#303 The 5 Most Important Pages on Your Website with Coach Erin Alexander Show notes

7:13AM May 23, 2021

Speakers:

Tracy Matthews

Erin Alexander

Keywords:

people

page

business

product

shopify

website

jewelry

necklace

customer

work

design

theme

shop owners

shop

product based business

podcast

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Then you also need really good titles and I find this most common in product handmade shops like they make these cutesy names for their products. But unfortunately, those cutesy names don't support like they don't help growth.

Welcome to thrive by design, the podcast for ambitious, independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you're a creative fashion or product based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching, growing and scaling your business. So you can spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make money. You ready? All right, let's do this.

Welcome to the Thrive by Design podcast, Episode 303. Hey there, it's Tracy Matthews, Chief Visionary Officer of Flourish and Thrive Academy. And I'm excited to be here today to talk with our coach Erin Alexander of the Product Powerhouse, all about the five most important pages to optimize on your Shopify website. This really goes for any website, but we both love Shopify. And that's the platform that she actually designs in. Now, Erin has been a coach in our Momentum program for a couple of years now. And as I mentioned, she's a Shopify expert. And she actually does website reviews and helps our brands optimize their websites for better conversions, amongst many other things. She also helps people with content creation, and other types of programs, which is really fun. Which brings me to this, you know, holiday season is right around the corner, and we want to be able to give you the best support possible in growing your business. And you might be thinking, Tracy, it's the end of May, early June. Why the heck do I have to think about holiday season now? Well, here's the thing, we know one thing for sure the in the Desired Brand Effect methodology, that there are three pillars, right?

There's creating desire, which is all about building your audience. They're sharing desire, which all is all about sales and marketing and getting repeat customers. And then they're scaling desires, that's wash, rinsing, and repeating what you're already doing with automations systems and all the business side that you got to do in your business. And I mentioned this because, you know, one of the mistakes that I see people make in general and all types of businesses, and we've done this ourselves over here is that they go into a season or launch a sales season perhaps. And they haven't done enough lead generation or audience building. And so what ends up happening is they end up marketing to the same people over and over again. And their sales don't really go up, right. And so it's great. Like if you're doing your job, right, you're going to get some a good portion of the people who've bought from you once to buy from you again. But what you're trying to do is to get more of those kinds of people.

So you always want to be generating leads in your funnel. And it's funny earlier today talked with one of our superstar students, Alex Camacho. She's a graduate of our Momentum program. And I was interviewing her because I've interviewed her several times before, you've probably heard her on this podcast, she will be back again in summer, because she's talking about another topic, plagiarism. And one of the ways that she went from $65,000 in annual sales to $300,000 in annual sales or $330,000, to be specific in annual sales in two and a half years was by continually expanding her audience with more people, like the customers that she already had, who already know knew like and trust her.

So if you want to amplify your results like Alex's, I'd love to invite you to a Growth Accelerator call. And on that call, we're gonna look take a look at your business. Take a look at your big picture vision of where you're going. Alex told me in the interview that I just did that she had a goal of hitting $100,000. And I remember when we did our intake call that she wanted to dream bigger, but she was like, I don't know if it's possible. And she did amazing things by casting a big vision so anything is possible for you as well.

Then we're going to take a look at your business as it stands now and see what's going on in there so we can make some recommendations. And then we'll take a look at some of the roadblocks that might be standing in your way. And at the end of the call, we're going to offer you some suggestions on what you can do to actually grow your business and also, we're going to offer you an opportunity to work with us if we think it's a good fit.

So if you're interested in getting our help and working with us in your business, then apply for a free growth accelerator call all you have to do is head on over to https://www.flourishthriveacademy.com/strategy/ and you'll see all the information there today. Fill out the form and jump on the call with Natasha, She is waiting to chat with you. Okay, let me do a brief intro of Aaron before we dive in. Let's do this.

Erin Alexander is the owner of Product Powerhouse. She's also a podcast host. Why the same name? She has a podcast called the Product Powerhouse and might be on it one day we'll see. She's also a Shopify web designer, and she has an agency where she helps shop owners build their online presence so they can grow and scale their product businesses. We are super excited Erin's brilliant, let's dive in.

I have a special guest, Erin Alexander on the show with me today. Erin, thanks for being here.

Thanks so much for having me, Tracy. I'm excited.

So we were just chatting before in the preinterview, I had you on the podcast, I think two years ago. So if you haven't listened to that episode, yet, we talked about mistakes that people make on their website and different things that you can do to optimize them. Today, we're going to be talking about the five most important pages on your website, we might have a bonus page. And now we're going to see. And when I was like trying to contact you via Instagram a couple of weeks ago is like, Where's Alexander Design CO? I think she's still in our program. Where's your profile? So tell us a little bit about what you've been doing? Because you changed your name more recently. And you're you're doing some other things?

Yeah. So last year, I started a podcast as well. And I called it Product Powerhouse. Because I really wanted to, or I really love working with product based businesses, it feels like a very, like, small. It's not even a small group of business entrepreneurs. But all of the like, celebrity entrepreneurs, they teach services, or they teach how to create courses, they don't teach how to sell physical products. And I loved helping build these products shop websites. So I just went all in on supporting product based businesses. And so I changed my business name from Alexander Design company, because it was kind of just something that I went with, because I didn't think of anything better and changed it to Product Powerhouse. So that I can help women business owners become powerhouses in the product world.

Awesome. And you're still designing websites?

Yep, I'm a Shopify partner, and just I help Shopify people build their websites on Shopify only I don't work with any other platforms, just trying to be the best, and helping these product base shops do their e commerce thing.

Okay, so I'm obsessed with Shopify to And I love it. Why do you love Shopify? And why did you decide to just go with only Shopify?

Yeah. So the other option I think, for most people in that is WordPress with like a WooCommerce, or something. But the problem with those platforms or that particular platform is so complicated to use. There's all these pieces, and there's all these different things that come into play. But with Shopify, it's all in one in order to be one of their theme designers. In order to be an app developer in the Shopify world, you have to follow their rules. And they Shopify has a fantastic support system. So if you did need help with your website, you can contact them directly. There's no contacting WordPress. I also think it's really easy to use, as far as like adding new products, creating blog posts, and shop owners have to be able to do that on their own. When they can't, they're like stuck, and they're like needing other people to run their business. And I don't think that that's empowering, but being able to upload a new product or create a discount when you want to, that's empowering. And so I love how easy it is to use the platform to do the things that shop owners need to do every day.

Yeah, so because a bunch of designers are not designers, I should say, Oh, yeah, designers, their designers makers. Like graphic designers, right? They're not graphic designers. They want to get on platforms like Wix or Weebly or something like that. And I'm always saying like, just go with Shopify, because what's gonna end up happening is you're gonna upgrade later.

Yep, they're gonna end up like getting nickeled and dimed. For every little thing they want to do, especially some of those, like Wix, they, they're like, oh, add this for $5. And add this for $7, which I guess is the same within Shopify, adding apps, but you'll have a lot more control over what you can do inside of Shopify than you can with Weebly or Wix. And like, I guess in the web design world, we're so annoyed by those like we don't even consider them options.

You're like, just go with the

Snobs. Just go with the best.

Yeah, so I love Shopify. And actually in the shownotes, we have a free trial offer for people who are thinking about Shopify, and I'll definitely post that in the show notes. Because it's something that I think is the most empowering platform. And I used to talk against that we used to always be like, get a WordPress site with a WooCommerce theme and I we do have designers in our community who use that probably on my recommendation because there's so much you can do with it. But then the user experience thing, like being able to update your site yourself, and not having to hire someone to code and stuff like that, unless it's complicated, as you said, is empowering. And amazing.

Yeah. And I have built, I have built a few stores on WordPress. And probably at the time, I thought it was the best option for them also. But, you know, now, several years later, it's so frustrating, because every time we log in, there's a new app to update or new plugin to update those plug in updates break the website. And it's it's just so frustrating. And we don't have that problem with our clients who are on Shopify.

Love it. So good. So let's talk about everyone's websites, your coaching our Momentum program, and been coaching in the program for a couple of years now, which has been super fun.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's been really fun. I'm just curious.

I think I loved getting to come to the event in New York before COVID. That was really fun. It was really fun to like, connect with people and like, really get to hear their stories. And the other thing I absolutely love is doing the website reviews, you know, like the first, when they first come into the program, they're usually coaching with me to do a website review or audit, and then they come back to get, you know, like, okay, I did these things we talked about, what do I do next, and I get a lot of feedback from those website audits are like, no one ever told me I needed to do this. It's the most helpful thing. And I walk them through like how to do this, like I was on a coaching call yesterday, like walking someone through step by step what they needed to do to get the results they wanted. And she was like, thank you for breaking it down into step by step things, because the tech part is really overwhelming for a lot of people. But I truly believe it doesn't have to hold you back.

Yeah, well, that's cool, because then they have like a system for updating at the next time when they need to make the same change and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Which is super cool. Yeah. So you mentioned our live event, I missed the in person one. So we're doing a virtual on June 15th. That's when we open to the public. So I'm super excited about that. And then it can be awesome. Yeah, anyway, about your website, you know, you design websites for a living, you also have this product Powerhouse Podcast and helping product based business owners expand their reach with their using their website as a tool. So all day in day out, and most people don't think about it. So I want to talk about the five most important pages on your website. And we can just break it down one by one. So what what do you think is the most important page that you have to have dialed in?

Yeah, I think the actual most important page is the product page. That is where most people find you. First, they're googling for something or they found a pin on Pinterest, and they land on that product page before they send anything else. And if you don't wow, them within that product page, they're not going to click over to any of the other pages. What's funny about that is the product page is probably the one people spend the least amount of time on. They just are at a time they start writing product descriptions and posting products photos are like burnt out from the web design. But it's the most important like I hire an assistant who only works on product pages. It's her job to optimize them to tag products to organize products. Like that's all she does, because it's that critical for your website.

So how do you recommend someone approached this? So it's not overwhelming when they're getting their product page done? And what are some of the key components?

Yeah. Yeah, this is this is there's a lot of information here. So the best way to go about it, if you have a brand new site, then it's going to be easier, like just create a list of your products and like go through each one one by one. If you have an existing site, start with your best selling products and work on optimizing those first. To you know, to make them more compelling. So the most important pieces are the product photography, obviously, like you have to have good clean, crisp pictures you have to have like these, the right sizes of pictures. But then you also need really good titles and I find this most common in product. Handmade shops like they make these cutesy names for their products. But unfortunately, those cutesy names don't support like they don't help growth.

So if you will have, you know, named your obvious use like a rosy necklace. It's an example. It's something I saw on someone's website once like a rose quartz necklace calls Rosie and they'll just have Rosie as the title of the product. But if you add that rose quartz necklace that gets traffic to your site through Google, they need those keywords. So you have to spend time like you have to actually have titles that describe the product. Not just cute names that work like that are fun, you know, like, in order to actually get our act in order to actually grow your audience and your traffic through Google, which I think for a lot of shop owners, it's really important that they do use Google to grow their business, because you're eventually going to run out of people, you know, to expand your business and word of mouth is powerful. And I think you can grow an entire business on that. But just imagine how much better it could be if you're getting like strangers finding you.

Exactly. So I have a question for you about that. So you're saying in that title, like, let's say, we're talking about the Rosie necklace, the Rosie, would you do like a hyphen, or colon and say, like, Rose Quartz pendant necklace or something like that? Or like,

That's what I would recommend

Handmade Rose Quartz necklace or something?

Yeah, using the word handmade is kind of, it's not helpful, just because there's too many things that are handmade. Right. So the specifics, that rose quartz necklace is really what people are searching for. And I would just put it on there next to it, you know, you can say it's a Rosie and then make, like, dash hyphen, slash, whatever you like, and then put the the Rose Quartz necklace piece. Google is super smart. And it's going to figure out that rose quartz necklace is what's describing the product. But that product title, it tells Google what the whole page is about. So that's why it's important that it's in that title and not somewhere else. You know, you would also include it in the description. But that title piece is like it's like the title of the book, basically, Google saying this is the title of the book. And that's how they're going to tell people whether or not they want that book or not.

And what about the image? do you how do you want to describe that? Yeah, so

Your product images, I think that there's you know, you have room to be creative in there. A lot of people like having the you know, the picture with a white background, that's really great. You can have some like creative layout shots, as long as they're not too busy. You want to make sure you name your photos with the same name as the product title. And then you can also add alt text and alt text is supposed to be used to describe what's in the photo. So you would say like, image of Rose Quartz necklace, pendant necklace laying on a white blanket so that it's using the key word, but it's also describing what's in the photo.

Okay, so the alt text is that what gets picked up on image SEO?

Yeah, the alt text is actually for two purposes. So the number one purpose is so that people who are using screen readers for accessibility can tell what's in the image, right, because their screen readers can read out that phrase for them. The title is not necessarily as important as the alt text, but it does show up in the code. So you might as well take advantage of it and name your images with those product titles.

Okay, awesome. And then what else do you think we should have? I mean, obviously, I think measurements are important. Anything else?

Yeah, bullet. I love bullet points that have like measurement materials, what what's it made out of? If you have something that is very particular about the way you care for it, you might include that. Some people like to add like a little bit of a story, which I think is fun. You still want to use the same descriptive keywords in the description, you would repeat the same keywords. So if you called it the Rose Quartz pendant necklace, somewhere in the description, and you also want to say Rose Quartz pendant necklace. That's just like reassuring. Yep, I'm telling the truth. This is definitely a rose quartz, pendant necklace. But anything that helps the customer feel like they are confident when they get that order. The number one actually there's like statistics, the number one reason people return something on those surveys, it says it's not what I was expecting, or it wasn't as expected. So you want to use your that description area to cover all the expectations.

Okay, cool. That is so helpful. So what is what do you think the next most important page is page number two,

The one that I would go to next is the homepage. And honestly, that's the one I spend the most time designing. But it's because you can be a lot more creative on those pages than you can the product page. But in the grand scheme of things, you're going to want to put your product pages first, and then your homepage because here's what happens in a customer sales journey. They're like, Oh, I really want to know rose quarter necklace to wear to my cousin Brian's wedding and they search for this rose court necklace and they find the shop they find the necklace that they like and then they're like, I want to know more about the shop so they click on the homepage and your homepage is like walking into your boutique, if you had a shop when you walked in, it's going to tell you so much more than just a catalog.

So you want to have really great images, you need to have images with people in them. No matter what you sell, you need to have images with people because it makes it feel real and tangible to the customers model when you want to. Yes, I love the pictures that have I'm sorry, the websites that have model shots are a hunderd times. This is me making up stuff, but they are so much more engaging. And as a designer, there's so much more fun to design. Like, they're just as a shopper like you can kind of picture yourself in the in the moment when you see people wearing the jewelry, right? It gives them like, right, yeah, it really does. Yeah, you also want to make sure to show off some products because when you walk in the store, you see products laying around, right. But it's not all products. There's also like aamby on so there's a cashier, so you get to show off your business. And I think that that's a piece of small business that people are afraid to do. They're afraid to put themselves in the business and like their face in the business. But that's the reason why people are shopping with you. So I love to include a like a small bio section about the company about the owner, and then lead that to the about page. Customer Reviews are critical. You know, because if you walk into a store, and it's got lots of people in there, you're like, yes, there's lots of stuff happening here. I want to check it out. But if there's no one in there, you're like, is there good stuff in here?

It might be I used to shop at sample sales when I was still living in New York, and you go in like the dead sample sale, like people would fight over something that's not even that cute, just because there was like all of that. It's like you see all the reviews and you see all the things. Yeah. And you're just like, Oh, I need to have this kind of thing.

Right? Yeah. And it's just it's building that know, like and trust factor, even though they don't know those shoppers or other people that you've put up there. They're like, these are real people who liked it. So I might like it, too.

Okay, so page number is anything else at the homepage? Before we dive on a page number three?

No, I think that's it, make it make it more interesting. Use your homepage to like, give us give a taste of your whole your business as a whole.

Okay, why don't you mention one thing about the photography, because you're talking about the model shots. For jewelry, like I've seen so many people and we met you through one of our students. And when they before they had, they had their website overhauled by you and came back. And it was like night and day because they had these beautiful images on their website, but you could not tell what they were selling. Who were like, like it? Is this a bridal photographer or whatever, because the images were there beautiful images, but they weren't selling the product. So the one comment that I would make about getting photography with people in it is to make sure that the focus is on the product, not on the image as a whole.

Right? Yeah. Yeah, I think I think it has to be really careful, especially with something like jewelry that you're trying to make, you're trying to create an emotional connection, which you're can't do if you're just looking at the ring itself, or the necklace itself. But if you back it up just a few steps, then you can get some of that emotion in the picture. And that's what pulls people in. But you do have to focus on the product too. Right? So like, even if the one picture is maybe backed up a little bit, and you're seeing her smile, and then the next picture is the jewelry, they all go together. The other thing that I think is a common misconception is like because we I mean we I don't know like what the specific philosophy is about copy on a website. But everyone's like, no words, people won't use words, but you have to have some words because copy and put photos together is what creates an emotional connection. So you know, use your words as a way to draw attention to what you want to in the photos.

I love that. Okay, page number three.

I think the next the next page is the about not yet the about page. So your about page. Like 15 years ago, I was a blogger. And the about page was like my story of how I went to college and I was ready to take on the world and I love creative writing. Right? It was like all about me. It was so cheesy, About pages aren't like that for business owners. They shouldn't be like that for bloggers either. But your about pages really like what your company is about and what you stand for. But why the customer cares? Like it has to be from the perspective of the customer. And why they why it matters to them. You know, like If you love using sustainable products, because you have a certain belief in that you need to, like get them to believe it to right or your ideal customers.

Clients are also people who believe that. So you're going to talk about it in a way that inspires them. And it's less about you and more about inspiring your customers. And then you can, you can go even further because in design, now the trend is to have a little bit longer pages, because it's easier to scroll longer pages on your phone, you can go more in depth, you can show behind the scenes, you can show more like you fill out your philanthropy work, like when you're volunteering, you can really get them on board with who you are as a person. And like, again, it's making that emotional connection with the business owner.

But it's also showing them why they care. You know, like, oh, Nikki really cares about recycling and reusing jewelry and making sure that the gems are fair mind or whatever the right word is. But you know, like that stuff is important. And especially like if we're finding that it's getting more and more important, as you know, as time goes on. And so you could spend more time on your about page. And I always hear like, it's so hard to write about myself, but I'm like, don't write about yourself, write a story for the customer. Why, why it matters.

Exactly. This is a great point. And I love that you brought this up, because one of the ways that we teach writing an about page is really about making it about the customer. And you know, my friend, Laura Belgrave, she's been on this podcast before. And she has a different methodology about her About Page Builder and stuff like that. But I think the most important thing is if you can pique someone's curiosity about what it actually is. And so in our Laying the Foundation program, one of the things that we work with designers and brands who are just trying to develop their messaging is like, what are the core values that you have, that your customer also stands for? And that way you can find that intersection. And it reminded me of that, because when you were talking about the recycled jewelry, or sustainable jewelry, or whatever you were saying before, in the you know, hypothetical, if you think if that's sort of the angle that you want to go with in your business, you know, obviously you can create the avatar around who that person is, and call them out on the about page.

Like, even if you said something like I designed jewelry for that XYZ person, or the XYZ woman or you're here because you're XYZ. And, and I love working with people like that. So it's not so much about like this long, boring list of accolades. It's about how can you find that core crossover with what you value most and what your your customers value most and communicate that in a story, which I love that. So from a call to action perspective, like, what do you recommend having on the about page, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious that we want to get people to shop. So somewhere on that page, you want to link to our shop, is there anything else that you would do?

Yeah, I usually like to enter the page with a Shop My favorite collection, because it's sending people to, to the shop. But it's also incorporating your perspective and your style. Like these are the ones I wear every day one of one of our students that I've worked with Joyia, Joyia jewelry. She ends with, like, these are the ones I wear every day. And when you see her she does wear the same jewelry every single day. And so it's like someone who's like popped into her shop or seen her on a video like, you know, these are the pieces she wears. So it's it's giving, like an insight into the business owners life but also saying like, hey, buy something.

Yeah, exactly. Joyia and she's doing so well. Like,

yeah, she's incredible. Check her out.

Got a great jewelry line. Okay, anything else on the about page that you think is is relevant?

I don't think so. I think that's it. I was about to mention the call to action, too. I'm glad you brought it up.

Page Number four.

Okay, your Contact page. People want to be able to ask questions, even how even though it's annoying to answer emails all day long, but people need to be able to, to ask questions. And in fact, it is a requirement by Google to have a contact page if you are going to run Google ads. And you know, all the different places have different rules. So Facebook might have some rules about what you have to have. PayPal has rules about what you have to have on your website if you're going to use their service. So websites need to have a contact page. But this is also a great opportunity to kind of kind of use it to your advantage.

You don't have to just have a contact form and say email me here. You can put an interesting information about your business like if you have a location obviously you want to put that put up an email address put a book customer service phone number if you have one. You can have your FAQs on your contact page. You can offer them to sign up for your email list is a great way sure know your to let them get to know you but a contact page is people something people expect, so you want to give it to them. But you could also use it to your advantage. So I keep that one on my list of most important pages.

I think the contact page is really important. There's nothing that I can't stand more when it's just like a form on the page, though. Yeah, there's nothing else like what else do you recommend from, from a design perspective? First, like, what would you put on that page? And do you think a phone number is important? I heard once that you get like, it highly increases your conversions. If you have a phone number on your website, and not other information?

Yeah, so it depends on like, the type of business like, you know, if they have a location, then I definitely want to include specific things about the location, because that's really good for SEO. And you can like, focus the site on their location, SEO, location based keywords to grow, you know, to get that incoming traffic, people are visiting the area, or they're looking for somewhere they can stop in, I love to include a photo again, because maybe they didn't check out the about page and they just want to ask a question, I think it it just kind of says like, Hey, this is who you're emailing, I'm a real person. I definitely think you should have an email address. I, a lot of businesses do, especially retail people do expect a phone number but I also think it depends on your ideal client or your dream customer. Because they're millennials, like I will do anything to not have to call a business, right. But an older clientele, they're like, Well, did you call them? I'm like, No, I didn't call them I don't call people you know. So it kind of depends on your ideal customers. And I, I absolutely think that it's worth testing out, if you put up a phone number, and you're getting a lot of calls that are not spam, and they're like really legitimate, and you're having great conversations with customers, by all means use it. I had a phone number on my website for a while. And only one lady ever called me and she left a lot of messages. So I took it off.

Yeah, so I heard, someone told me that it helps improve conversions. There was some statistic about it. But the advice that I give to people is like you don't have to have your actual real cell phone number, their voice number and voice through the app, which I didn't even know. And so that's what we use for flourish and thrive. Because obviously, my team doesn't want to, and then we have people switching out customer service. Like if we have three customer service people, we can have one number, and everyone can use that same number to correspond with people calling. Because I do we do get people calling us sometimes that flourish and thrive to you. What I found really valuable is if you get a Google Voice number in the app, you can literally text with people and you can say call or text here. And then you're not necessarily giving away your personal information, which I think is good.

Yeah, I definitely think you should either have a Google Voice number or a separate business line. For some privacy. I also think it can, it can depend on your business size. And like if you do farmers markets and things like that, there's a lot of different instances where people might want to get in touch with you. And phone is probably easier. So, you know, it's always worth trying and always worth seeing what works best for your business.

What do you think about so on the contact page, like some people do wholesale? Or they might get press inquiries? Do you think it's valuable to add contact details for that as well?

Yeah, I will. Usually I will put that underneath everything else. Because people who are searching for wholesale vendors, and or press they know to like look in the folds of the website. So I will put that underneath because your ideal customer, right, they want to be at the top and then put that further down. It's not going to prevent annoying people from filling out the wrong form or, you know, filling out the form and they need to email you. I even have that on my website. And people still pitch me in my contact form. But it can be helpful, like people who are intelligent, who are like, really valuable resources, they're going to follow whatever precedents you've set up on your website. So I would keep that on your, at the bottom of your contact page. You can also have a separate page for wholesale applications, if you prefer people to just apply and then get in touch with you later. It just depends on your process for gathering up those types of customers.

Love it. Okay, finally, We got to page five, and this might be a toss up, what are we going with for page five?

Every business is different in your page five, I usually call it a landing page. So your business might have a custom design piece to it. And that's a page that you're going to want to spend a lot of time on and optimize and really focus on the design or your business might have, you know a charitable piece where you really want to you give back in a big way and you really want to draw attention to that. I'm thinking of Nikki from Revive jewelry. She has like a full page of that. Or you might maybe you have a subscription box and that needs a full landing page. But whatever your thing is, make sure you're not just throwing up a text page like Shopify offers, but going in and really putting some thought and interest and like engaging content into that page giving visuals really like making it a page that stands on its own, which I think is difficult in Shopify, not every theme gives you that option. So sometimes you have to add an app, or sometimes you have to get it coded. Some themes do give you that choice. It's really worth spending time to create those additional pages, your like terms and conditions and your privacy policy. And they can all be boring pages. But anything that's a big focus and like a big part of your business that should have its own standalone landing page.

Awesome. So what are your favorite themes? Speaking of themes?

Yep. My favorite theme is the Impulse theme. It's created by Arc themes. And I just think that it's incredible. It's very flexible. It has a lot of different sections that you can manipulate to get the design you want. It has all the features. The most important thing when you're picking a theme is to look for the features that you want. And features that I think are important are the ability to have videos within the design, which is becoming standard, but it wasn't for a while. The ability to add filtering through your, through your shop so that people can search by like gold or ring size or stone type. I think that's really critical for businesses that have a large inventory and then there's some fun design things like having those bigger like pretty menus, which we call mega menus, it has that I also like the themes buy out of the sandbox, they have a couple in this Shopify store, and I'm going to mix up that name, so I won't pretend that I can remember them off the top of my head, they have some that are available in the Shopify store. And then they have some available on their website that are like twice the money. Those ones that are like twice the fee are incredibly flexible. I think they're called turbo and flex. But you can change everything in there. So I feel like for people who really want to DIY and wants to be in control of their design those themes, even though they're more money, they're going to be happier with them because they have more control.

Now, what are we talking about more money? Like how much more?

So a normal theme, like the impulse theme is $180. And I believe this? I believe the flex or the turbo theme is like $400.

Okay, so it's a one time fee. Yeah, it's expensive. Yeah,

it's a one time fee.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. It's, it's much better to spend your money on a theme than it is to install a lot of apps to get what you want. Because every time you install another app, it could have a like, it could not talk to the other apps, or it could break your site, not break your site. Slow down your site. It's what I'm trying to say.

Yeah, slow down your site. And it could also end up being like a monthly recurring that ends up being a lot.

Yeah, I try to avoid those at all possible like I try to do as much as I can on like the research side, so that people don't have to pay extra when their every month. Some things you do have to pay extra. But as much as possible. Let's avoid those fees.

Erin, this was awesome. Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you,

Where can everyone find you?

Okay, so you can find me at Productpowerhouse.co The podcast is also called Product Powerhouse. I'm going to convince Tracy to be a guest. And that's the best place to play. On Instagram. I'm @productpowerhouse, also. And that's where we're probably hanging out the most.

Awesome. Thanks, Erin.

Thank you, Tracy.

Thank you so much for listening to the show today. before I sign off, I mentioned earlier that we love to help you grow your sales and on June 15, we are hosting an amazing event. It is called Expand your audience. Amplify your growth. It's a one day virtual event. It is full of keynote speakers, strategic workshops, where you're actually doing the work and getting stuff done. Panels, q&a sessions, and so much more. And we'll be covering topics like expanding your social media audience, converting those followers into email subscribers, we're gonna be talking about ambassador programs, organic search, and so many other areas that you're not really thinking about that you can do now, to get more exposure for the holidays.

Plus, we're going to be doing a PR session. We'll have several panels involved and some q&a so that you can get your questions answered. I think you are going to love it. Head on over to flourishthriveacademy.com/amplifygrowth and check out all the details right there. I will also have a link in the show notes. All right, this is Tracy Matthews, signing off. Until next time.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. It's my mission to help 1000s of creative businesses inside and outside the jewelry space. use their creativity to make money. Make sure that you're subscribed to thrive by design on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever podcasts are played. And we'd love to hear what you think. Please rate and review the show and if you're inspired, please share this with your friends. Cheers to seeing you flourish and thrive.