Stop Apologizing for Your Website: The Glow-Up Approach for Small Business Owners

Ever share your website link with a disclaimer like "Sorry, it's outdated!" or "I know it needs work!"? If you've ever apologized for your website before anyone even clicks, you're not alone—but that apology is quietly sabotaging your business.

 When you undermine your own credibility, you're not being humble. You're actively telling potential clients not to trust you, and worse, you're attracting discount-seekers while premium clients move on to someone who seems more confident.

In this episode, I'm breaking down what your website apologies are really costing you and why your site probably doesn't need the complete teardown you've been dreading. 

We'll explore the difference between a website glow-up and a full rebuild, plus I'll share specific, strategic improvements you can make right now—without hiring a designer or spending months on the project. It's time to share your link without commentary and let your website work for you.

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EPISODE 166.
Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: https://erinollila.com/stop-apologizing-for-your-website/

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Here's the info on your host, Erin Ollila
Erin Ollila believes in the power of words and how a message can inform – and even transform – its intended audience. She graduated from Fairfield University with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and went on to co-found Spry, an award-winning online literary journal.

When Erin’s not helping her clients understand their website data or improve their website copy, you can catch her hosting the Talk Copy to Me podcast and guesting on shows such as Profit is a Choice, Mindful Marketing, The Power in Purpose, and Business-First Creatives.

Stay in touch with Erin Ollila, SEO website copywriter:
• Learn more about my VIP intensive options or just book a strategy session to get started right away
• Visit Erin's website to learn more about her business, services, and products

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Transcript

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Picture this, someone tags you on social media. Maybe they're recommending you for a service, or showcasing a product that you sell and you're thrilled, right? Well, you're thrilled until they ask you for your website link and suddenly all that excitement you feel just turns to dread. Because you share the link, but you can't just share it. Now you have to add a disclaimer like, so sorry, but my site's super outdated. Or don't judge because I know it needs work. Maybe you tell them, oh, you don't see the service listed here, but I promise I offer it. If you've ever done this, and I'm guessing that you have, because we all have done it. I've done it more recently than I would like to admit to, but if you've done this before, you know exactly what I'm talking about, that pit in your stomach, the preemptive apology, the cringe, I see successful businesses, talented creatives, established service providers, and I see them do this constantly on social media. These are smart, capable people who are really good at what they do, and they're apologizing for their website before anyone even gets the opportunity to click the link. But here's the question that I want you to sit with. Have you ever stopped to think about what that apology is actually doing to your business? Because here's the thing, when you apologize for your website, you are not just being humble or self-deprecating. You're actively undermining your credibility before someone even reads a single word. Think about it from a potential client's perspective or a buyer's perspective. They're interested. Maybe they were referred to you, maybe they found you organically and they're curious enough to click, but before they do, you've already told them, this isn't good. Don't trust what you're about to see. I don't even really believe in it myself, and I'm not taking the effort or the time to fix this. And now, now they're looking for problems. And this is the problem. This is the problem that they are looking for problems. You've given them permission to judge your website critically. That's not just you being hard on yourself, that is confirmation bias and action because you are planting the seed of doubt. And now what's happening is instead of being conversion focused and conversion heavy, like leading them towards the sale, they're actively looking for reasons to confirm that whatever it is that you're saying is true, like confirm that your site is bad to confirm it's outdated. And we don't want that. That's not gonna lead to conversions. Your apology is signaling. More negative than positive. It could be that you are not believing in your own work. It could be signaling that you lack the confidence that premium clients are looking for. It could be that your, people are assuming you're not taking your business seriously, or you business is just not able to stay modern and current, and If you don't believe your website represents you well, why should they believe that? You can deliver results for them. Why should they believe that your products or services are exactly what they need?. I wanna move on to one of the other points that I made about how your business may not look current or active. An outdated website is gonna make your leads wonder. Is this business even still running? Are they taking on new clients? Should I keep looking? And going back to that confidence gap, premium clients are especially paying attention to this. They are not just buying the service that you offer, they are buying your ability to be a strategic partner, to guide them. And if you can't confidently present yourself, that's gonna be a red flag to them. And listen, this is not just about the clients you lose, it's also about the clients you attract. Because when you signal uncertainty about your own work, you tend to attract people who are looking for a deal. People who, maybe sense like a discount energy. Meanwhile, the clients who would happily pay your full rate and respect your expertise, they're moving on to someone who seems a little bit more confident or a little bit more taking their business seriously. And what I want to kind of drive home now is the compound effect of this apology habit, because it's not just one lost opportunity. It's every time you share your website and undermine yourself. Every social media post, every referral, every networking conversation. And beyond the business impact, there's an emotional toll too. I think we should acknowledge. It's the mental weight of constantly apologizing for something that represents your work. It's exhausting, it feels terrible, and it keeps you stuck and small. I had a client who would literally avoid networking opportunities locally, and she had a great local business group, I guess, or you know, community that, that constantly hosted networking events, but she would not go. And that was one of the things we talked about on her website kickoff was because. She knew she had to either share a business card, a QR code, or some way to get people to come back to her site, and she did not like her website. She would tell people to find her on LinkedIn. And this woman had built a six figure business largely through word of mouth, but she was capping her growth because she was embarrassed by a website that she had just really stopped paying attention to. Once her business started to take off, she ignored it completely and it just kind of fell apart over the years. However, when she finally addressed it, and we'll hopefully talk more about that in a minute. The relief that she felt was almost immediate, not just because her site was suddenly perfect, because, you know, I think anyone who has ever done a website copy or design project knows they tend to, grow, right? So we get goals when we're building things and we decide, well, you know, I'm gonna add this page in the future, or I'm going to develop case study content, or I'm gonna create some blog post or build out resources, right? So our goals grow and sometimes we have to just accept we're gonna phase in these big changes slowly. So it wasn't just because, again, the website project completed and it looked so great, but it was because she recognized that she can stop undermining herself, that she can. Show up and show off. Like in a good way. In a way that felt good. And if you're recognizing yourself in her story, then I want you to stop and think, why are we doing this? Why are so many smart, successful business owners apologizing for their websites and their business? Because, you know, most of us have bought into the idea that our website is so bad. So broken or so outdated that the only solution is to tear the entire thing down and start from scratch. And then when we think that way, it feels impossible because you don't have months to dedicate to a website project, or you don't have thousands of dollars just sitting around that can be spent on a copywriter and then another thousands of dollars for a designer. And let's, let's stop for a second. You don't even know what decisions you need to make or how to make them, because there's just so much that goes into it, and this is just not your wheelhouse. But even if you had all of that, if you had the decisions made, if you had the designer, you had the copywriter, , you had the time, whatever it was, you're still gonna be worried and you're still gonna be concerned that it's not perfect. So all of that accumulates in our mind. It stresses us out. It feels very overwhelming. And what happens because we just feel so overwhelmed, is that we do nothing. And the longer that you do nothing, the worse that it feels and the worse it feels, the more you apologize. But here is what I want you to hear. Here is what I want you to take away from this entire. Episode, your website probably does not need a complete tear down. It just needs a glow up. Let me explain the difference because this reframe is really everything for my done with you clients, my DIY clients that might just hire me for strategy or for my done for you clients that come to me already just feeling like a heavy dread about their website. A tear down is what you've been imagining. If you're thinking about, you know, starting from scratch, rebuilding everything, uh, maybe taking weeks or months of work, uh, a project could cost thousands of dollars. If you're having decision paralysis or if you feel like you're chasing perfection, a glow up on the other side is something completely different. In a glow up, you are looking for strategic improvements. You're editing and not erasing. Though you absolutely have permission to erase and rewrite things. You're working with what you have, you're keeping what is working and upgrading, what doesn't you are. Goal here is progress, not perfection. Okay. Think about a glow up in any other context. Makeovers. You know, I remember being a kid and watching like makeover shows on the news. You're not becoming a different person with a makeover. You just end up looking more polished or, or you see a more confident version of yourself. The same thing with your website. You are not starting over. You're not throwing everything away. You're making strategic improvements that help make your website do its job better. And will you have to do a heavy lift at some parts? Yeah. Maybe. I'm not gonna lie to you there. A glow up does not necessarily mean like you like blink, your eyes twirl around and it magically gets better. A glow up does require putting some work into it. But it doesn't mean you need to burn it all down in order to start fresh, and I think that there's a big relief in that. You're not burning it down to make it better. You don't need a complete redesign to stop being embarrassed. You do need clarity. You do need a few strategic shifts. You need to make your website work for you, and that's doable. So you might be wondering, what does a website glow up actually look like in practice? Let me give you a few examples. Small changes I think can have pretty big impact because I want you to see that this is not just theoretical, that it's tangible and doable. Let's talk about homepage headlines for a second. That's the first thing that people see when they land on your site and many websites. Sorry to call you out here. We'll have things like, hi, I am so and so, like, hi, I'm na and I'm a blank. And there's nothing offensive about that. Like you are your, your own name. You have a job title, but it's not doing any work for you. It is not telling visitors whether they're in the right place or creating any momentum. What you want is a clear headline. That is speaking to the outcome your ideal client wants. Because when someone lands on your website, they're asking themself one question in less than five seconds. And that question, if we wanna go all the way back to one of the first three episodes of this podcast is, what's in this for me? Your headline needs to answer that question, and while I am not certainly one that's going to claim that writing hero headlines is the easiest job, I will say, what I can get you to think about, to make you feel more excited about making changes is. This is not gonna take you a while. You do not have to hire a website designer to change the words within the hero section of your website. You don't need, the layout can stay the same. You're just getting clear on the outcome you help people achieve and you're leading with that. That's a glow up. Okay. Let's think of another example. Calls to action are a really good one, , for us to talk about. Most websites have one of two problems. Either the CTA is buried at the very bottom of the homepage where no one sees it, or, or, or any page. I know I said homepage, but I meant any page, or there are multiple competing CTAs and that's creating a lot of decision fatigue. Book a call. Download my guide, join my email list, follow me on Instagram, connect with me on LinkedIn. When there are too many choices, people will choose none. They will choose to click out of things. So when we can pick one clear specific next step and make it visible through strategy decisions, moving people through your site, it's going to be so much easier for people to make decisions. They will feel so much more confident about wanting to work with you because removing decision fatigue is one of the kindest things that you can actually do for your website visitors. They want to know what's next. Tell them they want to make a decision so that they can choose to purchase from you or, or hire you or whatever. So don't make them hunt for it or choose between way too many options. And one final example for you. Social proof, , testimonials, case studies, any type of stats or results. I do not know why. I think I have been saying this for at least five years now. Most websites don't have enough testimonials or they're hidden on a testimonials page, and I get it. It feels braggy sometimes to incorporate them into copy. You might feel uncomfortable asking for testimonials, but the thing is they help potential clients see themself in someone else's success story. They help people make decisions and feel more confident. They build trust and you know, one powerful testimonial. That's not buried, that's not hidden. That's right there. When visitors are trying to make a conversion decision or they're really need help determining whether or not they can trust you specifically, especially if that testimonial speaks to the specific outcome that they want. That builds trust faster than anything that you can say about yourself, because when a potential client sees someone like them achieving the result that they want, that's powerful. The effort here is just reaching out to former clients or customers and asking for a testimonial or even better just. Polling from feedback forms that you've already have and placing it prominently where it can do its job. That's a glow up. Do you see the pattern here? These are not massive overhauls. These are not months long projects. They're strategic focused improvements that make your website clearer, more credible and more effective. You are not starting over. You're getting intentional about what's actually working and what needs to change.. Okay. I know you might be thinking something like, okay, but won't people still see that my website isn't perfect? Friends, they're not looking for perfect. When people are making buying decisions, they do not judge the colors that you choose in your brand. And even if they do, it's a quick like glance at colors, uh, a thought pops in their mind and then it goes away. They're not judging the fonts that you're choosing and. Again, people understand 'cause they're human just like you, that perfect does not exist and sometimes, not all the times, but sometimes a too polished website can feel impersonal Anyway,. What people are looking for are three things. One, is it clear? Do I understand I, being the the website visitor, what you do and who you help? Is it credible? Do I trust that you can help me? Are you confident? Do you believe in what you're offering? A website you believe in beats, a website that you are apologizing for every single time. And here's why. The glow up approach works especially well for business owners like you. Well, first . You don't have to fix everything at once. You can tackle your headlines this week, your CTA next week, add a testimonial the week after that. Small wins create momentum. Second, you get to keep what's working. Maybe you're about page is actually great. Maybe your service descriptions or your product descriptions are super clear. You're not throwing away the good stuff. I think that's what people really worry about when they think about rewriting their site. You're just upgrading what's not pulling its weight. And then third, you build confidence as you go. Every small improvement reminds you, I can do this. I don't need to wait for perfect. I can make this better right now. So here's the new standard I want you to adopt. Your website can be a work in progress without you undermining it. It does not need to be perfect to be professional. It does not have to be finished to be effective, and it absolutely does not need an apology. The next time someone asks for your website link or someone refers you on social media, I want you to share your website without commentary. Just share it. No disclaimer, no apology, no preemptive defense, and see how that feels, in truth, it might feel a little uncomfortable. But that's because you're fighting against your natural habit to want to overexplain. Continue to share that link, continue to stand by your sight, and you're going to grow confidence. And your leads will not show up to your website already looking for what's potentially wrong. They're going to have that confirmation bias that you are the right person. They're gonna be looking for what's right at that point, because you are not already telling them that something needs to be fixed. This is a new episode that's gonna kick off a series on fixing your website because my goal is to have all of you starting 2026 with the strongest website that you possibly can. Next week we're gonna be back on the podcast to talk about The problems that you don't necessarily see that turn visitors into complete ghost, which I think is pretty appropriate seeing that this episode will go live during the week of Halloween. But in truth, the these are the things that are quietly costing you conversions without you realizing it. And then over the next few weeks, I'm gonna walk you through exactly what needs attention on your website so we can address it without burning it all down together. We're gonna get strategic. We are gonna get specific, and I hope that you'll walk away knowing exactly what to do. See you next week, where we'll keep talking copy.