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Building a website for your products business – with Marie Brown, Beyond the Kitchen Table
Episode 5823rd April 2021 • Bring Your Product Idea to Life • Vicki Weinberg
00:00:00 00:37:54

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As a product-based business owner, one of the first things you have to consider is where you want to sell your products online. Many of us sell on multiple channels such as Amazon and Etsy, but could you gain more sales on your own website? 

I spoke with Marie Brown, founder of Beyond the Kitchen Table, to find out all you need to know about building a website to sell your products.

Listen in to hear Marie share:

  • An introduction to her business and what she does (1:06)
  • Why you need a website for your products business, even if you intend to sell elsewhere - but what to do first (1:33)
  • When to secure your domain name - it’s earlier than you might think! (4:48)
  • How to create a really simple, professional website (5:17)
  • Her pick of the best website builders for ecommerce (6:51)
  • What to write on your About page (10:57)
  • How much time and money it takes to get your website built (14:29)
  • The importance of keeping your website updated (20:32)
  • How you know whether your website is working for you and why you need Google Analytics! (24:06)
  • How to get more traffic to your website (26:14)
  • Common mistakes when it comes to websites (29:56)
  • Her number one piece of advice when it comes to building a website for your business (34:19)

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Beyond the kitchen table website  

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Beyond the kitchen table on Instagram 

Marie Brown on LinkedIn

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Transcripts

Building a website for your products business - with Marie Brown, Beyond the Kitchen Table

INTRO (:

Welcome to the, bring your product ideas to life podcast, practical advice, and inspiration to help you create and sell your own physical products. He is your host Vicki Weinberg.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Yeah. Today we're going to talk all about selling your products online as specifically as selling on your own website. So Marie Brown helps entrepreneurs and small business's build successful websites so that they love and that get them more customers with less effort. It's is such a good conversation. Even if you sell on and off a channel and you never forced out having your own website, and hopefully this will inspire you to perhaps, you know, consider this down the down the line. There are lots of good reasons for having your own site as movie he explains. And she is also going to talk about how we're building a website can actually be quite simple and some hints and tricks were doing it really well. So I'm so excited to introduce you to Marie say hi, Marie. Thank you so much for being here.

Marie Brown (:

Thank you. It's a great, great to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Vicki Weinberg (:

So could you start by just giving us a bit of an introduction to yourself and your business and what it is you do please?

Marie Brown (:

Yes, of course. So I run Beyond the Kitchen Table, which is set up specifically to help small businesses, entrepreneurs, et cetera, to build a successful websites and buy that. I mean, websites they love and they want to promote and also websites that help them get more customers with less effort, which is what we all want. Right?

Vicki Weinberg (:

Yeah, definitely. So I'm thinking that people listening to this, I am looking to sort of sell their own products. It's a question I think we might come up here as well. So I'm planning to sell all my products on Amazon and Etsy, you know, any other platforms? Why do I need a website? So why would you say people need a website for their products business, even if they do intend to sell somewhere else? Yeah.

Marie Brown (:

Okay. Well actually you don't always need a website or at least you don't need a website necessarily to begin with An actually I would say it's a good idea sometimes or often to start with one of those other platforms and to test out your idea before you invest in a website, there's a lot of people who are very reluctant to launch their business and publicize their business until they've got their logo, sort of their

website, et cetera. And actually that's the wrong way around. You should be out there and testing your products and testing the market, your product. And then once you're happy that you've got something that

works and that is sellable, I think that's the time to invest in a website.

Marie Brown (:

And there were a few reasons why its a good idea to you have your own website. And I think the first is that you have more credibility. If you do that, you have to increase the trust factor. If you like, 'cause we know anybody can set up on Amazon or eBay M and although they have protections in there against fraud, there was something about having your own website, which gives an extra level of authority and credibility. It gives people comfort that they're dealing was a real business, as opposed to somebody selling stuff. I don't know, and can be a garage or whatever, you know, they never need to see what's actually behind the facade, but there is definitely that is an air of credibility.

Marie Brown (:

I think, secondly, it, when you are working on Amazon or Etsy or whatever, you are on somebody else's platform and they can close you down with no notice whatsoever. Whereas if you've got your own website, that can't happen. So, you know, obviously we were just seeing a trunk recently have, has a Twitter account, a closed, et cetera. You know, it, it happened, but it also happens to be very small businesses and often for no reason at all. And it's very difficult to, to overcome that. So having your own website, you have much more controlled of that. I think that third thing is, is that, and again, you can find your customers more easily because what you can do is you can get found on platforms like Google when you have your own website, which is much more difficult to do if you're selling on the likes of Etsy, eBay, Amazon, et cetera.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Thank you. That's a really good answer. I'll be honest. I'd never thought about the fact that you can always set up somewhere else and then do your website next. I hadn't actually thought about doing it in that order in of course it makes complete sense that you don't necessarily need a website from the start. And I guess, yes, if you were looking to sell it and have a platform, it probably makes much more sense to do that. And then the website comes next. If you were going to do that, would you suggest buying the domain still sort of at the outset just to secure it?

Marie Brown (:

Yes, absolutely. It's like any of their handlers on social media or a domain name is really cheap to buy and you paid for it on a time basis. So you shouldn't be paying more than, I don't know, 10 pounds a year and you can often get very good deals particularly on first year. So it's not expensive at all. And definitely by the domain name, you don't need to do anything with it. So to begin with, but find the domain names so nobody else can get it.

Vicki Weinberg (:

That's really good. Thank you. So let's say you've decided that you need a website and you know, you are, your product is it is selling well when you're in it, it's time to set up what is the simplest website you can

create. I see. So how would you create a really simple website and what, what are the, what's the bare minimum that you need to have on there to look professional and credible?

Marie Brown (:

Yeah, so I think the, the, the, the minimum, and again, actually you can use platforms like Amazon and Etsy through your own website. So you can set up the home page and you can set up say an about page, and then you can set up a shop page, which links through to somebody else's platform. And it may show images of your product at the actual buttons that you click on to buy. It would then take some through to, for example, Amazon and taken to the right page or on Amazon. And that was probably the quickest and easiest thing to get set up. When you go beyond that, then you can obviously add the shop functionality directly into your own website.

Marie Brown (:

And in fact, you can, if you want you to continue on with say an Etsy or you can get a software, which seeks your own shop with an Etsy shop or these other platforms as well. And so you can keep the two going, but obviously overtime, what you want people to do is not buying through Etsy or Amazon, but actually buying through your own website. And so it's important to, you know, even if you're selling it on another platform to direct people by your website.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Okay. And then I guess you could, you could start off thinking that you have a really simple website with all the purchasing options available in another side and in time and buildings, MI commerce options on their own sites is a building your own in store, for example. Yeah, exactly. And what kind of options are there? So, I mean, I use Shopify at the moment for my e-commerce store. And are there any, are there any offers that people you can think about looking up for, for kind of have a simple e-commerce website Building, because I'm kind of odd about keeping things simple because we can all spend hours constantly fiddling with our websites and trying to get everything to work. What would you recommend in terms of e-commerce website? But it is,

Marie Brown (:

There is a massive choice and people get so heated by the marketing of each of the platforms rather than necessarily, and whether they are suitable for their needs. And there are two that I recommend. So the websites that I built, I built them all in WordPress and, and I built a using with commerce as the e commerce platform. And then the other one I recommend is Shopify. And I just explain briefly, why are those cube? Most websites are effectively Daniel Building to some extent on somebody else's platform and Shopify falls into this category, but the likes of Wix Weebly, Squarespace, Spotify, Shopify, there was Spotify and they, they are owned your websites, expect to be owned by somebody else.

Marie Brown (:

And, and that means that you have to use the WWE. When you want to do some additional things you have to use. There are additional bits and pieces, which means that you were often restricted Shopify. It is better than the others because it has a much wider range of applications that you could add on to the website, which means that it's pretty much as flexible as a WordPress in that sense. So from a flexibility point of view, WordPress in Shopify, below the youngest out of the park, and you may not need that flexibility to begin with, but as you go further down the line and I've moved to a number of clients over, particularly from Wix over to WordPress, because they had just hit a road block.

Marie Brown (:

And so we've had to start their own website again. And obviously that's not an ideal, but Shopify has got a much more flexibility than any of the others. I think Shopify is easier to set up the WordPress, but WordPress itself can still be very, very simple. And WordPress is actually out of all as a platform, the cheapest to do. And the reason for that is because WordPress itself is free. So you need to buy a domain name and you need to find a website hosting, or you can get website hosting very, very cheaply. I use and recommend a company called SiteGround four website hosting.

Marie Brown (:

And that program's, I think they had just started at 10 pounds a month, which is more expensive than some of the hosting, but actually I think it represents a very good value for what you get. I think that would be cheaper going down that road with a Fri theme than going down in the reach of a, of one of the website builders. So they are the two platforms that I would recommend WordPress or shop refine. You can actually combine the two, you can have a WordPress website with Shopify shopping functionality. Are there are some benefits to doing that, but shoppers by your comments is the e-commerce platform. Certainly

Vicki Weinberg (:

That is so helpful. Thank you. I use Shopify at the moment. I'd have to say that I find it really easy to use and you can do all kinds over the years. I've added in all kinds of bits and pieces, but first it was, it, it was simply a sharp where you click to buy now that you know, that was it. But I do like the fact that you can expand on it. Should you need it to do a bit more?

Marie Brown (:

Yes. Yeah. There's a lot of people really raised to Shopify. It's not something that I use personally, but it is very well-regarded.

Vicki Weinberg (:

So you mentioned that for a simple website really you'd need a home page and about page and some sort of e-commerce functionality, whether it's a shop on your own site or where, if you're linking for you to somewhere else. So coming back to that, I've read it and talk a little bit about how you would write an about page, because I think this is probably, I, I don't know whether you would agree with what do you, one of the

most important pages on a website. I know that if I am looking at the company site, that was one of the pages, I would always click on it because I want to know a little bit about them. How do you get that right now?

Marie Brown (:

Yeah, it's really hard, but it's something that people are really, really struggle with, to be honest, because what you want to do on that is you're not selling your whole life story. What you want to think about is who your customers are and which bits of your story will resonate with them. I recently read that you got a dog and I bought a cowling rope time singing from a, a, a website. And I love their about page as well. So this was the best part about page and the scene, because they talked about the doors that they had and how

they had a problem, you know, the, how they loved going in for long walks on the beach and through the words, et cetera, but the dogs were, was filthy.

Marie Brown (:

And so that, you know, they, they stitched together and these towels and that's how the business was born. And I thought that was fantastic because obviously people that are going on that website love dogs and they, and they really captured that very, very well. And they talked about their story from that perspective. They didn't talk about what they did when they left school at 18 or, or where they grew up or anything like that, because it wasn't necessarily relevant to their client and, and their story M and in the same way, if you got whatever the business you've got, you know, you might have spent, I don't know, 20 years as a human rights lawyer.

Marie Brown (:

And that is a sentence in itself, might be really interesting for people. And I'd definitely put that in, but what they don't need it as a six paragraphs at all the different kind of cases that you've worked on and all the different kind of countries, unless you are selling something that is related to that. So it is a case of, and if you've got a parenting Product, for example, that's great. You know, it's much easier to write an about page because you, you know, you, you were a parent yourself. You can talk about it, you know, your children are and why you set up the business. And I think that's the best way to give them an about page. It's finding that connection with your comments.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Okay. Thank you. So I guess, yeah, so it needs to be relatable. Yes, definitely. Okay. Thank you for that. Cause I think that's, it's really good is because I think it was one of the pages of people can perhaps go a little bit stuck on, because either you feel there was nothing to say, or You, as you said, that you can invite almost share too much and then that it doesn't resonate either. So thank you.

Marie Brown (:

Yes. I always think back to when I went to Harry Potter world back in the day, and so what we can actually

go out of places and ah, on the wall of, of the girls and the house is that is all in the certificates for, from the, how are these brother or cousin, ah, you know, eating up to this day, there are five days in a row asking for seconds and things like that. And it's kind of useless information that nobody's interested in. And a lot of people tend to start their own pages with things which are just not necessarily interesting to the person reading it.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Thank you. Okay. So now let's talk about, say if you decided that you go in to launch a website and what kind of investment or does it take from me? So thinking in terms of time and, and, and, and cost as well as sort of, if you have decided, okay, I'm going to set up a website with my products business, what should we be thinking it's going to take and are there are some options here? So I'm assuming there are some options. Yeah.

Marie Brown (:

Yeah. And let's deal with cost. First of all. And it's very much a case of how long has the piece of string M you can't do it yourself for the cost of the domain name and the cost of hosting. And you use the free WordPress. The,

Vicki Weinberg (:

So that it is, I think probably about

Marie Brown (:

A cheapest thing that you will get on your own website. You can get cheaper with people like Wix, but it's branded Wix. So I wouldn't recommend going down that route. So that in itself would probably cost you. I don't know, I had a 100 pounds a year and it would be 120 pounds a year. And then obviously you got to pay for payment processing. So a credit card fees are paid panels Stripe, unless you are doing bank transfers, for example, which I wouldn't recommend unless you sell a very few high value products, because the administration of trying to manage that is, is obviously difficult. So that's probably the cheapest, the end of the spectrum.

Marie Brown (:

And then you can spend an awful lot of money at the other end of the spectrum. But I think it's a case of thinking about what is appropriate for your needs. So I know I, the very first website I had had, I did not build, I actually used a web design agency and they build me something that was expensive and was not appropriate for my needs. It was the Ferrari. Now I've never own a Ferrari, but I would imagine for Ari that are expensive to service and they were expensive when things go wrong, because that's exactly the problem I had with my website. And that just wasn't appropriate to, to, to what I needed. So I think if you are looking for somebody else to do it, you were probably looking at, in the region around 1000 to 5,000 pounds, for somebody to do the work for you of setting up the entire website, there was a case of the time investment,

and it was a kind of investment.

Marie Brown (:

Obviously it, it depends upon what you are willing to do for yourself and what you want to add source. I don't think you should underestimate the time it takes to, right, and to collect the information that you actually need for your website. And even if you involve a professional photographer and the copywriter, then you still recommend a certain, as far as the copy is concerned that you write the first grand for yourself, because you're the one that had set this business up, you've got a passion for the business. You understand it. And even if you can't necessarily right, in a way that is both in marketing or, or, or have you got issues with spelling or grammar, or do a first draft, get some passion across to somebody else was published it for four years.

Marie Brown (:

So that's the one thing that you can't source, but it is obviously the writing. I do. You also recommend outsourcing at least some of your product photography, particularly lifestyle photography. So I would say that's where you got your product in a, a lifestyle setting. You can get away. If you got a lower value product that you're not going to sell it more for a lot of, and then you can always say, it's not worth getting somebody else to take that product for that come with me. Then in terms of beyond that, it is a question of how much it was the tech side, or do you do it yourself?

Marie Brown (:

And, you know, I know people who had taken years to get a website up and running because they are doing it themselves and they are doing around obviously trying to set up a business. And there are thousands of the things that you need to do when you're setting up a business that you do, you get around family. And sometimes they are doing it right in other jobs as well. So it's a very much for being squeezed into spend time. And it can take a long time to get it all together with if that is the case, you know, I can build a website in 20 hours, 20 to 30 hours roughly, but actually my very first website took me probably, I don't know, hundred or so hours.

Marie Brown (:

Umm, and yes, it does depend as well, obviously on how many products you got. But if there was a massive investment of time, if you are building it yourself, you can do it. It definitely is. There's no reason why you can't build your own website, but it's obviously, unless you are used to dealing with that software, it does take, it does take time.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Okay. So that was really helpful to know. Thank you that we should expect it to take time. And actually I think as always, there's also the ongoing time as well because I felt based on my website, it's myself and I have to say, I spend more time than I would like also in the last I'd like to admit tweaking because it doesn't look

quite right. You go and see a website for something and you'd think well that isn't quite aligned or that could be written better. And yeah, the amount of time I spent in sort of fiddling with it and I'm, I'm not sure if that was good.

Marie Brown (:

You say that I will say that website's are a work in progress. And I, I, I don't mean to be flippant, but I actually, you know, your business is changing all of the time and your product range might be changing. So you should always be updating your website. Season's change. You may have a motion to the Valentine's day for mother's day. So for the summer, the season of Christmas, go back to school or whatever it might be. So you're constantly changing things for that. I think it's what you need is a framework that is consistent. And then you could just tweak copy and you can tweak images M and a small amounts of your website with each season or, or, or as you were as your business develops.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Okay. So then it's good to know. And like, because I'm assuming that it probably is better to update your website at least occasionally rather than to leave it stagnant or static, let's say for, for years at a time, is there any,

Marie Brown (:

Yeah. And there were a couple of reasons for first of all, customers like it, you know, if you've ever been on a website and see that its got the copyright notice at the bottom, it says 2016 or are there was a blog and the last post was it about that date and the website itself stylistically may look dated and you actually wonder whether they are still in business and Google is the same, actually, if you want to get things done and the three search engines, they like fresh content. Definitely. Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Thank you. And are there any ways to keep your content fresh that you could recommend

Marie Brown (:

Changing images is a great way and then you can just update text and it obviously doesn't need to be the whole website, but it can be updating small parts of it. And maybe on your home page, bringing in, you know, each months showcasing a different part of your, your range depending on what's appropriate for, for that time of the year or just to circulate it. And then the other way that you can bring in fresh content is through blogs. So logging for your business as a great way to bring in fresh content. I know many people are terrified of blogging, but its actually he doesn't need to be difficult. Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Yeah. Well that's great. Thank you. So lets say, so you've got your website up in your, and you're happy with it even if maybe you're still tweaking it a little bit. How would you start thinking about promoting your website

or maybe even promoting, but just getting it found.

Marie Brown (:

Yes. This is something that a lot of people underestimate the time that was involved in this and the effort. So a lot of people think that this is as long as we got a website, you will get fined on Google. And that is actually true. Allows you to guess, I don't know, Google it, but you might find your way down on page 537, which has a really very helpful place to be. So you should try and promote a website as much as you possibly can. So

on all of your social media bio is you should have your website or displayed. You should have on the bottom of your email, have it on your private social media profiles as well, or at the very least have a link to your business, social media profiles from your private and then, and then on to your website, if you can get featured in any publications or on anybody else's blogs, that's another great way for getting your website promoted and Google likes those kinds of links out and they're called back-links.

Marie Brown (:

And so Google likes those and you know, I tell people about it or email people about it and promote your website as much as you can in other forums. So for example, Facebook groups, are they going to have promote? It allows us to promote a businesses from time to time. So things like that are really good way of, of, of promoting or business website. And if you've got physical premises or a van or your affairs, making sure that your website name is displayed prominently or not show up front of your Vann or you know, on KTN cover or, or whatever it might be.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Thank you. So how would you know whether your website is actually working for you or

Marie Brown (:

That's a great question because again, many people have no idea. And obviously if you're going to getting physical sales through your website, that is one way to tell, but often people, they need to see you in a number of different places before they would actually buy from you. And it may be that they have seen your website, but then they actually by through an independent retailer, if you have stockists for example, or they may buy and they see you would have spare, but that's not necessarily the first time that they had come across to you. And it's I was recommended. In fact, I was installed for my clients, something called Google Analytics, which is a brilliant tool completely free.

Marie Brown (:

And which allows you to see how many people who've been on your website, where they are from. So which country, which towns, et cetera, this is all anonymous. Of course. How could they have found you? So whether they have found you through social media and if so, which channel and which pages they had spent time on. So which products they might have considered. I have, I'm a lot of people find me through a couple of blog posts in particular they're very heavily Read. And if that's the case, then it's worse. Invest in a little bit

of time looking at how you can make those posts better and how you can use, for example, those posts to direct people to use a relevant product that might be associated with that post.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Oh, that's good. Thank you. So Google analytics is something that you'd recommend people download and take a look at it.

Marie Brown (:

Absolutely. Yes. He, you, you can get it for free and they have to sign up for free and then you need a little piece of code to attach it to your website. But actually that's easy to do yourself if you don't know, if you're not using a website, developer are so easy to be yourself and it doesn't matter what form of website you've got. There are instructions that you just need to follow for that particular kind of website.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Okay. That's good to know. And let us say that you, you look at Google analytics and you can set, you see here that, you know, you are not getting much traffic, perhaps what are some sort of things you can do to try and improve it?

Marie Brown (:

So if you are not getting a lot of traffic, it obviously you've got things like social media and improving your social media presence in order to drive traffic to your website. And actually I'm going to say, prove your social media presence. What I mean by that is, is drive more traffic to your that way. So talk about things being on your website and for example, link into your website when you can and social media, obviously you can just got your biome in Instagram. So very much trying to push traffic through to your website from your social media, then you can PR is another great way of again, driving people to your website.

Marie Brown (:

And that is very much PL to me, is, is eye catching yourself to somebody else's bandwagon to somebody else's all year round and getting some of that audience to come across to you. So it doesn't necessarily, you just need to be the traditional printed press, but there's a local, a flood of online press now or online blogs again that you can use PR for. And then the third way is through search engine optimization, also known as , which is a technical term, but basically just means getting found through Google and other search engines. And there are a few key things that you can do to get a sense through search engines.

Marie Brown (:

So you can, the most important thing is to make sure you're writing about what you want to be found for. And secondly is making sure that you are at a tagging things that you're writing about correctly and also PR. So it helps your overall authority with regard to Google. So that actually helps you with SEO as well. There's something else you can do it, which is related to that to SEO, which is get a Google, my business listing.

Again, this is something that is completely free and Google my business listing is particularly important for if you have a business that serves a local area, but we all have local customers, even people who operate nationally.

Marie Brown (:

So don't tell them to look at if you think, well, its not for me, 'cause I'm not local. And what Google my business does is when somebody searches for a business like yours and then it brings you up on the map. It is often on the very first page. So it is a little bit more appropriate to you, services businesses, but it might also be appropriate for some, some, some product based businesses as well.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Okay. Yeah, because I am assuming if someone searches for a product that you sell it and they live near You, you might pop up on their map.

Marie Brown (:

Is that yeah, exactly. Yes. They had to be searching for a, a, a business or a product or a service rather than, than something that's more generic. So, you know, if you asked how much does the website, it costs you don't get to the Google map on that. But if you search for website design, as you can get the Google map. So it depends on what somebody's searching for. But again is something which is free. Om, you can get Google reviews on there, which Google also likes and therefore most your website or a bunch of more heavily and obviously a link to your website. I actually get quite a lot of click-throughs to my website, from my Google, my business listing actually.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Oh, that's a good to know. And he took a look at my age now I thank you for all. You've shared about, you know, the things that we could be doing. So a few final questions. And one thing I would love to know is what are some of the common mistakes you see people make when it comes to their website? It's because I am assuming that you probably see the same things over and over and we get to know what those are, the things that we don't do that.

Marie Brown (:

Absolutely. And you're right. I do you see the same things over and over? I think the first thing is not being clear about what is that you do and, and what you ask that because we have to remember that the people who come to our websites all the time, Paul, usually they don't have the time to sit through and, and look at every single thing that you do. So you've got to capture their attention as soon as they land on the website. And the best way to do that is with an image at the very top of your home page, which captures everything. You can imagine your business, how you want people to, to, to feel a, so that is the most important thing.

Marie Brown (:

And then the worst that go with that at the very top of that, the, the homepage make it really clear. What is that you do? And what is it that you do it for? So if you are making products which are specifically aimed at parents or parents, or in a particular age group, or I don't know, parents of children with particular disabilities or eco-conscious parents, whatever it might be to make sure that the word at the very top of the home page, it makes it very, very clear. So people, I will say that when people land on your home page and see that initial image and those first few words there, they got two responses either I've come to the wrong place.

Marie Brown (:

And you could imagine with a name like Beyond the Kitchen Table, I'm pretty sure I get a fair few people looking at the kitchen tables. You come on my website. And so that's fine. They can see it. It's really clear straight away that there's nothing about I'd have to sell a kitchen tables, so, so they can leave. And that's fine. But then people who are looking for to kind of thing that you are selling, what you want him to think is I've come to the right place. I'm going to settle. There was my cup of tea, all my glass of wine, you know, we don't judge and I'm going to invest some time in looking through this website. So that's really what you need to do. And it's amazing how many have websites don't do that.

Marie Brown (:

But I think that's the most important thing. Then I would say the quality of images on your website and I, as I'm sure you and, and people are listening will have seen many, a grainy and great in age, which just doesn't show us a product in any way near in the best light. So having a good quality images is hugely important. And that I think, so the thing that I would say is leading people through too, what they want to do. So confusing navigation is it is a really common problem where people learn the home page and there's so much choice and different places to go and that people get confused and they leave.

Marie Brown (:

You know, it was a bit like going into one of those shops where there are, I don't know, 40 different kinds of paths to source on the shelf. And you just think I have no idea of which one to choose. And so you, you know, you end up going elsewhere, whether it's a choice, it's three and it's a much simpler, it's the same on Your, on your website. You need to give people clear choices based upon a what differentiates us. So each of them, so if, for example, you said, it gets, I need to sell it, get it to a job or for him, for her or the children, there might be overlaps between them. But people are generally, people generally know whether they're looking for a gift for a man or a woman or a child or a pet a or whatever it might be, you know, and making it really Claire and making a navigation really clear or guiding somebody through the website and they find out exactly what they need in as few clicks as possible.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Okay. That's great. Thank you. So it sounds like simple is definitely the best approach. Marie Brown (00:34:15):

Oh, absolutely. Definitely. Don't want to complicate things.

Vicki Weinberg (:

That was really helpful. Thank you. OK. So thank you so much for all that you've shared. Marie, I just wondered if you had, so the final question I'll ask, ask, ask everyone. I don't know, to ask you a slight variation on this. So what would your number one piece of advice be for someone wanting to create a website for their product business? What was the key takeaway from today?

Marie Brown (:

I think actually I would say Scott without almost because the most important things before, because the website is an investment in time and if not money, that the most important thing is that you actually have a product that people people want. So I say, invest the time and making sure that you got your product not necessarily completely. Right, but you've got a product that is, that it is. Is there in a sellable before you embark on the whole website journey and that'd be on that? I would definitely say, just keep it simple.

Vicki Weinberg (:

That's great advice for you and thank you. So yeah, so to make sure your product is viable before you start thinking that you need to have a website and look, cause I think as you said earlier, sometimes people think they need to have the website before they start selling, but actually it's quite as quite a nice to hear your take, that it can actually be the other way round and you could just start selling your product for investing that. I think that's really good advice. Thank you so much for that. And thank you for everything that you've shared today.

Marie Brown (:

You're very welcome. It's been my pleasure.

Vicki Weinberg (:

This is the best place for people to go and find out a bit more about you and your services, Marie.

Marie Brown (:

Well, obviously there is my website, which is Beyond the Kitchen Table dot co.uk. And then on social media, I'm most active on Instagram, which comes as quite as a surprise to me because I didn't think I would ever enjoy Instagram, but, but definitely on Instagram is probably the best social media platform to find me and I am beyond the KT on Instagram.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Thank you so much. And I'll link to both of those in the show notes as well. Thank you so much, Marie. Marie Brown (00:36:18):

You're very welcome. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure talking to you.

Vicki Weinberg (:

Hi, thank you so much for listening as always, absolutely love to know what your thought of this episode. Please do remember to rate and review the show and also most importantly subscribed. So you don't miss out in any future episodes. And as a reminder, I release a new episode every single Friday. So take care of, and look forward to speaking to you again, then.

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