MBA2523 How To Build a Website That Sells

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome. And in today's lesson, you will learn how to build a website that sells. Now, when I say sells, I mean whatever action you want your visitor to take. And I'm going to give you my suggestion. What is the ideal action or outcome you want from any visitor that comes to your website? Now, a lot of people really worry about design. They worry about aesthetics. They worry about a lot when it comes to their website. But I'm going to make it very simple today. how to launch your first website or maybe refresh your current website so that it actually gets you more business.

0:42We're going to cover what essential pages you need, how to create a compelling homepage because that's the page most people are going to see when they go to your website, and how to attract your visitors to come back to your website. We're going to go through all that and I'm going to share my screen, share our website, The$100 MBA, which just did a refresh to walk you through all of those steps. Let's get into it. Did you know that a well-designed website can increase your conversion rates by up to 200 %? I know that sounds pretty insane. When I first read that, I was like, that's crazy. And that's why I wanted to include it in today's episode.

1:19This is according to a study by Forster Research. And it just shows that an effective website, a website that's designed to boost conversions can really impact your business. And today I'm going to show you exactly step-by-step how to create a simple and effective website. Before we get into those steps, I want to give you some perspective. The website I'm about to share with you is a website that has been around for over 10 years, okay? So we've had a lot of time to design and redesign and rethink it, get our mind around our copy. There's a lot we're going to talk about, a lot of iteration. But when we first launched the$100 MBA back in 2013, we knew that the website that we're about to create, the website that we wanted to show our audience, not only needed to be visually appealing, it needed to convert visitors.

2:07Listen, when somebody gets to your website, it's really, really important that you capitalize on that opportunity. It's very hard and all the noise that's out there in social media and SEO and all this other stuff that you actually were able to get them to your website. Now that you have them on your website, you want to make sure that you make the most of that opportunity. and that's why we need to design it with that in mind. How do I get my visitor to stay on my website long enough for them to be convinced I can help them? And then ideally take a specific action so that I can continue to build a relationship with them.

2:43As I walk you through the steps of how to create a well-designed website, I want you to keep in mind that this is a conversation with your visitors. This is a chance for you to earn trust with the people that might be interested in what you have. You guys don't know each other yet. They stumbled upon your website. They found you through something, a referral, a link on social media. Maybe they searched something and you came up in Google. The point here is that they found you. Now you need to build trust as quickly as possible so that you can continue to have conversations with them. And not just one-way conversations, but two-way conversations to earn more trust so that you can eventually get to a sale.

3:25Now, before we get into the website, I want to talk about the essential pages you need to have on your website. Luckily, there are not a lot of pages, just four essential pages. Okay, I know that sounds strange, but these pages really make or break your website. And if you get these four pages right, it's very hard for you to not succeed. Now, before we get into those four essential pages, there is a rule you want to follow when it comes to designing your website. This is a rule that is going to be your guiding light. It's going to be something you're going to refer to over and over to make sure you're on the right path, okay?

4:00And this rule is simple, but it's not easy. I learned this back in the day when I was studying old school marketing and sales books. One of the books that come to mind are the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. And here is the rule, ready? A confused mind never buys. If a visitor comes to your website and they are confused by all the different things that are on there, all the different actions you want them to take, all the different offers you want to give them, they're just going to bounce, literally, right? That's what it's called when somebody leaves your website after they just visited one page.

4:32It's called a bounce, right? They're just going to leave. So what you want to do here is you want to make sure that you keep things simple. You make things clear. Every page on your website has one purpose, one goal, and that's all you focus on. And I'm going to show you some examples at a moment, but the point here is that you want to keep things easy for the visitor. They don't know anything about you, so they're easily going to be overwhelmed. So a confused mind never buys. Remember that like the back of your hand. Remember that like your own name, because it's going to be easy for you to be like, I want to show them this and this and tell them this and all my great accolades.

5:05Right now, we want to just make sure it's very simple. They have one thing to do on each page. Don't confuse them. Keep it simple. So here are the four essential pages you're going to cover. This is a good start, and this is going to allow you to launch your website sooner. Page number one is your homepage, most visited page that you are going to have on your website. Most people are going to find you and they're going to hit your homepage. The second page is actually your about page. People don't know this, but statistically, your about page is the second most popular page that people look for because they go to their homepage and if they're not fully clear about what's this all about, who's behind this, what's the motive behind this business or this idea, they go to the about page to learn more.

5:47The third page is your product or service. Whatever you're selling, okay? Maybe you're selling a book. Maybe you're selling a program, a coaching program. Maybe you're selling a course. Maybe you're selling physical goods. Maybe you're selling a service. Whatever it is, this is a page that shows people, here, you could buy this. This is what I offer. This is the solution to the problem that I've been describing on this website. And the fourth page that's important is a content page or a place for people to chew on some content. Content is a way for you to earn trust with your audience so they can see that you're credible.

6:24Now, when I say a content page, this could be your blog. This could be a podcast, right? Maybe you have a podcast page where it has all your podcast episodes. Maybe you have videos and you have a page full of videos. The point here is that you wanna give them content for them to say, okay, this person is an authority. This person can engage me. This person is worth my time, okay? So that's really all you need to have an effective website. Of course, you can have more pages and you can build that out and you can test things out. We're going to talk about that later. But those are the four essential pages, right?

6:54Homepage, about page, product page, content page, whatever that is, blog, podcast, whatever it is. So let's jump into the website, okay? Here's our website, the$100 MBA. This is a brand new, well-designed website, okay? I'm looking down on my iPad here, by the way. So this is the homepage. and we just launched this website recently and we took a lot of time to design this. And again, this is 10 years in the making, really solidifying our ideas, trying to make things simple. And this is the result. I don't expect anybody who's starting out to have a well-tuned, really honed in website that took 10 years, right?

7:34Because you still are going to learn from your visitors, from your customers, how to communicate with them, how to create a better website, okay? So let's jump in here and let's talk about what is important in this website. So number one, you'll see there's a menu up here. It says start here, podcast course, escape plan, about blog. And there's a get started button. So this is called your home navigation or it's called your header navigation. And again, if you can keep this as simple as possible, the better, right? So we have done a lot over the years. We have more than one content page. We have a podcast content page, and then we have a blog as well so that we have both of them.

8:16So they're there, but you might just have one and that's even better. Don't overwhelm people. Okay. So podcast, again, is a content page. Course is our product, right? The$100 MBA. Escape plan is an opt-in, which is basically a way to collect email. We'll talk about that later. Okay. About page is the about page like we talked about. More about that. But right now we're going to go through the homepage because the homepage is the most important page, is where people visit you the most. Okay? So first thing, headline and sub headline. So here we have leave your job, start and grow a business. Okay?

8:53You want to get people's attention, right? This is kind of a bold statement, leave your job, telling people to just leave their job, right? No one's ever kind of said that to somebody, you know, in their face. It's not super risky. And this is something that you're going to test over and over your headlines. We're going to A-B test this headline over and over with other headlines. Another one might be instead of leave your job surrounded by idiots, question mark, right? That might be a little out there, but it's worth testing because, hey, I want to get people's attention. Here is the name of the game when it comes to your website.

9:24The whole point of any line you write, any line of text that you put on the screen is to get them to read the next line. That's really what you're trying to do here. I wrote, leave your job so that they can read the next line, start and grow a business. And that's what we do at the 100LMBA. And start and grow a business, I wrote that line so that they can keep scrolling and read what's after that. We'll show you how with step-by-step practical lessons. Okay. So as you can notice that we're kind of addressing a frustration, a problem with like, leave your job, right? And we might even say, are you frustrated with your job instead?

9:59But this kind of evokes that emotion. Start and grow a business is a solution. How am I going to solve this problem is the last line, the third one, we'll show you how, step-by-step instruction, right? Practical lessons. Immediately, people are going to ask, why should I listen to this person, right? Who is this person, right? What is this website? What is this company? Is there any credibility here? If I got them to that third line, the next thing I want to make sure that they know about is my credibility. You'll want to put some testimonials. You want to put some social proof. I have a couple of testimonials from friends of mine in the business that I've worked with.

10:38People like Ramit Sethi, author of I'll Teach You To Be Rich. He's the star of a Netflix show called How To Get Rich. Laura Roeder, who's a founder of multiple companies. One of them, she exited, called Meet Edgar. It's a social media app. And it has some nice words about me and about our company and about our show and about everything that we do. And it just gives them a perspective of what other people say. Now, the reason why we have social proof on the homepage is because it's not enough for you to say, we're awesome, come buy my product. You need other people to say that. So that's what you got to do.

11:12And then we have some stats, some numbers, again, social proof showing them that this is what we're all about. And this is the achievements we have. And then we have, you know, where you can listen on to our podcasts. We have the cover art in the front. So basically, this is really what we were trying to do here. Our whole goal with the$100 MBA is get people in our ecosystem, get them to really learn about our lessons through the podcast. and obviously the course is the idea in the long term. Yes, I want them to sign up for the course. But here's something I want to talk about when it comes to homepages.

11:46A lot of people are so like bogged down about, I need them to buy, I need to buy, I need to buy. No, that's not how it works, okay? You need to build a relationship first, okay? And it's easier for you to give them baby steps. So for me, it might be subscribe to the podcast, listen to the podcast. If you like the podcast, then you'll love our newsletter. If you love our newsletter, then you're going to love our products, right? So the point here is that that's how we buy. We build trust with a company first and then we buy. There's no point in me trying to get them to buy right off the first time they've been on my website.

12:19Buy my product right here, get started. No, that's not really what I'm trying to do here. I really want to just get them in my ecosystem, get to be a part of my community, be a listener, be an email subscriber. And that's really what we're trying to do. So this is why I highly recommend that your job as a designer of your own website is to get them to get on your email list. That's really what you want them to do. Because once they leave your website, you can't contact them again. You can't reach out to them. You can't talk to them again. You want to continue the conversation. And the best way to do that is with an email opt-in.

12:53Okay, there you go. And what you want to do here is you want to give them a reason to join your email list. It could be a compelling course or video or a combination of a guide and a video like this one, the point here is that I don't want them to leave without them leaving their name and number. I got to get their name and number, no, their name and email in this case, right? This is not picking up people at a bar here, right? We're talking about getting people to submit their name and email so that they can join your email list and then you can continue the conversation through great value, great newsletters, great offers to your products and services.

13:27But if they're not on your email list, you can't contact them again. They're gone. You'll never see them again, right? So you really should try to hone in all your effort to get them to get on your email list. That's really what I want to do here. And that's really the goal of this whole page is to just get them to do this. Even the get started doesn't get them to buy. You click it, it tells them to download the guide, right? And it gives them their name and email address, right? That's all I'm trying to do here. I'm just trying to get them to join my email list. It's free. I'm giving them a good reason to do so with good value.

13:58And by joining my email list, I can then continue the conversation. Next, I sandwich the call to action with credibility. So at the top, I have credibility up here, right? Then I have the call to action, which is the opt-in, right? Give your name and email address to get this amazing bundle of video and guide. And then sandwich again with our reviews, right? This is what our listeners say. And this is basically I feed in all the reviews that we get from Apple Podcasts. and they can read what real people have said about our content, right? What we're all about. And then they can continue to do so by clicking this, it goes to another page, and keep reading more and more and more reviews.

14:35So it's kind of like, wow, overwhelming proof that this is something that I should pay attention to. Now, if you're starting out and you don't have thousands of reviews, you don't have a thousand testimonials or whatever it might be, that's okay. You don't need to have so many. You can literally have three, four, five, six, that's fine. And if you don't have any business yet, get a testimonial, get a quote from somebody that worked with you in your old job. That's okay. Ask your manager. How was it like working with me? You can be like, hey, I can always trust Omar. Omar was always on time, always delivered honest promises.

15:08He was a professional. That's worth it. That's actually a testimony of your character and your work ethic. And you shouldn't just say that's worthless. That is something that's really helpful that you could put on your website. Name, image, done, right? And there you have your testimonials. If you have a first few sales, ask your first few customers for a testimonial. You know, ask them, hey, I would love, you know, some feedback on what you loved about my service or product or whatever it is. Moving down the homepage, I'm giving them more content. I've already given them now some testimonials.

15:44Now I want to say, hey, if you want to start digging into what I'm all about, here's a podcast episode. This might be a blog post for you. This might be a video for you, but this is our latest podcast episode at the time I'm recording this and showing this website. This is the episode and they can play and they can listen right then and there, sink their teeth and chew on something to say, okay, this is actually really good stuff. And then we have more content, as you could see, that they can sink their teeth in, learn more, get deeper and deeper. As you could see, it's very light in the beginning.

16:15In the beginning, we're just like, hey, this is what we're all about. Here's some testimonials. There's nothing really to do here. Then, hey, why don't you give me an email address? I'll give you this great guide. Okay, great. Then they got testimonials. Okay, now there's more heavy lifting here of reading and figuring things out. Then they're going to listen to an episode. This is 15 minutes. Okay, I'm digging this. If they're still on my website at this time, then they're going to want more. As you can see, that builds upon each other as they scroll down, as scroll down, right? And then if they want to keep learning, this is who I am.

16:43This is what this is all about. This is the story behind this whole website, right? If you want to get started, here are one of our products, the$100 MBA, right? You can learn more. This is a kind of our footer and again, call to action. Hey, don't forget, give me your name and email address so I can continue to give value. So very, very simple, as you can see. Confused mind never buys, so keep it simple. And that's the homepage, all right? Now, I can go into more detail on every single page, but this is basically the blueprint for every page. Every line leads to the next line. How do I get them to read the next line, the next line, the next line?

17:18Social proof, give the call to action, another social proof, make sure that I'm giving them a chance to chew on some content so they can learn more about me. Now, I want to give you some tips when it comes to creating an effective email opt-in. Now, I told you, you really want to get people's name and email so that you can continue to have a relationship. Here's a little tip, by the way. We're in a little bit of an email list gold rush because the attention spans of people are being split and scattered everywhere because of all the social media, all these feeds, the TikToks, the YouTubes, the Instagrams, the Facebook still around, right?

17:56Everything is pulling from people's attention. Now, an inbox is something different. Think about it. When you check your email, you spend a little bit more time. You have to deal with the email. You have to read an email. You got to archive it. You got to delete it. You got to do something with it. You can't just thumb through it like a newsfeed. Okay. So we really want to do here is make sure you get them on your email list. So how do we do this? We create something of value that my visitor will want and will be able to consume quickly. Okay. This is why I like one pagers, checklists, templates, scripts, a short video, something that they can consume in the moment and say, yes, this is my place.

18:38I like this company. I like what they're all about, right? If you sell software, for example, you know, the opt-in could be how to use a software, how to maximize a software to get the most ROI. This could be a guide, it could be a video, right? Or it could be a free trial, for example, or a demo, whatever it might be. Okay. So, and we've tried all this, by the way, in our software company, Webinar Ninja, and all of them work. You just have to test with different audiences. So you got to figure out something valuable that you can give to your audience and exchange. They will give you their name and email address and join your email list.

19:10Now, very important. Keep your form simple. You'll, you saw on my website here. Okay. That my form is incredibly simple. Name, email. I don't need more than that. And in fact, I don't want more than that. Okay. I don't want more information that I have to keep safe. Okay. I don't want their number. I don't want their date of birth. I don't want any of that stuff. And a lot of people, they want so much information. And I understand why, because they want to SMS them or they want to be able to build a profile. I get it. I understand some niches, some markets do this because the more information, the better.

19:43But I'm in the conversion business. I want to convert as many people that visit my website to come on. So asking for a name and email is very simple. Now, I used to just ask for email, but I want to call people by name. I want to address emails by name. I want to make sure I know their name, right? So if I ever meet them in person, I can then look up in the database that person's name and say, okay, oh, that's the person I met. And this is the stuff that they opted in for. This is stuff they bought before. You know, it gives me more information. Okay. So keep your form simple so that you get more opt-ins and it's not like you're asking for their, you know, a blood sample, right?

20:22Some of these forms are crazy these days and there's no reason for this. You want to convert more people. So keep it simple. One more thing about the opt-in, keep your call to action simple as well. Some people get fancy. Some people, they make it confusing. You know, sign up, subscribe. This is totally fine. Mine is sign me up. That's very clear. It's friendly, but it's clear. Sign me up, right? This is what I'm clicking. I'm signing up for this email list. I'm signing up to get this opt-in, to get this freebie, this valuable guide. Now you want to build your website on a reliable platform. We talked about this before when we talked about the tools you need to start a business.

20:59And we'll refer to that episode in the description of this video or this episode. And just keep in mind, you know, make sure the host of your website is great. Whether it's, you know, we recommend WP Engine or SiteGround. If you're using WordPress, if you're not using WordPress, just make sure it's a very reliable because you want to make sure you have as much uptime as possible. There's no point of having a great looking website, a great converting website and it's never up, right? Now, if you are intimidated by design and you're like, I don't know how to create a well-designed page, use templates that are offered in your website builder.

21:32Your host can help you out with them. You can message a customer support and say, hey, can you help me out create these pages? I need some templates. Worst case scenario, keep it mono, keep it black and white, keep it clean, keep it just white with black text. That is simple and easy to understand and you don't have to worry about if this is looking good or not. It's just going to look modern and clean. Next, most websites that are built today are mobile friendly. They're responsive. I mean, they work no matter what size screens on a phone, on a tablet, a desktop, whatever it might be. You want to make sure that this is super, super responsive, depending on whatever device they're on.

22:10Over 50 % of website traffic now is on mobile devices. So you want to make sure it looks great on every device. And last but not least, you want to test and iterate. Like I mentioned at the top of the episode, you're going to have to regularly test your website, make improvements, get user feedback. We like to use tools like Hotjar to show you where your visitors are clicking, where they're scrolling, where they're going, where they're navigating, where they're leaving, which is important so that you can improve their website based on actions. And of course, I got to reiterate this, you want to constantly test out new copy, new words on the page because you don't know what is really going to work until you test it, test it, test it.

22:48So split testing is your friend. Try it for a week. See how it impacts conversions. Try another week, a different set of copy. And you can duplicate the pages and try one page one time, try another. There's also A-B testing tools out there if you want to check them out, but you can keep it simple as well. Then lastly, you want to have some sort analytics tool on your website so you can see the data in black and white. You can use something simple and free like Google Analytics. There's other stuff like Phantom Analytics that's really great if you want to be more privacy focused. So there's a lot of tools out there, but the point is that you want to learn what's happening on your website, how many visitors you're getting, how many people are coming every day, how many pages per visitor that they're seeing, how long they're staying, all that kind of stuff so that you can improve your website over time.

23:38So to wrap this up, building a website that sells is all about creating a simple, attractive, functional site that gives visitors a chance to take action. You want to give them an invitation, a tempting invitation to learn more about what you do. Something that's low hanging fruit, easy for them to say yes to, right? By focusing on essential pages like your homepage and your content page and your about page and your product page allows you to really have the basics to move forward, right? Don't overcomplicate this. Start with what I'm telling you today. Get the ball rolling and then you could add pages, iterate, change, improve over time.