Hello, welcome. This is the 90 Day
Website Mastery podcast, the perfect
companion to our 90 Day Website Mastery
program. It's episode 32. 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 into your online presence. I'm here
with my co-host Pascal. Fin, Tony, you
okay, Pascal?
Very well, Thank you very much. Now, this
is a short form, fast paced bit of
content trying to make 2 things really,
bringing clarity when it comes to running
a website and enjoying it. A bit more
important to making sure that in the
process, you feel proud of your website
again.
Yeah, that is the most important thing.
We've done many, many training courses
and the key thing we always hear is that
pang when someone says, what's your
website address? And it's sort of like
that pang in your stomach that you don't
feel proud. And we want you to feel proud
of your website. That's what this is all
about. In each episode, we have 4
segments. We have the you ask, we answer.
We have the website stories. We have a
website engine room where we give an app
or a piece of software or a piece of kit
that me or Pascal have seen that's gonna
help you as a website manager make your
life easier. And of course, we always
finish with the website call to action
because every piece of content should
have a website call to action. And we'll
come onto that right at the end. So
Without further ado, let's start with you
ask, we answer our first segment.
This is fascinating and I'm very
surprised we've not had that question
before when you think about it and how
long now we'd be running the podcast from
the website mastery. Now this is a bit of
a combination because you have the
question at an event, I had the same
questions more or less during a master
class. So here it goes. What does it mean
for my website to be mobile form
friendly? Surely this is done
automatically nowadays or am I supposed
to do something else to make it happen?
And I have some sympathy because I will
explain later on why I believe the term
mobile-friendly or mobile-phone-friendly
is perhaps not particularly obvious to
all. What does it mean? And I think
particularly when you go online, Johnny,
and look for information, and you can all
Google, find the Google guidelines for
mobile phone friendly, it feels like it's
just very superficial, it's kind of
things that everybody knows, but is there
something else people should be thinking
about when it comes to mobile phone
users? What say you, Johnny Ross?
Yeah, well the difficult thing and you
know, part of that question is, you know,
that that person saying surely this is
done automatically nowadays. And you
would think that, wouldn't you? You would
assume that. In fact, there's so many
assumptions that are made when you're
buying a website from an agency or a web
developer. There's so many assumptions
that are made from it's going to work on
mobile to it's going to rank at the top
of Google. Of course, that's not the case
and we're not in a regulated market. You
need to make sure that your website brief
is very thorough and you need to make
sure that you're challenging whoever
you're buying a website from, or perhaps
if you're building it yourself, you need
to challenge the tool that you're using.
So unfortunately, a lot of websites
aren't automatically ready for mobile.
And really what we should be talking
about here is mobile first. So when we're
designing a website, we should have
mobile first in mind. The problem with
that, and I deal with this on a daily
basis, we build WordPress websites all
the time. And 1 of the issues that I
always find is that We're all in a
desktop environment when we're having
conversations in terms of business to
business conversation. When we're
brainstorming on what the website is
going to be like, when we're looking at
other websites, when we're showing some
designs, when we're on Teams, on Zoom, on
Google Meet, we're all on a desktop. But
in reality, in most industries and
sectors, over 50% of people are using
mobile. So the biggest thing is getting
your head around that you need to make
sure you're always talking about websites
on mobile. So that's about using an
emulator on your computer to be always
looking at mobile versions of websites.
But yeah, going back to the crux of this
question, it's not automatic and you
absolutely need to consider it As first,
what is this website going to look like
on mobile? Nevermind desktop. That's what
I think.
And I think for me, the idea being,
whether you work with a designer or
you're doing it yourself, you have to get
into the habit of the schematics on both
the vertical screens and the laptop
screen. Because you're right, most of our
blogging is done on the laptop. I would
imagine that's more convenient. That
takes me back even into my passion by
video and filmmaking. Most video editing
is done on a large screen because we want
to see stuff. And the amount of
conversation I've had with other video
editors say, people won't be able to see
that on mobile phone, the caption is too
small, or you need to move in closer to
the products or to the scene because on
the mobile phone screen, it's not gonna
be as obvious. And the other challenge
that I've got then, so you could do all
that. You could sketch it, you could use
different online platforms, many of them
mentioned on the show, and get an
impression what it's gonna be like on
mobile. But the advice out there, and if
you Google it, you'll know, is very much
centered on the technology, the tech, you
know, the behind the scenes stuff. And I
think that a much better and more helpful
expression should be that the website is
mobile phone user friendly. Because I
think all too often the visitor is
somehow implicit, but I actually wanna
make it explicit. Because then you move
into decision, for example, photography.
So photography on a laptop screen, you
can see a lot more details than you would
on the small screen. So again, can you
move in a bit closer? Text, you've got to
break it down more. You have to create
more line breaks. You have to create more
sub headers and many conversations we've
had before. So for me, the question
should be, what does it mean for my
website to be mobile phone user-friendly
and once you move into for the platform
that the people you have used that
expression before, literally logic and
just good customer care comes into play
and then you're going to start to rethink
the navigation, the structure, the
content itself. And for example, when my
customers do take part in the blogging
masterclass, they work on a laptop and it
looks very neat. As soon as you look on a
mobile phone, you're faced with a massive
column of words without any breaks and
not even visual kind of stimuli. So it
makes sure we think everything
completely, but it has to be friendly to
the user, not the mobile phone that makes
any sense. Will
Barron Yeah, absolutely. And so I think
it's about creating lots of space. It's
about making it really easy for fingers
and thumbs to be able to get to a call to
action, to be able to see the call to
action and to really, like I was saying a
minute ago that Some of the clients I
work with, I'm working on behalf of them,
employing another agency to come in and
still to this day, other agencies are
showing them on desktop first and you
know, it looks great and yes, let's go
with that. And then they look at it on
mobile and it's like bloody awful. And
it's, And there's just not been any
thought on, as Pascal's just said, the
usability side of things. So yeah, I
think lots of creating space, creating
buttons that are big enough, creating
sticky content so that perhaps when you
are scrolling and there's lots of text,
there's still call to actions available.
And I'm thinking about how you can break
that content up in a much shorter fashion
because you're on a mobile device. So,
yeah, come on.
And for me, just finally, because I know
time is against us, it is, This is a
short form, fast paced bit of content out
there. The 1 thing that is helpful when
you go mobile first in your deliberation
is to remember, I know it sounds silly,
that this is about touching the screen
and interacting with the screen as
opposed to using your mouse to click on
the number of items on the webpage that's
organised from left to right. So I think
for me as well, we're having a
conversation about the touchscreen,
you're opening up possibilities in terms
of the user interaction experience, which
I think you would not think of
immediately if you start with a laptop
version of visiting your website.
Yeah, and that makes you think about
forms and making them easy to fill out on
a mobile phone because you're not using
the traditional keyboard, the traditional
size of the space of the form. So yeah,
those are really good things to think
about. Listen, if you're watching or
listening right now, thank you so much
for joining us. We really enjoy doing
this short form content and keep asking
us questions, keep sending us anything
you think about in terms of on social
media, so please do. But for now, we're
going to move to our next segment, which
is website stories.
In this segment of the show, John and I
review and react to an article, an
infographic, a podcast, anything that can
make life easier and help us reflect what
it means to be a website manager in
today's economy. I've chosen an article,
Johnny, for today, which I think has a
foot both in the past and the future.
This was written by Ben Davis, who is the
Insights Editor at eConsultancy.com. So
Ben Davis is almost like the kind of
investigator looking at the impact on the
progress, maybe digital, but also user
experience. And e-consultancy is my go-to
destination for trends, insights reports,
but also a great educational platform.
And the article written by Ben is kind of
interesting because whilst it is
addressing, I suppose, the kind of
deliberations that online retailers may
have now, I think it's valid for all
sectors and all audiences. So the title
is as follows, what exactly is AI-Avid
Commerce search and what does it mean for
retailers? And I would really encourage
people to seek out the article. We've got
the hyperlink in the show notes because
it does a very, very good job to reflect
on our experience as people of the search
function, both in terms of websites,
could be small independent retailers,
larger brands, like Amazon and Walmart,
but also the search engines. And I think
you and I can reflect on the last 30
years to agree that by and large search
is not always particularly effective, is
not always successful, and what we've had
to do all of this is almost learn the
kind of idiosyncrasies and some of the
quirks of the search function to try and
make it work for us. And some of us could
actually be very, very proud of our
search skills and we can second guess
actually how bad it is to essentially get
a better result. But everything's changed
now because of the advance of AI, but
particularly the large language models
where you move into a situation where you
no longer have to second guess what 3, 4
to 5 words you have to put in. You can
have a full-on conversation with a
chatbot, sometimes called agent, and make
your search feel more like you're being
assisted by a personal assistant of
sorts. And that is creating a new way of
thinking on Google, but other platforms.
And we may come across a term that then
is indicating called conversational
commerce or conversational search. And
this is essentially a reflection at this
moment in time about the impact on all of
us and all our websites. We will see the
rollout of those kind of advanced way of
searching on larger brand websites
because they could afford to make all the
mistakes and improve upon it. But 1 thing
that I've noticed over the years, Johnny,
and only if you agree, is that the
behavior that people essentially first
get a go at on platform like Amazon,
Google and more, then becomes a norm and
is unexpected on other platforms such as
your website. So, listen, Ben does an
amazing job to reflect back and look
forward. But I sense that in his article,
he's suggesting that, by and large, we're
still, the effort is a bit timid, a bit
limited, we should be a lot more
ambitious about what those AI solutions
can provide for us. But ultimately, what
he's saying is that we're gonna be in a
position to assist the shopper and indeed
to be the decision maker in more advanced
and sophisticated way. And that would
feel more like having conversation with
an individual than ever before. And is
that not actually the ultimate aim of a
website to be a mirror of what it's gonna
feel like in the near future to deal with
the very people behind the business? So
for that reason, I chose the article.
People can read it for themselves. And a
couple of things to mention before I get
your reaction is this idea of, let's not
forget that 1 of the things that AI can
offer beyond the current search function,
it was called multi models. Also using
voice, using images, as we can drag and
drop. Something that has been tested by
Google called Shop with Google AI, where
literally you can generate some images of
what you're looking for, and then
Google's gonna go away and search it for
you and create other matches. So I think
it's going to get very, very interesting,
but we as website managers need to keep
an eye on the near future and start to
plan for those adjustments.
Yeah, I think for me the key message here
is we need to step out of our comfort
zones and start trying these things.
Because as small businesses, you've got
the ability to be able to adapt very
quickly, to be able to test and try. My
advice would be to start embracing a lot
of the things that are out there. And
especially what we're talking about
today, which is that AI chatbot in terms
of commerce, in terms of giving that
experience. I think you said it really
well, Pascal, giving that experience in
terms of if you walked into a business
premises, if you walked into a retail
premises and you had that first initial
conversation, that's what we're trying to
create as a website. That's how you
should be thinking that your website is
trying to achieve. So how would you know
if you were talking in that first moment,
one-to-one, how would you talk? And
that's going back to real basics of using
the word you and your within the content
and really making it very clear that
you're talking to the individual and
thinking about just, you know, not trying
to think mass market and you're talking
to everyone in the world, but you're
talking to this just 1 individual. So how
you can power that is making sure that
you structure your data correctly, that
you're collating data, collecting data so
that when someone's on your website, you
understand who they are, have they been
to you before, what data touch points do
you already have? And can you use that
information to understand their behavior,
any information that you have to then
make sure that that conversation is a
continuation of the relationship that you
already have. It might be right at the
start, but it might be someone that is
already a customer. So it's really trying
to join a lot of those dots. And there's
a lot of tools out there that are doing
this. And I'm seeing companies that are
testing this. Some are doing really well,
some aren't doing really well. Some are
not doing very well. Xero has just
introduced Jax, which is an AI assistant
within their accounting tool. And oh my
God, it is bloody awful. They've rolled
it out as a beta and they agree that
they've got it wrong and they're quickly
trying to fix things. But there's an
example of a large company testing it.
And I think that it's the SMEs that need
to be doing the testing and winning
quickly so that you can start converting
customers into, well, shoppers into
customers, should I say.
I think for me, this article is also a
bit of a warning about 2 things. Pay
attention to customer behavior that they
may acquire on larger platform than
yourselves, but also this idea of all of
us as decision makers in our businesses,
particularly with digital. We've learned
to essentially put up a limitation. So
we've almost stopped ourselves being
ambitious because it wasn't possible or
it wasn't particularly good or it was
embarrassing and so on and so forth. And
I think that the biggest challenge for me
with AI and large language models is a
mind-set shift of actually reconnecting
with your imaginations and your ambition
thinking, well, now actually it may be
possible. And therefore can we dust off
maybe the project from 2 years ago and
see what we can do to create that amazing
website experience.
Absolutely. This is about embracing it,
about thinking about it, considering it
and realizing that there is a future that
we need to embrace to really engage that,
especially to engage that newer audience
as well. Let's move on to the website,
Engine Room.
Now in each episode of the Website
Mastery podcast, Joni and I choose 1 app,
1 solution, maybe a piece of kit that can
make life easier as a content creator and
website manager. What is your selection
Joni Ross?
So we're always talking about target
audience. We're talking about personas,
creating that persona to really
understand who your audience is and to
really get onto their level to make sure
that you're talking to their language, to
make sure that you're thinking about
their pain points. Founderpal.ai, as
always, we have all of these links in the
show notes, but this is FounderPal.ai. If
you go to the User Persona Generator,
you'll find it on the homepage or just
Google FounderPal.ai and then User
Persona Generator. Literally describe
your business and your target audience
and get a detailed marketing persona
within about 10 seconds and it's 100%
free. It's a bit crazy. It's using AI
behind the scenes with a huge amount of
data to bring in everything that it
already knows about particular products,
particular services, but also about
particular target audiences. So it
delivers tons of pain points and the
language that you need to be considering
and using. And then you can adapt it as
it goes, but it's really clever. So as a
starting point, if you're trying to
understand your target audience,
foundapal.ai, the user persona generator
is my tip for the website engine room.
That's excellent. And you know, you know,
I've run many, many website master
classes and workshops and the persona
bit, people hate doing it, don't they?
I get it. I have a lot
of sympathy. It's not easy just to even
capture the different target groups you
have in mind and then to come up with
personas. So I'm talking myself into
probably using them for future
masterclasses just to accelerate the
draft, at least getting a draft version
of your personas and avatars. So I've
been reflecting a lot on people staying
on your website longer, just a bit
longer, but not because you find kind of
a tricky, tricksy way to make it happen,
but also because it gives the impression
when they visit your website that you
care about the content and their visit.
And there are spots on your website such
as the contactors page, the FAQ section,
it's on the landing page that you've been
crafting, but can marry it with some
animations. Now animations, I'm talking
about 2D, 3D animation, very, very
simple. It's almost like more iconography
that explains what this page is about,
explain maybe the steps you have to go
through to complete particular actions
and more. So instead of a static image,
you have some animation. And wait and
look, because there is a platform called
Jitter, and they have a series of
templates. They can be used as a talking
point with maybe an agency or maybe with
your video editor, but they also offer
free accounts where you can download
those animations. That could be, for
example, you want someone to complete a
form and you can have an animation to
show how simple it is to complete the
form. You can have an animation to talk
about the upgrade of a recent product.
There's so many things, honestly, this
templates library is so, so extensive.
You're bound to find something that
you'll need. So add animation to create,
again, a bit of stickiness into your
site, but also to show to your visitors
that you care particularly about their
experience and the level of clarity you
want to convey on those particular web
pages.
So I'd not heard of that at all. I've
just been Googling and it looks really
cool. And what a great way to just add
something different to your content in
your website. 2 great tools from the
website engine room. Let's move on to the
website call to action.
I believe we've reached the final segment
of the website Mastery Podcast. This is
about the 1 change or 1 adjustment that
Jonny and I would like to recommend that
you should be making to your website
right now. It's simple, it's practical,
and it makes a huge, huge difference.
Jonny, what is your recommendation?
Testing. So A-B testing specifically to
optimize your website. So creating
different versions of different pages,
whether that be a landing page that
you're using in a meta campaign or a
Google paid campaign, or whether it just
be the homepage for organic users.
There's lots and lots of tools out there.
Some of them, depending on the website
traffic you've got, depends on whether
it's worth spending money or not. But
anything from sort of optimisedly to hot
jar to unbounce, and others include
things like ABTasty and Convert and
Chameleon. There's lots of different
tools. It's worth just having a Google
and looking at the AB testing
optimisation tools that are out there.
But it's a way to really refine the user
experience, the design, the conversion
strategies, trying to understand, you
know, just as simple as should that
button be on the left or the right,
should it be in green or pink? You know,
perhaps trying, just changing a word on a
button, the difference that that can make
in terms of conversion. And if you sort
of go back to the good old days of
accountants telling you, or even in maths
lessons, change a little bit here, a
little bit here, a little bit here, 0.1%
here, 0.1% here, and all of a sudden, 30%
increase on profit. Well, that's the same
thing in conversion optimization. If you
can make a little tweak in 10 different
places and just increase those
percentages, even a small amount, the
overall impact is huge. So don't forget
about testing and about doing some A-B
testing on website landing pages
especially. That will be my call to
action for this episode.
Thank you. And you know, very much like
the reaction to the persona creation,
this is the 1 that always gets people
twitching thinking, well, it sounds hard
or what will I know? Will I even
understand the results of the A-B testing
and happily things are removed on them to
the platform you can use. But also if
this is something that is new to you,
you're still uncertain. I would recommend
that you literally go on an AI platform
like ChatGP, GM&I, and the others, and
just do a bit of studying. Just ask some
simple questions. This is my sector. This
is the audience. I'm thinking about A-B
testing for optimization. What do you
think? And have that conversation that
exchange with the assistant is going to
clarify things for you and you can
discover it's not as difficult as it
sounds. And sometimes, you know, I would
agree that the language of our industry
in general is not particularly helpful.
For sure. Absolutely. Yeah, What's yours
this week?
Yeah, thank you very much. We're just
about to complete yet another quarter of
the year. Time just flies. And therefore,
logically, we should be thinking all of
us in the next quarter. With that in
mind, my culture actions for you want to
review their best performing web pages
for this time last year, as in the next
quarter that's coming, what happened in
the previous year. And what you'll see
through audience behavior, there will be
some pages and some behavior that is very
seasonal. And it could have been linked
to a sales push in particular, or it
would just be logically because of the
time of year, this makes sense for people
to be interested in this type of content.
So you're going to end up with a list of
your best performing pages. I want you to
then put together a bit of an action plan
in terms of on-page optimization. And
this is, and again, we don't always have
time to talk to each other. This is just
happy coincidence that this is where the
A-B testing could come into play. You
know, you can have the existing pages and
then the new 1, what is the added. But
on-page optimizations, I mean, I've
covered extensively on the show, so
everyone just go through some previous
episodes and find our recommendations.
You could be tweaking, you know, your
headlines, you could be tweaking the
photography. And I think also for me,
joining this side of if you're likely to
have returning visitors because of the
time of year, there's nothing more
off-putting for a visitor kind of go, Oh,
it's the same as last year. They've not
even changed the photography. They've not
changed the case studies. They've not
changed the culture action. It's the same
thing because it gives the impression,
perhaps wrongly, that you just don't take
care of the website and that extension,
people make the very wrong and harsh
conclusion that you don't have a
particularly good approach to customer
care either. So that's my culture action.
We are kind of about to wrap up a quarter
yet again, and we've got a new 1 coming
up. Let's make this website content ready
early.
I like it. I like it. Another great
episode, we focused on website, mobile
friendly websites. I think that the
message here is stop looking at your
website on desktop. Start looking at your
website on mobile and Start looking at
your competitor's website on mobile. And
if you're buying or building a new
website, look at mobile first. Stop
looking at desktop designs, look at
mobile designs, and think about making
space and call to actions. We've talked
about AI powered commerce search. It's
here, and it's only going to get bigger
and bigger and customers, clients,
potential clients are going to be using
far less words to try and find your
services and products. How are you going
to ensure that you capture them and that
you convert those people. And 1 of the
ways to do that is to start embracing it
yourself to really understand how it all
works. We've had some great call to
actions, great tips on the engine room.
Enjoyed yourself, Pascal?
Always, And I keep saying it, but it is
true. When you and I started the show, we
went, well, it may reach a point where
we've covered everything there is to say
about running a website, feeling proud of
your website, looking after your
customers and making this web plan an
extension of your kind of approach to
customer service and beyond. And here we
are, we keep finding new ways, but also
you, our audience, keep sending us
questions and suggestions. So I don't
know about you, but we're gonna keep
going.
And please keep sending us those
questions. And thank you if you're on the
replay watching this as a catch up. We
really appreciate it. We absolutely
appreciate it. And so much so if you
enjoyed it, if you found it helpful,
leave a review on Apple podcasts. That's
a wrap for episode 32 of the Ninth State
Website Mastery podcast, your audio
companion to the 90 Day Website Mastery
program. Listen, there's tons of more
information and lots of tools and
resources that we have put together. All
of the content from all of our episodes
turns into a tool or a resource on
90daymarketingmastery.com. You can also
book a discovery call with either myself
or Pascal. It's goodbye for now. We'll
leave you with a fun video and audio
montage to enjoy whilst you review your
notes and action steps. And we will look
forward to seeing you again soon. Take
care, enjoy the rest of your day. I'm
out! I'm out! I'm out! I'm out! I'm out!