075: The First Steps to a Website That Actually Works

In this episode, Jules White shares how to get started when you're feeling stuck with your website and unsure where to focus your efforts.

Jules explores Phase One of her Website Success Framework – The Loved Not Leveraged Website – helping you shift from feeling overwhelmed to taking meaningful action that boosts traffic and sales.

She explains how to build strong foundations by clarifying your message, aligning your content around key topics, and focusing on quick wins that can help your website work harder for your business. Whether you're embarrassed by your current site or simply not seeing results from it, this episode offers a practical path forward.

Key Takeaways:

• Clarify Your Message: Why it's essential that visitors instantly understand what you do, how you help, and what action to take.
• Core Topics & Authority: How to define 3–5 key topics to build topical authority and improve your chances of appearing in AI-driven search.
• Quick Wins for SEO: Discover fast improvements you can make with tools like Google Business Profile and Google Search Console.
• Prioritise Key Pages: Learn how to choose and optimise 3–5 of the most important pages on your site, focusing on SEO and conversions.
• Keep It Simple: Why your user experience should be clear, skimmable, and conversion-focused, rather than overwhelming or overly complex.

If you're ready to make progress with your website and want a supportive space to help you take consistent, focused action, check out The Website Growth Club—Jules’ new membership for business owners ready to simplify and succeed online.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Episode 009: Why A Content Strategy Is Your First Step To Website Success!
• Google Analytics 4 & Search Console Course

Don't forget to subscribe to The Website Success Show for more plain-speaking advice on websites, SEO, and conversion!

Chapters

• 0:00 Feeling Stuck? You’re Not Alone
• 2:00 A Framework to Simplify Your Website Strategyt with Your Most Important Pages
• 2:09 Phase One: The Loved Not Leveraged Website
• 3:15 The Power of Clear Messaging
• 7:13 Get Focused with Core Topics
• 11:30 Simple Wins That Make a Big Difference
• 16:53 Start with Your Most Important Pages
• 22:07 What Is The Website Growth Club?
• 23:11 Recap & Your Next Step Forward

Transcript

Feeling Stuck? You’re Not Alone

Good morning. Happy Friday. I hope you're well.

So this morning I wanna talk about, if you are feeling stuck, if you're feeling stuck with how to start improving your website, you are absolutely not alone. It's a conversation I have so many times with so many business owners.

Quite often when I first meet people and start talking to them about their website, they will say that they, they, they just don't know where to get started. So today I wanna try and share some tips on where you can get started, where you can get some good, quick results and just try to minimise the stress of it really.

And just make sure that you know where to start and know where to sort of focus your attention really.

So if you're feeling stuck with what to do, where to start improving your website, where to focus your attention first and what to do, then I'm hoping that this will help you today.

I'm gonna share how to get started with that without the stress and without the overwhelm. And this is one of the most common conversations that I have with people.

It's something that so many people kind of know they need to focus on their website or they know that their website needs help, but they just don't know where to start.

Have no idea what to do in terms of the most important place to focus their attention. They might have loads of pages on the website, a ton of content out there, whether it is on their website or out in other places, but it just all feels really messy, feels really unclear, and they just don't know where to begin really.

But they do know that their website could work better for them. And they know that actually if they can do something about it, then that will massively help their business.

A Framework to Simplify Your Website Strategy

So the good news is that there is a way forward and there is a way to get through this overwhelm, and this is why I developed my Website Success Framework.

Phase One: The Loved Not Leveraged Website

I'm gonna talk today about phase one, which is the first step. I call this The Loved Not Leveraged Website phase, and it's where you either have a website that you love the way it looks.

Quite often, I speak to people and they don't even, they're not even at that point. They don't even love how it looks.

They, they're embarrassed to share it is almost just like a forgotten thing in their business that they don't send to people towards, because they're a bit embarrassed about it.

But a lot of people, they do, they absolutely love the way their website looks, but they don't love how it performs.

So I created this, this first phase of The Website Success Framework is really there to help you get some momentum and get started with putting the foundations in place. Getting some structure in place it's gonna help everything else you do then moving on to actually help to get more traffic and more sales through your website.

So attracting the right people organically through Google, and then when they land on your website, when they land on your website, they take the action that you want them to, you convert them into a customer or an email sign up, and then you can sell to them through your email list.

So I'm just gonna talk you through the steps of phase one and or this is just part of phase one really, and how you can then optimise your website.

The Power of Clear Messaging

So the first thing I would say, and this is, this applies whatever you're doing in your business. Even if you're not thinking about your website right now, your.

Using socials, you're growing there or you're just focusing on your email list and growing that. One of the most important things is being really, really clear on your messaging, and this is kind of something that's part of the pre-work.

So within. The Website Success Framework, there's actually a pre-stage, which is where you make sure you've got an offer that converts and you've got a website, you've got basic branding in place, and this is kind of part of that.

But it does evolve as you move into phase one. Then making sure that this is really, really clear, so you basically, you should have some, some basic messaging in place already, which most of us have.

If you've created any kind of page to sell things through your website, then you've got some basic messaging there.

Regardless of whether you've actually put some thought into that, or whether it's the right kind of messaging, whether it's positioning you in the right place to actually connect with your ideal customers and for them to actually take the action that you want them to.

So start off by getting really, really clear on your messaging.

And the way that you do that is you clearly define who you help. What problems you solve for them or maybe if, maybe if it's not a problem, what desire you actually fulfil for them.

So if you are more of a lifestyle business and it's not a specific problem that you're selling, then actually making sure that you are clear on how you help them, what do you do that actually makes their life better?

So you either help them to get something that they desire or actually solve a problem for them and. I always say, whenever anybody comes to your website, it's really important that they understand within a few seconds what you do.

How are you gonna make their life better and what do they need to do to get it?

And this is all part of that messaging thing of actually connecting with people in the right way where you are, you are actually tapping into the internal and the external problems that they maybe don't even realise they have.

I absolutely love Donald Miller and StoryBrand, um, framework.

And actually, if you, if you've never thought about this, if you've never thought about how you can help people and connect your messaging with them in a, in a deeper way, I would a hundred percent recommend getting that book or listening to, he's got some great, marketing videos as well.

I would a hundred percent recommend doing that. And actually.

They've just released StoryBrand 2.0. I saw it on my Audible account the other day.

So I've just downloaded that to see what's new with the StoryBrand framework.

But I love it as a way to actually work and just a structure to use within your messaging. So make sure that you actually got that really clear.

So what that also helps is it helps you to understand the kind of things that you should be showing up for. It helps you understand.

What kind of language people would actually be typing into Google and which pages of your website.

You can start thinking about that and just start building together this map of what you want your website to actually say about your business.

So part of this, having your message in there, making sure that immediately when somebody lands on your homepage, that this is really clear so that they don't have to think about working out what you do, and it should be clear to anybody regardless of whether it's somebody who, who knows about you or who's somebody who's coming in with no awareness of what you do.

That initial place that they come into your website, and it depends where, how people are coming through often. If they're coming through from like a Facebook ad or from a social media post just thinking about that, that level of awareness as they're coming into that, those pages and how can you help make that clear.

I think anything you can do to make your message clear so that anybody can look at it and understand it, it's probably better if you, there are certain times where if you are, if you are. trying to attract just kind of your insiders then, then there are other ways of adding insider language into your messaging that helps people to understand specifically that they're in the right place.

That's, you know, the kind of language that only insiders would know. But I think if you can make it clear to anybody, then that's gotta be helpful.

If anyone could, if my Mum could look at your website and understand roughly what you do, then it's, it's a bonus really to be able to do that rather than trying to make people work out what you do.

So that was the first thing. Get your messaging right.

Get Focused with Core Topics

Focus on your core topics is the next thing. So make sure you understand the things that are the most important things for you to talk about in your business.

Now, I talked about this, I think it's episode nine. I will.

Link to it in the show notes, because I'm not a hundred percent sure. I'll check that.

About discovering your core topics and how you can actually then work out those specific kinds of three to five topic buckets that you talk about really.

So for me, my core topics within my business, so everything comes under the umbrella of websites, and then I talk about SEO so, search engine optimisation.

CRO conversion rate optimisation and content optimisation.

And those are my three core topics that everything else that I talk about comes within that. So if I'm talking about SEO for podcasts, that would be under the, the SEO bucket.

If I'm talking about Google business profiles, that would be under there as well.

And so it is good to have that so that you can then create some really solid content around those core topics. And everything else swirls together and is all and it is all sort of interlinked and.

You can then link between your content, but having those core topics there. Helps you to then become an authority on those things.

So I would definitely be thinking about that. Thinking about the things that, if somebody was talking about you or if somebody was actually typing into Google or I, I would probably say more now, if somebody was asking ChatGPT, if someone was asking ChatGPT, who is Jules White?

Then I would want it to then be coming up with those topics, those kinds of things, and telling the world that I am actually an expert on that.

And think about that with your business. What are those topics that you need to be talking about everywhere and the areas that you want to be seen as an authority?

And once you are clear on that. Then start thinking about your website pages and which ones of your website pages, which, I'll start that again.

Put my teeth back in. Which website pages.

Talk about those core topics and have you got a clear place that if Google or any search bots, whether it's chatGPT, or Bing or whatever, wherever people are searching. Is it obvious to them which page they should be delivering around, like those core topics, and have you got other pages that all support you being that authority on your topic?

It's one of those things that is gonna become more and more and more important as we move into more AI searches. One of the most important things that is gonna help you to actually rank on chatGPT searches and searches in other AI overviews is making sure that you do have that authority.

So showing on your website and across the internet really in other places as well, even across your socials and things like that,

You've not just regurgitated a load of other AI content that you are actually an authority showing your personal views on that, if you've done any research or if you've won any awards, or if you've got a particular opinion or a standpoint on that thing around your topic.

If you can get that across in your website, then that is how you can then become that authority that will then be more likely to show you up in the AI searches as well.

So this is something that's, as I say, becoming more and more important. Digital PR can really help with this, so you can, making sure that you make sure that you get backlinks if you are, um, in any articles or being quoted or anything like that, if you can get links back to your website or get a website mention there, that helps then you raise your authority around those core topics and.

Just making sure that as you're creating new content, that you're thinking about that. Thinking about which core topic does this come under, which other articles are similar.

Which other articles do I need to link to? Do I need a whole new page on this or could I just add this as another, an additional section to update some of my existing content?

And that's something that I, I'm all about making sure that we make the most of our content. So if you don't need to create a whole new article around a new spin or something, something new that's come out within your industry.

Some, some emerging trends or something like that. If you don't need to create a new article about it, then don't just update an old article, change the backend so that it actually tells Google that you have updated the article, resubmit it in your Google search console.

And rather than just creating something new for the sake of it, is there something else you can improve? An article that already exists.

So an article that Google already has, has indexed and just really keeps your content up to date that way, really.

Simple Wins That Make a Big Difference

So the next thing is looking for quick wins. And I'm all, I'm all about quick wins.

This is part of the reason why I love working with local businesses is 'cause we can get those quick wins with your Google business profile. And it's things that can change very quickly.

So with traditional SEO, we have to wait for Google to crawl through our website and understand that our content is up to date. And if our, if it's a quite a small website and Google not crawling through very often, then that can take time.

Whereas you can make changes to your go Google business profile and that can show straight away.

So that's why I really love to make sure that that is optimised. There's lots of underutilised Google Business profiles out there, so if you are just doing a little bit more than your competitors are regarding that, then that can be really good for getting local traffic.

So that's one of the quick wins. I always would say part of phase one of The Website Success Framework is making sure that you've got those things that you can have If, if you are eligible for a Google business profile, which if you are purely e-commerce and you just sell online, then I, it is not really designed for you.

There are other tools within Google that you could use to then help get some quick wins around that. and then making sure you are looking for the quick wins in Google Search Console as well.

So making sure you've got Google Search Console and Google Analytics set up as well. But Google Search Console in particular, because a big quick win that I often get when I'm working with clients is they haven't actually submitted their site to Google for indexing.

So they don't have a site map or anything.

And this is something you can very, very quickly set up your Google, Google search console. And if you haven't done this, I have actually got a course on my website that I'll link to as well.

That will actually take you through step by step really easily, how to set up your Google search console, how to under, and it teaches you Google analytics as well, how to understand it. How to make sure that you have actually submitted a sitemap as well. doing that, definitely.

And what you can also do in Google Search Console, if you have already set it up, one of the quick wins you can look at is the search terms that Google is already associated with your website.

When you look at the performance tab on Google Search Console, you can see in there the queries. So the search terms that Google is.

Already understanding about your website and showing you up in search results. Regardless of whether that might be, you are on page 20 or something, Google is actually associating that content with you, which is good.

And you can look for those pages where you're getting quite a lot of impressions. So that means you're showing up quite often in searches and maybe getting a few clicks, maybe not.

You can also see which position you're in, averagely in. if you can see some pages where you are in or some queries rather where you are in position 11 or position 15 or something like that, that could be a quick win.

'cause you could make some quick changes to those pages and that, or the pages that's associated with that query. And then that might help you just to leap up the rankings or just nip over onto page one, and that can make a big difference to the number of clicks that you're getting through to that page.

So I always like to look at that. If somebody's got a podcast, there's also quick wins that we can do with making sure your show notes and your episode titles and your show title is all optimised for search as well.

That can make a big difference. I certainly, with my podcast, I haven't.

I think I'm just about to hit 4,500 downloads, which is like, yay. And I haven't promoted it on social media at all.

So it's all been people finding it through me talking about the podcast. Whenever I do any live training and things like that.

I always talk about the podcast whenever I'm networking. I always go on about my podcast.

And, through search as well, I've now got customers finding me from the other side of the world, finding my podcast research, listening to it, enjoying the content, understanding that they'd wanna work with me and actually becoming clients, which is amazing.

And that's the whole point, is that actually it helps people to move along that buyer's journey and just understand a bit more about the way that I work. Understand whether they actually enjoy the way that I talk and you know me rambling on a little bit every now and again.

But it's good because they then understand I'm, that's how I work and that's, that's important to me. So if you've got a podcast, that's certainly something we could look at for quick wins there.

Optimising that. Again, it's another one where you can make changes to your podcast and it shows up straight away, but it's not.

Directly content you own. It kind of is.

It is. You do own your podcast, but I will always say, work on your own domain as well.

So this is why I love those quick wins. But it is really important as well for us to be working on our own website.

And that's why I always have podcast pages on my own website as well. 'cause then I'm building that place. And if Buzz Sprout, who I host my podcast through, if they went away tomorrow, I'd still have those URLs on my website that lead to my podcast and, and that content would still be there.

Those podcast episodes still exist, so that would still be there. So. That's so, the quick wins part of the framework.

Start with Your Most Important Pages

And then the most important part is optimising three to five key pages of your website. So we focus on that first, rather than quite often people get very overwhelmed with the web when they're thinking about their websites.

I say, but rather than thinking about what you need to do. On the whole website.

Just really, really focus on some important pages first. Get those optimised, first of all for SEO and for conversion rate optimisation. And just make sure that those pages are actually working for you.

And then you can move on to other pages of your website and go from there.

Really, and it does take time. These things that don't happen overnight, it's something that is.

It does take time. It takes some energy to do that as well, but it's important to make these changes because you are building that asset that you own in your business.

So the three to five sort of key pages.

And that does sound, you know, that's a bit vague, three to five, but it does depend on what kind of business you've got. It depends how big your website is.

It depends what are the most important pages to you, and that can be different for different businesses. So I would definitely say start with the pages that are closest to the sale.

So if you have sales pages, if you've got product pages, if you've got like, the homepage is important as well, and I, that's always within that list of those three to five pages. We always wanna be making sure that your homepage is set up well because on most websites, that's the most visited page on your website.

It's the page that people know to go and have a look at to find out some general information about you.

So definitely your homepage. Your services page if you are a one-to-one service provider. Your product pages, as I say.

If you have a specific category page, if you're an e-commerce business and you have category pages, then sometimes it might be that actually working on one category page first is the most important.

It's worth thinking about what's your sort of most profitable thing that you sell. And is that page optimised is a page that's gonna bring people, bring sales in for that page optimised.

So it might be that that's one of one of your key pages that you focus on. It could be a blog, maybe you've got a blog that's bringing a ton of traffic into your website with the right type of commercial search intent and you need to optimise that first.

So we're working out what those pages are, what is the closest to the sale. Maybe you are really hot on your email list and actually. Optimising your email signup page, that's the most important page for you.

So normally, for most businesses it's like a homepage.

It might be your about page as well. That's often another page that is very visited on, you know, most people's websites. or if not, it's just thinking about, okay, what is those, what are those pages that are closest to the sale, really?

And then with those pages, just asking yourself, are the pages optimised clearly for both SEO and for conversions? So have you optimised your page titles, your descriptions?

Have you naturally used your keywords throughout that page? Like what keyword do you even want this page to rank for?

And that's another important part of this phase of The Website Success Framework is actually working out what you wanna show up for.

And this all ties back in with working out what your core topics are as well, and working out what specific problems you solve for your customers. So you, this is why it is a journey.

So you work those things out first and then you work out, okay, what's the mo, what page do I want that to show up for?

So I tend to say with SEO, it's all about working out what you wanna show up for on Google and any other searches working out what, which page of your website is the most relevant for that search term, and then optimising that page.

And it's as simple as that really. I know it sounds, you know, I, I say it's as simple as that, that it is simple, it doesn't necessarily mean it's easy, but it is simple. so yeah, so within that page, what do you want this page to rank for?

So as you're working through your key core key pages, What do you want that page to rank for?

Have you used that keyword naturally throughout the content on that page? Have you used it in at least one image alt text?

Have you used it in, as I say, the page title and the description? Have you, um, included it in the first 250 words and the last 250 words on that page?

Is there another page that is competing with that page that's actually a better page to optimise for that particular search term. And maybe you need to choose a different search term for that particular page that you're working on.

Have you linked to that page from other pages as well? So have you got other pages that are bringing links that mention that search term and then lead to that particular page?

And then also optimising for conversions as well so making sure that when people come into that page it is really easy for them to understand what you do. If they need to understand what action you want them to take as well, and just set it up in a way that is very visually appealing.

Is clear. That's probably the most important thing, is making sure that it's a really good, clear user experience on that page and that it is optimised for conversions.

So improving those key pages first is gonna make the biggest immediate difference, but you don't have to do it all at once. You can just get started where it matters most and where you, customers are actually converting.

So, yeah, focusing on that first, and I'm guessing you might still have some questions about how exactly to approach this without getting overwhelmed.

Introducing The Website Growth Club

So that's why I created The Website Growth Club, which is my new membership. It's an online membership where we simplify the process.

It's step-by-step action, so it combines bite-size lessons with a growing community of like-minded business owners, and you can learn more about this. I'm introducing the founding members launch at the moment, and so you can join it and actually help to shape the future of the community as well.

The world of search is changing. The world of tech is changing.

So actually I have my Website Success Framework and we will be working through that. But the actual modules might change based on what changes with Google search and what changes with AI searches and everything.

So I'm really excited about this because I think it'll be great. So understanding what's gonna help you the most, understanding the places where you get stuck and understanding what, what I can do to help you with that really.

So you can go to my website, thewebsitesuccesshub.com/grow You can learn more there about the membership and learn more about how to confidently boost your website traffic and sales.

Recap & Your Next Step Forward

So just a quick recap of what we covered today. So we've covered some key parts of phase one of The Websites Success Framework, and we've talked about how to clarify your message and apply that on key pages of your website, align your content around your core topics and work out what your core topics are as well.

So actually. You understand what you, you should be an authority on and should be showing up as an authority on optimise for easy, quick wins like Google Business Profile, your podcast, or your using Google Search Console and simplifying your user's experience and really aligning that with the action that you want them to take through your website as well.

So remember, you don't have to do it alone. Head over to thewebsitesuccesshub.com/grow to join the community and get started on the pathway to more website traffic and sales. So I hope you have a lovely weekend.

I hope this has been helpful, and I'll see you soon.

Bye.