July 3, 2024 • 24 mins
In this special episode of Website Success, host Chrissy Rey interviews Chelsea Adams-Cook, a licensed massage therapist and small business owner, about her journey with WordPress for her business website. Discover how Chelsea transitioned from a DIY approach to professional web design and how it impacted her business. Learn about the benefits of choosing professional services over going solo, the importance of planning and content management, and tips for maintaining a WordPress site. Whether you're considering WordPress for your business or looking to improve your current setup, this episode offers valuable insights and real-world advice.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
Hey everybody, this is Chrissy Reyand welcome to Website Success.
This episode, I am goingto be interviewing someone.
This is a first for Website Success, butI am interviewing Chelsea Adams-Cook.
She is a licensed massage therapistand the owner of Kneaded Massage.
She has offices in Pasadenaand Crofton, Maryland.
(00:31):
And she is my massagetherapist that I go to.
Part of why I asked Chelsea to beon with me today is because she has
done her own website in the past.
And then my company Pongos dida website redesign for her.
So I wanted to talk a little bitabout her experiences with both.
(00:52):
And she is using WordPress andshe started off on wordpress.
com.
So Chelsea, I wanted to ask you.
What made you choose WordPressas your website builder?
I have used WordPress in thepast for other random things.
So I just knew how WordPress worked andI wanted something that was familiar
to me because WordPress in all realityis a pretty intuitive website if you
(01:16):
have a solid understanding of websites.
So that was just a nice jumping offpoint that I knew the process already.
. Okay.
That's good.
And what has your experience beenwith WordPress, both in wordpress.
com and you're now in a selfhosted WordPress, wordpress.
org.
So what has your experiencebeen with WordPress so far?
All positive.
(01:37):
My website was okay ish when Ifirst started and now that the
redesign is done, it's even better.
So I like WordPress as a system.
Yeah.
Okay.
And have you used any otherwebsite builders like Squarespace
or Wix or any of those?
I have not I have dabbled with thethought process of getting a Squarespace
because I have product that I sell.
(01:58):
So WordPress, it would be verycomplicated to put product on there.
So I've thought aboutSquarespace to do it.
I also have another hosting platform,which is Massage Book for all my bookings,
which I'm not willing to give up.
But no, WordPress is the only website thatI have and that's what I've used so far.
And you can, you could have awebsite with massage book, right?
I do have.
(02:19):
So the way the massage book works isthat they do have a page that you go to.
And from there, you can useit as your booking website.
So it does list all of my servicesand it gives away for clients to book
that's all in one space, which is nice.
And each location has a different page.
Yeah.
And I've used it for you and for otherbefore, before you used it for other
(02:44):
massage therapists before Chelsea BC.
And it's pretty intuitive for whatthe kind of services that you offer.
And it's a great way just to, sothat clients can see everything
in one fell swoop and compare.
So if I run any specials,it's all on there.
And then massage book also doesits own form of advertising.
So that's nice that people don'thave to come to my website first,
(03:06):
that they can find me on thatother platform if they so choose.
Okay.
Awesome.
Now, we did a redesign for you andwe were just trying to figure this
out before we started recording, butit was in 2022, beginning of 2022.
You did your original website yourself.
Yes.
What made you to decide to do a redesign?
So just the long of the short of it isthat I have been in this business for
(03:31):
14 years, but only two of them have beenme supporting myself in my own business.
So I had started doing the rebrandingbecause That's what needed to get done.
And then I wanted to have a landing spotfor clients for when I stepped out on
my own, which happened in April of 2022.
So to get all of that, all ofthe backend work done first
(03:52):
was really important to me.
So that's why I jumped then.
Also, I had the fundsto jump at that point.
Because owning a small business, youhave to build up those funds first.
And why did you choose to go witha professional and choose to go
with Pongos instead of trying todo it yourself the second time?
As much as I think I am a I cando most things within a business.
(04:15):
There are some times when I look atmy business and say, I am not the best
person, nor do I have the time, energy,or effort to put into this because
that needs to be going someplace else.
So I chose to have a professionaldo it because one, it would have
been, it would have taken me.
Months, if not a year for me toactually sit down and do this process
and you guys did it in a matter of amonth once I had all my information
(04:38):
to you, so that was important.
And speaking of having all of theinformation to us, what was the
hardest part for you of the redesign?
at the time that I did myredesign, one of the things that
I had to provide was everything.
I had to provide everything.
I had to provide my logo.
I had to provide all of the informationthat I wanted on the website, the couple
(04:59):
of blog posts that were requested,all of the content, like any sort
of content I also had to provide.
That was just a lot of.
pulling things together.
I was very lucky that I had writtena business plan prior to that.
So I was able to pull a lot of thatinformation from that business plan.
The other part that I went, Ooh, probablynot, probably I'm not the best choice
to do this, was making a color palette.
(05:21):
So I did already have my logo done.
And then it was me going onto awebsite that was recommended and
going, but what colors exactly match?
That was a little difficult,but I mustered through it.
And I'll add in here Chelsea usedone of our older packages . clients
would provide the content andall of their branding, including
their logo and color palette.
(05:43):
And one of the things that we donow is we assume that, just because
this was my experience, that a lotof the small business clients are
going to come to us and they'regoing to have a logo and that's it.
We're going to probably have to figureout their color palette and their fonts.
And so we have, we built in alittle bit of time to do that.
We still need them toprovide us with a logo.
(06:04):
And then also with the the content,I've started giving clients some
of the templates that I use withOur clients that we do more of
the content development for them.
So I've created a planner to helpthem organize their content and
templates to help write the content.
So that's something that, that I've addedto the repertoire as we build websites for
(06:28):
people, it makes it a little bit easier.
I'm not sure I would have doneit any faster, but it does sound
at least like I would have had anidea of what was being looked for.
I got a list, which was lovely,but it was getting that list all
together, which was time consuming.
So what was the best part ofdoing the redesign for you?
Just the way that it ended up turning out.
It was the website's gorgeous.
(06:49):
I try and send people there allthe time because I just love how
it looks and how it functions.
So that has to be the bestpart of it was the outcome.
That's makes me very happy to hear.
And then this is another questioncause this is something that
we do for a lot of clients.
Do you do your own maintenance or causeyou're not on our maintenance plan.
So are you doing your own maintenance?
(07:10):
I mean,
Software maintenance, which for any of youusing WordPress, you know, that you have
to do software updates on a regular basis.
So your website doesn't get hacked.
So Chelsea, do you do your own?
I'm currently doing my own maintenance.
There are some times where I messit up so badly that I have to send
an email going, I messed it up andwe've now figured out what I do wrong.
So I try to correct that.
(07:30):
Chrissy comes to see me about oncea month and probably that is the day
every month that I'm looking throughand be like, I need to update all this.
Oh, she's coming in.
Let me actually work on my website today.
She's afraid I'm going to checkher website before I come in and
be like, Oh, look there's updates.
But definitely one thing and cause weshowed Chelsea how to do her updates.
This is something that I tellclients that, that maybe don't
(07:53):
want to do the maintenance plan.
You can definitely do it yourself.
It's just a matter of, you'vegot to schedule doing it.
You got to do it.
We do it weekly but you got todo it at least once a month.
And then if there's like a securityupdate, you got to do it ASAP.
So part of why we have the maintenanceplan is because we keep on top of
when the updates are absolutelycritical, they have to be done because
(08:16):
there's a bug or a security holeor something like that, that, that
leaves your website open to risk.
We, my.
person that does the updates, Dave.
He's my update guy.
He keeps on top of all that.
He's constantly checking to see whatupdates need to be done ASAP versus what
can wait a few days or even a week or so.
So he keeps on top of that, but oneof the other things that Chelsea does
(08:38):
that we showed her how to do, right?
I hope you're still doingthis is make a backup.
Are you still making the backupbefore you do your updates?
I think what happens is I have a backup.
In my, the way that my system set upis there's a backup run every day.
So I just assume that's donesometime in the middle of the night.
Normally is look likeit's happened in the past.
So normally that's done.
(08:59):
Cause I'm doing my updatesin the middle of the day.
So that's something I've never, no.
But you know how
I can do it.
I can do it now.
Yep.
Because I've had to reset.
I did my updates wrong probably twoor three months ago and it messed
up my calendar and ticketing.
So I had to go back and resetand it was right as rain.
And I'll just mention that for a lot ofhosting providers that having those daily
(09:21):
backups is automatic for a lot of them.
And they're usually fine unlessyou've made updates to your website
between the backup and the time thatyou're doing the software updates.
So if you've added content orthere've been orders, people have
placed orders since then you do needto make sure you're doing another
another backup of the websitebefore you do your software updates.
Always double check that.
So you did your website yourselfthe first time and then you had
(09:45):
us do it for you the second time.
And moving forward, you decidedto do your own maintenance
instead of having us do it.
But sometimes you do still come to, Iget an email every once in a while from
Chelsea that says, can you do this for me?
What are the things that you considerwhen you email me to do it for
you instead of doing it yourself?
What is the time cost going to be?
(10:06):
So as someone who owns their ownbusiness, I essentially, I massage
people normally six days a week.
And I have one day thatis my office work day.
If I can't get something accomplishedwithin that office work day,
the likelihood is going to takeme Months to accomplish it.
And let's just be honest.
Like we all need a break.
(10:26):
And sometimes my office workday is mesleeping because that's what I need.
That's what my body needs.
When I want something bigger done thatisn't a blog post or just updating or like
moving stuff around within the website.
For example, I'm workingon getting product up.
That's one of those things thatI'll come to Pongos for and say,
Hey, this is what I want to do.
(10:46):
Here's the goal of what Iwould like, how possible is it?
Is it financially feasible?
Because sometimes it doestake a little research.
And we figured out like for theproduct, we figured out that the
best way for me to do it as of rightnow, after talking to Chrissy and
after talking to my accountant, thatto sell product on my website, it's
just not financially a smart move.
I think we, we did the math.
(11:08):
It was going to cost several hundreddollars a month for something that
I wasn't going to make severalhundred dollars on every month.
So we're going to do it a different way.
And we've talked about it and we'vediscussed like, what are the goals so that
Chrissy can make sure that my business isgetting what it needs without having to
spend hundreds of every month to do that.
(11:28):
So it sounds like you got apretty good balance between
the DIY and the done for you.
If I know that it's going to takeme several hours to do it, it's much
easier for me to go, hey, you do thisprofessionally, it's going to take
you half the time it would take me.
Here's all the information that you need.
Could you please do this.
And we've done some of the done withyou because I've done training with you.
(11:49):
Like when we set up your events calendarand your ticketing system, after we did
that, I showed you how to add your ownevents and done that yourself since then.
Yeah, is it, am I clunky at it?
Absolutely.
But I know that's somethingthat I can manage to do myself.
And I'm sure that once the product stuffgoes up, if I need to add or subtract
things, that will be something thatI will learn how to do because what I
(12:13):
found at least with you or how you'veworked with me is that every time
that I do something new to my website,there's always a training or like a
talk through of here's what we did.
Here's how, what you needto do to maintain it.
And if you want to change anything,here's how you do it, which I love
that about your business is that you'resupporting me as a small business.
Yeah.
I've worked with a lot of clients whothey, got a website and basically were
(12:37):
never allowed to touch it because theirdeveloper was like, nope, you can't
touch it because you might break it.
And so they can't update their owncontent, which kind of defeats the purpose
of having a WordPress based website.
But yeah, I'm all about empoweringour clients so they can do
most of the stuff themselves.
I don't want them to breakanything, but That's why we have
To be honest, I have broken thingsand I've had to come back and been
(12:58):
like, I done broke my whole website.
Could you fix it?
And literally you were like, great,I'll have it done in 10 minutes.
And then 10 minutes later, Igot a text going, it's done.
And I was like, that would have takenme weeks to figure out what I myself.
For your website, most of the timewhen it breaks, it's because those
pesky plugins deactivate themselves.
You didn't update it in the rightorder and then it deactivated.
(13:20):
Yes.
Yeah.
That's yeah.
I know your website.
So yeah, that's happened a few times.
Yeah.
So for any of you listening, if you doWordPress updates, sometimes if you do
them in the wrong order, a plugin willdeactivate itself and then you have to
go in and reactivate it because thenotherwise your website doesn't work
or parts of your website don't work.
So just keep that in mind.
All right.
You do your own content.
(13:41):
I know we've talked aboutthis a few times before.
Can you tell me a littlebit about that process?
Me and ChatGPT are best friends.
It's just the easiest way.
Almost the entire time I've ownedmy business, I've been in school.
So I was writing papers in school and Ijust couldn't fathom writing a blog post.
So what I would do is I would say,Hey, ChatGPT, can I please, can
(14:01):
you write me a blog post aboutthis topic and include references?
And it would pop out a blog postand I would go back and reread
it and put it into my own words.
And that's how I would,that's how I do it.
It's just the easiest way.
It's the most time efficient way.
And then I go back andI check the research.
So everything that it gives me, Ialso go to those websites to find that
(14:24):
information so I can try and link.
I also ask it to write SEO for mewhich I'm not great at still, and
make sure that I have every part ofthat blog post that needs to be done.
There's a couple of different factorsthat it asks for that I try and
have everything written by ChatGPT.
So it's just a copy and pastesituation in there and those,
(14:44):
or, editing, copying and pasting.
Have you done any SEO for your website?
Have you done any keywordresearch or anything like that?
I have tried.
I don't pay for SEO.
So it's a little bit, it'sa little bit daunting to me.
I don't fully understand it.
And I've taken.
I've been able to listen into a coupleof snippets just because again, if I
don't take the time off of my business toimprove myself I'm working all the time.
(15:08):
So I'm trying with SEO and ChatGPTis helping a lot with that, but
it's not where I need it to be.
And the other, the keyword researchI am just typing in keywords that
I think are hot hitting for thetopic that I'm talking about.
No real research, nothing that'sgoing to pull me up higher in
the in the Google searches.
Sounds like I need to do a keywordsresearch specific workshop at some
(15:32):
point, because I do an SEO crash course.
I've got another one coming up in July.
But yeah, it sounds like maybe I needto do a keyword research specific one
because that's, that seems to be thestumbling point for a lot of people.
It's once you have those keywords.
And I think you've done a couple ofFacebook, like lives about it, but it's.
It's a, it's still a lot of information.
So it's really just sitting down andmaking sure that you understand and can
(15:52):
ask the questions and move forward withthat because that's going to be what
changes how many people have access to me.
And I will throw this out there.
I do have a keyword research package.
You've probably seen it, but wedo we do research for clients.
So if you can't do your own keywordresearch, I've got that we do for,
you get a hundred keywords and I useAI to give a list of content ideas
(16:17):
for each of the top 100 keywords.
So I order the keywords inorder of priority based on the
search volume, the difficulty andthe click through rate on them.
So the next question I have is if thereis there any advice you would give
to other small business owners whoare thinking about making a website,
whether it, whether you're thinkingabout doing it themselves or hiring
(16:41):
somebody what advice would you give them?
The one thing that really helped me washaving my business plan done because
the business plan has everything thatyou need for your website already on it.
Having all of your product andthe descriptions and how much it's
going to cost and your goals andthat sort of thing and your mission
statement and your all of thosethings are needed to do your website.
(17:02):
So having that information complete beforeyou move on, I think is really important.
I just also think it's important forsmall businesses to know where they
are and where they want to be in oneyear, three years and five years.
And to actually go back and look at thosethings to see if those goals were met,
because I know in the two years betweenme writing my first one and me taking
(17:23):
a class to write my updated version,I had surpassed my five year goal.
But having that, having your logo,having all of your content in place
is super important to be able to moveforward, whether you're doing it for
yourself or having somebody do it.
Just having all that informationin one space is really key.
Yeah.
Planning is important for any of youthat are listening to the podcast
(17:46):
for a while or watching my videos.
I'm a big proponent of planning.
And a lot of the stuff that Chelseawas saying is in her business plan.
If you do my website successblueprint, it's basically the
website version of a business plan.
So it.
It doesn't have you do the missionstatement because I do that in the content
planner, but it, it does have you thinkabout what your offer is, what your
(18:07):
goals are for your website specifically.
And then also who your target audienceis, your ideal client all of that stuff.
You gotta plan all that, all thosethings out before, whether you do
the website yourself or you havesomebody do it for you really need
to keep all that stuff in mind.
I would say being specific as youcan, when you're planning all of this
out, because the more specific youare, the more fine tuned everything
(18:28):
is going to end up being to get tothe people that you want to get to.
Absolutely.
Totally agree.
All right.
Last question.
If you were starting over from scratch,knowing everything that you know now,
everything that you've been throughwith your DIY website, the done for
you website, the stuff where we work onthings together would you still from the
beginning, try to do everything yourself?
(18:48):
Probably not.
But I had, I, and I willsay I had more time.
I was working for somebody else.
It wasn't me just running thisbusiness, but I will say what
I did was important to me.
But if I were to have had the fundsand been in a better place, I would
have always had somebody do thewebsite for me just because I know
that's not what my strong suit is.
(19:08):
And that it was done soquickly and so professionally.
And it made me feel like I waspart of the team, not just here's
my content, have a good day.
I felt like I was actively part ofbuilding it without actually having to
do any of the physical work of that.
Yeah.
And I just want to throw inthere, people are at different
points in their businesses.
And if you need to do it yourselfbecause you don't have the funds
(19:31):
to, to get somebody to do itfor you, that's totally fine.
That's what Chelseadid from the beginning.
She did it herself and the websitethat she did, it wasn't, it was fine.
It was
clunky.
I would say it's clunky comparedto what it was now, but it
didn't do what it needed to do?
Absolutely.
Does the website do more now?
Yes.
And I love that because I've grownwithin my own business and my own
(19:54):
person, I now teach so people cancome on and buy tickets to my classes.
That's flawless now.
Where that wasn't somethingthat I was doing two years ago.
That's a newer thing.
So it's just one of those, it's nicehaving somebody that I can go to and be
like, this is the idea that I want to do.
And having that feedback.
This is something that I've talkedwith a lot of clients about.
(20:15):
You don't know what you don't know and youdon't know what you don't know how to do.
Yeah, in some cases, like you weresaying, like with the selling classes
you probably, it would have been hard foryou to implement that doing it yourself.
It would have been possible.
I don't think I would have.
I think it would have been like,email me if you want to join, and
then it would have been like alonger conversation and now someone
in the middle of the night can go.
Yep.
I want to take that class in September andthey can just buy their tickets online.
(20:39):
And I wake up and I'm like, Oh, great.
Another person.
And you probably honestly, and I knowother clients have done this, you could
probably figure out how to do it yourself.
How to do something yourself, but when youwork with a professional like myself, at
least what professionals should be doingis trying to think about it strategically
and think about the future of the websiteand not just the right now, because
(21:02):
what we could have done for selling thetickets is we could have made a form.
Where people could just fillout the form and send you an
email to register for the class.
But longer term, we thought aboutyou might want to also do, you
might want to also sell productson your website and other things.
And you might want people to be able tomanage their own tickets and be able to
print tickets out and things like that.
(21:23):
So that, that helps us figure out whichsolution was going to be the best for
you versus just slapping something upto make it work and Maybe have to undo
it or do a replace it in the future.
So that's something that's very important.
And I don't expect somebody that's nota web developer or somebody that doesn't
have experience with this to know howto do that and to know what questions
(21:45):
you need to ask as far as the futuregrowth of your website, that's not
something, it's not something you doevery day, but it is something that I do.
Not every day, but most days
You have questions about thehuman body, I am your gal.
I can answer a ton of questions about likemuscles and what you need to do and what
you, I just, I don't know enough aboutweb development to be the expert at it.
And I don't have to bean expert at everything.
(22:07):
That's why there are certainthings I hire out to do.
And this is one of them.
And this is why I go to Chelsea formy massages instead of I'm trying to
do it myself because not the same.
Yeah.
And I can't reach my certainparts on my back so yeah.
Yes.
Do you have any closing thoughts or doyou want to share anything else about we
(22:29):
were talking about you have a special.
I do.
I just want to say, let's first off, thankyou for all the help that you've given me.
We met through BNI and this hasbecome a relationship well past that.
So thank you so much forall the help and helping me.
make my business what it is today becauseI don't think I would have been in the
same place without you and your business.
So thank you.
(22:49):
If you are in the Maryland areavery specifically Anne Arundel
County or PG County I am runninga special at the Crofton office.
It's 15 percent off of your first service.
If you're new to us we havesomebody there Tuesday,
Wednesday, Fridays, and Saturdays.
So I would love to see and meetyou guys and hopefully you'll
come out and get a massage.
Chelsea, thank you so much for joining me.
(23:11):
It was a pleasure having you as myfirst interview for this podcast.
I appreciate it.
And for those of you listening inthanks as always for listening.
If you have any questions or ifyou want to get in touch with
Chelsea her website will be in theshow notes, so check those out.
If you go to websitesuccessacademy.com,go to the podcast, we'll
(23:31):
have her info in there.
If you need to get in touch with her I'llhave a link directly to her website and
maybe even directly to her booking formso that you can book a massage with her
if you're in the Anne Arundel County andPrince George's County areas in Maryland.
But make sure you check us out, keepmake sure you're subscribing to the
podcast and keep listening and Iwill catch you in the next episode.
(23:52):
Thanks for listening.
Hey everybody, this is Chrissy Reyand welcome to Website Success.
This episode, I am goingto be interviewing someone.
This is a first for Website Success, butI am interviewing Chelsea Adams-Cook.
She is a licensed massage therapistand the owner of Kneaded Massage.
She has offices in Pasadenaand Crofton, Maryland.
(00:31):
And she is my massagetherapist that I go to.
Part of why I asked Chelsea to beon with me today is because she has
done her own website in the past.
And then my company Pongos dida website redesign for her.
So I wanted to talk a little bitabout her experiences with both.
(00:52):
And she is using WordPress andshe started off on wordpress.
com.
So Chelsea, I wanted to ask you.
What made you choose WordPressas your website builder?
I have used WordPress in thepast for other random things.
So I just knew how WordPress worked andI wanted something that was familiar
to me because WordPress in all realityis a pretty intuitive website if you
(01:16):
have a solid understanding of websites.
So that was just a nice jumping offpoint that I knew the process already.
. Okay.
That's good.
And what has your experience beenwith WordPress, both in wordpress.
com and you're now in a selfhosted WordPress, wordpress.
org.
So what has your experiencebeen with WordPress so far?
All positive.
(01:37):
My website was okay ish when Ifirst started and now that the
redesign is done, it's even better.
So I like WordPress as a system.
Yeah.
Okay.
And have you used any otherwebsite builders like Squarespace
or Wix or any of those?
I have not I have dabbled with thethought process of getting a Squarespace
because I have product that I sell.
(01:58):
So WordPress, it would be verycomplicated to put product on there.
So I've thought aboutSquarespace to do it.
I also have another hosting platform,which is Massage Book for all my bookings,
which I'm not willing to give up.
But no, WordPress is the only website thatI have and that's what I've used so far.
And you can, you could have awebsite with massage book, right?
I do have.
(02:19):
So the way the massage book works isthat they do have a page that you go to.
And from there, you can useit as your booking website.
So it does list all of my servicesand it gives away for clients to book
that's all in one space, which is nice.
And each location has a different page.
Yeah.
And I've used it for you and for otherbefore, before you used it for other
(02:44):
massage therapists before Chelsea BC.
And it's pretty intuitive for whatthe kind of services that you offer.
And it's a great way just to, sothat clients can see everything
in one fell swoop and compare.
So if I run any specials,it's all on there.
And then massage book also doesits own form of advertising.
So that's nice that people don'thave to come to my website first,
(03:06):
that they can find me on thatother platform if they so choose.
Okay.
Awesome.
Now, we did a redesign for you andwe were just trying to figure this
out before we started recording, butit was in 2022, beginning of 2022.
You did your original website yourself.
Yes.
What made you to decide to do a redesign?
So just the long of the short of it isthat I have been in this business for
(03:31):
14 years, but only two of them have beenme supporting myself in my own business.
So I had started doing the rebrandingbecause That's what needed to get done.
And then I wanted to have a landing spotfor clients for when I stepped out on
my own, which happened in April of 2022.
So to get all of that, all ofthe backend work done first
(03:52):
was really important to me.
So that's why I jumped then.
Also, I had the fundsto jump at that point.
Because owning a small business, youhave to build up those funds first.
And why did you choose to go witha professional and choose to go
with Pongos instead of trying todo it yourself the second time?
As much as I think I am a I cando most things within a business.
(04:15):
There are some times when I look atmy business and say, I am not the best
person, nor do I have the time, energy,or effort to put into this because
that needs to be going someplace else.
So I chose to have a professionaldo it because one, it would have
been, it would have taken me.
Months, if not a year for me toactually sit down and do this process
and you guys did it in a matter of amonth once I had all my information
(04:38):
to you, so that was important.
And speaking of having all of theinformation to us, what was the
hardest part for you of the redesign?
at the time that I did myredesign, one of the things that
I had to provide was everything.
I had to provide everything.
I had to provide my logo.
I had to provide all of the informationthat I wanted on the website, the couple
(04:59):
of blog posts that were requested,all of the content, like any sort
of content I also had to provide.
That was just a lot of.
pulling things together.
I was very lucky that I had writtena business plan prior to that.
So I was able to pull a lot of thatinformation from that business plan.
The other part that I went, Ooh, probablynot, probably I'm not the best choice
to do this, was making a color palette.
(05:21):
So I did already have my logo done.
And then it was me going onto awebsite that was recommended and
going, but what colors exactly match?
That was a little difficult,but I mustered through it.
And I'll add in here Chelsea usedone of our older packages . clients
would provide the content andall of their branding, including
their logo and color palette.
(05:43):
And one of the things that we donow is we assume that, just because
this was my experience, that a lotof the small business clients are
going to come to us and they'regoing to have a logo and that's it.
We're going to probably have to figureout their color palette and their fonts.
And so we have, we built in alittle bit of time to do that.
We still need them toprovide us with a logo.
(06:04):
And then also with the the content,I've started giving clients some
of the templates that I use withOur clients that we do more of
the content development for them.
So I've created a planner to helpthem organize their content and
templates to help write the content.
So that's something that, that I've addedto the repertoire as we build websites for
(06:28):
people, it makes it a little bit easier.
I'm not sure I would have doneit any faster, but it does sound
at least like I would have had anidea of what was being looked for.
I got a list, which was lovely,but it was getting that list all
together, which was time consuming.
So what was the best part ofdoing the redesign for you?
Just the way that it ended up turning out.
It was the website's gorgeous.
(06:49):
I try and send people there allthe time because I just love how
it looks and how it functions.
So that has to be the bestpart of it was the outcome.
That's makes me very happy to hear.
And then this is another questioncause this is something that
we do for a lot of clients.
Do you do your own maintenance or causeyou're not on our maintenance plan.
So are you doing your own maintenance?
(07:10):
I mean,
Software maintenance, which for any of youusing WordPress, you know, that you have
to do software updates on a regular basis.
So your website doesn't get hacked.
So Chelsea, do you do your own?
I'm currently doing my own maintenance.
There are some times where I messit up so badly that I have to send
an email going, I messed it up andwe've now figured out what I do wrong.
So I try to correct that.
(07:30):
Chrissy comes to see me about oncea month and probably that is the day
every month that I'm looking throughand be like, I need to update all this.
Oh, she's coming in.
Let me actually work on my website today.
She's afraid I'm going to checkher website before I come in and
be like, Oh, look there's updates.
But definitely one thing and cause weshowed Chelsea how to do her updates.
This is something that I tellclients that, that maybe don't
(07:53):
want to do the maintenance plan.
You can definitely do it yourself.
It's just a matter of, you'vegot to schedule doing it.
You got to do it.
We do it weekly but you got todo it at least once a month.
And then if there's like a securityupdate, you got to do it ASAP.
So part of why we have the maintenanceplan is because we keep on top of
when the updates are absolutelycritical, they have to be done because
(08:16):
there's a bug or a security holeor something like that, that, that
leaves your website open to risk.
We, my.
person that does the updates, Dave.
He's my update guy.
He keeps on top of all that.
He's constantly checking to see whatupdates need to be done ASAP versus what
can wait a few days or even a week or so.
So he keeps on top of that, but oneof the other things that Chelsea does
(08:38):
that we showed her how to do, right?
I hope you're still doingthis is make a backup.
Are you still making the backupbefore you do your updates?
I think what happens is I have a backup.
In my, the way that my system set upis there's a backup run every day.
So I just assume that's donesometime in the middle of the night.
Normally is look likeit's happened in the past.
So normally that's done.
(08:59):
Cause I'm doing my updatesin the middle of the day.
So that's something I've never, no.
But you know how
I can do it.
I can do it now.
Yep.
Because I've had to reset.
I did my updates wrong probably twoor three months ago and it messed
up my calendar and ticketing.
So I had to go back and resetand it was right as rain.
And I'll just mention that for a lot ofhosting providers that having those daily
(09:21):
backups is automatic for a lot of them.
And they're usually fine unlessyou've made updates to your website
between the backup and the time thatyou're doing the software updates.
So if you've added content orthere've been orders, people have
placed orders since then you do needto make sure you're doing another
another backup of the websitebefore you do your software updates.
Always double check that.
So you did your website yourselfthe first time and then you had
(09:45):
us do it for you the second time.
And moving forward, you decidedto do your own maintenance
instead of having us do it.
But sometimes you do still come to, Iget an email every once in a while from
Chelsea that says, can you do this for me?
What are the things that you considerwhen you email me to do it for
you instead of doing it yourself?
What is the time cost going to be?
(10:06):
So as someone who owns their ownbusiness, I essentially, I massage
people normally six days a week.
And I have one day thatis my office work day.
If I can't get something accomplishedwithin that office work day,
the likelihood is going to takeme Months to accomplish it.
And let's just be honest.
Like we all need a break.
(10:26):
And sometimes my office workday is mesleeping because that's what I need.
That's what my body needs.
When I want something bigger done thatisn't a blog post or just updating or like
moving stuff around within the website.
For example, I'm workingon getting product up.
That's one of those things thatI'll come to Pongos for and say,
Hey, this is what I want to do.
(10:46):
Here's the goal of what Iwould like, how possible is it?
Is it financially feasible?
Because sometimes it doestake a little research.
And we figured out like for theproduct, we figured out that the
best way for me to do it as of rightnow, after talking to Chrissy and
after talking to my accountant, thatto sell product on my website, it's
just not financially a smart move.
I think we, we did the math.
(11:08):
It was going to cost several hundreddollars a month for something that
I wasn't going to make severalhundred dollars on every month.
So we're going to do it a different way.
And we've talked about it and we'vediscussed like, what are the goals so that
Chrissy can make sure that my business isgetting what it needs without having to
spend hundreds of every month to do that.
(11:28):
So it sounds like you got apretty good balance between
the DIY and the done for you.
If I know that it's going to takeme several hours to do it, it's much
easier for me to go, hey, you do thisprofessionally, it's going to take
you half the time it would take me.
Here's all the information that you need.
Could you please do this.
And we've done some of the done withyou because I've done training with you.
(11:49):
Like when we set up your events calendarand your ticketing system, after we did
that, I showed you how to add your ownevents and done that yourself since then.
Yeah, is it, am I clunky at it?
Absolutely.
But I know that's somethingthat I can manage to do myself.
And I'm sure that once the product stuffgoes up, if I need to add or subtract
things, that will be something thatI will learn how to do because what I
(12:13):
found at least with you or how you'veworked with me is that every time
that I do something new to my website,there's always a training or like a
talk through of here's what we did.
Here's how, what you needto do to maintain it.
And if you want to change anything,here's how you do it, which I love
that about your business is that you'resupporting me as a small business.
Yeah.
I've worked with a lot of clients whothey, got a website and basically were
(12:37):
never allowed to touch it because theirdeveloper was like, nope, you can't
touch it because you might break it.
And so they can't update their owncontent, which kind of defeats the purpose
of having a WordPress based website.
But yeah, I'm all about empoweringour clients so they can do
most of the stuff themselves.
I don't want them to breakanything, but That's why we have
To be honest, I have broken thingsand I've had to come back and been
(12:58):
like, I done broke my whole website.
Could you fix it?
And literally you were like, great,I'll have it done in 10 minutes.
And then 10 minutes later, Igot a text going, it's done.
And I was like, that would have takenme weeks to figure out what I myself.
For your website, most of the timewhen it breaks, it's because those
pesky plugins deactivate themselves.
You didn't update it in the rightorder and then it deactivated.
(13:20):
Yes.
Yeah.
That's yeah.
I know your website.
So yeah, that's happened a few times.
Yeah.
So for any of you listening, if you doWordPress updates, sometimes if you do
them in the wrong order, a plugin willdeactivate itself and then you have to
go in and reactivate it because thenotherwise your website doesn't work
or parts of your website don't work.
So just keep that in mind.
All right.
You do your own content.
(13:41):
I know we've talked aboutthis a few times before.
Can you tell me a littlebit about that process?
Me and ChatGPT are best friends.
It's just the easiest way.
Almost the entire time I've ownedmy business, I've been in school.
So I was writing papers in school and Ijust couldn't fathom writing a blog post.
So what I would do is I would say,Hey, ChatGPT, can I please, can
(14:01):
you write me a blog post aboutthis topic and include references?
And it would pop out a blog postand I would go back and reread
it and put it into my own words.
And that's how I would,that's how I do it.
It's just the easiest way.
It's the most time efficient way.
And then I go back andI check the research.
So everything that it gives me, Ialso go to those websites to find that
(14:24):
information so I can try and link.
I also ask it to write SEO for mewhich I'm not great at still, and
make sure that I have every part ofthat blog post that needs to be done.
There's a couple of different factorsthat it asks for that I try and
have everything written by ChatGPT.
So it's just a copy and pastesituation in there and those,
(14:44):
or, editing, copying and pasting.
Have you done any SEO for your website?
Have you done any keywordresearch or anything like that?
I have tried.
I don't pay for SEO.
So it's a little bit, it'sa little bit daunting to me.
I don't fully understand it.
And I've taken.
I've been able to listen into a coupleof snippets just because again, if I
don't take the time off of my business toimprove myself I'm working all the time.
(15:08):
So I'm trying with SEO and ChatGPTis helping a lot with that, but
it's not where I need it to be.
And the other, the keyword researchI am just typing in keywords that
I think are hot hitting for thetopic that I'm talking about.
No real research, nothing that'sgoing to pull me up higher in
the in the Google searches.
Sounds like I need to do a keywordsresearch specific workshop at some
(15:32):
point, because I do an SEO crash course.
I've got another one coming up in July.
But yeah, it sounds like maybe I needto do a keyword research specific one
because that's, that seems to be thestumbling point for a lot of people.
It's once you have those keywords.
And I think you've done a couple ofFacebook, like lives about it, but it's.
It's a, it's still a lot of information.
So it's really just sitting down andmaking sure that you understand and can
(15:52):
ask the questions and move forward withthat because that's going to be what
changes how many people have access to me.
And I will throw this out there.
I do have a keyword research package.
You've probably seen it, but wedo we do research for clients.
So if you can't do your own keywordresearch, I've got that we do for,
you get a hundred keywords and I useAI to give a list of content ideas
(16:17):
for each of the top 100 keywords.
So I order the keywords inorder of priority based on the
search volume, the difficulty andthe click through rate on them.
So the next question I have is if thereis there any advice you would give
to other small business owners whoare thinking about making a website,
whether it, whether you're thinkingabout doing it themselves or hiring
(16:41):
somebody what advice would you give them?
The one thing that really helped me washaving my business plan done because
the business plan has everything thatyou need for your website already on it.
Having all of your product andthe descriptions and how much it's
going to cost and your goals andthat sort of thing and your mission
statement and your all of thosethings are needed to do your website.
(17:02):
So having that information complete beforeyou move on, I think is really important.
I just also think it's important forsmall businesses to know where they
are and where they want to be in oneyear, three years and five years.
And to actually go back and look at thosethings to see if those goals were met,
because I know in the two years betweenme writing my first one and me taking
(17:23):
a class to write my updated version,I had surpassed my five year goal.
But having that, having your logo,having all of your content in place
is super important to be able to moveforward, whether you're doing it for
yourself or having somebody do it.
Just having all that informationin one space is really key.
Yeah.
Planning is important for any of youthat are listening to the podcast
(17:46):
for a while or watching my videos.
I'm a big proponent of planning.
And a lot of the stuff that Chelseawas saying is in her business plan.
If you do my website successblueprint, it's basically the
website version of a business plan.
So it.
It doesn't have you do the missionstatement because I do that in the content
planner, but it, it does have you thinkabout what your offer is, what your
(18:07):
goals are for your website specifically.
And then also who your target audienceis, your ideal client all of that stuff.
You gotta plan all that, all thosethings out before, whether you do
the website yourself or you havesomebody do it for you really need
to keep all that stuff in mind.
I would say being specific as youcan, when you're planning all of this
out, because the more specific youare, the more fine tuned everything
(18:28):
is going to end up being to get tothe people that you want to get to.
Absolutely.
Totally agree.
All right.
Last question.
If you were starting over from scratch,knowing everything that you know now,
everything that you've been throughwith your DIY website, the done for
you website, the stuff where we work onthings together would you still from the
beginning, try to do everything yourself?
(18:48):
Probably not.
But I had, I, and I willsay I had more time.
I was working for somebody else.
It wasn't me just running thisbusiness, but I will say what
I did was important to me.
But if I were to have had the fundsand been in a better place, I would
have always had somebody do thewebsite for me just because I know
that's not what my strong suit is.
(19:08):
And that it was done soquickly and so professionally.
And it made me feel like I waspart of the team, not just here's
my content, have a good day.
I felt like I was actively part ofbuilding it without actually having to
do any of the physical work of that.
Yeah.
And I just want to throw inthere, people are at different
points in their businesses.
And if you need to do it yourselfbecause you don't have the funds
(19:31):
to, to get somebody to do itfor you, that's totally fine.
That's what Chelseadid from the beginning.
She did it herself and the websitethat she did, it wasn't, it was fine.
It was
clunky.
I would say it's clunky comparedto what it was now, but it
didn't do what it needed to do?
Absolutely.
Does the website do more now?
Yes.
And I love that because I've grownwithin my own business and my own
(19:54):
person, I now teach so people cancome on and buy tickets to my classes.
That's flawless now.
Where that wasn't somethingthat I was doing two years ago.
That's a newer thing.
So it's just one of those, it's nicehaving somebody that I can go to and be
like, this is the idea that I want to do.
And having that feedback.
This is something that I've talkedwith a lot of clients about.
(20:15):
You don't know what you don't know and youdon't know what you don't know how to do.
Yeah, in some cases, like you weresaying, like with the selling classes
you probably, it would have been hard foryou to implement that doing it yourself.
It would have been possible.
I don't think I would have.
I think it would have been like,email me if you want to join, and
then it would have been like alonger conversation and now someone
in the middle of the night can go.
Yep.
I want to take that class in September andthey can just buy their tickets online.
(20:39):
And I wake up and I'm like, Oh, great.
Another person.
And you probably honestly, and I knowother clients have done this, you could
probably figure out how to do it yourself.
How to do something yourself, but when youwork with a professional like myself, at
least what professionals should be doingis trying to think about it strategically
and think about the future of the websiteand not just the right now, because
(21:02):
what we could have done for selling thetickets is we could have made a form.
Where people could just fillout the form and send you an
email to register for the class.
But longer term, we thought aboutyou might want to also do, you
might want to also sell productson your website and other things.
And you might want people to be able tomanage their own tickets and be able to
print tickets out and things like that.
(21:23):
So that, that helps us figure out whichsolution was going to be the best for
you versus just slapping something upto make it work and Maybe have to undo
it or do a replace it in the future.
So that's something that's very important.
And I don't expect somebody that's nota web developer or somebody that doesn't
have experience with this to know howto do that and to know what questions
(21:45):
you need to ask as far as the futuregrowth of your website, that's not
something, it's not something you doevery day, but it is something that I do.
Not every day, but most days
You have questions about thehuman body, I am your gal.
I can answer a ton of questions about likemuscles and what you need to do and what
you, I just, I don't know enough aboutweb development to be the expert at it.
And I don't have to bean expert at everything.
(22:07):
That's why there are certainthings I hire out to do.
And this is one of them.
And this is why I go to Chelsea formy massages instead of I'm trying to
do it myself because not the same.
Yeah.
And I can't reach my certainparts on my back so yeah.
Yes.
Do you have any closing thoughts or doyou want to share anything else about we
(22:29):
were talking about you have a special.
I do.
I just want to say, let's first off, thankyou for all the help that you've given me.
We met through BNI and this hasbecome a relationship well past that.
So thank you so much forall the help and helping me.
make my business what it is today becauseI don't think I would have been in the
same place without you and your business.
So thank you.
(22:49):
If you are in the Maryland areavery specifically Anne Arundel
County or PG County I am runninga special at the Crofton office.
It's 15 percent off of your first service.
If you're new to us we havesomebody there Tuesday,
Wednesday, Fridays, and Saturdays.
So I would love to see and meetyou guys and hopefully you'll
come out and get a massage.
Chelsea, thank you so much for joining me.
(23:11):
It was a pleasure having you as myfirst interview for this podcast.
I appreciate it.
And for those of you listening inthanks as always for listening.
If you have any questions or ifyou want to get in touch with
Chelsea her website will be in theshow notes, so check those out.
If you go to websitesuccessacademy.com,go to the podcast, we'll
(23:31):
have her info in there.
If you need to get in touch with her I'llhave a link directly to her website and
maybe even directly to her booking formso that you can book a massage with her
if you're in the Anne Arundel County andPrince George's County areas in Maryland.
But make sure you check us out, keepmake sure you're subscribing to the
podcast and keep listening and Iwill catch you in the next episode.
(23:52):
Thanks for listening.
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