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Before: Website for a Copywriter

by Nancy Fields Leave a Comment

WordPress Website for a Copywriter Before woman with questioning look and three large arrows behind her
Click here to watch the video below

Copywriting Side Hustle

copy by carol website created with GoDaddy drag and drop builder
“Before” website created with GoDaddy’s drag and drop builder

Carol’s daughter helped her create her first business website. Carol purchased her domain name from GoDaddy and decided to use GoDaddy’s proprietary drag and drop website builder.

Even though Carol found a pre-built website template she liked, Carol and her daughter struggled to get the look Carol wanted.

Website Building Challenges

website about page with privacy policy in left column

Drag and drop website builders are super easy to use for people like me who have designed lots of websites, used hundreds of templates, know what images will work best, at the right size, and can write copy to fit the space provided.

Click here to download the same checklist I use to build business websites.

Instead of spending a few hours building her new website, it took Carol and her daughter many days to complete the home page.

A year passed and Carol needed to make a few text and image changes.

She forgot how to do it. Her daughter forgot too, plus Carol’s daughter was so busy with other things, she no longer had time to work on her mother’s website.

Forgetting how to make text and images changes is very common if you don’t build websites full time. I still remember the day I forgot how to log into my new WordPress website.

The Drag and Drop Website Template Was Not the Only Problem

Carol wanted to launch her copywriting services using the Product Launch Formula.

Carol’s coach highly recommended creating a landing page with an opt-in form to build her email list. Carol needed a minimum of 300-500 subscribers to justify spending the time and energy on a product launch.

Carol had an opt-in form on her website, but that was not enough

copy-by-carol-website-optin-form

The online world of sales and marketing is always changing. Landing pages with a built in opt-in form are a better way to list build for 3 big reasons:

  1. Easier to communicate value: Take as much space as you need to tell your website visitors how your free offer will make their lives better.
  2. Fewer distractions: Landing pages are a single focused web page that ask visitors to take one action. There is no navigation menu or other “shiny object” to pull their attention away.
  3. One Call-To-Action: Sign up. Download. Done

Why Carol Chose WordPress

  • WordPress integrates with LeadPages.
  • WordPress integrates with Carol’s preferred 3rd party email host so she can store and tag her list of contacts for product launches.
  • Carol’s site can grow with her business.
  • I made lots of training videos so if Carol forgets how to do something, she can refer to her short video trainings!

Website Before

Transcript

Carol and her daughter created Carol’s first website using GoDaddy’s website builder. The same one that you see advertised about how easy it is to create a drag and drop website quickly. You choose a prebuilt, template and drag and drop your images and text. 

The problem was Carol wants to launch her copywriting services using the product launch formula method and WordPress is a much better platform for launching products and services because Carol can use landing page software to build her list. And before I replaced her GoDaddy website with her new WordPress website, I wanted to show you what Carol was struggling.

It did take Carol and her daughter hours and hours to complete the home page. And she’s happy with the overall look, but she forgot what she had done to add the text and images. And her daughter’s busy doing other things in her life right now, and she can’t help her mother any longer.

The first thing that held Carol back is that she has an opt-in form here. Instead she wants to add a link to an attractive landing page that was created in LeadPages, but she doesn’t know how to make LeadPages work with GoDaddy.

I asked Google if GoDaddy’s website builder works with LeadPages and I couldn’t easily find the answer because GoDaddy kept leading me to their landing software and lead pages kept saying,  we can also design your website.

WordPress and LeadPages work so well together that there really isn’t any need to be fighting with a platform that you don’t really want to use.

A problem Carol had wason her about us page. Her text is centered. It is very hard to read centered text. Centered text is great for a formal invitation, but definitely not for a website that you want people to read.

The other thing is her privacy policy. Privacy policies do tend to be long as is hers.

At’s also in a column on the left, which looks a little strange.

In general, Carol found it too difficult to work on her site.

Plus I can teach her how to use your website after it’s built. And I can show her how to add text and images without spending hours and hours going through online training, trying to get the answers that she needs.

Filed Under: WordPress

Customized WordPress Websites

by Nancy Fields 1 Comment

Ray Associates, Inc. new WordPress website designed by Nancy Fields Fields Graphic Design
Ray Associates, Inc., Austin, TX

Katherine and Jim Ray wanted a WordPress website that they could maintain and control because their website developer was no longer available to make changes to their old, HTML hand coded website.

The following website and design services were provided by Nancy Fields: WordPress theme selection and site build, image selection and optimization, copy editing, SSL Certificate installed, logo recreated in Adobe Illustrator, favicon created from logo, video editing and upload, SEO.


Pioneer Valley Home Staging WordPress website designed by Nancy Fields Fields Graphic Design
BEFORE (left) AFTER (center & right)

Top realtors in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts refer Laura DuPont because her home staging sells homes faster, and at a price that is often better than expected.

She needed a “Wow” website to reflect her unique skill.

Within one year of her site rebuild by Nancy Fields, another home stager bought her home staging business because of her website!


overwhelmwarrior.com
overwhelmwarrior.com

Read more about Elsie Kerns new brand identity, new business name and new website.


galaxygroupcoaching.com

BEFORE (left) AFTER (center & right)

Julia Donnelly PMP purchased a website coaching package from another company that offered a done-for-you website (pictured LEFT). She found it difficult to make changes and schedule her client calls. Her website package also included items she never used, plus the monthly maintenance fees were high.

Julia missed the ease of WordPress, and asked me to design a new website for her coaching business and Passion Test facilitation. I also chose an easy to use scheduler that Julia can add to any page on her website.


milestones

http://milestonesinc.com/

herlihys

http://herlihysclothing.com/


https://fieldsgraphicdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/DrKaaylaDaniel-Testimonial-1.mp4
Nourishing Broth website pages
http://nourishingbroth.com/

Sally Fallon Morell and Kaayla T. Daniel PhD are both best selling authors whose graphic design tastes could not be more different. Sally’s compass leans traditional where as Kaayla embraces modern and sassy.

Nourishing Broth is the title of their best selling book. As such, my design began with their beautifully designed book cover which influenced the color pallet and the site’s visual hierarchy.

By putting the focus on the book, all other design elements could say clean and uncluttered — the perfect solution for my classic and contemporary clients.

Nancy understood what we needed for a successful site, and not just a good looking site. And trust me, that’s a distinction a whole lot of graphic designers just don’t seem to grasp.  — Dr. Kaayla T. Daniel


Travis and Associates website home page before and after new design

http://www.travisandassociates.com/

Victoria L. Travis is a veterinarian recruiter. She wanted to attract more perfect customers and grow her online presence, but her old website lacked personality. We chose a theme that highlighted her mission and her professional qualifications. Now visitors to her website quickly understand what makes her unique among veterinary recruiters.

“Nancy, someone just phoned to say he found me on line, and he that liked my website!” — Victoria L. Travis


1099oremployee.com website before and after

http://1099oremployee.com/

Renee Fink, President and CEO, recently acquired ClearPath Workforce Management and wanted a website her staff could update and maintain. In addition, Renee wanted a site with a fresh, dynamic homepage that had a video and lead magnet ‘above the fold.’ The site also needed to:

  1. load fast
  2. be mobile responsive, and
  3. have Payroll and Risk calculators.

ClearPath Workforce Management’s lead magnet designed by Nancy Fields as a downloadable PDF.

lead-magnet-02-clearPath

Our internal staff gave rave reviews about the website. I can tell there was a renewed sense of pride about our company. We’ve moved into the 21st century.

Thank you for all your great work on this. — Renee Fink, President and CEO


promotional post card Nourishing Fats book by Sally Fallon Morell

NewTrends Publishing website design before and after

Sally Fallon Morell is a busy lady! She’s a best selling author and publisher who has been online since the early days of HTML.

Sally wanted a site where people could purchase her books, and those she publishes.

Followers can also hear her latest podcast interview, and read her blog post, too.

http://newtrendspublishing.com/

Sally also requested a promotional post card of her latest best seller, Nourishing Fats: Why We Need Animal Fats for Health and Happiness. Design, 3-D rendering, and copywriting by Nancy Fields.

What a pleasure it is to work with Nancy Fields! When you tell her your vision for your website, she gets it immediately, and then puts together something that surpasses your expectations. She’s a real professional—easy to work with, punctual and very good value! — Sally Fallon Morell, author
Nourishing Traditions, Nourishing Broth, Nourishing Fats


Say Hello Spot website before and after redesign

http://sayhellospot.com/

I love what I do because I get to work with friends who become clients, and clients who become friends.

Cynthia started her blog website six years ago and grew her list of followers to over 65,000! It was time to update her website because her old site was not mobile responsive, which was hurting her search rankings. Cynthia was also ready for a more modern look, which she thought would help promote her first book which is soon to be published.

Because we had worked together in the past, I was able to choose a theme I knew she would like, plus a theme that would fit her content, and all the beautiful photos she wanted to add— which I also used on her new business cards.

Cynthia Hinckley business cards

I’m very excited about the new look for Say Hello Spot. For over a year, I have wanted to upgrade the look of my blog. Nancy is someone I have worked with professionally since 1998 and she helped me setup up my website when I founded Bright Spot Therapy Dogs in 2004. We work well together. She “gets” what I’m striving to convey to my readers in visual form and she’s got great advice to share, as well.

The creating of the new look for Say Hello Spot didn’t happen overnight. Selecting great photos for my homepage slider, selecting the right font for the header and the perfect WordPress theme, took hours of time.

It was all worth it. I am thrilled with the outcome. For me, a website needs to draw the viewer in by being visually attractive and easy to navigate. I feel the New Say Hello Spot does just that. — Cynthia Hinckley


Practice To Business website design by Nancy Fields before and after

http://practicetobusiness.com/

Business coach, Steve Hendon, specializes in helping small and medium size practices spend less time managing their business and more time doing what they love do — and were trained to do.

When Steve asked me to look at his old website, my first reaction was:

  1. I didn’t understand what he did, and
  2. he seemed to be hiding his skill at helping others identify their strengths.

Together we worked on

  • message clarity
  • selected a theme to help him build his list of followers, and
  • built his authority by letting his raving clients ‘do the talking.’

Your energy level and excitement about building my website was infectious.

I also recognize your persistence as you kept me informed of the progress and pursued completion of the project in a timely manner.

I have peace of mind knowing that 24/7 my site is working for me and providing a vehicle for people to know me better and get in touch with me. I also appreciate having an expert to answer my questions and keep me up to date with the best information available. — Steve Hendon


Reno Hot Properties website design before and after

http://renohotproperties.com/

Like many of my clients, Lori’s daughter created her first WordPress website, and updated her website, too. A year later, Lori’s daughter went off to college, and didn’t have time to update her mother’s site.

Lori didn’t enjoy the tech side of maintaining a website. The problem was, being a realtor Lori’s site needed frequent updates. When Lori phoned me she said, “People think I’m no longer in business.”

Lori also needed to update her site because her old WordPress site was not mobile responsive. She also wanted a more modern looking site.

Properties in the Reno area can move fast. Some weeks I sell a house as soon as it’s listed! What I like most about Nancy is she’s so responsive.  —  Lori Doyle, Realtor


website home page and mobile responsive example of Two Centre Street Restoration Project Nantucket MA
twocentrestrestorationproject.com

Non-profit Two Centre Street Restoration Project wanted to keep donors updated on their progress. One of the Board members heard that a WordPress site would allow them to easily update their own site. I created a custom header for them using their own photos, and taught their administrator how to use WordPress. Over the next 10 years they’ll be adding text and photos to keep people interested in their project so they can continue to raise more money while this historic landmark gets a facelift.

Nancy taught me step by step how to run and manage the website and showed me how easy it is to take command of your own site—very empowering.  I couldn’t have done any of this without her design and expertise. — Jane Karakula


home page Natural Hormone Balancing Janet R. Bowen RN FNP AHN-BC Helping you balance your hormones naturally…using bioidentical hormones
naturalhormonebalancing.com

Janet R. Bowen, RN, FNP, AHN-BC has a busy practice in rural Wisconsin. A family member setup her WordPress website but no longer had the time to continue working on Natural Hormone Balancing. Janet asked me to pickup where her nephew left off, design a custom web header, her free offer and add them to her website.

Nancy, you have been so helpful to me and I am so grateful for the beautiful work you have done. I will continue to utilize your services as I continue to develop my site further…Thank you for the amazing work you do! — Janet Bowen RN, FNP, AHN-BC


Filed Under: Portfolio, WordPress websites

Email List Building, Referrals or Both?

by Nancy Fields Leave a Comment

blog cover graphic wooden people on teeter-totter Should You Build a Business on Referrals, List Building or both?

Do you need an email list if you have referrals?

Referrals are pure gold. Referrals built my business which continued to grow at a rapid pace until the stock market crashed in 2008. Before 2008 my business was outputting over 300 design jobs a year. After the crash…12.

And that’s the problem.

Like COVID, and stock market corrections, it’s hard to predict what will cause the next economic downturn, and when it will occur.

If your business is humming along on referrals alone, touche to you, but be forewarned.

If you don’t have an email list, or not actively building an email list, you could be setting yourself up for an expected downturn when the economy hits another bump in the road.

How to use Google Search to build your list of prospects: Click here to download my FREE video.

…but List Building isn’t an income generating activity

It’s true.

List building takes hours of your unpaid time to create a free offer in exchange for a prospect’s email address.

The good news is, successful online entrepreneurs report that each hot prospect on your email list is worth between $.50 and $2.50 per month, depending upon your industry and product.

How to make free offers worth your time and effort

If you can:

  1. Solve an immediate problem for your ideal customer
  2. Give them a small quick win they can use right away
  3. Keep in touch so they remember you…

…you’ll build an email list that’s worth your time and effort.

What makes the best free offer?

The best free offers give people what they want. But your best free offer gives your prospect only one quick win.

If you’re spending more than two hours creating your free offer you’re giving away too much information.

Create one page.

Given them one quick win.

Like many entrepreneurs, the first free offer I created contained too much information. I wanted to show my expertise so I wrote a 20-page step-by-step guide on how to set up a WordPress website. It was so thorough there was no need to hire me; and that was the problem.

Today, with free design templates from Canva, you can quickly build a professional looking, one-page free offer that builds your list of prospects.

How to discover what your ideal customer wants badly enough to give you their email address

  1. Ask Google!
  2. Go to google.com
  3. Ask question to a problem you can easily solve for your ideal customer
google.com Enter question in search box illustration

BEFORE you press enter wait for the drop down menu to appear (see below).

google.com search box dropdown illustration
  1. Choose the most relevant question from the dropdown menu
  2. Click

Look for the People also ask box (PAA)

You’ll find the People also ask (PAA) box on page one of Googles Search Results page. PAA is pure gold because you will find the EXACT words people are using to solve their problems.

And that’s exactly what you want: their words. Not the words you use, or that you think your ideal customer is using.

How to use PAA

Click on the most relevant question.

Read the article to discover if:

  • it’s what your customer wants and needs
  • there’s something in article that’s missing, or that you could answer more thoroughly
  • you have a different ‘spin’

By creating a free offer from a real question people are asking you will become a trusted resource.

google.com People also ask box screen shot illustration

Need Help Creating a Free Offer?

Most of my website customers also need free offers so I’ve designed a lot of them.

Please feel free to phone or email me at nancy (at) fieldsgraphicdesign (dot) com for a free 15-minute consultation to see how I can help you.

How I use Google Search to build my list of prospects: Click here to download my FREE video.

Filed Under: Irresistible Free Offer Tagged With: Google Search, list building, PAA, People also ask box, SERP

How To Credit A Photo You Downloaded for FREE

by Nancy Fields Leave a Comment

How to properly credit any image you download from a free stock photo website:

  • What your credit should say
  • Where to find the name of the photographer
  • Where to put your photo credit
  • How to get Google to love you
Step-by-step 3-minute video shows where to place the photo credit

If you’d like me to notify you each time I give a free, live 10-Minute Monday presentation, click here to sign up. You’ll also received my list of favorite free stock photos.

What Your Photo Credit Should Say

As a fashion and beauty editor for Glamour, Mademoiselle and Weight Watchers Magazine photo credits were a must.

Today many free stock image photo sites say, ‘Attribution is not required, but appreciated.’ I like to give credit to anyone who has given me something of value for free.

Where To Find the Name of the Photographer

  • Go to the site where the image is located (such as Pexels, Pikwizard, Pixabay, Unsplash, etc.)
  • Click on the image
  • Look for the following information
  1. Photo URL
  2. Photographer’s name

5 hand bump photo with photo image URL example
Each Stock Photo house is a bit different. This is Pexels
Pikwizard

PRO TIP

Copy & paste the photo URL and the photographer’s URL into a simple text document like this…

You will need this information when it’s time to credit the photo

Where To Put Your Photo Credit

The following instructions are for WordPress

  1. Go to your Media Library
  2. Click on the photo to bring up the Description field
  3. Add the Photo URL (from the stock photo house) in the Description field

Optional: Add a photo credit as a “Caption”

  1. Insert an image into your Post or page.
  2. Under the image look for “Write caption” (see below)
  3. Add “Photo courtesy of [link to photographer] via [link to stock  photo house]
closeup of icecream waffle cone full of small white flowers

How To Get Google to Love You

Part of giving credit is linking to the photographer and the stock photo house (“Photo courtesy of [link to photographer] via [link to stock  photo house].)

The problem is you don’t want the search engines, like Google, to follow the link because Google may think you are a spammer who is trying to create false links, just for attention.

The solution is to create a nofollow link. Here’s how:

  1. In your WordPress Post or Page click on the “Text” tab
  2. Type in nofollow as indicated below
example of where to place nofollow code for photo credits

Don’t Forget to Alt Tag Your Images

Super important!

Search engines cannot yet read your images so you need to describe each image you upload for people who are visually impaired.

This short article will show you how to tag your images in WordPress.

Join Me Live On 10-Minute Monday

Hi. I’m Nancy Fields. I’ve been a graphic design for over 28 years. I build websites for coaches, entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Receive an invitation the next time I go LIVE for a FREE 10 minute training.

Topics include WordPress, design, and website tech challenges my customer are struggling with.

Sign up below. I hope to see you on my next 10-Minute Monday!  

Featured images courtesy of picjumbo via Pexels and Pikwizard

Filed Under: 10-Minute Monday, WordPress Tagged With: free images, free photos, photo credit

5 Things To Put On Your Contact Us Page

by Nancy Fields Leave a Comment

How do you want people to contact you once they’ve visited your website? By email? By Phone? Or, do you want to contact them after they’ve told you what they need?
Regardless of the type of business you have, you need a Contact page on your website.
Here are 5 must-have items to put on your Contact Us page, plus a few extras if you have a bricks and mortar business.

Would you like to see what I did, LIVE? Click here to receive an invitation to join me LIVE on Zoom.

5 Must-Haves on Your Contact Us Page

You will create a great user experience by adding:

  1. Your Company name
  2. Your Company address – your State is enough if you do not have a brick & mortar business 
  3. Your Company phone number with a mobile friendly link
  4. Your Email address BUT not a live link that spam bots can easily steal
  5. A Contact Form

Brick & Mortar Business Extras…

Do you see clients in your office, or you have a retail store? Include:
1. Your hours of operation
2. A map and directions to your office or store

Are You Active on Social Media?

Let people know they can send you a private message on Facebook. Add a link to your Facebook business page and ask them to click Send Message.

The Benefits of Using a Contact Form

  • A Contact Form allows visitors to give you their name and email address
  • You can add pre-qualifying questions
  • Ask them to tell you what they need
  • Contact Forms cut down on spam bots stealing your email address and filling up your email inbox with hundreds of unwanted messages.

Contact Form on a Contact Us page created in Ninja Forms

simple contact form created with Ninja Forms

Contact Form created in Ninja Forms added to a website home page

Ninja Forms contact form atop photo
If you want to contact them after they have told you what they need, create a contact form with questions, as in this example from ClearPath Workforce Management:
contact form with many questions

 Click to Call

Adding a link to your phone number makes it easy for people to call you from your website. Be sure to check out the video below to see how to manually add a link, plus how to add a “click to call button” with a FREE plugin
click-to-call web page example

Transcript

Five must haves on a contact page for your company: name, address, and phone number. And you’ll see a qualifying statement here because for your company address, you only need your town and your state, or even just your state. That gives people a sense of where you are in the world, but you don’t have to put in your full address if people are not coming to, you know, to a store, for example.

And then, add your company phone number. And this is where I’m excited to show you.

I have some additional information about adding a company phone number with a mobile friendly link. So if people want to phone you on their cell phone, they can just hit the link and it goes right to your phone.

Add your email address, but this is a thing that I learned many years ago: Do not put a live link in your website because there are spam robots that crawl websites looking for email links.

I truly do have a customer who insisted she wanted the live email address because it really is user-friendly for customers. But she got hit with hundreds of spam emails a day. Soon she was receiving thousands of spam emails in a week.

She spent a lot of time deleting the spam from her email inbox, and then she spent money and time getting it resolved.

So a Contact Form is great because it lets people contact you. They give them you their name and email address.

And you could even ask them some questions if you want to know a little bit about them before you reach out to them.

So it’s about you then reaching out to them.

I’m going to show you how to create a live phone link. How to add it manually, and how to use a plugin to add a phone link.

What I did, I just hovered over the phone number and I hit link. Then I typed in T E L for telephone, added a colon, and then entered the number: No dashes or spaces.

That is the way to manually add that in.

If you want something fancier. For example, if you wanted a Call Us button, this is done with a plugin called WP Call Button.

It is free.

I set that up in the dashboard under Settings. I set up the phone number in the US. I put the phone number in: as you can see, no dashes. I chose where I wanted it to appear. I chose my button color, which was the color of all of her buttons on our website. And I put show everywhere and save the changes. And that’s how easy it was to fill it in.

But there again, you do not need to have a plug in if you don’t want to. You can have something as simple selecting your text and linking it with TEL colon and your phone number. And you’re good to go.

Join Me Live On 10-Minute Monday

Receive an invitation the next time I go LIVE for a FREE 10 minute training. Topics include WordPress, design, and tech challenges others are struggling with when creating a website.

You can also email me a question about your own website or tech challenge and I may feature it.

Sign up below. I hope to see you on my next 10-Minute Monday!

 

Filed Under: 10-Minute Monday, business, WordPress Tagged With: contact us page, mobile-friendly

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