Recording on Sunday April 26, 2020 during the height of the Covid-19 self isolation.

We discuss how business is going and the impact that the Covid-19 epidemic and social isolation is having on us and our businesses. We then discuss some ideas and strategies to use for the future.

[00:00] Intro 

[01:03] Mike's personal impact of COVID-19 [04:30] Recording the episode and Mike's wife's unemployment news 

[05:28] Discussion on how to pivot during an emergency 

[06:43] Building and maintaining relationships with clients and customers 

[25:27] Outro

What is WordPress, who owns it and what does open source mean? The difference between wordpress.org and wordpress.com

Do WordPress sites always get hacked? yes and no.

How to choose the best plugin out of the myriad options available

Pros and Cons of WordPress

• Understanding what WordPress is and why it's popular ([00:58] - [02:11])
• Choosing a hosting service for your WordPress site ([05:52] - [06:33])
• Security measures for WordPress websites ([08:17] - [09:51])
• Finding and choosing the best plugins for your WordPress website ([12:27] - [16:43])
• The impact of plugins on site speed ([21:28] - [23:36])
• Theme builders and site builders in WordPress ([23:53] - [31:14])
• Getting help with a broken WordPress website ([31:56] - [34:00])
• Choosing the right CMS for your website ([34:53] - [38:21])

What are the reasons you are building a website? Is it because everyone is doing it? What do you want your website to accomplish? You need a good business reason to have a website.

• Analytics
• Conversions
• Reasons why your business doesn't need a website
• Social media should your satellite sites and your website should be your home planet
• Building authority by giving away knowledge for free

[00:00] Intro

[00:22] Discussing the question of whether every business needs a website

[01:12] Measuring the success of your website

[05:12] Examples of businesses that may not need a website

[10:06] Importance of owning your online content

[17:03] Positioning your business as an authority on your website

• Mark provides some history and background into his decision to run a used record business
• Talks about his decision not to use Opencart.
• Wordpress and WooCommerce - not as simple as Shopify
• It's better to use Shopify payments as there is no extra charge, but if you use a different payment gateway such as paypal you pay the paypal feel plus an addtional 1% fee.
• Shopify Themes
• Steps involved in setting up shopify for a new business.
• People underestimate what's involved in ecommerce
• How to manage your inventory
• Overselling and shipping guarantees
• Shipping costs, weight etc.
• Returns
• What is a payment gateway and a merchant account

• How to choose the correct image
• style of photo - illustration? black and white? bright? dark? mood?
• Be aware of authenticity
• cropping photos
• Where to find images or photos
• Tips for taking your own photos
• licensing and model releases
• comments from Lyndon Johnson, John Morton, and Ben Parizek
• how to edit photos
• How to use some native tools on your Windows or Mac computer to make basic edits to a photo.
• The rule of thirds
• focal points and cropping

Guarav discusses the difference between a copy editor and a copy writer. We also get into the Oxford Comma.

Next we address why you woul.d want to hire a copy writer instead of writing your content yourself and the curse of knowledge.

Guarav also provides advice to DIY website owners on how to improve their copy.

We discuss what an MVP is as well as the pros and cons of taking an MVP approach to your company website.

We also talk about examples of MVP sites we've worked with including this very podcast site.

Jargon that we explain include:

• HTML, CSS, Javascript
• Theme
• User testing / usability testing
• CTA / Call to Action
• Conversion
• favicon
• Cache / cache busting
• wireframe / mockup
• Discovery
• Above the fold
• Cookie
• Remarketing
• GDPR
• The Cloud / Cloud based
• SEO / Search Engine Optimization
• 404, 301, 500 Error Pages
• URL

Jargon that we explain include:

• Host, web space & bandwidth
• Shared Hosting, VPS, Dedicated
• domain, domain registrar
• DNS, A Record, MX Record
• CMS
• SSL, HTTPS
• Accessibility
• Site map
• 404 Page
• XML site map
• Analytics
• Usability, user testing