Driving organic website traffic to your website is not about the visuals. Far from it! A fit-for-purpose website needs to tick all the right boxes with Google AND appeal to your customers in the user experience stakes. That’s where structure, design, copy, SEO and the seemingly invisible back end of a website need to give each other high fives. Karlie Plowman is the Founder of Techno Bird, a small team of creatives that are a bunch of friendly people who love what they do. She is a goddess at converting websites and her generosity with sharing insights for websites with oomph is next level. Karlie shared her journey with me and spilled the beans on how to generate organic website traffic. Also check out one of her many client successes where a website revamp litereally transformed the business outlook.
Tell us about Techno Bird and how you can help small businesses drive organic website traffic.
We’re a team of web designers & SEO experts who specialise in small business, mums in business, women in business, creatives and tradies.
We offer tailored web design & SEO services to fit your business, goals, ambitions and ideas. We place high value on providing great value for money, high communication skills, being approachable and transparent, mindful and positive.
Our specific services include:
– Website Design
– e-commerce stores
– Website editing/maintenance
– 1:1 website training
– Website auditing
– Website/SEO audits
– Keyword research and planning
– and coming very soon, DIY SEO Strategies
We are experts in Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and WordPress.
Techno Bird is very much about putting our clients first – always. We are all about what’s best for the clients, their needs, their time, their business, their future. We truly put ourselves in the shoes of the business owner and the human behind the business so we can deliver the best service possible for them. We also completely understand Startup life – because that’s us, too! We’re a Startup. We’ve learnt the lessons (and continue to – daily), we’ve made the mistakes, we’ve celebrated the wins and we get working mum life. That’s why we’re in the best position to work with other Startups. Call us relatable.
How can working with Techno Bird help generate organic website traffic?
First off, not only does every business need a website, but they also need an SEO-friendly and user-friendly website if they want to be considered a ‘real’ business. A website is your pitch to your ideal audience or target market.
It needs to…
Represent who you are both as people and as a business.It needs to explain what services you offer or what products you sell in a way your audience will understand and be inspired by.
Speak to your audience and spark something within them to take action on your site.
Look professional.It needs to function correctly (no broken links, no error pages, forms work properly, shopping cart is smooth and no tech errors etc.).
Please Google, so your on-page SEO needs to be 100%.
Be memorable enough that your customers will return to your website rather than just come once never to be seen again.
It is so much more than good design. People often don’t realise and then 1 week, 1 month or 1 year after they launch they realise that people don’t know about it or can’t find it on Google. Only when visitors aren’t converting on the site do they wonder what has gone wrong.
It’s so important to get the fundamentals in place right from the start for a successful website. Ignoring good design, SEO, UX and the technical elements? Google and people will ignore you!
And that = website/business failure.
When you work with Techno Bird, you get all of this and more. We set you up for success, not failure.
What makes a good Web Designer great?
I think it’s important to establish a connection to the business or the person behind the business. Make sure they understand you, your goals, your hopes and dreams. A great Web Designer should put themselves in your shoes and if you don’t connect from the start then this usually results in a poor experience and dissatisfying results. This can cost you big time – emotionally and financially.
What 5 components are key to any converting website?
Content – understand what content your website requires, create content that provides value to your key audience/customer, ensure it’s well written (invest in a copywriter!) and make your content SEO suitable (keywords, people!). Try collating all of your content to hand over to your web designer upfront. This makes for a smooth-sailing project!
UX (user experience) – understand your customers’ journey, how they use your website, how they view your website and how your website functions. Your best bet is to look at your business from your potential customers’ point of view, not just your own.
SEO – please don’t ignore SEO because you think it sounds too complicated. SEO will be the reason your website (and business) fails online, so place high value on it! This includes having an SEO optimised website and an ongoing SEO strategy to drive traffic to your website for brand awareness. That whole ‘build it and they will come’ thing is bullshit.
Know that websites are not a ‘set and forget’ and that they actually do need constant attention, updating and refreshing. Simply getting a site up and running and letting it sit there unattended for months or years is going to hurt your business and your SEO
Invest in professional help. Don’t try to go it alone! It might be us helping you with your website and SEO, investing in a copywriter, graphic designer or legal help. Everything costs money, but that’s business. Set your business up properly from the start and say hello to business success. Do it on the cheap and half-arse it? Don’t expect success.
Let’s get into some myth busting. Which myths are the top of the pops for Web Design?
That websites are expensive. Yes, some websites can range from $1K to $4K or more, and that can feel expensive, but there are options such as payment plans and instalments to help you. We’re not going to ask you for the full amount straight up because Startups generally don’t have a big budget (we know, we’ve been there!). You have options when you work with us.
The other myth is that “SEO is hard, I can’t do it”. Bullshit you can’t! Do you use social media to promote your business? Do you have an email list and send out regular emails? Have you got links from other websites linking to yours? Guess what – you’re doing SEO.
We can help you create a plan to increase your website traffic and conversions on your website, create more brand awareness and show you how to do it yourself. We give you the knowledge, confidence and power to execute your own SEO.
Can you share one of your ‘wow’ moments where professional Web Design literally transformed a client’s business outlook?
One of my earliest clients was a wedding celebrant and she had a dismal website that generated no traffic or conversions, was not user-friendly nor did it reflect her personality or services.
She needed help with more brand awareness in her local area to increase bookings. I started off with analysing her website and suggested a full re-design. What she really needed was a more modern, SEO-friendly website with targeted keywords and professional up-to-date brand photography. Her site had photos that were taken years ago.
I recommended a local photographer and suggested to re-write her website copy with my help to include updated keywords and on-page SEO. She also was invisible to Google and didn’t exist, never had.
She got new photos, updated her site content, we rebuilt her site and I helped her with a social media marketing plan. Guess what happened just 3 weeks later? She was on page 1 of Google for her keywords. For the first time traffic was going to her website and inquiries starting to come through the website – an amazing result!
This was 5 years ago. Her site is still on page 1 of Google. She now has 22 five-star reviews on her Google My Business listing claiming the top spot on Google maps. Winning!
Techno Bird shares more helpful web design tips and tricks across their various online platforms:
Want to map, create and write your website copy in 3 easy steps?
Join me in this free workshop where you’ll pick up all the practical tips, tricks and tools I use daily on my own client projects.
