Who, What, Wix Podcast Episode 3: Let’s Get Visual

Welcome to the only small business podcast you'll ever need.

We go behind the scenes with business owners and marketing experts for success stories, epic failures, and creative ideas you can use.

From Wix.com, this is who what Wix. What's up, everybody? Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, good night, wherever you are. Welcome to who what wix. I'm Justin, your co host on the show. I'm here with the lovely Yael.

Hello. Hello.

We've got another great episode for you today, but we wanted to start by saying a big and hearty thank you.

Since we launched the podcast at the end of last month, you've written us emails, left us comments and some great ratings, and most importantly, you've been listening.

Yeah, we've heard from people, seriously, all over the world. From Victor in El Paso, Texas, what's up to Ridwan in South Africa. We are so happy to hear from you guys, but don't stop now. We know you've got friends also starting their own small businesses. So don't be shy. Share this with them. And if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, and so many more. Or, of course, head over to www.whowhatwix.com and join our community of subscribers over there.

Also, if you're single, talking about a small business podcast is a great way to open up conversation at a bar. Am I right? So if you're going out for the weekend, drop who what wix.

I don't know how I feel about that one, but if you guys do that and it works, please drop us a line. I'd love to hear how that goes. So, on today's episode, we're talking about the visuals of your website. So I'm gonna throw it over to you, Yael, what is episode three all about?

Okay, first of all, it's not superficial to think about. So if you think that they're not important or they shouldn't be important, get that idea out of your head. If you're a business owner, you need to spend some time thinking about your logo colors, what your products look like online, just like you would inside a store.

Absolutely. I mean, when people are first experiencing your business, right, they're. They're gonna judge the book by the COVID Absolutely. So we're here in the studio with a visual expert that works with us at wix. Her name is Rachel. You're gonna meet her in just a moment. But before you do, my friends, we're gonna dive deep into Yael's head and see what kind of visual history we can dig up. Alright, guys, I hope you safely made the journey with us. We are in the memory of Yael here. We're no longer in the studio. Yael, I want to see what kind of color memory you have. Right? Because colors, that's one of the most obvious things about your visuals, alright? And colors deeply affect us. They make us think certain things and I want to see what they make you think.

Alright, let's get weird.

Black and orange Halloween Black and yellow

A bumblebee Yellow and red Sunshine Blue and purple My childhood room Water cold

Camp Green and red Christmas Black, white

and silver the Kardashians.

The Kardashians. The Kardashians are living deep inside your brain. Red, yellow, orange,

Fall leaves Black and white Checkers and gold Money.

Very nice. I see where your head's at there. Let's get out of your mind and back into the studio. We're coming to you from Tel Aviv today with Rachel Rowland. She works with us here at wix. She's a visual content specialist. Now you might be thinking, what does that mean? Truth is, it's a bit of a complicated specialty. So Rachel, what does that mean? What is a visual content specialist?

Yeah, so I think basically what I do, my job is related to how images, texts and layouts of websites transmit messaging to visitors of those websites. So I guess basically my job is to make sure I stay abreast of Internet trends and understand what's going on on the web. What's new functionality, what's new design, what kind of messaging do those new designs transmit? What kind of texts are on different kinds of websites, what kind of messaging does that transmit? And then when you put all that together, when you come to like text and images and photos and colors and fonts, how does that all combine to make like one great message?

So to be fair, we know you already, but we want to give our listeners a little more information about all the other stuff that you do outside of work.

I also do hula hooping and in addition to that, I actually really enjoy making costumes and like painting faces.

I remember that one of your costumes sort of tore up the Internet. You painted yourself as a Picasso painting.

Yeah, that was insane. I was like, not expecting that. How did you do that every year I want, I like, take time to brainstorm. I'm like, okay, what's this year's costume gonna be like? What am I gonna do this year? I think what blew up on the Internet, to be right, to be really honest, is that it was a really good shot in, like, a normal home setting, that people could be like, that's very real. That's a very real photo. None of it is staged. There's, like, no good lighting, but you could still get a really, really good view of, like, the optical illusion that was going on in my face. What I could do is I, like, I closed one eye, and then it looked like my eye was, like, in a different place on my face.

In exploring your costume, you wanted to find something before a trend hit.

Yeah.

How do you do that?

That's a really good question. Constantly searching online and being like, aware of what's out there visually. When it comes to Instagram, that is where I go for a lot of really, really great people that know what they're doing in a specific field, and it's all visual. And then I can be like, oh, whoa, that's new. I haven't seen something like that before, and I think that's cool. And then when I see, like, another one or two people in my feed, like, trying that out too, like, you get an idea that, okay, this might be going somewhere. Like, this looks pretty cool. And then it's crazy. But in, like, the next year or two, probably you'll see it, like, becoming more and more mainstream. You might see it in, like, a couple music videos. You might see, like, someone on the COVID of a magazine, like, wearing a print of an image that you saw in, like, a different context. But that's kind of how things roll, I think.

And that's why this Halloween, we're gonna see kids across America painted as Picasso paintings.

No, actually, you know, it's funny.

What?

Fan art from people.

That's awesome.

It was like. It really blew up. I think more than 100,000 people liked my image in all different areas. And every Halloween, it comes back. And I've also seen it now on the Telegraph in the UK of top den best, whatever, Google images of Halloween costumes.

All of these hobbies are intensely visual. How much do you think you define yourself by looks?

There's this whole thing that it's something like seven seconds or even less for you to make a good impression on someone. And it's a sense that we all rely a ton. We don't realize it, but, like, just looking at something, we can make a judgment within, like, a split second. We think, that's pretty. That's not. That looks professional. That doesn't. That looks fun. That doesn't look fun. That color screams stop. That color screams go. These are all things that we Learn, like, at a really young age. And we have a lot of very, very deep associations with those kind of things.

But just like what you were saying, I think most people, even subconsciously, are sensitive to the visual experience. Whether you are paying that much attention to it or not. Like, it's gonna give you information. It's gonna give you some sort of emotional response.

Yeah, that's definitely true. I mean, people know it. People. They might not be aware of it, but they choose things based on what a lot of things look like. They choose a house based on a lot of times just what it looks like. Not necessarily because it's comfortable or because it's warm, but because it looks nice. You know, they choose a car because it looks nice. It's really, really important. It's important what things look like, and it's how we. It's a lot of what we use also in order to build and define our identities. So, like, who are we? Like, we want people to think we're cool, or we want people to think, you know, we're smart, or we want people to think we're like that, and then we're like, okay. I think of myself like that. How can I express that in the way I look? A lot of times, you know, maybe we're not so absorbed in how that process works step by step, but for sure, that's like a human thing. Very, very human.

But then I'm sitting in front of a computer and I'm like, okay, so I have this shop. How do I bring the shop online? How do I. Like, what are the elements that we need to keep in mind from. From colors to words to whatever.

Really, it is a great question because people think of the Internet as kind of this, like, abstract, like, universe thing. If you're building a website, there's elements of it that are related to, like, architecture or interior design, where you're thinking about when someone arrives, like, what is on the door? What does it say before they even, like, get inside? Does it say the name of your business and what you do? Probably. Does it say, like, your hours of operation? Most likely. Why? Because, like, even before someone steps in, they need to know those, like, basic things about your business. And then when it comes to design, like, it should probably mesh with the vibe of your product or, like, your service or whatever kind of vibe it is that's coming through. There's, like, a personality there always.

I think as a business owner, it's a more comfortable place to be in, like, a brick and mortar shop. What do you see as the elements that people sort of don't translate visually online that they are missing most often.

Mm. I think a lot of the time it comes down to just, like, explaining what it is that they do. Let's keep going with this analogy because I think it really works. But, like, let's say that all the people surfing the web are just, like, pedestrians wandering down the street. And, like, some of those pedestrians, oh, I'm hungry. Like, I need to look for a place to eat. The first thing that they're gonna do is, like, look for a sign that says food or restaurant.

Pizza.

Yeah, or pizza. Or, like, maybe, like, a symbol that has, like, a fork and a knife.

Why?

Because they're gonna be like, oh, probably that's where I can get some food. I'm hungry. And then once they see that, that's, like, their first thing. So, okay, I'm a pedestrian. I'm hungry. Oh, there's a sign for restaurant. Then the next question is, okay, what kind of food does that restaurant serve? And then as they go deeper and deeper, the customer or the pedestrian or that Hungry Joe will be able to make an educated decision on whether or not he actually wants to eat the food that's being served in the restaurant. It can be based on price. It can be based on the type of food, or it could just be based on the fact that, like, the place looks like a dive bar or it looks really luxurious and they feel like spoiling themselves, or they feel like eating on a budget.

Or if the food looks good.

Yeah. Or if the food looks good.

Pretty appetizing.

Yeah. Okay, so. Or if the food looks good. Totally. Totally. Or if it smells good. If the smell is good, or even colors. Actually, I don't know if people know this. Probably they don't. But, like, if you look at all of the different logos and designs of different kinds of stores, you'll find that there's, like, a lot of patterns in terms of colors with different kinds of restaurants. But the majority of restaurants in general focus on specific colors which, like, stimulate appetite, which is crazy. Reds, oranges, and yellows. You'll see that in a lot of, like, fast food places because it's, like, colors that stimulate our appetite.

Yeah. I'm just thinking the golden arches of, you know, the world's hunger.

Exactly.

Boom.

Yes.

I feel like every pizza place has a red sign.

Every pizza.

Pizza.

For some reason in my mind, if I thought of a pizza place, it would have a huge red sign.

And it's also an impulsive color. So, like, you see it and it's like, boom, okay. Or stop or go. Or like, there's something, like, really, really deep and impulsive about it. And the healthier choices. Green, green, green. Why they evoke, first of all, they're calmer. It's not impulsive. You're being more considerate with, like, whatever it is that you're thinking about eating. We were reminded of vegetables and being outdoors and being healthy. So, like, there's also a lot of subtle messaging in the colors that you choose as well. But again, I'm going to, like, rewind and say that's getting even, like, deeper. That first thing that everyone needs to do on their website is that, like, I'm a restaurant. Like, I feed people. And then. Okay, then you can take it a little bit of a step further. And when people forget to put that on their site and they just put, like, a nice image of themselves and their name, no one has any idea, like, what. What that thing is. It could be just some dude's apartment. Like, it might not be a restaurant, but he might actually be serving food in his apartment and expecting people to pay money for that food, and no one would have any idea. So it's really, really important to get that just basic essential message across in text and in an image. And then you can kind of drill down and go a little bit further.

So, you know, we've talked a lot about colors and the photos and the images, the logos, but how do. How do words play here?

You want your. Your text to be readable. You want someone to come to your website and be able to clearly see the words that are written there. That means you need good spacing. Don't choose a font that's, like, crazy and flashy in your eyes. People might not be able to read that. Something that's too small, not good, too much stuff, like crammed into an area. Too much text, not. Not good. Space it out, make it something that looks familiar. It's easy to read. That's like, rule number one. Then you can get all fancy if you want after that.

Do you think there's any, like, key tips in terms of visuals that you can invoke trust in someone that's looking at your website or not?

Yes, 100% yes. I think that if you have images that are low quality and pixelated and hard to see and blurry, immediately it looks unprofessional. Take, like, a few minutes of time to take some nice shots. It looks way more professional. It makes a big, big impact on the people that see your site. It can Be the difference. If you're selling products, for example, from someone taking a look at product and being like, oh, I get that product. I can, like, understand what it is, and I want to buy it. To someone who says it's not really, that picture is kind of blurry. Like, it's not really clear what that is. Like, maybe I'm not gonna get what it looks like on the Internet. Like, I don't feel like I can trust the seller. I don't think I'm gonna, like, buy that product.

So you want your design to, like, bolster your product or your service? You don't want it to distract from what you're doing?

Yeah, definitely. For sure. I think people that deal with more, like, visual stuff that have a lot of visual material and visual content of their own, let that stuff shine. Like, that should be the focus.

See, I feel like if I never created a website before and I was quirky and probably my clients are really funky and so is my product, I would have, like, crazy patterns, you know, and, like, lots of them, and bright colors. That's just where I would go. Because I would think, I like that pattern. I like those colors. Probably my clients also do. Maybe they're like, the background is even as wild as my product. And you're saying, like, no, that would be a mistake.

In general, I would say it's a mistake again. It all comes back the way I see it to those main points. Putting images of things that you like but don't actually say anything about what you do or where you're located or anything like that. You're like, oh, I love my dog. I'm gonna put an image of my dog on, like, the front page of my website. No one really knows why you put that image of your dog on the front page of your website. They won't get it. It doesn't make sense. And you're like, I want to show my personality. But, like, you need to make sure that you're simplifying things. Those are things that I see people do. I think another thing that a lot of times people do is that they want to be really different. They're like, I've seen everyone doing that. I can't do that, because everyone does that. And. Okay, yeah, that's true. If you're doing a hundred percent the same thing that every single person is doing, that's not good. But usually it's. It's. It's not good to go. Too unique. Like, too unique usually means no one will have any idea what you're Talking about.

Yeah.

So maybe that's some of the post design questioning. Like, when you look at this page, what do you know about my business?

Yeah.

Like, what did you figure out? What do you still want to know? How did it make you feel? Do you know where to go? Like, all of those questions to make sure that it's actually coming across. Because I'm sure in your own mind it all makes sense. Like, it doesn't seem too out of the box to you, you thought about it in your own mind?

Definitely. And I totally agree. And I think it's hard to ask those questions. Those questions are hard. A lot of people will say, do you like the way it looks? Do you like the colors? Those aren't good questions to ask.

It's really pretty. Thanks.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or I'm not orange. Like, I'm not so subjective. Some people like orange, some people don't. That's cool. What I would ask yourself, what is the first thing that you want someone to do after they arrive at your website? Like, do you want them to call you? Do you want them to contact you through your contact form? Do you want them to buy a product? Do you want them to set up an appointment through the website? Like, what does that mean? One thing, if you had to choose, that you want them to do after they see your homepage, and that should be like, in a button in, like, the homepage of your site in a very, very, very clear, obvious place. Make sure that that's clear.

So, Rachel, you've given us a ton to sort through, but we want to put all of this knowledge, all of this visual content specialist knowledge into action. Right. So Yael and I both have, amazingly, we've both just started our own new businesses this morning.

Oh, my God. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

Yes. Newly minted. And so we wanted to bring them to you and hopefully you can tell us a little bit, like, give us some direction about the design, the visuals that we want to bring in to both our business and our business online just to make it work.

Yeah, I'm happy to help. I'm happy to help. Throw it at me.

Great. So I'm a single mother, very busy, obviously, and I sell baby costumes of famous people. So in my shop, you can pick out a toddler Adele outfit or an infant Obama outfit. I sell them out of my apartment and I sell them on Etsy. But I'm ready to build a website and be in control of selling my really awesome famous baby outfits online. What type of visuals do I Need to capture an audience.

Oh wow.

Well, do you have a name for this business? Do you have a name? What are you guys called?

The Baby Fame Game.

Baby Fame Game?

Yeah. Baby Fame Game.

It's like babyfamegame.

Yeah. How well will that work on social.

It's amazing. Yes. You need an Instagram feed and you definitely want people that buy those costumes to post images of themselves with the hashtag babyfangame. Definitely this is something they need to do. It will allow like people to get an idea of how cute their babies could look by looking at other cute babies in like Adele costumes. So for sure, just like we were talking about before, those like quirky shoes, etc, etc, your images of your costumes and people in your costumes and being happy or like having fun in your costumes. That should be the forefront of your website. I would recommend keeping like the design clean because I've never seen. I'm sorry but like I've never seen a costume like that.

I know I'm super niche and so

like that should be it. Just like a huge image of like lots of babies in those costumes on like the grass or like you know, pretty moms like holding their like I don't know, Adele babies and that just that you need to make sure you have really good images of your costumes. First of all, a really good welcome shot of like those babies in those costumes. Your logo obviously in the header and the name of your, your business. And I would even if you, if you do that Instagram thing really well, I would even put that like hashtag either in the header or in like somewhere really prominent in the beginning of your website, of your homepage and then shop now, like that's like the first button. You want people to buy a product immediately after that. If you have like a best selling item, like something that like is doing really well, you know that it like flies off the shelves. That featured product maybe right after that and you could even have like a mini gallery of like the costumes of the week. What does that give you? Just on that homepage, a snapshot of like what you do, what your products are, what you want your user to do immediately after they see that, how they can click through and buy it. The obviously coolest thing that like everyone is wearing and then all the people that buy those or have bought those already wearing it. It builds trust, it makes it's clear messaging. It puts the focus on your product immediately and you have that hashtag so that people can even go onto their Instagram and be like, oh cool. Follow that's awesome.

So this user generated content that I could get, if it takes off on social media is gonna save me so much time because I'm just gonna get tons and tons and tons of visuals that will take over my website and be on social and be shareable and I can put in my newsletter, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't have to be doing a photo shoot every week. I can sort of take that off my plate and just know that my product is strong enough that if the users are loving it and sharing it, it's gonna save me time and get me a lot more interesting, dynamic, diverse content to use.

If you have a friend who has, like, lots of babies, she should be your ambassador. And she has lots of time and lots of babies. Just be like, I'm gonna send you free costumes. All you need to do is take photos of your kids. And you, you know what, tell your friends that if they buy through you, they get like 10% off with your, like, you know, friend with lots of babies coupon code. And then you got an ambassador right there. You have way more time on your hands to do whatever it is that you need to do.

Do you take costume requests? Because I'm just thinking how much I would love. I really like babies dressed up as old people.

Oh, my God.

That makes me laugh.

They don't need to dress up. They look like old people.

So like a baby Bernie Sanders. Sanders. Or like a baby Ruth Bader Ginsburg

with a tiny gavel.

With the smallest gavel.

That's really scary.

Baby Ruth Ginsburg is everything.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Wouldn't that be amazing?

Yeah.

I am thinking of a horror movie right now with, like, these costumes. So frightening, so amazing and creepy.

All right, so I. I can see this website. I think it's taken off.

Yeah, agreed.

I've, like, already pre ordered consultation.

Pre ordered the fall collection.

Yeah, I pre ordered the.

Just in time for Halloween. All right, all right. So we're gonna shift focus a little bit from something adorable to something that I think we might have a little bit of a harder time selling. Okay. Because, Rachel, I'm a college student and I'm trying to start a bike delivery service for burritos that I make in my dorm room. I'm trying to capture both, you know, the visuals of the food, but also the delivery. And what I'm thinking might be a problem is that, you know, I live in the dorms, so my kitchen is really small. And so I want to play up, like, how easy and convenient this is. But I don't want people to think about the fact that I, you know,

make burritos next to your smelly socks.

Yeah, I can't think.

The socks are clean. Thanks. But I am making them. You know, it's mostly microwavables.

Okay. Okay.

And I only have a mini fridge.

If you want to focus on the service and you want to focus on delivery, like, obviously the hours of operation are really important. Like, how can you. If you want to focus on that, you need to focus on like, what is your service? How do they get in touch with you in order to order a burrito? How fast should they expect it to come? How does it arrive?

Focus more on the convenience, on the hours and the time that it takes. Because I'm thinking my friends, when they order at 4am, they don't want to wait till breakfast.

Yeah.

I mean, this is late night munching.

Yeah. But no, I actually seriously would have your website be like, as well, sparse as possible. Like really, really, really basic. Just like burritos, 24 hours, something like that. And then like your phone number and then maybe just like those, a gallery of those people. Just like with the selfies, you know, call at any time for your burrito, like five minutes, it arrives seeming hot. Something like that. Something really, really sparse. Because like the rest of the story that you told me about your burritos, no one wants to hear that. No one wants to hear that. Okay.

I think I'm also gonna be a success. Don't look at me that way.

I need to get you a new bike.

There you go. Everyone has their niche.

Rachel, thank you so much for coming in today. We had a great time. I feel like we learned a lot. We're gonna do a, you know, a wrap up in just a sec. But we just want to thank you for coming in. You are a wealth, a wealth of visual content knowledge. A book, a bible.

Thank you.

An encyclopedia I could go on.

No, it was really, really my pleasure. I had a really great time going onto the show. Thank you guys so much for having me.

Of course.

It is our pleasure.

Is there any one final thing you wanted to leave with our listeners?

Keep it simple. Keep it simple. That's it.

Done deal. Thanks a lot for coming.

Thanks guys.

For some episodes, one tip of the day just isn't enough. So we're bringing you three tip number. If you've got a wild and zany product, keep your website simple. And if your product or service is super simple, get funky with your website. Because it's all about balance.

Blurry photos are kryptonite on your website. It doesn't take a lot of time or energy or even a lot of money to get some beautiful, crisp, great looking photos to show off what you're all about.

Tip number three User generated content is priceless. Think about how you can get your loyal customers to engage with your product on social media and share that killer content on your own website. If you're looking for more information on any of these tips or tons of the stuff Rachel talked about today, head on over to the blog@wix.com blog and learn tons of stuff about design and perfect your style.

That's all from us here at who, what wix. I am just I'm Yael. Thank you guys for joining us and we'll see you next time. Bye.