Shannon Mattern: Welcome back everyone. It is day three of the Side Hustle to Self-Employed Summit. And we have had an incredible lineup of speakers today, talking about marketing and sales and everything that you need to know in order to, like, tell people what it is that you do and how you can help them and how to find clients without having a website and sales strategies and so many incredible, incredible things. So I know we have thrown a lot at you over the past three days. I want to make sure you have tomorrow at 3:00 PM marked on your calendar, because I'm going to help you figure out what to do with all of the information that we shared with you. So our next speaker is ME! I am here to talk to you about how to build a website that converts, even if you are not techie. So I'm going to go ahead and share my presentation and we are going to dive into this topic.

Shannon Mattern: So I'm also going to try to pull up my chat, and I'm going to go back through the chat at the end, , because otherwise I will be massively distracted and we will be here till five o'clock with me going down a rabbit hole of answering your questions. I don't want that for us. So, go ahead and ask all your questions as you have them. I will answer them at the end of the presentation, since mine is actually live. I did not prerecord this for you. Um, I'm doing this live, so go ahead and ask your questions as we go. Um, and just make sure, I just want to make sure my texts get, can you guys see my slide that says how to build a website that converts even if you're not techie. Awesome. Okay, cool. Let's dive in. So hi, I am Shannon Mattern.

Shannon Mattern: And when I'm not hosting virtual summits or running my pep talks for side hustlers podcast or teaching web designers, how to create profitable, sustainable, scalable web design businesses. I teach side hustlers, solopreneurs non-techie people. How to Build a Website That Converts even if they are not techie. And the things that we are going to cover today are the five pages your website must have plus two optional ones. Plus the one everybody thinks that you need, that you probably don't need. We're going to talk about my perfect homepage layout, two things you must have on your homepage and my tried and true homepage layout. I'm going to share with you my Thank You page trick that helps me say exactly what my ideal client is thinking. What Your About page is really about the legal stuff that you didn't know you needed to know unless you attended Autumn Witt, Boyd, and Girija Patel's.

Shannon Mattern: presentations on Thursday. We're going to dive into the legal stuff related to your website. Blog or no blog? Do you need a blog on your website. When you need one. When you don't. The one question to answer on your Work With Me or services, page. Four sneaky thoughts that will get you to quit and how to get your hands on my free DIY web design training that is going to walk you click by click by click, by click, how to build your entire WordPress site from start to finish even if you're not techie with all of these strategies built right into that training. This training is specifically designed for people like you, who are here today. So before we dive in, if you are here watching this and you are a web designer, or if you are here watching this and you feel impostery calling yourself a web designer, but you would like to get paid to build websites for people for a living.

Shannon Mattern: If you're self-taught, if you're not self-taught, if you've taken a course, if you've taken my free 5 day website challenge, if you want to get paid to build websites for a living, then I want to invite you to apply, to get access to a free training I created called The Three-Part Framework for Creating a Profitable, Sustainable, Scalable Web Design Business. This is for web designers only. If you are not a web designer, do not go to this link on the next page, or if you're not someone who wants to get paid to build websites for a living or work on websites, redesign websites, whatever, this is exclusively for you guys go to webdesigneracademy.com, fill out a quick two question application. And if I think you would be a good fit to see this training, then I will send you an invitation to watch this free training.

Shannon Mattern: So just wanted to recap that. So this training is all about how to build a website that converts. But first, and I'm so glad to see Sasha in the chat. Do you even need a website right now? Because as we talked about, if you have been here all day, if you haven't even started working with clients yet, if you don't have a clear business idea, if you don't know what you do, if you don't know the, if you don't know how what you do solves a problem for someone, you do not need to be building a website right now. You need to go back and watch the replay of Sasha's session. You need to get super clear on who, like, you might know what you do, but like, how does it help someone else? What is the problem that you solve for someone else? So you might not even need a website right now.

Shannon Mattern: Okay. So you might think that you need one for credibility or for people to take you seriously or to get clients. That is absolutely not true. Okay. So if the problem you solve for people literally does not require technology to provide the solution. So maybe you're a virtual assistant or a virtual expert. And the thing that you do does not require you to have a website to deliver that solution because you're the person that delivers the solution, do not waste your time building a website until you're ready to get booked out, get more clients, scale, get more eyeballs on the thing that you do. So if you're a coach, if you're a service provider and you just need to get clients, do not start with building a website. You do not have to have a website to have credibility. Okay? If you're selling your intellectual property, like I know we haven't, like someone mentioned Kayse Morris I know that we have a lot of people that sell their stuff on Teachers Pay Teachers. You're selling your intellectual property in the form of a digital product or an online course or something like that.

Shannon Mattern: And that is like the, your chosen path for growing this online business. And you legit need a website to deliver that thing. Right? So, you know, the, the, the business that you have chosen requires some technology, because for whatever reason then sure, yes, you can, you can build a website. But service providers, people who are just getting started, please like this, will be here for you when it's time. And it might be time in six months, a year, whatever. So just hold tight because we want to make sure that you are moving. We want you to start making money as quickly as possible. We want you to get clients as quickly as possible, start putting money in the bank as quickly as possible. And even though I can teach you how to build your website in five days, I still want you to move, move, like not do it until it's time.

Shannon Mattern: So at the very end of this training, I'll talk to you how I, how you can get access to my free 5 day website challenge and learn how to build your website if the time is right for you to build it now. So I just wanted to, get, put that caveat out there that even though at the end, you could literally probably have your website built in like two days, if now is not the time don't waste your time on that. If you don't know who you're working with or how to talk to them, don't waste your time on that. So the name of this training is how to build a website that converts. But what does convert mean? So what I mean when I say convert is converting the person who lands on your website into an email list subscriber, okay. I don't mean converting them into a customer.

Shannon Mattern: The path is not that someone goes to, the path is not that someone lands on your website and then buys your thing, right? That's not how that works. That is not how that works. They land on your website and they, you, it's your job to get their email address so that you can take control of the conversation. If you guys attended the session, the sessions on Friday, Kelsey, or I think it was Thursday, Kelsey Formost, talked about how, you know, it takes an average of seven times from, for someone to, for someone to see your offer before they'll like pay attention or something. And they're not going to remember to come back to your website seven times. You need to make sure that you take control of the conversation. And so someone lands on your website and then they, you want to convert them into an email list subscriber, right?

Shannon Mattern: You want to get their email address so that you can now reach out to them. They found you, but now it's like, you're going to like get their phone number so you can call them, right? You're not just going to let that chance meeting go by without you getting some kind of contact information for you to follow up with them. So in order to get that email address, we need to like give them a really, really, really good reason to give it to us, right? Because nobody wants more garbage in their inbox. Right. We get enough email as it is. We get enough DMS. There's just enough going on online as it is that if I'm going to give you my email address, you better give me a really, really, really good reason to give it to you. Otherwise I am not going to, or I'm going to unsubscribe immediately.

Shannon Mattern: So, we're going to talk about that, but that's what convert means. Convert means get the person to give me their email address. So then now I can build a relationship with them, let them know more about how I make offers, let them know how about, how I can help them solve their problem. And, you know, and in that, in those emails, that's where I'll say, Hey, I have this thing for sale. Here's all of the information about it. Click here to go to this other page on my website to buy it, right? So that's where that comes in and, and being able to take control of that communication is critical. And that's what convert means. Convert can also mean click the "book a consultation" button on my website, too. Right. But people might not be ready to book, go directly to booking a consultation.

Shannon Mattern: So instead of, instead of, you want to like capture them when they're like one step before ready to take that action that you want them to take, and then you can send them to the page that you can remind them, show up, showing up in their inbox. You know, Hey, I have spots open. Click here to book a consultation. So that's what I mean when I say convert. So if you have a website that is not getting email addresses or is not capturing the lead, the contact information in any way and any specific kind of way, what is the point of having one? There, there really is no point in having one. So that's what I mean by convert. So let's dive into what pages do you really need on your website? So this is, people like to think, and I, it comes back to this credibility, right?

Shannon Mattern: Like if I don't have all of these pages on my website, then I am not credible. And I totally disagree with that. I think that there are really only four pages that you need, maybe five. And so the first one, and you guys get out your pen and paper and write these down. The first one is your home page. That's the page that when people type in your direct web address or click on a link from an email or your social media, you know, shannonmattern.com. It goes to my homepage. So you need that, that one main page that everybody goes to to first. And then you need a Thank You page. You probably thought I was going to say the about page. The second, most important page on your website, in my personal opinion, when you're building a website that converts, is your thank you page, because what happens is people land on your homepage and I'll show you this in a second. People land on your homepage, they opt in for your email list.

Shannon Mattern: And when they do that, they are redirected to the thank you page. And so we really strategic. We put a lot of strategic things on that page, which I'll share with you in a second to, to data mine a little bit and figure out what our, what that person who found their way to our website is thinking and what they need from us. So your home page is, is a must have. A Thank You page is a must have. Which means an email us opt in is a given. The third page - Privacy Policy. And the fourth page - Terms and Conditions. We'll talk a little bit more about those in the, in the legal stuff. If that's all you have to get started, you're golden. That's all you need. Homepage. Thank You page. Privacy Policy. Terms and Conditions. So those are the, those are the, those are the four must haves.

Shannon Mattern: The fifth must have is About page. So you don't necessarily need one. If you literally just started with a home, thank you, a privacy policy and the terms and conditions you'd be golden. You really would. The about page we'll talk about in a little bit, but you know, a lot of people, the second page that they'll go to after home and after like, landing on that thank you page would be an about page to learn more about what, what is this? Like, what is this? And what's in it for me. So we'll talk about that in a second. So home, thank you, privacy policy, terms and conditions like required. About totally optional, which is great. If you're like, Oh my gosh, I feel like a total imposter. I have no idea what to put on my about page. I don't want to, I don't know what to say, skip it.

Shannon Mattern: Like it's not required. The internet police are not going to come after you if you don't have an about page. The other two pages that are optional - your blog. Like unless you are a blogger, you don't necessarily need a blog unless content marketing as part of your strategy. You don't need a blog. Contrary to popular belief, before you launch your website you do not have to have X number of blog posts written. You can launch your website without that stuff. Now, what a blog does is when you write blog posts about certain topics, then you can use search engine optimization tactics. And that may be a strategy that works really well for your specific business. But you might not need that at all. So do not hold yourself back from launching your website because you're like "now I've got to write five blog posts".

Shannon Mattern: No, not true. You can add a blog on at any time. In my free DIY web design training, that free 5 day website challenge, I show you how to do all of that. So a blog is not required. It's not required until it's time for you to get to the place in your business where you're going to start doing the content marketing that Gee was talking about. And that Bree was talking about. A Work With Me page - not required. So many people think like, "Oh, I have to have like all my, my services lined up and I have to list all the things that I do and put my pricing on there, or a sales page for this program". Unless you have a proven, validated program or service that you offer, you do not have to have this page. You can get people onto an email list, get people onto like, Sasha's presentation, get them like booking an appointment with you.

Shannon Mattern: You can talk to them about how you work with them. You can do it over email. You do not have to have a fully written out services page, unless you, now you're like, okay, I'm solid in what I, what I do. I can put that up there. And I know that that's, that is something that I can like send people to, to like how, as a reference, I can be like, "Hey, go look at my work with me page". This is what I do. If you already know what you do, and you know how to write that page. Awesome. Do it. It holds so many people back when they're just starting out because they get so much imposter syndrome because they don't know how to say what they do. They haven't talked to clients, all of that stuff. So blog and work with me? Optional. Totally depends on where you are in your business and what you're doing.

Shannon Mattern: And then the other page that I, the one page that I'm like, you don't really need this page unless you have a physical business location is a Contact page with a contact form. People ask me all the time. I don't even teach it in my five day challenge. They're like, what form plugin should I use? How do I prevent people from putting spam in my form? I keep getting Viagra, Viagra and all this stuff like coming into my inbox from spam bots. I'm afraid I'm going to get hacked because I have this form on my site that just gets nothing but spam in it. You do not need a contact form. We are giving people one door to go through, and that is our email list. And that's so we can continue the conversation with them. And that's because we know that they have opted in for that thing.

Shannon Mattern: And then in those emails, we tell them how they can work with us. So those are the pages you really need, which takes so much pressure off you for like, Oh my gosh, I really only need a homepage a thank you page, a privacy policy and terms and conditions. I teach you guys more than that in the free 5day website challenge. But if we're talking like bare bones, how do we go from side hustle to self-employed super quick, like with our website, that's all you need. All right. So let's dive in to our home page must haves. So I'm going to, I have another window that I want to share with you guys. And I'll maybe take a breath and a sip of water while I, while I do that, I'm so passionate about this topic. I don't know if you guys can tell.

Shannon Mattern: Let me pull this up.

Shannon Mattern: So this is one of my website marketing lab students. She's probably not even here today. And she probably has no idea that I'm even sharing this with, with you guys, but this is Muscles and Moxie. This is Sarah Laspas, I think is, is how you say her name. And she is a fitness coach. And so when we're talking about like the perfect homepage layout, there are only two things that you need on your homepage. You need an irresistible call to action, to get people onto your email list. So let me show you my website, an irresistible call to action, to get people on your email list. I literally don't care if you don't go any farther than this, let me actually move that. Like you might think, Oh, I'm saying logo, navigation, whatever. I'm like, no, I want you to have an irresistible call to action, a way to get my email.

Shannon Mattern: And if you never scroll below, I'm fine with that. But I'll tell you, I'll break down this whole, whole page for you in just a second, but we're building a website that converts, I want your email address, period, end of story. And I'm willing to give you something really, really good to get it. My best free stuff to get it. I'm giving, to get my, to get your email address, I'm giving you a basically 50 module free course on how to build your website. That's, that's what, we were talking earlier about like being afraid to give away too much for free. You have no idea how valuable it is to me to give that much away to you for free and how it's enabled me to grow my business to, to the place that it is. We'll talk more about that tomorrow in our road mapping session.

Shannon Mattern: So here's a simple call to action and a way to get your email address. I used to say, and I still do encourage this, but I also, a lot of you guys have imposter syndrome. A lot of you guys are like, I hate myself in pictures. I don't want to put my face on there. I'm afraid that people will judge me because I'm too whatever, insert thing that you hate about yourself here. Put your picture on your website. Please. Just do it. People want to be able to look you in the eye and see who, who they're working with. You know, our, our speakers from today, like Gee, picture of herself, a way to get your email address, a reason why you should get it. Free checklist, speaks to becoming a free paid freelance writer from zero this year. You know, I'm trying to think of some other speakers from the power collective.

Shannon Mattern: I should have pulled up all of our speakers websites Kyshira from the other day, from the power collective, like, you know, way to get the email address, get instant access to personal branding mastery. She's we've got away right there to get her email address. We can see who it is, we're working with, what they do, and, you know why we, why we should work with them. So let's talk about this irresistible call to action. This is the stuff that you will find out when you do the work that Sasha, have, is having you do with the interview. And if you missed her, if you missed her session, definitely go back and watch the replay. Because when you talk to your clients, you will find out the things that they, that they need help with. So Sarah is a mobility expert.

Shannon Mattern: She's a personal trainer. She does all of this stuff. But when she started talking, she, she would talk about, Oh, I do mobility. I help you with, I help you with joint health. And that's what she would talk about. And when it comes right down to it, it's like mobility, joint health, like not even on my radar. And I think this is why I use her as an example so much, because this is so on my radar. So she was talking, we were talking about like, what is the problem? Like if you put yourself in your ideal client's shoes, on any given day, what are the things that they would be saying? So Sasha has you actually go talk to people to do this? Bree has you go in to talk to people to do this? And so when Sarah did, she found out that they're like, I sit at my desk all day.

Shannon Mattern: I feel like I'm 900 years old. So this is, that's like the language that people were saying to her, for her to come up with the irresistible call to action of say goodbye to stiff sore muscles even if you have to sit at a desk all day. Stop feeling like your body's falling apart and start feeling flexible and strong. If she's like, I help, I help people with mobility and joint pain. That's not nearly as compelling as, as what she's saying. And then she, her freebie, the thing that she's willing that she created to get your email address is free mobility for desk workers series. And you guys, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. I felt like I got a massage after doing it. But that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about a website that converts. Your words matter so much and where you put them matters so much. Don't hide them.

Shannon Mattern: Don't bury them, just come right out with it. This website is not about me, even though it has my picture on it. Build your website in just five days, even if you're not techie. Stop struggling to figure out WordPress and confidently launch a website. I know that because I have talked to my ideal client and I know exactly what they need. So those are two things you must have on your homepage. But then the rest of your homepage, I basically just have like, hi, I'm Shannon. Here's what I do. You're in the right place if you have all of these pain points that you figured it out because you did Sasha and Bree's method of actually talking to people. So I did not make these up. Because if I would've made these up, I would have said completely different stuff that people would be like, Nope, that's not me.

Shannon Mattern: Even though they did need exactly what I was doing. And then I have my latest blog posts. This is actually my latest podcast episodes, because that's the long form content. If you remember, Gee talked about, have one long form way that you communicate with people. And one short. I do my podcasts. I don't write blog posts anymore. I do my podcast and that's the long form. So I just put my latest three podcast episodes on here. So if someone happened to scroll down, they would see it. And then I just have some testimonials and where I've been featured. It's so super simple. If you didn't even have any of this, you could stop right here.

Shannon Mattern: Because, we don't even care if

Shannon Mattern: people go beyond, go beyond this. We literally want them to go here. And then it's my job to take it from there and let them know, let them know what's next.

Shannon Mattern: Let me make sure... I get so excited,

Shannon Mattern: I get so excited that I'm like, am I even sharing my screen? So thank you, Carolyn. I love that. You love my podcasts. I love, I love creating that podcast. So I think I kind of think you're really clear on what needs to go on your homepage and how you get that information. So let's talk about my super sneaky homepage trick, to, that helps you get even more of the words that your client is saying. So you've done all the interviews, you know how to write this here as a simple call to action, what to say about the pain points and you used it to even, probably used it to help you make the free thing that people are going to be like, Oh yeah, I want that. And then the next trick, and I'm going to see, I'm pretty sure Sarah did this. So I'm going to sign up for her email list.

Shannon Mattern: Like if she didn't,

Shannon Mattern: She's on my list to talk to.

Shannon Mattern: So she's

Shannon Mattern: excited, her personality is all over the place. We're starting to get a feeling for her. She even made us a little video. While you're, while you're waiting for the free thing that's on its way to your inbox, I'd love to learn a little bit more about you. What do you struggle with most when it comes to moving your body in general? How do you think you feel? In what ways would your daily life change? How did you find this? Tell me something you're great at. So if you've ever signed up for anything of mine, you see this, you see this, on all of my stuff, because that goes into, I basically just put a form on my website and that all goes into a little, my website. And I'm like, Oh, what do people struggle with? Getting, like they they'll say, they'll say putting myself out there, getting found online, you know, they say it in ways that I would never say it.

Shannon Mattern: Right. How do you think you'd feel if you didn't have this problem anymore? What is, like, what would change for you if we worked together and I solved your problem. How did you find me? That one is the gold, the gold, the gold, because now you're like, Oh, if someone's like, how did you, I, there's someone that keeps coming up, , in my questionnaire or someone else who teaches WordPress? I can't, I think her name's like it's WP rockstar Julia something. I keep seeing her name, like how people are finding me. So she's either talking about me or there's something, some reason why people keep finding me. Yes, this is the thank you page. Because somebody is talking about me. That is a perfect opportunity for me to like, reach out to her and be like, Hey, I keep hearing your name, you know, coming up, when people come into my website. Let's talk. How can we serve each other's audiences? That's how Kayse Morris, for those of you who know Kayse Morris, she teaches teachers. This is, I always have a hard time saying this. She teaches teachers how to sell their teaching resources on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Shannon Mattern: I saw her name come up a thousand times in my, where did you hear about me? And then I reached out to Kayse and I was like, Hey, like, we need to talk. Clearly people are finding me through you. So this is like how you can do some ongoing market research from people who found their way to you. And you get to hear exactly how they think about your problem. So this that's my super sneaky Thank You, page trick that helps me say exactly what my client is thinking. I used to say stuff like, Oh, I'll teach. Like I can teach you how to do search engine optimization. And I can teach you how to get traffic. People, don't like, it's traffic is not a lay person's term. People. Aren't like, how do I get traffic to my website? They're like, how do I get clients?

Shannon Mattern: Like, you know, so you, you just don't know what you don't know when it comes to the way your, your ideal client thinks about their problem and their pain points. So if you don't know, if you have a website and you don't have a form on your, thank you page, do it, do it, do it, do it. Okay. I know. I get like, it's already, I'm like running out of time. No. We're good. So let's move into what your about page is really about. Your about page is not about you. So like, let's talk about who your about pages about. It's about your ideal client. Their pain points, their goals, their dreams, and the transformation that they want. So yes, there might be a picture of me here, but it's not, it has nothing to do with me. It's like, Oh, you're here because you want these things and why?

Shannon Mattern: I know they want these things because I asked them. I asked them. So you want to leave your day job. You don't know what you don't know. You think you're not techie. You're worried you might make the wrong choices. If any of that sounds like you, you were in the right place. I think you might've heard every single one of our speakers say that in their presentation. Like, if you have these problems, you are in the right place. If you don't have these problems, I am not the right person for you. That's the flip side of it. That's when we're talking about niching, right? Like, all you have to say is if these are your pain points, you're in the right place. If they're not, I'm not the best person for you. And then I'm like, here's how I help. Well, it's still not about me.

Shannon Mattern: It's still about you and what you want. You want to learn how to build a website and you want to know all of these things. So here's how you can get that. These are the, and for me, this is all my free stuff right here. None of this is my paid stuff. You want to learn how to get found online. I used to say, learn how to get website traffic. Nobody has said that in my, in my form, nobody was like, I wanna learn how to get website traffic. And you can even see, I still have it right there. No, they want to learn how to get found by their, by their client online. I have my podcast. I have my web designer directory for people who are in my web designer Academy. And people come here and they don't want to DIY.

Shannon Mattern: They want to hire people. And then my training for, for web designers. So those are all the different things that I do, but they're not, it's not about me. It's like, here are all the problems that I solve for you. Right. And please do not think you have to have four free things that you do. This is seven years of business, all on one page. Okay. You just need one, just one. And then basically like what I stand for. I stand for you taking imperfect action, starting before you're ready, figuring things out at you as you go. Never, ever, ever saying that you're not techie. And then I list all of the places that I have been featured, which you may not have that section. But this is really so like, this is yes, it's about me, but it's like, no, you need to go listen to Sasha's podcast here.

Shannon Mattern: You need to go listen to Eden's podcasts. Like these are all amazing conversations, resources for you. Like everything on this about page is so is to help you, right? So here's why I give all this away. Now, like after I've given you everything, now I'll tell my story. But my story is still about you. My story is like, here's why I did it. And you can do it too. And so that's what the about page is about. And then I just recapped everything. You might not have all of this stuff, but tell me what's in it for me when I get here. And if you, and if your story is relatable, tell me your story. You know, if your story's not relatable, you don't have to tell it. Like you can leave that part off. So your about page is not about you. It's about your ideal client.

Shannon Mattern: Marketing is so much easier when it's not about you. So the next thing that you need, you need some privacy policy and terms and conditions. You see down in the footer here. This stuff is required by law. I teach in my free DIY web design training, how to get this stuff and like how to get templates for it, like legit templates, that are going to keep you, you have to disclose stuff like you have to disclose, you know, have you guys ever heard of like Google analytics? And when you come to my website, I don't know who you are specifically, but I know that a visitor from the UK came to my website at this time and went to all of these pages because I'm tracking everything that you do. That's how I get to see what's the most popular content on my site, make decisions.

Shannon Mattern: I teach how to set that up in my free DIY web design training. But I have to legally disclose to you that I'm doing that. Okay? And so I teach how to set all of that up, but you have to have the privacy policy. And then your terms and conditions is not like a legal requirement, but this is like, Hey, if you're using this site, you agree to abide by these terms. If I link to another site and they like, do you wrong, I'm not going to be held liable. Like there's all of, all of this stuff here. You just want to have these things on your site. Go back and watch, if you got the all access pass, Autumn Witt Boyd and Girija Patel's sessions, they have temp, they have like templates that they've written for online business owners for this stuff. Those are must haves. Those are that's the legal stuff that you may not have known that you needed to know. Let's go to blog or not to blog. So let me share a different screen. How many of you guys who are here think that you have to have a blog on your website. Maybe you don't even know the difference between a blog or a website, but how many of you have heard that you have to have a blog

Shannon Mattern: Pull up the chat

Shannon Mattern: And while I take a breath?

Shannon Mattern: Yeah. So Sharon says, I think it helps to drive traffic. I thought it helped with SEO. Yes. Sasha said, I thought I had to have one for a long time. Angela said, I've definitely heard that it helps. We are going to talk about this in our roadmap session tomorrow. You could just cut to the chase and get a client. If that's what you want to do. Like if you work with clients, if you're a virtual assistant, virtual expert, coach, whatever, you can literally use Sasha's, , Sasha's strategy to do market research to build relationships with people and get clients that way. And you would never have to write a single single blog post. So when we talk about the roadmap from side hustle to self-employed and the quickest path from there, blogging absolutely has its place in your whole online marketing ecosystem. It absolutely does.

Shannon Mattern: But until you have a proven money-making offer that, like you have actually sold to people that you like to do and gets clients, you don't have to spend a whole lot of time creating content until you know exactly what to create for your people. Okay? If you are selling something from your website, a blog absolutely helps. So when Gee was talking about like, like all of you guys who follow Kayse Morris with Teacher Pay Teachers, and you sell your teaching resources online and you are, very niched in what you do, you're very specialized because maybe you sell like, I don't even know what you could, like math, common core math. I don't have kids. So that's why I'm struggling. The common core math for third graders. That's what, music theory curriculum. That is so, so, so specific that if you had a blog with articles all about different music theory things, and in those blog posts you had your resources, and then people who were searching for music theory curriculum found you, yes, you a thousand percent on a blog.

Shannon Mattern: But if you're selling web design, you know, that's very, very vague. And not vague. I mean, but it's just broad. It's a very broad term. And so, you know, blogging just about general web design stuff is not going to get you very far. You would be much better off putting the eight hours that you wrote a blog post into spending eight hours reaching out and getting clients. If your goal is to make money. Of course, freelance writers. Absolutely. Like anytime, any type of like writing where you can, you know, put that online. But like, we have so many different people here. I just want you to know that, like, you don't have to be like, Oh, I'm a virtual assistant doing bookkeeping for dogs. And now I have to start blogging and about bookkeeping for dogs. Like you don't have to, not bookkeeping, like what dog need bookkeepers. Right. Bookkeeping for dog walkers. That was Kathy Goughenour's, that was Kathy Goughenour's example of a niche. Like that person does not need to blog about that.

Shannon Mattern: I'm glad you guys find me funny. So if you don't see, like don't blog for credibility. Don't blog, because you think you have to. Blog because you have a really clear plan for that content. Okay. I will write that. My dog could probably write it. I'm like, you are the smartest online marketing genius because you hear all of this, all of the stuff I listened to. She hears all of it. Like, so the one question to answer on your work with me page, the one question you need to answer. You know, so your work with me page, like its job, truly, like if you put a work with me page on your website, the, its job is to just give people all of the information that they need to make the best decision for themselves on whether or not to work with you.

Shannon Mattern: That truly is the job of your work with me page, your services page. There's really no, like no special trick to it. Other than like, Hey, let me just tell you everything that you would need to know, because I trust that you're an adult and you can make your own decision. But there is one question that I need you to make sure that you have answered on that page. And that is what is possible for them when they decide to work with you? What is possible for them in their life when they decide to work with you? I think back to Muscles and Moxie, Sarah Laspas? Like what is possible for me when I work with her is that maybe my hip and my knee will start, stop hurting and I will stop feeling like I am 90 in a 41 year old's, body, or a 41 year old in a 90 year old's body.

Shannon Mattern: That is what is possible for me when I work with her. Like, it's not that I'll be more flexible. That's like, that means nothing to me. But so when you're thinking about like, what is what's, what does someone need to know when working with me, it's not that I can type so many words a minute or that I can, you know, handle any email marketing system or whatever it is. What is, what is that going to allow me to do in my life that I cannot do if I don't have that? So if you can answer that question, that is the question that your work with me page needs to ask, to answer. And it doesn't, this is, it's like, it doesn't have to be pretty. The words just have to be there. That's everything. When it comes to your website, it's all about it does not have to be pretty.

Shannon Mattern: The words just need to be there. And then also you need a call to action on the work with me page. Like, you need to tell people how they can, like what's the next step. So whether it's like Sasha's session was like, click on that, book a consultation link, for Acuity or Calendly, if that's your next step, put that on that page. You know? And then again, back to a website that converts, we're not trying to send people to our work with me page, hoping that they're going to book with us. We're trying to get people onto our email list so that we can then email them and say, Hey, guess what? I've got four spots next month for whatever it is I do. Click here to go learn more about that and book your book, your session, right? So for all of the, all of you who are like, I don't want to build an email list because I don't want to write a newsletter and I don't want to send content out to people.

Shannon Mattern: And I, what would I even say? You say, Hey, guess what? Here's how I can help you. If that's something that you, that is you're ready for right now. You know, you say that every few weeks, like here's how I can help you. You're on my list. You signed up for this thing. Here's how I can help you. Until they unsubscribe, which is the, the, basically the sign to you that they are not interested. Not that you are bad or wrong or annoying. If they unsubscribed, that just means they're not interested. And, and they left. They left your store. They walked out without buying. Totally fine. So Meg says, do you recommend putting pricing on a website if you are a service provider? It totally depends. Meg. There are two schools of thought on this. I used to be of one.

Shannon Mattern: Now I am the other. My, I used to think that yes, put your pricing on there so that you weed out the people who can't afford you, the tire kickers, whatever. And now I am of the opinion that you can put a starting out price. If you want, if you want to make sure, but like I tell my web designers this, the web designers that I coach, part of, and this is a whole separate conversation on pricing that we don't really have time to get into in this. But part of the, part of your price is the whole experience of working with you. And that's your consultation. That's everything that happens from the moment that they book the consultation. And you can't really, frame all of that if you're excluding people from having that experience before you say the price to them. So I can't really get into it more than that because we don't have time, but it just depends. So that would be a very individual decision, for your business. And I'll answer the rest of these questions. Let me wrap up this and then we'll, we'll dive into your questions and we might just stay in here for the happy hour if, if we have all of the, if you guys have all of your questions, cause the happy hours just going to be like, ask me anything.

Shannon Mattern: So,

Shannon Mattern: Oh, this is my favorite. Four sneaky thoughts that are going to get you to give up on yourself when it comes to building your website, building your business, whatever. So

Shannon Mattern: there are, there are,

Shannon Mattern: there are things that you think that are going to make building your own website way harder than it needs to be. And the first one is that is I'm not techie. How many of you guys in here have ever thought there is no possible way I could ever build my own website or run my business online because I am not techie?

Shannon Mattern: Meg, Trish

Shannon Mattern: Alaina, Sharon. Sharon must have taken my five day challenge and Nikki. Like, how could I possibly, you know, run this business? How could I, how could I, I can't do this. I'm not techie. There's no such thing as being techie. That is like the big secret from all of us web designers out there. We are not like born with this technical bone in our body. Right? All we have is persistence. We literally the only difference between a techie person and a non-techie person is persistence. We literally are willing to continue trying until we figure it out. We are continually researching until we figure it out. It's almost like our weakness because we will spend so much time trying to figure something out. Even if we no longer need to do it, just to close the loop and have, and get the answer. So there's the only difference between someone who is techie and someone who is thinks that they're not techie is the person who is techie is willing to be persistent to figure out the problem and is not making the fact that it's not working about them or making it wrong or making it mean that they're stupid or that they don't know enough or that they shouldn't be doing this.

Shannon Mattern: It literally means that you are willing to figure things out. If you were willing to figure things out, you can do anything, anything in your business, including build your own website. There is no such thing as being techie. So if you are willing to just keep going in the face of obstacles, that's it, that's all that has to happen. So, you know, same kind of thing. Like this is hard, this, this should be easier. Like that kind of stuff is just mentally draining and exhausting. And if you want to build a business that like, you know, an online business, a business that like, you know, kind of frees you up from your, you having to physically be present, to run a lot of, of the business, you have got to change your attitude about, or your thoughts about technology and what you're capable of, and that it should work a hundred percent of the time or that things should go the way that you want.

Shannon Mattern: You just have to be like, expect the unexpected and be willing to dig in and figure it out. And so I'm not techie. This is hard. I'm so frustrated. That's another one of those, like, I'm so frustrated. Who wants to stay in a frustration and build a website? Like that's not gonna turn out good for your clients or not, not for your clients, but like for... you're not going to... like the energy that comes into the things that you are creating is, is going to hold you back from like really putting the best thing forward is what I'm trying to say. I'm not sure that that's coming out the way that, I mean it, but, your, that energy will come through, you know? And I can't figure it out. Yes, you can. You are an extremely smart, capable human being. You can figure it out.

Shannon Mattern: You absolutely can ask for help, you know, join communities that are supportive, you know, especially like ours. There are no, there are no dumb questions in our community. Our community is the most extremely supportive community out there. And if anyone ever is like, you know, you shouldn't ask that question because blah, blah, blah. We're like, bye. We kick you out. We've only had to kick out one person for being a jerk. So those are four sneaky thoughts that are going to get you to give up, to quit on yourself. I want you to, to just adopt the mantra, I can figure anything out. So I know that that was my soapbox moment for like your whole business journey, your whole side hustle journey. It goes for your website. It goes for getting your first client. It goes for the first time your client asks you to do something

Shannon Mattern: you don't know how to do. All of it. So I want to leave you with how to get free DIY web design training. This is the thing that I created after.. I didn't really tell my full story at the beginning, but you know, I started doing web design, freelance one-on-one clients, back in 2014, I was charging like $20 an hour. Cause I think that's what I was making at my day job. And I was like, Oh, $20 an hour, $20. Now, like, I didn't know. I didn't even think about like paying taxes or business expenses or anything. I got completely burnt out. There was not enough time in the day because, Oh, guess what? It's not all billable time when you're, when you're running your own business. You're only working with clients so many of the, so much of the time that you're working. You're doing invoicing, your marketing, you're doing other things.

Shannon Mattern: So you have to charge, you know, sustainably. So I, I was so burnt out. I was like, there's no way that this is going to work. Besides WordPress is so easy. Like can't I just teach this person how to change this font color. Like I literally go in here and point and click on that color right there. Like, why can't I teach them how to do that? And so that idea listening to podcasts led me to create my free DIY web design training called the Free 5 Day Website Challenge. You guys can get your hands on it at free5daywebsitechallenge.com. It literally teaches you click by click, how to build an entire website with WordPress. Completely free training. You will learn things that you did not even know that you needed to know. It's incredible. It's so comprehensive. It's completely free.

Shannon Mattern: Building a website is not free. You do need to buy some things to build a website. I tell you about all of those in the training and how much they cost. And so you can go get your hands on that. If building a website is, is the next thing for you. I know so many of you in here have already taken it and you're like, your mind was absolutely blown, you know, by what you were able to accomplish. We have had people, this blows my mind and this I, this goes to show you, like when we talk about in our roadmap tomorrow, I had someone go take my free 5 day website challenge. Her name's Monica Froese. She, I don't know if you guys, for those of you that were on the happy hour, on Thursday, she was in One Woman Shop with me back in 2015.

Shannon Mattern: She followed one path with her side. She came to me to learn how to build her website. And then she followed one path with her journey. And I stayed on the struggle path with trying to be where I am now, five years ago, Monica has gone on to have over a million dollar business since, since then. And she started with what she learned in my free 5day website challenge. Like she built her website and then went on to grow a million dollar business with that. There are so many people that, that I talked to on my podcast and they're like, Oh yeah. Well I found you to build my website and now I quit my day job and I have this multiple six-figure business. And I'm just like, it, it blows my mind. So it really is everything that you need to know to, to run a business online.

Shannon Mattern: But if that's not what you need to be doing right now, please don't do it. Please don't do it. Please. Don't hold yourself back from making the money that you really, really could make in your business to go from side hustle to self-employed. And, so that's really what we're going to be talking about. Say like tomorrow in my session, I'm going to walk you through, like, you know, if you're a blogger. Yes. Like these are all of the strategies that you should be doing. If you're a service provider. Yes. These are all the strategies that you could be doing. If you have been working with clients for such and such time, and you're maxed out on time and now you need to add a, add something scalable, meaning you create it once and multiple people buy it. Then this could be you, but like starting in the right place is critical to your success. And so it's not always going to be the website. So it's just, it's, it's just not even though that's what I do and that's my bread and butter. It's not always going to be right for you. I know I can talk a lot can't I?

Shannon Mattern: Okay.

Shannon Mattern: So, I'm going to answer your questions and then I will pop into the Facebook group for a little bit for our happy hour, but then we will wrap up for the day. Katrina says before, of course I was not techie. I feel a lot more confident now. Awesome. That is, that was my whole goal. Let me stop sharing in there.

Shannon Mattern: All right.

Shannon Mattern: Carolyn says this was extremely informative and helpful. I was reading comments from the earlier session. Whoops. Let's see. Meg says, this makes me feel way better about taking five, it taking five months to complete your challenge. See, that's what I don't want to have happen. I don't want someone to think that they have to build their website prematurely and then not start their business because they're trying to do something that they don't need to do. Allie says I started your five day course yesterday, but I already have wordpress.com. Any tips or resources. So Allie, the version of WordPress that I teach in the five day challenge is the self hosted version of WordPress. My recommendation for you, if you're already in the training is to ask that question in our, in our support forum. But the, but if you already have wordpress.com, you can export your content from wordpress.com.

Shannon Mattern: Just go to tools export on your.com site and then tools import on your self hosted site. It'll just like import those blog posts in and you'll be, you'll be good to go. So Brooke said, can you discuss the challenge again? Yeah. My free 5 day website challenge. If I could rename it, because I think Kelsey was talking about, Kelsey Formost, the copywriter on Thursday. Clear is always better than clever. Like back in 2015, everyone was doing challenges, right? And so I called it the Free 5 Day Website Challenge. What it is, it's basically free DIY web design training with WordPress. Like, so you guys can get that at free5daywebsitechallenge.com, the number 5. It teaches WordPress. So it teaches how to build a website with WordPress. I even have people take that training who have never built a website before, fall in love with it, and then start web design businesses and quit their day jobs because they're running what design businesses. So, I mean, it's that comprehensive?

Shannon Mattern: Oh,

Shannon Mattern: Let's see. And then my web designers course that's for people who want to start web design businesses. Like they want to sell web design as a service. And that is webdesigneracademy.com. You can apply for the training there. How long are the replays up for? Every day is up for 24 hours. So day one's already expired. Day two will be up until tonight. Today's will go up tonight. We'll be available for 24 hours. There's all access pass. If you want lifetime access to all of the sessions plus the live events. So we have all of the sessions available like individually, and then we have the replays of these live events going in there now. So you could literally get the all access pass and go watch the, like the tax one from Thursday, if you wanted to, without having to like watch the whole day one. So you can go to sidehustletoselfemployed.com/ No. Just go sidehustletoselfemployed.com and then it's All Access

Shannon Mattern: Pass at the top. So let's see. How can it,

Shannon Mattern: Yeah. I know Sarah is going to be like, where did all of these new email list subscribers come from? It comes from creating amazing free content that helped someone and that person can't help, but to tell all the other people that have to sit at a desk all day about it.

Shannon Mattern: Jack,

Shannon Mattern: I don't know if it's Jacques or Jackie, but I feel like such a dumb moment here, I guess. This evening, I'm building a thank you page. You guys, people like these are not things that you should know. Like they're just not things that you should know. So it's good that you're here and that you're like those of you that are spending time over these four days to learn this stuff, you're going to go so much farther, faster than you would if you did not try to go it alone. I love that you guys love that strategy.

Shannon Mattern: So,

Shannon Mattern: So about blog posts driving traffic, Sharon, you said when I asked, like, do you think you need to have a blog. Blog posts don't necessarily drive traffic. Its a lot of active work that you do to your blog posts that drive traffic. So I guess like the last thing that I would leave you guys with, and then I'm going to jump to the, to the Facebook group is that like, if you build your website, you still have to do a lot of stuff to market it. You know, you're going to your, it is your job after the site is built to tell people about it. And it takes just the same amount of time to tell people about your website, as it does to tell people about how to work with you directly. So just having a website is not going to automagically, you know, have clients knocking down your door.

Shannon Mattern: It does not work that way. So, you know, if you have to tell people about a website, but you can work with clients right away, why not just go tell people about how they can work with you right away. And then when you are like, when you're out of time to do that, because you're doing client work, then you have a website that you are actively, implementing marketing strategies so that it starts to build momentum to bring you the clients. So we'll talk more about that tomorrow in the roadmapping session, 3:00 PM side hustle to self-employed roadmap. I'm going to walk you through what you, how do, how you can create your custom side hustle to self-employed roadmap. I'm going to jump over to the Facebook group. Jolie asks, can you do the challenge if you're not building a side of your, for your own, can you, can it be for practice?

Shannon Mattern: Yeah, absolutely. If you, but you do have to pay for stuff. So, you know, you'll see like the budget side or like, it costs a hundred bucks for hosting there's things that you have to buy, not for me just to have a website. So, you know, just as long as you're cool with spending some money on it. Yeah, absolutely. So, all right, guys, I'll see you in the Facebook group for a few minutes for our happy hour, and then we will, Tracy, did I miss the answer about a call to action on the bottom of a blog? I don't think I saw that question, but should you have a call to action on your blog page? Yea, put, put your email opt in form on every single page. Every single one. There's no like, just always be list building, put it everywhere. All right, guys, I will see you in the Facebook group for a little bit, and then otherwise I will see you tomorrow. Bye

Shannon Mattern: Guys.