Hello and welcome. It's episode 29 of the
90 Day Website Mastery podcast, the
perfect companion to our 90 Day Website
Mastery program. 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. I'm here
with my co-host Pascal Fintoni. You all
right, Pascal?
And very well, thank you very much. I've
had a quick look at the show notes. This
is once again packed full with advice,
practical kind of applications, but also,
and we have to, we're gonna introduce
more and more AI advice.
Absolutely. We've got 4 segments as
always. We've got the you ask, we answer.
We have website stories where we take an
article and we dissect it and give you
our reactions. We then move on to the
website engine room where myself and
Pascal bring an app or a piece of kit
that's gonna make your life easier as a
website manager or website content
creator. And of course, the website call
to action to finish off, which is 1 small
change or adjustment that you could be
making to your website right now. And of
course, Pascal, we have the Action
Randomizer that we've added to our
website. And that is all of our call to
actions that we've suggested so far.
Yes, this is our kind of second free
gift. You know, we didn't wait long. You
know, this is only episode 29, as you
mentioned. So you've got the ebook to
begin with, a selection of 50 top apps
and tech that can really help you feel
proud of your website again. And as you
mentioned a moment ago, the action
randomizer. So the 2 activities you can
do right now for your business.
Yeah, you'll find those in the show notes
or just head over to 90-day website,
Mastery.com. For now, let's start on our
first segment, which is You Ask, We
Answer.
Now, this is interesting. So I was having
a bit of a kind of discovery call with a
prospective client a few days ago. And we
were talking, of course, that I've more
formally introduced AI training
consultancy as part of my delivery. And
question actually was really interesting.
I thought I would ask you again to get
unique perspective, Johnny. So here it
is. Can AI help me with my SEO campaign?
Do you have any tips for me to use chat
GPT or Google demo night to optimize my
website content. And if you're only
listening to the audio version, you won't
be able to see Johnny literally jumping
up and down at the prospect of sharing
his advice about AI plus SEO. We could
talk about this for a while. So I've
decided that we're gonna give ourselves a
brief and we're only going to focus for
this episode on on-page optimization. And
then next time, you know, I can explore
off-page optimization, the other facet of
SEO. But here it is on-page optimization,
with everything that comes with it, can
AI help with that element of your SEO
campaign? What say you, Johnny Ross?
I think AI has changed SEO. I really do.
I mean, I was joking with you in the
green room just then. ChatGPT has been
down for 2 and a half hours this morning
across some worldwide users. And it's
felt like my right arm has disappeared. I
mean, don't get me wrong. I don't use it
for absolutely everything. But I
certainly use it as a colleague. I use it
as someone I can brainstorm with. I use
it as someone that I can go off and
perform research, analyze, and enhance my
thinking. So it's being able to tap into
a team of different people, different
experts. So I think the way it's changed
SEO is from an on-page point of view is
being able to analyze current content, to
analyze data in terms of traffic across
the website, in terms of what pages are
engaging and what aren't. So you can use
a lot of the GA4 data and input that into
AI tools. Not only that, you can use it
for keyword research, for finding out
FAQs, people that are particularly asking
questions. So thinking about your target
audience. In fact, even just thinking
about your target audience, you can use
AI to define who your target audience is,
be really targeted, really tap into some
of their pain points and then start using
AI to find out what questions they're
using to Google. And then thinking about
how you can structure some of that
content on your page. And I've not even
got into some of the technical side yet.
I mean, there's just so much that AI can
do to enhance your SEO.
I love the way you've kind of described
it as a team. And that's tough because
listen, all of us, you and I included, we
spent a part of 3 decades using a search
engine where we punch in A3456 words
maybe if you get a bit fancy, and then
you have to wrestle with the search
results. And here we're having
conversations and it's not as it sounds.
You know, people, you know, train
individuals to put together the prompts
or the briefs, as I prefer to call them,
but decided to kind of almost split the
different aspect of on-page optimization
to a number of virtual assistant. I think
it's very, very helpful because otherwise
it could be quite overwhelming. And I've
seen the situation where people ask
actually quite a broad question or many
questions at the same time. And then
within seconds, there's a daily use of
information. Of course you've got to fact
check and so on. But the point is,
sometimes people put too much pressure on
themselves because they don't break it
down into meaningful tasks. And I think
the idea of a team is very helpful. And
think of it as they're gonna report back
to you, not all at the same time. It's
not like 5 or 6 people or barging in
through the door of the office saying,
boss, boss, boss, I want you to listen to
my bit about SEO. But I want to, because
I will ask you to get into the technical
side is, if, you know, as in when you
listen to the series, when you come
across information that you don't know
that is new to you, then don't let that
stop you. Literally use AR first as a
form of self-study and to be educated. So
I will ask you, Johnny, about schema
markups because they are very, very
important. They were part of the culture
action in the last episode. So if you
don't know about schema markups or what
they mean or even how they are kind of
crafted, you can begin by being educated
first and then bring, as I mentioned a
moment ago, your audience profiling,
bring your sales strategy and then ask
for advice on can you give me some draft
suggestions on how you would actually
ride the schema markups for my business
with that audience in mind and that
service? But what other ways would you
say the technical side of SEO could be
supported by AI?
Well, Interestingly, take Schema as an
example and take the plugin Rank Math,
which is a highly optimized WordPress
plugin for applying SEO onto your website
and Schema markup, et cetera. What's
really interesting, and I was having a
bit of an experiment with ChatGPT. We
were looking at how to implement some
schema on a particular website, and we
were looking at doing this through
RankMath. We're going back a tiny bit
here, but we were looking at some of the
user guides and the help guides and the
knowledge base on RankMath. And whilst
there was lots of step-by-step guides, I
decided to just see what ChatGPT had to
say. And what was really interesting was
ChatGPT's output was a far simpler
bite-sized step-by-step guide than
RankMath's own knowledge basis. So
ChatGPT had sort of read everything that
RankMath's outputs in terms of help
guides and turned it into something
that's actually even easier to
understand. So there's so many ways that
you can use it and it's really about
understanding that. From a technical
point of view, 1 of the things that's
interesting currently is really analyzing
and understanding the top 10 pages that
rank for a particular phrase or a
particular keyword in Google. And I don't
mean just by the content itself, but the
structure of the content, the way the
content is written. Is it written in
first person, second person, third
person? How's it structured? How's it
answering that question? And trying to
find patterns across those different
pieces of content so that you can then
produce something that clearly Google is
liking. So What are the commonalities
between those 10 pages that rank on page
1 that then you can introduce into your
content? What's interesting is some of
the findings are remarkable in terms of
structures that you just hadn't
considered. I think that's 1 example of
how you could use it.
Now this section, so no, there's 2
questions. Can I help my SEO campaign?
It's resounding yes. Tips on
optimization, we've looked at on page
today, we'll look at off page next time.
But if everyone, you know, just rethink
about the experience of a visitor from
the title you've chosen to the images
you've chosen and whether they are
optimized and obviously tagged correctly,
the way you've structured and broken down
the content, have you added media
interest, all those things, you can be
reflecting on it with a conversation
style type support as opposed to, as you
mentioned a moment ago, punching a search
term, download a 20 page PDF and still be
no further forward in terms of taking
action. So for me, AI can help with
clarity, with understanding. It can help
with critiquing what's there already, but
also make you think about things that
either you knew, but you've forgotten
about. And that can happen because of
knowledge, but also new ways of doing
things. But for me, if I would begin with
actually get that sales strategy reviewed
and critiqued by AI to begin with. Have
you got that really, really perfect? And
then by extension, do you have the right
audience profiling and the naming and
labeling of the product and services.
Have you got that right? Begin with that
strong foundation and everything else you
can apply. And if you find on-page
optimization interesting, I would
encourage you to seek out 1 of the
webinars that we recorded, the 1 we
launched, obviously, the 90-day website
mastery program, where you and I go into
quite a bit of deep dive on page and off
page optimization. But time is against us
sadly, and we have to move on to our next
segment, the website stories.
Now
this is an interesting selection. We
normally go for an article, a podcast, a
video, maybe an infographics that we can
review you and I and kind of reflect what
it means to be in charge of a website in
today's economy. I chose this article
almost by error. I had something else in
mind altogether, but I thought, now I'll
stick with it because actually on
reflection, this will work. So the title
is as follows, an article for
entrepreneur.com. This is the winning
formula for starting a successful
podcast. A matter of intention. I'm
actually just sharing with you privately
and go, well, let's review and let's make
sure that we're doing everything we can
for our audience in terms of being useful
and helpful. So this obviously was
written as part of a research exercise.
The author is Sharon Shibu and she was
helped by her colleague Melissa Malamut
as the editor. And listen people don't
skip this section just because you have
no plans of starting a podcast. I do
believe Johnny this would be relevant for
any form of content series, whether it's
a blog article, whether you're gonna do
video Q&As, even social media campaign
with a particular focused theme. I think
this will work well as a way of
reflecting. I keep saying that those
website story selection, they feel like
you should pass that around the office
and then have a catch up with your
colleagues. So this is a study that
looked at the top 50 podcasts in the US.
We need to be careful about cultural
differences and preferences. And they're
looking for what do they have in common
that may suggest that this could be a
formula for success and we need to go
with it with a more pragmatic,
correlation and causation are very
different things, but it's important to
have a look at this. So In no particular
order, and please everybody do follow the
link in the show notes and read the
article in full, the study found, Johnny,
that the average length of the top
podcast in the US was around 65 minutes.
Interesting. So of course some were
shorter, some were longer. More than
half, 60% of them had more than 1 host,
so a bit of a duo or trio kind of
experience. And in these 3 and 4 of those
top podcasts had at least 1 guest on the
show on a regular basis, providing a
different way. So there's more about it,
but I wanted to kind of focus on audience
profiling and audience preferences. So
the vast majority of podcast listeners
will use Spotify at 64% and then it's
followed by Apple Podcast and a teeny
teeny percentage of 6% for YouTube music.
So I don't know, there's a lot of
marketing about YouTube music, but beware
the marketing when marketing doesn't mean
to say that, you know, they're gonna take
over the world. But to me, it's very
important, but again, you're gonna go for
a blog series, a video series to
understand about distribution. And this
is where podcasts, I think, have a lot to
teach everybody because when you do, when
you write for the web, Johnny, and you
publish on your website, or if you do a
video, it's on YouTube, you still haven't
solved the issue of distribution of that
content, whereas podcasting does a much
better job. But this is something that
could be interesting. 70% of listeners go
back to a show because their host offer
new information on new perspectives. And
I have to say, I was almost like giving
myself for a round of applause because
that's what we do with this particular
show. But bear in mind, all of you, with
a new blog series or a new video series,
it's about new information and new
perspective. Very, very important. But I
thought that was interesting. 36%
actually would come back due to the host
expertise. So if you reverse it, Johnny,
that means that you don't have to be an
expert in what you want to be referring
to or investigating, so long as you know
your offer this in a way that is
engaging. So that also kind of kills that
demon for all my clients about, I'm not
an expert, I can't possibly write about
this. It's not a requirement. And then
what reason would people actually tune
out of a podcast? There's a number of
items listed in the article, but I wanted
to kind of mention this 3 to you at the
very end. If the podcast is overly
scripted or rehearsed, then people tune
out. If the host speaks in monotone
voice, they tune out. And if they share
lengthy or irrelevant anecdotes, they
tune out. And that would be true for the
written form. If you're writing a word
that is very monotone, or back to your
point earlier, it's fully structured. It
feels a bit too over-engineered, whether
it's a video as well. And more
importantly, you've got to share your
stories and case studies that are
relevant, or people will switch off.
There's a lot more in the article. So
we've got to thank again, the hard work
from the team there, altamirror.com. But
I thought for what it was, I thought, no,
I've made a mistake. You shouldn't be
part of the show. I think that this is
actually very informative.
Yeah, I mean, first of all, that stat on
64% of podcast listeners are using
Spotify. I mean, I think if you were to
ask the majority of people, they'd have
said the answer was Apple. But I think we
need to bear in mind that Spotify is a
huge player in the market. And for me,
business podcasts, if we certainly focus
on business podcasts, I think a lot of
people are wanting to learn. And so that
backs up that 70% of wanting new
information or perspectives.
Interestingly, I liked how you flipped
the host's expertise. So 64% you could
say don't actually have to be an expert
in that topic. I think it's about how
they engage, how they understand and how
they interview the guest. Certainly if
they're not the expert, I'm assuming
they're going to have a guest who is the
expert. So, so that would be about the,
the interview skills and the sort of
engagement skills. And, but yeah, I
think, I think ultimately podcast
listeners are after learning, they want
to better themselves, they want to better
their business, So it's about how can you
add value, which, like you've rightly
said, you could take this into any form
of content, whether it be audio, video,
or blog series content. So how can you
add value is really important. How can
you teach people and give those sort of
how-to, that helpful resourceful content.
That's what a successful podcast is all
about.
No, absolutely. And I think for me, it's
back to the side there of on behalf of
your audience, you've launched an
investigation and you share your
findings, you share your surprises, your
disappointments and so on, which is why I
see this thing about expertise is not
always true. Now, for sure, when you want
to do podcasts and to raise your brand
and awareness and of course, your
expertise, there will be some elements of
that. But when you talk about inviting a
guest that will have expertise that would
supplement yours, I think that's what we
were talking about. Because the risk, of
course, if you're too anxious to showcase
your expertise, you will almost fall into
this idea of being over-promotionally in
terms of the delivery, the structure and
the content. And That's 1 of the top
reasons people will turn out of a blog
series and the email newsletter, a
podcast or a video Q&A.
Yeah, you don't want to be too salesy at
all. Very important, avoid that
self-promotion. It's about having a
balance. I think it's important if you
are giving your time away for free, I
think it is important to have some
promotion, but it's about having a real
good balance and really considering why
are these people giving time up to listen
and what do they want to get out of this?
So, you know, it has to be focused on the
audience. Absolutely has to be focused on
the audience.
Super, so everyone, let us know what you
think of this very quick overview of the
article. Please, please click on the link
in the show notes and read everything for
yourself. And yeah, what are your plans
for the future in terms of your content
series and what will you do a bit
differently for the coming months? We
would love to know about it, but for now,
let's move on to our next segment, the
website engine room. Now, each time we
share 2 apps, 2 software solutions or a
piece of kit that can make life easier as
a website content creator or manager. So
Johnny, what is your selection?
Well, my latest find in terms of AI
powered transcription services, because
there's a lot out there, but my latest
find, I think is phenomenal in terms of
the quality, but also the price is so low
as well. So it's called Transcript LOL,
Transcript. LOL. It's an advanced AI
powered transcription service that
converts content from videos and podcasts
into written text. And it's equipped to
handle a wide range of media types,
including videos, podcasts, interviews,
webinars, and much more. And you can
literally record anything. So it could be
a podcast that's already out there, a
video that's already out there, or it
could just be something that you've
recorded on your phone and you can very
easily transcribe that. You could, you
know, recording a meeting even very
easily transcribe that. But the, the, the
brilliant thing about it is that it's
built for podcasters. It's built for
bloggers and it outputs, not just the
transcript, but all sorts of different
things from social media posts to
repurposes that content. So blog posts,
LinkedIn articles, email campaigns. Of
course, you need to bring some human
content and thought into this, not just
using what it produces and sending it
there and then. But the amount of
weightlifting it can take off in terms of
the time it can deliver is unbelievable.
What's exciting is that there's obviously
a lot of services out there that would be
more human intensive. Those agencies,
they shouldn't fear AR, they should
actually embrace it because they're going
to be able to provide value-add services
saying, well, the transcription will be
done, client, let's move on to something
more meaningful in terms of our services.
Let's take over the advanced SEO
technique, let's take over the online PR
side, because that bit that was so
resource intensive and time consuming is
now being shrunk down to just minutes,
not hours in terms of units. So I'm
really excited about what's happening.
And you're right, there are so many
options out there. Just find the 1 that
works for you and make sure that you
squeeze value because I have to be
clients Johnny that have moved on to AI
solutions but they use them very
superficially. So they pay their monthly
fee but they've not really delve into the
belly of the beast or even ask for a
video demo from the account manager to
get more value from their investment.
So what is your app for this week?
So this 1 came about following a bit of a
coaching session with the clients. So we
were reviewing the half year that was at
the time of recording this episode, and
we found some top performing articles and
landing pages and so on. And we were
looking at ways to get more traffic to
those pages as you would do on a bit of a
tactic. We went through a bit of a match
checklist on what makes a perfect blog
article, there's such a thing. And 1
thing they were missing was quotes and
citations from authorities and experts,
if you will. So they were making a point
or giving an advice or, you know,
recapping on an important issue. And I
said that I will be just a finishing
touch for you to be seen and heard being
helpful by having done the research on
behalf of your audience. A quote, a
citation, a stat even that would
supplement, you know, your argument. So I
found something called consensus.app. And
what is interesting about consensus.app,
it's almost like Google Books and all the
others you mentioned on the show, but on
turbocharged because you can ask a
question as you would a search engine or
you could even ask it back a yes and no
question and what this AI powered
platform does it researches all the
papers and all the kind of research and
journaling that has been done by experts
to give you both sides of the algorithm,
which I think is very, very clever. So
it's not just a, you say, yes, I know,
it's a yes for some of those individuals
here, but it's a no from them. And it's a
maybe from the other. So you get a
rounded view of the particular challenge
or question that you have. And then you
can literally copy and paste quotes,
citations, you have the named
individuals, you have links to their kind
of white papers. It's 1, it's very, very
clever. I will save you a mountain of
time and transform the experience of
going through your blog articles and
more.
I'm really excited about that app. I
think what a great gap in the market for
being able to find content that backs up
what you're saying or even challenges
what you're saying. And finds people have
been cited many, many times for a quote
that they've made. Wow, an app that just
instantly delivers it within seconds,
again, using AI.
Absolutely. Yeah. So of course, do the
fact checking, simple copy and paste on
Google will suffice. But it will save you
a lot of time. And I think what you do
with AI solutions like yours, it inspires
you to be more innovative, more
ambitious. So I'm having that very
different meetings with my clients where
We actually are far more ambitious now
about our content planning than a few
months ago because of what's possible.
Totally. Let's move on to our last
segment, which we always finish on. Of
course, how can you have some content
without the call to action? So it's the
website, call to action.
So now in addition to obviously trying
out our call to action randomizer on the
official website, we're gonna give you 1
more change or adjustment that you should
be doing right now to make your website
work harder for you. Johnny, what is your
recommendation?
So this episode, it's a content delivery
network, a CDN. If your website is not
using a CDN, now is the time to implement
it without fail. A CDN literally just
speeds up your website from a global
point of view. Even if you're not global
don't be put off by what I've just said.
This is local as well but also global. By
implementing a CDN, it ensures faster
user experience worldwide. Why? Because
first of all, users expect things
instantly. They're on a mobile device.
They want it there. And then if your
website doesn't load, they will soon
click that back button within a fraction
of a second. But more importantly, Google
could not have made it any clearer that
websites have to be fast. This is no new
news, but what is new news is that the
number of websites out there that still
don't use a CDN. And that is appalling.
So if you want to be proud of your
website, find out if you're using a CDN,
and if not, speak to your web developer
and get 1 implemented.
And back to our earlier comments, if
you're not sure what that is at all, use
AI to give you a bit of education, a bit
of a breakdown, ask AI to give it to you
in simple language as well, and then you
can have a meaningful conversation with
your developers, that's very exciting.
Talking of conversation, My advice is
around having a meeting with your
colleagues working in sales and customer
service. It is very, very important to be
sure that your website is truly
supporting the business development
activities and efforts of your
organization. And there's nothing like
organizing a meeting, have the drinks and
the biscuits, whatever else works in your
part of the world, and literally ask the
simple question, what are we pushing
actively and intentionally over the
coming weeks and months? Products and
services. I mean, organizations will have
a lot on offer, but typically sales will
behave tactically. Maybe they're looking
at time of the year, different seasons,
different preferences, and maybe using
data from historical kind of ordering. So
there's always something that takes
precedence. So find out what is being
pushed more over the coming weeks and
months and make sure therefore that
you've organized what I call spotlight
content across the website, whether
that's on a homepage, whether that's
within reorganizing the FAQ section,
whether it's reorganizing the blogs even
by giving a kind of editors topics or
choice of the month, whatever, but really
make sure that this website is adjusting
to the sales effort that would really
make a big difference. And I think in
fact, make sure that you get more support
for content ideas and beyond from people
working sales and customer service.
Internal comms, I mean, so important, but
so many small businesses are so bad at
it. So, you know, improve your internal
comms. It's amazing what you can get out
of it. We've focused a lot on AI. We're
finding we're doing that a lot recently,
but how can you not? You don't wanna be
left behind. AI absolutely has changed
search engine optimization, changed it
for the better, changed it to make it so
much easier, so much quicker, but also so
much deeper in terms of the analysis, in
terms of the data, in terms of the
implementation and the changes that you
can make. AI is making it easier to get
yourself higher on that Google ladder. We
talked about successful podcasting. It's
all about having engaging podcasts,
podcast, none of this monotone, none of
this talking over each other. This is
about helpful resourceful content because
people are wanting to learn, they're
wanting to be inspired, they're wanting
to find out something new. And don't
forget that the majority of people for
some reason are on Spotify, which is very
interesting. As always, we've given you a
couple of apps and a couple of call to
actions to start you feeling proud of
your website again.
Thank you very much for this recap. And I
must once again remind everybody about
our free ebook about the 50 top apps and
tech for your website. And of course, the
call to action randomizer. It's quite
fun. You get to pick an action for the
day and then get on with the work with
your team.
That wraps up episode 29 of the 9 Today
Website Mastery podcast, your audio
companion to the 9 Today Website Mastery
program. For more information, visit 9
today, marketingmastery.com where you can
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 actions and take those action
and take those steps forward. Please do
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us. Thanks so much for listening. Enjoy
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on whether you're listening or watching.
Take care. Bye. Hey! I'm gonna make it
I'm gonna make it I'm gonna make it