When we asked Lauri what she wanted visitors to feel when they landed on her website, she didn’t say professional. She didn’t say polished.
She said: “I want you to feel like you just found your people.”
Lauri helps women in the third quarter of life fall back in love with cooking, without living in the kitchen or stressing about every step. She’s warm, she’s funny, and she is absolutely the kind of person who will start dancing in the middle of making dinner with zero music required.
Before her Oh My Hi site, the only thing she had to hand people was a shopping link.
What’s the difference between a shopping link and a website?
A shopping link handles the transaction. A website handles the relationship. That’s the whole difference, and it turns out to be a big one.
A cookie-cutter direct sales shopping link is good at exactly one thing: taking an order from someone who has already decided to buy. What it can’t do is introduce you. It can’t tell your story. It can’t make somebody feel like they found their people before they’ve clicked anything at all.
That’s not a knock on the link. It’s doing the job it was built for. The trouble starts when it’s the only thing you have to hand people.
This shows up well outside direct sales, too. A coach whose entire online presence is a booking link. A maker with nothing but an Etsy shop. A consultant pointing everyone to a LinkedIn profile. In every case the checkout counter exists, but there’s no store around it.
So we built Lauri something that could do the rest.
What should be on the first scroll of your homepage?
Within the first scroll, a visitor should know who you are, who you’re talking to, and whether this is their kind of place. That’s it. Not your whole life story, not every product you sell.
That’s intentional. People buy from people they like, and your homepage’s first job is to give them a reason to like you, before it asks anyone to shop or sign up for anything.
Here’s how Lauri’s flows, top to bottom.
The announcement bar does quiet but effective work
One line across the very top: this month’s Pampered Chef deals are too good not to share. One sentence, one link, and the right person is already clicking through before they’ve even read the hero.
That bar is prime real estate most people leave empty. A wellness coach could use it for open enrollment. A bookkeeper could use it for a tax deadline. Smallest change on this list, fastest payoff.
The hero leads with personality, not a product
Less stress, more flavor, maybe a lemon drop martini on the side. Read that and you know instantly whether you’re in the right place.
Do this: say who you help and what changes for them, in your actual voice. Not that: “Welcome to my page!” and a photo. One of those tells a visitor something. The other makes her keep scrolling to find out if she’s in the right place, and most people don’t bother.
Current favorites, with real context
Not a product dump. The handful of tools she actually reaches for, and why she loves them.
Five products with a sentence of real opinion attached will always beat forty products with none. Same goes for a stylist naming her three go-to pieces this season, or a wellness practitioner naming the two things she recommends most.
A VIP section that points to the community
Her Facebook group gets its own spot on the homepage, because that’s where the good stuff drops first. The site sends people to the community, and the community sends people back to the site.
An email opt-in that sounds like her
Sign up and get her kitchen dance party playlist. Low commitment, very Lauri, completely on brand.
Here’s the thing about opt-ins: they don’t have to be a 20 page guide you spent three weekends building. They have to be worth an email address and they have to sound like you. A playlist counts.
How do you get website visitors to tell you what they need?
Ask them one question before they type anything. On Lauri’s contact page, instead of a generic message box, visitors are greeted with “What brings you here today?” and a few options to select.
That one question sorts her leads before she’s replied to a single one. Someone who wants to book a party lands in one bucket. Someone curious about joining her team lands in another. Someone with a question about an order lands in a third.
A blank box asks a visitor to do work. A short list of options asks her to point, and people will point all day long. You get to open your inbox already knowing what each person needs instead of reading twelve messages to figure it out.
Any business can borrow this. A photographer can ask wedding, family, or headshots. A coach can ask one on one, group, or just browsing. Two minutes to set up, useful forever.
Your 10 minute homepage gut check
Pull up your own site and read the first scroll like a stranger would. Can someone tell who you are and who you help? Does it sound like you, or like a template? Is your announcement bar doing anything at all? Does your contact page ask a question, or just sit there with an empty box?
You don’t need a complicated website. You need one that actually sounds like you and gives people somewhere real to land.
If your site is live but doesn’t quite feel like you yet, or you’ve been meaning to add pages and tighten up your messaging, bring it to one of our weekly live support calls and a real human (hi, that’s Lisa) will walk through it with you. You can also reply to any of our emails and we’ll figure out next steps together.
Lauri’s is a pretty good place to start imagining what yours could look like.
🧡 Team Oh My Hi
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