February 20, 2025 • 29 mins
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Journey with us as Philippa Gamse from Websites that Win shares her captivating story of navigating the digital revolution. From the early days of CompuServe to the modern marvels of remote work technology, Gamse provides a window into the transformative power of online communication. Her experiences in ushering organizations from the era of fax machines to the convenience of email underscore the rapid technological advancements that have reshaped how businesses operate today. With a keen focus on the photo industry, she unravels the critical role that optimized websites now play in connecting and engaging with audiences.
Prepare to unlock the secrets of website traffic and marketing effectiveness with Gamse's expert insights on visitor intent and analytics. Discover the nuances of attracting the right audience, as she compares the quality of leads from social media versus search engines and stresses measuring the true impact of your marketing budget. Delve into the complexities of search engine optimization, particularly for businesses with intricate products, and learn how video content can revolutionize user engagement. With real-world examples and strategic advice, Gamse equips you with the tools to enhance your website's performance, offering a valuable blueprint for those looking to captivate and convert their online visitors.
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Manning (00:02):
Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry's leadingnews source.
Here's your host, gary Pegeau.
The Dead Pixel Society podcastis brought to you by MediaClip,
advertech Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:18):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Philippa
Gamse, who is with Websites thatWin, and she's got decades of
experience in marketing andconsulting and will advise us on
how we can get the most out ofour website.
Hey, Philippa, how are youtoday?
Philipga Gamse (00:37):
Hey Gary, good morning or good afternoon.
Gary Pageau (00:40):
Tell us how you got started in this career because,
as we were talking about in thepreamble, you do have an accent
, but you're actually coming tous from Santa Cruz, so it sounds
like you have a long and variedhistory in the business world.
Philipga Gamse (00:53):
Yeah, I actually , as I came over to the States,
I've been actually I going todate myself here but working in
the Internet since basically itstarted being a major business
tool, which was a coincidencepretty much with when I arrived
in the US and I just thought itwas fascinating.
I had a background incommunications, data and so on,
(01:14):
but I just thought that thepossibilities of what it could
do even back then wereabsolutely amazing and wanted to
get involved in it.
Gary Pageau (01:24):
So what was the first thing you did in the early
internet?
Was it cause I remember thingslike FTP and?
Philipga Gamse (01:29):
crazy things like that, absolutely, yeah, so
in fact, I mean, when I firstcame here, I was working for a
major national nonprofit basedin Chicago.
So you know this was early daysand in the early days there
were so you probably rememberthis too there were things like
CompuServe and AOL and they hadyou know this was early days and
in the early days they were, soyou probably remember this too
there were things likeCompuServe and AOL and they had,
you know, like bulletin boards,which were early forms of
(01:51):
discussion groups, right, andwhat this nonprofit wanted to do
.
So it was a national nonprofitthat had a chapter based in
every state and they wanted alltheir chapters to communicate
using this new technology andemail and bulletin board or
whatever kind of group chatthere was back then and I was
(02:12):
actually brought on.
They created a position for me,specifically for me, because it
was nothing like they'd everhad before to evangelize to the
chapter people to work this way,because it was really new to
everybody and it was fascinating, actually, because there were
the early adopters who loved itand there were the over my dead
body people and amazingly, therewere over my dead body people
(02:35):
and you know they wanted tocontinue sending faxes around
the place and of course everytime you send a fax you pretty
much have to do it, you know, onan individual, one by one basis
, right?
Because you've got to call thephone number and fax it.
And of course, if you don't geteverybody doing it, so you're
like, okay, we've got 45 peoplewe can chat to in our group and
then we've got to send out fivefaxes, it doesn't work.
(02:55):
So it was quite an interestingchallenge.
I mean, it was much less aboutthe technology and much more
about people handling, you know.
Gary Pageau (03:08):
Oh sure, yeah, no, I remember back again.
I'm dating myself back in thedays in the photo industry there
was the photo forum onCompuServe and that was a big
deal, right, cause that's whereall the news and everything and
we were heavily involved in itback then.
And boy, you really broughtback memories with faxing, cause
we used to do a in theorganization.
I used to work with the photomarketing association.
We had a print newsletter andwe got into fax broadcast and
(03:29):
that was just, like you know, asea change.
Then of course went to emailand web and all that stuff.
So I'm very familiar with thepain points of getting audiences
to move to new places when itmakes more sense and if you look
at how far we've come, I mean Iwas just, you know.
Philipga Gamse (03:45):
Now I have clients in Australia, new
Zealand, singapore, because itdoesn't really matter anymore
where you are.
You can do anything you knowonline.
You can talk to anybodyanywhere in the world who's got
a broad connection, you know,and it's a whole different.
I mean with COVID.
If you think about it, the waythat we handled COVID and we all
went online and met online andsocially, for personal reasons,
(04:08):
for professional reasons, etcetera Even if COVID had
happened even five years earlier, we wouldn't have had that
technology Right To the sameextent.
It's amazing really.
Gary Pageau (04:19):
Well, we would have been trying to do it on Skype
and that would have beenterrible.
Right, it's just terrible to doit on Skype and that would have
been terrible.
But yeah, no, it is interestingbecause I have thought about
that too, because there was sortof the perfect storm of
technology coming together at atime where it was most needed,
you know, for remote work andthose kinds of things.
Because, you know, people hadlaptops, whereas you know, like
(04:40):
you said, five years beforethere were probably more
desktops than laptops, right,and you had tablets, and you
know, like you said, five yearsbefore there were probably more
desktops than laptops, right,and tablets and you know, most,
a lot of people didn't have fastenough internet connections at
home to do video conferencingand things.
So you're exactly right, and itis interesting how you know
markets and people have adaptedto kind of the pause that COVID
(05:01):
gave them.
I mean, think about some of thebusinesses that you frequent
that are now doing home deliveryor food delivery or some of
these things which were alwayskind of there, but because they
had an impetus to, hey, we needto get this done and make it
work.
Now it's mainstream, people arestill doing it.
So tell us about websites,because websites are kind of
(05:23):
your thing, right?
So in our industry, the photoindustry, there's a lot of
websites.
There's basically two wayspeople interact.
Well, three ways to becomebrick and mortar.
Where people interact, there'sapps, and then there's websites,
and then there's websites thatbehave like apps.
So, you know, there's sort ofand we're really one of the
(05:44):
weirdest industries in the sensethat people create on our
platforms, right, they uploadpictures and create and, you
know, manufacture products,essentially, right, you put up a
picture and then you makesomething out of it, right?
So there's a lot of userinteraction.
It's not like a one-clickpurchase environment, except for
, like cameras and things likethat.
(06:04):
So what are some ways peoplecan really start to assess the
effectiveness of their website?
Philipga Gamse (06:14):
Right.
So, yeah, my thing is usinganalytics website analytics to
figure that out, to figure outwhat do I need to do better or
what can I do differently.
That will improve things.
They're probably saying, oh no,maybe I should tune out now
because this is going to beincredibly boring, because it
can be overwhelming and you seea load of data and charts and
(06:34):
graphs and you don't know whereto start.
And the point is to reallyunderstand your own business and
what you're trying to do withit in terms of your website.
So the really key question iswhat do you want people to do
when they come to your site?
So, do you want them to uploadpictures?
Do you want them to call you?
Do you want them to sign up foryour newsletter?
Is there something that you'reactually selling on your website
(06:57):
?
Do you have a free consultationor a paid consultation that you
want people?
So that's the way to get intoit.
It's not just looking at thenumbers thinking, oh, I wonder
what this means.
It's it's what do I thinkshould be happening and is it
happening enough?
Well, you know which is kind ofhow long is a piece of string?
(07:17):
But you know, this is the pointof the analytics.
If you don't have questionsthat are related to your
business and your specific goals, it's really hard.
Like I said, I mean I thinkGoogle Analytics right now has
at least 140 odd default reports.
I mean there's no way that youcan just get into them.
Gary Pageau (07:36):
You know, with the websites that most people in our
industry have, you know theyare doing shopping carts and
transactions and things likethat doing shopping carts and
transactions and things likethat but you know, I think a lot
of them are still, you know,maybe missing some connections
in terms of how to get people toactually go through the process
right, whether it's a ui hiccupor a connectivity issue or
(07:57):
something, because that's wherewe see a lot of challenges is
people start making somethingand then they abandon it.
Is there any uh suggestions youhave in that sort of that kind
of scenario?
Philipga Gamse (08:08):
Yeah, so one of the things that you can do and I
mean shopping carts areinteresting, because you still
see very high levels of peopleputting things into shopping
carts and then not completingthe transaction.
But even if it's not a shoppingcart, one of the things that
you can typically do withanalytics is to look at the
places where people drop off, sopeople start some sort of
(08:29):
process and then you can see,well, where do they stop?
And then the key thing, whichis why I love this, is because
they're not going to tell youwhy.
You don't know why, right, butthat's obviously the key
question.
So sometimes it can be obviouslike something isn't working,
okay.
Or sometimes it's a questionlike have you got some sort of a
(08:51):
form?
That is way too long, right?
Yesterday I was talking with aclient who new client and he's
got this contact form, which isfor an initial contact.
It's in a very specific nichebusiness and so there's a very
specific reason why somebodywould want to contact him.
But he's asking them to uploadphotos and you know examples or
(09:13):
documentation or whatever I'mgoing hold on.
You know that's quite acomplicated thing to do.
If this is our initial contact,maybe that's not something you
want me to do immediately.
You can say you can have a notefield that says you know what's
your specific issue, right?
Or they can just write somethingand with analytics there's ways
(09:34):
we can test that, because wecan tell when somebody starts to
fill in a form, for example.
So if we've got a lead form, wecan tell if somebody starts to
fill it in, and then obviously,we can then correlate that with
the number of actual forms thatget submitted.
And if it's not a good number,then potentially, as I said, one
of the things that I start tolook for is is the form just too
long or does it ask things thatare too complicated, like
(09:57):
upload something as an initial?
you know, once you've got therelationship going and it's
obvious that you need like youjust asked me, to send you my
headshot- right, I'll send youmy headshot because I've got a
good reason to send it to younow, right, yeah, if the first
thing we'd ever like, the veryfirst thing you'd say to me, is
send me your headshot, I I mighthave gone right?
Gary Pageau (10:18):
no, it's funny.
It is interesting because youdo see that in a lot of places
where it's like you know, createan account and they do say, hey
, put in your headshot, which Idon't understand why.
But I have seen that, unlessthey're expecting you to have an
ongoing relationship with themto, you know, add content, add
(10:38):
reviews or add something likethat.
I can see that, yeah, but ifit's just I'm making some prints
, do I really need that sort ofenvironment?
Philipga Gamse (10:47):
Right, but you know, the nice thing is the
proof of the pudding.
I mean, basically, you have tocome up with a theory and then
you obviously test it.
So the next thing that willhappen is he's going to shorten
the form and ask basic thingsthat he needs for the initial
lead, and we'll see if we get abetter response.
Right Now, obviously, it's abit more complicated than that,
because one of the other thingsyou want to know is are the
(11:08):
people that I'm attracting to mywebsite the right people for
what I'm trying to sell, or youknow what I'm doing here?
Because if you've got thousandsof visitors who are really not
the right target audience,doesn't make any difference,
they're not going to interactwith you, okay.
And so one of the other thingsthat we can do, where you start
seeing people drop off or peoplearen't completing things in the
(11:30):
way you'd want, you can startsaying well, are there some
patterns in who those people areor how they came here?
Gary Pageau (11:36):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (11:37):
An example of that is social media advertising
.
I have to say that, even thoughlots and lots of people jump
into social media advertising,it tends to be a bit cheaper
than, say, google pay-per-clickads, right, right yeah, yeah.
But typically on social media,people aren't searching for
products and services and thingsto help them solve their
(11:57):
problems.
They're mostly there to chatwith friends, get entertained,
et cetera.
Right, and they might see an adthat sort of catches their eye,
looks interesting.
Oh, I'll just click thatquickly.
Take one look.
No, this is really not what Iwant to do right now.
Erin Manning (12:11):
And they're gone.
Philipga Gamse (12:14):
So one of the other things we can do with
analytics that can be veryhelpful is to chunk visitors
down into how they got to yoursite.
If they did a search.
I know you had a, an seo guest.
You said quite, quite recentlyum, so if people come to you
from an, a google search or asearch engine, they where they
put in a search that brings themto your website, then obviously
(12:37):
it's a much better lead or apotential visitor, because
they're proactively looking forwhat you're doing right, what
you're offering right, whereas asocial media ad person is
somebody who's just sort of offclicking on something they're
clicking around.
Gary Pageau (12:52):
There may not be an intent there.
Philipga Gamse (12:54):
And that's not always the case.
Obviously, some people findsocial media very, very helpful,
and I'm not trying to knocksocial media, but what I am
saying is that it's absolutelyworth doing that kind of review
to see what kind, when you're,the way that you get traffic to
your site and all the differentways that you're doing that I
mean your email list should begenerating you some very high
quality visitors.
(13:14):
Right, because they've alreadysaid they're interested in
hearing from you again.
Right, but just noticing where,and because this is also
affecting your marketing budgets, right.
So where is what you'respending on marketing the most
effective and where is it reallynot?
Even if it's cheap, if it'sjust bringing you a load of
people who click awayimmediately, is it really worth
doing?
Gary Pageau (13:35):
So what are some of the numbers that you suggest
people take an initial look at?
Because, like you said, there'sdozens of them, right?
I mean, I don't know if bouncerate is the number or if you can
ascertain who you know, ifthey're bots, which is, you know
, a big problem now.
So what are some of the thingsthat you suggest, just as
initial look through, if you'renot, even, you know, a web
(13:58):
expert?
Philipga Gamse (13:59):
Yeah, it's a question I often get asked and I
actually honestly push back onit.
Yeah, it's a question I oftenget asked and I actually
honestly push back on it.
Well, because there are so manynumbers, like I said I and I, I
said I really think you need tobe thinking about your own
business and what you need toknow right now, because because
another thing is don't, don'tlook at numbers for the sake of
it, right?
You really only should belooking at a number if you
(14:19):
intend to do something about it,if you can figure something to
do about it.
So it's much more valuable toyou to figure out, to think
about what are the key questionsright now.
I mean, for example, if you, ifyou're suspecting that people
are adding a lot of stuff toshopping carts and then never
going through with it, maybethat's where you want to start.
Gary Pageau (14:38):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (14:39):
Right, if you're spending a lot of money on ads
and you feel like you're notgetting the traction, maybe
that's where you want to start,because you want to see, you
really want to know which, whichkind of advertising is, or SEO,
or whatever is effective, as Isaid, or not.
So, instead of just looking atnumbers, for the sake of it, you
really.
To me, it makes much more senseif you're asking questions
(14:59):
about what you know you'realready doing.
For example, this client that Ijust took.
He's's a brand new client,right, so we have some work to
do and he knows that.
But, for example, he's sellinga very specific product on his
site.
As I said, it's a very niche.
I can't I don't reallynecessarily want to tell you
exactly the detail, but no,that's fine, perfect.
But the product that he'sselling is something that would
(15:21):
pertain to almost all of uswho've ever driven a car.
It has to do with getting aticket, and yet the technical
name for it is known to himbecause he's in that line of
work, and that's the navigationlink on his website to the page
that describes this service.
But you and me assuming you'renot an ex-traffic cop probably
(15:45):
have no idea what it means.
I didn't, and I I sort of askeda load of friends after I
talked to him and I said youknow, because the fact of the
matter is that that page we cantell from the analytics gets,
has got since we put analyticson his site about a month ago
zero visitors, zero clicks,because nobody.
If you look at those, the wordsthat he's using to describe it,
(16:06):
it means nothing to me.
I have absolutely no idea why Ishould click on it or what it
would do for me.
Gary Pageau (16:11):
Right because it's a technical sort of inside
industry term as opposed to ageneral knowledge term.
Philipga Gamse (16:17):
And we all have jargon in our industry.
I'm sure in the photographyindustry there's a load of
jargon.
Gary Pageau (16:22):
Well, you know it's interesting you said, because,
you know, right, when we'rerecording, this is the fourth
quarter of the holiday season.
It's going to probably, youknow, we'll probably post this
after the first year, but youknow, and they always have a
photo gift right, this is thegifting season of the way you
can now put photos and personalcontent on all kinds of things,
(16:45):
including wall decor anddrinkware and, you know, plates
and everything else.
It's not just for gifts, but itseems like the industry is kind
of focused on gifts and I'vealways wondered if that was.
You know, an opportunity theindustry has is to, you know,
find another term, which I don'tknow what that is.
If I did, I'd share.
So is there a way people cantest that?
(17:06):
I guess that was my question isis that aware, you know, when
people run into that issue, howdo they find the right words?
Philipga Gamse (17:14):
Well, actually we I said describe it, tell me
what this actually is and whenhe did that.
We came up easily.
I mean, tell me, if you tell mein lay terms I can understand.
We easily came up with how wecan do that differently.
Plus, on the homepage.
See, he also didn't really haveit explained on the homepage.
Gary Pageau (17:32):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (17:33):
And right now it's the one thing that he wants
to sell, right?
So on the homepage there shouldbe a thing that says hey, if
this is happening to you, youneed this boom click here.
So, and that's something justto really, you know, stress that
point, because I see it againand again If you're in a
business where you're using alot of terminology, it's really
important to think about do thepeople that you want to interact
(17:55):
with you understand those words?
And if not, you need to talk tothem in words that they
understand, because otherwiseand you know, know, this is why
analytics is so helpful, right?
Gary Pageau (18:05):
because without those analytics, I wouldn't have
been able to say to him youhave had zero people, even
seeing the page that describeshe was probably shocked by that
right he was absolutely yes,yeah because you know, I mean
you've raised an interestingpoint, especially for the
photography industry, because,especially in the in the in the
hardware side of the business,there's a lot of jargon right
for different types of camerasand technical specifications on
(18:29):
lenses and all these things.
And you know, I've been in theindustry a long time and I don't
know what some of these thingsare or why they're important
right.
So I think you've raised areally good point that you know,
for the benefit not just foryour customers but of your
business, you should look atstarting to use more language
that is more customer friendly,right.
Philipga Gamse (18:49):
Now, if your customers I don't know say
you're selling very high specequipment to professional
photographers, maybe you can dothat right, Because maybe
they'll be looking for thoseprofessional terms.
But that's the real issue is howdo your visitors describe what
they think you have?
Now, if you have an internalsearch engine on your website,
(19:12):
that can be a goldmine, Right,Because when people because
another thing that analytics cantell you is what do people type
into that search engine that'son your site, so we're not
talking about Google now, we'retalking about your site, the
search engine that's on yoursite, so we're not talking about
Google now, we're talking aboutyour site, the search engine,
and what people type in thereobviously is what they think you
have in their terms, and thatcan be really really helpful in
(19:35):
understanding how they thinkabout what you do.
Another thing it's reallyhelpful for is that I've used
with several clients is ifthey're looking for things that
you don't currently provide butare within your area of
expertise, then there's marketresearch about what else you
could develop, right, and we'veactually with several clients I
(19:56):
mean we've actually done thatgone ahead and developed new
products or services that havebeen very successful based on
what comes out of that searchengine.
Gary Pageau (20:05):
You know that's an interesting point because you
know, back in the day, whenpeople mostly shop physically
you know brick and mortar,environment people would walk in
, they would say, do you have X,y or Z?
And the retailers say, well, no, but we've got this thing.
That's kind of like that.
But that's feedback, they'regetting Right.
And then when things move downto the internet way to capture
(20:29):
that an internal search engineor something like that they have
no way of assessing what peoplemight want.
Philipga Gamse (20:36):
I know that.
You know one of my the thingsthat I really hate I mean I do
obviously part of analytics isalso looking at the user
experience.
You know you talked aboutthings that frustrate people and
so on.
If you put in a search onsomebody's website and it comes
back and says sorry, we haven'tgot that, and it says no results
found, somehow, that please tryyour search again with
(20:58):
different keywords or somethinglike that, and you know why is
that bad?
Because it makes it like it'smy fault, right, that I couldn't
find it.
I mean that salesperson in thephysical store wouldn't say you
stupid person, why are youasking for that, right?
Gary Pageau (21:12):
could you rephrase that in another way?
Do more work for me to find outwhat it is I want from you.
So what would be a way peoplecould respond?
Let's say, for example,somebody goes on to a camera
website and they put in I want,you know, this lens and you
don't have that lens.
You, but would would you have?
We don't have that, but we havethis.
Philipga Gamse (21:40):
I mean you could and or you could literally have
a contact form there, you know,send us an idea of what you're
looking for, or just fill thisin brief form or something.
I mean I have had a client thatbuilt a sort of synonym table
right.
This was in the electrical, itwas manufacturing parts kinds of
things.
But one of the things we foundfrom looking at their search
engine was that people oftenmisspelled part names.
And again, I don't know if thishappens in photography, because
(22:02):
if you have a lot ofcomplicated canon.
Gary Pageau (22:05):
People put they misspell canon all the time
right and they also had.
Philipga Gamse (22:10):
They would.
They would you know updateparts and sort of rename them or
give them a different number orsomething.
And people had the old numberand their search engine was
saying sorry, that's out ofstock or that's obsolete.
Gary Pageau (22:20):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (22:21):
Without saying but the part you need is this,
right, so they actually did put,did create a sort of a lookup
table.
I mean, it's a bit morecomplicated, but it obviously
can be done.
Right, that maps what peopleput in to.
This is what you actually need,right, and because people were
leaving their site, because theywere getting these searches and
(22:42):
the search engine was sayingsorry, we haven't got it, when
that actually wasn't true, right, they had it but.
They had it but the person hadspelled it wrong or didn't know
the right number anymore or thatkind of thing, and of course
then people were leaving theirsite and going to the
competition and when we madethat change then obviously that
resolved a lot of those issues.
Gary Pageau (22:58):
What kind of results can people expect?
I mean, first of all, thisdoesn't happen overnight, right?
When someone starts looking atthis stuff, it takes a while for
the data to accrue and fortrends to be shown and all this.
So you know, is there like apercentage increase that people
can say are attributable topaying attention to the
analytics?
Is there a 10% lift or 15%?
(23:20):
Is there an industry number?
I guess is the question.
Philipga Gamse (23:24):
I think honestly , I think that's how long is a
piece.
I think that's so dependent onwhat it is.
I mean, look, if you've got abroken link and you fix the link
, that can change thingsovernight.
I mean it can change thingsimmediately, right?
If you are asking too manyquestions and you take out the
questions that annoy people,that can make a pretty quick
difference.
It depends on the nature of theproblem and it depends on all
(23:47):
sorts of other things like howin demand the problem is.
I mean, obviously, if it's ahigh ticket item anyway, people
don't necessarily buy that as animpulse buy.
You know there are lots ofdifferent factors that go into
how things work out and Iactually have to say so.
Google Analytics, which is thetool I normally use, has
(24:07):
actually brought in someindustry benchmarking.
So if you say what industryyou're in, it will give you sort
of typical because people lovethat right.
Like how many visitors am Igetting?
Is that typical for theindustry?
I push back on that honestly,and I think a lot of people
whose expertise I respect do aswell, because when you're
(24:28):
looking at benchmarking againstother companies, you don't
always know if you're comparingapples with apples, because you
don't know what those othercompanies are doing in terms of
effective marketing.
You don't know how effectivetheir websites are?
Erin Manning (24:39):
Yeah, because it's just one piece of it.
Philipga Gamse (24:41):
I mean you could say, right, I'm getting fewer
visitors than the industryaverage, but maybe my website is
doing a fantastic job ofconversion because I've got
great content and I really makemy case.
So the fact that I'm gettingfewer visitors, I'm still
getting more business becauseI've got a higher conversion
rate.
So I personally much prefer toadvise clients to benchmark
(25:01):
against themselves.
You know, when you start doingserious evaluation of your
website performance you know,take some measurements right and
then set some goals and inthree months time, where are we
right?
Gary Pageau (25:14):
So what are some examples of how people can use
analytics to make a real lifedifference?
We've talked about forms.
We've talked about some things.
There's a lot of interest invideo.
Does video actually help?
Philipga Gamse (25:27):
Yeah, so one of the things you can do with
analytics that a lot of peopledon't realize is that you can
see not only how many peoplestarted the video, but you can
see how many people watched itall the way through.
So you can set your analytics totell you when people have seen
half of it.
It depends, obviously, how longit is right 75%, et cetera and
(25:48):
actually the when you look atthose analytics in depth, they
can actually be quitefrightening some of the time.
I mean, I have a client whodoes.
He's prolific, I mean every day.
He's got several videos thatcome out in his area of
expertise and we looked at someof the viewing statistics and he
was losing and this is notuntypical 50% of his visitors or
(26:13):
people who started watching thevideo dropped off in the first
30 seconds wow, it was a wasteof time then, for the most part
well, before we startedrecording, you said to me I'm
not going to spend a whole lotof time at the beginning of the
podcast going blah, blah, blahbecause people want to get into
it.
they want to go.
Okay, is this going to be funto listen to?
Is it going to be valuable?
What am I going to get right?
(26:33):
Let they want to go.
Okay, is this going to be funto listen to?
Is it going to be valuable?
What am I going to get Right?
Let's, let's go.
They've heard.
They've heard you before.
They're used to who you are, etcetera.
Right, one of the things he diddo was he did do a lot of blah,
blah, blah at the beginning,and I tried to convince him that
he really shouldn't, becauselook at all these people
dropping off and by one minutehe'd lost 90.
I mean, that's ridiculous,right?
Gary Pageau (26:54):
yeah, and if he's doing multiple a day, he's
probably driving people away.
Philipga Gamse (26:58):
But well, no, he's very he's, he is very
successful.
But you know, but I do see alot of businesses and especially
visitors.
I mean, this is this is kind ofthe video that we're sort of
the zoom kind of thing thatwe're doing now.
But you know, there arebusinesses that do some highly
expensive, well highly producedvideos to promote the business.
Gary Pageau (27:16):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (27:17):
And then you look at their viewing stats and
their rubbish and that's that'sa problem.
I mean, that's really not goodnews, right so so you, and the
same for podcasts, you can alsotell how many people listen to
the podcast and how much of thepodcast they consume, right?
So it's really helpfulinformation.
Gary Pageau (27:34):
Speaking of information, where can people go
to get more information on whatyou do and they can learn more?
Philipga Gamse (27:42):
So my website is called websitesthatwincom and
on that website you can find afree ebook which has five
stories.
I think it's called Five HiddenGems and it has five stories.
I think it's called.
It's called five hidden gemsand it has five stories from
actual my experience of thingsthat different clients,
different businesses, have foundin their analytics that we
absolutely couldn't haveotherwise known, and changes
(28:03):
that we made to the business orto the website based on what we
found that made a big difference.
And there's no charts, graphsor techie language in it.
So you know, my goal is reallyto help business owners
understand the power of doingthis without getting into all
the technology, because you canfind somebody to do that for you
.
But the point is, as a businessowner, you need to know what's
(28:25):
in it for you to do thisproperly.
So that's available at mywebsite.
It's hopefully designed toinspire people to say maybe
something like that could behappening for me.
And the other thing is I'm onlinkedin.
I think I'm the only person inthe entire planet with my name
which is kind of helpful so, andI'm very happy to connect with
people on linkedin awesome sothe website again is websites
(28:48):
that wincom backslash ebook.
Gary Pageau (28:51):
Now is there a 15 field form and a picture you
have to upload to get that, orhow quick is that?
Well, I guess people should gothere and find out.
Philipga Gamse (29:00):
right, that's what we're right, you do have to
put in your name and your emailbecause, uh, you know it's.
Yeah, it's free, and of coursethat means that, um, I do like
to to know who you are and tryand have a conversation with you
afterwards, but if you say goaway, I'll go away.
Gary Pageau (29:14):
Set up a profile no no, no, no no so you practice.
Philipga Gamse (29:19):
What you preach is what I'm trying to get right
and if people don't want to hearfrom me ever again, they can
say so and I'll go away, yeahawesome.
Gary Pageau (29:26):
Well, it's so nice to meet you.
Thank you so much.
I think you shared some greatinformation and look forward to
seeing more from you in thefuture.
Erin Manning (29:31):
Thanks, Thank you, Gary.
Thank you for listening to theDead Pixel Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry's leadingnews source.
Here's your host, gary Pegeau.
The Dead Pixel Society podcastis brought to you by MediaClip,
advertech Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:18):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Philippa
Gamse, who is with Websites thatWin, and she's got decades of
experience in marketing andconsulting and will advise us on
how we can get the most out ofour website.
Hey, Philippa, how are youtoday?
Philipga Gamse (00:37):
Hey Gary, good morning or good afternoon.
Gary Pageau (00:40):
Tell us how you got started in this career because,
as we were talking about in thepreamble, you do have an accent
, but you're actually coming tous from Santa Cruz, so it sounds
like you have a long and variedhistory in the business world.
Philipga Gamse (00:53):
Yeah, I actually , as I came over to the States,
I've been actually I going todate myself here but working in
the Internet since basically itstarted being a major business
tool, which was a coincidencepretty much with when I arrived
in the US and I just thought itwas fascinating.
I had a background incommunications, data and so on,
(01:14):
but I just thought that thepossibilities of what it could
do even back then wereabsolutely amazing and wanted to
get involved in it.
Gary Pageau (01:24):
So what was the first thing you did in the early
internet?
Was it cause I remember thingslike FTP and?
Philipga Gamse (01:29):
crazy things like that, absolutely, yeah, so
in fact, I mean, when I firstcame here, I was working for a
major national nonprofit basedin Chicago.
So you know this was early daysand in the early days there
were so you probably rememberthis too there were things like
CompuServe and AOL and they hadyou know this was early days and
in the early days they were, soyou probably remember this too
there were things likeCompuServe and AOL and they had,
you know, like bulletin boards,which were early forms of
(01:51):
discussion groups, right, andwhat this nonprofit wanted to do
.
So it was a national nonprofitthat had a chapter based in
every state and they wanted alltheir chapters to communicate
using this new technology andemail and bulletin board or
whatever kind of group chatthere was back then and I was
(02:12):
actually brought on.
They created a position for me,specifically for me, because it
was nothing like they'd everhad before to evangelize to the
chapter people to work this way,because it was really new to
everybody and it was fascinating, actually, because there were
the early adopters who loved itand there were the over my dead
body people and amazingly, therewere over my dead body people
(02:35):
and you know they wanted tocontinue sending faxes around
the place and of course everytime you send a fax you pretty
much have to do it, you know, onan individual, one by one basis
, right?
Because you've got to call thephone number and fax it.
And of course, if you don't geteverybody doing it, so you're
like, okay, we've got 45 peoplewe can chat to in our group and
then we've got to send out fivefaxes, it doesn't work.
(02:55):
So it was quite an interestingchallenge.
I mean, it was much less aboutthe technology and much more
about people handling, you know.
Gary Pageau (03:08):
Oh sure, yeah, no, I remember back again.
I'm dating myself back in thedays in the photo industry there
was the photo forum onCompuServe and that was a big
deal, right, cause that's whereall the news and everything and
we were heavily involved in itback then.
And boy, you really broughtback memories with faxing, cause
we used to do a in theorganization.
I used to work with the photomarketing association.
We had a print newsletter andwe got into fax broadcast and
(03:29):
that was just, like you know, asea change.
Then of course went to emailand web and all that stuff.
So I'm very familiar with thepain points of getting audiences
to move to new places when itmakes more sense and if you look
at how far we've come, I mean Iwas just, you know.
Philipga Gamse (03:45):
Now I have clients in Australia, new
Zealand, singapore, because itdoesn't really matter anymore
where you are.
You can do anything you knowonline.
You can talk to anybodyanywhere in the world who's got
a broad connection, you know,and it's a whole different.
I mean with COVID.
If you think about it, the waythat we handled COVID and we all
went online and met online andsocially, for personal reasons,
(04:08):
for professional reasons, etcetera Even if COVID had
happened even five years earlier, we wouldn't have had that
technology Right To the sameextent.
It's amazing really.
Gary Pageau (04:19):
Well, we would have been trying to do it on Skype
and that would have beenterrible.
Right, it's just terrible to doit on Skype and that would have
been terrible.
But yeah, no, it is interestingbecause I have thought about
that too, because there was sortof the perfect storm of
technology coming together at atime where it was most needed,
you know, for remote work andthose kinds of things.
Because, you know, people hadlaptops, whereas you know, like
(04:40):
you said, five years beforethere were probably more
desktops than laptops, right,and you had tablets, and you
know, like you said, five yearsbefore there were probably more
desktops than laptops, right,and tablets and you know, most,
a lot of people didn't have fastenough internet connections at
home to do video conferencingand things.
So you're exactly right, and itis interesting how you know
markets and people have adaptedto kind of the pause that COVID
(05:01):
gave them.
I mean, think about some of thebusinesses that you frequent
that are now doing home deliveryor food delivery or some of
these things which were alwayskind of there, but because they
had an impetus to, hey, we needto get this done and make it
work.
Now it's mainstream, people arestill doing it.
So tell us about websites,because websites are kind of
(05:23):
your thing, right?
So in our industry, the photoindustry, there's a lot of
websites.
There's basically two wayspeople interact.
Well, three ways to becomebrick and mortar.
Where people interact, there'sapps, and then there's websites,
and then there's websites thatbehave like apps.
So, you know, there's sort ofand we're really one of the
(05:44):
weirdest industries in the sensethat people create on our
platforms, right, they uploadpictures and create and, you
know, manufacture products,essentially, right, you put up a
picture and then you makesomething out of it, right?
So there's a lot of userinteraction.
It's not like a one-clickpurchase environment, except for
, like cameras and things likethat.
(06:04):
So what are some ways peoplecan really start to assess the
effectiveness of their website?
Philipga Gamse (06:14):
Right.
So, yeah, my thing is usinganalytics website analytics to
figure that out, to figure outwhat do I need to do better or
what can I do differently.
That will improve things.
They're probably saying, oh no,maybe I should tune out now
because this is going to beincredibly boring, because it
can be overwhelming and you seea load of data and charts and
(06:34):
graphs and you don't know whereto start.
And the point is to reallyunderstand your own business and
what you're trying to do withit in terms of your website.
So the really key question iswhat do you want people to do
when they come to your site?
So, do you want them to uploadpictures?
Do you want them to call you?
Do you want them to sign up foryour newsletter?
Is there something that you'reactually selling on your website
(06:57):
?
Do you have a free consultationor a paid consultation that you
want people?
So that's the way to get intoit.
It's not just looking at thenumbers thinking, oh, I wonder
what this means.
It's it's what do I thinkshould be happening and is it
happening enough?
Well, you know which is kind ofhow long is a piece of string?
(07:17):
But you know, this is the pointof the analytics.
If you don't have questionsthat are related to your
business and your specific goals, it's really hard.
Like I said, I mean I thinkGoogle Analytics right now has
at least 140 odd default reports.
I mean there's no way that youcan just get into them.
Gary Pageau (07:36):
You know, with the websites that most people in our
industry have, you know theyare doing shopping carts and
transactions and things likethat doing shopping carts and
transactions and things likethat but you know, I think a lot
of them are still, you know,maybe missing some connections
in terms of how to get people toactually go through the process
right, whether it's a ui hiccupor a connectivity issue or
(07:57):
something, because that's wherewe see a lot of challenges is
people start making somethingand then they abandon it.
Is there any uh suggestions youhave in that sort of that kind
of scenario?
Philipga Gamse (08:08):
Yeah, so one of the things that you can do and I
mean shopping carts areinteresting, because you still
see very high levels of peopleputting things into shopping
carts and then not completingthe transaction.
But even if it's not a shoppingcart, one of the things that
you can typically do withanalytics is to look at the
places where people drop off, sopeople start some sort of
(08:29):
process and then you can see,well, where do they stop?
And then the key thing, whichis why I love this, is because
they're not going to tell youwhy.
You don't know why, right, butthat's obviously the key
question.
So sometimes it can be obviouslike something isn't working,
okay.
Or sometimes it's a questionlike have you got some sort of a
(08:51):
form?
That is way too long, right?
Yesterday I was talking with aclient who new client and he's
got this contact form, which isfor an initial contact.
It's in a very specific nichebusiness and so there's a very
specific reason why somebodywould want to contact him.
But he's asking them to uploadphotos and you know examples or
(09:13):
documentation or whatever I'mgoing hold on.
You know that's quite acomplicated thing to do.
If this is our initial contact,maybe that's not something you
want me to do immediately.
You can say you can have a notefield that says you know what's
your specific issue, right?
Or they can just write somethingand with analytics there's ways
(09:34):
we can test that, because wecan tell when somebody starts to
fill in a form, for example.
So if we've got a lead form, wecan tell if somebody starts to
fill it in, and then obviously,we can then correlate that with
the number of actual forms thatget submitted.
And if it's not a good number,then potentially, as I said, one
of the things that I start tolook for is is the form just too
long or does it ask things thatare too complicated, like
(09:57):
upload something as an initial?
you know, once you've got therelationship going and it's
obvious that you need like youjust asked me, to send you my
headshot- right, I'll send youmy headshot because I've got a
good reason to send it to younow, right, yeah, if the first
thing we'd ever like, the veryfirst thing you'd say to me, is
send me your headshot, I I mighthave gone right?
Gary Pageau (10:18):
no, it's funny.
It is interesting because youdo see that in a lot of places
where it's like you know, createan account and they do say, hey
, put in your headshot, which Idon't understand why.
But I have seen that, unlessthey're expecting you to have an
ongoing relationship with themto, you know, add content, add
(10:38):
reviews or add something likethat.
I can see that, yeah, but ifit's just I'm making some prints
, do I really need that sort ofenvironment?
Philipga Gamse (10:47):
Right, but you know, the nice thing is the
proof of the pudding.
I mean, basically, you have tocome up with a theory and then
you obviously test it.
So the next thing that willhappen is he's going to shorten
the form and ask basic thingsthat he needs for the initial
lead, and we'll see if we get abetter response.
Right Now, obviously, it's abit more complicated than that,
because one of the other thingsyou want to know is are the
(11:08):
people that I'm attracting to mywebsite the right people for
what I'm trying to sell, or youknow what I'm doing here?
Because if you've got thousandsof visitors who are really not
the right target audience,doesn't make any difference,
they're not going to interactwith you, okay.
And so one of the other thingsthat we can do, where you start
seeing people drop off or peoplearen't completing things in the
(11:30):
way you'd want, you can startsaying well, are there some
patterns in who those people areor how they came here?
Gary Pageau (11:36):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (11:37):
An example of that is social media advertising
.
I have to say that, even thoughlots and lots of people jump
into social media advertising,it tends to be a bit cheaper
than, say, google pay-per-clickads, right, right yeah, yeah.
But typically on social media,people aren't searching for
products and services and thingsto help them solve their
(11:57):
problems.
They're mostly there to chatwith friends, get entertained,
et cetera.
Right, and they might see an adthat sort of catches their eye,
looks interesting.
Oh, I'll just click thatquickly.
Take one look.
No, this is really not what Iwant to do right now.
Erin Manning (12:11):
And they're gone.
Philipga Gamse (12:14):
So one of the other things we can do with
analytics that can be veryhelpful is to chunk visitors
down into how they got to yoursite.
If they did a search.
I know you had a, an seo guest.
You said quite, quite recentlyum, so if people come to you
from an, a google search or asearch engine, they where they
put in a search that brings themto your website, then obviously
(12:37):
it's a much better lead or apotential visitor, because
they're proactively looking forwhat you're doing right, what
you're offering right, whereas asocial media ad person is
somebody who's just sort of offclicking on something they're
clicking around.
Gary Pageau (12:52):
There may not be an intent there.
Philipga Gamse (12:54):
And that's not always the case.
Obviously, some people findsocial media very, very helpful,
and I'm not trying to knocksocial media, but what I am
saying is that it's absolutelyworth doing that kind of review
to see what kind, when you're,the way that you get traffic to
your site and all the differentways that you're doing that I
mean your email list should begenerating you some very high
quality visitors.
(13:14):
Right, because they've alreadysaid they're interested in
hearing from you again.
Right, but just noticing where,and because this is also
affecting your marketing budgets, right.
So where is what you'respending on marketing the most
effective and where is it reallynot?
Even if it's cheap, if it'sjust bringing you a load of
people who click awayimmediately, is it really worth
doing?
Gary Pageau (13:35):
So what are some of the numbers that you suggest
people take an initial look at?
Because, like you said, there'sdozens of them, right?
I mean, I don't know if bouncerate is the number or if you can
ascertain who you know, ifthey're bots, which is, you know
, a big problem now.
So what are some of the thingsthat you suggest, just as
initial look through, if you'renot, even, you know, a web
(13:58):
expert?
Philipga Gamse (13:59):
Yeah, it's a question I often get asked and I
actually honestly push back onit.
Yeah, it's a question I oftenget asked and I actually
honestly push back on it.
Well, because there are so manynumbers, like I said I and I, I
said I really think you need tobe thinking about your own
business and what you need toknow right now, because because
another thing is don't, don'tlook at numbers for the sake of
it, right?
You really only should belooking at a number if you
(14:19):
intend to do something about it,if you can figure something to
do about it.
So it's much more valuable toyou to figure out, to think
about what are the key questionsright now.
I mean, for example, if you, ifyou're suspecting that people
are adding a lot of stuff toshopping carts and then never
going through with it, maybethat's where you want to start.
Gary Pageau (14:38):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (14:39):
Right, if you're spending a lot of money on ads
and you feel like you're notgetting the traction, maybe
that's where you want to start,because you want to see, you
really want to know which, whichkind of advertising is, or SEO,
or whatever is effective, as Isaid, or not.
So, instead of just looking atnumbers, for the sake of it, you
really.
To me, it makes much more senseif you're asking questions
(14:59):
about what you know you'realready doing.
For example, this client that Ijust took.
He's's a brand new client,right, so we have some work to
do and he knows that.
But, for example, he's sellinga very specific product on his
site.
As I said, it's a very niche.
I can't I don't reallynecessarily want to tell you
exactly the detail, but no,that's fine, perfect.
But the product that he'sselling is something that would
(15:21):
pertain to almost all of uswho've ever driven a car.
It has to do with getting aticket, and yet the technical
name for it is known to himbecause he's in that line of
work, and that's the navigationlink on his website to the page
that describes this service.
But you and me assuming you'renot an ex-traffic cop probably
(15:45):
have no idea what it means.
I didn't, and I I sort of askeda load of friends after I
talked to him and I said youknow, because the fact of the
matter is that that page we cantell from the analytics gets,
has got since we put analyticson his site about a month ago
zero visitors, zero clicks,because nobody.
If you look at those, the wordsthat he's using to describe it,
(16:06):
it means nothing to me.
I have absolutely no idea why Ishould click on it or what it
would do for me.
Gary Pageau (16:11):
Right because it's a technical sort of inside
industry term as opposed to ageneral knowledge term.
Philipga Gamse (16:17):
And we all have jargon in our industry.
I'm sure in the photographyindustry there's a load of
jargon.
Gary Pageau (16:22):
Well, you know it's interesting you said, because,
you know, right, when we'rerecording, this is the fourth
quarter of the holiday season.
It's going to probably, youknow, we'll probably post this
after the first year, but youknow, and they always have a
photo gift right, this is thegifting season of the way you
can now put photos and personalcontent on all kinds of things,
(16:45):
including wall decor anddrinkware and, you know, plates
and everything else.
It's not just for gifts, but itseems like the industry is kind
of focused on gifts and I'vealways wondered if that was.
You know, an opportunity theindustry has is to, you know,
find another term, which I don'tknow what that is.
If I did, I'd share.
So is there a way people cantest that?
(17:06):
I guess that was my question isis that aware, you know, when
people run into that issue, howdo they find the right words?
Philipga Gamse (17:14):
Well, actually we I said describe it, tell me
what this actually is and whenhe did that.
We came up easily.
I mean, tell me, if you tell mein lay terms I can understand.
We easily came up with how wecan do that differently.
Plus, on the homepage.
See, he also didn't really haveit explained on the homepage.
Gary Pageau (17:32):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (17:33):
And right now it's the one thing that he wants
to sell, right?
So on the homepage there shouldbe a thing that says hey, if
this is happening to you, youneed this boom click here.
So, and that's something justto really, you know, stress that
point, because I see it againand again If you're in a
business where you're using alot of terminology, it's really
important to think about do thepeople that you want to interact
(17:55):
with you understand those words?
And if not, you need to talk tothem in words that they
understand, because otherwiseand you know, know, this is why
analytics is so helpful, right?
Gary Pageau (18:05):
because without those analytics, I wouldn't have
been able to say to him youhave had zero people, even
seeing the page that describeshe was probably shocked by that
right he was absolutely yes,yeah because you know, I mean
you've raised an interestingpoint, especially for the
photography industry, because,especially in the in the in the
hardware side of the business,there's a lot of jargon right
for different types of camerasand technical specifications on
(18:29):
lenses and all these things.
And you know, I've been in theindustry a long time and I don't
know what some of these thingsare or why they're important
right.
So I think you've raised areally good point that you know,
for the benefit not just foryour customers but of your
business, you should look atstarting to use more language
that is more customer friendly,right.
Philipga Gamse (18:49):
Now, if your customers I don't know say
you're selling very high specequipment to professional
photographers, maybe you can dothat right, Because maybe
they'll be looking for thoseprofessional terms.
But that's the real issue is howdo your visitors describe what
they think you have?
Now, if you have an internalsearch engine on your website,
(19:12):
that can be a goldmine, Right,Because when people because
another thing that analytics cantell you is what do people type
into that search engine that'son your site, so we're not
talking about Google now, we'retalking about your site, the
search engine that's on yoursite, so we're not talking about
Google now, we're talking aboutyour site, the search engine,
and what people type in thereobviously is what they think you
have in their terms, and thatcan be really really helpful in
(19:35):
understanding how they thinkabout what you do.
Another thing it's reallyhelpful for is that I've used
with several clients is ifthey're looking for things that
you don't currently provide butare within your area of
expertise, then there's marketresearch about what else you
could develop, right, and we'veactually with several clients I
(19:56):
mean we've actually done thatgone ahead and developed new
products or services that havebeen very successful based on
what comes out of that searchengine.
Gary Pageau (20:05):
You know that's an interesting point because you
know, back in the day, whenpeople mostly shop physically
you know brick and mortar,environment people would walk in
, they would say, do you have X,y or Z?
And the retailers say, well, no, but we've got this thing.
That's kind of like that.
But that's feedback, they'regetting Right.
And then when things move downto the internet way to capture
(20:29):
that an internal search engineor something like that they have
no way of assessing what peoplemight want.
Philipga Gamse (20:36):
I know that.
You know one of my the thingsthat I really hate I mean I do
obviously part of analytics isalso looking at the user
experience.
You know you talked aboutthings that frustrate people and
so on.
If you put in a search onsomebody's website and it comes
back and says sorry, we haven'tgot that, and it says no results
found, somehow, that please tryyour search again with
(20:58):
different keywords or somethinglike that, and you know why is
that bad?
Because it makes it like it'smy fault, right, that I couldn't
find it.
I mean that salesperson in thephysical store wouldn't say you
stupid person, why are youasking for that, right?
Gary Pageau (21:12):
could you rephrase that in another way?
Do more work for me to find outwhat it is I want from you.
So what would be a way peoplecould respond?
Let's say, for example,somebody goes on to a camera
website and they put in I want,you know, this lens and you
don't have that lens.
You, but would would you have?
We don't have that, but we havethis.
Philipga Gamse (21:40):
I mean you could and or you could literally have
a contact form there, you know,send us an idea of what you're
looking for, or just fill thisin brief form or something.
I mean I have had a client thatbuilt a sort of synonym table
right.
This was in the electrical, itwas manufacturing parts kinds of
things.
But one of the things we foundfrom looking at their search
engine was that people oftenmisspelled part names.
And again, I don't know if thishappens in photography, because
(22:02):
if you have a lot ofcomplicated canon.
Gary Pageau (22:05):
People put they misspell canon all the time
right and they also had.
Philipga Gamse (22:10):
They would.
They would you know updateparts and sort of rename them or
give them a different number orsomething.
And people had the old numberand their search engine was
saying sorry, that's out ofstock or that's obsolete.
Gary Pageau (22:20):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (22:21):
Without saying but the part you need is this,
right, so they actually did put,did create a sort of a lookup
table.
I mean, it's a bit morecomplicated, but it obviously
can be done.
Right, that maps what peopleput in to.
This is what you actually need,right, and because people were
leaving their site, because theywere getting these searches and
(22:42):
the search engine was sayingsorry, we haven't got it, when
that actually wasn't true, right, they had it but.
They had it but the person hadspelled it wrong or didn't know
the right number anymore or thatkind of thing, and of course
then people were leaving theirsite and going to the
competition and when we madethat change then obviously that
resolved a lot of those issues.
Gary Pageau (22:58):
What kind of results can people expect?
I mean, first of all, thisdoesn't happen overnight, right?
When someone starts looking atthis stuff, it takes a while for
the data to accrue and fortrends to be shown and all this.
So you know, is there like apercentage increase that people
can say are attributable topaying attention to the
analytics?
Is there a 10% lift or 15%?
(23:20):
Is there an industry number?
I guess is the question.
Philipga Gamse (23:24):
I think honestly , I think that's how long is a
piece.
I think that's so dependent onwhat it is.
I mean, look, if you've got abroken link and you fix the link
, that can change thingsovernight.
I mean it can change thingsimmediately, right?
If you are asking too manyquestions and you take out the
questions that annoy people,that can make a pretty quick
difference.
It depends on the nature of theproblem and it depends on all
(23:47):
sorts of other things like howin demand the problem is.
I mean, obviously, if it's ahigh ticket item anyway, people
don't necessarily buy that as animpulse buy.
You know there are lots ofdifferent factors that go into
how things work out and Iactually have to say so.
Google Analytics, which is thetool I normally use, has
(24:07):
actually brought in someindustry benchmarking.
So if you say what industryyou're in, it will give you sort
of typical because people lovethat right.
Like how many visitors am Igetting?
Is that typical for theindustry?
I push back on that honestly,and I think a lot of people
whose expertise I respect do aswell, because when you're
(24:28):
looking at benchmarking againstother companies, you don't
always know if you're comparingapples with apples, because you
don't know what those othercompanies are doing in terms of
effective marketing.
You don't know how effectivetheir websites are?
Erin Manning (24:39):
Yeah, because it's just one piece of it.
Philipga Gamse (24:41):
I mean you could say, right, I'm getting fewer
visitors than the industryaverage, but maybe my website is
doing a fantastic job ofconversion because I've got
great content and I really makemy case.
So the fact that I'm gettingfewer visitors, I'm still
getting more business becauseI've got a higher conversion
rate.
So I personally much prefer toadvise clients to benchmark
(25:01):
against themselves.
You know, when you start doingserious evaluation of your
website performance you know,take some measurements right and
then set some goals and inthree months time, where are we
right?
Gary Pageau (25:14):
So what are some examples of how people can use
analytics to make a real lifedifference?
We've talked about forms.
We've talked about some things.
There's a lot of interest invideo.
Does video actually help?
Philipga Gamse (25:27):
Yeah, so one of the things you can do with
analytics that a lot of peopledon't realize is that you can
see not only how many peoplestarted the video, but you can
see how many people watched itall the way through.
So you can set your analytics totell you when people have seen
half of it.
It depends, obviously, how longit is right 75%, et cetera and
(25:48):
actually the when you look atthose analytics in depth, they
can actually be quitefrightening some of the time.
I mean, I have a client whodoes.
He's prolific, I mean every day.
He's got several videos thatcome out in his area of
expertise and we looked at someof the viewing statistics and he
was losing and this is notuntypical 50% of his visitors or
(26:13):
people who started watching thevideo dropped off in the first
30 seconds wow, it was a wasteof time then, for the most part
well, before we startedrecording, you said to me I'm
not going to spend a whole lotof time at the beginning of the
podcast going blah, blah, blahbecause people want to get into
it.
they want to go.
Okay, is this going to be funto listen to?
Is it going to be valuable?
What am I going to get right?
(26:33):
Let they want to go.
Okay, is this going to be funto listen to?
Is it going to be valuable?
What am I going to get Right?
Let's, let's go.
They've heard.
They've heard you before.
They're used to who you are, etcetera.
Right, one of the things he diddo was he did do a lot of blah,
blah, blah at the beginning,and I tried to convince him that
he really shouldn't, becauselook at all these people
dropping off and by one minutehe'd lost 90.
I mean, that's ridiculous,right?
Gary Pageau (26:54):
yeah, and if he's doing multiple a day, he's
probably driving people away.
Philipga Gamse (26:58):
But well, no, he's very he's, he is very
successful.
But you know, but I do see alot of businesses and especially
visitors.
I mean, this is this is kind ofthe video that we're sort of
the zoom kind of thing thatwe're doing now.
But you know, there arebusinesses that do some highly
expensive, well highly producedvideos to promote the business.
Gary Pageau (27:16):
Right.
Philipga Gamse (27:17):
And then you look at their viewing stats and
their rubbish and that's that'sa problem.
I mean, that's really not goodnews, right so so you, and the
same for podcasts, you can alsotell how many people listen to
the podcast and how much of thepodcast they consume, right?
So it's really helpfulinformation.
Gary Pageau (27:34):
Speaking of information, where can people go
to get more information on whatyou do and they can learn more?
Philipga Gamse (27:42):
So my website is called websitesthatwincom and
on that website you can find afree ebook which has five
stories.
I think it's called Five HiddenGems and it has five stories.
I think it's called.
It's called five hidden gemsand it has five stories from
actual my experience of thingsthat different clients,
different businesses, have foundin their analytics that we
absolutely couldn't haveotherwise known, and changes
(28:03):
that we made to the business orto the website based on what we
found that made a big difference.
And there's no charts, graphsor techie language in it.
So you know, my goal is reallyto help business owners
understand the power of doingthis without getting into all
the technology, because you canfind somebody to do that for you
.
But the point is, as a businessowner, you need to know what's
(28:25):
in it for you to do thisproperly.
So that's available at mywebsite.
It's hopefully designed toinspire people to say maybe
something like that could behappening for me.
And the other thing is I'm onlinkedin.
I think I'm the only person inthe entire planet with my name
which is kind of helpful so, andI'm very happy to connect with
people on linkedin awesome sothe website again is websites
(28:48):
that wincom backslash ebook.
Gary Pageau (28:51):
Now is there a 15 field form and a picture you
have to upload to get that, orhow quick is that?
Well, I guess people should gothere and find out.
Philipga Gamse (29:00):
right, that's what we're right, you do have to
put in your name and your emailbecause, uh, you know it's.
Yeah, it's free, and of coursethat means that, um, I do like
to to know who you are and tryand have a conversation with you
afterwards, but if you say goaway, I'll go away.
Gary Pageau (29:14):
Set up a profile no no, no, no no so you practice.
Philipga Gamse (29:19):
What you preach is what I'm trying to get right
and if people don't want to hearfrom me ever again, they can
say so and I'll go away, yeahawesome.
Gary Pageau (29:26):
Well, it's so nice to meet you.
Thank you so much.
I think you shared some greatinformation and look forward to
seeing more from you in thefuture.
Erin Manning (29:31):
Thanks, Thank you, Gary.
Thank you for listening to theDead Pixel Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
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