It's Not About The Money

Business website design, with James Hagen
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[00:00:00] Steve: Hello there, dear listener. I am Steve.

[00:00:09] Tyler: And I'm Tyler and welcome to another episode of It's Not About The Money, the podcast where we help you gain the clarity you need to run a successful small business.

[00:00:17] Steve: Tyler has a financial coaching practice. I run a tax business and we are both small business owners like you. This podcast is our exploration of entrepreneurship one episode at a time. And this is today going to be probably the last episode in our series, The Many Hats of an Entrepreneur.

We might do more interviews later, but this is, this is the last one for now. Um, and so we've talked about aspects of the business where you might not be the expert, but you still have to do it, you know, marketing, IT, sales and finance. And today we are excited to welcome James Hagen to the show.

[00:00:52] James: Hey, happy to be here. Thanks.

[00:00:54] Tyler: Hey, James. James is a, is a web designer who helps businesses [00:01:00] bring their branding to life and engage their customers. He's worked with companies of many sizes and enjoys the whole design process from branding to user experience to the customer journeys. And an interesting tidbit is that Steve recently hired James to redesign his website, DaybreakTax.Com which is built on Webflow.

[00:01:20] Steve: And it is a very nice website. I'm very happy with it so far. Thank you, James.

[00:01:25] James: You're so welcome. Anytime. Happy.

[00:01:28] Steve: Well, glad to have you on here. So like back in episode 47, we interviewed Juliana Weiss-Roessler about marketing. And two of the things that stood out to me in that conversation were like, one, how important it is to have a website, even if it's just a simple one to like validate to potential buyers that you're legit, like you exist.

Uh, you're not just some guy. Uh, pretending to have a business, but, uh, two, the, the overarching importance of like the business strategy and the marketing strategy in the decisions you [00:02:00] make and the direction you pursue with your marketing. So it doesn't, you can't just say, uh, I'm going to run some ads.

I'm going to build a website. I'm going to, uh, do, uh, mail flyers or something like you, you've got to have a strategy where to, to know how those things are going to fit in and how you'll know if they're working and how you know which customers you're targeting and not targeting. Anyway, so I'm excited to talk to you, uh, about the, the website piece specifically and how it kind of fits into that whole picture.

Cause I know you do some of kind of all of it from what I've heard.

Tyler is a tinkerer, and James suggests using data to guide the tinkering
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[00:02:33] James: Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited too. I think that there's just so much, that can easily be bogged down with websites and I think my heart goes out to, entrepreneurs and small business. owners because I mean, you say the word code and it's like, it's almost like people walk into like a spider web, you know, it's like this horrible thing.

So, yeah, I'm excited to hopefully demystify it, simplify it. So it's, just some, [00:03:00] some easy ways to kind of move forward with it.

[00:03:02] Tyler: Well, you mentioned bogged down. I feel like I have a tendency to get bogged down in the website because I'm a little bit of a tinkerer and a little bit of a nerd, you know, I'm not a designer or a web developer, but I think that I am. And so for me, it's almost more fun to play with making a website than actually.

Doing the rest of the business work. So I don't know. I don't know if that's, um, something you've encountered before people like me or in what you tell them, but just, I'm just kind of coming out as that right now at the beginning of the conversation, because I have like wasted countless hours of my life tinkering with my, my business website when I probably could have been, uh, growing the business.

[00:03:42] James: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And I'm so glad you I think, actually that's kind of how I got into this. It was just being that kind of myself. And then I wanted to, just for these things to make a difference. And so I, I think that's really what it comes down to is, um, [00:04:00] Kind of just being brutally honest with yourself of like, okay, is this moving the needle?

Is this actually going to make a difference? Does this help my persona or kind of my tribe? However you want to do that kind of like brand strategy piece. Does it fit that, you know, and does it, does it fall into them? Does it serve that, that audience? Does it help them discover something new about my product?

Um, and I think it's easy to kind of, you know, Convince yourself that it somehow will, you know, this like really cool graphic or, or something like that will, but, more often than not, it's kind of the 80 20 principle where you're like, 20% of this is really gonna hit home and 80% of this that I'm spending time on.

It's just kind of, kind of go way over their heads. They're going to scroll past it so quick. and that's one thing that's blown me away is, the stats are different on every website. But most folks won't scroll past much more than the hero. It's like [00:05:00] 50 to 70 percent won't scroll past, you know, like.

Just maybe 20 percent past the hero. And so it's like, you know, they won't swear or half the page, I should say. and so that's just pretty wild to me. How quickly we're just sorting through data. We're constantly trying to, you know, get what we need. So I think if you're a tinker, I think what I would encourage is I would say, that's great.

Let's find some data so that we can help integrate that in. And we would say, let's give you some, cause then you're like, Oh, I need a tinker. On a page? Cool, let's do the one that has the highest bounce rate. Let's tinker on that page and see if we can get it up a little bit. So that's how I would approach it.

If I, we're working with you, I tried, cause I'm like, I know you're not going to change, you know, that's like probably what you do to blow off stress or something, you know, it's like,

[00:05:50] Tyler: Oh, wow. I feel very seen right now. So thank you. funny. Well, you know, I had a similar realization. So this, this, my current, uh, [00:06:00] business, the, the coaching practice that I have, it was kind of the first time where I made a website with a, with a purpose in mind, a lot of the stuff I did in the past, which is like, I enjoyed billing websites and I wish that I had something to put on them.

Kind of. Um, and so I found out pretty quickly that, yeah, I basically, the only thing that mattered was the landing page for where most of my traffic was coming from. And then everything else I could kind of just, I don't know, mess around with when I felt like it. But, but that's where, that's what people were seeing.

So,

[00:06:26] James: Yeah, that's a big part. Kind of web strategy in general, like a good basic thing that, I think is good to share here is like, There's the main website, you know, that's your brochure site. That whatever reason that you make that for, typically it starts off with, I want it to be real. I want people to know that this is real.

That's kind of the first step where I want a way to, for people to contact me, whatever it is. And then you have landing pages. And typically the way that I talk about a landing page, that's what you run ads to. [00:07:00] That's what you have. That's going to be some sort of like squeeze page, some sort of way that you're kind of do that.

So it's really helpful to kind of talk about those two things. Kind of differently because then you treat them differently, really. I mean, they typically have different navigation, like all those, it's just a different strategy. So yeah, it's a, that's a good point too. You got to think about those things differently and the way you treat a page when you run ads to it is, is very different than when you're not, Hopefully, um, because the ads are going to be more effective if you're kind of taking it seriously and helping people focus in and kind of stripping away some of the, distractions.

Empathy: Understanding your buyer
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[00:07:38] Tyler: So, so what kind of questions would you ask a client when you're crafting a website strategy for them?

[00:07:45] James: lot of it is like, you know, who, who's. Who's your buyer persona? Who's your client, customer? You know, what are they, what are they like? What are they not like? Kind of trying to get the world of [00:08:00] them. And for me, I like to use empathy to try and really get to the problem that they're experiencing. And that's what you really want to distill down.

And you want to put that in In the very front first section of the website. And, that's what I'm distilling down. So, so I would say, who's the persona, you know, like, who are you working with? And then, a lot of it's going to be just competitors trying to get the world that they're in, because sometimes, I might not have a background where I understand, like I just worked with a real estate company.

They sell to realtors. There was so much I didn't understand about that. Like that's a whole different world. So I had to ask a ton more follow up questions just so I felt like I understood what it was like to buy from them and like, you know, what the friction was or, or why somebody would come to their site.

So for me, it's [00:09:00] almost like an acting exercise,

[00:09:01] Tyler: Oh, that's interesting.

[00:09:03] James: but, uh, I just try and understand, what that person's feeling when they come to the, the page and, and what it's like for them and, and take my best shot at it because, you know, everyone's gonna be different, but, yeah, so those are kind of probably the two main ones, but with the competitors, I try and take it with a grain of salt.

I'll say that some people lean on it a little too much. the reason I ask about competitors is mostly because I want to understand if they're shopping around, what else they're experiencing and what other, is there some sort of, like, if we create a new, way to talk about the navigation, say, I don't want them to come to, You know, our site and then it's like, wait, what are they saying?

What does, I just want to know where the resources in the blog are, you know, like, I don't want to know like the learning train or something, you know, like, what does that mean? You know, like we don't want to create a new, I, you know, kind of infrastructure, that people aren't familiar with. So we want to [00:10:00] try and stick to that, as much as possible.

So yeah, those are kind of some of the main things, trying to get the pain points and, uh, competitors.

Web design trends and home renovations
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[00:10:10] Steve: That's interesting that you mentioned, uh, competitors and, and seeing like what, from the lens of empathy, what are the customers who are going to land here? What else are they seeing? And that, uh, made me think of about web design trends, like generally. how often do they change? How important is it to stay on top of those?

How do you like strike the balance between, uh, you want to be, keep up with the trends, but you also want to be timeless, or you want to look, you know, Enough like the competitor sites that the customer can understand what's going on, but not so much that you look like a carbon copy or just, you're just another one of the competition.

You want to stand out somehow.

[00:10:50] James: I think it really helps. To think about for me, like the iPhone or, even Google, like there'll be big, reveals of a new [00:11:00] UI that they'll have. And some people will be like, Oh, we hate it or we love it. But that's like every like two, three years, something like that.

And so that's a kind of a good way to kind of think about it. Like a lot of these trends are from those companies. They're kind of setting the tone and then there's kind of a ripple effect from there. And so, if you're, you know, 10 years behind, which I find a lot of companies are, they're like, we did it like eight, 10 years ago.

And you're like, I know, I know you, that's, that's very apparent. Um, so that's where you want to just, Realize that it's, you're going to have to cycle through that, a little faster and probably like three to four years is a good time to do a redesign. And part of what's going to work about that and to keep it timeless is when you focus on like typography isn't going to change that much in your brand.

You know, the fonts that you use. That's going to stay pretty much the same. You could change it a little bit. but most of the time it's a pain to [00:12:00] do that because then you have to get new business cards and all that, but colors, you know, you can kind of adjust the colors a little bit. you'd like for everything to stay exactly the same, but. I like to think of it almost like a house. Like you have, when you design a room where you're kind of putting together a living room or something, you have an accent pillow. And so you have to think about that's not 50 percent of the living room.

That's like 10 percent of the living room. You know, you have that one accent pillow or that one chair. So that's where you can kind of go bananas and you can get into these trends and get, you know, have fun. Um, but the rest of the time you're going to kind of be sticking to, the tried and true. Just good user experience.

Kind of know where everything is. If that's true to your brand, some brands are like, forget that. We're going to do something crazy because that's on brand for us. It's like, okay, that's great. But if you're not Richard Branson, you know, you're going to have to, you know, kind of do something else which is a little bit more, kind of in line with, you [00:13:00] know, most small business owners.

They're, they're like, I don't have time to reinvent the wheel here. Let's, let's get you a simple site that's going to work and, uh, maybe just put a little bit of flair in there. That kind of works.

[00:13:14] Steve: I like that house analogy. Like you can change up the furniture, you can repaint the walls, you can, but you, you don't need an entirely new kitchen necessarily every, every two years. You know, if your, if your kitchen is 50 years old, that's going to be very obvious when a buyer comes through the house, like this, this kitchen needs to be replaced.

But if it, you know, If, if everything else has been kind of keeping up with, I don't know what I'm trying to say, but anyway, I like the analogy.

[00:13:38] James: No, I think, I think that the only thing about a house analogy that breaks down is, which actually, I don't know, for me, I think it's helpful. You build a house for yourself. This, you're building a website and it's representing you, but you're actually building it for like an unlimited. I mean, [00:14:00] not infinite, 8 billion people.

That's how much you're paying for anybody that's on the web. But, you know, that's who you're building it for. So with that, it's almost like, You kind of think about, you take those basic design principles of how we design a house, and then you kind of flip it on its head in that sense. And then you're not just setting and forgetting it. You're constantly having to change it because your audience is changing as it's, as your business is growing and changing as well. So that's kind of another aspect to it that I feel like is just different from what we experience in our daily life. Everything is physical, but in the digital world, we're connected to so many other people.

So it has to change and evolve.

[00:14:42] Steve: That's a really good point. Like the, the audience for the website is not me, even though I'm the one paying for the design. Like if, if I like it, that's fine. But, uh, it, it really doesn't matter whether I like it. It's whether my potential clients like it and are persuaded by it.[00:15:00]

[00:15:00] James: Yeah. And you might not even know how people are using your, your website, you know? Um, I mean, it's almost like you plan this perfect party, you know, and you have a bunch of people that come over and you're like, Oh my gosh. My wife's having a baby or something like that. And you have to go and you leave. And then later you're like asking people, well, what happened? And they're telling you, well, yeah, there was this, you know, in the board game room, everyone was like spending time in there and you're like, it was the risk, everyone was playing risk. And maybe it wasn't, maybe you threw a couple of kiddie you know, games like Candyland in the corner and they were, they were all excited about that.

And so it's like, the analogy is kind of that, but really it's, Accessibility, you know, maybe people are using your site with a screen reader. You don't know, exactly how they're using it. So one that's where analytics is helpful, but at the same time, we don't know everything and how people are using our sites.

We want to make sure that we cover those bases of making sure as good contrast ratios where people [00:16:00] can see really well, maybe because they're colorblind, like that's, you know, a good percentage of the population. So we have to just be. You know, thinking about those things, because we don't know.

Tools and platforms for a DIY website
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[00:16:14] Tyler: So this is a podcast and, uh, we're not sponsored or anything, but if we were, there's a chance it'd be sponsored by something like Squarespace. I don't know if you see, you hear those ads all over the place. Right. So I, I guess, for someone who's just getting started, like maybe they've launched a business, um, and they realize that they need a website.

What are your recommendations for someone to just get up like the minimum viable product, like a basic website. If they're not ready to like work with or hire a designer just yet, or should they just start with hiring a designer? I mean, what, what are your thoughts there?

[00:16:50] James: Um, I usually, I think budget is, you know, the most important thing. And doing it works for the budget is [00:17:00] paramount. I think that's really everything. So I usually recommend some kind of builder to start off. Squarespace and Wix are good. They have pros and cons. Wix is, it's not, it's not quite as bogged down as Squarespace can get. And that's the hard part about when you have a builder that has all these nice bells and whistles, it can get bogged down. And so. you want to try and simplify it. And then when you simplify it and it's being too technical. So it's like this really frustrating graph for people.

Um, so I usually tell my friends and family, I'm like, Hey, I'm, you know, I'd be happy to do work with you or whatever. And they're like, wow, um, that's great. I'm like, well, this is the price. And they're like, oh, okay. Um, do you have anything for free or, you know, whatever it is. And not really, but, I always just tell people the most important thing is getting it done.

So that's one. And then the second is really [00:18:00] budget. And so you're probably going to get it done cause you're a driven person. The budget is going to be, you know, you got to work with what you got. So Squarespace and Wix are great. I always say important thing is to make sure you compress your images.

If you don't know what that is, go to tinypng.com. I think it is. And, um, you know, you can compress your images there. and just make sure your images are compressed, that, that you're putting alt text in your images, if anywhere possible. You just want to make it an experience where, like I said, if there's somebody else that's using a screen reader, you want to make that experience well, do a good job for them.

And I think a lot of that kind of dovetails into SEO because When you have a really good user experience. You're giving high quality content that they're, that people are looking for. And the search engine sees that and it rewards that by giving you more [00:19:00] traffic. So if you're, you know, filling in all the information that you possibly can in that Squarespace site, that's just going to give you a good foundation.

you know, and then, and then typically when you can kind of save up or be in a space where, you know, like. All right, I need some help now. Then, then you do that. And sometimes that's really early on. I've had some, clients or people I know that are like, I'm lost. I, this isn't working for me. You know, like I need help.

and that's, that's huge too. I think that that's one of the best things you can do is not getting lost in something that maybe isn't your strength. and, and getting help then too. So I know that's kind of a, it depends answer.

[00:19:42] Tyler: Well, we like those around here.

[00:19:43] Steve: we love that answer on this show.

[00:19:45] Tyler: I mean, it's true. Right. I think, I think you're, you're calling out the budget is, ,Probably the most important thing, right? Because, you know, it's kind of like, something I experienced early on with how to get. You know, I could either [00:20:00] try to grow traffic organically through like being really involved in social media, or I could pay to run ads and drive traffic that way.

It's kind of like a trade time for money. or, you know, quality for like, I might not be able to produce a quality ad, whatever, whatever. I, this, this is that same thing basically. Right. It's like. If you've got the money to pay somebody to do it for you, someone who knows what they're doing, who's going to be able to do it quick, even if you're not ordering the deluxe package, maybe it's just a simple landing page, but they can make it look great and perform snappily.

[00:20:31] James: Yeah,

What does all this cost?
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[00:20:32] Tyler: Um, yeah, I, I think that's it. Speaking of that, like, are, are, is it common to have different like price points for this too? Like if, if someone's like just getting started and they just need a simple website versus like something with a content management system, like a blog and on all the trappings and SEO, like what are the different levels to that?

[00:20:53] James: it's all over the place. And, and just like freelancers and agencies, the pricing is, it's [00:21:00] like all over the place. Um, I've, yeah, I've worked on so many projects where I'm like, I find out how big the budget is. And I'm like, that's ginormous. and then by the time we're done, I'm like, That took so much time that it makes, I'm glad the budget was so big.

so, and then I've worked on projects where, you know, it was like a week turnaround. I'm like, great. I'm glad we knocked that out of the park for you. So, I think it, it, it really just depends on what you need. I will say that one of the hardest parts about, working with small business owners or entrepreneurs is they A lot of times it'll be like, I just need a little bit.

And then like halfway through the project, they're like, wouldn't it be great if this, I'm like, absolutely. It'd be great if that, do you want to do that? And they're like, yeah, I think so. And so it ends up kind of turning into something bigger. So I think that's where it's like having a written strategy and kind of sticking to it, can really help because, scope creep is definitely a thing.

Just, [00:22:00] projects, ballooning, is a thing, you know, cause I think once you're kind of get creative and you get, you know, your juices going, um, it's,

[00:22:07] Tyler: Once you see, start to see what's possible, right? You get kind of excited, like, Ooh, what if we do this? Yeah, that, that makes sense. That's a, it's a very common complaint I've heard from designers in all areas over the years is, is, you know, change orders basically. Am I the designer or is the client, the designer here?

Come on, what's going on? But yeah.

[00:22:28] James: um, I landed with, um, building in Webflow, the platform, because I'm able to do pretty much anything in a pretty, uh, without doing a ton of code. And, when a client asks for something, I'm like, I haven't done that before, but I know that there's a couple of ways to do it.

Let me investigate and I'll go back to you. And able to figure out some ways around things that, um, like a portfolio where you can click the tags and filter and do all those sorts of things a few months ago. Not sure how to do that, but I was able to, uh, [00:23:00] um, do it in Webflow. Works great. Um, so, and that was really a huge plus for the client.

Cause they do some big kind of like architectural, design construction projects, and so to have just a portfolio that people can easily go through is, is really helpful. So I think it's one of those things where, just try and be honest with yourself. No, one's perfect. You know, you get it, you get a house and then immediately you're like, I know we just got the house.

Wouldn't it be great if we put a deck out there? You know, it's like how it's how brains work. I get it. Um, but I think it's, you know, try and be honest with yourself because it's going to, um, it's going to make decision process and, just making sure we can get the project done for you faster, really.

[00:23:43] Tyler: Yeah. That makes sense. Well, and that goes back to what Steve said earlier. It's like, it's really important to understand what, where your website sits inside of your overall marketing strategy, right? Because if you're going hard in on SEO, that's one thing you're definitely, definitely need going to need like a blog, [00:24:00] which means you're gonna need a content management system.

If you're just, you know, one of those, social media, Twitter people that's driving traffic to a single landing page, maybe you just need a single landing page. I mean, it's, it's all going to depend. on what you're after. So,

[00:24:13] James: Yeah, totally does. Everyone has their own opinion. And I feel like that lines up with branding too, where it's like, is it on brand or is it off brand? You know, what, what exactly are we trying to accomplish? Are we trying to make a splash or is it something where you're like, I'm here to serve? I mean, those are totally different, you know, a market disruptor versus somebody that's, you know, like more in like a Chick fil A brand or something, you know, like those are very different.

So.

Webflow
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[00:24:43] Tyler: so I have to say, uh, I'm tickled at the mention of Webflow. That's where I landed eventually after years of trying everything from Blogger, WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, all the, all, you know, you name it. And pretty much for the same reason that you said is you can pretty much do anything without, you know, [00:25:00] Hardly any code, basically.

It's a WYSIWYG editor, basically. And, uh, anyway, I, uh, wish that I had the design chops to go along with my love for Webflow, but hey, that's cool. And so when Steve told me that, uh, you used Webflow to design his website, I was just so happy.

[00:25:18] James: Yeah, I think, I talked about the curve before and there's a design, an old design book that I have and talks about, usability engineering. And it talks about how it's for software basically, but it's like how difficult it is basically to use versus like how, what you can do with it. And it's like this graph that just, is a perfect example of like Squarespace where it's like you could do so many things with it, but the balance of that is that it's a little bit slower and, that it's not quite as customizable

and then Webflow is kind of on the other end where there's kind of a steep learning curve, but once you get in there, You're able to do pretty much whatever you want. And [00:26:00] for me, that was huge because I just got tired of saying like, I can't do that in this platform or there's not a good plugin yet, you know, or something like that.

And basically telling clients, no, wasn't my favorite thing, because I'm like, that would be so valuable, you know, to do like a quiz or something like that, that, you know, or it would take so long, you know, to hire a developer to do that. And I'm like, That's brutal. let's see if we can, speed that up and, and make it a valuable user experience.

[00:26:34] Tyler: Yeah, I agree. It's, uh, it's been a steep learning curve. I, I wouldn't, you know. Like I said, I'm a tinkerer. So if anyone listening to this is a small business owner that just wants a website, I'm not saying go use Webflow unless you know, you know, uh, either know how to use it or know some basic HTML and CSS concepts and things, but, but, uh,

[00:26:55] Steve: If you have that, that knowledge and the propensity for it, they do have a lot [00:27:00] of good, like, tutorials and,

[00:27:01] Tyler: Oh, so good.

[00:27:02] Steve: uh, on Webflow, but, but yeah, it's probably not, like, a great entry level starting point if you've never done something like this before.

[00:27:09] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:27:10] James: I would say, um, if you've like, maybe you took a HTML class and like high school or something like that, you know, that's a, then. Sure. but another platform that is doing really well is called Framer. that's one you can look into as well. They have a, like an AI, prompt, so you can try that out. Um, that's another one that I would, that I would recommend.

Framer's a little bit more simple, but it's also geared more towards designers.

[00:27:43] Tyler: Uh huh. Hmm.

[00:27:45] James: um, really good designers that are, are using that right now. I've done a lot of work in WordPress and, um, wordpress. org, and I think it can be really good, the trouble is that it's really [00:28:00] complex because you kind of have to put all the pieces together because it's open source. And so I had a lot of clients that would be like, Oh, our website's down or, or something like that. And I'm like, to me, that's the last thing that you need as a small business owner, you know, to worry about, I have to update my plugins or whatever. And it's not a huge deal to do that. But, when I've been there, if there's a plugin that I don't know, I'm like, I don't know about this.

You know, I'm not sure. so there's just some of the unknowns there that take time to, to learn. So that's where, like a Wix or a Squarespace, I usually recommend, because it's kind of less fuss. Um,

[00:28:38] Steve: You're paying someone to maintain the platform for you, whether, uh, WordPress is like you, every time you have to update a plugin, you run the risk of it breaking your layout or your database or something that you just never kind of know.

[00:28:53] James: yeah. And you have to think about like hosting and,

um, and that whole thing. And. Yeah. I remember when I [00:29:00] first started making websites, it was WordPress. And I had my friend who was a developer helped me out with all the backend stuff. Cause I was like, I don't know all that stuff. And where does it, I'm a designer.

I can't touch that stuff. Later I learned to code and I'm like, it's not that hard. Um, but you know, it does, it takes time, you know? And I think that's the thing. It's like, you don't need to spend time doing that. Um, in my opinion, I think unless it's something you enjoy and then of course you enjoy it, you should, you know,

[00:29:30] Tyler: It's going to happen anyway, even if you're up until three in the morning, just trying to make your design work. So,

Speaking for a friend.

[00:29:39] James: hypothetically.

[00:29:40] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:29:41] Steve: Uh huh.

[00:29:41] Tyler: Um,

[00:29:45] James: platforms. I know Wix, ,does, it's a little bit closer to the code. So that's one thing as far as like speed and, and whatnot. and I haven't looked at this for a couple of years because I've been like, [00:30:00] Webflow spits out really clean semantic code, so you don't have to worry about it.

but I know Wix, I think it has something that's like really closely based off JavaScript. So it's just a little bit cleaner, and that doesn't really mean anything to anybody unless you care. Except for speed. And speed is really important to SEO. so that's another thing. You really want to make sure that your sites and so that's kind of another, balancing act that you have to decide what's most important to you and where your skills lie.

, so that's where, ,if you do have a little bit experience and you're comfortable, I would say, a Webflow would be good. or if you've used WordPress, you love it, use that. but. Usually I steer people to a Wix or a Squarespace that are like, this is overwhelming. I'm like, if they say overwhelming, I'm like, just go to squarespace.

com.

[00:30:52] Tyler: yep. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yep. I, uh, I've done so many SquareSpace free trials [00:31:00] myself after a long Webflow session, but anyway, sorry, this is not a therapy session for me, but, uh, I'm like, you know what, maybe I should just go to SquareSpace, like, you know, this is, I've spent way too much time on this.

Maybe I should just go to SquareSpace, but I can't, I can't. So,

Website analytics
---

[00:31:16] James: would say one thing that's surprising to me, no matter what platform, people use, I find that, I'm more surprised at either they don't have analytics or they don't regularly check the analytics. Or try to figure out what they mean. And the coolest part is now we have AI and you can just download your Google Analytics.

Like snapshot for the last like three months, upload it to AI, like Claude or chatGPT and say, which pages should I focus on, it's not going to tell you exactly what's, you know, everything about it, [00:32:00] but that's a good place to start, you know, you could just say, You know, what pages should I focus on? Or kind of what, what are my problem areas on my website?

And it might say, Hey, this has a really low, or a really high bounce rate. So let's focus on that, you know, and, and then you just kind of have a plan of attack. You could say, okay, this landing page is not, you know, performing very well, or the about page is, like has a super high bounce rate until you go to the about page, you start to investigate it, and, and kind of get an idea of that.

So that's one thing that can be really

[00:32:35] Tyler: Wow. That is a cool idea, actually.

[00:32:38] James: Yeah.

[00:32:39] Tyler: Thanks for sharing that.

[00:32:40] James: Yeah. You're so welcome.

[00:32:42] Tyler: Cause I I, definitely, you know, I've installed, you know, I've got analytics on my website, but often I'll just like log in and stare at it and be like, okay, numbers,

[00:32:51] James: Yes, I personally am not a huge fan of Google Analytics. I've used it for years.

Um, there's one that [00:33:00] I, just started using called Fathom.

and I really like it. It's just like super simple. and, they're really big into privacy. so I just, it feels kind of like the right thing to do. So, really enjoyed that experience.

So I would say if you are kind of like, this is a bunch of numbers that don't mean a lot to me. or just the UI is confusing. Cause I, I found that, and, Google Analytics 4 I was like, this is not super intuitive, there's just a lot of like user journeys and stuff. I'm like, I, that's not how I imagined that looking, but okay.

Um, and so, uh, and that's great. I'm sure it works for some people, but yeah, that's where I'm like. There's enough platforms out there. We can all figure out something that works for us. Um, but Fathom has been, uh, really helpful for me.

[00:33:46] Tyler: I want to check that out.

[00:33:50] James: and, uh, the other one that's really good for if you want to have kind of You could see like heat maps and things like that is [00:34:00] a lucky orange or hot jar. Those are my two favorite. Um, but having those on your site, it can just do some recordings, and, heat mapping and just see how people are using the site.

And you could see what percentage people are scrolling down your site because things like that are super eyeopening. You're like, we spent. How long on the section that's two thirds down, you know, the way on the homepage and like 90 percent of people don't make it that far. And I'm not really exaggerating.

A lot of times it's like 70, 80, 90 percent of people, of the traffic, don't make it to that because you have all these other places for them to kind of offshoot onto or to kind of investigate. So it's just really helpful. also almost like from a budget time, you know, point of view to get an idea of what's working, what's not working, where do we kind of, , double down or where do we pull back?

Don't forget about the cookies
---

[00:34:54] Tyler: That's helpful. So just to kind of summarize what I think, what I've kind of taken away from our [00:35:00] conversation so far is that, uh, everyone who's in business needs a website, what kind and how much you spend on it and how you design it will depend on your budget and your goals, obviously. Um, let's see, what else?

Um, If you're technically minded, you know, there's platforms out there for you, like Webflow that give you more complete control at the cost of more to figure out, and if you're just getting started and want to do it yourself and you don't have familiarity, you could look at other platforms like Wix or Squarespace that have kind of easier, learning curves. We miss anything or, James, did we miss, did we fail to ask you any questions that you were dying for us to ask you?

[00:35:44] James: I will say one thing that's almost always forgotten and I'm sure, it's a kind of afterthought for most people is, privacy policy and, cookie policy pages, or even just having, That'd be something that you think through. [00:36:00] but it's important and it's something that you need to kind of at least wrap your head around enough to where you can, have some sort of, something in place.

so. I'm not a legal expert by any means. but it's definitely something that, almost every web project I've, I've been on. somebody at that, you know, would be like, I don't really know what do you guys do? And I'm like, I am not your lawyer. Um, I do not, don't, don't put me in that position. Um, cause if you get sued, then basically I get sued.

Um, so, It's one of those things where, it's totally fine to ask that, but I always just joke. I'm like, I'm not your lawyer.

[00:36:41] Steve: right. As always, nothing on this podcast is legal or tax advice. So consult your own professionals, but yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Like that's a, an important thing to consider. Make sure you have your bases covered there.

[00:36:56] James: there's lots of options for that. I would [00:37:00] say one that I've heard really good things about is Termageddon. That's another resource. Um, that's kind

[00:37:06] Tyler: that's a resource. I thought it was like a jargon term for this, but okay.

That's cool.

[00:37:12] James: Termageddon, it's a website. They actually update. So based on like you fill out, um, you know, your, your preferences, what you are tracking or what you're, you know, your analytics are tracking. And then it, it's basically spits out, um, out your, um, your, um, your, um, your policies, and then you're able to embed those on your site.

And then they'll auto update based on your location and some of the new laws that are passed and make sure that you're up to date, which is great because, um, you never know when something like that, could put you in a position that you don't want to be in. So sorry to, to say that for the last one, it's like not a very fun one.

So back to branding, I'm just kidding.

[00:37:55] Tyler: Colors, colors and fonts. Yeah.

[00:37:59] James: Yeah, [00:38:00] but it's still important and, um, yeah, think about the cookies. Cookies are, are always there and, um, they don't want to be forgotten.

[00:38:12] Tyler: Well, thanks, James, for joining us today to talk about websites. One of my personal favorite topics. It's nice to get your expertise.

[00:38:20] James: Yeah, thanks for having me, y'all. I really appreciate

[00:38:23] Steve: we got a whole litany of, uh, tools to link in the show notes as well. So that's lots of interesting things to explore if this piques your interest. So yeah, thanks James. We appreciate you coming on.

[00:38:37] James: Yeah, happy to.

[00:38:38] Steve: If folks want to get in touch with you, uh, where can they find you online?

[00:38:45] James: Yes. You can go to James Hagen. design is my website. Yes. dot design is a website. and it's James, H-A-G-E-N Design. And then, yeah, [00:39:00] my email's on there and we can connect and, um, and figure out where you're at. And, um, maybe I might steer you back to Wix or Squarespace, or maybe we might make something awesome together.

You don't know.

[00:39:13] Steve: Okay, perfect. . And thanks everybody for listening. We will see you again on another episode of It's Not About The Money.