How to build a high converting trade business website. Guest starring Kody Thompson, founder of Lightning Sites

 Andy
Yes, it is.

Ange
So in the past, tradies might have put an ad in the yellow pages with their business name and phone number and pretty much called it a day. I remember doing that.

 Andy
We had got a few ads, didn’t we?

Ange
Yeah, and with everything online these days, and the fact that your customers actually have a mobile phone attached to their hip, it’s literally too easy for them to do some research before they make contact with you.

 Andy
Yeah, it’s so right, and whether they’ve been given a referral from a friend or seen your vehicle on the road, they will generally still go and have a look at your website before they give you a call. Why? You know what? Because they can and they wanna check you out.

Ange
Yeah, exactly. So this perhaps is the first point of contact where you are building trust with a potential customer and you haven’t even had the chance to speak with them yet. And guess what? They will actually form an opinion about your business within seconds. So there are a number of factors that influence this, but think about what you do when you are shopping around. You look at a website. If it’s not quick enough to load, you move on. If the graphics are maybe blurry and the website looks unprofessional, you move on. If the colors aren’t consistent and the font style easy to read. You move on. So your potential customer does the exact same thing.

 Andy
Yeah, exactly. And being able to be found on the web is an absolute must when it comes to trade. Your potential customers need to be able to read something about you, and decide that you are definitely the right fit for them. It’s important for emergency style work, so they know you offered the right solution and they can call you quickly and you are going to react fast. But it’s equally important for project-based tradies like builders as well, because every potential customer will literally read every page and scour through every photo, because if they’re gonna engage you as a builder, they’re gonna spend some big bucks with you.

Ange
Yeah. Which means they’re gonna, as you say, know everything about you. So I like to think of it as a bit of an octopus. Your website is the head of an octopus, and all of your marketing bits and pieces, like all the tactics you do, are the octopus legs. So all marketing should provide the opportunity to contact you immediately, and if not, you need to lead them back to the head of the octopus, your website. So your potential customer needs the opportunity to learn more about you without making contact, because as we said, they can, their mobile devices are in their hand and it needs to tick the box of the first level of trust when they get there.

 Andy
Yeah, it’s not just about what it looks like from a graphic design perspective. It’s all about functionality, but basically if you don’t have one, you’re gonna lose customers because there’s nowhere for them to check you out and find out some more information. Or if you do have one and it’s not up to scratch, then you’ll still lose customs because first impressions will make them move on quickly and potentially they will never return.

Ange
Exactly.

 Andy
So that said, because having a great website for your trade business is so important, we have a special guest joining us today to talk to us through website 101. We’ve got Kody Thompson from Lightning Sites joining us. Welcome, Kody.

Kody
Thanks guys. Appreciate you having me on.

Ange
Yeah. So happy to have you here. Love it.

 Andy
Yeah mate. You’re an absolute superstar and you recently presented at our Lifestyle Tradie Member only event in Darling Harbor. And all of our members know about you, but a lot of our listeners, um, out there don’t, so can you just run through a bit of your background and what you do and your business Lightning sites?

Kody
Yeah, sure. So my business started, I was a freelance graphic designer, and so I was a one man band, and then I ended up growing my business from there, I started out doing branding and flyers and basically anything that people would pay me for, and then I realized that being all things to all people was a poor way to run a business. And so I focused all my intention on building websites. So Design Fox, my original business turned into Lightning sites. And, uh, over the last six years we’ve built 1200 websites for clients around the world. And, uh, we service about 800 clients and they pay us a monthly fee for us to manage their website for them. And, uh, yeah, we’ve worked with lots of trade businesses and lots of other businesses as well, and so it’s been a great journey.

 Andy
Yeah, mate, it has been a great journey and I’ve had the pleasure of watching your journey along the way as well. And, I will have to say one thing, you know, the integrity, the honesty, who you are is such a special guy and a great human being and you know what you do and the professionalism around it is next level.

Kody
Appreciate that.

 Andy
So I just wanna say that and, um, everyone’s loving what you’ve done for our group and our community.

Kody
Thank you. Yeah.

Ange
Yeah. When we know that websites for trade are critically important and that your expertise is high converting websites, can you share with us perhaps what are the biggest mistakes that businesses and particularly trade businesses make when developing their websites.

Kody
Well, I think one of them is just not being educated on what a website can do for their business. I think most tradies when they go into running a business, aren’t thinking about websites and potentially not even thinking about marketing. And so it’s very easy for trade businesses to be, I guess, taken advantage of any business owner if they’re not educating themselves around. Like what a website can and should do, how much they should be paying, you know, what they can expect in terms of the results that they’re gonna get from their website. There’s a lot of people in my industry that are not very honest in the way they approach those conversations, and so I think that’s probably one of the biggest, you know, areas and, and that’s why it’s so important what you guys offer at Lifestyle Tradie, because you are educating people first around, you know, what should be on a website, how it can be optimized to perform the best for their business. And so when people are, you know, buying a website, they have already come armed with that knowledge. That’s probably the first thing, educating yourself around what your website can do. And then in terms of the actual website itself, I think I talked about at the event that we had, you know, having a plan for your website is so important, like figuring out what are the goals, what are you trying to achieve on your website, and then just making sure that every page on your website is driving them to that next step. So if it’s a free quotation form or getting the phone to ring, like whatever your main objectives are for your website, making sure every page on your website is focused on achieving that goal and not having like, just stuff on pages for no real reason at all.

 Andy
I’m just gonna touch on a couple of things you said there and um, one of them is, You know, when it comes to having a website, I believe most trade business owners think they need one. And I would say majority fed income guys have one. But a lot of them are like a one pager, or they’ve used some, is it Wix or they’ve, they’ve used some programs.

Ange
Easy platform and done it themselves.

 Andy
Yeah. Done it themselves. And then they don’t look at it for the next 10 years and sit there. And then you’ve got other people that have paid like $10,000 for a website and they have it for a few years and then all of a sudden things go wrong and they can’t get it fixed. And they’re like, I can’t even get in contact with the company. And then all of a sudden they’ve gotta start again. You know? And yeah, what you said, and I’m not out here to bash people on good websites, cuz we know there’s a lot of good people as well. But that is definitely what you are saying and um, I know you, you are very good at making sure you get the right website from the beginning, making sure there’s a plan. And that’s where, as a trade business owner, you help them with their goals, but they’ve gotta talk to you and you’ve got a bit of a questionnaire about what do you want and where do you want to go, and you help them with considering the best way to get the best conversion for your website. And that’s something that’s really important as well.

Kody
I think a lot. It’s just like if you were, you know, any tradie, if they were to walk on site with someone, they would be asking questions and assessing the situation before recommending stuff. I mean, and that’s just what a good web developer should be doing. If they’re working with a client, they should be asking them questions, not just about their functionality. What functionality do they want on their website, but just generally like what are you trying to achieve with your business? Like what are you spending on marketing? How many leads are you getting right now? What’s working for you? What’s not working for you? So when you’re recommending a solution to somebody that you are trying to spend their money on, uh, in a way that’s gonna help them to get a return on their investment for their business. I mean, it’s just simple to me, but it’s not always the way web developers approach their projects.

 Andy
Yeah. I just wanna also touch on the fact that, you know, Lifestyle Tradie, we coach a lot of tradies out there and have been doing it for 13 years, so I know what works and I know what doesn’t. And I, and I’ve run my own business for 21 years, so I know how to help people. I just wanna point out there, you’ve done 1200 websites and you’ve got 800 active people that you are working with every month. You know about websites and you know what’s working and, and, and that’s a really important thing. You know, you’re not just this person that’s doing a banging a few things out in their backyard because they’ve got nothing better to do. You, you live and breathe it.

Kody
Yeah, I mean, uh, obviously there’s always more things to learn, of course. But, um, we’ve got runs on the board, you know, we’re delivering, you know, 20 to 30 websites every month. Yeah. Um, we have a team of 75 staff, like we’ve built a successful business doing this. . Um, and we, we generate most of our business through, like Education. Through educating people around the importance of a website. Um, and so usually most of our work comes through referrals, so it means that the work that we do has to be good. You know, we’re not just sort of chasing random people with Facebook ads and then not giving a crap if the results are terrible. Like we’re working with people who met us through a referral, and so we have an obligation to, to do a good job on the project. And so that’s how we’ve always approached. You know, growing our business.

Ange
So if you come back to these goals about, you know, if you start there about asking questions to a trade business owner when you work with them, what kind of goals would trade business owners consider when building their site? And maybe what elements might they consider thinking about to achieve their goals?

Kody
Yeah, so some of them might be, um, I guess more traffic to their website. That might be a specific goal. So maybe they’re, they’re wanting to, um, rank for specific suburbs, so that might be high on their agenda. Like I said, maybe if they’re, I’m saying emergency plumbing business, then phone calls might be like the most important thing to them. They just need people to, to ring the number and, uh, contact them. Um, so that might be one of their, their, you know, um, key goals. Another might be like a free quote that might be, if, if people are sort of planning out, uh, like projects in advance, then there might be some sort of request form where people fill that out to give them details. Like if you’re a builder or something like that. Um, that’s not sort of doing emergency work, but doing more projects, then those things might be important. Um, maybe you’re running ads. Um, and so maybe you’re sending them to your homepage of your website right now, and there’s no way for you to track the results. So one of your goals might be to move those ads to specific landing pages so you can properly track whether or not the ads are working effectively for you. There’s so many different, I guess, possibilities and it’s, it’s, I guess, important that you speak, speak to someone who knows what they’re talking about so they can help you to figure it out. What are the priorities? Because every website will have multiple goals, like there’ll be multiple things that you’re hoping your website can do for your business, and it’s important to prioritize those things and figure out like, what is a winning website? What does a winning website do for your business? So that when the web developer starts building it, they can be making sure that they know where the goalposts are. Um, and can get the results that you’re looking for.

Ange
What I love about this is, um, we often talk with our members from a marketing perspective that any attract strategies that you are doing, ideally you are trying to get them to make contact with you immediately. But in all honesty, most potential customers will actually have a look at your website. Because it’s just so easy, right? They’ve got a phone attached to their hips, so it’s too easy just to go, I’ve been told about this business. I’m just gonna quickly Google them and just have a look at what they look like. Um, functionality and graphic design becomes really important. Um, and if I don’t like what I see, I’m gonna move on real fast. But to your point, you can have so much traffic coming to this website, which to me is what I class as this head of an octopus, right? Lots of different arms about lead strategies. Um, but you must have one location where if you can, you can send everyone, you can get them there, but what are you doing when you get them there? Because you can drive so much traffic there, but you are missing an opportunity if you don’t, as you say, have a plan and have a goal about, well, what are you actually trying to do when you get there? Because that’s like almost taking a phone call and you’ve got no conversion. So what are the conversion pieces whilst you’ve got them here on a website? So, um, all great conversation.

Kody
Yeah. And I think, um, people that would make an argument to say that they don’t need a website are, are probably just thinking about the goals for their website in the wrong way. Like for some trade businesses, they don’t need more work right now. Um, but they do maybe need more tradies. Um, and so like, um, having a careers page, having a website that makes the brand look good. So that, you know, potential trades would be attracted to working with that brand. Um, maybe they’re gearing up to sell their business. Um, so there’s a whole bunch of, um, you know, different goals that people might have for their, for their business and for their website. And so it’s just figuring out what winning looks like and making sure that the website is able to achieve the, the, um, The goals that that business has.

Ange
I think from a marketing perspective, having a website is literally a non-negotiable in trade, literally.

Kody
Yeah, I think so too.

 Andy
I agree. I agree. Yeah.

Ange
It’s just about how you play the game and how well you actually design that website, and perhaps how many pages you put on it just because of your emergency versus, you know, project-based kind of businesses. It’s, so perhaps the way the website actually looks might be a little bit different. But all in all, um, non-negotiable. So for everyone who is a listener out there, if you don’t have one, then go do it immediately. And if you haven’t looked at it, if you’ve got one and you haven’t looked at it recently, then I suggest you actually go back and actually take a, take a little look at it. So one of the things we commonly hear in the marketing world is this term above the fold. This is, you know, a common conversation when it comes to websites. So for our listeners, can you explain what this means and why perhaps it’s so important for them to get it right?

Kody
Yeah. So above the fold is a term in, it’s been in marketing for a long time and it actually dates back to, um, newspapers when, um, newspapers used to be folded in half and they would be put onto racks. You could only see the top half of the newspaper cuz the bottom half would be folded under. And so the term above the fold referred to like what do you see at the top of the newspaper? Um, so that’s where the word fold comes from. It’s folded over the newspaper. On a website above the fold has been used to describe the first screen that you see when you land on a website before you scroll. So on a website we don’t fold, uh, like a newspaper, but we scroll instead. And so it’s, it’s just talking about what is real estate when someone lands on your website, the first piece of real estate that they see. And obviously it’s the most important real estate because it’s the first thing that people see when they land on the website. A large percentage of people won’t scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. Um, you know, so you need to have your most important information at the top of the page, and your very, very most important information needs to be above the fold.

 Andy
Yeah, definitely.

Ange
First impressions, right? So, one, it needs functionality. It needs to pop up quickly. However, the moment that I, whatever I lay my eyes on from a graphic design perspective, the colors I use, the font style I have, and the words or the language that pops out at me, it has to connect with me immediately, otherwise you’ve lost me real fast and I’ve moved on.

Kody
Exactly.

 Andy
Yeah. And of course, you know, when you are looking at websites, there comes a whole world of technical jargon that, you know, can get really detailed and confusing sometimes, like pimple people like me. But what are some of the basic technical elements that someone might need to know about building their website?

Kody
Yeah. So, um, technical elements. Um, so the hosting of the website is important. Hosting is just where the files of your website live. Um, and so, uh, it’s important that you work with a reputable company that has good quality support. So if your website goes down, for example, and you don’t know why it’s not viewable, You have someone that you can contact. So hosting is important. Um, not to be too simple, but the domain name. So where did you buy your domain name? Um, are you using a .com.au or are you using something strange like a .org or something that you shouldn’t be using? So having a proper domain name set up, making sure it’s in your, under your control, that is not under someone else’s control, um, is really important because it’s an important part of your intellectual property. And then when you’re actually building the website, what software are you using? We personally use WordPress. Um, we think it’s the, the, uh, best platform to build websites that’s been around for, it’s been the market leader for 20 years. Um, and so it’s, it’s the platform that, that, that we recommend. So, software, and then I guess what theme you’re using for WordPress? What plugins are you using? So there’s a, I guess a lot of technical stuff in the back ends. Um, and, uh, yeah, like I said earlier, having someone that can, that can walk you and help you navigate through the, the technicalities, um, in a way that is not talking down to you, but educating you around the decisions that you’re making, I think is really important. And then of course, it’ll be a, maybe a separate conversation then to talk about what you actually put on your website in terms of call to actions, photos, what information to put where, what pages you need. You know, how your branding is laid out, what colors you’re choosing. All those elements, uh, uh, go into making sure that the website design achieves the goals that you are, that you are set for your business.

 Andy
Yeah. There’s so much more than just saying, I want a website. And getting it built. There’s so much behind the scenes and that’s why I need to make sure you got someone with that knowledge.

Ange
Agreed. And one of the things that is really relevant to a trade business owner and something they’re quite familiar with is, is already working with a job management system and perhaps having some form of website integration, not just from a job management perspective, but maybe into their customer relationship management, their CRM. Can you explain why perhaps this is important and what effect this could have on the business?

Kody
Yeah, for sure. And I think this is one of the areas people don’t, um, always think about their website. Everyone will often think about it from a lead generation perspective. But one of the other ways that a website can be useful is helping you to organize the way that people connect with your business and making sure that the information is stored somewhere that it makes sense for you, for you and your business. So whether you’re using, you know, ServiceM8, um, as a, you know, as a tool or if you’re using, you know, like a CRM, like a general CRM tool, like MailChimp or active campaign or something like that. Whatever you are using to track your leads and opportunities, you can make sure that those leads and projects are coming into your business in a way that allows you, from an operational perspective, to execute on those projects more effectively. So your website has the ability to, one, help you qualify the leads so that you don’t have projects coming in the door that are not suitable for your business because the message on your website is clearly showing people what you do and what you don’t do. Number two, it can be going into your system in a way that allows you to get the information that you need from the customer and then move them through from lead into project, you know, in the smoothest way possible. So I think that, you know, that integration piece between the front end, your website and the backend, your job management system is really, um, Something that people don’t initially think of, but it’s very important when it comes to building a, like a really high quality website.

 Andy
So just to touch on that, because if you go back, uh, is it two years? Is it five years? Like, because I know that websites in the past we haven’t had that and I think most people out there, well, there’s probably a high percentage that don’t have that, and I do know that some of these job management systems, they obviously have, is it APIs that can connect? And so this is what you, you help connect with the APIs of the job management system to make sure the information picked up on the website automatically goes into the job management system. And how long’s that been sort of happening for?

Kody
Yeah, it’s different for every software because some softwares, to be honest, doesn’t even have that functionality available. So it does depend on what job management tool you are using? Yeah. Just to take the one I mentioned before, for example, ServiceM8. Um, it does have an open API. And so there is, um, not to get too technical, but there’s some tools that you can use to connect your website, you know, uh, into the backend of some of these systems. And have them, for example, create a draft job. Or, um, in others, create just a lead so that the contact details are there and when you talk to the customer, you don’t have to punch in their contact details into the system. The contact details are already there. You’re just attaching a job to the contact. So there’s diff depending on what software you’re using, there’s different, um, Availability from the software side. But basically from a website side, anything that has an open API, um, so the ability for us to push information into their system from a third party, um, if they have that functionality, we can connect it from a website side of things.

 Andy
Yeah, huge. Huge. And makes a big difference and cuts back on time. And this is the whole thing, aren’t we? We need more time in a day. How can we save time? So,

Ange
Well, especially as you say, when you know, trade business owners, especially when they’re first starting out, they literally wear every single hat. And when we talk to our Lifestyle Tradie members about the flow of a job, like one of the things we educate them is how do you be, have business excellence with regards to the flow of one job? And you know, you can do these attract strategies to ideally make them make contact with you, but some of them aren’t ready for that. They’ll actually look at your website first. So therefore, how are you capturing them, which is obviously this conversation, but I, what I love about this is this API connection now through to your job management system, imagine that your potential customer is actually hunting for this trade business and it’s now nighttime. We’ve read a lot of statistics that talk about how your customers are actually looking and booking these things between like eight and 10:30 at night, for instance, or on a weekend. We tradies do not wanna be answering our phones at that hour. So if someone could actually go to your website and know that there’s little tiny conversion piece pieces set up inside the website, that now they can actually book the job and it automatically, without my help, I’m actually asleep and all this is happening and I literally wake up and there’s a job there. That is a huge time saver and I haven’t had to do a thing. So this is where these little conversion pieces are important.

Kody
For sure. Yeah, I think, um, Having a, like some way on the website where people can either book a job or even if it’s not booking it, even if it’s just filling out the information that you need to move forward, um, you can have automations and things that, that text them back automatically or email them back automatically so they can feel like, wow, I submitted this on Saturday and 10 minutes later I got a text message. That doesn’t have to be you on your phone sending the text. That can be a system that’s set up that says, wait 10 minutes. Yeah, then send ’em a text. Just those little things to delight customers, um, can make a huge difference so that they feel acknowledged, you know, that they, that they, you know, may have taken an action on your website and they’ll acknowledge that you received that action. Um, a lot of times people just want that acknowledgement. It’s when they send something through and it’s just, um, you know, um, crickets. That’s when people are, you know, uh, likely to go somewhere else. Whereas if you are texting him back 10 minutes after submitting a job on a Saturday. That’s a pretty good, um, experience for the customer.

Ange
I think humans have actually become impatient, right?

Kody
Yeah, a hundred percent.

 Andy
Yeah. Everyone did and I want it now.

Kody
Yeah.

Ange
Yeah. So this is where that immediate response, Makes me subconsciously as a potential customer go, oh my God, I, I love this trade business already. And we talk about the trust escalator that this just makes me say yes to making contact with you. And yes, I’ll wait for you to call me back tomorrow. So,

 Andy
Yeah, no, that makes a huge difference. This is absolutely awesome. I wanna touch on SEO, Search Engine Optimization. So there was a time when Dr. Drip was absolutely nailing this. We had 110 websites, 90 of them were number one. Dr. Drip was number one, and we were just creaming it. It was incredible until Google stomped on us and we went bong and we had a slow death in regards to SEO and we couldn’t get back. It was so hard trying to get back because there was a massive black cross against us because we were probably doing things that weren’t the right thing at the time. But the thing to talk about with seo, there was a period when it was really, really important and everyone wanted to do it, and it was the new thing. And you know, I put a lot of time and effort into it working with different marketing companies. But then all of a sudden it switched and it went more to Google AdWords. And then everyone was like, Google ads. Google Ads, because you’re just paying for the ads. And then Google couldn’t crush you like an ant like they did with us, and you were just paying for those ads. But now the price of ads have gone absolutely through the roof, and it depends on what keywords you’re going for and what industry you’re in, but it’s gone through the roof. So now SEO is on everyone’s lips again. So, you know, it’s not a new thing for trade business owners to know about SEO, but I feel like there’s a revival baby and everyone wants SEO and everyone naturally wants to be number one. So how do you optimize the websites for these search engines?

Kody
Yeah. Yeah. To, and to answer your question, I, I guess, um, the first part, maybe, and I’ll get into the SEO part. The Google AdWord and SEO, they, need to be sort of like done hand in hand. Like if you’re doing the good thing about paid ads like Google Adwords or probably that more than Facebook ads, but Google AdWords, you’re paying for that traffic. So it’s, it’s guaranteed traffic, but you’re gonna be paying for it. And if you’re always reliant on Google AdWords, you’ll always be paying for that traffic.

 Andy
Yeah, that’s right.

Kody
Um, SEO is a longer term strategy. It takes a long, longer time to build up that traffic and you gotta pay, you know, either your own time, you know, creating content or paying someone else to, you know, do the work. You’re paying something that’s investing in the future, but you get free traffic then, you know, as you build up your rankings, you’re getting traffic for free. So you want to kind of be thinking about both strategies, having a paid ad strategy as well. Um, as an organic search, um, an organic search, uh, strategy when it comes to SEO to actually rank a site on the search engines, there’s so many factors that go into it. Like, um, Google doesn’t even release all of their ranking factors, but there’s a number of things, for example, how long do people stay on the website, how many pages do they look at? Google can even tell how fast they’re scrolling down the page. Like are they reading the content or are they just scrolling over it? Um, what websites are linking to this website? Like, do, do, do they have other people referring traffic to them or are they only getting, um, their own traffic? Through social media, they’re looking at branding like, uh, what the business is doing on social media. Brand is a big part of how Google ranks a website. So it’s not just what’s on the website, but also what’s on your social media. Um, you know how much traffic comes from different locations, who’s referring to that traffic? There’s so many different elements. Load speeds, how fast the site is loading. Um, you know, how many people are taking the desired action on the website. So it can, it can like, look at all of these different elements. Um, so I guess when you are building a website, you, the web developer, have to be aware of those things. You know, what keywords we’re using on the pages, making sure it loads effectively, making sure we’ve chosen the right types of keywords for different pages, whether it be suburb, suburb, specific pages, or service based. Like, uh, you know, service specific pages, like if I was a plumber, I might have a page for gas fitting and I might have a different page for emergency plumbing so I can optimize different pages for different keywords. So there’s, there’s quite a lot of elements that, that, that go into it. But if I had to just sort of summarize it into maybe say three, I’d say you load speeds super important. I’d say that the keywords that you’ve chosen and what pages you’ve built to target those keywords, um, is really important. And then mobile responsive. The website has to be good on mobile phones because if it’s not, then if someone’s searching on their phone, which most of the time, um, 75% of people are searching from their phone, if your website’s not mobile responsive, Google won’t show it, um, in the ranking. So that’d be sort of three kinds of key areas you could kind of think about when it comes to SEO.

Ange
That mobile responsiveness, um, is quite interesting. I remember with Dr. Drip where I was watching my Google Analytics, uh, and talking to Andy about where our traffic was coming from, uh, to our website. And I was actually totally, uh, flabbergasted about the stats of people looking at our website on a mobile device versus desktop.

 Andy
And that was probably four years ago.

Ange
Oh, more.

 Andy
Was it? Yeah.

Ange
Yeah. Probably 10. I was actually really.

 Andy
So what’s the stat now? Did you say? Did you say that? Was it 80%?

Kody
Yeah. Yeah.

Ange
Yeah. It’s so huge.

Kody
Yeah. 70. 70 to 80%. It depends on the business. Like if you are in an aged care facility or something like that, then you might have an older generation looking at it on desktops and things like that. But, generally speaking, between 70 and 80% of first searches are done on a mobile phone. That percentage goes down when people return visitors. Sometimes people will search on their phone and then when they maybe say they are going to purchase, they might migrate to a computer or something like that. But most of the time, over 70% of people are landing on your website from a mobile device.

Ange
So knowing that that is so important, you know, we’re talking about websites are important, but now we’ve almost switched to go, well actually your website on a mobile device is functionally more important. How can a trade business owner actually check this? How can they ensure that their website is mobile friendly?

Kody
I mean, they can start by just picking up their mobile phone and just typing it in and having a look at themselves. That’ll give you a bit of an idea. It’s like, holy crap, I’ve gotta like, pinch the screen. And like, you know, put my reading glasses on to read anything on the website so they can do that sort of general test and that’ll give them a bit of an idea. But there’s also a, a, a test that you can do called the Google Mobile Friendly test. And if you just, if you just search for that on Google, that’ll tell you what Google thinks about your website when it comes to mobile because they don’t use a real person to assess every website. They have an algorithm that looks at the website and makes a decision on whether it’s mobile responsive or not. And so, um, if you type your URL in there, it’ll tell you what Google thinks. Um, and that’s just as important, if not more important than the reality of what it looks like because if Google thinks that it’s not mobile responsive, they won’t, they’re less likely anyway to show it in their rankings.

 Andy
Mate, I find it really hard to believe that in this day and age that people don’t have mobile friendly websites. Like I, I know, not just in the trade arena, but in other things. Like, I log on on my phone, I look at my phone and I’m trying to fill in a form, and it’s not mobile friendly. It’s like it does my head in and the next minute I just give up. Like if, oh, move on. Yeah. If you don’t have a mobile friendly website right now, come on, come on.

Ange
You’re losing customers. That’s what, that’s what’s happening.

Kody
70% of them probably. Yeah.

 Andy
Yeah, 70%. So, mate, we like to play a bit of a game here as well on our podcast. So we’re gonna hit you with three rapid fire questions. You’ve got roughly around 20 to 30 seconds to answer them, but I’m gonna start with this one. We’ve touched on a few of these things, but what are the top three things that a trade business owner needs on their website?

Kody
Needs on a website, they need a call to action. So they need to know what the call to action is, and it needs to be above the fold. It needs to be right in your face as soon as you glance at the page. The second thing would be testimonials. They need to have, especially if you’ve got verified testimonials from Google, you want to put trust elements in front of people as quickly as possible. Um, and then the third one would be a clear definition of what you do and what you don’t do. You need to make sure you’re qualifying the type of people landing on the website. So when they land on the website, they go, I know exactly what you do. I know exactly what to do next, and I know that other people love you, and so I’ve got a good chance that it’s gonna be a good experience for me as well.

 Andy
So number two, mate, if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you pick?

Kody
Right where I live, I’ve just renovated a farm in Northern New South Wales. So I bought a farm. It’s a hundred acres and, uh, we had a hundred year old house on it and we just finished renovating it and I got three kids under five and uh, I just wanted them to grow up on property. So we’ve got, we’ve got cattle and we’ve got, you know, chickens and we’ve got ducks and all kinds of animals. So I’d live right where I am in Northern New South Wales.

 Andy
That is awesome.

Ange
It is amazing.

 Andy
We know where our next holiday is, don’t we? Yeah, sounds good.

Kody
Come check out the farm.

 Andy
Sounds good. I’ve sent a lot of pictures and it looks absolutely incredible.

Kody
Thank you.

 Andy
So what’s the best piece of advice, business related or not that you have ever received?

Kody
Oh man, that’s such a big question.

 Andy
It is, it is. And I know, you know, some pretty smart cats too, right?

Kody
Uh, one that stands out to me. Um, when I was, when I was a kid, um, my dad would always talk to me about, um, looking people in the eye and giving them their, giving them attention, you know, when they’re talking. Um, and I think, um, I don’t know why this just came to mind now, but I, I’ve always, that’s been drilled into me. I remember my dad being like telling me off when he came and watched me play football once, and the coach was talking in the huddle and I was like, looking at my boots and my dad like kicked my butt after the game and was like, when the coach is talking, you look ’em in the eye. You listen to what they say. And I guess it’s been a bit of a theme of this podcast I was talking about at the start. Like when you’re working with a customer, you’ve gotta listen, you know, to what they’re saying, you know? And then, um, hold back your recommendations until you know what the problem is and what they’re looking for. And so that’s been, uh, I think has helped me along in life. That’s just one thing that just, uh, for some reason that just came to mind as, as you asked the question.

 Andy
Yeah. That’s awesome mate. And, um, I agree with you. Uh, communication is the key in everything we do and in business. And, and I know some people have better communication skills than others, but you know what? Communication is the key. So if you are struggling in that area, definitely look into it.

Ange
Yes, absolutely. You know what? Our members absolutely loved you at our recent R&R event, and it’s absolutely obvious why, and I’m sure every listener here has learned a great deal from the knowledge that you’ve shared and is perhaps now wondering if their website needs an update or that they need to get their butt into gear and maybe build one ASAP.

 Andy
Yeah, absolutely. If you don’t have one that’s mobile friendly or you don’t have one at all, definitely do it now. I just wanna say Kody thanks, mate. You’re an absolute legend and we really appreciate all the help you’ve been doing with our Lifestyle Tradie members and also this podcast as well.

Ange
Great having you, Kody.

Kody
It’s a pleasure. Thank you so much guys. I appreciate it.

 Andy
Talk soon, bud.

Kody
Talk soon.

Ange
So you guys heard, Andy, if you don’t already have a website, then get on an ASAP. It’s one of the most important marketing pieces for your trade business because like we said earlier, all marketing roads must lead back to it. And if it doesn’t exist, then you’re missing a key stepping stone for your potential customer making contact with you.

 Andy
Yeah, and if you’ve got one, don’t just think you can skate by. I would suggest you guys revisit your existing website and really look at its functionality in design to see if it needs updating, because no customer is gonna think highly of your business if your website looks rubbish. Harsh, but true.

Ange
Yeah. First impressions matter, just remember that.

 Andy
A hundred percent. So get onto it and we will catch you next week.

Ange
See you next week.