we're gonna look at how to pitch your website as a website

designer or a developer.

Two people

who are actually gonna buy from you

Do you ever do that thing where you go and look at another website designers, or

particularly developer's website, and you go there and you can't actually find out

anything about the designer or developer.

You can't find out what they look like.

You can't really find out much

about them.

You don't even know their prices.

The only thing

that you can kind of see are these images of code on a screen or some developers

will do this code that

can interact with and it might seem really clever,

but it's just weird.

.So hi, and welcome to Websites Made

Simple.

I am Holly Christie.

I'm a website designer.

I'm a mentor to website designers,

and I have this podcast to help

have an

amazing web design

career without making all the mistakes I did along the way.

So,

Ready?

Let's get started.

So, yeah, have a hard time representing ourselves online, don't we?

we?

And a lot of that can be because

website designers can often want to be all things to all people.

It

is a really saturated industry.

In

I've been looking

some of the figures in the UK of, you know,

How many web designers there are,

how many website designers there are in certain price

brackets and what they're earning

and stuff

like that.

And if you are

finding that,

it is tough to

stand out and cut through that noise and have people choose you is because

it is.

But I am here

to help you, give you some

hints, some tips, some tricks

really get in front of your audience.

And

the first thing that

are going to talk about is

anonymity.

Because so many website designers and developers make the mistake

of thinking

that what they are offering

to the client

is all about

the end result.

And of

we want our clients to love the websites we build.

We want them to have a really good experience working with us,

and we want them to really, you know, be championing us along

the way and be like,

oh yeah.

Business friends, you need a new website.

I have the designer for you.

Now, trust me,

if

they land on your website and they can't find a picture of you, they

don't really know much about you.

you.

They can just see this really

anonymous website that uses stock photography of

what websites

look like on a

phone and

tablet and a desktop, but there's nothing about you in there.

They're not gonna buy it, I promise you.

They're not gonna buy from that.

The ones that they are gonna buy from are gonna be the website

designers who have photos of them.

who talk directly to them and who allow their clients into

their lives a little bit.

And that's not to say, oh, you've gotta write about your.

your family situation or where you went on holiday, or anything like that.

It's not, you know,

I'm all about business

things on business

sites, You need to

have your values on there.

What

kind of drives

you?

you know, what really drives me with this podcast and with working and creating

resources and everything for you is that

I think the web design's

a really great career.

You get

be creative.

You

get to work

for yourself.

You get to meet loads of other people in the

industry.

There's always something fresh and new, and

you

to be really good at what you do as well.

there's

really great stuff about it, but

So many website

designers burn out

and trust me, I've been one of

the burnt out ones.

So many of us burn

out because they dunno how to run the business.

they've just pieced it all together as they've gone along

and they feel like they're, you know, at the end of this really

rapidly fraying route.

And we all hit that point in our businesses.

My purpose of

this for you guys.

is so that you don't reach that burnout.

So you carry on loving the career

in the industry the way that I do,

do, and so that you are properly resourced so that when a

client comes and says to you,

oh, you haven't done this properly, and say, actually I have, I've stuck

to my contract.

This is what's in the contract.

If you

don't have contracts, I have a, uh, website designers contract pack on

the websites made simple co uk and you can go and grab them from there.

having, being able

to help you guys to have an amazing career is really what

drives me.

And I make that really

clear throughout my whole website

and it works

because, you know, I have people buying my contracts.

I have people buying my courses, I have people in mentoring sessions.

I have people working one-to-one with me

People want that, they want that support.

And in the same way that when people are coming to look at your website, they're

doing so because they want a website and they want it with a web designer who

can build a good relationship with

a web

designer who can support them in achieving this online goal for them.

they aren't going

to really be able to get that if they can't see who that designer is.

have a look at your website and think about people buy from people.

And

if

is not enough of you on your website, then go and fix that

and put more of you on your site.

and an ity just doesn't connect with your audience, you know, a load of code.

I've

seen some coders websites and it

kind of looks

what they do.

You

go onto the website and they have it all like

you know, the black box and the code writing as you are

looking

at it And yeah, I can look

at that and I can appreciate that.

And yeah, they, yeah, that looks fun.

But someone

who is looking to get their website built or designed,

they're not gonna find that fun.

They're gonna find that really intimidating because the years

and years that I have been.

building and

working in website design.

The one thing that has connected a lot of the people that I have built websites

for, I would say probably 90% of the people that I've built websites for,

is.

They're actually quite afraid

of the tech.

websites can make people feel quite stupid and they're not stupid at all.

It's

just they're not meant to

know this tech for years, people didn't really have websites or

didn't need to worry about it or think about it, or the

website may have been handled by

company that they were working

for at the times.

Yeah, this is all new software and it's all new stuff and

people aren't gonna know it.

And if they're just hit by a wall of code or a wall of

images or something like that,

it's

gonna make them feel like, oh, I'm gonna be looked after here, or This is

someone who's gonna understand where I'm

from or whatever else it is.

And trust me, people do feel like this.

Like I have my Simply Sites is you probably know, they are my starter

websites for people who are only looking for something very small

or they're on the start of their journey I'm known for my handholding,

and

so I would've handheld them through the process.

They get their website manual at the end

of the experience as well.

Everything is all good and I always say to them,

you wanna add another page, if you want to do something, just jump

on a call with me and you know, I will happily walk you through it.

And

sometimes my lovely virtual assistant, Sharon,

she will go on

the call with the people.

I can't tell you how many times people say.

Oh, I'm so

pleased it's you, Sharon, and I just feel intimidated like,

asking the web designer to

actually be the one to do this . and these are people who

I've worked with for years and

I'm always saying

to them, I mean, they come to me.

So just because.

someone may have, you know, engaged at one point, people still feel intimidated.

Often when it comes to websites and website tech.

And so your job within getting new clients is to make them feel really comfortable.

And the way that we make people feel comfortable, the way we make

them feel aspirational

as well, is

by showing them who we are, what we can do, what our

values are, but really

coming across in that user friendly way as well.

as I'm saying this, I'm racking my brains now and say, well, if

you are the type of web designer who does this or that, but no.

If

you are trying to connect directly with people who want websites built for them,

then there aren't any exceptions to

this.

Be brave.

Put yourself out there.

there

And do not anonymize yourself on your website because

if anything, I mean, even

coders have to have websites which have a good website user journey.

people need pricing on websites.

I've got a whole podcast episode on this about pricing.

People need to see how much he costs, and I know that

People can often

and I actually think it's quite an old fashioned thing now,

but people

can often think, oh, well, what if my competitors see what I'm

charging and then they go and undercut me or something like that.

it just doesn't really

happen like that, especially because it is a saturated industry.

People will know

generally

how much they want to spend on a website build,

people will pay to work with the people they want to work with.

even if it means paying.

more.

And the reason

that they will pay more to work with that person is because they have gotta know

them and whether they've gotta know them through their website, whether they've

gotta know them through social channels

they followed them for a while.

Whatever

it is.

It's them

that they are trying to buy from.

It's like, if you see through my testimonials and things

like that with people who.

Have

website bills, they say I

a new website and Holly was the only person I wanted to work with.

I mean, you'll see with my websites, I'm really accessible to people

and it's very consistent with my social media feeds as well.

As much as your website needs to be your, like

shiniest, best version of you.

you.

It doesn't

have to be stayed, it doesn't have to be, here is a corporate

photo of me, or, you know, here is me in a suit jacket or whatever.

I mean, you can say on my website, I'm not wearing suits in any of them.

I spend most of my time in jeans and shirts and stuff like that.

to

to.

build trust.

It has to be well lit. It can't be images of you that have just been

cropped out of photos from your friend's wedding or on the holiday or

family picture or something like that.

You really do need to invest in your own website presence to get

people to invest in theirs with you.

if

if

you have your website currently anonymous, I would like to

challenge you to changing that.

I would like to challenge you

to looking at

how you

get some photos

of you that you'd be happy to have on the website.

and if it is.

Kind of anonymized by the website copy as well.

where it's

we build custom build websites for these people, da, da da, source of thing.

Really go through your website, have a look at it, see how

you can update the copy.

set it so that you are identifying

your client's needs without sounding like a robot.

I

have a course called Understanding Your User's Journey, and

it's all about UX design.

And it's a webinar which talks you through all the best practices

of UX design,

but

it also has a workbook with it, and it says, you know, what's

your client's pain point?

What's your story about how you sort that pain point?

And there's lots and lots of opportunities within these workbooks to really

nail your website design for clients.

It does work.

It's all of the practice I have done on my own websites, on my

client's websites, as you know.

know, I've won awards for the websites

I build.

So if you are struggling with this, then

please do go over to websites made simple.co uk.

Go and download the course.

It'll be one of the best investments that you have made.

So until then.

If

you do update your website, if

do think, oh, I'm gonna take it yeah, I'm gonna do what Hall says, do drop me

a line, come to Hello at websites, made simple co uk share your wins with me.

I would love to hear from you and until

then,

happy website.