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Foreign. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Kate Show. Today I have a huge rant for you. I know some of you love it when I go on rants, but truthfully, I am very critical of my own industry. So my own industry being luxury marketing and website design. Now, I don't necessarily go around calling myself a luxury this or that, but when I look at my client roster and I look at the work that my team is doing, yes, we, we are doing these luxury services, which is why I feel comfortable critiquing and saying all the things I'm going to say today. And it's based off of stories that my clients have told me. Situations that we've gotten clients out of, it has gotten a little bit intense. So let me just put it this way. When I say I'm highly critical of my own industry of luxury brand and website designers, here's what I mean. If website designers would optimize each website they build for SEO, if they'd optimize it for SEO, they'd be truly offering full website design services. But as it is, I have found when clients come to me, they've been told, well, first you have to hire a website designer and then you have to hire a copywriter, because those two people don't do the just, they don't provide like the one service. And then you have to hire an SEO person and it ends up really making the price of their overall website astronomically expensive because the more professionals you have to hire, the pricier your website becomes. Plus, I keep running into clients who have fell victim to some luxury branding experts out there who claim you don't need copywriting. Like, you need, like minimal, minimal words on your site. You don't really need to worry about SEO. You don't need to do blogging or email marketing, and these clients are suffering for it. Truthfully, it really pisses me off. So that is why I am about to share all the things in this episode. So if you're like, my last website designer didn't offer SEO. Like I said, I hear this far too often from new clients. And it's similar to offering full service design build, but. But never hiring the electrical subcontractor. So the house looks great, but nothing happens when you flip the light switches and it's like, wait a minute, what? And the frustrating thing is if someone is offering website design but not SEO, which always includes copywriting, by the way, because where else would those keywords come from? The end result is not a complete website. Now, if you have found yourself in this situation. Don't freak out. There is a quick way to know whether your website has proper on site SEO that will help your website be found in Google search results. So let's just start with the basics. What is SEO? Well, search engine optimization, or SEO, determines how highly ranked your website is in search results. It's a combination of copywriting and keywords loading speed, user experience, mobile friendliness, stuff like that. Now, ironically, I decided to ask Google, what is SEO? How does copywriting affect SEO? And I'm going to read to you what Google said, because why not ask the source, right? If we're all trying to rank higher on Google, let's ask Google what matters to you. What do you want to see in a website? And here's what Google said. Copywriting significantly impacts a website's SEO by influencing how well search engines understand and rank your content, primarily by incorporating relevant keywords, addressing user intent, speaking to your ideal client, and creating high quality, engaging text that encourages users to stay on that page, ultimately leading to better search engine visibility and organic traffic. Websites with very little copywriting generally do not have good SEO because search engines rely heavily on text content to understand a website's relevance to a search query, meaning a lack of substantial written content will significantly hinder its ranking potential. And that is from Google itself. So then let's talk about that for a second. Copywriting for SEO. What does that mean? Well, your headlines should contain keywords that are specific to your services or your location, your ideal client. And quite honestly, like, I do a lot of SEO and website reviews for clients, and I will say most headlines are way too vague, which is a shame because that's the first thing Google and humans will read. Also, the copywriting on your site must first and foremost highlight your ideal client and their pain points and then provide a solution to those pain points, which naturally would be your services. This is a great way to naturally use the right keywords in your body text. Okay, so I get that not a lot of people enjoy writing, and if they do, they're not sure where to put the right keywords. Yes, it can be challenging, but if you skip that part, then you're not going to have a site that's optimized for search engines and it's going to cost you so much in lost leads that it would have been better just to invest up front and get the copywriting done. All right, so now let's talk about images for SEO. Every image on your website should be compressed to around 500 kilobytes or less if possible. Each image file name should be changed to contain the service provided, the location of the project, and the type of project. For example, a file name for one of your kitchen remodels could be Interior Designer, Charleston Modern White Navy Kitchen Remodel, or whatever makes sense for your photo. Now let's talk about user experience when it comes to SEO. Basically, this refers to the design of your site. Your homepage should contain key 11 elements that I have actually outlined on my blog. If you go to K the Socialite.com I'm not going to go over every single one of those here. But in short, your homepage should be the longest page on your site. It should include a headshot of you, a short bio, a summary of your services. First and foremost, it should address your ideal client and their pain points. It should include one, two or three customer reviews if you have them, and it should end with a strong call to action that takes people further into the site. Now a lot of people will have a call to action on their homepage, but it's always book a call, contact us, reach out. That's not correct. It's like proposing on the first date you have to do something that gets them further into the site. So you could say view more services or you could say meet the team. Do not say learn more. That's vague. Google doesn't like that, and honestly nor do the people clicking it. Now let's talk briefly about Google Ads. We're just kind of doing a quick summary here so I can get into the real meat and potatoes of my rant today. Okay, so Google Ads. Long story short, your website should bring you clients without relying on paid advertising. If you have a great website and you have good SEO but you're still not getting leads, you have options to fix that organically. A few of those being blog one or two times a month, ensuring that each post is SEO friendly because that gives Google more content to index. You should also optimize your Google Business listing by completing your profile, uploading images routinely, asking happy clients to leave you a review, and sharing your blog posts to your Google Business Listing and to Pinterest. All of this will help with search engine rankings and website traffic. Paid ads only exist to bring traffic to the site. Once traffic reaches the site, it's the job of your website and your sales funnel to convert these visitors into leads. If your website and sales funnel are not up to par, or if your sales funnel doesn't even exist, no amount of Google Ads will bring results. So I sent all of this information to my mailing list and I received a very interesting email reply. I'm going to read it to you and I'm going to I changed all the names for everything I'm sharing today just so that nobody gets embarrassed, nobody gets in trouble, namely me. But I thought that this designer's question was relevant. I thought a lot of you might have it as well. So here is what she said. She said, hi Kate, I'm confused because the website designer that I hired who specializes in websites for interior designers and home builders that attract luxury clients, is saying that a simple website with less information is the key. He said that high ticket clients want to see minimal, elegant websites. He said high ticket clients don't typically want quizzes or freebies or a newsletter they have to opt into. I get that because if these are clients that typically have demanding jobs and schedules, they don't have time to read email newsletters. I love the website he created for me and what he said made sense. He literally wrote a book on the art of luxury websites, but it's conflicting information. From what you say, both you and he agree that the website should draw customers without Google Ads. What are your thoughts? Thanks, Jane. All right, so Jane, here is my answer to your question, which is going to take up the rest of this episode. A simple website can be great if simple means that it's easy to navigate and clearly understood. High ticket clients want to see that you understand their needs and that you can deliver appropriate solutions that make sense for them. It's impossible to convey any of this in only a few sentences of copy. And the lack of text on a website also hurts your SEO ranking because Google simply has nothing to index. Now, I'm saying this because I did look at Jane's website and while it is pretty and I see why she likes it, there's almost nothing on it. There are very few portfolio images, there's just a few sentences of text on the homepage. The copywriting doesn't do anything to address the pain points the clients might be experiencing, nor does it say how her services can help. So that's just part of it. You know, the whole site probably has less than a thousand words on it. And as for high ticket clients not having time to read email newsletters, the interesting thing is these people often check their email upwards of 50 times a day if they're in a professional career, always clicking over to the email tab or swiping on the phone to see if they have new messages. They also make most of their buying decisions based on their own research. Which usually happens through Google, which is why your SEO is so important and copywriting is part of SEO. And they also make buying decisions based on word of mouth referrals, which is why email marketing is so important. A newsletter that is sent every two to four weeks and delivers helpful, inspiring design content, not salesy content, has proven to help designers stay top of mind with their luxury clients, increasing both repeat business and referrals to new clients. In fact, email marketing is 40 times more effective than social media. And regarding things like high ticket clients not wanting to see quizzes, I agree with that. Actually quizzes on your website are very DIY and they don't suit a luxury design studio's target audience. But providing a complimentary download they can sign up for like an investment guide or how you work is helpful because if they're in the research phase again back to all the googling they do and they're not ready to fill out your contact form yet. This allows you to capture their information and stay in touch with them every month. This makes it more likely they'll contact you versus another designer when they're ready to move forward with their project. Their world moves quickly and the businesses who don't make an effort to stay in touch will and are missing out on great leads. Now consider this Jane, in your message to me you said that you really feel that high ticket clients don't have time to look at email. But if these clients didn't respond well to email marketing, why do brands like Porsche, Chanel and luxury real estate and hospitality companies all use email marketing? Email marketing has been around for over 20 years and continues to grow. Lastly, having a good website with good SEO, offering a download and sending a monthly newsletter is a simple yet effective sales funnel. And if those things are absent from your business, your business will not row like it could. So guys, I want you to understand that it's unrealistic to expect a website to get organic traffic when it has little to no SEO value. Unfortunately, it's just not how it works. If you're concerned about your website, make sure that you're checking Google Analytics to see how much traffic you're getting, how they're finding you and what they're doing once they get to your site. Without proper copywriting, a sales driven layout and a call to action in the right places, people will be more likely to leave your site versus go deeper into it. Now I want to share with you another email I got from a client. You know, probably a year ago at this point, but it still like haunts Me to this day. Not the client, but what she went through. And here's what she said. She said, hi Kate. My website's SEO was completely ruined by the way a luxury branding expert instructed me to format the website. There was no text on my hero page, which I now realize was not good for my SEO. She instructed me to stop blogging and to stop email marketing. The sad part is I listened to her. The branding expert told me that if I'm looking to move into the luxury level clientele that I no longer needed to blog or do email marketing. She said, that's for designers who are just starting off. I do believe this is a big factor in why we derailed now. She had told me in a previous email that in the last calendar year it had been one of the worst years in business for her. While she was implementing this very unfortunate advice, she went on to say this. My thought was, I'm paying this person thousands of dollars. They're a luxury branding expert, so she must know what she's talking about. Sadly, she didn't specialize in SEO or marketing and I believe that's the reason our pipeline dried up. It took me some time to figure it out. She went on to say, I spoke with other women in our industry who've had the same experience. I'm just looking to get things back on track. Since I resumed my email campaigns, we've already been getting quality inquiries in such a short time. Again, I'm so grateful now guys. Once she explained the situation to me and asked if I could help, I reviewed her website analytics to see what was happening with her SEO. And sure enough, that same month that her website was redesigned to meet these so called luxury branding standards, her website traffic absolutely tanked. She and I quickly put together a plan to revise the site, fix her copywriting and save her SEO. Her relief was palpable and that alongside email marketing has gotten her back on track to running a successful design business again. It was a huge lesson learned. Uh, and if you head over to my blog again, kitthesocialite.com, you will be able to see screenshots of website traffic and how it tanked and then how after we got it all fixed, it improved. Um, it was, it was just shocking to see what happened when we, when those so called luxury brand guidelines were put into action and how poorly that advice panned out. So in light of all that, I'm now going to go over some email marketing and SEO stats that you should know because there will be plenty of people trying to tell you, you don't need to do this. It doesn't, it doesn't make a difference. Your luxury client doesn't want to see these things. But none of that's based in reality and none of it's based in data. So you need to be aware of what the data actually is. So we'll start with the email marketing side of it. 88% of email users check their inbox multiple times a day. Okay. So you don't have to worry. People are going to see your emails. Email open rates are about 37% overall, which is excellent. So a third of your list is probably going to see your every email you send out. Interestingly enough, spam rates have dropped over 34% between 2011 and 2023. So less emails are ending up in spam. There are less spammy emails being sent. And that means that if you aren't email marketing to your potential luxury clients, someone else is. You can be almost sure of it, someone else is. 60% of consumers prefer to be contacted by brands through email. Good to know, huh? 39% of people check their email three to five times a day. 27% check their email 10 to 20 times a day. 22% of people check their email more than 20 times a day. Moving on. 59% of consumers report that marketing emails influence their purchase decisions. Did you catch that? 59% of people are being influenced by the marketing emails they receive. The top reasons that people will unsubscribe from an email list include the emails not feeling relevant, the emails being too salesy or spammy, or the emails being sent too frequently. Now, this is why when we create email content for the luxury home industry, whether you're a designer, a stager, or an organizer, or a window treatment pro, we do not advise doing anything salesy, running sales, offering discounts, because people don't want to see that. They're not interested. They do want to see photos of your work. They want to understand the details of what you do. So even if you don't have a big portfolio, there's still plenty to say. And one thing you should never forget is that for every $1 spent on email marketing, $36 is made in return. That's according to email marketing data from Litmus. This equals a 3600% return on investment. That's a big deal. Now, email outperformed banner ads and text marketing by 108% in 2023. Now, I get it, it's 2025 right now, but it does take a little bit to aggregate all that data. Lastly, 87% of brands say that email marketing contributes to their business success. So if you haven't got on the email bandwagon, why not? The evidence is there. And like I said, if you aren't email marketing to your high ticket luxury clients or leads, someone else is. All right, let's go on to the SEO stats that you should know. 57% of local search queries are made via mobile devices, which is why it's so important that your website be mobile friendly. Also, people are 70% more likely to visit a business with a complete Google business profile. So optimize your GBL. Clients are 2.7 times more likely to consider a company reputable if it has a complete business profile. And over 96% of the pages on the Internet get zero traffic from Google, just FYI. So it doesn't have to be that hard to stand out. Most pages are not being seen and that means you have less competition. But that also means almost nobody's using the right SEO. So that's kind of sad too. Now more than 50% of customers use Google to discover or find a new brand. And that makes sense. You've got to play Google's game if you're going to be on their turf. 78% of local mobile searches lead to offline purchases. Now someone paying for your service could certainly be considered an offline purchase. They're not buying a product, they're not buying something digitally. They truly are signing the proposal that you send to them. Now get this guys only point 000 8% of keywords get more than a hundred thousand searches per month. So the keyword strategy, I think it's really, it's overthought. That's why if you just talk to your ideal client, you know who your ideal client is, you know their pain points. If you're just talking to them on your website and in your blog, you're going to naturally use the right keywords. Now the funny thing is Google Ads Keyword Planner is accurate only about 45% of the time. Yeah, so that's a little concerning. Also, 70% of Internet users prefer to learn about a company through its blog posts rather than through advertisements. That's good to know because blogging can be a lot more affordable than running ads. 76% of blogs published are how to posts, making them the most popular content format. Now when you're not serving a DIY market, you might think, well, how can I write a how to blog post? We found a way around that. So you can say like how to know if your interior designer is the right choice or what to expect during a remodel. The really what to how to type titles are popular because that is what people are searching for. That's how they're phrasing their questions. Now going on small blogs, which you know, every interior design blog can be considered a small blog get nearly 44% of their website traffic from search engines. So it's really important that if you're blogging, you're doing it correctly. And on average, companies that implement SEO strategies save up to 400% on ad spend because SEO lets you get organic traffic, whereas if you have an ad, well, as soon as you stop paying for it, the traffic goes away. So that's frustrating. But here's the bottom line. If your website is beautiful and you love it, that's wonderful. But it also has to be functional. Just like interior design, a space that is aesthetically pleasing is absolutely useless if it can't provide for the functions and the needs in which it was created. If you want more clients, you have to do your part to stay top of mind with them. No one is above the laws of marketing and being told that luxury brands are exempt from email marketing is to deliberately turn a blind or ignorant eye to reality. Now if you're brand messaging, which is the written content on your website, blog post, newsletter, if that's not bringing results, make sure it's easy to read and understand. Many of us will accidentally sound too corporate or robotic in our business writing. Plus, if you've worked with a luxury coach, you might have been told to use language that is honestly too elevated to be quickly comprehended. That's not only offensive to your high ticket client, but it also doesn't do your brand any favors either. You know, HubSpot said it really well when they stated the harder your copy is to read, the less likely it is you'll achieve your ultimate goal of converting users. If they have to put a significant amount of effort in to understand what you have to offer, you'll likely lose them along the way. So this means avoiding jargon and wordiness and only including what's most relevant to what you're creating copy for. This can be a difficult skill to develop, and it's helpful to consider what you would and wouldn't like to see when browsing for solutions to your pain points and model your strategy after that. And I like wholeheartedly agree with all of that. You have to know who you're talking to and then leave out the distracting elements but you know, this brings me to a big question that I often wrestle with and that is why luxury brand and website designers think less copywriting is better and like almost no copywriting, honestly. And then why are they saying that email marketing is a bad idea? At this point, it's clear that avoiding website SEO and email marketing is ignoring the data and that comes at a detriment to your bottom line. So why do some luxury brand and website designers show such resistance to these things? I can't answer that, but I have suspicions. I think that number one, maybe they just don't understand the data, or number two, they don't want to offer the services for this, nor do they want their clients investing in those services with other people as it would take away from what the client could spend with them. Now that could be quite cynical, but it's my take. I don't think there's any malice involved, just some good old fashioned ignorance or avoidance. However, as the owner of your business, the one who's responsible for its proper management, you don't have the luxury of ignoring or avoiding reality. Take these stats into consideration that I've shared with you today and make an independent decision about what's best for your business. Now, if you want to talk this through, I am here for it. Go to keepthesocialite.com and book a discovering call and marketing audit. And it is complimentary. I would love to speak with you. I understand what it feels like when you're getting conflicting advice from multiple professionals, but go with the data, okay? Don't go with opinion, go with what is statistically proven to work. All right guys, that is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for watching and listening. And before you go, please make sure to rate and review this podcast. Anywhere you get your podcast, it always helps other people find the show. And until next time, keep your marketing simple, your message clear, and I will talk to you soon.