#131 AI-Built Websites, WebProud’s Birthday & The Tools Every Website Manager

Jonny Ross

-: 00:27

Hello, welcome. It's the 90 Day Website Mastery Podcast. Pascal is here. Pascal, this is our 50th episode.

Jonny Ross

-: 00:28

Yeah, people can tell

Pascal Fintoni

-: 00:29

from

Jonny Ross

-: 00:43

your voice how excited you are. I mean, mental, you know, what a landmark and we are proud. We're in fact web proud. Welcome to the 90 Day Website Mastery Podcast.

Jonny Ross

-: 00:49

We're live. We're live on Instagram. We're live on YouTube. We're live on LinkedIn.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:12

Perhaps you're listening to the podcast and we're in your ear right now, whether that be on Spotify, on Apple or your favorite podcast platform. We're just delighted that you're with us, delighted that you're joining us, however you listen, however you watch, and whenever you watch. This is the perfect companion to the 90-Day Website Mastery Program and our recently published book. We're proud, I say recently published, but we are also celebrating another anniversary.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:14

Pascal, what is that anniversary?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 01:31

Well, the anniversary is to find that two things. A year ago, UNI Press published on the Amazon Print On Demand platform for a web round. We are celebrating this is our 50th episode. We are also one day away from the third anniversary of ChatGPT.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 01:37

And so it goes on. So honestly, what a moment in time for UNI.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:53

There's a lot going on, isn't there? In every episode, like always, we have four segments. We have the You Ask, We Answer, where one of our community or someone has asked us a question prior to this episode, and we bring that to you. We think it will add value.

Jonny Ross

-: 02:16

We've got website stories where we find an article or a podcast or a video. or something that's happening in the news and we talk to you about that. We've got the website engine room where we suggest a piece of kit or an app that's going to help you as a website manager or website content creator start feeling proud of your website and start making your website work harder for you. And of course, we always finish with a call to action.

Jonny Ross

-: 02:30

The call to action, one change or adjustment that you could be making to your website right now that's going to start moving the dial. Listen, it's going to be a packed show as always, so we better get started. Segment one, you ask, we answer.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 02:54

Well, thanks again for this fabulous introduction and reminder about the key segments. So listen, I'm going to paraphrase a scenario. So we don't have a question as such, but I'm going to paraphrase something that's happened to one of my clients. And I think the timing is interesting because you're not going to see this happening more and more.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 03:09

So here it goes. I've just found out that my website designer has used an AI platform to create my website. I can't update the content myself, and they cannot update the design. I worry what other problems I will discover in the future.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 03:25

What should I do? So, can you see where we are now in terms of, you know, times? AI is now everywhere. We have people perhaps with the best of intention wishing to be helpful to others by using the tools of the time, but without perhaps the skills required.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 03:28

What say you, Johnny Ross?

Jonny Ross

-: 03:58

Yeah, I mean, well, this takes me back to the very early days on commissioning websites and not really knowing what you were buying and how adaptable they would be and even who owns the website as well. We talk about AI platforms. We talk about AI website builders. We talk about them for creating ideas for especially for ideation and sort of brainstorming and coming up with concepts, taking you away from that sort of blank page.

Jonny Ross

-: 04:25

And where do I start? And actually if you looking to spin up a website really quickly then you know they they work really well but it I guess it all comes back to the fundamentals of what you're buying and having that that brief that covers all the bases and you could argue that you know and rightly so as a business owner. Your expertise is not in building websites, not in managing a marketing company or a marketing freelancer.

Jonny Ross

-: 04:48

And so you would expect that they would be bringing this information to you and being open about, you know, here's the options, here's the choices. But unfortunately, like we know with any business transaction, you have to do a bit of due diligence. And for us, that's all around the brief and being very clear about what it is you're wanting. So it comes down to things like, you know, what's it being built in?

Jonny Ross

-: 05:02

So the content management system, irrelevant of AI at this stage. So what's it being built in? What's the future proofing of it? So will I be able to amend, add, if I want to add a shop later, all of that sort of stuff.

Jonny Ross

-: 05:27

And who's building it? So are the designers, are the developers, or is the whole thing being done by AI? And therefore, more importantly, and this again depends on the content management system as well, but who owns it? So if I fall out with you, for example, as a freelancer or an agency, or if I decide to move agencies at some point, can I literally just take it?

Jonny Ross

-: 06:04

And really, really simple things that we sort of make assumptions about, and these things sometimes are covered in T&Cs as well. So yeah, it's a horrible situation when you realize that halfway through a project, the whole thing's been done by AI and there's so many limitations. And so it introduces something that's great in terms of the ideation, but if there's no transparency and there's too many assumptions being made, it can land a business in a not great place. So yeah, back to the brief, I think, Pascal.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:25

Absolutely. And listen, I really can sense the disappointment for our viewers and listeners thinking, I thought things would get easier over time. I mean, they could rightly challenge you and I to say, well, the internet was born more than 32 years ago now. The practice we've designed should be like a bottle of wine, should mature and improve with age.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:58

But here I am being challenged over and over again And I think, for me, it's also an observation. I wrote about it, actually, on LinkedIn yesterday, about pace and speed. And I think, you know, whilst there is a strong appeal with AI to get things done quickly, but actually, you know, the advantage of AI is that, therefore, you have reclaimed time to spend on deliberations, reflection, due diligence, and all those things. So, for me, this idea of Don't let yourself get caught out about the momentum and pace of AI.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 07:25

Actually go as slow as you need to go and take time to ask those questions. And it feels to me almost like I'm going to have to dust off all my previous checklist. Remember when you and I, many years ago, we used to get more inquiries from your website, Masterclass and Mastermind Day, which actually was at the origin of the web program, the book. We used to have a little checklist, and we used to give people blank forms about questions to ask the developers.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 07:48

And one of them was about relationship, if you remember clearly. One of them was about ownership and so on. But I think importantly, no matter the project, you should always ask for the project plan with clear stages, clear steps, clear review points, and so on. And within that, I love your reminder who is going to be dealing with me, who's going to be in touch with me and so on.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 08:18

But yeah, I understand what it must be like to have so many plates spinning and the website project as an endeavor, as a purchase is one of many and you want to get it done off your desk. And what wouldn't you trust somebody out there who says, you know, that I can design this website for you. And perhaps in this case, it was with the best of intention, wishing to be helpful, but it's really now come to a complete dead end and abrupt stop. And it's wasting all this time.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 08:44

It's causing a lot of anxiety. Obviously, the reputation of that individual is now completely, you know, in tatters. So yeah, slow it down, go back to key principles. And if you're unsure about the questions, I mean, obviously John and I are giving you a few, but wouldn't you say, Johnny, that you should set up a conversation with your favorite large language models and ask it to act as your website project advisor and list the questions

Pascal Fintoni

-: 08:44

you should be asking?

Jonny Ross

-: 08:52

Oh, for sure. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. I'm a small, I'm a small business looking to buy a website.

Jonny Ross

-: 09:08

What are the things that I should be thinking about? What are the, uh, the, uh, the, the, the things to look out for the red flags? Uh, and how do I come up with a, a good starting point? That would be a, a medium prompt and I'm sure you could expertise that and, and get something even better.

Jonny Ross

-: 09:22

But yeah, I love that idea. Um, yeah. And so bit of due diligence. better briefs, more transparency, and cheaper doesn't always mean it solves the problem by any means.

Jonny Ross

-: 09:30

Or faster, yeah. Or faster, yeah. Thank you, Jonny. Let's move to our second segment, website stories.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:00

Now, normally in this part of the show, we present to you a content piece we found on the interweb. You know, it could be an article, could be an infographic, it could be a video, but this is episode 50. And it is also, as you heard during the introduction, a one-year anniversary of us pressing publish on WebProud. Our very, very first book, The Five-Step Roadmap to Feeling Proud of Your Website, again, which I'm holding.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:27

right now, so are you. So I hope you don't mind, viewers and listeners, but we thought we should take a moment, Julie and I, to just actually reminisce and just celebrate, because if you don't celebrate your own small victories, then who will? And so for me, the memory is a very, very positive one. So we launched a webinar series, if you remember, during COVID.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:43

You know, and it sounds like, you know, and because we wanted to share our passion for websites. And it so happens that we did five sessions. This number is rather important. And then I think I came back to you and said, you know, I really enjoy those, you know, should we continue to do something else?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:06

So then the podcast came from that, which is where we got to number 15. And then within that, I was saying to you, maybe what we could do, now the webinars are in the distant, in a distant past, perhaps we could convert those into an e-book. And then from an e-book, we remove the letter E, and then we came up with the idea of a book. And off we went.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:10

Did we meet every other Tuesday for an afternoon, writing

Jonny Ross

-: 11:10

the

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:11

different chapters and so on, and then

Jonny Ross

-: 11:12

going

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:12

through?

Jonny Ross

-: 11:29

We put a lot of time and work into this for sure. It was a big project and there was a lot of passion. We like things to be right, don't we? We like things to add value.

Jonny Ross

-: 11:58

We want to ensure that whatever we deliver is full of value and is actionable and you can actually achieve something from it. So those Tuesday afternoons were focused on, you know, if people are going to spend time reading this or engaging with it, how do we make sure that they actually start feeling proud of their website, for example, in this particular case? So yeah, I remember those sessions very well. Yeah,

Pascal Fintoni

-: 12:22

and what was interesting is, so it took a while to find our style, I would say. It took a while to find the format of the book. And in a way, we had to almost go full circle by, I suppose, not comparing ourselves against others, but looking at what others had done. agreed to disagree as in that's not us anyway and come back to where who are we as people and we are trainers and we are advisors.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 12:32

So I'm back to making it super practical. So the five webinars were a great platform to build on. It wasn't sufficient. We had to really expand on the key messages.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 12:59

and to your point about making actionable. So the web round, you know, the book itself has two main sections, you could argue. There's one for actions across the five steps or the five, what we call the executive briefings, and one for inspiration with bonus content, which was inspired by the podcast series. So in a bonus content, if you want to sometime just, you know, get away from doing something, but more reflecting and feeling, we have a selection of articles that we reviewed at the time.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:25

We have a selection of tools. And importantly, I'm particularly proud of this one from User Term again, we have a yearly planner of a weekly adjustment and an amend that you could do 52, you know, kind of small amends you could do. But the five executive briefings are really at the heart of the book. And within that, we wanted this to remember to be something people would refer to and actually could own it almost as a field book.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:38

So there's ideas catcher pages where you can doodle, there are checklists galore. There's little tables you can complete and so on. We wanted this to be kind of used and written in. I know that sometimes people want to keep books very neat and tidy.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:58

And in fact, we extended this element of engaging, interacting with a book to the Kindle version. So we have a interactive Kindle version. So it's not the flat version that people think of. It's literally something you could have on your laptop and you could type in into those different tables and ideas, a catcher.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 14:02

Yeah, if I may say so, I think it's a great book. And we've got

Jonny Ross

-: 14:12

lovely feedback as well. We really have. And you know, you said in this segment, we're doing something a bit different. But actually, this segment is about finding one thing on the internet and talking about it.

Jonny Ross

-: 14:50

And actually, if you go to Amazon, you'll find this I dread to think what you have planned for us in the future, Pascal, because you're right. This has been ever-evolving, and I know both of us very well to know that there will be more, and we're already talking about Notebook LM and how we can do something with that in terms of workshops, but also, you know, all of this rich content that we're producing. It's a goldmine for any marketer. You know, this is what we talk about all the time.

Jonny Ross

-: 15:03

It's about having something in the center of your content that you can then repurpose and add more value. And so I think it's going to be difficult for us not to do more when we're creating even more content all the time. Well,

Pascal Fintoni

-: 15:22

absolutely. But if you think about, again, how this has come about, it's a different form of expression of the advice we share. But if you look at number 50, episode number 50, that means that we've answered 50 questions. We've reviewed 50 pieces of content, including our book twice now.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 15:48

If you think about the other two segments, we have now recommended 100 different tools and apps for intermediate life leisure. And more importantly, we have given people 100 suggestions about small and simple adjustments you could do right now. So yeah, we'll be looking at revisiting that and creating a format that is very useful to all of you. But thank you for allowing us to get going.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 16:02

It's your fault, really. You should have told us to stop sooner. But I think for me, did you ever think that maybe there would be a natural conclusion to this podcast in particular? Because by now, we'll have covered everything.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 16:12

So it was my view that we would get to a point where he'd go, do you know what? Thanks again, everyone. Job done. But the subject matter, much to my surprise, and should be surprised, frankly, is so rich.

Jonny Ross

-: 16:51

Yeah, I mean, when it comes to thinking of, you know, you've said that we've covered a hundred tools, a hundred website call to actions, but we both prepare for this podcast all the time. And I'm amazed at how much more I've got to talk about. There's so many different areas that we've not covered, but there's an end, there's the, you know, when we've, we've new apps as well, and especially AI, There's new pieces of kit and apps coming out all the time. Some of them are pointless and worthless, but some of them are really moving the dial and making a difference.

Jonny Ross

-: 16:57

So yeah, there's no natural conclusion coming soon, I don't think.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 17:08

So for some, it would be obviously good news. For others, not so good news. We're going to continue. I want to spend a moment to thank everyone that joined the launch last year.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 17:28

It made it possible for us to become a number one bestseller on Kindle within 48 hours. So thank you. And for everyone who has bought the book ever since, who joined sessions and were gifted a book and so on, And we wrote it for others to use it. It's not just for us.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 17:34

So big, big thank you. And here's to year two of web round.

Jonny Ross

-: 17:43

Absolutely. Yeah. No, I'm glad we've marked this and thank you for allowing us to do this on this podcast. Um, and, uh, you know, and if you have read it, let us know what you think.

Jonny Ross

-: 18:00

Please do leave a review and the same with this podcast as well. If this is helpful, let your friends know and share it. Uh, I think we should move on to our third segment, Pascal. Uh, but yeah, happy, uh, happy 50th and happy, uh, one year anniversary on our web proud as well.

Jonny Ross

-: 18:03

Let's go to our third segment, the website engine room.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 18:25

Now, as you had a moment to go, Johnny and I spend a lot of our time going out there on the interweb looking for hidden treasures and gems that can make your life easier as a Web Simulator and Content Creator. So, Johnny, what is your recommendation for episode 50?

Jonny Ross

-: 18:56

Well, it's a touch ironic, especially because the question that we had in our first segment was about AI websites and AI website builders. But I did want to highlight landingsite.ai. The strut line on their homepages, generate a beautiful website for your business in five minutes. So speed, if it sounds too easy, it possibly is too easy.

Jonny Ross

-: 19:39

But I think the reason that I am bringing landing site.ai into the equation is actually more about landing pages. So if we are looking at our marketing and different funnels, What we're wanting to do is have different messages and different feelings and what we call potentially squeeze pages, where we're trying to get people to do certain things based on where they've come from. So perhaps a Facebook campaign, perhaps a Google Ads campaign, an Instagram campaign, something very specific. taking them to a very specific page that matches the exact journey that they've been on in terms of the advert and the messaging that they've just seen.

Jonny Ross

-: 20:01

Perhaps it's even from an email flow. But it's the ability to be able to spin up a landing page really quickly and to even just do some testing as well on it. So yeah, have all that due diligence, but if you're looking for a really speedy app in terms of creating a landing page, landingsite.ai is the one that I am flagging this week. Thank you

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:18

very much. And also back to your point, what a great way to start a conversation, what a great way to get feedback from your colleagues, what a great way to engage. um, your designers, uh, you know, by be able to do a show and tell, as opposed to waving your hands around and trying to express, you know, what's in your head and so on. So I'm a big, big, massive fan.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:24

Right. Nice selection. I need to begin with a question. Do you say GIF or do you say JIF, Johnny Ross?

Jonny Ross

-: 20:33

Well, it depends if I'm talking about the, the, the household cleaner, but no, I go for GIF whether that's right or wrong.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:52

Well, I think it's right, because it's a graphic, obviously. It's a G. So the introduction of GIFs within a blog article, within a presentation, indeed, I've seen that more and more often. And in social media, I think, is almost now become the new emojis of today, if that makes any sense.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:07

I'm saying, you know, interesting trend. Now, I'm not a big fan of jumping on trends. But actually, they can really grab someone's attention. I mean, we use them when we promote content by having the header image, if you will, to be animated on LinkedIn and Facebook and so on.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:33

So I've come across this platform called ezgif, it's spelled E-Z, ezgif.com. And now there are plenty out there, but this one is very good, Johnny. Because not only can you create a GIF from a static image or from moving images, you can have a video clip taken at an event and you can upload that and so on. but you can edit, you can change the format from square to landscape to portrait, you can add text and so on and so forth.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:57

So it's a very, very comprehensive kind of platform and it's all free of charge. They ask for you to buy a coffee, you know, just to kind of support the hosting and that kind of things. But I think that, you know, in terms of our visual vocabulary and our visual kind of stimuli online, particularly within the blog section, I think you can afford to be more creative as well as social media. I think that's a good addition to your toolkit in addition to the others you have.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:02

So ezgif.com, ezgif.com is my selection for today.

Jonny Ross

-: 22:14

I like it. Thank you very much, Pascal. Definitely part of the toolkit for sure. Let's go to our final segment, the website call to action.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:36

So this is about the one adjustment, the one change you should be making right now to make your website work harder and for you to feel proud of your website. And you're going to hear in a moment from Johnny for option 99. And I have the pleasure to share option 100.

Jonny Ross

-: 23:00

It's so true. Yeah, so the website called Fashion 99 of our 50 episode podcast. For me, for this podcast, it's if you're a local or a service-based business, adding your opening hours onto your contact page or onto the website, making it really clear. Now, this might sound like, really?

Jonny Ross

-: 23:40

We're still talking about this in nearly 2026. And the answer is yes, because even more so, because of the era of AI coming on board, we absolutely need to be explicit about everything. So not only does it help users, not only does it add some trust as well, having those opening hours really demonstrates that actually the business does open and close. And so there is something going on here, but also from an AI point of view, uh hearing it's being able to uh for a machine to be able to read it and explicitly see and matching that to your google business profile as well that joins the dots it

Jonny Ross

-: 24:19

reinforces it for google it reinforces it for other machine learning as well So yeah, adding opening hours, adds a layer of trust, becomes more helpful, makes them easy to find, make them really clear, and ensure that those opening times match whatever you have in your Google business profile as well. That's my website. And the idea, sorry, just to finish, is the idea is that this is one small change or adjustment that you could do really easily that makes things happen in terms of better conversion, in terms of more inquiries.

Jonny Ross

-: 24:22

So that is my website call to action for this podcast.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 24:43

Thank you so, so much. And you know what's interesting is, so we create the show notes and the research separately, independently. And every so often, like today, which I think is perfect, you know, we've kind of gone into a very similar theme. So number 100, in terms of the website culture action, is for everyone, including you and I, Johnny, to look back at our Google business profile.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 25:08

In the age of AI summaries, which is an evolution of SEO, I can see now what is happening with regard to where AI summaries go to to seek out information. And they are looking primarily in, obviously, website content, particularly blogs, sections, and about the sections, FAQ sections, and so on. but they're also looking at a well-established platform, such as Google Maps and others. So can we please look at our Google business profile?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 25:42

And I think it's important that we acquaint ourselves with all the different features, and importantly, content opportunities, because there will be content there, or content fields that have been left blank, or unanswered, or unused, that is not allowing you to be part of the AI summaries. So my position would be, have a look again. Things have changed, have moved on, things have disappeared, have been added and so on. Back to actually this point of correlation, make sure that whatever is on Google's business profile matches what's on their website because Google uses that.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 26:13

as evidence that you are a legitimate business. So once you've kind of done that, then what I would do is then use AR, your favorite LLM, to actually help you put together a quarterly action plan to make sure that you are updating your Google Business Profile weekly. And in fact, it may well be, which has been the case during my workshop journey, that by actually being a bit more curious about Google Business Profile, you essentially are invited to come up with new ideas for your own website. It actually works well as well.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 26:26

Just say, do you know what? That's quite a clever thing to do on Google Business Profile. Why don't I do that on my website too, such as the opening hours and everything that you've mentioned? So that's my kind of double, because number one, I've got two calls to action.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 26:35

Have a look at Google Business Profile, become acquainted, and then use AI to help put together a quarterly rolling action plan with weekly updates.

Jonny Ross

-: 27:00

I love it when we bring items to the podcast that then compliment each other, which happens all the time. But specifically, these two really compliment each other. So yeah, that's really, it's nice when those things happen. We've been looking at AI website builders, whether they are a good idea or a bad idea.

Jonny Ross

-: 27:28

I think the key thing that we've been trying to get across here is make sure you know what you're buying. If you're commissioning a new website, make sure you understand exactly what it is you're commissioning. Have a bit of a brief. Use your favorite AI assistant to ensure that you're asking that supply the right questions, and that you've got the right brief in place, and that you, for example, own the website, you've got the ability to be able to edit it in the future, and all the things that

Jonny Ross

-: 27:43

you might need to do on that website. So, yeah, really important. We've celebrated that it's been a year since we published our book, Press the Publish Button on WebPround, which we are ultimately really proud of. It's available on Amazon.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:02

Of course, it will be in the show notes, a link. And we'd love you to buy it and let us know what you think as well. And we've been celebrating that it's our 50th episode as well, which is just super. We've given you some great call to actions and apps that we've suggested for the website engine room.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:05

Another fantastic episode. Thank you, Pascal.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 28:25

Not at all. And yeah, yeah, it's nice, you know, and please everybody take a hint, you know, celebrate you all small victories. It's important and do it. You sound it with the team, with your colleague, with your clients, um, create a moment in time and a calendar where you remember that on the 21st of November for us at the time of going live, we just stopped, posed and went, do you know what?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 28:29

Well done us. And thank you to all of you, you know,

Jonny Ross

-: 28:44

and actually, The 21st of November, I've got two sons that have birthdays on the 21st of November. There we go. How many, how many celebrations and anniversaries do we want on the same day of the year? Uh, but there we go.

Jonny Ross

-: 29:03

That is a wrap for episode 50 of the United State website, mastery podcast, your audio companion to the 90 day website mastery program. For more information, visit 90daymarketingmastery.com where you can book a discovery call with myself or Pascal. It's goodbye for now. We'll leave you with a fun video audio montage to enjoy whilst you review your actions and notes.

Jonny Ross

-: 29:09

And we can't wait to see you on the next episode. We'll see you soon. Take care, guys. Bye bye.