessed those exact things. It's on so many websites and usually when someone enters the tiny marketing club, the first thing I do is that strategic spark and I'm like, I'm not going to lie, I don't understand what you're doing, what you provide based off of the copy on that website.

Speaker 2:

Yes, the number of times I've gone to a service provider's website and I have no idea what they're selling or what they do, it's just, it's constant. And so what you want to do instead is you want to show that you understand your target client's pain points. You want to speak directly to them and you want to position yourself as the painkiller that they've been looking for. And so I was so excited this morning when I went to your website. I knew this would be true, but I went to your website this morning and looked it up and you're doing exactly this. You have a headline I have it pulled up. It says imagine you're the only choice for your ideal customer. So people want that. They want to be the only choice. So they're going to see themselves immediately in that headline. And then you have this great subhead that says it's possible even without gigantic marketing budgets and huge teams. So there you're showing them. You understand them. You see their fear that they won't be able to achieve the result they want with a small team, but you're telling them that it is possible. So people read that. They immediately recognize themselves, they recognize you as a person who's uniquely positioned to help them and they want to work with you and I so yeah, but I was thinking about did you hear this?

Speaker 2:

I forget the actual subject, but Pia's podcast, an OBS podcast. She had a this. One of her guests was talking about the marketing expert, harvard. What's his name? I wrote it down Theodore Levitt from Harvard Business School and he said people don't want to buy a quarter inch drill, they want a quarter inch hole. So you want to sell the results.

Speaker 1:

You're not selling your services, you're selling the results that your services will provide. Yes, yes, I have heard that phrase before, that like don't talk about features, talk about the benefits. What are you getting in the end? Because if I can't understand what my outcome is going to be at the end of working with you, I'm not going to hire you, because that's all I want. Is that final?

Speaker 2:

outcome, yeah, yeah. So we want to have that in the main banner of your homepage and ideally also in the definitely the next section. I sometimes even have the first three sections of the website based on that focus on target clients, pain points and the results they're going to get. And so how do we do that? Yes, first we need to know who we're talking to, so I don't want to open the whole niching can of worms.

Speaker 1:

Open it a little bit, just like a little bit.

Speaker 2:

A little bit. I think you know people are afraid of niching. I don't know how many Open it a little bit, just like back the lid. Back the lid a little bit. I think you know people are afraid of niching. They're afraid that if they go too narrow they're not going to have any clients. I have found personally that when I niched to work so I've been doing this for 25 years I used to say that I could do anything for everyone, which is technically true, and for a while that actually did kind of work for me for some reason. But when the market got rougher sorry, were you going to say something?

Speaker 1:

I was going to say at the beginning of starting your career. I think that works because you're trying to figure out who you are. It's like you're an adolescent and you're discovering who you are, and the same goes for a business. But I 100% agree with you that the more narrow you get, the much easier it is to get leads.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, and I think also earlier in my career, when my prices were lower and I was more hungry and I was willing to also sacrifice more of my soul and my revenue to get the job, it didn't matter as much.

Speaker 2:

But as I've gotten, as I've gained expertise, as my prices have gotten higher, it also it has worked better for me to niche too, because it just become more of an expert, it makes more sense to justify the prices I'm charging honestly too.

Speaker 2:

But I found that as soon as I started saying specifically I work with women-owned service businesses, the floodgates open in terms of referrals. It was just easy for people to understand how to refer me who you know. It'd be easy for someone to think of a client for me, because it's just so specific a woman who owns a service business. So I think at the very least, when you're writing copy, you need to think about who like. I think the easiest thing is to think about who's your favorite client, who do you most want to work with, and then speak directly to that person, and it's just the more specific you can get, the more you're going to be able to, the more your target clients can be able to see themselves in your messaging and the more effective it's going to be. That's the bottom line 100% agree with that.

Speaker 1:

When I'm doing like done for you services, that's the first thing I do is like I interview their favorite clients, so I literally pull the words out of their mouth and put it in the copy because it makes a huge difference and other people can see themselves. It allows you to clone those people.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I think the misconception is that people have to go super specific, Like we both know someone who does branding specifically for women dentists and that's very specific and it doesn't need to be that specific. I mean, that's working for her, that's great. But you know, Pia was just one person's purpose businesses. Yours is just service B2B at a certain size, right, it's not industry.

Speaker 1:

No, I do not go industry specific. I like to look at the specific challenge that I solve. Tiny marketing was born from small businesses that don't have a marketing department. They have like zero to two people marketing departments because they have very specific challenges that I solve. Marketing departments because they have very specific challenges that I solve Right. I think that leaning into that challenge that you solve makes niching a lot more interesting. And also people do think industry when they think of niching and that can get really boring.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I agree, I'm industry agnostic also. I'll work in industry. It's just, it's mainly the size and service or just being a service business. But, um, I think that that's but I mean for you. I mean, even though that niche might sound broad, who you're working with is still really different from you know a gigantic tech company or you know something really corporate, so it is absolutely yeah, yeah, the like when I was at a point in my business where I was just taking whatever would come my way.

Speaker 1:

I noticed that the best results came from those people that were experiencing that exact challenge. So then, it made it easier for me to be able to do that, because they would want to refer me more and I also knew exactly how to solve that problem.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and the more jobs you do that way for that kind of person or that client, the more you're honing your own expertise and the more valuable you're becoming. Yeah, which is the other fun thing about niching is you just get better and better at what you're doing.

Speaker 1:

You get so much better at it. That's true.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I just I feel like I, when my clients come to me, I already like I already know so much about them before I've even talked to them, Because there is, there is so much similarity between women in this, in the same size of business, working as service providers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we also all have similar personalities in that you have to be a certain way to live that life.

Speaker 2:

That's true too, so anyway. So yeah, I think that some level of niching is important. I think you you have to make some choices there, and the other thing is you don't have to. You don't have to turn people away if it sounds interesting. If someone comes to you outside of your niche, you can still say yes, it say yes. It doesn't have to be super limiting, but anyway.

Speaker 2:

So I have a gateway offer, similar to your strategic spark, called the Branding Roadmap, where I start with a 90-minute interview. I have all these questions about where someone's been, where they are now, where they want to go, their target audience. But the real meat of that interview, the part that I come back to over and over again when I'm working on the brand and messaging, is the questions about their target clients' pain points and the problems that they solve and how they're uniquely positioned to be helpful. So I wrote down a few prompts that are sort of a distillation of the questions I ask from my branding roadmap that I think are most helpful in figuring this out and how best to position yourself as a painkiller with your website copy. So I think you want to ask what's the emotional state of your target client when they come looking for you, what frustrations are they experiencing right now? What changes after they work with you, what becomes possible, what problem goes away? And I think focusing on the emotions how are they feeling before they work with you and how are they feeling after is really powerful, and that's it's hopping into those emotions, which is how you connect with your client and make them really want to work with you.

Speaker 2:

And going back to yours, it's just, it is really emotional. Imagine you're the only choice for your ideal customer. You really feel that when you read that, and then it's possible, that that sense of hope, even without gigantic marketing budgets and huge teams. I just love how you tap into again, like you tap into their fear that they don't have a big enough marketing budget. So you're with just those three simple sentences, you're hitting all those points. What are their fears? How do they feel now? How are they going to feel after working with you? And just feel that sense of relief. And so the idea with all of this is that they're going to read that, those opening lines in your homepage, and they're going to feel relief. They're going to say, oh, she gets it, she understands what I'm going through and she's going to help me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and one thing that I want to just mention on that is I'm taking objections like the objections that I would get on a sales call. I don't have a team to be able to run this and making sure that it's woven into my messaging, so I'm addressing them ahead of time.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely so. Yeah, what I like to do is in that first main hero banner on the homepage is have a couple of simple lines, like you have, speaking to a little bit of pain and the solution, always drilling down on the solution and the outcome. And then in the next sections, people are afraid to talk about a pain point and they want it to all be rainbows and put an A before they wouldn't meet you and yeah, but it really. People really do want to feel heard and understood. The second banner I think it's really important to speak to your target client's pain points in a couple of sentences. Don't hang out there too long. Just a couple sentences saying you get it and then go straight in to the solution that you're going to provide and how you're the person to solve their problems.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, I agree with you that a lot of people are afraid and, honestly, messaging can lean too much into the pain. There is a too far on that, so you have to really toe the line to make it effective, without like wallowing in the problem.

Speaker 2:

Well, again, I think you do that really well on your website because it's really brief but it's effective. You say long sales cycles, missed opportunities and burnout are done. So you just in that one sentence, you name three possible pain points people might be feeling, and then the next paragraph, you go straight into how you are going to fix it. And that's exactly how I like to do it, where you just touch on it briefly, show that you care, that you understand, and then show how you're going to make it better. So you say, with a tiny marketing approach, you know exactly what your customer cares about, how to talk about it and how to reach them, and together we're going to work this out, how to talk about it and how to reach them, and together we're going to work this out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and it also shows like empathy. I have been there, I understand where you're coming from and I've worked with people that are dealing with this too and brought them to the other side. So I think that everybody listening has to get less afraid of talking about the pain that they're going through, because that might be all they feel in that moment. They might not understand yet the solution that would get them to the other side, or what the other side even looks like. You have to think about the phase that they're in emotionally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. And also going back to thinking about those homepages where it's a picture of the service provider and then just hi, I'm Caitlin and I do these awesome things. It also reminds me that I think that you want to think of every section of your website as a selling opportunity. So even the about page where you're talking about yourself still should be. Here's my story. But this is how that's helpful for you. This is how my story and my expertise and all the awesome things I can do. This is why it's important to you and this is how it's going to help you and still help you get the result that you want. So I think every section should be referring back to your target client in some way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. I like to look at about pages as almost like a case study of like this is what I went through and how I got to the other side, and now I can do that for you. Yes, yeah, that's a really good way to look at it. Have any like specific frameworks that someone could work through for their about page?

Speaker 2:

for the about page. Um. Well, so I I really um, there's so much on linkedin um about you know, ai taking over and being a disaster, but I think it's such a great brainstorming I love me, I yeah, it's a great way to just get some ideas out there, and so I like to use ai from the beginning, and so if you start with the home page and you've already put in you know if you're trying, if you start with the homepage and you've already put in you know if you're trying, if you use AI, to start brainstorming some headlines and some copy for the problem results section or website. You've already got some great content in there. And now here I want to remind you about the problems that my target clients might be facing. How does my story help my target client and can you weave together a bio that brings in these different touch points, so my story and then how it can help my clients' lives improve?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. It's storytelling, but you're pulling your ideal client through that story.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, and I think the important thing with AI, too, is to really look at it as a tool and not the end-all be-all not the writer here, so I think that that's the key and to use it for ideas.

Speaker 2:

What I love about it the most is that, because of AI, I never am staring at a blank page, so there's none of that banging my head against the wall because I can't think of the right word situation. So it can help me just iterate quickly and usually get me where I want to go or just give me the idea to write the thing myself. But it is just really helpful to just throw spaghetti at the wall and figure out which messaging resonates and go from there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, if you, like you were saying that you interview your clients ahead of time and I interview my clients' customers, if you can keep those transcripts and put them in there, that will help a lot too, because now you're feeding the information to the AI and it's able to give you an output that makes much more sense than it would if you're just, you know, giving a prompt.

Speaker 2:

It's true, yeah, it's, yeah, it needs. It's still the AI still needs a lot of handholding and guiding, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

It's not like I think of AI as a workhorse. It's not creative, it's not strategic, but it is a really cheap assistant and it will do a lot of things for you, but it won't do the brain work because it's using information that already exists in the world.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and so then, with every time I enter in anything, I always remind it no jargon, no cliches.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you can set your settings too, so it never does any of that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but I do find it's still so easy to throw stuff in. I do feel like I have to remind it.

Speaker 1:

I have to reteach too. I create a lot of custom GPTs and sometimes I'm like I think that you've forgotten what I teach you. Yes, let's relearn it. Can you go back to the source files and relearn this?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, you have to still be really vigilant. And it is interesting, everyone's saying it's just going to get better and better. But if we keep creating more and more generic content with it, is it going to get better and better? It's going to get more generic.

Speaker 1:

That's valid. I think the better you are at engineering your GPTs, the better the output will be.

Speaker 2:

But again, that puts you in the creative and the strategic seat, while the AI is the workhorse, right, right right, because I worry about the young people, because I'm an old lady and I learned to write in the nineties and so I already know how to write, I already know how to think, and so, yeah, I don't. I have a teenage son and I don't know how that's going to work out for him if he's learning to write now with chat GPT as his assistant. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah, my kids are learning how to use AI right now in school. That's like one of the things that's right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's great. My kid is not. We were just talking about that at breakfast the other day. They're not. They're very head in the sand at my kid's high school.

Speaker 1:

Crazy. I know Everybody who's so like anti-AI. I'm like you evolve or die, that's just how it is, and AI it's a good day, so evolve or die.

Speaker 2:

I completely agree, but luckily, for now, it still does need us and it still does need our strategic minds and to know what to feed it. And so that's where these prompts come in is making sure that you keep referring back to the emotions and you know these sorts of ideas that still a human needs to tell it to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's humans. Buying and messaging is all about psychology and understanding the process someone is going through emotionally, as they're going through a problem and needing to get to the other side of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's true. Are these similar prompts that you use when you're doing your marketing messaging?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, pretty similar. I definitely feed in the transcripts and I pre-built the custom GP3s, so the way I like, the output is already done.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But the prompts are pretty similar.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. And what do you? Have you noticed something similar with service provider websites, with how they're missing sales opportunities in their copy?

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, I do. I think you're right that so many people are just looking at other people's sites and copying what they see or their template site and they just put in that as the messaging. So they assume that that's what it's supposed to be. But well, it's definitely not Right yeah?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think people also focus too much on just the aesthetics of a website and they want, or the logo, and they want, you know, a really cool logo and a really flashy, cool site. And it's interesting to me how many websites for designers I see that are gorgeous but don't have any really any messaging at all. They're just, you know, the homepage will just have their logo doing something fancy, yeah, and they don't say anything, and I think that's an interesting choice.

Speaker 1:

It's probably less of a choice and more of like. That's the world they live in. Yeah, and I suppose it's almost showcasing their skill set with that. Yeah, I suppose it's almost showcasing their skill set with that. But it's a missed opportunity not having messaging that's going to sell for you, because it would basically be like a portfolio site Like. This is what I can do Instead of showing people the journey that you'll take them on, right?

Speaker 2:

right. I just think a lot of websites are just sitting there gathering dust, not doing much for people.

Speaker 1:

Often, oftentimes, people are like I have a website but don't go to it.

Speaker 2:

I hear that a lot. I hear that a lot yeah, a lot of embarrassment of websites, but also a lot of people who don't even know that their websites aren't selling for them because they're pretty. And so a website can be beautiful, but then if it's not clear what they do or who they're serving, then it's still not going to be effective.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. A lot of times I'll talk to people and they'll think that, well, just websites are dead. It's not my website in particular. It's that people are finding me in different ways, but the reason that that is working for them is because their website isn't working for them, right. So people have to find them.

Speaker 2:

other ways there's no other choice, right, because I think people are still going to websites.

Speaker 1:

They absolutely are.

Speaker 2:

Validate authority.

Speaker 1:

I can look at my analytics and tell you 100% people are going to my website and I'm getting direct leads from it weekly. It's not websites. That's the problem. It's your messaging that doesn't explain what you do. That's the problem.

Speaker 2:

The other thing that I think is really important on your homepage is to have really strong testimonials. Maybe we'll talk about that for a second, Because I think another thing that people there's a way also to help to give your clients prompts when they're writing testimonials.

Speaker 1:

Ooh, let's hear it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I think you know there's so many lackluster testimonials that just say you know, caitlin was amazing, I love working for her, but there's when I end every project I have an exit interview where I ask people specific questions about what it was like to work with me and I found that it helps people write more interesting testimonials. And so a big question, a big important question to ask is yeah, how do you think? Well, so for me it's my ROI. Stuff is a little bit hard because it depends a lot on marketing. But a big question is you know, how do you think this brand will be beneficial to your business? Or how do you feel now that you have this new brand, and how is this brand going to change how you go out and sell? And so asking really specific questions about how your service will impact your client and their business is really helpful in getting stronger testimonials that are more specific and they can still be results-oriented and outcome-focused.

Speaker 1:

I really like that. I can't remember who I interviewed I wish I did, but I don't and but they were telling me about a trick that they use for testimonials. That's brilliant. So they do an exit interview like that and then they will write a couple different testimonials for them and send them to the client and say you know, change these however you want. But if you want to use these on, you know, google, my Business or whatever it is, they collect reviews to adjust it as you want. But then it takes out that this is homework aspect of it and you're using their words because it came from their exit interview.

Speaker 2:

That's a really good idea. The other one I just remembered is that I like to ask what hesitations people had before hiring me, because then it's nice if in their testimonial they can actually speak to an objection that one of my clients might have. That's smart. So, yeah, I get a lot of testimonials that say things like I didn't think I had the budget to pay for a new website, but I'm really glad that I decided to do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is so smart. Everybody take notes on that one. I want you to ask about the objections that they had, because it's very likely that other people had those ones and more will have them.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and then the other one is why did you decide to work with me and how did you overcome that hesitation? That's a helpful one to know also.

Speaker 1:

Like why were they considering not working with you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Well, so if I start out, my first question is what hesitations did you have before hiring? But then the second question is then, what made you decide to work?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's smart and all of that. You can also use the exit interview information to write little case stories that you can use on LinkedIn. It's true.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's all really valuable information to have.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you can use that information for your messaging later, like if you're reinvigorating your messaging on your website.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and yeah, and it's. That's one of the. I don't know if you do this, but it's one of the problems with being having doing this for a living is that I'm always tweaking and I never satisfy I'm the tweaking queen.

Speaker 1:

Are you kidding me? Yes, I have that problem, you kidding me? Yes, I have that problem, I just need to just let it sit. But yeah, yes, it's true, but I record absolutely every meeting I have.

Speaker 2:

So I have so many good, valuable insights from that. I can't help that. I know, I know. Yeah, I think we're both, yeah, perfectionist tendencies, want to always get it just right.

Speaker 1:

I feel like that's probably most entrepreneurs.

Speaker 2:

Probably when in entrepreneurs particularly.

Speaker 1:

I have found that we are definitely a little more type A.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I think that's probably true.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's talk about the elements of a successful conversion-focused homepage. We have testimonials that we want to include. We have the head in the suburb that touches on the pain and the transformation, the outcome. What else do we need? Transformation, the outcome what else?

Speaker 2:

do we need? So, yeah, so I like to start with yes, I start with the main hero banner with headline and subhead that speaks to the target client's pain points, outcome, another section on problem results, and then I like to be really explicit about the exact services you're providing. So to the point we were talking about earlier, where you can go to a lot of these websites. You don't know what they do. So, just in case they've read, you know these two sections of copy and they still aren't crystal clear on what you do. I like to then have a section that basically lists these are my offerings. So I'm trying to think of an example here I'm going to pull up. So, for example, I just did a website recently for a woman who does brand strategy consulting, and so the main banner says reclaim your voice, expand your influence, which is a little bit of the vague aspirational thing, but then the subhead is very specific I help accomplished leaders find the words to be themselves, show it fully and create the future they want, because success and authenticity aren't mutually exclusive.

Speaker 2:

The next session goes into pain points and solution, and then oh, and then she was worked a lot of high profile clients. So social proof is always great. So for her, we have a lot of logos of the clients that she's worked with for social proof, and then we have a list of her specific offerings. So she has executive presence and personal brand coaching, team workshops, personal brand bootcamps, strategic consulting and speaking engagements, and so each of those link out to the respective service pages.

Speaker 2:

People can go exactly where they get that information, more information, and actually so I have it set up in an accordion menu so they're listed, but you can also open up the menu to see a little bit more, to see wait, do I really want that? Is that the service I need? But just getting really specific? And then I have testimonials, sign up for email newsletter, of course, and I like to put that in the footer of every page so that people really see it. And then the footer don't snooze on the footer. The footer is where you can have some good SEO information and some more information about what specifically you do, and it's a great place to have a little roundup of all the stuff that's been on the whole page. So for her, we have empowering accomplished leaders to articulate their value and expand their influence, personal brand coaching, strategic consulting and keynote speaking that transforms how you show up, so it's good for SEO. It's also just an extra reminder oh, this is what she's offering and this is how she's going to help you.

Speaker 1:

That's smart. That is something I'm missing. I definitely snooze on my footer. Oh yeah, Don't snooze on your footer.

Speaker 2:

Those are the main elements of the homepage, and I think the other thing I've realized recently is that you can have a full site in one scrolling page.

Speaker 1:

I was just going to ask about that. I love a one-page website, but I wanted your opinion.

Speaker 2:

I absolutely think that a lot of server providers can get away with a one-page website and you can tell a really compelling story in just one page, and what's nice about it is it makes you getpage website and you can tell a really compelling story in just one page. And what's nice about it is it makes you get really specific and you don't have all those extra words to sort of rest on Like you have to like. Every word has to count and so it can be really impactful. And, yeah, I've done a couple of them and I think it's a great way to go for service providers.

Speaker 1:

And it's just easier to navigate. People do not like large site maps that they have to figure out where to go to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I don't know if this is true for your site, but I noticed when I look at the analytics for my site people don't go a lot of places, they hang out on the homepage and then they'll look at my main portfolio page, but no one's clicking into my individual portfolio pieces, so I used to spend all this time doing these elaborate case studies for all my portfolio pieces At least. No one goes there, so they just sort of they glance at the portfolio page and then some people go to the about page. A lot of people don't even go to the about page, so most people are spending most of their time on the homepage. So the more stuff you could jam onto your homepage, the better. So I have a separate page for testimonials on my site, but I also have them on the homepage, just because a lot of people don't go to that testimonial page.

Speaker 1:

True, I had to pull up my analytics when you were talking about it.

Speaker 2:

So let's see.

Speaker 1:

Let's see where people are going.

Speaker 2:

Mostly, mostly home, and I'll bet your services.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Home is number one by like a long shot, yeah. And then my content section, the learn from the learn section, and that's where I get a lot of my SEO. So that makes sense. They're the ones coming from google. And then tiny marketing club is next and my newsletter is after that yeah.

Speaker 2:

How about your about page? Is that getting much traffic? Nope dink, yeah, yeah, isn't it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it gets less than everything else, even like individual blog pages, it gets less than that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So I guess that's a good argument to have a little bit about yourself on the homepage too. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But just my homepage is quadruple, my second highest page, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So you want to have a lot on your homepage, but you want it to all be concise and you want to also avoid walls of words. I see a lot of websites with just so many words.

Speaker 1:

That is true and that is where I need to. I need to add it all the time because I'm a writer, I write a lot. And then I'm like because I'm a writer, I write a lot, and then I'm like, sadly, cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, it's really important because people can't digest too much information at once. So you want it to be easy and have hierarchy of words. So make sure you have clear headings, subheads, textheads. Yes, that's true, so that it's easy. So I mean, ideally you can even tell, you can even read the whole story of your website just going down and reading the headlines. Yeah, you can get a sense just reading the headlines that's really smart.

Speaker 1:

That's a smart way to put it. Okay, now I want to make edits to my sharing is really good.

Speaker 2:

I got really fired up as martinikney website. I was like, oh good, sarah is, of course, doing everything exactly how I would do it, because the other thing you do well here's on the subject of walls of words. You start with really short, easy digest bits of copy, so to get people in and then, once they're invested as they're going down your page, you actually do have some longer bits, but you're only going down there if you're already interested. So then you're going to, you're going to, you've got already. Once you've got people's attention, then you can give them more copy, because then they're ready for it and they're asking for it because they're scrolling, but you want everything up at the top to be snappier, yeah, yeah, yeah, be snappier, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think that absolutely everything, including like novels, read better when you have amazing hooks, like the first line of every chapter should be a hook that makes someone just want to dive in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting. On LinkedIn some people mock the sort of I don't know if it's recent the convention on LinkedIn where people are writing with crazy short like, yeah, just the sentence, but it is just so much easier to read, the eye has places to rest. Yes, it's a whole big block of copy. I get really overwhelmed. I can't deal with it. My brain short circuits. I need those breaks.

Speaker 1:

I'm with you. I'm with you when I see that my eyes just glaze off to the side, not because it's bad content, but because it's hard to read.

Speaker 2:

Hard to read, and same with your website. You just need it to be easy to read. Yeah, and easy to read quickly. People are, especially if they're on their phones.

Speaker 1:

They're scrolling, they're going fast, they're not going to hang up and, speaking of phones, make sure when you have a new website launching that you're copying what it looks like on your phone, because I'll find that, like dang, this looked normal on a website, but that's some chunky copy right there when I'm scrolling on my phone.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and a huge thing is Squarespace is not doing a good job with their mobile in making sure that faces are still showing up in photos. They need to have come up with some AI tool to be able to determine that a face is still in a photo. Yeah, because I've seen a lot of people's websites where when you go to mobile, their faces are cut off in all their photos. So there's a little in Squarespace. There's a little toggle between desktop and mobile.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I use WordSpace too I always check, make sure you check and make sure you check every time you make a change to your site, because it can get wonky again once you make a change.

Speaker 1:

There is most definitely a chance that my website is wonky at this point from changes I've made. But yes, your desktop to mobile. It's crazy how different it can look on mobile if you're not checking and you can edit it. So it's only the mobile version that gets that edit.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, yeah. I mean the tool is great. Now People, I think, just aren't using it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So I'm using Squarespace too, and I'm always toggling between those, and at first I was afraid like if I make this edit here, is it going to look like crap on a desktop. Yeah, but it doesn't Interesting.

Speaker 2:

If you make a change in the desktop view it can mess up mobile, but once you make a change in mobile it almost never goes back. There are a couple things you can do that can go back and impact desktop, but usually what you do in the mobile view isn't impacting desktop.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I have not noticed that, but that's good to know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean always check, but it's usually fine.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Before we wrap up, I wanted to talk a little bit more about that the combination of social proof and testimonials on your website. Yeah, One thing that I love but never looks quite nice on a website is the screenshots from your client wins. Is there a good way to display that?

Speaker 2:

um, that's so interesting. I I don't do that, but I know I've seen it. I'm thinking, um, do you know Erica Schneider? She might have that on her website. Um, I wonder if I can pull up quickly. I know I've seen it on LinkedIn and I, I mean, this is where you know, maybe my need to always have everything beautiful gets in my way, um, because, oh no, I know she does something different, never mind, um, I mean, there's probably. I do not do that, I do. I like the idea of it. I think that there could be a way, um, maybe to put the screenshot on a solid within a solid box, so that it's framed nicely or maybe like on a mobile frame.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, on a screen. That's a good idea as a mock-up. Yeah yeah, because I always, you know, copy and paste into a nicer format. But I've been seeing that more and more on LinkedIn, where people are just posting the screenshots and super cool, it just looks, it's so authentic.

Speaker 1:

That's exactly why I like it is that there is no messing around. This is real and I like the authenticity of it, but I just don't think it looks pretty. I want to figure out a pretty way to do it.

Speaker 2:

I know you know that's a good challenge. I have not tried to do it. I'm just looking at another site that would maybe have that. No, she doesn't either. Sometimes people who just have cooler, edgier sites I feel like could maybe get away with it. But I just went to a couple thinking maybe they were doing that and they aren't. Yeah, I haven't tried that, but I think it's a good idea to try it and I can imagine if you do that but you do it near the bottom of your site and you have it against a nice background. It's okay if it's not tied in perfectly aesthetically with the rest of the site.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I suppose if the screenshot is the same size for all of them it's not going to be ugly. Yeah, I mean. I say it's ugly, but I am much more likely to buy from someone where I'm seeing the screenshots than I'm seeing pretty testimonials.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean if you're looking at pros and cons, the pros of that authenticity might outweigh the cons of it not being as beautiful. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I mean, that's certainly people who have taken my money. That's what they have experienced.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, because it's true, I do. I mean, whenever I see those on LinkedIn, they resonate a lot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm like okay, that's a real conversation. That's a real person who had a real result. I believe this.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, and there's something really impactful about seeing genuine enthusiasm in text or email form. Yeah, and there's something really impactful about seeing genuine enthusiasm in text or email form. Yeah, it's real.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2:

I do too. I think that's a really good idea.

Speaker 1:

So you told me, before we hit record, that you are launching a new newsletter. Can you tell our audience?

Speaker 2:

about it. I am launching a new newsletter. I've been telling Sarah, I've been wanting to do this for many, many months and I'm finally doing it, hopefully launching next week, which means hopefully by the time this airs it'll be launched. So my website is liquidformdesigncom and I'm going to have a sign up there and I'm actually going to be producing a little video I'm planning to make this week that will have a downloadable chat GPT prompt document about all the stuff we were actually talking about today. So about how to speak directly to your target audience and with a little simple worksheet and some AI prompts to get you started.

Speaker 2:

And then my newsletter. I want it to be fun and breezy and it's going to be about branding, but it's also going to be about being a woman and the patriarchy and I'm kind of down with that. Yeah, every newsletter I'm going to have, I'm going to feature a different women business owner which I'm really excited about, and I'm going to have pop culture I'm interested in that week. And a recipe, some sort of easy recipe, like a weeknight dinner or my first. I have a recipe for a single chocolate chip cookie for those when you're home alone and you just really want one chocolate chip cookie Brilliant? Yes, I think so. So anyway, I just I think I'm excited, I think it's going to be a fun, it's going to be a good time. It's going to be. I want it to be like loose and fun. It's a vibe.

Speaker 2:

Hopefully it'll be a vibe and it'll be about branding, but it'll also be about other stuff.

Speaker 1:

I like it. I like it and especially considering who your audience is, it's going to really resonate with them.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's the thing. I just finished this brand this week and I work in intensives, like you do, and so it's just we have this 90 minute interview and then three or four meetings over two days and the level of connection that I could create with these client because I just I just felt like we'd been through something together and it just felt so good and um, and so the newsletter is also about that just about connecting as women and um, supporting each other and being there for each other and I love that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I'll make sure to have the links for that in the show notes. Thank you and just for your reference, I think this is probably going to go out in two weeks. I have another Massaging podcast episode that's coming out on the 7th, so yours will probably go right after that. So it's going in a series.

Speaker 2:

Okay, good, that'll be good inspiration for me to get this thing live and going. I'm on the verge, but yes, thank you.

Speaker 1:

All right. How can people find you online and hang out with you virtually?

Speaker 2:

Yes, my website is liquidformdesigncom. I bought that URL 20 years ago and I would advise everyone to not have a domain that. That's. That's so long. It's really painful. And um, and I'm on LinkedIn. Um, my name is Caitlin with a C, Caitlin Lang, and I have a really good time on LinkedIn. I'm inspired by Sarah, who was one of the people who first got me on there, and it's, I think, and that's, another great place for community. I love it a lot. So those are my two places.

Speaker 1:

It's kind of funny how you build like your own little networking event in every single post that you create. It's like you're pulling people in having conversations. I love it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and there's such an amazing community there of women entrepreneurs and we all found each other and it's so freaking cool.

Speaker 1:

I know it is. I love it so much. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you so much, Sarah. That was really fun. I really enjoyed it. Love all things. Tiny marketing Head down to the show notes page and sign up for the waitlist to join the tiny marketing club, where you get to work one-on-one with me with trainings, feedback and pop-up coaching that will help you scale your marketing as a B2B service business. So I'll see you over in the club.

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Sarah Noel Block

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