[00:00:00] Josh: And welcome in friends to episode 212 in this one, it’s just me with you in this episode here. I’m gonna dish out my top strategies for offering strategy in your web design builds as a service.

[00:00:16] Josh: So this is kind of a, an episode that is on the heels of an episode we just did recently which was episode 2 0 9 on whether you have to do marketing services and be a full fledged like marketing agency, digital marketing agency to get to six figures in web design. If you have not listened to that episode, I actually recommend going back to that first and then coming back to this episode, because in short, I said, no, you can 100 hit six figures just in web design.

[00:00:46] Josh: but the trick is to make websites much more valuable and not commodities. One of the biggest ways to do that is to have some sort of strategy offer in your website built, but I’m not gonna leave you hanging. I’m not gonna tell you to offer strategy and just say good luck figuring that out because it is something that’s really difficult to figure out how you’re gonna incorporate in your website builds.

[00:01:10] Josh: There’s a lot of things I want to cover. And I have a lot of thoughts on this because a lot of my students are offering this in what I find interesting is in, in a variety of different ways, some people actually label themselves as a website, strategist, meaning you just, you’re kind of like a consultant. I’ve got a lot of colleagues. Who’ve done this. Um, my good colleague west McDowell, who used to run a podcast called the profitable website. Now he has an incredible YouTube channel.

[00:01:36] Josh: He, I don’t think he does it now, but for a while he basically, uh, promoted and built himself as a website, strategist, meaning he would talk about strategy and all of the things that a website can do and how it can match with all the other pieces on an online, um, Sort of presence in order to make the website super valuable.

[00:01:57] Josh: So some people are known as a website strategist, but then it gets to the tactile stuff. How does strategy actually implement into a website? How does it convert? How, what does it include? There’s so many questions about strategy and how, and when to offer it. Is it like a one time service? Is it ongoing?

[00:02:13] Josh: Is it recurring? Do you offer it when you build the website or do you offer offer it afterwards. I think you probably know the answer to that question. There’s a lot of things I wanna cover in this episode that I think are gonna help you refine offering strategy in your website so that they, again, don’t become commodities because anyone nowadays can design a site.

[00:02:33] Josh: And yes, it takes talent and skill to make it a nicely design site, but when it comes to converting and actually growing your client’s business, that’s what you really wanna get to. So the really in ensure, before we dive into some points, I’ve got laid out here for you. The big benefit, the question is like, why offer strategy?

[00:02:53] Josh: What is the big benefit here? It is. It is to turn your attention to helping clients grow their business, not just make them a pretty website. That is essentially what strategy is. And there’s so many ways you can offer it. And so many levels you can do it at, but in short, the under the foundation of strategy is that you are taking your client’s attention to growing their business and not just making them a website.

[00:03:21] Josh: And if you can make that shift, my friends I’m telling you right now, I saw personally a massive. Increase in how I was able to build my business and raise my rates and offer more value because instead of focusing in on just pretty things on a website, it was focusing about my clients’ customers and asking about their business.

[00:03:42] Josh: So you’re probably already doing this. I, I realized this later on in my journey, That I was getting into strategy and I never knew it. Unfortunately, I never listened to any podcasts. I don’t know how many podcasts were going back in, you know, the 2010 to 2018 and 19 era on web design. But I was, I was, I had no one to tell me, Josh, you’re doing strategy. You need to charge for it.

[00:04:08] Josh: So I have a feeling, a lot of you listening to this right now are probably right in that, that right in that realm where you, you realize, wow, once you hear these points, I’m about to lay out for you. You’re actually doing a lot of this. You’re just, you’re just not charging for it. Or you’re not packaging it up in a way that your client sees it as value in something that is gonna help them grow their business.

[00:04:27] Josh: So I feel like a lot of you are probably right on the cusp of this. So my hope is this episode gives you some power on how to actually implement this. It’s funny because I actually realized I I’ll share a personal experience here real quick. I had an awesome client, like an, a client I worked with and the company was called safeguard risk solutions, which you can still look up today. If you wanna check it out.

[00:04:51] Josh: And they had a product that was called the mobile emergency response plan, emergency response plan. And it would be like a response type of, uh, app that like schools and locations would use if there was any sort of emergency. And I remember when that product came along, the majority of work that I did for them, because I, I built the main company’s website. And then when they created this product, I, I created that site with. The majority of work I did was strategy. And I did not even realize it.

[00:05:25] Josh: All I did was bill out for the new website for the product, which started as a fairly quote unquote simple landing page style site and then it eventually kind of built into this. I think it ended up being about a 10 to 15 page site that had some hidden pages and documentation and stuff about this product. But the majority of my work was strategy. I just didn’t know to charge for it. I didn’t know that I was actually doing strategy and by strategy, I meant, how is this going to coincide with the main company’s site?

[00:05:57] Josh: Like, is it just gonna be a landing page? Is it gonna be in the main menu? Are there gonna be multiple sections? Is it gonna be global? Do we put it in the footer? How much information do we put about this product on the main company site versus what are we gonna put on the actual product? And then on the product site, I what’s the main call to action.

[00:06:14] Josh: Do you want people to schedule a demo? Do you want to talk to people to schedule a consult before they get a demo? Do you want people to just sign up immediately? What is the onboarding sequence look like? There, there was so many things as I look back now that I realize my gosh, I did like 90% strategy to help them with that project.

[00:06:33] Josh: And I did about 10% of actually building the website and guess what I charged for? The 10% of building the website. Now they still paid me really well and it still worked out and they were an amazing client, but it was no fault of their own. I just, I didn’t, I didn’t build for strategy. And it wasn’t until like version two or three of the, the apps website that they hired, a consultant, somebody who I knew in my personal network, they hired him to come in and help out with copy.

[00:07:02] Josh: And I can’t say this for sure. Cuz I don’t know how exactly how much they paid him, but I know he was at a premium rate, so I’m pretty confident in saying I have a feeling that they paid this consultant, somebody who I admired and looked up to more than just to help them out with some content and some strategy on, on the website itself over what they had paid me to build the entire site a couple years prior to that.

[00:07:29] Josh: So I say that to say, this made me realize that strategy is very important and you really can’t have a successful website or successful website presence if you don’t have strategy in with it. But again, strategy can be something that- fairly simple as far as what it entails. And it could be really complex depending on how many user journeys and, and all that stuff goes.

[00:07:52] Josh: So in this episode, I’m gonna share what you can include to help you package this up. And before I kind of cover what we’re gonna include, I do wanna give you a pro tip. Okay. I wanna share something that I learned that really helped my sales and helped my conversions on selling more premium website services, premium, meaning I was selling sites that I used to sell for 1,015 hundred. And then eventually was selling for three, four, 5,000 10,000 and 15,000 ranges.

[00:08:21] Josh: The pro tip I have for you is that when you start the conversation with your lead, whether it’s a discovery call, whether it’s at a networking meeting, whether however you’re communicating with. Ask them about their customer and ask them about the goals of their customer.

[00:08:39] Josh: And again, you could do this initially. You don’t have to get too far into the weeds of their business, but you definitely, before you even get a payment, you want to ask about the goals of the website and their customer. because of suddenly you’re concerned about growing their business. Like I said, in the beginning, they will look at you completely.

Tip #1 – Focus on the customer journey via the website

[00:08:59] Josh: They will view you as wow, like this guy, Josh, isn’t just trying to build a quick little site and take my money and run. He’s actually wanting to help me grow my business. And the only way you can help grow your client’s business is by getting to know their customer and the goals of the website and how they’re gonna help their customer.

[00:09:18] Josh: Because again, if you can move from this mindset and this model of, Hey, I’m Josh. I’m gonna build your website to, Hey, I’m Josh. I wanna help grow your business. I need to understand your question, your, your customers, and then the website we build is gonna help grow your business and help your customer.

[00:09:35] Josh: That changes everything my friends. And you can do this in a variety of different ways. Again, like I mentioned, on an initial discovery call, that’s where I would scratch the surface, but then you save the nuts and bolts of the actual strategy for the website in depth once they move forward. And then you’ll have more advanced questionnaires, which is something I cover in my business course where you’ll have like an initial questionnaire to get the basics, the scope of the project, the main ideas, but then you’ll have more advanced questions that you save, you know, once once they pay for you.

[00:10:04] Josh: Because strategy can take time. It can take time. So here’s what we’re gonna cover in this episode. We’re gonna ask a few questions that I want to give you some answers to. That are things that I implemented myself in my business, and that I’ve learned that a lot of my students are implementing and a lot of different ways in all areas of their journeys and in different industries, which I find fascinating.

[00:10:27] Josh: So first off I wanna answer the question. What is strategy? We’ll talk about what that is. We’ll then talk about what it includes. And answer the question. What do you include in strategy? And then, uh, when do you offer it? Do you offer it right front? Do you offer it afterwards? We’ll talk about. Big question.

[00:10:44] Josh: You’re probably wondering how much do you charge, how the heck do you charge for strategy and how, how do you build that out? I’ll give you some tips on that. And then we’re gonna talk about how you measure results of the strategy that you put in place. So my gosh, do we just lay out a masterclass like this this is like a mini course that we’re about to dive into.

[00:11:03] Josh: So, uh, we’re gonna get right to it for time sake. So, first question, what is strategy again? I’ve kind of already hit this, but it is basically. Taking your focus as a web designer from just building a pretty site to focusing on the customer journey for your client, helping the website, convert leads into actual paying customers for your client.

Tip #2 – The true GOAL of the website

[00:11:27] Josh: You really have to find out the goal of the website and. The goal can sometimes translate right to the call to actions. So for example, I learned this later on that I would just build websites and then it would be like several months after the site would be live, that clients would be like, actually, Josh, we’ve been getting a lot of like emails, but we really wanna just like, get a consultation schedule or we really want a phone call or but in most cases, it was actually vice versa.

[00:11:52] Josh: A lot of people were getting phone calls and they actually wanted to get them through a form. So I learned that like, instead of doing that three months after a website was live, that’s probably something I should do right in the beginning or right when they sign on is like, okay, once we sign on, I know the strategy, the basic strategy now let’s dive into it. What is your main call to action? What do you want people to do on your. This is key.

[00:12:17] Josh: And this is another thing that will separate you from the endless swarm of web designers is if you ask them like you wanna get a feel for the customer and where they are and what the goal is for the customer and how your client and their website can be the solution of their problem.

Tip #3 – Have the correct CTA

[00:12:34] Josh: Once you get an understanding of that, then you kind of know the goal of the website, how it’s gonna help. But then the question is once you know how the website’s gonna help, how do you get your client’s customer to move forward? And that’s where it’s really important to understand the correct CTA call to action.

[00:12:50] Josh: So the more I’ve talked about this a lot, but for those of you who might be new to the show, or haven’t gone through my courses yet, when you are looking for a strong call to action, it needs to be assertive and it needs to be direct. None of this let’s let’s have a conversation. Even contact me is a kind of a passive call to action.

[00:13:09] Josh: You need to tell people what to do. If it is to buy something, the button can be by now, if it is to book a call, don’t say let’s chat, say book a call, or request a quote, or email us or whatever it is, whatever you can, whatever you want people to do, say it on a button or in the headline before a button.

[00:13:29] Josh: But whatever people are going to click on, the more assertive you can be, it just changes the user experience for that person completely. And I know a lot of you are probably using let’s chat in your, in your call to actions. I don’t wanna make, I don’t wanna disparage you and make you feel stupid for doing that.

[00:13:44] Josh: There’s a time and place for doing that, particularly if it’s off of an about page or something, but just remember let’s chat is extremely vague. And usually that’s like, let’s let me hit my old friend up. We haven’t talked in six months, let’s go to coffee and chat and catch up. Is that what the type of relationship you want to have with your clients?

[00:14:02] Josh: Probably not. And you actually, I think it’s actually really important to be careful that you don’t come across like a friend. To your clients? Um, reason being is because I used to do that. That was in a way it helped me grow my business a little bit, but one, I remember vividly one time I was sitting in a lawyer’s office and we had just got started on this meeting and then he took a call and he was like, he was like, uh huh.

[00:14:27] Josh: Yep. Yep. He’s like, no, I can talk. I’m just with a friend. and that I perked up and yeah, I was a, I don’t get offended very easily, but I was kind of like, are you, are you freaking kidding me, dude? Like, he’s, I think he chatted for like 15 or 20 minutes with this guy and I’m just sitting there twiddling my thumbs.

[00:14:45] Josh: Trying not to be super pissed, although I’m sure I looked like it because he called me his friend. We were not friends. He was my client. I didn’t know him that well. So you have to be really careful about being friend versus service provider or client. And I definitely recommend going the ladder. Like there is a line there now.

[00:15:03] Josh: Can you be friends with your clients? Absolutely. 100%, but I, I say that to say I came across. Like I, I came across like a friend, a little, I was more friend than provider, like service provider and client. And that was an issue. That was an issue that I found myself. I was almost too nice. Can you believe it? I was too nice.

[00:15:21] Josh: So anyway, where were we? I learned that, that, like, when you say let’s chat, just beware, you’re often gonna open up doors where you’re gonna be like, you know, the friend, you’re just gonna be the person they can talk to and text on Friday nights or Saturday mornings about their website. No, you, they are your client.

[00:15:38] Josh: They are your customer and they need to be treated as such. All right. So all this goes into what is strategy. It is basically focusing on the customer journey, figuring out the goal of the website and then creating the strong call to actions that are gonna get the users of the website to where they need to be to move forward.

Tip #4 – Understanding of where the customer types are and if any funnels should be in place

[00:15:56] Josh: And now the last point I wanna make on this before we talk about what to include in strategy is you definitely need to understand different customer types, meaning. Some people on a website are gonna be like, some customers are gonna be in different spots of what type of customer they are. They may have just found out about the brand.

[00:16:17] Josh: So they might need like a free resource or they might need to book a call or a strategy session or whatever your client is providing. Whereas some people may know the brand really well, and they’re like, they’re ready to buy whatever they’re selling or whatever they’re offering. They’re ready to buy.

[00:16:31] Josh: You do have to kind of have options for both. And this is where I’m gonna give you some vague advice, because the question of what is the strategy for these type of clients? It depends. I hate those type of answers, but it’s all I can give you right now because it really depends. This is why it’s so important for you to know.

[00:16:49] Josh: Who your, who your clients’ customers are, where they are in their journey, the goal of the website, and then you may have different call to actions. And one of the best things that I discovered, particularly in growing my brand of, of Josh hall.co, the last episode, we just, I was just sharing about how it’s been officially five years.

[00:17:05] Josh: Well, one thing I learned is that in the beginning, my customers were basically one type of customer. They were learning how to build websites. That’s all I had resources for. So naturally I was bringing people in. Remember if you haven’t listened to the episode, two 11, we just talked about it your vibe attracts your tribe.

[00:17:23] Josh: However you come across and what you put out there. That’s what you’re gonna attract. I was putting out resources about learning Divi learning, web design. So those were my customers. And then I started getting into more business principles. Then I started sharing my processes then suddenly. I found myself, helping people start their web design business.

[00:17:41] Josh: And then over the past couple years, I found myself helping people bring their often existing business that may be really messy and then cleaning it up and then taking it to six figures and beyond in scaling. And that’s where I’m at right now, primarily with the bulk of my content is I’m helping people build their dream web design business and scale it to a place that gives them freedom and a lifestyle you love.

[00:18:03] Josh: That is kind where I’m at. My customer type has changed a little bit, which if you go to my website@joshhall.co, as of right now, You’ll see that I have a very clear funnel for that. This is the last tip before we move on, is when you’re talking to your clients at, when you ask them about their customers, ask them if their customers are in different places, because their customers may need a different user journey on your website.

[00:18:27] Josh: Now this does get advanced or it can get advanced. And this is something that could be done in phases. So you may, you don’t wanna overwhelm your clients. But what you could say is let’s get like the main, the bulk of the website done. Maybe it’s a five page website, and then we can add services pages in phase two.

[00:18:46] Josh: And then in phase two or phase three, what we can do is figure out the perfect funnel or path to put people on, on the. So, for example, if you go to my website right now, or you can actually go to Josh hall dot coast slash get started, and I have three paths right now that people can go into, you can either learn how to build awesome websites, which I have all my learning website resources there.

[00:19:09] Josh: I have a path for people who wanna start their own design business. And then I have a path for people who want to take their existing business and scale it, take it to the next level. Those are my three customer. And it took me sitting back, looking at my website, knowing my customers, better, asking them questions at my web design club and my students.

[00:19:30] Josh: Like, what are your challenges? Where are you at? I realize I have those three different types of customer as, as of right now. So do the same thing for your clients, ask them, what type of customers do you have? Where are they at when they get to your website? And then you might need to create some sort of funnel.

[00:19:46] Josh: So those are my main tips for what is strategy, focus on the customer journey, where they are, because they may need a different type of funnel. You need to know the goal of the website, how is their website and their business gonna help their customers. And then you gotta focus on the right call to actions.

[00:20:02] Josh: If it schedule a call then what’s the button schedule a call, not let’s chat. So that is what is strategy. Now let’s talk about what it includes. Like I’m sure you would ask me if, if you and I were having a, a chat together right now, you’d probably be like, Josh, this is great, but what the hell does strategy include? Like, what are the deliverables for this service?

[00:20:23] Josh: Great question my friend. Let’s talk about the deliverables of what it includes. Again, here we go. My favorite answer that I hate. It depends it 100% depends. A lot of this can also depend on the phase approach. Like I just talked about like maybe phase one is just the knowing the goal of the website. So you figure out your content and your heading, and then you figure out the correct call to action.

Tip #5 – Have a discovery call or strategy session

[00:20:48] Josh: And then you can add more in what it includes moving forward, which could be done one time or retainer style. Which we’ll talk about pressing here shortly and how you offer it. But generally it includes strategy, includes some sort of discovery call or strategy session.

[00:21:04] Josh: And again, what I recommend doing is you’re gonna talk to your potential client generally on some sort of call either way initially. Especially if you’re offering more premium web design services, it’s very rare that someone’s just gonna drop 10 grand and never talk to you. Uh, rightfully so. I think I, I would want that I’d wanna make sure and I mean, remember when you build a website for somebody, you are starting a relationship that should and will often last years, so expect, expect a phone call and be cool with that or a zoom call, whatever it is.

[00:21:36] Josh: So it’s generally gonna be a discovery call and it will either be. Some sort of strategy session at the end of that, that might be basic advice. BA you know, again, scratching the surface of who their customers are, giving your ideas and the goal. And then there’s usually gonna be a strategy session that is behind the first payment.

[00:21:55] Josh: So once they pay, once you get going, you’ll have a strategy questionnaire usually, and this is something I show my business course, you’ll have that questionnaire that goes really in depth. And this will also help with content and kind of content first strategy of building out sites. You. So a lot of times you can get all of your strategy out in a questionnaire, but you may have a second call in there to, to refine the strategy and make sure everyone’s clear on both sides for version one here, phase.

Tip #6 – A funnel or lead magnet

[00:22:22] Josh: So generally it’s gonna include a discovery call and an advanced strategy session. That’s usually after the first payment. Sometimes, and a lot of my students are doing this. It’s going to be some sort of lead magnet or like a funnel. Again, we just talked about how to like funnel people. You can build a funnel like that, but just remember you are gonna get into a lot more time doing that.

[00:22:43] Josh: So if somebody says, I want you to build a three page website for me. Homepage of services page and a contact page. And then you say, great, you know, all right, Bob, we can do that for you. And then you mentioned the funnel thing. They’re like, oh great. Can you go ahead and build that out? Well, suddenly that became a, let’s see a six page website because you’ve got three different pages for these funnels that go to different places.

[00:23:04] Josh: So just remember. Uh, what it includes will often be like more pages and more strategy if you do some sort of funnel, but often it’s more, more often than not a lead magnet. Something where somebody signs up to an email list for a free resource, whether it’s a free PDF or free training or upcoming webinar, whatever it is, some sort of lead Mac.

Tip #7 – Offer services outside of websites (i.e. email marketing)

[00:23:24] Josh: Magnet is often gonna be included in the strategy. This is what a lot of my students are doing, especially my students who are into the email marketing side of things, which that leads me to the next point. What a segue, I didn’t even plan that one out. It would be services that are outside of websites now I just said early on, you don’t need to do all the full suite of digital marketing services to make six figures in web design. And that is true.

[00:23:52] Josh: So I’m not contradicting myself, go back to episode 2 0 9 to listen to that because you don’t need to do this, but. For those of you who do have interest in a few things outside of just websites. This is where you can really shine on the strategy side of things. Most of my students who offer strategy, offer some sort of lead magnet to email marketing, because it just makes sense.

[00:24:15] Josh: If you wanna help grow a client’s email list if you can do the email marketing and set up convert kit or mail champ or whatever you’re doing, you could pay, you could charge really well for it because most clients aren’t gonna wanna do that and shouldn’t do that unless they’re quite savvy. So, or if they already have something set up, so you can, 100% include a service outside of websites in this aspect of what it includes more often than not email marketing with a lead magnet, but.

[00:24:43] Josh: Be aware because then suddenly you’ve got your marketing hat on and then you need to be very clear are we just setting things up? So it connects with the site and, you know, MailChimp has the correct tags and everything and that’s it. Or are they expecting you to help with a marketing strategy for email? Because that is a different service. One more time setting up E an email marketing platform. A CRM is way different, which is a, a client relationship manager that is way different than the email marketing strategy itself.

[00:25:13] Josh: That is a completely different strategy. So if you’re doing that, make sure you separate it and make sure your client knows that way. You don’t get it set up in your client’s like, okay. So when do I email ’em can you make me templates? You’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bobby, Robert, hold up, buddy.

[00:25:29] Josh: That’s a whole different ball game. So just heads up. I’m not saying that I personally went through that, but I 100% did so save yourself. Um, and then if you’re doing any sort of social media or any other services, this is where you can kind of combine those with your conversion based Strat strategical what’s is there a word first strategic, strategic, duh, strategic. That’s what you include all in there.

[00:25:55] Josh: But again, so that’s kind of a vague answer because it depends on what you offer outside of web design. But if you’re doing advanced SEO, if you’re doing email marketing, if you’re doing social media ads, more marketing services, you can, 100% include it as add-ons outside of, of your typical strategy.

Tip #8 – Separate landing pages

[00:26:11] Josh: Another big one is as far as what strategy can include is land our landing pages. If you have separate services for your customer, For your client or they have different services, you can make different landing pages. And this is a big, big, big, big, big benefit with SEO. I teach this in my SEO course. If you have separate services pages for each service, you’re already ahead of the game, as far as SEO goes.

Tip #9 – UX & Navigation

[00:26:35] Josh: So definitely, definitely do that. And that’s something that could be included in the strategy, which kind of leads me to the next point, which is once you have these different service pages and landing pages or product pages, That’s gonna bring you into the UX and the navigation, the user experience. So , this is surprising because like menu design is actually, there’s an art to menu design.

[00:26:58] Josh: I’ve found in a lot of different ways. You could keep a fairly simple website menu and it does fine, but I know on my site, I, once I realized I had different types of content and the different types of customers I had to think about, okay, Well, I’ve got like a ton of different categories of stuff. Now I realized this a couple years ago, and then actually earlier in 2022 here, I revised my menu.

[00:27:24] Josh: I don’t know if you’ve been to my website recently, but if you go to Josh hall.co I real, I looked at what is the most impactful content? Did I have on my site and that I want to get out there. So what quite frankly is what is paying the bills for me right now? And what is keeping this brand going? Are my courses, my core sales or the, the Ming shebang.

[00:27:45] Josh: So guess what’s the first menu item on my site. Courses. Yep. And then I have a dropdown of all my web design courses and my bundle, which is all my courses wrapped up together. And then, because I started my web design club and it’s become this amazing online community for me, it’s recurring income, but I realize it’s also the next best step for people generally after they go through my courses.

[00:28:07] Josh: Now, as of right now, you can technically join that and then go into courses, but either way, that’s my second big thing. So my second item is coaching because it is a coaching community. So courses in coaching, and then since you’re here, you can probably guess what the third one is. It’s the podcast. The podcast is my biggest marketing channel. It’s where most of my effort goes right now.

[00:28:28] Josh: So that’s my third. And I’m saying this because this is what I realized in my strategy. I figured out what my main categories and main pages were. The most important pages. And that’s how I decided to lay out my user experience and my navigation. And then the next big thing are tutorials.

[00:28:44] Josh: I still get a lot of traffic on YouTube and I have different categories of tutorials from divvy tutorials to WordPress, to web design tutorials. That’s why I have that. And then, because I did not want to have a menu that has a hundred items, I just currently have a more uh, dropdown that takes you to, you can meet me with more details, recommended tools, my full blog with different videos.

[00:29:07] Josh: I’ve got a free stuff tab that has free trainings and layouts and then contact. Of course. So I figured out the strategy for myself and that’s how I created that UX navigation. Same for your clients. You can include that in your strategy, which makes it your website design so much more valuable than like a thousand dollars website.

Tip #10 – Copy and content help

[00:29:26] Josh: And then last couple things that you can include, I mean, this, you could include a ton of different things, but I’m just telling you here, what is common as far as what is wrapped up in strategy and. You’ll notice, like a lot of this seems like a standard website package, right? Like if you’re offering some sort of, you know, landing page design, UX navigation, next couple things I’m gonna talk about are content and copy, help and then SEO.

[00:29:51] Josh: Those are all things that you would normally put in a website package, but it’s just strategically said as strategy, or you can do like website build plus strategy together, which is what I recommend. We’ll get to that next. But copy and content. Either way you should be, and you’re more likely working on client’s copy for them, or you’re optimizing it.

[00:30:13] Josh: That’s really common, right? Where they’ll send you something and you optimize it for SEO and you help them with their messaging and you get it up there. That is a part of strategy. If you don’t wanna do it for free, then you just need to have it as a deliverable. And even if you don’t charge for it by a line item, you can just say, the reason our websites start at $5,000 is because we help you with your content.

Tip #11 – SEO based off of strategy

[00:30:34] Josh: And then that segues into in your messaging that segues into SEO, which is key because you might figure out the right keyword and do the metadata and the descriptions and all text for images, all the SEO things that I cover in my SEO course. And then. You have a fully fledged, strategic implemented website with all those things that you, you can include.

[00:30:56] Josh: There’s more we could do, but in short, a discovery call, usually two Strat like a strategy session after that, and then some sort of funnel or a lead magnet. And this is where you’ll lead into like email marketing or anything outside of that landing pages. If you’re gonna do different product pages or service pages, that’s gonna feed into the user experience the navigation.

[00:31:17] Josh: And then if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna tweak and help messaging for clients that is a part of copy and content, and that’s gonna segue to at least basic onsite SEO, that’s what that can all include. So those are the main things there. Let’s wrap this conversation up with a couple other points here.

[00:31:33] Josh: The next question would be, how do you offer this? And like I just mentioned most of this stuff you’re probably doing on some sort of level, either way as you’re building websites, you just haven’t like put it in your list of descriptions. You’re likely saying like five page website, you know, Google analytics set up whatev, you know, whatever you’re doing in your deliverables, but all of these things should be line items and that’s what’s, and this is why when somebody goes back to and you’re like, whoa, why is, why do your prices start at like 3,500?

[00:32:03] Josh: And you’re like, because look at all these things. These are what’s included in our websites and this is what helps you convert and grow your business. so I would do pretty much everything I mentioned, at least the basics of it and all your builds and then in different phases or at scale, you can offer these things at a higher volume.

[00:32:23] Josh: And like, let’s say, you’re not doing any other additional services outside of websites. You’re just doing websites, basic SEO and copy and, and maintenance plans. Then you’re not gonna do email marketing. You’re not gonna do lead magnets. Anything like that is gonna be a separate thing or like a one time type thing.

[00:32:39] Josh: All of your plans should have the basic parts of it though. That’s why I think it’s really important to offer your website packages as builds and strategy is a part of it. so at least all the basics there, again, your different tiers of packages of builds are usually gonna be scale related. And then what I would say is the more advanced services you feel comfortable in offering, or as you learn more about copy and advanced SEO and outside like email marketing, that kind of stuff, you can offer that for the high tier projects.

[00:33:09] Josh: So maybe you have three packages, like small, medium, and large, let’s say easy, easy. Your large package could have email marketing as a part of it. Like you help them set that up and then you help them build out their campaign, whatever it is that can be kind of tacked on for higher tier projects. And then, and those can be like one off services that you could essentially, and it might even be landing pages.

[00:33:32] Josh: You might help like. Maybe phase one is the build. And then again, they’ve got new products or they wanna eventually split out all their services in their own pages. Well, that could be a one time thing you could do in some sort of retainer or hourly type thing, but then you can do things ongoing. And this is where it’s really, really exciting to be able to offer something recurring for a certain amount of time.

[00:33:53] Josh: Generally, this is where you can add additional funnels. You could build all those pages. That again, might be one time or recurring. You could do consistent help with copy and SEO optimization. Now these recurring type of services are not your maintenance plan and hosting plan. That is something different. These are things that clients are likely gonna turn off and turn on when it comes to actually offering these type of services.

[00:34:18] Josh: So do not confuse these with your hosting and maintenance plans, cuz that needs to stay on. They turn that off their sites down. So these ongoing services on how and like when you offer it, it can essentially be anything that you want to do ongoing depending on what you offer. Again, I hate. Advice, but it depends on what you wanna offer.

[00:34:38] Josh: Usually this is more of an advanced approach. Like I wouldn’t worry about this until you’re feeling really good about your offers. And then once you find your zone of genius, then offer that ongoing, huge, huge benefit. So when do you offer it in short, during a part of all your builds?

[00:34:53] Josh: At least the basics. More advanced Strat uh, strategy services for higher tier packages and then ongoing anything you can do ongoing, even if it’s like over a certain amount of time, like for six months, we’re gonna create one LA service page a month, optimize it, SEO and help with messaging the boom. You can do that for six months and you got a nice little six month recurring window and there you go. That can help with your bottom line. So that’s some tips on when you offer it.

[00:35:20] Josh: Now, how much do you charge my gosh, I need to make this a visual masterclass training or a small course because we’re getting into it now. Um, how much do you charge it? It go kind of goes into your pricing in general. And this is why at, at one point, my bottom line for websites were 29 97 because I was adding all of these things.

[00:35:41] Josh: And finally learned to, even though I didn’t really do a great job of explaining strategy. I learned that I was doing this and whether I realized it or not, I was putting forth a service and a package that was strategy based and that helped make it so much more valuable when I was selling it. What I would say is basically how much do you charge look at your builds right now?

[00:36:02] Josh: And of all the things we talked about, what to include, add this in there. And then I would say, even on the basic level, if you add all this stuff in there, you should be able to at least double your prices, generally from where you’re at, or if not double, you can at least add a thousand to 2000 or $3,000 on your general website build.

[00:36:23] Josh: So let’s say your builds are at like, Eight 50 for small sites and like 1500 for larger sites. Well, you can right now add all this stuff basic, and I’m sure you’re doing a lot of this and then start your prices at like 1500 and then 3000 and so on. So that’s why I say you could double it or. Depending on where your prices are.

[00:36:46] Josh: You could potentially add a thousand to two to 3000 or more. So just test it out, adding this basic strategy in all of your website, build packages. Now, if you’re still wondering, like how practically do I do this? One thing I would say is test it out and then get a feel for your hours. Just remember by testing it out, you can adjust your pricing right now.

[00:37:09] Josh: And the people who sign up over the next couple months, these are your, these are your Guinea pigs. These are your testing because you can always adjust your pricing moving forward. I don’t advise you to ever go backwards, but you could technically, it doesn’t mean that all your clients are gonna know your pricing.

[00:37:22] Josh: Look, all of your clients and potential clients are not looking at your pricing page. Like none of my clients were like, I am really busy, but I just have a handker to go back to Josh’s website. See how much he’s charging. Maybe one did that, but very, very rare. So don’t worry about that. Put your offer up there and see what happens.

[00:37:40] Josh: But the next point is to get a feel for your hours, like get a feel for how much you’re willing to go into as far as copy and content, how long it’s taking to create the navigation, which this is all in website builds anyway. So just get a feel for like these. The strategic aspects of it and then your basic SEO, and then that’s what you can get a feel for depending on the tier of the package.

[00:38:02] Josh: So you’re doing this anyway. Just I guess the, the quick tip is to get a little better with like figuring out how much you’re spending on what to include in, in those STR, uh, strategy things. and then the other thing you could do, and this gets a little more into website pricing, which I talked about in episode 2 0 1 with my colleague, Shannon mad, where we talked about website pricing, but you could get into value based pricing.

[00:38:25] Josh: So let’s be honest. Some businesses are worth way more than others and their customers are worth way more depending on the business and the industry. So if you don’t wanna have set pricing, you could always go for a value based approach. Which is usually reserved for really good clients. And that’s where you could offer all this stuff in a custom quote and where, or, or price ranges that like start at, uh, which I recommend either way.

[00:38:50] Josh: So that’s a biggie. and then how much did you charge? You could also, again, put this, you don’t wanna tack it in with hosting and maintenance, but you could 100% have it as an add on for ongoing services. And that’s where, again, it depends, but let’s say you do one new landing page with copy help. You do some more advance in reporting, which we’ll get into.

[00:39:13] Josh: Finally here, you could do a few more things in there and have it as really based off your hourly, your hourly rate. Um, even though I don’t recommend you go hourly, if you’re doing recurring services, it’s nice to know how much time you’re spending in there. Add some on for profit. And then there you. And that’s how much you can charge.

[00:39:30] Josh: I mean, it really, this is kind of a tricky question to, to answer succinctly because it depends on your hourly rate, how much you wanna make, what you’re providing, but based off everything here, look, keep track of your time. Add plenty of profit in there. And that’s how you can build, build this out. But either way, put it in your website, build offers because it’s a part of it. And that’s how you can raise your rate Dramat.

[00:39:53] Josh: And then finally, how do you measure it? This is where, so I’ve actually got an upcoming episode. The next solo episode is gonna be how to measure conversion based results on your websites. So I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do. We’ve covered a lot on this already. So let’s save this because I was gonna give you a teaser, but I’ll just tell you right now, in order to measure this stuff. There’s a lot to go into how to do this, but the basics are bounce rate. You can look at sales conversions, signups. You can look at SEO results. I got a lot of tips on how to do this.

[00:40:22] Josh: I’m gonna save that for the next solo episode. So that’ll be coming up over the next couple weeks here. So keep an eye out for that. I just feel like we’ve covered a lot. I wanna save for measuring I wanna say measuring results in your, your conversions on strategy for the next episode. So, this was just kind of a teaser for that, but let me go ahead and just look back.

[00:40:41] Josh: Let’s recap. What we talked about so far, we talked about what is strategy again, just remember it’s really the goal of the website and the, the user journey. It is. If you can turn that conversation into how can I help grow your business client? You’ve done it right. You will separate yourself immediately.

[00:40:59] Josh: What’s it include discovery calls, strategy questions, a funnel creation, a lead magnet, outside services, like email marketing, landing, page design, advanced UX and navigation services. Copy and content help SEO. Onsite SEO, generally not recurring sometimes, but usually it’s onsite SEO. All those things are generally included in the strategy aspect of web design, clear call to action design, things like that.

[00:41:23] Josh: When do you offer it immediately and all your builds, higher type strategy services for high tier products or packages, and then ongoing, depending on what you offer, how much do you charge? It should be factored in all of your website PR packaging, which means you can double your rates or add another a thousand to 2000 or 3000 or more, depending on what you offer, get a feel for your hours.

[00:41:45] Josh: That’ll give you a, a chance to feel for like how much time you’re spending in all this and then charging accordingly. And then again, don’t be afraid to Institute value based pricing, especially if you, part of your strategy is converting. Websites for your clients. And then these can be recurring type things.

[00:42:01] Josh: So those are really, really important aspects to all this. All right. There we go. We covered a lot. Uh, oh. Oh, when we talk, yeah. We talked about how much to charge all that stuff. So I think we’re good. That’s a little recap. Um, again, a lot of thoughts on this, but based off of what I did in my journey and what a lot of my students are doing, this is the most tactile way to put your strategy and packages that you can charge for, because generally you don’t wanna do, like, I build websites also I do strategy separately. They go hand in hand, just. Bill form together, but it’s really hard to sell strategy.

[00:42:36] Josh: It’s a lot easier to sell website builds, then you bring up strategy and the role it plays in that’s. That’s my final thought on that. So again, uh, make sure you subscribe if you haven’t yet to the podcast, because the next solo episode coming up, we’re gonna talk about results and how to measure what we just implemented so I can’t wait to chat with anymore on that one.

[00:42:53] Josh: Thanks again for tuning in, make sure you subscribe. And if this helped, if you’ve got some web design colleagues that are curious about this as well, please share this episode. If you would, it would be a, a great help to, to me to help grow the show. And it would also help if you’d believe your review, if you’re willing, if you’ve been loving the podcast, consider going to Josh hall dot coast slash podcast review to leave your review, especially if this episode gave you some tips and, uh, and help.

[00:43:16] Josh: And oh, by the way, we did cover a lot. And if you are like, what were the tips again, in this case, just go to Josh hall.co/two 12, and you can get a full transcription of this episode, an outline of all the tips we discussed and all the extra links you can do that with all podcast episodes. When you go to Josh hall.co/podcast.

[00:43:36] Josh: So head there from where thanks again for tuning in, and I will catch you guys on the next episode, which is gonna be a fun one.