“Victoria, why is no one visiting my small business website? I paid a lot of money for it!” Don’t worry! We have an answer! In this episode Victoria and I talk about how to get website visitors. The answer to this might not be what you think… And we have a great time explaining it to you.
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, or Podbean
Summary
You can expect to learn:
- Who is Victoria Maxwell-Davis?
- Should you put all your eggs in one basket? (Tiktok, Facebook, Google SEO?) Or should you take a scattered approach to get website traffic?
- Why being a solo woman, femme, or non-binary person in business should be joyful.
- Why we think print isn’t dead. It’s in fact making a comeback in our local Merri-bek business community!
Transcript
Lou: Hello everyone! And if you’re returning welcome back.
In this episode I’ve got a guest and that guest today is Victoria.
Victoria is going to tell us about getting people to come to your website. So thanks for coming along.
Victoria: Hi thanks for having me, it’s my pleasure.
Lou: In order to give us a little bit of context about why you’re here and what you do could you give us a little introduction?
Victoria: Yeah I come from a background in brand communication and have worked for a lot of corporates but now my focus is specifically around supporting compassionate creative women entrepreneurs to share their message and become visible. Whether that’s for their marketing or for their programs. Yeah so I’m really passionate about about helping people express their brand in a way that best aligns with their personality and energy and purpose. So that business actually feels good to them.
How to get more website visitors, Victoria explains…
Lou: So good. So the problem I wanted to discuss today was: I have one common issue that I see women in business complaining about and worried about is “oh I’ve got this website but no one’s coming to it,” like “I’d love to see more people coming to it what what should I do?”
And Victoria was very interested in answering this question.
But the answer may not be what you think! Because… I’m thinking this might be you know do I..? Is it Facebook? Should I be on Facebook? Should I be on Instagram? Should I be on TikTok?
Victoria tell us what we should do.
Victoria: Well it’s true that you know there’s lots of places you can be and I and part of that’s part of the problem I think too is is having that scattergun approach. And just thinking if I put myself out everywhere then I’m you know expanding my chances to find my people.
I think actually the real question isn’t necessarily so much how do I bring more people into my website but more how do I attract people who are actually aligned? And to me you know I think of a website as like the heart of your business. And even when you’re just starting out and you don’t really know what you need to say… It’s a beautiful way to kind of experiment with what you want to say. So that it can evolve with you and so as you grow. By the time you get to that place of having amazing clarity and knowing exactly what’s going to attract your clients the foundations are there.
And so it’s it’s it’s an iterative process. So that’s why I love the website in that context.
Attracting more of the right people
But this idea of attracting people who are actually aligned is much more at the heart of you know talking about what you do in a way that really resonates with people. And that’s what drives me more than anything because it comes back to really being in tune with who you authentically are and what you really want to do in the world.
You know sometimes people will come to me and they’ll say you know “I need to improve my messaging. I need to create a course. I need to market myself. I haven’t got a clue!”
Lou: That’s a lot of things!
Victoria: Yeah and they resonate with my messaging.
I speak to their kind of sensitive nature often they’re introverts or neurodivergent people those sorts of things.
But it takes a lot of you know coming up with a message isn’t a sort of like a transactional process… Where you write something that’s going to bring people in. It really is about I mean it kind of ultimately ends up that’s kind of what you want it to do. But it has to be based on getting really in tune with… Especially you know if you’re in a compassionate heart centered kind of business the way you design your business and what you’re talking about… Is much more about being in tune with what it is how you want to be in your business…
How do you want to feel doing what you’re doing the kind of people that you’re actually spending our time with… The kind of energy that happens in those relationships… And the difference that you make… And what it is that you actually really care about. So that you can bring so much more of yourself to it.
Which platform to use is the wrong question…
So you know I don’t believe that we’re what we actually do is go out and find clients. What we really should be doing is just making it easy for the right people to come and find us.
Yeah so I can’t remember what the question was now.
Lou: Yeah that’s a big question, yeah. But that is a really good way to look at it because at the end of the day you can say: Let’s compare the amount of traffic you could potentially get from Google or from TikTok. Like that doesn’t matter because you could measure getting more traffic from one than the other but that ultimately doesn’t matter at the end of the day.
Victoria: Yeah, no exactly. But I mean but ideally that measure of traffic will be in direct relationship to the messaging that you’ve created. Because if your SEO is working then you’re speaking to the kind of people who are looking for the kinds of things that you’re actually providing. So having a kind of a breadth of messaging and offers that connect the dots for those people. Because sometimes they you know they might be looking for multiple things.
Being found
I had someone recently say, that I didn’t know, just contacted me they bought one of my online offers and they wanted to book a call with me. So we had a chat and I said, “So how did you find me?” And she said, “Oh I’m starting this business and so I’m looking for lots of things.” One of them was networking. She found out about my my Barefoot Business Women’s network, which is you know an alternative kind of networking. Which appealed to her kind of introverted nature. But then she said, “Oh I can see that you also do on camera confidence.” And so as soon as she sort of put those two pieces together.
When we jumped on the call she said, “I’ve decided I want to work with you.” So I didn’t have to actually sell anything. They’re the kind of clients you want and but that only comes about when you’ve got a a thread that runs through what it is that you’ve got on your website.
So it could be um and I’m you know I’m going to use that word that that phrase “lead magnet.” But if you’ve got some kind of a free offer that makes it easy for people to experience some kind of flavor of what it’s like to work with you… And how you how you work… Then that’s one great way to help people come closer to your into your ecosystem.
Letting your customer find their own path to you
But you might also have some offers that resonate… Or that you know they can connect the dots to… Or that’s where I want to get to.
“I want to create a course, I’m not there yet but…” and I know they might not even be ready to buy yet. But maybe this. But it brings them in and they can find something that meets them where they’re at.
So I think the secret is to have a bit of a blend of things. And for me it’s much more about what’s on my website than what’s what I post on social media.
Cobbler’s shoes syndrome
I’m not one of those people that posts every day. I like I’ll do it for my clients. But for for myself I tend to be a bit you know like… I have the cobbler’s shoes syndrome. But also I don’t believe that posting every day — apart from the fact that doesn’t really vibe with me — to kind of be that structured and in everyone’s face.
It’s more for me about having something I use it as a as a way to express what’s coming up for me. You can build relationships through social media which is kind of more the point is having those conversations that bring people into your ecosystem. And they follow you and you don’t have to be in their face. But they might join your email list or something. And that again comes back to your website.
So for me I try to make it easy for people to subscribe to my blog, or download a freebie, or book a call or whatever. And all of those things come back to my email list. I think that’s the most important thing you know. My social media might not get much engagement. Look people don’t want to be seen to be responding to things sometimes. Or it might speak to them but unless I sort of feel like it. It’s the people that you have the best relationships with already that engage with you in social media… And strangers not so much.
My email open rate is between 42 and 51 percent or something, so you know no complaints there.
We love email as a means to bring people to your website
Lou: Only praise for email here.
Victoria: Yeah and I really love it. And people will sometimes unsubscribe and I feel like that’s good because that probably actually increases my open rate… Because I’ve been with the people who no longer feel aligned with whatever it is you know they came into it for.
My business has evolved as well since I started off. And yeah so that leaves more space for me to know that I’m communicating on a wavelength that does resonate with people who are there. But yeah the website is a nice way to incorporate all of those lots of those different elements.
Like I said at the beginning: You don’t want that kind of “throw a spaghetti at a wall” scatter gun kind of thing and see what sticks. But I’m very keen on working out what works best for your communication strengths.
I love to write, so I’ve got a blog. And I don’t mind talking if I… I sort of prefer talking than being on camera, which is kind of ironic seeing as I used to be a director. And I have had… I sort of now I understand what I put all those people through who were in front of the camera. But now I’m creating a private podcast as well, I’ve got a podcast on my website, I’ve got a course on my website… So it’s nice to be able to have one place where I can create all of these things that work for the way I work.
Making it easy for yourself
But there’s some things that don’t aren’t so easy for me. I’ll listen to a podcast if I’m driving but I cannot listen to it when I’m working around the house. So as an end user like my learning styles I’m sort of aware of as well. So it’s kind of interesting to to figure out what works what works best for your learning style or your teaching style. And there’s lots of… Like some people are really good with visuals and creating graphics that help explain a complex idea really concisely, and that’s fantastic skill to have. So if you can create some kind of like Venn diagram… That’s yeah cuts a long story short, then yeah that’s a great tool to have.
There’s lots of different ways that you can show up.
Lou: Yeah precisely.
No, you don’t have to dance on TikTok just because people are getting engagement and traffic that way!
Yeah there’s a really good lesson there; and that is — assuming that you’re a service provider, and assuming that you are doing your own marketing — the best way to do it is doing it in a way that you can work with. Because it’s really easy to fall into a trap where, “Oh I’ve just looked at TikTok and I see so-and-so is doing all these presentations or they’re doing these dances does that mean I have to do that too? I don’t want to do that…” you don’t have to do that! You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing.
Victoria: And it’s really hard I think.
There are a lot of particularly creative compassionate sensitive people more easily perhaps drawn into trusting people when they say, “Here’s the solution.” And I think that we owe it to ourselves to give ourselves permission to use that other superpower that we’ve got. Which is to question the status quo. And listen to ourselves. Because I think if you want to feel like you’re doing something that genuinely lights you up—and that isn’t just about making money—then it’s important to listen to what your body is telling you when you try to do different things. Or when someone tells you that this is what you should be doing… Because I don’t think there’s any rules that are true for everybody.
So I love that it can be a slow process to sort of find out what truly works for you. But if you can tune in and sort of go figure out what what feels aligned and doesn’t feel like icky… Because I think a lot of marketing sort of tactics can feel really manipulative and not sit well for for people. And I think that’s often because it’s about you know sticking to someone else’s template rather than finding your own way.
How you show up matters more than where
I created a I created a mini course around those ideas for people wanting to create a course. Because it’s really difficult to… “Should it be this? Should it be that?” And you get people saying, “Use this platform. Make it this kind of format… Create a course like this.”
But there’s lots of ways that you can share your wisdom that works well for you, and your purpose, and your audience, and how they like to learn and all of that sort of stuff.
So yeah I think it’s really important that we find our way through navigating that stuff. Otherwise you can you can spend forever trying things that feel really horrible. And it’s a shortcut to being disheartened and giving up so don’t do that.
Lou: Yeah that’s it. Yeah I’d just do as much learning and exploring as you can. And if you want to…. If you look up a YouTube tutorial on how to grow your YouTube audience, that’s that’s going to be like a template like a cookie cut approach. Like do it exactly this way everyone else does it, this way. And you know again you don’t have to do it exactly like that.
What would be fun? Give yourself permission to break the rules
Victoria: Exactly. In fact I think there’s so much joy in giving yourself permission to break the rules and listen to yourself. And go oh what would be fun.
There’s lots of things you could you could print a a zine, if you want it, to post it out. People don’t talk about that sort of stuff often but print isn’t dead. And there’s lots of different ways that you can communicate that light you up. So it’s not just about trying to please your audience but doing something that makes your business original and fun and works with your rhythms and passions.
Some people don’t necessarily feel tech savvy but or they don’t necessarily understand the SEO and the stuff to do with like cascading headings or on all of that sort of tech stuff that you need for a website. But they might be really great with graphic design or code or um you know copy or any sorts of those sorts of things. So that’s why I think it’s nice to to work in a way that you know allows you to to do those things. Because it’s nice to be able to build your business and enjoy the process of not just doing the work for your clients but enjoy the marketing as well.
Lou: Yeah. Yeah that’s so true. Because if you don’t if you don’t enjoy it you’re not going to want to do it.
You can get help, of course
Victoria: Yeah, I mean which is fine if you can outsource it. But I like to kind of meet people in the middle sometimes too. And have a co-creation service where you do you do you bring what you love to do and I’ll help you out with the rest. And we get together we can make it so that it’s so that they’re not sort of feeling like they’ve handed over everything and they don’t have any control. That’s the beauty.
I mean I work in Squarespace. And I think that’s the beauty of that platform for me is — apart from the fact that you can do you know put your podcast in your blog and your course and membership or whatever in there — is that it’s so kind of intuitive and elegantly designed and nice to and to play in. Rather than… For me it’s more like it’s a bit like walking into an Apple store instead of one of those computer shops with the bars on the windows.
Lou: Yeah, yeah! Yeah, I know them well.
Why we love Squarespace
Victoria: Yeah I really appreciate the ease and simplicity of Squarespace.
Lou: Yeah I used to be really into WordPress. Like I’d use WordPress for everything. But nowadays if you’re a solo coach or therapist and you’re working on your own I’d say Squarespace is probably one of the best platforms for you. WordPress is way too complicated for the needs of some businesses I think.
Victoria. Yeah. Having said that like it — and it’s another thing that I kind of it’s a bit of a love hate thing with Squarespace — that I don’t find that it’s necessarily fantastic with the email side of things. But it’s also really easy to integrate third-party things which I already have going.
So forms for a couple of different things whether it’s a a freebie or a paid thing I’ve got my CRM. And I’ve got my email list and stuff and and all of that stuff integrates really beautifully in Squarespace. And you don’t need plugins and stuff it’s just a copy and paste a bit of code in the right place. And it’s really easy to find where it goes.
And it works. And it’s designed for your brand. And it’s so nice to be able to do that and have all of the back-end stuff a bit more… Like it’s not I like that…
You can have like one core ecosystem inside Squarespace for all of the stuff. But then it sort of have it integrate with other things. So you haven’t got all of the eggs in one basket completely when it comes to controlling it. So yeah that’s that’s a really cool thing.
But WordPress?
There’s lots of people swear by WordPress. I don’t really know why. Perhaps you could understand that. But you know each their own. Not my kind of playground.
Lou: Oh it’s really easy to to create um what we call turnkey websites. Which is basically just for each new client you just make a duplicate of the website and fill in the business name fill in the keywords and you’re done.
Victoria: Oh yeah okay. That explains a lot! Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of websites that look exactly the same as each other.
Lou: Yeah. We’re straying a little bit from the original discussion. But that’s that’s okay we both really love Squarespace.
You attract people to a website you give life to…
Victoria: I think that you attract people to a website that you keep alive that you keep fresh. And so that you build it in a platform that is energetically positive. And it makes you want to update things because it’s easy and it’s and it’s and it’s fun… That’s what it feels like for me. I’ve played in WordPress too and I kind of get hyperfocused. Like I have to try and do it um so that doesn’t work for me… But in Squarespace I go, “Oh I think I’ll create a new sales page today.” And it’s fun. So that means that yeah I keep it alive and it just makes it easy for me to just share things really quickly with people. If I have an idea for a new offer or something it doesn’t take me very long to build it.
You didn’t quit corporate so you could have the displeasure of building a website and getting traffic
Lou: Yeah exactly. And I don’t know about you but I sense that a lot of women who quit the corporate scene to do their own thing… One of the motivating reasons is because they want a way to generate income for themselves that doesn’t feel painful… That is actually like pretty enjoyable to do. So yeah I wouldn’t… I’d argue don’t burden yourself with anything tricky or complicated or something that’s too hard for you.
Victoria: Yeah I feel like everyone has a way that works for them. And it’s just a matter of deeply understanding who you are who you’re serving. And then assuming again that you’re doing your own marketing that you can do that and generate that in a way that is uncomplicated…
If you’ve managed to escape corporate to do your own thing… Sometimes there’s a sense of urgency to replace your income. I think it’s nice to be able to have something bubbling along before you get to that point. So that by the time you bail you’ve got some solid foundations there. Because it does take a bit of time. It’s not… You can’t just “build it and they will come.” But it does take a lot of time to really clarify. And I think that’s the hardest thing about websites and marketing in general…
What you can learn from having a website
The good thing about websites is it kind of forces you to realise what you don’t know. And that’s a really great way to start exploring… What is my real purpose? Who am I trying to serve? What gap can I see? What difference am I trying to make? What can I bring that’s a bit different? And how do I express that so that the right people actually find me? And it takes a bit of massaging to get that right.
Lou: Unless you can afford to work with someone who happens to be a genius in that area.
Victoria: Yeah. Hi everyone!
Yeah it takes a bit of a bit of patience.
And there’s a lot to be said with for people say, “Oh do market research.” And I don’t think that you learn a lot from market research if people are going to respond… You have to make sure that these that they’re the right people who are responding, and that you’re asking the right kind of questions, and that they’re telling you the right things for the right reasons. And yeah complicated. But when you actually work with people then you know pretty quickly you know what’s going on for them. Learn a lot about what voices in their head to tune into… That resonate with what it is that you’re trying to express.
So yeah, that’s the best thing to do try and get some some clients. And that’s why I say you know for a lot — I mean depending on your kind of what kind of business you’re in — that it’s great to to just start working with people to help you work out who is and who isn’t an ideal client — and why. It’s just a process really. But again, we digress.
Print isn’t dead, not here in Merri-bek anyway
Lou: Yeah totally. Yeah, and when once you do identify those people yeah it’s… There’s so many different methods you can use. But yeah identify who they are and what you’re offering… And then…. I wanted to come back to something that you mentioned which was which was print! At the latest Merri-bek business networking, some of the ladies bought little paper flyers. One of them even had like you know white paper black and white ink —homemade type thing — that she was handing out. Nothing wrong with that. I just thought it was beautiful and charming and nice.
Victoria: Yeah and it’s so easy these days you know to… I mean I choose to not have a printer at home because I’ve just given up on that… On having to turn them over every time the… It just doesn’t work anymore. But it’s so easy to to get things printed just from the comfort of your own home.
Lou: I order stuff on Canva every now and then —like my business cards — it just takes a couple of days.
Victoria: Yep same. It’s nice to support that business I think. And there’s lots of other companies that you can yeah do similar stuff with it… Or if you want things that Canva don’t offer.
Lou: Yeah exactly.
Victoria: Maybe we’ve solved the problems of the world perhaps!
Wrapping up
Lou: Well I hope that listening to this helped someone out! If you’ve still got questions though… Victoria how how would you go about helping someone? What? should they do in the context of this conversation?
Victoria: I think the best thing is to visit my website. I’ve got a very posh sounding name, Victoria Maxwell-Davis. And that’s my website. But you can also just do a Google search for Barefoot Business Women’s Network and you’ll find me. My website is dot com dot au, because I feel like I like to have my I like to have a local… A local network of clients.
When I first started out I thought global was the way to go — the world is my oyster — there’s nine billion people I’ll kill it! But yeah I’ve increasingly come to find how much I just love the culture of my locals. So that’s where I’m focusing a lot of my attention.
Lou: Yeah I regret not getting getting a dot com dot au. I just stuck with the dot com because I had it the longest and I didn’t want to have to redo that footprint.
Victoria: No fair enough.
Thanks so much having me. It’s been really great.
Lou: Yeah great to have you…. So many different ideas bursting out of my head now… There’s many different ways… We could keep… Many different tangents we can go on…
Victoria: Yeah all right, well I’ll see you next week then!
Lou: Great to have you, Victoria.
Would you like me to call you? Leave your details and I’ll get back to you when I can.