The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

137 ⎸ Finish your website in a week with Tia Taylor

February 14, 2024 Serena Shoup, CPA Episode 137
The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast
137 ⎸ Finish your website in a week with Tia Taylor
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In this interview episode, I’m bringing Tia (my first hire!) back on to talk about all things WEBSITE DESIGN! Plus, Tia gives us a sneak peek at her new course - Squarespace for Bookkeepers. If your website has been a pain point for you in your business journey, then you’ll definitely wanna tune in!

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • the most important aspect of your website
  • the 3 things google NEEDS about your website
  • what google likes (dynamic content)

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Meet Tia
Tia is a multi-talented mom of two, hailing from Idaho. She enjoys puzzles (like any good bookkeeper) and is quite crafty! She plays the role of both Graphic Designer and Bookkeeper for Ambitious Bookkeeper and Of Course Bookkeeping. She brings over a decade of experience working in both the design and accounting realms and loves blending aesthetics and organizational systems.

Connect with Tia
🌐 Website: https://www.riledupgoats.com/
📱 IG: @riledupgoats
💻 NEW Squarespace for Bookkeepers (Waitlist): https://www.riledupgoats.com/ssfb


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People get stuck in the idea that they have to have all the answers and know everything they want to put on their website right at the very beginning. And that keeps a lot of people from actually doing the thing. And I think it's better to just get a website out there with whatever information you have now. And it's better to have a website that maybe isn't perfect. Then no website at all. So I would just encourage folks to do the best with what they have in front of them and know that you're constantly going to be changing and updating it and going into it with that mindset makes it a lot easier to tackle some of that stuff. I think not feeling like you have to know everything at the very beginning. It's weird. That's kind of like, that's kind of how I coach my students. I wonder where I got the idea. welcome to the Ambitious Bookkeeper podcast. Hi! I have Tia on the podcast with me, which you may have heard of her before if you've been here a while or listened to the podcast a while. I think we did a podcast episode together not too terribly long ago, but. We did the episode 100. We answered, we did the Q& A. So that would be like 30 some episodes ago since we're at 137 now. that was like almost a year ago. Does it feel like a year? No, it doesn't. had to have been at least six months ago. But let's do a little intro first of who you are and how you got here in case someone hasn't listened to that episode. Cause I don't know if I, we even really dove too far into that on that episode, but, yeah. Well, We met on the internet and, yeah, who has friends IRL? and I've been working for you since before Ambitious Bookkeeper was a part of the business. you had had the idea like bopping around in your brain and had an outline of the bookkeeper's biz kit. Yeah. And so when I started doing bookkeeping for you and you found out I was also a graphic designer, it felt like you were like, Oh, now I have the help with the part of this I need. Let's like really make this thing happen. Now I'm running out of excuses to put it off. And look what it's grown into! It's wild! It's incredible. I was looking over some of the numbers in Kajabi recently and was just like, blown away. It feels like it was just last year, honestly. Right? I feel like between being a mother of young children And then the pandemic, which I feel like is that time we don't speak of, and everyone has just like a black hold it, and like, I feel like I'm just driving from 2019 into 2024, and there's just nothing in between. It's all just The same. And I feel like 2019 was the year we started doing that stuff. I couldn't find, like, an official start date in Kajabi when I was, like, trying to go backwards to, like, when was the very first sale. Well, that's because the first sale of the Bizkit was actually A PayPal link. I had forgotten that. so scrappy. Remember we hadn't even created it yet. I had the outline and I was like, I'm gonna try to sell this before we create it. Just to make sure that people want it. And so that's what I did. I had like, I don't know, 20 to 30 people on my email list. And this was when the website was still back on, the original Shoup CPA was still on like an ancient version of Squarespace. Yeah. And I had been interacting in Facebook groups a lot, like helping people along, like their onboarding and bookkeepers. And then I was like, you know what? I could put this into like a little checklist or a PDF. And so when people would ask me these questions, I'd be like, would you be interested in a PDF with all of this, like step by step for 27? And they're like, yes, heck yes. And that's how I made the first sale. Like I just put that an email out and was like, if you're interested in this, like here's a link to buy it. It's not ready yet, but it'll be ready within two weeks of you purchasing it, of the first person purchasing it basically. And that's when we hit the ground running. I was like, all right, we made our first sale. Let's do this. Yes. It was fun. I was having fun laying stuff out. Letters on pages are kind of my jam. that Bizkit developed into the curriculum, the baseline curriculum for the Bookkeeping Business Accelerator. And I just built upon that. And if you've downloaded a PDF of mine, Tia designed it. If you've taken a course, Tia does the graphics, she designs the PDFs, and she's also a bookkeeper for me. So, she gets both sides of the The business and understands like what our clients are facing. And so, yeah, it's been a wild and fun ride for sure. Yeah. Like four and a half years. I feel like I started working for you the summer that I was like super pregnant with my youngest. And so I just tag everything. I flag it in my brain. I was like, her age is how long I've been working for you. Cause I think I started just before I had her. Yeah, you did. Just on a couple of clients. And this is a question. I mean, this isn't really what we're going to talk about today, but this is a question that comes up a lot with students is like, how do I find my first employee or contractor or whatever? And like you and I, we met in a Facebook group around that we listened to. Yeah. Like a parenting group related to business. Yeah. And somebody, it's funny. Cause like somebody had asked like, what are real work from home opportunities? Right? Cause lots of moms are looking for those. And you had responded to it and said, you know, DM me if you want more info. And I'm like, put my hand up and was like, could I DM you for more info? And you sent me a bunch of resources on getting certified as a bookkeeper and I'm good with numbers and have worked a bunch of office jobs where that's been part of my job. And so I was like, I can, I can do this. I can, I can make this happen. And then after I, like you offered to mentor me as like you had said, like someone had mentored you in your transition and you were feeling ready to mentor someone else. And so you had told me like, Hey, as you go through your program or when you're done, like reach out, keep in touch and let's see if I can be of any help and here we are almost five years later. I know. It's a while. And you talk to almost every single one of my clients and you manage the bookkeeping for clients. And this is one of those things that when, especially when people come through the workshops and they're like, well, I don't have accounting experience and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And it's like, none of my team had real accounting experience or a degree when they came to work for me either. So if you're willing to mentor your team and you're willing to be mentored, like, it makes a big difference. You really can do bookkeeping. If you have the right, like, attention to detail, you understand the concepts, and you just have to be willing to learn. Just like any it's just a skill, right? It's not a talent, it's a skill. That's how I feel about graphic design. I have to differentiate for clients a lot of the time. Because people get real because it feels like a visual art. People don't want to critique it in the way that they don't want to critique someone's painting, right? Like, you don't want to hurt somebody's feelings because you feel like so much of themselves is in there. But design is not art. There is an artistic quality to it, but it serves a purpose. And if I didn't hit the mark for what you were trying to do, like, I have not done my job. And it is okay to tell me that so that we can get there. And design is a skill that like, yes, requires an artistic eye and like a desire to make beautiful, useful things, but it is a skill can be taught. And most people can figure it out enough to like bumble through their own marketing until they can afford to hand it off to someone who actually enjoys doing it instead of someone who's doing it because they today we were going to chat about websites. And yes, I hit record and just threw you completely off in the middle of that, but I was like, this is fine. I'm just going to hit record. Yeah, I love it. That's how we roll here. And, so you are putting together a resource for bookkeepers who want to DIY their website. And we were talking about some of the things that are necessary to have that in place and whatnot. So, do you want to dive back into that conversation? Like what's the most important thing that people wouldn't really think is the most important thing about their website? The most important thing about your website is the words. Like, I know that sounds nuts, and with things like Squarespace and Wix and all these things touting their beautiful design, like, yes, please, start from a good place. Like, there's a lot of really bad design out there where I Cannot get derailed in a conversation about that right now, but if anyone ever wants to chat, I will talk to you forever about it. but no amount of beautiful design or gorgeous template is going to save a website that doesn't have useful information on it. Like if your client gets there and they can't figure out, I think it's within like the first three seconds, If they're in the right place, you will lose them. People are not spending a lot of time digging. People are skimming and skipping until they find what they're looking for, and then if you're lucky, they'll click off your homepage onto the next thing. But you have to make it easy and clear. And so the biggest struggle I have with most of my like one on one clients is getting them to come up with the content because I can't write it for you. I don't know your business. That's not my forte. I got friends to help me write my own website. Like that's not the part of it I enjoy doing. And. I can't build a good design if I don't have good information. And so, you really need to think through what you want to say to your clients, who the clients are that you're trying to say it to, because the words you use, but also the colors and the layouts and all those things are going to depend a lot on who's I, you're trying to catch, right? How do your ideal clients, where are they doing their shopping? How are they used to seeing things presented? What are the things that are going to look professional and polished to them? Because that's going to mean different things for different people. You know, online course creators are looking for a different kind of business than HVAC providers and construction companies and things like that. What looks professional and polished and To them is going to be very different. And, but none of that is going to matter if a client gets to your website and can't tell what you offer or who you offer it to. And so the big thing with content is tackling like the three W's that Google wants to see who you are, what you do and where you do it. And you want all of that clear as day. With somewhere between 500 and 1, 000 words on your homepage so that Google will believe that you're not a spam site. Like, they want that info clearly laid out and well written. Not necessarily like research paper style. It can be a quick 2 or 3 sentences. All the way down the page covering those things, but you need to have that stuff on your homepage, very obvious, and even if the where you do things is online, like, just make that clear. We offer remote bookkeeping services, but, exactly. Right. Or 50 states, or whatever, or if you're limited to a region, even. Mm hmm. Because that, that's a thing too, especially if you're in a niche there's specific things about your niche that it's going to make it more complicated if you're serving every single state, but you can handle payroll in, you know, the Western part of the U. S. or the East coast or whatever. Like you can still say a region too. Yeah. The more information you can give your clients and the more clear you can be about who you're looking to work with, the less emails you're going to answer and the less discovery calls you're going to get on for clients who clearly are not a good fit for your services. Or stood up completely. Oh my gosh. Or stood up completely. so your content, the copy, also known as copy. Copy. Or words. We're breaking it way down. That would be one really, really important aspect. Another one that we were talking about is how they can Get a hold of you, or work with you, right? That's another thing that when I go to a website, I'm like, if it's not clear of like, I need a phone number or a form to fill out, preferably also a phone number, honestly, like, I'm a millennial, but I'm not like, there's still sometimes I need to talk to a person. Yeah, I just need to talk to a human person and get an answer. It's very rare, and I will avoid it like nothing else. Yeah. But when I need it, like, don't make it hard. The other one that gets me, and I know this is a personal preference and some of this is like dealing with spam or whatever else, but if you don't have a link to an email on your website, I cannot tell you how many times I have just bailed. I don't want to fill out your form. I don't know where that's going. It maybe it doesn't even apply to the reason you have on your form and I don't want to answer the million questions. Like, maybe I just need your email. For a reason. if the only way to get ahold of you is to fill out a form and hit submit, You might lose lose the business. Yeah, for sure. There's got to be, like, some alternate way. Thinking about that. I'm like, do we have that? And I do at the top of our contact page, there's a form to fill out, but also it says like, or you can just email us or call or text this number, which I do get a lot of spam and I do filter those calls, but if someone leaves me a voicemail and they're like, I want to become a client, then I will call them back. Exactly. Sometimes people just want to hear your voice. Everybody processes information and deals with things in a slightly different way. And you don't want to lose a potential, like long term good fit client because you don't like to answer the phone. and then one of the other things we were talking about before we started recording was this idea that like. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Websites get lumped in with other marketing collateral because people kind of think of it all the same, but it's not business card or a flyer where you get one chance to get it right and if there's a typo after you've hit print, like Yikes. Websites are alive and people expect them to change and grow and Google actually likes it when you are constantly updating things and adding more relevant and useful information because it sees That you are not just like a link farm or a scam bot or whatever, trying to get people from one place to another. It's you're actually providing useful information relevant to people's search topics. And so as you update things or whatever, it starts to trust that like you're a human person who's actually providing useful information and services. don't let the fact that you are very early in your business and don't have your Perfect starter story written out for this amazing long form about page or the fact that, like, you don't have everything worked out in your service packages, but you know, you want to offer these three types of things, like, get what you have. there's a minimum, right? You want to have a little bit of information. If you're going to name a service package or like, say you offer a service, write a sentence or two describing what that means, because people who aren't bookkeepers don't know what a cleanup means, but you don't have to like have a 10 point bullet list that tells them exactly everything you're going to do to be able to put a website out there. As you refine your packages, you can add the stuff that like. If everyone who reaches out for you to, for a cleanup, asks you the same question, answer that right on your website, like just add that into the description or add it to your FAQs. And that's one thing I see underutilized as well is like write up your FAQs and put them all over the place. Don't make me hunt for them. Put them on your homepage, put them on your services page, put them on your contact page. Anywhere that you can filter out an opportunity for someone to ask you a question that is not a good use of your time to answer over and over and over again, like put it in your FAQs and let your website do the work for you. But at basic website, you can put up a homepage. A services page, a contact page. And honestly, if your services aren't that fleshed out yet, have that information loud and proud on your homepage. And have a homepage and a contact page until you're ready to fill the rest of that out and add it. I feel like about pages are useful, but only if there's more on them than three sentences that could have just stayed on the homepage, right? Like when you put your about page up, you want it to tell a story. And so if it's not more than two or three sentences or a couple of paragraphs, like here's who I am and here's why I do what I do. don't stress yourself out by feeling like you have to have six branded photos and, like, your entire life story on your website. You don't. That's people want a face when they're doing one on one services, but they're not gonna read an entire essay. They want to know like a couple things that they can identify with that like make you seem human and like maybe a little bit about why you work with the people you work with, like why you've picked, you know, my experience with XYZ led me to serve people who do blah, blah, blah, you know, it can be as simple as that. And so because websites are alive, because people expect them to change. Like don't let not having all the answers keep you from putting something out there because having a website with your name on it that you own makes your business feel more legit to people. when people search for you, if they can find a place that you like live on the internet that isn't a six year old Facebook page you haven't updated, That helps people feel more confident to reach out and, like, that you're a real business who can help them. Yeah, absolutely. as we're talking about this, I'm like, oh, I sh we should probably update my About Me section. I did a little bit last time I looked. It was updated. Uh, but yeah. I did. In the fall, when I updated all of our branding. Okay. But was the blurb updated? Uh huh. Okay. I fixed some things. Yep. Sure did. There were a couple things where I'm like, this isn't true anymore. I'm gonna just fix that. Yes. So. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. I do, that is one thing that I remember and that is one thing I really loved also about Squarespace about how easy it was to update things. I remember when I first set up my website, my actual first website I did as a trade and, had this gal design it. She was also in that same group that I met you from. I traded her for some bookkeeping, she did my website, and like, I had tried to set it up myself on Wix. it was horrible So she made it and transferring everything over to Squarespace. And then it was just so easy to like write blogs, to update stuff, add icons myself, and, and I did every time I would get like a new certification badge or something would change about my services or whatever I w I could just go right in and update it. And I was constantly changing my website, like the first couple of years, just, It was constant. And some of that might have been some procrastination. It's a fun way to procrastinate. Yes, agreed. But the point is, uh, that it is important to continue to update those things as things change. And it's okay, right? Yeah, absolutely. People expect it to. Yeah. Play around with your headline. Play around with the keywords because Well, and since you had a Squarespace website, they have added like a bajillion features. It's actually in some ways a lot easier to use than it used to be. It's a lot more flexible than it used to be for sure. And then it also now has built in courses. So if you want to walk your clients through an onboarding course, like if you want to record a loom of like, these are the things I need from you, you can build that right into your Squarespace site now. And you can, like blogging has always been super, super easy on Squarespace. You can host a podcast on Squarespace. Did you know that's why they started? Yeah, it used to be an easy way to host your podcast before all of this other stuff existed. So like, you just create a blog and post your podcast right in there, and all the feeds are built right into it. And you can host your podcast as easy as posting a blog. Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of the cool features that the newer stuff does, but, you know, a lot of the like, the extra analytics and tracking and all the things that Budsprout offers. But if you were just doing like a random feed of stuff you wanted people to be able to have every once in a while, that's That's a way to do it. but it also has built in marketing. So if you don't already have an email provider and you're not trying to do anything super complicated, but just like email your regular clients or people on a wait list or something, it's not particularly good at a lot of like complicated things where it's like, add them to this and move it here and sell them this and all of that. It can do a little bit of that, but I have not heard that it does it well. It was sufficient for, for even the beginning of Ambitious Bookkeeper for a long time, because that's where we hosted, like, before I actually I forgot that's been around that long. Yeah, and I, I had my email list for my clients and potential clients slash prospects, and then I had a list for bookkeepers and I was able to segment those out. So yeah, it worked. It worked. If you're not doing a lot of complicated, like, online course Upsell, downsell, all of that stuff. If you're just emailing clients and stuff, like, it's great. It's straightforward. It'll pull in your site branding if you want it to. Like, I'm a big fan of logging into fewer things when possible. Yeah, especially if you are going to write some blogs on your website, which, like you said, Squarespace makes it really easy to do that. And that's another Really good for SEO. For SEO, which is search engine, search engine optimization. And you don't have to blog often, but it's one of those things where it's like A question that always comes up with every new client or every prospect that you talk to. Like, there's certain topics that every business owner struggles with or has questions about. So write a blog on it, direct people there. Yep. Well, and if you're using the built in marketing, every time you post a blog now, it pops up a thing and says, do you want to send out a newsletter? Do you want to announce this? Yes, I do. Thank you for asking. I want to just write it and let it go into the abyss of the internet. Right? Gotta promote it. So Yeah, and then they bought Acuity a few years back and so scheduling is built right in and marketing and scheduling are extra fees, but I think the marketing starts at five bucks a month or something. Yeah. It's not. Yeah. And having Acuity built right into your account, if you don't already have one, super easy to just start from there. Yeah. Yeah. And. Super easy to embed the Dubsado forms and things like that if you're already using a more advanced CRM. You can even send invoices to clients through Squarespace now. And Acuity. Yep. I think it might be. Yes. Probably like built on the same thing. Probably, yeah. But, yeah, so I know we're getting close to time, so I want to talk about the little course that you're developing to help Well, you and I were having a conversation a few weeks back about Like the difference between one on one services and like the types of clients that are ready for like those bigger packages or one on one services and like how many people my business with designing Squarespace websites is missing. Because it's expensive, like it took me a long time to get really good at it. And I don't feel bad charging real money for it, but I understand as a small business owner and as a bookkeeper who sees other people's businesses, like paying 2, 000 for a website is not something you can do when you're like building your side hustle into hopefully transitioning to your full time job. Like generally speaking, people don't have a couple thousand dollars laying around for something they're not even sure will be useful to them yet. so we were talking about like, how do we hit more of that market? Just in ways in both of our businesses, like how do you get more of those people who are like early on in their business and be able to serve them? And from that came the idea to build a course specifically for bookkeepers who want to build their websites on Squarespace. And not only does it go over some of the basics of Squarespace, not a super in depth deep dive, because I don't want to overwhelm people with things they're probably never going to need, but an intro to like, how Squarespace works, where to find things, a little bit about what it's capable of in case you want to move toward those more advanced services. And then for the second module, I thought what might actually be helpful is to give a tour of the fake bookkeeping website that you so wonderfully named Acme Books and every time I see it, I giggle and it makes me so happy. I had to stop my, like, I had to stop what I was doing and design a logo and like futz around because I just, I could not, I still, every time I think about it, I chuckle a little bit. I love it so much. It's a fake. It's the great name for a fake business. Yeah. So. I think I got that from, like, growing up watching, like, Bugs Bunny, right? Yes, absolutely. That's totally what it's from. It's the Roadrunner. It's all of the Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote, like, the big metal things that were always, like, Acme and, like. The misfiring fireworks and all of those things were always like Acme Ink or whatever. Yeah. Yes. So it's like perfect for a fake business. But I had designed just like a dummy website to do the tutorials on. And thought what might actually be useful is to walk through the steps of how I actually built. Those specific pages with a bookkeeping business in mind. And so you'll be able to like build the website along with me. And as we go through what we're adding, then I can get a little more in depth about some of those features that are getting used and how some of that stuff works, but in theory, at the end of the course, you will have built your three to four page website and be able to launch it and then have those. Basics to refer back to when you need to edit or upgrade or update or add other things, you'll be able to refer back to those basics lessons on how just a few of the specific things work, or if you just need a little reminder of where to find things, but by the end of the course, you should be able to launch a fully functioning bookkeeping website. Where people can book calls with you and learn about your services and send you emails. and then probably, I gotta work out the technical aspects of it, but , also include the opportunity to just buy a copy of the website that I use in the tutorials, and you can just start from there and make it easy for you. So a template, essentially. Yes. A plugin. Yeah, And I know Squarespace has the free ones. But this one would be, specific to like laid out for the things in the order that bookkeepers would want on their website and thinking through that so that you'd have like an easier starting place. This is going to be amazing. I hope so. I don't think it quite exists. Not the course. I've seen templates, but Yeah. And a lot of the templates come with a course on like, here's how you edit this. Like most of the template shops I've seen come with like the tutorials on like how to switch out your images and things like that. But I don't know how much they talk through the design behind it and like why you would put the information in that order and like what information is important. It's more like just type over my stuff. Yeah. And the tech aspects of how to make it happen. And then the other thing included is a website workbook, which is a Google doc that you can make a copy of. And it, there's a checklist of all the things you want to work through and it gives tips and tricks for writing your copy. The kind of copy that you would want, some examples, how to create the little tagline that goes to the top of your website so that people immediately know they've landed where they belong. And One of the, one of the first lessons is just flashing lights, start here. Like, let's really focus on getting your content right. And then we can get in to the quote unquote fun stuff, but there's a lot of tips and tricks, some argument for why you want to put your prices loud and proud on your website, because I am a very big fan of using my website to weed out. Not good fit clients. And I also really don't like talking about money. I would rather people just know, like, there's a reason my things are flat fee. I don't want to argue about it. This is what it costs. And I want them to know that when we go into the conversation. So, Okay, so if someone is interested in getting their hands on this, we will be linking a waitlist, um, link in the show notes. so you'll be the first to know when it goes live and when it will be probably the cheapest it'll ever be, but least expensive, lowest investment. definitely not cheap, but if someone knows for sure, they're like, I don't want to mess with building my own website. Where is the best place for them to reach out to you and have you just do it for them? Or with them? They're still going to have to write their own copy. Sorry. Yes. Yes. There's just no way around it. riledupgoats. com. And from there, there are a couple of different options. I do VIP design days. So if you have a website and you just want it updated or refined a little bit, then design days are a great fit for that. You get seven and a half hours of my time on design day, plus a little bit of time before and 30 days of support after. And right now those are a flat 1, 500. We'll see how that goes. And then if you are starting from scratch, or even if you have a website on a service that isn't Squarespace and you just want to move everything over to Squarespace and get a fresh website, I only do Squarespace. I don't enjoy working on the other systems. And so I have decided to just say no to that. And those are 2, 000 and we do website in a week. And. Throughout the week, most of the design gets done early on in the week. And then we have a few days where you can kind of sit with the design, ask other people, decide what you do and don't like, and we can make all the edits that you send to me throughout the week. And at the end of the week, you have a website that you love. Thank you so much for hopping on the podcast with me. And chatting about this. Always a pleasure to chat with you. We talk like every day. Nothing wrong with that. On multiple channels. Of course. All the places. and if someone just wants to connect with you, What's your Instagram handle? Rile up goats. And, yeah, we will link all of these resources in the show notes. And, feel free to reach out to either of us if you have questions. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Bye!

137 ⎸ Finish your website in a week with Tia Taylor
Tia and The Beginning of BBA
What makes a good Website
Updating Your Website
Squarespace
Tia's Website Course

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