5 Easy Ways to Spruce Up Your Website

Disclosure: some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Well hey there crafty friend!

You’ve made it through Thanksgiving, and hopefully you are elbow-deep in online orders!

I want to take a moment to give you a BIG pat on the back...

...you have done SO MUCH WORK this year to get your handmade business moved over into an online space. 

You have probably heard me say “progress over perfection”, and if you have taken my advice, then you have gotten your online spaces up and running before you felt ready.

If that is what you have done, then I’m over here cheering for you!

If you are still stuck in the “I don’t know what to do/I’m not ready to be online” space, then consider this your official (gentle) kick in the pants to get moving.

As you move further into the holiday shopping season, it’s important to remember that you need to nurture your website as much as you are nurturing your audience!

Your website is your virtual show booth: for most of your customers this season, this is going to be their first step into your world. What does your website design say about you and your work?

Here is a little list of points to check on your website to make sure that it’s in tip-top shape to make a great first impression:

✓ Make sure all of your links work!

Clicking on a link and getting that dreaded ‘404’ error is like a digital “womp, womp” for your customer. Pair up with a friend and ask him/her to go to your website and click around on the home page to make sure your menu links, your social media links, your email signup links, etc. are all working correctly.

✓ Make sure your email signup link is properly connected to your email service provider

This is VITAL to your business: if you have someone who loves your site/work SO much that they sign up for your email, you MUST be sure that they are getting a welcome email immediately after they sign up. Either sign up yourself, or ask a friend to test that connection and make sure everything is firing properly.

✓ Make sure you have plenty of products for sale

Don’t laugh, but I’ve known wonderful people who have gorgeous websites wondering why they aren’t making any sales...only to find out that all of their listings were sold out. 

Yeah. Don’t do that.

You want to be sure that your item quantities are accurate, that you have plenty of variety, and that your customer can easily add it to their cart and check out with no hassle. 

✓ Make sure your navigation is...navigable

You’ve worked SO hard to get people over to your website...now make sure the experience is a great one! If you aren’t sure if your menu “makes sense”, invite a good friend to look at it and see if they can get around ok and if it all seems to flow. Better yet, if you are a member of the Bloom: Grow Your Handmade Business Facebook group, you can post your website link in there and ask for feedback from the hive mind!

✓ Get your post-purchase followup nailed down

If you are wondering “what’s a post-purchase followup?” then I am SO glad you are here and reading this post!

A post-purchase followup is the series of communications you have with your customer after they purchase.

Yeah, you should have one...don’t love ‘em and leave ‘em! We are building relationships here, right?

If you have an email service provider that’s integrated with your website, you can set this up as an automation. Pro tip: my post-purchase email sequence for my own jewelry business is one of the most successful (most opens/clicks/additional purchases) sequences I have. 

If you don’t have this set up yet, at the VERY least I want you to edit your automated responder (every online selling platform sends out an email when an order is placed, and you have the option to edit them). 

Add in a personalized thank you, link to your social channels, and invite them to respond back and let you know what they think!

Set aside a few minutes each day to tackle each one of these pieces, and at the end of 5 days your site will be shiny and new.

Websites, especially ecommerce sites like ours, are NEVER “set it and forget it”. Pay attention to what your customers are saying, where they are clicking, what they are buying...and then figure out how you can make that experience even better!

Now that you know how to get your website ready for traffic...how about you go get some traffic!

From December 1 through December 31, I am hosting a daily posting challenge to help you build up your social media engagement, nurture your audience, and get people over to your website.

You will learn how to track your Facebook and Instagram account analytics to start (so that you can see the growth over the month!) and then get daily posting prompt emails from me (they'll be short, but live posting is the best way to get engagement!). 

Click below to join in this free challenge!