The Simple Formula for Success in Web Design – In Just 7 Minutes with Jon Hollenberg

Resources/Links:

• Check out Jon’s Website: fivebyfive.com.au

Summary

Are you struggling to get traffic to your website?

What does it take to build a great looking, high performing website that gets found in Google and generates leads and enquiries?

In this episode, Jon shares his insights on how a simple formula can help step-up your website. He also talks about how learning and gaining self-knowledge about digital marketing is crucial in improving your website, and in gaining traffic.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:45 – Jon’s ideal client: “An ideal client for us is an established business. Usually, they have five or more staff. They are turning over more than a million dollars in revenue.”
• 02:39 – Problem Jon helps solve: “There’s three main problems that we’re typically solving for clients on a consistent basis, and the first is they have website shame. So, their website looks horrible. Secondly, there’s not enough traffic coming through to the website. And thirdly, it’s not designed for conversion.”
• 03:54 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Jon: “So typically, well in 15 years of doing this, we see a lot of people that are ultimately just lost. They feel lost, they don’t know where to start, and they worry they’re going to stuff it up. So maybe they’ve had some failed attempts at building websites in the past they’ve been horribly burnt, and can they ever trust a website designer again?”
• 05:11 – Common mistakes that people make before they find Jon’s solution: “so the first one is just selecting the wrong partner. So, I already sort of spoken about this. There’s good website designers out of the poor ones, and the barriers to entry to become a website designer are very low, all you need is a laptop and an internet connection, and you are now a website designer.”
• 06:34 – Jon’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “There’s no silver bullet, there is no quick fix to really get the results that you are destined for, really it’s about getting educated. So, you have a duty and a responsibility as a business owner to get informed around what constitutes digital marketing, you know, the events of 2020, I mean, that every business owner needs to now be a technology expert, as well.”
• 07:25 – Brad’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Jon’s Website: fivebyfive.com.au
• 08:21 – A: Consistency, like most things in life. Be regular and consistent. And given that over time, you will get amazing results.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Consistency, like most things in life. Be regular and consistent. And given that over time, you will get amazing results.” -Jon Hollenberg Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings everyone, a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. My name is Tom Poland beaming out to you from Little Castaways Beach in Queensland, Australia, joined today by someone who’s practically a neighbor, Jon Hollenberg. Good day, sir. Where are you hanging out?

Jon Hollenberg 00:24
I am hanging out here at the sunny Gold Coast, the coast with the most beautiful one I’ve ever been.

Tom Poland 00:28
West Coast or the Sunshine Coast with snobs up here, folks, for those who don’t know, we look down our noses at the big, this where the Gold Coast and referred to as this sunny place for shady people a bit like-

Jon Hollenberg 00:42
Were at in an industry trying to turn that on its head. Shady website designers and the shady Gold Coast and waves completely against all of those things.

Tom Poland 00:51
Right. Well, that’s a nice- quite a nice segue into what Jon is all about, which is, professionally, I should say at least, he’s about building great looking and even more importantly, high performing websites. Now the first part of that is important for you, as a listener, you want something you can be proud of. The second part is really important for your bank manager because he or she wants to see some money flowing through your website. So, Jon’s the guy knows how to do both of those things. He’s Australia’s, get this, highest rated website design agency. He can literally double these clients’ traffic and inquiries in less than six months with a site that you’re proud to call your own. So, the title for this little interview is, “The Simple Formula for Success in Website Design”. Jon is going to show us, as always, how to do that. Tell us how to do that in just under seven minutes. Jon, our time starts now. Question number one, who is your ideal client?

Jon Hollenberg 01:45
Alright, so an ideal client for us is an established business. Usually, they have five or more staff. They are turning over more than a million dollars in revenue. And in an ideal case, we’re not working with the business owner, we’re working with someone that is within the organization, a marketing manager, sales manager, maybe a product lead, someone like that. In most cases, they need to boost the leads and inquiries that are coming through their website. So, what they want, and what they get, a more of the right people that are ready to buy right now.

Tom Poland 02:23
So, thank you, sir. Six and a half minutes. Question two, is there any other way you would define the problem that you’re solving? I mean, they probably got a crappy website that’s not working, but other than that, what’s the problem you solve it? Lack of traffic, lack of conversion?

Jon Hollenberg 02:39
Yeah, so there’s three main problems that we’re typically solving for clients on a consistent basis, and the first is they have website shame. So, their website looks horrible. It doesn’t reflect the true brilliance that these clients are. Secondly, there’s not enough traffic coming through to the website. So, it’s literally crickets, maybe their site looks okay, but they’re just not getting a cut-through from a traffic perspective. And they got the Ferrari, but the Ferrari is parked down the dark alley, and no one can see it. And thirdly, it’s not designed for conversion. So, if they’re getting the traffic, then maybe they’re not presenting a compelling enough pitch or call to action for someone to actually raise their hand and ultimately get in touch.

Tom Poland 03:30
Or even simply subscribe so that their email list is growing on with raving fans. Okay, so questions three, and we probably answered this in part already, but what are some of the typical symptoms that people experience when they don’t have a website? And they’re hearing crickets, they probably feel like the world’s best-kept secret, but just over five minutes to go. Anything else that some of us can just go, “Yeah, I need to talk to Jon.”

Jon Hollenberg 03:54
Yeah, for sure. So typically, well in 15 years of doing this, we see a lot of people that are ultimately just lost. They feel lost, they don’t know where to start, and they worry they’re going to stuff it up. So maybe they’ve had some failed attempts at building websites in the past they’ve been horribly burnt, and can they ever trust a website designer again? Is this probably the question in their mind? And then so to that point, then, like, typically, website designers don’t actually listen to them. They don’t take the time to understand their business. They don’t communicate in plain English. But the biggest symptom that we see is they actually don’t really have a sense or a concept of the pain that a poor website is actually costing them in terms of opportunities.

Tom Poland 04:49
Okay, so they’re probably-

Jon Hollenberg 04:51
They don’t know what they don’t know. Yeah, and-

Tom Poland 04:53
They don’t know how exactly, took the words out of my mouth. So, question four, and three and a half minutes left. These are intelligent people. They want to grow their business. They’re going to try things. But unless they find probably your solution, they’re going to make some mistakes. So, what are some of the common mistakes that you’ve noticed that your new clients have made prior to finding a solution?

Jon Hollenberg 05:11
Yeah, so the first one is just selecting the wrong partner. So, I already sort of spoken about this. There’s good website designers out of the poor ones, and the barriers to entry to become a website designer are very low, all you need is a laptop and an internet connection, and you are now a website designer. And there are a massive range of budgets as well. So that’s probably a big part of that. Typically, clients don’t understand what the bigger picture web strategy actually looks like and what it takes to achieve success. What are the pieces of the puzzle that they need to put together to actually get the results, there’s a whole bunch of technical things in and around just like using a cheap host, like crazy domains or a GoDaddy? This is ultimately going to result in slow and sluggish load times, a poor user experience, all that sort of stuff. And then design, so we- you know, we’re passionate believers, that design can revolutionize a business. It can elevate you above your competition. It’s been, you know, statistically shown that companies that are design-oriented, basically performed better from a financial perspective.

Tom Poland 06:22
Right, and that whole user experience and what is intuitive and easy to follow and influencing people to follow a certain series of actions, all part of that design process. So just under two minutes left, three questions to go. Question number five is what’s a valuable free action you could recommend someone listening to this can take, that’s not going to solve the whole problem, but it might take them a step in the right direction?

Jon Hollenberg 06:34
Yeah, so there’s no silver bullet, there is no quick fix to really get the results that you are destined for, really, it’s about getting educated. So, you have a duty and a responsibility as a business owner to get informed around what constitutes digital marketing, you know, the events are 2020 mean that every business owner needs to now be a technology expert, as well. And if you are not intimately involved in educating yourself, specifically, when it comes to hiring a website, designer, ignorance is not an excuse.

Tom Poland 07:25
Well, they could cut out the middleman and just go straight to you, but other than that we can help them with a little resource you put together, the answer the question number six, which is a valuable free resource that could take people even further. Folks, you can go to five, that’s the word “five”, F-I-V-E, by, B-Y, five.com.au, fivebyfive.com.au. And this is the answer to question number six, a valuable free resource. What are they going to find when they hit that page, Jon?

Jon Hollenberg 07:52
Well, this is the hardcopy of the book, what I did was I converted that to an audiobook, and that is freely available on Spotify. I’m a massive Spotify fan.

Tom Poland 08:03
Very clever.

Jon Hollenberg 08:04
And it covers how to actually formulate a web strategy. What are the right tools and the platform that you should be operating on?

Tom Poland 08:12
Fantastic!

Jon Hollenberg 08:12
The importance of building content.

Tom Poland 08:15
12 seconds left. What’s the one question I should have asked you? And the answer please, in less than seven seconds, go.

Jon Hollenberg 08:21
Consistency, like most things in life. Be regular and consistent. And given that over time, you will get amazing results.

Tom Poland 08:28
Oh, yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Jon.

Tom Poland 08:31
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.