WP Elevation WordPress Business Podcast

Watch the video podcast here.

Who is Phil Singleton?
Phil is well known as the best selling author of SEO for Growth which he co-authored with John Jantsch. However, Phil considers himself a web designer with a difference - he creates lead generation websites that turn into recurring income for his clients and he uses the books that he has written to leverage his business.

Writing Books - Not as Difficult as You Think
Phil says that writing a book was surprisingly not as difficult as he thought it would be.

Phil joined Duct Tape Marketing (which was started by John Jantsch) as a certified consultant. He did a presentation on SEO to a Duct Tape Marketing group which impressed a few members of the audience. Fast forward six months and he had sold his first bestseller - Small Business Owners Guide to Lead Generation.

He wrote that with a group of six other experts. At first writing a book seemed to be an impossible dream for him, but it ended up being easier than he thought by using Amazon's self-publishing platform called Create Space. He then used some hacks to leverage influencers and gain SEO value (more to come on that topic).

Phil explains that the first book was relatively easy because there were six people involved and they hired a ghostwriter who spent hours which each of them to gather the information and write the transcript. They asked John Jantsch to write the foreword for them which was a huge help, as he is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author (aka an awesome influencer).

The biggest eye-opener for Phil in this process was how easy it is to get endorsements if you simply ask for them. This also helps the endorser as it reaffirms them as an influencer and expert.

It was then he realised the power and ease of endorsements for growth. He was able to leverage these endorsements and essentially have other people doing the marketing for him.

[vum-bigtweet tweet="How to leverage influencers and repurpose your content with best selling author Phil Singleton on WPE podcast"]

How to Go About Writing a Book?
If you choose to go with an agency to write, edit and do the artwork, they are good at what they do, but they will mark it up with a pretty good premium.

If you want to do it in-house, it's not as hard as you think to find the talent to do the editing, you can even find them on a platform such as Fiverr.

He spent 6-12 months writing his second book which he then took to John with the idea that if he co-authored it with him then they could launch other businesses from it. John agreed and this was a game changer to have him involved. John then added his input to the book, edited it, and voila! The best-seller was born.

They planted as many experts as they could into the book to give it credibility and also to bring those people in to endorse it. That was a huge part of the launch process because many of these people put the book into their own marketing channels.

Tune in at the 16-minute mark where Troy talks about how he leveraged influencers to grow this podcast series.

What’s the Payoff for Writing a Book?
Phil explains that it has brought him clients from all over the States now rather than just Kansas and most of them tell him that they have read his book. So in that way, the book has helped him grow his business.

However, the main reason for doing this was to build an authority website off SEO for Growth and then use that to build a network of agencies that don’t have the ability to rank in SEO in their city. The payout is still in progress as this is still in its growth stage.

Listen in at the 24-minute mark to find out how he manages his time and prioritises what is important when working on a project.

Phil has been focussing lately on leveraging from podcasts and blogging. A recent project was working on a strategy for 10 lawyers who created a 150-page book by repurposing their blogging content. He was able to make them the authority on these legal topics which lead to being guests on podcasts and opened many other doors for them.

Where Do You Start When You Want to Sell SEO Services?
Phil has three websites - one is marketing, one is web design and the other is SEO. Interestingly,   80-90% of their leads for SEO come from the web design website. This is because people come to you wanting a website but you end up talking to them about how they need a marketing strategy.

Phil's Super Secret Tip
Transform yourself from being seen as their web designer to a digital marketer. 

How does Phil do this? He creates a mock-up for them with a blog feed, social media feed, reviews, and video. The client will usually come back and tell him that it looks too busy and that don't have the time to be creating that content.

So he then has the conversation about the effect that taking those elements off will have on their SEO and lead generation. He explains that a website is actually a marketing platform and how you scale the business out and generate recurring revenue.

[vum-bigtweet tweet="Transform yourself from being seen as their web designer to a digital marketer. Best selling author, Phil Singleton, on WPE podcast"]

He recommends that you ask your clients about their competitors and who is doing it better than them. You then use an SEO tool such as SEMrush to pull up the data to show them what they are doing with their website.

Troy makes a good point that the way to stop competing with other web designers is to change the narrative that a potential client may have in their mind. They already don’t want to spend money on their website because they don’t have a proper understanding of what it can do and they perceive it as a sunk cost.

How Kansas City Web positions and differentiates themselves is very clear in the first thing that you see on their website: “They sell websites. We build lead generating websites. Big Difference. Huge”. To add weight to their expertise, they then showcase the book and all of the endorsements from influencers. Once clients see this they then trust that they are the experts.

When he goes to meetings with potential clients he also takes the book with him and advises that they read it and put it into practice. Usually, they can’t be bothered reading it but it works to differentiate you from competitors

You need to change their mind frame to understand that it isn’t a sunk cost. It’s a revenue generator and it's going to make you money.

Tune in at the 40-minute mark to find out about Phil’s lead generation on his own websites.

Leveraging Podcasts
Phil started doing his own guesting campaign to get backlinks. After he guests, he then sends his review funnel to them which means he gets many reviews on Google. These backlinks then help you organically and also builds trust for your website.

He is now starting his own podcast series which he will officially launch very soon where he will interview people, get niche authorities and use it locally to get access to "bigger fish". They may not want a website from him initially, but they will probably say yes to being a guest on the podcast.

Well, there you go. Some great hacks from Phil right there! There's more gold to be found when you listen in to the full podcast.

Let us know what you think in the comments below - and if you have been able to repurpose your content, we would love to hear about it.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video podcast here.

Who Is Andre Gagnon?
Andre has been in WordPress business for 10 years. He tells us that he started his own business because he needed to make money after being fired from a job, so he began creating themes. His latest development is ProjectHuddle which is a plugin to make it easier to get feedback from clients on their website design. The client is able to point to a specific part of the website and make a comment on the actual spot that they are wanting to alter.

Why Is It Important to Get Feedback Right in the Design Phase?
Part of it has to do with the fact that if you are an agency you are a service business. What we do is fun, we are creating something for them and the client wants to be involved in the process. So part of your business is to include your client in the process and let them know every step of the way, what you are doing.

Whether you like it or not, client feedback is about project management.

The go-to tool is email, but this opens you up to scope creep. The client shoots off an email when they think of something and then forgets about it. It is hard to track the number of changes and they may get annoyed if you are unable to get back to them right away.

However, with ProjectHuddle, both you and the client can see what changes have been requested and can better understand scope increase and whether changes fit into the budget.

What Are the Steps to Take to Manage Scope Creep?

Effective Communication
Get the information that you need from the client. They know their goal, but it is up to you to paint the picture of how to get there especially if it is a complex project.

No project stays the same and there will be changes along the way, so make sure you build a buffer into your cost and budget in the time it takes to communicate things as well. Ensure that this is clear in the proposal and set the expectations from the start. 

And remember - you can’t over-communicate with a client.

Ask Why
ProjectHuddle helps ask specific questions. This makes the communication more effective - rather than just sending over a design and asking what they think.

They may not know how to put into words what they want to change, so you need to ask the right questions.

For example, if the client tells you that the logo should be bigger, you need to say “Can I ask why”? They are then forced to explain what they think the end goal is. Those reasons are more important than the change itself.

They might request a change, but is that really what they want? You need to know the goal. We know how to make a site convert, but are they just guessing what is going to increase those odds? From asking "why" you might come to the conclusion that it actually isn't about making the logo bigger, maybe they just need to add more branding on that page.

Sometimes once you delve into the reason you may find out that is not the problem at all. 

Feedback Is Not Always a Bad Thing
Client feedback is a good thing as long as you have set up the proposal, budget and expectations properly.  It can be a blessing because you can increase the budget and upsell some areas.

In addition to this, sometimes the client's scope can change and the different avenue you go down can end up better as a result.

Qualify the Customer
Get to know the client even before they’ve signed on. How the customer handles the feedback from the beginning such as proposals is an indicator of how they will be for the rest of the project.

Sometimes when you look back on those nightmare clients, you can see that there were warning signs early on. So you need to spend more time discovering them and make sure you get the deposit upfront.

There is emotion involved in this for them because their business is their heart and soul and of course, so they want to have some control. Keep in mind that the more involved that the client wants to be, the higher the budget will be because it will involve a lot of changes.

Set the precedent that you’re not going to make decisions based on taste because everyone’s taste is different. It’s based on the goals. If they don’t like the design then you need to dig deeper to discover whether it's about personal taste or something that will help accomplish their goals.

If the client is talking just listen, even if you don’t agree. Everyone just wants to be heard. If you don't first listen and then explain your reasons as to why you can't make a change, then that causes friction. Instead say "I understand your vision, but I can't do that because...."

Get to Know Your Client's Business
Being a web developer means that you are a therapist and business consultant too.The more you know about the business, the easier it is to handle feedback. Then you speak their language as a business partner. You transition from a web designer to someone who understands their vision, values and goals. This builds trust and they can rely on you to make decisions.

You are putting their business into a digital realm so you need to know everything about it.

Don’t just send over an entire website and ask them what they think. Ask specific questions not based on tastes but specific to their goals and business.

Centralise the Feedback
If you receive feedback from phone, email or skype, this means the records are kept everywhere and hard to keep a track of. Whereas with ProjectHuddle it’s all in the one place which makes it easier for the client to understand how many changes are taking place and how that will affect their budget.

Email can be treated like an instant messenger and they expect instant feedback. Whereas when you make ProjectHuddle part of the process then they don’t have that same expectation.

• Qualify the customer
• Communicate the process early
• Build the relationship with your client
• Get to know their business
• Over-communicate
• Ask why
• Centralise the feedback

That's it for this episode. How awesome were those tips from Andre? Now go and get your process set up and stop that endless feedback spiral! Oh, and be sure to leave us some comments on what you think of these tips, or if you have your own effective process. We'd love to hear from you on this topic

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video podcast here.

What Is Elementor?
Elementor is an Israeli company based in Tel Aviv who have grown to be a very successful compant since the release of their page builder.

Page builders are visual design tools that have changed the way we build websites within WordPress. Although Word Press is a great CMS it isn’t that great at designing websites and you have to rely on themes to get it to look a certain way. With a visual page builder, you can see it as you design it and it cuts down the workload of a web designer substantially. Before page builders, you needed to create the prototype in Photoshop and transfer it using codes, HTML and CSS. Now you can easily create everything live, not worry about coding and focus more on creating beautiful pages.

Troy has been saying for years that a website lives in the browser, not in Photoshop. So if you are designing websites in Photoshop and getting them cut up into HTML and CSS then your days are numbered. There will always be a disconnect and a discrepancy between the image and then building it into the browser.

These days everyone has a website and it can require regular updates to content and images. So you need agile flexibility which a page builder gives you.

A Bit About Ben
Ben has been in the online marketing industry for over 10 years, specializing in content marketing. He started out in an SEO firm and then started his own marketing business where he created his own websites using WordPress.

Even before Elementor had launched the page builder, Ben knew of them because he had been using one of their themes for a website. One day he visited their site to renew his licence and saw that they advertised a marketing position. He applied and now here he is!

Listen in at the 8.30min mark to find out where the inspiration came from for the Elementor page builder.

The Page Builder Market
Visual Composer was the first page builder released and it exploded from there. There are a lot of other page builders out there now which came out in quick succession such as Beaver builder and Thrive. So what exactly makes Elementor different and gave them the confidence to go ahead with the product?

Well, Ben says that it wasn’t a contest of features for them. The vision was to excel in three main areas:

Speed: It needed to be fast so that when you drag and drop, you don't need to wait. It would all be instant.
Design advantage: The design needed to be highly detailed with attention to design trends. It is important for designers to have all the design elements such as shape dividers, overlays, box shadows and gradients. With bootstrapped companies, you see the same type of design over and over again. They wanted anyone to be able to create beautiful websites.
Ease of use: It's important for everyone from newbies to the professional designers to be able to use it. The interface had to be user-friendly and easy to use.
How Did They Get Traction in Such a Crowded Marketplace?
Ben says that firstly you need a great product but of course, that alone is not enough. You need a big emphasis on marketing. They used a lot of channels and experimented with new audiences and new ways of reaching people until it eventually paid off. It is still a lot of work and it isn't easy. Even if you have the best product you will still have people saying negative things. "Like a comedian, you will have hecklers, so you need a thick skin".

What's Been the Most Successful Marketing Channel?
Elementor gives a free plugin offering more free features than a lot of the other page builders on the market. Once people realise what an amazing product is it, it is then ok for them to upgrade to the pro version
Email marketing is also a focus for them. They have a newsletter so that they can advertise their releases, blog posts and news
Outreach and Collaborations are also a vital component of their marketing. Ben says that you need to contact the right people (such as he did with Troy) and find a way to collaborate where both parties benefit.
[vum-bigtweet tweet="Outreach and collaborations are important if you want to succeed within a saturated market. Ben Pines from @elemntor on WPE podcast"]

How They Capture Email Addresses
When you download the plugin you can enter your email to subscribe to the newsletter which is mainly about feature updates. Once they have their email addresses, they can also tease the audience with what’s available in the pro version.

Troy points out that Elementor doesn't have a lead magnet to get people to subscribe it simply says “Join our 165,000 newsletter subscribers” Their list has grown it organically from people wanting to know about the product.

Ben is thinking of doing something to educate people as a lead magnet soon. They have invested a lot of resources into tutorials and so they are thinking of offering a free course as an incentive.

How Does Elementor Decide Where to Focus Their Resources?
The owner of Elementor recently shared his vision with Ben. These are the elements he says that you need in the company:

Firstly, you must have tutorials and documentation
Celebrate whenever you can! Every time you get the chance to celebrate something, take it. Whether it be a year in review, Black Friday, Christmas... basically anything! He gives a great analogy here - when you enter a store and you see all the Christmas decorations, although you perhaps hadn’t thought of buying any, seeing them gets you in the spirit. Elementor likes to give their employees a “chance to go wacko”.
Outreach and collaboration are also important to them as he mentioned earlier. A recent collaboration was with ColorMag, a magazine theme with over 100,000 users. ColorMag recently updated their theme to work with Elementor widget so they made a video tutorial which benefits both companies. Check it out in the links section below.
Managing the Team
When he started with Elementor they were a team of five and now there are 20 employees and growing. They all work in the one office which he says is so much better for communication than having a remote team. "Having your support team sit next to developers is so much easier as they can turn around and ask questions whenever a problem arises." In terms of support though, if you want 24/7 support, it is better to outsource some of those employees in a different time zone.

[vum-bigtweet tweet="Growing your business within a saturated market. Ben Pines from @elemntor talks to us about elements that lead to their success"]

Elementor Features
The template library is one of the best features that Elementor has. They have over 130 templates that are beautiful and responsive. You can also save your own templates and reuse them.

Autosave is also being launched next week so that your content is protected. They have also now added a "save draft" feature so that you don't have to publish changes straight away.

Elementor is also soon to release the theme builder which will allow you to do full website design.

Elementor also differs from some other page builders in that it doesn't use shortcodes. Usually, when you deactivate a page builder, it leaves a lot of shortcode in your content editor which causes problems. However, when you deactivate Elementor all the content remains and the CSS is saved in external files.

Gutenberg - a Threat to Page Builders?
With the new version of Elementor, they’ve added compatibility with Gutenberg. They have been working closely with the Gutenberg team to iron out any glitches.

Ben says that Gutenberg is a great way to work on your content but it's not a professional design tool. It may evolve to that but Elementor has a clear vision to adapt and work with them. He thinks that Gutenberg is actually a great step forward for WordPress.

[vum-bigtweet tweet="Is Gutenberg a threat to page builders? Ben Pines from @elemntor on WPE podcast"]

Fostering the Community Around Elementor
Ben says that the community is fostered from gaining feedback and by being in constant communication with their Facebook group which has over 10,000 members. The key is to grow your company from the inside of the community. You can build your business just by answering people’s questions. They have been able to foster a community that is supportive and helpful to each other.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video podcast here.

What Exactly Is Oribi and Who Are Asi and Noam?
Asi is the head of marketing and Noam works on the product at Oribi, which is the first analytics and insight tool designed for any type of business of any size.

There are many analytics tools out there but most business owners don’t really know how to understand the results and how to use that for their business. Oribi fills this void between answers and questions so that business owners can easily understand results and get the most out of their website.

Insight Is More Important Than Numbers
It's not about the numbers it's about the story behind the numbers. The product translates the figures into everyday language that everyone can understand. A lot of web developers aren’t data analysts. They can install google analytics but then don’t know what to do with it and may end up paying an analyst or agency to work it out for them.

Why Is It Important for Businesses to Understand the Data?
Simply put - using the data will help them make money for their business. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. You need to understand cause and result. For example, what happens when you make changes to your marketing mix or the way you target your audience. You need to measure the success of that with actionable analytics.

What data you want will depend on your position in the company. For example, Asi is the head of marketing so he looks at the sales funnel and which marketing channels perform the best. Whereas Noam looks at the funnel and at which stage we lose the people and then how we can fix those leaks.

As a small business owner, you would need to look at everything from A-Z and it can be overwhelming. They see all of this data and don’t know where to start and what to look at. Do you start with measuring traffic? Opt-ins? Country? Browser? What are the important metrics? Sigh. My head hurts!

Asi and Noam say that it’s also about the data that you choose not to display. You need to keep it lean and focused. When you log into Oribi you get the data you need and you won't get lost. If you do choose to dig deeper you can of course.

[vum-bigtweet tweet="It's not about traffic, it's about conversion. Analytics experts Asi and Noam from @GetOribi tell us what we need to be measuring on WPE podcast. "]

What Do You Do If You Want a Client to Use Oribi?
First, they need to sign up to Oribi, then you add a tracking code to the site. You don’t have to define anything because the script automatically identifies 100% of the events and page visits and you don’t need to change any code to install it. Easy!

What Should We Be Measuring?
Depends on the type of customer because each business has their own set of goals. If it’s a website that displays ads then obviously they need as much traffic as they can. However, most websites need people to subscribe or to buy something. So those are the ones that need to improve their sales funnel.

Many people focus on the traffic, but the conversion is more important and also the source. Mike mentions that he tracks the conversion from when the visitor comes from Google compared to when they come from social media. Then you know where to invest more time and money. One may bring you more traffic, but the main thing is to find out which one converts so you can focus your efforts there.

Even if you didn't know that breaking it down by channel was important, it doesn’t even matter because Oribi will give you all the important information. The problem with a lot of other analytic packages is knowing what to focus on.

You cant just measure one metric at a time. You need to measure a few at the same time. Decide what your KPIs are and then measure from there. Sometimes your goals change and if you don't change the analytics accordingly you don’t get the answers you need.

Improvement is easy to track as you can easily attribute that to a campaign or a change that you have made in the marketing. However, understanding why numbers are down is more difficult. So when you have the answers to what isn’t working and why then that's the sweet spot for you.

[vum-bigtweet tweet="With analytics, people tend to focus on what’s working but you need to look at why you lose numbers too. Asi and Noam from @getoribi on WPE podcast"]

Most business owners aren’t aware of how useful analytics can be for their business and don’t know what questions to ask. So as web developers it is our job to know the questions to ask that will lead clients to the right answers.

Ask your client:

Who are the customers?
What are the companies goals?
What are the KPIs?
What are the key points of action on the website?
[wpecallout title="Golden Nugget Tips:" align="left" image="/wp-content/themes/wpelevation/images/callout/nuggets.png"]

It's not about traffic, it's about conversion
Look at the numbers that go down rather than up
Breakdown the conversion by channels[/wpecallout]
Oribi has a free trial so for more details click the link in the links section below. Sounds like it will make life a whole lot easier for many people.

So that's a wrap! Thanks for tuning in. Let us know if you have tried or are currently using Oribi. We would love to hear your feedback in the comments below.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video podcast here.

That's it for this episode. We hope you collected some gold here! Let us know what you think of this podcast or if you have tried inbound marketing in the comments below.

Who is Joe Howard?

Joe Howard is the founder of  WP Buffs which is a WordPress Maintenance company and a CTO for entrepreneurs and small businesses who run WordPress websites. They have headquarters in Washington DC but work with a remote team all over the world.

Joe has been working with WordPress for seven years now and running WP Buffs for two years. He started out in client services and building websites and made the transition to maintenance because his strength is marketing rather than technology. Joe is passionate about inbound marketing (having leads find you rather than going out and finding them.)

When Joe was building websites he was semi-successful and usually had some work going on, but when he wasn’t building websites he wasn’t getting paid and it made it difficult to find a recurring revenue model. So he decided to find a business model that was more scalable.

Stepping into a Saturated Market

Joe saw that WordPress maintenance was already a crowded space but he liked the challenge because he was always good at executing things.

First, he needed to validate the idea by researching the market so he Googled other companies to find out about his competition. He knew there were companies that he couldn’t compete with for at least the first couple of years.

He also did a keyword analysis for "WordPress maintenance" and "WordPress help" and discovered that a lot of people were searching for it. Which meant there was a large demand for it, proving that there was a viable market.

He needed to build it as lean as possible so it has been a bootstrap company since day one. This was a good move to help it grow and now he is able to compete with the bigger companies.

Building Your Brand

Joe explains that you need to build trust with your audience which is a work in progress. When they started out, he put some focus on how they wanted to differentiate themselves from competitors, but the brand was also from built user feedback, what people are saying about you online and learning from what people want.

He says that the most important thing to remember when you are starting out is that you don’t know too much about what you're doing. The people who are the most successful are the ones who learn from their customers and their mistakes. Improve based on suggestions and make sure you're flexible and change things as you go along. "You will throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks." Once you know what works, then you are on your way!

A common fear is that people aren’t prepared to make a decision as they think that it will be set in stone. But when you're starting out, you don’t have a huge database of people that you need to explain the changes to, such as price increases. So explaining to 10 – 50 customers is easy! Maybe you will have one or two complaints but overall it is much more important for your company to make those changes. Be bold and make decisions and don't be afraid to make mistakes. 

Working with a Remote Team

Joe initially needed to bring people on board fast as he needed to get work done. Now he has switched things more to being proactive with hiring rather than reactive. He references a great Kinsta article here where they talk about how to "Hire Slow and Fire Fast". Check out the link below the show notes.

Onboarding Documents

Joe talks about the importance of onboarding documents for new starters which include culture documents. This is particularly necessary as it is more difficult to get a remote team on board with the same brand vision and maintain consistency across the board.

One of the companies that he looks up to is Human Made and they recently released their onboarding documents. You can get some good ideas from this so check out the website in the links section below.

How He Finds His Staff

He hires most of his employees through recommendations from his current WP Buff staff. Or they use Post Status who have a Wordpress specific job board which isn't as big as a zip recruiter but it is focused and well known in the WordPress space.

Getting Started With Inbound Marketing What can you do in the next 2 weeks if you are a new company?

The first thing you need to do is idea validation. You need to know if people are searching for this by conducting a keyword analysis. Assess the viability through the volume of searches.

Joe's favourite tools to use are:

• Ubersuggest: This gives you a comprehensive list of keyword ideas especially longtail searches which are easier to rank for.
• Google: It will give you a little list that drops down when you start searching and then you scroll to the bottom of the page and it gives you suggested terms at the bottom - and it's free!
• SEMrush: is good for competitor analysis and they have a free trial where you can download as much data as you want.

The second thing to do is separate your keywords into viable topics. If you want to effectively target certain keywords for blog posts or certain pages, figure out the best keywords for a blog or an interior page of your website.

The Long-Term Investment

When you start out your business you need to understand that whilst blogging is time-consuming it is also a medium to long-term investment. It takes discipline so the key is to create a plan for yourself and stick to it. It won't take too long to realise the investment after a few months when people start entering information into your contact form. It will build slowly but surely.

[wpecallout title="Outreach for Blog Posts - Joe's Super Hack" align="left" image="/wp-content/themes/wpelevation/images/callout/lightbulb.png"]The most successful way I've done inbound marketing is by keeping a BCC list of WordPress friends to send important blogs to.

When sending emails, I send a more personal one to them and ask for feedback.

Always be friendly and present, and look for how you can add value to people's lives and businesses.[/wpecallout]

How to Know If It Is Working

Measuring traffic to your site is important to do on a monthly basis. With Google Analytics you can set up goals so you can track visitors to specific pages such as a campaign page.  If you're increasing traffic but not conversions, then you know it’s a conversion issue.

Set a repeat task to do marketing and conversion each week and do the basics well and consistently. It's not rocket science. By having a dedicated time to work on tasks rather than in 15-minute increments, it will make you much more efficient.

Listener Questions

What is your favourite project management tool?

Teamwork. For onboarding new care plans, new employees and everything project based. It also manages their white label service.

What tools do you use to run a remote team?

Teamwork Chat for day to day communication. It is similar to Slack but Joe is in many groups on that platform so there is too much transition and he can't work effectively. For video communication he uses Zoom.

When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up?
Listen in to find out!

That's it for this episode. We hope you collected some gold here! Let us know what you think of this podcast or if you have tried inbound marketing in the comments below.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video podcast here.

Writing "The Art of SEO"

Stephan is best known for the Bible on SEO “The Art of SEO”  which is currently in its third edition. The book came about because he was sharing his knowledge at the conference "SMX Advance". He believes that what you put out into the universe you get back so he gave away some of his best tips. Everyone in the SEO industry was there including Rand Fishkin (the founder of Moz) and three weeks later Rand approached Stephan in the speaker room and gave him a hug! They had a great conversation and decided to write a book together.

He had never written a book before, but there were four co-authors for the first and second edition. Having four authors was tricky because the voice needed to be consistent so they hired a ghost editor to ensure that it was written all in the same style.

Why SEO?

Stephan was studying for a PhD in chemistry but had always had an interest in programming and creating websites. In 1994 when web development was taking off, he attended the second international Word Wide Web Conference where he met one of the creators of Netscape and NCSA web server, Rob McCool. Tim Berners-Lee was the keynote speaker. Stephan was starstruck and knew he had to get into development. So he dropped out of his PhD and started an agency called Netconcepts and they started specialising in SEO.

Hot tip: Get a blue chip client, even if you have to buy that client.

This was when he was able to get his big break. They had a lot of clients from a web development point of view but no large SEO clients. He wanted a huge eCommerce client that was also a household name. So they went after Target. They offered to do a website and SEO audit for free in exchange for a testimonial. That was a game changer for them because this testimonial was a huge credibility builder.

It cost them a lot in resources but it was well worth it.

Tune in around the 11-minute mark to find out how he as able to make millions from click revenue and what he did after he sold that business.

Always Look After Your Personal Brand
Now Stephan focuses more on his personal brand. If you keep putting it off because you have no time, that is a bad idea. It is the brand you will carry with you to the grave. So he wrote a book “Social eCommerce." It is his own book and doesn’t pigeon hole him into being “that SEO guy”.

He recommends that you have at least two distinct areas. "Don’t be a one-trick pony." For example, you may work with WordPress but then also love playing an instrument. How can you combine these two things? Get creative! If you have two dimensions and find a niche, it will prevent being “replaced by the robots”.

Listen in around the 19-minute mark where Troy and Stephan agree to disagree on what will happen as robots will take over human roles. Stephan also gives us a look at how technology has evolved over the last 100 years and how it will continue to speed up until computers will be smarter than us. They discuss things that will blow your mind including Moore's Law. 

Keeping this in mind, you need to think about what is going to happen in your industry two years and then 10 years down the track. Think about how will it impact you and what you need to do to be ahead of the curve.

Your client needs to rely on you to be proactive and pre-emptive. Make sure that the client relies on you to know the latest technology, never allow them to come to you and ask about a new advance in technology.

Think about the bigger picture and more into the future and that will help shape your business. If you’re doing something that’s a commodity and doesn’t have a future then get out now.

Where Will SEO Be in Five Years Time?
If you are the kind of SEO consultant who is doing the basic stuff such as figuring out which keywords are better than others, remember that these things have a shelf life. If that’s all you do you, you will be left behind. The same goes if you are doing low-level WordPress development, then you will also be replaced by a robot soon enough.

What Do You Jump into If You Are Working at a Low Level of SEO or WordPress?
If you’re doing SEO, then you need to look at the cutting edge part of SEO such as RankBrain and really understanding this Google algorithm that’s all about machine learning. Everything will be running off of Artificial Intelligence at Google in only a matter of time. So in order to go into battle with AI then you need to be an expert in AI.

How Do You Start the Conversation About Selling SEO Packages to Clients?
It is something that clients don’t understand and it is a difficult conversation to have. So Stephan's advice is to "stop educating the client and start poking at their pain point".

You say to the client, "Here’s where you are at now, and here is where you would like to be." So make it painful and obvious about how far they are from that point. You will make their brains hurt if you tell them about all of the options that you have for SEO so instead make them see that there is a problem and ask - "What is it worth to you to be there? What do you think that should cost you on a monthly or yearly basis?"

Show Results
Then you need to show the client results, so track the rankings using a rankings tracker such as Rank Ranger or Authority Lab. Show them how far they are coming along and don’t get too caught up in the fine details of explaining what you did. Stephan recommends charging by results rather than by the hour because you have the value that exceeds an hourly rate.

Stephan's Personal Brand
Stephan is more than his work as well. He was a foster child and he sees his difficult childhood as a gift. He now has three beautiful daughters and he wouldn’t have them if he didn’t have the childhood he had. He had to grow up fast and got married when he was 19. He attributes his happy life and success now to how he got through his childhood with resilience and strength.

He used his story to be able to help other foster children and bring awareness to the topic and let people know how they can help. He also helps with a non-profit that builds schools in Africa. He says that by doing these things you are also still building your personal brand.

He has also had TV appearances which means that you are seen as the authority on the topic that you are discussing. Your value then increases because you are seen that way.

"Facts tell and stories sell".  Stephan says it is so important that people relate to you. They need to know that you understand them. So don't be afraid to be real and be vulnerable.

And that's a wrap! Troy and Stephan covered some super interesting topics here and even more if you listen in.

That's the final podcast in this season. We hope you've enjoyed and learned from the high calibre of talent we've had on the show over the last 10 weeks. 

Stay tuned, we'll be back in January with a new and improved podcast format. You're going to love it!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video podcast here.

Who is Laura Elizabeth?

Laura has been a designer for the last 7 years. She started out with one year in an agency then became a freelancer. Last year she transitioned into product development of a WordPress plugin called Client Portal. She also teaches how to design in a non-pretentious way and she still does the odd design job from time to time when a cool project comes along.

How Can We Build Better Client Relationships?

Laura came to realise that most of her income was coming from repeat work and referrals. This is because of the importance that she puts on giving her clients a memorable experience. She came from an agency background and when she became a freelancer, she felt that disadvantage of not having a nice office to bring your clients to, so she focused on standing out and giving them a great experience instead.

Laura says that most clients have a business goal that they want to achieve but they want to enjoy the process as well. As a designer, a lot of what you do is really fun and it’s exciting for them to see their business take on this whole new look.

[vum-bigtweet tweet="Want to get repeat work and referrals? Find out how to make your the development and design process enjoyable for your clients."]

How Do You Make the Process Enjoyable for Clients?

Laura’s favourite way to do this is to make the process repeatable and smooth. Some designers make the mistake of assuming that the client knows how a project works and what is involved. However, clients are generally nervous to work with you because they are investing a lot of money and not sure what to expect. You need to gain their trust with a lot of quality communication.

Don’t assume that if the client isn’t bugging you that they don’t want to know. Assume that the client is waiting to know what is happening all the time.

Many designers and developers complain that their client is bugging them with constant questions, but this just means that they are feeling insecure about the project. If you communicate with them frequently, it helps to alleviate this worry. Laura used to tell her client's that every Monday morning they will receive an email outlining everything that she did in the week prior, what she will be doing the following week and what she needs from them. She says, to just keep it simple and create a template with bullet points.

Where Did Her Inspiration for Client Portal Come From?

She made the client portal for her own business to be able to manage her clients but she didn’t intend on selling it at first. She only started selling it when she realised that there was a demand in the market for such a product.

It had got to a point where she was finding it difficult to manage all of her clients and she didn't like the idea of giving design work over to a freelancer.  Instead, she went through her client process and noted down every single detail from every email, deliverable and interaction that happens. She realised that it was all the same for every client apart from the design.

From there she made a portal where the client logs in and comes to a dashboard where they see every deliverable that is in progress, completed and what is coming. It shows when the next phone call is and when she is available.

Clever Creation

She had designed the website and got developers to code it so she took bits of her website to hack together a dashboard. She then put it up for sale and offered a presale discount so that she could use those funds to develop the product. She then hired a developer to do the plugin once she had the revenue. So clever!

How Important Is It to Put Yourself in the Client’s Shoes?

It’s the job of a designer and developer to put yourself in your client's shoes. Sometimes we can get too focussed on the design rather than the experience that the client is having with you. It just requires a small mindset shift.

At the same time, you also need to educate the client that the website isn’t actually for them, it is for their customers. Laura says that sometimes a client may come to her for a redesign when their current look isn't working, but she will explain to them that the problem may not be the actual website. It can be lack of targeting or marketing as well. So she would sometimes have to tell her clients to come to make some changes and them come back to her with revenue rather than use their savings.

What is Design Academy?

She was working with a lot of developers who all had really cool side projects and needed designers to help them. So, she created a free resource which helps developers learn how to design without having to pay a designer. That means that they can then get their side projects up and running and once they have revenue, they can pay a designer from that. Her plan is to turn this into a course early next year.

Tune in at the 27-minute mark to learn more about what is involved in this course.

What’s Next for Laura Elizabeth?

Her focus is Client Portal at the moment with a new version being released early next year. Then next year she will go almost full-time with Design Academy and get a solid course going.

Wow, such a good reminder! Get communicating everyone!

If you have any tips or hints on what has worked well for you to create a good customer experience, we would love to hear about it in the comment section below.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video of this podcast here.

Background

Corey started in 2003 in the early days of WordPress when it was good for blogging but not much else. He was a terrible blogger but a passionate bass player and had been wanting to build an online magazine just for bass players. However, he wanted more than a website, he wanted to connect and build a community. He also wanted to find a way to program WordPress to push the content out by targeting specific interests. He didn’t know where to start so he kept it really generic at the beginning and his audience could subscribe to a newsletter, MySpace (and yes apparently it still exists for musicians), Facebook and Twitter.

At the time, he was big on Twitter and he hardly touched the Facebook page, but it was Facebook that was growing significantly. So, he focused on Facebook (reluctantly) as it was clear where people wanted to connect. By the end of the first year, they had 10,000 Facebook fans! Back then it was easier because Facebook pages used to accommodate these actions easily but now they have shifted their algorithm, so it is much harder, unfortunately.

Corey's focus is now a lot more on email, using their own plugin which allows the content to get out to their audience in a way which targets the person's interests, rather than having people subscribed to everything they do.

At the 8-minute mark, Corey talks about how they use MailChimp which has the RSS to email capability. Listen in here to find out more about these handy tricks to save you so much time and energy on getting your content out there.

Segmenting and Targeting Tips

Be intentional about who you speak to and what you send
Put a subscribe box at the bottom of an article for that category so that you are engaging them in the content that they actually want
How Do You Start to Build an Online Community?

When Corey started out, they had to go with lesser-known bass players for their podcasts. It is more difficult at the beginning, but you build up your audience slowly. They also made sure they were getting involved with industry events to make connections there.

Once You Have an Audience, How Can You Create Revenue?

Corey has set up a variety of different sponsorship packages for things such as contests. Their revenue also comes from No Treble's online store where they sell t-shirts. Their best seller is the t-shirt with their logo on it which shows what a sense of community that they have been able to create.

Managing Communication and Engagement with Your Community

Corey reads every comment because he wants to know more than the stats and get the sentiment behind the feedback. He also has a closed group with about 5,000 members which is very different to the public group. They have pinned guidelines and questions you have to answer before you are able to join. He formed these guidelines by inviting the people he wanted to join and then asked them what they wanted to see to ensure the group has all the relevant content that they want and need.

 

1. Find your niche
2. Find out what content they want
3. Get the right content to them to minimise the number of un-subscribers who feel like they are getting spammed with irrelevant information
4. Listen to your audience

Awesome tips Corey!

Have you found a way to get relevant information to your community? We would love to hear how!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video podcast here.

Meet Bridget

We start out with a little background on Bridget. Amongst all her projects, she explains that her passion is blogging about social media marketing which you can find on her site at bridgetwillard.com. Her other passion is giving back to the WordPress community through volunteering at WordCamps, the most recent being WordCamp LA where she teaches people about blogging and using Twitter. These camps are a huge success - with one on every weekend around the States. One of the reasons why WordCamps are highly successful is because they are able to keep the price affordable thanks to the volunteers.

What To Expect at a WordCamp

It’s cheap
"Tech changes every 20 minutes!" so you are getting up to date information
 You're meeting people in the same space as you, or potentially will work in the same space as you.
It is a very supportive space
The WordPress Community Support

Bridget then talks about the support she feels from the WordPress community and why she enjoys WordPress networking. 16 months ago when her husband passed away she had no money for the funeral. Her bosses set up a website and they raised $1,300 for her. She was so touched that all of these people she didn’t know were helping and she finds that’s what the WP community is all about – support. But you need to remember to give back too.

With the recent hurricanes in the US, we have been talking a lot lately about the need for a good network of support behind you in case something happens in your life. It is good to have a reminder that even if you’re an introvert, you can still have this support online. Bridget says "we are a community of introverts so everyone is in the same boat!"

Why Volunteer?

Bridget believes that when you give introverts structure, it makes them feel like they belong. She felt like she found her tribe when she first volunteered. "Volunteering makes you have a sense of belonging and gives you encouragement."

Bridget talks about how scary it was talking in front of everyone at first, but how important it was for herself to do it and get out of her comfort zone. She received some good advice beforehand from a co-worker "Everyone in that room is rooting for you. No one wants you to fail" Love that advice!

[vum-bigtweet tweet="Everyone in that room is rooting for you. No one wants you to fail @gidgey on WPE Podcast "]

Find out more about WordCamps and how you and get involved around the 6-minute mark.

Women Who WP

The group started in 2015 when Jen Miller and Elizabeth Shilling decided to start a dinner and talk about WordPress. They invited Bridget to talk about social media marketing and then it evolved into "this movement that is bigger than us".

People ask her why it is a group for women only. And she says that "women dialogue differently" and that even though we want equal opportunity doesn’t mean that we aren’t different to men. We need to celebrate the diversity! Listen in at the 19-minute mark where she gives some amusing examples of different dialogues!

Bridget says that one of the things that make the meetups a great success is that at the end of the dinner everyone goes around the table and talks about what they learned in the last 30 days. This is great for networking, giving everyone the chance to speak and to see that everyone is learning. Everyone has that "imposter syndrome" where we think we aren’t good enough, but you get to see that everyone is just learning no matter what level you are. Everyone has different talents and skills that they can share.

Women in WordPress

Recently we asked our WP Elevation Facebook group for their opinion on an article written by Emma Hinchcliffe about two women entrepreneurs who created a fake male co-founder to deal with sexism (and it worked). I ask Bridget for her thoughts on this, as the WP community seems to be supportive no matter what gender. Is it just the clients who have this view?

Bridget says that there are studies on social media showing that even women will follow a man before they follow a woman. So, we actually have a lot of gender bias within ourselves. She says, “Let’s draw a circle and step into it and start with us… Am I going to ask a man for help or am I going to ask a woman for help?” Sometimes the decision isn’t about gender though, it can also be about the title of the person, for example, CEO vs Marketing Manager.

She says that her next point is a bit controversial but she asks - are we the ones who are eroding our own boundaries when we are managing expectations with clients or is it because we are a woman? So, if we tell a client that we aren’t going to launch the site until we are paid but we do it anyway, is it because we are a pushover or because we are a woman?

We need to protect our boundaries. And if you do a free service, send a $0 invoice so they know they got something for free. Women are givers and that can be taken advantage of. How are we empowering ourselves if we make a fictitious man as the CEO to get more clients? Those are the clients we don’t want!

At the end of the day, it is about setting boundaries and managing expectations.At meetups, you can talk about these things instead of feeling isolated and alone in your entrepreneurship as an agency.

A Message to All of You Entrepreneurs out There!

"I would like my freelancer friends to stop calling themselves freelancers, and start calling themselves agencies cos you are! Love, Bridget"

[vum-bigtweet tweet="Drop the freelancer tag. You are an agency or consultant! @gidgey on WPE Podcast"]

Let’s Talk About Give Donation

It is a full-featured donation WP plugin that makes its own forms and has great reporting. It is more robust than a Paypal button and they don’t take commission like a lot of other plugins.

Being a part of the creation of this plugin has been very rewarding for Bridget. She says she loves to be able to help people to do good in the world. It empowers people and that is what she loves as she used to have a victim mentality. Bridget was in a job she didn’t like for a long time because she didn’t think she was worthy enough. She listened to an audiobook “Delivering Happiness” by Tony Shae whilst driving to a job she hated every day. She says that she didn’t know that you could be happy at work. “I was 42 and I cried like a baby. I decided if the millennials get to be happy, then I get to be happy too.” And now here she is helping people to make a difference in the world!

How Does Bridget Keep Her Balance?

Bridget says that volunteering is her balance. She loves giving back and encouraging people in the WP community. After all, it's the WP community who make, create and maintain a code base that is open and free for everyone. How amazing is that?

When you spend your time focusing on helping other people, you do get that balance

She also loves what she does, so, with social media being her passion, she is on it constantly, but she doesn’t find that a burden. (She does karaoke every Tuesday night with her friend Julie to maintain the balance!).

"The balance isn’t just – ‘I’m doing a four hour work week!’ That’s not real life…. There is this ridiculous perspective that you can just magically create work and have the dream, but there is no dream without the work. You have to do the work. The balance is in seeing why it is important and how you’re affecting other people.  At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the people and the relationships you have with them. Nothing else matters."

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the people and the relationships you have with them

Well said, Bridget… well said!

What a lady! We would love to hear your take on networking and women working in WordPress. Please share your thoughts or stories below.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video of this podcast here.

Meet Bridget

We start out with a little background on Bridget. Amongst all her projects, she explains that her passion is blogging about social media marketing which you can find on her site at bridgetwillard.com. Her other passion is giving back to the WordPress community through volunteering at WordCamps, the most recent being WordCamp LA where she teaches people about blogging and using Twitter. These camps are a huge success - with one on every weekend around the States. One of the reasons why WordCamps are highly successful is because they are able to keep the price affordable thanks to the volunteers.

What To Expect at a WordCamp

• It’s cheap
• "Tech changes every 20 minutes!" so you are getting up to date information
• You're meeting people in the same space as you, or potentially will work in the same space as you.
• It is a very supportive space
• The WordPress Community Support

Bridget then talks about the support she feels from the WordPress community and why she enjoys WordPress networking. 16 months ago when her husband passed away she had no money for the funeral. Her bosses set up a website and they raised $1,300 for her. She was so touched that all of these people she didn’t know were helping and she finds that’s what the WP community is all about – support. But you need to remember to give back too.

With the recent hurricanes in the US, we have been talking a lot lately about the need for a good network of support behind you in case something happens in your life. It is good to have a reminder that even if you’re an introvert, you can still have this support online. Bridget says "we are a community of introverts so everyone is in the same boat!"

Why Volunteer?

Bridget believes that when you give introverts structure, it makes them feel like they belong. She felt like she found her tribe when she first volunteered. "Volunteering makes you have a sense of belonging and gives you encouragement."

Bridget talks about how scary it was talking in front of everyone at first, but how important it was for herself to do it and get out of her comfort zone. She received some good advice beforehand from a co-worker "Everyone in that room is rooting for you. No one wants you to fail" Love that advice!

Find out more about WordCamps and how you and get involved around the 6-minute mark.

Women Who WP

The group started in 2015 when Jen Miller and Elizabeth Shilling decided to start a dinner and talk about WordPress. They invited Bridget to talk about social media marketing and then it evolved into "this movement that is bigger than us".

People ask her why it is a group for women only. And she says that "women dialogue differently" and that even though we want equal opportunity doesn’t mean that we aren’t different to men. We need to celebrate the diversity! Listen in at the 19-minute mark where she gives some amusing examples of different dialogues!  

Bridget says that one of the things that make the meetups a great success is that at the end of the dinner everyone goes around the table and talks about what they learned in the last 30 days. This is great for networking, giving everyone the chance to speak and to see that everyone is learning. Everyone has that "imposter syndrome" where we think we aren’t good enough, but you get to see that everyone is just learning no matter what level you are. Everyone has different talents and skills that they can share.

Women in WordPress

Recently we asked our WP Elevation Facebook group for their opinion on an article written by Emma Hinchcliffe about two women entrepreneurs who created a fake male co-founder to deal with sexism (and it worked). I ask Bridget for her thoughts on this, as the WP community seems to be supportive no matter what gender. Is it just the clients who have this view?

Bridget says that there are studies on social media showing that even women will follow a man before they follow a woman. So, we actually have a lot of gender bias within ourselves. She says, “Let’s draw a circle and step into it and start with us… Am I going to ask a man for help or am I going to ask a woman for help?” Sometimes the decision isn’t about gender though, it can also be about the title of the person, for example, CEO vs Marketing Manager.

She says that her next point is a bit controversial but she asks - are we the ones who are eroding our own boundaries when we are managing expectations with clients or is it because we are a woman? So, if we tell a client that we aren’t going to launch the site until we are paid but we do it anyway, is it because we are a pushover or because we are a woman?

We need to protect our boundaries. And if you do a free service, send a $0 invoice so they know they got something for free. Women are givers and that can be taken advantage of. How are we empowering ourselves if we make a fictitious man as the CEO to get more clients? Those are the clients we don’t want!

At the end of the day, it is about setting boundaries and managing expectations.At meetups, you can talk about these things instead of feeling isolated and alone in your entrepreneurship as an agency.

A Message to All of You Entrepreneurs out There!

"I would like my freelancer friends to stop calling themselves freelancers, and start calling themselves agencies cos you are! Love, Bridget"

Let’s Talk About Give Donation

It is a full-featured donation WP plugin that makes its own forms and has great reporting. It is more robust than a Paypal button and they don’t take commission like a lot of other plugins.

Being a part of the creation of this plugin has been very rewarding for Bridget. She says she loves to be able to help people to do good in the world. It empowers people and that is what she loves as she used to have a victim mentality. Bridget was in a job she didn’t like for a long time because she didn’t think she was worthy enough. She listened to an audiobook “Delivering Happiness” by Tony Shae whilst driving to a job she hated every day. She says that she didn’t know that you could be happy at work. “I was 42 and I cried like a baby. I decided if the millennials get to be happy, then I get to be happy too.” And now here she is helping people to make a difference in the world!

How Does Bridget Keep Her Balance?

Bridget says that volunteering is her balance. She loves giving back and encouraging people in the WP community. After all, it's the WP community who make, create and maintain a code base that is open and free for everyone. How amazing is that?

When you spend your time focusing on helping other people, you do get that balanceBridget Willard

She also loves what she does, so, with social media being her passion, she is on it constantly, but she doesn’t find that a burden. (She does karaoke every Tuesday night with her friend Julie to maintain the balance!).

"The balance isn’t just – ‘I’m doing a four hour work week!’ That’s not real life…. There is this ridiculous perspective that you can just magically create work and have the dream, but there is no dream without the work. You have to do the work. The balance is in seeing why it is important and how you’re affecting other people.  At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the people and the relationships you have with them. Nothing else matters."

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the people and the relationships you have with them Bridget Willard 

Well said, Bridget… well said!

What a lady! We would love to hear your take on networking and women working in WordPress. Please share your thoughts or stories below.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.