Updating and Up-leveling your website. Do you really need to?

Refreshing your website - that old conundrum of, do I really need to? 

I’m going to chat to you today about why the answer is YES! and walking you through my own process of rebranding and how it’s totally changed how I show up in my business. 

I’ll also be talking to you about why giving my website a makeover has totally changed the way I’m showing up in my business and how the old design was literally stopping myself from being more visible, so losing money in my business. 

Do any of these statements ring true for you when you think about updating your site...

• Everything is done on social media these days do I really need to update my website?

• Most of my business comes through referrals.

• It does the job, do people really look at it anyway? 
  

Yes most of those statements are true to a certain degree as in yes, business is done on social media and you may get business through referrals BUT people will always check out your website as further evidence to get to know who you are and what you’re offering, in further detail. 

For instance, you may not even be using your website to make a sale there and then, it may just be used as social proof of your expertise. I had a client who was an expert in their field in gift and sim card packaging, their clients range from Amazon to T-Mobile. How their business works isn’t that someone from Amazon will land on their website by some stroke of luck, they’ll be cultivating their relationship with the head of Gift Cards over many many conversations but when that person looks on their website, my client wants them to see their site and know that they’re experts in their fields through shit hot branding. 

Below is a before and after example of the mentioned above clients of mine and how changing their website rebranded immediately made them look more professional and experts in their field. Within a couple of months of their newly updated website my clients were able to close on a deal that they’d been working on with Amazon for well over a year. 

* This is just a small snippet of the homepages, fading out at the bottom...

I wanted to talk about the rebranding of my website to help those of you that are thinking about whether you need to do your own and if it’s worth the work - I struggled with how to begin as I’m a website designer and I’ve not been in love with my site for over 18 months now. 

I know, Shock, Horror! 

How the bloomin heck can she talk to me about this subject if she’s been unhappy with hers for so long? I know right!!! Well it’s because I have been unhappy with my own that I know how much it’s been holding me back, and boy has it been holding me back! 

It’s been like a little niggle on my shoulder, I’ve not been shining in my business and showing up on social media with that confidence I know I could have if only I loved my branding and website like I know I could and should. 

Now don’t get me wrong my website looked pretty great, all of my clients loved it and peers too but it just didn’t feel right. There were bits I knew I wanted to improve, things that felt disjointed without a nice energetic flow, the colours weren’t quite right - basically I didn’t feel great about it. And when you don’t feel great about something, you don’t show up at your best.

And boy did not showing up at my best, hit me over the head this year! 

I had a bit of a wake up call at the start of 2019 when I met up with a friend and she said to me, how’s everything going with you?

I spoke about my business and how much I was loving what I got to do every day. 

She was like, that’s great but how about your personal life and how you feel about yourself? My eyes immediately started welling up, brain starts going into meltdown. Sucker punch, woahhh, where did that come from? I thought I was doing fine but clearly not. 

She was saying; when was the last time you exercised to make yourself feel good? When did you last blow out your hair? Get your nails done? Pampered yourself? Go on a date? Dress up nicely? 

Every answer to her questions was, it was so long ago I couldn’t even tell you! She told me about a friend of hers who lives in her comfy clothes everyday, doesn’t wear makeup and has such confidence and feels great, which is brilliant and works for her because she’s happy in herself. 

She repeated back to me how I’d been telling her about my wearing baggy, comfort clothes and no makeup every day, how I don’t make any effort. Then came the question of, “but how does that make you feel?” To which I responded, pretty shitty actually. “And when you wear slightly nicer clothes, as in jeans rather than tracksuit bottoms and even just a little lipstick, how do you feel?” To which I responded, AMAZING. This went on and on, through how exercising makes me feel incredible, going out on dates excited me - I’d realised I’d been hiding and it wasn’t making me feel great about myself. 

Needless to say that one conversation with my super successful, badass friend was probably the most powerful conversation of my entire year. The next day I went and had a gorgeous haircut, which made me feel a million dollars, I started exercising more - mental health immediately imporoved and one month to the day later I handed in my notice of my rental flat of 10 years and made the decision to move home for one year to save a deposit for my dream home.  

Now why am I telling you this and what does that have to do with websites I hear you say!? 

Well here’s what I mean, how you present yourself and show up in the world massively affects how you feel which translates into the energy you give off and how you attract others (clients) to you. 

I’m going to quote my ultimate mentor Jen Sincero (author of You Are A Badass here) here; 

“You need to raise your frequency to match the vibration of the one you want to tune into. 

It’s like trying to listen to a certain radio station but tuning in at the wrong frequency. If you have a hot and sexy date and want to listen to 105.9FM Slow Jamz, but set your dial to 89.9FM National Public Radio, you’re not going to listen to Slow Jamless, but you’re more likely to attract a discussion about immigration laws instead of attracting a relaxed and candlelit body that’s in the mood for love. 

The Universe will match whatever vibration you put out. And you can’t fool The Universe.” 

That sums up how you may be feeling about your website and overall branding of your business. It may seem like something inconsequential to you depending on how you work in your business but I can tell you now that if you aren’t 100% happy with it, it will be affecting how you show up. 

My client Genevieve whom I adore, was in a similar situation with not showing up fully in her business because she knew she wanted to upgrade her branding and website. Don’t get me wrong, she was showing up with her clients 100% but she knew she wanted to really uplevel and scale what she’d been doing the past few years but didn’t feel confident to do that with her current site. 

Her reluctance to take the next step and hire someone (she told me there was no way she’d do it herself as she wanted her uplevel to be super professional and she knew she couldn’t create that) was because she’d had a bad experience in the past with a photographer and her previous website design was more tech based than design led and the time and energy of finding a whole team when she was being a stay at home mum to her 2 year old and running her business at the same time seemed too much to do. 

Enter me, her fairy godmother. The story of our work together was such a fun one and what Genevieve does as a clinical psychologist and conscious parenting coach is so interesting that I’ll be posting a separate article later on this month. 

But for now take a look at what Genevieve had to say as I think it speaks volumes for how when you make a decision to uplevel in your business magical things start to occur, simply by raising your energy… 

“As soon as I said yes to Liz creating my website, I’ve had so many opportunities and clients coming my way without much effort or advertising. It’s truly been like magic and my work has begun to flow with an effortless ease.  It was as if the moment, I decided to financially invest in myself and my business, more doors have opened up and I could not be more grateful. 

If you are thinking about working with Liz, then stop thinking and just do it! You will not regret it. You, your business and your clients deserve something wondrous which truly reflects your authentic,  beautiful soul and your unique gifts and offerings to the world.”

Now that last paragraph, I’ve not put that in to toot my own horn, it’s more so that you can see that last sentence - “truly reflects your authentic,  beautiful soul and your unique gifts and offerings to the world”. When that happens and you feel like your business is looking exactly how you want it to, you get to show up in a way that’s truly authentic and you. 

My 3 Rebrands to Date…
** you can see my latest and most ‘me’ rebrand on the current site you’re viewing this blog on now

Since starting my business I’ve had 3 website designs - 4 including my current website. The first one was when I launched my business, that felt really like me - at the time! That’s the important thing to note here, at the time means that it reflects who you are and the clients you’re looking to work with. 

When you first start your business you’ll know as well as I do, that things change, your offers will probably change, who you’re working with too, things evolve, which means your website should do too. 

VERSION 1 - Bright Pinks - My first website

Ah back to when I was a newbie and designing my very first website for my personal branding business whilst still in my job within the fashion industry. We were having a beautiful summer in London and my wardrobe was looking super pretty and jam packed full of bright skirts, tops and dresses. 

I knew I needed some gorgeous photos taken of myself so I enlisted my talented friend for my photoshoot and off we went to the back of my office building where there was an outdoor sculpture studio. The location looked as if you were in a serene Italian dream, Vogue eat your heart out. In fact the fashion company I worked for had recently done a shoot there which was off the charts gorge! 

As mentioned above by my colourful wardrobe due to it being summer, I’d decided that my website branding colours would be hot pinks and a few other bright colours alongside simple marble backgrounds. No props, super simple, just me smiling my big ol’ smile. 

I have done a blog post on what to wear for your photoshoot in more detail that you can read here but for now, let me just say, what you wear on your shoot influences the look of your website and social media more so than anything else bar the location and backdrops of your shots.

I spent a long time writing my copy and then had my expert copywriter friend, Sarah Henson assembling all of what I’d written, rewriting it so that it would be copy that converts as all of that was very new to me as a new business. I always recommend hiring a copywriter if copy is not your strong point. 

As I’m writing all of this, I think at a later date I’ll go into how I created my website and the various rebrands in further detail but for now all I can say is that it felt new and totally me. 

VERSION 2 - Tonal Relaxed - 12 months after launching my 1st site

Ok boy was I ready to change up that pink haha. The bright summer had long since faded from my wardrobe and I was naaaat wearing those colours anymore. I no longer felt like the bright pop gal I’d been when I first designed my site. 

I’d stopped wearing my dresses especially my printed pieces, which although not in my shoot were a big part of my fashion identity. I was forever in my jeans and simple Tees, generally they’d have an inspirational quote on them haha. Actually, as I write this from my fairy light lit room, I’m wearing my ‘believe in yourself’ Tee, because that’s how cool I am! 

So you guessed it, I did a new shoot with clothes that reflected where I was then and added in some props. My trusted camera and laptop! 

I rejigged bits on my site to reflect a softer colour palette, and changed up the hot pink to a slightly more hot lilacy pink, but used it more as a highlight than a strong focal point. 

Colours are extremely important and I love how you can see a colour and immediately think, oh that’s such and such posting on social. For instance I think Maria Coz (she’s the wonder woman who can help you create and launch your online courses) does this brilliantly, she uses a certain tone of warm, bright orange and if I see it on social I know that it’s her. She’s recently had her own rebrand of her site and it’s still totally her but who she is right now, not the woman of 12 months ago. 

So maybe try not to change your colours too much as it’s great if you become known for a colour/colour combos, instant recognisability is awesome. Look at Tiffany’s, duck egg blue and Hermes, orange. I think it’s ok when you’re finding your feet and launching but once you have something you love, try keeping with that and just updating your photos and page layouts. 

Pros

Loved that I’d ditched the bright pink that didn’t feel like me anymore 

Adored my new shoot, which was more aligned with who I was at the time

My clients said that they felt the website was a touch more neutral and more relateable to what they wanted on their sites. Think the pink had put some people off. Now this is tricky for me, as I kind of don’t agree with changing your site because you want to please everyone else, it needs to be you so you attract your ideal clients. But I’d changed it for me and as a bonus it attracted others. 

Cons

I hadn’t really thought too much about changing up the page structure, it was all just rejigged and not thought out as if I was starting afresh so always felt not quite finished. 

I didn’t update my portfolio page with new work as I still wasn’t 100% loving this version of my site so thought what’s the point, it’ll take too long esp with all the work I had going on.

I hadn’t thought much about my homepage image on the shoot, silly I know as I do that for others! For me, thinking about what may be good for you main hompage shot is super important as you need to think about how the writing will appear over it, on desktop and mobile. This fact BUGGED THE HELL OUTTA MEEE!!! I don’t think I was ever happy with how that appeared, until my next and final rebrand as of this post in Dec 2019. 

VERSION 3 - Pastels & Pop - 9 months after launching my 2nd site

And breathe, I am now skippingly, I’ma do a cartwheel kinda happy about my website. Finally. 

That last rebrand I did between my first and final website design felt half arsed, by my own exacting standard. I just wasn’t happy with it. I’d just tinkered with it on and off in stages, never sat down and set aside time to really go at it so that I loved it and could sell my services with pride by sending people to my site. 

I 100% know that not setting aside the time needed to update my website stopped me from upleveling like I knew I was capable of. This cost me money, money from not being more visible and shouting from the rooftops, how I could help female entrepreneurs with their websites and photography. 

2020 for me is all about Consistency (read my blog post here all about that!) and shouting about what I do on a regular basis. I can only do that now because I FRIGGING LOVE MY WEBSITE!!! 

I used the same photos from the previous site rebrand as I still loved them, I just knew I hadn’t used them properly in the last half arsed attempt. 

Whereas the more updated colours I’d used previously never completely sat right with me, they did this time. I went back to basics and treated myself as I would a client, I always loved using a few colours with clients, keeping it simple. Other designers may use lots of colours but I find one or two work incredibly well. That first pink website I did, although not me anymore I still loved the simplicity of it. 

That’s where from using the new Squarespace 7.1 platform made playing around with colours easier - blog post more on that coming next week! 

I totally played around with my page layouts and using the photos in a more fun way. In the past, I had a system where the page banners all looked the same which now I found boring on my site, so I mixed that up. 

I amended copy on the pages that no longer worked. My client avatar had changed from being women who were just starting their businesses to include women that were looking to uplevel, so the copy needed to reflect that. 

Then finally, the one that gives me the most joy, I updated my portfolio. Check out my baby here.

I cannot tell you how incredible I now feel in my business. That last bit being able to show the incredible work I’ve created was I think in part, releasing an old block. I’d had these amazing sites and testimonials for well over a year and not done anything with them. That was clearly a form of me being scared to take that next level up - read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks to learn all about hitting your upper limit problems. 

The whole point of this extremely long ;-p blog post is that, I want you to really think if your website, photos, branding is holding you back from showing up in your business from a place of absolute power and awesomeness? If it’s not then I really believe you need to look at how you can set aside some time and work on it. 

All of this takes time when you are doing it yourself and as entrepreneurs we know that time is one of our most valuable resources. I’m not saying, you have to hire someone yourself, you can totally do it yourself if you don’t feel you have the budget. BUT when you hire a professional they see you and your vision and get it right first time. No more - oh it’s good enough, it’ll do. You don’t want that - you want it’s fricking amazing so you can sell your offers and products with pride. 

If you’re reading this and you’ve got this far, I’m thinking you’re interested in raising your game and updating your website. What do you think may be holding you back from taking that next step? Is it something similar to Genevieve, where she’d had an awful experience with a photographer previously. Maybe it’s like my client Susan, where she got a headache thinking about the hassle of having to find a whole team of people to create her new business from branding designer, photographer, copywriter, website designer and website developer only to realise she could get all of those things through hiring me? I’d love to know what’s been holding you back in the comments below.