Websites That Grow With You with Rene Morozowich

You don’t need a massive website to look legit. You need something simple that actually reflects where your business is right now.

In this episode:
0:00 Why you don’t need a big, complicated website
2:18 How doing too much leads to burnout fast
6:00 What your website actually needs when you’re starting
11:50 Letting your website evolve as your business changes
16:05 What to check when you update your site

We also kept the conversation going with a Live Q&A where we talked about:

• How to update your website without overthinking it
• What actually matters when you’re reviewing your site
• The difference between technical fixes and content updates
• Easy ways to keep your site current without a full overhaul
• Managing your website alongside everything else in your business

If you want the extra content, plus visibility, masterminds, and coworking, you can join us as a Playhouse member for $27 a month. You might even end up on the podcast in the future. Join us at: https://jointheplayhouse.com

Hang out with Rene Morozowich:
https://renemorozowich.com/connect/

Hang out with Deanna Seymour:
https://deannaseymour.com
https://instagram.com/thedeannaseymour

🪩 Join the community for FREE at jointheplayhouse.com and get access to bonus content, all kinds of cool events + hang with creative business owners!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hello and welcome to the Playhouse Collective podcast, where we hang out with the brilliant business owners who are part of the Playhouse Collective that make the Playhouse so awesome. Today I'm talking with Renee about websites that grow with your business. Renee loves helping service businesses showcase their offerings by building and supporting websites and collaborating on email marketing. Hi Renee, how's it going? It's going. How are you? Good.

unknown 0:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

I'm really excited about this conversation because I mean we've talked a little before, but I'm all for something that tells people to sort of do less, like giving us permission to do less. And I feel like that's where we're going with this a little bit, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, because people think like, I need a website, I need the biggest website ever. It has to do everything that I'll ever want to do in the future. But like you're you're not in the future. You're like, yeah, you don't need that. I mean, it's nice to think about like what might happen, but also like, don't worry about that right now. Worry about this.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yes. Okay. So let's dive into it. What should we worry about? Like, I do think that people get, I mean, I think people do that. I mean, I work with people on branding. I think people get ahead of themselves kind of with all the things, right? I mean, you're new in business, you're excited, and you're like, I gotta do this, I gotta start a blog, I gotta start a podcast, I gotta blah blah blah blah like all the things. So as a website person, yeah, reel us in a little and tell us where you think we need to start.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Did dial that all back. Well, that's the thing. Like, and I have clients, even clients who've been in business for a long time, and they're like, okay, and then I'm gonna do this. And if we did, I have a client that that comes to me now, he's like, I create another category, it's another podcast, and then those. I was like, okay, no more of those. Like, let's talk about it next time because you're creating not only like layers of complexity for yourself now, but then to keep up with. Like if you tell yourself, okay, I'm gonna blog once a week, and then I'm gonna write a newsletter, you know, twice a week, and then I'm going to, you know, post on social media four times. Like, you can't, it's it's like an exercise regimen. Like you can't keep up with that after the first week or two. Like you just dial that stuff way back, way back, and then you can build on it later. I don't know why people get so scared or so like, oh, I have to do everything right now. And maybe there's a lot of shoulds, you know, there's a lot of shoulds out there, and maybe people are saying those shoulds, and like you just gotta, yeah, turn turn that off.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

I think it's probably shoulds. I think it's also maybe just like wanting to look, like maybe this sounds bratty, but like look legit right out the gate. Like, you know, people, I think people are like, okay, I'm gonna like do a bunch. I mean, when I started a podcast, I was like, I'm gonna do two a week. Jenna Kutcher does two a week, I'm gonna do two a week. And I was like, oh my god, what am I doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Like, and I she has a team of like a million people to support her in that two a week. And I would rather like looking legit, you can still look legit and have less. What I think doesn't look legit is if you start 50 different things and you just stop them all because you're like, I can't do any of this. Because that's how I get if I start too many things, it's like vitamins, okay. And this is a weird, weird thing with me. Like, there's a tipping point on vitamins for me. I can take maybe like I don't know, five vitamins a day. When you throw that six vitamin in, I can't take any vitamins. I'm like, none, none. I can't do it at all. Like, I just I don't know, it's just me. But there will come a point where then I can't keep up with the things I was already doing. So when you add all of those extra layers, you can still look legit and be small, like have a small something, like three pages, right? About you, contact you, what you're up to. It can all be on one page, you know. It doesn't have to be, and then I have a membership, and then I blog, and then the blog feeds to the social media, and then I have an RSS feed that goes out to my newsletter. Like, sure, if you want that later, that's great. But also remember that people have teams of people who are doing all of these things. When you see somebody who's doing all this stuff, it's not them doing it, it's their team who is helping with that.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Well, and I think another thing, and I'm guilty of this um is that if you change, if you start changing things and you've already built so many things, that's gonna be a lot of broken links, y'all. I'm totally guilty of this. Or like, I made this landing page really quick and I made this thing, and like, oh, never mind, I'm not doing that anymore. And then there's like broken stuff all over your site.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Um so keeping it simple. I've followed people like that before, and I, you know, and they're they're still emailing every week, and I'm like, wait, what are you doing now? Like it's so many pivots in so fast of a time that I'm like, I don't do you still do the thing that I was interested in when I signed up for your list? Like, I don't even know, like, what are you doing? Yeah, and that. Like I've purchased things from people, and yeah, definitely like broken links. Like, and I think some people don't necessarily care, but like when I have kind of shut something down, I have tried to yeah, tidy it up uh to the best of my ability. And that's the other thing. Like, when you buy more domain names, when you let those go because you're like, oh, I have too many domain names, like, yeah, then you have things that you have to clean up. So if you kind of keep it tight and simple to begin with, then yeah, you don't have that extra cleanup. I think of it like a house. Like we were talking about this. You know, when you I have two garbage, I have three garbage cans in my house. I live in a duplex, three garbage cans. If you have like 10 garbage cans, like isn't garbage day just a lot more work for you? Because you're like, I gotta go to this room and I gotta go to that room and I gotta go to that. Like you have so much to clean up, it's like a much bigger production than it is if you have less.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yes. Okay, so let's maybe for people listening. What is like where can they start? Like you you rattled off a couple things, but I want you to maybe like help them, if they're listening, feel like, oh okay. And I think also it might come into that question too, is like when people have like, I think it's called a one pager or like when it's just like one page, you know what I'm talking about, and then you click at the top and it really just slows down. I don't know. I I guess I'm smushing two questions together, but like what do we need? What's the I just started my business or I'm a coach or um a copywriter or you know, a service provider. And really I just need clients. But I I do think, and you probably agree with me, I'm assuming because you make websites, but I think it's really important for people to have a place on the internet that is theirs. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Or is that yeah, and I kind of think about it. No, I I mean, I think about it like that. Like I I recommend that um, a domain name and a professional email address. So I think those things, those first two things I like to go hand in hand where you've bought a domain name. And if you can't think of a business name, don't stress about it. You can buy your own name, you know, or a you know, a permutation of your name if it's it's a more common name. Um, and you know, get an email address like hello at professionaldomain.com, not like therapist34579 at gmail.com. Like that's I don't know. I I may be a little judgy, but like I kind of like lower that on professional. Yeah, I mean, I do think that you're like email is good.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, am I being judgy? Or it just to me it feels like they just started. And maybe that's not true, maybe that's just an assumption, but it does sort of feel like, wait, what? What why is this a Gmail? I it just like makes me think for a second, whether it's judgy or not, it does make me be like, so yeah, getting the website and then you'll be the yeah, yeah, like one page.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Yeah, it doesn't have to be 50 pages, it can be a couple pages if you want, but it really doesn't need to be like you what uh what do you have to say on like 50 pages? Like you don't have anything to say yet. You can be like who you are, you know, why you do what you do, um, if you want a way for people to stay in touch, um, but really just like what you're up to, like what your services are, who you help, like those are all just like good things to say to people, a way to just get in touch with you if they want to. Um, you know, make it look as nice as you can for that point, but you don't need to worry about like it has to look, you know, you you need to like make sure the business works first before you're like, I spent 5,000 plus dollars on this website, and then I had to hire a copywriter, and then I had to hire a designer. Like, uh, you don't even know if the business is gonna work yet. You don't even know if you're gonna like it, if you're gonna be good at it, if that's the thing that you're gonna end up doing. Like, I you know, so I just like dip your toe in the water.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Okay. So basically just saying, like, here I am, I'm a business. Here's what I do. Uh, here's what I offer, like, here's how to give me money. Um, you're saying, like, maybe a little bit about us, right? So, and about me. Um, and then a contact page? Is that it? Are we just saying like home page?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Or even just like sections? Yeah. Yeah, like it doesn't even have to be a whole page, like you talked about at the beginning. Like, you know, it says about at the top and it just jumps you down to the about section. Just like people just need to know something, right? They need to know, like when you don't have anything, like how are people, what are they using to judge if they should hire you or not, if you're a good fit or not? Like you have to give them some information about you so that they can make a decision. People are like, I get all of my business, you know, via word of mouth. Like, you don't know if those people didn't look at your website first. You know, you don't know that like they heard of you word of mouth and then they scoped you out online.

unknown 9:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Like, oh, okay, you know, it all looks legit. I see this business.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah, I assume everybody looks at your website, even if it's like word of mouth, or I guess in some ways, even if they meet you on LinkedIn or Instagram. Like, I just assume if anyone has given well, I mean, if they've given me money, then they definitely went to my website because I had to click to pay me money. Um yeah. And like we Google people, right? We're like, oh my gosh, who is this person? I get really mad when there's like, I don't know, I feel like there's like nail salons in my town and they just have a Facebook and I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yeah, what?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

I want to know how much my pedicure is gonna be.

unknown 10:19

Like, I'm like, what is this?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Um exactly. I guess they can get away with it because I usually still go. I'm like, well, it's a pedicure, I'm just gonna go. But I think hiring a service provider for business, you're gonna want a little more than a Facebook page or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

So yeah. And not everybody's on Facebook, and you don't know what the algorithm is doing today, and you don't know like what the, you know, whatever it is that we don't like, you know, whatever creator of whatever platform now, you know, like there's just a lot of things that could happen, but you know, you you control all of this. You you control like what you say and the name you say it under, and you know, what it looks like, you know, and I think it's worth spending some time. You don't have to spend a ton of time, like I say, like you don't have to build everything that you're ever going to want in the future, but just putting that basic information out there, I think can be helpful.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah. And I remember when we were talking a long time ago when we first um booked this interview, we were kind of talking about that whole um like starter home, or like like kind of thinking of your website as if we're talking about like your home on the internet and walking people through that whole thing of like, and we even talked about we were like, I don't know, is that like jerky? Like, not everybody has kids, not everybody like gets married and does the like you know, uh cliche traditional thing. But what I feel like we're all familiar with that narrative. And the thing that I thought was interesting when we were kind of talking about that was that there also might be a time where it almost like an ebb and a flow. Like you're you start off simple with your website, you might get a lot more stuff, but you might also end up being like kind of doing less, right? Do you want to talk through that whole transition that you were talking about?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah, so I have I'll start from kind of back to front, and and that's kind of what like brought this up. I have more clients now and even some colleagues who are kind of at the end of that. You know, they've had excuse me, like a really, you know, a big website or two that have done a lot of things and they're like, oh, I went back to work, I'm retiring. You know, they still want to keep some kind of presence because you know, once you get that domain, like it's I don't want to say you shouldn't let it go, but you know, even after you stop, you want to hold on to that for a while because you don't want somebody else to buy and put up something weird. But you know, so they've they've transitioned out, they've downsized, you know, into something that they can that still showcases them without all of the extra, like maybe they don't have that podcast anymore, they don't offer that service anymore. So it's just the current information. Like, you know, I think that we think we know what we're offering when we're offering it, you know, but you might not know that I have a new service or I don't do something anymore because you know, you are in your own circle, you know, worrying about your own business, you have your own things going on. So I don't think that we necessarily communicate what's happening with us very well all the time. So, you know, downside, you know, leaving that website up that really doesn't represent what you're doing anymore. Not only is it misinformation because oh wait, you don't do that, but you're also paying extra for that too. So, you know, if you just you know kind of close some of these things down and you know, just you know, make everything smaller and you know, current on what you're actually doing, I think can be helpful. So it's just really like what is actually going on your bus going on in your business at any one point. So when you're new, yeah, you have one service, two services, you don't have an email list, you don't have a blog, you know, have something small. Then when you build, you know, maybe you hire some people, you have a team, you know, maybe you have a membership, you know, like you. So you're adding more things and those are the things that you're doing. So it makes sense, you know, to have your online presence be more robust. But when you let those things go, you know, don't just leave all that old stuff out there and people contacting you, like, hey, I want to sign up for the membership. And you're like, oh, I don't actually have that anymore. Like just, you know, make it current. Yeah. And then, you know, downsize again.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah. So I mean, I guess too, it's like there's this sort of thread of like just being honest about where you're at, kind of like in the beginning, you know, you feel pressure to like put a bunch of stuff up and make it really fancy, but you're not quite there yet. You don't have all those offers or or you know, whatever. And then as you grow, and then being kind of honest about what you're not doing anymore and what you have taken away. So just making it current, which seems obvious, but um, it's still but people struggle with it.

unknown 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, people really struggle. Like, and I think you know, we all get caught up in a like, oh, I have client work to do, and then so we just carry on and we're doing the work for the clients, and that's the work that we're delivering because we're delivering it to someone else, and you know, that's the work we're getting paid for. Like, I you know, I don't get paid when I update my own website, but it's good, it's a good thing to do, you know. It's just it's part of businessing, you know, it's part if you're going to be a business owner, you know, maybe you hire somebody else to do it, uh, you do it yourself, you have a team member do it, whatever it is. But I just think it it only benefits you to take a little bit of time and make sure that you have the correct offers out there. Don't overthink it. Maybe that's the part where we get stuck because I think people get stuck in the inaction to do it, like where they're like, Oh, well, I how am I gonna explain this offer? I need to carve out, you know, a week's worth just to get it up there. And people do the opposite too, where or maybe not the opposite. Like, I have clients who we're working on their project forever and they're like, we can't launch it. We can't, I'm like, you can we're gonna hit the button. And then we can update it later. But people get really this, like, this like mental, they're like, it's not perfect, it's not perfect, I can't launch it. And I'm like, no, no, we can launch it and then we can change it. And then as soon as it's launched, it's like it's over for people. It's like it's a piece of it's like printed. I'm like, it's not over. Let's go back and update it. And they're like, Oh, it's been launched. Like they just can't. They just can't with it. I'm like, oh, frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

So if you are gonna go update, this is a good question. If you're gonna go update it, what are the types of things you're like checking on?

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yeah, so I think you can kind of break that down into two categories. So you can break it down into like technical things, right? So does that button go where you think that button should go? You know, like if you don't offer that service anymore, but you didn't change that button and people click the button and it goes nowhere, like that's something to fix. Um, testing your contact form, you know, people rely on the contact. You have the contact form there for a reason, so people can contact you. If it goes into the ether, you not only do they not get in touch with you, but you look like a jerk because you didn't respond. But if it's just because the contact form was broken, you know, you know, you can partner with someone. Um, I like to do this at the beginning of the year. I go through my clients' websites, we test out the forms, make sure everything's working. So there's technical things like that, like links, you know, are they broken? Um, do things go where they're supposed to go? Did you delete a page and you know something is wrong? So there's that stuff. And then there's the stuff it's just like, is this still accurate? Like, does this still look like me, this picture? Like if someone were to see me in the street and look at my website, would they think this is the same person? You know, or is this picture 15 years old? Um, is this information accurate? Like, is this about me still about me? You know, me now? Um, do I still offer these services? Like, is this a thing, do I offer services that are not listed here? So, you know, you could you could do this a number of ways. You could look at your own site and make changes. You could have somebody else look at your site and say, like, here, this is what I have gotten from what you have there. You could even talk to the the robots, you know. You could say, like, hey, robot robots, like, look at my site, you know, summarize what you think is happening here, what you think I do, and then you can kind of look at it from there. Um you don't need to go into like super big detail and be like, okay, well, that sentence doesn't like it it broad strokes, right? Broad strokes.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, I feel like I have stuff. Sometimes I'll go like just reread a blog and I'm like, oh, actually, a better call to action would be this new thing that I'm doing that still totally relates. And it's like as easy as just like rewriting a sentence and linking it to a different, you know, opt-in or a different blog post or whatever. So it's not you're right. It's it's easy to put off, but it's like not as scary as it seems.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

So and sometimes you can do, I don't know if you have done this, like in let's say like you're you're podcasting, you can record like I don't know what's it called, like a mid-roll thing about the the current thing, and you can push that to all of the episodes. So the mid-roll commercial or whatever that's yours is always up to date. You know, so there's things like that that you can do if you want to be like really savvy about it, where you don't have to worry about going back to every single thing if you're promoting, you know, one new thing. So like that's an option too. But yes, you're right. Just read over something one time, you know, one blog post a week if you read over what you have just to check if there's anything that needs to be updated.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Sorry, I was like muted because I did something and then I was typing. Um, okay, awesome. What else do you have? Do you have anything else you need to say before we maybe switch over to QA?

SPEAKER_00 19:27

What are you thinking? Well, so we talked about websites, but you know, a lot of these things go together with with websites, you know, social media and email marketing and all of the other things that go with it. And I like to, I have now a healthy skepticism for those things. And I really just I try not to bite off more than I can chew with any one thing, you know. So don't commit to doing so much. And don't think you have to do every single one of these things. You don't have to be on every social platform, you don't have to send one email. If you send me one email a day, if I sign up for your list and you send me one email a day, unsubscribe. Like people are like, Oh, always try to send more than you're sending. Like, that's not appropriate. Like, there are some people that I would like to hear from, and I get to a point where like I'm hearing from you too often. I wish they had a thing that's like, just send me one email a month. Like, I just want to know what you're doing sometimes. Yeah, I just, you know, as a as a consumer of this information. So just you know, it's it's more than just your website. I know it's like an online presence, but I don't know, keep it small. Like that's keep it manageable for you, yeah, to be able to manage.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Oh my gosh. I think that's so funny about what you said about email. Because I I sort of think that too. And I know that some people swear by emailing way more, but I'm like, I just have to follow the golden rule. And since I don't like it, like I don't feel comfortable emailing a ton. Like, I guess I just don't want it. So um uh yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Email more, yeah. But but give me an option, give me an option. Like if you're like an everyday emailer, give me an option to be like, I just want to hear from you once a month. Because like after a certain point, I just can't, I can't keep up with like a bunch of people who email every day. So yeah, if there's no option, like I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

I don't know. And my brain can't handle like making options, so I'm like, you know what? Once a week feels good to me. I can handle that. Yeah, exactly. Right, yeah. Um wrap. Okay, well, let's maybe wrap up this conversation. Tell the people where they can hang out with you or anything like that, and then we're gonna head into the QA section. Yeah, so the best will be there's a link.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Excuse me, my name's pretty long. So uh just click the link in the in the places. I'm on some of the socials, but you know, less and less over time. Uh but you can check out my website, which I redid last year. Yeah. I try to, you know, like make sure that it's up to date, but it's hard. I get it. Um, yeah, mostly work with WordPress, but uh have been working with some other things lately too. So um can definitely, if you have questions, you know, happy to answer them or refer you to someone who might not.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Awesome. Okay, I'll pop all those in the show notes. And now we're going to start the live QA for folks who are here live or submitted questions before. And the replay of this QA is going to live inside the Playhouse. And if you're interested in the Playhouse and you want to come hang out with us, head over to jointheplayhouse.com.