Why Didn't You Choose WordPress?
I asked this question recently and I got a lot of the same answer: It’s not user friendly. I get it - it’s not the easiest to navigate and you do need to keep up on the updates - but, your website isn’t about YOU. The front end of your website needs to be doing the work to bring in people that need you in their organization. The most important user for your website is your visitor.
What do you need your website to do?
- What’s the experience for the real user (not you)?
- How’s your website supposed to support the business you plan to have?
- Is the platform you’re looking at able to give your visitors the best experience possible?
Your website is about the end user, not necessarily what’s going on in the back end.
To learn more about elevating your brand, read our blog at http://blog.morethanabrand.co
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Music credit: Trust The Vibes by Vincent Tone
A Podcast Launch Bestie production
Transcript
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to episode 11
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:of More Than a Brand Podcast.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:This episode, I'm gonna give you a disclaimer.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Some people gonna be mad, but it's okay.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:We we gonna move through it.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Now, what I wanted to talk about in this episode is a post that I made
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:and I asked the question, why did you not choose WordPress for your.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And most of the answers I received was, it's not user friendly and I
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:don't like have to having it updated.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And 99% of the people said it wasn't user friendly.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:It wasn't user friendly.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:It wasn't user friendly.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And I get that WordPress, especially if you tried it in the beginning,
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:it was not easy to navigate.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Shit, neither was my space.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:That thing was not easy to customize.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And people, when it comes to their website, they are often thinking
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:about themselves when they should be thinking about the people that's
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:actually gonna be using their.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I know y'all mad about that, but this website ain't about you by any means.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And the reason why it's not about you is because it is put there
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:so that you can be invited into different places to make space for
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Not so that you.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Have a easy-peasy life.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Updating a website that you like because you wanted to do this and you want it
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:to be this way on the back end when it's really the front end that needs to
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:be doing the work to reach the people that need you in there, organization.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:So what do I mean by that?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I'm not a hater on any.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:website builder platform.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I know there's easier options than WordPress, but those easier options don't
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:always provide the things that you need to be able to get you where you want to be.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:So when people on the posts, and I had several comments when most of
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:the comments were saying that it wasn't user friendly, they wasn't
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:talking about the most important user.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:They were talking about themselves.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:and I see that as a trend because nine times out of 10 people just
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:feel like they need a website because everyone said you need one.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:But they don't know what they want it to do for them before
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:they jump out and get one.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And that is something that you have to solidify before
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:you decide to use any builder.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I don't care if it's W word, fresh, show it Squarespace.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Whatever, you must know what you wanted to do for you.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And just because, and that's, that's just is just like Canva.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:So just because it's easy for you to create it.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Doesn't mean it's given your user the real user, not you, the real user, the
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:experience that they need or that they deserve, or that's gonna push them to do
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:the thing that you want them to do, which is ultimately heavy up in their workspace,
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:making it better for diversity, equity, inclusion, and making the world better for
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:those traditionally marginalized communi.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:So another thing about your website when you're figuring out what you wanted to
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:do is you need to, just like I said in episode eight, think about the business
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:you plan to have, not the business that you have at this present moment.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:How is your website supposed to support you?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Is it just something pretty you want people to go to and look at?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Or do you really want it to support you?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Do you really want it to be your 24 hour employee that does all the
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:work, all the heavy lifting, or you just want to be hanging out?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:So let's look at the bigger picture about websites.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:one of the comments said that I think all you need is a sales page.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And that's it.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And I said, you can go back and look at the posts that it
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:really depends on your audience.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Now, if you're leaning into a corporate audience, the thing that
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:you offer a smaller business is not gonna be the same thing that
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:you're going to offer a corporation.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:So if you send them to a sales page that is selling this one particular
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:thing, this one particular product that you have sold to, let's say a
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:team of four, it's not necessarily gonna be the same for a team of 400.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:So your website comes into play because although there's some really nice
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:sales pages out there, Everybody don't wanna scroll through all that copy.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I'm gonna say it.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Nobody wanna read all that shit.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Nobody wants to scroll through all that copy.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And having an actual live website allows you to break up your site into segments so
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:people can go to the part that they need.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And only thing on that page is what they.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:If you give people a fire hose word for information, they're not going
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:to retain it and they're not going to be able to digest any of it.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:That is the beauty of having a website.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:That is the beauty of planning and figuring out what is the goal of the.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I ask this to my clients all the time, what do we want this page to do?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Like what is the purpose of this page?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Because we just ain't out here building pages.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:It's to be building pages.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And that's what you need to ask yourself when you are choosing your platform.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Is this not user friendly for me or is it not user friendly for the actual user?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Cuz when you in the backend, you not the user.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:My.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:You just the person in the back end fixing the shit.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:But when your visitors, potential clients on the front end, are you
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:giving them the best experience?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I sat down and I was having dinner with a friend and she's, an amazing copywriter
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:over this past weekend and she says, you know what I like about your website?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I was like, what?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:She's.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:It makes me feel like I'm in the site.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:There's things, there's subtle movements.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:There's things that jump out and grab my attention, but it's parts of the
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:copy and they know she's copywriter.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:She was like, so it's parts of the copy.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:That you made those changes to that you made those subtle differences,
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:that grabbed my attention.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Versus when you have a static backend user friendly website that's easy for
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:you to navigate, you don't necessarily.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Create a user experience because you are in the mind, you're in the head
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:space of what's easier for me, the person on the backend to create not
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:in the mindset of what's easier for my clients and my visitors to navigate.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And that's the one thing that stood out to me when I made that post.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:About why people did not choose WordPress.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I, I know in early two thousands, yeah, it was hard, but now there's so many
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:ways to make WordPress just as easy as, let's say a wick or a, um, show it.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And I bring up, show it all the time because show it.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Although it's easier to build the actual site, if you wanna blog,
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:you still gonna have to have word.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:You might as well just get WordPress.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:So think about that as you choose your website platform.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:As you are figuring out your site, what do you want it to do?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:What do you want from this site?
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:And then choose wisely.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Remember, you are not the user.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:You are not the end user.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:If you're worried about the backend, you gonna wanna listen to the last episode of
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:this season cause it's gonna help you out.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:But your website is about the end user, not necessarily about
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:what's going on in the back end.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:All right y'all.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:That's episode 11.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Episode 12 is gonna be the final episode of season two of more than a Brand.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I am excited.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:I cannot wait.
Lindsay Tramel-Jones:Always hit me up on socials and I look forward to hearing from you.