003: Creating Confidence in Your Online Presence

While building a platform on social media is a wonderful place to get started for free, it has its downsides in the long run. Roughly 75% of users judge a company’s credibility based on its website design.

Today we’re going to be talking about creating confidence in your online presence. Download my free workbook to follow along with this episode.

For a little bit of background on me and why I’m so passionate about this subject, I studied advertising as well as graphic design in college, and then I worked at an advertising agency for about a year. At the agency, I did SEO work, I did email marketing, social media management, content creation, branding, web design, really the full gamut. At the same time, I was building up my freelance work and was really all things to all people client facing.

And I enjoyed it, honestly I did, because I care so deeply for my clients and was the one who started it from scratch basically. So I really did care and I wanted to be able to do all of those different things for my clients at the time. Well, it just wasn’t sustainable and I wasn’t able to give them as high quality of work as is my standard.

So since then, I have been trying to solve this problem of how to help my clients in all of these different areas, because it’s hard for me to just pass it on to someone else or refer them. And I’m not really looking to hire a huge team and manage a bunch of people either. So with that, I spent quite a bit of time now building resources to educate my clients.

And the other side of that coin is I’ve started to find independent contractors that are specialists in each of those areas. So they’re fully focused on just one thing and able to give that their fullest energy. Now, this is something that I have not promoted anywhere else other than my email list.

My email list knows about things before anyone else does, sometimes even before my mom does, which she doesn’t love that. But if you want to stay in the know, definitely get on there. The email list hears about things before anyone else. Often gets beta rate pricing, things like that.

So all of that to say, I’m very passionate about helping business owners feel confident in their online presence. I say quite often that your brand, your website, and your content funnel should feel as good as your favorite pair of jeans.

Now, these are kind of the three areas we’re going to talk about today. These are the three areas that I feel somewhat of an expert in and a person that you could come to for advice on them. So I’ve talked about these concepts in, like I said, my email list, on my social media.

I also just gave a presentation about this concept just last week. So very excited to share it with you here on the podcast.

What would it look like to feel confident in your online presence?

Feeling confident online starts with having a strong brand identity, a visually appealing website, and a content strategy that resonates with your audience.

My goal for this episode is to outline the steps for you to feel well-equipped and professional online so that you’re attracting your ideal clients and achieving your business goals. I think getting your mindset right is a really good place to start. I have the Peacefully Productive Planner by Hustle Sanely.

This is my second year using it. And let me tell you, I love it. I started listening to Jess’s podcast probably three, four years ago now before I ever made a purchase from her.

And I’m really glad that I have the planner now because it truly does keep me sane. But all of the concepts that she outlines are really beneficial for me when approaching my online presence or just my business in general. I would say the main takeaway that I have from all of her content is just to pick my focus three for the day.

Sometimes I post this on my Instagram stories of my top three things on my to-do list. But it helps give me a sense of accomplishment and has really helped me a lot. So I will link that planner in the show notes.

But that’s one thing that I think is super important is just getting your mindset right. So on that same topic, I would encourage you to ask yourself, what do you enjoy doing just for fun? What re-energizes you and what inspires you? It’s really easy for me to get caught in a loop of doom scrolling. I’m sure I’m not the only one if you’re listening to this.

So I have to revisit my hobbies and remember that there are things that I enjoy outside of just work because I truly love what I do. And so it’s easy for me to just want to do that all the time. However, having the discipline to go for a walk, paint for a little bit, read on my Kindle.

I always walk away more fulfilled and more creative at the beginning of the week. So just find time to re-energize yourself so that you can go into your content creation and producing your online presence with confidence that aligns with who you are. Speaking of who you are, that brings us to the next thing, which is talking about your values.

So what you value personally is going to affect your business. There’s just no way around that. So I would encourage you to spend some time thinking about what success looks like for you.

I’ve heard this concept quite a few times recently of defining what is enough for you. There’s always going to be somebody doing what you’re doing, but doing it better or making more money than you or booking more clients than you. So getting clear on what your enough is, what successful looks like for you is super important.

If you have three little kids at home, no, you’re probably not going to be taking on as many clients as someone who maybe lives on their own and that’s all they do, just as an example. So if your business is to support you as a mom and as a wife, then that is successful for you and there’s no sense in comparing yourself to this other girl who is doing great as well. They’re just both can be successful at the same time.

Second question asked is what impact do you want to have and how do you want your clients to feel about your company, about your business? As an example, I will share the three values of Flourish Foundry and these were created from thinking through those questions. So one is high quality design. Constantly learning and growing our team values quality design above cheap work.

When it comes to design, you get what you pay for. I am a firm believer on that and I will not compromise on design, which is why I cannot be all things to all people. Number two is peaceful productivity.

We believe in a balanced approach to work, prioritizing efficiency, well-being and resting in the Lord. So I am a Christian and I try to recognize the Sabbath, which means not working on Sundays. And it takes a little bit of preparation to not do that, whether that be housework or TV, whatever it looks like for you to Sabbath.

Everybody has a little bit of a different opinion on that. But for me right now, the challenge is to not go on social media and to not work on Sundays, which is harder than it sounds for me. The third value is long lasting relationships.

Clients are my favorite part of what I do. When you work with Flourish Foundry, you can expect a crew of cheerleaders rooting for you and your business. Fun fact, I was actually a cheerleader in high school, but that’s not what I mean when I say that.

Moving on from that, I believe you deserve to have confidence and clarity in your brand’s design, voice and mission. Another aspect to consider with this is defining your dream client. So think about things like where does your dream buyer hang out? Where do they get their information? What are their biggest frustrations and challenges? What are their hopes, dreams and desires? What are their biggest fears? What is their preferred form of communication? What phrases, exact language and vernacular do they use? What does an ordinary day in your dream buyer’s life look like? What makes them happy? This is one of my favorite things to think about.

Where are touch points in your dream buyer’s journey where you can insert surprises and do the unexpected to make them happy? So now that we’ve covered some background, some mindset work, got some practical things taken care of, let’s talk a little bit more about branding, one of my favorite subjects. So understand that your brand is more than just a pretty face. Often I get Instagram reels of designers bashing Canva logos.

And I understand, I really do. I understand that it’s not scalable or doesn’t look as clean as when you hire a professional designer to do your branding and your logo for you. If I thought that Canva logos were all that the world needed, then I wouldn’t be a brand designer.

However, I think it’s really rude to bash other people for their starting place because let’s be honest, we all have to start somewhere. The first thing that I ever designed definitely doesn’t look as good as what I’m designing currently. Your brand or your business isn’t going to look the same in three years, five years from the time that you start.

That’s just not realistic. So like I said, there’s plenty of DIY logo design tools out there. Working with a designer or a brand strategist can elevate your brand.

I’m here to help you do that. We help you get clear on your vision and give you the confidence to move forward. If I’m honest with you, it’s just really, really hard to design for yourself.

I am a brand designer and a web designer and spent way too long working on my website and still do. I’m always working on my website and it’s just so much harder than working on a client website. So I can only imagine not being a designer and trying to design your branding and your website, what that would feel like.

I would recommend you work with someone else once you have the budget because your brand is more than a logo. We create your color palette, your typography, your messaging and help you stand out from the crowd. I just had a really good example of this and I think I’m going to share some more images of it either on my email list or on Instagram, one of the two.

But I just finished up a website project where we did not do the branding together. He had worked with another designer to create his branding and unfortunately it was a negative experience for him and the deliverables weren’t really what they were looking for. But they had paid for it so that’s what we were going with.

It wasn’t in the budget for me to redo it for them at this time. And I knew that going into the project and then once we started and the client had sent over his branding assets from the other designer, I realized that he did not have a brand. He had a logo and five colors to go with it.

Which is not the same thing at all as having a brand. Anyways, when you work with me with Flourish Foundry, we deliver a primary logo as well as two to three variations, a well thought out color palette that’s accessible, high contrast. We come up with different color combinations for you so you don’t have to worry about which colors you can use together.

I come up with typography and the hierarchy of that outlining exactly when to use which font. And then we work through some of these questions together so that you’re clear on your messaging and know what your brand voice is. So a couple of questions for you to think through.

What words would you use to describe your brand’s personality? What emotions do you want your brand to evoke in your audience? Thinking through these things helps you write your copy whether it be in your emails or on your Instagram or if you’re writing your own website copy. Just come up with a list of words that you really don’t want to use as well as a list of words that you do want to use. So if you ever hire a social media manager, they’re more likely to sound like you if you are clear on what you want to sound like.

Believe it or not, no one else can get inside your head and write exactly like you do. So you have to think through these things ahead of time before expanding your team. Next, let’s talk about websites.

Take up some space digitally. Your website, this is where I get the most fired up. While building a platform on social media is a wonderful place just to get started for free, it has its downsides in the long run.

Roughly 75% of users judge a company’s credibility based on its website design. To me, that’s crazy. That means if you don’t have a website, it’s likely to turn off to potential clients.

Secondly, your website is your own little corner of the Internet. If your favorite social media platform suddenly vanishes, your website is still there converting clients, bringing in money and giving you a voice online. First step with creating a website is establishing a domain.

So this can be done either through Squarespace or GoDaddy. There’s other domain registrars as well. Those are just two that are really popular.

So your domain name is just your digital address on the Internet. When choosing a domain registrar, consider factors like the domain availability, pricing, additional features, and customer support. I love Squarespace.

I think it’s super easy to use. I know GoDaddy has kind of dominated the space for a long time. So that is just my preference.

And speaking of domains, fair warning, please don’t let someone else tell you that they’re going to own your domain for you. I just published a website where the client had used another agency in the past. And that agency had outsourced the design overseas.

And the freelancer overseas opted to own the client’s domain. And he owns 200 to 300 domains, something like that. And was charging a percentage on top of the annual fee for the domain.

Which I’ll be the first one to tell you that there’s no value he could possibly be adding to that. Once you buy a domain, you’re just reserving that name online. Like there’s nothing that someone could do to charge you for that.

Anyways, please just purchase your own domain. It may be confusing. I’d be happy to talk through it.

I’m working on creating a better system for helping my clients purchase their domain and connect to their DNS settings at the end. But that is just my word of caution for you. So that’s a little bit about domains.

Next, let’s talk about website builders. I love ShowIt. Absolutely love ShowIt.

I will link my referral link in the show notes for you to get a free month-long trial so that you can play around with it and see if you like it too. I think it’s so user-friendly and very, very versatile. It gives you that truly custom feel without having to code.

Now, warning on that. When I’m building a custom website, I will, from time to time, insert a bit of code here and there just to make it even more elevated. But if it’s from my template shop, it’s not going to have coding in it.

And it’s not necessary to have coding. But if you’re paying me to do a custom website, I will most likely do just a teensy bit of coding to make it really pop and stand out. But I always deliver video tutorials, so you’ll know where the coding is.

And if you ever needed me, you know where to find me. With up to 63% of websites viewed on mobile devices first, it’s more important than ever to have a carefully designed, mobile-optimized website. That is another reason why I absolutely love ShowIt, because you get to fully customize between desktop and mobile.

If you’ve ever worked in WordPress, you know that this is not the norm. Usually, it takes quite a bit of development or coding to optimize mobile or just change any kind of design on the mobile side of the website. Which, to me, just, it doesn’t work for me.

I want the mobile version of my website to be just as beautiful as the desktop version, which is why I love ShowIt so, so much. A super easy option for getting started with a low-cost website is to find a template that you love and feel confident in designing. I have a few ShowIt templates in my shop currently.

And when you buy one of my templates, you’ll get exclusive access to my ShowIt course. This is not something that I sell elsewhere. It’s strictly for my clients.

Because I’m all about equipping you to launch with confidence. I want you to have all of the tools that you need to be able to confidently customize your website and launch your website. So, that course is provided to you whenever you purchase a template or if I build a custom website for you, you’ll get access to that so that you know how to make changes to your website.

Again, it’s all about you having ownership of your website. If you want to change your prices at one in the morning, I want you to be able to log into your website and change your prices. If you need to swap out a photo, you should know how to swap out a photo.

If a button suddenly needs to link somewhere else, you should know how to do that. This is your website. That’s the benefit of it.

So, I just think it’s the ethical thing to do to give you all the tools to do that. Bonus tip about your website. Please optimize your images.

There’s lots of different tools out there. I use TinyPNG. Again, I’ll link it in the show notes.

But this will help your website load quicker and enhance your user experience. And this kind of leans more into the SEO conversation than creating a website, which I will probably just touch on SEO another day because that is its own conversation in itself. But just know that I am now offering SEO services.

More information to come, but stay tuned for when we officially launch that. Okay, at this point, we’ve laid the groundwork. We’ve talked about branding.

We’ve talked about web design. Let’s get into content funnels. So, this is where we really get to have a lot of fun because this is something that I no longer offer as a one-on-one service.

So, it is strictly educational content from me on this. And then I’m working on building out some offers for my clients with, again, the team of specialists. So, how you approach social media is everything.

Go from overwhelmed to in control by clarifying your why behind which platforms you show up on, what kind of content you’re creating, and how much content you’re creating. You don’t have to do it all to start. Pick one platform for each step of the content funnel.

You can always add more later. Right now, for quarter one of 2025, I have three content funnels going, one of which is called In-Demand Designer. And let me tell you, it’s worked.

So, in December of 2024, I had just rebranded as Flourish Foundry. And I was just overwhelmed by the amount of ads I was getting on Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest and you name it. Everything wanting me to download some kind of freebie, some kind of free information.

And I use a similar system in my business to build my email list. So, I totally get it. But it gets overwhelming when people are just shouting at you all of the different ways that you can grow and expand.

And I finally had to put myself on what I called a freebie download ban. Because I just was left and right downloading all of these different guides on how to grow my email list or how to build my Instagram following. And I realized that I wasn’t going to get anywhere if I kept changing the course.

Like I needed to just make a plan and stick with it. And so, I titled it In-Demand Designer because I didn’t like the feeling of saying booked out or whatever. I don’t even know what the alternative to that would be.

But In-Demand just felt a little bit more aligned with my personality and my values rather than just saying booked out. Anyways, In-Demand Designer content funnel. So, the top of the content funnel is where we want to be attracting new leads.

Below that is where we want to interact and nurture and then finally convert. So, for me, the platforms that I use to attract clients are Pinterest and SEO. And then for interaction, it’s right here on the podcast as well as Instagram.

And then nurturing happens on my email list. And then conversion is typically from the email list or Instagram. Into a streamlined process, a really snazzy client experience.

And then hopefully, incentive to return. So, incentive to return doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone. It just depends on your business model.

My advice to you would be to not let social media overwhelm you. While it’s a powerful tool, remember that your primary goal is to attract and convert dream clients. Focus on where your ideal clients spend their time.

Are they on LinkedIn, industry forums, or specific niche websites? By targeting these platforms, you can maximize your impact and generate leads more efficiently. This is where we kind of want to revisit those questions that we talked about earlier of where your dream buyer even is. Because they’re not on X. Then there’s no point in posting all the time on X. So, a couple of questions to talk through.

What social media platforms are you currently using? Where is your dream client hanging out? What kind of content do you enjoy creating? I think this last one gets overlooked quite a bit. If you love writing, then email marketing could be your best friend because that’s a lot of writing. If you don’t like being behind a camera, then maybe TikTok isn’t for you or Instagram Reels isn’t really going to come natural.

So, consider what you like doing and let that also guide you on creating your funnel. To make the most out of your social media, start by understanding your audience. Use the answers to those questions we talked about to fill out your content funnel.

Remember quality over quantity. Opt for platforms that you love to create content for. A few well-crafted posts are better than a flood of mediocre ones.

Finally, be mindful of analytics. Pick a few metrics to track that align with your goals, but don’t feel like you need to track everything. It can get really tempting to log on and see all those small wins.

I’ve honestly been guilty of this this past week because I’ve started posting on Instagram and it’s really nice to see those metrics come in and those insights go up and those likes and comments and views and think, wow, I’m like doing really good. But at the end of the day, what matters to me is clients that get booked. So, don’t let the small wins distract you.

That small dopamine hit when that’s not the metric that matters. And that is about all that I have for you today. I know that was a lot to work through.

Fear not. All of this information is neatly wrapped up in a pretty bow for my free workbook download, which you can access right here in the show notes. Working through this is a significant step towards embracing your entrepreneurial journey, feeling confident and professional is a journey.

It’s not a destination. So, by focusing on your strengths, building a strong network and continuously learning and growing, I hope that you overcome any kind of imposter syndrome you might be feeling and use this as a resource to help you achieve your goals. I’m here to support you.

I would love to connect with you on Instagram. Send me a message. I’d love to hear how this episode has impacted you.

If you work through the freebie download guide, I’d love to hear your feedback on that. I’ve sent this off to several people at this point. And as I was recording this episode, caught a typo.

So, if you see something like that, please let me know. But that is all I have for you today.

Not ready to say goodbye? Me neither.

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