We’re diving into the dynamic world of website design trends with Yasmine Robles.

In this episode, we explore the critical importance of data privacy and robust security measures for small business websites. We'll discuss why an SSL certificate is a must-have for ensuring user trust and preventing browser warnings.

Yasmine sheds light on how AI is revolutionizing website design by offering personalized recommendations, chatbots, and advanced analytics to create engaging user experiences.

We also dive into the significance of readability and accessibility, with tips on high contrast and color choices to enhance user experience. From e-commerce essentials like one-click checkouts to personalized product recommendations, Yasmine shares her insights on optimizing online stores for podcasters and small businesses.

Lastly, we touch on the growing importance of mobile optimization, minimalistic design, and speedy load times to cater to today’s on-the-go consumers.

We mention a previous episode about AI as your unpaid intern.

We mention a previous episode about website accessibility.

Top Takeaways

1. **Data Privacy & Security**: - Emphasizes the critical need for robust security measures and encryption on websites, especially for small businesses, to build trust with customers.

2. **Importance of SSL Certificates**: - SSL certificates are vital for securing websites. Lack of SSL may result in warnings or blocks from browsers, impacting user trust and accessibility.

3. **AI in Website Design**: - AI significantly impacts web design and user experience by offering personalized recommendations, chatbots, advanced analytics, and predictive modeling.

4. **AI-Powered Personalization**: - AI analyzes user behavior in real-time to deliver customized content and product recommendations, enhancing engagement and conversion rates.

5. **Readability & Accessibility**: - High contrast between text and background colors is crucial for readability and accessibility, especially for users with impaired vision or color blindness.

6. **E-commerce Optimization**: - Optimizing e-commerce websites for smooth user experiences attracts and retains customers.

7. **Seamless Online Store Integration**: - Podcasters can integrate merchandise and content seamlessly on their websites to offer easy shopping experiences for listeners, enhancing engagement and sales.

8. **Mobile Optimization & Responsiveness**: - With the increasing use of mobile devices, mobile optimization and responsive design are essential to ensure a seamless user experience across all devices.

9. **User Experience (UX) & User Interface (UI)**: - Prioritizing UX and UI in website design creates engaging journeys for users, leading to better customer satisfaction and retention.

10. **Optimizing Load Times**: - Reducing website load times is critical, especially for users with slow internet speeds or data restrictions.

Memorable Moments

00:00 Increasing mobile website access crucial for all businesses.

06:33 Photographers can optimize images for faster loading.

07:40 Ensure live text on the website and email.

13:12 One-click checkout makes purchasing faster and easier.

16:54 Data privacy and security are crucial priorities. SSL certificates are essential for basic protection.

19:51 Leverage chatbots and AI for business growth.

23:36 Automates data gathering and personalized customer engagement.

26:58 Spotify uses data to recommend personalized content.

28:37 AI's limitless potential for website design innovation.

31:33 Consider platform features and tech for AI.

Yasmine works alongside clients to design a website that's driven by strategy, looks amazing, and that you can actually use to grow your podcast, and your business.

Her website.

Her Instagram.

Click here for the checklist!

Each week, one of The Circle of Experts talks about critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media, monetization, website design, and implementation of all of these to help you make the best podcast possible.

Have a question or an idea for one of our episodes? Send us an email at podcasts@circle270media.com.

The Circle of Experts are:

Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs

Tonnisha English-Amamoo of TJE Communications

Don The Idea Guy

Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy, from Circle270Media Podcast Consultants

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

https://uppbeat.io/t/vince-mcgill/lemon-slice

License code: 2NRNUIV5VG7FU3K5

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Copyright 2024 Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy

Welcome to the Circle Sessions featuring The Circle Of Experts. The Circle Of Experts are Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs, Tonnisha English, Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson from Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. Each week, one of The Circle Of Experts joins me to talk about some critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media, monetization, and website design to help you implement all of these together. Well, this week, we've got Yasmine with me. I'm loving this topic, because we're always trying to navigate trends. We see the coolest stuff, and we kinda wanna do this, that, and the other.

So, you know, what are some of, the key market trends and industry disruptions, within the web web design that small businesses should be aware of right now? Yeah.

Yeah. So I love trends, whether it's fashion or tech. Anything that comes out, I'm usually the first one to try and snag it. So I thought this would be a really great topic for our listeners. One of the major trends, and we will touch on AI. I know that's one of the big ones, but I do wanna wrap in some of the other ones. A major trend is really the increasing importance of mobile optimization and responsive design. And I know I've said this in a lot of other episodes, and I've kind of been harping on it for, I feel like, years, but as the years come go by, it's becoming more and more important that your website is really truly optimized for mobile and just responsive.

Just there are so many people accessing websites through mobile devices, and from our research in and supporting other businesses, it's increasing. So, for example, although we support the chamber, with their website, it's also showing that although most of them are still on desktop when they're signing up for events and that sort of thing, they are still looking us up on mobile. So no matter what industry you're in, you wanna make sure that it is mobile optimized, and you want to think of it as really being crucial for your business and really ensuring that there is a seamless experience for the user across all the screens. The other point that I would like to make out is that, although I am I love desktop, everything I do is on desktop. I do have a phone, a smartphone, I do things there, but a lot of the business decisions, things that I tend to do more business y, they are on desktop. Completely the reverse is my husband. We own a commercial cleaning company as well, and everything every almost every single thing he does, 99% of the time, will be on his phone, So knowing your audience is going to be really crucial when it comes to ensuring that everything is mobile optimized. Additionally, user experience, UX, and UI, which is means user interface.

Those trends are really starting to evolve rapidly with a more keen focus on intuitive navigation and really engaging visuals. If you don't know what any of the stuff that I just said means, it basically means that think about the the user coming Don your website, whether it goes on a mobile or desktop or tablet, and making sure that their journey from point a to point b is as seamless and and just engaging as possible. You don't want it to be really boring or or clunky. The visual content and the multimedia integration are also really on the rise as these businesses start to seek out how to captivate their audience with storytelling and really immersing the user in the story of the the company.

So can you provide some examples of how these trends are shaping modern website design?

Yeah. So if you take responsive design, for instance, many businesses are really adopting that mobile first approach and prioritizing mobile experience and then really scaling up for larger screens. In our industry specifically, although a lot of our clients come and look at the website first on desktop because they wanna see that beautiful full width website. Our approach is actually the opposite, and it should be the opposite. It's you take the the mobile design first, and then you expand it out. In terms of UX UI trends, we're really seeing a move towards minimalistic designs with clean layouts and really bold typography. Visual content, such as videos and animations, are being used to convey brand messages in a more engaging way. So again, think about the user, think about what messages you're providing to them, and how you can best send that brand appropriate message, and really get them to take some kind of action.

Now what about accessibility and inclusivity in the web design? I mean, how are those factors influencing the industry as well?

Yeah. So I suggest that the listeners also list, go back to some of the previous episodes that we've done. We go through I think we had 1 or 2 that were really focused on accessibility, but as just in general, accessibility and inclusivity are really becoming increasingly important considerations for businesses. It's really essential to design websites that are accessible to users of all abilities, including with disabilities. So this means really ensuring features like alt text for images, and alt text is basically you can think of it as text hidden behind an image that a screen reader or something else will end up reading, a bot will end up reading, because they can't see images. Or even if you are not aiming for accessibility, but somebody's just on a very slow Internet speed or old style phone, and the image doesn't load appropriately, maybe the image is too large, they will see the alt text. So it's important for that to be there. Keyboard navigation.

Some people can't use a mouse to navigate through your website, so how can they get through it with just using the keyboard?

You know, you make, oh, I'm sorry. You make a good point about the the load time because not everybody is under 5g or has a phone for 5g on their you know, there still may be LTE or they're in spotty, areas, in the country. We we're we're blessed in Circle Ohio here that, you know, we pretty much have some good good speeds and such, but, Yasmine of think about it as, okay, what's gonna happen in slow speed? That's a really good point, I yeah, which I really wanna emphasize because the more you think it's great, and then the more stuff you have is, like, it may not work real well everywhere. Mhmm.

Yeah. Yeah. So for example, just to steer into that topic a little bit, photographers, really, when we look at their website and it's very image heavy, and one of the things that they can do is optimize their images so that they're not dense, if that makes sense. So they're not too heavy on the load time, but they can also add more text. So some of these their client potential clients could be even if I'm inside of a warehouse in Costco or just maybe just my phone isn't working somewhere in a garage, and I'm trying to figure out who this person was that I met at a conference, right, If their website is loading too slowly, because it's really heavy on images, and I don't see any text, I might just add it to my list of a long list of tabs that I'll eventually forget about. So you want to make sure that that load, that speed time is there, or that there's an alternative. So alt text for images, that the core information of whatever you're trying to get out is not on the image, so images should have graphics. They shouldn't really have a lot of text in them.

And then without throughout that website, have some of that text. So if you're if it's an event page, you might have an image. It could have a little bit of text on it, but you'll also want to make sure that all of the event information, such as the agenda, is highlightable live text on the site. This also goes for email. Just to take the side note a little further. Email, depending on the provider, so most of mine, it will load the images, but there are other providers that, sometimes, Outlook will have issues with this, where people literally have to go in and click load images, depending on, I mean, how they're getting their email. And so if you're sending out a newsletter and people a lot of people have to click load images, they might not take that step. And if you don't have any live text within that email, it might end up just being thrown out.

But to wrap it back up, another thing that you have to watch out for is really clear readability, and what this basically means is make your site easy to read when it comes to text. High contrast, so black and white are the highest contrast. You can squint your eyes if you just wanna DIY it. There's other free tools out there. But if your your text is any other color and your background is any other color, there's a and I can't, off the top of my head, remember what it is, but there's a couple of tools that we talked about in another episode, and you can probably just Google it. But you can put the color code in there and the size of the text, and it'll tell you if you pass or fail in terms of accessibility.

Yeah. I just what did I yeah. What did I just see today or yesterday? It was a recent email from someone, and they highlighted the links in their newsletter with with yellow. Mhmm. And I was on screen you know, laptop, and it was a bear to read. It was a terrible contrast. I've I'm thinking that the the the other font color was a might have been a a a it wasn't really dark black. So even the contrast there, but it was so hard to see this greenish yellow highlighted length.

It was horrible. It was Robles. And and and and it's kind of a good example here of what what you're saying, but at the same time, boy, if you can't see it, there's nothing to click. Or if it's annoying, you can't read the words of what it really is. It's very difficult, and it just it was I was it was I was surprised, but because of who sent it, thinking, you have not looked at your contrast. You think it's cool, but it's it's not working for me at least. Yeah.

Yeah. And we sometimes forget about it because I don't wear glasses. I've been, so far, knock on wood, been blessed with good eyesight. But you forget, right? You forget about people who are color blind, people who do wear glasses, and it could just be a little tweak to that color that can support. So yeah, sometimes it kind of gets past us, but, just a small change, can help, really, with that readability.

Yeah.

And then Guy prioritizing the accessibility, businesses can really you can really reach a broader audience, and then and demonstrate your commitment to the industry. And it's those things like those that link in yellow, hopefully, it was might have been on white. So yellow on white is one of the least my least favorites. But just that hiccup. Right? You opened up the email, you saw it, and even if you were to click on that link, it's almost like that pause that you don't want that pause. For when it comes to a smooth user journey, you want there to be them to not even think about accessibility or think about, oh, that's kind of hard to read. You want them to just click on that link.

Yeah. Exactly. Your next thought about e commerce, it popped in my mind a little bit when you said the load time on a photo, a heavy photo, and and you're in Costco, or you're shopping, and it's one of those, oh, yeah. If you're comparison shopping while you're shopping and it doesn't load up, you may lose a sale. So, you know, what about e commerce and online transactions? I mean, what are those trends impacting web design for small businesses? That's what popped in my mind going, yeah, you may lose a sale because the image didn't load up when you compare to prices.

Yeah. Yeah. I and and everybody does comparison now. Right? We we all have a smartphone. We all have basically a small computer at our fingertips when we're at Target or anywhere else. But ecommerce is becoming a really big it's a game changer, especially for smaller businesses trying to get out there. And in light of all of the recent global events that we've had, e commerce has just become so we just do it more often. We're getting used to it.

Right? If we need something, we'll go to Amazon. We're getting used to comparison shopping between Amazon and other companies, and then there's a movement of trying to support Circle, so or small businesses. So there is a group of people that might go on Amamoo. They with the double check themselves and say, maybe there's a local business that I can support. So having a really smooth, transition in in your e commerce business is ideal. As more consumers really embrace that convenience of shopping from the comfort of their home, though, and businesses really need to ensure that the websites are optimized. So what this all entails is, implementing features, kind of like the one click checkout, personalized product recommendations based on the user behavior, making sure that you have secure payment gateways to instill trust and confidence in making those online transactions. And what all this basically means is, again, smooth journey for the user.

The one click checkout is great. People have gotten me with that one, so I'll instead of adding it to cart, I just click 1 go to go through the one click checkout, and I purchase it, and it's they get me to buy things so much faster, and that's what you want. Right? And really, in the personalized product recommendations, there's a couple of tools out there. Maybe we can go into it another podcast episode, but as the user's going through the site, it'll start recommending based on what they've been looking at. And if they're logged in or if they have some kind of sign in, like Amazon. Right? Amazon's dashboard, when you first log in, there's recommendations based on what you've been looking for. So if I've been on the hunt for to feed my, my plant children, right, it'll then start feeding me, giving me more, things for plants. So it starts to to follow me around and give me recommendations.

That is great for the consumer. Yeah. And a seamless ecommerce experience can be a game changer for for all of the businesses looking to really expand their reach and boost their sales.

Yeah. I think you you're making a really good point. I'm I'm putting it back into a podcasters realm that they may create a small ecommerce area that they're selling some t shirts or you know? And they're hosting it on their own. They're not going flipping it to t public or something like that. They have their own little store, maybe 5 things, but they may not put a lot of thought to it going, oh, we have an e store. Oh, we're doing this. We're selling coffee mugs. We're selling t Experts.

But while you have that listener excited to buy something, you wanna make that experience easy. And that if you don't, then you you kind of, you you miff them off. I mean, you know, it's like, wait a minute. You're not making this really easy for me to get a coffee mug from you, you know, sort of thing. So it's that, yeah, you have the store, be careful. Make sure you make it easy for the for the listener.

Yeah. There's also so I do follow there's a couple of podcasters that I follow that do have online stores, and I have purchased from them. And, it's they make it easy, and I'm not I'm going to say it out like their website is not the most beautiful of websites. I know that they're built on Shopify because it looks like a Shopify template, but they at least put some thought into connecting the podcast, the email newsletter, and their merch, and making their merch something that it is about the podcast, but it's also something that people want to to show off. Right? So the coffee mugs and things like that there that have a funny saying. So they've got that's how they got me. So email marketing is gold. They're they have an ecommerce website that, although it is they do have their podcast listed there, and you can listen to it on all the platforms, they also showcase a lot of the products there and make it super easy for you to just purchase, and then they they do target you.

So I believe that I've been targeted, through ads. So if you have a little bit of an ad budget, retargeting is great, a great way to spend it. Not necessarily getting new people, but getting the people who've already come to your ecommerce site and retargeting them with whether it's 20% off or a free shipping or something, especially during holidays, because you know they were already on your site. They're already fans. They're likely listening to your podcast. Now you can retarget them and get them to purchase, merch.

Yeah. Exactly. Let's touch on data privacy and security. That that's always a hot topic. Always, always, always. The the ebb and flow of that depends on if there's a security breach with someone, or you get the the the infamous letter in the mail kinda going, yeah, your data has been breached, and here you get a free year of Experian. How should small businesses approach these concerns in their website design?

Yeah. So data privacy and security, they're like top priorities for businesses and consumers. I mean, they always have been, but now it's just more in the news, right? And small businesses really need to implement robust security measures to protect their data, their users data, depending on whether or not you're collecting it, and comply with protections and regulations. So for example, at the most simplest forms, just having an SSL certificate, which if you Google it, you'll find out what that means. It's a secure I keep always forget what it what it stands for, but SSL certificate, if you type in HTTPS, that s means that that site has an SSL certificate. It's like the most one of the most basic layers of protection, and and not only that, but, honestly, if your site doesn't have an SSL certificate, most browsers will block it or put some kind of, maybe not directly block it, but ask the user, Guy, I'm not really sure if you should trust this website. It's up to you if you wanna go ahead. And usually, a user will say, nope.

I do not even wanna try going into that website. So then you could be losing people. And then encrypting sensitive information is Idea, and just regularly updating things, updating protocols, updating the core of the website depending on your platform. And by prioritizing these data privacy and security, businesses can really you really build trust with your customers, and you build up your reputation.

Yeah. I've noticed even if you're not selling anything, you really should have the s on it. I mean, it seems in copy pasting that doesn't happen properly because you don't have it. So it's it's almost the default. If you don't have it, just get it, because and you're not selling a thing. It doesn't matter. There's still some data and privacy stuff that you may be collecting, email for newsletters, that sort of thing. It just has that layer of yeah.

You may not be going into collecting credit card numbers or anything like that, but it's but it's still information. It's it's data that can be sold, and you want the the user to know that, okay. I'm I'm doing the best I can with my website. Right? Yeah. You talked earlier about AI. Let's let's you know, how do you foresee artificial intelligence shaping the future of websites for for small businesses?

Yeah. So AI is the trendy new thing right now. Yeah. And it's it's really it's for our business, personally, it's been a game changer. Mhmm. It just takes that extra load of doing the the tasks nobody ever wants to do, and then you can actually strategize for businesses. But we're already seeing an impact across various aspects of website design and user experience when it comes to that specifically. AI powered technologies are revolutionizing how businesses interact with their customers online from personalization, personalized recommendations, and chatbots to advanced analytics and predictive modeling.

So if you just take chatbots and you have the type of business that there's a lot more customer inquiries, and you can add a chatbot to the the site, like, little chatbox, and then the bot, you can program it to have at the most simplest ways, you just offer some solutions while somebody gets on the line, or it can you almost sometimes can't even tell that it's you you can you can actually start believing that it's a person that's supporting the whatever it is that your the service provider should be supporting with. For smaller businesses, though, you can harness AI and really unlock opportunities to deliver these tailored experiences, to streamline your Sessions, and drive growth, anything from content creation to scripting out a podcast. Right? Or at least not maybe not the script, but the outline. The outline is great to research, to brainstorm. For us. It's that brainstorming piece where AI really helps. Sometimes you've had a full day of brainstorming, and you can put that data in there and get even more ideas, let's say, for a podcast episode. Right? So if you're doing a podcast for, a law firm, then you can start gaining a little bit more of a momentum with that brainstorming.

I would say though, when it comes to content creation, just be very aware that places like Google might not be so excited that you're if you copy and paste directly from, from any of the multitude of AI providers right now because they think of that as cheating. So just make sure you're you're using it wisely with great power comes great responsibility.

Yeah.

And then when it comes to branding, it can there's just so much. There's so much with AI that can that can support a business.

Yeah. I'm I'm noticing now I don't know I forget it was LinkedIn or Facebook that now has AI prompts for questions or you know? So and if nothing else, not utilizing it for yourself as the user, but it's that what is Facebook and LinkedIn looking for prompts? It could be questions that you think about for your podcast or maybe further questions you even put in there for another there's a lot of different things going on. I think it's interesting, what what artificial intelligence is pulling from content that we're creating to really come up with some, oh, that's an interesting question. Didn't think about going in there. You know, again, based on other inquiries possibly, I mean, lots of different factors going on, but it is it's it's it is interesting for sure. Yeah. Can you provide, some concrete examples of how AI is being integrated integrated into modern website design?

Yeah. So we can start with personalization. AI algorithms can analyze user behavior and preferences in real time, allowing small businesses to deliver more personalized or highly personalized content and product recommendations to each visitor. This not only really enhances the user experience, but it also increases the engagement and the conversion rates. So chatbots, as I mentioned, are an example of AI in action. These virtual assistants, you can call them, can really provide that instant customer support, as I Sessions, answer answer any questions and make transactions a little bit easier, and really improve the satisfaction rate of your and the efficiency of your business. In addition to that, AI powered analytics tools can really enable businesses to gain deeper insights into website performance, user engagement, and market trends, really empowering that data driven decision making and optimization strategies. And, honestly, it all all that is fancy speak for.

It can provide really good data to you as a business owner, as a podcaster, to see where you can pivot. So it gets rid of, for example, the menial tasks that you might have to gather information from all these sources, it can start gathering that for you, and spit out some information nicely cleaned up, so that then you, as the podcaster, as a business owner can go in and make really good decisions based on the information that you're getting. And for your customers, if you go back to ecommerce, you know, at the bottom of a product page, it can say you might like these. That can be very personalized as well. Email marketing can also be personalized depending on the user's behavior. So if you know that a segment of your buyers have a tendency to purchase more of widget a than widget b. Now you can create emails customized to them, and then there's an even bigger way. So you don't even have to create each individual email now.

You can actually populate, like, create segments or different levels of the email, and then that depending on which platform you're using, it can then take all of these and build it themselves. So if you have, let's say, three sections of your email, it can then say, well, Sally loves widget a, but Bob loves widget b. We're just gonna take that information and automatically swap with the first thing that they see Don that email. So it is I love AI. As you can tell, I can nerd out about it, but, it's really helpful for a business to to be, know to understand where these trends are going.

Well, I think it's pretty cool that's customizing. I mean, again, it that's a for the positive. It's making a good user experience of that newsletter, because that you signed up for it, you want something that's content you want to use, so the AI is helping deliver a better newsletter to that individual. Why not? So another example I was thinking, I don't know, maybe going too far with AI on this, but, I know that you can, basically create your website blog to roll one right into another into another into another. It's a bit basically keeping you on page for a longer time. That sort of thing. So can AI take a look at, okay, I'm reading this blog. It's a pod it's a blog off of a podcaster, you know, it's coinciding with one or the other.

And if you give that blog site enough DNA, enough metadata, could it feed another blog after it that is similar in nature? Like, okay. So let's say, yes. They we we create a blog out of this this podcast about the trends. And you and and we talked a lot about AI. We did an episode about AI as your intern, unpaid intern. And they let's say then AI can AI grab that blog next and say, okay, you probably wanna listen and read this blog about the episode on the unpaid intern AI. Can can it do that?

Yeah. Yeah. So it's all about personalization. Right? So now you need to feed it the information. If and I don't it depends on, you know, Spotify is doing a little bit of this. I've noticed it on my account where I personal fact. Fun fact, I'm a crime junkie, and I listen to a lot of crime podcasts. So all I know is that nobody know crime and do always ask for a lawyer.

But Spotify knows this. Right? So Spotify itself is now in in the little dashboard that it gives me, providing additional crime podcasts that I can listen to, not necessarily the podcast in general, but the actual episode, and it hasn't really failed at all. They also do that with playlists. I just listen to more podcasts than than anything else, but they do it with playlist. So based on your listening, they can provide others. You can do that with a blog. It just depends on how much information you have about the user themselves, and and it does take a lot more information than people really think, but you can install that onto your site, or if you have a membership portal, right, you can install that there and how many articles or or podcast episodes Don you have in backlog or not in backlog, but behind you, right, that you've already published, and that way, the algorithm can then say, okay, Yasmine loves crime podcasts, but she also is a nerd, and so how what can we feed to her that she's gonna love to listen about?

Wow. That's exciting. Okay. That that that opens my eyes in regards to how to help podcasters really set up their their blog pages, which is basically an expansion of their episode of looking at it a little bit differently. Basically, you know, keeping time spent on page, that sort of thing. They just continue to feed that user Circle information that's gonna deep dig deeper a little bit in regards to the content that's there, or hey, you might like this as well, kind of feel to it. So wow. Okay.

So, I mean, how do you think AI will continue to evolve and impact websites in the future then?

Yeah. So the I would say it's limitless, the potential that AI has for website design, and really, as AI technologies become more sophisticated and accessible, we can see we can expect to see, like, an even greater innovation and integration across the board. So for instance, AI design tools may automate the creation of website layouts, graphics, content, maybe, and really saving you time and resources for small businesses, especially if you're starting out, and you know that, you know, you don't need an agency designed website, but you need to be able to get something Tonnisha reality experiences could revolutionize how people interact with websites. So this is something that I'm starting to dig into myself because offering immersive and intuitive browsing experiences is really key. And again, we're talking about the ease of experience. So at the, let's say at the lightest form of this technology, the lightweight form of it, Target has an app, and I can go in there and say, I think Apple might have one too where, you can pick a product and then see it in your own space. Right? So how can we take that tech and and the advances have been made on that tech as well? That's like the most lightweight form of that tech. How can we take that and then add it to the website to make it a really unique and seamless experience? So if you have, for example, a venue that you want to rent out, how can we make that venue come to life when it comes to a website and somebody trying to book that venue for a way? So just AI is I don't know.

Again, I I tend to nerd out on all of these, but ultimately, AI has the potential to transform the websites into these really intelligent adaptive platforms that can anticipate the needs and fulfill the needs of each individual user.

Kind of bring in virtual reality to a website versus you jumping into virtual reality, which has been kind of like, what's going on in there? That's where then, but bringing it outside into a website. That's cool. No. Very cool. So when when small businesses are looking at this to prepare to leverage this AI, are they looking at building a whole new website or we Guy plugins that kinda help build and put in that a website that already exists?

I would say just the first step is education and awareness. Okay. Really small businesses should really leverage it. It should stay informed about the latest developments in AI technology. Just kinda read up on it. It. Right? So you're thinking about making your website just kind of stay in the know. Now if you're looking to build your website with utilizing AI, I would say now that you're in the know and you have done a little bit of research, it depends on your platform.

It depends on what features you want, what sort of tech, what the user experience has to be. Right? So if you are a podcaster, you want to sell merch, and you know that your platform is Shopify, now you know, and you know what features you want that that need AI, for example, the recommended products when people are browsing or maybe something to personalized listening. You can now then go back in and say, does Shopify support with this? Are they on track? Is there something in the horizon that they're working Don to support my small business venture, as it's growing? AI can get and I'm gonna be completely honest. AI can is great, but it can get somewhat pricey if you are a very small micro business, or solopreneur. But it does it is going to I feel like we're on the precipice, like, really at that brink where everything has been accelerating, and now it's all about really going and getting simplified for everyone to be able to use. So I hopefully that answered your question. I think it depends on a lot of different factors. If you just wanna simplify it, almost every single platform has some kind of AI that's starting to be pulled in, Squarespace, Shopify, Word Press.

If I will give a warning, though. If you are it's great for start ups, but if you are looking for a really optimized site, AI isn't isn't yet capable of taking over and really, for example, creating a marketing strategy that fits businesses really well. It can make that beginner website, and then let's say a year later, you've grown so much. Now you probably need the support of an agency to help really direct that ship. Right? That you need somebody to captain the marketing for you, but in the beginning, I would say if you if you have the the capability, if the platform fits, if it's offering you the right features, then, yeah, totally go for it.

Yeah. I think, I think you're right. I think as long as we continue to remember, things still need the human touch. You know, don't let this take over. You may think it's simple, but like you said, the price point may not be in your favor, as well as if you let things, at least in my mind, if you let things kind of coast and let AI take care of things, it may go off Don a tangent. You may not want it to go if you're not checking it. I you know, there's still some things that need to be hands on. I I agree.

But, no, that these are this is really interesting where it's going in in the utilization of how AI is helping make a better product for you. Again, using it as a tool that is as a total workforce for you, and and employing and working with people that understand it as well too, and that leads me to how can they get a hold of you? I mean, obviously, you get some great ideas here, and that's kinda Don I wanted to go with, like are you too late in the game if you had a website up for like 4 or 5 years? You know, that sort of thing, but you can best answer that. I mean, how can they get a hold of you to kind of do a little bit of analysis?

Yeah. They could just email me, yasmine@roblesdesigns.com. You can find that information at roblesdesigns.com, Robles designs.com. You can also download a free checklist, if you, kind of, just wanna stalk me a little bit, and see what I'm all about. It's at roblesdesigns .com/checklist. The if you personally Don to get a hold of me, the platform that I'm on the most is LinkedIn, and that's LinkedIn and email. We are, as a team, on Instagram and Facebook, but yeah, if you want to message me on LinkedIn, I'm more than happy to set up a call and walk you through it. AI is AI and all of these trends really are, a lot of them emerging and shifting constantly.

So it sometimes feels a little overwhelming to stay on top of them, but, I mean, we can we can talk over tacos and tequila Don and kinda decipher that for you.

Yeah. I think you're right. It can be overwhelming, especially if you're doing the doctor Google search, and it's just throwing websites at you, and probably a lot of jargon that you have no idea what it means, and and maybe 90% of it doesn't mean anything to you, but you need somebody to decipher through. So no, I think that's a a great idea to talk to somebody that's in it all the time. Exactly. So and if, you need to talk about your website or I should say your website, of course, he has me. And if podcast Guy to my podcast guy dot com. Hop on my calendar if it has things to do with, you know, the podcast and and AI itself.

We'll get Yasmine on this, you know, the call too as well, so that's either way is fantastic, but yeah, we all work together here at Circle Sessions, with the circle of experts to, you know, if it's if it's about, the website design, Yasmine gonna be on it as well too. So, yeah, go to my podcast Guy dot com to schedule a time. Thanks again, Yasmine.

Yeah. Thank you so much.