In this episode of Mompreneur Mastery, Sydney interviews Kelsey Romine, a WordPress website designer and busy mom of three. Kelsey shares essential insights about optimizing user experiences on websites to drive desired actions, emphasizing the importance of a clear user journey and a mobile-optimized design.
She offers valuable tips on making website content visually appealing and easier to read, catering specifically to the needs of busy moms. From simplifying text and adding white space to strategic positioning of call-to-action buttons, Kelsey provides actionable advice that can have an immediate impact on any business website, regardless of the platform used.
Key takeaways from this episode include:
- Understanding the concept of user journey and ensuring that website content guides visitors towards desired actions.
- Implementing mobile optimization and visually appealing design elements, such as breaking up content with images and using bullet points, to enhance user experience.
- Emphasizing the importance of making website content skimmable and easy to consume, especially for busy moms.
Overall, this episode provides practical and actionable strategies for business owners, particularly moms, to transform their websites into effective tools for engaging and converting visitors into leads or customers.
In this episode of Mompreneur Mastery, Sydney interviews Kelsey Romine, a WordPress website designer and busy mom of three. Kelsey shares essential insights about optimizing user experiences on websites to drive desired actions, emphasizing the importance of a clear user journey and a mobile-optimized design.
She offers valuable tips on making website content visually appealing and easier to read, catering specifically to the needs of busy moms. From simplifying text and adding white space to strategic positioning of call-to-action buttons, Kelsey provides actionable advice that can have an immediate impact on any business website, regardless of the platform used.
Key takeaways from this episode include:
- Understanding the concept of user journey and ensuring that website content guides visitors towards desired actions.
- Implementing mobile optimization and visually appealing design elements, such as breaking up content with images and using bullet points, to enhance user experience.
- Emphasizing the importance of making website content skimmable and easy to consume, especially for busy moms.
Overall, this episode provides practical and actionable strategies for business owners, particularly moms, to transform their websites into effective tools for engaging and converting visitors into leads or customers.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Mount Purdue Mastery. Today, I get to share with you a really cool episode with Kelsey Romine. Kelsey is a website designer and she creates websites for busy coaches and service providers that have a strong strategy and a custom design to attract your ideal clients and get them to take action. Kelsey is also a busy mom. She has 3 kids under 5 years old, so she totally understands the need for high impact strategies that get you results without spending, a ton of time having to constantly update your website. I really loved having this conversation with Kelsey because so much of it is focused on the strategy she uses. And in this episode, she talks about how to focus on the user experience on your website. So it guides them to take the action you want them to take, whether it's signing up for a discovery call or getting the sale, whatever it is. She has a lot of good tips for you that you can use to optimize your own website. Something I definitely did after we finished recording this episode. And I cannot wait for you to hear it. Welcome to the Mompreneur Mastery Podcast, where we share actual Instagram Instagram strategies that fit into a busy mom's schedule so that you can get more engagement, more leads, and more sales in less time so you can spend more quality time with your family. I'm Sydney O'Brien, an Instagram strategist who started my business with 3 kids under 5 and found a way to do it without sacrificing balance instead of spending too much time creating content that isn't getting them the results they want. If you're an overwhelmed but very ambitious business owner and you wanna strategize the heck out of your Instagram account so that you can save time and make more sales, you're in the right place. Alright. Today, I get to talk to Kelsey. Kelsey, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Absolutely. Well, I am a WordPress website designer, but I wasn't always. I actually was a teacher for 8 years before my first baby. And having him kinda changed my world a little bit. Not that I wasn't like, I, I liked teaching, but I was already kind of like, is this where I'm supposed to be? Is this you know, I was already kinda questioning things. And then when he came into my life, I was like, nope. Something needs to change. I need to do something different. Mhmm. So I kind of learned how to start freelancing and that took me into the direction of web design, and I have loved it for a few years now. Since then I've added 2 littles, 2 more babies. So now I have 3 kids that are 5 and under. So it's very busy. They may know they're nutty, but they're the reason that I started business in the first place. And so, you know, we just keep moving forward and we do what we can on a daily basis. So my business around them and their schedule and and work in the pockets of time that I can find. Yeah. That is very similar to what I do. I have 3 kids that are 6 and under they're 3, 4, and 6. Yeah. So yes. Also living the hectic crazy kid filled life and just having like, business that I can do, like, around that and have it fit in without while still making sure my kids' needs are met is, is pretty awesome. Isn't it I I just love that, like, this exists for us. Like, it's just Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So I follow you on Instagram and I have for while, and I'm seeing you talk about user journey on websites. Can you explain what that is? Because that was the first time I'd heard that term was from you. Yeah. Well, and like, that's kind of the term that I use. I mean, other people probably call it something different, but to me, it's like how people move through your site. Mhmm. So, like, what direction do you want them to take on your site? How do they move through it? What page do they go to and how can you kind of direct them to the pages that you want them to get to? So if they come to your website, like on their homepage, where do you want them to go from there? Where do you want to lead them? And think about that as you, like, kind of map out your website and where you put links or buttons and, like, the directions that you can take from them. Does that make sense? Yeah, that does. So thinking in my mind, like, I love examples. So I'm trying to relate it to, like, Instagram. Yeah. Where all of your posts work together to create kind of like a funnel to eventually lead them to the sale. I'm assuming it's very similar just on your website instead of Yeah. Another app. Gotcha. Yeah. And, like and it's sometimes it's, like, going more than direct more than one direction. Right? Mhmm. So if they come to your home page, ideally, like, let's say you're a service provider and you want them to book a call with you. That's, like, your number one thing you want them to do. Ideally, they come to your homepage. They see a button or a link to go book a call with you and they go and do that. That's like the ideal journey through your website. Right? But there might be some alternate journeys to consider. Like maybe this person needs to learn more about you first. So maybe you can lead them to your about page so that they can really connect with you. And then they'll go to that main call to action to book a call. Or they wanna learn more about your services first. They'll go from your homepage to your services or your work with me page. And then from there, will they book a call? So it's kinda just like the direction to which you want them to go. And it's exactly kind of like a funnel funnel them to your main call to action, if that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. But a lot more avenues to get there, it seems. Yeah. And it depends on how many different things you wanna have on your website and like how many pages you have and how many different things you offer them of how big that can get. But if you kinda keep it simple of home about services and kind of like a contact or, a call link or something, then you have less. But once you add a blog in there, can you lead them to that call to action through your blog or a podcast? Like, can they get to your call to action from, you know, like a podcast episode show notes or something like that? So, yeah, it can get big and hefty at different times, but, it doesn't have to either. Mhmm. And it once it's done, it's I mean, there's a little upkeep when you add new things, but like the work you put into, like, making that user journey, does it help more long term? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, any, any work that you put into it upfront strategically wise, right? Mhmm. Is going to help you in the end. Ideally, your website's then working for you in the background, then you needing to constantly keep doing more and more and more. Right? Like it's yeah. Do more upfront plan for it so that you can do a little bit less. And, like, you've taken to account the other marketing avenues that you have. So let's say you're really active on Instagram and you're constantly like sending them to a landing page or sending them to your website through a post or something. You wanna make sure that that website is working for you and is doing that, that hard part of like continuing to market you for you and getting them to take that call to action that you eventually want them to take. Yeah. So it all kinda works together, you know? Yeah. That's interesting. So when you say working for you, is there a way, an easy way to like test, like see that other than just actual sales? That's gonna be your best bet, but I also like testing with people, you know, like whether that's just a family member or a friend. Great. Mhmm. If you can actually test it with somebody in your, like, ideal audience or your ideal target market or something and see how they navigate through it, like, that's really helpful to actually see how somebody that you're trying to attract works through your website would be one of the better ways even, I think, to make sure that it's working for you. That makes a ton of sense. And I never would've thought of that, but now I really wanna do that. Like, yeah. It's like the simple things, you know, that you don't always think about. Yeah. Yeah. That makes so much sense. I definitely need to do that now. Now I'm like wondering, oh man, have I made mistakes? There's I feel like there's always room to improve every aspect of business, but Yeah. It sometimes I also think it's okay to, like, leave it be and see how it works, and then you can adjust and fine tune as needed too. Yeah. That's always good. What do you think the biggest mistakes are that you see on websites for service providers have? You know, I don't know about biggest, but like one that I see that drives me kind of crazy. And maybe this is just as a mom who's like on Instagram when she's trying to feed children and her baby and things like that. And I'm like Yeah. Looking at websites and things on my phone. You know, like I click through them on Instagram and I get frustrated when they're not mobile optimized. And not even just like, can I read everything? But actually making sure, and this is kind of tricky because people don't know it. They, like, they sometimes look at their website on mobile and think, oh, it looks good. Test like the things that are clickable, test the links, test the menu, test the button. Because sometimes on mobile, like transparent things end up overlapping with those buttons or those, you know, those different pieces that can be linked out to something. And you don't know it because it looks fine, but they're actually not clickable. It's I find that really frustrating when I'm the one on my phone all the time. And then that's just as a mom and, like, constantly doing things from my phone. I'm sure it does great on desktop, but that is one thing that I'm like, I can't even get to the point of working with this person or starting to work with this person without like, from my phone. I would need to go to my computer. And then at that point, I kinda moved on, if that makes sense. Yeah. For sure. I know I would have forgotten to, like, go back to it once I get to my laptop. But yeah, that, that makes a ton of sense. I, this is like something I realized maybe a week or 2 ago and I like slowly had to go through all of my pages and redo it. Cause I didn't realize, yeah, like you said, those transparent things, covering up buttons and stuff. Yeah. I had no idea. Yeah. Like certain sections, like they don't have a background, so you don't know that they're like covering and then Yeah. They they're not clickable. And then it's like, okay, well, if it's what am I supposed to do here? Yeah. I guess the other thing is I get frustrated when I'm constantly, like, confused on a website. Like how many different pages do I have to get to to get to that call link or to learn about your services? Like, make it intentional, I guess, is the right word Mhmm. Of where you're trying to get people to so that they're not confused. Like, if they're sitting there confused on a website, then they're just gonna click out. You know? Right. So do you think less is more than when it comes to, like, the number of pages and things? Sometimes. And it's not necessarily that you need less pages as it is giving them the opportunity to get to the important ones. Right. So kinda keep your menu nice and clean. Like, can you have drop downs? Sure. But, like, we don't need, you know, 20 different links in the menu for, you know, working with somebody. Right. I think sometimes less is more. I think it's yeah. I but don't not have a blog. You know, blogs are each a page there, you know, individually. Like, every blog post has their own page. That's that's a bunch of pages on your website. But Right. You want those, but you do you need to link every blog post in, like, a menu? No. You link the blog page and then they can navigate from there. So it's kinda just thinking about how you want people to navigate and how what other pages you want them to kinda stumble upon. Mhmm. That's super interesting. It's kind of similar for Instagram. The way I'm like relating it in my head is like, it has to be so simple and like transparent and like clear basically, because people are everyone's attention spans now are so super short. And if you don't be like, this is exactly what's gonna happen if you do this, like make it super easy to understand and transparent. They're just not gonna follow through, and then you're not gonna get the lead or the sale or the like, whatever it is. Exactly. Exactly. Like and that's another thing is, like, knowing what happens next, I feel like, is really important to have on your website. Like, they might wanna know, well, what what happens after I book this call? Is that you know, am I locking in a service? Is this a free call? Is this you know, what happens after that? So even if you could, like, list out the the next steps to working with you and what they can expect after they book that call, I think is helpful and and, you know, transparent. It tells them exactly what they should expect from continuing to work with you. Yeah. I love seeing that on other people's pages, like, knowing exactly what's gonna happen next. It helps Yeah. Like ease my anxiety. Yes. I know. Because so many of us kind of feel that, you know, like Yeah. We're like, okay, well, what do I you know? And maybe it's like the whole, like, nervousness of like shopping online too. Like, I'm always like Yeah. Did I type in my address correctly? You know, like when I'm buying something, I get so anxious when I click, like, place order. You know, it's like the same thing. It should be a little lot less anxiety filled to just click to book a call. You know, like, you're going to chat with somebody. Let's know what happens next so that we don't feel like this is, like, make or break. Yeah. And I feel like it helps build, like, trust with that person too, especially if it's it is like something like a discovery call. You wanna have that trust there. So they're more likely to actually hire you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. You're giving me like so many things that I wanna check on my own website now because like I say, I love seeing this, but I don't know if I've ever actually like consciously been like, oh man, I should put these next steps on my website on like all of these things. It's just very easy to forget. I know. Well, and if you don't sometimes you kinda leave your website and you kinda set it and forget it, which is fine at times, but then it's always good to, like, circle back and make sure that it is what we wanted to be doing. You know, it is it is reflective of how we wanna conduct business and things like that too. For sure. Yeah. I'm definitely the person who will walk away and then, like, never remember to actually circle back. I'm the person that, like, write it down. Yeah. Write it down where I email myself if I'm like out and about, I'm like, don't forget to do this. Yeah. Yeah. I have to my 2 different places. I take notes and then I have to remember, like, where Where? I left Yep. A certain note to circle back to. I do that with a calendar. Like, why do I have Google Calendar and a notebook with like my week laid out and ClickUp if like, why am I this way? This is the way I am. I do the same thing. It makes life interesting. Yep. I'm just thinking about a lot of things to like keep track of and I feel like the more often I see it, maybe I won't forget something. Yeah. Yeah. Always a 1000000 things to keep track of, especially as like a mom and a business owner. Yep. For sure. Definitely. Sorry. I'm trying to think if I have more questions I wanted to ask. Did were there other topics you wanted to cover that, like, I mean, I can talk about other things if you want. I can always talk about emphasizing a call to action, some tips to make, like, your some content on your website just easier to read and, like, make it more visually appealing. Okay. Yes. Trying to think of a question to, like, lead into that. Can say is your market a lot of moms? Yes. Like, it could be, like a question could be like, since we work with so many moms, is there a way to, you know, make your website more attractive towards them or something like that? Okay. Yeah. That works. I'm so sorry. My mind is, like, all over the place. Can you say the beginning of it again? Yeah. Do you I mean, I can even type it to you if you want. Can I type on this? I don't even know. Since we work with a lot of moms, you know, are we are we, you know, market towards moms, is there a way to make your website more attractive towards them? Okay. Perfect. Thank you. I apologize. No. You're fine. So since we work with a lot of moms, is there a way to make your website more attractive, just bis specifically to that demographic? I think so. I think, like, we kinda already talked about, as a mom, I'm, like, constantly clicking to people's websites from Instagram or from even from, like, an email if I'm on their email list. Like, I'm clicking from a phone. And if I'm immediately like seeing a whole bunch of text, that's like all the same size, all the same color, all the same font that I feel immediately overwhelmed. I think there are a lot of ways that you can break up that same content to make it easier for us to, like, consume, especially on a mobile device, but even on desktop, like a big chunky paragraph. Can you say the same thing with less words? You know, can you can you switch it up a little bit to make it easier to read, with just like reducing the amount of content. If you can't totally understand, can you display it differently? Can you bold or italicize something that you really want to stand out? Can you break up the text to separate paragraphs? Even if there's, like, one sentence that you really wanna, like, highlight in that in that paragraph, can you have, you know, normal text and then, like, really bold and even change the font or color of, like, that sentence that you really wanna highlight. And then put your remaining font or the remaining text of that paragraph. Other things is breaking up pages with images. You know, don't just have text everywhere. Can you break that up with images side by side? Can you use images as a background to a section and then, like, have a white background and then have a colorful background? Can you, like, break it up so that when we're reading through, it gives us time to take, like, a little bit of a pause. And those types of things make it a little bit more skimmable. You know? Can you change something to have bullet points instead of it being a full on paragraph? Just different ways to display content and to break it up and to, like, have some breathing room around it, even, like, adding white space around sections, or even between lines of text gives us just time to take a beat when when when we're reading through a website. And if you think about that being good on desktop, think about how much how much that affects somebody reading it on mobile. Right? Like, they're not just scrolling through paragraph after paragraph. Can they see this like really bold, you know, different color heading that you want them to see or the sentence that you want them to see? Can they read the bullet points faster than they could in a paragraph? So it's just like thinking about how quickly moms, especially need to absorb that content, especially when they're really busy. Their kids are at home. Everyone's yelling at them that they need something. How can you make it easier for them to get your information and know that they're in the right place and they want to work with you. Does that kinda make sense? Yeah. That makes perfect sense. Because I as you were saying that, I was like, no. Yeah. This is exactly what I do. If I'm on the phone, it's like kids are probably yelling in the background. Someone's asking for me to open a snack. I'm not taking the time to read like these novel length sales pages. Yes. I'm skimming. I am like scrolling quickly and skimming. Yeah. You wanna see like the highlights. You wanna know how is this going to change my life right now? Not, you know, a thousand words in one small little section that I don't have time to read. You know? Like, we wanna know immediately how is this going to affect us? How is it gonna help us? That type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Instagram is very similar. I have talked before about making it readable and accessible, like, and you can't do as much on Instagram and like captions with like, you can't really like bold and relate and all of that. So breaking up short paragraphs and, like, bullet points, all of those things, a lot of that translates. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. As soon as I see, like, a big, long, super wordy caption, I'm like, you know, I I don't have time. But if they put those same words spread out, like, sentence by sentence or with, like, a little, like, emoji to be, like, do bullets, like, I almost always read those. It's just, like, changing the look of it to make it a little bit easier for us to consume. Yeah. Those little changes go a long way. Yeah, exactly. I find when I write like long carousel posts with a lot of text in them, I always do way too much text in, in like the actual slides at first. Yeah. I'll like do a draft and then I'll have to go back and like pair it way down. Yes. So it's more readable. Yes. Well, I think the same thing goes for a website. If you're building your own website, like, put all of the information somewhere that you want to have on a website, even if it's just like a Google doc of, like, brain dump ideas. And then come back to it later and be like, wait. Can I can I say less with this? Like, am I getting my point across in a different way? And how can I break this up? You know, like, it's okay to walk away and come back to it and and try and make it simpler. Especially as a mom because it's very rare you get to get through a whole project in one sitting. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. And sometimes we just wanna be like, I can help you do so many things, but like, maybe we just need to say it simpler, you know? Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. That's something I'm, I'm working on a lot. I always have the urge to like go into huge amount of detail. I know. And we want to, but that's, you know, that's why they hop on a call with us. Like, let's talk about it more face to quote, unquote, face to face. You know? Right. Exactly. Yeah. That makes sense. Well, you have given me, like, a ton to think about, and I'm sure the listeners as well. This has been super insightful. And now you have a freebie to share with them, don't you? Yeah, I do. It kind of covers some of this with some more. It's a checklist that kind of says some different things that you can change up on your site to have some, you know, ideally immediate impact, things like that we kinda talked about on here with a lot more, details on there, with even more options to to impact your website today. I mean, depending on if you have the time to sit down at your website and mess with it today. But, I really wanted to to give actionable steps that you could take on your website no matter what platform you're on. It you don't have to be on WordPress to take these different actions. So, yes. That is called my web design, mistakes checklist. Perfect. I'm I'm gonna get it for sure. That sounds awesome. I love when it's, like, in a checklist format so I can, like, like I said, I can't get through everything in one sitting, so I can like do some and then walk away and come back when I can, have a few minutes to work on something else. Yes. Yes. And it's not even like you have to do all of you could do one of them and see, does that make an impact for my viewers and then come back a month from now and do the you know, it it can be a living, breathing document for you. Yeah. That sounds great. I'm really excited to try it. I'm gonna put the link to it in the show notes so you can go ahead and download it. And then can you tell everyone where they can follow you on Instagram and what your website is? Yes. My website is just kelsieromine.com. And then on Instagram, it's at kelsie.m.romine. Perfect. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Of course. I'm just gonna