What part of building a business online do you find the most difficult? Is it talking yourself into starting, driving traffic to your website, or figuring out what business you should venture into?
I find it easy to design and build products.
I find it easy to market and generate traffic.
But when it comes to converting traffic into revenue, sales is the toughest part for me.
Whether that’s selling on the phone or selling with words (copywriting), sales has never been easy for me.
Here’s why I think sales is the hardest for me:
- I’m not very enthusiastic nor do I really enjoy performing or presenting, all of which help you in sales
- I’m not super empathetic and can have a difficult time relating to other people’s emotions, challenges, and desires
- I avoid phone calls, Zoom calls, and meetings whenever possible because I’d rather do things through email
- I’d rather be doing other things than selling = building, writing, programming, etc
- I’m selling my own products, which makes it hard to see it from an outsider’s perspective
Despite all this, I’m working very hard to improve my sales skills. I’ll keep working on it until I’m a good salesman.
You can be bad at nearly everything else, but if you can sell, you can create customers.
And if you can create customers, you can build a business.
What should I put on my first personal website?
Here’s what to include on a “starter” personal website:
Home Page
- A short introduction to who you are and what you do, your recent posts, and what people can do on your site
Blog Page
- A list of your blog posts where you share what you know
Praise Page
- A list of testimonials and recommendations from your colleagues, employers, and clients
About Page
- A page that explains how your work benefits the reader, a few notable things about yourself, your projects and interests, and your story
Resume Page
- A digital version of your resume that makes it easy for employers or clients to see your skills and results
Contact Page
- A list of your contact information that makes it easy for people to reach out to you
Once you’ve got these pages up, you have a great foundation for your personal website.
From then on, you can do all kinds of fun stuff with your personal website: start leveraging SEO to generate traffic, using email marketing to build an audience, launching your first digital product — and many more.
That’s the fun thing about personal websites — it’s uniquely yours.
Your website is your resume, your business card, your store, your directory, and your personal magazine. It’s the one place online that you completely own and control – your Online Home.
-David Perell, 30 Best Personal Websites 2020 (And Why They Have Them)
How do I create an online consulting website? Is there any company offering finished solutions, like Shopify to e-commerce (example)?
As a consultant, you’re offering your expertise which is highly customized to each client.
Consulting website templates offered by Wix or Squarespace are lackluster.
They trap you into writing and designing generic a brochure-style website that is all about you (and isn’t about your client).
A good consulting website is NOT a brochure.
A good consulting website is a lead-generation machine.
I’ve been helping consultants write, build, and market their consulting website for 4 years — and put everything I know into my Consulting Website Template Kit.
I give away the homepage template for free:
The kit has everything you need to create an online consulting website.
It’s quickest with WordPress, but you can use the kit with any website builder.
With new Google SERP changes (organic search results pushed down below the fold), does SEO still makes sense?
Yes — if you can get into the first five spots.
The first five organic spots for a Google search account for 67% of the clicks.
Google Ads? 15% of the clicks.
Source: Organic SEO vs PPC in 2020: CTR Results & Best Practices
I’ve written dozens of articles that have ranked in the top 5 spots.
Here’s what’s worked best for me:
- Pick the right keywords. Make sure people actually searching for what you want to write about. If you skip this step, you’ll write something that won’t rank for anything — and you’ll think “SEO doesn’t work.”
- Write long, in-depth content. The more you know the topic you’re writing about, the easier it will be to write long, in-depth content. Writing is hard work, so being passionate about the topic you’re writing about is key.
- Create internal links. Make your website like its own “Wikipedia.” Offer so much value that your prospects can navigate through your articles and continuously get value from them.
- Feature lots of guests. My best posts are list posts that include writing from other experts. I reach out to them, ask them good questions, and feature their answers in my post. People love to read these types of posts.
- Update your content frequently. SEO is a long-term game. Keep updating your content, making it better and better. Think quality over quantity.
I’ve never done Google ads, nor do I ask for backlinks.
Spend your time creating content so useful and helpful that other websites want to link to it.
And when you get into that top spot, you’ll be getting automatic, high-value traffic.