How to Make Text Pop On Your Social Media Graphics
I’ve had this question so many times that I thought it was about time I showed you a couple of insider tricks that you can use to make your social media graphics POP. Many times I’ve had clients use an amazing photo and want to add text over it but the text is almost unreadable. This particular tutorial came from one of the students inside of my Website in a Weekend DIY Course. Monica wanted to know how to create a social media cover photo that was in alignment with how her website hero images looked. In today’s tutorial, I’m…
How to Make Sure Your Mailchimp Images are Never Blurry
In today’s video tutorial, I’m tackling the issue of how to ensure the Images you add to Mailchimp never come through as blurry. In today’s world with the high resolution screens we have, it’s important to use retina rules where we can so our images come through crystal clear. In order to do that, we need to bring images in at 1200 px wide (by whataver height) and then go into the settings and constrain them, by 50% to ensure crisp photos! Sound hard? It isn’t. I promise. I’m walking you though it in this video tutorial:
How to Update Your Wordpress Website
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had clients and students reach out and tell me how fearful they are to perform updates on their websites. The biggest reason it’s important to stay on top of your Wordpress updates is security. Hundreds of websites are hacked every single day. The #1 way in which hackers are able to accomplish this is from outdated plugins + themes. They find a vulnerability (think secret back door) in the code of a particular piece of software that keeps your website running and they create code to gain access to your website. I…
Fresh, Spring Wallpapers for Your iPhone!
Spring is finally in the air here in Nova Scotia and today I was inspired to create three new wallpapers for my iPhone. I quite honestly couldn’t decide which one I liked the most so I wanted to share all three with you. You get to decide which one you love the most! Happy Spring, friends!
How to Write Blog Posts That Inspire My Audience To Hire Me
One of the biggest things you can do for your SEO and your bottom line is to use your website for its intended purpose : Attract Your Audience. In my daily conversations with the women I work with, I know that coming up with a list of ideas to generate content is a real road block to moving you forward in your business. Today I’m sharing with you my FREE cheatsheet that comes complete with 100 different possible topics that you can write about RIGHT NOW for your audience. You can instantly get access to it right here: Set yourself…
How to control your avatar when you comment online
In today’s video tutorial, I’m walking you through the steps on how you can create or update the avatar image that shows up next to your name whenever you post a comment online. It’s possible you have a new email address or a really old headshot or possibly have never created one! In this quick video, I’m walking you through the exact steps you can take to control which images shows up when Globally Recognized Avatars are an option. Gravatar Website: https://en.gravatar.com/
3 Mistakes You Want to Avoid Making on Your Website
In 2019 and beyond, it’s crucial for even a new business to have a website. AND when you’re just starting out, it’s hard to invest in a full custom website + strategy. It’s even a conversation that comes up in many of my early discovery sessions with clients. Once we start talking about target audience, ICA (ideal client avatar), what your audience struggles with, what they want to learn from you, and how you’re uniquely positioned to help, it oftentimes becomes clear that instead of investing in a custom design right now, it’s more valuable for you to get something…
How to Develop a Mission Statement for Your Business
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past several weeks scouring the web for a solid resource I could send to my clients (and use myself!) that would help articulate their mission. What I learned is that I couldn’t find one resource that gave me a step-by-step, easy formula that I could begin to play with and refine for what I felt like my mission was becoming. So I returned to the teacher in me (my education degree STILL comes in handy, see Mom!) and I developed a worksheet that I used to flush our my own mission. I…
How to Use Your 404 Page to Engage Your Audience
It happens, ladies. We redesign our websites. We direct traffic from one URL to another. Inevitably, a visitor will stumble onto a 404 error page. Now it’s not as bad as it sounds. A 404 page is a page that exists on your website to let people know the link they’ve followed is no longer there. You might access a 404 page when the web page you’re trying to get to doesn’t exist anymore. Some of the reasons it may have disappeared include: Whatever the reason, when your website visitor hits your 404 page (it WILL happen), you need to…
How To Create A Branded Signature For Your Email
In today’s post I want to show you how I created the branded signature that shows up in every email I send. NOTE: I use G Suite for my email. If you use Gmail, you can also follow along using this tutorial. Before you get started, it’s important to think about WHAT you want to include. Here are some examples I saw when I looked through my own inbox: Personally, I signed up for Acuity Scheduling in late 2017 to use as my scheduler. I cannot tell you how much time this has saved me from being in my inbox.…
How to Turn Your Glowing Reviews into Likes on Instagram
I have a client who wanted to create an Instagram graphic to showcase a glowing review she received. She had a lovely little image she pulled together in Canva that she wanted my opinion on. Once I had a peek, my designer and brand strategy hats had an opinion AND an idea. I believe we need to think less linearly when we’re thinking about our Instagram feed. We need to start using the “adding multiple images” option more instead of trying to keep everything in one, easy photo. One thing I’ve seen more recently, is that Instagram will actually show…
Reflections on 2018 and A FREE Gift for You
I can’t believe 2018 is almost over. I don’t know about you, but I have been doing a lot of reflecting the past few days. After the Christmas rush, before the New Year, I always take some time to look at my business. Yes, I measure metrics but I also tap into how I feel. Curious about the exact questions I sit with? Here you go: After sitting with these questions, I was inspired to create a wallpaper for my phone. Here’s what it looks like: Want a copy? Grab yours here: Just open the photo and save it!
5 Things You Can Do To Improve Your SEO Today
SEO. Search Engine Optimization. Three little letters that define to the search engine bots what content is on each page and post of your website and which collectively work to affect your rankings or visibility in search engines. Why should you care about your images? Google does. If you do a search for your business name in Google and click on the “images” tab, you want to make sure that you and your website is showing up at the top of those images. If you’re not, you have some work to do. Don’t believe me? Go to Google and type…
How to Stop Over-Complicating and Over-Thinking Every Decision
I’ve noticed a trend with my clients (and ummm, in myself!) when it comes to making an important decision for our businesses. We can tend to overcomplicate and/or overthink it. There are times when it’s more prevalent than others but often it comes up during one of these situations: when it’s time for a change when you need to make a decision when you want to launch a new service or product when you want to create a passive income opportunity when it’s time to examine your business model when it’s time to scale when it’s time to actually create…
How to Write An About Page for My Website
I’m working with several clients right now who are deep into developing a successful brand strategy as we are building their websites and when it comes to their about page, they are unsure of what to add and how to make it attractive + appealing for their audience. Today’s blog post will take you step by step through how you can write an effective about page particularly for your service based business. I hope this doesn’t come as a complete surprise but your about page is actually not about you at all. (I know, right? BIG happy sigh!) The About…
An Insiders Look At The Top 10 Tools I Use to Run My Business
I love that I can run my business with a laptop, my iPhone, and a wireless connection. I’d love to say that I can work at the beach but the reality is that sand is not a friend to technology! I can do social media from the beach for sure — not really run my business. I get asked a lot about the tools I choose to use to run my business. Today I want to give you an insiders peek into my top ten tools I use to run my online business. G Suite – My Tool for Email,…
How To Get Over Your Fear of Doing Video
Can you believe that August is ALMOST over? I’ve had the best summer – no big travel and lots of staycation mini moments. Today I wanted talk about a hot topic – video – and include my thoughts on why I think so many women are ambivalent to using it on social media. I’ve been having some REAL results and conversations happening on Instagram using video over the summer. I can tell you for sure that the most significant portion of my revenue since June has come directly from Instagram. I want to share my own experience in hopes that…
How To Set Up Registration On Your Website and Accept Payments
I have SO many clients who offer workshops, retreats, or online experiences that want to easily accept registration, get payment, and send an automated welcome email that I thought it was time I showed you exactly how easy this can be. In today’s tutorial, I’m showing you how I use Gravity Forms, Paypal, and Mailchimp to create a registration form + accept payment on your Wordpress website.
What You Should Really Know About Adding Prices to Your Website
It’s just a fact; businesses revolve around the sale. This isn’t news. But as a web designer and business coach for female entrepreneurs, I find all too often my clients are hesitant to include sales information on their websites. I understand where this hesitation comes from. The women I work with are coaches, consultants and creatives. And we creative entrepreneurs see our businesses not only as our income, but as our craft. We want our clients to respect the integrity of the our work beyond the integrity of the price tag. Today, I want to talk about why publishing prices…
Where do I start when developing a logo for my new business?
This question comes up at least once a week with my clients. I know you’ve been wondering about it to. Where do I start when developing a logo for my creative business? Let’s get something out of the way right out of the gate. In today’s landscape, a logo is quite simply a recognizable graphic design element that illustrates your business name. It may, or may not, have an icon associated with it (these days, the big brands rarely do). Here’s the bottom line: a logo is a tool to help communicate and represent the brand behind it. When you’re…
When & Why Do I need Branded Visuals to Accompany my Blog Posts?
I’ve had this question several times over the past few weeks. At what point do I commit to having a branded graphic to go alongside my blog posts? I have a hunch you’ve been curious about this too. In today’s post, I’m going into the reasons behind why you’d want to consider this and the exact tools I use to make this happen in each of my blog posts. Our goal as we write content that go into our blog posts is to help our audience and offer up our expertise. For example, in this blog post my goal is to…
My Lady Love Summer Setlist Guaranteed to Take You Back
Summer’s unofficially here and I’m loving the sunshine. Birds chirping, beach walks, sunsets, and campfires. My husband gave me a really cool speaker for my shower yesterday and as I was browsing my playlists, I realized it’s been a while since I last created a fun playlist. It occurred to me that you might also like to get into the fun so today I’m sharing my Lady Love Summer Setlist. GRAB IT ON ITUNES HERE. I hope it inspires you + takes you back to some fun memories. xo, K
A Candid Look at Privacy from Krista Smith
Can you feel the energy shifting online? It’s significant and deep. And it’s an opportunity. We need to ensure privacy for small businesses is addressed. Something is happening, and I’ve felt it for a while. I’m sure you have too. In this world of Google, Facebook, and privacy concerns, the European Union (EU) has taken a big step to protect personal data. You’ve likely noticed your inbox filling up with privacy policy updates. This is a good thing. What’s All the Hullabaloo? The EU passed a law that took effect on May 25. It’s called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).…
How to Decide What to Include in Your Newsletters
You’ve committed to building a business online. A big part of that strategy involves marketing your products and services to your ideal audience. In my last post, I talked about the reasons why you need to have a newsletter for your business. Today I’d like to cover five different strategies you could employ as you commit to communicating with your dreamiest clients. Before we dive into the strategic part of delivering content, I’d like you to pause for a moment and hop over to your own inbox. I know you’ve given your email to a number of businesses. It’s important…
Do I Really Need a Newsletter on My Website?
I’m not going to hold back here. Yes. You definitely need a newsletter for your business. You need an opt-in area on your website so that you nurture leads. Here’s a statistic for you: only 5-20% of new visitors are ready to buy from you. BUT…that increases to 60-70% for returning visitors. (*source) There is a reason a new visitor has chosen to visit your website. There is something that you have to offer that is intriguing to your audience. AND it’s okay that they’re not ready the first time they visit. This is an opportunity. You get to build…
What I learned on a Weekend Away Unplugged from the World
I’m just back from a heavenly long weekend in Florida with my daughter. Beach, sun, sand, and reading (fiction: Circe by Madeline Miller and non-fiction: Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller). I can tell you that I spent about six hours staring at the ocean in total. Yes, it was heavenly. I listened to her pounding surf. I breathed in her salty air. I pondered. I imagined. I dreamed. When was the last time you gave yourself permission to think? To stare into space and just let your mind wander? It’s likely not a surprise to you that my mind…
How to Deal with Website Envy (the struggle is real)
We’ve all been there. You’re scrolling through your social media feeds and you see someone in your world has redesigned and relaunched their website and it is beyond gorgeous. You probably spend what seems like hours admiring all the little nuanced design flourishes and click-worthy calls to action. You lovingly gaze with wonder at their ability to connect with their audience. Then you look at your own website. You start to see all the areas where you’re falling short in serving your own audience. the images you used don’t reflect your vibe anymore you have evolved and what was once…