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What if you have a website that’s already getting a regular amount of visitors each month, but it needs a full redesign? Will redesigning it, wreck your current traffic? It absolutely can if you don’t have a migration process in place. This is the exact situation I was in, earlier this year. I had a client with a website that was getting traffic and generating business for him. Glow Up Web Design was currently in the process of redesigning it. It was critical that along with the redesign, we followed the proper SEO migration protocols to mitigate any traffic loss. The website already had a steady number of leads coming from people who found his business through various search engines. Bringing on Charles Taylor, who has over 20 years of experience in SEO, unlocked the exact process we needed to win the day for this client. No matter what project we are working on, our main goal is always to improve the lives and businesses of our clients. Charles helped us continue to fulfill this with flying colors. If we hadn’t followed his SEO migration process, this client’s business could have suffered, massively. So what’s the big deal? Why does this sound so dramatic? Before I show the graphs and data… It's important to understand why this happens. Here's the Problem Google treats each URL like an entry in its massive database. Every URL carries years of search equity — links, signals, rankings. When you change those URLs without a solid SEO strategy, Google sees them as brand new. And brand new pages don’t come with rankings. Google’s own experts confirm the risk: John Mueller, Google’s Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst,  has said it’s nearly impossible to launch a new site without losing search traffic. Gary Illyes , Analyst on Google Search Team,  warned that redesigns can cause rankings to “go nuts.” Plus, studies show it can take an average of 523 days  for a new site to recover its previous traffic levels — and some sites never recover, even after 1,000 days . Source : https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-long-should-an-seo-migration-take/531219/ Let's put it another way: Charles Taylor, a seasoned SEO expert, compares changing your URL structure to changing your phone number. If you don’t tell people you’ve switched, no one knows how to reach you. Even if you set up call forwarding ( like 301 redirects ), people still won’t have your new number unless you’ve made it visible and promoted it. And Google? Google only understands what it can crawl. If your old URLs disappear and your new structure isn’t clearly communicated, Google might not know where your content went — or that your new site is even live. Here is an example of a website that changed CMS systems but never considered SEO: But the danger does not lay in just big changes like changing CMS or Domains.  During a simple redesign this site did not involve an SEO and lost over 75% of their traffic - all because someone stopped using the “www.” in all internal links. But it doesn't have to be this way. At this crossroads, you have a choice: gamble with your traffic, or plan your migration the smart way — with an experienced SEO guide. Remember, f riends don’t let friends redesign websites without SEO help. Just for fun... I wanted to see how Chat GPT would visually represent a failed migration. So I asked it this: and here what it gave me... I took the prompt it gave me and had it create an image based on its own prompt. This image symbolizes the failure we can help our clients avoid through strategic choices during the redesign. One of the many things I love about SEO is that it has the power to make a big impact for the business owners we work with. I’ve heard Charles compare SEO migration work, like being a lookout on the Titanic — it’s about watching for dangers others don’t see and making critical adjustments before disaster strikes. Imagine if someone was on the titanic, woke the captain up and said, "Hey man, steer a little to left. There's an ice berg coming up." If you do your job right, no one notices anything went wrong, because everything keeps running smoothly. It’s a role where success is often invisible, but failure is catastrophic.

Driving traffic to your website can be a struggle, but with the right strategy and focus it can happen! Today we’re going to dive into SEO, Google My Business, social media, Pinterest and email marketing. These are the main ways my clients and I have seen success in increasing website traffic. If you’re a numbers person, you’ll love seeing this website traffic overview from one of my client’s websites. We haven’t even implemented a Pinterest strategy yet! Recently, I started a collaboration with Grayson Robinson. He started as an intern with Create & Collab. to learn more about web design and fell in love with the SEO side of things! I’ve included him in this blog post to share a little bit about what SEO is and why it’s so important to have a strategy to drive traffic to your website. What is SEO and Why Is It Important? "SEO which stands for search engine optimization, is a practice that is often about making small modifications to parts of your website or as I like to say, “tricking Google into liking your website by playing by their unspoken/spoken rules”. Part of the set up process of SEO is presenting content in a way that will help search engines understand it. Making these small incremental improvements with time and regular updates to your SEO will fundamentally send more traffic to your website, because Google will see you are playing by their rules. Now, what do I mean when I say “ playing by Google’s rules”? To put it simply, being specific about how you are presenting content on your website will not only provide a much better user experience, but also can drive your website higher up in the search results." -Grayson Bonus: Google Ads "One of the many tools Google makes available to anyone who is looking to drive more traffic to their website, is Google Ads. Google Ads is a paid advertising service that allows anyone to run specific keyword ads on results of search engines, like Google Search and non-search websites, mobile apps, and videos for service offerings, product listings, or videos to web users. The nice thing about Google Ads is that it is very user-friendly. What you put into it is what you are going to get out of it. Let's say someone is on a tight advertising budget of only $50 a month for their website but they still want to run ads with Google. This is no problem at all and with the right keywords will still drive plenty of traffic to their website!! Now it may not get as much traffic as a Google ads campaign that uses a $500 a month budget but figuring out the best budget and keywords can allow for an incredible and affordable advertisement strategy!" -Grayson July 3, 2025 Update: Create and Collab is now offering SEO services and along with that a free SEO Guide to teach you how to increase organic traffic on your own website! Feel free to check it out and come back to let us know how it's going! Google My Business "So while Google Ads is arguably one the best ways to get direct users to your website, it is by no means free. So are there any free tools Google provides for those of us on the free budget? It just so happens there is! It’s called Google My Business or GMB for short. Google My Business is a free-to-use tool that allows users to improve their business local and non-local SEO scores. Now while I say local and non-local SEO scores that's not entirely true some would argue. The reason being is that GMB uses information about your business such as your hours, website, street address, your business name, phone number, description of your business, and even photos/videos of your business. Most of what I listed here would only apply to local businesses but by just having things such as a physical address and listed hours you can turn an online business into a local one from Google's perspective! This will improve local traffic to your website by leaps and bounds and best of all, if you can master the beast that is Google then this can push both local and non-local traffic to your site, completely for free!" -Grayson Social Media - Creating Content Like a Pro Social Media is exactly what it sounds like, it’s social. It may not be the place to close the deal, but it is a space to generate new leads, drum up new conversations, and make new people curious about what you do. When someone new visits your social media, the posts should add value and spark curiosity. What do I mean by this? Sparking curiosity is the first buying phase everyone starts in. After they're curious, they browse through more of what you’ve posted. If you’re posting how to content or educational content that actually makes their life or business better, they'll share that with others and begin to trust you and your brand more and more. Once someone trusts you and your brand, the next buying phase is called 'the enlightenment phase'. This is when they’ve consumed enough marketing to realize what you offer has value and they can benefit from it in a positive way. Once they’re in this second to last phase, it’s just a matter of time before they book you for your services or buy your products. I created a Content Planning Workbook to make brainstorming and planning your social media posts less overwhelming. This workbook is printable and reusable. If you’re wanting to create content like a pro, I would highly recommend utilizing this! Pinterest 101: Set Up + Strategy Pinterest actually isn’t social media. It’s a search engine. It’s very different than any other platform. People go on Pinterest to search for specific things or look for inspiration. It’s like a creative person’s Google search bar. There’s pins I’ve posted 1-2 years ago that are still being saved and driving traffic to my website. Social Media is great for one to one connections, but Pinterest is good for linking your posts to your website, blog posts, or product pages. I’ve written an entire blog post that explains how to get started, how to set up your account, and what to do for continued growth! Email Marketing This may not seem as relevant, but I promise it’s one of the most important pieces to the puzzle. Most business owners think they need to get to a certain place in their business before they can start building their email list, but it’s the exact opposite. Your email list should be established before you need it. I’ve heard so many stories about people getting their Facebook or Instagram accounts either taken down or hacked. If you've built a large following on those platforms, remember, you don’t own those followers – Facebook and Instagram own those contacts! When you build an email list, you own your contact list and secure a way to stay in contact with them whenever you want. Take the website traffic overview at the beginning of this blog post as an example, if you looked closely at the graphic, there’s a very large spike in traffic between Aug. 5th and Aug. 15th. What caused the spike? We sent out an email campaign to their email list. Not only did that help update their customers on what was currently being offered, it spiked their website traffic generating an increase in sales! When you think about growing your company, it’s critical to think of your business as an airplane. An airplane requires strong engines to fly. Sales is one engine and marketing is the other. If the plane gets too heavy (too much overhead), it either needs to let go of some of that or increase the strength of its engines. The wings of your plane represent your products and services. Each being a crucial part of the business. When you have low overhead, strong sales and marketing that converts, a great leadership team in the cockpit, products and services that solve problems for people – this is the sign of a healthy and strong business. This is all Marketing? What About Sales? Marketing brings them into the store, your sales strategy is what closes the deal! This entire blog post is about the marketing engine, but don’t forget about your sales strategy too. If you bring in a lot of traffic to your website, include a clear call to action so visitors know what the next step is. This is the beginning stages of your buyer journey. How many steps does it take for someone to find you and give you their money? Do you have products they can easily find and purchase right away? Do you have services that you offer, but want them to book a call first? Adding a call to action button like "Schedule a Call", "Book Now", "Buy Now", "Call Now", "Get Started" – all of these make it very clear to your viewer, what the next step is they need to take to work with you! Analyzing this and making tweaks when and where they are needed will create a sales process that works every time! The photo above is a snippet from the Business Made Simple book . If you’re looking for more resources to learn about how to grow your business and manage it, I would highly recommend this book. The same author, Donald Miller, recently released another book I've been recently obsessed with called How to Grow Your Small Business . Another book I would highly recommend any entrepreneur or business owner. You’ll notice, in this blog post there’s a whole section on capital and cash flow. Because this is a lengthy topic, I want to include a blog post titled: How do I Protect Cashflow for My Business? (The 5 Accounts Every Business Needs) . In this blog post I explain briefly, the financial strategy taught by Business Made Simple. I shared this strategy with two accountants I trust and they said it was incredible advice. Obviously, I’m not a licensed CPA, so I wanted to do the work to make sure this was sound advice before I recommended it! The biggest factor in your success will be prioritization your to do's, strategy, and protecting your time. All of these facets increase website traffic, but each will take some time, strategy, and good ol’ fashion brainstorming. I’ve been using all of these forms of marketing over the last 3 years and each year my business grows. Is it easy? Nope. Is it overwhelming at times? Yep. But I believe anything is possible with the right strategy and determination. Cheers to new business growth and a successful business that stands the test of time! Related Posts You May Also Enjoy: 7 Ways to Use Your Website to Grow Your Business Creating a Peaceful Home Office Space The List Strategy to Getting More Done (Kanban Method)

I've been creating a list of things that have really helped me continue to work on self-care and stay productive in my work life and personal life. This list could be for an entrepreneur friend, fellow enneagram 3 ;), or just for yourself! How to Grow Your Small Business by Donald Miller This book really changed the game for me. It's one of those books you'll want to fold down pages on, highlight, circle, and mark your favorite pages with sticky notes. It covers everything from your mission statement all the way to what it truly takes to close the sale once you've got someone on the phone. It's the number 1 book I think every business owner should read. Looking for more books that would make great gifts for new business owners , I've got an entire page dedicated to books and more! AirPods I remember when AirPods came out, I had them on my shopping list for almost 2 years. My mom ended up buying them for me for Christmas and I couldn't love them more! From working out and not having chords hanging around or taking business calls on the go they are so worth the purchase! Click here to get them directly on Amazon! Apple Pencil This is another thing I had on my list for a few years and it's been such a joy to use! If you know someone who loves being creative and also has an iPad, this would be the PERFECT gift! The Apple Pencil opens up so much creative possibilities. *Note: It sadly does not work on an iPhone, but if you need a cheaper option that works on an iPhone there's some amazing stylists that you can purchase that work on iPhones and still allow for endless creativity :). Click here to view stylists on Amazon or Click here to buy the Apple Pencil! (*Make sure you find out which iPad version you or the person you're buying it from has so that you buy the Apple Pencil that is specifically compatible with that version.) DoorDash Gift Card Sometimes when you're having a really productive day and don't want to stop to eat, it's AMAZING having a DoorDash gift card on hand. Most businesses allow you to purchase food through DoorDash and even pay for the delivery with a gift card. If you know someone who likes to stay busy and doesn't like taking breaks to eat, this is an AMAZING gift! Click here to purchase a DoorDash gift card. Mani/Pedi I don't get my nails done often, but when I do it always gives me a little confidence boost! If you know someone who really loves to feel put together, but doesn't necessarily like taking the time to get ready, a gift card like this is a very intentional way to promote and encourage self care ;) If you're ever in Spring Hill, TN my favorite nail place is called Uptown Nail Bar. (If you hop on Facebook and search Uptown Nail Bar you'll find them right away!) My favorite part about their location is all the plants that they have. Their staff is super nice and personable, it's always a joy getting my nails done there! Blowout Sorry guys, this is another girly suggestion ;) Getting a blowout is the best part of a haircut, but did you know you don't have to get a hair cut to get a blowout?! This would be the sweetest gift that also encourages self care and will have your friend or family member feeling like a million bucks! My favorite place to get my hair done is at Haven House Salon here in Spring Hill, TN. My long time friend Sarah Jean has been doing my hair for almost 10 years, so I go to her every single time I get my haircut! I'll include some pictures below of their gorgeous space. Not only do I feel beautiful when I leave, I feel a sense of peace I don't get visiting other hair salons. Travel Toiletry Bag There's nothing better than having ALL of your toiletries fit in a bag organized perfectly and this bag absolutely makes that happen! I don't wear a lot of make up, but I LOVE my skincare and need to have all of it with me, not to mention the giant bottle of dry shampoo and all the fun sprays! This bag truly has space for all of it AND more! This would be such a thoughtful gift for someone who travels a lot or simply likes their stuff very organized! Click here to find it on Amazon. I got the black one pictured below, but it comes in a variety of colors. Laptop Stand Working from home on a laptop has been a HUGE strain on my back and my neck. After a lot of adjustments I decided to purchase a laptop stand. My chiropractor recommended that my laptop is level with my eyes so that my neck isn't strained looking down all day. This has been a GAME CHANGER for me and it's less than $30. This is definitely worth the small investment. Click here to find it on Amazon. Wireless Mouse Recently, I purchased Apple's Wireless Mouse and I'm NEVER going back! Since my computer is now on a stand I needed a mouse. I had purchased a cheap one from Walmart and have used that for over 3 years. It's worked great, but it's so nice having one that allows for all the easy swiping that translates on my MacBook Pro. This and the laptop stand would be a perfect gift combo for someone who either works their business from home or has transitioned to working from home and doesn't have their set up complete yet! Click here to find it on Amazon. If you really want to go the extra mile, grab the Apple Wireless Keyboard too! Spotify/Apple Music Yearly Subscription I literally cried when I first got my Spotify subscription. This probably sounds dramatic, but for someone who loves music and podcasts, it was so exciting to know I had every single song at my fingertips! If you know someone who loves podcasts or music, getting them an entire year of that subscription paid for is a very intentional and exciting gift! Click here to purchase a yearly subscription to Spotify. Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you.

The psychology behind turning a browser into a buyer is so interesting. A browser would be anyone who is either looking at your website, your social media, or maybe walking through your store (or browsing your online shop!). There are 3 phases we all go through before we make a purchase, whether we are aware of it or not. Understanding theses 3 phases helps us to identify what may be lacking in our sales and marketing to close the deal. Let's break these buying phases down. Phase 1: Curiosity Before someone makes a purchase, they're curious. The only thing that sparks curiosity is things or people that can help someone survive and thrive. We've all seen ads that depict a problem, then that problem being solve and it makes us go, "Hmmm, that's interesting." At this point, the seed has been planted. Phase 2: Enlightenment The next phase after curiosity is the enlightenment phase. This is when someone realizes that a product or brand can help them solve a problem or they can purchase it for someone else to help solve a friend or families problem. No one parts with money unless it's solving a problem. Showcasing how our products/services solve problems helps move browsers from curious to enlightened! Phase 3: Commitment The commitment phase is when someone is ready to open their wallet and pay for a product or service. It takes an average of 12 touch points for a person to be ready to commit. These touch points could be emails, social media posts, social media ads, maybe you've even met for coffee to discuss further. Lower price point offers can take less touch points and higher ticket offers sometimes take more than 12, but it generally takes someone 12 times from phase 1 to phase 3. When someone is ready to commit, they're all in! Have you ever purchased something online because you kept seeing ads about it? I know I've been there! Our curiosity gets the best of us sometimes. If the ad we keep seeing is set up in a way that shows the product or service can solve a problem for us, it's difficult to not get sucked in. Understanding these phases has helped me become aware if I'm getting sucked into a purchase I may not actually need to make. Not only that, but I like to save ads that make me think, "Wow! I need this!" Being in marketing, it's so much fun to save or take photos of a great advertisements, then breakdown the strategy to use with my own products or services. Next time you're scrolling through social media or you're in a store, really think about how these products or services are being marketed to you. It's truly intriguing to me when a product or service is presented in a way that moves me through all the phases quickly. These are the money making ads! There's a book I've been reading called, Contagious - Why Things Catch On . It's all about the psychology behind viral videos, products, and business ideas. I'm reading it slowly because I don't want it to end! Whether you're learning how to market your own products/service or you're simply really interested in psychology, this book is fabulous.

Pinterest may feel like just another social media platform, but it's actually a search engine. It's built entirely different from Instagram and Facebook. Optimizing your Pinterest profile for business can bring in new clients and customers, as well as increase your website traffic. (Quick Tip: The more organic traffic you can get to your website, the higher Google will prioritize your website in their search results!) Before establishing a strategy for Pinterest it's important to understand how it's being used and how that translates in your business. How is Pinterest Different from other platforms? What makes it so much different is how users interact on Pinterest. Unlike other platforms, people don't use Pinterest just to follow people they know or like, they use it to search for specific things. The search function is truly what differentiates it the most. I've found that the life of a pin is much longer than a post on other platforms. If I post something on Instagram or Facebook, it may get traction for 1-3 days. However, on Pinterest I have pins I've uploaded years ago that people are still repining. The life of a pin can be 1-3 years or even longer! Top 3 Reasons to Use Pinterest It's a visual search engine Content performs for much longer than any other platform Pinterest gives you the ability to link your website and other websites directly to each pin Tips for Setting Up Your Business Profile If you have a personal account, you can create a business account that's attached to it or convert your personal to a business account. Having a business account gives you access to so many more features that help you grow your account and your business. Make sure the profile photo is a high quality image of you or your brand's logo. Avoid using selfies. Make sure the description under your profile photo clearly explains who you are, what you do, and what you have to offer your viewers. Make sure to link and verify your website in your profile as well. Setting Up Your Boards I would suggest starting with 5 boards. Before choosing your first 5 boards, think about the type of content people would search to find that information. As a brand and web designer, I started with the following boards: -Web Design Inspiration -Branding Inspiration -Logo Design Inspiration -Color Palette Inspiration -Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners -Business Card Inspiration See photo below or check out my Pinterest here . I chose these boards since they would be a great place to post my own content as well as pin other creator's content. As you start pinning content, you'll come up with so many more ideas for boards. It's important to keep the top 6, the main type of content you want users to find. What to Know Before You Start Pinning When pinning content it's important to remember that Pinterest prioritizes users that are uploading their own content, as well as saving other user's pins. Remember the 80/20 rule. If you upload 2 of your own pins, be sure to save 8 pins from other creators. Don't just pin random posts, make sure you're saving content that actually relates to your content. This will help the algorithm understand the type of searches you want to show up in most! You can upload your own pins or save photos from other websites directly to your own Pinterest boards. Before you upload something to Pinterest, do a little market research by searching for that type of content. Look at what comes up in the search bar. This will show you relevant keywords you could use in your pin's description to show up higher in search results. Pinterest also prioritizes users that are on the platform regularly. Just like any other platform, consistency is really important if you want to generate consistent traffic to your website. This is definitely enough to get you started. If you're looking to get more ideas or a better understanding of Pinterest, I would highlight suggest Skillshare. It's an online learning platform with courses on this as well as many other marketing and business tools. Ohn Mar Win's course on Skillshare specifically, is a great course to take your Pinterest strategy to the next level. Click here to get Skillshare for free for your first 30 days! How to Create Graphics for Pinterest Step 1: Login to Canva, Click Create, then select social media and the Pinterest size pin. If you don’t see that you can also just choose ‘custom size’ and then set the size to 1000px X 1500px Step 2: (For Using Templates) By selecting the correct size, you’ll see some cute templates to the left that you can tweak and swap out for your own branding! Simply click a template you like and it will display it on the board. Step 3: (For creating a simple custom design. This is sometimes faster than trying to make a template work for you.) To create a quick simple design yourself, set the background to black, then go into elements and find the frame option. Make sure the frame covers the entire black background. Grab a free photo from Canva or upload your own. Then turn the transparency down so your black background comes through. Add some text and your logo and here’s the result! Bonus points for including your website at the bottom. Google’s bots can read text on photos, so adding the site link is great for brand building. How to Post on Pinterest Step 1: Make sure to change the image name to your brand name before uploading to Pinterest. This sets the image alt text and makes the image more discoverable online. Step 2: Login to Pinterest, Click Business Hub, then select “Create Pin” Step 3: Upload your image, add a title (make sure to include the topic as well as the brand name), Add a description (you can just copy content from the website), make sure to include the brand name in the description, adding keywords is optional, make sure to link to the direct page or post, add it to a board (also optional), if you find tags that are relevant add them, if not skip. Either schedule the pin to post or hit publish to post immediately. That’s it! SEO TIP: Posting a pin with a link to a new blog post or new page on your website is great for SEO. It will increase the chance of the page being indexed. (Indexed simply means Google chose to add it to their index, making the content more discoverable online!) Frequently Asked Pinterest Questions: Q: How often should I post? A: It's best to use the 80/20 rule for this. For ever 2 pins you upload, save 8 pins from other creators. Once a day would be incredible, but think quality over quantity! Q: What are the best times to post? A: Since Pinterest pins tends to perform at a much longer rate (think 1-3 years) than Instagram or Facebook (1-3 days), I've found that the timing of when a pin is first posted doesn't matter as much. The pins that end up gaining the most traction, don't get traction because they were posted at a specific time. They get traction because the title and description have keywords that users are already searching for. Q: Should I post similar content or a variety of content? A: Refer to the section above about boards for this. Once you've come up with at least 5 boards, start creating content that relate to those topics. Then pin other creator's content that relate to those boards as well. The more focused you can get in your posting and pinning strategy, the easier it will be for Pinterest algorithms to understand the focus and prioritize you in search results. Q: Should I post the same content as other platforms or different? A: Pinterest posts perform best when they're sized according to the Pinterest platform. Pinterest says a post sized at 1000 x 1500 pixels is optimal. This doesn't mean it has to be entirely new though. If you have a graphic you created with Canva for another platform, you can resize it to the Pinterest dimensions and use to post. I never recommend cross posting the same content across every single platform, because this means most people will just follow you on their favorite platform. If they know you're creating different content for each platform it gives them a reason to follow you on all of them! Q: What's the best way to get started? A: Ohn Mar Win's Skillshare course includes an amazing 14 day challenge. Here's how it goes: 1. Profile Picture & Description 2. Label boards descriptively and put best 9 boards at the top 3. Create pins with 2:3 ratio if possible 4. Add description and use several keywords 5. Pin from your website or IG 6. Try to pin at least 10 pins a day with 2 of them being your own 7. Pin other content at least once a day for 14 days 8. Take screenshots every few days to see if that 'monthly viewers' figure shifts Once a lot of this is completed, all you'll have to do is pin 8 posts from other creators and uploading 2 of your own pins each day. When saving pins remember, you can pin from websites and Instagram too!

Never underestimate the power of meeting other people in your industry. Gloria and I were introduced in December of 2023 by a mutual friend who felt like we were on similar journeys. To be honest, I was a little apprehensive to meet another web designer. Most of the designers I had met in the past were more motivated by money, than actually helping people, but Gloria turned out to be very different, thank goodness! Gloria and I met on zoom and we ended up talking for over two hours. She showed me her work and for the first time I was impressed and inspired by her skills, attention to detail, and most importantly her desire to help others. I knew right away she was someone I wanted to work with! After a few months of collaborating together, we formed two divisions. These two divisions have been working seamlessly together for over a year now. Her company, Glow Up is the web design division and my company, Create and Collab has been entirely focused on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). In the last, almost two years, her team has been in charge of a number of new web design projects for small business owners.  What I love about her company, Glow Up Web Design , is that it’s not only about the clients, it’s about designing a website that appeals to the client’s target audience. This is something a lot of companies don’t focus on, but Gloria knows what matters. When you reach out to us about creating a website, we ask a lot of questions to better understand what your goals are. Then the website is created with your target audience in mind, so that you’re able to use this website as a tool to grow your business. We’re not just creating something beautiful, we’re bringing to life an asset that helps your business GROW! Since Gloria’s process is so thorough, I asked her to write a blog post that explains it all. She did not disappoint! Just like her work, the blog post is detailed and helps you understand exactly what to expect once things get started! Glow Up Web Design Process The Ultimate Website Glow Up: Design and Redesign Process and Strategy by Gloria MacGillis "Every business needs a website, but not every business has a great  website. A great website is like an efficient storefront with a reliable, low-maintenance employee who consistently delivers results. It efficiently communicates information, looks professional, and seamlessly provides goods or services—all while reflecting your brand identity. At Glow Up, we believe that a great website is built on two pillars: Branding  and User Experience (UX) . That’s why we focus on crafting websites that not only look stunning, but also provide an intuitive and enjoyable experience for your customers. This also helps build trust and drive conversions. We also have partnerships with industry experts in business coaching, SEO and Google Ads because we understand the value of collaboration. By working with experts who are passionate about their fields, we ensure our clients receive top-tier support in every aspect of their online marketing. At Glow Up, we’re dedicated to helping your business shine in the digital world. Step 1: Meet with Our Business Coach Starting or running a small business can feel overwhelming—whether you’re just getting started or have been at it for a while.  That’s why we offer optional business coaching with Sue Mohr from The Inner Vizion  as part of select web design packages. Sue meets you exactly where you are and helps guide you toward where you want to be. Many business owners launch their ventures out of passion—but passion alone doesn’t always translate into a thriving business. That’s completely normal. Working with Sue before  you begin your web design project gives you a significant advantage: it helps you gain clarity around your vision, align your business goals with your personal values, and understand how to position yourself effectively through your website. Step 2: Material Gathering for Web Design Whether you are designing a new website or re-designing, take this as an opportunity to organize or reorganize your content. At Glow Up, we provide our clients with a starting point text template  and a Google folder  to drop all of your media assets into. This is the most crucial step to set your project up for success. Our team can help guide you or even provide re-writing services as part of your package or as a separate service, however, as much as we can help guide, you are the soul of your business, and your input will make a huge impact. Text Content In some cases, a business owner may struggle with text content due to a belief that they aren't great writers. If you are comfortable with AI, we highly recommend you try it out. If not, we can help. Typically, there are a few different types of problems you might find yourself facing: Too many thoughts and ideas:  In this case, try not to stress about structure, or which page this info would be on your website, just write it all down, and organize it later. Once you feel pretty good, let your designer know, and we can organize it with you together.   Don't know what to write:   This is a pretty common situation, and this is why we provide you with the text template. Within the template, you'll see some helpful pointers and articles to help generate ideas. You will also see a section to list any inspirational websites you like. Looking at what your competitors are doing might also help generate more ideas. I have it all in my head but just can't seem to put it on paper:  If this is the case, our team will do a recorded interview with you by asking you some questions. According to your answers, we'll put together the content for you. This is the last resort as it doesn't happen all that often and it usually is a separate service, which will incur an hourly charge. With your text developed, our designer will read your content thoroughly. Our main goal is to make sure your text content is: Suitable for your target audience:  Some business owners struggle to define their target audience, if you do too, that's totally ok. We can help you with that. Easy to understand:  We make sure to understand your content completely so your customers will understand it too. We'll ask questions and help complete your content if we don't understand after reading your draft. We approach it as your first-time customer who is excited to learn about your business and our goal is to make your product or services appeal to as many customers as possible for maximum conversion. Language consistency:  We make sure you are using consistent language when describing similar products or services so your user will not be confused. Answers questions:  We took on your project because we believe in what you do. As your one of your biggest fans, we are curious and we want to know as much as possible. We will arrange your content strategically throughout your website. Answering frequently asked questions does give your website the opportunity to generate more traffic. This also helps free up your time, so website viewers can find answers any time they want. Well organized:  We make sure to understand the structure of all the information so it can help us with the next steps of web design. Media Assets We will share a Google folder with you to store all your content in. Again, organization is key to ensuring efficient communication. A Google folder is just like a folder on your computer. You can create folders within folders as well as rename files. If you have a lot of files, we highly recommend spending some time organizing them, so we don't bother you a lot for clarifications along the way. If you have most of your files on your smartphone, we suggest downloading the Google Drive app so you can upload them directly from your phone. Then, use your computer to organize it. Typically, we'll see a structure like this: Current Branding Assets: If we are designing or redesigning your logo and branding, please feel free to upload any sources of inspiration and current assets. We will upload your new assets once we are done. Photos relevant to your business:  For example, team headshots, facility photos, product pictures, etc... Don't worry too much about decorative images as we'll be looking for what's suitable for your business from free stock photo sources. If nothing is suitable, we can look at some paid options. (P.S. They're usually fairly inexpensive.) Videos:  (If you have to host them only through your website). Otherwise, hosting them on YouTube or Vimeo is a great way to improve site loading speed. If you decide to upload them on one of those platforms, just include the link to each video in the text file. PDFs:  We usually don't recommended displaying PDFs on websites because they are not SEO or mobile friendly, however, if it's a lead magnet  or it actually requires people to download files, we are all about it. Step 3: Gathering Inspiration On a big digital whiteboard, we'll look at screenshots of all your inspirations and our findings that we think you'd love. Taking a look at each inspirations in-depth and pooling all great ideas together. At this point, we should also have all your content organized and put together your menu system to make sure your site structure is easy to understand and navigate. In the case of too many items, our team might need to perform mind mapping first, and/or a card sorting exercise. Step 4: Wireframe Development What is a wireframe? A wireframe is a simple, visual blueprint of a website that outlines its structure, layout, and key elements without focusing on design details like colors or images. It serves as a guide to map out where things like menus, buttons, text, and images will go, helping to plan the user experience and functionality. Wireframes are essential for aligning business owners and designers early in a project, ensuring everyone agrees on the framework before moving into detailed design and development. How is it presented? After gathering all of your inspiration and understanding the general structure of the website, our designer will create wireframes for all your major pages. This will be added to the same whiteboard where we’ve collaborated so far, bringing everything together in one place. The wireframe serves as a visual blueprint, allowing us to clearly see how the website will function and flow. We encourage your feedback during this stage—it’s the perfect opportunity to collaborate, brainstorm, and even spark new ideas. Once we present the wireframe and refine it based on our discussion, we’ll send you the updated version and await any additional input you may have. Step 5: Desktop Building and Presentation Once the wireframes are finalized, our team will begin building the actual website—exciting, right? This step typically takes 1-2 weeks, though larger websites or those requiring custom coding may take a bit longer. Don’t worry—our designer will keep you informed and let you know exactly when the presentation is scheduled. During the development phase, you can sit back, relax, and let us handle the heavy lifting. At the presentation, we’ll walk you through every page of the website, ensuring everything meets your expectations. Take as much time as you need to provide feedback—your input is essential to making sure the final product is perfect for you. Step 6: Revision and Testing Revision Hours When you signed up with Glow Up, you received a set number of revision hours. These hours begin counting after the presentation and cover both communication and the actual revision work. For about 97% of our clients, only a few hours are needed, but we include extra hours as a buffer, just in case. If your revisions require more time than allotted, any additional hours will be added to your next invoice. The purpose of revision hours is to maintain balance—since we’ve already spent a considerable amount of time in the planning and design stages, our first draft is typically 95% aligned with your vision. Revision hours help establish boundaries, ensuring our designers are compensated for any significant additional work. To make the process as smooth as possible, we’ll send you a feedback link where you can leave comments directly on the website, ensuring clear and effective communication. Testing It’s important to note that revision hours apply only to aesthetic changes and minor content updates. After the revisions, we’ll move on to testing all functionalities to ensure your website performs flawlessly at launch. If this is a brand-new website, we’ll set you up with hosting, connect your domain name, and perform additional tests. For redesigns, some testing may need to wait until your domain name is connected. Rest assured, we’ll ensure everything is running smoothly before going live! Step 7: Mobile Development Once the desktop version of your website is finalized, we’ll move on to mobile development—an essential step since 60% or more of users will visit your website on smartphones, compared to 38% on desktops and only 2% on tablets. Keep in mind these numbers can vary depending on your target audience, industry, and location. Glow Up ensures your website is fully responsive across all viewports, delivering a seamless user experience regardless of device. This phase typically takes about half a week or longer, depending on the complexity of the design. Once mobile development is complete, we’ll send you another feedback link so you can review and request any necessary changes. At this stage, you should have plenty of revision hours left, but if additional work is required, any extra hours will be added to your next invoice. Step 8: On-Page SEO What is SEO Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving a website’s visibility on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo to attract more organic (non-paid) traffic. It involves optimizing many elements of a website, including content, keywords, metadata, images, and overall site structure, to make it more relevant and appealing to search engine algorithms. SEO goes hand in hand with user experience (UX). Even if your website ranks number 1 on search engines, poor user experience—such as slow loading speeds, difficult navigation, or irrelevant content—can cause users to leave quickly. This high bounce rate signals to search engines that your website isn’t meeting user expectations, which can lead to lower rankings over time. (High bounce rate simply means that someone discovered your website, clicked the link, stayed on your site for a short period of time, and "bounced" back off your site because your content didn't seem to meet their needs/expectation.) On the flip side, a website that focuses on both SEO and user experience has a significant advantage. Within a few months to a year, your website can potentially outrank websites that have existed for over a decade because they neglected SEO. By providing valuable content and a seamless experience, search engines are more likely to recognize your website as a reliable resource, rewarding it with better visibility and higher rankings. What does Glow Up do for SEO? Since we are so thorough during the initial content phase, you can feel confident that your content is relevant to your target audience, answers the right questions, and encourages visitors to stay on your site and increase the chance of conversions. We are extremely passionate about your businesses long-term success, which is why we offer a strategic keyword research phase. This includes finding keywords that you realistically have the chance to rank for, in time. Our SEO specialist identifies and implements the use of 5+ major keywords, strategically placing them in the areas where they will have the most impact on your website’s performance. If these changes affect the website’s copy, we’ll reach out to let you know so everything aligns. If you’ve opted for a package that includes advanced keyword research, our SEO specialist will go even deeper to find keywords with the right search intent, high search volume, and low competition. This will help increase the chance of your website ranking higher and attracting the right traffic. However, it’s important to remember that SEO is a long-term strategy, and it can take anywhere from a few months to a year for your website to actually rank in search. This process is largely determined by the search engine algorithms, the industry you're in, the amount of people searching for these terms, and the competition from other websites. If you’d like to dive deeper into how SEO works check out Abigail's series on How to Increase Organic Website Traffic . She’s an emerging expert in this field and offers a lot of free knowledge through this 4 part, weekly series. What if my site already has organic traffic, but I need a redesign? SEO is a critical aspect of your website—after all, what's the point of building a site if no one can find it? At Glow Up, we make sure your content is relevant, concise, and easy to understand, which is a key part of SEO. We’ve also ensured that your website is user-friendly and mobile-responsive—another essential element for success. Now, we’re diving into the technical part, which is the behind-the-scenes work that you won’t necessarily see, but it is just as important. For brand-new websites, this technical piece can be performed after the website is launched—once hosting is set up and the domain is connected. We know how excited you are to start promoting it as soon as possible. For website redesign projects, things can look a little different. If your current website is generating a decent amount of traffic, there are a number of technical things we need to consider before redesigning. Since this process is different for each client's site, we can discuss in more detail on our initial calls. Step 9: Site Launch and Next Steps Congratulations on your new website! 🎉 Now, take a deep breath, kick back, and relax—just kidding! While launching your website is a huge accomplishment, there’s still more work to be done. Again, think of your website as your digital storefront, like having an automated employee providing exceptional service and answering any questions your visitors might have. Just like a real store, your website still needs regular maintenance, ongoing marketing efforts, and possibly some ads to keep it fresh, relevant, and continuously attracting the right audience. If you want to take a vacation, though, that’s totally okay too! After all, you’re the boss! Another perk of being in charge! But take a moment to celebrate—seriously, you’ve earned it. 😊 At Glow Up, we offer maintenance plans as well as social media marketing, and we can go over all your options when you're ready. As for SEO and ads, we’ve got some great recommendations that we can discuss once you’re all settled. One step at a time! Again, huge congratulations on completing your project! 🎉 "

Have you been wanting to use Google Ads for your small business? If so, you're going to want to read this first! I asked my friend Grayson who owns his own digital marketing agency if he would be willing to host a Q+A video and I'm so excited he said yes! Him and his team have worked with a number of my web design clients and have really helped them see success. I'm honored he took time out of his Friday night to jump on and answer these frequently asked questions! Let's dive in! In case you'd like to listen/watch this Grayson and I recorded it on video too! Why don’t you use the “near me” Keyword when running Google Ads? Google is smart enough to automatically connect the keywords you're using in your ads to users who could be searching it in your selected area. Geo-targeting settings are an independent task that generally run on the campaign level. This means you adjust Geo-targeting settings for each campaign you run on Google ads. Then, once you input all your location settings correctly, Google ads can connect the near me keyword directly to the location settings you've set up. Can’t you just set a maximum Google ad spend limit, and why must you monitor the budget daily? Oh my goodness, trust me. I wish we could set a maximum spending limit in Google ads; it would make my job much more manageable. With that said, the short answer is no. Unfortunately, you cannot set a spending limit through your Google Ads. Google Advertising works in terms of a daily budget for your campaigns. Google also recommends that if you place a daily budget, you should be prepared to spend at most two times your daily budget on any campaign or, in monthly terms, 30.4 times your daily budget.  We monitor the budget daily, because Google always wants you to spend more money on your advertisements without realizing it. To hear Google’s side, they have provided several resources, equations, and information about budgets and their operation. That is linked here . Although you're unable to set a spending limit, Google does have a section devoted to “What happens when served costs exceed daily or monthly spending limits” That generally provides further insights into how Google ad budgets work. Can I advertise X, Y, or Z thing… for me, it was (Religious/political or, as Google calls it, “Identity and belief” and Stem cell /regenerative medicine pharmaceutical products, which Google calls “Sensitive interest categories.”) Before anyone considers running an ad through Google ads, you must check Google's Personalized advertising policies  to ensure your ads comply with their systems. If you think to yourself, “Oh, I'm fine. I have a Google Ads expert in my corner, so there is no need to review the policies because they'll do it for me,” I strongly recommend against this way of thinking; here’s why: Google is constantly putting out updated information, and we as Google ads experts make it our mission to stay on top of the latest news updates and strategies to implement into your Google ad campaigns. Before you start pouring money into Google ads, I strongly recommend spending time researching to ensure that your product/service will comply with Google ads first. Then, double-check with your Google ads expert for any questions or information you want to bring to their attention. What are conversions? What are the best ways to track and make conversions? How do I send my conversion CLEAN data to Google Ads and Google Analytics for proper tracking? These are the questions I frequently ask by other people in my industry. What I mean by that is that other Google Ads experts running advertising campaigns usually do not know the answers to each of the questions above. While they may know the answers to one or two, I rarely find Google Ads experts who effectively leverage conversions within their advertising campaigns on Google. As an official Google advertising partner,  I want to offer my perspective on entering the vast ocean of conversions. At a very high level, conversions, also known as key events in Google Analytics, are actions you want your users to take after they click on an ad. For example, if you're an e-commerce business, the action could be purchasing a product or submitting a lead form if you're looking for lead generation. Whatever action you want users to take after they land on your website can be considered a conversion, and you can make as many conversions as you would like! To touch on the remaining questions without going too long, the answers all stem from a third Google platform known as the Google Tag Manager. You can adequately set up the Google tag manager and fully understand its systems to connect to both Google ads and Google Analytics. The answers to each of these questions will come shortly after. I bring this up because these are questions that other Google Ads Agencies, even on a corporate level, are continuously asking and searching for answers to. These are Google Ads Agencies that are spending tens of thousands of dollars monthly for their clients WITHOUT THE PROPER CONVERSION TRACKING IN PLACE! So, if you're running Google ads, even through a third party, ensure they know what they're doing regarding your conversions; otherwise, they could cost you more money than they’re generating. Google ads is an investment, but if set up correctly, it will bring an incredible return! What content, visuals, and resources will I need to run an advertising campaign on Google Ads? This varies deeply depending on the type of advertising campaign you are running. With that said, there will always be one piece of content consistent across all Google advertising campaigns: headlines and descriptions...Headlines and descriptions are a Cornerstone of your campaign and will be the main selling point for each of your Google advertising campaigns. Hence, it's essential to remember that while quality is critical, quantity will push your campaigns to the next level. I say this because Google loves data! So, the more headlines and descriptions you can give them, the more variety within those headlines and descriptions, the better they will be able to advertise your campaign effectively. Additionally, Google will reward this behavior by providing insights on which of your headlines and descriptions are performing well and which are performing poorly, allowing you to swap out assets with better-performing ones. I also want to touch on what we typically do in our process for Google Ads content. Usually, we run the Performance Max campaign, which means advertising on multiple Google platforms, such as YouTube and Display. This means that we are leveraging ALL and less tapped-into markets with different content ranging from logos to videos. This is wonderful for your advertising campaign because you can meet your consumers/potential leads on whatever platform they use online. We recommend leveraging this content when we typically run advertising campaigns for anyone. This includes videos, images, logos, headlines, descriptions, and long-form headlines. This wide range of content allows Google to pull from each category to craft the perfect ad for your consumers or potential leads.

Writing the about content for your website can seem difficult at first. People buy from you when they know, like, and trust you and/or your brand. Anytime I’ve bought something from someone it’s either because I’ve wanted to support their business and/or the product is going to solve a problem for me. What compels you to visit someone else's about page? What are you looking for? Is it to learn more about the history of their company or is it because you want to make sure you can trust them? Let's Dive in! How to Write an About Page for a Website If people buy from you when they know, like, and trust you, how can you write your about page in a way that facilitates that? Start it off by sharing why you do what you do. What makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning and serve your customers? Who is the client or reader? What kind of problems are they facing? What makes you excited to solve the problem for them? What experiences do you have in solving this problem? Share briefly about why you started your business and why you’re excited to help solve a problem for them. Chances are, you provide a service or product that someone can probably get somewhere else. There’s always going to be other people and companies that do exactly what you do, so focus on your specialties. What specifically makes your business special? Highlighting these things will help clients remember you and differentiate you from all the rest of the companies they're looking at too. "People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it." -Simon Sinek Want to know the difference between talking about WHAT you do vs. WHY you do it? Check this out: What to Share/What Not to Share Sharing your story is important, but it’s also important to respect their time and get to the point. This might sound harsh, but no one reads websites anymore, they scan them . They’re simply looking to see if they’ll like and trust you. If you have what it takes to solve their problem and share clearly, what the next step is, they are much more likely to make a purchase. When it comes to writing your story, think outside the box. What specific parts of your story will help them like, know and trust you? I know I keep repeating this, but everything in this section needs to point back to those 3 things. If it doesn’t, you may not need to include it. They don’t need the entire history of your company or you’re entire life story. It doesn’t have to be very long, the most successful about pages explain this in 3-4 paragraphs or less. Make it Clear and Concise The about page isn’t just about sharing a story, it’s about encouraging your viewer to take action. Once you’ve shared your why and what qualifies you to solve the problem, it’s time to follow up with a call to action. Use the next section to share that. Do they need to request a quote? Do they need to visit your shop? What’s the next step you want them to take? Web Design Tip: Want to increase your leads and sales? Be extremely clear about what the next step is. I like to do this by including my main call to action as a button in the header of my website. See the request a quote button in the top right? See how you can scroll up and down on the page and the logo, menu, and call to action button never leave your view? That's a strategic design decision to make the next step for visitors extremely clear. So many people are too focused on having a flashy or eye catching website, but they tend to miss the obvious things – like making your call to action clear. Not making the call to action obvious would be like having a shop and hiding the cash register. Bonus Points: Include a Video I have a client that hired a videographer to make a video that explains what they do and why they do it. She hears from customers all the time that browsed other sites that provide the exact same thing, but they ultimately end up working with her because the website and video helped them get to know her and her family. (This client raises bernedoodle puppies and are very close friends of mine.) The website is easy to navigate, explains the next steps clearly, and the video helps attach a face and story to the brand name. If you don’t have the budget to hire a videographer, you can always use your phone to record a video too. Start by making a list of points that you want to share that will help them know, like, and trust you. Jot down some ideas and then prioritize the order in which you want to share them. Narrow down the topics for each paragraph and just start writing. This is your business and you get to decide how you want to represent yourself. How much are you willing to share? What information is really going to drive your story home? Brainstorm ideas, prioritize them, and start writing! P.S. Feeling a tad overwhelmed by your to do list? Anytime I feel like this, I brain dump all my ideas on a sheet of paper and then prioritize them using the kanban method. This makes things so much simpler. Check the blog post How to Prioritize and Stay on Task for relief from the overwhelm. In this post I highlight how to map out your goals, how to stay organized, how to prioritize tasks, and the psychology behind decision making, plus how to make a plan that works specifically for you! Owning a business can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. I'm here to share resources to make it more fun and satisfying. Consider this my high five to you! Being a business owner takes courage, discipline, and belief. Obviously, if you've read this far, you're serious about it. Now it's time to start writing ;)

Taxes can be one of the most overwhelming parts of owning a business. Everyone is constantly saying, "It's a write off!" but if you haven't kept track of all those expenses, you'll never end up actually writing if off. I've been there, the first year in my business I had a lot of expenses, but I didn't keep track of them. Once tax season arrived it was a nightmare trying to decipher which expenses were personal and which were business expenses. In this blog post I'm sharing 4 secrets to keep track of write offs and how to make the process easier in the future. I'll be covering: What is a write off and how does it work? What expenses can I write off? How do I find my write offs? How can I track and organize my write offs easily? If you're sick of being overwhelmed, todays the day we make it simple! Let's dive in! 1. What is a Tax Write Off When I started my business I didn't fully understand how a write off really worked. Once tax season arrived, I realized there were a lot of expenses I had that I wouldn't have had without owning my own business. For example, going out for coffee or lunch with potential clients, online subscriptions, website costs, business cards, shipping supplies, office supplies, the list goes on. All of these are business expenses. I realized, the more write offs I had kept track of the less money I was paying out in taxes. I spent hours looking over my bank statements and sifting through past emails to see how many other write offs I had. It took hours, ultimately I ended up giving up. I knew there were more, but I didn't have time to spend hours looking for them. From that point on, I knew I had to come up with a better system to keep track of them throughout the year. That way once taxes we’re due I wasn't spending hours looking through every expense for the last year. Once I came up with this system I felt so much more confident. I met with my financial planner to go over the system with him and make sure I was on the right track. He was impressed. He told me he hadn't seen anyone keep track this well in years. I was onto something! Once the next tax season came around, I felt so much more prepared and submitted everything in less than an hour or so. What a breeze! Before we talk through how to track write offs. Let's dive into what expenses are actually considered write offs. 2. What Expenses Can I Write Off? It's always good to keep expenses as low as possible, but for the expenses you can't do away with keeping track of them is going to keep more money in your pocket come tax season! So what expenses can you write off? Here's a list to get you started: Advertising -Business cards, flyers, and newspaper ads -Internet, television, and radio advertising -Advertising at a charitable or community event Car + Truck -Mileage tracked during business drives I use an app called Mile IQ for tracking my mileage. It’s so simple, I swipe left for personal drives and right for business drives and at the end of the month I can email the pdf to myself. This pdf includes every business drive on it. It lists the amount of business miles tracked as well as the amount of money all those drives will be worth as a write off! The app is less than $7 a month and last year I tracked over $1,500 in business drives - definitely worth it. Plus that monthly cost for the app is a write off ;) WIN WIN. Legal or Professional Services -Fees paid for tax advice for your business -Feeds paid for the preparation of the tax forms for your business -Legal fees paid to an attorney that were ordinary and necessary to the operation of your business Local Transportation -Taxis -Public Transportation -Car-sharing services Business Meals and Entertainment -Meals while traveling overnight on business -A business lunch with a customer or client -Refreshments given out at an open house Office Expenses -A seperate phone line or internet service -Office supplies and postage -Maintenance and cleaning expenses Supplies -Merchandise bought for sale to customers -Material used to produce goods or assemble good for sale -Print cartridges and printer paper -Cleaning material and supplies -Professional books, instruments, and equipment if normally used up within one year Taxes or Licenses -Federal highway use tax -Property tax on a business property Charitable Contributions Bonus Tip: Keep this list in the notes app on your phone so you'll always know whether or a not an expense can count as a write off! Here's an article from Turbo Tax with a full list of write offs. 3. How Do I Find Tax Write Offs First, if you don't have a checking account for your business, I highly suggest you open one! It makes it so much easier if all business expenses come out of the same account. If you don't have one yet and you're still spending all your business expenses with your personal checking account, don't fret, this is where I was too when I first created this system. Whether your expenses all come out of the same account, or one account this system can work for you. To make this simple, let's start with highlighting your business expenses on your bank statement. You can have them mailed to you, print them online, or go into your bank and request they print them out for you. Let's just start with last month's business expenses. Now you've got your bank statement in hand, grab a highlighter and highlight any business expenses from the last 30 days. 4. How Do I Track and Organize Write Offs I like to use Google Drive to keep track of receipts and transactions. For this you'll need to have a gmail account. Once you sign in, open Google Drive . Create a new folder and label it "Write Offs". Within that folder you'll want to create a folder for each month of the year. Within each month you'll need a folder for receipts. Now open a Google Sheets Doc, this is simply Google's version of excel. By setting this up you'll be able to track your expenses anywhere! First, open a new google sheet and add the following columns: Receipts, Date, Amount, Category, Item. The 'Receipt' column is where you can track whether you have the receipt. The 'Date' column will be the date the money came out of your account. The 'Amount' column is the total amount you spent on the transaction. The 'Category' column will be from one of the categories above. The 'Item' column allows you to write in more details about the transaction. Here's an example of how I set it up: As you categorize each transaction make sure you've got the receipt for it saved in your receipts folder for that month. I like to use the Scannable app . This allows me to scan the receipt and upload to Google Drive. Now that you've got the Google sheet set up, look through the past month's expenses you highlighted on your bank statement. Type up each transactions information and keep going until you finish for that month! And that's it! If you're tracking your write offs like this each month, all you'll have to do at the end of the year is add up each category and you've got every single write off with receipts to prove it! This is a great place to start as you're growing your own small business or side hustle. As your business grows and your income increases it's very important to find a tax professional you trust. My friend Kele , does all of this professionally. Once my business got to a certain point, I really wanted to make sure I was having someone else submit everything. I still keep track of all my expenses, but it feels good to know it's being submitted by a professional! If you're looking for help or simply someone you can reach out to for questions, I'd highly recommend Kele ! Here's an overview of what we covered: Highlight the transactions that are write offs Type those up in a spreadsheet & categorize Make sure to upload your receipts for each transaction Don't forget to check if you need to pay quarterly taxes. If you're required to and you don't, you'll end up paying a fine when it comes time to filing your taxes. DISCLAIMER: I am not a licensed CPA, tax attorney, or certified to give tax advice. This is not legal accounting advice. This is purely what I’ve learned and found that’s worked best for me.

I’ve been keeping a secret for some time now. Building websites has always been my main focus, but helping clients increase their website traffic to see growth in their business has been on my heart big time. For the last 15 months I’ve been learning, developing, and implementing a brand new service – SEO. In March of 2023 I approached one of my website clients about being my guinea pig for a few new things I wanted to practice. Her and I have become really close friends over the last fews years and there were a few areas of her business I knew I could help with. Specifically, project management and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). When I approached her about possibly becoming a monthly retainer client for a few months she was thrilled. Long story short we’ve been making a lot of progress, so after those first few months, we decided to keep going. Creating systems that generate consistent and manageable growth takes a lot of time, but it’s been sooooo worth the effort. It’s been an honor to get to be a part of the behind the scenes and truly understand how things work inside her business. Deeply understanding the ins and outs of how a company runs is so interesting to me, I love learning how things work! There are always small improvements that can be made each day, that in time, can create sustainability, consistency, and most importantly growth. The success we’ve seen has me deeply excited about the future. Helping small business owners has always been the driving force in everything I do, so adding SEO as a service feels really exciting! More details to come. Update from January 2025: I realize this blog post without any data is really vague. This particular client was one of the very first ones I worked with when I started my business in 2019. I designed her logo and branding and built her website. After that I helped maintain the website, but we originally didn't have any SEO goals because it wasn't something I knew really well yet. I had dabbled in it a bit, but I honestly didn't know what I was doing yet. Here is where her website traffic was when we started. (March 2023: Organic monthly traffic on average was about 1,075 clicks.) Here's where we are now. Her average organic traffic now is about 18,000+ clicks each month. This is probably one of my greatest and proudest achievements, because I know how much this has impacted their business for the better. The amount of growth they've seen over the last two years has been significant. I'm honestly just honored to have gotten to be a part of it. If you are starting a business and you're not sure what to invest in first, start with a simple logo and branding and a strategically built website with on-page SEO. Remember every industry is different. Supply and demand play a huge factor as well as competition. Regardless though, this should be a great representation of how important it is to have a strategically built online presence. Interested in learning how to increase organic traffic for your own small business website? I spent month writing and developing a 4 part weekly series that breaks down the action items you can implement to start getting more people to your website. This series includes proven strategies to boost your website traffic with SEO. Learn the actionable steps to optimize your website, rank higher in search results, and attract more website visitors.

Creating business cards can be an overwhelming task, even if you are creative! If you’re not, it can feel like an even more daunting task. I say this to say, it's okay if it seems like just another thing to learn or do, but that's why I wrote this post. In this post, I'm going to cover where you can design your cards (with templates!), how to design them, and how to make this process much simpler and fun. Let's dive in! Step 1: How to plan what info will go on your card Step 2: Which platform you want to design them on Step 3: How to get started in the designing process Step 4: How to download your files and order them! How to Make Business Cards in Canva Step 1: Planning the Business Card Design (aka Wireframes) Getting started can sometimes feel like the most overwhelming task. If you’re thinking, where do I start? You’re going to love this first step! We’re going to start with the basics. Grab a pencil and a piece of copy paper. I personally like a completely blank canvas, but if you’re less creative or very detail oriented, grab a piece of notebook paper to keep your lines straighter. *Avoid using a ruler, as this first step doesn’t need to be perfect. This is just to get your ideas out. Think about who you’re going to be handing these to and what information you want them to have when you hand them your card. Before you sketch the business card, list out all the information you want on your card. Business Name/Logo Email Phone Number Slogan *Bonus points for adding a picture of yourself! Business cards get thrown away, but I’ve found when a business card has a photo of the business owner I tend to remember that business much more! I won’t bore you with my obsession of psychology and why we remember faces more, but I know you get the point ;) Here’s an example of my business card sketch: Step 2: Choose a Platform to Design Them In So you’ve got your sketch, now it’s time to put that into action! *If you skipped step one and just want to use a business card template we’ll cover that as well. I personally use Canva to design my business cards. I’ve designed business cards with Illustrator, but I always go back to Canva because they have so many incredible templates and ideas to pull from. Plus, if you’re not in the design industry, Canva is a much better investment. Once you create your Canva account, click "Create a Design" then search "Business Cards". You'll get a few different options as to sizing, but for the sake of this blog post we're going to keep it simple and click "Business Card". Once you click, "Business Card" this is the screen that will come up: You can browse through their templates on the left if you want to avoid designing it yourself. If you click one, you'll see that template display on the right. I would highly suggest swapping out the colors for your brand colors, swapping fonts to match yours, and adding your unique logo. This will ensure that your business card is unique to you and your business. Canva Pro does come with a lot more font options. If you don't have Canva yet, but you want to test it out before you pay, click or tap on this link to get their Pro version for free for your first 30 days! Step 3: Start the Design Process Browse through the templates on the left until you find one that seems like it could be a good fit. Then simply click on the template you like. Some have a front and back option, if they do, it will open both options and you can choose which you want to use. I chose a template that seems close to the sketch I originally came up with. If you know you want a photo for the background, simply click the background space and click the "trash" icon. This will get rid of the background. Once you delete the background, click "Elements" and find the "Grid" options. Select the full square button: After you click the square grid, it will fill the template on the left so that you can add your own image. After you've placed the section to add a photo, you'll want to click "Uploads" then "Upload Media" to upload a photo from your computer. If you don't have an image and want to search for one, click the "Photos" option. This will allow you to search for a professional photo to use. Canva Pro gives you access to so many beautiful photos to use! Once you've chosen your image or uploaded your own, simply click the image that was uploaded and it will display over your template like this: Obviously, we want this photo to fill the background and not just float over the top. To do that, simple click the photo and drag it around the template. Once the image element and photo link up, it will automatically make it the background like this: I know for sure I'm not going to want the other elements that are included in this template, so I'll just click each item one and a time and delete them. The next step is changing the text to your business name and your branded font. I personally have my logo file saved to my computer, so instead of typing in the business name I'm simply going to upload my transparent png logo file to Canva. Once that's uploaded, I'll delete the text. IMPORTANT: Before you drag over your logo file over like you did with the background image, you'll want to click the background image first and select the "Lock" icon. If you skip this step, it's going to replace your background image with the logo file and will look super funky. Once you've locked the background in place, simply click the logo file you uploaded and place it where you want it on the business card. Once it's in place, you can unlock the background file. As you can see, the background and the photo are clashing just a bit. I love the photo, but I don't want the logo and the background photo to seem like they're competing against each other. To make the photo lighter, I used the opacity tool to make the image more transparent. This allows the white background we started with to show through more. That way the main focus is the logo! (Note: If you want the image to be darker, you'll need to change the background from white to another color or black. You can also change the sizing of the photo. I ended up making the background image a little bigger so that the flying birds don't seem to be running into my logo. See below.) Now we're making some progress! From my sketch, I know I want my slogan on the front in the bottom right corner. To add text, simply click the "Text" option, and select the "Add a little body of text". Swap out the wording, change the font to your branded font, change the size, and place it where it looks nice. Note: I made the text bold so it was easier to read. The text size is 6 on my end and came out legible once I had it printed. If you've made it this far, you've gotten a lot of great practice with Canva! Once you're ready to design the back of your business card you'll simply click the plus icon on the bottom so that you can start another file in the same template space: This will open another blank space. Either choose a background photo or simply click the white space and change the background color. I went with a cream background for the back of mine so that the text is really the only focus. Here's how it came out: Step 4: Download Your Files and Order The type of file you download really depends on where you're ordering them from. If you want to take it in to your local UPS store, they most likely will want a printable pdf. If you're ordering them on Vista Print, you'll want to download the files as PNG files. If you want to print with a local print company, they should be able to use a Printable PDF file as well. To download your files you're going to click the "Share" button on the top right. Then simply click the "Download" button. The default option is png, but if you need a different type of file, Click "PNG" and a list of other options, including the Print PDF version will come up. Once you've narrowed down the file type you need, simply click the purple "Download" button. BAM! Now you have business cards that you designed all by yourself. Not to mention that, if something changes and you want to tweak your business card, the file you worked on will always be stored in your Canva account! Here's how mine turned out after printing! Honestly, I can already tell I wish I would have made my website bold... also my perfectionist brain, wished there was more of a border on the left. BUT, it does not have to be perfect. It's okay to see places where improvement could be made. The important thing is to simply start, simply go for it, order a small amount and if you want to change it, know you always always can! Happy designing! -Abs :) Related Posts: How to Increase Brand Recognition How to Find Your Target Audience Creating a Peaceful Home Office Space Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you.

Branding dates back hundreds of years. It's what farmers used to mark their livestock as their own. Branding is, "The action of marking with a branding iron". The goal of branding today is very similar. 'Branding' your business into the minds of your target audience is what creating memorable marketing material is all about. The goal of branding is for your target audience to think of you when they need the solution that your business provides. A branding board simply provides a reference of the visual aspects of your business. This reference allows you or designers to keep their creations on brand. Keeping things 'on brand' is what increases the chance of people remember you. Keep reading to learn more about branding and to see some branding board examples too! It starts with a recognizable logo. The best way to build brand recognition is to find lots of creative places to use your logo and branding, consistently. A lot of designers, like myself will provide an entire branding package. A basic branding package includes the main logo, alternate logos, submarks, and a color palette. The alternate logos and submarks are smaller versions of the main logo, but still represent your brand overall. After a branding package is completed, you receive single files of each design created, usually this includes multiple files of the same element, but in different color variations, as well as a branding board to tie it all together. What is a Branding Board? A branding board gives you an at-a-glance look at your logos, alternate logos, submarks, color palette, and the fonts or typefaces that make up your brand's aesthetic and visual style. It's a great resource to keep near your workspace to use when you're creating content. Creating content can take many forms whether it's printed items like pamphlets, printed menus, ebooks or even online marketing like instagram stories, general graphics for social media, elements to use on your website or in email campaigns. Keeping all of your content 'on brand', means you're sticking to your specific color palette, fonts, and your logo elements consistently to build brand recognition. Obviously, the more consistent your marketing looks, the easier it is for people to remember you and your business. How does branding help people remember me? If you feel like people aren't remembering your brand or business, it could be because you're changing up the visual look too often. We see thousands of advertisements every single day, if your visual marketing doesn't have a consistent look and feel, it's very unlikely they will remember you. If you have the budget to hire a brand designer , I highly recommend it. If your business isn't making money yet, there's nothing wrong with starting with a placeholder logo and color palette. If you choose this route, choose to stay consistent in the color palette and fonts you choose as you start getting your first few customers. As you begin to grow your business, set some money aside to get a logo and branding for your business. If you're curious how to transition to the new branding, ask your designer. They will have some great ideas to make the transition smooth and effective. *Tip: If you work with a designer to create marketing material, make sure to send them your branding board if you already have one. This shows them exactly how to keep all your visual content on brand. What should be included in a Branding Board? Main logo, alternate logos and submarks are the basic elements that should be included in any branding project. Generally, the alternate logos and submarks represent the main logo, but are re-arranged a bit. You've probably seen these elements in other brands and not even realized it. The Chick-Fil-A logo is a great example. They have a few variations, one is typed out on one line with the first letter, C designed to look like a chicken. You'll also notice just the C by itself in other areas their entire logo may not fit. Having multiple elements like this allows them to showcase their brand in more versatile and creative ways. Why do you need a branding board? A branding board provides the visual guidelines needed to follow when creating unique content. This ensures anything you or someone else creates remains on brand so that it's memorable and recognizable. Branding isn't about having the prettiest logo, or the trendiest colors, it's about creating a consistent look that stands the test of time. If you're constantly using different fonts, colors, and images chances are, no one will remember or recognize your brand in the long run. When I first started my business, I was all over social media. I stayed consistent in the way I presented myself and even though some of my friends and family didn't need my services, they referred me to people that did. They remembered my business and what I offered, because what I posted had a consistent look, feel, and style. Brand recognition happens when you're using your branding consistently throughout social media, email marketing, business cards, flyers, emails, the list goes on! Branding Board Examples Here are a few branding projects I've had the pleasure of completing. A logo is simply one piece of the puzzle. As you can see in these branding board examples, the logo is the main element of the branding, the alternate logos, submarks, and color palette truly give the rest of the brand so much life. Alternate logos and submarks still visually represent your company; having multiple layouts just allows you to showcase them in a variety of places. The horizontal logos can look great on a business card or a website, but the vertical, stacked layout, or a circle can provide a better fit for profile photos, icons, or other small places. Having all of these options allows you to continue to build brand recognition in a more subtle way than always using the main logo everywhere. What are the numbers and letters underneath the colors? Those are the color codes or if you want to get really technical, they're called Web Safe RGB Color Codes. This means if you're creating marketing material that's going to go on the web you can type in that code to get your exact branding color. I encourage all my clients to use Canva ,  an amazing resource for creating marketing material. The codes underneath the photos work in Canva. Simply choose a template to work with, swap out the fonts for your branded fonts, swap out the colors for yours and BAM you've got a beautiful on brand image to use for your own marketing. Who do I hire for logo design and branding? Currently, Create & Collab. isn't offering branding services, but as of now we have an exclusive partner that we are referring all of our logo and branding projects too. Gloria, the owner of Glow Up Web Design, not only builds websites, but her and her team also offers logo design and branding services. Gloria, Owner of Glow Up and Abigail (me!) Meet Gloria MacGillis, the creative force behind the Glow Up Web Design Team. With an innate flair for crafting visually stunning websites and a commitment to delivering the best user experience, Gloria brings a unique touch to the digital landscape. Having personally coded her first website in 2017, she has since translated that expertise into crafting over 50 websites, earning glowing reviews and a reputation for timely deliveries. What sets Gloria apart is her ability to empathize with business owners, stepping into their shoes to understand their needs and unlock new possibilities for them. Her work is characterized by simplicity, beauty, professionalism, effectiveness, and user-friendliness. Every website she creates is a testament to her and her team's dedication to helping business owners harness their full potential. Gloria's passion extends beyond individual projects; it's a commitment to empowering business owners to not just exist but thrive in the digital realm. Backed by a caring and dedicated team, she goes the extra mile to ensure your dreams are not just visualized but exceeded. Together, Gloria and her team offer an array of top-notch services, including graphic design, web design, user experience design, code development, and marketing.