SEO Strategy Tips: "And if it is just really just you in the business and your only goal for this next year or next quarter is to increase your traffic through SEO because you're going to be blogging or creating these podcast episodes into blog posts, then look at it in 3 months because that's a slower that's one of the things that grows a bit slower, but it can make a bigger impact."
Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy, welcomes Izzy Dadosky and Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs to explore the essentials of transforming your website into a powerful lead generation tool.
The discussion opens with a focus on creating compelling lead magnets. Yasmine emphasizes the importance of understanding your audience’s needs and crafting solutions that address their specific problems. Lead magnets can range from ebooks and checklists to webinars and downloadable PDFs, each designed to capture contact information effectively.
Next, Izzy explains the significance of clear calls to action (CTAs) on your website. She highlights the necessity of positioning CTAs strategically to guide visitors seamlessly toward signing up or making a purchase. She also touches upon the pitfalls of poor user experience, such as slow website loading speeds or intrusive pop-up ads, that can drive potential leads away.
Izzy further identifies the importance of optimizing landing pages. A targeted landing page should focus on a single goal, whether it's capturing emails through a special offer or directing users towards a specific action. This creates a streamlined user journey that converts visitors into leads efficiently.
The episode also covers the strategic use of pop-ups and slide-ins. Yasmine shares insights on timing these elements correctly to avoid annoying visitors, and she introduces the concept of the "peekaboo" slide-in for a less intrusive user experience.
In addition, the trio discusses the power of testimonials and social proof. Izzy and Yasmine advocate for utilizing video testimonials, tagged mentions, and screenshots from social media to build trust and credibility among potential leads.
Towards the end, Yasmine underscores the importance of using analytic tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar to measure the effectiveness of your strategies, making data-driven decisions crucial to refining and optimizing your website for lead generation.
Top Takeaways
Defining Your Audience for Lead Magnets:
Understanding your audience is crucial when creating lead magnets like ebooks, checklists, and webinars. Ensure the freebie solves a specific problem to incentivize email sign-ups.
Effective Calls to Action (CTAs):
CTAs need to be clear, direct, and strategically placed on your website. Avoid confusing users with poorly labeled buttons and streamline the user journey to ensure conversions.
Streamlined User Experience:
Ensure a smooth and efficient user experience on your website. Slow loading speeds, intrusive pop-ups, and complicated purchase processes can deter potential customers.
Appropriate Use of Pop-Ups:
Pop-ups should be timed correctly to avoid annoying users. Strategies include timing by duration on the page or scroll depth. Avoid repetitive pop-ups and monitor conversion rates to optimize effectiveness.
"Peekaboo" Slide-Ins:
Consider using less intrusive methods like peekaboo slide-ins for offering discounts or other promotions. These remain visible but less intrusive, often leading to higher engagement.
Optimizing Landing Pages:
Each landing page should have a single, clear objective. Avoid cluttering the page with multiple offers or distractions, focusing instead on one goal such as collecting email addresses.
Embedding Forms and Widgets:
Embedded forms and widgets should be carefully integrated to match your website’s branding. Tools like Mailchimp or Flodesk offer easy embeds, but customization may be necessary for a seamless fit.
Social Proof and Testimonials:
Integrate testimonials and social proof to build trust. Video testimonials are highly effective, but even using tagged names and social interactions can significantly bolster credibility.
Using Analytics Tools:
Utilize tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Hotjar to monitor website performance, user behavior, and conversion rates. These insights help refine your strategies over time.
Routine Monitoring and Adjustment:
Depending on your business goals, regularly check your analytics to gauge the effectiveness of your strategies. For slow and steady growth, quarterly check-ins might suffice, while active campaigns may require weekly reviews.
Key Moments
00:00 Clear navigation enhances user experience on websites.
03:41 Streamlined, fast checkout encourages customer purchases.
07:55 Use timed pop-ups and track conversion rates.
13:21 Embedded forms need customization for brand consistency.
16:00 Video testimonials, reviews, and client feedback highlights.
19:19 Video and tagging enhance client testimonials' credibility.
21:30 Monitor platform errors; adjust frequency based on goals.
Yasmine works alongside clients to design a website that's driven by strategy, looks amazing, and that you can actually use to grow your podcast, and your business.
Each week, one of The Circle of Experts talks about critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media, monetization, website design, and implementation of all of these to help you make the best podcast possible.
Have a question or an idea for one of our episodes? Send us an email at podcasts@circle270media.com.
Welcome to the Circle Sessions featuring the Circle of Experts. Each week, one of the Circle of Experts joins me to talk about critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media, monetization, and website design to help you implement all of these together. Circle of Experts are Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs, Tonnnisha English-Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy from Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. This week, Yasmine is here from the Circle of Experts. Yasmine works alongside clients to design a website that's driven by strategy, looks amazing, and that you can actually use to grow your podcast and then in turn your business as well. Well, Yasmine, Izzy, welcome back to the Circle Sessions.
Brett Johnson [:
Glad to have you back, again for this session. We in our last episode with you 2, we're we're talking about sales funnels, and we wanna kinda go a little bit into, in this episode, turning your website into a lead generation machine. So kind of that same concept. Let's, Yasmin, go back to that idea of, you know, making a compelling lead magnet. Let's readdress what those are, what they look like, as simple as they can be or as complicated as you want them to be.
Yasmine Robles [:
Yeah. I know we talked about defining your audience. So just making sure, again, you know, understand why you're creating this freebie, this lead magnet, and if it actually solves a problem for them because that's really why they're going to give you their email address. And a couple of ways that you can do this is by ebooks, checklists, like downloadable PDFs, webinars. You can even do a live webinar recorded and then have that just evergreen ongoing. You can just, and and within those, you would encourage people to give you their contact info, so name, email. And we did talk about depending on your audience and what they're used to, you could potentially ask for more information, but I've only really seen that on bigger white papers for for, like, big companies. That's when they ask for things like the revenue.
Yasmine Robles [:
And, the bigger the investment, it seems, that you're gonna sell to them, the more questions they would ask on a freebie and the more robust that freebie is. But if you're just a regular, like, small business and you have an ebook or something like that, it would just be, like, name, email, and then you send them the, the downloadable item.
Brett Johnson [:
Right. So, Izzy, when we're talking about calls to action, let's take a look at how they are on your website. You know, obviously, they need to be clear, and they need to, you know, kinda pull you in. How do you do that? How do you guide them to, you know, sign up or purchase?
Izzy Dadosky [:
Yeah. So it's really about the, again, the clear, like, user experience and how people are navigating websites now. So, again, if they can't find that button and it's not clear, they're not gonna hit it. So let's say for our website, they go to our services page, and they are interested in one specific service that we offer. And we give a little description about what the service is. And then wanna find out more info, click here. It has to be directly under it, and it is clear, like, that is what they are hitting that button for, instead of, like, putting a bunch of info throughout the website, and then there's just one call to action at the bottom. It's like, is this the right thing that I need to be clicking? What am I filling out right now? Like, I don't know if I did the right thing.
Izzy Dadosky [:
Like, if you also make them ask those types of questions, you don't want that. So it's like a clear sign up for, like, what they're looking for and, like, what you're offering. I'm trying to think of another example, but, again, with just, like, purchases and different things throughout the website too, If it's hard to add something to your cart because maybe you're and I'm just adding in other factors here. But, like, if your website loading speed is so slow that I can't add something into my cart, I will go to another website. Or if you have a bunch of pop up ads getting in the way of me adding it to my cart, I will not add it to my cart. So then at the end of it, again, like, if they let's say they already process is not, like, streamlined and efficient where they can, like, not add in, like, a bunch of different information, like, if you wanna automate it and use things like Apple Pay or, like, other bigger, like, payment methods that people are using now, like Venmo. I mean, I still use my credit and debit card for everything. But, I'm saying, like, if they're not able to, 1, see that, 2, be able to, like, confirm the information before they're buying it, that's another big thing, especially for me.
Izzy Dadosky [:
If I go to a website and I'm trying to place like, may let's say the first page I had to put in my address where everything was gonna be shipped. And then the 2nd page, I'm filling all my, like, credit card information out. And then at the bottom, it's like, k. Confirm purchase, but I can't go back to the last page to make sure I typed in everything correctly. I'm gonna restart that process again, And then my anxiety in my head is gonna say, oh, no. You didn't type it in right again. And then it's just gonna become, like, this whole process, and then, ultimately, I will probably not end up making the purchase. So it's all that
Brett Johnson [:
Or did I actually buy it the first time and
Izzy Dadosky [:
Yeah. Literally. No. Yeah. Right. It's, like, following up with that. It's like, oh, did I get my email confirmation? Oh, crap. Did I send it to the wrong email? How am I going to track this? Oh, the email doesn't say what address I put on it either? Oh, no.
Izzy Dadosky [:
Like, did I type in the right card info, all this other stuff? That could definitely, like with the user experience and, like, what they're wanting, like, if it's not a straight up call to action of what they need and what they want, like, you will add in all those, like, anxiety factors, what's going on factors, or I am don't even wanna deal with this anymore. So yeah.
Brett Johnson [:
Yeah. I could even see going even to going back to that process of the click button. Mhmm. That that, I've seen buttons that are just say click here, but it's like, but that does that really take me where I wanna go? You can be very specific in that click button saying click here to purchase or click here to download. Be as specific as you can be on that button, I would think.
Izzy Dadosky [:
Yep. Again, with, like, the click here, it's like, where is it gonna take me?
Brett Johnson [:
Right.
Izzy Dadosky [:
Like, is it just gonna, like, automatically try to check me out? Different things like that. If, again, it's, like, not even a purchase button, it's like, okay. Is this just, like, some sketchy thing that I'm gonna click and then it's gonna start downloading something on my laptop. That's one of my fears all the time. So it's like, what am I clicking here for? What is it going to give me? And can I even see the button? I think are the main things that people have to ask. So Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:
Yeah. Exactly. I Yasmin, you'd mentioned, a little bit I think well, both of you actually mentioned a little bit about pop ups and, you know, the and the slide ins and such. Can you talk a little bit about the strategy of that? I mean, when should it happen? Should it happen? I to me, they're kind of annoying, but it but but they're annoying that and, again, this is personal experience. They're annoying when they happen too quickly. I I I get that. But, again, but what is the good timing of it? I I how do you know?
Yasmine Robles [:
Well, you know by testing. But I would say that if you're thinking about pop ups, really think about back to what you said that you don't want it to just come up immediately when you just landed on the page. It's like, let me get my bearings. Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:
Yeah.
Yasmine Robles [:
So you can do a couple of thing. And most of them have now most of the pop up widgets or, like, Squarespace, Shopify, they've all Klaviyo, they've all implemented this where you can, time it. So if it's somebody who has the page has loaded and it's been they've been there for 5 seconds, 10 seconds, then it'll show up, or by scroll, how far down did they scroll, and then the pop up can show up. And then just look at that conversion rate of that pop up and make adjustments as necessary. It also again, it depends on what kind of website or what kind of sale you're having. Are you, like, doing Black Friday? Or it just really depends on a couple of different factors, but just keep those in mind. And then there's the the kind that especially in ecommerce, they will slide in from the there's ones that will have a peekaboo effect where it'll be at a corner of a website and when you and it'll just say something like free ship get free shipping. And when you click it, it'll it'll come up a little bit, and then you can input your information.
Yasmine Robles [:
It's basically the same thing, except it has a peekaboo effect that's hidden. It's still on your site almost the entire time, but it is down at a corner somewhere. Those work really well, especially with, with ecommerce or if you're selling merch or anything like that. I like those. But really making sure that you're keeping track of the analytics because the worst thing that could happen is and I've had this experience where, one of my friends, she was an affiliate for a water bottle, and I think I've told this story on this podcast at some point. But I wanted she was gonna get an she was one of her first affiliate links or something, and so I really and it was like a one gallon thing of water, and I wanted to be healthy. And so I went to the site and literally every single page that I would go into to try to figure out which water bottle I wanted, what color I wanted, the pop up would come up. So I would have left that site if it hadn't been because I had a connection to my friend.
Yasmine Robles [:
Right. Now it was a very small business. It was a start up. They were trying this affiliate thing with my friend. They would have missed out on growing their brand because of that pop up. So just making sure that you're not it's not coming up on every page. You can also do something where once somebody exits out of it, they might not even if they come back to your site, they might not see it for 2 weeks or 30 or 30 days. And you can set that up on the back end just so that because if let's say they are interested in Brett's, like, if they go to Brett's website and you happen to have a a pop up and they weren't interested, but they come back 2 weeks later, you don't wanna be annoying again and having to show them something.
Yasmine Robles [:
Yeah. But, again, it depends on that growth strategy. It depends on what kind of business you have, but just making sure that you're looking at not being annoying. But pop ups do work. So just with with power comes great responsibility, I guess.
Brett Johnson [:
Alright. So, officially, when you, offer the different pop up and slide ins, do you call it a peekaboo slide in?
Yasmine Robles [:
I call it Okay.
Brett Johnson [:
I I like that. I think I I think if if it catches on from this podcast, you should register that, a peekaboo slide in. I love that because it describes it perfectly. Love it. We in our last episode talking about this, we did talk about a little bit about optimizing the landing pages. Izzy, can you, I think we understand that, but I think it's a little bit more hyper focused because it's that, lead generation situation versus a a website per se. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, optimizing landing pages?
Izzy Dadosky [:
Yeah. So well, one, I'll give it to Yasmine before I talk because she's the expert on this. Gotcha. Sure.
Yasmine Robles [:
Yeah. Sure. So optimizing I would say it depend again, it goes back to what your what your people expect from you, but a landing page has one goal. If you are creating a landing page and it has a freebie and it has something else, it's it's it's too much. So you have one goal for this page, and let's say it is to give people free shipping over 50. Well, then the only thing they see might be a product image and not a product image clicking to the product, but just a product image and the form where they can put in their email address, their name, and then click submit. The next thing that you could do there is redirect them. So they, well, there if you are a shop if you're an ecommerce site, you could that pop that little form, depending on what you're using like Klaviyo, that little form can then, actually change, and it'll give them the coupon code immediately.
Yasmine Robles [:
Or you can redirect them to a thank you page. Let's say you are a service based business and you're offering, like, a free checklist or downloadable item, you can redirect them. And for service based businesses especially, it's really great to have a video thanking people, telling them about next steps, maybe making some kind of joke. It depends on your brand.
Brett Johnson [:
Mhmm.
Yasmine Robles [:
And then they can download it from that thank you page as well as receive it in that thank you email that they're going to get.
Brett Johnson [:
Okay. Okay. Sounds good. We haven't talked about embedded forms or widgets. Can we talk a little bit about what the concept of those are and then how to integrate those into the sign up forms?
Yasmine Robles [:
Yeah. So when it comes to embedded forms and widgets, it the beauty of the tech is that it's as easy as copy and paste, but with some caveats. So for example, if you're using Mailchimp and you copy and paste directly their code, Mailchimp forms usually look really ugly, and so you'll need to do some front end development to just get them looking brand appropriate And so that it doesn't look like you literally copied and pasted it. There's a couple of things that we have run into with widgets or embedded forms depending on the type of company that is bringing in that form because, basically, what it embed is is a snippet of code that then calls to this other company, whether it's Mindbody, Mailchimp. It calls to these other companies and pulls in elements. So Flodesk, for example, if I embed something on my site that is coming from Flodesk, I need to either really make it look brand appropriate on Flodesk or code it onto my site so it looks brand appropriate. Some other ones that were a bit clunky, especially I've noticed, the ones that have to do with health. So those will pull in.
Yasmine Robles [:
Sometimes you cannot edit the background. They might be like an a not great color, and then they will pull in very tall because what what's going on is that it's pulling in you the only thing you see is that one part of the form, but if there's multiple steps and if that form looks really tall, it's probably because there's gonna be a pop up or there's gonna be it's gonna pull information that then has to be displayed within that height. So it it's automating the height, but it looks like it's a bunch of blank space. But you actually, like myself, if I just copy and paste it, I can't make that, shorter in any way unless I'm I'm then gonna hide the content. So that's just a little bit of a tech. But usually, they go very well. They perform really seamlessly. You just copy and paste it onto your website.
Yasmine Robles [:
And then depending on how whether it's Kartra, Mailchimp, it it'll depend on how they look.
Brett Johnson [:
We mentioned a little bit I keep going back to our previous episode about sales funnels, but it it one leads into the other. And both of these episodes are stand alone, but they they work together. But it's important to have testimonials no matter what you do and some social proof. So, Izzy, you know, let's talk about how to integrate that those testimonials and and social proof, you know, looking at success stories or reviews. I mean, how do you put that into this? What should it look like? Again, depending on the brand, but, you know, what what's the strategy behind using those those tools?
Izzy Dadosky [:
Yeah. Definitely. So there's different ways you can go about it. 1, it just depends on, like, what age group that's, like, looking for this type of proof, like, and to what the company is and what they do. But for us, for example, we've done video testimonials about, like, people talking about working with us and, like, what did you think that you got out of it? Like, why did you go with us in the first place? Kind of, like, asking those questions, that most people want to ask the person. Like, if you're trying to get, like let's say you're talking to a friend and you're like, oh, why did why'd you pick that? Like, you're trying to get the information out of them and, like, get that kind of, like, recommendation. That's the way that we kinda go about it, I feel like. Other ways to do it is just take those, either if it's just a review from, like, Google reviews or, like, if a client emailed you saying, like, you did a good job, highlighting those on your social pages or, even, like, just within your company.
Izzy Dadosky [:
Like, what did we do this month that was great just for us? Like, Yasmin's gonna go speak at this tomorrow, but, like, we're gonna probably post a picture about it and be like, that was amazing, like, opportunity. Like, good job, Yasmine. You know what I'm saying? And then, just different ways to engage conversation and, one, build trust with what we do. Like, I even if it's like a anniversary of your company, different things, highlight what your team members are doing that you feel is great is another thing. But overall, like, doing this stuff is just, like, building how people view your company over anything. So, like, I know for certain things, like, if I'm looking to do something, I will always go check the reviews before I check anything on the website. I will go on TikTok and use that like a search engine and tell like, TikTok will tell me if it's a good idea or a bad idea. For more professional things, I'll go on LinkedIn and be like, k.
Izzy Dadosky [:
But like they haven't posted anything. Like that's a little weird. Like that makes me uncomfortable. Like why aren't they like up to date on that kind of stuff? So, but, yeah, having, like, an active social one makes me feel more comfortable and, like, making some decisions. And then 2, like, what are people saying about you and how are you being perceived by other people? So.
Brett Johnson [:
Yeah. I was wondering. I was gonna ask you being if you can do this brand agnostic, you you that social proof. Do you think video is probably maybe the strongest having video? Like, because I can I see these testimonials that it's like, love this product from the very beginning, and signed a dot Taylor?
Izzy Dadosky [:
It's
Brett Johnson [:
like it's a it looks almost made up. Yeah. And it's like, well, that doesn't really give me anything when you just put quotes. And I know those are important, but it's like, boy, if you can put a video in there or something like that, that to me seems like it's, like, the pinnacle. The testimonial was to do something like that.
Izzy Dadosky [:
That's why video is so great or, like, even if you can't get a video out of that client, like, even just asking, like, hey. Can I use your name and, like, tag you? Like, that's still giving it the the proof that people might need. Like, oh, I didn't just make up a Taylor. Right. But, like No. Just like a picture of them and then, like, tagging them within the post. It's like, whoever at blah blah blah said this about us, like and then they typically when you tag them because you you're again, like, linking their stuff to yours at that point when tagging them, they'll typically comment, and then it's like, oh, that's even better. It's like, usually, if we do that kind of stuff, we get, like, a so great working with you guys in the comments or something like that.
Brett Johnson [:
So Yeah. Even if it's a screenshot of what it was on social, you can't really yeah. I guess you could Photoshop stuff. Of course. Anything can be done, but it's that screenshot of what happened on a a social media platform at least is better than a a quote bubble.
Izzy Dadosky [:
Yeah. Definitely.
Brett Johnson [:
Honestly, you know, just looking at that, what a waste of space. I've just more and more, it's been hitting me that way going, now, if I'm ever gonna do that, you know, I want, you know, at least to do something. It it it exists in the wild somehow and take a screenshot of it exactly. Yasmin, we've been really, you know, almost every episode we talk about analytic tools. The freebies or or, you know, things that are paid, that sort of thing. This sounds as though that you need to rely on tools to know what's really working. Can you address some of them that make sense that I've read from the top? You gotta have this. You need to do this as a start.
Yasmine Robles [:
Yeah. The best free ones are Google Analytics, Google Search Console. Those are free. Just install them onto your site. Hotjar has a free option, and that's the one that'll give you what we call a heat map and recording of what people are doing on your site, how far down they scrolled, what they what was the biggest thing that was clicked. That those are pretty cool. There are some paid ones like Semrush, SEMrush. That one is really more specific for keyword research, tracking what keywords you're coming up for, what errors are coming up on your site.
Yasmine Robles [:
And depending on your platform, there might be errors that you can't really do much about or what the platform is integrated with. So, those are some that you can track. And then just and it depends on the size of your business and what campaign you're running. I know in some episodes, we've talked about having a paid campaign and organic search and SEO. And if all that's happening at the same time, I would look at Google Analytics. I would look at all of these at least once a week. If you are, you know, slow and steady kind of growth, you can look at it I think Izzy said it in another episode or in this one, to look at it once a month. And if it is just really just you in the business and your only goal for this next year or next quarter is to increase your traffic through SEO because you're going to be blogging or creating these podcast episodes into blog posts, then look at it in 3 months because that's a slower that's one of the things that grows a bit slower, but it can make a bigger impact.
Yasmine Robles [:
So you don't wanna be checking it every day and get nervous and then stop doing it.
Brett Johnson [:
Right. So you brought up a good point. And when you said check it every week, check it every month, I know a listener's probably listening going, no. I don't have time to do this. I I I I know it's important. I can't do this. So let's talk about how to get a hold of you at least to discuss, is there a middle ground going, okay. Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:
You should do this, but we can help too. You know, that that sort of thing. So how can they get a hold of you guys about this?
Yasmine Robles [:
Yeah. You can find me and and Izzy on LinkedIn. Go hunt us over there and, like, some of our some of our funny, videos or pictures. You if you want to download a marketing checklist, it is roblestdesigns.com/checklist. And that can help walk you through a lot of that marketing, almost like an audit, like an your do DIY audit of your your marketing, your website, your SEO, all that stuff. And you can always bribe us with carbs and coffee. That is that is our go to. Or unless it's later in the day, then it's like more like tequila and tacos.
Brett Johnson [:
Gotcha. Gotcha. And if if anything, if this is resonating for what you're doing with your podcast, because that that's kinda what why we bring this to the forefront, but there are a lot of other nuances to what we talk about with the Circle Sessions. But, you know, if it's specific to a podcast, get a hold of me, my podcast guy dot com. Obviously, if it, ends up being some social as well as, you know, website design, making better use of what you already have or you're starting from the beginning, we're gonna pull in designs as well, to talk a little bit more about that. But it's easy to get a hold of either one of us, get on our booking calendar, and and let's talk. So, Izzy, Yasmin, thanks again for joining me.
