Paige Brunton on building a web design business with content marketing and freedom
From moving abroad without speaking the local language to becoming one of the top Squarespace educators, Paige Brunton shares her unconventional journey into web design. In this conversation, she reveals how blogging and SEO became her primary client-getting strategy, why she quit Instagram without losing business momentum, and how she's built a content system that allows her to step away for months at a time.
Starting a web design business without a design degree
Paige's path into web design wasn't traditional. "I felt very frauddy about becoming a website designer seeing that I have a degree in recreation and leisure which was a very fun time but has nothing to do with business or with design or marketing or anything," she shares.
The catalyst for her business came from meeting her husband and moving to Europe. Without speaking the local language and needing to work remotely, she realized that website design was her fastest path to earning income online. "I realized I was like, travel blog that's going to take a little while to make real income because that requires building an audience. And I was like, well, what I do know how to do from having built this travel blog is I know how to build a website."
Finding your first clients without local connections or referrals
One of the biggest challenges Paige faced was figuring out how to get clients when traditional advice didn't apply to her situation. "Everyone was like, 'Oh, I get my clients from referrals.' And I was like, 'That's kind of not helpful if I don't have a first client to refer me to other clients,'" she explains.
Her initial attempts included listing services on Etsy and working with a web design agency. While these provided some income, they weren't sustainable. "I noticed it was like typically quite low paid and very high fees on Etsy. So I was like, this is not the perfect mixture."
The breakthrough came when she discovered content marketing. "I started a blog. And I do quite enjoy writing and I tend to be able to ramble quite a bit. So I could make a 2,000-word post pretty easily. So blogging and SEO was the thing which started me getting clients basically."
Building an audience through blogging and SEO
Paige's commitment to blogging eventually paid off in a significant way. She worked her way up Google's rankings to become the first designer appearing for "Squarespace website designer" searches. "It was Squarespace, it was Upwork I think, and then it was me," she recalls.
This success with SEO created a new problem: too many inquiries to handle. Rather than simply raising her prices indefinitely, she saw an opportunity to pivot her business model entirely.
Transitioning from client work to online education
Faced with more inquiries than she could handle, Paige considered three options: becoming a web design agency, launching a template shop, or creating an online course. She chose the course route and spent three months building Square Secrets.
An interesting discovery came during her Q&A calls with students. "All of the students were asking me questions not about how to do XYZ in Squarespace. They kept asking me about how I was running the business," she shares. This led to the creation of her second course, Square Secrets Business, which focuses on the business side of web design.
Creating a sustainable content marketing system
Paige's content system centers on blogging and YouTube, with minimal social media presence. "I did actually do Instagram for like a while because I felt like I had to but did not enjoy it ever," she admits.
When she tested launching her course without Instagram promotion, she saw no difference in results. "We saw no difference in the launch results. And I was like, that was good enough for me."
Her breakup post on Instagram ironically received the most engagement she'd ever gotten on the platform, with many followers expressing they wanted to do the same.
Why YouTube became her primary marketing channel
YouTube became a natural fit for Paige's tutorial-based content. She initially created videos just to embed in blog posts, never thinking about YouTube as a platform itself. Then she received an email about monetization eligibility. "I turned on ads and we started making a few hundred bucks a month. And I was like, 'Well, that's weird and interesting.' And I was like, 'I'm sorry. You want to pay me to do my marketing? That's great.'"
The platform brought her genuine joy and gave her something new to learn. "I feel like in business when you do the same thing for years and years and years, it gets boring sometimes. And so having YouTube, it was like a new thing to learn."
Understanding YouTube analytics and algorithm insights
Through diving deep into YouTube analytics, Paige discovered fascinating insights about how the platform works. She learned that YouTube shows videos first to existing subscribers, and only if they engage does it push content to wider audiences.
One discovery came from comparing the same video posted on her main channel versus a brand new channel. "I took the same video and I posted on a brand new channel and it got like 6 to 7,000 views with no subscribers. And I was like, interesting."
This taught her that "changing the direction of a YouTube channel can be very difficult and it is a bit of a platform where they want you to stick to the thing that you've been producing."
Preparing for maternity leave with six months of content
When preparing for maternity leave, Paige's biggest project was getting six months ahead on content. She used a clever strategy to accomplish this efficiently: "Half of that six months of content is genuinely new content and the other half is me retaking old videos which we've posted and redoing little bits of it."
She improved old videos by redoing introductions, updating titles and thumbnails, and trimming sections where viewer retention dropped. "The vast majority of viewers for a YouTube channel are people who watch your videos a couple times. And the percentage of people who watch every single video is actually very small."
Building a business that allows for time off
From the beginning, Paige designed her business with flexibility in mind. "Even back then I was like, okay, well you might have kids at some point and therefore you might need to take some time off and therefore which model makes sense."
Her approach to creating freedom involves understanding exactly where time goes. "I did actually do this time tracking exercise and basically had to then note, okay, what is a good use of my time? What should be sped up? What should someone else actually be doing?"
She emphasizes delegating recurring tasks while keeping content creation for herself. "The actual content production is me I would say because that's the thing I enjoyed the most. So like why did I give this to someone else?"
Designing a Squarespace website with SquareKicker
Paige's own website showcases creative use of SquareKicker tools. One feature she's particularly proud of is a section that scrolls over another section, with vertical images placed on the left and right sides and a gradient background. "That's one of those things which I feel like unless you're a professional coder, which I am not, you need something like SquareKicker to manage those things."
She also used design techniques to make her site feel less like a typical website, including embossed logos and crests, postcard-style elements with custom stamps, and textured backgrounds that resemble parchment paper.
Lessons from live event technical difficulties
Even with careful planning, things can go wrong. During a recent course launch, Facebook's platform failed multiple times during a live event. "We went to our launch, we had to restart the live video three times, three different times, and it was just so annoying."
The experience taught her an important lesson about platform reliability. "As much as I love the communities that we would previously have in Facebook, the ability for your training to actually be live at the right time is definitely more important."
Creating business freedom in Switzerland
Outside of work, Paige enjoys the incredible nature Switzerland offers. As a Canadian who grew up skiing, she now has access to world-class ski hills from November to April. During summer, she and her husband explore lakes on paddle boards, admiring the villas and mansions along the water.
Website: www.paigebrunton.com
Youtube: Paige Brunton Business
Listen to the full episode. This conversation is from the Looks Good From Here podcast, where we dive past the shiny Instagram version of the internet to have real conversations with designers building real businesses.
