Christina Kokologiannakis: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Effortless Closing Podcast. Today we're diving deep into the world of high converting websites and the psychology of user experience with the incredible Carrie Saunders, founder of BCSE solutions.
With over two decades of experience, Carrie has mastered the art of turning clicks into clients by building trust and creating seamless user experience. In this episode, we will explore how the right trust signals can transform your website, the small changes that transform your website user experience, and how leveraging content marketing, social proof, and email strategies can take your business.
The next level, get ready for an insightful conversation, packed with actionable tips to help you build a website that not only looks great, but converts effortlessly. Let's jump in.
Intro: I am Christina Kokologiannakis your post of the Effortless Closing Podcast. Born and raised in Silicon Valley. Now bringing the wisdom, wit, and well-oiled business strategies from my new hometown just outside of Nashville, where the pace is slower, [00:01:00] but the revenue still runs high. With over two decades building businesses, some wildly successful others, gloriously messy.
Every step has been fueled by a love of real strategy and real results. This isn't about side gigs, and it's definitely not about hustle culture. This is about optimization and building revenue, generating machines designed to make your life and your business feel effortless. After $92 million in sales of the last eight years while raising four little ones and building it all.
Wholepreneur. I've created systems that scale and a business that supports my life, not steals from it. From summers in Europe to road trips across the United States, being present with my family is the greatest win. And everything I've learned to make that possible is now inside the effortless closing method.
The framework behind this podcast, and here's the best part, you can build the same kind of business, the kind that funds your lifestyle, honors your values, and. Feels like [00:02:00] you. This show is for the woman who's already doing well, but is ready to simplify the work, amplify her income, and finally build a business that flows with her life.
Every episode brings sharp strategy, honest insights, and real world tools to help you grow your business and enjoy your life in the process. We don't just grow your business, we optimize it to feel effortless. This is the Effortless Closing podcast.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Welcome, Carrie. I'm so excited to have you here.
Carrie Saunders: Thanks for having me, Christine. I'm super excited to be here.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Well, let's tell everybody a little bit about your journey, how you started here, and then how you help your clients.
Carrie Saunders: Sure. So I actually started this business back in 2002. I was just a fresh 25 I think years old. If I do the math right, please don't age me now. And I had a nine month old and a laptop is like the story I like to tell 'cause I literally had a nine month old. I had gotten married when I was 20 and my husband was 21.
We were high school sweethearts. We got married during [00:03:00] college, you know, kind of abnormal there for most people. And, uh, I decided to start helping. A local boutique, a clothing store, because back then in 2002, 2003, you know, not as many people were online selling their products. And she had these really cute clothing that we were, you know, outfitting our nine month old in and she wanted to be able to sell online too.
So I knew I could help her faster than finding somebody else to help her. So that's kind of how I got started under e-commerce and was selling, you know, helping people with their e-commerce systems, which then later grew into WordPress and also course creators and coaches systems as well.
Christina Kokologiannakis: I love that.
Okay, so tell us a little bit more. So you help e-commerce and course solutions. What is it about that that you help them with?
Carrie Saunders: So I, my main core feature of, of my brain is I'm a relator. So I have, I have two engineering degrees, but I also have this relator skill. So I'm really good at understanding the technology [00:04:00] as well as understanding a person's business and their business process and their business goals.
And I'm really good at relating the two together and marrying business plus technology. So one of my, you know, great strengths is. Understanding of the pain points of a customer and then translating that into how do I solve that problem with technology to help them, you know, make more money and make better revenue, because then they're not grinding on, you know, trying to figure things out or, you know, having to manually do things in their business.
And I like to leverage technology to save them time and money in the long run. So that's kinda the short answer.
Christina Kokologiannakis: I love that because like, I, okay, so I'm like, you exclude the technology. Like I, I'm really good at honing in on the pain points. I'm really good at like seeing how to make things easier. But I'm not great with the technology.
I mean, I could figure it out, but like, that's not what I love to do. So that's really cool that you combine the two of them and you have the background in it as well. So I think that's neat. [00:05:00] So. When you take the two of those together and you're helping people with it, how does that relate into websites, right?
Like we're talking about creating websites, we're talking about getting people to convert, but how do those two kind of relate together?
Carrie Saunders: So when, what a lot of people don't realize is that whether you're selling traditional e-commerce like products or whether you're selling services like coaching or course creator or stuff like that, really the.
The technology's similar underneath, and I mean, it's a little, it's a bit more complicated when it comes to e-commerce, but it's still similar and, but the business processes and the sales and the sales psychology is still the same. A lot of people will come to us and ask us to help them, and they'll be like, well, who do you work with?
What types of businesses do you work with? Yeah. And I'm like, it doesn't really matter. Like it kind of sounds like a cop out, but it really doesn't matter. As we kind of talked about pre the interview, like we're still selling, we're still selling something to people, we're still solving a pain point. [00:06:00] And so as long as you can convey the benefits, I like to talk about the benefits of what you're doing versus the features, whether that's a product or a service.
That's way more important to convey to get that sale than the features. So I like to walk with the clients and help them show their benefits. First and foremost, and then features later as a, as you build customer trust so that you can, you know, sell better online, whether it's products or services.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Yeah, I love that. And let's step back a little because we might have someone listening saying, wait a minute, how is it similar? Like, why, why, you know, if, if I talk to you and you help people with a product and a service, like in my brain, they're different, right? And so, like, I understand they're not, but someone who's listening might not really understand how they're so similar.
So maybe we could talk a little bit about that, because I know I have people listening who do have products, and I know I have people listening who focus on services. So let's talk a little bit about that.
Carrie Saunders: Sure. [00:07:00] So usually when you're going out to buy, let's just talk products first. Yeah. When you're going out to buy a product, say you want some new shoes, okay.
You want a benefit of those new shoes. You either want them to be comfortable, you want them to look good, or both maybe. Yeah. You know, maybe you want, maybe you're runner and you want some really comfy running shoes that feel really good, right? So that is the benefit you're going to give them. You're not trying to sell them really necessarily the features of the shoes.
Like they don't care if it's made of a certain type of rubber and have so many laces in it. And you know, all those things, you know, they, they want the benefit of it. They want, what is it going to do for them? Yeah. So it's similar to services, like if you're a, a coach and you're selling them business services to help them grow their business, you want to talk about.
You know, what is the outcomes? What are they gonna gain from working with you? Not how many calls is it and how long is it? And things like that. Those are the nitty gritty details that they might want later. But first they need to understand [00:08:00] how it's gonna transform them, what's it going to do for their business?
So we're again talking about the benefits first instead of the features in either case.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Yeah, and I love that, and I think it's really forgotten about that because a lot of, well, we'll just talk about coaches. I mean, we can talk about really anybody who sells anything, but like, if you're a coach and you're trying to sell something, if you're like, the calls are 60 minute, you get five calls, you get this, you get this, you get this, you get this.
It's kind of like people scroll through it and they're like, okay, that's great. But they can't see themselves. So when I coach a lot of people and I teach them, I say, you need to teach them how you, when you talk into marketing and your words that you use, the transformation has to be there. But you also have to paint the picture of what the result's gonna be.
What is life going to look like when they do it? So like, I know I love Brooks, they're my favorite running shoes, right? They're so comfortable. But when you talk, when you read about Brooks, they don't, they'll say, yeah, you might have arch support or you might have extra cushioning, but that's not how they brand it.
It's like you run [00:09:00] farther faster, right? You, you can train better. Like there's things of the future, like how are you gonna be, what you're gonna look like when you get there? And I think that is so important and it's a lost on a lot of websites. Like I go to a lot of my clients' websites. And I look and I'm like, we're just giving features, right?
We're just talking about things. We're not really giving transformation. So talk about how you help your clients really hone in maybe on that transformation or on the benefits.
Carrie Saunders: Well, I, I like to give, bring up the point to them that when we talk about features we're being talked at. Mm, rather than talk to or with.
So when we're talking about benefits, we're talking to them or with them, it's like we're having a conversation. So I like to go through their copy on their website and have them really read it with some critical eyes and say, are you being talked to?
Christina Kokologiannakis: I like that.
Carrie Saunders: Or with, you know, are you talking being talked with?
You know, is it a conversation or are you just being talked at? Is it like a lecture? [00:10:00] Is it just somebody spewing information at you? So I like to have them think in that mindset and usually there's a light bulb moment and they go, oh, oh yeah. Like, and I even have to do this to myself. You know? It is so easy, even even being an expert falling into this trap of talking about the features instead of the benefits.
Like it is just something natural. What do we do? So don't feel badly. I want those listening to don't feel badly if you're in this trap. 'cause I still even have to do that to myself and I miss it sometimes. But we need to be talking with them and having a conversation. Like there are not really necessarily our best friend, but like, you know, there are acquaintances or good friend on the other side and we're like, you know, 'cause when we have a product or a service that we love, what do we do?
We go tell our friends about it. Right? So what's that language you're gonna use when you tell your friend about that product or service?
Christina Kokologiannakis: Oh, I love that. You wanna talk about that,
Carrie Saunders: right? You're gonna talk about the benefits. You know, not that it's like the features of the running shoe or whatever we're talking about, it's the benefits.
It helps me do this, it helps me run faster, longer, it's more [00:11:00] comfortable.
Christina Kokologiannakis: And I enjoy it in the process. And I think a lot of, a lot of people, when we create the website, we forget about what we're building. Like what's the point of it? Why are we doing it right? And I know when I coach a lot of my clients, they get lost in the, I'm just trying to make the money or I need the massive volume.
'cause of course I don't teach on volume, right? I teach high ticket, sell it at a higher price, get the better people in who love and adore you. And then they stay, they spend more money, and then they refer people just like them to come in and at the end of the day, you make more money. But what happens is a lot of people create their websites thinking, oh, I gotta sell too many.
I have to talk to everybody and I have to get big numbers. But at the end of the day, if you're really just. Specific, you hone it in, you know what you're gonna talk about, you know what you wanna sell. And it's very, very narrowed down. You get way more sales than you would if you just talk to everybody or just list everything.
Isn't [00:12:00] that right?
Carrie Saunders: Yes. It's very much so. Right. And it's, it's a lot of you, something we talk about to our clients a lot, and honestly, sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't, you know, and, and it's really over, you know, we've been doing this over 20 some years, and you can really see the businesses that listen, thrive and survive.
And the businesses that don't listen to that advice from us are now struggling, even though they've been with us for over 10 years, because they're not listening to that basic advice of, you can't be trying to sell to everybody. You have to be selling to a specific set of people. And yes, you're gonna attract people outside of that set, but if you're not talking to someone, you're talking to, no one.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Exactly. And it's funny, so like I really honed in and I'm like, okay, I just wanna sell to women. And the funny thing is, my, my House of Cortes that I have that's starting my, my exclusive society, it's only for women. I've had three men reach out to me and they're like, why can't we be part of it? Like we, we wanna be part of this.
And I was like, 'cause I want it just [00:13:00] for women. So you're gonna get people who are gonna come, they're gonna hear what you're saying, they're gonna align with you, but it might not be your exact person. Like take for example, brick and mortar if you have a gluten-free bakery, right? Like I'm glu, I'm gluten free, I'm always hunting for good gluten-free places.
But like if you're a gluten-free bakery and you don't say gluten-free in everything you do, you are right now you think you are, you are selling to everybody. You're like, oh, it doesn't matter. People will come eat it anyways because they won't be put off that it's gluten-free. 'cause there's a stigma that gluten-free is gross and all this other stuff.
But I wanna ask the owner, I'm like, well, how is business going? By not doing that, she's like. I struggle with the people in the door because it's like, what are you, right? Like, you know, the people who are gluten-free can't find you. And then when people come in, if you say, oh yeah, it's gluten-free, you turn them off instead of just getting the right people in the door at the get go.
And that's all at the front facing, that's your website, that's the content you put it, it's how you talk about it. So I think that's important. Let's move into [00:14:00] talking about the content that we actually put on the website. 'cause I think that's really cool and you have some cool stuff you talk about.
I wanna talk about trust signals. So you talk a lot about giving out trust signals and how it can impact you and build credibility with your audience. Let's talk about that.
Carrie Saunders: Sure. And like whenever I do talk about trust signals, so I wanna put this forward first. It's an iterative thing and it's, it's a, a thing you build upon.
So we wanna set the expectation first, and then we build upon the trust as they scroll down to the website. So your initial first impression, which is you're above the fold content, which is what you see before you scroll, that's a simple way to think of it. That needs to exude trust right away. And if it doesn't, they're going to leave.
So all that other fancy stuff that you think needs to be there for trust that may not be like basics and super important that can go down later. So I like to tell our clients, you know, at the top we need to have what people expect. We need to have a clean logo, [00:15:00] we need to have five to seven menu items.
Usually not more than that unless you're e-commerce and you might need some more, but it needs some good organization in that case. But about five to seven menu items, because if you walk into a store and like, so you go up to a store and there's like 12 doors. To go into the store, you're not gonna go in, right?
Yes. You won't know where to go. Right. But if you have, you know, one or two doors to go in, which would be typical for a store, you know which door to go in? Like our Walmart here locally, one side's grocery and the other side's. Yes. Home goods and the other stuff like that. So you know which door to go in.
If you want groceries, you go to the left if you want the other stuff to go to the right. So with our website, we need to have clear direction at the top, and that's why I recommend only about five to seven menu items. And one of those items must be, in my opinion, a contact, some way to get a hold of you.
So really easy way to contact you, whether that's email, whether that's phone number, a contact form links to your social, any of those.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Is it like is it [00:16:00] like a form that they're putting? Because I mean above like the way I think of above the fold. It's not huge. It, it, it's, I know we're on podcasts so no can see me, but I'm making like an image with my fingers.
But like, it's not a huge section. And then if we're trying to put things above the fold that build the trust and you have a logo and you have your little menu bar on the top, what would, is it just like a, a little banner on the top or is it a form?
Carrie Saunders: Well, you can do it a couple ways. So you can have a, a link to a contact form?
Correct. So let's, or link to a contact page. So say you have a lot of ways you can get ahold of, you have a link to a contact page, so you have only one or two just, just put the email up there or just put that phone number up there. Usually it's a bit smaller font than mm-hmm. The rest of your menu. But that's something you can throw up there.
Okay. But as long as it's really easy to find how to contact you, that in that gives that initial boost of trust right away.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Okay. I love that. And then I know you were talking about some more stuff, but I wanna step back real quick. We were talking about creating the trust on the above the fold. Walk us [00:17:00] through a little bit of like.
What do you put, 'cause I know you should have like the headline, a subheader, I know some people teach that you should have a video where I now we're getting it, like if it's a, if it's e-commerce, maybe they can still do a video. I'm not sure. But I know, like, on coaching, and I know like on service space they say put in, put a little video that explains what you do.
And then right below it is either your like checkout or your go to this page or wherever you wanna direct. And basically the CTA, the call to action. How do you have it set up?
Carrie Saunders: So I definitely think it, you know, all the way at the top, just below your menu, there needs to be a header for sure that tells who you are and what you do and from a benefit standpoint.
So we need to, you know, make sure we're doing it from a benefit standpoint and then, and make it. Decently concise. So maybe five-ish or less words. You don't wanna be too wordy 'cause people scan. Yeah. If you need to support that, then have a supporting sub headline below that that explains a little bit [00:18:00] further.
So it kind of depends on what you do, whether you need both or not. Okay. I do agree with service-based. You definitely either want a photo of yourself up there with that somehow, or a small or a video. But I do wanna caveat videos should not autoplay. Okay. Why they should not autoplay. Well one, maybe they're not ready to listen to it.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Oh. Maybe
Carrie Saunders: they're not in a place, maybe they're in a doctor's office. And that would be kind of embarrassing for like this video to start playing and making all these loud, you know, those loud noises. Yeah. And some of us, including me, I get, I, I have a hard time looking at a website that has something moving on it.
So if something's moving, I can't read that text. Okay. And I think a lot of people are like that 'cause you want them to read the headline text first to know what it's about, and then they can decide to click on the video. And you can also get a little bit more metrics if you get a little bit more geeky, nerdy here to see whether they started playing the video.
If it autoplays, you don't know if they're even interested in clicking on it either.
Christina Kokologiannakis: See. And I like that. So do you [00:19:00] put, like, is it built into the website in the background where it tracks the clicks? Or is it like the software or the CRM is already tracking that click? Like how do you track it?
Carrie Saunders: Yeah, it really kind of varies between what you have your website on.
Some of them have that built in where they can tell that you clicked on it. You can also use Google Analytics to determine whether they clicked on it. So that gets kind of down in the weeds. But yes, there's, that's the tech part. There's ways about it's, yeah, and that's important
Christina Kokologiannakis: because it, it's kind of like, I, I feel like a lot of people miss misses.
It's like email, if you're sending an email. We don't just send emails to send emails. And I think people forget that, right? They're like, oh, I'm gonna send my weekly email. The whole point of sending email is warming up an audience, staying in touch with them. If you have a link you wanna track and make sure they're clicking that link.
Like you don't wanna have a link that you don't track. So like when I send emails about, Hey, my YouTube video is dropping today. Go check it out. Here it is. I track, uh, who opens my emails. I track who clicks that link to go [00:20:00] watch my YouTube. And then of course on YouTube, I can't see exactly who is watching the video for how long.
But then I see who's coming there, like just people in general, how long they're watching it, are they engaged? But we need this information because if we don't have this information, then how do we know that it's working? So I'm gonna ask you this question. What does the information tell us If they're not clicking or yeah, I would say if they're not clicking on the video, what does that tell us?
Carrie Saunders: That tells us you're either attracting the wrong people to the website or your messaging is off and you're attracting the correct people, but you're not drawing them in to want to click the video. So it could be twofold, and that's where you've gotta try to figure out which one is it.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Yeah. And it could be a headline issue.
Mm-hmm. It could be like, I know and I I'm sure you do this, it's like, it could be the headline doesn't relate with the video. It could be like you know, you get a headline, sub headline, but it doesn't give enough. And then when they see a video and someone's standing like, you know, to start talking, people can't see me.[00:21:00]
You can see me, but like, uh, I'm making faces everybody. So there you go. I'm very animated. Watch me on YouTube because I'm very animated. But it's like people can see something weird and it doesn't trigger, or they're really cold and they're just like, I don't really know what this is about yet. And they're gonna scroll further and then they forget and lose it, or something like that.
Right. So how can we, like, as you help your clients with the above the full, because I feel like that's so important and, and I'm gonna be honest. In my content and what I do. That's the hardest part for me. Like getting all the other stuff is easy. Like I'm really good with messaging and branding and the words I use, but if you don't capture someone quickly, they move on or they forget or whatever.
It's like I gotta get them in my email or I gotta get 'em clicking onto something somewhere so that I can come back to them to talk to them. So let's talk a little bit more about the above the fold and the trust. So if someone doesn't wanna do a video, what else could they do in that spot besides just a picture?
Do they do more words or just leave it short and to the point?
Carrie Saunders: I feel like short and to the [00:22:00] points pretty good as well as a great call to action and making sure that our call to action button is not too generic. Like click here for a free guide that doesn't do anything. Why would you wanna click on that?
You need to put the benefits on that button, you know, send it for my newsletter. That's not. Gonna do it, you need to have, why would they actually wanna do that? What benefit is, is it for them? So making sure that your call to action talks about benefits. And if you need to put some words around that button to help enforce the benefits behind it, then you might need to, it kind of depends upon what call to action it is.
You know, book a free call doesn't really, you know, yeah. What are you getting out of that free call? You know, what does, what is that potential person getting from it? So having a great call to action at the top is very key. And making sure it's specific and clear and not clever.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Yes. And that's what I had to learn.
I was, I was first generic, then I was clever, and then I was like, no one's getting anything. Like, no one's understanding it. Then I was like, okay, how can I use the [00:23:00] words? So like, you hear three words and you're so, like, you hear those three words, you're like, oh, I know instantly. That's what it's, that I think is probably the hardest thing to do.
And I am very wordy. I am long form content all day long. I I'm working on, 'cause someone told me once they were like, I, I am gonna mess this all up. But it's like the, the, it's hard to be simple and it's easy to be complicated or something like that. And that's me. It's like sometimes I overexplain because I can't quite get to the simplified version of saying it, but I'm learning and I'm working really hard to be more simple because in our copy on the page, we need to be that, like, you can't have a header.
Let's say you have a header, a subheader, a video, then you can't give all this wordy text before the CTA explaining why they should click the CTA. Like, that's, that's not what we wanna do. Right.
Carrie Saunders: Right. Well, that actually brings up a really good point and a reminder to me, we need to also have the copy on our website be about a fifth grade level.[00:24:00]
Yes. A lot of people get shocked about that Max seventh grade, but fifth, third, you know, somewhere between third to fifth grade is more perfect. And a lot of us, I mean, I'm guilty of it too, get too wordy, get too techy, you know, and we, we have to tone it down because we're absorbing this information quickly.
So it needs to be easy to absorb the information. So would a third grader or a fifth grader understand your words, even if they might not understand what you do or what you sell? Do they understand what you're trying to get them to do? Is a great gut check there.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Well, here's the cool thing, if they understand.
So I have, okay, so I have four kids and my two youngest are nine and five. So my 9-year-old is going into fourth grade. And what I do is I say, I'm not gonna tell you anything about this. I want you to read this, and then I want you to tell me what you think it's about. Because if I got clear enough, if I'm using the right words and if the language is at a level that he can understand, he'll read it and then he'll come back to me like, oh mommy, it's [00:25:00] like this.
So for all my listeners who have kids, you even, they're a little bit older, don't tell 'em what you do or what this page is all about, but just go have them read it and say, can you tell me? Because that means it's very clear. I think the clarity part of all of this is probably the hardest part to do.
Now, do you guys have copywriters on your team or are you just doing the copy? Or how do you do, how do you help your clients with the writing, the copy? Because that is the hard part, right?
Carrie Saunders: Right. What I like to do is we don't have copywriter on our team per se. We do have one who has an English major, and she's really great at writing.
But what I do like to do is I like to take my customer's words and then look at it from a different perspective, from that third grade or fifth graders perspective, and then come back to them and say, Hey, I think we should simplify the words this way. Is this still conveying a message in your mind to, you know, to your audience?
And then I also encourage them, you know, find a business friend who doesn't quite know what you do, [00:26:00] but can give you, you know, can read it and do what you were talking about with your kids. So if you don't have kids, find a business friend or find your best friend who maybe has no clue what you do. Have them read something and tell you back what it's all about so that you can understand whether you're being clear and not clever.
Christina Kokologiannakis: It makes, I'm, I'm telling everyone it makes such a difference to do that because for me, where I'm like in my brain, so it's like when I started creating the House of Cortes a, I was thinking, okay, it's gonna be a private society. And then I just started talking to people and I kind of put a content out there, and then people weren't really resonating with it.
And so I was like, okay, well it's not clear like in my brain, like I see this amazing thing that it's gonna become and what it is, but if I can't articulate it and I can't tell people about it and they're not understanding, it doesn't help me. And so I tell people, go out there, test it, give it time. Right?
And this is where the analytics come in, see how they're doing. And then if it's not really working, or let's say you have a huge audience, but [00:27:00] only 1% of your audience is like even clicking on it or looking at it. Then we have to keep tweaking it. And so people don't understand. I tweak my messaging and my content probably daily.
Like I look at everything and it's like, it could be like one word. I don't change a lot, but it's like one word, I'm gonna change this little, or this isn't quite working. Like when I started the House of Cortes a I was like, it was going to be say, I can't even remember the word anymore, but before I picked exclusive, I had a different word that I used for the society.
And then I realized, I'm like, oh, I wanna say exclusive because it means luxury. It means it's only for certain people. It's very, you know, hard to get into where the other word I had, and I don't even remember 'cause it's been so many changes, was just like, oh, I think I just said private society. I think that's what it was.
It was just a private society. Well, exclusive is better than private. Right? Right. And so sometimes it's like that one little word just makes such a difference. So I love that. Now on this webpage, when we're looking at, is this just a landing page we're talking about? So like a LA [00:28:00] landing page per product or per solution they're giving?
Or are we talking about this as just your homepage?
Carrie Saunders: Really it should apply to all of those because we wanna build that trust right away. Because you don't know where somebody's going to enter into your website. Yeah. You know, it could be a landing page, could be a homepage. You just kind of don't know.
So you need to pretend like they don't know you and this is their first impression no matter what page they're on.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Okay. And then do you recommend that 'cause this one's a hard one for me, and this is where I'm trying to like wrap it all up, like the homepage, have the same feel as your landing pages, or should the homepage have like a different kind of feel and then each landing page should be similar in feel?
Carrie Saunders: I feel like there needs to be at least a brand similarity to them. Mm-hmm. Now a landing page could be. Literally just a landing page where it's not linked to from the rest of your website. Oh, and in that case, you might not want to have like the menu at the top mm-hmm. Because you might want to be focusing them on just checking [00:29:00] out.
Yeah. So you've gotta think about what is the purpose of this page, first and foremost. Okay. If it's to inform them and get them to know you better, then yes, you might want all your menu links. But if it's literally just to check out and to sell something, you wanna remove as much distraction as possible.
Christina Kokologiannakis: I love that because people don't understand that either. It's like, there's times I go onto a website, I get pulled into a landing page, and so I'm on a landing page and I'm looking at it. Here's, and here's where I struggle too, because like I'll be pulled onto it and I'm looking at it and I go, but I don't know what they're selling.
Like, I, I don't understand. I, I haven't been in that person's world long enough. I don't know the person. So I get to this very generic, it's not generic. I don't wanna say generic. It's like. Very simplified landing page. And then it's kind of giving some information, but then it's like, click here to get now.
And I'm like, but I don't have enough information yet. And then you try to click around and you can't get back to their main page. And then I have to Google them trying to find them. So I always tell people it's good to have a logo if you don't wanna have like a [00:30:00] menu. Like it's good to have a logo at the top where they can click on it and it takes you to the homepage or it takes you somewhere that at least explains what you do, who you are.
More information. 'cause if you get someone who's new to your world and doesn't know, I take the effort. 'cause I'm curious to go to Google to search for them to try to find their page and so on. Most people, well, right, right. Yeah. Yeah,
Carrie Saunders: that's a great point. And, and if if the landing page is built well too, usually, like that logo is really all you need in ca for those of us that are like, I've gotta get all the information before I commit to buying.
Like, some people are like that. But yeah, so you should be building that trust throughout that landing page first, but then also having one simple way to get back if they really, really want to.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Now, do you work with people who do high ticket as well?
Carrie Saunders: Uh, yes, we do actually, we have several clients who do a high ticket.
We, we kind of have a variety of clients. I love to help even, you know, the newbies out. The only really requirement is that they're driven and they want to grow and [00:31:00] scale. So I, I have no problem helping newbies out, but we also have multimillion dollar yearly, uh, revenue businesses with us as well.
Christina Kokologiannakis: And that's good. And the reason I bring up the high ticket is, high ticket is a hard one because you are not gonna get someone, and this is what I, 'cause I sell high ticket, right? Like I teach my clients how to do high ticket. When you go into high ticket, it is really hard to just have a few paragraphs and then be like, come buy my $10,000 course.
Like it doesn't work that way, right? High ticket, when you're spending a lot of money on something, it's a little bit more personal. It takes a little bit more time. So maybe we could talk a little bit about what a high ticket. Page might wanna look like, or content that they might wanna include, or just some really good thoughts behind it as they're looking at their landing pages and their website.
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Carrie Saunders: Sure. So, whether it's a landing page or, or maybe even your homepage, kind of depends upon whether you have very many subpage to it. We wanna build that customer trust gradually, [00:35:00] so that top, like we talked about earlier in the podcast, you know, needs to be pretty dialed in and nailed down as far as building that initial, what do you do and what are the benefits of me staying on this webpage?
Mm-hmm. And then as they scroll, you wanna further build the trust. You wanna start giving some of your credentials. And this could be in different order depending upon what you're selling or, or who you're serving. But then you also wanna have some really great customer testimonials and what I recommend and or product reviews if it's actually product based business.
But I recommend here a lot of people will put up testimonials, but. They type them up and make them look neat and pretty. Oh, okay. Sometimes it's better to just screenshot it, screenshot that comment on Facebook, screenshot that Google Review, because we all visually recognize those platforms. Yeah. And it doesn't look fake anymore.
It looks real. And you can even blur out the person's name if you wanna like not have their name in it, you know? Or just put Karen and then, [00:36:00] you know, blur out the the last name or something. Or Karen s or Bob Smith, you know, and blur out the Smith part. But taking screenshots. And you can do it in a pretty way, really in Canva, but like sometimes that's way more effective than getting really fancy and really typing it up and making this cute little scroller that goes by that kind of looks like, well, anybody could have typed this.
So having that social proof, like that's great.
Christina Kokologiannakis: And it's like that going back to that trust again. Right. You know, it's like, it's like, do I trust, like, okay, we're in a world where there's so much noise and there's times I'll look at stuff and I'm like, are those real reviews? Like is there someone really doing this?
Because some people, 'cause we're gonna talk about social proof right now, but there's some sites we go to where there's so many that it's almost too much. And then there's other sites where they make 'em too pretty and I'm like, are they real? So let's talk about social proof. What is the right amount of social proof we just talked about?
It's better to screenshot, [00:37:00] which I love that by the way. 'cause I like that too. I feel like it's more real. But let's talk about like, should it just be like a screenshot of something? Is it better to get videos for it? What are your thoughts around all of it?
Carrie Saunders: I think screenshots are great. I also think if you can get a video testimonial from the person, that's also very high social proof too.
Either one can really be great, but I do know that some of our clients don't wanna do those videos so it, you know, when you need to do the screenshots or do a mix of both. Some really like to have a mix of both. Now if you're selling really high ticket, you're going to want more testimonials than if you were selling low ticket.
But to not overwhelm the user, I would sprinkle those throughout. So have a few, you know, add some more content to it, you know, more benefits of what they're gonna get from it. Have some more that maybe relate to those benefits, some more testimonials like below that. So you kind of wanna feather them through.
The website too is also very helpful whenever you feel like you really do need more than say like [00:38:00] five to seven or 10 ish. You know, if you feel like you need to go more than that, you probably gonna wanna split it up. Also, depending upon your layout, you might, even if you have 10, you still might wanna split it up five and five.
But you really kind of gotta play with it. And you can play with where it is on the page. You know, like you said, we can iterate on the page to see how effective it is. So maybe it's not working, maybe the page isn't working as well. Try to move those testimonies up a little bit, maybe up one section.
Okay. And then see how that lands for a bit. And then try again. So we wanna not change too many things at once. Mm-hmm. Too. Make sure we can understand what worked and what didn't. But then when we get back to those testimonials, I do think screenshots and videos are the way to go. For the highest converting type of, you know, social proof and then typed up if you have to.
But really the other's kind of better.
Christina Kokologiannakis: So do you, would you say there's too much testimonials, like social proof? Like I have been on some pages, no joke, I'm not joking. It's like a hundred videos [00:39:00] and I'm like, I'm not gonna watch these. Like yes. I would be like, okay, so all these people are doing this product.
But then I felt like it was like they're almost overselling it, like almost saying, oh, we're so amazing that I almost got shut off by it and I was like, oh, I don't like this. What do you think about that?
Carrie Saunders: Uh, I totally agree that there can be too many. Totally can. Now if, you know, if for some reason, let's say you're a, you sell products, you know, sure you wanna, you know, show all 150 reviews but only show a few at a time and have some click more so you can see more in case they actually really do wanna go look at more. But, and you could even do that as a service based business, you know, hear from more of our clients and have a page dedicated to that.
That's gonna be somebody who wants, wants to consume that information. But you definitely don't wanna have all of those all at once on one page. 'cause you definitely will either overwhelm or turn them off.
Christina Kokologiannakis: I agree. And I like that actually. I never thought about having a separate page talking about it.
Like I tell people you can do Google reviews, like I like the Google [00:40:00] reviews 'cause that helps. We're gonna talk about SEO in a minute. But like that helps with SEO, that helps with getting more traction and searchability. But like you have to make sure that if you're doing it, you're doing it right And you can tie those, I'm sure I've seen people tie that back into their websites.
And then you actually can see like the Google reviews and the scores and the rankings and all that on, on the website. I think at the end of the day. Somebody has to look at what do I want my brand to be? What is it that I'm trying to do? Now, if it's a product and like I love going, like if I'm doing something on Amazon or if I'm gonna go to a restaurant for Yelp or like I'll use Yelp or something else, I wanna see good and bad.
Like I'm okay seeing some bad reviews because it's like, okay, what's the bad reviews? And like, so we checked out a new sushi restaurant 'cause we just moved and I was like, okay, don't read me the good reviews. I wanna see the bad. So sometimes when I get something and I don't have someone who is like, it was good, but here's my thing about it, blah, blah, blah, then I almost feel like it's too fake.[00:41:00]
So sometimes I feel like the reviews, we script them. And I'm gonna ask you this question, like some people will script them and say, oh, please say this in your review. If you think I'm five stars, or please say this, if when you do it here's a script or here's, you know, questions to answer. What do you think about that?
Do you think that throws off that trust we're trying to build?
Carrie Saunders: I think that is a good way to get initial reviews if you're struggling to get your customers to have ideas on what to say. Okay. But I think you can do that way too much. Like usually it shouldn't be too prompted if you can avoid that. I know when people ask for video reviews, it's kind of common to say, talk about these things.
But usually when they do that correctly, it's more generic. You talk about what you got out of the program. Mm-hmm. Talk about that way. It's not, you know, talk, talk about that we did X, Y, or Z. You know, you don't wanna be super specific. You wanna make it so it's. Sounds like that person. And I think that's kind of your point you're coming up there with there is it needs to sound like a [00:42:00] client.
It doesn't need to sound like it came out of your own mouth per
Christina Kokologiannakis: se. Yeah. It, it needs to be authentic. Right? Right. Like it needs to feel Right. Like I had, I think it was my very first review of my course that I sold. And at first when I got the review I was like, oh. I was like, I don't know, it's not great.
And then I was like, you know, I'm gonna put it up anyways. And she's actually one of my favorite clients. She's still with me. She's in my membership. But her first review of it was like, Hey, yeah. I did the effortless closing machine and it it was all right, you know, I'm still in and I'm still working through it.
But what I found, and then she went on to like, say all these cool things about it. And when I first hear, heard that it was okay, I am like, oh, I wanna a review where they're like, it's amazing. It's great. And then I realized that one review performs so well for me, because we're not selling a dream. I think what happens is too many people are trying to oversell.
I am so amazing. I'm so great. Come in and see me. And it's like a pony show, right? Like, it's like I'm gonna give you this huge show and make it amazing. And then what happens is [00:43:00] people get in, they're like, oh, this is not great. Like, oh, this is not what I thought. 'cause in their mind, they're hyped up and they think it's something so great, and then when they come in, they lose it and it fizzles.
I rather now have, and this is what I do, I'd rather have people be authentic and be like, if it really, if maybe they really love something and they'll say it. But if someone was like, yeah, it wasn't what I expected, but when I got in it was kind of cool. Like this, like changed everything for me. Like, I like those perspectives because when someone comes in, they have a lower expectation and then once they're in and they're enjoying it, they're like, this is crazy good.
Like, I didn't think I would love this. So I think that's a big thing on, on the reviews that people have to understand is we wanna be authentic, we wanna make sure that it's right. Now let's talk about SEO. And this is something I'm telling you I struggle with. There are people out there I know all day long are emailing me saying, we'll, get your SEO going, we'll do all this stuff for you.
But I'm like, no, because in, in my other business, I've used to pay those people and it didn't make any difference. I'm like, I can do [00:44:00] better. But let's talk about this because I want you to explain what SEO is, just in case someone doesn't know, and then talk about why it's important and what we can do to make it better for our pages.
Carrie Saunders: Sure. So, SEO assembly stands for search engine optimization. So it is when somebody goes to Google or Bing or whatever your favorite search engine is, they're gonna put in something and they want to get, you know, some results to help them, usually help them solve that problem or give them the information they want.
So that's simply what it is. And. It's honestly, you know, I've been doing SEU for over 20 years. It's so much easier now than it used to be. So it used to be technically hard. Okay. To do SEO, like you had to be able to do some coding to get the right things in the website, in the right places and all that.
Now, I like to equate search engine optimization search to writing a paper for your English teacher.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Hmm.
Carrie Saunders: Okay. So each page of your website needs to have a main topic. [00:45:00] Oh. Just like when you're writing to your English teacher. Okay. And then the title of that page. 'cause you can put a title in your software.
Yep. It doesn't matter what software you're in, there's titles now you wanna put the title to directly speak to that main topic. And then just like when you're writing a paper, you want your headlines and your sub headlines to support that topic, and you want your paragraphs to support those sub headlines and those headlines.
So it's like we're writing to an English person, we want Google and Bing and the major search engines. They want to present to their customers, which are the people searching relevant results.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Yeah. So if
Carrie Saunders: you're very clear on what that page is about and who it's for and how it will serve them, they're gonna make your site rank higher for that page.
So it's really comes down to English anymore or whatever language you speak. Yeah. You know, is is it's, comes down to the structure of how you make the words on the page. [00:46:00] So now, yeah, go ahead. Everyone
Christina Kokologiannakis: here just heard this, like, this is SEO simplified because I didn't even know that. Like I didn't even look at it that way.
So before we move on, like Yeah. So people who wanna do these clever, 'cause I know like on YouTube when you do your titles, you want curiosity based. So people click, I'm assuming we don't wanna do that on our titles for the, the pages, the landing pages, website pages, whatever we have, we want it to be just very clear and to the point.
Is that correct?
Carrie Saunders: Yes, it's great to be clear to the point. And then there's this just a little nuance there. There's a place usually in your software, doesn't usually, doesn't matter what you have for a meta description,
Christina Kokologiannakis: oh, I don't know that one. Probably seen
Carrie Saunders: meta description now that used to really help search engine optimization.
What it's more for now is for drawing that person in to click on that link. So it's your two to three sentence pitch as to why this link is going to solve their problem.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Is it like a, is it like, okay, so it's just a, it's a very short little to the [00:47:00] point, right? Okay. Yeah.
Carrie Saunders: So when you're searching Google, for example, you'll see the title and then under it some words, right?
Yes. In in less, less bolded text. Yeah. That's usually comes from the meta description. If somebody's filled it in, if you don't fill that in, Google's gonna guess for you and pick something on your website to put there instead. Okay, so you could, you could speak to the customer and say, you know, our running shoes help our customers go faster and longer and be more comfortable.
For example. So you're talking to the benefits of them. It's a little short blurb, so that's what the meta description can do for you. If, for a little side note on a little tip on making that a little bit more effective, it's kind of more of a, a click through. It helps me click through. It doesn't help the search engine rankings, but it helps people click through to it.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Yeah, it's like it. It's like if you have your website and then there's another one, right? 'cause a lot of times I'll look for something and there's maybe 10 websites that talk about what I'm asking the question. And then I have to look through different things. Like I'll say, oh, do I know this [00:48:00] website? Is it authentic?
Like, or not authentic? Is it credible? Or is it like a fufu site? Like who is this? Who is that? And then once I get to the, the title of what they're showing me, I always look at that little subtext. Mm-hmm. Because I'm like, is it really going to help me? Because my time is valuable. And like we talked about before, everyone's doing things faster, we're scanning faster, we're not really paying attention to a lot of stuff.
We're shorter attention spam. So that little blurb right there, I never knew what that was. I always look and if it doesn't tell me, like in those little, it's kind of, I don't know if it's two sentences or one, it's like this little, little thing. I'll read it and if it doesn't say something leading to what I'm looking for, I skip it.
I don't even go to it. Isn't that crazy? I didn't know what that was.
Carrie Saunders: Yeah, that's the meta description. And like I said, Google pick anything random if you don't fill that out. So I highly recommend you do fill that out.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Wow. Okay. So SEO is important. Now let's talk about with the SEO any tricks on kind of, I love the idea of like the English paper [00:49:00] because I never thought of that way.
That's a cool way of looking at it. When we're actually doing the words, and this is where I struggle in understanding this, right, is I know we gotta do the keyword searches. Someone was telling me I should get onto, oh, what was it called? There's a Google one, I can't remember what it is, where you can search the keywords and then you gotta try to use words that people are searching.
I feel like it's really complicated. Is it really that complicated?
Carrie Saunders: Well, we need to think about it as what is, what would our customers ask Google to find us. What would they simply ask? And then, so, you know, maybe it's, let's go back to the running shoe example. 'cause we've been using it, you know? Yeah. So it could be comfortable running shoes for women over 40.
I mean, who knows, right? Yeah. So as long as your article talks about those things that's gonna be helpful. But what you, what you wanna consider is pick, and usually keywords are a phrase anymore. They're like three to five, maybe seven words, because it's really hard. There's so much competition out there to actually pick and [00:50:00] point a word or two words.
Okay? Unless you're really established, it's hard to pinpoint one or two words. But you know, like you're talking about where you use the word E exclusive instead of private, you know, that's bringing in a certain type of people. So as long as you're purposeful on the word you're using, you are gonna do all right.
And you want to. Let's say it's, you know, comfortable running shoes. That's, it's a little bit generic, but let's just use that phrase. Yeah. A little easier to think about, right? Yeah. Whenever you're writing that article on your comfortable running shoes, have those words in it, mix them up in a different order.
Okay. Run more comfortably. That's a different type of phrase you can use instead of comfortable run running shoes. So you kind of wanna play on variations of your phrase and use that throughout your article because, uh, Google's, even though Google's a robot, they don't read like a robot anymore.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Yes, right.
Carrie Saunders: They read more like a human now. There's so much, they're systems are so much better.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Yeah.
Carrie Saunders: So they're gonna look for, is this interesting to this [00:51:00] person? Is this, you know, engaging, are people going to come here? So mixing up your key words so that it's more readable. Going back to the English paper again, you're not gonna repeat the same phrase like 50 times in your English paper.
Yeah. You're gonna mix it up, you're gonna mix up your sentences, you're gonna mix up your phrases. So making sure that you do that on the page, and you know, again, coming back to it's one topic per page is really what you wanna do. It comes back to if you're speaking to everybody, you're speaking to, no one.
This page needs to speak to someone and a specific topic, not to everything you do.
Christina Kokologiannakis: I love that. Like I never really thought about that and I've been trying to do, so instead of the phrases I've been trying to do, keywords trying to put different stuff in and it's just hard to really like think about it.
Where can people go to search the keyword phrases or should it just be as simple as sticking it into like saying, so like for me it'd be like women building empire. So it's like, okay, women who are [00:52:00] struggling to, to get clients. Like that could be a phrase, like there's different things, but do you just stick it into Google and search it or is there a place that we can go to that helps us learn what phrases people are actually searching for?
Carrie Saunders: You can go into Google and search it. There's actually a little, actually, let me, let me answer that here in just a second. Lemme look that up real quick so I can answer that better.
Christina Kokologiannakis: No, that's fine. And then this is, this is like the real life, right? Like, it's like there's so many different options, but SEOI know everybody struggles with this is something that's really hard for a lot of people to do,
Carrie Saunders: right?
Okay. So if you search Google, 'cause I changed this, so I wanted to double check. Yeah. I was speaking correctly. If you search women Building Empires in Google, there's this little thing that says tools over to the right under the search. Okay? And it tells you there's about 8.4 million results on that phrase.
So now you know how many people or how many websites are servicing that phrase?
Christina Kokologiannakis: That's weird. And so is 8.4 million. [00:53:00] I'm assuming that's low.
Carrie Saunders: It is actually kind of low. Yes. So that's what I was getting ready to say Next is you need to then add some more, you know, do more phrases, keep doing your research, and then find the relatively low one.
So even though it's 8.4 million, you know, some of these other results may be 10 million or 20 million or 50 million, you know, so kind of look at what's kind of low but still impactful. That way you have less competition and you're more likely to rank better. That's the great, a great free way to do it.
You can also do things like Uber suggest that's another great tool for it. That does have a paid model behind it. I think they have a free trial too. You can go to YouTube. YouTube is a search engine. Yeah, go search on YouTube. And relative to that too, you can do this on both Google and YouTube and even Pinterest.
'cause Pinterest is also a search engine. Yes it is. Whenever you search, scroll all the way to the bottom.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Okay.
Carrie Saunders: They're gonna have people also search for. Ah, sometimes [00:54:00] that gets you down the right rabbit hole. I wanna say rabbit hole in a good way here. Yes. Of what are people actually searching for that are related to this?
You know, maybe there's something you didn't think of that they're searching for that would be even more impactful and more powerful. Because, you know, women building empires. You know, maybe I wanna say, you know, how do I build a seven figure business? A woman owned seven figure business? Maybe that's a different way to say it, right?
So Exactly. Using these searches can help you as well. And when you're typing in Google and YouTube, there's always that little dropdown that comes up as you're typing. So those are some suggested phrases too. Utilize those and see if any of those make sense for what you're going to talk about.
Christina Kokologiannakis: I love that and what I've been doing, because of course people aren't searching like, I wanna build an empire.
That's my thing and how I am saying it. But at the end of the day, they're like saying, how do I build a seven figure business? How do I become more successful? How do I like, there's a lot of other things and what I've been doing is I [00:55:00] have a, a Google sheet, and I'm putting the phrases in, and then I actually, I didn't know about the like, right look below to see how many people are like searching for it.
But I'll put that in and then I, when I search for it, I'm like, oh, do I get a lot of cool results or am I getting like, weird results? Right? And so I have been having a hard time finding this myself, but I keep that Google sheet so then I can see what's kind of working and I'm trying to incorporate them into the verbiage that I'm using into my sales copy so that it does rank.
But it's funny because it's like I want my pages to rank, but at the same time, if I'm bringing the right people in through the right stuff, like through my podcast, through my YouTube, through people talking, through me doing events, like then they're already coming. They already kind of know. So I don't need to rank as much.
So I've been trying to be like. How much SEO So this is a good question. It's like, how much SEO ranking do I really need to make my page successful to make everything be more successful? Does it make sense?
Carrie Saunders: Mm-hmm. [00:56:00] Yeah, I think so. And what you, what you really need is have at minimum, probably one page that ranks really well for what you core offer.
And that's really kind of the goal. Once you have a page that ranks really well, it's kind of like a bit of a snowball effect, you're gonna get the attention of Google and Bing. They're gonna know, oh, people are clicking on this link. They keep track of when people click on the link, they also keep track of how far down they scroll on the page.
That's another search engine optimization. Really tidbit. Yeah, they do, they keep track of how far they, you know, whether they scroll on the page, how long they stay on the page, do they click on more of your pages? So the more that people do this, so the more interesting your website is to that whomever you've actually brought in, the higher your website's gonna.
Show up in search engine results and it kind of becomes a bit of a snowball effect. Yeah. So we wanna have one really good page that really ranks, ranks well first, and then you can build from that. It's all about trust too, with the search [00:57:00] engines. Yes. They want to see a website that is trustworthy, that customers are interested in, that they're browsing, that they're staying on.
You know, one thing that can really harm you is if somebody lands on your page and leaves in a fractions of a second and doesn't go anywhere else. Okay. Because that indicates to them they brought either the wrong traffic to you, or you have a spammy website or you know, you're uninteresting or something like that.
So they're gonna push you down in rankings. So having solid the pages you do have, having them pretty solid, but having that one page that's really good then helps the other pages start ranking even better.
Christina Kokologiannakis: I love that. Okay. That's a, a huge tip right there. That's so big because to me, you know, it's like I have multiple landing pages.
Uh, I'm working on my webs main website page because I keep changing. Everyone's like, you keep changing everything. And I'm like, I'm always refining. So I haven't put the money into making a homepage yet because people come to my landing pages anyways. But do you think that your do you think it should be like [00:58:00] a landing page that is the most trusted one?
Or do you think it should be your homepage that is like the best one for the SEO and everything and just have it as a homepage because your landing pages will be different? Or what do you suggest on that?
Carrie Saunders: What I find is most of our customers, it is their homepage that ranks the best. Okay. Especially if it's, they focus it on the one main thing that they do.
I mean, obviously there's other things you probably do in your business and that might be in your menu, right. Your other services or something. But usually when I'm doing a search engine optimization, type of, uh, audits. I find that the homepage is one of the ones that ranks the highest. Okay. It doesn't have to be, but it is definitely very important.
And it's the first page that Google will index or bing, because that's the start. So if you think about how a, a. Crawler, they're called crawlers. Whenever they're going through your website, they're called crawlers. I don't know why they're called crawlers, but that's so creepy. I know. It's a little creepy, right?
So they start on the homepage and then they're like, okay, what links [00:59:00] can I click on next? Basically? So they're clicking through your webpage in virtually clicking through the webpage and following anything that you have there, your menus, things like that. So the homepage is the first entry point for search engines when they're trying to determine what your website is about.
So the homepage is definitely important. I do think, you know, an additional page that's very focused is also a good idea when you have the capacity for that. But definitely focus on your homepage first. It's the first impression to customers and to Google, unless they're landing obviously on a landing page for a specific reason.
But you know, that's like the main, that's the main stranger type of entry point.
Christina Kokologiannakis: Okay, so I'm messing that up big time. So I'm being very clear and honest because my homepage is old. It talks. So I used to, when I originally started in this business I would just, I was just focusing on real estate agents because I've built a massive real estate business, which is my other business I run and then I realized, okay, I don't wanna just talk to real estate agents.
I love them, but I [01:00:00] want to expand more. And I love talking business. I've been an entrepreneur for 20 plus years, like I wanna do more. But that homepage still says real estate agents. And I know a lot of those links don't work. And I know a lot of that. It's not a great one. 'cause it was, when I first started, I did the best I could.
So I think that needs to be priority number one for me, where I am like, let's revamp that faster. 'cause I was waiting, 'cause I said I wanna get all my messaging tied in so I don't have to keep changing it. But I think for all the listeners it's like, let's just focus on. Getting a homepage. That's one about one topic, right?
You said one topic?
Carrie Saunders: Mm-hmm.
Christina Kokologiannakis: One thing that just really talks through and then has really solid SEO has the phrases in it so that it's indexed and then the crawlers will see based on the menu on the top and some other links that it all ties together, and then that would position someone to look more credible, not just to Google and Bing, but also to people who come and find them.
Is that right?
Carrie Saunders: Right. Yeah. Okay. It's kinda like the example you gave where if you land on a [01:01:00] landing page, you get curious and go back to the homepage. Yes. And find them somehow. Well, yes. If somebody does that on your website, it sounds like they might be a little confused. Yes. So it's definitely, and
Christina Kokologiannakis: that's, yeah.
And that's why it's like one of those things where I keep saying, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. And then I'm like, I wanna change or I wanna look, but I think I'm gonna go back as my priority and really get that one honed in. Because having people find you and I, for me, it's like the rankings, right?
It's like I'm creating a podcast. I love creating podcasts, I love talking. But the end of the day podcast is a marketing tool, YouTube. I love YouTube. YouTube is a marketing tool and a monetization tool where you can make money. If you are not putting the effort into all of that, then it's like, why are we doing what we're doing?
Right? You're just spending time to do something that doesn't help you. So that's the same thing we're talking about with the homepage, which I love. So let's get into then the psychology of the user experience, because when I was looking at this, I was like, this is really fascinating because I get asked to be a consultant for many companies, [01:02:00] and when they bring me in and I'm consulting for them, the big thing is the user experience.
I am, I'm horrible at the tech. Like I said, I'm not great on the backend, but I'm really good about how somebody comes in. And how they use a product. Right. And I was helping a company who's creating their startup, creating a really cool app for mindfulness. And I was like, but this app is horrible.
I was like, the way they're gonna use the, the app, the way it's working, the way they're clicking in, like it, it's not flowing. It's not making somebody wanna stay and use it. And I was giving 'em a lot of tips on how to fix it. Talk to me about your psychology of the user experience and why this is so important.
Carrie Saunders: Well, you can come back to thinking about, you know, when you go shop in a brick and mortar store. Yeah. If you go in there and things are a mess and you know, the shelves aren't neat, you don't know where you're going, there's no markers as to how to find the cereal aisle, or you know, the fresh fruits or whatever you're looking for, you're gonna probably turn around and leave.
So if we don't have a really good customer experience, if there [01:03:00] isn't a direction in a customer journey, which is one of the things I teach in my web, in my course, the converting website, if there's not a good clear customer journey, then. Just going to leave because they're gonna be confused. So we wanna make sure like the homepage leads them to the next step that you want them to do, which then leads them to the next step.
And maybe that next step is getting them on your email list, and then from your email list you want to service them and also provide them more resources. So it's all kind of ties together. And that, you know, when you go into a brick and mortar store, the ones you really love are the ones where you're greeted and you're acknowledged when you come in and people are around to help you if you get lost.
And there's always these little supporting elements that you might see in a brick and mortar store. Versus the cheaper brick and mortar stores. You just kind of walk in and go get what you need and leave, like, you know, you don't wanna hang around there, but if you have a good customer experience on your website or in your app, you're, they're gonna wanna stay.
They're gonna feel comfortable. [01:04:00]
Christina Kokologiannakis: Right. And I always associate it to like a Nordstrom's and a Macy's and, and I get it, like people have different price points. Okay. I am okay with that. But just, if you've never been to a Nordstrom's, you need to go to a Nordstrom's. It's like walking into a Macy's. I hate shopping at Macy's.
I do not like it. I, I like my mom's like, oh, Macy's is great. Go. And I'm like, I hate Macy's. And when I go into Macy's, it's a pile of clothes everywhere. Like, there's so much stuff everywhere. And then if I need help, I can never find a person, like ever to ask if I go to Nordstrom's, there's people in each area.
So they have basically, they break out. Designers or the breakout, a section like younger teens or younger women, kind of like, you know, different kind of look versus maybe plus size or maybe more professional or whatever. But each section I go to, there's a person, and the first thing I do when I get there is I say, Hey, I love this brand.
I am looking for this kind of pan or this kind of shirt. And I'm this size. Where, where do you have something like that? And they take me right to it and they're like, oh, do you like these? And if I say yes or no, then they'll be like, [01:05:00] oh, I have this other one. It makes my shopping experience faster. I enjoy it.
There's someone there to help me through it. Like instead of me just going piece by piece at Macy's where I'm like, oh, where would I find this? And I'm wandering. That's what I always tell people. Associate it like, you want your business like Nordstrom's. You want someone to know exactly where to go, what they're supposed to do, how to do it.
Right.
Carrie Saunders: Exactly. Yes. That's a great example of it. I was actually thinking of Walmart is the other example. I just wanna get in and out, right? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you've gotta make it so that. It flows and it feels comfortable. So, you know, do a test with, with, with like your kid or like a business friend, you know, Hey, I want you to find this on my website.
Yes. And then have them go to your homepage, see if they can find what it is you're talking about. See if it's clear on how to get there. Or just have them go to your website and say, Hey, where, where do you wanna go next? What, what draws you in? Where, where, where are you, you know, in intuitively going to go next.
And then you can decide, and then you can [01:06:00] figure out, oh, am I leading them the right direction or does it, did I just put them in a black hole? Yes. You know, so, you know how use people it, one, it's more fun because then you're, you know, actually communicating with somebody, which is important in our world today.
And two, you're gonna get more information that way too.
Christina Kokologiannakis: And I think people are afraid sometimes to do that. It's like, go use the people like in the house of Cortes, that that's what that's all about is you have women who are doing the same thing in the idea of building your empire. Right. So we're gonna have mentors, we're gonna have other people that you get access to once you're inside the house.
But the whole point is have somebody go through the member directory and say, Hey, you do something like this. You're not really in my area, which is great. I don't want you to know what I do. Can you go through my website? Can you give it a fresh read? Can you look at these things? Because having someone else to go through it, like you said, is so important.
It gives you this clarity that you don't even know that you need until you get it. And then you're just like, when someone's like, I didn't really understand it. Like, it's like you tell people, be honest. It doesn't hurt my feelings. And [01:07:00] when someone's like, I, I really didn't understand it. I don't, I don't, I really don't know what to do or where to go, and I don't know what you're selling.
That should be the biggest light bulb moment ever where you're like. Crap. Like it is not good. Like if, if somebody who's not even in my world can't understand it, how does someone in my world understand it? Right? Like, even if someone hears me talk all the time and they go somewhere and they're reading something and they're just like, well, Christina says these things, but I'm reading this, but I don't really understand what she's talking about.
Or it's too wordy, or it's too this. And then they try to click around. And I love the analogy you said, like the, the black hole, right? Because they'll fall into a black hole and they're just like, I don't know what, what they're talking about or where they're going. And then you lose what we keep talking about trust, right?
Mm-hmm. It's like they, you're not building trust. You're not giving, maybe you have too many features or we're not doing benefits, or whatever it is, and then we're in this black hole, they're gonna leave and then they don't have a good feeling about you. They don't come back to you. Like there's a lot of people who are really big creators, and I've gotten in those black holes where I'm like, I don't [01:08:00] understand what they're selling.
Like, why, why are they asking for this huge price for this course? I don't really even get it. Like, why? I never go back? I, I stopped doing their emails. I stop everything else. I'm not interested anymore. So wouldn't you say too that this, if this isn't done well, that you can actually lose a lot of people from it as well?
Carrie Saunders: Yes. You can definitely erode trust from it as well. For sure. And it's something that we need to keep in mind. It's not something broken with us. We're just too in the weeds to step back and see it from somebody else's perspective many times. Which, you know, even for me being, you know, a conversion expert, I need somebody else to look at my website to help me make sure that I'm not too deep in the weeds and too tech talk and you know, I'm not, I need to be relatable.
Right. So don't feel like it's a shortcoming of yourself. It's just something we need as business owners, just for somebody else to look at it, to give us an outside perspective.
Christina Kokologiannakis: It's how you build empires, right? Like I know you talk about how you help your clients [01:09:00] grow rapidly doing these different things.
And this is something we have to understand. It's like we have so many elements of our business we have to look at, but in today's world, your website, your landing page, how you show up out there, that's kind of like we talked about the doors earlier. That's like where they start, right? And if they don't know how to even come into the door and they don't even know how to pick it, they're not gonna come.
You're not gonna get there. Right? And that's where we need to start. So this has been awesome. All right, Carrie, so we're gonna wrap up here. You have, I think a freebie that you wanna talk a little bit about. Tell us a little bit about that.
Carrie Saunders: I do, I have a, a great quiz that is called what kind of website owner are you?
So it's a bit of a personality quiz and helps you understand, you know, where you are on the scale of what we're talking about here. Do you, are you like a starter? Do you really need the extra help? Are you like on the verge of like, breakthrough and about to like, you know, jump to the next level? Or, or do you neglect it [01:10:00] like so it's absolutely no shame in the quiz.
It's fun. I tried to make it really fun. I love it and informative and helpful. But I do have that really fun quiz of what kind of website owner are you and where can they go to find that. So you can go to oh my
Christina Kokologiannakis: gosh, that's okay here. I, because we know, so Carrie and I were talking, and this is how we get real guys.
Like, I want you to know how real we are. She was like, I gotta fix some stuff on it. I gotta do some stuff. And that's okay. Like, that's the, we're real. So what we're gonna do is this. We're gonna put the link in the show notes below so that you guys can go and take this quiz. And I want you to take this quiz because you need to understand if you are ignoring your website, your landing page is the content.
Or if you're paying, and I believe in copywriters, so don't get me wrong, but if you're paying a lot of money, these copywriters to write the copy, but you don't have the clarity on what you're doing, you don't have the SEO and the backend, you don't have this other stuff working. Then what's the point, right?
If we're not building it or we're not setting it up, right? We're spending a lot of money on something. So check out Carrie's freebie. [01:11:00] Make sure you're taking this quiz. Are you neglecting your website? Are you at a ready for a breakthrough? Like what do you need? That's a really cool starting point. So I want you to start there.
So check out the show notes for that. And then Carrie, tell me about how people can find you and interact with you if they have any questions or if they want to see if you're a right fit to work with them.
Carrie Saunders: Sure. So you can always go to Facebook and find me on Facebook at facebook.com/harley gal 14.
I created that well way before I use it for business. Uh, so that's me there. You can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm simply Carrie Saunders on LinkedIn. I was the first Carrie Saunders on LinkedIn. You can also go to our website BBCs e solutions.com, which is more geared towards coaches and, uh, course creators as well as our e-commerce.
So side is more is bcs engineering.com. But as you said, we'll have those links in the show notes.
Christina Kokologiannakis: That's awesome. Well, Carrie, thank you so much for joining me today and everybody make sure that you jump onto YouTube as well. We are gonna go [01:12:00] onto YouTube and go a little bit more tactical, talk about a little bit more detail.
We didn't get to talk about CRMs yet. So on YouTube we are gonna be talking about CRMs, how to pick 'em, what to do, look at, because I am looking for a new crm and I wanna ask a whole bunch of cool questions. So make sure you jump into YouTube, check out our interview on YouTube as well. But thank you everyone for joining me today.
Thank you Carrie for coming on. It was such a fun conversation. I took a page full of notes, guys, there is so much cool stuff here. I hope you all enjoyed it. Thank you, Carrie, for joining me.
Carrie Saunders: Thanks for having me.
