In our 5th episode we discuss the real purpose of a website.
We also answer the question: What makes it successful?
We address and debunk common misconceptions.
Beauty vs functionality.
Design vs marketing.
What does it really take and what is the first real step every professional should take when building a website?
(In this episode we also deal with being chased by a lawnmower, having a dog bark in the background, trying to home office in the age of coronavirus and the nature of real life getting in the way of creating a great audio file for the podcast.)
Chad:
This is Worry Free Marketing podcast. This is Matt and Chad. We are doing this podcast to help you
develop leads through better marketing efforts. And today, Matt, I think we’re going to be talking about
websites, yeah?
Matt:
Yes, that’s right.
Chad:
Websites are fun.
Matt:
Yeah, what about websites?
Chad:
Well… [crosstalk 00:00:28] that’s exactly the point. Why a website, right? First of all, given the fact that
it’s 2020, most people generally recognize the fact that they need one. Would you say, [crosstalk
00:00:44] that’s true?
Matt:
I think so. Yeah, I’d say it’s true. I don’t know if they know exactly why they need it or what it should be,
because selling them I encounter funny ideas at times.
Chad:
Still?
Matt:
Yes. They definitely think they need it, but why they need it or what it’s supposed to be, there’s
definitely still a lack of education or a lack of what it’s really supposed to do that I encounter still and I
can give you specifics, but, yeah.
Chad:
Like what? Give me a specific. My feeling was that, okay, good, everybody knows at this point you need
a website. So I guess it could be now I’m supposed to, sort of opinion without any-
Matt:
Yeah. We’ve decided in society that we should have wheels to transport, but that could be like a
scooter, it could be a motorcycle, it could be a car or a truck. It’s okay, so you know you need wheels. So
the thing that I run into with websites is oftentimes I’ll hear, “I don’t really need a website I just need
one page where people can land.” Or it’ll be, you have these services that make it easier for people to
build their own website and the websites can look very beautiful. These do it yourself websites can look
very beautiful and the person sometimes they’ll think okay I’ll just use one of those.
Matt:
So it gets into what are the component parts of a website and how many of the whole if you broke it up
into a pie chart? How much of that whole is the beauty? The beauty piece of it, the design of it is one
aspect of probably seven aspects that we isolated to make a website successful. The other thing I’ll hear
is, “I know I have to have one and or just get this.” So getting into what is a fully built out website that
pays for itself and brings you leads consistently and actually knowing that that’s even possible is still an
incubation point.
Chad:
Yeah. I think starting with the idea and you almost set it out as a bit of an after thought there, but think
it’s a core concept that a website should pay for itself and bring you leads.
Matt:
Well, yeah exactly.
Chad:
That is the purpose of it. It’s not to be something else or just like a brochure or something like a
placeholder ideally.
Matt:
Yeah. Well that’s what we run into. Someone wants to treat it like an informational brochure.
Chad:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Matt:
Sorry, I didn’t mean to talk over you out there. I think you actually had some technology difficulties for a
second.
Chad:
Yeah. We’re running into a little bit of an issue regarding the recording right now I think, the audio.
Matt:
That’s okay. Just keep going, I think people understand that happens.
Chad:
So, Matt I had said what I wanted to say, which was that the core concept behind a website just as with
any marketing product actually… I mean, you wouldn’t go spend $10,000 on a mailing that you didn’t
want to see an ROI from.
Matt:
Right. Well, one of the things that I’ve noticed… By the way, can you hear that background noise?
Chad:
I did earlier I can’t now.
Matt:
Okay good, I’m in my outside office right now, because of the age of Coronavirus, which is the time
period we’re recording this. I have kids that are being homeschooled. So I decided being outside feels
smart, but… Of course, I’m at home because it’s coronavirus. And right next door, I’ve got someone
weed whacking in the middle of our podcast. Hopefully it’s not too distracting, but they’ll [crosstalk
00:04:39]. I think they’re almost done, but it’s actually getting louder. So you can hear that now right?
Chad:
Oh yeah.
Matt:
All right. So I’ll tell you what, I want you to tell me-
Chad:
Okay. So I’m going to talk a little bit about the basics of websites. One of the first things that we get
defined regarding websites is who is your audience? Who are you talking to? Because so many times
when you start to get the concept of creating a new website or okay good now this is going to be a full
stream of consciousness for your dog and all that kind of stuff. People get kind of wowed by the features
and like Matt said, sometimes, you’re too overwhelmed by like trying to come up with something
beautiful rather than something that’s going to be effective. Part of being an effective website is
recognizing the fact that you don’t need to communicate to the world, you need to communicate to
your specific audience. So as an example, if you’re creating a site for… Oh let’s say you sell hair products
that are for high school aged girls. You want to make sure that your website was communicating to that
audience and not to a different audience. You wouldn’t then attempt to communicate to pet owners for
example,
Matt:
I’m back, and you sparked something there, I want to interrupt you-
Chad:
All good.
Matt:
I was here the whole time, I just had to mute my microphone and move locations so that the person on
the riding lawnmower who magically appeared 10 feet from me would no longer interrupt our listeners.
So sorry about that. So let me jump on this. So when building a website, where do you actually start?
And many people start with what it’s going to look like? And that’s the wrong place to start. And the
reason they start with what it’s going to look like is because that is the least abstract of the process. It is
the most you’re able to see it. You’re thinking okay and the end product of what you’re going to see it on
a computer screen or you actually start is research. You start with the research into what are people
looking for around this product and service and what do they search for when they look for it and what
do they need and want? And you do that using search engines and SEO tools and paid ad tools, which
will give you data about what people are searching for and what’s profitable.
Matt:
And from that, you decide what the pages of your website are going to contain? And you decide what
the keywords for every page are going to be? And from that, you decide what your lead generation
strategy is going to be? Are you going to have a pop-up? Are you going to offer a free consult? Are you
in e-commerce or you’re going to sell directly, but you want to offer a free ebook? You know, what is
that going to look like? And you’re going to cater that huge aspect that people are searching for. Ideally,
with that done, then you can say okay, I know what my audience is looking for. I know what the pages of
my website should be. I can actually map out the pages. A lot of people because they start with what it
looks like, a lot of businesses, they just end up with services about contact. It’s generic.
Matt:
You can take their menu and you can put it on almost any business and it would seem to work. But
that’s not how you get a lot of great results from your visitor and it’s not how you get a lot of great
results from SEO, from Google. So I’ve given you… So with that done, then you say okay, cool. Let’s
figure out what this thing is going to look like. And then with that done and step into catering the
written content to the exact audience and not as a wrong subset of your audience, not something of
course ridiculous, totally off market, but catering to different audience in terms of what they’re
searching for and how you can have your written content do that? And with all those pieces you can’t
actually get from a free website builder. You can get just the design piece. You can do that but you don’t
actually get the marketing behind the website. So you have a website and you have the marketing
behind website. That marketing behind the Website is what we really help people with the most I think.
Chad:
Well, I think an analogy would be, a website is actually something that is supposed to accomplish
something, it does work, right? It changes the state of something to something else. Hey, in this
example, you’re taking a casual visitor and you’re turning them into a prospect for your products or
services, in the same way that really a shovel helps you dig a hole, right? [crosstalk 00:09:58] And to
your point, you could have a gold plated shovel, right? Or something engraved or something but it’s
made of plastic and you can’t actually dig a hole with it, right?
Matt:
Right. It would break.
Chad:
Right. Exactly. And we’ve encountered that with some of our ex clients in the past, where people were
so fixated on how it looked and were unwilling to then look at, okay, what would this do? [crosstalk
00:10:35] And well that never really goes all that well for us.
Matt:
It doesn’t go really well for us, that is true. It doesn’t really go well for them either. They don’t end up
with the website of their dreams, it doesn’t do what they think it’s going to do. We tend to take, let’s get
a really great design going, but let’s launch. Typically, we’re replacing something that is not super great.
Not because we simplify our opinion phase not to be great [inaudible 00:11:13] we’re talking about it,
hasn’t produced it, hasn’t done that. And so as soon as we hit the point where whatever we’re building
is like far surpassing previous iteration. It’s a great idea to launch it and adding content to it and
continue doing marketing and do Google ads, do Facebook ads or whatever ads are appropriating great
content. Do SEO and create emails and really start marketing, which is where we want to get the person
to. We build websites as a way to enhance people’s marketing. There are Website companies that
[inaudible 00:11:42] accordingly will stuck up the clients.
Chad:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matt:
Not quite our thing is it?
Chad:
No.
Matt:
Yeah. Not quite our thing. And for someone who’s just starting out and has no money and they’re just
trying to get a sale. And we’ve talked about when is business actually in business and in our opinion, it’s
at that point where they actually get a sale. Yeah, go get a Wix website. Go get a base website, that will
spin one up. But as soon as you start needing integrations, as soon as you start needing SEO, as soon as
you start actually needing your website to produce results for you, you’re going to need marketing
behind the website and those free tools aren’t going to cut it. But those free tools are great to start out.
So I don’t want to bash on that. If I tomorrow knew nothing about websites and got a lawn care
business, I might start there. But then understanding that dominating online is not going to happen with
those platforms. There aren’t businesses that dominate online don’t have those classes,
Chad:
Well, I’m going to say something right. It’s less… Every once in a while, just helping people out, I’ll get
these questions. Well, do you know what should I build a saying now? Who should I have hosted? All
that kind of thing, right? Or which free builders should I use? And I believe it’s less about that aspect of it
and more about getting an understanding of the basic principles of how websites work and how they
produce that work. Because you could have, like we’re talking about with a company that is that okay,
good. Do you hire a professional to build it? But what is that expertise? What is the expertise that makes
a website work? And I would say it’s probably twofold. There’s the expertise regarding kind of the… How
do you change someone’s mind?
Chad:
How do you get them to move from casual looky-loo to prospect? And how do you get them to reach to
you? Which is a whole technology in and of itself. And then there’s the, how to design and develop the
site to do that work? Starting from attracting the right people all the way through making those people
contact you.
Matt:
Right. And then in e-commerce trying to get a sale and in service-based industries and customizable
products, you’re attempting to get a contact. And so you have these two types of websites and with a
service-based one, you’re simply trying to get the person to say, “they seem legit. They seem like they
know what they’re talking about. I’m going to give them a call and get a quote or find out if I want to do
business with them, or I’m going to, I’m going to give them a call.” And so that’s all you’re trying to do is
to get them in front of a sales person. And then that sales person needs to do the rest. And then with ecommerce,
you’re trying to actually get a sale made and close it. And it assumes that you are somehow
getting traffic to this website.
Matt:
And it’s somehow relevant traffic who are interested in these products. And those are really the two
things. So accomplishing that, there are often missing elements like phone numbers that are not
clickable, even though 90% of the traffic is on mobile. So you go to the website and you’re like tapping
the phone number repeatedly, and you have to try to copy and paste it to call the person it’s like, “get
out of here.” You know, really simple elements that can stand in the way, or you can’t find the contact
page or the links are broken or that kind of thing. And then you get into just the basics of marketing
around just sort of exactly what you said, attracting them and answering their questions and getting
them to a point. I mean, I think within a couple of minutes, someone’s going to decide whether or not
they want to call you or contact you. It’s can you in under two minutes accomplish that? While at the
same time, right, so that there’s a pair with a seeming paradox, right? And under two minutes, so why
have 10,000 words on a website?
Matt:
Right.
Chad:
That’s good [crosstalk 00:15:47].
Matt:
You know, if you Google wants and your website so that the person can look at it for two minutes and
decide to contact you.
Chad:
Right. And man, I think that this might well be worth unpacking over a series of maybe the next couple
of podcasts. We’ll take a look at like the various components. Like when we do an analysis of a site
initially…
Matt:
mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chad:
What are the components that we look at? And can we provide that information so that someone
listening to the podcast could then take a look at their own website and go, ” Oh, I see!” Right?
Matt:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chad:
And whether they hire us to fix it, or whether they go back to the whoever they’re working with, or they
do it themselves, they then have some like stable pieces of information they can use to improve their
websites just as they are. And that might be pretty interesting.
Matt:
That’s a good point. I’d be willing to do that.
Chad:
Yeah. I’m just kind of unpack the analysis we do.
Matt:
Right.
Chad:
That might be fun.
Matt:
I like that idea.
Chad:
Yeah. And maybe, we could find some sites with URLs and we could do some analysis on the fly, kind of
like each one demonstrating. Okay, good. Take a look at this URL, but what do you see? What do I see?
Yeah. And to take each component of the various components that we look at per podcast, you know
what I mean? Can’t hear you.
Matt:
I wonder if that would communicate well on the podcast, [crosstalk 00:17:31]. We would be looking at
something visually and the listener couldn’t see what we were doing visually and then kind of running
through and talking about it. We could try it out?
Chad:
Well, I guess let’s start with… I mean, let’s just start with unpacking the analysis. And then if we feel like
jumping online and looking at something and then maybe that’ll work, or maybe it won’t, but at least I
think we have the path forward for the next couple of podcast.
Matt:
We can do that. We can run through our… How we do a website evolve to help a client determine how
to immediately take actions to improve their website and what we look at. What are their various… We
have these four pillars we look at to help make a website possible. Yeah. I think it’s a great idea
[crosstalk 00:18:25]. So then hearing that, they can tune back in a week or so, and continue listening in.
And they can go through and see from what viewpoint professional expertise we bring to bear when
reviewing a website to a public.
Matt:
Oh, sure. Well, hey, this has been Worry Free marketing a podcast with Matt Ryan and Chad Lane, the
founders of Worry Free Marketing and this podcast and Worry Free Bookkeeping. Please feel free to
reach out to us. You can find us at worryfreemarketing.com and be sure to subscribe to the podcast.
And we look forward to having you back on listening to our stuff.