Welcome to Episode 32 of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, your go-to resource for practical website improvement tips. In this episode, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni dive into mobile-first design, AI-powered commerce, and essential tools for website managers. This episode is packed with actionable insights to help you optimise your website for mobile users and stay ahead in the digital world.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Is Your Website Truly Mobile-Friendly?

• FAQ: What does "mobile-friendly" really mean? Isn’t it automatic nowadays?
• Surprisingly, no! Many websites still aren’t optimised for mobile. Jonny and Pascal discuss why a mobile-first approach is crucial, including ensuring that designs are tested on mobile before desktop.
• They explain key considerations like creating more space for touch interactions, optimising buttons, and making call-to-actions easily accessible. If your website is difficult to navigate on mobile, you could be losing potential customers.

2. AI-Powered Commerce Search: The Future of Online Retail

• FAQ: What is AI-powered commerce search, and why does it matter for my business?
• The hosts explore an insightful article by Ben Davis on the rise of AI-driven search technology. Learn how conversational search is transforming e-commerce by helping customers find exactly what they need, and why it’s essential for small businesses to stay ahead of this trend.
• Jonny stresses the importance of embracing AI tools to improve customer experience and sales.

3. Website Engine Room: Tools to Simplify Your Workflow

• Pascal’s Pick: Jitter – Add animations to your website with ease! Perfect for making your content more engaging and user-friendly.
• Jonny’s Pick: FounderPal.ai – Create detailed marketing personas in just 10 seconds. It’s free and incredibly useful for refining your target audience messaging.

4. Website Call to Action: Make One Small Change Today

• Jonny’s Tip: Start A/B testing! Experiment with landing pages, buttons, and headlines to improve conversions. Even small changes can lead to big results. Tools like Hotjar and Unbounce are great for optimising user experience.
• Pascal’s Tip: Review your best-performing web pages from this time last year. Update your seasonal content and ensure returning visitors feel engaged with fresh, relevant material.

Top FAQs Answered in This Episode:

• What does it mean for my website to be mobile-friendly?
• How can AI-powered commerce search help me attract more customers?
• What are some tools to create marketing personas and add animations to my website?
• What is A/B testing and how can it improve my website's performance?

Take Action Today:

Don’t just listen—take action! Start testing your website’s mobile functionality today, and explore the tools we discussed to enhance your site’s performance.

Resources Mentioned:

• FounderPal.ai – User Persona Generator
• Jitter – Website Animations
• AI-Powered Commerce Search Article

Join the Conversation:

Have questions? Want more tips? Connect with Jonny and Pascal on LinkedIn and keep the conversation going:

• Jonny Ross on LinkedIn
• Pascal Fintoni on LinkedIn

Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast with your network. Let’s make your website a tool you’re proud of! 🎙️

#WebDesign #MobileOptimisation #AI #WebsiteMastery

Hello, welcome. This is the 90 Day

Website Mastery podcast, the perfect

companion to our 90 Day Website Mastery

program. It's episode 32. We're excited

to bring you even more valuable insights

and practical advice to help you enhance

your website's performance, join us as we

explore strategies to make your website

work harder for you, reigniting your

pride into your online presence. I'm here

with my co-host Pascal. Fin, Tony, you

okay, Pascal?

Very well, Thank you very much. Now, this

is a short form, fast paced bit of

content trying to make 2 things really,

bringing clarity when it comes to running

a website and enjoying it. A bit more

important to making sure that in the

process, you feel proud of your website

again.

Yeah, that is the most important thing.

We've done many, many training courses

and the key thing we always hear is that

pang when someone says, what's your

website address? And it's sort of like

that pang in your stomach that you don't

feel proud. And we want you to feel proud

of your website. That's what this is all

about. In each episode, we have 4

segments. We have the you ask, we answer.

We have the website stories. We have a

website engine room where we give an app

or a piece of software or a piece of kit

that me or Pascal have seen that's gonna

help you as a website manager make your

life easier. And of course, we always

finish with the website call to action

because every piece of content should

have a website call to action. And we'll

come onto that right at the end. So

Without further ado, let's start with you

ask, we answer our first segment.

This is fascinating and I'm very

surprised we've not had that question

before when you think about it and how

long now we'd be running the podcast from

the website mastery. Now this is a bit of

a combination because you have the

question at an event, I had the same

questions more or less during a master

class. So here it goes. What does it mean

for my website to be mobile form

friendly? Surely this is done

automatically nowadays or am I supposed

to do something else to make it happen?

And I have some sympathy because I will

explain later on why I believe the term

mobile-friendly or mobile-phone-friendly

is perhaps not particularly obvious to

all. What does it mean? And I think

particularly when you go online, Johnny,

and look for information, and you can all

Google, find the Google guidelines for

mobile phone friendly, it feels like it's

just very superficial, it's kind of

things that everybody knows, but is there

something else people should be thinking

about when it comes to mobile phone

users? What say you, Johnny Ross?

Yeah, well the difficult thing and you

know, part of that question is, you know,

that that person saying surely this is

done automatically nowadays. And you

would think that, wouldn't you? You would

assume that. In fact, there's so many

assumptions that are made when you're

buying a website from an agency or a web

developer. There's so many assumptions

that are made from it's going to work on

mobile to it's going to rank at the top

of Google. Of course, that's not the case

and we're not in a regulated market. You

need to make sure that your website brief

is very thorough and you need to make

sure that you're challenging whoever

you're buying a website from, or perhaps

if you're building it yourself, you need

to challenge the tool that you're using.

So unfortunately, a lot of websites

aren't automatically ready for mobile.

And really what we should be talking

about here is mobile first. So when we're

designing a website, we should have

mobile first in mind. The problem with

that, and I deal with this on a daily

basis, we build WordPress websites all

the time. And 1 of the issues that I

always find is that We're all in a

desktop environment when we're having

conversations in terms of business to

business conversation. When we're

brainstorming on what the website is

going to be like, when we're looking at

other websites, when we're showing some

designs, when we're on Teams, on Zoom, on

Google Meet, we're all on a desktop. But

in reality, in most industries and

sectors, over 50% of people are using

mobile. So the biggest thing is getting

your head around that you need to make

sure you're always talking about websites

on mobile. So that's about using an

emulator on your computer to be always

looking at mobile versions of websites.

But yeah, going back to the crux of this

question, it's not automatic and you

absolutely need to consider it As first,

what is this website going to look like

on mobile? Nevermind desktop. That's what

I think.

And I think for me, the idea being,

whether you work with a designer or

you're doing it yourself, you have to get

into the habit of the schematics on both

the vertical screens and the laptop

screen. Because you're right, most of our

blogging is done on the laptop. I would

imagine that's more convenient. That

takes me back even into my passion by

video and filmmaking. Most video editing

is done on a large screen because we want

to see stuff. And the amount of

conversation I've had with other video

editors say, people won't be able to see

that on mobile phone, the caption is too

small, or you need to move in closer to

the products or to the scene because on

the mobile phone screen, it's not gonna

be as obvious. And the other challenge

that I've got then, so you could do all

that. You could sketch it, you could use

different online platforms, many of them

mentioned on the show, and get an

impression what it's gonna be like on

mobile. But the advice out there, and if

you Google it, you'll know, is very much

centered on the technology, the tech, you

know, the behind the scenes stuff. And I

think that a much better and more helpful

expression should be that the website is

mobile phone user friendly. Because I

think all too often the visitor is

somehow implicit, but I actually wanna

make it explicit. Because then you move

into decision, for example, photography.

So photography on a laptop screen, you

can see a lot more details than you would

on the small screen. So again, can you

move in a bit closer? Text, you've got to

break it down more. You have to create

more line breaks. You have to create more

sub headers and many conversations we've

had before. So for me, the question

should be, what does it mean for my

website to be mobile phone user-friendly

and once you move into for the platform

that the people you have used that

expression before, literally logic and

just good customer care comes into play

and then you're going to start to rethink

the navigation, the structure, the

content itself. And for example, when my

customers do take part in the blogging

masterclass, they work on a laptop and it

looks very neat. As soon as you look on a

mobile phone, you're faced with a massive

column of words without any breaks and

not even visual kind of stimuli. So it

makes sure we think everything

completely, but it has to be friendly to

the user, not the mobile phone that makes

any sense. Will

Barron Yeah, absolutely. And so I think

it's about creating lots of space. It's

about making it really easy for fingers

and thumbs to be able to get to a call to

action, to be able to see the call to

action and to really, like I was saying a

minute ago that Some of the clients I

work with, I'm working on behalf of them,

employing another agency to come in and

still to this day, other agencies are

showing them on desktop first and you

know, it looks great and yes, let's go

with that. And then they look at it on

mobile and it's like bloody awful. And

it's, And there's just not been any

thought on, as Pascal's just said, the

usability side of things. So yeah, I

think lots of creating space, creating

buttons that are big enough, creating

sticky content so that perhaps when you

are scrolling and there's lots of text,

there's still call to actions available.

And I'm thinking about how you can break

that content up in a much shorter fashion

because you're on a mobile device. So,

yeah, come on.

And for me, just finally, because I know

time is against us, it is, This is a

short form, fast paced bit of content out

there. The 1 thing that is helpful when

you go mobile first in your deliberation

is to remember, I know it sounds silly,

that this is about touching the screen

and interacting with the screen as

opposed to using your mouse to click on

the number of items on the webpage that's

organised from left to right. So I think

for me as well, we're having a

conversation about the touchscreen,

you're opening up possibilities in terms

of the user interaction experience, which

I think you would not think of

immediately if you start with a laptop

version of visiting your website.

Yeah, and that makes you think about

forms and making them easy to fill out on

a mobile phone because you're not using

the traditional keyboard, the traditional

size of the space of the form. So yeah,

those are really good things to think

about. Listen, if you're watching or

listening right now, thank you so much

for joining us. We really enjoy doing

this short form content and keep asking

us questions, keep sending us anything

you think about in terms of on social

media, so please do. But for now, we're

going to move to our next segment, which

is website stories.

In this segment of the show, John and I

review and react to an article, an

infographic, a podcast, anything that can

make life easier and help us reflect what

it means to be a website manager in

today's economy. I've chosen an article,

Johnny, for today, which I think has a

foot both in the past and the future.

This was written by Ben Davis, who is the

Insights Editor at eConsultancy.com. So

Ben Davis is almost like the kind of

investigator looking at the impact on the

progress, maybe digital, but also user

experience. And e-consultancy is my go-to

destination for trends, insights reports,

but also a great educational platform.

And the article written by Ben is kind of

interesting because whilst it is

addressing, I suppose, the kind of

deliberations that online retailers may

have now, I think it's valid for all

sectors and all audiences. So the title

is as follows, what exactly is AI-Avid

Commerce search and what does it mean for

retailers? And I would really encourage

people to seek out the article. We've got

the hyperlink in the show notes because

it does a very, very good job to reflect

on our experience as people of the search

function, both in terms of websites,

could be small independent retailers,

larger brands, like Amazon and Walmart,

but also the search engines. And I think

you and I can reflect on the last 30

years to agree that by and large search

is not always particularly effective, is

not always successful, and what we've had

to do all of this is almost learn the

kind of idiosyncrasies and some of the

quirks of the search function to try and

make it work for us. And some of us could

actually be very, very proud of our

search skills and we can second guess

actually how bad it is to essentially get

a better result. But everything's changed

now because of the advance of AI, but

particularly the large language models

where you move into a situation where you

no longer have to second guess what 3, 4

to 5 words you have to put in. You can

have a full-on conversation with a

chatbot, sometimes called agent, and make

your search feel more like you're being

assisted by a personal assistant of

sorts. And that is creating a new way of

thinking on Google, but other platforms.

And we may come across a term that then

is indicating called conversational

commerce or conversational search. And

this is essentially a reflection at this

moment in time about the impact on all of

us and all our websites. We will see the

rollout of those kind of advanced way of

searching on larger brand websites

because they could afford to make all the

mistakes and improve upon it. But 1 thing

that I've noticed over the years, Johnny,

and only if you agree, is that the

behavior that people essentially first

get a go at on platform like Amazon,

Google and more, then becomes a norm and

is unexpected on other platforms such as

your website. So, listen, Ben does an

amazing job to reflect back and look

forward. But I sense that in his article,

he's suggesting that, by and large, we're

still, the effort is a bit timid, a bit

limited, we should be a lot more

ambitious about what those AI solutions

can provide for us. But ultimately, what

he's saying is that we're gonna be in a

position to assist the shopper and indeed

to be the decision maker in more advanced

and sophisticated way. And that would

feel more like having conversation with

an individual than ever before. And is

that not actually the ultimate aim of a

website to be a mirror of what it's gonna

feel like in the near future to deal with

the very people behind the business? So

for that reason, I chose the article.

People can read it for themselves. And a

couple of things to mention before I get

your reaction is this idea of, let's not

forget that 1 of the things that AI can

offer beyond the current search function,

it was called multi models. Also using

voice, using images, as we can drag and

drop. Something that has been tested by

Google called Shop with Google AI, where

literally you can generate some images of

what you're looking for, and then

Google's gonna go away and search it for

you and create other matches. So I think

it's going to get very, very interesting,

but we as website managers need to keep

an eye on the near future and start to

plan for those adjustments.

Yeah, I think for me the key message here

is we need to step out of our comfort

zones and start trying these things.

Because as small businesses, you've got

the ability to be able to adapt very

quickly, to be able to test and try. My

advice would be to start embracing a lot

of the things that are out there. And

especially what we're talking about

today, which is that AI chatbot in terms

of commerce, in terms of giving that

experience. I think you said it really

well, Pascal, giving that experience in

terms of if you walked into a business

premises, if you walked into a retail

premises and you had that first initial

conversation, that's what we're trying to

create as a website. That's how you

should be thinking that your website is

trying to achieve. So how would you know

if you were talking in that first moment,

one-to-one, how would you talk? And

that's going back to real basics of using

the word you and your within the content

and really making it very clear that

you're talking to the individual and

thinking about just, you know, not trying

to think mass market and you're talking

to everyone in the world, but you're

talking to this just 1 individual. So how

you can power that is making sure that

you structure your data correctly, that

you're collating data, collecting data so

that when someone's on your website, you

understand who they are, have they been

to you before, what data touch points do

you already have? And can you use that

information to understand their behavior,

any information that you have to then

make sure that that conversation is a

continuation of the relationship that you

already have. It might be right at the

start, but it might be someone that is

already a customer. So it's really trying

to join a lot of those dots. And there's

a lot of tools out there that are doing

this. And I'm seeing companies that are

testing this. Some are doing really well,

some aren't doing really well. Some are

not doing very well. Xero has just

introduced Jax, which is an AI assistant

within their accounting tool. And oh my

God, it is bloody awful. They've rolled

it out as a beta and they agree that

they've got it wrong and they're quickly

trying to fix things. But there's an

example of a large company testing it.

And I think that it's the SMEs that need

to be doing the testing and winning

quickly so that you can start converting

customers into, well, shoppers into

customers, should I say.

I think for me, this article is also a

bit of a warning about 2 things. Pay

attention to customer behavior that they

may acquire on larger platform than

yourselves, but also this idea of all of

us as decision makers in our businesses,

particularly with digital. We've learned

to essentially put up a limitation. So

we've almost stopped ourselves being

ambitious because it wasn't possible or

it wasn't particularly good or it was

embarrassing and so on and so forth. And

I think that the biggest challenge for me

with AI and large language models is a

mind-set shift of actually reconnecting

with your imaginations and your ambition

thinking, well, now actually it may be

possible. And therefore can we dust off

maybe the project from 2 years ago and

see what we can do to create that amazing

website experience.

Absolutely. This is about embracing it,

about thinking about it, considering it

and realizing that there is a future that

we need to embrace to really engage that,

especially to engage that newer audience

as well. Let's move on to the website,

Engine Room.

Now in each episode of the Website

Mastery podcast, Joni and I choose 1 app,

1 solution, maybe a piece of kit that can

make life easier as a content creator and

website manager. What is your selection

Joni Ross?

So we're always talking about target

audience. We're talking about personas,

creating that persona to really

understand who your audience is and to

really get onto their level to make sure

that you're talking to their language, to

make sure that you're thinking about

their pain points. Founderpal.ai, as

always, we have all of these links in the

show notes, but this is FounderPal.ai. If

you go to the User Persona Generator,

you'll find it on the homepage or just

Google FounderPal.ai and then User

Persona Generator. Literally describe

your business and your target audience

and get a detailed marketing persona

within about 10 seconds and it's 100%

free. It's a bit crazy. It's using AI

behind the scenes with a huge amount of

data to bring in everything that it

already knows about particular products,

particular services, but also about

particular target audiences. So it

delivers tons of pain points and the

language that you need to be considering

and using. And then you can adapt it as

it goes, but it's really clever. So as a

starting point, if you're trying to

understand your target audience,

foundapal.ai, the user persona generator

is my tip for the website engine room.

That's excellent. And you know, you know,

I've run many, many website master

classes and workshops and the persona

bit, people hate doing it, don't they?

I get it. I have a lot

of sympathy. It's not easy just to even

capture the different target groups you

have in mind and then to come up with

personas. So I'm talking myself into

probably using them for future

masterclasses just to accelerate the

draft, at least getting a draft version

of your personas and avatars. So I've

been reflecting a lot on people staying

on your website longer, just a bit

longer, but not because you find kind of

a tricky, tricksy way to make it happen,

but also because it gives the impression

when they visit your website that you

care about the content and their visit.

And there are spots on your website such

as the contactors page, the FAQ section,

it's on the landing page that you've been

crafting, but can marry it with some

animations. Now animations, I'm talking

about 2D, 3D animation, very, very

simple. It's almost like more iconography

that explains what this page is about,

explain maybe the steps you have to go

through to complete particular actions

and more. So instead of a static image,

you have some animation. And wait and

look, because there is a platform called

Jitter, and they have a series of

templates. They can be used as a talking

point with maybe an agency or maybe with

your video editor, but they also offer

free accounts where you can download

those animations. That could be, for

example, you want someone to complete a

form and you can have an animation to

show how simple it is to complete the

form. You can have an animation to talk

about the upgrade of a recent product.

There's so many things, honestly, this

templates library is so, so extensive.

You're bound to find something that

you'll need. So add animation to create,

again, a bit of stickiness into your

site, but also to show to your visitors

that you care particularly about their

experience and the level of clarity you

want to convey on those particular web

pages.

So I'd not heard of that at all. I've

just been Googling and it looks really

cool. And what a great way to just add

something different to your content in

your website. 2 great tools from the

website engine room. Let's move on to the

website call to action.

I believe we've reached the final segment

of the website Mastery Podcast. This is

about the 1 change or 1 adjustment that

Jonny and I would like to recommend that

you should be making to your website

right now. It's simple, it's practical,

and it makes a huge, huge difference.

Jonny, what is your recommendation?

Testing. So A-B testing specifically to

optimize your website. So creating

different versions of different pages,

whether that be a landing page that

you're using in a meta campaign or a

Google paid campaign, or whether it just

be the homepage for organic users.

There's lots and lots of tools out there.

Some of them, depending on the website

traffic you've got, depends on whether

it's worth spending money or not. But

anything from sort of optimisedly to hot

jar to unbounce, and others include

things like ABTasty and Convert and

Chameleon. There's lots of different

tools. It's worth just having a Google

and looking at the AB testing

optimisation tools that are out there.

But it's a way to really refine the user

experience, the design, the conversion

strategies, trying to understand, you

know, just as simple as should that

button be on the left or the right,

should it be in green or pink? You know,

perhaps trying, just changing a word on a

button, the difference that that can make

in terms of conversion. And if you sort

of go back to the good old days of

accountants telling you, or even in maths

lessons, change a little bit here, a

little bit here, a little bit here, 0.1%

here, 0.1% here, and all of a sudden, 30%

increase on profit. Well, that's the same

thing in conversion optimization. If you

can make a little tweak in 10 different

places and just increase those

percentages, even a small amount, the

overall impact is huge. So don't forget

about testing and about doing some A-B

testing on website landing pages

especially. That will be my call to

action for this episode.

Thank you. And you know, very much like

the reaction to the persona creation,

this is the 1 that always gets people

twitching thinking, well, it sounds hard

or what will I know? Will I even

understand the results of the A-B testing

and happily things are removed on them to

the platform you can use. But also if

this is something that is new to you,

you're still uncertain. I would recommend

that you literally go on an AI platform

like ChatGP, GM&I, and the others, and

just do a bit of studying. Just ask some

simple questions. This is my sector. This

is the audience. I'm thinking about A-B

testing for optimization. What do you

think? And have that conversation that

exchange with the assistant is going to

clarify things for you and you can

discover it's not as difficult as it

sounds. And sometimes, you know, I would

agree that the language of our industry

in general is not particularly helpful.

For sure. Absolutely. Yeah, What's yours

this week?

Yeah, thank you very much. We're just

about to complete yet another quarter of

the year. Time just flies. And therefore,

logically, we should be thinking all of

us in the next quarter. With that in

mind, my culture actions for you want to

review their best performing web pages

for this time last year, as in the next

quarter that's coming, what happened in

the previous year. And what you'll see

through audience behavior, there will be

some pages and some behavior that is very

seasonal. And it could have been linked

to a sales push in particular, or it

would just be logically because of the

time of year, this makes sense for people

to be interested in this type of content.

So you're going to end up with a list of

your best performing pages. I want you to

then put together a bit of an action plan

in terms of on-page optimization. And

this is, and again, we don't always have

time to talk to each other. This is just

happy coincidence that this is where the

A-B testing could come into play. You

know, you can have the existing pages and

then the new 1, what is the added. But

on-page optimizations, I mean, I've

covered extensively on the show, so

everyone just go through some previous

episodes and find our recommendations.

You could be tweaking, you know, your

headlines, you could be tweaking the

photography. And I think also for me,

joining this side of if you're likely to

have returning visitors because of the

time of year, there's nothing more

off-putting for a visitor kind of go, Oh,

it's the same as last year. They've not

even changed the photography. They've not

changed the case studies. They've not

changed the culture action. It's the same

thing because it gives the impression,

perhaps wrongly, that you just don't take

care of the website and that extension,

people make the very wrong and harsh

conclusion that you don't have a

particularly good approach to customer

care either. So that's my culture action.

We are kind of about to wrap up a quarter

yet again, and we've got a new 1 coming

up. Let's make this website content ready

early.

I like it. I like it. Another great

episode, we focused on website, mobile

friendly websites. I think that the

message here is stop looking at your

website on desktop. Start looking at your

website on mobile and Start looking at

your competitor's website on mobile. And

if you're buying or building a new

website, look at mobile first. Stop

looking at desktop designs, look at

mobile designs, and think about making

space and call to actions. We've talked

about AI powered commerce search. It's

here, and it's only going to get bigger

and bigger and customers, clients,

potential clients are going to be using

far less words to try and find your

services and products. How are you going

to ensure that you capture them and that

you convert those people. And 1 of the

ways to do that is to start embracing it

yourself to really understand how it all

works. We've had some great call to

actions, great tips on the engine room.

Enjoyed yourself, Pascal?

Always, And I keep saying it, but it is

true. When you and I started the show, we

went, well, it may reach a point where

we've covered everything there is to say

about running a website, feeling proud of

your website, looking after your

customers and making this web plan an

extension of your kind of approach to

customer service and beyond. And here we

are, we keep finding new ways, but also

you, our audience, keep sending us

questions and suggestions. So I don't

know about you, but we're gonna keep

going.

And please keep sending us those

questions. And thank you if you're on the

replay watching this as a catch up. We

really appreciate it. We absolutely

appreciate it. And so much so if you

enjoyed it, if you found it helpful,

leave a review on Apple podcasts. That's

a wrap for episode 32 of the Ninth State

Website Mastery podcast, your audio

companion to the 90 Day Website Mastery

program. Listen, there's tons of more

information and lots of tools and

resources that we have put together. All

of the content from all of our episodes

turns into a tool or a resource on

90daymarketingmastery.com. You can also

book a discovery call with either myself

or Pascal. It's goodbye for now. We'll

leave you with a fun video and audio

montage to enjoy whilst you review your

notes and action steps. And we will look

forward to seeing you again soon. Take

care, enjoy the rest of your day. I'm

out! I'm out! I'm out! I'm out! I'm out!