🎨 Website Content & Branding That Converts With Rosie Guillot 💲
Creating a website doesn’t end with just having a URL to direct your customers to. You need to have content and branding to support your products and services. So how do you do that? Joining your host Adrienne Hill is branding content strategy and website guru Rosie Guillot. Rosie is the owner of Create You Branding Studio, and today she shares her expertise and gives tips on how to optimize your website. It all starts with content and branding. She shares her know-how on how to use your socials to get leads and convert your audience into customers. She also talks about her go-to tools and plug-ins and shares some freebies to help you create the website of your dreams! Tune in to get much-needed advice that will amp up your online marketing game!
#impactfulentrepreneurshow #guestinterview #contentmarketing
Helpful links:
✅ Connect with Rosie:
https://www.createyou.us/inquire
✅ Create Content with a Purpose - Rosie’s library of free gifts for you:
https://www.createyou.us/freebies
✅ Book a 6-Figure Strategy Session - Adrienne’s free gift for you:
✅ Adrienne’s Entrepreneur Community on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitablepassiveincomestrategies
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🎨 Website Content & Branding That Converts With Rosie Guillot 💲
Impactful Entrepreneur Show Guest Interview
I hear from clients all the time asking the same question over and over, "Do I need a website for my business to successfully launch my business?" In this episode, we're going to dig deep into the topic around the role that website plays in your business, content marketing and attracting people. At the end of the day, you might find all those people on social media.
However, when the actual moment comes where they plug a credit card and they're ready to enter those numbers to make a purchase, that's not happening on social. It's probably happening on some website or web page somewhere. Let's dig deep into the topic of websites in this episode to make sure you're crystal clear on whether or not you need a website for your business. Let's do this.
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Welcome to another day of the Social Media Sales Summit, your number one resource for preparing to have your biggest sales season ever next quarter. I created it because I'm sure we all know that's why we're here. Social media is a huge opportunity to essentially market and promote your offers for free. If you're not using it, you should be. If you're struggling, that's exactly why we put this together. We brought together all the top experts who are killing it, finding leads and making sales on social. They're going to share their top tips with you so that you can have your biggest sales season ever.
I give you the strategies, skillsets and structure that you need to scale your business to new heights and create a lifestyle you love rather than a business that feels like another 40 hours a week job. If that's where you're at, then you're in the perfect place. I'm here with Rosie Guillot. She is a branding content strategy and website guru. She is going to help us to understand exactly how you can use your branding and website to get more sales from social. She is the Owner of the Create You Branding studio, an amazing friend and a good human all around.
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Welcome, Rosie. Thanks for being with us.
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Let's kick this off for people maybe who have not met you yet. Tell us a little bit about your story and what brings you here.
It's a long one. I graduated with a Degree in Graphic Design back in 2005. Since then, I had been working in the corporate world and doing graphic design. I've worked for some fun companies. I've worked for Ringling Brothers and IBM. I know it's fun and wide range. I did website development and it was nice. I could combine both aspects, graphic design and web design.
I've been running my own business. When you start your own business, it's different. I jumped in. I had always done web design and I quickly learned that it's more than just designing pretty things. That's where the whole branding and strategy came in. I got interested in how a website works, how it gets people engaging, and how it gets people to click on buttons.
I ended up taking a content marketing class. That content marketing class is what pushed the structuring of understanding the structure of a website. Also, what I learned in that class is what I use when I create websites for my clients. It's a website that's not just pretty, but it's very strategic to each page. It's fun and purposeful.
A website is not just pretty but very strategic.
I like that you have a mix of the corporate background and then the entrepreneur spin. It's like the best of both worlds. You can bring a different mix of skills to people.
That's what I love. That's why I ended up leaving the corporate world because I lived close to DC and it is horrid.
I can't even imagine the commute.
There's traffic all the time. I was missing that creativity part of it that I knew that I had. I'm grateful that I got to work with different companies, something that's more fun like the Ringling Brothers and then something that's more corporate like IBM, that I got those two different styles, but I was craving to put my own style into it. That's why I love working with entrepreneurs. I get to have fun working. Everybody has different styles and applying that.
Website Content And Branding: Branding is about your mission and what your business stands for, but it’s also about personality—a feeling that people get when they get on your website.
To help bring it to life, that's the name Create You. Obviously, people are here to learn how to make more sales, specifically through social media. What role does branding play in social sales?
When I decided to leave the corporate world, I was like, “I'm going to do this whole online thing.” First of all, I'm a total introvert. The idea of social media, to me, I'm not one to put a lot of personal information on Facebook and things like that. It was a little bit of a transition, but you have to put yourself out there. Nobody is going to know about you until you put yourself out there.
Nobody’s going to know about you until you put yourself out there.
What I started out with are Facebook groups. For a full year, I focused on three Facebook groups. I did Instagram here and there, but my main focus was the Facebook group because that's where I was seeing the most return. What did I do? I engaged and answered questions. If people were looking for a website designer, graphic designer or anything like that, I immediately post. What do they do? They would go and look at my website. People get a feeling when they see your website.
It's like, “I like this girl's vibe. I want her to give me a website with a vibe.”
That's a big aspect, like social media playing a part in bringing back into your website and making that connection.
That's a great point to make because the sale itself doesn't happen on social. You find the people and leads there, but ultimately, that point of sale happens on a website, web page or phone call, but it's never on social itself. That's just where the people are.
Social media is for socializing and networking.
The actual point of sale where someone is entering their credit card information doesn't happen on social. You have to lead them somewhere. Let me ask a high-level question. A lot of people think your brand or branding is like a logo and some colors. What is a brand in your definition? How does it play into marketing to get those people to come or reach out to you and goes to your website?
A lot of people think that branding starts with your logo. That's the first thing. Everybody is like, “I have a business idea. I'm going to get an LLC. I'm going to get my logo and then my website.” They put it up and they're like, “I'm going to make all this money,” and then nothing. This is where the content marketing class came in. I loved it because it's what set my website apart and the people that I work with, their website is apart from everybody else. You can have a pretty logo and website, but if you don't have the content and structure there, people won't know what to do.
When I talk about branding, it's about your mission and what your business stands for but it's also about a personality. It's a feeling that people get when they get on your website. I'm talking to people about creating their websites. I tell them, “The most important thing is your content.” Your content begins with knowing your brand. Knowing your brand is knowing your mission and audience. Your audience is very important. Sometimes people get mixed up with what they like and what the audience likes. Just because I like pink and glitter doesn't mean that my audience that I want to attract likes the same thing.
The most important thing is your content.
It's important to understand what your audience likes because you want your marketing to attract those people. If you are attracting somebody like you, then that works, but your content and branding go together. The content comes from branding and understanding your brand and audience. I say the photography quality, making sure that it feels like you. If you're a life coach, you're going to be the face of your website. After that, the icing on the cake is the design.
What most people think at first is the design but that's just a tiny piece of branding.
People are always like, “I just want something pretty.” It looks great and you might attract some people, but people want to work with people that they feel a likeness and relatable to. You see that through the colors, but you have to know who your audience is.
It's about who you are as a person, the vibe you create, the feeling you give people, and being true to who you are but also thinking about who you serve and what they're looking for. For those people who want to attract and socialize with people on social and attract them to wherever that point of sale is, something off of social, what are some third-party tools, links or ways that you link social media to a website? How do you create that movement?
Let's say my platform is Instagram and that's the one that I'm hardcore, I'm consistent and that's where I'm posting all the time. Now, you've led them back to your website or vice versa. They're on your website and you're like, “I need to get these people to Instagram,” because maybe you're doing a sales series in stories, so you need to get them on Instagram. If that's your focus then you need to make sure that on your website, you're optimizing Instagram. What does that mean? Maybe you have a plugin that has a little pop-out that says, “Follow my Instagram.” A lot of people put Instagram feeds at the bottom.
If you have a Facebook group that you want to grow, make sure that you have a banner at the bottom or at the top. The hierarchy of where it is on your website depends on where your focus is for that website. If you want to grow that Facebook group, you're going to push it up a little. The structure of your website is based on what your goal is. If you're doing a sale for something and you're doing a whole series of Instagram Stories and you're going, “Day 1, this is a sales strategy. Day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, buy.” Make sure that your website is saying, “Follow me on Instagram.”
It's about cross-pollinating. I would assume you would want your branding to be consistent. If they're on your website, they were feeling the same vibe that they were feeling on your Instagram. Are there names for those third-party tools? You called it a plugin. People might not speak this language. Tell us a little bit about what does that means.
I have a favorite for Squarespace. It's called GhostPlugins.com. They have a few plugins for social media but a lot of things to optimize your Squarespace website. If you're a WordPress person, these plugins also work for Squarespace. It's called ElfSight.com. If you want to do YouTube videos, your focus is, “I'm going to do YouTube videos. That's where I'm going to reach out to people.” Elfsight has a plugin in there where you can put a YouTube video feed on your website. If that's going to be your focus, make sure that you're putting that focus on your website. You're cross-pollinating both.
Do you recommend just having one focus on your website or is it okay to have more than one? What's the balance?
A lot of people try to do all the social media. They think the more they have, the better. The problem is, if you don't have time to do all of them, you're spreading yourself thin and people can see that you're not in it.
It's better to be consistent with 1 or 2 than all of them.
It's a matter of testing too. I may not know at the beginning, especially if you're first starting out that my ideal clients might be in another platform until I try maybe 2 or 3.
It's like you test the waters and figure out where your people are.
Do the one that you love the most because that's the one that you're going to be consistent with, but also test another 1 or 2 because you might find that, "While I was posting in this one that I love, I might be getting my ideals in this one and maybe I need to focus more on this one instead.”
Once you start this cross-pollination, how do you use your website to optimize sales then? People are here because they want to make money.
Let's say you've been focusing on Instagram and Instagram Stories and you're selling. Now, you're like, “I have to lead them somewhere.” You lead them back to your website. I like to say for your services, depending on what your services are. If you're having a big sale, that's obviously one of your services. You want to create a separate page for that, especially if that's your main focus. You want to lead them to that landing page, sales page or whatever you want to call it. That is structured a certain way and that needs to follow a formula. The header has to say who it's for, what problem it's solving, testimonials, what it includes, and then 3 or 4 calls-to-action. It's a long page.
When they get to the page, they should almost feel like they're bingeing on the information. They're getting everything they need to feel ready to buy. Whatever you're trying to sell, make sure you have a page on your website that's a full sales page. I know you've mentioned Squarespace a couple of times. Why Squarespace? Tell me about why Squarespace is your favorite.
I was a big WordPress person before and my clients had such a hard time updating their own websites. I believe that you should have ownership of your website. You don't know how many times I hear people say, “I want to change a sentence. I need to update my photo, this and that. I can't do it in WordPress,” or that the website breaks.
Website Content And Branding: People try to do all the social medias. They think the more they have, the better. But the problem is if you don't have time to do all of them, you're spreading yourself thin and people can see that you're not in it.
This is what I tell people. WordPress is great. There are so many options. It's like having a house. You can customize it and get many different things, but know that if it breaks and you don't know how to fix it, you will have to have somebody there to fix it. It's going to cost you. Understand that you're always going to have support.
In Squarespace, while it's not open-source, there are not as many plugins available. Although as the years are going by and it's becoming more popular, they are becoming more available. It's like renting because it's an all-in-one platform, so it's easy. Everything is already there. All you have to do is put it in there. If something goes wrong, you're dealing with one person.
If you do get a third-party plugin, because there are not that many, you're not dealing with too many more people. It's very tight-knit, like Ghost Plugins is a tight-knit community. For me, it was important for my clients to be able to update their own websites. As a designer, because I didn't have to focus so much on the technical part, I was able to design more.
It's more user-friendly. It gives you all the same results, but it's easier to use, it sounds like.
Honestly, it depends on the customer's needs. If somebody is like, "I need an eCommerce site,” I'm not going to suggest Squarespace. It's going to be Shopify because Squarespace doesn't have as many plugins. There are some limitations. There might be times when I'm like, “We will go with WordPress,” but for the majority, Squarespace suffices.
It's worth consulting with an expert like you. If you think you're ready for a website, it's worth consulting to figure out which one is right for what they're trying to do versus like, “I'll DIY and figure it out myself.”
When you're starting out, work with what you have and what you can because it's better than nothing. If you're on a budget, I totally get it, but at some point, you're going to be like, “I'm ready to take this to the next level.” That's when you want to talk to somebody and honestly ask and get some honest answers.
We talked about your favorite website being Squarespace, for the most part. How about your favorite social platform? Where do you make most of your sales?
I use Facebook and Instagram, but my ideals are on Instagram. It's a matter of consistently posting, but I also learned that it's adding personality into your feed. A lot of times, people will get the stock images. They can make it look pretty, this and that. That's super important, but it's important to put your personality into it.
I've asked people, “How did you find me?” They're like, “Instagram. I was going through your feed. I saw that you posted about Gabby Bernstein and I love Gabby Bernstein.” With things like that, they're like, “We like the same things. I love your style.” People want to work with people with who they can relate with. I love it because my clients and I stay together for a long time. A lot of times, we become friends on social media. It's fun. We're rooting each other on.
That's how we met. All the people that I'm featuring in this summit are people I've met through social, who I think are fantastic people. It helps that they happen to be experts.
It's so awesome because then when you refer somebody to me, it's somebody that's very similar. I'm like, “I know she is going to be great to work with.”
It's not so much of just posting content relevant to what you offer but showing them a little bit of who you are.
There's a formula. You want to put behind the scenes the pretty pictures, but you want to put personal things like books that you're reading maybe in the stories. I love stories because it's behind the scenes. You can talk about Netflix shows you're watching and the foods you're eating. People like that.
They love peeking into someone else's life. It's so fascinating to like, "What are they doing?” You can find those points of commonality. People like to work with and buy from people who remind them of them in a way like, "They're going to understand me. They get me.” I understand you have a free gift for our audience. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
I have a few. There's a sales page Formula Template. This is something that you can create either in Squarespace or WordPress or if you end up going with something like Leadpages. It doesn't matter what platform you use. It's basically saying, “This is the header formula, the top banner, what your header formula should be.” The second banner is saying who this is for and what problems it's solving. The third banner is saying, “Are you having these problems? Who is it addressing?” It goes step-by-step in creating a sales page.
It's a literal formula. People can follow it step-by-step to build that sales page. That's super helpful because we talked about it like, “You start cross-pollinating. If you're trying to make sales, what do you need? The answer was a sales page.” The fact that you're giving for free the formula to a well-written sales page is super helpful and valuable.
For those of you who are reading, if you want to boost your sales on social next quarter, grab that template. Maybe the one missing thing you've had is simply that sales page or you're posting all the right content and your branding is on point, but it's just not clear to people that they should click that buy-now button. Be sure to grab Rosie's freebie. I'm super excited about that. It's very on point. Thank you.
Be sure to stick around for the rest of the expert interviews because, just like Rosie, everyone is sharing immediately actionable tips and some freebies to help you excel. What a great show of abundance from all of these expert speakers. I love it. Promise me that you are going to take action immediately on something that you learned from Rosie. One thing I know for sure, all these experts that I'm friends with and that I've been talking with, they're where they are because they took action.
If you're consuming all of this for entertainment, that's great, but you won't get those sales you want unless you start to take action. Grab one of your favorite nuggets from Rosie. Pop over into the Facebook group, where we're all debriefing on all of these interviews after they happen. Join the conversation. Tell us about the nugget that you're going to take action on. We would love to see you there. I'll see you guys in the next episode.
Important Links:
About Rosie Guillot
Rosie is the owner of the branding studio, Create You. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design from The Art Institute of Washington D.C. She has worked in the corporate world with print and web design for over 15 years. Her experience working with different types of companies has been an advocate in her having a huge range of design styles. Her passion for figuring out each client's design style plus adding content strategy, results in an authentic brand that attracts ideal customers to take action.