So how much is that?
So.
Welcome to the podcast Ed Mastermind Show. The podcast by podcast under orders for podcast editors. And real quick, I'm Jennifer Longworth with Berman Marrow Podcasting and I am proud sponsor of she podcast live and in person gathering the largest in fact women and nonbinary audio creators, storytellers, podcasters and more. And it's happening this June 19th through 22nd at the MGM National Harbor in
Washington, DC. So if you're someone who's passionate about podcasting, if you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed by all the different choices, is that what you have to learn from whom and where and whatever? What are you going to do next? Come to she podcast live she podcasts live dot com. Check it out. Hopefully your engine and below me you'll find.
Bryan and Springer. And to my side is Daniel Abendroth.
And not joining us this evening is Carrie Caulfield. Eric you'll find her at Carrie Dot Land and we have a special guest today, Daniel J. Danielle is from Kentucky like me. So that is why she's there. Well, not the only reason she's here, but that makes your extra cool. She's the owner of Arcane design Studios, a 13 year old branding and identity firm based in the heart of the bluegrass here in
Lexington. She's a podcaster, wife, mom of three lover of rustic Italian cuisine, Chai cosplay, Star Trek Picard and live in May. And she is celebrating Star Wars May the fourth day with all of us. Welcome, Danielle.
I feel like we need to stop here and just kind of honor the fact that she loves Picard. Like, we could just take the show and move on with that.
Oh, right. Giant Trekkie fan from Mars. And I absolutely love the fact that even when we get to chat about the technical side of things, I can always find a way to pull in a level Star Wars or Star Trek. So you're welcome.
Great. And Daniel's our special guest today because she reached out to us after having listened to our website episodes saying she was talking back at the podcast and she was listening and we want to know what she was saying to us as podcasting is kind of one way, typically, but we want to hear what you were, what you were telling us.
Oh man, the episode was great. Like, can I just say, in fact, like the conversation, the lingo, the camaraderie, like all of that is just so bubbly and it's infectious.
Yeah, you can sing our praises all day.
Long, if that was what you were saying. This is going to be great.
What else do you like about it?
I was leaning leaning that into the next part, which was we could use some help in the website area. Yeah. And I definitely I don't have all the answers. I love the fact that you all leave from that place, which is we don't have all the answers, but this is what has been working and I love that I can kind of help if anyone needs that. As far as direction for what you want to best reflect the services and the people that you want to see.
So I'm going to jump to the sugar prices, be on your services page. Question I'm just going to just go right after that one because I still struggle on with it.
As an editor. I do not I do not love them. And that's a big one because the world tells us that we should have some sort of base, right or base comparison. So I can do a starting point figure depending on what type of particular service I want to to aim for. So I love that. But the other part of that is, Oh, right, yeah. Going right for the through the jugular. I really like the fact, too, that when we talk about listing our services, I push out those features, the cool parts
of working with yourself, whatever that is. I know for Jennifer it's going to be a bourbon tasting party is going to be maybe bourbon listening party, maybe even like something in Around the Love. Jennifer is like my go to person for all things podcasting. So I love the fact that for Jennifer, that could be a very specific thing. But what works for Jennifer isn't going to work for Daniel, right? Maybe a little bit
different. Maybe a stylistically, a little bit different. So when we come about looking at these websites, there's not like a generic. You have to have A, B and Z. It really can be more conform to who you are and the brand values that you want to bring through your business.
I'm listening to this and I'm thinking, you know, I just spent several hours last week finding an excellent plug in so I could put my prices back on my website. And they don't look like cockapoo poop.
And what are you comfy with? Like, Dude, what are you comfortable with?
I was comfortable without them, but I was told, hey, like, let's do it, and that the research supported that. So I did it. It's been, what, two weeks? It's too early to tell, right?
Yeah. I give you a good 30, 60 days, maybe a full 90 days to kind of see if that would really give you a quicker turnaround, maybe in communication with with clients because they see your prices first or they are able to at least access an ideal scale of what those prices could be. I love starting points. Prices starting at x $9, I think. Daniel were you saying that before on I think that was you.
I well, I don't remember. I know we talked we looked at a couple of statistic. Jessica is just like a starting ad or whatever. And I think that's kind of like where I landed as far as like a good starting point or like a good middle ground that we don't have to, like, lay everything out. But you can get a, you know, the starting point price to kind of weed out the people who like definitely can't afford your rates.
And to be fair, my starting point, prices are definitely not the absolute bottom. I'm trying to get you in so I can sell you up later. Like this is what it would. This is what it would cost you. But we can talk about scope, right? Because if you publish once a week versus once a month, that's a different price.
Absolutely. I love that you say that, because I think that's a really big part of building out what you want people to see on your website. Is it do I want them to focus on the numbers? Yes. To an extent, to a certain extent, yes. I do want them to think about that. But the focus on weeding out, finding your people, finding your people is so important to me. It's more important than the actual money they are paying me.
I would rather have the value of a good client who may be in the mid range of what I would normally charge or in the range of services that we offer versus a really, really poor client who pays me a ton of money to do what I need to do. Because at the end of the day we can only take on so much. We're human, even though a lot of times as editors, we're forced to kind of be little miniature robots,
if you will. I think it's very interesting that, yes, we're going to talk in and out about that like as editor, sometimes we're seen as robots and we're just robotically going through life. And it doesn't matter how much it is because we can do it right and it's in our bandwidth. So that's something to think about when you talk about listing prices.
So what else needs to be on our Web site? I mean, what else were you telling us we were doing wrong? I guess the question I really want to know that you were listening to, you're talking back and I really want you to talk to us like in person about this or, you know, as in person. Yeah.
Only just enjoy the level of transparency. And this is something that I do see on podcast, but not enough. Like you guys are really kind of putting yourselves out there with, Yeah, I'm comfortable with that. Or No, I'm not comfortable with that at all. And you know, it was a heck no. I don't know what writing this podcast is. So I was like, Can you sure? Like there's a no fly zone for each of you on your own level. But I also feel like that's also curated based upon the
experience you want to give your customers. So in hindsight, you want your your website to be a reflection of the people and the things you are trying to attract, right? Well, a bit of an attraction game, if you will. So very similar to kind of I'm sure there's certain questions and I think you mentioned that before on the original episode. Was there certain things that we have to ask so that we know what we're getting into? And I think
that's a legit thing you have to know upfront. So that's that little tango dance that we talk about a little bit in terms of marketing, but in the sales part of it, there's also a little bit of a dance in trying to discover the things that you need to know upfront versus the things that may come out in the wash later on as the relationship continues. So those are also things to kind of figure out how you want that to be represented on your site.
Maybe that's an effort to get talked about having an RFQ on your site, whether or not that's a good idea or whether that's a bad idea. But most people are having that on their website. So a lot of those questions that they're thinking about are already answered in black and white. On your on your page. There's some other cool aspects that I feel like is kind of trending right now for websites.
Tell us more.
Yes, we need to know.
Obviously, you got to please your playlist, things like that that you want to share. I am loving every piece of embedded playlists like, but that's like a huge thing that's not popular outside of podcasting, believe it or not. So I'm really enjoying that. People are doing that more, but it's not necessarily staples of work. It's like my afternoon tunes, my morning wakeup call, like playlists that you would
normally see like on Spotify somewhere. Like you're trying to draw a little bit more personality onto the website and people are doing that through through to their music, through audio samples. And I think that's really cool. So maybe think about that as like a fun thing, maybe not for the website, maybe it's for your newsletter, but that is something to kind of think about in terms of website. The other part that I really loved about the episode and I was kind of like stomping my
foot about was whether or not to I know. How personal do you want to be? Are you putting your face up there to put your business logo up there? What are the I guess the 411 was the behind the scenes answer on whether or how close you want to be in proximity to putting your personal face versus a business logo out there. And I think that completely varies between who you are, what you do. If you're a podcast editor, that's a little bit more meticulous. Maybe you're focusing primarily
in a certain niche. I love that Daniel focuses specifically on coaches. I love the fact that you were able to kind of find your niche there. However, for a lot of other people, maybe it's a free for all right. I added podcasts from comics to music to the news. And so it's really important for me to be open. But for some people, maybe meeting down is the better is the better
option. So when I think about that, as far in terms of a website, I want to have all the things that are very popular or either somewhat trending in those specific specific niches. So that's really important too. For me, I'm a retro gamer, I'm a comic lover, so you're going to see me and cosplay pictures. You're going to see me in fun stuff in and around that community because that's who I am and I want to attract more people like that.
I've got a couple of questions I.
Know I didn't have. Well, I do have just one question for Brian. What is the name of that plug in? You found.
It. I'll have to look it up and send it to you. I don't remember. It was again theme forest or Code Canyon or something like that, but I'll, I'll find it. It was, I think 20 bucks or something. It wasn't much but it's not terrible. I thought it looked pretty good. So one of the things that I wonder and I think this goes back to all of the branding questions that you probably ask all of your clients. And so I'm not trying to get free consulting out of you.
But it's Star Wars Day.
This is where things get weird for me. So maybe not everybody knows this. I met my wife through an online dating service and part of how that happened was filling out forms and providing information. And then, you know, there was, in my case, a thousand failed matches before I found the one that stuck. Right. And so there it was, super grueling on my side. But that's that's neither here nor there. Part of what the value of that was there was that they had those questions that
help you understand what you're looking for. If it's a good personality match, that kind of stuff. How do we approach that from a business standpoint? So these are the things that I need to communicate, knowing that there's no form out there that says, Hey, we're going to match you to the perfect client.
Yes. Oh, I love this cool tidbit. I also met my husband on Facebook, so I relate to that, like figuring out what what worked. Kind of like the switchboard, right?
And so I tell people it was like trying to buy groceries at the grocery store by looking at the label and going, This one's got enough niacin or whatever it is, and then you flip it around and go, But actually this one doesn't make me feel good, so we'll keep moving.
Okay, so we talk about forms. For me, I love forms because that is a great way to kind of directly slim or trim the fat, right? I think in a lot of ways you have to think about if you want to use a form to do that, how does that appear? How does that approach? Is it accessible? Is it easy? Accessibility is a huge key and a huge turnoff point for a lot of people who are not clumsy or savvy, servicing and looking at multiple sites all the time when they're trying to find a podcast
editor. A lot of times they're going to Jennifer out there going with people they know, they trust someone. They've had a joke with a drink with something along those lines. So in terms of like cold, just looking at podcast editors, a Google search somewhere and they have a form that they want to find more information out about you, I think it is important to kind of pull out certain things, but not everything. So I don't need to know. They're meeting annual median income for the
year. I may ask something kind of fun and flirtatious, like what is your favorite color? Who is your favorite superhero if it goes with your with who you are? Right? But I do think that forms do help. Kind of trim the fat. Really? Yeah. I definitely have had people when.
I expect you to tell me to just forget about it.
I definitely think it's a great way to weed stuff out, but there's certain times and places I feel like that can happen. Websites is one asking anyone for any service. If you're going to apply for a job, they're going to ask you the same question. So I do feel like this in alignment with what you are trying to do, which would be asking someone, Hey, I need to know a little bit more information before we either hop on a call or maybe discover more about the type of podcast
services that you need. So knowing ahead of time for me, when I'm doing any type of consultation like that, it's, Hey, what do you need? Is it podcast episode? Right? Tell me more about what's the name of your podcast? What is maybe something you want to do with your podcast that you're currently not doing? Also asking them a funny question Who's your favorite superhero and why? Sometimes that's not a required answer. It's got to leave a base, but it's one of those things
that I do. I do want to know more information about who I'm working with before they even get to my face.
Thanks, Steve has a question.
What would the negative consequences be for having a schedule a call button rather than a list of prices or having the podcast or fill out form?
So based on experience and a little bit of factoid knowledge here, schedule a call is a lot of times for a consumer to kind of format A I don't know if I want to talk to this person just as much as we do it on our side, but happens on the opposite side too. So even though when they're seeking like services for podcasting in any way, shape or form, sometimes it
can be alluring to schedule a call. They don't want to make that level of commitment yet, but they are okay with looking at your prices and kind of knowing just the base information. I'm definitely more of an introvert, believe it or not. I know I'm all over the internet, but very much more of an introverted person and I struggle sometimes, you know, even with. So I want to take this call today. Do I really want to be believed today? Even though we set our own boundaries
and scope of of realm for that. But the negative consequence, I think, in some areas is too much pressure for the person to actually act on the schedule or call.
Patrick said. I'd rather die than schedule a call with anyone.
I love that. That's definitely me a little bit. Sometimes I definitely struggle with that, Steve says.
Then you are my ideal client.
Since Patrick's an editor of course not.
But once I write the follow up to that, so I have essentially like a schedule a call type thing. It's a built in form. You go and you pick your date and time and there's like a short questionnaire, but it's just like your name, email address, whether you want avoid a phone call or a video call. And then like, How did you hear about me? And my idea was to keep it as simple as possible and not like overwhelm them and give them excuse to not fill out the form. It's like having too
many questions. And the idea that I'm toying with now is like keeping that. And then like a follow up email being like, Thank you, Thanks so much for sharing a call. Just more information. The most out of call. Like, here's a list of questions that I have for you. Is that like asking too much or like what? I guess what are your thoughts on that?
I really think that really depends on the client and I feel like too, it depends on the gamut of what you're wanting to bring people in. If these people are already comfortable doing this particular questionnaire a little bit in
between, then that's where you would want to go. But if you also feel like you're maybe putting yourself too much, put in too much on the client ahead of time, then that also is a little bit more adding to them to like, okay, if I have to do all of this just to talk to you, maybe I don't want to, you know,
do that. So you do have to kind of mind what's on brand for you if you're already showcasing to coaches that you're a likeable person that you are, that you do your job well, you're already showcasing all the features and bonuses without actually giving them that sort of thing, then I think that is something we can continue to do, just in my opinion, when I have people ask me a ton of questions in a questionnaire, I actually I love questions, by the way, to say, yes, let's talk about it. But I
love being able to answer questions. But if you're the person, sometimes it's not that. No, let me put it in the email instead. Like I don't want to literally have that 1 to 1 is okay to put a little bit of a soft boundary between you and the client before that point. And I talk a lot in terms of boundaries, just because families are healthy, but they're not necessarily meant to keep people out. It's just meant
to let the right people in. And so I really emphasize that even for podcast viewers on their website, you want to allow the right people in and kind of just wish the people that you really don't necessarily want to do business with.
Yeah, So the people who don't want to schedule a call, Steve Stuart, has made it abundantly clear he's not the editor for you.
Check that box.
Yet. So Steve, reply For what it's worth, I haven't lost much time to people scheduling a call who weren't worth a chat. However, I can close more sales if I get someone on a call, then through email or any kind of online activity.
Yeah, I relate to that because it depends on how salesy you are. Like if you're the person that can close that deal by just talking to them, you hear their voice, then bam! SLAM That's it. Yes, that's that's the trick. But for people who are not in that particular area, you know, I'm a person about the boundary, so I don't force things if it's meant to be. It's meant to be. What's for you is for you. And I'm a real big advocate behind that.
So one of the things that I've struggled with a bit in terms of how to approach this is the number of steps to getting somebody on the call versus the size of the first hurdle. So to your point, schedule a call for some people is absolutely a speed bump. However, I have concern also that if the first call to action is shoot me an email, then I'm inserting extra
steps before we get there. And so I'm not sure how that interplay works in terms of what's the right, because there's an element of momentum and hand-holding that happens. If you say, Shoot me an email and your first response is cool, let's set up a time, here's a link or something like that. But I'm not sure, like where's the decision point between creating momentum with an easy first step versus just it's a one step process is options.
That's really what it is. I can I can be like very, very upfront about that. It's a matter of what you're comfortable in letting in, but it's also a matter of what's accessible, like what is accessible, what's accessibility for you. And I think it varies or the type of podcast that you are. And I think that's what makes people want to either seek you out for that particular service and go through all the things or yeah, I mean.
So for me, you may not know this, but I work a full time job and I'm a professional editor, so if they want to talk to me between eight and five, wow, there's a good chance we're not going to talk about this. I can pre schedule it during a lunch break a couple of days out because I have other meetings and believe it or not, the company I work for kind of expects me to show up and do a job, as you heard. But they have this expectation, right. And so I have to monitor that.
Exactly. Exactly. There's a huge part of podcast editing for me that is such a natural state, right? A natural state of being. And there are after five out for five, it's the galaxy that's not ours, but far, far away, right? Star Wars. So I'm trying to think out loud, like in terms of wanting to put the right things on your website. It really is a reflection of your processes, the way that you do business and your personality
in some areas. Now, if you're a business business like a corporation, you're you want to be a little bit more harder tone. I do agree that maybe there's less of that. Your personal personality and more of your business persona or your brand value across that. And I see a lot of that in your website. Brian More of a professional like brand brand. This is who we are kind of feel, even though it's very much a tag team. Your wife's right.
Actually, it's Daniel whose wife works with him. My wife doesn't.
Oh. Any other way. Yeah. Okay. So that's that's really what I was getting at was like, you know, there's a there's a place in a tone that you can carry. You choose whether that's more of a personality or personal brand or if that's more of a business businesslike, corporate sort of feel. And I think there's different approaches to both.
Yeah, because obviously mine's a more personality brand driven and I'm revamping the website thanks to this conversation and.
Get ready to do it again.
I know. Well, they haven't started yet and I don't do my own. Someone else does it for me. And I sent them a mockup of what I wanted and it involves Bourbon barrel stables. I'd be more on target with, you know, being bourbon barrel podcasting. There was no essence of bourbon or bourbon barrels on my website before. And I'm like, you know, we need to change this.
Bring back would be.
To.
Me.
Yeah and to Patrick's comment Yeah in my gorgeous room overlooking the sea that isn't actually just a wall with a green cover on it. So I do want to add in the kind of a thought that I had about ways like people can contact you. It's I think if your website is doing its job and attracting the right people, they and as long as your website is accessible enough
they'll find out a find a way to get in touch with you. So I think the most common thing is people scheduling a call with me or video chat, but also like I do have contact form and I have like throughout my website like semi message, that kind of thing, and have plenty of people over the years sent me an email when
they have like a question or they want some information. So for somebody like me who would rather like chat back and forth on email before I commit to like talking to somebody, like my website allows for their people, send me a message, you know, we can chat that way. And for others that want to hop on a call right away, it's easy enough of that too.
Yeah. And this is very much a McDonald's situation.
So it's not the Burger King.
But Burger King.
Oh, yeah. Whoops. I worked at McDonald's when that was coming out and it was a thing We started having to make everybody's sandwiches. Just the way they wanted them was a mess.
The customization out there, but definitely thinking in terms of a little bit of a buffet, you can't cater to everybody. So if you're if you're really into the realm of, you know, all things Italian, then stick to the cuisine. I think it's really important that once you find what works for you to keep, keep at it. I think that's what helps build more
people, more interest into one to visit your site. And I love the fact that Jennifer actually podcast last year you did The Coasters with the Q Are you all right?
That's me.
So I absolutely love that because that is a it's a personal item that you can give to someone that also is a direct contact to knowing more information about what you do and how you do it. So to be kind of stole that idea, Don't don't use it.
You're not the only one who's stolen that idea. People ask me where I get my coasters all the time and I know my affiliate code.
I love it, but yeah, we do. Gamertag.
Yeah.
So I think that it's it's really cool to be able to find someone that actually is really connected to you in a way that makes them want to know more about you. And I think the website is the place to do that. Of course, social media is going to be around forever and ever, and with new things like AI and things along those lines, we're finding more tools and accessibility ways for us to connect with each other. But I still think the website is still be a central place that you own
to actually connect with other people. So I just want to keep that in people's minds as well as we can lean on other things to to, you know, entertain and bring people in through social media.
So with my website, people, their idea, I told them on the front of like, I don't know about this, put my prices on. It was right after our pricing conversation. I'm like, oh they want my prices on. And and her idea was to do a contact me for a custom quote and take them to a form. So there is a schedule, a call button on there, and then there will be like a custom quote button somewhere because I change my prices every day, depending on who I talked to. What have you said that you
hold yourself against me by putting them out there. And then today I'm like, Oh, is this much? And then I went and looked up and I'm like, No crap. I just cheated myself out of 50 bucks again and again. I said the wrong number.
I had a echo.
What I tell a lot of people who work at any type of technical business is in regards to pricing, always is. You need to have more than one option in more than one way to display it. So when you look at like, I don't know, I'm trying to think engineers websites, when you're looking at other technical print shops. I worked in a print shop for almost a decade and I learned some amazing things in and around printing, mass printing, any type of printing. And what I learned is that they
don't list their prices always upfront. They always have a customization form or click this button to customize things along those lines. So that's a great alternative to not necessarily listing your prices up front. Again, starting at a starting point would be great so that people can wrap their minds around that. But having that custom quote where people can actually put down their customized thoughts and then you can reply with them with your own customization.
Okay, you're getting some questions. Yeah. So we'll go.
Patrick Okay.
First thoughts on maintaining your own site versus someone else doing it. He says, I love my professionally designed site, but I don't have as much control over it now. And since I'm the one who brought up the I can't design a site to save my life and when I get control over, I ruin it. So that's why I have someone else do mine. Thank you. But what do you think, Dana?
Because I design.
Stuff. I know I'm.
Not biased at all.
I know writers like me. So, yeah, everything I've made before for myself, for my network, it's been by my hands or at least gone through my desk. So I do encourage people, if you're not comfortable with web design, find someone who is If you are not. It's the same thing with podcast editing, right? People come to us because they're not comfortable editing their podcast anymore. As editors. We we do that. We take that leverage off their backs and kind of take it on, right?
They become a little PED once I really encourage people to do what's in their life right For me, I am very gifted at creating websites and podcast editing and graphic design, and I'm very comfortable with going from Star Wars one day and completely Picard the next. I'm okay with all of these things, but this is within my own realm, within my own lane of what I'm comfortable doing. However, that might not be comfortable for everyone else.
So really, I would lean on if you are comfortable to learn, then give this a good Maybe if you're not in a wheelhouse of already trying to learn something new. If one or new things are really hard for you, don't trust someone else who does it way. Who is already doing that really well.
Yeah. So like my personal story is I struggled first, like wanted to get a website because like, I know I design websites and I, I'm very familiar with WordPress, like, I know I can do it myself, but I'm not so proficient at it that I can just like knock it out without any issues. It's after like several months of me struggling, trying to like, create my website. I finally just like, hire somebody to do it for me. But then, like, I know enough to, like, maintain
it on my own. Even my response to Patrick as far as like having somebody maintain it or doing it yourself So personally, I don't do a whole lot with my website, so there's not much to maintain. And I use WordPress. So like outside of updating plugins or whatnot, there's not a whole lot of maintenance there. I do. So I guess I'm curious about like, what do you mean by maintaining it and what kind of control do you wish you have that you don't have right now?
Yeah, So I think maybe while we're waiting for Patrick to answer that, we want to move on to Andrea's question.
Yeah, Yeah.
Andrea asks whether you have any thoughts on multi-page sites with a menu versus a single page scroll with bookmarks to jump?
This for me is actually a brainbuster that I feel like a lot of people struggle with, but it's really not that difficult. I love the fact that this question is brought up because a lot of people struggle with this. They think that by having a singular page, it kind of helps with the
workload. But I will say Endless Scroll was something in 2023 we are very tired of and people are going back to a little bit more of the brochure website, which is rather have 3 to 5 pages to look at that I can look at in 1 to 2 scrolls versus having an infinite page where I am infinitely scrolling forever and ever and ever. So I really encourage people for SEO purposes. It actually is good to have more pages that emphasize
you then one page that emphasizes you. It's kind of one of those things where you don't know whether or not the domino effect can happen. You can't start the domino effect if you only have one page. So it's really an interesting concept when people ask that because I want to encourage them to branch out a little bit by having at least 3 to 3 pages. But for the purpose of whether or not they have an endless role or multiple
pages, I say go for the multiple pages. And can we keep the the second menu too, like a minimum of like 2 to 3 pages underneath that.
I'm totally like, I guess I'm part of the majority. It's like I cannot stand single page websites. It annoys me to no end.
Yeah, and this is kind of where I had to grow up quite a bit because I was the minimalistic person. Like, here's my cover page, here's the basis of what I do. This is why I'm good at it now, believe me. And it was all like a singular page. I've had to branch out a lot. And actually this is where
my my blog really kind of took shape and form. So now that I'm able to have a website that actually showcases the main nuggets about what I do, they can have a deeper dive and go into like more category topics like products like top shows that I care about or even ways to help them manage podcast editing and how we can help them models, all those type of things. So the more that you're putting out, there's the gravy concept, right? The more we produce, the easier it will be for people to
find and allocate and know more about us. And it's very it's a very true moment, to be really honest. We talk about that even in terms for social media, for podcasting. People say, you know, stick to one or two good meetings. You're really good at that. You really want people to connect with and then branch off.
And I'm saying from my car awful lot today, it's really just focus on all the areas as much as you possibly can get in a good system of doing it and then start really busting out the level of content that you want to put out in specific channels versus versus before.
All right, back to Patrick. He has come back about his his website. The editor is way different and there are things and instructions. I have not to touch certain parts of it. I'm one of his first clients was an aunt who's not hands off. So it's been an adjustment for both of us. Rules about image sizes, etc. So that's where the the issue is.
Yeah, it's a tough balance there between wanting to have a website that you love versus one that you can actually adjust as you need to.
Maybe you can get like a part time thing where you like you.
Go not.
Have like window like only between eight and to be retouch this website but it was a Friday and then all you do is your hands off and.
On like a clone website that you can make sure it works before you roll it out.
He says Blogging is where I started, so I struggled to get my site to look less like a blog. That's why I had it. Redesign. Yeah, that's a different look. Totally.
Yeah. I'm just curious. This is me just asking. I know you guys mentioned like Divvy. You guys mentioned like the editors that you're using in some areas. Is anyone like, how do you guys feel about elements or I use that a lot for clientele.
So on a personal level, I've never used it, but it's just another framework, right? My opinion, this is as long as it's a framework that I can understand, I don't mind having somebody else designed it or something like that. I have one website that I work on that's not podcast related, that I just do some updates. It's built in a on a different platform and it's very designer focused, right? So it's very much on the visual is
very heavy, all of that stuff. I hate it, but it's because I can't make it do what I want to do because it wasn't designed to work that way. And so that's that's where the challenge comes for me. So for me, the answer would be absolutely. If you want to have a professional designer say, go for it, just make sure that they use something that you're comfortable with. In terms of the hand-off. Now, if they're going to continue maintaining your site like Jennifer's is, well then that's
a different story. Use whatever they're comfortable with as long as you don't mind being locked in. Right.
And we have another question. Yeah, Yeah.
This one's great about this.
Yeah. The quality of a web designer can be very different. What would be good questions to ask a web designer to ensure quality, functionality, etc.? Detail.
Oh, the go find. I love it. Okay, so first off, I definitely want to know how long they've been doing it. And this is a learned practice someone who's really good in their first year hasn't hit a professional road speed bump yet, but they have been able to do a lot of coding, right? So coding experience is good, but we also want to make sure that the business side of how they conduct business and do business
is also legit. So look for someone who has a little bit of deeper experience, who've been in the game for a little while to look for one trick ponies I despise. And I don't want someone who's going to be able to just work in Joomla. I don't want someone who's just going to work in WordPress unless I specifically need the WordPress. I want someone who's a little bit more advanced, someone who is flexible. Maybe they work between two or three platforms. I personally work between three
main platforms. None of them include Wix. I want to make sure like is I want to get yeah, deep down, you know. Yeah. But I want to make sure that it that it works right like it has to function. And then I also want to have a, someone who has a good portfolio, someone who actually can show the work that's actually out there in the world that you can go and visit. A lot of people, build a lot of tests and dummy sites, and I think that's great. I have plenty to spare in the 13 years
that I've been doing it. But I think in a lot of ways that when you have something that is actually credible, that you can go and tinker on someone else's site and see if that's in comparison to some of the features or aspects that you want on your site that becomes real. So those are the main things that I feel like you should look out for. I always love personality with a smile I love dark humor, so if anyone uses that, that's always cute as one for me. But it doesn't have
to be that way. Find someone who really kind of initiates or sparks you is usually when that connection happens, you're more likely to have more of an actual relationship through this experience versus a cold exchange of just getting it done. I think I haven't watched some of this yet. Only listen. So this is cool that I. So you think that.
It'd be different if Kerry was here because she really has a couple.
So one of the things I love that you shared about that was your perspective on what we should ask about. Because in my mind, if you're wondering what are your prospective clients wondering as they're looking for a prospective editor, it might be things along those lines. Are you a one trick pony? Do you have work that you can stand behind? Can you demonstrate that you've been doing this long enough that you actually know how to fix problems instead of just dealing with the perfectly
recorded stuff that you did in audio school? Like those are all key questions.
And I love the personality aspect. Finding somebody you click with because like the person who designed my website, like he was okay, but it was hard to communicate. And so trying to and especially if somebody you can't stand talking to or don't have like a good relationship with, it makes it more difficult to explain and ask for the changes and like what you want in your website. So having somebody be a little more friendly with, it's easier to kind of like work through that process.
We can all be Klingons and they can't. Great wrong side.
So we have another question.
Oh, actually, before we get to that, I do want to another thing that popped my head when you were talking, as you said, you like you work with a couple of platforms, so people maybe want to do it themselves. What are like your recommendation for platforms to work with and which ones to avoid?
Sure I do love working with WordPress, I do love Squarespace. I do love even to job. I mean, those are some really top leagues that I feel like I'm I'm very advanced in. That takes a little bit of learning especially good job if that's like your something that you see and you see that price tag and you're like, I don't know if I should invest on that
level. We're looking at dropping three GS real fast, but I think it's really admirable for people who are willing to take that leap and say, Yes, I trust someone who's very skilled in this area too, to do this work on my behalf. So I definitely love WordPress, I love Squarespace. I have definitely done several things hand coded by hand. HTML five. Get out of here. I know high five. I've gone all the way to the early parts of of designing all the way to more intricate parts. So
I do like WordPress base. Those are my top two two job would be a third option if you're if your pocket book is a fourth.
Have a bittersweet relationship with Javi Chappy.
Obviously I mean, people who are just listening can't see your face. But when she said hijabi, you had a visual reaction down.
Side tangent I like I've been working with WordPress since like when I still were primarily a blogging framework. My biggest gripe with Hijabi is there's no like clear formatting button. So whenever I copy paste like a word doc or something and you go look at the HTML, you have like all this unnecessary code and make things look weird. So alternative is to like a paste without formatting. And now you get to go in and like
fix everything and put all the links back in. It's just like it's one simple function would completely change my perception of them.
I completely agree with that. It's a fair assessment. I've had some clients that try to do it by hand and say, okay, you know, I'm going to rebel against this decade plus years of your experience and kind of wiggle it out of my own 45 minutes. And they usually come back usually within a week or two and say their tails on their shirt tails. Tuckered in there? Yeah, right. I shouldn't have tried this on
my own. Can you help me? And I get that. And then you've got the people who actually are trying to learn something new. And because they have not experienced something else before, this is their new and this is they kind of precondition. Right. Are reconditioned in some areas. And I think that can also be a learning experience, too. But I completely agree. If you're old school, you've been doing it since the very beginning, and we're going back to The Matrix
almost. And I just feel like this would be a difficult challenge for you. So it really depends on your learning curve there. But I do tell people all the time, if you're looking for just quick, visual friendly platforms, WordPress obviously is a definite go to. And so Squarespace.
Yeah, of those two, I think that Squarespace is probably the one that's a little bit more newbie friendly. I definitely, at least my experience has been that WordPress is way more powerful and extensible, but I really don't care that much for Squarespace. So I never found out the limits of what it can do either.
Oh man. I mean, like the SEO compatibility alone with Squarespace, I think that was one of the cooler features when
Squarespace. Squarespace first came out, that was like their big push was don't worry about the SEO as much, we've got your back and haven't actually got to work a little bit with the Inner Circle Committee with Squarespace specifically, if you don't know about the inner circle, it's like the people who designed, you know, hundreds or even thousands of sites using the Squarespace platform, you can get kind of insider knowledge. You can get free releases, things along those
lines. Check that out. It's called Inner Circle. And I absolutely love that Squarespace went ahead straight from the bat and said, hey, we don't want you to worry about the SEO as much. We'll start taking care of some of that for you. And they did. They delivered on that promise. The problem was, was that when they started upgrading a lot of their older platforms and these newer platform websites, it kind of became a little bit more begrudgingly. So so yeah, we're going to give you more SEO, but
only this much. And then if you want more, you'll have to pay to play. And so that got frowned upon, right? So I think they did lose a little bit of their early audience in the beginnings of Squarespace when they made that transition. But now for people who are just looking for quick, easy, I just want to type in a
couple of answers to some of these questions. That is a definite go to for people are looking to just get started, either building their own podcast website or even creating a services page for the services they do in and around.
Yeah, I do think with Brian that Squarespace is a lot easier to use. And another thing, it's impossible to break your website with Squarespace compared to WordPress. WordPress is really easy. Install one wrong plug in or you accidentally try to make an edit and end up deleting a client's entire website like don't.
Now this is the beauty of working with hosting providers who can provide up to the minute 24 hours I'm in service. I'm grateful for for people who are not GoDaddy fans. I'm a GoDaddy fan, have been using it for years. We're partners with them. We love the ability that we can in one click, Restore something that happened 5 minutes ago, 5 hours ago, five days ago, within one click, all within less than 10 minutes of
us logging in. I do like that accessibility feature. Other sites, other places have done that as well, but I just personally love having that accessibility through GoDaddy. We've been using them for eight years almost, and.
I wanted to hit this one because it it is worth noting that with WordPress there can be a lot of hack attacks. So just be careful. In fact, one of the sites that I manage, it's not actually my site, but I manage it is dealing with that right now. There's been an uptick in hack attacks. I use some security protocols that I have in place and so I'm like literally on this call, I'm still blocking IP because it's bouncing from the Netherlands to China to whatever, Right. That
stuff is happening. But yeah, What are your thoughts, Danielle, in terms of what tools we might use to protect ourselves from attacks?
Absolutely. I use security stand. I have I love being able to use a very whatever. How do you even pronounce all the way? I ask the NSA customer service, I might pronounce it. Is it security scan or security scan? Like I don't I don't know how the letters come together anyway. I absolutely love using them. I use them for malware purposes all the time. There's also oh gosh, there's another one.
I use word fence. I'm not sure if that's what you're thinking of.
That's one I've heard of as well. I personally do not use it, but yes, I've heard of plenty of other people who are developing WordPress websites. Use that as a base for malware protection if you think of hacking things along those lines. So I encourage people do their homework. There is some innate things that naturally come, some from the hosting provider in regards to making sure you have scans on your website on a daily
basis. So that's also something to think about depending on where you are, whether you're with Bluehost or GoDaddy or I think this is what we were talking about before and I don't even know, is it the virus die? Various die? Yep. So this is one that I personally use and I definitely can guarantee that
this is top tier. So I absolutely love to that. Even when we talk about malware protection that people are aware of it because a lot of people still build their websites thinking that my hosting has it. But really hacking is just going to continue to elevate over time. So this is something that you should be very aware of and taking the proper steps to protect your website.
Facebook user has a good karma. If you have your own domain for your website, it's always good practice to email like hello at your domain instead of gmail hotmail outlook so you can market your domain instead of Gmail and more professional, you would need your email hosting though. Blah blah blah. Yeah, but. But my mind breaks sometimes and Carri broke her email once too. So I mean is a challenge.
I love my business. Business Gmail, I've never stopped ever using it, so it works out great for me. That's linked directly to my domain. I have to worry about, you know, not informative, know I'm a team of team of six women across five countries. So it's really important for me to to make sure that everyone has singular working emails. Domains are working together adversely in the universe. So I think it's really for me, this is a no brainer. Like, I love being able
to have that type of security. Gmail has not failed me. Sorry. Okay.
So one of the things I'm wondering as we think about websites, right, because we've talked about maybe some design elements and some of that stuff, but I think there are some of us, me included, who are wondering, like, is my website really working for me or against me? If you were going to go take a look at somebody who's website, what are maybe a couple of things that you would have them look at and maybe try to self-diagnose some things before you start taking the next step?
How fast does your page load? That's usually the number one indicator.
And what's it? Is it like less than a second? Less than half a second? What? What's your target?
I would say anything under 2 seconds. I mean, that's really, to be honest, two and a half.
Okay.
I hate to say even three, because sometimes even the third just kind of bogged down from there. I really tell people if it takes too long for you to to say, huh, that's doing too long. Like it's it's taking too long to load. So page speed is usually my definite go to as an indicator if something is not working well on your website. The second one would probably be if your WordPress was your plug ins, taking a look at plug ins would be the second area that I would look at on the back end
just to see if that's something that's all. Everything's compatible. It's working for you. You wouldn't believe how many times, even though we say like automated data, sometimes it doesn't necessarily auto update or something happens in between the last update in the current update to where it drops and then you're just stuck and doesn't refresh at all. And if you go monthly refreshing your website, that could be a potential 30 days of something else affecting your site,
preventing people from wanting to interact with you. Right. So we want to try remove as many website roadblocks as possible. So that would be another area to go to. Another one would be heavy for you. So if you've got heavy files on your site now, for a lot of people, they're like, okay, you know what's
heavy? Obviously, if it's taking forever to load the one graphic that's at the top of your page, your your hero graphic or whatever that may be, we need to rethink about resizing that or stripping it down a little bit in file size so that you can actually have it load up as fast as you want it to. Again, you have that three second rule for people to make that first
impression of you. That's it. 3 seconds. That's really it. The first 3 seconds, I can tell whether or not I want to keep scrolling or I'm going to lift up my thumb and scroll to another page. I'm going to take tock instead of going to you. You know, that's really all you got that's the that's my main things that I would look at primarily.
Thanks.
Yeah.
I mean, I feel like I've talked too much, so I'm trying to be quiet so everybody else can have a chance.
So having a good foundation knowledge, I understand from what back design communication is important. Do you have any resources for that?
I'm saying website. Yes. Me I do all of these things I teach and all these things. I actually have a yearly educational brand intensive that we hosted at the last three months of the year called Q One Essentials, where I actually teach live class in a group setting very similar to this, and we talk everything from resources for your website to domain protection to basics of WordPress.
Awesome. And where can they reach out if they want to talk to you?
Lex Octane dot com. That is my jam. Instagram is my number two jam, so you can actually hit me up there if you ever want to chat one on one. But yes, those are the two main places that I would love for people to get us.
And quick. Now apparently hashtag podcasting is trending on Twitter.
So Instagram's your jam, but I don't see it linked up on your website. I was going to go click through so I could grab your link.
So it's at the bottom. Okay, I'm working. So to be really honest, our website actually tweets.
Is perfect timing.
Is being redesigned right now. So it comes out at the end of this month so we can look out for that. It will include a playlist of Tower songs by the ladies of T Montaigne. So it will be, I'm sure, full of it.
All right, final question. You said you're a retro gamer. Give us one gaming recommendation and we'll do project.
Oh, don't rush into the dead zone.
Okay.
Now, if this is is something coming from Mario, years of Mario, years of the Sonic, the Hedgehog, years of Tetris. Don't go into the dead zone. You don't have to go in there. I know sometimes it's very if you want to go in there and you want to hurry up and just get it in, maybe get the goodie or the extra or the bonus or whatever, you don't have to do it. You can just bypass that. You get to the end. But I do tell people all the time life is more like Tetris and less like
Mario. So that's my quote for this.
Okay, put that on a t shirt.
I think you don't you.
Know, but I do have like Prince and all the things. So, yeah, I'm I'm sitting here with Sonic tonight. So we're we're making it real. We're going to happen.
All right. So, Danielle, give us a number between one through five. Normally Brian does that, but he's given me the privilege of doing the podcast question tonight.
Who? Okay, I'm going pick three.
Okay, perfect. If you could send a message in to the I think we've done this before, but if you could send a message to the entire world, what would you say? And 30 seconds.
Oh, shoot, let's not my 30 seconds, Michael. Same thing. Life was more like Tetris and less like Mario.
They love it.
Don't bother Blue. Yeah.
My. I would say whatever is bothering you is probably not as important or won't seem as important in a few years. So focus on the good and live your best life.
I think mine would require a megaphone, but it would be stop being mean to each other. Oh I'm a parent too, so I'm saying that a lot.
Otherwise mine is. If you can't be good, be funny.
Okay. And if you have an answer to the question, feel free to leave it on our website. You just go to podcast. Editor's message My dot com Find the episode number 76 and leave a comment on that blog post. Patrick says Mine is Be Good Children, which is good because he's a teacher. So I'm sure that's probably something he says on a daily basis. And Kyle says, Be kind, which I think, yeah, we need more of.
Yes. Steve says, Thank you, Danielle in the voice of Yoda much I have learned today. That's great.
You didn't do it in The Voice.
I can't do Yoda's voice. I can barely do Bryan's voice.
Danielle, can you do the Yoda voice for us?
Oh. Oh, man, I know you're going to ask that question.
Okay, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. But you want to be a guest on the show. Just do exactly what Danielle did. Go to podcast editor. That's mine dot com. Be a guest spot the form. It sends us a message and we'll be in touch. And this is where the yard expert like Danielle is and have incredible incredible insights and information that you want to share to the community at large or if you are struggling with something in your own podcast editing business and you want
the advice of your colleagues, it's all the same. Fill out the form and we would love to have you on.
I'm Jennifer Longworth with Barber and Barrow Podcasting. You can find me at Bourbon barrel Podcasting dot com new website coming soon.
I'm Brandon Springer you can find me at top tier audio dot com and next to me is.
Daniel Abendroth in a five year rap media audio.
In our special guest.
Oh I'm Daniel with Octane science and you can find me at look blockchain dot com.
And not appearing tonight is Kari copy Eric at Kari dot land. Thank you all for joining us and we will see it in about two weeks at 905 Eastern time.
Pay. So how much is that? So you.