Google Analytics: How to Know What’s Working with Philippa Gamse | Ep. 52 - Author's Edge: the Go-to Marketing Podcast in Publishing

Episode Transcript
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Philippa (00:00):
There's just so many times where we put up a website

(00:02):
and then we watch how peopleactually use it, and then they
do things that surprise us.
People always up doing thingsthat surprise me.
You just never quite know.
But the thing about theanalytics, again is that if
you're tracking what's going on,you you can see when they start
doing things that surprise you,and then you can act on that.

Allison (00:43):
Welcome back to the Author's Edge.
I am your host, Allison Lane,and I'm here to make your
journey as an author easier andsmoother and more exciting and
fun because you shouldn't haveto become an expert in this too.
Nobody has time to become anexpert in all the things, and

(01:03):
that's why I am here.
I'm a lifetime publicist andmarketer, turned book coach or
marketing strategist orpublishing expert.
Nobody cares what my title is.
What they do care about, andwhat you care about is what can
you get from listening to this.
So, thank you for showing upbecause you know that you can

(01:25):
depend on me to bring youexperts who know their poo and
are going to deliver the goodsfor you.
So, today, Philippa Gamse ishere to talk to us about
websites.
She's a digital marketer and ananalytics expert, which just the

(01:46):
term analytics gives me the fullbody hives.
But she gave me some advicethroughout this podcast that I'm
gonna put into action, and Iwant you to hold me to it.
She has consulted with hundredsof clients and worked on
websites that have generatedhundreds of millions of dollars.

(02:10):
So, for authors, understandingyour website and your website
performance can feeloverwhelming.
I felt like just the wordanalytics makes my chest
tighten, but Philippa helped mesee that there are a few actions
that I can take that will cutthrough the noise and help me

(02:33):
focus on what truly matters.
And I think you're gonna findthe same.
So, today we're diving into howto identify what works on your
website and uncover hiddenopportunities to make your
website and your investment oftime and money in your site,
work better for you.

(02:53):
And make sure that your site isequipped to serve the people
you're helping and to sell morebooks.
So, let's get into it.
Philippa, thank you so much forbeing here.
I'm so excited to pummel youwith questions because we need
your input and guidance.

(03:14):
But also as I was readingthrough and researching all of
your brilliance before our talkand pouring through your
website, I was like, oh, I don'tdo that.
I know I've been told aboutGoogle Search Console, but I
don't know what it is.
And then, and you said let metake a look at your site.

(03:38):
So, I have to admit thateverything I know being tech,
not tech phobic, but I wouldsay, I've have learned
helplessness about technologybecause I was in corporate
settings for so long, and if youneeded a wire plugged in, you

(03:58):
called, Yes the woman who didthat.
And if you needed a new screen,you didn't have to determine
what that was.
And if I needed a website built,I would almost just think it and
it would happen because I ranmarketing and pr so we need a
new site or we need newlanguage, and it would just poof
happen now five years intoserving people who want to get

(04:24):
book deals and build theirvisibility and grow their
career.
I am the queen of my website.
But only because people like youpointed out, wow, you're not,
you're not using your pagedescriptions.
Do you even know what those are?
Now, I am, but I think that alot of people don't know what

(04:48):
they don't know.
And they feel bad about it, butI don't feel bad about not
knowing something because youdon't know until someone tells
you.
So, for all you folks out therewho are thinking, I don't know
how do I get to a pagedescription or what's really
annoying is when people usejargon terms like your H one and

(05:11):
H two.
People don't know what that isunless you tell them.

Philippa (05:16):
right.

Allison (05:17):
My H one and H two, they weren't even set up right.
But now they are.
Now that I made myselfvulnerable, what is a common
mistake people making whenthey're trying to set up a
functional website they can growwith?

Philippa (05:34):
Just clear up a couple of things.

Allison (05:36):
Okay.

Philippa (05:36):
So firstly you talked about Google search.
So Google has various tools tohelp you you make a website.
business better.
So that's to do with search.
So getting found in searchengines, and that's where your
page descriptions, H1 and H2 andstuff like that comes in.
Okay?
It's a really important tool.
It's not my specialty.

(05:57):
Search is not my specialty.
I I know about it.
I do some of it but I I would

Allison (06:01):
I would defer for any

Philippa (06:02):
major work

Allison (06:03):
work to somebody else.

Philippa (06:04):
So

Allison (06:04):
the tool

Philippa (06:05):
tool

Allison (06:05):
that I specialize.

Philippa (06:06):
is Google

Allison (06:07):
Google Analytics.
Okay?

Philippa (06:09):
Now

Allison (06:09):
Now Google Analytics

Philippa (06:11):
does

Allison (06:11):
does in fact connect with Search Console, but Google
Analytics is telling you aboutwhat's actually going on your
website.

Philippa (06:16):
So many

Allison (06:18):
many people

Philippa (06:19):
come, which

Allison (06:20):
which is the sort of basic stuff that everybody

Philippa (06:22):
knows.
Maybe

Allison (06:23):
Maybe they sell but the real power of Google is getting
into that much more detail.

Philippa (06:28):
So for

Allison (06:29):
for example

Philippa (06:30):
what

Allison (06:30):
what do people do when they get to your site?
What do you want them to do anddo they do it?

Philippa (06:34):
And then

Allison (06:35):
and then we can start figuring out

Philippa (06:38):
things

Allison (06:39):
that really help you to focus on what works for your
business

Philippa (06:42):
Like

Allison (06:43):
and what kind of marketing tactics or what kind
of people and which of yourcontent

Philippa (06:46):
generates the

Allison (06:47):
the best results.
So

Philippa (06:49):
here's

Allison (06:49):
here's,

Philippa (06:50):
line.

Allison (06:50):
You said,

Philippa (06:51):
I

Allison (06:51):
I don't have analytics

Philippa (06:53):
and

Allison (06:53):
and I just looked at the website and.

Philippa (06:55):
handy dandy tool that I have.
I can

Allison (06:58):
I can see

Philippa (06:59):
that

Allison (07:00):
it appears that you have Google Analytics

Philippa (07:02):
on

Allison (07:02):
on your website.
Awesome.

Philippa (07:04):
that right,

Allison (07:06):
accidents,

Philippa (07:07):
which means,

Allison (07:08):
means so

Philippa (07:08):
it

Allison (07:09):
did that.
I didn't do it.

Philippa (07:11):
okay, which

Allison (07:11):
Okay.
Which means that you've got allsorts of data

Philippa (07:13):
that you

Allison (07:14):
you dunno about.

Philippa (07:15):
And you are

Allison (07:16):
you are shooting in the dark right now, in my opinion,

Philippa (07:18):
I guess, which I

Allison (07:19):
which I guess I get to say because Oh yes.
You can call me on the carpetfor sure.
Just I are

Philippa (07:24):
shooting in

Allison (07:25):
in the dark with

Philippa (07:26):
your

Allison (07:26):
your entire

Philippa (07:27):
in your website

Allison (07:28):
in your website because you dunno

Philippa (07:30):
what's

Allison (07:30):
going on, what's working, what's not working, and
where you wasting your time andmoney Amen.
To, to any depth.
Now a lot of website owners willsay, but I know it's working
because I get X number of saleswhich I'm sure you do.

Philippa (07:42):
because you know what you're

Allison (07:43):
I don't think they come through my website.
I don't think they trip over mein a search.
I think that most people find methrough word of mouth and
because I'm on other people'spodcasts or I speak I'm invited
to speak at women's leadershipsummit or a industry conference,

(08:04):
and that's for me.
And most of those people say,oh, I didn't even go to your
site.
I just knew I needed to workwith you.
I'm like that's nice, but westill need the site to function
because I'm going to send you aninvoice or a page so that you
can join my course.
Exactly so,

Philippa (08:23):
and

Allison (08:23):
and that's an important point to,

Philippa (08:24):
and I

Allison (08:24):
I say

Philippa (08:25):
You're completely,

Allison (08:26):
obviously,

Philippa (08:26):
you're running a successful business.
Different websites play a

Allison (08:31):
A different level of role in each business.
Yep.

Philippa (08:33):
So for

Allison (08:34):
So for some people,

Philippa (08:35):
example, if

Allison (08:35):
example, if you sell to government, you don't sell by,

Philippa (08:38):
It doesn't work

Allison (08:38):
it doesn't work.

Philippa (08:39):
For some

Allison (08:40):
for some people, their website really is a placement

Philippa (08:43):
for others.
So

Allison (08:44):
So lemme just say this.
Yeah.

Philippa (08:46):
for example,

Allison (08:47):
For example, you've got courses and you've got things
that go on in your site.
So it's not just about sales andmarketing,

Philippa (08:52):
it's

Allison (08:53):
it's also about supporting your ongoing

Philippa (08:55):
customers

Allison (08:55):
customers in other ways.

Philippa (08:57):
So whatever

Allison (08:57):
So whatever your website is designed to do,

Philippa (08:59):
the analytics is there to

Allison (09:01):
is there to help you figure out if it's doing it
effectively.
And I think that the more Ienjoy this pivot I've made in
the last several months after Iread 10 X is easier than two x.
I was like, oh, everything'schanging.
I had a hard talk with myselfand inside of two days I was

(09:23):
like, oh, let's cut off theappendages that already are like
limping along and everything isfocused.
'cause there's so muchopportunity when we focus.
So I love that you're calling meon the carpet on this because it
just means that I can get evenmore focused on serving the

(09:46):
people who are already lookingfor solutions that they could
find for free on my site.
Every podcast has a blog pagewhere there are answers and also
free resources, not wink, get myresource.
And it's just a sales tool.
It's like free templates people.

(10:07):
And we're gonna talk a lot aboutthat.
And I'm, so glad that you'reraising this for me'cause it's
gonna go into my bullet journal,which is then

Philippa (10:16):
And then there's

Allison (10:17):
there's one other question that,

Philippa (10:18):
so

Allison (10:19):
so the people who call you, that you hear from

Philippa (10:21):
tell

Allison (10:22):
tell you they found you in other ways,

Philippa (10:23):
your

Allison (10:24):
your website, they may have seen your website, they may
not,

Philippa (10:25):
your

Allison (10:26):
Your website may be

Philippa (10:26):
support

Allison (10:27):
what

Philippa (10:27):
to what they

Allison (10:28):
they've heard about you.

Philippa (10:30):
What

Allison (10:30):
What you dunno

Philippa (10:31):
is

Allison (10:31):
is whether you are in fact getting prospects to your
site

Philippa (10:35):
who

Allison (10:35):
who don't call you

Philippa (10:36):
the

Allison (10:37):
site doesn't do it.

Philippa (10:38):
which you therefore don't know about.

Allison (10:40):
Exactly.
And like everyone listening tothis, who is a debut author or a
seasoned author, but they'reteaching at university and now
they have to establish awebsite.
Maybe their website is sevenyears old and it's on WordPress
Boo.

(11:00):
I only say that WordPress islovely, but I did delete my
WordPress site twice by accidentbecause it's not for people who
have sausage fingers and haveADHD.
And I just saw all the thingsand I thought, what's this
button?
And it click and it went, itdeleted.
So, thank heavens for my virtualassistant.

(11:21):
So what happens is these peoplethat are still experts, they're
not full-time authors, but theyhave a book that's coming out
and now suddenly they're throwninto, I need a website that
works.
And usually they set it up andit looks like a digital business

(11:41):
card.
And so we stop that right away,time out.
We don't need your website tobe, Allison book coach.
Nobody cares what your role,your title is.
They just wanna know, what do Iget?
But then we have to know thatwhen you are an expert writing a
nonfiction book, you areproviding solutions and

(12:02):
inspiration and perspective thatpeople are looking for using
Google.

Philippa (12:08):
right.

Allison (12:09):
And if your site is not set up for that, and mostly I'm
talking to myself now, allison.
Then you are essentiallyshouting in a room with a closed
door.
I have all this, but you can'thear me.
Walk us through the basics ofwhat do we need to know and take

(12:32):
action on so that we don't feellike we have to hire an agency
to set this up for us.
And also just answer thequestion.
I know people are gonna ask, canPhilippa do this for me?
Probably the answer is maybeyes, I don't know.
But just walk us through, whatdo we need to know?

Philippa (12:50):
So

Allison (12:50):
so lemme say this

Philippa (12:51):
I'm

Allison (12:52):
I'm actually writing book myself right now.

Philippa (12:53):
which

Allison (12:54):
Yes.
I'm very excited.
Oh, I can't wait to learn moreabout that.

Philippa (12:57):
Yeah, I'm hoping

Allison (12:58):
it's

Philippa (12:58):
in the second quarter, which

Allison (12:59):
coming up

Philippa (13:00):
actually.

Allison (13:00):
The thing.
What I find is a lot of peoplethat I work with are like you
and

Philippa (13:04):
and,

Allison (13:04):
You have your expertise, you have the stuff
you love to do.

Philippa (13:07):
Looking

Allison (13:07):
Looking at a load of graphs and charts is probably
not gonna that, Right?

Philippa (13:11):
So you talked

Allison (13:13):
you talked about, bringing in an agency and

Philippa (13:15):
Some

Allison (13:15):
some agencies are very good, some of them

Philippa (13:17):
Really are

Allison (13:18):
are not,

Philippa (13:19):
because they

Allison (13:20):
they don't understand analytics in depth.

Philippa (13:22):
use

Allison (13:23):
analytics effectively,

Philippa (13:24):
you've

Allison (13:25):
you've really gotta understand the business and
you've gotta understand whatyou're

Philippa (13:27):
you're looking

Allison (13:27):
looking at.

Philippa (13:28):
And a

Allison (13:28):
And a lot of

Philippa (13:29):
agencies will

Allison (13:31):
do what I, In business

Philippa (13:32):
vanity metrics, Which

Allison (13:34):
Which is really

Philippa (13:35):
you've

Allison (13:35):
you've got more visitors this week than you did
last week.
So we are doing a great job asyour agency because we're
bringing you

Philippa (13:40):
of

Allison (13:40):
to people

Philippa (13:40):
and

Allison (13:41):
and everybody's happy.

Philippa (13:42):
You don't

Allison (13:42):
You don't ask more questions,

Philippa (13:44):
But the

Allison (13:45):
the obvious question.

Philippa (13:46):
so what?

Allison (13:47):
Were the visitors, that they're getting you the right

Philippa (13:49):
what did

Allison (13:49):
one.
What did they do?

Philippa (13:50):
they

Allison (13:50):
they fulfill the outcomes that you actually want
them to do on your website?

Philippa (13:53):
For

Allison (13:54):
for you, as the business owner,

Philippa (13:56):
I

Allison (13:56):
I don't want you

Philippa (13:57):
to

Allison (13:59):
have to get to grips with that data if you don't

Philippa (14:01):
to.

Allison (14:01):
Like, no,

Philippa (14:02):
nobody

Allison (14:03):
who's ever hired

Philippa (14:05):
has

Allison (14:05):
me has said

Philippa (14:05):
what

Allison (14:06):
What I really need from you is 50 pages of, Charts and
graphs and reports, right?

Philippa (14:11):
The

Allison (14:11):
The question that people who come

Philippa (14:13):
to know

Allison (14:13):
to me wanna know is, Philippa, what do I need to know
to

Philippa (14:15):
my

Allison (14:15):
run my business better?
And let's make no mistake, whenyou're an author, your publisher
expects you to be marketingyourself

Philippa (14:25):
Yeah.

Allison (14:26):
your book.
So number one, set up your LLC.
It'll take 15 minutes.
Do not pay someone to do thisfor you.
Just Google irs.gov and you gotit covered.
LLC.
And then second, your websiteneeds to anticipate that people

(14:47):
are gonna look for you.
They're gonna want to come toyour website.
Just like you're having somebodyover for dinner.
They're gonna come to your frontdoor.
Do you just fling the door openand let them I'm hiding come and
find us?
Or do you greet them and walkthem through where you want them
to go?

Philippa (15:07):
right.

Allison (15:07):
You don't want them to go into the side room where you
threw all of the unfoldedlaundry.
That's a mess.

Philippa (15:14):
Absolutely.
So

Allison (15:15):
So

Philippa (15:15):
key

Allison (15:15):
key thing for you as the business owner,

Philippa (15:17):
if you

Allison (15:17):
if you are,

Philippa (15:18):
If you're

Allison (15:19):
if you're going to work with So me, so the answer
obviously

Philippa (15:21):
yes,

Allison (15:21):
yes.

Philippa (15:22):
this.

Allison (15:22):
Lovely.

Philippa (15:22):
is, This is

Allison (15:23):
This is what I do as a consultant Is you need to
understand your business insideand out.
And you need to be able toexplain to me

Philippa (15:29):
what

Allison (15:30):
what is your website designed to do.

Philippa (15:32):
So

Allison (15:32):
So if we look at your website,

Philippa (15:33):
I

Allison (15:33):
I can see various different calls to action.
The call to action is when youdrive people to next step.

Philippa (15:38):
So I

Allison (15:38):
So I can see, for example, I'm on the page right
now that's looking at

Philippa (15:41):
next

Allison (15:42):
next chapter network.
So you've got

Philippa (15:43):
a

Allison (15:44):
a community,

Philippa (15:46):
obviously you are

Allison (15:46):
you are working with individuals, so you've got work
with me.

Philippa (15:49):
So

Allison (15:50):
so you've got different outcomes that you want on the
site, right?
And everybody has differentoutcomes and

Philippa (15:55):
and it's

Allison (15:56):
it's important to know what those outcomes

Philippa (15:57):
who each

Allison (15:58):
each one is aim

Philippa (15:59):
and

Allison (15:59):
at, and where those tools to action are

Philippa (16:02):
because

Allison (16:02):
because then we can start digging in to start
looking at, okay,

Philippa (16:06):
are the

Allison (16:07):
are the outcomes that we're looking for.
Actually, it's not.

Philippa (16:11):
how many

Allison (16:11):
Many people come and, Where do they go?

Philippa (16:13):
And

Allison (16:14):
and are people

Philippa (16:15):
consuming your

Allison (16:16):
your content?
So

Philippa (16:16):
you've

Allison (16:17):
you've got a podcast page.
Yep.
I just redid it.
I hired a wonderful woman off ofnot off of Fiverr, but I think
she's on Fiverr as well, butshe's amazing.
I call her Kajabi Carla becausemy site is on Kajabi and her
name starts with a K.
And so that's what I call her.

(16:37):
She's fantastic.
And I gave her the text and Isaid, here's the template that I
bought from a amazing woman whois her website is Penny in your
pocket, So I'll put this in.
Everything we talk about, I'llput in the show notes.
And Kajabi, Carla had that badboy up in two days.
And what was important is thatit just, anything that could be

(17:01):
done automatically was doneautomatically.
'cause updating pages, this andthat here and there makes my
neck hurt.

Philippa (17:09):
But for

Allison (17:10):
But for example

Philippa (17:10):
one of

Allison (17:11):
one of the big mistakes that people make with their
websites is that they focus onWhere do they get traffic from?
Because they gonna know thatthings like social media are
working for them and then theyfocus on

Philippa (17:20):
and

Allison (17:20):
and what did they buy?

Philippa (17:22):
Or

Allison (17:22):
Or again, obviously I'm stressing outcomes here but the
truth is that a lot of peoplecome to your website and they
don't.

Philippa (17:27):
the first time.
They look around.
And

Allison (17:30):
and so

Philippa (17:30):
people

Allison (17:31):
people tend to forget that whole bit in the middle
where

Philippa (17:33):
people are

Allison (17:33):
are engaging with your content and figuring out what
they think about you,

Philippa (17:36):
and

Allison (17:37):
and really importantly

Philippa (17:38):
figuring out

Allison (17:38):
out if they trust you.

Philippa (17:40):
For

Allison (17:40):
for example,

Philippa (17:41):
your

Allison (17:41):
on your podcast page you could make

Philippa (17:44):
way

Allison (17:44):
more of your, you've got a lot of content here

Philippa (17:47):
This

Allison (17:47):
this.

Philippa (17:47):
that

Allison (17:47):
see a lot

Philippa (17:48):
a lot

Allison (17:49):
about people

Philippa (17:49):
who have podcasts.

Allison (17:51):
What you tend to do is you put the newest podcast
episode of Cake.

Philippa (17:54):
Everybody

Allison (17:55):
Everybody does that, obviously,

Philippa (17:56):
But

Allison (17:56):
but then as soon as

Philippa (17:58):
You

Allison (17:59):
you have a new episode, everything moves down.

Philippa (18:01):
And so

Allison (18:02):
so it starts getting lost.
I can see it says see more, but,

Philippa (18:05):
so

Allison (18:06):
typically any single, any podcast site, has tons and
tons of content is essentially

Philippa (18:11):
hidden.

Allison (18:12):
It may well be fuller of, those magic search engine
keywords.
There may be other ways that you

Philippa (18:18):
to promote it or

Allison (18:20):
it or use it.

Philippa (18:21):
And you

Allison (18:21):
and you can also tell from another, it's interesting
things like how many peoplelisten This applies to videos as
well, right?
How people consume the quantum.

Philippa (18:29):
So

Allison (18:30):
So not only how many people start listening to a
podcast

Philippa (18:33):
or

Allison (18:33):
or watching the video, but how many actually go through
and

Philippa (18:36):
listen to

Allison (18:36):
to or watch the whole thing because a.

Philippa (18:39):
people

Allison (18:40):
drop off.
A

Philippa (18:40):
A

Allison (18:40):
lot of people don't really have to hold their
attention.
And that can be very helpful.
For example I had a client

Philippa (18:45):
recently who

Allison (18:46):
who makes tons and tons of very high contact videos,

Philippa (18:50):
Which are

Allison (18:50):
which are wonderful.

Philippa (18:51):
but the

Allison (18:51):
But the problem I can see you're looking at your
website now.
I'm thinking maybe I should pullit up and you can walk through
what we should be doing, butlet's,

Philippa (19:01):
but lemme

Allison (19:01):
yeah, lemme just finish up.
Example.

Philippa (19:03):
an example.

Allison (19:03):
The problem with this guy who had loads and loads

Philippa (19:05):
of videos with wonderful

Allison (19:06):
of content

Philippa (19:07):
was

Allison (19:07):
was that every single one started with,

Philippa (19:09):
morning, my name is, and I've been in this business
for 150 years, and I do this and

Allison (19:14):
and I did that

Philippa (19:14):
And

Allison (19:14):
and people got really bored

Philippa (19:15):
bored

Allison (19:16):
really quickly,

Philippa (19:17):
And

Allison (19:17):
and he literally lost

Philippa (19:19):
50% of

Allison (19:20):
of all the people who started every video in the first
30 seconds.
Yikes.

Philippa (19:25):
and

Allison (19:26):
90%

Philippa (19:27):
by

Allison (19:28):
the first minute now.

Philippa (19:31):
that's

Allison (19:31):
That's pretty bad, right?
That We've really only gotta

Philippa (19:34):
of his

Allison (19:34):
of his content after one minute and he's already
lost.
Seven

Philippa (19:37):
who

Allison (19:37):
people started this,

Philippa (19:38):
So

Allison (19:38):
so you wouldn't know that without looking around
analytics.

Philippa (19:40):
And

Allison (19:41):
And that's really one of the reasons to look at
analytics

Philippa (19:43):
there's all

Allison (19:44):
is because there's all sorts of stuff

Philippa (19:45):
know.

Allison (19:45):
couldn't know,

Philippa (19:46):
You

Allison (19:46):
you couldn't possibly know if you didn't start looking
at them in more depth

Philippa (19:50):
with

Allison (19:50):
with an idea

Philippa (19:51):
what am I

Allison (19:51):
of what am I looking for?

Philippa (19:52):
It's not

Allison (19:52):
So it's not just how many visitors are there, how
many pages are there?

Philippa (19:55):
it's

Allison (19:55):
It's what are people actually doing?

Philippa (19:58):
What

Allison (19:58):
What are they engaging with, what do they like that I
can do more of?

Philippa (20:01):
And

Allison (20:01):
And where am I wasting

Philippa (20:02):
money and

Allison (20:03):
and time

Philippa (20:04):
putting

Allison (20:05):
stuff up

Philippa (20:05):
that

Allison (20:06):
nobody cares about?

Philippa (20:06):
cares about?

Allison (20:07):
Actually, or I should say, putting stuff up that
nobody sees either because theydon't care or because

Philippa (20:13):
not

Allison (20:13):
are not directly.
So

Philippa (20:14):
to it, so they

Allison (20:14):
they actually dunno what's there, right?
Because no one really wants togo and open all the doors and
click all the links and go.
Especially because most peopleare looking at on their phones
nobody wants to go scroll backup to find the navigation.

Philippa (20:30):
exactly.

Allison (20:31):
So yes.

Philippa (20:31):
You

Allison (20:32):
you said to me

Philippa (20:32):
what

Allison (20:33):
what should I be doing?
Well, What should anyone bedoing?
But yes, we can use me as theGuinea pig.

Philippa (20:38):
Well

Allison (20:38):
The thing is, of course right now, I don't know

Philippa (20:40):
because

Allison (20:40):
because I'm only looking at your site format
outside.
I don't have access to youranalytics right now.

Philippa (20:45):
I

Allison (20:45):
I could tell you

Philippa (20:46):
right,

Allison (20:47):
immediately off the top of my head,

Philippa (20:48):
several red

Allison (20:49):
red flags that I can see on the site.

Philippa (20:51):
That

Allison (20:52):
that if I had access to analytics, I would immediately
start checking out

Philippa (20:55):
to

Allison (20:55):
oof

Philippa (20:56):
see

Allison (20:56):
see if there's a problem.

Philippa (20:57):
So

Allison (20:57):
So for example Your site looks very nice.
I love all the book covers andeverything, but each page is
quite locked.

Philippa (21:03):
Now,

Allison (21:03):
people

Philippa (21:04):
tend

Allison (21:05):
not to scroll down one pages unless they're

Philippa (21:07):
really

Allison (21:08):
interested, especially when the page has this kind of
horizontal,

Philippa (21:10):
there are

Allison (21:11):
there is section, it's like in sections, right?

Philippa (21:13):
You, you

Allison (21:13):
So I get to the end of a section and if I'm looking,
I'm obviously looking at it onmy desktop right now.
Yeah.
It can almost look like I'm atthe end of the page.
Yeah.

Philippa (21:21):
So

Allison (21:22):
So am I gonna keep scrolling

Philippa (21:23):
And if

Allison (21:23):
and if I don't keep scrolling, is there really
important content that I'm notgonna see?

Philippa (21:28):
Because

Allison (21:28):
'cause it's further down,

Philippa (21:29):
including really

Allison (21:30):
really important calls to action or a place where Your
main real,

Philippa (21:33):
the

Allison (21:34):
this is the point that is,

Philippa (21:35):
I'm not gonna see

Allison (21:36):
I'm not gonna see it.

Philippa (21:37):
one of the

Allison (21:38):
And one of the things that we can do

Philippa (21:39):
with

Allison (21:40):
with

Philippa (21:40):
like

Allison (21:41):
a tool like Google Analytics, which is of course
free although I know peoplethese days are bit suspicious of
Google,

Philippa (21:46):
a great

Allison (21:47):
it's a great tool

Philippa (21:48):
Outta the

Allison (21:48):
outta the.

Philippa (21:49):
It doesn't

Allison (21:49):
It doesn't do this.
So it's very customizable

Philippa (21:52):
and you can

Allison (21:53):
and you can customize it to really reflect the
specific things that you'relooking for that we would decide
together that we're looking for.
One of the things

Philippa (22:01):
that you

Allison (22:01):
that you can do

Philippa (22:02):
to

Allison (22:02):
to measure exactly how far down the page each people

Philippa (22:05):
people

Allison (22:06):
are going.

Philippa (22:06):
So

Allison (22:07):
So you can set little flags that fire off and say, X
number of people go 25%, 50%,75%

Philippa (22:13):
by

Allison (22:14):
by default,

Philippa (22:15):
It

Allison (22:15):
it only tells you when people are 90% of the way down
the page

Philippa (22:18):
which is almost to the

Allison (22:19):
oh to the bottom.

Philippa (22:20):
And for

Allison (22:21):
for

Philippa (22:21):
really long

Allison (22:22):
long pages like you have, that's really not gonna
capture

Philippa (22:26):
helpfully the

Allison (22:26):
the fall.

Philippa (22:27):
off.
So

Allison (22:28):
so that's an example of something that if I was looking
at your site, I wouldimmediately check out.

Philippa (22:33):
I

Allison (22:33):
I would also, by the way,

Philippa (22:35):
let

Allison (22:35):
let you know.

Philippa (22:36):
that is it

Allison (22:37):
is it alright if I embarrass you?

Philippa (22:38):
you?

Allison (22:38):
Oh yeah.
I don't get embarrassed.

Philippa (22:42):
So

Allison (22:43):
am, I actually did immune

Philippa (22:44):
join the

Allison (22:45):
the network because I actually thought that looks
interesting, especially sinceI've come to bring the book out.
Yeah.

Philippa (22:50):
and

Allison (22:50):
And you've got,

Philippa (22:52):
so this

Allison (22:52):
this page called the Next Chapter Network,

Philippa (22:55):
But I

Allison (22:55):
I dunno if you've thought of We all have this
problem'cause as the owner weget so close to our site, we
don't see stuff.

Philippa (23:00):
But

Allison (23:01):
I finished looking at the page.
I went back to the top to goback and

Philippa (23:05):
I, there's

Allison (23:06):
there's no navigation at the top of that page.

Philippa (23:08):
And

Allison (23:08):
And it doesn't say

Philippa (23:09):
your

Allison (23:10):
your main

Philippa (23:11):
lane

Allison (23:12):
Allison Lane, The main

Philippa (23:13):
the

Allison (23:14):
the logo says Next chapter network only.

Philippa (23:16):
I notice that

Allison (23:17):
that if I click on it, I do get back to your regular
homepage,

Philippa (23:21):
but

Allison (23:22):
that's.

Philippa (23:22):
confusing

Allison (23:24):
Okay.
I will address that.
That's a super easy fix.
Best practice about sales pageslike that is, don't put the
navigation like way back so thatpeople can bounce around.
But yeah, of course my nameshould be at the top and you
should be able to know where youare where you've landed.

(23:44):
Yeah

Philippa (23:44):
I,

Allison (23:44):
and I

Philippa (23:44):
you don't

Allison (23:45):
I would push back a bit on that personally.

Philippa (23:47):
That philosophy.
Because to

Allison (23:49):
because to me,

Philippa (23:49):
this

Allison (23:50):
this piece where you force people to do stuff,

Philippa (23:52):
it's

Allison (23:52):
it's don't treat me like I'm stupid.
If I wanna do something, ifyou're interesting, you, I just
told you're interested.
I'm bringing the book out.

Philippa (24:00):
I see you've

Allison (24:00):
That looks interesting.
I'd like to know more.
You don't have to push me downsome sort of funnel.

Philippa (24:05):
Dunno.
And

Allison (24:06):
and one of the great things about

Philippa (24:08):
is

Allison (24:08):
is that you can test stuff, right?
So I can

Philippa (24:10):
and say,

Allison (24:10):
say I don't like that philosophy.

Philippa (24:11):
You

Allison (24:12):
You could easily set up testing whereby if somebody

Philippa (24:16):
went

Allison (24:16):
went on that page, you could serve two different
versions of, you can automatethis very easily.

Philippa (24:20):
right?

Allison (24:20):
So one has your regular navigation on it and one doesn't

Philippa (24:23):
as it

Allison (24:23):
as it's now.
Yeah.

Philippa (24:25):
And you

Allison (24:25):
And you can easily test how those two pages perform
against each other.

Philippa (24:29):
So we don't

Allison (24:30):
You don't have to sit here and I didn't like,

Philippa (24:31):
and

Allison (24:32):
And it, I'm just listening to the, I think it's
such interesting and helpful,written, generous feedback that
you're giving to me.
So I accept it fully and I willact on it.
And yet, I think the bestpractice is not we wanna shove
anyone into a funnel or a tubeor give or limit their choices.

(24:53):
But when people are confused,when they think, maybe I want
something else, and I'll go backto where I was then there
suddenly there are too manythings to look at, and then they
bounce out.

Philippa (25:06):
Yeah.

Allison (25:06):
Especially when websites are not organized in a
way that limits people's,scroll.
And then it's almost like an antfarm where they're like now I'm
lost.
I don't know how to get back towhere I was.
And they bounce out becausethey're just like, forget it.
And of course there's, there'sthe right

Philippa (25:26):
to

Allison (25:26):
to approach each situation and Absolutely.
Of course, I equally get it.
Absolutely.
Pages that I've seen thatthey're so busy that you dunno
what to do.
And that where there are buttonsand they I like a page having
multiple buttons that all go thesame place.
That's why when you go to myhomepage that you actually land

(25:49):
on the work with me page becausethat's what everyone says, how
do I work with you?
And I have not taken the time todevelop a quiz at the top that
says, do you need this or do youneed that?
Because that would actually bemore helpful.
But I don't have thatfunctionality yet, so at least I
have work with me and here arethree choices.
That's it.

(26:09):
That's great.
But clarity is good.

Philippa (26:14):
No,

Allison (26:15):
No, and you do have to, I think I said this earlier, you
do have to drive people aroundto take the actions you want
them take.
So somewhere probably between

Philippa (26:22):
complete.

Allison (26:23):
But the thing about your networking thing.
I think is where I was thinkingis okay, I'm interested, but I
need to know more about

Philippa (26:28):
who

Allison (26:28):
who this person is, what kind of, so then I do want
to go back to the rest of thesite.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the other thing that I wouldsay is that,

Philippa (26:37):
when we

Allison (26:37):
when we talk about best practice, one of the other
things I find is that there's alot of generic advice out there.
Yeah.
There's a tremendous amount ofadvice.

Philippa (26:44):
You

Allison (26:44):
must,

Philippa (26:44):
you must do this.
Honestly,

Allison (26:46):
Honestly, I find that, Your mileage may vary as they
say.

Philippa (26:49):
So whenever

Allison (26:50):
whenever you are looking at that, this is the
best practice, This is thegeneral advice,

Philippa (26:54):
just

Allison (26:55):
just make sure that it really does apply in your
situation.
For example, there's a lot ofinformation about mobile
websites and how many people arenow accessing on their

Philippa (27:04):
phones, which is

Allison (27:05):
is of

Philippa (27:05):
very

Allison (27:06):
very important because

Philippa (27:07):
it

Allison (27:07):
it changes the user experience.
Yeah.
You

Philippa (27:10):
to

Allison (27:10):
need to make sure before you go crazy about making
sure your website's mobilefriendly, that applies to,

Philippa (27:15):
So

Allison (27:15):
so some of my clients are very much a, B2B I've worked
with clients in the engineeringmanufacturing space, for
example,

Philippa (27:22):
where their websites are

Allison (27:24):
their websites are used by people come to buy parts or,
Doing research about equipmentand stuff like that.
And

Philippa (27:31):
they

Allison (27:32):
they are typically on a desktop because they're in their
offices

Philippa (27:35):
searching for

Allison (27:36):
for stuff.
And when you look at theiranalytics, so your analytics
again, will tell you what devicedo people use to come to your
website

Philippa (27:42):
and you

Allison (27:42):
you can see the breakdown.

Philippa (27:44):
And

Allison (27:44):
And so in those situations, the mobile usage is
way low Because of the nature ofthat business.

Philippa (27:51):
So

Allison (27:51):
That's what I'm saying.
It's important to make sure that

Philippa (27:54):
whatever

Allison (27:54):
advice you are looking at, it does

Philippa (27:56):
pertain to

Allison (27:57):
to your situation.
Let's take a for instancebecause I know this is book
launch season.
There are three seasons a yearof book launches.
There's January to May, which isvery busy, and then there's June
through September, which isreally good for certain genres.

(28:19):
And then there's like Septemberto December, which more books
are sold during that time thanthroughout the rest of the year,
which is because of the holidayseason.

Philippa (28:31):
Right.

Allison (28:32):
we are in a busy time right now and most nonfiction
authors are experts.
They're, or historians ormedical practitioners.
And I'm just pointing behindmyself here.
We've got Dr.
Mara, Einstein's book,hoodwinked, which is how

(28:54):
marketers are using the samepractices as cults.
Frightening but true.
She's a media expert.
And then, this memoir byJessica, the Widow's Guide to
Dead Bastards.
She what?
It's riveting.
And it reads like a thriller.
So she didn't have a web, shehad a WordPress site, but now

(29:17):
people, she's got a bestsellerin Canada and the US it is her
debut.
People wanna connect with her.
And she needs a website that canfunction when she's asleep
because she can't writeeverybody back anymore.
And then this is breathtakinganother memoir, but it's
breathtaking.

(29:37):
A memoir of Family Dreams andBroken Genes by Jessica Fein,
who's healthcare Advocate andnow has a podcast.
So all of these are verydifferent, but Einstein's book,
she had a website before, butshe had to develop a new one
'cause she knew that people weregoing to be coming to her site
looking for advice and sheneeded to have some guides that

(30:01):
were easily downloadable.
So she prepared that in advance.
She's not doing, courses orclasses yet.
She's still teaching at theuniversity.
But these memoirs, would youwrite a memoir?
People who want to write amemoir, want to quote unquote

(30:21):
air bunnies pick your brain,which is the after two people,

Philippa (30:27):
Yeah.

Allison (30:27):
You have to charge for that.
Put people in a group, theyappreciate it more, they learn
more.
They value the community more,and you have to anticipate that
people are going to ask.
So you wanna be prepared forthat, which is my long way of
saying, at the very least onyour website, anticipate that

(30:48):
people are going to be lookingfor a solution and a way to get
personalized attention, whichdoesn't have to be one-on-one.
Based on that, Philippa, if youcould guide people how to
welcome a new visitor to theirhomepage, what should they be

(31:09):
greeted with?

Philippa (31:11):
Actually, that's a

Allison (31:12):
that's a great question because like you're saying,

Philippa (31:14):
some

Allison (31:15):
some homepages try to do

Philippa (31:16):
a

Allison (31:17):
a bazillion different things.
Yeah.

Philippa (31:18):
One

Allison (31:19):
One of the most, you said that you've got three
different types of,

Philippa (31:23):
People, is

Allison (31:24):
is that right?
Is that what you, the three Ijust gave you, there's usually a
memoirist that's a debut or aseasoned expert, or every,
almost everyone I work with is adebut author.
And they're running an ER in, ata major hospital and they don't

(31:44):
have time to become, they justneed things to work and they
need them to set it up the firsttime, which means setting up a
website means writing it in away that then the person laying
it out for you can just do theirjob.
But if we don't write it thecontent in the way that Philippa
that you tell us to, it's gonnastink.

(32:07):
Because no matter what, you landat the top.
And the biggest mistake I seepeople make is that they want
the top to say, hi, I'm Allison.
No, absolutely not.
We don't need that.

Philippa (32:21):
Yeah.

Allison (32:22):
Yeah.
I think actually you said it

Philippa (32:23):
already.
One

Allison (32:24):
already.

Philippa (32:25):
things to

Allison (32:25):
of the easiest things to do is to say, okay,

Philippa (32:28):
the

Allison (32:28):
you know the main categories of your visitors

Philippa (32:30):
to say

Allison (32:31):
to say, hi,

Philippa (32:32):
are

Allison (32:32):
RUA

Philippa (32:34):
a

Allison (32:34):
A memoir, person B, whatever,

Philippa (32:36):
and

Allison (32:36):
and immediately direct them to

Philippa (32:38):
a

Allison (32:39):
a page is dedicated

Philippa (32:41):
to that

Allison (32:42):
person.

Philippa (32:43):
or to that

Allison (32:43):
That type of visitor.

Philippa (32:45):
And

Allison (32:45):
And something else actually that I would like.
See on your side because aswe're talking, you really come
across this at all Is a welcomevideo.

Philippa (32:52):
Hi.
So

Allison (32:52):
So you're thinking of writing a memoir, here's how I
can help.
Here are just few things youneed to know because

Philippa (32:58):
I

Allison (32:58):
I think that would be really powerful.
I do love too.
I have, I am not shy when itcomes to just talking in my
basement into my camera.
There's no one here.
And if I don't like it,

Philippa (33:11):
You do

Allison (33:11):
then I do it again.

Philippa (33:13):
I think

Allison (33:13):
I think that would really come across, because at
the moment

Philippa (33:16):
you

Allison (33:16):
you don't have that right.
I don't see anything.
I had one, but I didn't like mysweater or the lighting, so I
took it down because I'm vain.
And I think that yes, but Irecognize that should have been
on my list.
I'm gonna put it into my bulletjournal so that right after this
I record.

Philippa (33:35):
But

Allison (33:35):
welcome.

Philippa (33:36):
anybody watching, if

Allison (33:37):
If you have some very different categories of visitor
that you can identify Just likeAllison just did,

Philippa (33:42):
then that's

Allison (33:44):
that's a really good technique is to have separate
pages for each of those whereyou can talk directly to the
kinds of things they're gonnawanna hear.
As opposed to trying to say allthings to all people,

Philippa (33:52):
all the time, which really

Allison (33:53):
doesn't.
Yeah.
So that's super helpful.
So the thing is for anyone whohas a debut coming out, one of
the first things we do isidentify who your audiences are.
And everyone has five differentaudiences and know they don't
overlap.

(34:14):
So, you may not say I'm writinga memoir, so my audience is
people who love memoir.
No, that's not how people readgenres.
That's how people read fiction.
Oh, I love historical fiction.
That, or I love erotica meow.
But that's not how people readnonfiction.

(34:35):
People read nonfiction around atopic, a theme, or a solution.
And they don't read just memoir.
They might, so let's take TheWidow's Guide to Dead Bastards
as an example that I know it'sthe best title ever.
And Jessica Waite is such anunassuming, lovely, soft-spoken

(34:56):
woman, and I love her dearly.
And the fact that she wrote thisbook and it is so honest and
compassionate.
And also direct is ever Canadianof her.
She's the sweetest woman.
So when we were looking at heraudience.

(35:18):
And I worked with her in a smallgroup program, which Ps now I
know I have to update my websiteto say that.
She of course was thinkingmemoirs or anybody who's
interested in grief no, that'snot, people aren't, what we're
the audiences are.
Anyone who's been widowed that,that's beyond grief is like

(35:41):
saying anybody who breathes,like it's too big.
Anybody who's been widowed andis and anyone separately, anyone
who has a relationship that isunresolved.
But they're separated from thatperson.
You can't resolve a relationshipwith someone who's passed.

Philippa (36:05):
Yeah.

Allison (36:05):
And, or maybe you can.
But those are two differentthings.
And then, there's also she hadtopics about financial
independence because her spousedied and he handled all the
dollars.
There was that and there werethree others.
But now that we know that shecan address those people based

(36:32):
on the podcast that she's beenon, and she's been on my
podcast.
And direct them to the podcastepisodes that they would be most
interested in and make sure thatthey're on her site.
Is that what you're saying?

Philippa (36:47):
Yeah.

Allison (36:48):
Yep.

Philippa (36:48):
Yeah.

Allison (36:49):
Okay.
So for all these authors and

Philippa (36:53):
Just to say

Allison (36:54):
Yes.

Philippa (36:54):
the

Allison (36:55):
The categories that you identify are

Philippa (36:56):
are easy for

Allison (36:57):
for people to self identify into.
Okay.

Philippa (37:00):
So if

Allison (37:00):
if somebody's looking at it going

Philippa (37:01):
dunno.

Allison (37:02):
dunno, I could do that.
Yeah.
That then it's a little moredifficult.
I think that sometimes I see onwebsites maybe even like
podcasts or like a media pagethat you can search by topic.

Philippa (37:17):
Yes.

Allison (37:17):
Yes.
So that would be one way to dothat.

Philippa (37:20):
Another a great way to organize your podcasts earlier I
talking about the amount ofwasted content I see on podcast
sites or or podcast pages, So sothat and that's something I did
with one of my my clients, we

Allison (37:31):
we created

Philippa (37:32):
pages for her

Allison (37:33):
podcast.
I mean she does

Philippa (37:35):
for management

Allison (37:36):
podcasts.
But you know

Philippa (37:37):
that

Allison (37:38):
topic, there's

Philippa (37:39):
subtopics.
Then again, you've gotcategories.
You can point

Allison (37:43):
People around into deeper levels of the concept.
I love that.
'cause that's one of the thingsthat people do normally is that
they go by what the websitetemplates come with.
Oh, we have a media page and wehave an about page and I'm
thinking about is boring'causenobody wants to read about your

(38:05):
backstory.
Or

Philippa (38:07):
no, actually I

Allison (38:08):
I like to meld them because nobody wants 15 pages.

Philippa (38:12):
Okay.

Allison (38:13):
Yeah.
Okay.
What,

Philippa (38:14):
only

Allison (38:14):
only thing I was gonna say is in my experience

Philippa (38:16):
if

Allison (38:16):
if somebody

Philippa (38:18):
goes to a

Allison (38:18):
to a business site

Philippa (38:19):
and

Allison (38:20):
and they've never seen that site before.
Yes.
They do go to the about pagebecause they wanna know who is
this person or who is thiscompany,

Philippa (38:27):
What's their

Allison (38:28):
their history, how long have they been around, do they
know what they're doing thatabout Paige?

Philippa (38:32):
you

Allison (38:32):
You can't get rid of it.

Philippa (38:33):
I would

Allison (38:33):
Strongly say you

Philippa (38:34):
say you

Allison (38:34):
shouldn't get rid.
I don't think we should get ridof it, but there's a lot of
people have an about a mediapage.
A books page, and a podcastpage.
And then sometimes it'll belike, press, sometimes they
write articles for media versuscoverage of them, and they'll

(38:55):
have those separated and I goPeter, Paul, and Mary.
That's too many pages Of, youjust

Philippa (39:01):
have to be

Allison (39:02):
to careful because

Philippa (39:02):
example,

Allison (39:03):
if you looking press coverage,

Philippa (39:05):
a

Allison (39:06):
a press page, a

Philippa (39:07):
pre page that's

Allison (39:08):
that's dedicated to journalists can be

Philippa (39:09):
helpful because

Allison (39:11):
because on there, journalists are busy, they
haven't got time to find stuff.
You give them

Philippa (39:14):
You give'em a page

Allison (39:14):
a page where it's here's my picture, here's my
bio, here's my quotes, here'sthis, that, whatever you wanna
give them.
Right.
In a one stop shop.
And that's actually very helpfulthing to do.
But wouldn't you rather see thatunder a navigation that had a
dropdown, a top navigation thathad a, like, I don't know if you
would call it media, or youwould have one page that's at

(39:36):
for pressing queries, one pagethat's media coverage, one page
at least so it's organized inpeople's heads.

Philippa (39:44):
Yeah.

Allison (39:44):
It depends.

Philippa (39:45):
The

Allison (39:45):
but what I'm really saying there is if you have the
audiences like you,

Philippa (39:48):
are

Allison (39:48):
you're really trying to get

Philippa (39:49):
where it's

Allison (39:50):
it's really important that you make it

Philippa (39:52):
absolutely

Allison (39:53):
easy for them to try and

Philippa (39:54):
find what

Allison (39:54):
what they need, then that's the priority.
So what's the first step thatwhen people, if they're starting
from scratch or they're chuckingan old site and they say, okay I
do is the first step sketchingeverything out on a piece of
paper so that, where to whereyou're taking them.

Philippa (40:14):
Yeah, it could well be

Allison (40:15):
Yeah.
It could well be and rememberit's a website, so

Philippa (40:17):
it it doesn't have to be totally strictly hierarchical
because people can jump around.
Your Structure You, it mean it'shelpful to have a structure so
that you know where you're goingto start with and what goes
well.
I mean, The one thing I wouldsay is that in, again, in in all
my experience, there's just soso many times where we put up a
website and then we watch howpeople actually use it, and then

(40:38):
they do things that surprise us.
People always up doing thingsthat surprise me.
never quite know.
But the thing about theanalytics again is that if
you're tracking what's going on,you you can see when they start
doing things that surprise you,and then you can act on that.

Allison (40:51):
What's an outdated website strategy that doesn't
work anymore?

Philippa (40:58):
That's a

Allison (40:58):
Really interesting question.
I get bonus points forinteresting questions.
One of the things I find veryinteresting

Philippa (41:05):
is,

Allison (41:05):
is, the work gives us capabilities that we didn't
have.
Are, Obviously

Philippa (41:09):
I've been

Allison (41:10):
been doing this for a while, so I've been around for

Philippa (41:12):
in

Allison (41:12):
in fact, to be honest I've been working with the
internet since it started

Philippa (41:16):
when I

Allison (41:16):
when I was younger.

Philippa (41:17):
But that

Allison (41:17):
but that gives you the opportunity to see what works,
doesn't.

Philippa (41:20):
But I

Allison (41:21):
but I think

Philippa (41:21):
really

Allison (41:22):
interesting thing is that marketing fundamentals
don't necessarily change.
I talked already about one ofthe most important things you do
have to do is establish trustwith whoever, with your

Philippa (41:31):
your visitors.

Allison (41:31):
And you have to be clear that you can do what you
say you do.
And there's stuff

Philippa (41:35):
that

Allison (41:35):
that doesn't change in that regard.

Philippa (41:38):
And

Allison (41:38):
and there's all these predictions about stuff that
isn't gonna work anymore.
And you, I still,

Philippa (41:42):
I

Allison (41:42):
I think I still have a screenshot

Philippa (41:44):
of

Allison (41:44):
of a,

Philippa (41:44):
cover of

Allison (41:45):
of Wired magazine

Philippa (41:46):
back

Allison (41:47):
maybe 2010,

Philippa (41:49):
something like

Allison (41:49):
like that said, email is dead.

Philippa (41:51):
Nobody

Allison (41:52):
uses email anymore.

Philippa (41:53):
Kids don't

Allison (41:54):
don't wanna use it.
It's boring.
And here we are in 2025

Philippa (41:58):
and

Allison (41:58):
and whenever you, surveys of marketers

Philippa (42:01):
asking about

Allison (42:01):
about most effectively online marketing tactics, email
is still way up the top of thelist.
Yeah.
Because everybody's still, thisis,

Philippa (42:09):
or

Allison (42:09):
And we use other things.
But

Philippa (42:10):
we're

Allison (42:10):
we're still using it.

Philippa (42:12):
Yeah.

Allison (42:13):
yeah.
Is there anything that reallydoesn't happen?

Philippa (42:15):
I don't

Allison (42:15):
I dunno, I

Philippa (42:16):
evolve.

Allison (42:16):
think things evolve.
I think the change for authorsor experts who wanna be
contributing to media or expandtheir expertise and start
speaking on stages.
Especially as I only work withwomen and all of my clients are

(42:37):
over 50, which means they'reseasoned, they're experts, and
they've reached the top of theirindustry.
And when you reach the top ofyour industry and you still know
that you love what you do, andyou're not ready to go crawl in
a hole or moonwalk out of thereand retire that you want to

(43:01):
share what you know, which meansbreaking out and following a
path that hasn't been set foryou.
Which means it might mean you'regonna be speaking, but not at an
industry conference.
You're gonna be speaking at amass market conference, or I
don't know running a course oryou have to think bigger about

(43:22):
where you're going and you arethe one who has to do that.
Which means that your websiteyou own now and email is the way
to.
Where for when people opt in andthey say, oh, I am interested in
you.
They wanna get something fromyou, you have to give them that

(43:43):
opportunity.
And just posting on social, evenwhen someone follows you is not
a guarantee that they're gonnaeven see your post.
And I think we used to think,maybe they, they won't see it
because of the time I posted.
Now, they might not see itbecause the platform might not
show it to them.
Even though they clicked, showme all philippa's posts, or, I

(44:09):
wanna see all of Allison'svideos.
The only way to guarantee thatis to give them that invitation.
Hey, I am happy to send youthese resources once a week.
Give me your address so I canmake sure it reaches you.
But that's the big mistake thatpeople make, is that they see
that interaction as oh, I don'twant people to have to give me

(44:33):
their email.
How are you gonna send somethingyou're giving a gift to someone?
Do you expect them to get it?
It's not even, we're servingsomeone.
Why wouldn't you deliversomething that comes to what
they're saying is easy for them.
So that's number one on awebsite, I would think is to

(44:54):
give someone a way to get morefrom you.
As I said, email is still

Philippa (44:59):
one of

Allison (44:59):
one of the top marketing

Philippa (45:01):
tools that,

Allison (45:02):
that marketers

Philippa (45:03):
in terms of

Allison (45:03):
effectiveness, therefore, and.

Philippa (45:05):
yes,

Allison (45:06):
Absolutely.
If somebody gives you theiremail address

Philippa (45:08):
they've

Allison (45:08):
they've said they wanna hear from you and it's, yeah.
It's gold.
It's worth,

Philippa (45:12):
and

Allison (45:13):
and as you said, social media,

Philippa (45:15):
I think

Allison (45:15):
I think the average organic reach of the social
media post is way below 5%.
So

Philippa (45:19):
it's very, very

Allison (45:20):
I think it's below 1%.
And social media advertising,again, this is where analytics
can help.

Philippa (45:27):
I

Allison (45:27):
I do know businesses that will jump into social media
advertising because

Philippa (45:31):
it

Allison (45:31):
it feels very seductive

Philippa (45:33):
the

Allison (45:33):
and the social media companies do a good job at
promoting their ads.

Philippa (45:37):
It

Allison (45:37):
it tends to be cheaper, for example, than Google's paid
search ads.

Philippa (45:41):
But again, in the

Allison (45:42):
in the analytics, you can track by traffic source,

Philippa (45:45):
so

Allison (45:45):
so you can see exactly who comes from

Philippa (45:48):
social

Allison (45:49):
media and specifically which platform.

Philippa (45:51):
or, and

Allison (45:51):
Which

Philippa (45:51):
which campaign.

Allison (45:53):
And then you can see their engagement levels and very
typically, I hate to say this,but engagement levels from
social media are very, very coretypical because people aren't

Philippa (46:03):
really shopping on

Allison (46:05):
on social media.
They're not really thinkingabout their business
necessarily.
They're

Philippa (46:08):
likely

Allison (46:09):
to be talking friends

Philippa (46:11):
watching cat

Allison (46:12):
cat videos.
I do watch all those cat videos,every single one.
We don't have a cat anymore, butI do get caught especially when
they rescue a cat.

Philippa (46:24):
But

Allison (46:25):
you're not in the I'm looking to buy a business
service mode.

Philippa (46:27):
now,

Allison (46:28):
So are you saying that one of the biggest opportunities
for people is to make sure thattheir call to action of you
could, sign up here to get morebook recommendations or
resources for healing,navigating grief or whatever the
resource is, but to make surethat you're offering that in a

(46:50):
way that's not at the bottom ofthe page.
'cause I heard you say don'tmake people wait to scroll.

Philippa (46:56):
okay, So it could be at the bottom, it should be
bottom page.
So when you get to the bottom,if you do, then it's there.
But there's, you can put as youdo, I, it

Allison (47:03):
On your site,

Philippa (47:04):
You

Allison (47:04):
you put calls to action all the way through

Philippa (47:06):
for

Allison (47:07):
for me.

Philippa (47:07):
The

Allison (47:07):
the thing is,

Philippa (47:09):
think

Allison (47:09):
think about the emotional response visitor to
the content you're presenting.

Philippa (47:13):
And

Allison (47:13):
And time where they might be saying

Philippa (47:15):
that's

Allison (47:15):
that's interesting.
Tell me more.

Philippa (47:17):
That

Allison (47:17):
That would be a good place to put call to action.

Philippa (47:20):
Because you

Allison (47:20):
because you don't wanna make them then have to figure
out how to get to the

Philippa (47:23):
the next

Allison (47:24):
extent.
One of the other things thatpeople do that sometimes can

Philippa (47:27):
off-putting is that

Allison (47:29):
that there's a form that you fill in

Philippa (47:31):
maybe as a, an

Allison (47:32):
initial kind of contact form.

Philippa (47:34):
And

Allison (47:35):
it's typically important to make that pretty
short because the more you ask,the less likely people are to
fill it in.
And I've seen forms that ask youall sorts of stuff that, if they
contact you, you could ask themthat at that point.
But again,

Philippa (47:47):
with

Allison (47:48):
analytics that you customize,

Philippa (47:50):
you

Allison (47:50):
you can tell

Philippa (47:51):
many

Allison (47:51):
many people start filling in a form and then don't
complete it.

Philippa (47:55):
And

Allison (47:55):
And again, if you look at that kind of data, you can

Philippa (47:58):
easily

Allison (47:59):
tell if your forms

Philippa (48:00):
potentially too

Allison (48:01):
too long or annoying.
Yeah, I started a form yesterdayand I backed out of it'cause I
was like, I don't want to answerall these questions.
And it might have been fourquestions, but I'm like, why do
I have to do this in order tocome to your masterclass?

Philippa (48:17):
right.

Allison (48:17):
just, I don't wanna No, thank you.
Forget it.
It's

Philippa (48:20):
owner,

Allison (48:20):
older, the.

Philippa (48:21):
are you gonna

Allison (48:21):
Get I know that sometimes I

Philippa (48:23):
go to

Allison (48:23):
go to a business webinar and it asks me, for
example, you know,

Philippa (48:26):
what's the,

Allison (48:27):
the, what's your annual,

Philippa (48:28):
annual business

Allison (48:29):
webinar?

Philippa (48:30):
And it's

Allison (48:30):
I,

Philippa (48:30):
not

Allison (48:30):
it's not of their business.
I don't see why I should tellthem that.
And I

Philippa (48:33):
I'll

Allison (48:33):
lie, I'll say, oh, it's over 50 million.

Philippa (48:35):
which it isn't, unfortunately.

Allison (48:37):
And so what's the point of that?
They've got useless data.
Yeah.
I recently was asked to be on apodcast and sent the intake
form.
So they had my bio and stuff.
And then it asked me all kindsof financial information what in
the world?
How, and then I thought, I don'twanna be on that podcast.
I don't care how big theaudience is.

(48:57):
That is ridiculous that theywould use that as a, like a
trolling tool.
I guess some of these I know,

Philippa (49:05):
as obviously you can tell, I also guest on podcasts,
and I know some of

Allison (49:08):
and some of them say.

Philippa (49:09):
you

Allison (49:09):
You must be making over X amount of money to be a guest
on this podcast because I thinkobviously it's a measure of
success in some ways.

Philippa (49:17):
I'm

Allison (49:17):
I'm not too keen on those either.
Yeah, I reached out to you'causeI was like, she knows her stuff.
And that's what we're here to dois to help people who wanna
write books and are writingbooks, market themselves better,
make better decisions fasterwith more confidence so that
it's exciting and fun.
This isn't supposed to beoverwhelming and crushing and in

(49:40):
no way should you feel likeyou're spinning your wheels
clear direction.
So what we've heard today isyour website content should be
planned so that you know whoyou're welcoming and what
they're looking for.
And that google Analytics canhelp you understand what people

(50:04):
are doing once they come to yoursite and what they really wanna
do, so that you can makedecisions faster.
And that's the best thing.
Now, let's pivot'cause I do havetwo other questions for you.
What is a book that you areloving right now

Philippa (50:21):
Our loving

Allison (50:22):
You mentioned one earlier, so you mentioned nexus,
is that right?

Philippa (50:28):
Oh,

Allison (50:29):
Oh.

Philippa (50:29):
yes, that

Allison (50:30):
that was in the survey that you sent?
Yeah.
Nexus

Philippa (50:33):
there's this guy

Allison (50:33):
there's this guy called Val Noah,

Philippa (50:35):
who's an

Allison (50:35):
who's an Israeli.

Philippa (50:36):
he's like an economist

Allison (50:38):
aist historian.

Philippa (50:39):
He's

Allison (50:39):
He's amazing.

Philippa (50:40):
first book

Allison (50:41):
His first book was called

Philippa (50:42):
which is

Allison (50:42):
which is like a history of,

Philippa (50:45):
in

Allison (50:45):
in terms of

Philippa (50:46):
thinking and our

Allison (50:46):
and development, the way societies work and

Philippa (50:50):
is

Allison (50:50):
Nexus is about information and how information
works.
And, for somebody like me,

Philippa (50:54):
it's

Allison (50:55):
it's very fascinating.
Yeah.
We will put that in the shownotes.
Now, philip last question,before we call this podcast
complete, what is the one thingyou wanna leave people with
today?

Philippa (51:10):
Honestly, If you have a website that plays

Allison (51:12):
any kind of role in your business and you are not

Philippa (51:15):
looking at at the analytics to see what's going
on, you you're shooting in thedark with your investment in
that light.
So please you you don't have toget grip of the data yourself.
Find somebody like me can canhelp help you.
But please take a look a look atwhat's going on and make that
website really Worth its greatgoal.

Allison (51:34):
Perfect advice.
Thank you so much for being hereand for agreeing to help authors
get a better edge.

Philippa (51:42):
Thank you.

Allison (51:43):
For sure.

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Google Analytics: How to Know What’s Working with Philippa Gamse | Ep. 52

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Google Analytics: How to Know What’s Working with Philippa Gamse | Ep. 52