Today’s Podcast 001 Questions and Answers with Teena Hughes
I’m kickstarting my new Podcast today with 3 questions from clients about a great range of website and business-related topics.
Transcript of Podcast 001
Feb 2016 – Hi de ho everyone. This is Teena Hughes. Every single day business and website owners are faced with a ton of demands on their time which can be pretty overwhelming.
Today, I’d like to share a couple of questions I’ve received from folks just like you. You ready? Lets get started!
QUESTION 1 from SALLY who got some unexpected media attention
First question is from Sally Taswegia who says, “Hi there Teena, I was recently mentioned in a big newspaper online (and offline!) and got a ton of traffic to my website, and that’s the good news. The bad news is, I was aware an article about my business was about to be published, but I didn’t know when and I guess I was totally unprepared. Now that the traffic has died down, how can I benefit from all those web visitors? How can I find out who they were and where they came from — and what they looked at on my site? Can I get back to them somehow?”
Ok, Sally. First of all, congratulations!
How wonderful that you have been written about and appeared online and in print. That’s fantastic!
Now, lets start with the tracking. First of all, every website is hosted on a computer server somewhere and every computer server that hosts websites has web statistic software installed. So, you’ll be able to check the statistics to see where your traffic came from and what they typed to land on your website. And if you have installed Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools, you’ll have a whole host more information to have a look at.
Now, I also like to install StatCounter.com for my clients because its a really easy way to look at your stats in a graphic way with pictures so that its not so overwhelming like Google Analytics.
As for capturing the names, there are several things that you need to do (in advance).
You need to create an irresistible offer like a .pdf or a video, or some information that potential visitors to your website might like. And then you need to give it away for FREE to everyone who signs up on your website. And you can set up an autoresponder, which is a series of quick emails that might come out daily or weekly for a short period of time. This helps to keeps your business in the mind of the person who signed up.
Now, that’s all well and good if you had something on your website where people could signup.
If you didn’t have anywhere on your website where they could put in their name or email name, then I’m really sorry to say that you’ve missed out on that one opportunity, which is a real shame.
So, make sure before you ever do any interviews for whatever stage your at with your website, if you don’t already have a way for people to signup on your website, you need to get that sorted pretty quickly.
Now, the bottom line is if you’re not capturing names, you’re missing out on being able to contact potential customers who came to your site.
So, Sally, I’d like to say, best of luck for the future, and please do keep me posted how you get on.
If you’d like to sign up for the software I use to capture email names of people who visit my website, follow this link — I also use this to create autoresponder series which are automated messages which are sent after someone signs up:
[links below]
QUESTION 2 from BARRY, who doesn’t have a website yet
Moving right on to the next question which is from Barry, a local plumber.
Barry says, “Hey Teena, I don’t have a website, but I do have my mobile phone number on my van. Do you think I should get a website? And how hard will it be for me to look after it?”
Alright Barry, thats a great question and one with faces many service professionals just like you. If you don’t have a website, the quick answer is yes, you should have a website. And then I’m going to say you don’t need to have a huge website to get started — you can also choose to just have a mobile website.
Something which people can quickly and easily find you on the internet on their smart phones, their iPhone, their Android, on their iPad. And you don’t need to have a full blown website for that, but just having a mobile website would be a great way to get started.
Very easy to setup. It will only have a couple of pages on their with the most important things people want to know.
- How to contact you.
- What’s your phone number?
- Can they send you a message by the website?
- Where you’re located.
- And whether you’re in their local area.
So, very, very simple. Yes, I would highly recommend that you start off with a mobile website and then when you’re ready to boost yourself on the internet, then you can think about getting a proper website that allows you to add blog posts and more information.
Barry, if you need any help with that, please do contact me and I’ll set you up with something.
[Link below ]
QUESTION 3 from DAVE, looking or a super easy way to update his blog
Alright, we have another question, number 3, which I received from Dave.
Now, Dave is a remarkable character, he’s in his 80’s, he wrote a book and he’s had a website built to go with his book. Dave wants to know the absolute easiest way to update his website without having to use his arthritic fingers to type.
Well, Dave, you had me scratching my head over this one — but then I gave it a lot of thought, sent you a couple of emails and after your responses, I think I’ve come up with a pretty simple solution.
I think that you can easily make audio files that can be added to your websites blog posts. Plus the audio files can be distributed around the internet. And it will make a very interesting way for you to be able to update your site very easily.
Now, I know that you have a daughter who lives in another part of the country, who is willing to do the website side of things for you. So, Dave, all you need to be able to do is be able to record yourself. If you have recording software on your computer (and most of them do) — or you can easily get free recording software called Audacity, you can get started straight away.
If you have a smart phone, like an iPhone or an Android etc, you should be able to use some software to download a free app that allows you to record your voice. And just to let you know, this is often how I record my podcasts. I use software on my iPhone and its FREE and it works fantastically.
After I make the recording, I download it to my computer. I add a bit more information to the audio file and then I can distribute it as a podcast and put it all over the internet, which is a great thing to do.
So, Dave, I think that would be the easiest possible solution for you. You won’t have to type apart from sending the audio file to your daughter. I would love to hear how you get on with that and if you need any more help, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll be able to help you when your daughter gets started.
End transcript
Resources mentioned in Episode
Web Stats StatCounter.com
Contact Teena for info on Mobile Website Set-up >>
Do you have any questions for me? I’d love to help you, so please do send your questions via the Contact form or the Facebook page and.
If you’d like to be interviewed on my Podcast, I’d love that too! Looking forward to hearing from you soon!
Your Say on Podcast 001 Questions and Answers
Do you have any tips or suggestions for any of the people featured in today’s podcast?
If you do, fantastic! Please send them via the Contact form or the Facebook page and we’ll share them in the next Podcast.
Published Feb 25, 2016