Marketing Magic

Welcome back to part 2 of Geeking out in Google Analytics. 

Last week we laid a foundation for Google Analytics by explaining the lingo, telling you how to set it up or make sure it was on your site and what’s possible with Google Analytics. 

Today, we’re going to dive into some of the reports that you want to take a look at to see which ones are going to be most important for your business as you get started with Google Analytics. 

Like I mentioned last week, my goal is not to tell you what reports to run or how to run your Google Analytics account. Instead, I want to teach you how to look critically at the data coming in so you can make smarter decisions about what you’re promoting, or advertising, or launching, or spending money on. 

As we dive into the four main categories of reports, make sure that when you’re looking at reports that you set the default view to be 30 days. Anything less is not going to give you a great snapshot that’s meaningful. 

Audience Reports

The first category of reports when you’re just getting started is Audience Reports. These reports are answering the question: Who is visiting your site? 1. Find out if your traffic is mostly local or all over the country/world Am I reaching the right people? 2. Mobile reports How are they visiting? How much effort should you put into mobile vs desktop design and traffic? 3. Userflow How people are moving through your site, where they drop off 4. Demographics of visitors Age range, gender, interests (what else you’re interested in thanks to third-party cookies)

Acquisition Reports

These reports help you to understand the traffic patterns and answer the question: "Where does my traffic come from?" Channels = communication channel, when I mention channel reports in this section* Important reports to look at in this section are: 1. All Traffic - which will show you by channel, where your people are coming from to hit your site. Ninja move: *Split up traffic into non-branded organic search (people searching for keywords and find you) and branded organic search (type your brand words in and find you) in a filter so you can see how people are searching for you and if its through keyword or brand recognition. Why is this a ninja move to track? Because branded organic search stays longer and is worth more than cold non-branded search, which equals easier conversions and more revenue for your business if you're selling anything. 2. Source/Medium - This report tells you who sent the traffic and how they sent the traffic, and then you can drill down to see what page they sent traffic to For example, google/organic means your traffic came from Google's search engine and they sent the traffic to you because of organic keyword searches. When you see the word referral traffic, it means that someone clicked to your site from another browser or link - (like a blog, directory, social platform, etc). If you advertise on Adwords you can look at Adwords report to see who they are. 3. Social - This report will tell you what percentage of your traffic comes from social platforms, what channels and how many are contributing to your website goals if you’ve set them up with social value. 4. Campaigns - This report will help you track what campaigns are effective and profitable if you use UTMs to track email campaigns or paid traffic to your website.

Behavior Reports

These reports are answering the question: "What did a visitor do on our website?" In this section (and all main categories of reports, the overview page is a dashboard where you can drill down into specific reports for each section -- it's just showing you the data at a glance in a pretty format. 1. Behavior Flow - This report shows how your website visitors go through different pages of your site, whereas User flow looks at the specific user. That means

Let’s talk about Google Analytics and why it’s time to geek out over them today. 

Google Analytics give you the answers about what you need to do or how to make money or what’s working and what’s broken on your website. 

Even if you like data, the problem most business owners have is that we look at data like numbers and sometimes forget to reflect and analyze if what we were trying is actually working or not. 

Just like the scientific process, it’s helpful to approach data by following (although, let’s be honest, I’m not going to be quite this formal) 

1. Set question
2. Do some background research
3. Create a hypothesis
4. Test it
5. Analyze the data coming in and then 
6. Decide what to do about it. 

This is part 1 of a 3 part series on Google Analytics and today I want to break down some vocabulary you may have run across in wondering how the heck do you figure out what these numbers mean in GA. 

Web property – looks at your domain Views – filters & how they look at the data Sessions = 30 minutes or less Cookie – stores data about who you are in the website New Session = sees your cookie for the first time (but would be treated different if they cleared their cookie or were on mobile, etc.) Returning – have seen this person cookie’s before, then you know they are coming back (loyal people) Users (visitors) – unique cookies over a certain period of time (like everyone over the past 30 days) (can be inflated again like how many unique computers you’ve seen) Page views – page view and fired up the code when it loaded 

Bounce Rate: # sessions and only saw one page You want to improve it against your number right now — having a high number isn’t necessarily a bad thing Goals: Trains GA what is the purpose of your website

Google Analytics Basics

Next, let’s talk about some basics. First, create a Google Analytics account if you don’t already have one. – sign up at analytics.google.com – add the code to your website – then the data starts to come in and you learn about your audience If you are unsure if you even have it, or if someone created your website and helped you with it, you can right click in Chrome (that’s my favorite browser) and choose to inspect or view source code and search among the code for gtag.js or analytics.js (for Universal Analytics) or ga.js (for Classic Analytics)

Second rule: Don’t track yourself. Make sure to apply a filter around your IP address to block yourself from being counted in the data. *make sure you are an admin for your account so you can set this up. Third rule: Define goals of websiteThis could take all day, which is why we’ll go into it in more depth on the third episode. This is a ninja move that makes analytics so valuable, that most people don’t take the time to learn and set up. When we are talking about goals on Google Analytics, there are two kinds: – Macro goal == makes you money  – Micro Goal == nice but doesn’t bring you revenue 

Now, let’s look at why we’re going into nerdy detail about website data.

What’s possible with Google Analytics?

Here are just a few things we can track and watch with Google Analytics: – Content performance: You can get there by going to Behavior > Site Content >  look at page views/ avg time on page to see what your audience likes most. – Bounce rate to measure performance of your pages and if people are converting like you expect on the pages – Page value: When you set goals, you can also set revenue amounts for actions and pages, which will allow you to see the value of each page on your site if they’re contributing to your revenue – Find out what content can be promoted more on social media that isn’t promoted enough (what isn’t getting any page views)

Which Reports Mean Something?

There are four groups of reports that we’re going to walk through in the next two episodes, but I...

All of the businesses I work with are local businesses with physical locations or businesses that are working with local clients. That means with our country’s current status of states sheltering in place, downtowns shutting down and businesses in the service industry involuntarily closing until we see what COVID-19 is going to do, figuring out how to adapt is paramount.

So let’s talk about practical ways you could move your local business online and still bring in revenue.

Optimize your website for traffic

Most businesses I work with have some kind of online presence, but they’re using it as a place holder, and not necessarily a way to make money. If you do not have a website for your business yet, some easy options that you can easily build yourself are Squarespace and Wix. They are great platforms for starter sites and you can have a new website up and running in a two hours or less. WordPress is my favorite option for hosting websites but there is a learning curve on how to get started. With its new Gutenburg builder release, it has a drag and drop option now too which makes it MUCH easier, plus it’s more robust on how to integrates with everything in the world.

If you already have a website, focus on these things:

1. Focus on gathering reviews from existing clients for social proof.
2. Optimize your Google My Business profile to capture local traffic.
3. Make sure your services and products are listed and available for purchase.

Set up online payments/processing

If you have a business where your client/customers traditionally pay you at the time of service or in-person through cash or check, now is the time to migrate them to online payments. Not only will this set your business up to be cash positive when COVID-19 settles down, but it’s easier to manage than chasing payments. If you have physical or digital products to sell, set up an e-commerce part of your site and a payment processor using Stripe, Square or Paypal, for example.

Start having online consultations/bookings

Local businesses thrive on face to face interaction, so even as an online business serving local businesses, I’ve found it hard to break local business owners from wanting to only meet in person. Not anymore. Everything has moved online in the world and people are starting to get comfortable with connecting on a computer instead of just face to face. Zoom is my favorite platform to use for web-conferencing and 1:1 calls. For so many types of businesses right now they are offering it for free or at a reduced cost to get started. This can be used for any service-based business when you need to have a consultation with a client before you can even begin working with them. It can be used for health and medical fields, for photographers, coaches, consultants, teams, and more. A dance studio owner client has taken all of her classes online with Zoom so that students are logging in from their homes to take the classes with her, instead of losing all the revenue from her students while her physical studio is closed. A photographer client has moved all her initial photography consultations that are usually in her studio to Zoom so that she can talk to them about their personal branding and headshots and plan for them once the social distancing lessens.

Presell things right now that can be offered or delivered at a later date

There is a lot of opportunities to keep your business moving forward by bundling together services, products, and events to be fulfilled at a later date this summer/fall when things settle down. Look at what you offer and how you can start to presell it instead and offer a bonus as a reason for people to jump in now, instead of waiting for a later date. For...

Everything in the world feels like it’s falling apart and you own a local small business. How in the world do you keep it going so that you’re still standing when everything seems to calm down?

Today we’re talking about how to pivot your business and handle the chaos when everything in the world seems to stop. We’re not going to dive into the C-word. But we are going to talk about how the heck do you keep your business going? And yourself going when everything in the world seems to stop.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I have spent Oh, I don’t know how long has it been a week trying to wrap my brain around what in the world is happening across the world with a Coronavirus? Oh, I said I wasn’t gonna say it the C-word. Because for me, it really feels like an out of body experience. And I’ve had a hard time wrapping my brain around.

How do I still run a business when it feels so trivial and when there are such big pressing things going on? And how do I support others whose entire livelihood and impact are going to be affected when people can no longer come to their doorsteps, and if they can’t move what they do easily to online spaces?

I want to walk through the process of what I’m doing and what I’m I’m walking my clients through just in case it’s helpful for anybody else who, like me is kind of been in this Limbo state of wanting to do something, wanting to make sure I’m active and doing all the right things and also at the same time feeling exactly paralyzed and frozen and not really sure how to take the next step or what the next step looks like.

I heard a Facebook Live from my husband’s CEO talking through shock and symptoms of shock and what we’re going through as a nation in a world and it really helped clarify for me why I feel the way I do and why I’m kind of stuck in business in life at this exact moment.

If your inclination right now if you’re like naturally pausing or freaking out a little bit, that’s totally normal. I think a lot of us are just still trying to figure out what’s happening, what’s going to happen. How bad is this going to get? Are we going to be safe? Is the economy going to collapse?

So I did some research into symptoms of emotional shock because no one is talking about how everyone is feeling across the world right now. Now emotional shock, that’s not a clinical term. I am not a clinician and I am not diagnosing anybody. Let me just make that disclaimer.

But I thought some of the symptoms and the ways that they manifest in people were really important because I am feeling them a lot right now. So for example, adrenaline rush. That’s the feeling when you either can’t fall asleep or you’re feeling a little bit hyper, like your skin’s buzzing a little bit.

Oftentimes you could feel sick to your stomach or just sick about whatever happening or you know, just kind of like all ill like a general malaise and not thinking straight. These are all potential symptoms of emotional shock.

Another one is feeling disconnected from what’s happening. That’s what kind of clicked for me because I’m like, ‘Yeah, I do kind of feel like I’m not engaged in any of it because I don’t really understand and can’t fully wrap my brain around it.’

Another symptom is feeling like I’m pulling away from things because of intense emotions. As a symptom, intense emotions are important when they are not normal for you, whether you want to laugh or cry, or even go and physically run away.

Two other symptoms or signs are feeling unusually exhausted or all over the place. Again, this is not a diagnosis of anything, but it was helpful for me to take this possible list of symptoms for emotional shock and compare it to what maybe some of us are feeling right now because it also helps you feel normal and not make super rash decisions.

Now, that we’ve addressed how so many people are feeling right now AND that it’s normal, I want to walk through...

Have we talked recently about how 100% of my clients are trying to find local clients in their backyard? That means whether you're an online business owner and have never tried or are curious about trying to figure out, how do I get clients in my own backyard?

Or you're an actual business who depends on people coming into your storefront or getting business from you in your community in order to survive, then you're gonna want to hear how to supercharge your local marketing efforts with a free tool that I'm sure you've heard about by now. We're talking Google My Business today.

Today we are totally nerding out on Google My Business. Okay, so let me just give you some background. Google My Business is a free tool, of course, put out by Google to help local businesses get found in search. As we all know, the explosion of Google as a traffic source has exponentially increased year after year after year.

This year in particular and at the end of last year there was a huge surge for the key phrase popping up when you're doing an organic search for _ near me. Like hair salons near me, restaurants near me yada yada yada near me. Those near me searches have exploded. And it's making a huge impact. Google is taking notice of it so much that they're really amping out the effort they put into your Google My Business listings.

So let me break it down for you just in case you're not aware of what Google My Business is. If you're ever on Google, you'll know that how it aggregates data and websites when you search for something in a Google bar is way different than it was just even six months ago. Before organic searches, blog posts, and things were keyword rich and heavy, and that's how you were noticed on Google.

Now, you still type in something and keywords still matter. However, Google is populating the first I don't know five to seven things with Google My Business listings. You are actually going to see a map and local listings near you before you're going to see any of those other rich keyword blog posts and things that are traditionally what we think about when we think about Google and organic searching.

So why is that important for you? Well, it's kinda free traffic? So you definitely want to take advantage of getting to the top of Google per se, for things that matter to you. And you can do it really easy first by claiming your Google My Business listing. I'm not going to go into detail on the specifics of how to start with that, because I just didn't have enough time to dive into that. So we'll cover that another day. Or you can literally Google that yourself, find and set up and claim your listing.

PreWork: Claim Your Listing

But the first thing do is check and see if you've claimed your listing, if it is not a claimed listing, when you Google yourself and look at the listing it will ask do you own this business? Or do you want to claim this website? So do that first.

Now, why I get so excited about it is because we've been working on this tool six to nine months with some of my local clients and they're seeing a phenomenal results. Like people coming in to their site through organic search, organic calls to the businesses, people asking for directions, a huge spike in traffic just overall and it really works in conjunction with the visibility things you're already doing. But in a local market, it just supercharges it.

So one thing about Google My Business is obviously it's really, location and geo area specific. So for the most part, it's really going to be targeting about a 20 mile radius from wherever you are setting your address to be in your Google My Business listing. So that's really good to know.

Now a few stats if I have not already impressed upon why you need to make sure you have Google My Business setup if you're a local business or want

Being real matters in everything. 

It’s an added bonus that it helps with your marketing too.

Even though I’ve been doing marketing for more than 13 years, I’ve wrestled with finding my voice for more than two years. 

Which is one of my main reasons for loving this podcast.

While it’s a huge boon to my business, it’s also a passion project where I get to talk about what I want.  And if I don’t feel inspired like last week — and release an episode off the cuff four days late, its OK because it’s my podcast and I can figure out what matters.

So why is there an episode on this now? Because it’s only March and I hear a frantic weariness from all the people in my life — both personal and business. 

The Coronovirus. 

American politics.

The economy.

Winter.

Personal traumas. 

The pressure of growing a viable business.

If you add all of these things on top of trying to be perfect and image-worthy at all times, I feel like no wonder it’s March and we are weary.

If you’ve ever needed it, today, I give permission to be you, always. 

This means in all your relationships. In parenting – both people and pets!

Certainly be you in your own business .

My good friend Maggie Frank Hsu writes exquisite personal emails that I devour every week. And more often than not reply back to.

She talks about just sitting down and writing to write, not to have amazing words come forth. 

What would your life look like if you took the time to just be you?

How would you show up differently than you do right now? 

What would you stop doing? 

This is me:

We joke about my love of tacos – but I am a freak. They would come up in conversation eventually, let’s be honest.

Besides tacos, I’m passionate about women knowing money and numbers and being able to visualize and build wealth and teams and sustainable businesses. 

I am also the inappropriate friend sending memes at all hours of the day. 

I am a book lover — to my husband’s chagrin sometimes. I wanna nerd out more than I currently do. 

I’m also going to tell you that parenting is super hard. I want it to be OK to say it aloud sometimes and not have this picture-perfect image. 

So back to being real — now that we’ve talked about permission around it. 

I’ve always said it’s the tiny things that endear us to others and build that know, like, trust factor. 

I see it play out over and over again. 

Just last week, I took my oldest daughter to a Lauren Daigle concert. She’s a mega Christian artist with a soulful voice you can’t help but love, in case you are googling her now.

In the middle of a set, she finds a scrunchie in her pocket while explaining the next song and starts cracking up and talking to herself. It’s so random — but interesting. She’s a SUPER STAR being totally normal and squirreled in the middle of her own concert. It made her even more relatable. Especially when you add her deep Louisiana accent. 

If you’re a parent, just think about the unique personalities of your own kids — each one is probably so different than the other and has quirks that crack you up and that you want to remember forever. 

You ARE THE SAME. We just never see the magical endearing things in ourselves. I see it. Others watching you see it.

So go be you. 

About Marketing Magic:

The Marketing Magic podcast is where women entrepreneurs trying to do all the things come to get inspiration, business strategy, and on-air coaching on how to get their business noticed and growing. If you have a business that people need to know about in order for it to grow, you’re in the right place. This is the place to uncomplicate your marketing. Be sure to listen, 

I get it. We’re not all marketers and we don’t have all the time in the world to promote our businesses. So what do you do if you have limited time to promote your business yet you still need big results and leads flowing in your door? 

If you only have one hour a week to dedicate to marketing your business, what are the activities you should put at the top of your list?

There’s a misconception that you have to spend hours marketing, and you totally can spend hours marketing, but it’s really more about busy work sometimes, then true marketing. So I want to break down the four things you should be doing in your one hour a week, if you only had an hour with maybe a couple of extra bonuses because I think you’re going to find you have a couple pockets of time in your week that throw some of this stuff in. 

First, let’s break down marketing into a couple of categories. When I think about marketing tasks, they usually flow around some of the big Ws. Okay, remember guys, I was a former journalist, but you know, the five W’s right, like the who, what, when, where, why, when how all those things that was pretty much the core of how we had to write stories and how we interviewed people was we had to get these basic facts. It’s called the lede in journalism and it requires you to know what you’re leading with in an article. 

It’s the same thing with marketing and your business, you need to figure out the W’s for your business and how to promote it. The most important questions I’m going to help you answer are the where, the who, and the what of your business. 

So if you have an hour a week and have to cram it in, these are the things I want you to make sure you’re tackling every single week or you really don’t have a business, right? It’s really hard unless you have a crazy referral system to have people coming into your business if don’t got visibility, baby. So the first step is you’ve got to be visible. 

Make sure every single week you are doing something to get visible in your business.

That’s everything from, if we’re talking about local marketing, face to face if you’re going out or if you’re in your community, region or area. For social media, this could include posting or sharing a blog, going live, meeting up with someone face to face. Figure out how are you going to be visible during your one hour a week. 

Figure out is how to build a community.

A lot of people don’t consider this to be part of marketing. But if you think about it, where do a lot of your leads come from? They often come from people or from your circles of people who know you, right? And so if you don’t know anybody, it’s going to be hard for you to grow those circles of people, and have them interact with you in a way that’s going to compel them to either work with you, or buy from you. So back to our W questions, for this one you’re answering the Where. Where do you need to be to build community and what does that community look like for you? 

So if you’re an online business this could be a Facebook community or a LinkedIn community. It could be a physical community, it could be a support group. There are so many different things you could be creating community around, but you need to figure out what does that look like for your business? Because if you’re not furthering the community around you in some way shape or form, then it’s going to be really hard for you to grow a business. Communities are great marketing for you because when you build a community, you get a built in group of cheerleaders. 

Who does not want somebody to go up before them and be your cheerleaders? By investing a little bit of time in someone and when I say community also, I don’t mean you have to like go to like a, like a group, a group thing every week, but you do need to pour into somebody who’s in your community, because basically, they’re able to go out and be like a sounding board and a voice and a...

If you don’t have a website, you’re basically living under a rock. I don’t care who you are or what business you have, you must have a website. So what do you need to have on your website?

I’m going to cover the most important things for your homepage. Not only because that’s where most people land first, but if that’s not going to convert people to something else on your website, then nothing will.

I did an informal poll my group asking them what they click on when they come to the website. They want to know about you, they click to you, they click to how they work with you. They scroll down to find out if there’s something they can opt into. They want to read reviews, which is great because it’s all the things we have on our list to go through today.

A GREAT headline

Okay, so the first thing, the most important thing you’ve got to have on your site and what a lot of people are getting wrong is the headline. Just think about the giant text on your site. It’s often behind a colored background on your face. If you’re a solo entrepreneur, you’re the face of your business.

The headline needs to say, what do you do? And who do you do it for? That’s the number one thing.

If you remember from last week, if you’ve heard me talk about websites before, it kind of works the same way as it did in the journalism world, right.

When I was a copy editor and a page designer, as a journalist, I know we’re worried about what’s above the fold. What’s going to get people to pick up the paper and actually buy it. Now granted, this is when people actually bought a newspaper. This was like way back before the whole industry broke. But the same principle applies to your website. You basically consider what is the thing that they can see on their screen that’s going to be called your above fold.

And you need to have your biggest headline, so like nerdy stuff here, but your h1 tag, if you’re selecting your font or your copy on there or you’re hand-coding it to h1 tag right there. That’s the biggest font size that your theme or your website will pull and it’s the most important thing that one Google is going to pull for you when it scrolls or crawls on your site.

But also, there’s something about size and how people relate to how important that text is. That’s why that’s the biggest headline in newspapers, right? Like, like, Whoa, this is so important, because it’s like size 63 font. The same thing applies to your website. So make sure when someone can land on your site, both mobile and on a desktop that you have a giant headline.

If that is not the first thing people see they’re immediately going to bounce. You may have like a half a scroll up to answer Who is this and what is this thing. People are always looking for something to give them reassurance that they’re in the right place. This could be a tagline. It could be a short sentence, it could be something like a phrase. Whatever it is, that’s what’s going to be hooking people so they continue going.

Remember, the whole point of when you get people to land on your website, is you’re taking them on a journey, and you want them to keep scrolling or to do the thing you’re asking them to do across your site So make the big claim and put your stick in the stand so that it screams: I do this for you!

A subhead that gives details that clue them that they’re right at home

The second thing which goes along that is your subheading. You want to make sure that you’re able to break it down with more specifics. So for example, it could be something really short and pithy. On the new website that I’m launching, it’s going to say something along the lines of growing your business locally. It’s giant, top pink has a period, but my subhead is I help female entrepreneurs and small business owners grow locally to six figures and beyond.

Right, like that’s my hook and my promise and like a little bit more detail to give some...

Many of you don’t know that I started out (after dropping the newspaper industry like it was hot) building websites. By hand.    Like with HTML and CSS. This was pre-Dreamweaver, which was one of the first WYSIWYG platforms on the market.    While in college I wanted to go to grad school to do magazine design — but only two schools in the country offered it and it was the opposite direction my soon to be husband and I would be going for his PT school — so that dream died out. But I think that’s why I loved websites so much. Because it reminds me, abstractly, of magazine design.    So — in 15 years of picking apart website and rebranding them, here are the five biggest mistakes that are costing people conversions and how to fix them:  PROBLEM #1 You’re being too general in your copy. Solution: You only get a second or two to make an impression on your visitor — and if you aren’t drawing them in with the first line of copy, you’ve lost them. They’ll never see the beautiful graphics you slaved over. All the content you painstakingly created. The beautifully photoshopped pictures you posed for. The first copy on your page should include who you work with, how you help them and what the result is after working together. Treat your website like the top half of the newspaper. In journalism, it’s called “above the fold.” The MOST important stories with the juiciest details and best photographs are always at the top of the front page with the biggest headline. It should be the same way with your website.   PROBLEM #2 You have too many calls-to-action on your site. Solution: You’re the expert in your subject. Give your visitors ONE thing to do on your site and repeat it over and over again. If you ask them to optin to your freebie, join your mailing list, schedule a fitting call and join your Facebook group all in the same line on your site, you’ve lost them. Eliminate the confusion and decision overload by giving them the best recommendation you have and pointing everything to that one thing.   PROBLEM #3 It’s not clear what you do.   Solution: Sometimes when I review a site, I can’t tell what it is they do, and I’ve worked with them! It needs to be obvious what your specialty is, how you work/help people and what they need to do to take the next step with you.   PROBLEM #4 It’s not clear how to work with you and/or purchase. Solution: If you are a service-based business, as the majority of my clients are, you need to explain how exactly you work with your clients, what all you help with and what the relationship looks like. It’s why I do the live strategy sessions on the podcast.   Not only do I want you to be able to take the advice and apply it to your own business, but I also want you to understand what it would be like to do a strategy session with me yourself, and how I could fit into helping your business. It’s much easier to convert someone to be a client if they can picture how you’d help them. Next steps: Get specific on your website of how to take the next step, how you work with people + what to expect   PROBLEM #5 Your website is too busy.   Solution: If you have too much going on in the design and layout of your website, your visitor will leave without a glance back. The more things that are presented for someone to browse, the less likely it is they’ll click on anything. Want to apply for a free website teardown for your business? (in the nicest way possible)  Apply at askmallory.com and I'll audit your website, give you tips for how to tweak copy, design and flow for maximum conversions. <3  About Marketing Magic:

The Marketing Magic podcast is where women entrepreneurs trying to do all the things come to get inspiration, business strategy, and on-air coaching on how to get their business noticed and growing. If you have a business that people need to know about in order for it to grow, you’re in the right place. This is the place to uncomplicate your marketing. Be sure to 

Are you ready to build a website that sells for you? What many entrepreneurs fail to realize is this: your website can become a tool for selling to your audience. It’s literally doing the work for you when people visit it. If it’s built right that is.

That’s why I was so excited to bring on today’s guest, Katie Saunders of Pop and Grey. Katie is a website designer and branding strategist that helps business owners build websites that sell.

 

She shares how you can evaluate your brand, how you can know that it’s time to work with a branding strategist and web designer and what you should absolutely avoid doing on your website. 

 

We also dive into knowing who your audience is, what message you want to send them and why it’s so important to be intentional with your website navigation. 

 

We talk about:

• What Katie does to help clients
• What it means to build a website to sell
• Knowing who your audience is and nailing down your message
• Aligning your branding with brand values
• How to evaluate your own brand and decipher if you need a rebrand
• Figuring out what you want to convey to your audience through your brand
• Being intentional about your website navigation
• Her recommendations on when to work with a branding strategist and designer
• Website no-no’s to avoid when building your business
• Considering how your website will display on multiple browsers

 

About Katie Saunders:

After a decade of working as an art director in a custom publishing house, architecture firm and advertising agency, I took the leap in 2012 to go out on my own and build pop and grey.

I craved an intimate project experience working one-on-one with creative business owners. I knew with my expertise and their passion, I could design truly meaningful brands that made an impact rather than churning them out as quickly as possible for decision-makers that didn’t have a true stake in their success.

 

I work directly with entrepreneurs and business owners in the interior design, photography and fashion industries. Together, we build a timeless but dynamic visual identity that blends their messaging and positioning with visuals that express their distinctiveness without a word. It is a true collaborative process that I am privileged to be a part of every single day.

 

I live in a quiet town in North Carolina with my husband, our two wild little girls and two big, sloppy dogs. When I’m not working, you can find me whipping up something scrumptious in the kitchen, redecorating our house yet again or singing karaoke and showing off my sweet dance moves with my kids. And later, mixing cocktails with my husband and either losing to him at a board game or beating him at basketball in the driveway.

 

Between work, a busy family and fitting in the workouts that keep me from going crazy, life does not allow for decaf. My daughters have taught me more than a few lessons on effective communication, multitasking like a boss and that laughter and a little chocolate cure almost everything.

 

Connect with Katie:

Websites | Facebook | Instagram

 

About Marketing Magic:

The Marketing Magic podcast is where women entrepreneurs trying to do all the things come to get inspiration, business strategy, and on-air coaching on how to get their business noticed and growing. If you have a business that people need to know about in order for it