Maximizing Your Website's Potential: A Deep-Dive into Accessibility, User Experience, and SEO with Paula Hickey

Have you been wondering how to maximize your website's potential and take your coaching business to the next level?

Well, our latest episode might just have the answers you seek. We've got the incredible web design guru, Paula Hickey, on board to share her expertise on website accessibility and user experience for SEO. Paula not only enlightens us on the basics like alt text for images and proper heading hierarchy but also uncovers intricate details like Google's recommended font sizes.

We push the envelope further by exploring the key components of an effective website for coaches. Paula shares her journey and how she found her niche in this field, revealing the importance of a simple yet focused website that's catered to your potential clients. But we don't stop there. We lean into the realities of entrepreneurship, discussing the importance of setting boundaries and sharing experiences that could help you avoid entrepreneurial burnout.

Topping off this illuminating episode, we delve into strategies for optimizing your online presence. From crafting a compelling About page to leveraging social media to connect with potential clients, we cover it all. With Paula's emphasis on having clear calls-to-action, you're sure to find practical advice that could radically improve your website's functionality and accessibility. Plus, there's a freebie in store to give your website a boost. So, do yourself a favor and tune into this episode to propel your website, and business, to new heights.

Get your free gift from Paula: https://paulasextonhickey.com/planner

Stay in touch with Paula: https://paulasextonhickey.com/

https://www.instagram.com/paulahickeyva/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome back to the Overcome Yourself podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole and I'm so, so excited to be here today with Ms Paula Hickey, out in Tennessee, and we actually know each other through our host, the host that I'm always talking about, lyrica Host. If you want to start a website, definitely the way to go. Definitely check them out Now. Paula is, among other things, a web designer and I'm so excited to talk some tech with you today. So, paula, please take it away, introduce yourselves, do a better job of introducing yourself than I did and let us know who you are. We're so excited to have you.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Hi Nicole. Thank you so much for having me here today. I'm so excited. Like you said, my name is Paula Hickey and I'm a web designer. I live in Tennessee with my husband, rex, and we got two dogs and a cat. You may possibly hear them today hopefully not and I'm a web designer. I work with business and mindset coaches and I help them increase their conversions and sales by delivering them a fantastic a website that gives a fantastic user experience and builds trust with their audience.

Speaker 1: 1:16

I love it and I know that you are well versed because you know apart from, I'm sure, everything you've done I know Lyrica host just does such a great job of equipping us and, more importantly, teaching us, empowering us to learn these things for ourselves. I learned so much from them and having a website is more than just having a pretty website with some nice pictures, right. So I don't think people really understand the humongous role that user experience plays as part of SEO. So you mentioned that. Can you tell us a little bit about that while we're I mean, while we're talking about it?

Speaker 2: 1:57

Yeah, that's actually one of my sorry. My dog is playing with this side of coming here and playing with this toy.

Speaker 1: 2:02

No, you're fine. Dogs are welcome. I have mine. You might hear him too, so it's totally okay.

Speaker 2: 2:08

So one really important part of user experience is accessibility, and make sure that your website is accessible as possible for every visitor, including visitors who might have vision or hearing impairments or mobility impairments. So you want to. There's things that you can do to make your website more user friendly, accessibility wise, and those things will also help you with SEO, because Google also looks at accessibility and certain things in their ranking factors. So those paying attention to those things and including them in your web design and in your website can well be good for your users and be good for your SEO. And I can talk about a few little accessibility things if you want me to.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Go for it. Yes, yes please.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Okay. So the very first tip I always give everybody if you want to make your website more accessible, include all text on all of your images. You want to make sure that you're describing each image on your website and I mean here's how I was told what all text was for. Maybe you were the same way. That's just put your keywords. You know that's not what all text is for. It's actually there to describe the image for screen readers so that they can know what the image is. And maybe not ever, if an image is specifically just decorative, you don't need to include all text. But if it's really important to the content and to understanding the content of the page, you for sure want to include that all text image in there. So that's always my first tip, and I know it can be maybe a little overwhelming to start there. So that might be something you want to hand off to the VA, if you have one, and have her go through and include those descriptions.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Another important tip for accessibility is making sure your heading hierarchy is proper for each page. You know each page should just have one H1 heading and that's the title of your page, and then you want to make sure you use an H2, H3, H4 properly. They're not to just decorate images. Those are actually for heading or to decorate, you know, your website. They serve a purpose and they help screen readers understand the content and it also helps Google understand your content and what's important in that blog post or on that particular page. Another thing some other like little design tips is making sure that your text size is at least 18 pixels on desktop and at least 16 on mobile. That's the new guideline for well, it's not new, but it's the guideline for Google about what they think is the best for user experience. You know, because a long time ago or a few years ago, really small text was real trendy, like 10, 12 pixels, Not anymore, At least 18, 16.

Speaker 1: 5:00

Well, that's what we learned in school, right, there's a 12 point font, like that's what we learned, like in school, right Is a 12 point font, and then so that's kind of like the standard. So having having you let us know, hey, it's actually 16, 18 now. When it comes to, you know, working online, that's a big deal. That's a great tip. I like this is a very, very informative episode. I love it. I just wanted to point that out. That is awesome.

Speaker 2: 5:28

Yeah, it may be that, but it's a change now. And another tip for accessibility is making sure that the links on your website stand out. So you want to, you know, maybe use an underline, like that's been and the standards the internet began. Links are, you know, by the underlying, or a color that really stands out from the body font, like maybe your accent color. I'm going there a bit of a brand designed right now, but my exit color used to be pink, so that really stood out from the body text on the website and made my link stand out that way. People know. Hey, this is something that I should click on.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Right.

Speaker 2: 6:08

And the same with your buttons Like you want to make sure that your buttons look like buttons you know, sometimes we maybe get a little too creative with them, or but if they look like buttons and then they use that consistently throughout your website, so you're kind of training people that this is a button, this is what it looks like, this is what you should be clicking on, and then it doesn't confuse your user either if you're being consistent with the design throughout your whole website. And the same with your forms, like they should look like forms and people know that this is something that should be filling out. And make sure that you have your labels on your form so that people the screen readers, someone's screen reader they know that this is what information goes in there. Because sometimes you'll have the option on your form to hide your labels, but I really don't recommend that. For user experience it's better to have the label visible.

Speaker 2: 6:59

That is awesome and that's a lot of text.

Speaker 1: 7:02

No, no, but it's wonderful. It's very foundational things, foundational things that we can do to really optimize our website for SEO, which is really important for Google to understand what's going on, because if Google, you know, doesn't know what the graphic is, they can't categorize it and show it to people, right. And also for other people, for accessibility, to make sure you know, because as business owners, as website owners, like, we have to make sure that everything is accessible to anybody who wants to see it, to read it, to hear it, to whatever, right, and so I think that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 7:39

That's a big deal, yeah, when everybody that comes to our website is to feel welcome and that they can view the content however they need to.

Speaker 1: 7:48

I love it. So let's go back a little bit to you, paula. How did you get into this? How did you become a web designer? Tell us a little bit about your story and how you overcame yourself to get here, because you're amazing at what you do.

Speaker 2: 8:06

Thank you. So I actually started building websites like in 1999, just for a homie, like I taught myself HTML and CSS, and it was just something I just did for fun, because I'm a bit of a nerd, and that's what I enjoyed. And then, around 2010, I got into WordPress, so I didn't have to do as much of my own coding, but you know that was and I started got into the blogging community about that same time, and so when I decided that I wanted to start my own business, I knew I kind of that I wanted to work with bloggers and help people with their websites, because that was something that I was already doing for myself and I was like I can do that to help others. Once I realized that was like I'm in, I want to do this. So I started my own business in 2017 as a virtual assistant and I was just doing everything.

Speaker 2: 8:58

I was very general VA, social media, email marketing, whatever but I had a client I think it was 2018 asked me who can you know you can build me a website? And I said me, I can do it. And so that's kind of how the web design part started, because I was actually offering it up until that point, and so once a few clients gave me the opportunity to build websites, I knew I was like this is really what I want to focus on. So it's the main focus of my business that I do still do a lot of tech, virtual assistance stuff to help people maintain their websites once they're built.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Right, it's a lot. There's a lot to it.

Speaker 2: 9:40

For most people, especially since I work with coaches and stuff, that's not really the best use of their time maintaining their website and doing all those little things and their integrations and that kind of stuff. I can do that and they can take care of their clients.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Yes, there's so many details. There's so many. I tell my clients because I do websites as well. Sometimes there's so much more to it than just putting together a page. We've got to keep everything updated. We've got to check security, we've got to check for spam, then all the updates. There's so much going on.

Speaker 1: 10:22

They're already a specialist. You are already really good at what you do. Every time that a problem comes up, you don't need to spend 48 hours on YouTube trying to understand the entire math behind it to just figure out this little thing. That's why they hire someone like you or me to help them with that. That's amazing. When it comes to helping coaches with their websites, I love that you specialize in coaches, because coaches have different needs in their websites than, say, someone who has an e-commerce business or even someone who's a blogger. Can you talk to me a little bit about what makes a coach's website effective? What are the things that we really need? Because I find that I come across a lot of coaches and they'll have 18 pages on their website. Talk to me a little bit about why they don't need that, because I'm sure that that's one of the things we're going to talk about is simplifying.

Speaker 2: 11:32

A lot of times they'll be stuff on there that they don't really need and really is in helping them attract their clients or informing their clients about their processes and stuff like that. A lot of times they're missing things that really are important, that can help them connect with those clients. As far as the main pages, most coaches need it. Of course you're going to need to get your homepage, and your homepage is just like an introduction to you and your business and what you have to offer. They need to have that about page and your services page.

Speaker 2: 12:07

You might possibly, depending on the types of services they have, they might need more than one service page. Maybe they have a group coaching program and one-on-one coaching. You might want to separate those because you're going to be attracting two different kinds of people for those two different kinds of mindsets. Then I usually recommend a booking calendar page or a contact page. If you don't want to make that public on your website, you don't have to, but you can have it hidden so you can share that link and really make it easy for potential clients or your current clients to book time with you. Those things are necessary. Then, if you have your free opt-in offer, you want to have a page for that and then your thank you page for after someone signs up, so you can give them the next steps to want to do after signing up with you.

Speaker 1: 12:58

You'll hear yes, yes, take advantage of those thank you page. When somebody says yes to you, when somebody clicks, when somebody submits something, take the opportunity to offer them more. You can offer them another free thing or you can upsell them something, something that's going to add value. I love that. I want to piggyback off of this of what you were saying, and the About page. That's one of my favorite tips for websites. I'm going to give you a tip here For our listeners is adding a call to action on that About page. Yes, Most of the entrepreneurs that I work with the About page is just that. It's just like their picture, their little bio, that's it. It's like no, let's put in a link there. For whatever your call to action is, Work with me, join my group, get my email list, whatever it is, Because that's one of the most visited pages on a website. People are like who is this? What are they about? Yes, so what do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 14:00

Great tip because that is overlooked a lot. There's so much they forget that. Call to action on the About page yes.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Yes, that's what it's about. Like with the coaching websites, a lot of people they have a blog and they're spending a lot of time writing these articles that nobody's looking at. But, like do you have your calls to action? Do you have a flow of things available? Do you have a system in place that takes your client from being a visitor to being a client? Like our websites, they do that. That's what when I say make your website your best sales person, that's exactly what I'm talking about is when somebody goes on your website, they're like huh, this looks interesting, I do want to buy this. Let me input my information and then, oh, something got delivered to me. I have an appointment set with this person because I bought, and so having those systems in place, yes, I absolutely love that.

Speaker 2: 14:51

The call to actions are huge and you just got to make sure that they are aligned with your business goals. You got to make sure to include them and make sure that they are aligned with what you want the visitor to do on your website.

Speaker 1: 15:03

Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's a big deal. All right, so there was. I know I had asked you in the questionnaire when we were setting up this appointment about overcoming, so can you tell me a little bit about how you overcame yourself and you know how we overcame yourself?

Speaker 2: 15:24

I'm going to leave it open and so for me, I actually was able to go full time in my business in 2020. But that was also the year of the thank you I was. That was also year of the pandemic, so we couldn't go anywhere. So I just really developed a lot of bad habits during that time around the boundaries I had with my business and with my clients. Like I was working all the time, even though I had hours. I had hours like nine to four or nine to five, something like that. I wasn't sticking with them. You know, I would work all. I'd work at night, work to time. I went to bed, get up in the morning, start work immediately working all the time. And then, you know, if a client, even though I'm supposed to stop working around for somebody, may email me, but hey, can you do this or do that? And even though I'm already I was already jam packed full for that day I got sure I can do that and end up working even longer.

Speaker 2: 16:26

And it wasn't the client that had the bad boundary, was me. You know I wasn't saying okay, yes, I can do this back and do this till tomorrow, when it fit better in my schedule. I would just work over. I was working all the time I didn't have it. You know I wasn't sticking to my hours. I would take saying yes to everything, but I kind of do it immediately and I just you know I was burning myself out and you know, like I said, it didn't help that I couldn't go anywhere either, so that led into it. That are really when I got into 2021 and I realized that how close I came to burning out not really my first year Actually being full time in my business I was like something has to change. So I said okay, I always said these are my hours. So this is why I'm actually going to work on four o'clock or around four. You know, a dot to be, right on the dot.

Speaker 2: 17:23

Right, I'm going to stop working. And I'm not going to start work as soon as I get up. I'm going to start it around nine o'clock, which is what I said in the hours are. And so that was the first thing I implemented was just sticking, actually making myself stick to those hours. And so by doing that, that gave me some free time in the morning before I started work to actually like journal, drink a cup of coffee. I also like to pray and read my Bible, so that gave me time to do that. So I didn't feel like I was working all the time because I guess I would go to bed and work right up to bedtime. So that helped with that.

Speaker 2: 18:04

And then, you know, actually stopping in the evenings, when I said I was going to, meant that I could, you know, actually enjoy when my husband got home and we can have supper together. And you know, just actually gave me so much more space in my life just by saying, hey, I'm going to work these hours. And then, you know, I started communicating with clients about hey, you know it's 3 o'clock, you know I'm wrapping up for the day, so I'm not going to do this test today, but I can do it tomorrow or tomorrow afternoon and just communicating with them, and they've never had an issue with Ever. You know nobody's already said oh, I need you to do that right now, you know. I mean I have had emergencies pop up. I mean that happens.

Speaker 2: 18:47

That is different. Yeah, that's completely different. So nobody's, you know, they were always understanding because, like so the problem wasn't them, it was just me not having in boundaries, it's not sticking to the boundaries that I said. So that's really you know, and I helped me. That's how I had to over, kind of myself, it was my own bad boundaries.

Speaker 1: 19:08

That is amazing. It's such an important lesson. Boundaries are the best Like and learning to set boundaries, and a lot of people I know talk about boundaries with other people, but sometimes, well, really what we have to learn is setting boundaries with ourselves and learning to operate within those boundaries and like, like you said, giving yourself permission, because I love. I love that you said okay, my boundaries from nine to four, nine to five, whatever it is, it can be, you know, it can be whatever schedule you want, guys.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 19:44

Something I was talking about this morning is like yeah, sometimes I might get up late for the east coast, but then if my clients aren't the Pacific, I'm always a superhero to them because I'm always working before nine o'clock. Right, because 12 o'clock here is nine o'clock over there, Exactly.

Speaker 1: 19:58

So if you, you know, if you're just like running a little late, well, I'm just working, like on Hawaii time or something you know, but then giving yourself permission to do those other things, because you could also be like, well, I'm not going to start work till night and then just sit on the couch and be like, okay, I'm not working, I'm not working, I'm not working. That's exactly how.

Speaker 2: 20:18

I was.

Speaker 1: 20:20

Yes, but then you're kind of still mentally at work because you're thinking about content Well, I got to follow up with this person and I can't forget to do this and let me take a note about that. And so setting up those boundaries and then giving yourself permission to just like I'm not there right now I love that and that's really a big deal. That's like next level when it comes to overcoming ourselves, is really implementing those boundaries. I absolutely love that. So tell me, how do we hang out with you online?

Speaker 2: 20:51

Paula, you broke up with us a little bit.

Speaker 1: 20:56

Oh, how do we hang out with you, like online, like how do we follow you on social media?

Speaker 2: 21:00

Okay, so my website is paulisexsonhickeycom, so that's where you'll find all any information you want about how to work with me, and then on social media, you can find me on Instagram at Paula Hickey. The A and that's where I spend most of my time is really on Instagram. It comes to social media.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Okay, awesome, and all of those links are going to be down in the comments or in the showdowns, depending on where you're watching this, and then you have a freebie available for our readers, say from number two. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes, I do.

Speaker 2: 21:35

It's write your client getting a website. So it helps lead you through writing out the content for your website and planning all that out before you dive into designing and building your website. So that's ready to go for you and you'll find that at paulisexsonhickeycom forward slash planner.

Speaker 1: 21:55

Awesome, and that link will be available down below as well. Okay, this has been absolutely amazing. I love everything you do, paula. And then, if you do end up going, oh, lyrical Host, will you share? Do you have an affiliate link for your Lyrical Host?

Speaker 2: 22:10

I believe, actually have a code and it's PSH virtual and that is the code to get. I believe it's 10% off with Oracle host.

Speaker 1: 22:20

Okay, perfect. So we will include Paula's affiliate link for Lyrical Host, because I'm sure you recommend to everybody as well.

Speaker 2: 22:27

Oh, you're very good.

Speaker 1: 22:29

That's the best.

Speaker 1: 22:30

Yes, and so it adds a Lyrical Host client. When you join the Facebook group, you are going to see a lot of Paula because she's always in there hanging out. She gets some amazing tips, and so I highly recommend hanging out with Lyrical Host always like, whatever your website is, it's not better than Lyrical Host, I promise, and hanging out in that group, paula. Before we sign off here, I want to know any last minute tips, like what is your top tip for our listeners? Like what is it that you advise your clients on the most?

Speaker 2: 23:05

Well, we mentioned about the about page, so I just want to give maybe a couple of things that you can always be sure that you include on your about page to kind of help build trust with your audience.

Speaker 2: 23:15

And make sure that you include a little bit about your expertise and why you're qualified to be coaching in the niche that you're coaching in, and that it can be things like certifications and degrees, but it doesn't have to be right, it's a real-life experience, real-world life experience account. So just be sure you're including that. And then, if you have any featured in articles, if you've been featured on a podcast, if you've been featured on a guest blog post something like Forbes, whatever and those on your about page too, that really speaks to that other people in your niche see you as an authority and that helps build that trust. And also be sure to include a few testimonials on your about page as well, because you know social proof you've got to have it If. Well, if you don't have any yet, that's okay. We all start with zero Work toward getting the social proof and those types of things to add to your about page, but be sure to include them if you have them.

Speaker 1: 24:15

Absolutely. That is awesome, awesome, awesome advice. Like I said, you would not believe how many entrepreneurs I've seen that do not have anything on that about me page and I'm like I want you to make more money Please do this.

Speaker 2: 24:30

Like I said, it's the most, one of the most visited pages on the website. You got to make the most use of it is that you can.

Speaker 1: 24:37

Yes, because people are nosy and there's something about us humans, like about everyone, including me, including you, paula. I'm sure we all, you know we all have that in common is we like to be nosy and when we see that about page, we click on it. We're like let's see who this person is, what they're about, and yeah, and that's how we find our ideal clients and they fall in love with us and they're like I want to work with you, I want you to help me. So, yes, awesome. Thank you so so much, paula. This has just been absolutely wonderful and we will. We will be following you on social media, so make sure that you follow Paula, go hang out with her on Instagram, go grab the the freebie. Say the name of the freebie again, because it sounds amazing.

Speaker 2: 25:22

So what's your client getting one side?

Speaker 1: 25:24

right, your client getting website. I'm going to go grab that freebie because I want to check out what you've got to say about it and make sure that my website is up to par. So make sure you grab that freebie and if you need a website, if you are ready for an amazing website that is going to be accessible, it's going to be functional, it's going to be converting, because it's actually going to help you find clients and it's going to help those, those visitors, become clients. So, thank you so much for being here, paula call she is. I know she's going to do an amazing job helping you out with your coaching website. So, again, thank you so much for being here, paula.

Speaker 2: 25:59

I'm also happy to be here.

Speaker 1: 26:01

Yes, thank you, and we'll see you on the World Wide Web. Thank you so much, thank you.