Below are the notes that Mike and I used for the podcast. We touch on each of these points by sharing our own experiences.

Podcast Series Content: Websites & Your Brand

Over the next several weeks, we’ll talk about websites and how they can affect your branding. Each topic will be covered during one podcast. We’ll talk about the importance and provide action steps for each.

  1. What is a website – past, present, the evolution and how it affects your brand and your business
  2. Who the hell are you marketing to? And how does your website design/functionality make that happen?
  3. Setting up your website like restaurants – branding expert approach vs internet marketing where numbers count; setting your website up like a house tour
  4. User experience – one page vs multiple pages; web hosting
  5. Maintenance (ways to keep your website fresh), upkeep so your site visitors have a good experience and impression of your brand
  6. Now what? How these topics have affected our own approach to our websites

Today is episode #1

https://soundcloud.com/brandballers-podcast/what-is-a-website

The importance of a website

  1. What is a website – a couple ways to look at it.
    1. A website is a group of web pages. Example: A business website contains a bunch of pages that describe a specific products, services and probably mention something about the company.
    2. A website is a marketing tool to build you business, to demonstrate your expertise in an area and to get your clients.
    3. People Judge Your Business Based on Your Digital Presence
    4. It’s how you will either gain business or lose business to a competitor based on some or all of the following:
  2. Evolution of websites
    1. Design Principles
    2. Past – cluttered, loud to more minimal designs
    3. Present – minimal, less is better, flat designs, more space between things and much better photos
  3. How it affects your brand:
    1. Easier to understand what your business is all about; clearly communicate what it is you offer
    2. It’s the first impression and can consciously or unconsciously be a deciding factor for whether someone chooses to do business with you
    3. Dentist site as an example
  4. Functionality
    1. Past: drive traffic to your website
    2. Convert visitors into warm prospects; using lead magnets
    3. Offering proof or justification for people to work with you;
    4. UX is important – speed, navigation
  5. Mobile responsiveness
    1. half of your traffic will probably view your stuff from a mobile phone; using new design techniques to cater to both computer users and mobile phone user
  6. How this affects your brand?
    1. For people, you’re providing an easier viewing experience. No one likes to pinch their phone to read content
    2. Google search likes it too.
  7. Web hosting makes a HUGE difference in the performance and experience of your website

Measure blog effort: Actionable steps to take away from podcast

  1. If you want a business website, then prepare yourself to build a business websites
    1. Cover the basics and don’t get overly artistic. Don’t make it difficult for people to find content
    2. Create the impression you want people to have of you and your brand; critical
  2. Prepare a way to convert visitors into warm prospects
    1. Set up some sort of sign up or subscribe function; Seth Godin uses RSS subscriptions for his daily blog
    2. Get an email management system; MailChimp or Get Response, etc
  3. Create a lead gen, lead magnet; Mike’s free website evaluation; one page PDF with tips for your prospects; answer people’s questions, or solves a problem

Thanks for listening!

And that’s a wrap on our blogging for business podcast. Hope this has been helpful.

If you’d like us to touch upon a particular topic on an upcoming podcast, send us a message with your question or suggestion.

Have a great day!