093: Clarity Over Complexity: How E-Commerce Sites Can Build Trust and Community

In this episode, Jules White dives into a live website and SEO audit with Andrea Burdett, founder of Just Love It – an e-commerce business devoted to handmade, sustainable gifts and ethical homewares. Together, they explore quick wins to help Andrea’s website become a true hub for her community, moving beyond just sales and building a stronger online presence.

Jules uncovers practical ways Andrea can refine her homepage messaging, streamline navigation, improve user experience, and harness blog content to drive more sales and loyal website visitors. They also discuss how to confidently email your list more frequently and the power of weaving your story and values throughout your site – all while keeping the customer at the heart of the brand’s narrative.

If you’re looking to make your website work harder for you, attract more conscious shoppers, and turn browsers into fans, this episode is packed with actionable tips.

Key Takeaways

• Tell Your Brand Story Clearly: Make sure your homepage instantly tells visitors who you are, what you do, and how you help – in both words and images.
• Make the Customer the Hero: Shift your website messaging so your customers see themselves as the centre of the story, inspired by Donald Millers “StoryBrand” approach.
• Tweak Your Navigation: Keep the main menu streamlined and focused to reduce overwhelm and help visitors find what they need quickly.
• Use Blogs Strategically: Write blog posts that support your products and homepage, weaving in your mission and linking naturally to key pages.
• Prioritise Mobile & Accessibility: Most visitors are on mobile – ensure your site is easy to use, and pay attention to text size, boldness, and colour contrast for readability and SEO.
• Keep Visitors on Your Website: Move social media icons to the footer, so people stay focused on your offers rather than being distracted away.
• Don’t Be Afraid to Email Your List: Your subscribers want to hear from you – share news, new products, and community updates more than once a month if you can.
• Continually Gather Feedback: Talk to your customers about their website experience to spot easy wins and keep evolving.

Links & Resources Mentioned

• Just Love It: www.justlove.co.uk – Explore Andrea’s sustainable gifts and homewares.
• Book a Website Strategy Power Hour: Work with Jules – Get clear on your website’s next steps.
• StoryBrand by Donald Miller: Five Minute Marketing Makeover – Learn how to make your customer the hero.
• Free Beginner’s QuickStart Guide to SEO: Download the guide
• Episode 003: What to do if you’ve had a hundred eyes, but no conversions

Transform your website into a powerful tool that generates leads, builds trust, and ultimately drives revenue for your business.

Ready to take your content marketing to the next level? Book a free discovery call with me today and let's unlock the hidden potential in your existing

Transcript

Jules White: So hi. Today we're diving into a website SEO audit for Andrea from Just Love It. So hopefully by the end of this episode, we'll have identified some quick wins for Andrea. So welcome, it's so great to have you here.

Andrea Burdett: Hi. Yeah, it's great to be here as well. I'm really intrigued to what I'm going to learn today, so I'm all ears with what you've got to say.

Jules White: Fantastic. So before we start, if we were to meet in six months' time and you were telling me about the amazing things happening in your business, how would your website be helping with that?

Andrea Burdett: So I see my website as a sort of a live platform that I would like to see my customers using on a regular basis. Not just to go and buy my products, but also to go and learn about where my products come from.

All my products have a story because they're sustainable, they're eco-friendly, and I know who has made them. I also support UK artists. So for me, it's not just going and buying that special gift or that garden ornament, it's about understanding what goes into that.

So I need more people to know about that because at the moment, it's quite labour-intensive going to events, which I do every weekend. I go and speak to lots of people and they're very enthusiastic about what we do, because, you know, our main ethos is about giving back. So whether that's giving back to people through fair trade or giving back to the environment by being sustainable, or our planting a tree programme, which is great.

So I want to drive all those people that are interested in that into my website. They've got a greater awareness of their shopping options and can go for the green option or the sustainable option rather than the mass-produced option. Clearly, yeah, I need to sell more as well.

But I also want it to be almost like a community that goes onto the website, and I create that community so people think, "Let's go and have a look at Just Love It first. Let's see if Just Love It has something," rather than, "Oh, I need this Father's Day gift. Let's go to Amazon." So that's what I'm trying to do; it's that awareness piece.

When I'm out at events, that's what gets people as enthusiastic as me about my products. And clearly, there's only one of me. So, you know, I want my website to be multi-functional, not just a landing page.

Jules White: Okay. So it needs to get the message across, spread the word about the amazing things that you do, and be getting more sales coming in. Yeah, absolutely. You think in six months' time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, fantastic.

So, before we start, just tell us a little bit about your business and how your website currently sits within your marketing activities. You've probably covered a little bit of that already, but just tell us a little bit about that.

Andrea Burdett: So I've had my website for 18 months. My business has been running for about three years.

I got serious about it about two years ago when I decided I was going to exit from my day job. I could spend more time on my business. My website is a small part of my revenue at the moment, and part of the strategy going into 2025, 2026, is to drive more traffic to my website.

So the website is relatively young; we've made some changes to it to try and create that community and to link a bit more information into it. So I suppose what I would be interested in is the consumer's experience when they go onto Just Love It. You know, is it easy to use? Does it give them everything they want? Is all the information there?

Jules White: So focusing more on some of the conversion and the user experience in your site? Yeah. Okay, fantastic. Yeah, there are some, I've had a little look at your site and there are certainly some things we can have a little chat about. So I'm going to share my screen.

Are you doing other marketing activities besides where you're actually selling, and you sell at the events and things?

Andrea Burdett: Yeah, so obviously events are a big part, because, you know, I can talk to people face to face. I'm also quite active on social media.

I've got a monthly blog that goes out. I've got a monthly newsletter that goes out, and we're constantly building subscribers, again, at the moment via events. We don't get many subscribers from the website, but you know, we do a prize draw every three months and collect email addresses to put into MailChimp.

I've also had some booklets done with information about our values, what we stand for, and what we try and do. When I get an internet order, I send that booklet out as part of it. So you know, we've got a reasonable range of marketing that goes on at the moment.

Jules White: And are you emailing your list regularly? Are you emailing your subscribers, or...

Andrea Burdett: Yeah, so they get a monthly newsletter at the moment. I haven't done it more frequently because, you know, I don't want to bombard people, as I want to sort of keep my subscribers. But I don't know if that's right or wrong at this point in time.

Jules White: Yeah, I mean, I think definitely if people are wanting to hear from you, and certainly if you're trying to build a community, I think you could probably get away with emailing more than once a month. If people don't stay subscribed, then maybe think, "Are they the people that want to be hearing from you?"

Because we all have gifts to buy pretty much every month. Someone's got a birthday, it's Father's Day, it's Mother's Day, something's always going on, isn't it? So I think if you were helping your community, if part of the thing is you want to help people to make great decisions about the gifts that they're buying for people, then...

And we are all way too worried about, you know, offending our list, I think, really. But we are, these people have actually asked to subscribe to you. They want to hear from you.

And actually, if you are helping them to understand an amazing new product that's just come in, and that could be part of the thing of being on your email list is you hear about the new things before they even come in. So they could put pre-orders in and things like that. You know, I would say, don't be scared about emailing your list more often.

The people that want to hear from you will stay there, and the ones that don't, you can let them go, and it makes room for new people to come in who want to pay from you. Okay. Yeah, definitely.

I think it's a really common problem though, and I definitely have that feeling myself of, "Oh, I can't send that extra email." But yeah, actually, and especially with what you do, there's so much new interesting stuff that you could be sharing, I think. Yeah, don't be scared to email your list. Okay.

Okay. Official permission to email your list.

So, how much have you thought about your messaging and like the story behind what you do, not necessarily the story behind how you set up and where your products come from and things like that? More the story of how you fit into people's lives.

So I'm a really big fan of Donald Miller's stuff, and he is the "Building a StoryBrand" guy where he talks about the customer being the hero of the story. And I think this is something we do have to be a bit aware of when we are a sort of more mission-based business, where we've got a really good cause that we want to spread the word about.

We still want the customer to come in and feel like they are part of the story, but they ultimately are the hero of the story. So maybe thinking about what is your ideal customer sort of aspiring to? What kind of things are they looking for, and how can you tell your story around that?

It certainly isn't something that will just pop into your head and you've got it fixed overnight. It's something that you'll be working on probably for quite some time, working on getting that story right so that people understand as soon as they come into your website. I always say that they should understand within three seconds what you do, how you're going to make their life better, and what they need to do to get it.

And I feel like maybe that's something looking at your homepage; that is something that you could certainly have some more of that in there, really. Maybe just make that a little bit clearer. Does that make sense of what I'm kind of saying there?

Andrea Burdett: Yeah. So is that more text or is that more photo?

Jules White: So I think definitely you've got the potential for both. The text, the copy, the words on your website are the thing that will help people to understand what you do. But certainly, you can break that up.

We never want to see really walls of text. So I've visited your website before, and I don't think I've ever stopped and actually read this section here, which I did just before we came on, and there's quite a lot of important information in here. But I think, I feel like there are ways you could maybe get that across, maybe with some bullet points or some icons, or if you can sort of condense it down a little bit.

It's kind of a double-edged sword because you do need words on your pages, and ideally every page of your website, unless it's something like your "Contact Us" page, which might have less. But every page that you want Google to be putting into its index ideally needs at least 350 words minimum on that page.

And I suspect your homepage probably hasn't got that much on it, actually. So it's even building in things like building trust up. So even within your homepage, maybe having a little bit about, I think you've got an about, you've got an "About Us" page. Yeah.

So let's have a little look. So maybe, yeah, even building in something, it doesn't necessarily have to be a sort of wall of text like this, but maybe just something in there, a little section on your homepage where people know immediately when they're on your homepage, they know who you are.

That immediately helps to get that trust across. And that wouldn't necessarily, as I say, be a big "About Us" section. It would just be a little bit about your story, and then you could always have that as a "read more," and then that takes you through to your about page.

Ultimately, what you're trying to do with that is if the customer is the hero of the story, you are their trusted guide. So you are the person who's going to make it easier for them to make those great decisions about the gifts they're buying.

You are the person who's going to hold their hand and walk them along that journey of helping them to connect with these amazing people and these amazing products that are then going to help to make their life better. Ultimately. And I know it sounds a bit cheesy saying it that way, but you can break it down and certainly make it, it doesn't have to be cheesy, basically.

Yeah. But having things like that on your homepage and also then maybe, do you, have you got any blogs or anything?

Andrea Burdett: So I do a monthly blog, so that will be in About Us.

Jules White: Oh, because I couldn't find it earlier. So I would definitely say that because you've got this mission and you want to be spreading the word, so if you go to news, it's news. Okay.

Yeah. So I would definitely think about how you can make this clear that it's a blog or that it's articles, or that it's something that actually you could even have a blog menu on the navigation menu here, potentially. You know, I think definitely your navigation menu. You could make a few tweaks to that to make it a little bit more streamlined for people to come into.

So are these, is this individual article? So, yeah.

Andrea Burdett: So this is the way. This one, okay. The one on the left-hand side there? Yeah. Okay. Decorations for your…

Jules White: So it's a fairly, it's a fairly new blog. Is it the articles you've got on there?

Andrea Burdett: That's a brand new one. I try and do one a month.

Jules White: Yeah. So I'm a firm believer in not blogging for the sake of it. If I was looking at an e-commerce site, I would be definitely thinking about the pages that are closest to the sale first.

So I would be thinking about your product pages, optimising those, optimising your homepage, and then thinking about what blog content do you need to support the homepage and to support the product pages. And that can be ultimately what we want our blogs to be doing, and especially now as we are moving into AI search.

A lot of those blog informational type queries are being answered already from Google or Chat GPT within those searches. So that's not to say that blogging isn't important, it still absolutely is. But what we want to be thinking about with our blogs is how can we use our blogs to help to support those other pages?

Where people are more likely to then actually come through to our website. So like the sales pages, the product pages, and what do we need to do in our blogs to show that we are an authority on the topic that we talk about. So I would definitely think having something in here, some really strong, good, you know, really well researched and well put together blogs on sustainable gift buying.

And like you can definitely weave the parts of your story of your business into those blog articles, and then you would link to those from like, from your homepage to your blogs and link from your blogs to your product pages is probably the more important thing.

Andrea Burdett: Yeah, which I believe the links are in. So if you're talking about recycled metal garden ornaments, then there'll be a link to say, go and have a look at it.

Jules White: Yeah.

Andrea Burdett: Covered notebook, for instance there, that one there. So there are links to the products that we're talking about, so I understand what brilliant you're saying.

Jules White: Yeah. Yeah. So in here, even things like, um,

Andrea Burdett: So if you clicked on charming ducks, or that's going to take you to those, um, those products, to those pages.

Jules White: Okay. So even with that, the way you could potentially build that out a bit more is having this, and that would be quite a good way to break this blog up. So within that blog, having a little picture of the charming duck.

Or if you were going to use that image here in this, and it's about Mother's Day, whether if you've got a picture of that duck with a mum, or with a mum and kids or something like that. You could use that to break it up, and it would make it almost like a bit more like a banner ad within your own blog article.

That's not, that's not to say that linking within the text like this isn't, isn't a good plan, because it is. But actually, that's other ways that you could break these up. But definitely having that scattered within your blogs, it makes a big difference actually. It's really helpful to do that.

So if we come back to your homepage and just starting to think about the mobile responsive version as well, because realistically we should be thinking mobile first. The majority of people are going to be looking at your website on a mobile, realistically. Have you got any analytics or anything set up? Have you got any Google Analytics or Google Search Console set up or anything?

Andrea Burdett: Yes, there are. Do I analyse them on a regular basis? Probably not. And it's probably something I need to look at. Growth. Yeah.

Jules White: Yeah. Well, we can have a chat about that. We've got a call booked in a couple of weeks, haven't we? Where I'm going to help you more on a one-to-one, so we can have a little chat about that within that call.

That's something I always dive into is let's see how you're performing in your analytics, really. Yeah. So we can see in your analytics how many people are, you know, what percentage are looking on mobile versus desktop. Usually, that shows now that people are looking on mobile and with this kind of business, realistically, people are going to be looking on their mobile.

Andrea Burdett: Yeah.

Jules White: So there's definitely some ways you could make the most of this. If we are looking at this on mobile, your navigation area here at the top is taking up quite a lot of space on the screen.

So we always want to think about our most valuable real estate on our website is the bit before the scroll, so we call it "above the fold" or "above the scroll." The bit when you first land on a page before people start scrolling is the most valuable part of your page.

This is the part that's going to help to keep people's attention, and all we're trying to do realistically when somebody lands on our website. We are trying to get them to scroll just to the next section and then the next section, and then the next section until they take the action that we want them to take.

Whether that is buying a product or reading a blog or booking an appointment. You know, so it depends on the business, but that's why this is such a valuable area. So I would maybe think about making this a little bit smaller.

If we come back to the desktop version of this, it's a little bit more obvious on here. So maybe just making the logo, popping the logo on one side or something and just making, this is a lot of white space that that sort of, this is taking up.

I would maybe just think about sort of using that space a little bit better, really. One thing you have got here is you've got your social links. This is something that comes up often in these audit calls, and when I talk to the clients, you've got your social links there.

And the problem with having your social links at the top of your website is someone comes into your website and they think, "Oh, I'll follow her on Instagram," and then they're off on Instagram, and they're not on your website anymore.

Andrea Burdett: Right?

Jules White: People will know to follow you. People will know to scroll to the footer and look for your social links there. But ideally, what we want to try and do is keep people on our website as long as we can. We want them making a purchase, not off looking at cat videos on Instagram.

Andrea Burdett: Yeah. Sure.

Jules White: So, I would suggest maybe taking those social links out of the navigation menu. You don't make, like, I mean, you might make sales through Instagram, but your website, if that's the thing that you own, that's where your sales are going to come through.

Yeah, I agree.

Andrea Burdett: Just ask a question. So that navigation menu where you're saying is quite big, and we've not long changed this, but anyway, could that be where you'd put a bit of your story then, seeing you've got that area free, would you say?

Jules White: I probably wouldn't be thinking about that. So when you come into websites, quite often this whole area here will tell the story both visually and with the words that are there.

So I would be thinking about making this text here bigger. Let's have a little look, even if you had, you built into this. So ideally, what we want to see when we first come in here is we want somebody to immediately, as soon as they land on that part of your homepage, to know what you do.

As I say, what you do, how are you going to make their life better, and what they need to do to get it. So I would think about actually how can we best use this space and maybe look at what some of your competitors do as well.

So it might be for you that actually having a "Shop Our Best Sellers" or something like that in this area is more important. I, I don't know. I always think you've got to think about who people coming into your website who have no idea who you are.

And I would think about that with all of your pages as well. So even within your product pages, maybe just having a little something at the bottom of your product sales pages of who you are and the mission. Like just a small part of that built within the bottom of that page so that wherever people find you from, they don't have to scroll too far to understand that there is more to this business than just buying products.

So I would think about having that in there. Okay. It's, it's something that I wouldn't make any snap decisions about this, but definitely have a look around, have a look at what other businesses are doing well with this. I'm not keen on scrolling banners in hero sections, to be honest with you.

I think it's one of those things that you are almost just splitting your message there, really. Like thinking about what's the most important thing when people come into our homepage. What, what's the overarching thing you want people to understand about your business?

And that's kind of what your homepage should be explaining. And actually having it as this rotating carousel is probably diluting that a little bit, really. Does that make sense?

Andrea Burdett: Yeah.

Jules White: I think there's definitely ways that could be a stronger opener for your website. And then there's nothing to say that you can't then have something lower down the page that then takes them through these different things here.

There is one thing with this, I would say is maybe just, and this is something you could tweak quite easily, is just making this font a little bit easier to see. So even if you did nothing else and didn't change with a carousel and everything, you should be able to quite easily, within your website builder, go in and just make these fonts just a little bit.

I looked and it's like a 300 weight font. I think it would be a lot better if it was something like 800. So if it was a bold font here, and if I show you my website builder thing. Let's have a little look. So I've got this little tool that lets you tweak it, and then it doesn't actually change anything on your website, but you can see what a difference it makes.

Andrea Burdett: Yeah.

Jules White: And if I also make that black. So you can see there.

Andrea Burdett: Yeah.

Jules White: How much easier that is to see. Google's not keen on anything where there's, let me just exit out of that, where there is the background and the foreground colours are too similar.

Right? And that is actually an SEO factor is the fact that the colours are easy to see. It's an accessibility issue really. So I would maybe think about doing that and actually maybe doing that lower down the page as well. So you've got other, a couple of other sections where you've got headings where they're in that quite thin font.

I think just upping them a little bit. It just immediately makes it more visual. It gives more of a luxury feel. I think just having that slightly bolder font there.

Andrea Burdett: Okay.

Jules White: But yeah, it's, it's, you know, it is something that you could try and just, yeah. And then just thinking about your navigation menu, I think.

Maybe just thinking about as people are coming into your website, have you, have you done anything around user journey mapping or anything like that?

Andrea Burdett: So I did, yeah, because through the accelerator, NatWest Accelerator, where I met you, I also met a marketer, and she actually gave me a free website audit.

And actually, we've only made some changes in the last six months based on her; she had a look at the analytics and came up with some suggestions. So, to be honest, we, we changed them based on, on, on the audit that we had before Christmas. So, yeah, so.

Jules White: And did you go into that? And I mean, it is always, it's always changing, it's always evolving.

There are always things that you learn. But did you go into anything around, like when people are coming into your website, like around who's using your website, what their level of awareness is? Of what, what their, you know, are they problem aware? Are they solution aware? Are they ready to buy, or are they just, you know, are they trying, just finding out about the whole thing of eco gift?

Andrea Burdett: No, no, we didn't go there. It was more like, you know, what's the traffic to the website? How long are they staying for? The click-through to sales, that's that sort of thing is what we went through.

And also a bit around the user experience. So we did change the navigation bar across the top just to make it easy for people to get into sections, put a search logo in at the top because that wasn't so easy to find. And, you know, so we have made some changes, like I said, just before Christmas, to hopefully make it a bit more user-friendly.

Jules White: Absolutely. It's all about tweaking things and sometimes just taking that step back and thinking about, okay, who's coming into the website? What is their level of awareness?

What are they going to be looking for? Like how, how can we make this so they don't have to burn mental calories to actually work out where they want to go? And sometimes that could be adding in extra things like, as I mentioned, "Shop Our Best Sellers," those kind of things.

Andrea Burdett: Yeah.

Jules White: The only thing I would say, and the one thing that sort of stands out to me about your navigation menu is there's too much there. So, it's immediately, as soon as you come in, there are too many items in that navigation menu from my point of view, in terms of this top-level navigation.

I think that could definitely be streamlined, and it's something that happens a lot where websites try and get everything in that top navigation. It then doesn't necessarily make it easy for people to find where they need to go and find what they want to find.

Really, the one thing you can do to help with this and help it make it a little bit easier is actually just talk to some customers as well. So talk to your customers, find out how they navigate your website if they've used the website before.

If they know about your business, if they're, if they know very much what they're shopping for and what they need, then that might be a different experience to somebody who's just stumbled across your website. Yeah. And is finding things like that really.

So yeah, definitely a few things there that you could start. I, I always try, and with these audit episodes, I could go on forever, but I wanted to just have a few actionable things to sort of focus on really to begin with. And as I always say as well, don't make any snap decisions.

It is about actually just working out what works for you and working out what your sort of priorities are in terms of what to focus on really. But I definitely think maybe just upping that font size and making that just a little bit more stand out.

Taking some of that, the wasted white space on that top there. Yeah. And taking your social media icons, because I would always say that, because I want, I want to keep people on your website for as long as possible.

Andrea Burdett: Yeah, sure.

Jules White: And then I think probably the biggest thing is taking it back to thinking about your messaging and thinking about that story, and thinking about how you can make that customer the hero of the story.

Donald Miller does a "Five-Minute Marketing Makeover" series, and it's very good. He, he very, very easily explains about how websites should be structured so that we are not making people burn those mental calories, really. So I would definitely recommend checking that out as well.

Andrea Burdett: Yeah. Thank you.

Jules White: Any questions at this point?

Andrea Burdett: No. Quite, quite a lot to think about, I think. And I think, you know, without trying to get into solution mode now, I think you're right. It's something I need to go away and think about.

Jules White: Yeah.

Andrea Burdett: And, and I think absolutely get some feedback from customers. I mean, we get fantastic feedback on our products, but clearly what I want is more people to know that we're there.

Jules White: Mm-hmm.

Andrea Burdett: And the people that don't necessarily know us, when they go onto the website, they think, "Right, this is, this is interesting, this is different." But I suppose that's, yeah. That's going to just take a little bit of thinking about, really.

Jules White: Yeah. And it will take some time to get the messaging right, and you will keep tweaking it.

I cannot tell you how many times I've tweaked the H1 heading, like the main heading on my homepage. I can't tell you how many times I've tweaked that, and I'm still not happy with it. I still will keep tweaking it.

So it is something that definitely these things evolve. One day you might be talking to a customer and you hear some nugget that they say about your business. And that could be the thing that's like, "Oh yeah, that's what needs to go on our homepage." You know, those kind of things.

The more you get reviews and the more you get feedback from clients and customers, then you can understand the language that they're using about your business and sort of mix that in with it as well. Definitely. Okay.

Andrea Burdett: Yeah. No, no. Fine. Thank you.

Jules White: Fantastic. Great. Well, we are going to, obviously, we'll have a chat when we get together for our one-to-one session in, in a few weeks' time.

We'll, we'll have a chat about these things a bit more and sort of just, I'm looking forward to helping you more with this, really. So, so before we finish, I would love to give yourself another little shout out and let everyone know specifically what you do and about your business and most importantly, where they can connect with you and find out more.

Andrea Burdett: Okay. So thank you for that, Jules. So I'm Andrea, and I'm from Just Love It. And you can find more about us at justlove.co.uk.

We provide a range of handmade, sustainable, ethically sourced gifts, garden ornaments, and interiors. We believe in giving back, so we give back both supporting fair trade and UK artisans. We're also kind to the environment; everything we consider impacts positively on the environment.

In the UK alone, we put 4 billion tonnes of plastic into landfill each year. And I'd like to be a small part of trying to reduce that with the products we offer. We're also part of a planting tree scheme based on sales; more sales, more trees we plant.

So yeah, please come and check us out either on our events page. We're out there a lot at events, so please come and talk to us, learn a little bit more about us, or visit our website at justlove.co.uk.

Jules White: Fantastic. That's great. And I'm glad you said your website rather than, "Find us on Instagram." Well done.

So if this episode has made you think about your website SEO or conversion rate optimisation, but you're not sure where to start, book a Website Strategy Power Hour, and let's work out what your priority tweaks are that you can make to get your website working for your business. So thank you so much for listening. Thanks, Andrea, for being here, and bye.