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Everyone wants to grow their business, but not everyone has the time or patience to learn all the ins and outs of marketing, sales enablement, and making the most out of a CRM such as HubSpot. Join the Web Canopy Studio team, a HubSpot Diamond Partner Agency, as they chat about various topics all designed to help you grow your B2B business.
(00:00):
Hey, what's up everybody? In today's episode? We are talking about the three most important things to consider when choosing what platform to put your website on. And so we're going to be going into the weeds into a few different topics, but one of them specifically on why the cheapest option is rarely the best option. And so, if you're evaluating a new website, whether it's today or something you're planning for in the future, this is the core piece of what your website should be built on. So we're gonna dive into what those might be, what those considerations should be, that you are evaluating. My name is John Aikin. I'm the CEO of Web Canopy Studio. And this is the website conversion show.
(01:17):
The last episode, we went through this pyramid here, this diagram, where we talked about the website eight conversion framework, and it should be in the show notes if you're listening. and don't have the visual in front of you, you can click a link and check out what the website conversion framework looks like. But we went through these six different components that a highly converting website must have or must go through in order to be successful in what it's trying to accomplish. And so, at the very root, we're going all the way down to the most critical component of a successful website, and that is choosing the right platform. Suppose we don't have the right platform in tools in place. In that case, we are going to do our jobs as we go up and, and out and scale out of this framework, we're gonna make it considerably harder on us because if we don't do it right at the core, as we scale out, it's just gonna be tremendously more difficult and less effective.
(02:18):
So today, as I was saying, we're gonna be talking about the three biggest considerations choosing the right website platform. I have seen, I don't know how many other agencies and gurus and, and read so many blogs about people comparing, what should you look for in a website platform? And first off, they're, they're all wrong. It drives me nuts, how people are trying to promote features and why you should look at features for choosing what website platform you need to be focusing on. And, you know, if, if it's coming down to very tiny nitty-gritty details, then maybe the features are the selling point, but rarely is it ever a feature that you're looking for or that you should be looking for to establish what website platform you're you're working with? Because there's, there's really three really important pieces of that, that we have to make sure that we are exploring.
(03:17):
And so the very first thing that I look at when I am looking into what website platform is the right one for me, or for a client, the first thing I'm gonna evaluate is the goal of that website and the purpose of that website. What is that website truly supposed to do? This is the first, most important piece of choosing the right platform. I'm willing to bet most people don't even think about this when they're trying to to figure out what website platform they should choose. And this is why I just, it is so cringeworthy to me to see all this content and, and all these people talking about, oh, it's WordPress versus square space versus HubSpot versus all these. And like, you don't know, you're not even, you don't even know who the people are that you're talking to. You're just, you know, trying to come up with features and stuff.
(04:08):
And it's just BS. And I don't like it. So why, why talk about goals and purpose? Why is that something that we should even consider or think about? Well, all of these website platform, they're all very valid. Like there's not one that is just better than the other across the board for every single industry, for every single use. I am a firm believer that there are key specific components to each website platform. Each of the major players in the space based off of what it is that you're trying to do. So for example, like the, the, the plain and simple, like the one that is plain and day plain is day to me is like shopping, right? If you're, if you're an e-commerce platform, if the primary goal of your website is to sell something online, you're selling shirts, you're selling candles, you're selling breaks for your car.
(04:59):
Like if you're selling stuff online, then your website platform should be rooted in an online eCommerce platform. Okay. It should be something like Shopify should be the, where your website actually lives. Now I know that there's lots of integrations and things that you could do and combine different components. And I think that's great. I think it's super important. We've done. I don't know how many different websites where we've tied Shopify into HubSpot, and that works very, very well. But, but if your primary purpose of the, the existence of that website is for e-commerce is shopping. It would not make to house your primary website somewhere else, and then have to keep sending data, different platforms, different integrations, different plugins, into different things. It just doesn't make sense. And it also doesn't make sense to focus on using plugins as the primary source for your shop.
(06:03):
So it, you know, if, if shopping is a secondary component, I get it. But if it's the primary component, I don't think that's right. I think your website should live on that, that place. So you know, shopping, I think you gotta go with an e-commerce platform like Shopify, if your primary purpose is blogging and like content distribution and thought leadership like news networks and things like that. Like Buzzfeed, I would go with a platform that is built for blogging and content distribution and sharing. I think WordPress does this very, very, very well. Hell you could even think about something like medium, because medium is built for sharing content, sharing blogs. It's already structured that way for you. Granted all of them have the capacity to do that. Hubspot is wonderful for content and, and sharing and distribution. But WordPress was built it for that.
(06:58):
So that is WordPress' core functionality. In fact, if you want WordPress to be a website or to do lots of other things, you have to insert in more than likely several other plugins and, and widgets and things to make WordPress do stuff it wasn't actually designed to do, but it is designed to be a blogging platform, which is why it was built in the first place. So if it's, if it's something like lead generation and it's running a marketing based website, that's designed to get people to your website to read content, to convert into a lead that they can be nurtured and that they can start booking calls on your sales teams calendar, which is the way that most B2B businesses today are run. I think your website needs to live on the same platform as your CRM. I think your website in that situation should be something where the CRM is just built natively into the background of that, of that website.
(07:57):
So the, the, the there's no lost data. We're not sending information back and forth. It would not make sense to have a third party running my website that I have to then send information to when that is the core crux, the reason of why my website is in existence today. So what's another example of online courses. Like if you're running an online course, that's the primary focus of what you're doing. That is what you're designed to do. That is the, the, the reason your company exists. I would think of something like Kajabi, right? So the very first consideration you need to have is what is the goal of my website? What is the purpose that it's even existing today? And if it's something like lead generation, then you need to think about, I want a lead generation platform to house my website, like HubSpot.
(08:50):
If it's something where it's like, I'm just looking to share content and be like a news outlet like, like I'm a journalist, I'm sharing blogs and it's not so much about leads. It's more about just sharing with the world. Then maybe something like medium or WordPress is a good fit. That's not to say that you can't do other things with other platforms or that they can't do that too. But I think you catch what, I'm, what I'm throwing down here. So the that's the first consideration that I would put into choosing your website. The next one is usability. How, how easy is it for you to make changes on your website on the platform that you're exploring, who is going to be the one that's editing and, and who's gonna be that website, because if you are moving to a platform or staying on a platform that is very difficult to make adjustments to, or that you need to hire a developer or reach out to a developer to just make modifications, I cannot tell you the amount of, of headache that you are putting yourself through, because if you are a marketer, a business owner, and you don't know much about actually coding and developing and things like that, then why are we stuck on a platform that requires me to have to have some kind of level of knowledge and functionality for that?
(10:11):
It, it blows my mind. It is not worth it. It does not make sense. What's so however, and so that is a, a really big thing for so many people is, you know, I, I can't tell you how many times I've heard people come to Web Canopy Studio and say, oh yeah, I'd love to make more changes on my website, but I have to reach out to my developer, you know, my, my coding friend to take care of that for me. So it's a challenge and it puts people well in a situation that really they feel stuck. So when you're evaluating that, that platform of choice, the second thing is to me is boiling down to usability. Okay. The third thing and the, that third consideration that really I think this is another one most people seem to look over or they just see it as a feature.
(11:02):
The third consideration that I'm looking at is reporting an attribution. I want to know, do I have access to track the performance of my website, of the pages of the section, of the content of my website? Can I track it back to revenue and to the overall performance of that PA page or section of the site without having to use third parties without having to go in and do plugins and integrations and sending content back and forth to reporting platforms and all these things? Yes, totally. You could do it with all with a million different to rules. You can send it to programs and have 'em analyze it, and it comes back. And now you have another program that's delivering really pretty graphics and of your, of your charts. And I get it. That's like it's important, but I would much rather have all of it in one place.
(11:52):
I would much rather be able to, with the click of a button, see my reporting data and understand why that's so critical and understand what does this actually give me in a return. Okay. So there's a lot to that that I think a lot of people kind of skip over. And so we had a, let me just kind of walk you through an example about why that's important. We had a client that was considering their, their website was on HubSpot. We helped them keep it on a HubSpot. They were considering moving off and going to WordPress. This is a few years ago. And the CEO of the come was we, we were working with the marketing director. The CEO of the company was upset with the website because he thought it didn't tell enough of the story of the company.
(12:44):
He thought that the website should be sharing more about, we've been in business 25 years and we've been served to sing this local community for all this time. And these are our accolades and our awards and why we're so great. Because he thought the content was too plain. The actual content that we had put on the website was problem focused. It was problem specific. So it was really tailored to the audience for conversion. It was focused on getting people to take action and convert while they were on the website. And so when we caught wind of that, all we needed to do was click on the back end, go to the back end of that page, go to the back end of that site and show the attribution reporting to him. That bill that was already built in natively to the functionality of the website did not have to create any special reports.
(13:35):
Did not have to tie in any plugins. Literally it was just there for us. And we would, we were able to say, I hear you, what you're looking for, what you're saying is important. And there is a place for that. Like we need to share the credibility and the accolades and the longevity of the company. Should it be the main theme of the website? I don't think so. And here's why here's the data that will tell us otherwise. And so what we did was we were able to look at like campaign reports inside of HubSpot and individual page performance. And so what we could show 'em is like over time, here's all of the deals that are attributed to the kinds of content that your website is really doing well, here's all of the revenue that's attributed the website performance and the website content.
(14:18):
And so it did nothing but validate our our client, our point of contact, who was the marketing director and, and really just back her up and give her the ability to kind of stand her own on her own two feet and not just, you know, because the CEO wanted it a specific way that she didn't feel like she had to get pushed around in that, that, so it was really, really quite helpful. And it eliminated the need to go back and start discussing. Should we bring WordPress back into the mix or not? So that's just an example. Those are really the, the big three things. The other, the other situation, a lot of people bring up cost. Cost is very important. Is it the top three consideration? It's, it's not, I, I wouldn't even bring it into the mix, especially depending on like where you're at as a business.
(15:10):
And here's why when you insert the, the issue of cost into the discussion, you bring up things like, well, WordPress is free. Wordpress is easy for me to just be able to not have to worry about an extra expense of something like HubSpot CMS hub. And so it's a, it's a a battle that we fight all the time with, with, with people who are, are thinking about new websites and platforms. The reason why that's an issue, the amount of time that is lost in dealing with a free CMS dealing with the, the headache of coding or lack of changes being made, because that person cannot now make changes to their website without having to rely on a developer is ridiculous. It's sky high there's so much time lost, so much opportunity lost because of the things that are, are, or are not being done to the website.
(16:12):
Think about all of the potential customers, the potential leads that your site, your company is missing out on, because we're just simply on the wrong platform. And we can't make the changes that we need to in the timeframe that we like, like there's opportunity constantly. And I, I heard a statistic the other day, the the stack overflow, which is a great online resource, lots of, lots of content, very well trusted source. They do an annual survey and they reached out to all these different developers in this annual survey. And according to stack overflow, WordPress was word was the number one most hated platform by developers, which was crazy. So over 59.9% of developers say that they hate working on WordPress. The next thing down was like IBM and windows and Android devices. And so like WordPress beats out every other one every other platform that's not even website platforms.
(17:18):
That's just like platforms in general that developers have to work with WordPress was the number one most hated platform to develop on. So I think all that being said is, you know, yes, there's a place for all these different platforms. There's a time and a place and a, in an industry where it's really important to think about, should this be used or should it not. But at the end of the day, we gotta choose the right one for us. And those three considerations are really where I would focus my, my priorities and what I'm thinking about. So again, it's the goals, it's the usability, and it's the reporting functionality. Those are the three things and tied back to the, the website conversion framework. Again, that's the core, that's the bottom piece, the most foundational element of a successful website without this doing what it needs to do and being where it is, the website can't function.
(18:07):
It's not gonna do all the other things that are that are capable. So with that, if you guys just a reminder, if you are interested in understanding how your website fares, what your website could possibly be doing better, how to improve your website in all these different categories, from platform to positioning, to design and development, to new nurturing and automation, traffic, and SEO, and conversion rate optimization, please take our website assessment. We have a website conversion assessment where we've gone through and asked five questions in each of these categories. So it's just 30 questions. It'll take five minutes of your time. And what you'll do is you go through and evaluate, answer the questions. And as an outcome, you're gonna be delivered a customized report specific to your website that will give you checklists and guides and, and tutorials and trainings and things, other resources that you need in order to improve each individual section of your website in your business. So with that that's about it. Today. Link is in the show notes. You can go to we canopy studio.com/assessment and take that website conversion assessment. I think that's it guys. My name's John Aikin. I'm the CEO of Web Canopy Studio. And this is the website conversion show. We'll see ya.