#93 Maximise Your Website's Potential: Multi Services, Future-Proofing with AI & Essential Website Tools

Jonny Ross: 00:00:15

Hello and welcome. We are live. We live on Facebook. We are live on YouTube. We live on LinkedIn. This is the 90 day Website Mastery podcast. It's episode 18. We're going to be looking at your maximizing your website's potential. We're going to look at multi services future proofing with AI and essential website tools. We're celebrating the launch of our new program and the completion of our website Best Practice webinar series. We wanted to find a way to continue to share more advice and insights about making your website work harder for you, and to feel proud about your website again. Each episode will comprise of four segments. I'm here with my very good friend and co-host, Pascal. Tony. How are you, Pascal?

Pascal Fintoni: 00:01:00

I'm very good thing very much, and it's been an interesting week for me. It's all been about websites at this moment in time, and normally my kind of order book is very varied and it's about speaking about SEO, it's about coaching by video marketing, it's by looking email marketing.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:01:15

But it's been all about websites. I'm currently working on two government website, giving some some support on that two personal brand website and one e-commerce website. And yesterday, as I said in the green room, I had the pleasure of presenting the 90 day Website Mastery program to support organization. Wonderful.

Jonny Ross: 00:01:32

It's yeah, we do like playing with websites, don't we? And and you know, the thought of being able to turn someone's website into something that's going to work harder for them and turn viewers and potential clients into real customers and clients. You know, I think it excites us. So we have four segments in our episode every single time we do our episode. And just to remind you, the first episode is you ask, we answer where we take a question that's been submitted by the community, and we analyze and give you some answers. We talk about website stories in our second segment, and we take one article or podcast or infographic that's sort of piqued us, and we dissect that and then we move on to the website engine room where we talk about Pascale brings an app, I bring an app, Apple, perhaps a software solution that helps you as a website manager or a content creator, make your life easier.

Jonny Ross: 00:02:27

And lastly, of course, we finish with the call to action. Every single piece of content should have a call to action. And of course we give you a call to action as well. So something that you could implement one small change or adjustment that you could be making to your website right now. So that's what we're going to step into. We'll do a reflect at the end. Thank you for joining us. If you're live with us right now, please do say hello in the comments on any of the platforms you're on if you're listening or watching afterwards. Thank you. Thanks for being here. And please don't forget if it helps, if it if you enjoy any of this, please do subscribe. Tell your friends, share it around. So I think without further ado, we should start with you ask. We answer.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:03:15

Thank you very much again, Gianni, for this great intro and summary. And can I just add very, very quickly that Adu made people say to me, oh, I love another show that you do with Jonny.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:03:24

So yeah, but we don't know you do. So do leave those comments and likes and shares because it's very important. That's why that's how we know that you're keeping track of our progress. Now today's question is interesting was I got it to via WhatsApp from one of my clients, Jonny. And I can't wait to to hear your reaction and thoughts on that. So the question literally word for word is as follows. My business has grown over the years and now have different services on offer. Do I need separate website for each one of them?

Jonny Ross: 00:03:53

Question mark well, yes. Age old question how many websites should I produce? I mean, over the years I've seen businesses try all sorts of different tactics, and even from an SEO point of view, creating lots of websites. And then on the flip side, conflicting conversations. I was doing a podcast only 2 or 3 days ago with someone who focuses very heavy on strategy. And and if he even became aware of the conversation around multiple services, he'd be like, whoa, bring it right in.

Jonny Ross: 00:04:27

Focus on the one that's the really profitable, the really differential one. But I think, you know, this all comes down to your organization, what it is you're selling, the types of services and more importantly, your clients as well. I remember talking about Tesco, the supermarket many, many years ago, and they had when I did my research on them. We're talking like ten, 15 years ago. They had over 30 different domains. They had Tesco Pets, Tesco Insurance, Tesco Flowers, the Tesco main brand. They had the clothing brand, the chewy brand. There was there was like 30 different websites they had and I think they've heavily reduced that and brought, brought and really amalgamated. I think it comes down to if services complement each other, if they work together, if they are fit for the for a similar audience, then you should look at having them on the same site. However, at the same time though, if you have a service that's quite different and perhaps serves a very different type of audience, perhaps deserves a very different look and feel and style, then that's when you should be considering a separate site.

Jonny Ross: 00:05:34

And so I'm not sure there's a right and wrong answer. It's about just really thinking about who the users are, who the clients are. And you know, why are you, why you, why do you have all these services? Should you have all these services? And if the answer is definitely yes, then that's when to consider. But if the answer's no, that's the first question. Should I have all these services in the first place? So there's just some off the top of my head thought straight away.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:06:01

No, it's great. It's very helpful because actually, one consideration that I did miss initially what this side of. Are you perhaps guilty of enjoying the process of creating product and services a lot more than marketing them? And listen, hey, been there, done that. You know, so I'm definitely not in a position to to throw the first stone here. And so this idea of your audience is in charge of your web presence. You know, so are the services that you've come up with have been validated by the marketplace, or is that actually the purpose of the website? You could use a website actually to validate and something you've done a lot journey with your clients using Google AdWords and advertising to to hurry along the market research and market intelligence.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:06:40

But this idea of if you have the shared audience as in the product and services, complement and supplement and make sense with the audience, it's probably a more comforting thought of everything under one roof. That may be the case, but if indeed, you know each product and services has a different audience. We're talking about different occupation, different sectors, different life stages, and so on. Perhaps if you want to turn to one of our webinars with joining, we talk about the four archetypes. Going into the website, you have the investigator, the interrogator, the relationship building, the dreamer, and we'll use those as trick of the mind to make sure that you've challenged the website content sufficiently. So you're absolutely right, not that kind of correlation and the appeal of diversity. Or are we back to this idea of a visitor goes on a website. There are so many choose to to so many options that they can't choose for themselves. So then is it the argument to have separate websites? So in my case, I launched a program uniquely for the film industry.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:07:42

Now on the surface it's the same service. It's the coaching, the mentoring, the training on digital marketing. They were so unique to the film industry and their needs that it felt that had the business case for a separate website and have it under the Film Marketing academy.com and not scalp intercom. So the audience actually to your point journey will tell you. But you're right. Are we perhaps guilty of enjoying the process of creating product services all of the time?

Jonny Ross: 00:08:12

Yeah, yeah, that's the danger, isn't it? You know. Analyzing my own services and came up with over 30 services that I supply and sell. And it was at that moment that I realized, hold on a minute, this is just way too many. And it was time to streamline. So it's it's about it's yeah, it's and I think we've got both good examples. You've just talked about the Film Academy in your own website. Likewise I have my agency, Fleet Marketing which has its, has its website. I then have Jonny Roscommon, which is fractional CMO.

Jonny Ross: 00:08:41

Between us, we have the 90 day Website Mastery podcast.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:08:45

That's right.

Jonny Ross: 00:08:46

So we have separated the brands there in the services. And but there's distinctive reasons and they have different looks and feels and they all complement but they are very different audiences. So it's yeah it's it can be there's no right. There's no yes or no, but it deserves some proper thought.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:09:08

Yeah. And for me, one of the deciding factor about splitting was also the planning of the blog. And when I realized that the article was going to be so, so unique and relevant to that particular audience, that a business case was reinforced. So here's my promise to all of you. I will come back to you with an update on what the client is decided to do. We use it as a case study with their permission, but for now, let's move on to our next segment, the website stories. Now, this part of the show, John and I choose a piece of content, an article, a podcast, a video, even an infographic.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:09:46

Something that can help us reflect what it means to be a website manager in today's economy. We have an article from Forbes.com today, Jonny, written by John Hall, and the title is that follows How to Futureproof Your Content Strategy in the Age of AI. Now, John Hall is a speaker, writer and founder of calendar, a scheduling management app, and is also an advisor for the growth marketing agency relevance. And we're getting a lot of those kind of reflective articles at the moment and more about the impact on the AI across all sectors. I mean, even just two days ago on BBC radio two, we're talking about AI and the future of employment and what's going to mean, and plus education and so on. And what John was doing here is just sharing some of his own thoughts and position currently. And you'll see why I say this. And the article begins with the question, should content marketers be worried about AI? And then in a process, it goes through a number of insights which has it has separated.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:10:49

So number one would be the of step one would be to audit what you have or come back to that. Step two would be to plan content for different stages. Number three to identify your content's value, and number four to focus on thoughts, leadership. And then it gives this thought on future content strategy. But throughout those chapters, if you will, of the article, he does a very good job to kind of make the parallel between the human activity, so shall we say, and the AI contribution. And what you will see from the article is that for now, the position is very much AI is there to assist and allow you to analyze where in your process you might be able to bring some improvements or add some speed and efficiencies, but certainly at no time is suggesting that can replace, you know, the skill set, the imagination, the inventiveness of the content creators themselves. And so for most of you, when he says about, you know, audit what you have currently, two things you're going to discover in this situation or performance around SEO that needs improving and more.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:11:57

But really from this, from this point of view, right now, the real value of AI is to help you with blog post outlines, to brainstorm topics, and to produce initial drafts. But then you take over as the creator. And the reason for that is he says, know to go to number three, because I don't want to steal the thunder of you guys reading the article. And he said, you know, really when when it comes to I start with small changes, you know, analyze the elements within your workflow where I can support it. But what you can do is do a wonderful test whereby you have a brief given to one of your copywriters or yourself, and the brief written to maybe GPT, and then do a compound contrast. And what you'll find is very, very often the article written by, you know, the individual is better than that of GPT. And what I think John is trying to warn people against the assumption that because it's faster, it's better. And more importantly, which I see all the time in my customers, if you start as a human being, forgive me, Jonny, with a position that you're not a good copywriter, then of course it's not going to be particularly helpful for you to get to get the balance right.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:13:08

So the article continues like this. You know, it talks about the idea really, is that if your content effort moves away from just promotional stuff that anyone can write and talk about unique perspectives, observation, case studies and anecdotes like we did a moment ago in a different segment, then you're in a position to get the balance right when it comes to future proofing your content strategy. Where the AI is position is about learning to find the sweet spot for you between the AI and human written content, remembering that this is just the beginning and that the sweet spot could be moving over time.

Jonny Ross: 00:13:44

Well, I like the idea of it being a sweet spot, because I very much believe that we should be embracing. I think if you're not, then there's a danger of being left behind. I think there's a danger of not increasing productivity, not increasing value, not increasing, um, strategy being strategic. Even so, I think that I think it's all about it definitely embracing. But it is then about finding that sweet spot, focusing on quality over quantity, focusing on originality, focusing on different types of content.

Jonny Ross: 00:14:18

So it's not all suddenly, you know, just lots of ChatGPT written content. But you know, it's a mixture of podcast, video, audio content and maybe using AI to shape some of that and to to to help you with some structures or, or parts. And it's just ensuring that you have the human element at all times. So it's about, you know, whenever you're producing, if you think about what Google's after right now, it's all about helpful and resourceful content. And as a human, making sure that you've got the humanity in there. But also reflecting on the content, saying, is this helpful, is it helpful? Is it resourceful? And as long as you're ticking those boxes and you think and you're thinking that you know, your potential clients or customers would spend time listening or watching or reading this content, then you're on the right track. So it's finding the balance. And I think the future, but the future proof of your content in the age of AI starts with embracing it.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:15:16

And testing it. And I liked, you know, the the inference, it was implicit. But you can see the idea of if you think about AI from the position of you think you're a poor copywriter or that you're slow and being slow is is bad, then it's not a great entry point for for AI as opposed to we have a strong position and we're learning all the time and we upskilling ourselves all the time. And where can I support our development and evolution as an organization and content creators, as an assistant? And as you know, I prefer the term digital assistant to AI. So we're going to see more and more of those articles. But thank you to John Hall for spending a moment to share his thoughts. And I'm sure they'll move on as ours will as well as we become more more familiar with the sweet spot. Indeed.

Jonny Ross: 00:16:08

It's time for the website Engine room.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:16:19

So in this part of the show, we give you one piece of software, one bit of kit that can help you be a more efficient content creator.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:16:27

So what is your selection, Jonny Ross?

Jonny Ross: 00:16:29

Well, SEO is my background, deeply rooted in it. It's very heavy. This one this week, the website engineering for me this week is Neil Patel's Ubersuggest. It's a well, there's different versions of the tool, but there is a free version of the tool and it's all about keyword suggestions, backlink data and being able to audit your website and lots of other things. And you know, if any of you. Well, first of all, if you don't know Neil Patel, you should absolutely go to Neil patel.com. I wish I was on commission, but I'm not. Although at the same time I'm not suggesting spending money with him. His content is brilliant. His content is really helpful, really resourceful and lots of in-depth content. And he's been doing it for many, many years. But he's he's definitely got some great tools and Ubersuggest is one of them. And it's a great resource for those looking to enhance their organic search presence. Ultimately.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:17:25

Thank you very much, Ronnie, and very nostalgic for me.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:17:29

But Ubersuggest was my very, very first SEO tool used about 20 years ago. And you know what? What is interesting about Neil Patel in his team is remain true to his passion and specialism. I don't remember him deviating from this idea of helping people have better, you know, website in terms of their performance or traffic and so on. So yeah, I think it's a wonderful suggestion. So my suggestion today is in and around the making, better use of praises and thank you messages and more that you get on social media. So I've got clients where they do. If someone says, you know, send this nice message on LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter, they'll do a copy and paste or they do a screenshot and then you just stays there somewhere in a folder on Google Drive, never to be used again. And I said, well, that's a shame, because this is like the kind of testimonials and third party validation that you and I talk about a lot and on the program. So I came across this platform that allows you to convert a message on social media in the high share today.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:18:27

Use Twitter as an example, whereby you could either copy and paste a link, and you get an image that looks like a tweet, but it's a lot clearer. It's not neater, it's a lot bigger. And you can do a montage, you can do a carousel on your website and more, or you can type.

Jonny Ross: 00:18:43

In.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:18:43

Other text that you can see on the tweet. You can upload the images and make it look really, really nice and, and I think website. But of course this image, this reproduction, if you like, of the tweet with a praise and the thank you messages and the compliments and so on, can also be used for your PowerPoint presentation, can be used for your slide deck and more. But the common is called pickle pickle style. And I'll put the hyperlink to the template for a Twitter image. But they have all sorts. You have Instagram, they have Pinterest and so on. And I think this idea of never forgetting to repurpose the praises and thank you messages and put them on your website is definitely one of the key actions for us.

Jonny Ross: 00:19:18

Yeah, it's like a sort of specialist Canva that is just so easy and so quick to make a social post, to make it, to make an image that looks like you've just screenshotted a social post with the correct content in it, and it's just so quick and easy. Um, they, um, well, I was just having a look at their website. We'll put all the links in the, in the show notes and the and the, the, the call to action that I'm about to give is a bit on Black Friday, and it is Black Friday today. And I'm the first thing that I noticed was on the style website is they have a Black Friday deal. So so if you if you're very interested and you need the paid version, there's a Black Friday deal there. But great little tool. And think of it as a bit like a really quick and easy Canva for for particularly making images of social media captions. Very.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:20:22

That's a great comparison thing. Very much. Right. Time to move on to our final segment already, the website call to action.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:20:35

So this is about the one change or one small adjustment that you should be making your website right now. Jonny, what is your call to action?

Jonny Ross: 00:20:42

So I sort of did insinuate Black Friday. And for me and I do a lot of work with e-commerce websites as well. But this can be used across all types of websites, whether it's consumer or business exit pop ups, exit pop ups. So it's the it's the understanding, the intent that a user is about to exit from a web page. And it's about how can you capture catch them before they leave. And there's some really clever worded exit pop ups that can be quite funny and quite, um, you know, some people find them intrusive, some people find them, you know, they don't like them. But at the end of the day, if they're about to leave your website in some way, what have you got to lose? And it is worth testing and trying, and obviously only if it's only if you think it's the right fit for your particular brand and your particular audience.

Jonny Ross: 00:21:36

But this is about, for example, on desktop and it does work on mobile as well. But for example, just to help you all understand this is about the browser seeing that the mouse is going into the top area where you're about to switch tabs or click the cross button. And there are ways that it can work on mobile as well. And this is about capturing the user before they leave and saying, hold on before you leave, there's this value or there's this offer, or are you sure we can't help? Or are you sure you don't want to call back or whatever it might be? And I think the point here is testing it, because we've tested this on many, many websites and there's a particular website that we've put this on and it brings in 15% of their leads. The exit pop up brings 15% of their enquiries. It's definitely worth testing.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:22:26

And I like the idea of you're asking us to be maybe a little adventurous and trying different styles and tone of voice. Be be witty, be humorous, maybe be more direct and so on, and testing.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:22:36

Testing is important. And the thing about website people sometimes fall into the trap of being right first time all of the time. And that's not what happens because you know you need the audience interface, reaction, interaction to know and, and kind of guide your kind of activities. So thanks for that. And I would agree. You know, the one that I've reacted more warmly to are the one that it feels thought out and it feels like somebody put the effort in as opposed to mechanically just putting a plug in, doing the bare minimum, just putting their brand maybe, and barely changing the copy. It's like, you know, most of the contact forms, you know, the website kind of go, you could have done a bit more than that. It takes a quarter of an hour, if that, to change the copy or add a photo of the team. Even just that makes a big difference.

Jonny Ross: 00:23:25

Absolutely, absolutely. It is about the copy. It's about, you know, something quirky, knowing that the user is leaving your website, knowing that that fact alone, knowing that fact and playing on it and thinking of the words.

Jonny Ross: 00:23:37

Pascale, what is your website call to action this week?

Pascal Fintoni: 00:23:40

So this is actually something that I gave as advice to one of my clients this week. So we're going through the end of year review. Looking at it 2024, looking at what would you say the content calendar. And what was interesting for me was to see that there were very, very proud of some of their how to article. Do you remember you mentioned a moment ago about Google looking for helpful, insightful content? And if you're not sure, use Ubersuggest. So firstly, if you don't have any articles starting with how to or was that effect, then they must be part of your plan for next year. And if you're not sure what they should be, then use Ubersuggest and a few other platform. So there being so you've got this amazing article and you take people all the way through a level where it's clearer about what they need to do. But you can go a little further. If you were to translate the how to advice into a checklist or a template or a free download of sort that will help them take action, because I think that's really important.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:24:37

Once somebody is able to take action, as opposed to just being better informed in terms of the relationship you're going to have with them in the future, in terms of the likelihood of them coming back and filling in the enquiry form and so on, we know that it's much, much greater. So my call to action is study the performance of your content, particularly the how to types articles and those who perform well. Edit up. I would say upgrade by adding a free download which relates to taking action, the checklist, the template and more.

Jonny Ross: 00:25:08

Yeah, and in fact, I was looking I was doing an audit on a website only yesterday, and the amount of content that is on there where they just don't get any organic visitors, there's very few page views. It's just it's time to either reignite some of that content or actually just get rid of it. So you even you need to make that decision on actually there's a really good performing piece here. How can we make it even better? Or perhaps there's something that you think should be performing, but it's not.

Jonny Ross: 00:25:39

And how could you make it better? Or maybe you just have no traffic to it and it's just pulling you back in the grand scheme of Google. So I think whether building on what Pascal Pascal said here, the the advice really is to audit all your content to understand how many page views are you getting on different pieces and are you getting organic visitors. And that should be sending you some kind of strong signal in terms of what you should be doing about the content anyway. So yeah, I like that a lot. Well, we've covered some great things here, Pascal. We started with multiple services and should we have separate websites. And I think what we've said is ensure that you're not just creating services for the sake of creating services streamlined. Be very focused. Be very clear about what did you sell. But if there is a compelling reason, whether it be a different tone of voice, different look, different feel, very niche. There are definitely good reasons to have separate websites, but make sure you're doing it for the right reason.

Jonny Ross: 00:26:42

I think is the key thing there. We've talked about AI. We talked about how you can futureproof your content from an AI point of view. It's all about embracing, but it's about making sure that you bring that humanity to it. Test, try. But it's all about quality as well. So it's far about quality over quantity. And we've given you some hopefully great apps and suggestions and call to actions, including the exit pop ups relooking at your existing content. We've mentioned Neil Patel's Ubersuggest and the Pica style. All of these links will be in the show notes, but what a great episode. Thank you very much, Pascal.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:27:18

You're very welcome. And you know what is interesting? And I want to go back actually to the website stories, because the more I think about the article, the more I realize how powerful it is, because it's back to this idea of, for all of you viewers and listeners and know that you'll have misgivings about your website, which is why I launched a program for you to feel proud of it again.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:27:37

But you also will have some thoughts about your own skills and competency. And this idea of, well, this tool is faster. You know, it can produce a 2000 word article in seconds, therefore it is better than me. And that. Don't think that's a very helpful start at all. Start with the position that you have a lot to offer already to your customers. You have a great deal of knowledge and passion, anecdotes and stories to share. We just need to find a way for the process to work harder for you.

Jonny Ross: 00:28:06

Absolutely. This has been episode 18, Pascal, and I'm afraid if you're watching and listening, that is it for today. It was episode 18 of our new podcast series, The audio companion to the 90 day Website Mastery Program. For more information, please visit 90 Day Marketing mastery.com and you'll 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 apps and links to your website once you've made the changes we spoke about because we'd love to give you a shout out, but it's bye for now everyone, and we'll leave you with a fun video and audio montage whilst you go through your notes and actions.

Jonny Ross: 00:28:45

See you all soon! Take care.