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[0:10] It's on a Monday. Monday morning.

[0:16] And good morning. Hey I'm Russ and we have Matt in the room this is the pirate broadcast.

[0:21] And if you're not if you're not following hashtag pirate broadcast go there after the show and follow it to get notification for other shows and other episodes.
It also know that all of these episodes if you missed them alive you can always go to Russell Jones slash pirate broadcast and listen to all the shows.
You can also follow us link to subscribe to YouTube.

[0:49] Follow us on Periscope follow us on Facebook wherever you happen to like to hang out but linked in we're here on LinkedIn right now streaming live with Matt. Good morning Matt. How are you.
Morning Russell. Happy to be on the show. Fantastic.

[1:04] Now we connected a little while ago and I'm going to bring up my phone so I can actually see some of the people coming into the room as this as we get started here.

[1:14] OK. And you know it's interesting because I've been developing WordPress Web sites for since 2007.
I guess so.

[1:28] A few days and I know that you're one of the things that you focus in on is helping people maintain their Web site and keeping their Web site up and operational.
You know a few things like that. So I want to talk about that and also I want to talk about how you.

[1:49] How you discovered linked in and how you started networking on LinkedIn and what kind of you know what kind of strategies are you using today to grow and build your business.
So So Matt tell us a little bit about where you why you're here today.

[2:03] Certainly. Yeah. So I actually got started in the WordPress base about 8 years ago.
I didn't like it very much. Get started. I'll be honest but then I turned the tide that started with that first Web site.
I was hooked and then I popped out the plugins made my life a lot easier as a web developer.
So freelancing was actually how I got started with WordPress for about eight years.
And then I started this company that you know WP guys where we work with agency to help them as an outsource partner with their Web site.
That's for their clients and just been doing that for a little over two years now.
We have about 50 agency partners that we work with. And you mentioned directly off LinkedIn.
That's where we find most of our partners,
through the content that we engage with and we put out and through my personal connections as has led us to build that that amount of partners on like that.

[3:15] Well you know it's it's interesting because you know building relationships and building communities on LinkedIn is amazing.
And I really applaud you for taking the steps to build your business like that because anything you can do to offer value and assist with the process is going to be key to growth.
And one of the things that I suspect you're doing is you're reaching out to agency owners that are doing creative media digital media anything like that strategy wise.
And that's that's where the bulk of your business derives from definitely.

[3:51] Yes. So so the bulk of our business is from I'd say 90 percent of our partners that are web design and marketing.
And we do have a couple of partnerships with graphic design companies and freelancers as well.
But it's really exciting you know connecting with people hearing their stories and learning how we can help them.

[4:13] Yeah well it's amazing how much and how far WordPress has been developed and,
positioned in the market is I mean I don't know at least a quarter of all the Web sites in the world are running WordPress right now it seems.
I don't know what the actual statistic is. However you might have an idea about that.
Thirty four percent thirty hauling. OK. All right.

[4:40] So thirty four percent of all Web sites running on the Web today are our WordPress Web sites.

[4:48] And I have read some massive upgrades in recent years and I know that you know it seems like they're replacing and upgrading and plug ins and vulnerabilities and things like that.
So talk about what you provide to the end user either the agency owner for their clients or for the clients themselves.

[5:10] What. What's the service kind of describe to people what it involves includes.

[5:16] Sure. So the service is included in the maintenance plan starts off with speed optimization.
That's especially important now for marketing agencies.
You'll probably see a lot of LinkedIn about it. I definitely see a lot of people posting about HPV why it's important.
But that's one of our core services in the maintenance plan.
And it includes. So we get the Web site down to a less than a three second fully loaded time.
And we get the speed score the what's the lowest score both in the A and the a range.
So they're not penalized on Google.
And so it doesn't affect that and you convert wins especially if you have marketing campaigns going on your client is that people to make sure that everything is in tip top shape,
so when you say tip top shape I would be interested in discovering how you break that down because I mean I think.

[6:16] You know everybody has their own process and workflow and want to put a website together.
I like less is more less plug ins less pages less you know reduce damages and it increases.
It seems to work for me in terms of load speed.
However I do have some pages I had and I have some Web sites that do load slow.
So what are some critical factors that we need to think about or consider after we consider hiring mad at WP guys.

[6:47] Yeah definitely. So one of the main focus is is the server that comes into play a lot especially with the initial low time.
So you can optimize the website as much as you want but if the server is is slow like a very basic blue host server you get Cs issues with that.
We certainly do. And it goes the same way for if you have a critic server at the sites not optimized.
Just kind of make sure that everything to do with site speed is optimized. We do setup a CBN. I know a few companies at a standard CDE and we prefer to use CloudFlare.
We also have a worker script that we created that helps get a little more boost out of cloud traders CloudFlare settings.
So it gives it that extra bit of HP.

[7:46] They can really come in handy so I know that there's some acronyms out there that make a lot of people may not be aware of the CDM.
So for those uninitiated in the WordPress world and servers and transferring files around the world,
give us a basic understanding of what a C the end provides to the end user,
charge so as TDA stands for content delivery network and what this does is it it finds the server closer closest to the user who is going to the Web site and delivers the information fastest to them.

[8:24] So it's become popular over the past few years as a way to speed up Web sites.

[8:33] And it's yeah we use it with every stuff that we optimized for speed.
So who's your favorite host now.

[8:44] You know it's tough I say. I'd say flywheel mainly because their plans are cheaper than WP engines but they just get acquired by W hitch and,
it feels like the engine it.

[9:02] Yeah so.

[9:04] So I like WP engine and I like I I a lot of sites I have a lot of sites on site ground as well so they have great software.
So but now I want to talk a little bit about because I want to shout out to Vicki O'Neill and she ask a question I want to get back to in a second.
Nick Dorsey Good morning Sherry lol I love the pyrotechnic activity here studio Laurie in.
Thank you so much for being here and I know that there's a lot of people that are really.
You know I know if anybody's on YouTube right now you're going to either see a square space or you're going to see a Wicks or you're going to see a wheelie.
I don't know I haven't seen we be around for a long time.

[9:55] I know they're there because I do have an account.

[9:59] However,
talk about the differences because a lot of people just you know they go to a Web site and they you know it's it's kind of you know cut and paste and move around and,
can you kind of outlined some of the differences between WordPress and what those other providers offer in terms of features and functionality.

[10:24] Sure. I definitely say that it's easier to customize and WordPress websites with squares Bay is where we believe they all have their versions of,
of their their plugins like they they'll have you know SEO support or will have page builders but you can't really beat the Customize ability of WordPress.

[10:51] So if you're just bare bones basic and you wanted a landing page or something wax or square space or weekly an attempt and a good template could probably do,
a substantial piece of work early on and take care of things for a while.
And if you're looking for ultimate flexibility and you're looking for plug in availability and you're looking for developer support WordPress would be the way to go I'm sure.

[11:19] I definitely agree with you.

[11:21] Yes I got a lot of I've had a lot of contact when I was freelancing where I just told them Listen I would say you're better off going with a square space plus I,
know you can get it up yourself in a matter of hours. Mm hmm.

[11:39] But definitely you can't be. How customizable word presses and the flexibility that you had there with all the plugins and they're constantly being created. It's a great platform.

[11:51] Well and because a lot of people on LinkedIn you know especially in the,
coaching the authors the speakers the people that are actually putting stuff out there what is really necessary is a clear call to action that people can actually access.
What are you're doing. What I like to break down is it's like OK you have a call to action that goes to a booking page where you can book a call and you know I use book Ross dot com so you can actually go there.
Book a time to to talk with me. You know it's casual conversation it's no no requirement.
You know you don't have to do anything to have that conversation. It's a conversation turns into something a larger conversation then obviously that's a paid event however you're giving people access to that.
And I think that there's a lot of you know plug ins that allow that to take place but I use calendar Lee and that's what I used to book on.
You know for the pirate broadcasts you know just an F. why I I am now officially booked throughout the month of February I'm booking I'm booking into March now.
So if that's pretty that's pretty amazing and I do that through.

[13:12] You know the calendar feature functionality because it connects with my gmail and there's probably an equivalent plug in for that for,
different platforms and I embedded into my wordpress Web site as well because I can use an embed code and.

[13:32] I know that we had Samantha Glover on and we were talking about,
pixels inserting pixels and tracking codes to where we can actually find you know Google Analytics and getting some data back out of there.
Is that something that you also help people out with or is that an additional feature and function of your business.

[13:54] You know that's an additional feature and actually started on support requests.
So we were already doing speed optimization software updates keeping all the plug in theme and core up to date malware removal for security,
and downtime for the site ever went down and we would diagnose the issue and go to the hosting company or you know get site back up whatever needs to be done.
But we just recently develop our tickets and ticketing system support for spots.
So this would fall under if they needed help with analytics setting up Google pixel setting up like 10 pixel setting up just about anything developer related.
We don't do any graphic design but if they need any of this installed that would be something that would fall under our support hours.

[14:53] Yeah. So what it would it might evolve into a custom application for something that you wanted to develop for a client or an agency right. Say for instance.
Because like what I'm looking at going forward in some of my activities is.

[15:15] I want to provide you know just like the prior broadcast I want to provide streaming shows to individuals that want to you know get their brand out there.
Companies and organizations that want to create culture or they want to present themselves in a new new way. And videos.
I know you know it's moving forward it's creating a lot of traction and obviously you know I've been proving it with almost 80 shows on the pirate broadcasting and then booking in March now.
I have a system that I can actually duplicate for other people and having you know quick fast Web site pages landing pages that really convert well the messaging,
you know and some of the things all of those elements combined are,
you know it's like it's a lot of moving parts.
And so anything I can do to document and delegate that stuff is is important for me.
And I know you and I went across back and forth and I had a couple of sites I sent to you and they were actually pretty good which I put myself natural.

[16:29] Oh yeah they were bad but you know I'm sure that we could you know tweak and use some you know,
some code to quicken them up and get them even faster and there's a couple of sites like the Russell John site I need to refresh because it's not quite on brand.
One hundred percent like a I would like it to be.
And so.
I suspect that there's a lot of differences between Web site to Web site to Web sites.
So you know your team has to be on top of this code and the latest updates the plugins and so are their sources that you keep track of.
You know I know that automatic is big in the WordPress world since they're owned by kind of Matt. What's his name.
Another Matt. Yeah. So I just think it's funny because you know I've been Word camps and things like that.
And it's just another amazing community.
It's like linked in there's another amazing community that gets a lot of visibility in the world today.
So thanks for doing the work you're doing Matt. Appreciate it.

[17:39] Yeah. Yeah. I went to Word camp actually back in July I think of 2019.
It was here in Florida. It was in Jacksonville. And I'm itself artist. I went over a couple of hours with my father and Boxer to the word camp and that was a lot of fun.
I got a meeting on a lot of WordPress officianaudo. Yeah.

[18:11] There's a lot of people and you know and when you get into the coding world and CSS and you know Jayson and all of that stuff it's like I you know I'm the creative side.
I don't necessarily like to get in the weeds at the back office of a lot of that stuff.
You know I can put it together I can make it work I can do a lot of the automation that allows you to you know book funnels you know sales funnels and things like that.
So it's really important to understand what the differences are. Because I mean there are so many disciplines now.
It's the like Samantha has the data and the discovery and the analysis and everything that goes along with that your speed and optimization.
I'm kind of look and feel in branding and in the sales final piece and then there are other people.
That do the specifically do the content creation. A lot of content creation out there. And so what are what are three points that we can really cover that bring home to people when they're thinking about building a site or upgrading their Web site and or, improving their conversions on their Web site. What are what are some things we need to think about Matt.

[19:34] I would say a definitely keep site speed in mind. That's something that's very important when you're building a site, especially because people prefer it to be optimized for Google page speed and that's something you need to really focus on and when you're building the site as well.
You have to many plugins and then you need to start tearing the site down and rebooting it to achieve a higher Google page feed score.
And also I would say security is important. Make sure you set up an SSL certificate one of banished hosting link services have that free and included so that can't be too difficult to get that in there.
And even if you have a C panel hosting a lot of very affordable SSL certificates let's say security is important.
And the third one I would say you know just select something that's easy they get to get it off the ground definitely use,
a page builder if you could build yourself something that's not going to be too difficult because if the party demise vault goes to one of the other platforms right.

[20:52] Right. Right. So what are the two key differences between say let's take Wix for example because Vicky O'Neill wanted to ask what's the two primary differences between a Wix platform and a WordPress platform?
I mean just to compare right now I mean.
Sure I would say just flexibility with the themes. I don't have too much Wix experience myself.

[21:17] I built a couple of them back in the day. I know they let you throw up a free site and it should be the same process for setting up your domain.
I think you could buy it through them as well. Kind of like with square space.

[21:38] So I think you might you might save a lot of time doing a week's Web site but if you want some custom functionality in the future you might run into some issues

[21:50] Yeah. So it's just workarounds. The biggest difference I've noticed is that they have some I mean square space,
especially has a lot of themes that they've developed for portfolios like photographers videographers artists things like that they're there more in the,
custom field range and Wix seem to be.
They've come out with some really great designs but it seems like the builder itself is different. And then also the way that it's hosted in the way that is put together is different because one thing that I share with people when they're developing a Web site is if you're on a Wix site, you're on a Wix platform you can't move from Wix to another server because you're on their platform and that's another difference. Same with Square Space or Weebly, you're on their platform.
So if you want to upgrade your server to another level you're you're kind of isolated to their servers their platforms their infrastructure.
Whereas with a WordPress you could take that database you take that Web site and say I want to move it from site ground to flywheel or to WP engine,
and so you can move around its coverage that optimizes your speed and you'll CDN capabilities. So. Just things to consider. And unless you're getting a lot of hits and a lot of traffic in your conversions need to be increased and improved.
It's probably not the first thing you need to think about in your business.
You know it's getting more business it's building relationships like we're doing here Matt you know sharing and highlighting what you're doing to other people that have no idea. No.
No understanding of what this actually provides.
So I think it's important for us to share that with the community. So. So what are some?

[23:56] That's a huge different one. Sites transferability yes. That's the biggest thing that I've noticed is when I've had clients that wanted additional features and functionality,
you had to actually rebuild the entire site because that site and the database I mean you could go into the code and probably massage that code. But it's a pain.
So if you want to refresh and you want to move to a WordPress site that's one of the things that you would get is the ability to transfer your site to other servers as your business grows.
So yeah. So. So talk us through some of your experiences on LinkedIn and building community or building client certain marketing or you know what.
What's your experience with that. And what works for you in your business. Because I suspected it works for your business.
There are probably other business owners that could understand and appreciate what you're doing.
Certainly. Yeah. So I actually jumped back on LinkedIn last year in August and I didn't use it too much.

[25:07] A few years ago I dabbled in it a little bit but I never really saw too much value there.
But then I actually connected with a lot of the companies I was reaching out to try and establish partnerships on LinkedIn.
And I found it was a much easier platform to have a conversation than picking up the phone and giving someone a cold call. So I did.
That was a great way to have a conversation with people and I learned a lot through people's stories.

[25:45] Maybe the agency owners learning some of the challenges they had to their business,
you know how they ran their day to day operations and that's really how I found kind of this niche where we weren't directly with agencies in the whole white label and it,
is because I had agency owners who were like hey did you do speed optimization.

[26:10] I'm like that and I go Hey I've got 20 sites that just got infected Malware.
Can you take care of that. I'm like we can do that.
I kind of built these packages around. What are the issues that they were adding and then you know just almost a year now on LinkedIn,
I'm realizing that a lot of agencies are so busy they're so busy.
That's the number one thing I hear that I can't talk right now. Super busy.

[26:43] Let's chat tonight. And I'm like All right. So then I thought well if they're super busy all the time and they've got a team of people what would they rather have them working on.

[26:56] You know the average WordPress developer makes 60 to 80 dollars an hour.
I want them to see the color of a haper or adding two pecs to a page.
No you want them working on new Web site build marketing campaigns.

[27:12] You know new exciting projects. Yeah. So I I built this nation established of partnerships.
Well and that's a very good lesson for us too to also mirrors identify.

[27:30] The problem that people need you to solve help them solve that problem and then move it forward,
because ultimately I mean I and I've proven this over and over again as I've had some really great incredible ideas that I think are great.
They're like incredibly creative. A lot of times before they're before the markets ready and it's like you offer to people and say yeah that's great but I don't need it.
That's not going to help the business that's going to really move the needle for me.
However, improving and increasing their Web site speed and optimizing their you know everything that they have that they can in their business is a huge benefit. And it takes a lot of time.
It takes a lot of resources out of doing higher value work.
Right. So if you can actually go in there be the mechanic optimize that process for yourself.
That's a huge benefit. So I think that's incredible. So that's a huge difference. So the.

[28:37] Yeah. Vicki also says that the more pages we load on her Wix site for her podcast the slower it gets.
Do you have any thoughts about how many pages and how do we have to move and maneuver through adding new pages Matt?
Sure. Well, I would say the existing pages there that they have now to take a look at those and do a speed test.
I'm not sure what kind of speed optimization in terms of catching and file optimistic you could do with a worksite but in a limited but I would say focus on what you could change and that would be, making sure all the images are correctly scaled, and optimized because that is something that you could change no matter which platform you're on.
So basically they do all you do is open up photoshop resize the image picture it's in the correct format which is a J pad and re-upload it to the site.
And that's going to take off a substantial amount of load time.
That's one of the many things that we do. We have a checklist of things that we do for speed optimization and that's one of them that you can control Matt which platform you're on.

[30:02] So is there a formula for optimizing your, image size or is it just you're optimizing the image for the size on the page based on a standard format or is it designed for mobile or how does. How did those two image sizes differ? Sure. So you're going to want to optimize it. You don't want to scale it to the size that's being stirred. So what that means is if you download an image from a stock photo Web site you upload it to the page. It's not going to be using that entire map. OK. If it's like a 2800 x 1800. Yeah, the X images so it might only be using a five hundred. So you could cut it down to that five hundred by whatever pixels. Yeah reduce a lot of load time lot load time and then PMG versus jpeg.
Is there any thoughts about that.

[31:12] Google says you should be seeing Jpeg 2000. I don't see you need to go,
and do all of your images to take five days to get that little checkmark from Google but you can if you want. There you go.
Well, Matt, this has been educational and entertaining. I appreciate the fact that we're here working on you know making sure that people have a little bit of value in their week if they're thinking about doing a new website. You know that's an option if you're thinking about taking the Web site they have optimizing it look at their images first.
Look at the load speed in the servers and just there's probably a few different places they can go to find out what their load speed is.
And I should have put it in the the the tag here but I did not.
So maybe you can put that out there. I'm not sure what a network.

[32:16] Yeah. So it's GTmetrics.com Pingdom.com and then a Google page feed in sites of search on Google.

[32:28] It'll be the first thing that you could do a search on Google speed tests and it'll come up all day long.
So there's a couple of them out there but thank you so much.

[32:38] So if you want to leave I was a pleasure speaking with you, Russ
[32:44] So so Matt if you had to leave one thing to encourage people to continue with their business and their mission and their goals what would it be today.

[32:56] I would just say you know focus on what matters. Don't let this false stuff get in the way.

[33:03] Fantastic. I love that. Well thank you so much for being here and all of the people that are joining in here we Kenyatta Joined

[33:15] Vicki O'Neill. Thank you so much for all the comments and feedback. Love it Larry. It's Angie. Thank you so much for being here.
Sherry Lolli the pirate crew we're here today.
And as you know kindness is cool smiles or free and you.

[33:35] Enjoy the day. Thanks, Matt, Have fun. All right. Take care.