How to build your online presence or “home on the web”?
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Thanks to Wix.com for sponsoring The Bunker Project. Wix.com is the #1 platform in the world for creating websites online. The easiest way to create your own cool looking website.
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The Bunker Project: Episode 55 Show Notes
We start off the show with a baby crying in the background… our youngest member of the Bunker Project… the Boob Maven. He loves boobs! Check out his cool new shirt…
We have a full house in our back room at “The Den” at the Barclay Hotel in Vancouver, BC.
14.3 people are here for the show…
And todays topic is how to build your own online presence or home on the web!
We talk about the big conference in Whistler where Arik, Bob, Bonnie and Marylnn all attended and learned a lot… Actually Arik hosted the show which was put on by Wix.com.
Bob talks about the value of attending seminars and workshops.
Bonnie talks about what she got out of the all day seminar… the people she met and what she learned.
The Hat Maven makes a joke about how expensive it is to get started building a website with Wix.com.
Bob makes a joke about sea men websites…
Marlynn talks about the engagement level and practical topics that were covered. She made a facebook page and is building two websites this week using Wix.com.
Arik said the party will be better next time…
Margaret joins us on the google plus hangout and talks about her experience at the conference.
Satomi really enjoyed the seminar because the people are friendly and she finally launched her website!
Andrew asks what topics were covered at the seminar…
Small business owners learn how easy it is to get started on their own.
Web design… Social Media… Mobile Sites…
Bob learned a little more about SEO at the seminar… especially tagging images.
Hat Maven (Kurt) wants to talk about the other side of the coin…
Sometimes keywords are not always obvious…
Bob says Wix.com is great for small businesses to get started if they don’t have a big budget to hire a developer and possibly in the future if their business expands they could go to a professional developer. Andrew agrees… he says that Wix.com is great for the business owner that is hands on and the professional developer is a better option for a bigger organization that doesn’t have a staff member who can handle the website…
Maryln says a lot of SMB owners are “stuck on start” and they don’t feel confident to deal with a professional because they don’t understand the language and they are not empowered enough to do it themselves.
Kurt says they are dealing with bad designers if that is the case. He explains how the industry has changed over the years.
Arik says the beauty of creating a website helps you to focus on what is important in your business. A website is similar to a business plan… and by coming up with the content and design of your website you are forced to focus.
Astrid asks how to discern the difference between a true professional and someone who does not know what they are they doing.
Ian brings up a good point about best use of your time… he hired someone for his website because he needs to spend his time selling.
Bob talks about integrity and personality… he uses a good analogy to make a point about how the client doesn’t always know what they really need.
Ian believes starting with a free model like Wix.com is a great first step with your first website. You’ll learn a lot about the process.
Kurt (Hat Maven) says that there is a difference of opinion in the room tonight… with himself representing the professional developer and Arik representing Wix.com. Arik says “you mean the forces of good”. Wix.com is a very easy system to use… it is even easier for Kurts clients because they don’t have to do anything! But Kurt says for the hands on, creative business owner Wix.com is a good option.
Kurt says the biggest delay in building a website is the content for the website being ready. Kurt and Arik agree on this point.
Kurt says black beer is a good way to get the content out of his clients head…
Maryln talks about a book “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” and Wix represents this idea.
Ian says Just Do It!
Arik says five years ago we wouldn’t be talking building a website ourselves because there wasn’t a platform like Wix.com. James ( Game Maven ) makes a point about GeoCities and site builder and other crappy website builders of the past which drove people to call developers…
Bob asks the Mavens what other platforms people can use to build a site…
He asks if anyone has used Google Pages…
James brings up Google Places… we debate this one.
Astrid brings up Microsoft Office Live
Kurt brings up Front Page and iWeb
Andrew brings up Square Space
Someone brings up WordPress…
Andrew says there are tons of platforms like posterous, tumbler, blogger, wordpress.com, wordpress.org, etc.
Kurt says a lot of these platforms are more Social Media related and are not the best choice for a business to use. It is about the marketing and the SEO of the site.
Kurt believes wordpress is not the platform to get good SEO from… He tested the framework and applications of wordpress which didn’t measure up to Joomla and other platforms.
Big disagreement from our New Maven, Rayhad (wordpress maven maybe). He says that Matt Cut from google has said if your using wordpress your on the right track. The gloves are off… he says it is very good for SEO… and advises Kurt to take another look at WordPress.
Arik likes the drag and drop functionality of Wix.com and the SEO keyword tool which is built into Wix.com.
Bonnie brings up a good point about how a website isn’t only getting traffic from SEO anymore… Social Media is huge for generating traffic.
Astrid asks about the creative and visual side of designing a website… She believes Wix.com has some great visual effects. Bob says you have to have eye candy…
Kurt says 90% of the traffic will drive the rank of the website and 10% will buy something… you still need the 90%. Margaret (on Google plus hangout) brings up a good video by Jason Bax…. video below)
Ian says the biggest mistake people make is that we forget that at the end of the day we have to sell something. And the false belief that technology will close deals… at the end of the day a person has to be involve to make the sale! Andrew says it is like the blogger who constantly spends all his time tweaking his theme but never writes a post…
Bob talks about classic marketing – got to be consistent. Sales, communications, graphics, etc.
Bob says you can’t forget about the why? He says all businesses… big or small have the same functions… but the solopreneur does it all alone.
Andrew loves the mobile sites that you can activate on your Wix.com site…
We talk about pictures on your website and how not to get in trouble by using copyrighted images without permission… this can be very tricky.
We talk about what we are going to be talking about next week… and the closing music starts.
The show is over! See you next week…
Check out Andrew’s new Wix.com page at www.andrewmcgivern.com.
Thanks for listening to the show!
See you next week… same Bunker Time, same Bunker station.
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