We launched a new video series called “Small Business Website Critiques” where our CEO & Creative Director, Promise Tangeman, will do a live video giving feedback and suggestions to improve for a small business owner who has submitted their website for critique.

This video is an amazing resource if you are a solo entrepreneur, a coach, author, speaker or consultant. Basically, if you are a business where you, the business owner, are really the selling point, and your specific skills or knowledge are the main offerings, you can learn from what Promise is pitching to change for this website.

The problem is, when YOU are the business, it can be hard to separate yourself from how you position your offerings on your website. Even though you're wearing all the hats and marketing yourself, your clients and customers are still thinking: "What's in it for me?"

Writer, Author, Editor and Content Creator Melissa Frey was brave to let us critique her website - which has beautiful and cohesive branding - and has helpful lessons on how you can re-position your solo entrepreneur website to really be client-focused.

Watch the video below and scroll down to see our full run through of 3 Ways To Make Your Solopreneur Website Client-Focused.

3 Ways To Make Your Solopreneur Website Client-Focused

1. Make sure your Brand Bio is client or customer-focused.

You’re probably thinking, “Wait a second, GoLive. I thought my bio was supposed be about me?”

Yes, AND it needs to be focused on your client or customer. The best Brand Bio focuses on what you offer (your skill or knowledge) and the benefits your offering can make to the people you serve.

In Melissa’s case, at the top of her website, she has a list of nouns: “Editor | Author | Course Creator | Lover of Stories.” This is a super cute way to introduce who she is, and we know exactly what she does within seconds of landing on her website.

BUT, her list of nouns does not describe how she will serve her clients or how she will change their lives, and it doesn’t describe what she does within those roles of editor, author, or course creator.

However, further down her homepage, she has what would be the “money shot” of website copywriting: “I am a Book Editor and Content Creator who helps you tell your unique story and present your best work to the world.”

That’s a huge shift from a list of roles to telling someone exactly how what you do benefits your clients. In just one sentence, she’s totally nailed who she is and what she does in an concise way that highlights both the entrepreneur and the client. We’d recommend moving this sentence up to the header area on her site and watch the inquiries roll in.

We have a great FREE resource that’s a quick and easy exercise in crafting that client-focused Brand Bio. You can get our mad-lib style worksheet for free right here: Get The Brand Bio Download.

2. Showcase your main offerings on your homepage.

This point goes back to our main piece of advice, which is to focus on what customer or client wants out of the website. Right now, on her homepage, we get Melissa’s roles and that she’s wrote a book (yay! that’s awesome!). But, we aren’t seeing the whole picture on the homepage.

Melissa has amazing services that, because she’s got a sleek and professional-looking site, we’d hire her for! But we can’t see what those services or offerings are until we click into services. We’d recommend swapping one of the sections of reviews or even the book promotion on the homepage to feature her three main service offerings.

She even has amazing course programs built out for other authors to learn from her. These are key pieces of her business and brand that are missing from the homepage that we’d want to make sure are highlighted appropriately.

3. Be selective about what you feature on your website.

Melissa is a published author, and that, without a doubt, is an amazing feat. But, if we’re coming back to our client-focused messaging, choosing to highlight her book on the homepage and in her first words on her about page can be confusing.

When you feature a book on your service-based website, unless it really has to do with your service-based business, we’d recommend lightly mentioning it and only using it as a credibility builder.

For a service-based business like Melissa’s, she’s offering her clients something of value and offering to help them with something. But when she’s asking them to buy the book, it actually sends a competing message, “Will you help ME by buying my book?”

Additionally, the people who are landing on her website to look into her services are likely a very different target audience than those who are looking to purchase her book. All of that combined makes for an unclear marketing direction and can be confusing to her potential clients, and to her potential book buyers.

BONUS TIP: We’d also recommend de-cluttering the main navigation and being selective about what we put up at the top of the site. If you have too many navigation tabs, it can be overwhelming for the customer or client, so paring that list down a bit can help make your website easier to navigate.

The Wrap Up

Melissa is an accomplished solo entrepreneur, and her website is visually sleek, simple and professional. Right off the bat, when we land on her website, we know who she is and we have some instant trust in her business because everything is so clean and professional.

We’d simply make these few key changes to change her marketing from “me focused” to “client focused” in order to book more service-based business for her editing, content creation, and online courses!