New Year Website Optimization Tips for Doulas - The Doula Darcy Podcast

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Doula Darcy Podcast – "New Year Website Optimization Tips for Doulas"

Release Date: January 5, 2025
Host: Darcy Sauers

Introduction and Embracing New Year Energy

In the opening segment of the episode, Darcy Sauers sets an enthusiastic tone by celebrating the invigorating energy that accompanies the New Year. Reflecting on her own experiences, she shares how the motivation and determination during this time can be harnessed to propel personal and professional growth.

“I just love the energy this time of year. Everybody's just putting their best foot forward and trying to accomplish their goals.” – [00:50]

Darcy emphasizes the importance of riding this wave of motivation to implement meaningful changes in one’s doula business.

Embracing the Beginner's Mindset

Transitioning into the core of the episode, Darcy introduces the concept of the "beginner's mindset." She encourages doulas to revisit the excitement and passion they felt when they first started their careers, regardless of how long they’ve been practicing.

“Tap back into that beginner's mindset. It means looking at things with fresh eyes and reconnecting with the initial excitement you had when you first trained as a doula.” – [05:30]

This mindset fosters openness to new ideas and adaptability, which are crucial for business growth and website optimization.

Reframing Busyness and Perspective

Darcy shares a personal anecdote illustrating how a shift in perspective can transform feelings of stress into appreciation for one’s achievements and upcoming opportunities.

“I have a call. I've got to make the menu for this birth worker retreat. I got a pack... When I switched my perspective, I saw all the fun things I get to do.” – [04:30]

By reframing a busy schedule as a series of exciting projects and events, doulas can alleviate feelings of overwhelm and recognize the progress they’ve made.

Website Optimization Tips

1. Enhancing User Experience and Navigation

Darcy underscores the importance of a user-friendly website. She recounts a frustrating experience with a local juice delivery website to highlight common navigation pitfalls.

“It was hard to buy the juice... I give up, I'm not doing this.” – [10:15]

Actionable Tip: Ensure that critical actions, such as booking services or making purchases, are easily accessible from the homepage. Avoid requiring multiple clicks to perform essential tasks.

2. Clear Contact Information and Location

A recurring theme is the necessity of prominently displaying contact information and service locations to facilitate easy client interaction.

“If I'm going to hire you, I need to know you live in my town. So please put that at the top of your website.” – [14:05]

Actionable Tip: Highlight your location and service areas within the first few lines of your website. This not only aids potential clients but also improves local SEO.

3. Focus on Client Benefits

Darcy advises doulas to center their website content around the benefits to the client rather than solely focusing on the doulas themselves.

“Make it about your clients, not you at first. Explain how you are going to help them and make their life better.” – [17:50]

Actionable Tip: Craft headlines and content that address the needs and desires of your prospective clients, showcasing how your services will positively impact their birthing experience.

4. Streamlining Contact and Booking Processes

Simplifying the steps required to contact or book a doula is crucial for converting website visitors into clients.

“Make sure there's a prominent button to book a free call, splattered in many different places on your website.” – [19:30]

Actionable Tip: Incorporate multiple, easily accessible call-to-action buttons encouraging visitors to book a consultation or make a deposit, reducing friction in the hiring process.

Common Website Mistakes to Avoid

Darcy identifies several common errors that can hinder a doula’s ability to attract and retain clients:

Overemphasis on Self: Lengthy descriptions of personal qualifications and passions can detract from addressing client needs.
Hidden Contact Information: Making it difficult for potential clients to find or use contact methods can lead to lost opportunities.
Broken Links and Errors: Technical issues like broken links or typos can frustrate users and diminish credibility.

“Don’t make it so hard for people to do business with you. It’s like you’re throwing up walls and hoops for people to jump through.” – [18:45]

Actionable Tip: Regularly audit your website to ensure all links are functional, information is accurate, and the focus remains on client benefits.

Maintaining Online Presence and Links

Darcy emphasizes the importance of ensuring that all external and internal links on your website, as well as across social media platforms, are active and error-free.

“Make sure all those links are working. It's a great little thing you can do this time of year to set yourself up for more success.” – [20:10]

Actionable Tip: Use tools or enlist help from friends to test all links and functionalities on your website periodically.

Final Tips and Encouragement

As the episode nears its conclusion, Darcy offers final encouragement and actionable steps to help doulas optimize their websites effectively:

Declutter Your Business: Streamline processes and eliminate unnecessary barriers.
Ensure Clarity: Clearly communicate how you can help clients and where you serve.
Enhance Biographies: Reserve detailed personal information for the “About Me” section, not the homepage.

“Make sure your scaffolding that's holding up your business is working. Because when there's broken links and typos, it hurts your business.” – [20:40]

Conclusion and Calls to Action

In her closing remarks, Darcy reiterates the importance of a well-optimized website as a foundational tool for business success. She invites listeners to engage further by joining her Doula Village, attending retreats, or utilizing her website templates designed for doula businesses.

“A good website is the best investment that you can make for your doula business because it’s like an employee that’s out there working for you on the web while you’re at a birth.” – [21:40]

Listeners are encouraged to connect with Darcy on Instagram, join her Facebook community, and explore her website templates to kickstart their optimized online presence for the new year.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

Embracing New Year Energy:
“I just love the energy this time of year... trying to accomplish their goals.” – [00:50]
Beginner's Mindset:
“Tap back into that beginner's mindset... reconnecting with the initial excitement.” – [05:30]
Reframing Busyness:
“When I switched my perspective, I saw all the fun things I get to do.” – [04:30]
User Experience Frustration:
“It was hard to buy the juice... I give up, I'm not doing this.” – [10:15]
Clear Location Importance:
“If I'm going to hire you, I need to know you live in my town.” – [14:05]
Client-Focused Content:
“Make it about your clients, not you at first.” – [17:50]
Simplifying Contact:
“Make sure there's a prominent button to book a free call...” – [19:30]
Avoiding Business Barriers:
“Don’t make it so hard for people to do business with you...” – [18:45]
Ensuring Functional Links:
“Make sure all those links are working... set yourself up for more success.” – [20:10]
Value of a Good Website:
“A good website is the best investment... working for you on the web while you’re at a birth.” – [21:40]

Final Thoughts

Darcy Sauers provides invaluable insights for doulas aiming to enhance their online presence in the new year. By adopting a beginner’s mindset, reframing their perspectives on busyness, and implementing strategic website optimizations, doulas can significantly improve their ability to attract and serve more families. This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for both new and seasoned doulas looking to refine their marketing strategies and streamline their business operations for greater success in 2025.

Transcript

A (0:09)

Welcome to the Doula Darcy Podcast. I'm your host, Darcy, a business coach for Doulas, and I love helping my fellow doulas master the art of marketing so that they can grow their businesses and help more families. On the podcast, I combine my decade of experience in Advertising with 14 years as a doula to empower other doulas with the marketing strategies and mindset shifts they need to attract more clients and create successful, fulfilling doula careers. Whether you're just starting out as a doula or you're looking to take your doula business to the next level, you're.

B (0:42)

In the right place.

A (0:43)

Let's go.

B (0:50)

Hey there doulas and happy New Year. I am excited, excited to be kicking off 2025 with a brand new podcast episode. And I just love this time of year. Yesterday, as I was driving to my usual yoga class and I'm in New Hampshire, it was 27 degrees out. There were so many people out running at 8am in the morning in the bitter, bitter cold on January 4th. Everybody's just so motivated. And then I got to yoga and the place packed. They literally sent some people home who were on the wait list. So I just love the energy this time of year. Everybody's just putting their best foot forward and trying to accomplish their goals. And yeah, it fizzles out. But let's ride that energy while we have it because. And I tapped into this in the past couple episodes of just our mindset and our perspective. Perspective is everything and it's hard. And I'm sharing this with you because I even caught myself doing this the other day. I was running around the house like slamming doors and just huffing and puffing. And my daughter was like, mom, what is wrong? Like, what? And I was like, I'm just stressed out. I got so much to do. And she was like, why are you so stressed out? And so I start to just begrudgingly list off to her all the things I had to do. I was like, I have a call. I've got to make the menu for this birth worker retreat. I got a pack. And then I have to. I start talking about all these details I have to do for the fun trips that I'm taking in the next couple months. Everything I listed off to her when I switched my perspective were fun things that I get to do that I've created for myself in my business. So it was very easy to slide into. Oh my God, I have so much to do. I'm so stressed out. I'm so busy. Why is life like this and then I, you know, through talking it out and changing my perspective to, wow, look at where I've gotten my business, look at what I have coming up in the next few weeks, that yes, I'm busy, but it's all super fun stuff. I'm gonna see so many of you at the birth worker retreat in Clearwater, Florida here in five, six days. I cannot wait. I've got my Wilmington doula day coming up in North Carolina in February. I'm going to visit my cousin who just had a baby and be her postpartum doula. This is all amazing stuff that I have. And yes, I have to pack a lot of suitcases, but that is what I get to do. So it reminded me of how just life as an entrepreneur is as a doula. We are. And it ties into this whole New Year's energy thing. I promise. We are so excited. I want you to tap back into that, what's called beginner's mindset. And sometimes that means like looking at things with fresh eyes, but it also means tapping back into that feeling you had when you first trained as a doula and you were just so excited to go be a doula and go help somebody. It's really important to tap into that feeling no matter whether you're one year into your doula career, 3, 5, 10, 20, whatever. Because I guarantee you as a entrepreneur, we always want to be doing more. We always want to be helping more, we want to be growing. We go. It's just human nature, but also doula's nature to we want to be helping more. So we get it very easily can seem to us that we're not doing enough. And are you catching yourself bemoaning the fact that you're really busy with clients or bemoaning the fact that you have a long to do list because you have to update your website or do this or change your prices or raise your rates or have a meeting with this person. And so I want you to reframe that in stock instead of looking at your to do list as, oh my God, I'm so busy and I'm not doing enough, so I have to do more. Look at it through those eyes of when you were a brand new baby doula and you didn't have a client yet. Wouldn't that version of yourself be so pumped that your to do list includes three shifts with three new moms and a website review and all this other stuff? So take a moment to look how far you've come again, whether it's been a week or 20 years. And remember the little baby doula you were when you started and how proud she would be of you. Even if you've had one client, you're doing it. So if that's where you're at, I hope that was helpful. I also wanted to come here today to talk about, let's talk about the beginners mindset, beginner's eyes, whatever, on your existing website. And what I mean is I want you to go to your website and look at it not as you, not as the person who wrote it, not as the person who spent 20 hours writing it and working on it. I want you to look at your own website as someone in your town who is pregnant with those fresh eyes. Because here's a little story time. This summer I went to our local farmers market and I met this woman who made this delicious cold pressed organic juice. And a couple weeks ago I decided and I talked to her and she's, oh, we live in Dover. We do delivery. You can order juice on our website and we'll deliver it to your house. And so I was like, this is great. So I decided like a month ago that I wanted to do this juice delivery. So I had tucked her card on my little bulletin board thing. I went to the website and when I tell you it was hard to buy the juice, it was, I had to click through, I think four different pages before I finally found the place where I could click to order the juice to be delivered. It was really hard and I'm using air quotes with my fingers, but it was, there was times when I was like, I give up, I'm not doing this. But I really wanted the juice. So I put in the work to find that button. It should have been front, back and center. It should have been right at the top because that's all they do. She did have like merch. So when you clicked on shop at the top in the menu, which I thought, oh, shop, that's where I must go to buy juice. Nope, that's where you go to buy a hat with her logo on it or T shirts or something. You had to go it just the name of the page where you went to actually buy the juice. I don't know. It was so hard. So I want you to make sure when someone looks at your own website, they don't have to work so hard to hire you. I was getting mad like, this is what makes me mad as a business owner when I'm trying to give someone money, when I'm trying to hire someone like a plumber or anything when I'm trying to like renew the oil to, to come deliver to my house and it's like hard. It makes me so mad because I'm trying to give you money. I'm spending the other 99% of my time in life like trying to get hired. So I get really frustrated when I as a consumer want to hire somebody and they make it hard on me because I'm like, I'm over here in my business just trying to help people. So anyway, it's like a personal pet peeve of mine. So I want you to go through your own website and see how hard it is. And maybe no one is going to come to your website the first time book your $2,000 doula package. But actually maybe they are. Maybe they met you at the farmer's market. Maybe their best friend was like, you're you have to hire this doula. Maybe they are going to go to your website and want to just put down a deposit. So make that easy. Make a button at the top of your doula services page, but on your main page make it very easy for them many times to book to start a conversation with you. What's the first step you want them to take? Might I suggest that first step is to book a free call with you. So make the button for that very prominent splattered in many different places on your website so that at different moments some people are going to come to your website and right away, yes, I want to book a call. Some people have to read a little bit about what you offer, then they want to book a call. Some people have to do a little bit more and read more about you and then the button needs to be there and then also maybe two clicks in on your services page. Make it easy for them to pay their deposit if that's the step that they're at. Also please go through your website and make sure they also is very clear how you help them and where you are located. Also in this past week I have been trying to reach out to some local doulas and also just in general and you've all heard me say this before, maybe you haven't because you're still not doing it. I look at so many doula websites and you cannot. You're on the website for several minutes scrolling and scrolling and scrolling before you find out where this doula is located. If I'm going to hire you, I need to know you live in my town. So. So please put that at the top of your website. Please make it very Clear your service area not only to help the people trying to hire you, but maybe more importantly, help Google know where you are. So Google knows who to show your website to. I'm also telling you this story and inspired to make this podcast because of someone I wanted to have on as an expert in my doula village. Their services were recommended to me and I said, oh great, let me go to their website. And their website was very clear on who they helped. It was a great website. And then you could book a click a button to get a free estimate and then that was it. There was no button to contact the owner. I couldn't, There was no. I couldn't find her email address, I couldn't find her phone number. I could. There was no contact form. There was legit, no way to contact the owner of the business. Again, I wanted to have. I maybe was going to have her on the podcast, but I can't contact her. I. And she did have a link to her Instagram. I went to the Insta her Instagram and sent her a dm. But again, don't make it so hard for people to do business with you. It's like you're throwing up walls and hoops for people to jump through. Make sure you're not doing that. The other thing I see on websites is that you're not showing your location and you're not clearly in the first two lines, headlines hopefully of your website, making it clear who, who and how you help. Meaning you say I am a birth doula. What I see so often is what we call proving energy. The first three pages of a doula's website are I'm so and so the doula. And I'm so passionate about birth. And here's four paragraphs about how beautiful I think birth is. That is great. But if I'm 20 weeks pregnant and want to hire a doula, like I don't really care, how are you going to help me? So if you have paragraphs and paragraphs of why you think birth is great and then the proving energy is paragraphs and paragraphs of trainings. I did this training, I've taken this. I've helped this many people. I do all this stuff. Here's all the reasons why I'm trying to prove to you I'm a good doula. That's great information and that belongs on your About Me page, not on your home page of your website or even if it's on your homepage. Put it closer to the bottom. Up ahead of that is how you help make it about your clients, not you at first on your website because they're scrolling around, they've just heard about you, they just met you at the farmer's market. They're coming to your website and you have a couple seconds to hook them enough to make them want to stay on your website and learn how you are going to help them, how you're going to make their life better, how you're going to do something for them that makes them want to hire you. So talk about that first. And then once they're hooked and they're intrigued and they're hopefully they've already booked a consult with you, then they're going to dive deeper. They want to know your philosophy, they want to know your experience. They do want to know all of that, but that's not the first thing they need to know. And I'm looking at myself in the mirror and I am, I look so mad. I'm like pointing and gesticulating. And it's because I just, I think because I look at so many doula websites and I talk to so many doulas who are so frustrated. I see you in the Facebook groups that you're not getting clients, you're not getting inquiries on your website and really go through and look at how hard you are making it for people to contact you and hire you. And this, maybe this is another whole podcast episode, but maybe this, it's like a subconscious. I don't know if I'm good enough, so I'm gonna put up all these barriers. Maybe you don't even know you're doing it. But take those barriers down if you want clients. Here's the other way I see this come up is I'll see people post in a group. Hey, looking for a birth doula in Topeka. Due date is February 10th. Let me know if you're available. And people just do you doulas comment, I'm available. And that's it. Don't make it so hard for this other doula to track you down because then the doula has to comment back and say, oh, can I send you a pm? Da da da da da. No. If you see a message that someone in Topeka needs a doula on a date that you're available, you comment back. Hi, I'm available. Here's my website. Feel free to text me at this number or send me a pm. I am available on those dates and ready to help. So make. Here's what it comes down to. If someone's going to hire you, if someone's going to pay you money. It is your job to make life easier for them. Send them a link to your contact form, draw up the contract, draw up the invoice so all they have to do is click yes. Make it easy. Don't make them do so much work so that they have to hire you. You're the one who's supposed to be doing the work. So this, in my Doula village, is what we call a Doula Darcy rant. I mean it with love and I hope that these tips have helped you and I hope that it's a new year. If it's a great time to declutter closets and let's declutter your business, let's go through and streamline your business. Look at your website with those fresh eyes as though you're a client trying to hire you. Make sure it's easy to contact you. Make sure it's easy to find out where you're located and if you service their town. Make sure it's easy for them to know how you are going to help them. Go through your Instagram and your Facebook and everything. Make sure there's no errors in your phone number. Make sure that all your bios are very clear in who you help and where you are located. Make sure all your links still work on your website. Go through, have a friend, maybe click the contact buttons and sign up for your email list and do all the things. Just make sure your scaffolding that's holding up your business is working. Because when there's broken links and broken things and typos, God, when I see typos in like Instagram addresses or like, I'll go to somebody's website and how you have the symbols for Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever, and you click on those and they go to a dead page. It's so frustrating. So make sure all those links are working. It's a great little thing that you can do this time of year to kick off the new year and set yourself up for more success. Because that is all the Doula Darcy wants for you. I want you to have as many clients as you possibly can in 2025. I hope that this was helpful for you. I hope this sets you up for a lot of success in 2025. I hope I get to see you this year, whether it's next week in Clearwater, Florida, coming up in February in Wilmington, North Carolina, or you want to join my Doula Village and come to one of our main retreats in May, or there's two in October you saw it. I got to hug 21 doulas from my doula village in 2024. I want to up that number in 2025. I'm also going to the Dona Summit in October in Seattle so I am going to be out and about this year hoping to meet as many of you as I possibly can. So so as always, find me on Instagram, shoot me a DM if you have questions. If you need to just completely overhaul your website and get a framework of of a website that is set up for all these things I talked about and SEO success. Head to doula darcy.com click on doula website Templates get one of the Doula website templates I designed with my or my web team designed and I approved and we have just set up for SEO success and more. Get one of those Doula website templates. It is the best investment and a good website is the best investment that you can make for your doula business because it's like an employee that's out there working for you on the web while you're at a birth. It's attracting in your next clients and Happy New Year.