Hello and welcome. It is episode 25 of the 90 Day Website Mastery podcast. This is the companion to the 90 Day Website Mastery program. As I said, we're on episode 25. We wanted to find a way to continue to share more advice and insights about making your website work harder and for you to feel proud about your website again. And with my co-host Pascal Fintoni, good to have you back Pascal.
Thank you very much and you know what's exciting So not only are we here to provide value and practical advice to our audience, but this is also good for you and I to catch up from time to time and just, you know, find a way to summarize what we've been up to in terms of our work with, in terms of speaking at events, by the Wonders website, internet and content marketing, in terms of our consultancy and more. Because it changes
quite rapidly. And I don't mean to say the technology, but actually the approach and mindset to get better results and to be proud of your website. You know, there's always a movement forward that I think this show is helping us capture. I see this as a therapy session. It's a place for me to be able to think and reflect. And you were saying that there's so much change and it's not just tools, but the tools are just crazy at the
moment. I mean, there's just so many. But as you say, the mindset and the way communication needs to adapt for different generations. It, yeah, I see this as a bit of a therapy session in, in, in, in being able to reflect on what's going on. So yeah, I really enjoy it. And we've got 4 segments in every
show. So we've got the, you ask, we answer where we have a look at something that perhaps a client has said to us or something that we've spotted or perhaps you as our listeners as our viewers have asked us a question and we dissect it. We've got the website stories where we found an article or a video or a podcast
where we discuss and debate. We also have the website engine room, which is an app that Pascal and myself, 2 apps in total, come up with to make your life easier as a website manager and website content creator ultimately helping you ensure that you are feeling more proud of your website or even proud of your website again. And lastly we have the call to action the website call to action where we give you 1 change or adjustment that you should be making to your website
right now. So we will start with You Ask, We Answer, and I will hand over to Pascal in just 1 second. ♪♪ Thank you very much, Jonny, for the introduction. So in You Ask, We Answer, we usually pick a question that perhaps we had during an event that we attended, maybe during a one-to-one consultancy.
And this is very much the case in this 1. I was with a client about a week ago or so, and we were talking about the relationship between social media, between websites, and YouTube, and Google Business Profiling, all those kind of crazy ecosystem. And this is pretty much what I heard, and I've heard this so many times. Is it true that you get penalized on social media if you share a link to
your website on the post? And the reaction was, so what's the point of social media and how can I get more traffic to my website from LinkedIn, Facebook or X? What's see you Johnny Ross penalties or just a myth? Well, the, the point of social media is certainly not to get traffic on your website. I'm afraid to tell you, if you're watching or listening right now, don't see social media as the answer.
It's part of the, the story is part of the solution, but it's where it's the conversation, the clue is in the word social. It's a conversation, it's a place to create a community to have that conversation. I think I'm a touch torn on this but I think that is more myth than black and white fact I think it's about really considering the behavior of people
and how they interact with posts. So what's been said for many, for a number of years now is if you put a link on that post, the algorithm is less likely to show that post because LinkedIn don't want to send you outside of the ecosystem. Ecosystem. And I think the element of truth there is that users, people, people that follow you are less likely to click a link on a post unless
there's a really good reason. And I think that behavior has taught LinkedIn and also made, brought this conversation to light. So in terms of, does it penalize you? Well, I don't know how much it affects the algorithm. Do people click it only if it's very compelling? So I think there is an element of bearing in mind why you're putting the link and what the
strength of the link is. And likewise, it's a bit like whether you should be uploading a video directly to LinkedIn or whether you should be sharing a YouTube video. For many years, people have been saying, well, if you share a YouTube video, LinkedIn is less likely to share it on the algorithm because they don't
want to send people off. But I think ultimately, if it's a native video on the platform, it automatically plays straight away, it's mobile friendly, compared to YouTube where you've got to click and then it sends you to an app and it gets you to try and sign in, try and sell you a monthly fee and all of that stuff. And
I think that in itself is off-putting. So I don't know if I've given you a definite answer here, Pascal, but you've got to have a compelling reason as to why you're putting the link there in the first place. And for me, I join you in that because it's back to the many debates I have with other social media practitioners about causation and correlation. I think you've got to be very, very careful not to conclude something based on what you can observe. So I think you're right.
Ultimately, if I am on LinkedIn and I've chosen to spend a quarter of an hour to go through my feed, I will not essentially then click on the link to kind of jeopardize the time that I want to spend on LinkedIn unless the invitation is very, very compelling. So people could ask, well, what do you mean, Pascal? I'd say, well, instead of saying to somebody, hey, I've written a new blog post, here's a link, go check it out.
Perhaps you could word it in a more conversational manner, back to your point, Ernst, saying, I've written this article, but I'm unsure whether I've got it right, or I would welcome some different opinions or I'm lacking data and so you want to engage people into a conversation in a way where we're saying go check it out because I'm not sure I've got it completely right or you've got
something that is almost premium. I've got a brand new ebook, I've got a new webinar series available for free and so on. So it's something that has to essentially be more attractive than staying on LinkedIn, Facebook, X, Pinterest, TikTok and so on. And that to me is the key. So when, I think we missed
the appearance of penalty. I don't imagine that people at, let's say, LinkedIn, which was the question I was asked, spend time in the office thinking, how can we punish people who are trying to, you know, bring value to their community? But here it is. Typically, when you have a link in a post, a post is very short and there's nothing else to go with it. So what there is as a real kind of value indicator is dwell time,
particularly with mobile phone users. So if somebody sees a short, sharp announcement that there is new content to check out or an event to join and it hits a hyperlink to Eventbrite, they're going to pass very quickly. They may even make a mental note to look it up again and of course they won't. So the dwell time is going to be so brief that it sends a signal to the platform that this is of no
interest to you. And we know enough about the behavior of LinkedIn, I'm guessing, Meta, and others are doing the same, which is, you know, they do a test. So if, Johnny, you publish something on LinkedIn now, a small percentage of your network is going to see it. And if they're reacting to whether it's positive, dwell time and a few likes, comments and shares, then more of your
network will see it. So the penalty is more about the lack of interaction with a post that appears to have little value. But I don't believe that there is a rule that says, if there is a hyperlink, kill the post. I think it's more the nature of the post that comes with the hyperlink is usually not in line with the kind of content people find interesting. Yeah, yeah. And I think that you've just mentioned for me a bit of a golden
nugget, that dwell time. If you can create something, because people don't always like or comment or share, but they are interested in stalking, they are interested in reading things if it's of interest and if you can get that dwell time I've seen many experiments were just giving the platform an element of. I've spent time looking at this and all of a sudden you start seeing a lot more of it.
So focus on, as always, high quality content that's gonna engage with the audience that you're actually wanting to engage with. And that is more the secret to whether a link should be in the post or not. Yeah, and for me, play the game. Put a video natively, put the link. Play the game, put a carousel and put the link. So you're gonna get the dwell time, write a long form thought piece and put the link.
You know what I mean? So do it properly as opposed to a short, sharp announcement that almost looked like a semi advert of sort. Absolutely. Let's move on to our next segment, which is website stories. So for episode 25, we've chosen an article, Johnny, from CMSY.com. They've been on the show before. And this is written by digital marketing expert and freelance writer, Shetra Ayya. And this is about 5 SEO strategies to embrace in
2024. And I have to tell you, SEO was my first kind of entry into the world of training and consultancy, and I'm a sucker. If I see things to do with SEO strategies and things that can help us think about what it means today. I'm all for it. So I would encourage people to follow the hyperlink in the show notes, and what I'm gonna give you, everyone, and Johnny, it's a summary of the key
elements. And I'm gonna end with a question, which is all to do with the weather, 20, 30 years later, indeed, the acronym SEO needs to be given a whole new meaning. But the the article is very well written, there's a lot of quotes from expert, this is very well researched by Chitra and I really really think it's a great example of what we were talking about earlier, about how to get social
media engagement. So the whole basis is that the function of search engine optimization, whether it's a full-time occupation or 1 of the plates spinning, you know, for as part of your busy week, has really moved on from researching keywords and talking keywords on the page. And this is really now a lot more about attending the audience, their intent, and also understanding the entire spectrum of questions and topics that would arise during the client's research
and selection process. So it's a lot more interesting I think than just I have something to sell, what are the keywords or long tail keywords to try and get buyers. You know I think we want to attract interest from the early stage of research. The other thing that is fascinating to me and that was shown in the article is that the function also needs to move away from just search engines. People now look at information
in so many different ways. And they were saying is that you want to start to have a strategy that is multi-platform, TikTok, Amazon, Reddit. If you're into the industry, Skyscanner, if you're into food and drink, where do they go for
their recipes and so on. So you have to have a multi-platform and a content ecosystem fully mapped out, which leads therefore for you to have understood the topic clusters, the hub, and of course, what is being called rather grandly, the semantic search, this idea of search finding the context of location, intent, and so on. 1 that surprised me, because my position is that it's happening already, they were saying, now, those in charge of SEO should collaborate with
other teams and departments. And I was like, well, surely they are already, but perhaps you'd correct me, I'm joining with your own research, but saying, you know, talk to people in sales, product development, PR, customer service, and so on. I said, well, that seems like an
obvious advice, but why not? And what they were saying is that those in charge of SEO should study extensively the search engine results pages and literally explain to their colleagues have you seen what's happening right now have you seen the way Google lays things down obviously the different panels and that kind of things, but also of course the forums and more. And you've got to educate and inform yourself about the impact of
AI-powered search results. And you and I have discussed it actually in previous results. So what is happening to Google, to Bing, to Yahoo, many others in their attempt, of course, to keep their searches happy. And that layout, as I would call it, is changing so dramatically that it's having an impact
on all of us. But really, this article is wonderful because it suggests that those 3 letters are hiding actually a far more exciting and interesting function to begin with, but it may well be that it is time to change the meaning. But before I give you my suggestion of what SEO should mean nowadays, Your reaction to the advice given by this article? You say that there's more excitement behind SEO and what it stands for. Actually, that technical SEO gets me
really excited. Whether that's geeky or not, I really like the technical side and playing the game of climbing that ladder. However, the point you're making was not that. The point you're making is so true that it's we need to you know we need to be thinking about personalization, we need to be thinking about user experience, integration, emerging technologies, all you know the AI, the machine learning and even sustainability
to some extent. So it's about it encompasses so much more than pleasing Google or pleasing yeah even even pleasing TikTok even what I agree in terms of the platform I'm terrible for using the word Google all the time, but I must admit whenever I use that word, I actually mean any platform because you're optimizing on whatever the platform is, even if that's face to face in a room. It doesn't really matter. It's about how you optimize to find clients, to keep clients
and to find clients ultimately. And so it encompasses so much more. I think it's important to definitely have a mindset of moving away from that traditional, for example, keyword density. I've got, it's a bit frustrating, I've still got a client that is, oh, whatever I say and whatever I, hopefully they're not listening and they won't realize who I'm talking about but If they are hello But they're forever asking me specifically on that keyword density and And I'm like,
will you stop it? Stop being so prescriptive. Times have moved on way past that. And it's, yes, of course, there has to be context, there has to be understanding, but it's more about the engagement, the value you're adding. Is it helpful? Is it resourceful? Way more. So what SEO becomes, I'm not sure, I can't predict the future, but for sure we need to take into account way more, way more.
Yeah, and I love the way it begins, this article, this idea of it is your role to educate your colleagues in a way, and by extension, you and I are clients, that you have to cover the full spectrum of questions and topics that a future customer is likely to use, whether they use voice or they use typing on the keyboard, or even just the prompts
offered by the search engine. So you and I talked about, look what's happening on Google when they say people also asked, you know, and then that panel of question, you have to have that covered on your website. And I said to my clients, and don't worry that others have done it already. What matters is that you are not covering those questions, you know, for, for your customers, But time is against us. So here's my kind of
proposition to you today about SEO. I believe that, bear in mind the conversation and this article, we need to move on from search engine optimization and actually get your colleagues who are not marketers excited about search experience optimization. And as a result of which, then you move away from that only thinking about Google and Bing and the others, although people always think about Google. And then it plays to this idea of it's wherever your customers is
currently gaining information. You know, the forum, the local business club, newsletter, that kind of thing. You know, they are searching for information and your job is to optimize the experience and for you to become their favorite. So here we go. SEO nowadays equals search experience optimization. Perhaps you've just coined the new phrase. I'm not sure. I'll check it. And if I have, it was done on episode 25.
And all credits to Pascal Fintoni. Yeah it we definitely need to reflect on what SEO is all about and move away from this potentially way too prescriptive. That was website stories, let's move to our next segment which is the website engine room. Now In this segment of the show we choose 1 app each, a software solution, maybe a piece of kit that can make life easier as a website manager and website content
creator. And of course excitedly, this being number 25, that means that we've reached now 50 apps and online solution which is pretty incredible and there will be a very special announcement very soon about this. Jonny what is your selection for today? Well today's is a tiny bit of a naughty
1. LinkedIn certainly if they were listening wouldn't be agreeing to it but it's called Linked Helper and it's about automating automation on LinkedIn and now I'm not suggesting that your entire profile should be fully automated but what I am suggesting is that in this day and age of AI workflows things that you're doing on a regular basis things repeated tasks can easily be done with
something like Linked Helper. It's a great way to automate DMs, to automate responders, to automate invitations, to export contacts, to be able to integrate with your CRM, to be able to integrate with auto email workflows. So there's a lot of integration that you can have and it's a very easy tool to use once you understand the UX of it. It's a great way to automate the work but also to ultimately boost your profile and create
conversations. So there is sort of a caution on there that you've got to be careful how you use it and not overuse it
in terms of LinkedIn's guidelines. It's about following LinkedIn's guidelines but it's about using the tool to automate some of the manual processes that you might be doing and to and also not to just blanket the same message to every single person but actually to be really quite clever in how you use it so and that comes down to to really segmenting your potential audience and your potential clients. So I'm talking about finding a handful of people, not hundreds
of thousands of people. And that handful really sending a very, very clear, relevant message that's going to ultimately, hopefully engage. So LinkedIn Helper, it's a tiny bit of a naughty 1, as I said, LinkedIn don't really like it, let's be honest, but it's a great way to automate some of those workflows.
Thank you very much. So you will recall that in episode 24, we spoke a lot about YouTube and some of the changes they're making and, and that, you know, it is part and parcel of a website experience for someone to watch a video that you either produced, co-produced, or maybe you were a guest on a webinar and you want to embed that onto your blog or even landing pages. And I've had some feedback from clients saying that on occasion, they copied and pasted the URL that you
get from YouTube, Johnny. But then when they look at it on their laptop or mobile phones, sometime the video doesn't appear to be full screen or sometime it's too big and you can't see all of it and so on. So there can be for some website, depending on the coding, some issue around the embed. So I have a solution for people. It's a platform called embedresponsively.com where you copy and paste the URL of a YouTube video. In fact, they offer other platforms like
Vimeo and more. And it gives you a code you can copy and paste into your CMS that would give you that responsive video. So it would resize itself and position itself really neatly no matter the device your customers are using. So it's an extra little step that's gonna probably help you out from a user experience and first impression which are ever so
important. A little additional tip I want to give to people as well as a reminder is within the URL that you're going to get and the code, there's the address of the YouTube video, you'll recognize it
very, very well. If you add the following at the end of that web address for the YouTube video, which is question mark, R-E-L equals 0 at the end of that URL, more often than not, you will avoid essentially at the end of the video being played to show related content from maybe the competition or frankly some completely unread content but that are not even a business like and so on and what you'll find is that if you add the question mark rel equals 0 at the end of
your YouTube URL it will show videos from your channel more often than from other channels that could be also a neat trick but the most important thing is to make sure that your YouTube videos is responsive no matter the device and no matter the platform used by your customers. Fantastic, thank you very much Pascal. So as you said that is now 50 tools or apps we've mentioned on the website engine room. I imagine that we're going to do something with that, Pascal.
We are indeed. You're going to have to wait for episode 26 for the big announcement. And with that note, we'll move to our last section, which of course is the website call to action. This is about the 1 change, 1 adjustment that can make really your website work harder for you. So Johnny, what is your recommendation for today? AI chatbot. I'm going to just dive in. I think it's about embracing it and it's about going out researching, finding a
chatbot that fits your business. There's so many out there right now and there's good and bad, don't get me wrong, there's definitely good and bad, but the ability for you to be able to respond to potential clients or even existing clients in a very quick, timely manner to be able to signpost them, to be able to listen to them, to be able to take contact details to ultimately create a
lead I think is totally worth it. So you know the caveat here is that it does need some testing, it needs some trialing, you need to you to really test it, you need to really think about it. But you know if you've for example if you've got a knowledge base already and you can share that knowledge base with the AI tool.
It's gonna fully be able to start answering questions I'm seeing this in in so many well-known brands this I said good examples and bad examples but you don't know what it's like until you start trying it. So my advice as a 1 quick change or adjustment is to start researching a couple of different AI tools that can act as a chatbot on your website and have that sort of live stroke AI chat on the website to ultimately enhance engagement and to be ultimately really quick and responsive.
And I think for me, there's 2 kind of use cases. There's 1 where you have this issue of abundance of content. Let's say you have a very, very busy blog or maybe you've been running a podcast videos for a while. And actually as a element of customer service, customer care, the AI chatbot could help me spot the articles of the podcast that is most relevant to me right now, based on my query. And then the other, the flip side is essentially
the FAQs of sort. Now you've got to be careful there's plenty of examples out there of brands who've got it completely wrong where it becomes an irritant as opposed to anything that supports you. So the testing and walk into the shoes of your customers is important but where there is choice, where there is decision to be made, this is where the chatbot can come in and and you should also lean on that and make sure that it becomes almost
like a mascot to the business. So don't do what people have done which is to try and lie and pretend that it was a real person talking to you, it's pointless. Announce it, People are becoming more and more familiar with it. But every visitor on a website with a chatbot will also have had a bad experience. So how can you stand out? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. What is your website
called? So mine actually, I must thank a customer of mine because they learned a very, very painful lesson by not doing enough prep in and around attending a conference. So as part of that content strategy, which is actually something that I recommended they did, they wanted to do a series of roundup articles about, you know, the different talks and different keynotes addresses and so on. But they kind of went to the conference
without a plan. And that is really tricky, because that meant that when they came back, the content creation bit, if you like, of a roundup articles journey took far, far too long. So my advice would be research your industry events, particularly those of interest to your audience. So be careful not to go to a conference of interest to you write a roundup that your customers couldn't care
less about. So look at the next 6 months, look at industry events that will be of interest to your audience, select the 1 you're gonna go to and plan in advance how you're gonna go about doing the roundups and even start to do some draft versions. You can come up with the titles, you can start to run the mini biographies of the speakers, you can do the research of photography, you can do
so much preps. And then when you get to the event, you can use some of the techniques that we explored on website culture action, use audio recording, use AI transcription, do a number of things to make sure that those event roundups are not too punitive. Therefore, once again, you have to prep and prep and prep to make sure that your content creation is very, very seamless and there's little friction as possible. And that, for me, is 1 of the biggest
things that builds trust. So trust is what people make decisions on, whether they're going to buy from you or not. And a lot of people make assumptions that build trust and buy you, you have to be real, you have to be authentic. You have to be genuine. But, but the simple fact that you're talking about an industry event that's coming up that you're potentially going to and you're doing a bit of a roundup, people make a huge
amount of assumptions around that. They in terms of your network, in terms of your capability, in terms of your knowledge and why not ride on that wave and build that trust. So I think it's a brilliant idea that ticks so many boxes, not just the content marketing box and the sort of keeping relevant, but the building trust. So yeah, I like that, Pascal. Thank you very much. That was episode 25 of the 90-day website mastery podcast. That's it for today. The audio companion of the 90-day website
mastery program. For more information please visit 90daymarketingmastery.com and you will be able to book your discovery call with either myself or Pascal. We'll be back with another episode. In the meantime, feel free to send your questions, share your preferred app and links to your website. Once you've made the changes we spoke about, we'd love to give you a shout out. But that's it for now. Bye everyone. And we'll leave you with a fun video and audio montage whilst you go through your
notes and actions. Thanks so much for joining. Please, please, please if this was helpful, if this was of interest, not only tell your friends but click that follow or subscribe button, whatever platform you're on, because that is a way that makes us feel like we're making a difference. And whilst we love being here, and I was talking about it being a bit of a therapy session, Just the fact of seeing our numbers increase, the power, I don't think I can put into words
what that would achieve for us. So please do like, follow, share and subscribe. And we'll see you all soon. And I'll leave you with this audio and video montage. Take care. Cheers Pascal. Bye bye. Hey! Whoa! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!