Hello and welcome. It's episode 35,
choosing the best hosting, boosting SEO
with AI and of course some essential
website tools as well. This is the 90 day
website mastery podcast, the perfect
companion to our 90 day website mastery
program. As I said, it's the 35th episode.
We're excited to bring you even more
valuable insights and practical advice to
help you enhance your website's
performance. Join us as we explore
strategies to make your website work
harder for you, reigniting your pride in
your online presence. We want you to feel
proud of your website. In fact, web proud,
Pascal, is that right? Well, indeed,
that's a term that we're going to be
mentioning a few times because we're a bit
of a surprise in the kind of offering for
our viewers and listeners. And listen,
episode 35, I'm still a little surprised.
It's time that there's more to talk about
and there's more to explore in that kind
of fast-paced, fast-track way of making
sure that you're making wise decisions
about how to use your time to make your
website have a greater impact for your
business, for your audience, but also for
you to really feel proud when you share
that website address. Yeah, absolutely. We
always have four segments to each episode.
We have the You Ask, We Answer. We have
website stories where we have a look at
perhaps an article that we found and we
dig deeper into it. We go to the website
engine room where myself and Pascal share
perhaps an app or a piece of kit that's
going to help you as a website manager
make your life easier perhaps you're a
website content creator or manage your
website and we always finish with the call
to action what content cannot have a call
to action where we give you one change or
adjustment that you should be making to
your website right now so as i said we do
start with you ask we answer and that's
where we take lots of different questions
that you've asked over different periods
of time and we try and focus on one that
we think is going to help the most to you
guys, the people that are listening, the
people that are watching. And by the way,
let us know if you're listening or
watching, get typing away, clicking
buttons, letting us know what you think
and what questions you've got. But let's
move into You Ask, We Answer.
Now, this question for episode 35 is
fascinating to me. So this came about
during a recent kind of consultancy
session with a client where they were
asking me to review a proposal that I
received from the web design agency. And
as you go through the different kind of
stages, which you and I would be very
familiar, we've covered them in previous
episodes, at the end, you always have the
additional cost around hosting and
maintenance. And the client reacted
saying, oh, that seems high. And actually,
I thought, well, I don't think it is, but
that's obviously part of different
experiences. And I said to him, but that
must be because they are suggesting a
dedicated hosting. And they looked at me
thinking, what do you mean? Is it not just
hosting? I said, no, there's different
ways in which you can obviously explore
hosting. And typically, the conversation
is either a shared hosting service or a
dedicated hosting service. And suddenly,
myself having to explain the difference
between the two, the pros and cons and so
on. And I thought, you know what, as a
little kind of challenge, as they say
where I come from, I will ask Johnny.
Ashley, your position on the difference
between shared and dedicated and
advantages and potential drawbacks to
watch out for. What say you? So, I was
always very much against shared. Actually,
let's take this a huge step back. I was
always pro-shared because it was so cheap.
I mean, it was brilliant. You could get,
you know, I mean, you could get such cheap
hosting and you still can, to be fair. But
I think it's a really good point because
most small businesses, you know, a lot of
the types of businesses that we talk to on
a daily basis, don't really consider what
hosting actually is and the impacts of
some of the decisions that are being made.
And ultimately, shared hosting, very
simply, you are sharing a server, whether
that be in the cloud or whether it be
virtual or whether it be physical, you're
sharing a server with other websites.
Dedicated, you have your own server, again
physical or virtual, where it's just your
website on that server. And historically,
from an SEO point of view, there would be
huge concerns about the other websites
that are on that server. And so from an
SEO point of view, it could have an impact
from a speed, from a reliability, from a
virus and malware point of view, lots and
lots of different things. Now, the creme
de la creme is to go dedicated, but it can
be very expensive. You sort of get what
you pay for as well. So, you know,
dedicated service could be anything from,
let's say, £50 a month all the way up to
500 maybe even a thousand pound a month
depending on the type of website or the
server that you need. So it can be quite
pricey but again going for a cheap
dedicated server actually isn't quite as
good as going for an expensive shared
server now. So this is a difficult
question to answer and I think the key
thing really is not to
just buy hosting without really
understanding what it is you're buying.
And if you're going down the shared route
to at least have a good idea of who else
is on that server and who's managing the
server, I think that's probably the most
important thing. And if you're going down
the dedicated route, a cheap dedicated
server actually isn't always great. So
yeah, I've just given some thoughts there,
Pascal. I don't know if you want to
challenge or ask any questions, but it's
more about just understanding what it is
you're buying. And for me, therefore, the
conversation I had with a client was to
try and invite them to imagine what this
could be like. And essentially, I went
into the realm of a shared office versus
your own office. Because with a shared
office, you get occasionally additional
services that can really help you out at
the lower cost because you share
essentially the maintenance and services.
with your own office. Sometimes you have
to be responsible for some of the
maintenance of parts of the building and
so on. So what you need to do really is
look at the contract. And even though this
is done via your web design agency, ask
them to share with you the terms and
conditions and the services, what's
included, what's excluded, and Listen, I
know that some of it is particularly dry
and optically interesting, but it will
have a bearing on the performance of your
website. And I think you're right. There
was certainly horror stories back in the
days where people had shared hosting with
websites which were either a very, very
different type of activities and sectors,
all the way to gambling and more. And that
dedicated, sorry, that shared server was
then blacklisted or sought by the search
engine, and you could be lumped into that.
Now, for me, it's very much, you know,
because you could go for, let's say, the
dedicated service, but actually you're
paying for a service that you don't need
fully. It's a bit like, you know, having
your own office, and then it's too big for
you, so to speak. And vice versa, if you
have a shared office, you almost are bound
to the limits of space and so on and so
forth. So I was kind of making some
suggestions, but I did ask my go-to
assistant, Perplexity, to remind me of
some of the things that you should be
thinking about. if you're going to go for
shared service. And to me, it's about this
idea of clutter, almost. So ask and
investigate how you can cache, for
example, some of the files that people are
accessing on a regular basis. And one
thing that was mentioned about perplexity,
which I've forgotten, I shouldn't have
because you mentioned it in a recent
website call to action, is that content
delivery network CDN You don't have to
understand it much more than asking your
design agency, what do we do about this?
Optimize the code and the content. One
thing that was recommended as well is
don't keep too much of, for example, media
files that you don't need at all.
WordPress is really, really tempting to
use it almost like the busy inbox where
you don't delete anything. So if you're
using WordPress or any other, don't keep
media files you don't use, don't keep like
10 different versions of the same article.
So, you know, that kind of clutter can
really help the performance of a shared
service. But the old optimization is very
important. But the number one question
that I would ask you to ask your agencies
and the hosting providers is around how
often do they keep this software? that
they need updated and used to be given a
log for that. And if you go for shared,
one that I nearly forgot, but perplexity
reminded me, particularly for mobile
phone, you know, ask for the
implementation of the Accelerated Mobile
Pages, AMP. It's kind of old hat now, you
know, it's been mentioned by Google for
many, many years and we take it for
granted, but for you, as the business
owner and the ultimate owner of the
website, asking those questions can reveal
that there are some ways and means for the
shared service to perform better. But
also, conversely, make sure that you ask
the questions, I pay for the DK server.
Looking at the past 12 months, how we
performed in terms of demand on the
server, and am I paying for a bigger
office than I need? all very good points.
And in fact, the optimization points, I
mean, I'd suggest to be perfectly honest,
if you've got a WordPress website, even if
you're on dedicated, you should be doing
those optimizations as well. So more
importantly, challenge your agency,
challenge your hosting provider, and make
sure you know what you are buying. Let's
move on to website stories.
Now in this part of the show, Joni and I
share our reactions, our views, our kind
of comments on the specific piece of
content. It could be an article, it could
be a podcast, a video, an infographic. And
today we're going for an article from
Search Engine Land. It's been a while
since we mentioned them on the show. Joni
and I love SEO, so of course we would be
consulting their content regularly. This
was written by Julianne McCoy, a founder
of firstmovers.ai, and the title is as
follows. AI SEO, how to be visible in
Google, AI overviews, chatbots, and large
language models. And you and I have had
this conversation pretty much from the
get-go when these AI summaries started to
kind of worm their way into the search
engine results, primarily Google, now
they're all doing it, but also this idea
of a near future, perhaps even present
now, where people spend longer on chat
GPT, copilot, Gemini, perplexity, and now
meta AI. More about this in a moment.
where they get the information they need
without having to access, to begin with,
search in your result, but also without
clicking on the link to access your
website. So there is a future of that kind
of zero-click behavior that we've known
about for a while. Now this article is
great because it breaks things down into
Very understandable elements of what to do
about this AI SEO, the appeal and
popularity of the AI summaries, and then
what to do about it. But just to begin
with, to get your reaction, AI summaries,
do you like them? Are you worried about
the impact on website traffic? Um, there
is a concern over website traffic for
sure. Uh, as a user though, I do like
them. Uh, and so it's, uh, that balance
really. Um, and, um, you know,
potentially, uh, the mitigation is plowing
more money into things like Google ads,
which ensures your visibility on, uh, on
the SERPs pages, um, or just optimizing to
get into those AI results. So, so yes, I
like them, but like with everything, it
does bring a challenge and it just keeps,
it just means that we just have to
continuously be at the top of our game,
thinking about it from a technical SEO
point of view, but also considering other
channels. For example, as I said, Google
ads and making sure that we're actually at
the top of the page, nevermind what
results are being shown. And for me, the
best way to illustrate what those AI
summaries are, they're to me like mini
search engine results pages. They stand
the precursors, like the exact summary of
what's actually going to be below. So in a
way which, obviously, this article is
studying, it's these examples. There's
research-based kind of illustrations and
more. So Julia is kind of trying to
suggest that actually, if you think about
it, there's something comforting, which is
that those AI summaries or those AI-driven
search results are totally reliant on what
is currently available on a search engine
database. So there is logic in what's
happening here. And there's a significant
overlap between the traditional, I mean,
is that correct? traditional search engine
experience, funny me like a couple of
years, and the AI powered one, and she's
sharing four elements to kind of look
into. I'm going to go through them rather
rapidly. Please follow the link in the
show notes. We have the article for you to
consult. But number one, continue to do
what you're doing. to rank well on the
traditional Google search engine results
pages. So we're talking about high
quality, authoritative content. Do not
neglect technical SEO and schema markup if
you don't know what it is. Ask, study, ask
AI to give you a summary. And importantly,
do optimize on branded content. Don't just
do some vague notions of what you do.
Really make people learn about the
language of what you do. Number two, be
really intentional in targeting what
people seek out, which is really more
something to do with information than
making a purchasing decision. It's almost
like an 80-20. So what's called, you know,
commonly top of funnel keywords should be
part of what you do because they do appear
very frequently on AI-powered summaries.
Number three, almost like a close cousin
to what we mentioned a moment ago, go for
relevant queries and long-term keywords.
So for example, you know, people say the
vast majority of people look for, for
example, how to choose black shoes for
men. That's the full sentence. And now
with AI Summary, people can write a 10
line kind of query as opposed to just
black shoes. So go back to what you've
done with your optimization and extend the
relevancy in terms of queries. And then
the number four, it's again an extension
to what's been mentioned, which is the
idea of match your content effort, but
also I would say by extension implicitly
design images, videos, and so on, match
all of that to the search intent. So if
someone is looking for how to do
something, then there has to be copy
images, web page layout, and so on, that
is matching that search intent. And as a
reminder, There's two types of search
intents in terms of what people do on the
internet. They look for a specific
website, we call this globally
navigational intent. They're looking to
buy something, transactional intent, but
the vast majority want to learn something
new, and that's called informational
intent. And do you have that experience on
your website is part of the elements of
reflection. So listen, AI overviews, the
chatbots, the large language models,
they're all kind of taking now and
entering the world of search. And they're
there to really provide ease and
convenience. And listen, I was pretty
shocked when Google I.O. this year
the seal of google student saying we're
gonna make search so easy and so
convenient you want to search anymore it
was a bizarre phrase but the more you
think about what's up in the more realize
that that's true so they are some concerns
they always in which you can you know kind
of piggyback but ultimately. Right now,
the logic and the practices are the same.
It may just be that you're being caught
out because you've not done enough with
regard to traditional SEO, if I'm going to
use that term, and you've got to really
now get down to getting on with taking
action for those AI-powered search
experiences. Do you think there's an
element, just reflecting as you've been
talking there, And do you think there's an
element from the likes of Google that are,
how do we stop the leaky bucket
of people moving to Ploplexity and moving
to ChatGPT instead of using the
traditional search engine where they make
a huge amount of money from Google Ads?
And so do you think that, you know, I'm
just reflecting and I'm thinking, is one
of actually their biggest reasons of
incorporating AI search into that search
page, because they're trying to get people
back to ensure that they can keep charging
for adverts. Well, for sure. And listen,
you know, it's all about, you know, who do
we keep on our properties? And with regard
to, um, Google, you know, they have the
whole ecosystem of Google maps of Google
search of Google images and YouTube and so
on, but they want to keep you on their
properties on their land. And they don't
really want you to move elsewhere. And,
and I think what's interesting for them is
the threat was primarily social networks,
but now we have independent platforms like
a perplexity like chat GPT and a few
others are going to come along
particularly national. So for example in
France they have something called mistrial
which is actually pretty good and so it
goes on. So for me this idea of how do we
kind of continue to evolve the search
experience and we're always thinking from
a business point of view but as a user if
you have a simple question usually they
are a simple question and you can give a
quick summary with the ability to click on
that link symbol that most people want.
And then, you know, within a few seconds,
you kind of go, ah, brilliant, I kind of
got what I needed here. And the beauty of
being able to save those searches for a
more deep dive kind of, you know,
interaction, I think is interesting. But
you're right, it is competing for our time
budget. You know, the average, certainly
in the UK, person spends, to the tune of
69 hours a day online. And they want that
the vast majority to be on their
platforms. It just reminds me of Google
trying Google plus trying to be the king
of, uh, of social networks, but failing,
but the Gemini Gemini Gemini is doing
well. Uh, and, uh, and I, I am embraced
with, with, um, uh, AI on search pages.
Um, I think the key points for me, uh,
like I've already said, and, and, and like
the article talks about, uh, focus on best
practices, focus on, uh, top of the funnel
keywords, um, and, uh, and, and really
consider, um, you know, what you would
normally do from an SEO point of view,
make sure you're doing that stuff. So, uh,
uh, a good topic. Let's move on to our
third segment, which is the website engine
room.
Next segment of the show, we select two
apps, two software solutions, maybe a
piece of kit that can make life easier as
a content creator and website manager. So
Johnny, what is your selection for episode
35? So we've been talking a lot about AI
and this one is AI videos. Now you know
this is becoming a bit scary in the fact
that you are starting to potentially see
videos online that are made with AI but
you don't necessarily know. And one of the
tools that came up in a number of
conversations was SendPotion.com.
SendPotion.com. As we say, all the links
will always be in the show notes. It's a
way to make AI videos from text in your
own face and voice. You can customize
video backgrounds, turn screen recordings
to AI videos, and much more. It's worth
having a play with just to get a feel for
where things are going and how easy some
of this is. Now, you know, we always
advocate for authenticity. We advocate for
being real, for really good content. But
just like we talk about AI as in chat GPT,
Gemini, perplexity, we talk about it being
a digital assistant. We talk about it how
it fits in the workflow. It's all about
what you say to it, how you use it, where
you use it in the workflow. Likewise, AI
videos have a place, and it's just about
how you use them, and it's about being
authentic with them. But yeah, SendPotion,
it's worth having a look. They have a free
version, and their pricing isn't too bad.
From a lot of the videos I've seen
produced, it's worth having a play. Thank
you very much. And listen, you know, part
of what we do with regard to the website
engine room is to ask you to have a play
to experiment, because this is the
precursor of maybe the next evolution of
what this platform is all about. And, you
know, I said this in the masterclass that
I host on AI and digital marketing, this
idea of becoming a skilled operator of the
tools of the time. And I think
ScentPotion, at first you can go, well,
why would I want to have a copy of myself?
with my voice and my face out there. I
said, well, maybe because in six months
time, you're going to discover a very
valid use case about this, but this time
you're ready to email. And I think really
my selection is a bit like this. So Meta,
the parent company of Facebook, Instagram,
WhatsApp, Messenger, and many more. has
released their kind of large-range model.
So a competitor to GPT, to Gemini, to
Copilot, and the others, meta.ai. So what
I've done, I've done the experiment where
I've literally copied and pasted the same
prompts, the same briefing, the same
instructions that I have recorded on the
other platform. And I have to say, the
results are better. It's more
conversational, which we understand coming
from the social network. It's a bit more
detailed. It's a bit more kind of keen to
help out. But that's what happens when you
wait for the others to get on with their
stuff. You can kind of look at what
they've been up to and then release you on
one. But there's also from the conference
that was delivered a few weeks ago now,
where Meta are really seeing things like
the smart classes and VideoGen, which is
their version of text-to-video. So we're
going to see, again, a lot of platforms
fighting for our attention and our budget.
But I thought meta.ai would be a very,
very helpful additional team member as
part of the digital assistant. And I've
also put in the show notes, Johnny, a link
to the official website for meta.ai. So
meta.ai takes you right into the belly of
the chatbot, so to speak, but ai.meta.com,
you can spend some time to study what they
have in mind. Interestingly, they are
thinking of creating also some AI
characters. So a real kind of virtual
representation of your system. I wonder
whether there's a link between that and
SendPotion, where maybe the future is not
so much a copy of you, Johnny, but a
mascot of sorts that the business has
adopted that can be part of the experience
with customer interaction. Thanks very
much, Pascal. Yeah, let us have a play.
Let us know what you think. Our final
segment, we always finish with the website
call to action.
Now this is about the one change or one
adjustment you should be making right now
to your website. Jonny, what is your
recommendation? So really simply break
down your forms, make them easier to fill
out, add trust signals and pre-tick
marketing opt-ins. So with clauses making
it clear that you're following privacy
policies and TNCs, but what I'm talking
about here is contact forms or any type of
form that you've got on your website. How
could you break it down and how could you
take people on a journey and get them to
fill that out and I think a bit of it is
using behavioral science. I think it's
about the wording, I think it's about
adding those trust signals, I think it's
about just simply breaking it down and
making it into a workflow. Now, I do not
advocate these guys whatsoever. However,
Ocean Finance, the credit card, please do
not apply and I absolutely don't advocate
them. However, Whoever is in their
marketing department knows how to create a
really, really good form. So if you
Google, apply for an Ocean Finance credit
card, I'll put the link in the chat notes.
As I said, please don't apply. And this is
not what this is about. But have a look at
their so simple form. It's so clever. The
wording, it just, It breaks the whole
thing down. The wording's extremely
clever. It starts using the data that
you're putting in. It starts straight away
using in some of the next pages. And as I
said, it adds lots of trust signals as
well. So it's using behavioral science.
It's breaking the forms down. Have a look
at Ocean Finances, apply credit card, and
that will be my call to action. Break your
forms down, get more people converting.
It's all about conversion rates. What's
yours, Pascal? Well, I want to break
things down also, but I want to talk about
the regular content marketing or the
content ideas meeting. And I want people
to kind of almost rethink and reset the
agenda for that meeting. But to begin
with, I think it's wholly appropriate for
this to become the AI and content
marketing meeting. I would suggest a
couple of hours a month is probably what
you need to think through what you're
going to be doing for the coming month or
quarter. So I would say six elements to
your new agenda of sort. Number one is
you're celebrating your wins. People do
that often enough. So what's worked well,
you know, what are we kind of getting in
terms of commercial wins, but about
operational wins, but also technological
wins. So can we list all those wins?
Because in there, it could be the spark of
an idea, which is for the second item on
the agenda, which is let's get creative.
Any new content ideas, questions that our
customers have been asking recently, any
new formats or even events we should be
tapping into. So that kind of takes care
of the part of the meeting. The next thing
should be exploring AI tools and apps and
collectively with your, you know, with
your teammates, explore what's working
well, what's not working and being them,
but also any new tools that we should be
testing, perhaps recommended by Johnny and
Pascal. Number four on the agenda, Then
schedule that content and look at themes
and topics and ideally look at the next
quarter if you can. But you should also
spend some time, which is item number five
on the agenda, on just some notional ideas
of how you're going to spread the word.
Because I think people, Jonny, spend still
a lot of time on the content creation, but
not on the promotion of that content. So
then it lives on your website, no one
knows about it, it goes on social media,
we don't get enough shares. The spreading
of the word is very important. And then
the final item is when you assign the task
and the deadline, ask yourself the
question, can AI help with the
productivity and keeping it on track? And
I think this AI content marketing meeting
needs to be just a bit more broken down
now than it is now. Six suggestions, they
are in the show notes for you to review. I
think that's going to make a big
difference.
Fantastic. What great call to actions as
always. We have found ourselves in
many recent episodes talking lots about
AI, but rightly so. Like we always say,
it's a great digital assistant. It's all
about embracing it, but it's about
understanding how to get the most out of
it. We talked about hosting. virtual
shared servers or dedicated servers, find
out, do you even know what your website is
hosted on? That would be a question. And
if you don't know the answer, start asking
some questions because I imagine that a
few of you don't. And if you do know the
answer, start challenging them in terms of
when was the software last updated, what
other websites are on there, et cetera, et
cetera. And we've covered some great apps
and tools and some good call to actions.
It's a time to go through your show notes
and reflect and bite-size this down
and start putting some of these things
into place. And of course, visit the
90-day website, masterymarketing.com
website, where you can get There's an
e-book full of lots of the tools that
we've gone through. And we have the action
randomizer, which gives you those
bite-sized call-to-actions. So if you've
got a little gap on a Friday afternoon,
roll the dice on our website, and it'll
give you a bite-sized little thing that
you could go in action right now on your
website. Pascal, great episode. Thank you
very much. You reminded me of the mantra
of, I want to bring back to the four. It's
all about very simple things done very
well, very often on, on that note, you
couldn't have said it any better. Thank
you so much for joining us. Please do
reply on our social medias. Let us know
what you think. give us some topics to
discuss. We really enjoy helping you start
making you feel proud of your website
again. Thanks for joining us. We will see
you all soon. Take care. Bye-bye.