218 – Create Your Own Brand Portfolio Today with Lindsey Johnson of Verity & Co

Hi there.

You're listening to gift biz unwrapped episode 218 if you have

a Facebook page,

that is awesome.

If you have an Etsy shop,

that's amazing,

but if you have your own website,

you actually own that piece of land on the internet.

At Tintin,

gifters, bakers,

crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is give to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue And I'm thrilled that you're joining me here today.

It's finally summer here in Chicago and I spent the past

weekend planting flowers on my patio and tomatoes and my vegetable

garden. There's just something special about the sunshine,

fresh air and new plants that does my soul so much

good. You know,

starting from a new slate,

whether it's a fresh dirt bed or relating it to business.

A blank computer screen always presents so much hope and opportunity

and this is what I have in store for you with

the show today opportunity.

We're going to talk about your company brand and website development.

A lot of you have been mentioning in the gift biz

breeze Facebook group that this is your current project.

Either you're building your website now or you're doing some updating

and refreshing of your current online presence.

Definitely grab your pen and paper.

For this one,

you're probably going to listen to it more than once.

I'm super excited about what you'll have when we're done.

A complete brand portfolio specific to your business and a checklist

of the important elements for your website,

like a fresh flower bud opening to all its glory.

This is what can happen to your business when implementing what

Lindsay has to share with us today,

so no more delay.

Let's get straight into the show Today.

It is my Pleasure to introduce you to Lindsey Johnson who

is the owner of Verity and co helping small business owners

grow and scale their brand through cohesive design and effective messaging.

She's passionate about branding,

copy and web design coming together to represent a business that

will make an impact and leave a legacy.

Creating a marketing message that connects with your audience and supporting

it with a beautiful design is how her two passions of

conversational writing and minimal design collide to serve product and service

entrepreneurs in a unique way.

In addition to Verity and co,

Lindsay is a wife and mother.

She homeschools her three children and to hang out on the

beach of Lake superior near their home in rural Wisconsin.

Welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.

Lindsey. Hi Sue.

Thanks so much for having me on the show.

I am really thrilled that you're here and we are going

to go through a topic that I know a lot of

our listeners are going to be really interested in.

But before I'm a traditional kind of a gal,

so we have to start this show the same way every

time. And that is by having you share a little bit

of yourself through description of a motivational candle.

So if you were to describe a candle that resonates with

who you are as a person,

Lindsey, what color would your candle be and what would be

a quote on that candle?

This was a little bit hard to pick the color because

I love color,

but I had to come back to just a white candle.

I think that represents me the best.

If it wasn't white,

it'd probably be like a light blue,

but we're going to go with white.

And the quote that I would have on my candle is

one that actually inspired me in the very beginning when I

started my business.

And it's kind of an nontraditional quote by Leonardo DaVinci and

it says it had long since come to my attention that

people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to

them. They went out and happened to things,

so that was a big motivation for me to actually jump

in and start my business.

Love it.

And this quote is fabulous.

I've never heard it before,

but I think that's now the mentality today of all of

us of entrepreneurs.

Don't you think?

You know,

it used to be that we would sit back waiting for

someone to say,

you're good enough.

Yes. Or someone would say,

okay, you can have a radio show or your design work

is good enough.

We'll put it in your shop,

but now we get to take the reins.

Yes. I think so many of us used to wait to

be approached to be able to do something or to be

gifted permission to do something when in reality we just have

to sometimes dive in and try and see what happens.

And Leonardo knew that way back then.

I know,

I know.

It's a quote that always blows my mind because it's from

so long ago and yet so applicable to us today.

Right. And we're actually starting to actually do it now.

More of us anyway.

Finally. Yes.

So tell us a little bit of your journey as to

where you've gotten to today.

of a VA before I knew what a virtual assistant was

in the online space and my boss taught me marketing aspects.

He taught me WordPress and web design and I was able

to kind of weave my writing skills and my love of

English into working with his clients.

And when that company went a different direction,

I chose then to kind of go out on my own

and seek out clients for primarily web design.

And throughout the years that morphed into what it is today,

which is a full service company that web design and branding

design and also the writing.

So your marketing message,

which makes a business cohesive and polished because the marketing message

that you're speaking to your audience is also in line with

how it's presented on a website.

So all the things kind of flow together to present yourself

in a way that makes it easy for your audience to

say yes to what you're doing.

Yeah, because you're representing yourself.

Then the same way through everything that you're doing,

your branding,

the words that you're using,

the design,

it all has the same feel.

They all work together for the one main goal instead of

feeling kind of Nellie Willie.

Right. So who are your clients today?

What type of businesses?

They're primarily women owned,

small businesses.

Some are solopreneurs,

some have a small but growing team.

I've worked with both product based businesses and service based businesses.

I haven't niched to one or the other yet,

but if they feel like a good fit for both of

us, then we'll work together.

Love it.

Well, I have to say right off the bat as well.

You and I met a little while back so I got

a feel for your style and you gave me some input

which was really valuable on one of my websites,

so that was awesome.

But in preparation for this call,

I went over and I was really looking at your site

and Oh my gosh,

I could sit there forever because it's so pretty.

Oh, thank you.

And the colors are so calm and peaceful.

I actually thought your candle color was going to be like

a Sage green or something.

That would be an unbrand color for sure.

Yeah. But you definitely demonstrate the type of class and professionalism

that I'm sure then you present to your clients.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, I love it.

So give his listeners,

you definitely ought to look at her site and we'll talk

about that near the end of the show and in the

show notes and all of that.

But I just wanted to stay say that up front,

but, so I always like to think of the people who

are listening to the podcast.

Lindsey and get into the types of information that is going

to be most important for them based on where they are

right now.

So I'd like to start off with talking just a short

time about branding overall,

what that means and why it's important.

Branding can be a really confusing and misunderstood concept for small

businesses, especially if they're not in a marketing field or a

design field.

So for makers and people who really get their hands dirty

in their heart involved in what they're doing and crafting these

things, it can be really difficult to create a brand like

what is a brand and what should my brand be.

One of the easiest ways to think about your brand is

to think about how do you want people to think about

your business.

So think about your audience,

who you're serving,

who you are crafting for,

who you are making your products for.

How do you want them to perceive you?

We can kind of break this down even more,

like what kind of colors do they love or what kind

of colors would they feel mesh your products and your offers

and how you present yourself online and really come at it

from an audience focused view to create a brand.

Does that make sense?

Should we dig deeper?

So tell me if I'm on track here.

So if you are a company,

I'm totally making this up just by way of example,

and you make very delicate necklaces.

So you're appealing to a woman kind of feminine.

So not big bulky,

chunky necklaces,

but more of the delicate style.

Your brand colors then could be many different choices of course,

but would be more like pinks and Aqua,

maybe a little gray versus bright red,

black and dark Brown or something.

Yes, exactly.

And maybe the font or the topography you use is either

a really pretty like a hand drawn or a calligraphy script

or it's really thin letters.

Nothing chunky or heavy because then it reflects the products that

you're making and it just makes sense to your audience that

your logo or your website or your Etsy shop would reflect

the same kind of design that you're doing in your products.

Got it.

Yeah. So it all starts with your customer.

So who it is also by age,

I'm thinking.

Yeah, so your style,

if you attracted and served more senior people versus children,

let's say they'd be dramatically different or just even adults versus

children. So it all starts with your audience then It does.

And it also includes a lot of what you like to

as a person.

Because if you're a maker,

you're deeply invested in your business as a personal investment or

a personal brand.

So it's kind of a mix of what you like and

what you feel represents your business and then what your audience

can relate to as well.

Okay. So colors,

the font styles,

and I have to say,

once I narrowed in on the several font,

I have three primary fonts that I use.

It just becomes so much easier because when you're doing graphics

or you know,

now I have someone who does a lot of my Facebook

ads and all that.

They know what fonts to use,

you know,

we don't have to go through that anymore.

That's all set And it's consistent.

Consistency is so huge when it comes to your brand.

Okay, perfect.

All right,

and anything else in terms of the brand that we should

be talking about specifically for this area?

You know when we're talking websites and copy and all of

that, because of course brand goes into how you interact with

your customers,

client experiences,

all of that.

We don't have to get into all of that here.

We're just talking right now the scope,

what we're covering here.

Is there anything else we should add in here?

I would probably just highlight that idea of consistency.

So once you decide,

once you have done your research and you figure out what

would be the best,

either through trial and error or whatever seems to work for

you, choose those things and then stick with them because your

audience will then recognize your brand through what you post and

how you create your graphics and what you say on social

media. So the brand recognition will play a big role in

helping you grow once you create that foundation.

Okay, so let's take this a step further so that it's

very actionable for our listeners.

So let's pretend like we were to create from scratch a

brand story.

Okay. And that brand story is going to be like the

template that you use.

How many colors should there be?

This is kind of up to personal opinion,

but I would recommend about five colors,

but three of them are your primary colors.

Two to three of them are your primary colors.

You can have supporting shades of those colors that you might

use in graphics,

but pick two to three complimentary colors for your brand.

Okay. All right,

that sounds good.

And by saying that we don't mean Kelly Green,

we mean in a hex number color.

Right. Talk a little bit about where people could go and

look at all their colors as they're making a choice.

Cause we're gonna let people then go off after this and

actually their brand package.

So where would someone go to look at all the hex

colors? One of my favorite sites is called design seeds.

Okay. It's design and then a dash seeds.

And this website has a lot of color swatches that are

based off of images.

So they take one picture and then they pull all of

the colors from that image and add the hex code.

So they've got about five colors on each image and you

can see them right off the bat that they go together,

they're complimentary,

they're beautiful.

And you can kind of sense of the vibe of the

picture and what it would look like in your brand.

Oh, I love that.

It's really fun.

That's perfect because that's a professional site that then has already

figured it out for you.

You just go in,

look at which colors again,

you got to start with who your customer is,

right? What's going to align with your product and your customer,

but then what else you like naturally are attracted to.

And then there you go.

You've got your five colors.

Yes. So it's a very good site that they're curating these

resources and it's just beautiful.

It's visually beautiful to just scroll through all of the pictures

that they've curated.

Well, I may just have to look at that when I'm

eating lunch or something just for fun,

But I'm not tempted to change my brand.

Colors are done.

No, don't change.

Don't change through those are done.

So give business owners,

that's the first thing is you can go right there.

How exciting.

Look at all these colors and if you pick new brand

colors and you're part of my Facebook group,

gift biz breeze,

come show us what you've chosen.

That would be really fun to share with everybody who's over

there. Oh and if you're not a member of gift biz

breeze, just jump in,

search for it,

request to join and then you'll be part of our group.

I need to do that.

Yeah, come hang out.

We have a great group going on there.

Awesome. So that's that.

Okay, so now let's talk about the fonts.

Okay. Two or three fonts.

Is that too little?

Too many?

What do you think there I that's good.

Typically you want two to three fonts,

one for your primary,

either logo or all your main headlines in your graphics.

Those should be really consistent.

You can have a supporting font for the body text and

then you could have also like a personality font.

So one that is either kind of fun and bold or

it's beautiful and handwritten,

but it's one that you use more sparingly.

One reason is typically these are harder to read,

so you want your primary fonts to be really legible.

You want them to be really easy to read,

but you can also add in a third font that's more

fun or more personality driven to kind of help your brand

come alive.

Got it.

And I'm very happy to say that all three of my

fonts fit all three of those categories and my third font,

the one that's a little harder to read is the one

I use for my programs.

Yeah. And so they're used in just very specific areas.

Yes. They can highlight certain areas of content really well to

bring attention to things,

but it's not overboard.

Right, absolutely.

And your point about legibility is really important too,

because at one point I tried using that font to write

copy and it just was a disaster in every way.

So really good point there.

Yeah. Okay.

Give biz listeners,

this is how you build your brand,

your visual portion of the brand.

I guess I could say Yes,

We're not talking images right now at all,

so just that part.

So colors,

fonts, and font.

Oh my gosh.

You could just go to any of the font sites and

look at all different types of fonts,

right? Yeah.

Google fonts is like really easy and they have a lot

to choose from.

Creative market is also another site that has premium fonts,

so you have to pay for these to use them so

you could purchase and download,

But there's really fun ones to look through there too.

And I would say the one that I used for my

training course I did buy.

Yeah, and you can get it at no charge and download

it to your computer.

But I thought,

and this is now boy,

I don't know,

a few years ago,

but I felt like if I'm going to make money off

of a program that's including that specialty find,

I just wanted to cover myself.

I don't know if that's necessary or not.

That's really smart.

It's why wise,

very wise,

I think it was,

it might've been like $150,

something like that.

I don't know.

Okay. But I just felt like way better that way.

Then heaven forbid I came back and was challenged and had

to redo like wherever that font was was not worth it

to me.

Yeah, and actually you can see the font in the podcast

logo. This is the font that I'm talking about.

So gift biz listeners if you're on your phone or computer

or whatever and you can jump over and see the logo.

That's the font I'm talking about.

Oh cool.

The other thing about fonts is if you do end up

buying one,

you're far less likely to run across other shops that have

the same fonts as you because if you just pull from

Canva or some of these other like canvas and amazing tool,

but if you get familiar with fonts,

you'll see the common canvas script everywhere.

It's true everywhere.

So if you do find one and you want to invest,

I mean some funds are only $20 so they can be

really not cost prohibitive to buy a less common font and

then you're not seeing it everywhere.

It's a really good point.

Yeah, and you can still,

when you get a,

I know they're not called custom,

I don't know what else you would call it though,

but so cause custom would be that someone is actually making

a font for you.

Yes. It's more like a premium font so you have to

pay for it,

But you can also load those fonts into Canva.

So you already use Canva.

That's fine.

If you own that font,

you can bring it in.

I don't know how it's done.

My graphic artists did it for me,

but I know it can be done because they're all sitting

there. Yes it can.

Yeah. Okay,

so give biz listeners,

go build your brand portfolio if you will,

of the colors and the fonts if you don't already have

something going.

Yes. Okay.

So branding,

let's stop there because I also really want to talk with

you Lindsey,

cause you are such an expert on developing websites and I

don't know if it's because it's spring and it's in the

air or what,

but we have a lot of talking in our community right

now about people building their websites.

Yeah, let's talk about it.

Let's talk about it and we'll get into this website discussion

right after a word from our sponsor.

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First, let's go with,

I'm trying to decide how we should start this here.

Why should you have a website?

Because if you're a product based person and you're doing craft

shows or that type of thing,

why do you need a website?

So there are several very good reasons to have a website.

A website gives you more authority to your brand.

People expect to be able to either Google you or find

your address and take a look at what you are doing

online. It's just one of the things of the day right

now. People expect to be able to jump on some sort

of online presence for your business.

Typically a website and the other probably my favorites or the

most important for websites is that you own that space.

So if you have a Facebook page,

that is awesome.

If you have an Etsy shop,

that's amazing,

but if you have your own website,

you actually own that piece of land on the internet.

You're not dependent on Facebook changing the algorithm again or what

have you.

You never know what the social media platforms are going to

do. And the same with Etsy,

even though it is your shop,

it's still not your platform.

So by having your own website on your own platform,

Squarespace WordPress,

there are several,

I know there are several specific for makers too,

like big cartel and a lot,

Right? So you are speaking my language because I talk about

this a lot too and I don't know,

let's talk about this just for a second.

Even though we don't recommend this,

I do know that a lot of people,

and let's face it,

when you're a maker business and you're starting your business,

you also need to suspend dollars and allocate money for materials.

So investment is a little more challenging for a maker business.

What if someone understanding that they need a website?

Absolutely understanding that.

But for now,

just to get something online,

to start building a community,

understanding all of the risks started with Facebook.

So we're going very basic and I want to say this

isn't what we would recommend,

but we get reality and you always want a Facebook page

so it's good to build it and have it there anyway.

But is there anything visual you would suggest for Facebook,

like the imagery and like what do you say there?

Again, understanding that this is not your website,

this is one of your social media platform presences.

This is not a website.

Yeah. If this is your only online presence for now,

I just want to say that's awesome.

Like good job for starting somewhere.

You don't always need to start with a website,

especially if it's cost prohibitive for you or you're still validating

your product idea or you are still gathering the audience to

support your business and buy these products from you.

By starting with Facebook,

you will build that rapport.

You will build an audience of followers and people who are

supporting you and then it makes it really logical to move

to a website as your next step.

But if Facebook is your platform right now,

I would suggest highlighting your products in the photos that you

share on your page and on your like the cover photo

of Facebook.

So the big main image,

highlight what you're selling and how it helps the people who

will buy it.

Okay. And what about on the side where you talk about

like about your business and all of that.

Should you be focusing there on your product or who you

are as the artist?

Ooh, that's a good question.

So when it comes down to copy,

it's always a mix.

It's a mix of who you are,

but it's also a focus on how your product can help

your audience.

So it's always audience focused.

No matter if it's a visuals or if it's your message,

you always want to speak to how you can help and

how they can see either a transformation or how your product

will help make their life better or how it will solve

this problem for them.

So even though you're talking about yourself,

to make that human to human connection with your audience,

you have to always bring them back into the circle,

like loop back to how your product will help them.

And I would imagine that would be copy for your posts

too. Yep.

And that helps you get away from having a site that

just looks totally salesy.

Here's my,

here's my price.

Yes. Okay,

perfect. So I just wanted to make that point again because

I know that a lot of our audience,

this is where they start because that isn't a big barrier

to getting a Facebook page up.

Right. Okay.

So now let's get into the good stuff,

which is website,

website development,

and the platform that then you own.

We've talked about why already.

So it establishes authority for you.

You are able to control everything about the website,

but we're,

if we're just starting,

and you had mentioned already a number of different types of

platforms, you know there are the Etsy shops,

that type of thing.

Let's just go with,

if you're custom designing,

understanding that a lot of our audience might not be able

to do that,

but I think that's the best way we can talk about

best practices and then you can integrate as much as you

can into whatever the platform is that you're using.

Yes. Like the world is our oyster.

What should it look like?

What's the optimal,

you've got a blank screen and you're going to build a

website. Where do you get started?

But we have our color brand story,

right? Cause we already just made that.

Yes we do.

So we do have that now.

What? All right,

I'm going to describe two different paths that we could take.

One path is WordPress and what path is Shopify?

So Shopify is very popular for product based businesses of every

kind, every shape,

every whatever it looks like makers.

And then just other manufactured products too.

So Shopify is primarily an eCommerce site for selling products.

WordPress on the other hand is good for both.

So it can be a service based business that also integrates

an eCommerce shop or it can just be an informational website

that integrates an eCommerce shop.

Actually, I have a website on both of these platforms,

so it's perfect that we're talking about that,

so give biz listeners if you have ever looked at the

ribbon print company website,

that is a Shopify site and then gift biz unwrapped where

the podcast is.

Where I always send you is a WordPress site.

I think the important thing to mention about these sites to

Lindsay is that if someone makes a sale or connects with

you, you have all their contact information.

That's what we talk about when you say you own a

site. Yeah,

because there are like an Amazon site.

Etsy is still like this.

I'm pretty sure when you make a sale,

you don't get all that information so that you can continue

to communicate with them unless you're doing it through their site.

That's dangerous,

right? I believe Etsy still does not let you email your

customers or collect their email addresses in a different kind of

management system.

So if you have a thousand people who've purchased from you

and you have the emails in your Etsy,

I don't believe you're allowed to take those emails and like

send them a newsletter.

I could be wrong,

but I don't think,

I know,

weren't able to,

And I just didn't know if anything had changed.

Not that I'm aware of now.

Yeah, I don't think so.

So a lot of people,

best practices who do have an Etsy site might've gone on

there for search capabilities.

You know,

now there's Amazon handmade and all of that also still have

another platform.

So it's this other platform,

which is what we're going to talk about because that's the

optimal solution.

Okay, so back to WordPress and Shopify.

So Shopify is great for product specific.

Really, WordPress you're saying is both product and service.

Yep. It's more dual purpose where press,

okay, Shopify is going to be the easier one for you

to get set up on.

WordPress has a learning curve for the tech.

That makes it a little more challenging,

but when it comes to weighing Shopify and WordPress,

you still have more functionality and potential in a WordPress site,

so there's more potential,

but it's harder to get started.

Yeah. Can you just make a point about wordpress.com

versus wordpress.org

yes. I was wondering if we should bring that up.

Yeah, we should,

so wordpress.com

is not self hosted,

so if you start a website and you purchase a domain,

so your website name and you get it set up,

you're not going to be able to make a shop on

wordpress.com you need the wordpress.org

self hosted WordPress to do a shop,

and if we lose you with that,

don't worry about that for now.

Just when you're thinking about this,

if you're thinking WordPress,

it needs to be wordpress.org

not wordpress.com

that's all you really need to know right now because you

can't add shopping cart and all of that to the.com

right. Okay.

Yes. Okay.

Carry on.

I should say that all of you listeners can feel free

to reach out for more clarification on that because it is

a beast and it confuses so many people.

Why they are the same name?

I don't know.

But they are,

I think they're only used to be wordpress.com

when blogs started cause that's what everyone used to start blogging.

Yeah. And then when a website evolved into e-commerce,

there was still wordpress.com

that's my guess anyway.

Total guests total shot in the dark.

Yes. So if you're going to do a shop,

wordpress.org is your ticket.

Okay. So some type of a platform where for sure you

are able to capture your purchasers.

Contact information is super important.

So once you pick your platform,

where do you want to take it from here,

Lindsey, when you pick your platform,

you'll want to pick a theme to go along with your

shop. So a theme helps you.

It's basically a template for your website design and Shopify and

WordPress both have free and premium themes that you can then

purchase and customize to your branding so you can customize it

to the logo,

your, your fonts.

Again, Shopify is going to be more straightforward and easier to

get going right off the bat as far as a design

and a setup,

but they follow a similar idea.

WordPress is just a little more complicated.

Okay, and then so we have a theme.

You go to these websites and there's this beautiful flow to

the pages,

like how do I know what I should be putting on

the website I make?

What do I make?

I make candles.

Lindsey, are you surprised at that answer?

I'm so surprised.

So where do you get started on the content and what

am I going to put on this website and into this

theme? Yeah,

so let's just focus on content for a little bit.

Your content is going to be your pictures,

so your imagery,

it's going to be your words,

the text and the copy that you write to put on

your site.

It's going to include product listings.

It's probably going to include a little snippet about you as

the maker,

a picture and a mini bio.

Essentially, it's going to make it really easy for the customer

to understand that you want them to click on a product

and learn more about it and then hopefully add it to

cart and continue the checkout process.

And then you'll also want an easy way for people to

connect with you or to follow you on social media.

Okay. I'm writing all of these down and social media.

Okay, so here's the list that you just gave us in

terms, so I guess we could call this,

these are the elements that will need to be included.

Yeah, so think of like a home page for a shop.

These would be essential or good to have elements of content

for a homepage.

Okay, so you said imagery,

the words,

obviously product listings,

which could be sub pages,

right? It's not all necessarily on the homepage,

right? For product listings,

say maybe featured products or products you want people to notice

right away or could you put the products into like one

of those first images?

So I'll definitely have to know what you're making when they

land on the page.

They have to understand why they're there.

Yes. And I think that's probably obvious that because as makers

your product is everything,

right? So that's probably pretty obvious about you with a picture

of you I think is super important.

I heard somewhere that the about page is the most read

page of any website.

Yeah. And I almost feel like now even more so because

people want to know the story behind who they're buying from.

They really want to feel a connection to that person.

So how much of a story do you talk about how

you got involved in what you're making?

Do you do a resume?

I don't think so.

Maybe I wouldn't suggest a resume.

No. Going back to what we touched on briefly earlier,

even though your copy or your words,

they're all about you,

especially your about page because people are going to that page

clearly to learn more about the person behind the brand.

So even though it's all about you,

you want to think about how every piece of this story

that you share might connect with your audience and what they'll

be able to relate with or feel a connection to.

So whether that is how you are doing this,

as you raise a family or you are doing this as

you're working a nine to five,

some of these things are going to resonate with audience that

you are attracting.

So consider how your story relates to their story.

Got it.

That makes sense.

And it can include a lot of your background,

like how you got started.

It can still include a lot of logistical things,

but don't make it like don't make it the Lindsay show

because people won't read through the Lindsay show.

So I did this and I did that and I did

this, and then I got this award and then I,

but you could say something like,

I was so honored to get this award.

It shows that the quality of my work and what I'm

providing you is top notch.

And like,

yeah, so you bring it back that way.

So there's ways to say certain things,

but just not the focus on you.

Yes. Because if you have those pieces of social proof,

like awards or testimonials,

absolutely share them because people depend on social proof these days.

They don't want to just take your word for it.

They want to know that your clients and your customers are

exceedingly happy too.

So those are absolutely valid.

But just remember to always loop back to your audience and

what they might connect with.

Perfect. Okay.

And then definitely put your social media icon so people know

where to follow you there.

I agree.

Testimonials you just touched on.

Super important.

Yeah. Actually add that to the list because that is very

important for a homepage to have testimonials and social proof on

the homepage.

I think so.

Yeah. If you have space,

if it doesn't make it look crowded,

you can also have them on individual product pages too.

The testimonials and social proof.

Oh, that would be interesting.

Yeah. Okay.

Give biz listeners,

I just want to remind you of an episode we did

just a short time back and we talked about reviews and

how important they are and I will link in the show

notes. I don't recall specifically what episode number that was,

but it's a whole additional way of attracting sales that we

often forget about and Lindsay is so right on when she's

talking about the fact that reviews and testimonials will sell your

product better than you ever can.

So that third party proof is golden.

So yes,

I've added that to our list.

Another thing I want to talk about that you brought up,

we talked about the functionality and the elements on the website.

Talk about easy navigation and when I think about easy navigation,

that means being able to find what you're looking for easily

and also like page load times and all of that.

Yeah. Navigation's important.

The menu.

The top is typically going to be near your logo and

it's really important to have everything lined up in a way

that makes sense.

So you may only want to have up to five main

navigation tabs on that menu and then maybe have drop downs

for the kinds of products that you offer.

And here's the thing about either the WordPress platform or Shopify

is you can start out with just a few things and

grow it over time.

So you may only have one or two navigation dropdowns to

start with and then you just build on top of there.

Yeah, you Might only have one shop button to bring you

to one primary product,

and that's amazing.

Just highlight that and drive the fact home that you just

want everyone to take action on that one product.

Got it.

How do you feel about blog articles or anything like that

as part of the website?

I think that's another personal brand choice.

Blogs can be really good for SEO,

so it can boost how your site shows up on Google

for people searching key words related to your product.

So if you sell candles and you write blog posts about

how candles might be used in a home for decor,

you may rank because Google put more weight on your site

because of those keywords,

How to properly light a candle so that you get the

most burn time.

What are the best types of candles in terms of Wix

materials? The wicks,

like if you think,

and I don't even make candles,

I just love candles,

but I just,

I'm thinking about different ideas just to get our listeners thinking

of different types of topics that a blog article could be.

Cause that also presents you as an authority in your topic.

You're the artist of any type of a material or product.

Then by sharing how to use it,

the benefits of the product,

all of those things just increase your credibility and authority.

Yes, and it'll help educate your audience too.

And by having a more informed audience,

they'll be more likely to buy from you because you're giving

them value apart from just selling a product.

Okay. I'm thinking of other elements to a website.

How do you feel about if you're a brick and mortar,

you would want your location?

Yes. Okay.

What about phone numbers and contact forms?

Yes. No,

A contact form is important,

not necessarily on the homepage,

but at least in a separate contact page,

maybe an email address to reach you at.

Just a way for someone to reach out if they have

a question about say a custom order or something that they

purchased in the past,

to really make it easy for customers to communicate with you

will help that customer experience so they always just have a

good experience with your company.

You know,

that's a good point in springing up.

Something that happened to me way in the beginning when I

started this podcast.

Now people come to me and want to be on the

show or I'm reaching out to certain people I'm interested in,

et cetera,

but in the beginning I was apart from people that I

knew I wanted on the show because I already knew that

they were experts in their field.

There would be people like maybe there was an Etsy shop

that I really saw rocking it or I'm on Instagram,

you know,

it leads me somewhere and I wanted to have a further

conversation with that business to see if they had a story

that would work and be good for the show.

Right. And there were a couple of businesses that I was

interested in talking to and when I went to their website,

I had no way to contact them.

Oh no.

Yeah, I was shocked.

So dead end,

dead end.

So I'm like,

okay, I have no more time to waste.

You know,

I wasn't even thinking Instagram direct messages then,

but automatically what that said to me,

they're not professional enough for me to be highlighting them as

a person on the show.

There was automatically,

it was like,

okay, moving on.

That is a very good point.

Yeah. And I didn't even bring that up.

It just came to me while we were talking about contact

forms actually.

Yeah. Yeah.

And all of that just shows your level of professionalism too.

When you have all of these different elements available.

Do you want to make it as easy for the customer

to feel comfortable with you,

which has to do with what you're talking about in terms

of consistency,

right? Ease of being able to navigate the platform and then

having the things that are necessary.

So they see you as a professional.

Yes. And also a professional who cares about them.

Yeah. I'm just assuming this,

but if you went to those websites and they didn't have

any way to contact them,

you'd be like,

well they don't really care about me reaching out.

Right. That's the impression you get.

I don't think that it's intentional.

Right. But that's what happened.

So that's why it's good for us to go through these

things. So if you guys are thinking of putting together websites

and you're doing it right now,

cause I know a bunch of you are,

I'll go over this list one more time,

but consider all of these elements and make sure you've touched

on each and every one of them or you plan to,

to your point about just get something up.

Don't just stall either,

right? Yeah.

Okay. So here,

let me go through the list real quick and then we'll

move on.

So what we talked about was obviously the content is going

to be a mix of images and words.

This is in no particular order,

mind you,

product listings,

your about page with a picture.

Again with the emphasis of why that's important to whoever's reading

it. Easy navigation connections.

I think connections might've meant the contact form to be quite

honest. Okay.

Yep. So either a link to it or somewhere easy for

them to find a contact form,

contact forms if you have a brick and mortar or the

address of the location.

So people can come in of course,

and testimonials.

So those are just initial touch points of everything that you

should have on the site.

You also should make sure that it's easy to load.

So you have you ever been on a site where you

get on there and the little ball is rolling forever?

Like after two seconds you're out of there.

Yeah, that has a lot to do with your images.

So if you load full resolution Pictures onto your website,

that can slow it down.

If you can optimize them or make them smaller without degrading

quality, it will help with low time.

Perfect. Okay.

So if anyone's having a challenge,

that doesn't mean that you can't use those images,

you just adjust them to be smaller in size is all.

Yes. Okay,

perfect. And what do you think about video?

Video is a great way for your audience to connect with

you as a person.

Is this the fastest way for them to connect with you

as a person?

Some people are comfortable with video and some people aren't so

comfortable with video,

so that's kind of up to you.

But if you want to stretch yourself and get out of

your comfort zone,

there are many ways you could use video.

You could do a quick introduction of yourself,

you could do a quick behind the scenes of your space,

like where you actually make your products or a quick how

to video,

how to use whatever you're making.

This is also good for social media too.

So you could put it on your website and also use

it on social And you could also have pictures of you

actually making the product.

Yes. And that doesn't even need to show your face.

You know,

if you're anxious about that,

you can be talking behind the camera and just doing whatever

you're making.

Like a demonstration video.

So video if you can.

I think motion and interest is helpful and I know that

the longer you,

someone stays on your website,

the better you start ranking in Google and all of that.

So the longer you can keep people on it is best.

And that's by having your viewer have a good experience and

wanting to keep seeing more and knowing more.

Yes. Okay.

So again,

I'm sitting as somebody who doesn't have a website yet and

I'm thinking this is way overwhelming.

How would I ever do this?

Let's talk about options,

about how you can get it built.

So you,

one option is you just decide you're going to dive in

and figure it out yourself,

right? Yep.

What other options?

What if someone doesn't have time for that and they do

have a little bit of money,

who would you look for to help build a site?

Someone with experience in products is helpful and then someone with

experience in the platform of your choice is helpful,

so if you go with Shopify,

having someone familiar with Shopify will get it done faster and

more efficiently.

Same thing for WordPress.

A lot of designers and developers have probably and likely dabbled

in all of them,

so if your shop isn't really complicated and you just want

to get it up and running and sell a handful of

products, it's probably not going to be too difficult to find

someone to help you make that happen.

Okay. Would it make sense for you to look at a

few of the sites that they've made just to see if

you like their style and what their output is?

Absolutely. That's always so helpful to see what kind of work

they produce.

Okay. Do you think different designers Kind of sway to one

style or another or do you think a designer will do

like all different types of styles?

Depending on if they specialize in a certain design,

may or may not.

My own personal style is more like towards white space and

minimal, so it's not really busy for the eye and makes

a really friendly user experience and some people's style is like

heavy on the graphics and busier to be more like exciting

and graphically designed.

So depending on what your style is,

what your product is,

who your audience is,

it'll determine what kind of design your website should lean towards.

Right. Again,

going back to the customer.

Yep. You're consistent to Lindsay.

That's about that customer.

There you go.

How long does it take to get a site up?

I know it varies,

but just as a bracketed timeline for someone thinking,

Oh man,

I mean not a crazy complicated one.

Someone who already has some images.

So here's my guests as if you have your images.

If you have your branding and your logo,

you have all the content ready to go.

It won't take someone long who's familiar with like Shopify to

get a site up.

So it may take a couple of weeks for ping ponging

back and forth to make sure everything is up to standard

and you're satisfied with the results.

It could be a couple of months depending on the queue

of the designer that you want to work with.

But getting a site up can happen pretty quick.

Kind of all depends on what content you have ready and

what you need to still prepare.

Right. I'm going to ask you another unfair question.

So go for it.

Go for it.

Price ranges,

and I know this is all over the board.

It is all over the board.

I mean you could find someone to do it for a

couple hundred dollars.

Someone who's new,

who doesn't have as much experience or it could range up

into the thousands.

So it really does depend on who you find and then

also what your shopping needs.

So what functionality you need to sell your products.

That's a good point.

And that may be the first step even before you go

out looking is to even write down and think about,

okay, bare minimum,

what do you need?

Yeah, here are the pages you need.

You're going to have 12 products to start.

You want an about page,

you've got some testimonials because then you can much easier even

discuss with somebody what you're looking at.

Yes. And people may have a set package for like a

Shopify website development where they list out the max number of

pages they'll do for you for a certain price.

But in fact if you at least have that general idea

of how many product listings you need and how many pages

you want and how like the payment processors you can take.

So if you're going to take PayPal or if you're going

to take Stripe and all these things,

if you at least have an idea for yourself,

it's easier to go into a discovery call or to email

someone back and forth to see what they do to help

You without having to start from scratch.

Right. Well and we already did the brand package earlier in

the show,

so that's all done too.

There you go.

You didn't even know you were starting to develop a website

and you are just right in this show.

How's that?

That's awesome.

What would you say to somebody who's now thinking they don't

have a site or maybe they're using their Facebook page and

they're like,

okay, now I get it.

I can still have my page but it's time.

It's time for me to develop a website.

What are your words of advice to that person?

I would recommend Honestly doing a Google search and at least

familiarizing yourself with the different platforms and what they can do

for you,

the price points of the packages per month.

Cause those all vary depending on what you need.

So like Shopify has several tiers of pricing.

Depending on what your shop needs.

WordPress will always be a monthly fee for your hosting,

but then the additional plugins to actually create the e-commerce piece

are going to cost more upfront.

Then it would be per month like Shopify and then other

options like big commerce and,

Oh, I might've said that wrong.

I don't know if it's big commerce.

There's big cartel,

there's several others and they all just have different price points.

Okay. All right,

perfect. And I think when you start thinking about an investment

in a website,

it feels like it's just money going out,

but the point is you're investing in your business so that

you're going to make sales and money is going to come

in. Yes,

and I feel like I have to say this,

and this is a whole nother topic,

but the other thing is once you've got your website up,

then you have to promote and bring people to the website

just because you get a website up,

even if it's optimized,

you can't just then sit back and think people are going

to come.

You always have to drive people to your website.

That's like your home base is what a website is and

there was a guy Lindsey in my chamber of commerce shout

out to Larry bloom who had the best phrase.

He says,

your website is one of your best employees because it's 24

seven it's always working for you,

so it's worth making an investment.

Yes, I agree.

Just don't think,

if you're looking at building and you're hearing what Lindsay's saying

about the monthly charges and all of that,

the whole point is to invest so that you're going to

make money,

not just that you're throwing money out And a website really

is an investment for the long game.

You can't expect a quick return,

but as you build your audience and you direct traffic to

it and you increase marketing efforts,

your website will be that best sales person for your business.

It's just you're in it for the long game when you

have a website.

Yup. And when you do it right then when someone purchases,

you have that customer information so then you work on retaining

that customer.

Repeat sales.

Yes. Beautiful.

Okay, Lindsey.

Excellent. I am so excited about this episode because I wasn't

expecting us to like put together brands for people like I

love that part of the is great.

I love that almost the very most of everything,

But in terms of what we need to be including on

the websites,

that's so helpful.

So I really appreciate that.

And in exchange,

I would like to offer you a virtual gift.

This is a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.

So this is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable

Heights that you would wish to abstain.

So this is for yourself personally or your business or wherever

you want to go with this.

Lindsey, please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What's inside your box?

So the contents of this box is a bigger Verdian code.

So Verity and co is my business right now and I

can see it becoming bigger.

So more people to help with design,

more people to help with the websites and more people to

help with this messaging so we can serve more makers and

more product businesses,

more service based businesses in a way that helps these brands

create and maintain impact and legacy.

So all the things,

my brain is like swirling thinking about this,

like this content of this box.

Yay. All the things,

all the things.

Yes. Wonderful.

And there's white space in there too.

Yes. That's your brain.

Yes. I think that's why I resonate with you so much

because I like all the white space too.

I like the color,

but the light and airy,

white, Yes.

And honestly white space also is like a part of my

life. I don't want my business to be all consuming and

I really want to create a business that fits into my

life, so into the white space of my life.

And I know a lot of listeners and a lot of

businesses and entrepreneurs can relate to that instead of becoming so

consumed with your business,

you want it to in a way serve you so you

can serve other people better.

Does that make sense?

That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. So that's kind of how I see the growth of

my business happening side-by-side in tandem with like white space in

my life.

Love it.

And in my family.

Yeah. And when you keep an eye on that concept,

then you just kind of like,

you protect that and you build it in as you were

just talking about.

Yes. That's the goal.

It doesn't always happen,

but it's the goal.

Wonderful. Okay.

So on the show notes page,

we're going to have all of your social media contacts to

your link to your website,

et cetera.

But if you were to send somebody to one location so

they could learn more about you,

where would that be?

That would be my website,

which is Verity and co.com

you can learn about my services about me as a person.

I have a couple of freebies on there.

So as a gift to the listeners they can download a

free training on five writing strategies to write a better website.

So if they are really feeling bogged down with the content

of the website that they're working on or might work on

in the future.

This is an email training that will help with writing all

that content.

Oh my gosh,

that is,

thank you.

Yes. So give biz listeners.

I already told you how much I love her website so

you just have to go over no matter what and take

a look at her style and the design and all that

and then go look for that freebie cause I know it'll

help you out.

I'm going to go look for it.

You'll see a download from me very shortly.

It's at the bottom of the homepage so you don't have

to go far.

Okay, wonderful.

Perfect. Lindsay,

thank you so much.

I really appreciate you taking the time,

sharing your knowledge.

You've given us some great direction here that I know is

going to help everybody.

So on behalf of me and my listeners,

thank you so much for being on the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

See what it was.

A pleasure and an honor.

Oh my gosh,

you guys.

I seriously had no idea where this interview was going to

go and I'm smiling here right now about all the fabulously

actionable information we covered in this episode with Lindsey's direction.

You can now create your very own brand portfolio today.

If you need to listen to this all over again with

a pen and paper in hand.

All the links will be in the show notes page over

at gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash Verity and co,

so that's gift biz on rap.com

forward slash V E R I T Y.

A, N,

D, C.

O. Compare that website list against what you already have up

or use it as a guideline as you're bidding on and

building your own site and since it's summer,

this is really a great time to get your online presence

the best that it can possibly be.

As we head into the holiday season.

We were also talking near the end about the fact that

one to build your website,

you still need to talk about it and lead people over

there. Up next week I'm bringing onto the podcast someone who

specializes in email marketing and running a proper email marketing campaign

leads people directly over to your website so these two episodes

play hand in hand.

Definitely make sure to join us again next week to ensure

that this happens.

Go over and subscribe to the show on iTunes.

That way you definitely won't miss it and until then make

it a great one.

Bye for now.

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