Market It With ATMA
This podcast is about giving business owners the tips, tools, and strategies they need to market and grow their businesses.
Market It With ATMA
Build – Crafting Digital Assets That Convert
Your website isn't just a digital business card—it's the brain of your marketing ecosystem. In this revealing conversation, Bryan Acosta, CEO of Advent Trinity Marketing Agency, dismantles common misconceptions about digital asset building that cost businesses thousands in wasted marketing dollars.
The foundation of successful digital marketing isn't flashy ads or viral social posts—it starts with properly built assets that connect, convert, and provide crucial analytics. Bryan walks us through the three non-negotiable elements every business needs: a conversion-ready website that loads in under three seconds, comprehensive visual branding that maintains consistency across all platforms, and authentic content that establishes credibility in an AI-saturated world.
We unpack what separates a $500 template website from a $50,000 revenue-generating machine, exploring the critical roles of user experience design, proper SEO foundation, and strategic call-to-action placement. Bryan shares horror stories of businesses that skipped the build phase entirely, attempting to launch marketing campaigns without proper infrastructure—and the costly rebuilds that followed.
For entrepreneurs working with limited budgets, Bryan provides a practical roadmap for prioritizing digital investments: start with branding to establish your voice, capture authentic photography and video, build a strategic website, and ensure proper analytics connectivity before launching campaigns. This methodical approach ensures every marketing dollar is trackable, every conversion measurable, and every business decision data-driven.
Whether you're launching a new business or struggling with an underperforming digital presence, this episode offers a blueprint for building digital assets that genuinely drive revenue. Connect with our team at adventtrinity.com to transform your business from digital chaos to a fine-tuned revenue machine.
🎙 Market It With ATMA Podcast
Brought to you by Advent Trinity Marketing Agency
www.adventtrinity.com
Welcome back to Market it with Atma, where we share the tips, tools and strategies you need to be successful. I'm your host, Dori, and I'm here with Brian Acosta, the CEO of Advent Trinity Marketing Agency. The CEO of Advent Trinity Marketing Agency. Today, we're talking about what every business needs, but if you get right the build phase, We'll be uncovering how Brian and the Atma team turned digital chaos into revenue generating machines. This webinar is live, so don't be shy. Drop your questions in the chat and we'll be answering them throughout the webinar. So, Brian, let's get right into it. Welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us again yes, thank you guys for having me. We're going to be diving into building a foundation which I'm excited about.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm always excited, but um this is, this is your life stream, isn't it?
Speaker 2:this is my life stream, this the super excitement so let's start with the big picture, Brian.
Speaker 1:What does it really mean to build digital assets? What counts and what really doesn't count?
Speaker 2:So you know, when building assets right, you've got to think about, primarily thinking about what is an actual asset right?
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So what are assets? One digital specifically, specifically is a website. All right, making sure you have a prime, a solid website that's going to help you convert, and we'll talk a little bit about, like you know, making sure that's designed to develop properly branding branding is important because the you know making sure you have the right logo, the colors of fonts and messaging.
Speaker 2:making sure your website is ADA compliant, which is just accessible, and then having the right photos, videos and content for the website and even the campaigns that we're going to be doing as well. Graphic design assets, like you know making sure you have the social media headers and things of that nature, if applicable. You know if you need something like application application development or apps, mobile apps, or you know just mobile apps, or even web apps.
Speaker 2:So you know talking about what it is to build a digital asset you know, ensuring that you have the right website that's doing the right job for the business, right? So too many times you know people build websites without a plan. They just they know they need a website, so they just get a website, just to get a website. As if it's a business card.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:As if it's a business card. In fact, I hate when people say it just needs to be a website, as if it's a business card. Right, as if it's a business card.
Speaker 2:In fact, I hate when the people say that I just it just needs to be a business card and it's like that's, that's not going to do anything for you right um, you know, if you're using it as a business card and that's it, then you're you're really not maximizing your business with your website, right, okay, uh, branding, you know, um, you know, everything's about perception. Everything's about perception, I agree you know everything's about perception.
Speaker 1:Absolutely I agree.
Speaker 2:You know you think about when you go out and network. You meet people the way you talk, the way you speak, the way you smell, right, if you're attractive, people are going to more than likely come talk to you.
Speaker 1:Or avoid you Right exactly avoid you.
Speaker 2:But if you're, you know it's not attractive it's. Are you approachable?
Speaker 1:Exactly approachable is important.
Speaker 2:And we know it's not attractive. Are you approachable? Exactly, approachable is important, and so if your business doesn't look approachable, it doesn't look like a real business, right, and that goes back to the assets, right? If it doesn't look like a real business, it just looks mediocre, amateur, right? It looks like you don't have funding. They're not going to take your business serious.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, especially if you're not a long brand standard with other in the industry. Right Yep.
Speaker 2:So you know, taking a look at your logo, taking a look at those colors and fonts and how you, you know we went back into the strategies how you're saying things and messaging things, to make sure that you're you're, you are talking to your audience and that they actually understand what you do and what you, you know here for right. And so you have to have the branding and branding is so important Making sure you have a solid logo that represents you and it also talks to the community that you're trying to target right.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting point. So let's dive into websites if we could. That's an interesting point, so let's dive into websites if we could. What separates a $500 template website that you could make anywhere?
Speaker 2:or anyone can make at home from a $50,000 revenue generating asset boils down to to uh, functionality, uh, and it also boils down to um. It also boils down to professionalism, right, okay, um, so you, you know, you have all these people. I mean, wix does this all the time, whereas you can build it yourself you have all these, build it yourself you. Now you have these ai softwares right that I can build it for you and and it's just, it's just that it's to to get the business card absolutely and so, uh, you know, if you want a business card, then yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2:Build your own website, and you know, there's no point of you hiring a professional if that's all you want the website to do.
Speaker 2:Right to actually accomplish goal, like a lead generation goal, if you want lead generation, like your website actually has goals. If you have a lead generation goal, if you have a resource goal, if you're, if you have a goal where your website actually helps the consumer, the prospect, understand who your bit, what your business does and what you do and you are trying to you leads that way, you need an actual website, right? A website that's not $500, right?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Another thing is if you want to be found on Google, you can't build a $500 website, right?
Speaker 1:Why is that?
Speaker 2:Because Google algorithm and we get into the launch phase and that's a little bit more for the launch phase, but the SEO website, seo and how you rank on Google is all determined on your website.
Speaker 1:So pretty much the website is the foundation and then everything else kind of stems off of that and it has to be connected to that is what you're saying. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So then you have to separate, you know. So then you have okay. So is it SEO friendly? Is it a branded design versus a generic thing?
Speaker 1:okay, brand design is.
Speaker 2:Did I have a professional design? Wireframe it to uh specifically be mapped out? Uh for my specific uh users that that are going to be coming onto this website that I want them to be guided on the information from step one to point. A to point.
Speaker 2:B to point C, to all the way down through the customer journey, was it what we call UI, ux design, which is a user interface, user experience design? Did we design the entire experience journey? That's what separates a $500 from a $50,000 website. Right, okay, and then another thing that separates it is speed. Speed and how fast is the website right when you built it on CMS systems? When you build it on, you're limited on how fast the website can operate.
Speaker 2:Depending on what systems you build it on, depending on what CMS systems you're building on, and then we talked about this earlier but the SEO foundation, it's the website, the type of content that's being written to be on the website, the headers, the descriptions, the meta titles all of that's within the website itself.
Speaker 1:Including the font of everything and what flow it has based on your audience, right so?
Speaker 2:the font is more about the branding and the way it looks right, but we're talking about like, what is it saying?
Speaker 1:Are you?
Speaker 2:saying it, enough for Google to register, for you to be indexed on Google Interesting, uh and and. So you have to build the website properly to even be considered by Google.
Speaker 1:Okay, so with that point being said, what are the three? Must have assets that every business needs during the build phase.
Speaker 2:So the build phase you have to have your website has to be conversion ready. Okay, so is it clean, Is it fast, Is it ADA compliant? So most people don't realize how important ADA compliance is for the business. So ADA is just. Is it accessible for those who have disabilities? Uh, can you go to the website and click on voice and it will read the website for you can you go and click on it and will it turn black and white for contrast and things of that nature.
Speaker 2:So is it conversion ready, right, and does it have the right forms? There's the forms and the lead generation forms placed in the proper aspects of the website, right? So so?
Speaker 1:we're thinking about.
Speaker 2:you know a call to actions, right, and then you know, is it fast? Is your website fast enough to handle the traffic that's coming to your website? Because we talked about strategic right and I'm only on point one, by the way, but I'm going to kind of go into detail here we talked about strategy last time.
Speaker 1:Yes, we did.
Speaker 2:Right, and so part of it is. You know, we talked about how only 3% are going to convert on the website on the first visit, and that's a very low Right, and so you have to drive a lot of traffic to those website in order for you to start generating leads or engagement.
Speaker 1:Right, ok.
Speaker 2:So it isn't a crucial and it's very important that you first understand that you have to have a fast website.
Speaker 1:Right. The functionality has to be quick.
Speaker 2:It has to be quick, it has to be loaded loaded in less than three seconds, Right? Wow, Strong visual identity. So we go into. This is where we talked about the fonts, Right? Yes, the logo, the colors, the typography and the brand guide. So most people they skip the brand guide because they're just like I just need a logo. And so what happens is that their branding is all it's like all over the place, Like you see one thing on Facebook, you see another thing on their printed and then you see another thing on their website. So nobody even remembers who this business is because they can't identify. You know, everything's about psychology and marketing.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you want consistency right psychology and marketing Absolutely. And you want consistency right. And if your branding is inconsistent, if your branding is inconsistent, what's going to happen is the memory of you is going to be inconsistent.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I would say I have to color code everything. Everyone's not my type, but if I see the same consistent brand in my email and then I go to that website, I instantly remember what I talked with them about.
Speaker 2:And it's all psychological, it's very psychological. The branding and memory of the psychology is is 100. In fact, a real deal, a real thing. And then authentic content.
Speaker 1:So authentic content is videos and photography Okay.
Speaker 2:So is that a must have? It is a must have, and I'll tell you why it's a must have Everybody's in dated right now in a dated with AI. Everybody's like AI, AI, AI. So let's just cut to the chase here. Everybody can build an AI website, right, but it's not authentic.
Speaker 2:And so what's happening is you know you as the business owner, the business professional, you're building those websites really quick because you want your return on investment or what have you, but you're not even thinking about the user. The user wants real content, real business, a real person to talk to. They don't want to talk to a robot, they're tired of not being able to talk to a real human being. And so, even on a website, if you're using stock photography, if you're using stock videos and it doesn't look real, it doesn't look like a real business, they are less likely to do business with you.
Speaker 1:I agree. I mean it goes back to what we talked about in our last webinar is you have to be in front of the competition. You can't follow everything. Ai has learned from your competition, Right?
Speaker 2:Exactly. So you have to. At the end of the day, you can. Yes, it's important that you understand your competition, it's important that you are using these awesome technologies that AI has to offer, but you have to be real, okay, and keep it real. Be real, in fact. Did you know I'm not sure if anybody you know follows the Gen Z and the new generation? I can't remember.
Speaker 1:What was it comes after Gen Z Alpha, I don't remember, anyways.
Speaker 2:So they have a phrase and it's be real, okay, and it's all over TikTok and stuff like that and it's, it's. It's funny, you know. They're like be real, be real. Be real, you know why? Because there's so much fake stuff out there, absolutely. And so for you, as a business owner, to come in and think all you want is money, so you're going to do everything to be automated. Keep it cheap, keep it affordable, because you need return on investment and you're not willing to invest in real, authentic content, which is photos, videos, a, a strong website, a conversion ready website, branding that's going to connect with your audience. You're really just shooting yourself in the foot at that point right not just connect but engage with them.
Speaker 1:I mean, I see this generation constantly sliding through reels, but then something catches them. Do you have that, something that catches them?
Speaker 2:exactly so. It's not, and it goes back to this are you wanting quantity or quality? Right, I think that you have to have both, because you need consistency. But if you don't have quality over quantity and you don't have these, I mean you're trying to make the marketing more effective.
Speaker 2:Right ad on Facebook to seeing a video which one's gonna get more engagement right the video is gonna get more engagement the authentic photos is gonna get more engagement, because people want to see real, authentic content, and it's no different on a website than it is on every digital asset that you have interesting.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you've built hundreds of brands, right, brian, and you've used this method throughout all of them. What are the most common mistakes that businesses make in the build stage?
Speaker 2:So the most common mistakes that people make is trying to go too affordable. And I get it right, we're all in the business to make money. But when you're trying to be affordable because you're trying to make a quick buck, your business is going to look like a quick buck Right. And so I've seen people buying logos off of Fiverr and then expecting to carry out as a brand.
Speaker 2:So all they get is a logo and they don't really plan the logo and the branding and the messaging and the message tone and all that stuff, everything that goes involved in the branding, which is like understanding the concept mood board. What's your ISO? Like understanding the concept mood board. You know the type. What's your isotype of the logo which people don't even know what?
Speaker 1:that is. What is that? Please tell us.
Speaker 2:So an isotype, a logo or a favicon really? Is what you know, you have the favicon of the logo. So is there a variation of the logo that is going to be basically an icon that you can use on? You know browsers and different types of marketing, that you can't have the entire logo, but you need part of the logo that you can put and use as a component for smaller, smaller images right.
Speaker 2:so, for instance, like on google chrome, I'm looking at the browser right now on the top left over here and you see live streaming or YouTube, and then you see the YouTube Play Favicon. It's not the actual YouTube logo, the red and white, it's the red box with the play button right. So that's a Favicon. So that was planned out, because they actually did branding right.
Speaker 2:And so you know that's one of the mistakes that I see business owners make is they're skipping the branding. They're skipping, they're just going. They just want a simple logo, uh, because it's simple, and they just need a logo because they have a logo, right, uh. The other thing I've seen people make a mistake on is skipping, uh, the fact that they want their need their website ada compliant and a lot of people don't know what that is.
Speaker 2:I'm finding out, but it's necessary you know, especially, especially if you're a non-profit. If you're a non-profit and or if you're a government agency, right and you have to abide by laws to ensure your website has to be accessible to those who have disability. So it's a compliance right and, quite honestly, all websites need ADA compliance.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Anytime you're bringing in information and you're trying to learn something, you want it to appeal to every audience that you have and if you grow as a business and you become a huge, huge, massive, you know fortune 500 company.
Speaker 2:you can get a lawsuit for not being ADA compliant, and it's a big one.
Speaker 1:Wow. So if you want to grow big, make sure you do it right on this build face.
Speaker 2:Yep, you know a thing? Another thing once again relying on stock photos and no visuals at all. So basically, I don't, I don't want, I don't want any photos. I don't want any authenticity within my website or business. And that's where it begins to fail. Everything graphics, just using graphics on the website. It just makes you look like is this a real business? Who are these people?
Speaker 1:Right. So a question to that is what type of photos should they post? If they're going to have authentic photos, Should they be them speaking to people at webinars or during conferences?
Speaker 2:Okay, so you can take a chapter out of my book here, but what we usually do is you see stock photos that you like, right, and then you take those and you're like, okay, all we got to do is take photos that basically can replace those, right, but that there are real people in it. Right, so just swapping them out, kind of Just swapping them out there, but you're at least getting what you see on these stock images and you like them. But now you're getting them more authentic.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, just those little touch points really do help, because you buy from people, you build like no interest, right.
Speaker 2:Yep. So if I can see who I'm talking to it helps Exactly Another mistake I've seen, and I wrote these down because there's a lot of them- I know asking mistakes is like a laundry list sometimes Hosting their site on cheap platforms that crash. You know you have somebody that puts it on a server just to put it on a server that's cheap and they don't even understand the basics of server management or servers. Right, because there's different type of servers there's a, there's shared hosting, there's a dedicated hosting right and then there's, there's cloud hosting, there's all kinds of hosting.
Speaker 2:So what hosting package is the best for you? So most people they start off on shared hosting.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what?
Speaker 2:they don't realize is especially if they're starting out. It's okay if you're starting out, but if you've got a lot of users going to your website and you don't realize you're sharing all that bandwidth with other websites and other businesses.
Speaker 1:So why do businesses typically go towards more of a shared hosting site? Is it cheaper?
Speaker 2:It is cheaper, okay, and they should only use shared hosting. Only use shared hosting when they don't have enough traffic going to the website, right, okay, if they're a startup, you know but.
Speaker 1:If you.
Speaker 2:You're a big, large business and you have thousands of people going to your website on a day-to-day basis. You're gonna need to upgrade. You're gonna need okay, because you have too many people on to your website and you're you're gonna need to be on your own island so that you can ensure that every person that goes through website has the same experience every single time.
Speaker 1:Wow. So monitoring your analytics and the views to your website is very important, would you say, and somebody understanding that server and seeing the spikes on your server as well, right, okay.
Speaker 2:And then another mistake I've seen is not planning for scalability. So they'll. They build a website and it's not scalable. You can't edit it the way you want to edit it and they have to rebuild it. And I've seen people rebuild and rebuild, and rebuild and rebuild it over and over and spending thousands of dollars just to rebuild things over and over again.
Speaker 1:Which goes back to your point from the beginning. Building the foundation accurately for your audience from the jump of everything right is very, very important to your bottom line.
Speaker 2:Yep, exactly, and you know it's funny because it's biblical the person that built his house on the sand instead of the rock, right? So there's something to say there. I'm just saying, you know so.
Speaker 1:So to move on past the mistakes, because we all know the negative sometimes. But now, how should cut? How should you prioritize between what comes first? Branding the website, spo, seo, when they're just starting, which one do you know to prioritize, or should you?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I'm gonna take you down. My face is so the first thing I always start with is branding okay so the first thing I always do is okay, do we have the right logo, the fonts, the color scheme? Does it speak what we want? And does it? And just so you know, branding also involves of what we want the business to look like right, what are we trying to model and who are we trying to be so that you can speak clearly with your brand voice?
Speaker 2:and tone of voice for the rest of the rest of your business. Okay, right, and then you've got the videography photography. Okay, okay, the reason you know I put this right before website, which we actually start the website and do videography photography at the same time, and so here's actually the reason why we do that. Here's actually the reason why we do that. So you create a website and you can see the photos, the videos, where things are supposed to go, and if you're using a theme, you can see kind of like the stock images this theme is using. You kind of give it imagery of where the website is going.
Speaker 2:Okay where the website is going. Okay, but then you do the photos and the videos to ensure that when you're building out this website, it is as authentic as it can be and it looks as real as can be, with real photos, genuine photos, authentic photos and videos that speak to the user and could relate to the user.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, so we're branding and then photos and videos right con training photos and videos.
Speaker 2:then you Content Branding photos and videos, then you've got the website design and development right, okay. And then, once you're ready to launch the website and development, okay. So, right before we go into the launch phase, because we're going to do what we call a soft launch, right, a soft, you know. You see these businesses, they do soft openings okay, so what's a soft?
Speaker 2:launch. So we do a soft launch. We actually launch the website, but we don't announce that we launch the website. Okay, so we launch the website and we make it go live. We, and then we have to do the first phase of seo, the first phase of the website host and making sure we optimize the website. It's fast, it's nice, it's it's, it's clean. And then we optimize for search engine optimization as far as the titles, the description. We ensure that everything's working, we connect the data.
Speaker 1:And this is an important part I've learned throughout working for you is connection with your quote, unquote business card, what most people call call. Your website is pivotal on your organic SEO.
Speaker 2:Yep and so then we got into the, we get into the framework of the actual website. So the website is the brain, okay. Okay, it is the brain of all your marketing. You cannot go into the launch phase without ensuring that the website is fully connected to all your social media channels, right? So here's what goes on. The next phase of that, right, once you get the website, is to ensure that you get listed on multiple search engines. We're diving a little bit into launch, but we're not there yet. I'll explain kind of what we're doing here. So you've got your Facebook page, you've got it set up. You've got your Instagram, your TikTok, and then you've got your YouTube. You've got your YouTube, you've got your Google, you've got all of these pieces Created, created. Okay, they're branded, they're created. We're not posting, we're not doing ads. Yet the first thing we've got to do before we even touch ads is then go through each of these third parties and remember the website is the brain.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. So then you have to install the Google analytics. Okay, you have to install the tracking codes. You have to install uh, do you have full visibility of what your website is doing and the return on investment? You're about to get on it, okay.
Speaker 2:So, then you have um. Then you go back to Facebook. Did you put the, the, the, the uh, Facebook meta pixel? Did you do the conversion API? If you're doing e-commerce, did we connect that to the Facebook store? Is there integration between Shopify and Facebook? Then you go to TikTok. Did we install Pixel? Okay. Then you go to YouTube and Google. Did we install the Google G-Tag so that you can track what is actually working, what's not working? Okay. Is the CRM set up properly? Is your CRM set up properly? What it was?
Speaker 2:a CRM, customer relation management system okay if somebody fills out a form on the website, where does that go?
Speaker 1:that's very important. That leads to a lot of quote-unquote misleads, right yes, you know it's funny too.
Speaker 2:People miss emails all the time of course there's so much. If you have a lead and it comes through the website and for whatever reason, you you forgot about it and it just, um, you know, uh, it got missed. Your emails went spam. Do you have a system where you can go back in and see what all the contacts that have been generated from the website a lot of people don't have? That it's another horror story that I have right. They just have no visibility.
Speaker 1:And why is that so important? Those analytics, those analytics?
Speaker 2:well, because, right, you're investing. You're an investor. Do you know where your money's going? If you can't tell me what your cost per lead is, your cost per acquisition is right, you're burning money. You're burning money. You're burning money. I mean, we just had a business consultation earlier this last week about you know, you can't make business decisions and here's a here's a success story of of this building it right.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we had a customer last week we did right and and we were trying to figure out how to make them more revenue. Okay, because we had the analytics in place. Right, because we built things properly. We had the google analytics in place, we had the facebook every we knew exactly what was generating leads from facebook which, by the way, we had to switch to google because facebook wasn't generating anything right. So we found that out and we were made able to make a pivot in the marketing strategy. That's just one case scenario where you think, hey, we're gonna do facebook, and it's really not facebook, it's on google that's right, but you have to pivot anyway.
Speaker 2:So, um, we found out, hey, we're generating tons of leads and we found out exactly where they're being generated. So we got the leads. Okay, the leads is not the problem. Okay, uh, the cost per lead. We took a look the conversion how many of those leads turned into?
Speaker 1:paying clients right clients right and so it's conversions right.
Speaker 2:So they say, man do, we got pretty high conversion right and there was like out of like 300, you know, 220 converted. That's a big conversion rate by the way so you know that's pretty huge.
Speaker 2:As far as digital marketing, uh, and then um, and then from there I'm not going to go into revenue, but we, we took a dive into the revenue, we took a dive into their, how many transactions they had and we could, and then we took a look, a look at their average dollar sale, which is based on how many people paid on average. What was the dollar general sale for this? So you know, we identified, we identified we need to be charging more right, absolutely their clients.
Speaker 1:They need to be charging their clients more. Yeah, not us, I'm sorry we are not charging more.
Speaker 2:The customer needed to charge their clients more because we had the data. Had we not had the data, we not had the data, we would make over this pivot. In the same case for the, the website, which is the it should be the brain of of all digital marketing is can you do you know where the leads are coming from, what's working, what's not working and if the website was not built properly, okay, and you can't tell what channels are working?
Speaker 2:that's one okay properly, okay, and you can't tell what channels are working. That's one okay, um, you can't tell what channels are working. Number two is, if you didn't take the time to build out proper assets and proper camp uh to uh assets, which is like video photography, you're going to start dumping a lot of money into the launch page, which is the campaigns. Do you know if those campaigns are working, on which video it works? Which video is better?
Speaker 1:and on what platform to put those on right platform to put those on.
Speaker 2:Do you know that? Because all of that information should be derived from the website, from the website analytics, that you built rock properly and you install Google Analytics properly on the website, mm-hmm to the, to the social media platforms, right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 1:And being able to monitor those sites and pivot before you've burned up a bunch of money on the wrong campaigns. This is important.
Speaker 2:Exactly so, my, you know the way we do things and build here is. You know we prioritize. If you're going to ask me what we prioritize, it's first branding Because you want we prioritize. If you're gonna ask me what we prioritize, its first branding.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm because you want to make sure if you can't get anything else right, if you don't, if you don't know what the brand is and you don't know how, what to say, how to say Mm-hmm, then it's the video, photography, videography and the website together, okay, and then it's the soft launch to ensure that you have the proper web hosting, the proper website, seo, basic SEO, proper setup to catapult you and scalable for the future. So those would be the things that I would say are my priorities.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, great. So now, moving on from the priorities, let's talk longevity. How do you make sure that what you built today, in this ever-changing environment, still performs in 6 to 12 months from now?
Speaker 2:So all of that has to do with did you do your research on the CMS system that you built it on, which is a content management system, which is just a fancy word for where? Did you build your website Absolutely, and does that website have scalability? Can you customize that in the future? So most people, when they want to start cheap and affordable and they start with a CMS system because it is affordable and it is cheap great starting point but it doesn't have the customization you can do later. You can't do custom code, you can't do custom products, products, custom design in development on tools and applications that you truly need to actually operate the business.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, and that goes part in part to our research is is which one should we do it on right?
Speaker 2:yep, and then keep. Keep a look at the bounce rate of the website, so this also will tell you this.
Speaker 1:The bounce rate of the website.
Speaker 2:So this also will tell you this the bounce rate. What the bounce rate is is how fast somebody actually goes onto the website and and it comes off Right and are they staying long enough? And if they're not staying long enough, is it because you know, is it? And that goes back to making sure you have Google analytics right. Of course you have a Google as a website. If your bounce rate is too high, then you have to take a look at a couple things.
Speaker 1:Am I saying the right things?
Speaker 2:Goes back to branding Do I, am I leading the customer to where I want to go and are they understanding? It goes back to UI, ux, design, absolutely and then and then, finally, it can my server handle this? So you know, keep your hosting reliable and fast. You have to take a look at is my website slow, right?
Speaker 1:okay for your audience especially right. I mean, you've got this day and age, we all want it quickly. And if I can't get to the information I want quickly, I'm moving on in fact, I think I had it backwards.
Speaker 2:I think you should take a look at your website. Speed first, right and then for sure, if you look at your website speed first and it's slow, then that's the first thing you fix, right. But if it fits fast, if you got a website speed, you know three seconds or less and then it's fine. That's not the website speed. You know three seconds or less and then it's fine. That's not the website speed.
Speaker 1:We need to look at the content right.
Speaker 2:Branding and content.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Okay. So, six to 12 months, make sure you're building it on the right platforms and optimizing your content each and every time. Watch those analytics.
Speaker 2:Yep. And then one thing I would say is, like you know, if you don't know what ADA compliance is for a website, you should take a look at that, because all websites need to be ADA compliant. Right, it's just one of those things that needs to be standard. You're going to pay extra for it, but guess what? In the long run, it's going to keep you out of a lot of lawsuits, especially if you, if you expect your business to be Well, actually if you're in the health and wellness you definitely need to make.
Speaker 1:There's no option. There's no option.
Speaker 2:If you're into health and wellness, you definitely need to make sure there's no option. Yeah, there's no option. I mean, come on, you're into health and wellness. I mean you should, you know, think Obviously, this is I need my website to be ADA compliant Absolutely. And if you're in a nonprofit, you know, if you're a nonprofit, you have to make sure it's ADA compliant. If you're a government agency, ada compliant.
Speaker 1:You know industries get away with it, but it's something that is becoming more and more necessary for obvious reasons, right, absolutely so. So to my last question. My last real question for you is do you have any horror stories? I mean, a lot of people think they can skip the build phase, right? Do you have any horror stories of clients who have skipped the build pays build phase and are praying the price for it?
Speaker 2:Actually, yes, you know, I would say is that most businesses and this is why I don't like taking on customers it's not that I don't like it and don't want it, it's just that I know for a fact that they're a high risk customer. And the customers that are high risk are those who don't allow us to build out their website and build out the foundation of their business before we launch. They want us to go straight into launching Google Ads and doing Google Ads for them and they want us to just, you know, help them with lead generation and SEO, when they don't realize that by skipping the build phase, they are taking a massive risk on the return on investment. They're taking a massive risk on how much you're paying us. And I will tell you right now most of the time it fails, and I'll just be transparent with you.
Speaker 2:You know I want to help them and I don't want to say no, and I've tried to say no, but they're consistent and consistent, and then, when I was right, they end up leaving and they'll come back with another business and they'll actually do it right. I've had actually customers that do that, like they'll. You know that what that business didn't make it and so they start a new business or like all right, this time I actually want a website and I actually want to take the steps and I'm like well, thank, you, and then you know it's funny the same customers that did that are the same ones that are still around.
Speaker 1:They are still around and they are still working with us through every modification we make. I feel like a lot of people come to us. They already have an established website. They're like, okay, I just need SEO, I just need ads campaigns. But they don't realize in that discovery phase that we do sometimes. We have to restart the build phase, not restart a whole new website, but optimize what you have, because they're ignorant to the fact that it's not optimized.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so doing campaigns is not going to help you yeah, so it's funny because sometimes we take on clients and they already have a website done and they want us to do seo and then, as we're doing seo, we have to literally rebuild the website because there's nothing to optimize for search engine, because it was a bill, right?
Speaker 1:and we don't want to waste your money, any more than we want to waste our time right at the end of the day. I don't. So I guess we can take it now to the q a um q a does anyone out there have any questions for brian on how creating a sales machine really works?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, I know I there's some delay on there, so we'll let them, as they're getting questions up and running. You got any questions for me that were pre-sent to us before the show?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. One of the biggest questions I had through talking with clients and having my meetings last week was my site looks good but it doesn't get leads right. So what's the first thing I should check or fix if I already have a site and it's not getting leads but it's optimal on the aesthetics, so the first thing we talked about earlier was checking the website speed.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the first number one thing you've got to do is check the website speed is check the website speed. Check the website speed to see if your website is optimized for people to actually come on to you know that are coming on, they can actually see the website, Because if they can't see the website, that's the first thing you should fix. The second thing that you should take a look at after you take a look at the speed of the website is now you're taking a look at messaging.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Am I saying the right things? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then, finally, if you have the messaging, you have the right videos, you have the right photos. Now you want to take a step back into the UI UX world? Okay, okay. So now there's software out there, like Hotjar, where you can actually see what the user is doing on your website.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So how would they go about checking their website speed? They just Google how to check my website speed and get stuff like that.
Speaker 2:There's free software out there. There's like Google PageSpeed. There is GTmetrix Okay. So there's different free software out there that actually checks yourrix Okay. So there's different free software out there that actually checks your website Okay. I would be careful not to just run it over and over and over again, because you could break your web hosting.
Speaker 1:Good point. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2:And then, as you're doing it, you're actually slowing down your website for everybody else. Oh, okay, so you want to do it when you know there's not people on there?
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:And then so the UI, ux, right, you know, if you went through Hotjar, use these fancy tools to actually see what the users are doing on your website. The next thing you want to do is you want to see okay, did I put the form in the right spot? Okay, so, for instance, lead generation. Here's just a kind of strategy I've always used. I always like to have above the fold, especially for lead generation, especially when I'm doing lead generation.
Speaker 1:Why.
Speaker 2:Because it's like instant right. So you have the call to action and you have the form right next to each other, above the fold. Above the fold is like the first thing that they see on the screen.
Speaker 1:Whether it be on phone, tablet or web browser. Right.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. You're seeing, you know like, for instance, we have get a free, you know, book a tour for NuvaDesk. It's like boom, right there. It's smack dab metal in the header and it's like book a tour. We know you've got a coworking space. But the lead generation and, by the way, this one fix, this one, putting the form in the header above the fold just for the coworking space, increased the lead generation by 30%. It was crazy.
Speaker 1:Right, because I mean, if a coworking space especially doesn't have functionality and can't get you to the right place at the right time, why would I want to work there? Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly In that facility.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, thank you for that, because I did not know scanning my website that many times would slow it down. So I learned something new today too, okay, so I had another question If I don't have the budget to do everything at once, what should I do first with with the budget I have, if I, if I have a landing page? Should I focus on branding next, even though I have a logo, or should I focus on FCO? What could I do on a tight budget?
Speaker 2:on a tight budget. If it were me, to be honest with you, if it were me, I would do a branding Bible ensuring I have the right logo, the bright branding. I would do a landing page and I would go out and network with, like, some business cards, generate some revenue, okay. And then what I would do, quite honestly, is generate enough revenue to do a photography, videography session, get videos and photos, okay, okay. And then the next step to that is then build out a full website.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's what I would do, and with an address and everything on it. Because you mentioned, creating your social media profiles or your Google profiles does not mean starting your campaigns Right and the build phase. You're just creating them. But for Google to know you're legitimate, you have to have those photos and videos. Almost right, Correct. So you have.
Speaker 2:I mean, think about it when you look at a Google profile. You look at social media. They're looking for what they're looking for authenticity, to see if you're a real business, right, and if you have no photos, you have no videos, you have a lack of assets, a lack of digital assets, as we talked about in this podcast. You have less likelihood of chance of them actually converting and actually becoming customers of your business, absolutely.
Speaker 1:All right. So do we have any other questions out there right now? I think everyone's waiting to schedule a call to really dive into it. It's hard to admit what's going wrong, but it's easy to admit what's going right. Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:I would say is like, even though there's a lot of questions, I have, you know, a lot of questions on web hosting which one's the best web host? And it's just, at the end of the day, guys, it boils down to doing your research right In your industry, in your industry. And it boils down to doing your research right, um, in your industry, in your industry, uh, and it goes back to doing the strategy session and a discovery it really does.
Speaker 2:It really does. So you know we're gonna be saying that a lot in the next episodes. It is it really boils down to did somebody actually do the research on your marketing and do your marketing plan? That is going to be successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm actually looking forward to our next webinar to really explain how we do that research so that when we create those campaigns right, you're optimizing that time, that functionality. That's my favorite part of everything that we do here is being able to see it grow the correct way and see the results from it. So thank you, brian, for strategizing with us and letting us know where we are first, because then you can't grow if you don't know where you are right.
Speaker 2:Exactly All right.
Speaker 1:So that wraps up episode two of the Atma podcast and live webinar series. If you're still rocking a DIY website and feeling stuck, maybe it's time to level up. If anything, go ahead and give us a call. You can go to adventtrainingcom to connect with our team and join us, please. On the next week's webinar, we will be talking about that scale phase and how the strategy and the build phase is so important. Until then, we'll see you next time on Market it With Atma. Bye.