June 25, 2025 • 68 mins
Most business owners start with the wrong question: What platform should I use? In this episode, we flip that thinking on its head. Ken breaks down why the real question should be: What am I trying to achieve—and who am I trying to reach?
From DIY builders like Wix and Squarespace to niche industry platforms and open-source tools like WordPress, we explore the strengths and traps of each. But more importantly, we expose how superficial choices—like picking a web company based on a friend’s referral or a good-looking portfolio—often lead to sites that look polished but fall flat in performance.
Learn how to qualify a real web professional, why goal-driven design matters more than flashy templates, and how the right strategy can transform your website from a digital brochure into a business tool that builds trust, drives action, and grows with you.
Because the truth is simple: pretty doesn’t convert—strategy does.
Over The Bull is brought to you by IntegrisDesign.com. All rights reserved.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut
through marketing noise.
Here's your host, Ken
SPEAKER_01 (00:08):
Carroll.
In the age of artificialintelligence and endless website
builders, having a website iseasy, but building one that
actually works, well, that takesexpertise.
In today's episode, I want toget back to some of the basics,
and one of those relates tobusiness website design, and
(00:31):
sometimes we call it businesswebsite development.
Those terms are often usedinterchangeably, although they
could have different meaningsdepending upon where you're
coming from.
So what I want to do is breakdown things like do-it-yourself
website builders like Wix orSquarespace.
Those niche builders, you know,if you're in real estate or
(00:54):
vacation rentals or things likethat, then oftentimes there are
programs that offer a turnkeysolution from managing bookings
all the way across, includingwebsites, and open source
platforms like WordPress,Joomla, and Drupal.
And let's more importantlyunderstand what exactly matters
(01:18):
when building a website.
So just like anything else inlife, Knowing what you're trying
to accomplish before you do itis really important.
You know, if you're buying abunch of wood and a bunch of
material and, you know, youdon't know if you're building a
house or a deck, you know,things can get adventurous
(01:39):
really quick.
But one thing's for sure, you'renot going to meet an objective
unless you know the objectiveyou're trying to meet.
So why should you have a websiteas a business?
Well, the answer definitely isnot because I need one because I
have a business and I needsomething to look reputable.
(02:02):
Now, that statement in itself istrue.
You really do need a websitejust as much as you need a
business email address and notusing things like Gmail
addresses and things like that.
But there's much more to it.
You see, if you start with thatpremise and that's what you...
ask your, uh, that's what you'researching to do.
(02:24):
The problem is, is you're,you're like, it's basically like
a blood in the water to a shark,especially if you're working
with freelancers or designersbecause they see an opportunity
to whip something together.
That's not going to work foryou, but it's going to be a high
profit margin, easy turn projectfor them.
Now, remember your goal is togrow your business, right?
(02:50):
And the only way you can growyour business and use the
website as a tool, which that'swhat it is.
It's a strategic tool.
Even though it's like foundationfor a house, it's still a tool.
So you need to understand whatyour goals are for that website.
Are you trying to get moreleads?
(03:13):
Are you trying to sell somethingdirectly on the website?
Do you want someone to sign upfor something on the website?
And what do you want to do forpeople who are kicking the
tires, so to speak, and justshopping versus those who are
serious?
Because those actions that wouldbe taken by people who are in
(03:36):
different places in that cycleare would want different levels
of engagement.
So if they're kicking the tiresand you're asking them to buy
something, you're approachingthat audience in the wrong way.
So having different levels ofcommitment and understanding
what your goals are and puttingthose on paper is critical.
(03:56):
Now, conversely, if this hasn'tbeen done with your current site
and your current site startedwith picking a template or
choosing a design or startingwith designs, That's a sign that
your website's not built withgoals in mind.
Now, the second thing is tounderstand your demographic.
(04:18):
Now, we hear that word a lot andwe go, yeah, yeah, what is
demographic?
You know, yeah, it sounds great,but how does that really impact
anything?
It actually impacts things quitea bit because different
demographics, the colorpsychology is different.
where you put things on a givenwebpage is different, the fonts
(04:39):
that you would choose aredifferent, the imagery you
choose would be different, andeven layout aspects would be
different.
And if you're a designer or youare just picking templates and
not considering the demographicand how to make those
adjustments, well, again, You'rebuilding something, but you're
(05:02):
not really building it for thepeople that you're trying to
promote your business to.
So as you can see, that's also apretty clear mistake.
The next is trust andcredibility.
Now, trust and credibility isabsolutely important.
Now, in this whole AI saturatedworld we're living in, I mean, I
(05:24):
jumped over to YouTube the otherday And it took me about two
minutes and I was sick of it.
Now everybody's building allthis artificial
intelligence-based content wherethey're having celebrities and
they're superimposing words thatthey don't say or they're
superimposing fights that reallydidn't happen.
(05:44):
And it's just silly.
It's just this really silly gamenow of content that you can't
trust, right?
Because you don't know if thatperson really said it or not.
And it's not worth my time to gofind out if they did say it or
not.
And so I'm like, well, thatbasically is a complete resource
of information that may or maynot be true and could make me
(06:08):
look incredibly stupid if I wereto quote something that I got
off YouTube, knowing that it'sAI driven and it was never
really said to begin with.
So in the world of the web,that's the same thing.
When you have a website, youneed to instill trust and
credibility.
What this means is you needorganic, real content.
(06:32):
Just throwing up a bunch of chatGPT articles and content and
everything is not going to getthe job done.
And the most important thing isyou need to convert action or
attention into action.
You know, you want thosebookings, those purchases, those
inquiries, those things.
(06:53):
And those things are usually notinstant.
I mean, when we run Google adsfor people, it's often a cycle
of setting things up, testingit, manipulating it, and then
you have to wait.
This is the most hard part ofsome of this stuff.
You got to wait a little bit andlet things kind of run their
course and then test and thenadjust.
(07:14):
If you look at Google's 2024recommendations, I don't know if
it's prior to, I can't rememberoff the top of my head, but they
had what was called the ABCDs ofmarketing, attention, branding,
connection, and direction.
You know, you get theirattention, you show your
branding, you connect with themin some meaningful way that
(07:35):
means something to them, not toyou.
And then you give them adirection, you know, visit this,
do that, those kinds of things.
And so you see those things arestill tried and true today.
Now, if we break down thewebsite options, we have to ask,
are they meeting thoseobjectives?
(07:55):
And if not, what objectives dothey meet?
Pretty simple.
So let's look at do-it-yourselfwebsite builders.
This is your Wix, yourSquarespace.
It's these kind of situations.
All right, so let's face it.
There's a low barrier to entry.
They have these prettytemplates, and their message is
(08:16):
along the lines of easy to use.
I remember seeing a commercialnot too long ago, and in that
commercial, it showed acelebrity, I can't remember who
it was, but she didn't comeacross as the smartest person on
the planet.
And she was talking about howeasy it was to use one of these
(08:38):
website builder programs.
She said she just picked atemplate, put in her stuff,
saved it, published it, and itmade it look like, wow, this is
just magic.
Now, of course, the devil's inthe details.
What was she trying to achievewith it?
Did she do it?
Did she really build thatwebsite?
(08:58):
Or is it just like the peoplewho sponsor other things and
they don't really use it?
Now, they legitimately may havea website out there, but they
also may legitimately may nevertouch it.
It may be part of their wholemarketing program for them to
put that thing on autopilot andput a lot of work and effort and
(09:20):
energy to address all theseconcerns or reasons you have a
website above.
So you see, there's a lot ofthat kind of game going on.
Now, they also market it withthe psychological hooks.
You know, those things like,you're smart, you can do this.
You're definitely smarter thanthat person on that commercial.
(09:42):
Save money.
You know, you can save money bydoing it yourself.
Why in the world do you want topay a professional when you can
just pick a template, drop inyour content, and do what you
want to do?
And you can control every detailyourself.
You're buying it.
You're paying for it.
You can control what gets added,what not gets added.
(10:04):
So it plays to that ego that–You think, you know, hey, maybe
they don't have it undercontrol.
And if the design looks reallygood and I put my own stuff in
it and I understand everythinggoing on, then I can build this
and do this.
And here's the other thing.
There are risks with this.
(10:24):
Like, for example, one risk.
It's all marketing.
Once you get into marketing, youunderstand everything.
a lot more about how the game'sbeing played.
Like, it's really brilliant whenthey give things like a 30-day
free trial because it's kind oflike what they're doing is
trying to get you tangled up inthe spider web of their system
(10:47):
because their system isproprietary.
That means once you learn theirsystem, that's all you know.
You don't know anything else andyou can't get away unless you
relearn something else.
But then you spend all that timeputting in all your stuff and
And when that time runs out, youhave a tough decision.
Even if you hate it, you put somuch into it, you don't want to
mess with anything else.
(11:08):
And so that's just one of therisks here.
But let's talk about theseniche-based website platforms.
Now, if you're in vacationrentals or plumbing or real
estate or some of these othersystems, there are these
companies out there that offer100% turnkey solutions.
(11:30):
Now, these solutions, theyinclude everything from, like,
for example, if you takeproperty management, it could
include everything from makingsure you don't overbook.
It could include things likehousekeeping, setting up a
schedule for them, checking in,managing the details, special
(11:51):
offers.
Basically, it's a completemanagement and web design
platform.
So, you guessed it, they'rebuilt for specific industries.
And they have these modules,again, like calendars, listing
sync, etc.
But here's the catch.
They, too, are closed ecosystemsdesigned to lock you in.
(12:13):
So if you think about thedo-it-yourself builder, they
have a system where you learnhow to manipulate a website
using their system.
This does the exact same thing.
It has their system.
Now, the Wix and Squarespacesolution typically doesn't
(12:36):
control every aspect of yourbusiness.
However, these systems usuallydo.
So you can imagine the ripplesof trying to unplug from one of
these website platforms if theydon't allow you to use it in
conjunction with something else.
So let me describe that a littlebit.
(12:56):
Some of these systems are kindof unique in that they would
allow you to use every singlething they have, and some force
you to use every single thingthey have.
So in the case of web design,there are some of these closed
systems where you can simplyplug in widgets, basically just
(13:17):
little pieces of code, onto,say, another website platform,
and it works without having touse their entire system.
That gives you a little bit morefreedom.
However, if you're using upeverything they've got and
someone will lock you into that,someone will absolutely say, no,
we don't allow you to connectthat in a meaningful way to your
(13:41):
another website platform, mainlymeaning another website
solution.
And they do that intentionallybecause they're trying to lock
you in.
They're trying to control everypart of your business because
once you're fully integrated,you're not going anywhere
without a lot of pain, a lot ofretraining, a lot of showing
people things, a lot of stuffthat goes on.
(14:02):
So even if their developmentplatform is lackluster, you're
kind of stuck once you do thatand you make that decision.
And remember, the website'smeant to serve goals.
Now, although...
There are utility-based goalsthat happen with a turnkey
service like that that's unique.
If they don't allow you to fullymanage your marketing and the
(14:29):
way you do things, then you'regoing to have a lackluster
result from that website, eventhough it may be pretty and may
be performing well.
The question is, are you gettingeverything that you should get
out of it?
That was a mouthful.
So a lot of these systems, theywon't integrate with things like
(14:49):
WordPress, and this is onpurpose.
It's a model.
It's a business model.
We don't want to judge peoplebecause this is what they're
doing to try to generate moneyand more or less have you stick
with them regardless by makingit so painful for you to go
anywhere else.
So when you start gettingtangled in the spider web, you
could imagine that if you uselike a Wix or a Squarespace or
(15:14):
one of these niche-based webturnkey platforms, when you
first go in, you could imaginethe pain of leaving that system
is easy.
You don't have anything put intoit.
You don't have it integrated.
You've not trained people onwhat you're doing with it.
So you could leave fairly easy.
But within a very short timespan...
It's going to be tough and realtough.
(15:37):
And if you're trying to run abusiness, the last thing you
want to do is relearn something.
Because let's face it,relearning, that puts you back
at square one.
You see, there are games beingplayed on this stuff.
Now, I'm not saying the toolsare not good.
I'm not suggesting some of thesetools aren't where you need to
be.
But if you put all your eggs inthat one basket...
(15:58):
And they don't do a good job of,say, optimizing for search
engine optimization.
Or worse, here's a biggerproblem.
When we develop websites, weneed to be able to manipulate
real quick where things go.
As I mentioned earlier, if yourun Google Ads online, It's very
(16:20):
common to have to change up thelanding page a lot, meaning
where buttons go, what's in thetop part of the website, also
known as the header of thewebsite, the body, which is the
main part of the website, andthen also the footer, the bottom
part of the website, althoughthat's typically not as
important as the first twoplaces.
And being able to have extremeability to manipulate it
(16:43):
technically and creatively ishuge.
I mean, I can't imagine eventrying to run a successful ad
campaign with some kind oftemplate because every business
is different.
I'm running ads for similarbusinesses across the United
States, and they offer the exactsame service.
(17:05):
But the layouts and what you doand how you approach it has been
significantly different.
I mean, all the way from whatwe're doing in Google Ads all
the way to the end.
It's kind of like where you cankind of start with a little bit
of knowledge in that industry,but you still have to make these
adjustments.
And not being able to do thatquick is critical.
(17:27):
I mean, it's critically bad,actually, not being able to make
those moves because If you canmove a button, let's just say we
can move a button in the toppart of the website, that header
part of the website, and we canchange certain things and it
takes us five minutes to do thatversus going and picking out a
whole new template or reachingout to a do-it-yourself platform
(17:53):
and asking them to make thatadjustment or having to hire a
someone to do it and then goback, then all of a sudden those
do-it-yourselfers aren't sodo-it-yourself.
And then the tough part is a lotof times these businesses, most
businesses I work with have noclue that they're missing out to
begin with.
They just think the web doesn'twork as good for them.
(18:15):
Patience is a lacking part ofthat equation also.
So here's the other thing.
Let's talk about these companiestypically are not run by web
design and marketing experts.
You know, the web design part,making pretty sites is kind of
(18:37):
easy, but making them work bycombining real experience is
really challenging.
And so, for example, they couldsay they offer SEO-optimized
tools, which would give you theability to put in things like in
(18:57):
the nerd language.
And I'm not going to derail thetrain such as, you know, title
tags or H1 tags or metadescriptions or things like
that.
But when they're offering theseSEO optimized in quote features,
these really are nothing morethan kind of like the very,
very, very top tip of an icebergof criteria that's needed to do
(19:19):
well.
And having to be able to deepdive into a web platform beyond
the topical is important.
And people who are professionalsunderstand this.
And that's why oftentimes theydon't use these systems or they
steer people clear of it.
(19:41):
Now, of course, we also have tolook at the motivations of the
people that are theprofessionals.
You know, are they truly lookingout for your best interest or
are they trying to stack thecards in their favor?
And this is a whole other aspectof this.
But let's keep going with theplatform.
Then I'll talk about thedeveloper, designer and all that
(20:03):
stuff as we move on.
So the next one is open source.
So your open source stuff islike WordPress.org, Joomla,
Drupal, and there's severalother flavors out there.
And I'm sure you've probablyheard of WordPress.
Now, there's actually twoversions of WordPress.
If you go to WordPress.com, youget a self-hosted version, which
(20:25):
kind of puts you back into thedo-it-yourself model.
Or you could jump over toWordPress.org and you have
access to the entire code.
So think of open source as justbeing able to download and have
the full suite of code.
Now, this is important.
(20:46):
This is critically importantbecause when you download and
you get access to all the sourcecode, you can do virtually
anything you want to with thator have someone who does it.
So for the owner of a business,that can be overwhelming because
it is a profession, just like Iwouldn't go and try to sell
plumbing services or electricalservices.
(21:08):
You need a professional to beable to manage something like
WordPress.
Now, When you look at different–by the way, these are also
called content managementsystems.
So if you break it down–Content, photos, text, pictures,
stuff like that.
Management means you manage themon a website.
(21:29):
And system is just the system inwhich you use.
These are all content managementsystems.
The niche, thedo-it-yourselfers, and the open
source.
So when you ask what contentmanagement system do you use,
then they would usually have togive you one of those answers.
And if they don't know how toanswer that question, then
that's a huge flag.
That person probably is not themost well-equipped to help you
(21:52):
out.
So the benefit of open source isthat they're flexible and
customizable and scalable.
They're also well supported.
The reason our organization madethe commitment, gosh, about, I
don't know, I was early on inthe game.
We've been around for decades.
(22:12):
about 20 years now as anorganization.
And early on in the game, wemade the decision to focus on
WordPress versus Joomla forvarious reasons.
But one of them is WordPress isstill the most popular content
management system on the planet.
Now, here's the downside ofsomething like WordPress.
(22:38):
An amateur can use it.
and present themselves as aprofessional, you could use it
or a professional can use it.
And as a business owner, youprobably don't have any clue
which one is going to do thebetter job.
And either you'll do what mostpeople do, which is fall back on
(22:59):
the price of an agency or afreelancer because you figure
the more you pay, the more theyknow, which is a huge mistake.
Um, or what you'll do is, um,uh, go based on the cheapest.
So, so prices is usually one ofthose things that you'll do, or
just whoever talks the bestgame.
This guy seems to know what he'stalking about or, Oh, he works
(23:21):
with plumbers and I'm a plumber.
So therefore he has to knowplumbing.
Not true.
Not true guys.
Um, so here's the thing.
Um, When you work with thesecompanies, oftentimes these
small agencies, even largeagencies, I saw one from a large
agency recently, they slappedtogether these junk themes and
(23:44):
outdated plugins or freeplugins.
So plugins, let me punt therefor a second, tell you what a
plugin is.
A plugin is basically a feature.
Like if you wanted to have agallery on your website, there
are premium plugins that youhave to pay to play and And then
you have the free ones, whichyou can download and just use.
(24:07):
So if you can imagine, each oneof these features in the world
of open source are managed bydifferent people, groups,
organizations.
And one organization could setup a plugin and never support
it.
Another one could support it.
And one could have poordevelopment techniques that
conflict with other features,causing things to break.
(24:31):
And so having guardrails andhaving a system that is
consistent is incrediblyimportant.
And it's also important to useonly what you need to use
because the more you put intosomething, the slower it loads
typically.
And if it's poorly written,it'll load really, really slow.
(24:51):
And so the point is that,remember, your freelancers and
your agencies are in businesstoo.
They want to turn and burn theseprojects.
And oftentimes, if they don'thave a system, it's really easy
for them to go and download a, Idon't know, a$35 theme and then
sell it to you for$1,000 asbeing custom.
(25:16):
And so you want to be carefulabout that because these open
source systems are really goodunder the right situations, but
it's like the Wild West, right?
Now, the other thing is, ismaintenance.
Okay.
So if you think about it, theweb is growing.
Think about how often the webchanges or features changes or
your iPhone changes or whatever.
(25:37):
The web changes with intensefrequency, which means that the
bad guys are looking forweaknesses.
The good guys are updating theirplugins.
And you have to constantlymanage and update your website
in the world of open source.
(25:57):
If you don't, your website issusceptible to be hacked.
That's just one thing that couldhappen.
The other thing is, is if theserver code, I know this gets a
little complicated, but if itconflicts with the outdated
features or plugins, it can alsobreak things.
And so having a plan for thismaintenance and growth are both
(26:18):
important.
And what you'll often see is acompany would charge, say, a
certain dollar figure.
You know, I've seen it as lowas, you know, probably, I don't
know, today, I don't think I'veseen it lower than probably 60
bucks, but it goes as high aslike hundreds.
but you never really see that itincludes how they're managing
(26:39):
it, how often they're managingit.
What is the plan formaintenance?
They're just charging you a lotof money for hosting.
Now, the thing is, is that eventhe hosting is a game in the
industry.
So let's slow down here withopen source.
If you look at any of theseplatforms, any website, they
(27:00):
usually have a couple of majorcomponents.
One is the domain name.
That's your web address.
That's just simply your address.
And you register that addresswith places like GoDaddy, and
you own the rights to thataddress so long as you keep
paying for that address.
(27:20):
Then you have what's known ashosting.
So think of hosting as like acomputer on the internet that
houses all the files that makeup your website.
Because a website is just abunch of files that are
organized in a way that'smeaningful.
And then you have your contentmanagement system layer on top
(27:41):
of it.
So what you could run into isyou could run into things where
you're using a really goodsystem.
but you have it on poor hosting.
Now, the reason you don't seehosting on the niche-based
platforms and the Wix andSquarespace is because they kind
of offer that to you as aturnkey solution.
(28:03):
They're offering you easy andsimple.
They're not offering younecessarily, in my opinion,
effective.
And so here's kind of the thing.
Not only do they do the junkthemes and junk hosting and Some
of them even outright steal yourdomain and hold it hostage if
you don't do certain things orthey'll charge you long-term
maintenance fees for your domainname.
(28:24):
So there's all that.
Domain name is a web address.
And so bad WordPress in the end,just like bad Joomla in the end
or bad Drupal in the end, isworse than do-it-yourselfers
like Wix or Squarespace.
Reason being is at least the–the Squarespace and the Wix
(28:48):
program is keeping all the stuffin the background updated and
configured, and the people thatare doing WordPress bad are not
considering any of theobjectives that you're doing in
web design.
And so you can see the problemhere.
It's just so complicated thatfor a regular business to
(29:10):
navigate the seas is tough.
Okay, so now let's move intothe, let's talk about the
designer or the developer.
And please forgive me, I've gota little bit of a cold right
now.
So if you pick up on any littlepauses in the video, it's
because I'm taking a break anddrinking a little something.
(29:33):
So let's talk about thedesigners here.
Okay, the truth is there arecourses out on the internet that
that teach people how to buildwebsites in a weekend or a week
or a seminar style situation.
The problem is, is that it takesa lot more than just the
(29:55):
technical parts we discussed.
It requires understanding goalsand how to achieve those goals
and knowing that you're takingeverything to make it meet those
goals.
just understanding how toinstall WordPress on a hosting
platform and publishing it isnot going to get the job done.
(30:18):
And the problem is that a lot oftimes they can mask the amateur
nature at which they work andthey can make you think that
they know a lot more than theydo.
So you can imagine that this ispretty problematic and plus they
get these ideas in their headsthat they can charge a lot more
(30:41):
money for it, even thoughthey're not equipped to even do
it.
And so you'll have amateurs likeright out of the box charging
you more than some professionalscharge you.
Now, the other thing to rememberis that even the seasoned
company and the amateur, they'rein business too.
(31:02):
So look at it like this.
Okay.
Our system, we do a lot ofdevelopment.
We have a lot of stuff that weput into our system.
We pay for premium hosting andall the features and everything
that we build into it aretrained internally where we
(31:24):
understand it and we can fullysupport it.
We have an infrastructure wherewe update what we do on a
regular basis.
We also manage marketing.
We also adjust things and wemake recommendations.
And so this platform that wework from, even though it's
(31:46):
based in open source, what we dois we put a lot of effort and
energy to only put the bestingredients into the soup.
So another agency, could dosomething where they're using
really cheap hosting, you know,that computer that holds all
your files on the web, so tospeak.
(32:08):
And they could also beinstalling WordPress, installing
a free theme, which is atemplate, or a cheap paid theme,
and they can put in a bunch offree plugins, and their overhead
for their business issignificantly lower than the
(32:28):
overhead for our business.
But when you look at the twosites, you have zero clue that
one of them is a lot morestable, is going to be a lot
more efficient, a lot morestructured, a lot more managed,
and the other one would not be.
And so keep in mind that they'rein business too.
They're in business to makemoney, just like you're in
business to make money.
(32:49):
But shortcutting it is one ofthe ways in which they can
dramatically decrease theiroverhead and dramatically
increase their profits.
You know, I still go back tomeeting, gosh, this guy Denny's
years and years and years ago.
And he was introduced by afriend.
And I remember he would talkabout, this was before the days
(33:12):
of AI, but he would talk aboutbasically using a template,
doing exactly that cheapprocess.
And I remember asking him, Isaid, you know that you're part
of the problem, right?
Because you're not reallyhelping the businesses succeed.
And his answer to me was, well,yeah, but where else can you
(33:33):
make thousands of dollars thiseasy?
And now with the advent ofartificial intelligence, you can
imagine that now guys like thatdon't even have to hire a person
to write content that's organic.
Now they can use ChatGPT, tellit to crank out content, slap it
(33:55):
on a page, and make you thinkthat they did a lot more work
than they did, or make you thinkthat they did something more
technical than they did.
By the way, I met an SEO firmhere in Asheville recently, the
owner of it, and that wasactually part of his process,
was to use straight artificialintelligence-based content for
(34:16):
websites that he does nothingbut organic search engine
optimization on.
It's a little embarrassing, butit's true.
That's exactly what's going onreally behind the scenes.
You walk into the sausagefactory.
This is what I see all the timewhen I investigate websites Big
agencies, small agencies, andfreelancers.
(34:37):
It's really nice being able tobe paid to investigate this
because you can kind of see it.
So what does a true professionaldo here?
A true professional, first ofall, they have usually a lot of
experience and a lot ofcredibility.
For example, you never want topay somebody to run Google Ads
(34:59):
if they don't have a partnershipwith Google Ads.
A history of it, or at the veryleast, having certifications
with Google Ads to prove thatthey know what they're talking
about.
They're also goal-driven.
They're not just buildingwebsites.
When you think of a websitewithout goals, think of a boat
(35:20):
without a sail, and think of itbeing placed in the middle of
the ocean.
Now, how valuable is a boat inthe middle of the ocean with no
sail, no motor, no nothing, justsitting out there floating
aimlessly, but you own the boat?
That boat is useless to you.
And so a true professionalunderstands this and knows that
(35:42):
they're not just trying to buildyou a website.
They're trying to build youessentially a machine, a
mechanism that's going togenerate something valuable to
your business.
This is significantly different.
And professionals only choosehigh-quality plugins and
modules.
Now, there is a fourth optionhere.
(36:05):
Some web developers, they usemore advanced techniques.
Like, for example, we havesomething called headless web
development.
You can also code a website fromthe ground up.
Now, the question is, it's like,okay, what's perfect, what's
(36:25):
good, what's best, you know,kind of thing.
And you could say, well, by handcoding a website, I'm saving
this or I'm increasing that.
But if you think about it, thinkof the overhead you're adding to
that website by doing thosethings.
And at some point, there's adiminishing point of return.
(36:46):
Now, I've hand coded a lot ofwebsites and I can tell you,
yeah, you can get a lot ofefficiencies by doing that.
But the question is, is howmalleable is that for the user?
How good is it for the user?
And what is the recouping timefor the return on investment?
And if you get tired of someonethat hand codes everything for
(37:08):
your site and you want to findsomeone else to take that over,
you could imagine that it wouldbe like the first thing is
you're giving someone a novel,the new person a novel and
saying, okay, I finally foundsomeone who could maybe take it
over, but now they've actuallygot to go in and look at
everything that was created andkind of relearn some of the
(37:30):
stuff.
And coders, just like thesedifferent people that build like
things in WordPress, they have asimilar problem in that what
they do is they code ondifferent levels.
Some are really good, some arereally bad, and some are in
between.
And so most small to mid-sizedbusinesses do not need to go
(37:54):
that route.
They just don't.
And so that's why I'm not reallyfocused too heavily on the
people that hand code.
It's kind of like the OCD, spenda lot of money on it, make it
so, you know, it would just betougher to you free to
manipulate as the owner of abusiness.
While if you use something likeWordPress, for example, it's
(38:18):
Then what you run into is theability to find probably the
largest community of developerson the planet.
And if you wanted to get rid orterminate your current designer
for another one, then you canmove over to another developer.
you can find someone else a lotmore easily that could help you
(38:40):
manage your website.
So those are business questions.
Those are not scratching thenerd itch, which is what a lot
of these developers who write byhand and build these websites
from the ground up, that's kindof what they're doing.
And their pitch is usuallysomething like they'll
hyper-focus in on speed.
(39:00):
They'll hyper-focus in on thingsthat are important, legitimately
very, very important.
But the idea is, does it reallymake sense to go down that far
down the road for your business?
And so there's always thesenuanced questions that kind of
get added into it.
(39:21):
Now, the reality is, isWordPress is going to be more
than enough for most of youlistening out here.
There will be a point where thatcan be outgrown too.
Now, there's another aspect tothe professional that really
needs to be addressed here.
And that is, what if you find aprofessional that builds in say
(39:41):
Wix or Squarespace or some ofthese other systems?
I have a real problem with that.
And the reason I do personallyis because what I see is I have
a full palette of colors when Iuse open source.
And I can take that colorpalette and I can paint any
(40:05):
picture that I want to paintwith it.
Not only that, but I can go backin at any time and virtually
change any aspect at any pointand have full control over all
those colors.
Now, if someone's claiming to bea professional and they're using
something like Wix orSquarespace, It's kind of like
they're going, I'm aprofessional, but I'm only going
(40:28):
to use 12 colors when I can havethis whole suite of colors.
So what that typically tells meis that designer or developer is
not equipped enough or doesn'thave the understanding that
they're missing out on a ton offlexibility, which says they're
probably not the person for youto use.
Or we're back to the point wherethey're trying to turn and burn
(40:51):
projects and make more money.
And so by building it on one ofthese pre-canned platforms, they
may be able to charge you alittle bit less, but they're
also making higher marginsbecause they don't have to worry
about all the stuff that goesinto a professionally built
website.
So if I was in business and Iwas hiring a professional, and
(41:16):
they said they built on ado-it-yourself website platform,
I would not hire the person.
I'll be honest with you.
I'd be like, well, what are youdoing?
It just doesn't make any sense.
So as we move across thebandwidth, the big question
becomes, well, what do we useand how do we use it?
(41:37):
And then how do we find out?
So let's talk about WordPressfor a little bit.
And I'm going to make theargument for WordPress.
Now, yes, WordPress can be usedby amateurs.
WordPress can be used byprofessionals.
Amateurs will create a websitethat's not stable.
(41:58):
It won't function very well.
It won't convert very well.
A professional can makeWordPress dance and make it so
scalable and easy to use andalso easy to make adjustments to
make ads work better.
You see, I want to hit on thisone more time because I really
don't think some business ownersunderstand this, but sometimes
(42:20):
just changing where a button isor a graphic or a phone number
and moving the position aroundcan make big differences in how
something converts.
And so what that means,obviously, is one, you've got to
have the ability to do thatquickly and effectively because
you don't want to take a week tomove a button.
(42:41):
But at the same time, you wantto be able to be patient because
you've got to move it and thentest it and move it and then
test it.
So you can imagine there's a lotof mental gymnastics in that.
So there's a patience factor aswell.
And so WordPress, when harnessedby a true professional, this
means that You own the code.
(43:04):
You control it.
And it can grow with you.
You see, do-it-yourselfers, theyfeel good.
And I know they feel good.
But they bottleneck at somepoint.
They always bottleneck or theybecome more problems than
they're worth.
And then you end up having tojump ship anyway.
And if you wait too long to moveto something like WordPress or
(43:25):
WordPress, in my opinion, Ithink it's the only one really
out there.
worth talking about at thispoint in the world.
And I think it's been the casefor some time.
Just if you Google even thenumber of websites that use it,
it's staggering when you see howmany people use it and how well
it's supported across theplanet.
But the idea is that you do ownthat and you do control all the
(43:47):
source codes.
So think about this.
You learn WordPress once and youhave a professional that shows
you how to manipulate it.
You don't have to learn anythingelse.
If you leave Squarespace for Wixor Wix for a niche or whatever,
then you're going to have torelearn a system all over again.
You see, that's painful.
And then plus you don't get tolook under the hood.
(44:08):
You don't get full flexibility.
Now, WordPress is extremely,extremely flexible.
It has all kinds of features.
Remember, features equalsplugins, SEO tools, and you can
customize it in incredible waysif it's done professionally.
If it's not done professionally,you can get into it and struggle
(44:31):
moving or doing anything.
And the common tactic that I seeis oftentimes what you'll see is
a I'll tell you something I do.
I'm not going to go into crazydetail, but I'll basically tell
you.
If you open a website up and youright-click on it and you go to
View Source in your browser,like Google Chrome or Safari or
(44:54):
Firefox or whatever you use, andif you do a Control-F on a PC or
Command-F on a Mac, you cansearch for the word theme if
it's a WordPress site.
And what's really interesting isit'll usually give you the name
of the theme that's being used.
(45:14):
And you can tell really quicklywhat theme they're using.
And then you could, you'll saythe name of the theme and then
you can Google the theme andyou'll be surprised more often
than not.
You pay thousands of dollars fora theme that costs about 50
bucks and they'll make theargument that they put all your
stuff in it.
No, it's not true.
It's just simply not true.
So, um, Anyway, just trying toempower you, I guess, and part
(45:39):
of the ability to empower you isto kind of walk you through
exactly what's going on.
Now, this also means, obviously,you'll never be stuck.
You're not stuck with oneprovider.
You're not stuck with a Wix guyor a Squarespace guy.
You can literally find WordPressdevelopers under virtually every
rock and in every locationacross the entire globe.
(46:02):
Now, of course, you need torequalify them because you have
good ones and bad ones, but yousee the flexibility that you
have with using something likeWordPress, which is open source,
not WordPress.com, butWordPress.org.
Now, here's the truth that noone's going to tell you.
(46:22):
WordPress is only as good as thestrategy and skill behind it.
Now, that's also true with theseother systems.
The problem is that you'rehobbled using the other systems
where you really can't even getover the goal to begin with.
It's just their action.
The reason you use them is forthe reasons we talked about.
(46:45):
You want something cheap, easy,and you kind of fell prey that
maybe you're smarter thaneverybody else because you're
using something and not spendingthe money other people do.
And so you think you found likethis little secret tool.
game and you're smarter thaneverybody else.
The reality is, is there's a lotof really, really good reasons
that successful businesses haveprofessionals managing their
(47:08):
platform.
It's because it's complicatedand it requires expertise.
So most businesses in the end,they fail because they choose
the wrong platform.
They fail because they choosethe wrong developer.
So how do people choose theirthe wrong people or agencies.
(47:30):
I've seen a coupleconsistencies.
One is they go based on what afriend uses.
Two, a pretty portfolio designwhere they show you a bunch of
websites.
They won't tell you that thoseare usually themes if they are
themes.
A cheap quote or a really priceyquote.
(47:50):
Keep in mind, there's two endsof the spectrum, because
remember, psychologically, youthink if you pay more, you're
getting more.
Not the case.
Maybe they've got a flashyhomepage with no real substance
on their website.
Maybe they don't have anycredibility or credentials.
I mean, we strive to becomepartners with as many
organizations as we can that aremeaningful to us.
(48:12):
Like, for example, I don't carryIT certifications.
IT certifications have nothingto do with marketing or web
certifications.
Don't hire your IT guy to buildyour website because he can fix
your computer.
No more than I sell myself tofix computers.
Those are way, way too differentdisciplines.
All right.
(48:34):
So anyway, I've rambled enoughabout that.
So here's the thing.
A pretty portfolio, a prettywebsite is meaningless unless it
converts.
It's meaningless.
If you're a real business owner,you want what works.
You don't really care how itlooks.
(48:54):
Now, it doesn't mean– but prettywebsites are important,
nice-looking websites.
Professional-built websites arereally important.
But if it's pretty and notworking well, then it's no good
to you.
If only your employees like itor they like it because it's
easy to manipulate, it's notreally getting the job done.
What you're doing is building apacification tool for people
(49:17):
that don't really matter interms of the business, which are
the people you're trying toserve.
A lot of these have very poorSEO structure.
I cannot go into all the detailswith SEO.
Just keep in mind, there are aton of factors that go into
search engine optimization andputting in a title for each page
and a meta description, eventhough it sounds really cool,
(49:39):
that's like, again, the very,very tip of the iceberg.
There's a lot of things underthe hood you have to do to make
that website effective.
Lack of consideration.
for your specific audience, as Imentioned, that's huge.
Performance fine-tuning is alsoone of those things that's
(50:00):
incredible.
So the question is, is how doyou hire?
You know, I've been strugglingwith this since day one because
the thing is, is that a lot ofthese companies who are not
equipped to do the job, they'relike chameleons and they can
quickly change their color andlook like they know what they're
talking about.
And if you hear the words, youmay go, this person's it.
(50:24):
I like this person, and they'resaying things that sound super
technical.
I mean, let's face it, that'skind of what goes on, right?
But here's the deal.
They're chameleons.
So you don't know the good fromthe bad.
You don't know based on price.
You don't know based onwhatever.
You can eliminate someone whoclaims to be a professional and
uses like a Wix or a Squarespaceif you see things the way that I
(50:46):
see them.
But the question is, is how doyou pick the right person to
help you?
Because here's the bottom line.
You can't do it on your own.
You're not a web developer,you're on a business.
And getting into the webdevelopment business and
competing against people whoknow what they're doing is doing
nothing but distracting you fromrunning your business.
And so any system that tells youyou don't need a professional is
(51:09):
absolutely selling you a bill ofgoods and selling you something
that you want to hear becauseyou don't want to spend the
money or go through that extraeffort.
You just want to have that thingknocked off your punch list.
And that is how most businessesfail on the internet, period.
So if you're talking to a personthat claims to be a
(51:31):
professional, You need to ask alot of questions.
This is kind of where I'm atright now.
So the first thing you could dois you could ask a question
like, how do you define thepurpose of a website before you
start building it?
You see, what you're doing isyou're asking them to qualify
their process of figuring outwhat your goals are and how they
(51:55):
meet those goals and what theydo to qualify what's needed to
meet those goals.
See, that's a lot different thando you build websites, can you
pick out a template, throw in abunch of text, send me some
pictures, and it's done.
A lot different.
Maybe another question is,what's your process for
understanding my goals andaudience?
(52:16):
Now, this is kind of a loadedquestion because, remember,
they're chameleons.
And if you're not careful, whatyou're doing is you're giving
them clues as to what you'relooking for.
But what you really want to findout is do they even think about
your goals before they do it?
And also think about, are theyeven looking at your audience to
begin with?
You know, those people you'retrying to sell to.
(52:37):
Maybe also ask, do you offerplanning or consultation
sessions before the designbegins?
In other words, are you going tohelp me set the foundation for
this?
Are you going to show me howyou're doing this?
You see, this is a lot differentbecause now we're not getting in
and out of a project withsomeone.
Now they're really having toshow you what they do and what
(52:59):
goes into it.
You can also ask them, how doyou handle content structure,
SEO, and user behavior?
Now, this is really important.
A lot of people think that youhire an SEO person after you get
your website, and that'ssomething that should be done.
Other people, they think, well,as long as you put in title
(53:22):
tags, which title tags is likethe title of each website, page
has to have its own title, owndescription, unique.
And some people think that's asfar as it goes.
And then you hire a professionalif you want a deep dive.
Now, as someone who's been inthe SEO world now for, gosh,
forever, and I'm not trying tobe elusive.
(53:42):
I mean, I can definitely pointit back to 2006 and prior too.
So I've seen kind of theevolution of SEO.
But the idea is that it's notjust that simple.
It's also...
the structure of your website,the name of your pages, where
things point to, how much youuse something, how little you
(54:05):
use other things.
And the thing is is that thereare some points where it's very
painful for an SEO guy to go inand modify a website
legitimately because things thatGoogle has already seen and has
given you credit for needs to bechanged in order for you to be
optimal from search engineoptimization.
(54:26):
So the idea is that your searchengine optimization structure
really needs to be addressedbefore the pages are built on
your website with anunderstanding of how they're
used in the search engineoptimization game.
So it would be great to set thatup prior to, otherwise you pay
(54:46):
your web person to set up onething and then your SEO guys
basically doing the equivalentof redoing all the work.
And you don't want to pay forsomeone to do that.
Then the next question is, well,what's your plan for update
support and scaling the siteover time?
So how far do you take it?
Are you going to build me atemplate, put in some copy and
(55:09):
some text, and then just chargeme$85 an hour when I want to
change a phone number?
Are you going to teach me how todo minor changes to the website,
but you do the heavy lifting,which is what most of our
customers want?
And we actually prefer that.
We don't want to be doing abunch of the minor changes
because it just costs thecustomer more money, and they
(55:31):
can easily do it, and they canget those little things done
quicker.
Some of these designers, whatthey do is they actually hold
the keys to the castle, even ifit is something like WordPress,
and they won't give you accessto it because they want to
charge you every time a changeneeds to be done.
You see how the game is beingplayed here.
The right partner, in the end,is never going to rush to pick a
(55:54):
template.
Picking a template, so you canimagine, now go back to your
Wix, your Squarespace, yourniche where they have these
pretty templates.
You can imagine now how crazy itis to start with a template.
You can just see that there is ahuge flag anytime that's what
they're trying to do is enamoryou with a template.
(56:16):
The big questions are, what areyou trying to achieve?
Who's this website for?
What are your goals?
Why are you even here?
Those are the questions that Itypically ask someone when they
first come in because I want tofind out what they're really
trying to do.
I'm not trying to sell awebsite.
I'm trying to help a businessgrow.
(56:37):
And to be honest with you, it'stough sometimes because you take
on a new client.
You take on a whole new seriesof instability, insecurity,
fighting budgets, problems.
trying to work with patients,trying to guide a business
legitimately through thesecycles rather than just do the
(56:59):
turn and burn.
It's like you're going through,you know, starting over.
You're dating from day one allover again, and you're having to
teach a whole new businessthings that your established
customers have learned over theyears because we really focus on
really teaching customersbusinesses what they need to
(57:21):
know because we want to makethem immune to those cold emails
that say, hey, I looked at yourwebsite and I saw Problem X.
These are all just scammy,spammy games people are doing to
try to get your business.
And honestly, at this point, ifyou've been listening to this
podcast, shame on you.
If you're looking at any ofthose cold emails and you're
(57:44):
responding to them or askingthem questions or letting them
send you reports, you're justasking for pain and stress in
your life.
If you don't trust yourprofessional, get another
professional.
But don't, don't, do theselittle games where you're
getting these emails and thenconfronting them with stuff that
they're using as a tactic justto try to take your business
(58:04):
away from your person.
If you don't like them, justhire you somebody else.
So let's do some practicalityhere at the end.
Most of you, bottom line, shouldbe using WordPress.
Why you should be usingWordPress is not just about the
design, the flexibility, all thegreat things you do, but it also
gives your business flexibilityas well.
(58:26):
You're not locked into onesystem, and you can take that
knowledge with you wherever yougo.
You see, that's importantbecause it works just not from a
marketing and designperspective, but also works good
from a logistical businessperspective to give you ultimate
flexibility as well.
It's the perfect combination formost of you.
(58:47):
Find you a professional.
Do not fall for the famous fiveminute install with it.
Make sure they're using highquality hosting.
In my opinion, Amazon, AWS orGoogle, they're kind of the gold
standard.
And anyone who's not using thosetools, I would question it.
Also, do a little bit ofresearch into a company called
(59:11):
EIG, that's Elephant IndigoGoat, and just a little bit of
research and you will besurprised at how few choices you
actually do have for hosting.
You may even be debating thingslike, is HostGator better than
Bluehost?
That may be something thatyou've heard.
Actually, they're owned by thesame company.
(59:33):
And as far as I know, they'reoperated out of the exact same
location overseas.
At one point, that wasn't thecase, but they were acquired.
So make sure you do yourhomework.
Never believe a company when yousay, where do you host?
And they say it's proprietary orin-house.
That's like saying, we knowwhere we're hosting, but we're
(59:54):
not going to tell you becausewe're really embarrassed to
share that with you.
That's what they're reallytelling you.
And they know that if you do alittle bit of homework and they
tell you where they're actuallyhosting, then...
they also are kind of givingaway the keys to the castle and
letting you know that they'renot everything that they're
claiming to be.
So transparency is huge.
(01:00:15):
I mean, you come and talk to us,Google.
We host with Google.
I don't care.
I mean, because I know thesystem we use is one of the best
ones on the planet, and I knowwhy we use it far and beyond
just the idea of stability.
And I can explain every nuanceof that to you.
So strategy is going to bestyle.
Keep in mind, you know, loadfast, build fast, structured
(01:00:38):
well, grows with your business,can conform to your businesses,
and it speaks to your customer.
That's how you're going to win.
Also, by not doing it, that'show you're going to lose.
So now you've got a biggerquestion.
The other question is, is allyou people out there who have
websites that were built and youhave no idea where you're at,
(01:00:59):
use this podcast and then see ifit passes the smell test.
And if it doesn't, if you didn'tgo through where you started off
by– asking a bunch of questionsand getting a lot of answers and
having a plan where, okay, onceyou start running ads for me,
how do you know what people aredoing when they come to my page?
(01:01:21):
And how are you going to makeadjustments if people don't
start buying what I'm selling orwhat I need to have done on the
website?
You start asking these nuancedquestions, you're going to be
amazed at how little that theyhave.
And you're going to go quicklyfrom grassroots here.
Let me show you on my screen.
Let me show you the tools thatI'm using and how I'm doing it,
and let me show you what worksand what don't work.
(01:01:43):
That's a lot different than justgiving you a bunch of hyperbole
or a bunch of language.
To give you an idea, oh, sofirst of all, what you need to
do is you're going to need tofind somebody else, and you're
going to need to find a way tomigrate away from the
do-it-yourselfers.
Don't buy into it.
Don't buy into this herdmentality thing, too.
Okay, here's a quick rant.
(01:02:04):
One of the things is, well, allthese people are using these
do-it-yourselfers like Wix andSquarespace, so obviously it
must be working.
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
What that means is obviouslytheir way that they're
approaching you as a business isworking.
That's what's working.
They're the ones on the SuperBowl, not you.
(01:02:26):
Okay, so there's a bigdifference.
What they're doing is they'reappealing to what you want in
the fantasy in your head, notwhat works in reality.
And that's working for them.
And then giving the trial to getpeople sucked in, but then
making it painful to get out.
Because a guy like me who goesin and says, okay, now it's time
to move.
(01:02:46):
And I look at all the stuffthat's put in that website and I
go, well, the cost to move thisstuff is going to cost more than
your whole new web package.
That's why they're successful.
So be careful.
Ask a lot of questions.
Here's a deal.
You will have to move away ifyou've got it.
You're going to have to find aprofessional if you do it.
You're going to have to bite thebullet if you care about this.
(01:03:08):
If you don't care about it, thenwhy are you doing it to begin
with?
Now, that's the tough words, butthat's the reality of the
Internet today.
It's become more competitiveonline.
And don't get suckered into thisartificial intelligence jazz.
I do a lot of AI stuff, and it'sa powerful tool.
(01:03:29):
But there are so many littlescams and gimmicks where now
people are coming to you andgoing, using the latest AI
approach, we can whatever.
whatever.
A lot of times that's nothingmore than people using Chad GPT
to generate content or usingsome third-party tool and
sticking it on your website andnot considering critical factors
(01:03:51):
such as EEAT, which you shouldgo check out that podcast if
you're concerned about content.
Just tons of information that Ifeel would really help you do
good.
Now, the hardest one of themall, I suppose in closing, is
the niche-based You know, whereit does everything from your
(01:04:12):
accounting, your bookkeeping,your tracking, your follow-ups,
integration into your dailybusiness, plus a website.
This is a tough one because ifyou're already using it and
you're already so tangled up init you can't get out, then you
may have to work with the pro tofigure out the best hybrid
(01:04:33):
solution for you.
They also...
need to consider a lot oftechnical aspects like for
example the way that you useeven if they allow those widgets
to be used on another website Imean, the features, like you can
stick them in like WordPress,like you could take a feature
that one of these niche-basedcompanies have and stick it in
(01:04:54):
WordPress and it looks like it'spart of your WordPress.
There's even ways that thatsticks in a website.
One way that's completelynegates any search engine
optimization benefit and onethat greatly helps with search
engine optimization benefit.
So you're going to have to hirea professional to figure out
what's there.
(01:05:14):
And if they don't allow...
those features to be embedded onyour website.
Embed just means stick in.
Don't get hung up on the wordembed.
It just means it appears likeit's on your website.
If they don't allow embedfeatures in their niche system,
in my opinion, what they'rereally doing is that's a
(01:05:37):
business strategic way thatthey're conducting themselves
because they want to own more ofyour business.
And I think that's a bad thingbecause I want to have
flexibility and I don't likebeing forced into something.
And the reality is, is that ifthey do care about it, then they
should give you the ability toincorporate that into any
(01:05:59):
platform that they have.
And so you have to make sometough decisions because from a
business standpoint and thelogistics of your business, you
may be so entangled, you don'tknow how to get out of it or if
it's worth it.
And so then the questionbecomes, well, What do you do?
Do you go through the painpoint?
(01:06:20):
Should you go through the painpoint?
Are you getting into somethingthat's worse by leaving them?
And what steps should you take?
For me, I don't think there'sreally an excuse not to be able
to have external widgets andjust having to link back to
their system or use their forcedwebsite system.
(01:06:40):
Me personally, I don't like it.
I would want to get out of it,and I would want to have more
control over my own destiny andmy own code as much as I could.
I do realize it's complicated.
I do realize no man is anisland.
And I do know there's a placefor these niche-based turnkey
systems.
There's no denying that.
But the question is, is how doyou hybrid that to where you're
(01:07:04):
going to benefit your companyand consider All the things that
really need to go into a websiteto make it effective that is far
beyond the technical needs thatare met through those platforms.
And a really good professionalcan help navigate that.
A poor professional is justgoing to kind of hold on and
hang on to the best of theirability.
(01:07:25):
They'll probably more agree.
Make it more amicable with youin the niche-based thing.
There'll be less frictionbecause...
They don't want to look foolishin asking some of those
questions.
So hopefully this helps you outand gives you kind of a view of
what this crazy world of webdevelopment and web design looks
like and help you make gooddecisions for what you're going
(01:07:49):
to do.
Until next time, this is Kenwith Over the Bull.
I hope you have a great week andI also really hope for your
great success.
SPEAKER_00 (01:08:00):
Thanks for tuning in to Over the Bowl, brought to you
by Integris Design, afull-service design and
marketing agency out ofAsheville, North Carolina.
Until next time.
You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut
through marketing noise.
Here's your host, Ken
SPEAKER_01 (00:08):
Carroll.
In the age of artificialintelligence and endless website
builders, having a website iseasy, but building one that
actually works, well, that takesexpertise.
In today's episode, I want toget back to some of the basics,
and one of those relates tobusiness website design, and
(00:31):
sometimes we call it businesswebsite development.
Those terms are often usedinterchangeably, although they
could have different meaningsdepending upon where you're
coming from.
So what I want to do is breakdown things like do-it-yourself
website builders like Wix orSquarespace.
Those niche builders, you know,if you're in real estate or
(00:54):
vacation rentals or things likethat, then oftentimes there are
programs that offer a turnkeysolution from managing bookings
all the way across, includingwebsites, and open source
platforms like WordPress,Joomla, and Drupal.
And let's more importantlyunderstand what exactly matters
(01:18):
when building a website.
So just like anything else inlife, Knowing what you're trying
to accomplish before you do itis really important.
You know, if you're buying abunch of wood and a bunch of
material and, you know, youdon't know if you're building a
house or a deck, you know,things can get adventurous
(01:39):
really quick.
But one thing's for sure, you'renot going to meet an objective
unless you know the objectiveyou're trying to meet.
So why should you have a websiteas a business?
Well, the answer definitely isnot because I need one because I
have a business and I needsomething to look reputable.
(02:02):
Now, that statement in itself istrue.
You really do need a websitejust as much as you need a
business email address and notusing things like Gmail
addresses and things like that.
But there's much more to it.
You see, if you start with thatpremise and that's what you...
ask your, uh, that's what you'researching to do.
(02:24):
The problem is, is you're,you're like, it's basically like
a blood in the water to a shark,especially if you're working
with freelancers or designersbecause they see an opportunity
to whip something together.
That's not going to work foryou, but it's going to be a high
profit margin, easy turn projectfor them.
Now, remember your goal is togrow your business, right?
(02:50):
And the only way you can growyour business and use the
website as a tool, which that'swhat it is.
It's a strategic tool.
Even though it's like foundationfor a house, it's still a tool.
So you need to understand whatyour goals are for that website.
Are you trying to get moreleads?
(03:13):
Are you trying to sell somethingdirectly on the website?
Do you want someone to sign upfor something on the website?
And what do you want to do forpeople who are kicking the
tires, so to speak, and justshopping versus those who are
serious?
Because those actions that wouldbe taken by people who are in
(03:36):
different places in that cycleare would want different levels
of engagement.
So if they're kicking the tiresand you're asking them to buy
something, you're approachingthat audience in the wrong way.
So having different levels ofcommitment and understanding
what your goals are and puttingthose on paper is critical.
(03:56):
Now, conversely, if this hasn'tbeen done with your current site
and your current site startedwith picking a template or
choosing a design or startingwith designs, That's a sign that
your website's not built withgoals in mind.
Now, the second thing is tounderstand your demographic.
(04:18):
Now, we hear that word a lot andwe go, yeah, yeah, what is
demographic?
You know, yeah, it sounds great,but how does that really impact
anything?
It actually impacts things quitea bit because different
demographics, the colorpsychology is different.
where you put things on a givenwebpage is different, the fonts
(04:39):
that you would choose aredifferent, the imagery you
choose would be different, andeven layout aspects would be
different.
And if you're a designer or youare just picking templates and
not considering the demographicand how to make those
adjustments, well, again, You'rebuilding something, but you're
(05:02):
not really building it for thepeople that you're trying to
promote your business to.
So as you can see, that's also apretty clear mistake.
The next is trust andcredibility.
Now, trust and credibility isabsolutely important.
Now, in this whole AI saturatedworld we're living in, I mean, I
(05:24):
jumped over to YouTube the otherday And it took me about two
minutes and I was sick of it.
Now everybody's building allthis artificial
intelligence-based content wherethey're having celebrities and
they're superimposing words thatthey don't say or they're
superimposing fights that reallydidn't happen.
(05:44):
And it's just silly.
It's just this really silly gamenow of content that you can't
trust, right?
Because you don't know if thatperson really said it or not.
And it's not worth my time to gofind out if they did say it or
not.
And so I'm like, well, thatbasically is a complete resource
of information that may or maynot be true and could make me
(06:08):
look incredibly stupid if I wereto quote something that I got
off YouTube, knowing that it'sAI driven and it was never
really said to begin with.
So in the world of the web,that's the same thing.
When you have a website, youneed to instill trust and
credibility.
What this means is you needorganic, real content.
(06:32):
Just throwing up a bunch of chatGPT articles and content and
everything is not going to getthe job done.
And the most important thing isyou need to convert action or
attention into action.
You know, you want thosebookings, those purchases, those
inquiries, those things.
(06:53):
And those things are usually notinstant.
I mean, when we run Google adsfor people, it's often a cycle
of setting things up, testingit, manipulating it, and then
you have to wait.
This is the most hard part ofsome of this stuff.
You got to wait a little bit andlet things kind of run their
course and then test and thenadjust.
(07:14):
If you look at Google's 2024recommendations, I don't know if
it's prior to, I can't rememberoff the top of my head, but they
had what was called the ABCDs ofmarketing, attention, branding,
connection, and direction.
You know, you get theirattention, you show your
branding, you connect with themin some meaningful way that
(07:35):
means something to them, not toyou.
And then you give them adirection, you know, visit this,
do that, those kinds of things.
And so you see those things arestill tried and true today.
Now, if we break down thewebsite options, we have to ask,
are they meeting thoseobjectives?
(07:55):
And if not, what objectives dothey meet?
Pretty simple.
So let's look at do-it-yourselfwebsite builders.
This is your Wix, yourSquarespace.
It's these kind of situations.
All right, so let's face it.
There's a low barrier to entry.
They have these prettytemplates, and their message is
(08:16):
along the lines of easy to use.
I remember seeing a commercialnot too long ago, and in that
commercial, it showed acelebrity, I can't remember who
it was, but she didn't comeacross as the smartest person on
the planet.
And she was talking about howeasy it was to use one of these
(08:38):
website builder programs.
She said she just picked atemplate, put in her stuff,
saved it, published it, and itmade it look like, wow, this is
just magic.
Now, of course, the devil's inthe details.
What was she trying to achievewith it?
Did she do it?
Did she really build thatwebsite?
(08:58):
Or is it just like the peoplewho sponsor other things and
they don't really use it?
Now, they legitimately may havea website out there, but they
also may legitimately may nevertouch it.
It may be part of their wholemarketing program for them to
put that thing on autopilot andput a lot of work and effort and
(09:20):
energy to address all theseconcerns or reasons you have a
website above.
So you see, there's a lot ofthat kind of game going on.
Now, they also market it withthe psychological hooks.
You know, those things like,you're smart, you can do this.
You're definitely smarter thanthat person on that commercial.
(09:42):
Save money.
You know, you can save money bydoing it yourself.
Why in the world do you want topay a professional when you can
just pick a template, drop inyour content, and do what you
want to do?
And you can control every detailyourself.
You're buying it.
You're paying for it.
You can control what gets added,what not gets added.
(10:04):
So it plays to that ego that–You think, you know, hey, maybe
they don't have it undercontrol.
And if the design looks reallygood and I put my own stuff in
it and I understand everythinggoing on, then I can build this
and do this.
And here's the other thing.
There are risks with this.
(10:24):
Like, for example, one risk.
It's all marketing.
Once you get into marketing, youunderstand everything.
a lot more about how the game'sbeing played.
Like, it's really brilliant whenthey give things like a 30-day
free trial because it's kind oflike what they're doing is
trying to get you tangled up inthe spider web of their system
(10:47):
because their system isproprietary.
That means once you learn theirsystem, that's all you know.
You don't know anything else andyou can't get away unless you
relearn something else.
But then you spend all that timeputting in all your stuff and
And when that time runs out, youhave a tough decision.
Even if you hate it, you put somuch into it, you don't want to
mess with anything else.
(11:08):
And so that's just one of therisks here.
But let's talk about theseniche-based website platforms.
Now, if you're in vacationrentals or plumbing or real
estate or some of these othersystems, there are these
companies out there that offer100% turnkey solutions.
(11:30):
Now, these solutions, theyinclude everything from, like,
for example, if you takeproperty management, it could
include everything from makingsure you don't overbook.
It could include things likehousekeeping, setting up a
schedule for them, checking in,managing the details, special
(11:51):
offers.
Basically, it's a completemanagement and web design
platform.
So, you guessed it, they'rebuilt for specific industries.
And they have these modules,again, like calendars, listing
sync, etc.
But here's the catch.
They, too, are closed ecosystemsdesigned to lock you in.
(12:13):
So if you think about thedo-it-yourself builder, they
have a system where you learnhow to manipulate a website
using their system.
This does the exact same thing.
It has their system.
Now, the Wix and Squarespacesolution typically doesn't
(12:36):
control every aspect of yourbusiness.
However, these systems usuallydo.
So you can imagine the ripplesof trying to unplug from one of
these website platforms if theydon't allow you to use it in
conjunction with something else.
So let me describe that a littlebit.
(12:56):
Some of these systems are kindof unique in that they would
allow you to use every singlething they have, and some force
you to use every single thingthey have.
So in the case of web design,there are some of these closed
systems where you can simplyplug in widgets, basically just
(13:17):
little pieces of code, onto,say, another website platform,
and it works without having touse their entire system.
That gives you a little bit morefreedom.
However, if you're using upeverything they've got and
someone will lock you into that,someone will absolutely say, no,
we don't allow you to connectthat in a meaningful way to your
(13:41):
another website platform, mainlymeaning another website
solution.
And they do that intentionallybecause they're trying to lock
you in.
They're trying to control everypart of your business because
once you're fully integrated,you're not going anywhere
without a lot of pain, a lot ofretraining, a lot of showing
people things, a lot of stuffthat goes on.
(14:02):
So even if their developmentplatform is lackluster, you're
kind of stuck once you do thatand you make that decision.
And remember, the website'smeant to serve goals.
Now, although...
There are utility-based goalsthat happen with a turnkey
service like that that's unique.
If they don't allow you to fullymanage your marketing and the
(14:29):
way you do things, then you'regoing to have a lackluster
result from that website, eventhough it may be pretty and may
be performing well.
The question is, are you gettingeverything that you should get
out of it?
That was a mouthful.
So a lot of these systems, theywon't integrate with things like
(14:49):
WordPress, and this is onpurpose.
It's a model.
It's a business model.
We don't want to judge peoplebecause this is what they're
doing to try to generate moneyand more or less have you stick
with them regardless by makingit so painful for you to go
anywhere else.
So when you start gettingtangled in the spider web, you
could imagine that if you uselike a Wix or a Squarespace or
(15:14):
one of these niche-based webturnkey platforms, when you
first go in, you could imaginethe pain of leaving that system
is easy.
You don't have anything put intoit.
You don't have it integrated.
You've not trained people onwhat you're doing with it.
So you could leave fairly easy.
But within a very short timespan...
It's going to be tough and realtough.
(15:37):
And if you're trying to run abusiness, the last thing you
want to do is relearn something.
Because let's face it,relearning, that puts you back
at square one.
You see, there are games beingplayed on this stuff.
Now, I'm not saying the toolsare not good.
I'm not suggesting some of thesetools aren't where you need to
be.
But if you put all your eggs inthat one basket...
(15:58):
And they don't do a good job of,say, optimizing for search
engine optimization.
Or worse, here's a biggerproblem.
When we develop websites, weneed to be able to manipulate
real quick where things go.
As I mentioned earlier, if yourun Google Ads online, It's very
(16:20):
common to have to change up thelanding page a lot, meaning
where buttons go, what's in thetop part of the website, also
known as the header of thewebsite, the body, which is the
main part of the website, andthen also the footer, the bottom
part of the website, althoughthat's typically not as
important as the first twoplaces.
And being able to have extremeability to manipulate it
(16:43):
technically and creatively ishuge.
I mean, I can't imagine eventrying to run a successful ad
campaign with some kind oftemplate because every business
is different.
I'm running ads for similarbusinesses across the United
States, and they offer the exactsame service.
(17:05):
But the layouts and what you doand how you approach it has been
significantly different.
I mean, all the way from whatwe're doing in Google Ads all
the way to the end.
It's kind of like where you cankind of start with a little bit
of knowledge in that industry,but you still have to make these
adjustments.
And not being able to do thatquick is critical.
(17:27):
I mean, it's critically bad,actually, not being able to make
those moves because If you canmove a button, let's just say we
can move a button in the toppart of the website, that header
part of the website, and we canchange certain things and it
takes us five minutes to do thatversus going and picking out a
whole new template or reachingout to a do-it-yourself platform
(17:53):
and asking them to make thatadjustment or having to hire a
someone to do it and then goback, then all of a sudden those
do-it-yourselfers aren't sodo-it-yourself.
And then the tough part is a lotof times these businesses, most
businesses I work with have noclue that they're missing out to
begin with.
They just think the web doesn'twork as good for them.
(18:15):
Patience is a lacking part ofthat equation also.
So here's the other thing.
Let's talk about these companiestypically are not run by web
design and marketing experts.
You know, the web design part,making pretty sites is kind of
(18:37):
easy, but making them work bycombining real experience is
really challenging.
And so, for example, they couldsay they offer SEO-optimized
tools, which would give you theability to put in things like in
(18:57):
the nerd language.
And I'm not going to derail thetrain such as, you know, title
tags or H1 tags or metadescriptions or things like
that.
But when they're offering theseSEO optimized in quote features,
these really are nothing morethan kind of like the very,
very, very top tip of an icebergof criteria that's needed to do
(19:19):
well.
And having to be able to deepdive into a web platform beyond
the topical is important.
And people who are professionalsunderstand this.
And that's why oftentimes theydon't use these systems or they
steer people clear of it.
(19:41):
Now, of course, we also have tolook at the motivations of the
people that are theprofessionals.
You know, are they truly lookingout for your best interest or
are they trying to stack thecards in their favor?
And this is a whole other aspectof this.
But let's keep going with theplatform.
Then I'll talk about thedeveloper, designer and all that
(20:03):
stuff as we move on.
So the next one is open source.
So your open source stuff islike WordPress.org, Joomla,
Drupal, and there's severalother flavors out there.
And I'm sure you've probablyheard of WordPress.
Now, there's actually twoversions of WordPress.
If you go to WordPress.com, youget a self-hosted version, which
(20:25):
kind of puts you back into thedo-it-yourself model.
Or you could jump over toWordPress.org and you have
access to the entire code.
So think of open source as justbeing able to download and have
the full suite of code.
Now, this is important.
(20:46):
This is critically importantbecause when you download and
you get access to all the sourcecode, you can do virtually
anything you want to with thator have someone who does it.
So for the owner of a business,that can be overwhelming because
it is a profession, just like Iwouldn't go and try to sell
plumbing services or electricalservices.
(21:08):
You need a professional to beable to manage something like
WordPress.
Now, When you look at different–by the way, these are also
called content managementsystems.
So if you break it down–Content, photos, text, pictures,
stuff like that.
Management means you manage themon a website.
(21:29):
And system is just the system inwhich you use.
These are all content managementsystems.
The niche, thedo-it-yourselfers, and the open
source.
So when you ask what contentmanagement system do you use,
then they would usually have togive you one of those answers.
And if they don't know how toanswer that question, then
that's a huge flag.
That person probably is not themost well-equipped to help you
(21:52):
out.
So the benefit of open source isthat they're flexible and
customizable and scalable.
They're also well supported.
The reason our organization madethe commitment, gosh, about, I
don't know, I was early on inthe game.
We've been around for decades.
(22:12):
about 20 years now as anorganization.
And early on in the game, wemade the decision to focus on
WordPress versus Joomla forvarious reasons.
But one of them is WordPress isstill the most popular content
management system on the planet.
Now, here's the downside ofsomething like WordPress.
(22:38):
An amateur can use it.
and present themselves as aprofessional, you could use it
or a professional can use it.
And as a business owner, youprobably don't have any clue
which one is going to do thebetter job.
And either you'll do what mostpeople do, which is fall back on
(22:59):
the price of an agency or afreelancer because you figure
the more you pay, the more theyknow, which is a huge mistake.
Um, or what you'll do is, um,uh, go based on the cheapest.
So, so prices is usually one ofthose things that you'll do, or
just whoever talks the bestgame.
This guy seems to know what he'stalking about or, Oh, he works
(23:21):
with plumbers and I'm a plumber.
So therefore he has to knowplumbing.
Not true.
Not true guys.
Um, so here's the thing.
Um, When you work with thesecompanies, oftentimes these
small agencies, even largeagencies, I saw one from a large
agency recently, they slappedtogether these junk themes and
(23:44):
outdated plugins or freeplugins.
So plugins, let me punt therefor a second, tell you what a
plugin is.
A plugin is basically a feature.
Like if you wanted to have agallery on your website, there
are premium plugins that youhave to pay to play and And then
you have the free ones, whichyou can download and just use.
(24:07):
So if you can imagine, each oneof these features in the world
of open source are managed bydifferent people, groups,
organizations.
And one organization could setup a plugin and never support
it.
Another one could support it.
And one could have poordevelopment techniques that
conflict with other features,causing things to break.
(24:31):
And so having guardrails andhaving a system that is
consistent is incrediblyimportant.
And it's also important to useonly what you need to use
because the more you put intosomething, the slower it loads
typically.
And if it's poorly written,it'll load really, really slow.
(24:51):
And so the point is that,remember, your freelancers and
your agencies are in businesstoo.
They want to turn and burn theseprojects.
And oftentimes, if they don'thave a system, it's really easy
for them to go and download a, Idon't know, a$35 theme and then
sell it to you for$1,000 asbeing custom.
(25:16):
And so you want to be carefulabout that because these open
source systems are really goodunder the right situations, but
it's like the Wild West, right?
Now, the other thing is, ismaintenance.
Okay.
So if you think about it, theweb is growing.
Think about how often the webchanges or features changes or
your iPhone changes or whatever.
(25:37):
The web changes with intensefrequency, which means that the
bad guys are looking forweaknesses.
The good guys are updating theirplugins.
And you have to constantlymanage and update your website
in the world of open source.
(25:57):
If you don't, your website issusceptible to be hacked.
That's just one thing that couldhappen.
The other thing is, is if theserver code, I know this gets a
little complicated, but if itconflicts with the outdated
features or plugins, it can alsobreak things.
And so having a plan for thismaintenance and growth are both
(26:18):
important.
And what you'll often see is acompany would charge, say, a
certain dollar figure.
You know, I've seen it as lowas, you know, probably, I don't
know, today, I don't think I'veseen it lower than probably 60
bucks, but it goes as high aslike hundreds.
but you never really see that itincludes how they're managing
(26:39):
it, how often they're managingit.
What is the plan formaintenance?
They're just charging you a lotof money for hosting.
Now, the thing is, is that eventhe hosting is a game in the
industry.
So let's slow down here withopen source.
If you look at any of theseplatforms, any website, they
(27:00):
usually have a couple of majorcomponents.
One is the domain name.
That's your web address.
That's just simply your address.
And you register that addresswith places like GoDaddy, and
you own the rights to thataddress so long as you keep
paying for that address.
(27:20):
Then you have what's known ashosting.
So think of hosting as like acomputer on the internet that
houses all the files that makeup your website.
Because a website is just abunch of files that are
organized in a way that'smeaningful.
And then you have your contentmanagement system layer on top
(27:41):
of it.
So what you could run into isyou could run into things where
you're using a really goodsystem.
but you have it on poor hosting.
Now, the reason you don't seehosting on the niche-based
platforms and the Wix andSquarespace is because they kind
of offer that to you as aturnkey solution.
(28:03):
They're offering you easy andsimple.
They're not offering younecessarily, in my opinion,
effective.
And so here's kind of the thing.
Not only do they do the junkthemes and junk hosting and Some
of them even outright steal yourdomain and hold it hostage if
you don't do certain things orthey'll charge you long-term
maintenance fees for your domainname.
(28:24):
So there's all that.
Domain name is a web address.
And so bad WordPress in the end,just like bad Joomla in the end
or bad Drupal in the end, isworse than do-it-yourselfers
like Wix or Squarespace.
Reason being is at least the–the Squarespace and the Wix
(28:48):
program is keeping all the stuffin the background updated and
configured, and the people thatare doing WordPress bad are not
considering any of theobjectives that you're doing in
web design.
And so you can see the problemhere.
It's just so complicated thatfor a regular business to
(29:10):
navigate the seas is tough.
Okay, so now let's move intothe, let's talk about the
designer or the developer.
And please forgive me, I've gota little bit of a cold right
now.
So if you pick up on any littlepauses in the video, it's
because I'm taking a break anddrinking a little something.
(29:33):
So let's talk about thedesigners here.
Okay, the truth is there arecourses out on the internet that
that teach people how to buildwebsites in a weekend or a week
or a seminar style situation.
The problem is, is that it takesa lot more than just the
(29:55):
technical parts we discussed.
It requires understanding goalsand how to achieve those goals
and knowing that you're takingeverything to make it meet those
goals.
just understanding how toinstall WordPress on a hosting
platform and publishing it isnot going to get the job done.
(30:18):
And the problem is that a lot oftimes they can mask the amateur
nature at which they work andthey can make you think that
they know a lot more than theydo.
So you can imagine that this ispretty problematic and plus they
get these ideas in their headsthat they can charge a lot more
(30:41):
money for it, even thoughthey're not equipped to even do
it.
And so you'll have amateurs likeright out of the box charging
you more than some professionalscharge you.
Now, the other thing to rememberis that even the seasoned
company and the amateur, they'rein business too.
(31:02):
So look at it like this.
Okay.
Our system, we do a lot ofdevelopment.
We have a lot of stuff that weput into our system.
We pay for premium hosting andall the features and everything
that we build into it aretrained internally where we
(31:24):
understand it and we can fullysupport it.
We have an infrastructure wherewe update what we do on a
regular basis.
We also manage marketing.
We also adjust things and wemake recommendations.
And so this platform that wework from, even though it's
(31:46):
based in open source, what we dois we put a lot of effort and
energy to only put the bestingredients into the soup.
So another agency, could dosomething where they're using
really cheap hosting, you know,that computer that holds all
your files on the web, so tospeak.
(32:08):
And they could also beinstalling WordPress, installing
a free theme, which is atemplate, or a cheap paid theme,
and they can put in a bunch offree plugins, and their overhead
for their business issignificantly lower than the
(32:28):
overhead for our business.
But when you look at the twosites, you have zero clue that
one of them is a lot morestable, is going to be a lot
more efficient, a lot morestructured, a lot more managed,
and the other one would not be.
And so keep in mind that they'rein business too.
They're in business to makemoney, just like you're in
business to make money.
(32:49):
But shortcutting it is one ofthe ways in which they can
dramatically decrease theiroverhead and dramatically
increase their profits.
You know, I still go back tomeeting, gosh, this guy Denny's
years and years and years ago.
And he was introduced by afriend.
And I remember he would talkabout, this was before the days
(33:12):
of AI, but he would talk aboutbasically using a template,
doing exactly that cheapprocess.
And I remember asking him, Isaid, you know that you're part
of the problem, right?
Because you're not reallyhelping the businesses succeed.
And his answer to me was, well,yeah, but where else can you
(33:33):
make thousands of dollars thiseasy?
And now with the advent ofartificial intelligence, you can
imagine that now guys like thatdon't even have to hire a person
to write content that's organic.
Now they can use ChatGPT, tellit to crank out content, slap it
(33:55):
on a page, and make you thinkthat they did a lot more work
than they did, or make you thinkthat they did something more
technical than they did.
By the way, I met an SEO firmhere in Asheville recently, the
owner of it, and that wasactually part of his process,
was to use straight artificialintelligence-based content for
(34:16):
websites that he does nothingbut organic search engine
optimization on.
It's a little embarrassing, butit's true.
That's exactly what's going onreally behind the scenes.
You walk into the sausagefactory.
This is what I see all the timewhen I investigate websites Big
agencies, small agencies, andfreelancers.
(34:37):
It's really nice being able tobe paid to investigate this
because you can kind of see it.
So what does a true professionaldo here?
A true professional, first ofall, they have usually a lot of
experience and a lot ofcredibility.
For example, you never want topay somebody to run Google Ads
(34:59):
if they don't have a partnershipwith Google Ads.
A history of it, or at the veryleast, having certifications
with Google Ads to prove thatthey know what they're talking
about.
They're also goal-driven.
They're not just buildingwebsites.
When you think of a websitewithout goals, think of a boat
(35:20):
without a sail, and think of itbeing placed in the middle of
the ocean.
Now, how valuable is a boat inthe middle of the ocean with no
sail, no motor, no nothing, justsitting out there floating
aimlessly, but you own the boat?
That boat is useless to you.
And so a true professionalunderstands this and knows that
(35:42):
they're not just trying to buildyou a website.
They're trying to build youessentially a machine, a
mechanism that's going togenerate something valuable to
your business.
This is significantly different.
And professionals only choosehigh-quality plugins and
modules.
Now, there is a fourth optionhere.
(36:05):
Some web developers, they usemore advanced techniques.
Like, for example, we havesomething called headless web
development.
You can also code a website fromthe ground up.
Now, the question is, it's like,okay, what's perfect, what's
(36:25):
good, what's best, you know,kind of thing.
And you could say, well, by handcoding a website, I'm saving
this or I'm increasing that.
But if you think about it, thinkof the overhead you're adding to
that website by doing thosethings.
And at some point, there's adiminishing point of return.
(36:46):
Now, I've hand coded a lot ofwebsites and I can tell you,
yeah, you can get a lot ofefficiencies by doing that.
But the question is, is howmalleable is that for the user?
How good is it for the user?
And what is the recouping timefor the return on investment?
And if you get tired of someonethat hand codes everything for
(37:08):
your site and you want to findsomeone else to take that over,
you could imagine that it wouldbe like the first thing is
you're giving someone a novel,the new person a novel and
saying, okay, I finally foundsomeone who could maybe take it
over, but now they've actuallygot to go in and look at
everything that was created andkind of relearn some of the
(37:30):
stuff.
And coders, just like thesedifferent people that build like
things in WordPress, they have asimilar problem in that what
they do is they code ondifferent levels.
Some are really good, some arereally bad, and some are in
between.
And so most small to mid-sizedbusinesses do not need to go
(37:54):
that route.
They just don't.
And so that's why I'm not reallyfocused too heavily on the
people that hand code.
It's kind of like the OCD, spenda lot of money on it, make it
so, you know, it would just betougher to you free to
manipulate as the owner of abusiness.
While if you use something likeWordPress, for example, it's
(38:18):
Then what you run into is theability to find probably the
largest community of developerson the planet.
And if you wanted to get rid orterminate your current designer
for another one, then you canmove over to another developer.
you can find someone else a lotmore easily that could help you
(38:40):
manage your website.
So those are business questions.
Those are not scratching thenerd itch, which is what a lot
of these developers who write byhand and build these websites
from the ground up, that's kindof what they're doing.
And their pitch is usuallysomething like they'll
hyper-focus in on speed.
(39:00):
They'll hyper-focus in on thingsthat are important, legitimately
very, very important.
But the idea is, does it reallymake sense to go down that far
down the road for your business?
And so there's always thesenuanced questions that kind of
get added into it.
(39:21):
Now, the reality is, isWordPress is going to be more
than enough for most of youlistening out here.
There will be a point where thatcan be outgrown too.
Now, there's another aspect tothe professional that really
needs to be addressed here.
And that is, what if you find aprofessional that builds in say
(39:41):
Wix or Squarespace or some ofthese other systems?
I have a real problem with that.
And the reason I do personallyis because what I see is I have
a full palette of colors when Iuse open source.
And I can take that colorpalette and I can paint any
(40:05):
picture that I want to paintwith it.
Not only that, but I can go backin at any time and virtually
change any aspect at any pointand have full control over all
those colors.
Now, if someone's claiming to bea professional and they're using
something like Wix orSquarespace, It's kind of like
they're going, I'm aprofessional, but I'm only going
(40:28):
to use 12 colors when I can havethis whole suite of colors.
So what that typically tells meis that designer or developer is
not equipped enough or doesn'thave the understanding that
they're missing out on a ton offlexibility, which says they're
probably not the person for youto use.
Or we're back to the point wherethey're trying to turn and burn
(40:51):
projects and make more money.
And so by building it on one ofthese pre-canned platforms, they
may be able to charge you alittle bit less, but they're
also making higher marginsbecause they don't have to worry
about all the stuff that goesinto a professionally built
website.
So if I was in business and Iwas hiring a professional, and
(41:16):
they said they built on ado-it-yourself website platform,
I would not hire the person.
I'll be honest with you.
I'd be like, well, what are youdoing?
It just doesn't make any sense.
So as we move across thebandwidth, the big question
becomes, well, what do we useand how do we use it?
(41:37):
And then how do we find out?
So let's talk about WordPressfor a little bit.
And I'm going to make theargument for WordPress.
Now, yes, WordPress can be usedby amateurs.
WordPress can be used byprofessionals.
Amateurs will create a websitethat's not stable.
(41:58):
It won't function very well.
It won't convert very well.
A professional can makeWordPress dance and make it so
scalable and easy to use andalso easy to make adjustments to
make ads work better.
You see, I want to hit on thisone more time because I really
don't think some business ownersunderstand this, but sometimes
(42:20):
just changing where a button isor a graphic or a phone number
and moving the position aroundcan make big differences in how
something converts.
And so what that means,obviously, is one, you've got to
have the ability to do thatquickly and effectively because
you don't want to take a week tomove a button.
(42:41):
But at the same time, you wantto be able to be patient because
you've got to move it and thentest it and move it and then
test it.
So you can imagine there's a lotof mental gymnastics in that.
So there's a patience factor aswell.
And so WordPress, when harnessedby a true professional, this
means that You own the code.
(43:04):
You control it.
And it can grow with you.
You see, do-it-yourselfers, theyfeel good.
And I know they feel good.
But they bottleneck at somepoint.
They always bottleneck or theybecome more problems than
they're worth.
And then you end up having tojump ship anyway.
And if you wait too long to moveto something like WordPress or
(43:25):
WordPress, in my opinion, Ithink it's the only one really
out there.
worth talking about at thispoint in the world.
And I think it's been the casefor some time.
Just if you Google even thenumber of websites that use it,
it's staggering when you see howmany people use it and how well
it's supported across theplanet.
But the idea is that you do ownthat and you do control all the
(43:47):
source codes.
So think about this.
You learn WordPress once and youhave a professional that shows
you how to manipulate it.
You don't have to learn anythingelse.
If you leave Squarespace for Wixor Wix for a niche or whatever,
then you're going to have torelearn a system all over again.
You see, that's painful.
And then plus you don't get tolook under the hood.
(44:08):
You don't get full flexibility.
Now, WordPress is extremely,extremely flexible.
It has all kinds of features.
Remember, features equalsplugins, SEO tools, and you can
customize it in incredible waysif it's done professionally.
If it's not done professionally,you can get into it and struggle
(44:31):
moving or doing anything.
And the common tactic that I seeis oftentimes what you'll see is
a I'll tell you something I do.
I'm not going to go into crazydetail, but I'll basically tell
you.
If you open a website up and youright-click on it and you go to
View Source in your browser,like Google Chrome or Safari or
(44:54):
Firefox or whatever you use, andif you do a Control-F on a PC or
Command-F on a Mac, you cansearch for the word theme if
it's a WordPress site.
And what's really interesting isit'll usually give you the name
of the theme that's being used.
(45:14):
And you can tell really quicklywhat theme they're using.
And then you could, you'll saythe name of the theme and then
you can Google the theme andyou'll be surprised more often
than not.
You pay thousands of dollars fora theme that costs about 50
bucks and they'll make theargument that they put all your
stuff in it.
No, it's not true.
It's just simply not true.
So, um, Anyway, just trying toempower you, I guess, and part
(45:39):
of the ability to empower you isto kind of walk you through
exactly what's going on.
Now, this also means, obviously,you'll never be stuck.
You're not stuck with oneprovider.
You're not stuck with a Wix guyor a Squarespace guy.
You can literally find WordPressdevelopers under virtually every
rock and in every locationacross the entire globe.
(46:02):
Now, of course, you need torequalify them because you have
good ones and bad ones, but yousee the flexibility that you
have with using something likeWordPress, which is open source,
not WordPress.com, butWordPress.org.
Now, here's the truth that noone's going to tell you.
(46:22):
WordPress is only as good as thestrategy and skill behind it.
Now, that's also true with theseother systems.
The problem is that you'rehobbled using the other systems
where you really can't even getover the goal to begin with.
It's just their action.
The reason you use them is forthe reasons we talked about.
(46:45):
You want something cheap, easy,and you kind of fell prey that
maybe you're smarter thaneverybody else because you're
using something and not spendingthe money other people do.
And so you think you found likethis little secret tool.
game and you're smarter thaneverybody else.
The reality is, is there's a lotof really, really good reasons
that successful businesses haveprofessionals managing their
(47:08):
platform.
It's because it's complicatedand it requires expertise.
So most businesses in the end,they fail because they choose
the wrong platform.
They fail because they choosethe wrong developer.
So how do people choose theirthe wrong people or agencies.
(47:30):
I've seen a coupleconsistencies.
One is they go based on what afriend uses.
Two, a pretty portfolio designwhere they show you a bunch of
websites.
They won't tell you that thoseare usually themes if they are
themes.
A cheap quote or a really priceyquote.
(47:50):
Keep in mind, there's two endsof the spectrum, because
remember, psychologically, youthink if you pay more, you're
getting more.
Not the case.
Maybe they've got a flashyhomepage with no real substance
on their website.
Maybe they don't have anycredibility or credentials.
I mean, we strive to becomepartners with as many
organizations as we can that aremeaningful to us.
(48:12):
Like, for example, I don't carryIT certifications.
IT certifications have nothingto do with marketing or web
certifications.
Don't hire your IT guy to buildyour website because he can fix
your computer.
No more than I sell myself tofix computers.
Those are way, way too differentdisciplines.
All right.
(48:34):
So anyway, I've rambled enoughabout that.
So here's the thing.
A pretty portfolio, a prettywebsite is meaningless unless it
converts.
It's meaningless.
If you're a real business owner,you want what works.
You don't really care how itlooks.
(48:54):
Now, it doesn't mean– but prettywebsites are important,
nice-looking websites.
Professional-built websites arereally important.
But if it's pretty and notworking well, then it's no good
to you.
If only your employees like itor they like it because it's
easy to manipulate, it's notreally getting the job done.
What you're doing is building apacification tool for people
(49:17):
that don't really matter interms of the business, which are
the people you're trying toserve.
A lot of these have very poorSEO structure.
I cannot go into all the detailswith SEO.
Just keep in mind, there are aton of factors that go into
search engine optimization andputting in a title for each page
and a meta description, eventhough it sounds really cool,
(49:39):
that's like, again, the very,very tip of the iceberg.
There's a lot of things underthe hood you have to do to make
that website effective.
Lack of consideration.
for your specific audience, as Imentioned, that's huge.
Performance fine-tuning is alsoone of those things that's
(50:00):
incredible.
So the question is, is how doyou hire?
You know, I've been strugglingwith this since day one because
the thing is, is that a lot ofthese companies who are not
equipped to do the job, they'relike chameleons and they can
quickly change their color andlook like they know what they're
talking about.
And if you hear the words, youmay go, this person's it.
(50:24):
I like this person, and they'resaying things that sound super
technical.
I mean, let's face it, that'skind of what goes on, right?
But here's the deal.
They're chameleons.
So you don't know the good fromthe bad.
You don't know based on price.
You don't know based onwhatever.
You can eliminate someone whoclaims to be a professional and
uses like a Wix or a Squarespaceif you see things the way that I
(50:46):
see them.
But the question is, is how doyou pick the right person to
help you?
Because here's the bottom line.
You can't do it on your own.
You're not a web developer,you're on a business.
And getting into the webdevelopment business and
competing against people whoknow what they're doing is doing
nothing but distracting you fromrunning your business.
And so any system that tells youyou don't need a professional is
(51:09):
absolutely selling you a bill ofgoods and selling you something
that you want to hear becauseyou don't want to spend the
money or go through that extraeffort.
You just want to have that thingknocked off your punch list.
And that is how most businessesfail on the internet, period.
So if you're talking to a personthat claims to be a
(51:31):
professional, You need to ask alot of questions.
This is kind of where I'm atright now.
So the first thing you could dois you could ask a question
like, how do you define thepurpose of a website before you
start building it?
You see, what you're doing isyou're asking them to qualify
their process of figuring outwhat your goals are and how they
(51:55):
meet those goals and what theydo to qualify what's needed to
meet those goals.
See, that's a lot different thando you build websites, can you
pick out a template, throw in abunch of text, send me some
pictures, and it's done.
A lot different.
Maybe another question is,what's your process for
understanding my goals andaudience?
(52:16):
Now, this is kind of a loadedquestion because, remember,
they're chameleons.
And if you're not careful, whatyou're doing is you're giving
them clues as to what you'relooking for.
But what you really want to findout is do they even think about
your goals before they do it?
And also think about, are theyeven looking at your audience to
begin with?
You know, those people you'retrying to sell to.
(52:37):
Maybe also ask, do you offerplanning or consultation
sessions before the designbegins?
In other words, are you going tohelp me set the foundation for
this?
Are you going to show me howyou're doing this?
You see, this is a lot differentbecause now we're not getting in
and out of a project withsomeone.
Now they're really having toshow you what they do and what
(52:59):
goes into it.
You can also ask them, how doyou handle content structure,
SEO, and user behavior?
Now, this is really important.
A lot of people think that youhire an SEO person after you get
your website, and that'ssomething that should be done.
Other people, they think, well,as long as you put in title
(53:22):
tags, which title tags is likethe title of each website, page
has to have its own title, owndescription, unique.
And some people think that's asfar as it goes.
And then you hire a professionalif you want a deep dive.
Now, as someone who's been inthe SEO world now for, gosh,
forever, and I'm not trying tobe elusive.
(53:42):
I mean, I can definitely pointit back to 2006 and prior too.
So I've seen kind of theevolution of SEO.
But the idea is that it's notjust that simple.
It's also...
the structure of your website,the name of your pages, where
things point to, how much youuse something, how little you
(54:05):
use other things.
And the thing is is that thereare some points where it's very
painful for an SEO guy to go inand modify a website
legitimately because things thatGoogle has already seen and has
given you credit for needs to bechanged in order for you to be
optimal from search engineoptimization.
(54:26):
So the idea is that your searchengine optimization structure
really needs to be addressedbefore the pages are built on
your website with anunderstanding of how they're
used in the search engineoptimization game.
So it would be great to set thatup prior to, otherwise you pay
(54:46):
your web person to set up onething and then your SEO guys
basically doing the equivalentof redoing all the work.
And you don't want to pay forsomeone to do that.
Then the next question is, well,what's your plan for update
support and scaling the siteover time?
So how far do you take it?
Are you going to build me atemplate, put in some copy and
(55:09):
some text, and then just chargeme$85 an hour when I want to
change a phone number?
Are you going to teach me how todo minor changes to the website,
but you do the heavy lifting,which is what most of our
customers want?
And we actually prefer that.
We don't want to be doing abunch of the minor changes
because it just costs thecustomer more money, and they
(55:31):
can easily do it, and they canget those little things done
quicker.
Some of these designers, whatthey do is they actually hold
the keys to the castle, even ifit is something like WordPress,
and they won't give you accessto it because they want to
charge you every time a changeneeds to be done.
You see how the game is beingplayed here.
The right partner, in the end,is never going to rush to pick a
(55:54):
template.
Picking a template, so you canimagine, now go back to your
Wix, your Squarespace, yourniche where they have these
pretty templates.
You can imagine now how crazy itis to start with a template.
You can just see that there is ahuge flag anytime that's what
they're trying to do is enamoryou with a template.
(56:16):
The big questions are, what areyou trying to achieve?
Who's this website for?
What are your goals?
Why are you even here?
Those are the questions that Itypically ask someone when they
first come in because I want tofind out what they're really
trying to do.
I'm not trying to sell awebsite.
I'm trying to help a businessgrow.
(56:37):
And to be honest with you, it'stough sometimes because you take
on a new client.
You take on a whole new seriesof instability, insecurity,
fighting budgets, problems.
trying to work with patients,trying to guide a business
legitimately through thesecycles rather than just do the
(56:59):
turn and burn.
It's like you're going through,you know, starting over.
You're dating from day one allover again, and you're having to
teach a whole new businessthings that your established
customers have learned over theyears because we really focus on
really teaching customersbusinesses what they need to
(57:21):
know because we want to makethem immune to those cold emails
that say, hey, I looked at yourwebsite and I saw Problem X.
These are all just scammy,spammy games people are doing to
try to get your business.
And honestly, at this point, ifyou've been listening to this
podcast, shame on you.
If you're looking at any ofthose cold emails and you're
(57:44):
responding to them or askingthem questions or letting them
send you reports, you're justasking for pain and stress in
your life.
If you don't trust yourprofessional, get another
professional.
But don't, don't, do theselittle games where you're
getting these emails and thenconfronting them with stuff that
they're using as a tactic justto try to take your business
(58:04):
away from your person.
If you don't like them, justhire you somebody else.
So let's do some practicalityhere at the end.
Most of you, bottom line, shouldbe using WordPress.
Why you should be usingWordPress is not just about the
design, the flexibility, all thegreat things you do, but it also
gives your business flexibilityas well.
(58:26):
You're not locked into onesystem, and you can take that
knowledge with you wherever yougo.
You see, that's importantbecause it works just not from a
marketing and designperspective, but also works good
from a logistical businessperspective to give you ultimate
flexibility as well.
It's the perfect combination formost of you.
(58:47):
Find you a professional.
Do not fall for the famous fiveminute install with it.
Make sure they're using highquality hosting.
In my opinion, Amazon, AWS orGoogle, they're kind of the gold
standard.
And anyone who's not using thosetools, I would question it.
Also, do a little bit ofresearch into a company called
(59:11):
EIG, that's Elephant IndigoGoat, and just a little bit of
research and you will besurprised at how few choices you
actually do have for hosting.
You may even be debating thingslike, is HostGator better than
Bluehost?
That may be something thatyou've heard.
Actually, they're owned by thesame company.
(59:33):
And as far as I know, they'reoperated out of the exact same
location overseas.
At one point, that wasn't thecase, but they were acquired.
So make sure you do yourhomework.
Never believe a company when yousay, where do you host?
And they say it's proprietary orin-house.
That's like saying, we knowwhere we're hosting, but we're
(59:54):
not going to tell you becausewe're really embarrassed to
share that with you.
That's what they're reallytelling you.
And they know that if you do alittle bit of homework and they
tell you where they're actuallyhosting, then...
they also are kind of givingaway the keys to the castle and
letting you know that they'renot everything that they're
claiming to be.
So transparency is huge.
(01:00:15):
I mean, you come and talk to us,Google.
We host with Google.
I don't care.
I mean, because I know thesystem we use is one of the best
ones on the planet, and I knowwhy we use it far and beyond
just the idea of stability.
And I can explain every nuanceof that to you.
So strategy is going to bestyle.
Keep in mind, you know, loadfast, build fast, structured
(01:00:38):
well, grows with your business,can conform to your businesses,
and it speaks to your customer.
That's how you're going to win.
Also, by not doing it, that'show you're going to lose.
So now you've got a biggerquestion.
The other question is, is allyou people out there who have
websites that were built and youhave no idea where you're at,
(01:00:59):
use this podcast and then see ifit passes the smell test.
And if it doesn't, if you didn'tgo through where you started off
by– asking a bunch of questionsand getting a lot of answers and
having a plan where, okay, onceyou start running ads for me,
how do you know what people aredoing when they come to my page?
(01:01:21):
And how are you going to makeadjustments if people don't
start buying what I'm selling orwhat I need to have done on the
website?
You start asking these nuancedquestions, you're going to be
amazed at how little that theyhave.
And you're going to go quicklyfrom grassroots here.
Let me show you on my screen.
Let me show you the tools thatI'm using and how I'm doing it,
and let me show you what worksand what don't work.
(01:01:43):
That's a lot different than justgiving you a bunch of hyperbole
or a bunch of language.
To give you an idea, oh, sofirst of all, what you need to
do is you're going to need tofind somebody else, and you're
going to need to find a way tomigrate away from the
do-it-yourselfers.
Don't buy into it.
Don't buy into this herdmentality thing, too.
Okay, here's a quick rant.
(01:02:04):
One of the things is, well, allthese people are using these
do-it-yourselfers like Wix andSquarespace, so obviously it
must be working.
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
What that means is obviouslytheir way that they're
approaching you as a business isworking.
That's what's working.
They're the ones on the SuperBowl, not you.
(01:02:26):
Okay, so there's a bigdifference.
What they're doing is they'reappealing to what you want in
the fantasy in your head, notwhat works in reality.
And that's working for them.
And then giving the trial to getpeople sucked in, but then
making it painful to get out.
Because a guy like me who goesin and says, okay, now it's time
to move.
(01:02:46):
And I look at all the stuffthat's put in that website and I
go, well, the cost to move thisstuff is going to cost more than
your whole new web package.
That's why they're successful.
So be careful.
Ask a lot of questions.
Here's a deal.
You will have to move away ifyou've got it.
You're going to have to find aprofessional if you do it.
You're going to have to bite thebullet if you care about this.
(01:03:08):
If you don't care about it, thenwhy are you doing it to begin
with?
Now, that's the tough words, butthat's the reality of the
Internet today.
It's become more competitiveonline.
And don't get suckered into thisartificial intelligence jazz.
I do a lot of AI stuff, and it'sa powerful tool.
(01:03:29):
But there are so many littlescams and gimmicks where now
people are coming to you andgoing, using the latest AI
approach, we can whatever.
whatever.
A lot of times that's nothingmore than people using Chad GPT
to generate content or usingsome third-party tool and
sticking it on your website andnot considering critical factors
(01:03:51):
such as EEAT, which you shouldgo check out that podcast if
you're concerned about content.
Just tons of information that Ifeel would really help you do
good.
Now, the hardest one of themall, I suppose in closing, is
the niche-based You know, whereit does everything from your
(01:04:12):
accounting, your bookkeeping,your tracking, your follow-ups,
integration into your dailybusiness, plus a website.
This is a tough one because ifyou're already using it and
you're already so tangled up init you can't get out, then you
may have to work with the pro tofigure out the best hybrid
(01:04:33):
solution for you.
They also...
need to consider a lot oftechnical aspects like for
example the way that you useeven if they allow those widgets
to be used on another website Imean, the features, like you can
stick them in like WordPress,like you could take a feature
that one of these niche-basedcompanies have and stick it in
(01:04:54):
WordPress and it looks like it'spart of your WordPress.
There's even ways that thatsticks in a website.
One way that's completelynegates any search engine
optimization benefit and onethat greatly helps with search
engine optimization benefit.
So you're going to have to hirea professional to figure out
what's there.
(01:05:14):
And if they don't allow...
those features to be embedded onyour website.
Embed just means stick in.
Don't get hung up on the wordembed.
It just means it appears likeit's on your website.
If they don't allow embedfeatures in their niche system,
in my opinion, what they'rereally doing is that's a
(01:05:37):
business strategic way thatthey're conducting themselves
because they want to own more ofyour business.
And I think that's a bad thingbecause I want to have
flexibility and I don't likebeing forced into something.
And the reality is, is that ifthey do care about it, then they
should give you the ability toincorporate that into any
(01:05:59):
platform that they have.
And so you have to make sometough decisions because from a
business standpoint and thelogistics of your business, you
may be so entangled, you don'tknow how to get out of it or if
it's worth it.
And so then the questionbecomes, well, What do you do?
Do you go through the painpoint?
(01:06:20):
Should you go through the painpoint?
Are you getting into somethingthat's worse by leaving them?
And what steps should you take?
For me, I don't think there'sreally an excuse not to be able
to have external widgets andjust having to link back to
their system or use their forcedwebsite system.
(01:06:40):
Me personally, I don't like it.
I would want to get out of it,and I would want to have more
control over my own destiny andmy own code as much as I could.
I do realize it's complicated.
I do realize no man is anisland.
And I do know there's a placefor these niche-based turnkey
systems.
There's no denying that.
But the question is, is how doyou hybrid that to where you're
(01:07:04):
going to benefit your companyand consider All the things that
really need to go into a websiteto make it effective that is far
beyond the technical needs thatare met through those platforms.
And a really good professionalcan help navigate that.
A poor professional is justgoing to kind of hold on and
hang on to the best of theirability.
(01:07:25):
They'll probably more agree.
Make it more amicable with youin the niche-based thing.
There'll be less frictionbecause...
They don't want to look foolishin asking some of those
questions.
So hopefully this helps you outand gives you kind of a view of
what this crazy world of webdevelopment and web design looks
like and help you make gooddecisions for what you're going
(01:07:49):
to do.
Until next time, this is Kenwith Over the Bull.
I hope you have a great week andI also really hope for your
great success.
SPEAKER_00 (01:08:00):
Thanks for tuning in to Over the Bowl, brought to you
by Integris Design, afull-service design and
marketing agency out ofAsheville, North Carolina.
Until next time.
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