Transcript
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Speaker: All the details are in the description. Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Speaker: I am your host, Michael Millward. Today, Johnny Ross, the author of WebProud, is going to be helping me to understand how any business can have a web presence that they can be proud of.
Speaker: Johnny is just down the road from Abbasida, and like Abbasida, Johnny's company, Fleek Marketing, is also one of the top 100 digital and creative companies in the Leeds City region.
Speaker: The lead city region covers most of North and West Yorkshire, the Dales, the North York Moors, Heriot and Bronte country, and the former capital of the Roman Empire, the City of York.
Speaker: If you would like to visit the Leeds City Region, I recommend you join the Ultimate Travel Club, which is also based in the Leeds City Region, and take advantage of the trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, and so many other travel-related purchases that members have access to.
Speaker: You'll find a link and a membership discount code in the description. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
Speaker: As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Hello, Johnny. hi thanks for having me. oh you say that now.
Speaker: Half an hour from now, you might not, you never know. Oh, let's let's find out. We will, we will. But best way to start is for you to tell me all about your career to date and how you ended up with fleet marketing and writing a book.
Speaker: Yeah, sure. Well, I qualified as an optician, actually. And, you know, it doesn't give me great credibility for being in marketing, does it? But I set up an e-commerce store selling sunglasses back in 99. So it was sort of in the dot-com boom And we were bigger than the likes of Debenhams and Shade Station. We knew that from our buying power. And for about five years, we were at the top of Google for absolutely everything to do with sunglasses, you know whether it be Armani sunglasses, Gucci sunglasses, Ray-Ban sunglasses, red sunglasses, anything at all, even just the word sunglasses.
Speaker: In 2004, sales dropped, didn't really know why, took us about a month to realize that we were no longer at the top of Google. We didn't look at things like Google Analytics as much as you would nowadays. we We'd actually been pushed to page seven of Google. No one ever goes to page seven of Google. Wow. Yeah, we went we went through a couple of SEO agencies over about an 18-month period, spent tens of thousands of pounds. Still 18 months later, we were still on page seven. Even for our brand name, it was just, it was terrible. We lost 40% of our turnover. In the end, I found a guy in New York who was on $250 an hour. But within two weeks, he got us back to page one.
Speaker: I learned a huge amount. I became really frustrated with the SEO industry and we didn't get to position one because Debenhams and Shade Station had taken over by them, but we're in position two and three, but we needed to invest to really get back to the top. Senior partner didn't want to invest. So I ended up thinking, you know what, I'm going to help businesses understand what this Google game is all about because I became really frustrated and passionate. And so I ended up opening a marketing agency and that's sort of cutting short. That's how I ended up here. Yeah. An expression I hear a lot is that my problem became my passion. m
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. You face a problem, you learn about it, you find out how to create the solution, and then it becomes an all-consuming passion. And the passion is to share it with other people so they don't have to go through the pain that you went through. For sure. um And it's more enjoyable when you are passionate about it and you're not you know you and you end up creating a business that you actually want to to work in.
Speaker: That's the difference, I suppose, between a job and running a business. if you Too many people are in jobs that they really don't like, but if you find something that you can be passionate about, you're never actually working, are you?
Speaker: No, for sure. No? So when did you set up this this business, Fleek Marketing? Back in 2010, I ended up ah meeting a a fellow trainer, a guy called Pascal Fintoni, who was ah a fellow marketing expert.
Speaker: We shared many conferences and stages and we do similar things. We do training and workshops where you know we'll have delegates from small business owners or content creators or people that are running their own business, running their own websites.
Speaker: Over the many years have been asked so many times about how can I improve my website? How can I get better conversion? how can it All those standard questions. One of the things that's jumped out at us is that no one feels proud of their website.
Speaker: it's It's crazy. There's very few people that feel proud of their website. And of course, that's what gave birth to the book WebProud. You're probably correct. A lot of the business owners...
Speaker: Enjoy their website on day one. By day three or four, you're thinking, oh, somebody else's website is a little bit better than mine. And you're never actually quite satisfied. That's part of the the pain of being an entrepreneur is you're never actually satisfied with what you've got. You know you can always do better. If only you had more money, if only you had more time, if only you know knew this expert or that expert, you'd be able to do all sorts of things. But you've taken all of the questions that people have asked you at the various different conferences and exhibitions and training courses and put them all into one place.
Speaker: All the answers. Yeah. And I think it's that it's that moment that, you know, you're you're in a business meeting or in a sales call and and they say, you know, OK, so I want a bit more information. What's your website address? And as a business owner, it's that pang that you get within your stomach. which is, well, well ah could you give I could give you my website address, but but but I know that it doesn't really represent us very well. And it's, you know, by the way, go and have a look, but it's not really where we are nowadays. And and it's that moment that that you lose. And i think I think, you know, I know you mentioned that it's within a few days of of ah a website going live that you start losing the proudness of it. I think, to be fair, you know, that can go on for a good few months. But
Speaker: Come a year's time, that's definitely, you know, the you are really down the hill after a year's time. If you're if you're not proactive and keep it up to date with where the business is. Where the business is.
Speaker: I get the feeling that where the business is, is a key part of what you've just said. Absolutely. Because businesses evolve, do they not, on a constant basis? Certainly if you've got the growth mindset and if you're really looking to make a business work, then businesses evolve naturally, organically.
Speaker: constantly changing yeah constantly developing you can do more than perhaps your website actually says that you can do or the results aren't actually reflected in in what you've included in the website the connection between the business and the website is key isn't it it's what does your business do does your website reflect what your business does not on the day that your website was launched but on the day that You look at the website. yeah It's your shop front.
Speaker: And when someone walks into that shop, they need to feel your business immediately. They need to feel the passion. They need to feel the personality. They need to feel the trust.
Speaker: They need to know that they've walked into the right place where eventually you want them to buy. Is this why on the the like the first part of the the fleet marketing page, there's a big picture of you?
Speaker: Well, I do believe that personal branding can make ah big differences. And so, yes, so I definitely have gone down the personal branding route. I think businesses absolutely need personality, but you can achieve that in big businesses as well. So, but yes, in terms of myself, personal branding is the way forward.
Speaker: Because people buy people rather than buying a product or a service or the website. I suppose one element of of your having a great website, a website that you can be proud of, is allowing your website to not replace but enhance the relationship building with your customer.
Speaker: It's all about the people. I mean, let's just make that abundantly clear. We are people buying from people. So whether it's business to business, business to consumer, direct to consumer, it is people buying from people. Simple as that. So, yeah, and we latch on to personality. We latch on. That that gives us ah a human nature, a way to build trust and a way to decide, you know, do I like this company? Do I believe in this company? Do I ah agree with their values, et cetera, et cetera? And all of that comes through personality. Yeah. Yes. So the website that we develop has got to work for the business and reflect what the business is capable of doing.
Speaker: That's almost like the the feature. The benefit, I suppose, of a great website, a web-proud website, is that you can feel the personality and through the personality you can experience the values of the organization as well so that it's a tool but it reflects the organization and the people who choose to work in that organization that gives it the character that makes it pop out of the screen i suppose doesn't it if it if it's about people because people buy from people they want to know the name behind the company behind the brand Yeah, it's and it's all the factors. So it's it's not that a website needs to look well, it's that a website needs to deliver in all areas. So it, you know, the look is just one element, the branding, the the feel of it, how it works, the story it tells, how valuable is the content, how trustworthy is it, how is it building that trust. And and ultimately, is it driving conversion? So is it is it taking me on a journey, taking taking the potential client, the potential customer on a journey? That's the key thing and trying to get them to ultimately convert.
Speaker: If I think back for a moment to the various different websites that we've had and the issues and challenges that we've we've had with websites which we've been resolving with making our websites web proud, there's things like they're slow to load.
Speaker: Just a simple practical thing. People expect their website to load quickly and not to have to wait around. It's like you can remember being back in the early days when you sit there waiting for the website, cause it was going really exciting. But now it's got to be there and it's got to be there instantly.
Speaker: Too many messages was one of the problems that I think you can have as well. You've got too much information. Oh yeah. And it's better to stick to keep it simple, keep it simple. What is it you're doing? What is it you're doing? And just focus on something as well.
Speaker: And there's a lot of power of of space, isn't there on a website? Oh, you need to allow things to breathe, for sure. One of the things that annoys me with websites is when i I have to search for where they're based. There isn't an address. and Not that I want to write to them or anything.
Speaker: Why is it so secret that where... Tell me that you're in Manchester. Tell me that you're in in Paris. Tell me where you are so that I know you're not floating in the ether. You are a proper organisation, proper location. Yeah.
Speaker: It's all about building confidence, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it's a trust signal. Having the address in the footer of the website, for example, is is just ah a standard thing that we as people are very used to seeing on most websites. So if your website doesn't have an address in the footer, then you're not, first of all, you're not conforming to what most websites are on help and what people expect. But secondly, like you've just you know articulated very well, straight away raises the question, well, what Why are they hiding their address? So trust signals are really important. And i think one you know it's it's a bit like if you're in a sales meeting, perhaps, you know whether it be in person or whether you're on a Zoom call or a Teams call, in that meeting, typically, if it's going well, there'll be that trust moment where you you believe they've suddenly seen the light bulb and they've suddenly gained that trust. And um the question is, how do we do that on a website? How do we create that trust moment on a website? Part of the answer to that question is, it's which are the websites like your website?
Speaker: And who owns the websites that like your websites? Who's linking to you? Who do you link to as well? Yeah, they're great signals for the search engines. Yes, because ah websites are part of the marketing mix, part of the sales cycle. It's very easy for an organization to go, well, we're making money. The website's is over there, but our traditional salespeople, our sales telephone people, and everything is working. We're making money, but you're not making any of the money through the website.
Speaker: So what is the point in having the website if you're not making any money through it? But it's not just not making money through a website, is it? If you if you haven't got a website that is connecting with your target audience, you actually could potentially be damaging your income generation as well.
Speaker: Yeah, i'd I'd argue that there's two ways of measuring it. You can measure the sales that come through the website. And if you're sort of not making money for your website, then you should be whatever the business is really. I'd challenge and say that, you know, there will be an online journey that you can. However much it costs you to create the website, you need to make sure that it's going to recover the cost of creating that website within a year at least. you know Yeah, but also the opportunity that it brings...
Speaker: People buy from people in many different ways, in many different channels. Just accepting that we don't have sales for our website is sort of ignoring the whole online channel. So I think i think that's the the the first thing. But the second thing is that what you can't measure is how many sales you're not getting because of your website. So you might get offline sales and that might be your only channel of sales.
Speaker: But what you don't have the data on is how many people haven't said yes, because they've gone and had a look at your website and just got the wrong feeling. Yes. And I think that's a crucial part to this as well.
Speaker: I'm sure so there is some boffins somewhere who have some sort of algorithm, which would at least attempt to identify that, but it is such an important thing. How much business have you lost as a result of having a bad website? For sure.
Speaker: In the book, that we do talk about how to sort of pull everything together to make sure that you have got a web proud web presence. And I'm talking about web presences, not just websites, because your website is just part of the mix of your social media platforms and the the chats that you might be in or the places like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or it's not Twitter anymore, X. They're all part of your your web presence and all contribute into the website experience, I suppose, as well.
Speaker: we've produced something that is a real practical guide both myself and Pascal we say it as it is we just can't not add value all the time in every conversation that we have we just like to help people and so we've written this in and and we've both been on the other side as well buying from marketing agencies so we've written this in a way that brings it into layman's terms that makes it really easy to understand, that ties it in with what is your business trying to achieve and how can you start achieving these things. So it's a real practical guide and and there's ah a very clear five-step roadmap to feeling proud of your website with loads of ah checklists and action plans um and tons of value at the yeah in the bonus sections as well.
Speaker: I like an action plan and a roadmap. So but what what are the five stages of this this roadmap? So we've got um the website health check, which is all about the sort of platform and the people. So that's the sort of technical aspect and really understanding who it is that you're trying to talk to. There's the building trust on your website. So I talked about that trust moment. How do you create those trust signals to get the the trust?
Speaker: attracting the right website visitors. So that's about whether it be organic traffic or paid traffic or or perhaps PR. ah How are you going to bring visitors to your website? Step four is about the converting of those visitors. That focuses as on things like the web layout or the call to actions, content to encourage users to engage. And finally, becoming proud of your website, the the the final step, which is actually a shift in mindset. So it's to view your website as a powerful marketing tool and ensuring it represents your brand with fresh, valuable and engaging content.
Speaker: So that's about maintaining the content on your website. So it's always current and always reflects what it is that you have done, what you've achieved, or what you're about to do. Yes, and ensuring that you're talking in the same language in terms of the the types of clients that you're trying to engage with at the time.
Speaker: My mind is clicking over and now and all the various different things. because You've distilled what is a major exercise into five steps.
Speaker: I know that beneath those headlines, there's an awful lot of work that needs to be done by people, isn't there? And it can be, well, the thought that comes to mind having gone through it is, is it can be soul destroying, it's challenging.
Speaker: yeah If to do it properly, you've got to be prepared to challenge yourself, your expectations and and what you think and believe about the business that you're running.
Speaker: The thing that we've done though is, and um we suggest this in in all the training that we do, it's all about bite-sizing things down. You can't suddenly do this overnight. And if you give yourself such a ah big task, then it's probably just not going to get done. So it's more about let's really bite-size this down, really understand what's what's going to make the difference. How does this all work together? Having those sort of checklists and and we sort of have these reflection questions as well. helps you ultimately come up with your own plan. And then over whether it be a period of of weeks or months or or quarters, you then decide how to then action that plan. And as you say, you know, step five is about the ongoing upkeep and the maintenance and how you keep things going. So this is never ending anyway, but it's part of how the business grows.
Speaker: It's never-ending story, they say. I was going to ask you, so which is the most important stage? But that's an impossible question to answer. Yeah. Because they don't operate in isolation.
Speaker: But I suspect that when somebody goes through the health check process, they'll start to identify why it is that they're not proud of what they've currently got. Yeah. And then it's case of doing the research to find out internally what you will need to be saying, but also learning about what other people say on their websites as well and thinking, okay, what do you do differently? How could you describe what you do in a way which is better, demonstrates your higher level of skill and knowledge and experience than one of your competitors? Yeah, although I think there is possibly a step that's more important than others. The only reason I say that is because step two is all about building trust. We talk about trust the entire way through the book. So whilst they're all important in their own way, there is certainly a common thread that you have to be continually thinking, how can I build trust? And what are those signals? So whether that be be logos of of collaborations, whether it be having the address on there, having pictures of real people, Some of it's really simple.
Speaker: ah You know, none of this is complicated, by the way. No. It's really simple, bite-sized bite-sized stuff, real simple things. But it's simple when you when you know it. When you know it. Yeah, absolutely. But it is so, it is, when you say pictures of real people, the people who work in your organization, if they leave, then change the pictures. Yeah.
Speaker: As someone who's got access to stock photographs for various different things, I can see when an organization has decided to use a stock photograph. Yeah. It's not a red flag that comes up, but it is a flag that says, why have you decided to use a stock photograph rather than a genuine one?
Speaker: it really is worth investing in photography and video as well. It's, you know, the big difference, the value that they bring. So yeah, photography is, I just think so important. As someone with an ah HR and training background, something, ah if you want someone to visit your website,
Speaker: you want them to visit it and see something in a format which is going to appeal to them. So we talk about different learning styles, but there's also different ways in which people want to consume the same information. So you may have video, you may have audio, you may have text on your website. And you part of the temptation, I suppose, to say, well, we'll cover this in the video and we'll cover this in audio. And that they're different.
Speaker: Whereas actually what they need to be is the same. Or they certainly need to work together. Yes, working together. And you're right. It is about having that variety because we all absorb content in different ways.
Speaker: Yeah, I've got to ask the question, and like, what sort of examples of of this or whole process working have you have you got? Where we've seen this really work and people take action...
Speaker: and put these things into place is where conversion or generation of traffic really changes. So there's there's ah there's a couple of things, a couple of companies I can think of. There's ah a solar company that I did some work with.
Speaker: Before we started, it was very clear that they were not proud of their websites at all. It was loads of stock imagery. It was quite out of date. Their conversion rate was about two and a half percent.
Speaker: Within a week of going live with the majority of the changes, that conversion rate went up to eight and a half percent, which is might not sound like a huge difference, but the average website conversion out there is probably only about a percent, if that. And to get something that's over 8% converting in in terms of traffic turning into leads is is really quite serious. And so so that's one example. There's another example, which which was ah a SaaS website. They're now generating around 10 clients a year, which again, might not sound like huge numbers, but they're big clients, big corporates. um And to be converting 10 year
Speaker: is ah is big business for them. um And even at the the other end of the scale, you know whether it be ah a small consultant, there's a number of consultants that we work with, By just implementing some of the search engine optimization we talk about in terms of the best practices and some of the PR, some really simple, easy PR that you can put into place to drive local traffic. um So we've seen some significant increases in in traffic to websites. So there's ah there's a few case studies, there's a few examples, um and it's all about just putting these actionable things into place. Which is straightforward, logical. I like things that are logical. And I i like the way we should describe these things as the actions as being bite-sized. So you've not got to take yourself away from your business in order to start thinking about and planning how you would make these changes. No, and if anything, it should just be part of your daily process. So when you're doing something within your business, you should then be in the mindset of
Speaker: actually, whilst I'm doing this, what could I do on the website at the same time? so So actually just becoming more efficient at how you're doing things and not sort of leaving it for three years and then thinking, oh my God, I need to redo my website. But actually just being mindful of it the entire time.
Speaker: It's like turning your website into the conversation that you have with your accountant, your solicitor, your bank manager, whatever it is. This is what my organization has been doing. This is how we are building our business. This is the great successes that we are achieving.
Speaker: You record that onto your website as well, and that adds confidence of the person that's visiting it and also helps to make sure that the people visiting it are people who are likely to buy rather than having hordes of people arriving. you want ah targeted visitors. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's such an interesting subject. It can be, in lots of ways, a very complex one. But you have, like you say, i hate to admit it yeah um But you have turned it into something that is very easily digestible. it is bite size. It is logical, straightforward steps that anyone could take. And in taking those logical steps, you know, eat your elephant one mouthful at a time. Oh, yeah. You give yourself the opportunity to learn as well as to do. Yes.
Speaker: Yeah. Which I think is fantastic. It's a great book, and there'll be a link to it in the in the description. But for the moment, Johnny, really have enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. It's been really great to ah to chat it through. Thank you.
Speaker: Brilliant. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Johnny Ross, the author of WebProud.
Speaker: You can find out more information about both of us at apesita.co.uk. The Zencastr system has, as always, been very efficient today. But if you are listening to the independent minds on your smartphone and have experienced technical issues, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data.
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Speaker: I'm sure that you will have liked this episode of the Independent Minds as much as Johnny and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere.
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Speaker: Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.
