Choosing the Right Website Platform with Zoe McCallum
Ellie McBride, the Squarespace pro from Calibrated Concepts, and Zoe McCallum, the WordPress guru behind ZCM Digital, as they spill the beans on website platforms.
They talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly of different options out there. Whether you're team Squarespace or team WordPress (or somewhere else entirely), this livestream is going to help you find the perfect fit for your business.
Don't miss out on their epic conversation! Grab a snack and tune in to learn all about picking the right website platform.
Transcript below!
You can connect with Zoe here:
Get Zoe's best resources here: https://zcmdigital.com/website-tips/
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a little bit late because we had some technical issues with my browser and it did not want me to let want to let me hear our gorgeous Zoe um we've made it and before I say this is not a cocktail this is sparkling water I just really wanted to feel fancy today we're going to do a little more of that I've been having my drinks out of cocktail glasses because it's not because it makes days well look it's nicer yeah
so anyway welcome to Zoe hi hi everybody Zoe as you know we're here to talk about the differences in our chosen platforms I'm yes all the way and I also fully endorse Shopify at your WordPress gal and yeah so many beautiful pros and cons to both going either way right yeah and so this whole series is about how to know how to level up your own web experience how to make your website and your home base better for yourself and easier to use but also better for your end user and connecting with your community and creating that home base that a website should be right like it's the goal of all of your marketing should lead back to this place called your website yeah so um so before we get into it too far do you want to introduce yourself?
Hello yeah no problem I'm Zoe um I my company said CM digital and I basically specialize in WordPress um creating new websites revamps um training and support I work with a variety of clients business small business owners politicians to e-commerce um working on a government website you know basically a whole range and it's something I absolutely love doing so yeah that's me in a nutshell uh very good um so like tell me what you love about WordPress like why out of all the website designers when you decided this is what you're gonna do did you go for progress bit of my box story so years and years ago I did an IT degree graduated in 2003.
The exact same year basically WordPress was born um back in the day that was where I first fell in level websites my obviously it was very very much coded so creating websites from from scratch and then throughout the years I still always had an interest but I went into the business development um marketing kind of world and throughout the years as much as I did I eventually I worked on various platforms creating you know for companies I worked for and I then decided it was 20 20 2019 has made redundant um the company I'm looking for was you close down so I decided what do I want to do with my life and I spoke actually spoke to um a life coach and she's like what do you enjoy doing I said well I've always had interesting websites and through my experience was basically obviously the website's back in my degree and working in the business environment I sort of thought listen I want to upskill myself in something that really works for those business owners you know people don't want to learn code people don't want to create websites it's just not and it's a lot of money um so I really basically upskilled myself on WordPress um I'll have to get into more of the pros of WordPress but later on but this is my reasoning um I had experience with WordPress through the company I was working for and really really enjoyed the flexibility of it and what it could offer um so yeah so I thought you know what this platform is ideal for the people I want to work with and that's where it started so very very cool yeah um it's a you know I I have worked in so many and so many of them are possibly really really good as well for you know business owners starting out because they're you know WordPress has possibly a wee bit of a learning curve over more so than others but I just the flexibility and the part it can give is just incredible.
Yeah I think there is a definitely like major pros and cons to both sides 100 there's a pros and cons to everything you know and depends on people's budgets it depends on what they want to achieve the growth they want um you know what they're targeting and what basically what the purpose of their website is um there's a lot of a lot of different things and what works for one person will not work for another but you know in terms of what I love I just love I do love WordPress for the flexibility yeah and I'm like as as most people on this channel know yeah all in for Squarespace most people I don't even know because I didn't I don't think I ever did an intro video when I just started doing tutorials so most people on this channel might not know what I got on display you introduce yourself then um some people on the channel know me as a Squarespace and systems obsessed person like that's and um so I got into Squarespace because I had also designed websites all the way through never professionally don't have a degree anything like that but I had made so many Weebly sites when I was a teenager for anything and everything I actually still have a Weebly site Somewhere In The Ether um from when I was an au pair so from my backpack and it was I wouldn't ever have said I was like a travel blogger but it was a really easy way to just update my whole family at the same time yeah yeah
um so I did that and so I've always loved design and color and creating complex informational structures and a really pretty and comprehensive and really easy to use way um so that's more my where I came at it from and I started my business first as a tech virtual assistant and I was doing a lot of system setups and system integration and simplification for businesses and I still do those things in a different capacity but um I realized when I left my full-time job I was really really overwhelmed I had too many bitty pieces of work so I had already been building websites for clients as a VA and it's something that you know once you're techy in design Savvy people ask you to do and yeah I built my own website um twice over in for my business and just thought you know what like let's do this um it's Project based it's higher value so it was something that really made sense for me and in the year three or four years since I've done that um I've now built hundreds of websites and they well probably just over 100 websites and it's been a really really good but the reason I love Squarespace is yeah it's got that almost no learning curve um it's gotten a little more complicated in the last couple years because they've introduced fluid engine but that offers a lot more flexibility than it used to have um and there you used to really have to go down the Shopify route if you wanted to do e-commerce and a similar kind of what you see is what you get platform um but Squarespace in the last like say three years has been really hauling ass on trying to get some better e-commerce features out there like it was one thing if you sold a few hands and bits of things but they're really really killing it lately and offering um various different ways to be paid for your activities so I I just love it because again I don't really like those little tiny bitty pieces of work so I knew from the get-go that I wasn't going to be offering maintenance packages yeah um this was something that I could provide tutorials for my clients and be like there you go there's your website have it I don't want to touch it for a while and obviously I do offer maintenance but it's typically um bigger pieces of work than yeah like rebound new pages things like that yeah adding courses or I offer Power hours for if people get stuck or want to you know um tackle a few things at once yeah um but I don't really do the day-to-day maintenance so it's actually quite funny because you're saying I would see starting it's a VA I actually probably admitted that part because I keep forgetting that when I started I I was like VA with websites um obviously the VA part was a bit more it's a bit more for like digital brochures um tiny wee bit of sort of social media Graphics things like that but literally the website part just took off in 2020 and everything else didn't have time for it's funny and 2020 is when I've fully dedicated to websites as well yeah it's great I love it with some you know it is a fabulous like it's I don't know you probably feel the same but what I what I one of the things I love most about my jobs is the fact that every website I do is different and learning like somebody else's business or somebody else's goals I just find it I find it so fascinating like it's you learn like just what other people do yeah I just oh I just love that you know yeah I totally agree I love getting to be behind the scenes and I think that's why I love this business like my systems work as well but yeah um I love getting to see how other people's businesses tick and setting things up in the back end of their business is is a big chunk of that um okay so let's start with some of the best features of Wordpress tell me all about it okay well the first things first obviously no I will I refer to Wordpress I am obviously talking about dot org knot.com um a bit of a background there's there's a main difference is.com is the one that's hosted and Dot org it's self-hosted.org is basically completely open source it's completely free you don't you do not pay for anything unless you obviously opt for like the pro plugins and the only other payments you have to make is your hosting so in a lot of ways I have a lot of clients um who were on Shopify who've come to me because they're monthly rates have skyrocketed because they've got so many products whereas they don't get charged for that you know it's all free to use WordPress then maybe pay say 11 pound a month posting and that's it so that's probably what you know one of the main things as well and one of the things I spoke about earlier was the flexibility you know you could start out and have a WordPress website that you're going to be talking we've had information about yourself and you're you're giving blogs you're helping people and you get a really good following and you get really sort of maybe high up in Google and then people realize you know you're given all this information you can add on your online shop and sell these courses in you know then you can add on something else it's that flexibility you can turn a blogging website into full-on e-commerce website into learning management system into um anything you want so you know that's the second thing and the highest thing we would probably be flexibility then the Louise the low cost um basically the other thing I love as well WordPress you own your site you know you can you can take it off anywhere you know whereas some of the other platforms if they decide to close your website's gone you know you can't move your site you can't move your site to somewhere else to how much you'd have to rebuild it start from scratch um another thing is the fact that obviously there's what if I think this last testic is 43 of all websites in the world are built with WordPress so there's a complete wide variety of people out there who have severe interests in it and you can find anything you want you know if you get stuck you just look online there's so much help if you want any plug-in they're right there um and you know so many people are invested in creating these free plugins um obviously some of the pro paid plugins are amazing as well but yeah it depends what you want so that would be sort of my main my main sort of favorite things about it obviously the other things being search engine optimization SEO um I will obviously talk a bit more about that later but there's so much you know that WordPress is so out of the box it's very SEO friendly and there's so much you can add with it that's very very good but that would be the pros that would be my top Pros anyway okay and I think it's going to be easier if you go through your cons and then I go through my pros and cons because I think we'll do that we yeah yeah so what do you think your the console the main cons I think obviously it's a wee bit of a learning curve um by the way I set up my sites for my clients that they're they can very easily update it themselves because obviously I'm giving them a YouTube guide but it's um I use the set of plugins I use make it fairy it's like a drag and drop it's very much like using the likes of square expression and then go on and change things that's on a page they don't have to be very you know you know into like have big knowledge at all um so that would be the sort of easy use this is probably the term I'm looking for a bit of a learning curve the second thing would be the fact that you do have to maintain it um quite regularly so the security now it is very good security I have I use a plugin which is amazing word fence and you know my websites have never had any issues um but you need to be on top of it because you know again people are you know cyber attacks it's uh it's a very well-known thing and if you don't keep up to date with keeping those plugins secure then your website's at high risk have been attacked and I suppose there is um because it's open source it might it's probably a wee bit more you know open to that than some other platforms but at the same time as long as you keep it updated it's super secure but you have to keep it up here
all right anything else
[Laughter]
yeah especially especially if I'm working with you it's fine yeah and so for me Squarespace Pros it's so so easy to use at this stage it's highly customizable and you can build the whole thing without a like a single engine code um I obviously customize a few bits and pieces with code for my website I can add in Lots um there is no security issues at all like do you have world-class customer support through Squarespace but also through the community so the circle Community is like next I've never seen anything like it and there's and like I'd say most software but there are experts out there that are just giving away their knowledge for free I mean like I do it but I'm not there are people out there that are like that have been using this tool for the 20 years that it's been started funny enough it's the same time frame um it's WordPress birthday this year as well I did not know that there you go every day and and yeah so it's it's really really good that way um I so those are probably my biggest things it's like you don't need to know code um you don't really need to know much of anything probably the I think the other thing is so there are no plugins as such um there's nothing to break there's no security to worry about yeah there are extensions you can use um but mostly that's other fully fledged software it's not like a little snippet of software it's like if you want to your e-commerce to talk to your Etsy to talk to your Amazon shop you can use a software that adds into that but you're not really doing little bits and pieces so as such okay there is you know code there there are also beautiful big code libraries so if you're no code you can go to places like ghost plugins and get one little piece of something uh to do something you want or um probably what I was gonna say oh like if you just need there's um this thing it's another cool plug-in place it's just gone off the top of my head I use it all the time to embed people's Google reviews okay because it makes really nice pretty sliders elf site yes yeah it's not just for Squarespace yeah but um you can what I'm saying is ADD code yes
so cons um up until recently the e-commerce was crap they're still it's still sort of crap if you're outside the U.S it's getting better um it really is getting better but that's why when I have people with I'd say anything more than like 50 products I send them yeah Shopify route because if you're trying to do wheat based like you're shipping and stuff and all those taxes and all those things it just becomes easier to use that um it also allows you for a lot more flexibility as far as all of your sales channels and things like that um it's a lot more of a nightmare to connect Instagram shopping or whatever yeah it's possible yeah it's so much easier on Shopify yeah um Shopify I suppose was created for exactly and they've kind of grown towards each other a little bit right so Shopify was definitely started for e-commerce and Squarespace was definitely started for blogging and kind of grow towards each other um but they still mostly play to their strengths yeah um Squarespace is really really growing which I love there's new features coming out all the time now as a Squarespace educator that becomes a little bit of a nightmare because yeah
but the CMS CMS plugins you know it's um I I am very much of a guy because of Elementor for my for my clients on the sites and you know they have went through phenomenal teams this year especially um so you know you're not having to train myself and take time out to make sure I'm up to date because then my clients are getting the best service you know because if I'm sitting here not getting under there you know they don't yeah I know so so in Squarespace for Squarespace went has been through two big changes in the last three years so they went from 7.0 to 7.1 which is their new editor our new version of the site entirely and then they went from classic editor within 7.1 to now fluid engine which is classic editor was kind of like you had a grid thanks could only sit in a certain number of ways you had to add negative space or spacer blocks um now things you can lay them over each other and under each other and there's so much more that you can do um lots of things we were doing with code in the past like um you know maybe specific text highlights or changing the color of one word in a phrase or the font of one word and a phrase is all pretty much available just natively now um but yeah I when it first came out I hated it I hated fluid engine when it first came out and like you said I I first my first few sites that I designed after it came out I just didn't use it um and then I did have to upskill and learn because I can't be putting my clients on a software that's being dated like you can't do that with your clients so yeah now I love it my own site's on fluid engine now yeah
I don't give you any more like do you think there's any more for the cons at all I mean you're right there's no portability really you can export say your blogs and put them in WordPress or something but you cannot export your whole site and put it anywhere else yeah um yeah I think other than e-commerce and that I think I'm trying to think if there's any other did you find like with SEO or anything do you find it so Squarespace out of the box is fairly good for SEO as well and they've also really over the last little bit um added some new features in that really help with that and now there is actually as of just this year so a third party tool similar to yoast that allows you to really level up your okay um it like scans everything that's called SEO space below because it's so cool um I've used it on my site client sites um it helps scan your metadata and help scan all of your images and make sure every single one isn't too big or how and make sure they all have all text and it does caption keeps in track really keeps you on track and I can't say I've ever heavily focused that much intentionally on my own site for SEO um until this year I've done things sort of that help with SEO sort of through other advantages being an entrepreneur you end up doing those things I've submitted myself for awards and press releases and got backlinks and kind of all of these I blog and all this stuff yeah I do things that are SEO positive but I've never been very intentional with my SEO for my kind of self clients are another story yeah well that's it to find the time for all this
yeah good um but yeah I guess the only other thing I should say that probably is a big difference between Squarespace and WordPress is I'm going to say Squarespace is known for being quite slow comparatively okay um you're loading a lot of code when you're putting up so if somebody is out in the middle of nowhere with [ __ ] phone signal your website might take a while to load yeah um if you add custom code on top of that um or are adding jQuery for a specific weird feature you've you've asked for it can take even longer um it's not like no it's not noticeably slow to the human consumer I'd say but for SEO purposes it would be slower than most WordPress sites okay yeah so that's probably my last call um but like but there are a million moving parts to SEO yeah of course there is yeah so you can do very well even having like a moderately slow website yeah just kind of be transparent there well that's true that is true so obviously you've talked about how um WordPress is so flexible yeah so it being so flexible and having like almost half of websites in the world built on this yeah the next question might sound funny but I still think it merits yeah yeah um who do you think WordPress is for I think WordPress is literally for anyone um you know for business owners bloggers um as I said like I'm doing a government website um I've two construction websites a an e-commerce website these are all ones I've got on the go you know it is literally for anyone and that's why again one of the the pros of Wordpress it is so flexible and you wouldn't I just would not roll out any yeah would have you ever had somebody come up to you and you thought actually you're a better fit for say Squarespace or Wix or I don't know because literally um and they make clients come anyone comes with sort of any questions or you know they're wanting this or that you know they may just want a One a really small website but that can be built very very easily in WordPress and very well easily minty and you know and then they have that sitting there for them to grow in the future you know whatever way they want because the flexibility is sitting there it's ready to go it's so flexible it can do anything for them in the future you know it's like anything like one thing you know I think people's minds change throughout so many years but a website once it is created is not to just to stay like that you know that's not how what websites are intended for a website is a constant changing evolving thing that should be the center of any business it should be the center of your marketing convenience it's like literally if your website is not you know it's not designed well it's not functioning it's not performing well you have ashes you know because he will lose out you know whether it comes the SEO someone like literally you you look for anything no you either search for online or you go onto their website to check information and if you go on a site that looks absolutely awful you know you're just going to do version I'm not sure about this company I'll just go no it makes them feel sketchy yeah and you know and even websites from five years ago well nobody did it you know I have thank you I'm working on website for five years ago people haven't touched them in five years and you're just like oh it looks you know you can tell the difference because there's Trail there's different Trends it's like you know there's obviously um I could go into whole different things of what's better practice and all the rest of it now but you know something that was maybe five years ago wasn't as good practice it is now and you can tell you can tell our website is how to do it yeah you totally can but because it's a combination of Trends and then the fact of evolution of software and the ability that websites have yeah and even even like used to have you know um even down to code like CSS grid relatively new thing right so the ability to drag and drop things around with code or without you know in platforms that have been released on CSS grid like Squarespace fluid engine yeah you can have that option that long ago yeah no so honestly I don't say that to me WordPress is is a one for all like I just you know I do say it's somebody who's like they're wanting to create their own site and they're starting from scratch and they literally do not have time to you know create you know learn or I don't have the money to pay anyone to do it you know yeah pick an easier platform you know a lot of people tend to in my experience go for like a lot of them is it still Weebly is that the one that's on the GoDaddy or is it their GoDaddy Builder you know like just you know one of those yeah a lot of people I think think square up has or square has bought Wicks now okay partnered with Wix I don't I don't actually know I know a lot of people will end up on one platform that doesn't fit them and transfer around I could do a lot of transfers like I've done a lot of transfers as well I don't you know I am rebuilding you know the free the free ones that come with a template um that basically you know just a very quick build and a very straightforward you know or maybe you can have a little term and don't really like to say that because I really don't think they are but you know for someone who doesn't have the time or the money then maybe but you know there's so much out there in terms of even for WordPress if you're a start night there's I'm a website um WP beginner I think that's what you call it and it's brilliant it's a really good starting resource that's where I started um when I decided to really upskill in WordPress and then I did a bit more from obviously online courses as well um but and then I sort of went on the courses in different plugins such as like Elementor um but yeah oh yeah anyway well definitely tangent therapy yeah everyone brought your DIY or it might be better to start on another place maybe if it if you're not feeling a little bit overwhelmed or something yeah if you can DIY it 100 I'd say I've had and I know this goes both directions so I'm not but I've had quite a few clients that have come from WordPress because they it I mean there's a million themes there's a million you know so there's lots of things but I would say the most most people have come because they feel like their website is inaccessible almost to them it's too difficult to work with or they feel like it doesn't look the way they want it to look and that making a pretty website and making changes to a pretty website feels easier in something like Squarespace well that's I get that too people come from WordPress they're obviously still all WordPress but if you ever built their initial website has built it in a certain way that's is not at all user friendly it's not easy to update it doesn't look good and you know I'm doing a revamp you know and to be honest a lot of rebuilds because they've been built so badly with maybe 50 plugins when you can build it with it you know it's uh yeah and I'm seeing this with no disrespect not to you but to the people out there in the world watching this but we're too women who design websites that's not like hyper common and especially where we live the standard website designer is probably an older white fella who builds websites on WordPress and it's building them the same way he learned 20 years ago yeah there isn't they can that's not a worldwide problem I don't think that's a very specific Northern Ireland problem yeah um but I can understand how that's definitely something you're coming across as well yeah yeah it's um up to it's um to be honest I haven't really met that many there's maybe you won't have met um a networking event now he's lovely I'll never I've actually put work his way because you know there's times I'm just so busy and I'm just like listen talk to this guy you know he'll sort you out um but yeah it's um it's uh yeah no and I'm not saying I get a lot of complaints but designers are like this either I'm just saying that there's um you're seeing and then that's kind and actually um I also think the type the people who are those types of website developers are not probably the same ones going to networking events like in shows like they're not working in that way yeah I think you know as you know yourself you know when you come to a website you know it's like being a designer you know that's fine people can there's certain people who are technical who can do websites that's fine but you know it's getting that balance between the technicals the creativity of the design and obviously bring in the content and that message out there and that design and obviously considering the likes the SEO and exactly what that website's looking to do you know there's loads of people out there as we say and I think you've probably didn't realize a lot of people who will just put a website up there and I have had people come to me um and they've just been like websites have been created from templates that have been bought and you know and that's another thing that I hope they advise anyone with WordPress is to use lightweight things um I only ever use two things and I build from scratch um but there's a lot of people who will pay the money to buy these premium themes and there's no need and they could break they could stop being supported you know there's a few turtle with the lightweight theme and build it build around that same you can customize it any way you want and it's so much more future but yeah I think I think it's such an interesting world out there that this with the web thing um it is I know it certainly is yeah um I think I thought it's gone but it was essentially around um it's me going off my tangent again about
um about updates and things so let's talk a little bit about maintaining a site so okay with Squarespace you don't I mean granted you're right you should be updating it's good for SEO it keeps you going out of date but as far as security and those things plugins you're not going to have any issues talk to me a little bit more about that as far as WordPress goes okay yeah so with WordPress you've got the WordPress core you've got themes and you've got plugins and all of them need updated now you could have a plugin that has like a I think coming out maybe on a weekly basis fortnite Lane maybe not as often but it's basically all they work together um to make it obviously work so what I do generally it's like apple you know when Apple anyone has Apple phone and they get like a software update that's exactly how I would sort of describe how the plugin updates work and there are times you might get one and go oh we'll taste like another one tonight because there was a bit of a bug in that so I generally with any update I can try to leave it for a week or two unless it's security I will always update that straight away um but yeah it's very easy I've done um usually just you know obviously one thing and I always say this to my clients make sure you have a backup because there are times when you carry out updates and you've got all these different pieces of software and if there's any issues with another update something might happen but if you backup you just restore and then you can figure out which one caused this you know again that is very very rare um especially the way like I build sites because I build plugins that work really really well together um but you know it can't happen so that is probably the downside as I said earlier but at the same time you know it's very easy to do to keep things updated um in terms of update and obviously as again you were saying updating content is extremely important updating the look of your website and just making sure everything's working
cool so talk about so this is something probably one of the biggest differences between Squarespace and Shopify versus WordPress as well is hosting like yeah it's honestly a world that I don't fully understand because I know in WordPress I know and I know every once in a while something will come up in a group I'm in they'll be like I hate the hosting people I'm with what do I do or a lot of people that are migrating from WordPress or other places have a hosting package and then it's a bit of a nightmare to untangle because usually their email hosting is kind of tied into that but they want to cancel all the other hosting and it's a bit of a nightmare on my end of things to be honest but tell us about hosting because for those of you who don't know Squarespace you don't pay hosting it's all built in okay um well hosting is obviously um you choose a company to basically how you you know hose your website um so you can have your domain and your hosting in one place or you could have your demand separate your email separate on your website Who completely separate as well it is whatever works works for certain people in the likes of me I have actually only started recently um like I have done a lot of posting with people with maintenance and I still do but I've only started my own hosting package which is 99 a year so like that's less than 10 pound a month do you remain you know and that's your website completely hosted and does not put your domain because I believe every person should own their domain and they should not let a web designer purchase your domain because what have you felt like what are they going to business you should always have your own domain but yeah I'll just underline that but then yes so if you don't obviously host with your web designer and you want to go out there my highest recommendation is with siteground they are absolutely fabulous I cannot rate them highly enough they free SSL um the support 24 hours is just incredible um speed wise they're very good your servers they've got obviously servers local to here um the service and yes I think it's like over five continents they have servers in so but I think they're absolutely phenomenal and they have a built-in plugin and you can actually use which helps with optimizing for space which again is brilliant um so yeah I highly recommend them and I think their package is something like 65 pounds for the first year and then 11 and 10 a month after and that's it that's all you pay for your website and then obviously if you have any if you obviously you can pay for this sort of more Pro plugins but generally a lot of people can get about nothing okay cool yeah and obviously Squarespace is gonna like cost difference it is more expensive to use Squarespace Shopify can get extortion if you're yeah because I have clients that are also paying for in-store point of sale systems with them and all sorts and it really can add up um but Squarespace isn't really I'd say that much more expensive but it is more expensive because you're paying for them to have built and do all the maintenance and to do all the security and all of the hosting they're doing all that so it's a little bit more than you having to kind of piece it all together yourself um so I'd say it's really handy if you feel overwhelmed with those things and maybe your diying or your DIY maintaining so like my clients they don't DIY their websites with a DIY maintain maintenance for the most part um and so yeah it's a very different world uh the way we do things it's so like and we've come into it from totally different angles but with very similar reasonings yeah
yeah there's like yeah it's um those are just everybody's out there different things and you know you do find people will prefer different methods as well so oh yeah yeah that's right taste out there for something else oh it is 100 exactly like we would have monopolies if it weren't for people being like I want to do things a different way or this yeah be better exactly all right so I guess the last thing I want to talk about is so this whole series is going to be talking about all the different ways to unlock your website's success and we both know because this is what we do like the core of your business is your website right 100 because it's where your traffic point is how people find you when they search you on Google it's where people it's where your most consistent messaging will be yeah um it's where they're gonna take that next step most likely with you um if you whether that be booking a call or buying your thing or whatever um any other thoughts on your website being your home yeah well let's see it helps save time um I can do a lot for your business uh it can basically you know this is about a thing you know in terms of even all your frequently asked questions your booking systems like it can be an integral part of your like it can basically be your best salesperson 24 hours a day like you will not get a better sales person to ever who works 24 hours a day seven days a week generates another yeah that's basically it you kneel your website you know someone's salary 24 hours a day and you know imagine the time you see of not having to network and that's what I focused on I've focused on it very heavily it's your local market and I will go wider but you know with my SEO I get a lot of people working you know looking for web designers in Belfast and they come on and I'm like I think our galaxy are number one or two at the minute um I get a lot of inquiries through that way and you know it's great you know because they they tend to convert quite well you know the people who come through from Google because that's what they're searching for they want a web designer and they want a web designer in Belfast they find me connect me get in touch with my form and then generally like that's happened quite a few times where I've got a book and within four hours so it is it literally is you 24 hours 24 hours seven days a week sales reaction if you get it right I totally agree yeah I totally agree again like a new obviously know with assistance again and being able to include systems I'm going to include information that time saving you know like have a booking system scheduling like yeah like you know what I mean yeah I think you're totally right having it what I consider your website to be is the front facing place that your systems live it's where they face your clients whether that be yeah and and your system's in my head there's a million of them but yeah that's your customer communication that is your booking system your purchasing system um like all those things that happen in your business to make it move your marketing like your website is the face of all of that yeah it's so Central it's you know people who think who will just pay against we wraps it up maybe no it's like no I know it has to be the most important thing yeah I know that's what this website series is is because I end up with a lot of people um who come to me over the years and not to be rutal and all of them do their homework in advance right and to have your website be the very very best it can be and yes we've talked about websites grow and evolve and they always should and so you don't have to go into a website perfectly like there's no such thing as perfectly anyway but a lot of people come to me and maybe they want their website to be up here but they've done the homework for their website being here and that me they're copywriting their photography their um you know messaging um or you know just other pieces of content um so we are going to be talking about throughout the rest of the series we have a video expert coming on we have a copywriter coming on we have a blogger a podcaster we have marketing experts um talking about all these pieces that make your website really really Thrive and yeah so very excited it's very exciting that's right um definitely a really really good series and I hope people actually watch like you can get really a lot of them because it's really good it's a really good idea um you know it's I think a lot of people you know need to learn a bit more about what actually does you know what benefits I get from their website and what they should be doing because it's not a it's not a tech box it's not I need a website put it up and that's it it's not like that
exactly and when you're a business owner you really have to think so strategically yeah and it can be a really strategic and it should be a really strategic piece of your business 100 yeah and then you've also got you know obviously it was sad about all the benefits but if you're not there what's up term the passive income term you've certain things while you're sleeping on your website you know oh yeah I've done it you know I had um on my YouTube channel maybe two three weeks ago somebody just watched a YouTube video yeah and then immediately the comments in underneath this is exactly what I was looking for and then in my description for all my YouTube videos about Squarespace um there's a thing where it says want some extra help book a link to my here or book a power hour and it's got a link to my power hours she then immediately booked a power hour so I just was like I woke up and I was like oh fun money made in my sleep and of course exactly but that's such an easy win for my business a little bit of extra income a little bit of Education a little bit of helping somebody out and I love love doing it yeah
tell people where they can find you okay right my website is zcmdigital.com for you Americans out there that's zcm digital Zeus and zipper yeah I know I actually was going to do the uh
yeah that's another video but my husband's a hobby pilot and so he's always radioing and you're like yeah anywho very good but yeah
Depending on where you're at in the world yeah and do you have any next steps you'd like people to take blogs or resources or other things yeah well I I do have like I have a full blog section on my website which contains a lot of website tips um and there's a lot there from hosting to SEO to content to design and it's all in there within there's certain areas so you just click and basically learn I like to turn it up I love that I love a good system and I love a good I love how I think the thing about good website design and most people don't know that this is what is good website design when you're just an average user but yeah it's not that it's just it's pretty it's that it's easy to use, easy to access like it's accessible right yeah so exactly making all that all of that content all of that data really well structured and easy to access it's like it's an art and I love it it's one thing I love to it's getting that right okay well thank you so so much for coming along on the podcast and such and I'll share everything with you in it yeah I'm very excited I'm very happy I was your first guest!
