WEBVTT

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Alright. Let's get started. Hope everybody is having an amazing

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week. Welcome to Brilliant Directories,

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webinar Wednesday,

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where we try to provide you with tips to grow your online

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community.

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If this is your first webinar with us, welcome. It's great to be with you.

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I'm Jason there on the left. We're also joined today

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by Gabe, one of the support specialists here at Brilliant Directories,

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and also, Patrick Brunel from the Customization

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Experts.

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In my opinion, one of the premier companies creating extensions,

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and tools to accompany your Brilliant Directories website.

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So we're lucky to have Gabe and Patrick with us today. Thanks for joining guys.

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Always great to be here. Thank you, Jason.

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Thank you, Jay. It's a pleasure to be here.

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Alright.

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A few weeks ago, we launched an epic

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group on Facebook. It's one of my favorite places to check-in first, when I log on to Facebook.

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It's our marketing

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strategy group.

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You know, Brilliant Directories has a great support team that's that's awesome at troubleshooting

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technical issues.

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And we created this Facebook group because marketing strategy really is its own department.

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And I encourage everyone if you haven't already done so to join our free Facebook group.

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You can go to brilliantdirectories.com/facebook.

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It'll redirect you to our Facebook group, and it's free to join the group.

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And conversations from webinar Wednesdays or any ideas you might have in the middle of the week, it's great to publish them there.

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And we like to focus on tackling

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marketing related

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topics,

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to help you grow your online business and your online

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community. So you can go to brilliantdirectories.com/facebook,

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and I hope to see you guys there.

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Alright.

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And again, if this is your first time joining webinar Wednesday, a welcome for those of you who have joined in the past.

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It's great to be with you again.

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We created webinar Wednesday as a way to

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assist and communicate better with the BD community.

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And some of the topics that we cover during Webinar Wednesdays are things related to marketing your website, like increasing member sign ups, more bringing more traffic to your website,

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finding and leveraging maybe missed revenue opportunities that you might, that you might have overlooked on your website,

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search engine optimization,

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and things like publishing and promoting

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content.

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The the stronger you can make your websites

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marketing efforts, the more successful you stand to be with your website, and that'll give you confidence

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to potentially launch more projects in the future if you can kind of replicate

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what how you had a success with your first site.

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So these are some great topics. You can have your questions ready.

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We'll try to get to everyone if possible,

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in the next hour or hour and a half, in the webinar. So,

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feel free to type in your questions, or later in the webinar we can unmute your microphone,

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and we can actually

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talk about the topics you have on your mind.

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And as I mentioned, BD has an amazing award winning

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world class support department.

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If you guys have,

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support related questions or issues, it would be best to contact the support team.

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That kinda helps us maximize the value of webinar Wednesdays for everyone who's attending here today.

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So if you guys are having technical

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issues with your site that would be more appropriate for the support team to assist you with,

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feel free to contact them, and they'll be more than happy to help you.

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Alright.

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Always some fun stuff that we can begin with are some brilliant directories lab updates where every day, every week, every month, we're always working on making things better, adding new features,

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and there are a lot of new things,

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in the pipeline for the road ahead.

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Some things that are available now that are noteworthy and worth mentioning.

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I'll just go through this list,

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relatively

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quickly. And I think, Pat, you were, excited about the the ones related to the coupon codes.

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Beyond excited.

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That's about as excited as I've been for an update, especially when I see what you guys did and put together there.

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Yeah. We should have put 10 rocket ships on that picture for for that one.

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I'll start with the basic one. We've added a few new few new payment gateways,

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more most notably the PayFast,

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payment gateway. I'll just go to our brilliant directory site here.

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Give me a moment.

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Whoops.

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Okay. So PayFast

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in South it's mainly to support South African

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users.

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About a year ago, authorized.net

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and a couple other gateways

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stopped supporting

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South African currency.

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So we've we've identified

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one of the better solutions

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for our South African users, which is PayFast, which can now allow you to collect payments in your currency.

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So that's a good update for our South African users there.

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And let's get to the good stuff. Coupon codes for member upgrades. So

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last year we had launched,

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actually a lot of add ons,

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but, one of my favorites are the easy coupon codes, which allows you to create promo codes that your members could use to sign up to your website.

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This was launched without the ability to use promo codes

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when members want to upgrade,

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but now it is available and I'll show you guys

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very easily how members would apply this.

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So I have a sample site here. Let's just create

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a coupon code.

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We'll call it happy 50,

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and we'll do a percent of 50% off.

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You can set I'll just review some of the coupon code features if you're not familiar with the add on.

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So you can create your coupon code, whatever you'd like. You can choose from a percent discount,

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a fixed value, so that would be like taking $10 off or $5 off the total bill,

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or you can do a price override. So it would just set the price as,

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so if something's a hundred dollars you can just make it $20 and you would enter, you know, 20 here.

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In this case let's use the percent value of 50% off.

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You can even define the maximum times a coupon code

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can be used, so you can regulate it a bit like that.

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And this one's important if if you're using coupon codes for recurring payments for monthly and yearly,

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you could choose for it to only apply to the first payment.

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So your first month is 50% off, but then future months you're not going to get the discount, it's going to be regular priced.

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So,

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you can choose if it's just the first payment that's discounted or every recurring payment.

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This is a new option here for those of you who have the coupon codes already.

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You can choose for a coupon code to only work

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for new sign ups,

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or work for new sign ups and upgrades as well.

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So basically you can choose for coupon codes not to work when members are attempting to upgrade.

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You can also set a start date,

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as well as an end date. So I'm just gonna remove these

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for now, and I'm going to allow for new sign ups and upgrades because I want to show you how a new member can upgrade.

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This is a bonus as well. This last option here, it's actually on the list.

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Number three, connecting coupon codes to specific products.

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You can select

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which products

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a coupon code will work for.

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So maybe you only have a coupon code that you only want for your your best membership level, your premium membership level.

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So you just check premium membership level, and this coupon code happy 50 will only work,

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when you're upgrading or signing up to the premium membership level.

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Of course if you select them all or uncheck them all, the coupon code will work for all the membership

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levels.

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In this case,

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let's

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select the premium,

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and we'll go ahead and save the changes.

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And we can log in as a member.

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I think we have a

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sample featured member. The aesthetics

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of this site are not nice. We were just using it for testing purposes.

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So

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this is the upgrade link.

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We'll upgrade to a premium

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listing.

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It's the only option to upgrade to.

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And now I can enter the promo code here,

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and we received the discount of 50% off. And I can toggle between,

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monthly and, yearly here. Let's see if I remove that.

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There we go. So this is the monthly price.

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There we go. Of $9.99

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per month, and then the member can go ahead and upgrade their listing accordingly.

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So that's

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it there.

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Small update, but a huge value, I think.

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And I wanna thank everyone for up upvoting that in our feature request in the in the forum for feature requests.

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Yeah. So does this tackle the issue of because in the past,

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there were things like, hey. I don't want my

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my yearly numbers to be able to be in a a free trial. Right?

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So there was there was that was always a challenge that people were running into.

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But it seems now, since you can select which products, you can have a free trial trial level that is a thirty day

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that's only gonna be monthly billing that you don't give them the yearly option.

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And you could check the box that they're the only ones

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that can apply that particular, coupon code just for that one product.

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Is that correct? Yes. You could have a product that yeah.

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You could have a a monthly product or a free product,

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and then the upgrade options, and then and then you can offer the coupon code on the upgrade.

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And then those options can have

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monthly, semi annually, or or annual payment options. Mhmm.

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That's great. So you're protecting from those those yearlies if you want to. So that's fantastic.

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Yeah. So now that you have this

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this control, you can kind of manipulate how how coupon codes are are utilized throughout your site, and then obviously you can create marketing better marketing campaigns to target your free members and encouraging them to sign up utilizing coupon codes.

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Alright.

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We have

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another add on in the pipeline. We haven't even given it a name yet.

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I just want to show you guys what it can do. It's gonna be an option in your design settings.

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If we go to the website here, you guys can see this banner at the top of the page.

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The add on is gonna give you the flexibility and ability if you need to on your website to add

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custom texts and banners. It's it's simple, but it's it's effective.

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Let's create a new banner together to replace this this Mother's Day one.

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So it would be in your design settings, and you're gonna have a new module here with this add on,

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a website announcement message.

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What's really cool about this is you can really make it stand out from the rest of your website because you can choose a unique Google font,

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just just for this. So let's

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choose one that I like is droid serif.

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You can also

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choose the font size. Let's go a little bit bigger,

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and you can also do the text color.

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So let's do a red on on black back with a black background here.

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You can also choose left, right, or center for the position of the text.

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What's nice also is you can choose to hide it on mobile if it's gonna obstruct too much of the screen view, you might wanna hide it on a mobile view.

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And then lastly,

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you can decide if you want it to show for logged in members, members who have already logged in, people who are not logged into their account,

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or to always display it, or you can disable it by selecting always hide.

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This is an area where you can put your message. So I'll just put a new one for dads and grads.

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You know,

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first thirty days

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free, and then you can say

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that you can use a promo code.

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Use code,

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you know,

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dad

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free.

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And I've created it. This supports HTML text.

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I've put a button here that will link people to the sign up page.

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You can also link them directly to,

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the registration page. So let's let this save, and then let's check out what it does on the website.

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And right now we have this Mother's Day special. So if we refresh the page,

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we have something different with a different font size.

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So it just gives you the ability to add

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a promotional banner message at the top of your site.

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It's gonna be a nice addition if if you if this is important

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for your website.

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Any feedback on that, Pat? I know that this is And just for for basic marketing,

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tip, why would I wanna hide that if somebody's logged in? What would be a reason for that?

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If somebody is logged in, you've probably already

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gotten their business.

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And if you don't really need to re highlight a promotion to

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someone you know is a member because they've already logged into the website.

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So that that would be an example of when you don't want to show it to logged in members.

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And then

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alternatively, the flip side is maybe you only want to show a promotion for your existing members.

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Maybe for them to upgrade their plan.

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So that would be another opportunity to to show it only when people are logged in.

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Alright. And very exciting. We've been chatting about it a lot,

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in the Facebook group, the new travel guide theme,

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that we're

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launching. This is this is exciting. It's not that we've innovated anything with this.

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All of our themes,

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they're basically we we've essentially set up a certain type of site for you.

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You can mix and match features from different themes.

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But I think what we've done with the travel guide theme is we've created a better format

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for creating

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a local city guide or a local

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business directory.

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And I'll explain why in just a few minutes. But,

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if you guys in the audience can I'm gonna lower everyone's hands.

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If you can raise your hand if you have

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an idea for or have a local city directory where you're you're targeting a local area,

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for for your directory. If you can just click the raise your hand feature.

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I see Don's raised his hand here. Joe,

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Mark,

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Thomas, Wendy.

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Okay. I'm I'm gonna go out on a limb here. It's just about 40% of of Dave there.

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Colette also mentioned she has a

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directory targeting a local area.

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Yeah. I'm gonna say 40% of you guys in in the attendee,

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that are attendees today have local city directories.

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And what we've seen before let me toggle over to our yellow pages

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theme

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real quick.

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And the yellow pages theme is is good, and it's it's done a great job for now. But really

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the the highlight and the focus of it was

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just for searching members. It really didn't highlight

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any information about the local area, which is what would get a visitor or even a potential paying member excited

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about your website.

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And I think that's what we've accomplished with this theme is we've created a format

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that better showcases,

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especially using imagery,

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what the local area has to offer.

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And I'll just I'll just cover a few things of as we stream from the home page.

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Now we've only put a few

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categories as examples to search

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for the local area,

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but you'll notice on the home page there isn't anywhere to enter a location

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that you're searching. You can only select categories.

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This is good for a couple reasons. One is you're simplifying the search process

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for

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the visitors,

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and they're also when the visitor searches they're probably gonna get more results which helps your site look like it's like it has more members.

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Because if people search a specific postal code, you perhaps might not have members

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in that postal code for for a certain area.

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So let's just search for things to do.

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And we have a few categories here, family, nightlife, activities.

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And in in the main menu we've also highlighted things that would be better for a local

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city guide. Finding hot spots, which takes you to the to the business directory.

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Things to do is a top level category,

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and food and dining is also a top level category. So we've actually highlighted

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two of our top level categories in

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the main menu. Now,

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if your site is very populated you probably don't want to link to all your categories, just your most popular categories that are filled with members.

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Also this is probably what people are looking for when they're when they're trying to research

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a local area, or find information on a local area.

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So this travel guide theme is also now more informational

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rather than just a business registry,

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that I feel like the yellow pages theme was.

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Obviously deals and events, we do see that on the

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yellow pages theme.

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But we are,

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with this main menu I feel like you can get excited about the local area

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that you're visiting and learning about,

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the way that this the verbiage is written here.

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And then lastly we have travel ideas.

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This this takes you to the blog,

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and this is really

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in my opinion

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the most important part of the local travel guide theme,

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are the blog articles that you're going to write.

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And what you want to do is write content, and we've covered this in previous webinars,

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that will get somebody excited about the local area and encourage them to continue clicking around your website

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to explore

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and discover new things to do in your town or city.

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And the blog articles are the best place to get people excited because you can write,

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short,

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very digestible articles that that people can skim and get excited.

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And what's really cool about articles is you can write an article

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to, for example this one, ten best coffee shops in Hollywood.

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And what you should do is you should write about the coffee shops that are part of your business directory and link back

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to their profiles. And we'll cover this in just a second.

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I'm kind of, we were we were gonna talk about local directories.

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I think I'm I'm skipping ahead a bit, but you could link to,

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the profiles,

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on your site, in through the blog articles, and that creates great internal linking,

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for for your website, which is good for SEO, and it keeps visitors clicking around your site, which is good for the for page views,

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of your site.

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Let me let me jump back here. I think I'm getting a little too deep into that

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local travel guide.

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Pat, what what was your feedback on the local travel guide?

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I know you shared it with a couple people already.

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Yeah.

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I know people people really, really enjoy the structure, and particularly how simple it is to find the main sections.

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I think that the guidance you give and the things to do and the places to eat and and more generic broad category names in particular,

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it makes it easier to build out that directory and to provide those search results, which tends to be the biggest challenge I I find people have.

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Oftentimes, people get started with

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the 500,

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six hundred category combinations, and and it's just a daunting task for creating a profile

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or for when you're using the website or the directory to finding actual

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members. So so it's a really great guide for people that are getting started.

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And if you guys wanna check out, the travel guide theme, you can go most of you have a link to our our demo bootstrap site.

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So you can go to demobootstrap.com.

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And if you just hover over the try a new theme,

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it's right here under the lead gen theme, you can click on local travel guide, and poke around there and and click around.

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Let me just scroll down the homepage.

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So you're seeing

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articles that are related to local areas. You're seeing logos that that that are familiar.

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But be before I get more into this, let's let's start our next discussion here, Pat, which was the topic of the week.

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Setting up your local directory for success.

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So, Pat,

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mainly put this this list together just before the webinar.

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So we're gonna just cover a few key points that you can apply to your local directory, whether you've already launched it or you're about to launch it, just to make sure that you have some of the essential components,

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that'll set your directory up for success.

340
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Alright. Let's do this.

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So Pat put together these five ingredients,

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for local directories. And Pat, I'll pass it over to you,

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and let you take it away.

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Sure thing. So so, yeah, we try to really simplify it. I give,

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guidance.

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You'll see a lot of these tips that we give you. We also point out,

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advice that you could follow if you're short on time, which I know is often a challenge for a lot of people starting an online directory, if you have another job or if you have other projects on on the go.

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So so we do make sure in this in these tips we're gonna share with you that we also give you tips if you're out of running out of time or if you don't have enough time to execute on this.

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So I think this is gonna be really helpful to a lot of people here.

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And we're really focusing on five key parts.

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Like Jason said earlier, writing exciting articles. We'll give you some examples

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on how you can leverage this both in in signing up members or generating additional revenue.

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You can get creative with your marketing there as well.

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You're gonna wanna make sure

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that you offer some popular deals and events.

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When it comes to a local directory, just put yourself in the shoes of your users.

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And what are what is the type of content they're gonna wanna digest?

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Why would they come back to your website? And what's nice about deals and events is that,

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deals and events are constantly changing.

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So it's a source of content that you're gonna have to go back to that website.

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So if they can in any way associate your website with the place you go to find out what's going on tonight or which restaurants might have a happy hour, then you're really gonna have some, return

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visitors to your site.

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00:23:36.990 --> 00:23:41.649
Well, so go ahead, Jason. Yeah. I was gonna continue with the with the simple category

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structure,

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and and and how important it is to keep things simple.

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Also high quality images.

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It's it's worth the extra time to find quality images on your site.

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And also elevating the value of your directory because it's not just the yellow pages anymore, and it's not just

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here's the businesses in so and so county.

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You can elevate it by renaming it something more exciting,

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and all that will contribute to a better experience for the visitor, and again your potential paying members.

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So Pat, I know you had a lot of

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marketing strategies, not just about publishing the articles, but what to do with them afterwards.

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And can you share some of that some of those ideas here?

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00:24:28.885 --> 00:24:34.184
Yeah. Absolutely. So so some of the techniques I've seen, and I I find them, to be quite wise,

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is, to write articles that are engaging but to leverage all that time.

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So when you're writing an article, it takes time, sometimes it takes money.

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So you wanna make sure that you can do something with that when you're done.

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So I'll give you an example. If I'm if I have a a local directory,

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I may write an article on the top 10,

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or the top three Italian restaurants in my town.

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And I'll do an in-depth review

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on all three of them.

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I might even go to each one and take pictures if I really wanted to take it to the extreme level.

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The reason why I would do all of that is because the end game would be partnering up with restaurants nearby.

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So once you've published a top three Italian restaurants in your town or a top 10,

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budget hotels or a top 10,

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bread and breakfast,

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what you can do after you've published that content

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is you can start approaching businesses as they're signing up to your website.

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And you can start telling them things like, if you sign up for our top package, I'll make sure to include you in next year's top three list of best Italian restaurants.

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And the restaurant then has a marketing asset of their own.

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So there's a limited amount of spaces on how

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you can have in the top three.

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It's a little bit of the Yelp model where they where where there's a bit of pay to play,

396
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but it does work, especially if you're running into trouble

397
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signing up those first members because it's difficult for them to understand why they need to join.

398
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So for them to say, really, if I pay now, then you'll include me next year.

399
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So you're gonna do an article on my restaurant and include us in the top 10, and that's something they can share on their Facebook page.

400
00:26:10.090 --> 00:26:16.935
That's something they can even print and put on their reception desk, and that also helps you promote your brand to their users as well.

401
00:26:17.875 --> 00:26:23.415
That's right. Again, elevating the value of the whole experience and what the website is about.

402
00:26:24.915 --> 00:26:25.235
And,

403
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also Pat Pat and Gabe actually put together this list. If you don't have time

404
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to write content,

405
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you can obviously hire content writers.

406
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You can also pace yourself and and do one a week or one every two weeks.

407
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And you should also choose your topics carefully.

408
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So you want to make sure you're writing about things that have the most value for your potential readers, and and that's gonna add the most value for your website.

409
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If you were interested in hiring content writers, here's three

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websites. I think Pat favored a textbroker.com,

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but you can also go to upwork.com

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and fiverr.com,

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and find people to write to write articles for you.

414
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And it's not just articles to rank in Google, but you want to create articles that even if they don't rank in Google, they would be great assets to share on your social media page.

415
00:27:17.135 --> 00:27:19.955
So it gets, you know, hopefully one of the articles go viral,

416
00:27:20.655 --> 00:27:24.835
but eventually people start passing the article around among friends and so on.

417
00:27:25.430 --> 00:27:25.930
Alright.

418
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Popular deals and events. Pat, I'm gonna I'm gonna stick,

419
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stick with you on this one because again, you're you're the master with the auto recurring events.

420
00:27:34.870 --> 00:27:36.730
Yes. Absolutely. Thank you, Jason.

421
00:27:37.270 --> 00:27:43.105
The auto recurring events, which is one of the Brilliant Directories add ons, is my my favorite content hack.

422
00:27:43.105 --> 00:27:44.565
There's no doubt about

423
00:27:45.025 --> 00:27:47.665
that. We're you're gonna see it's how important it is.

424
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If somebody clicks on any section of your directory,

425
00:27:51.665 --> 00:27:56.760
and let's say they click on member they do a member search or they wanna go to the blog section or they wanna go to the

426
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events section.

427
00:27:57.800 --> 00:28:02.920
It's really important that you, as the directory owner, make sure that people are seeing a lot of content.

428
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It's critical. If I go to your events section and there's eight events in the entire directory,

429
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as a general user, I may not view you as a a quality website that I need to come back to to search for events again.

430
00:28:16.025 --> 00:28:23.245
And as a business, I may doubt your reach and and and how much exposure you're gonna get me by adding an event on your website.

431
00:28:24.025 --> 00:28:27.885
So the recurring events allows you to find events locally

432
00:28:28.370 --> 00:28:32.310
that happen every week or happen every day or happen every month,

433
00:28:32.690 --> 00:28:36.790
and so forth. And a great tip there is to look for daily specials.

434
00:28:36.850 --> 00:28:43.030
So Taco Tuesdays happens every Tuesday. Happy hour happens every day from five to seven.

435
00:28:43.125 --> 00:28:45.465
So if you find a bar that has a happy hour

436
00:28:46.885 --> 00:28:49.445
you just need to advertise that event one time.

437
00:28:49.445 --> 00:28:53.625
With with it recurring daily, you're always gonna have that displaying on your events,

438
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section, which I think is a really great contact contact, content hack.

439
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:01.620
Yeah. And over time,

440
00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:07.120
once you find all the town's recurring events, your your website is gonna have a lot of value.

441
00:29:07.120 --> 00:29:11.060
And then obviously, you can you can publish events and deals that are just one time,

442
00:29:11.520 --> 00:29:13.140
deals as well, as well.

443
00:29:14.025 --> 00:29:16.525
But this is a great way for you to proactively

444
00:29:16.905 --> 00:29:18.525
add content to your site,

445
00:29:18.985 --> 00:29:22.445
again using high quality images to accompany each,

446
00:29:24.105 --> 00:29:24.845
each post,

447
00:29:25.465 --> 00:29:30.380
and your site will look like it like it has value. And who will it look like it has value to?

448
00:29:30.380 --> 00:29:44.425
Maybe you don't have a lot of a lot of visitors, but maybe you're pitching, again, potential paying members and having that content there will give you an advantage and an edge to hopefully close the sale if you're pitching people to sign sign up to your website,

449
00:29:44.805 --> 00:29:46.505
and and pay to join your website.

450
00:29:47.365 --> 00:29:50.645
And I know a lot of people have trouble with their social media marketing.

451
00:29:50.645 --> 00:29:56.025
I go to a lot of Facebook pages and people are linking to it from their website, but there's not a lot of activity

452
00:29:56.580 --> 00:30:00.360
there. The recurring events ensures you always have something to talk about.

453
00:30:00.419 --> 00:30:15.815
And when your members see that you're working to promote their business, if they go to your Facebook page and your social media accounts and they see that you're promoting Taco Tuesday or Karaoke Fridays or in your promoting your members content, then they're gonna see more value in joining that.

454
00:30:15.815 --> 00:30:21.035
It's not just like Jason said, a directory listing. It's a marketing tool for them as well.

455
00:30:23.269 --> 00:30:25.669
And then after publishing exactly what Pat said,

456
00:30:26.309 --> 00:30:29.750
you wanna use these assets, both the articles let me go back one slide.

457
00:30:29.750 --> 00:30:34.809
Both the articles and the popular deals and events, you wanna use them to build relationships

458
00:30:35.365 --> 00:30:39.945
with these local organizations. You want your website to become a household name,

459
00:30:40.245 --> 00:30:43.865
for the local area. And the way to do that, it's gonna it's it's

460
00:30:44.404 --> 00:30:47.144
it's hard to just cross your fingers and hope that it happens.

461
00:30:47.970 --> 00:30:49.830
Being even just a little proactive,

462
00:30:50.690 --> 00:30:53.750
will go a long way, and will building those relationships,

463
00:30:54.850 --> 00:30:55.990
will kind of help you,

464
00:30:56.530 --> 00:30:58.550
grow your brand name within the community.

465
00:30:58.770 --> 00:31:05.645
So don't be afraid to contact the local businesses, whether it's by phone or email, and let them know that you are promoting,

466
00:31:06.424 --> 00:31:08.605
promoting them. They're they're gonna appreciate that.

467
00:31:09.705 --> 00:31:11.485
Alright. Simple categories,

468
00:31:12.664 --> 00:31:13.404
to navigate.

469
00:31:14.505 --> 00:31:17.885
One of the pitfalls that we've noticed over the last,

470
00:31:18.450 --> 00:31:20.309
you know, half decade at this point,

471
00:31:20.929 --> 00:31:22.630
a lot of people set up their site.

472
00:31:23.730 --> 00:31:27.350
They spend six months coming up with their category structure.

473
00:31:27.409 --> 00:31:31.190
You're researching all the competitors, making sure you got all the categories

474
00:31:31.905 --> 00:31:33.905
covered, that you didn't miss a thing.

475
00:31:33.905 --> 00:31:38.725
You're gonna have the most categories on your website, and it's gonna be the most complete website,

476
00:31:39.425 --> 00:31:42.085
for your industry or your location.

477
00:31:43.025 --> 00:31:45.605
But Pat, what is what is the downside

478
00:31:46.065 --> 00:31:49.240
of having thousands of categories on your site?

479
00:31:50.020 --> 00:31:51.960
It's going to be extremely difficult

480
00:31:52.340 --> 00:31:59.000
to produce quality search results and to provide a quality experience for the end users of the website.

481
00:31:59.495 --> 00:32:01.675
But what do you mean? I have thousands of categories.

482
00:32:01.735 --> 00:32:05.515
How can a visitor have a bad experience if I have thousands of categories?

483
00:32:06.855 --> 00:32:15.970
Because if they search for category seven sixty eight and you don't have multiple members that are showing up in that search result, it's going to be an empty

484
00:32:16.430 --> 00:32:20.850
experience for them. They're gonna feel like, oh, this isn't the place to come to find

485
00:32:21.550 --> 00:32:23.870
x because you've given them the option to do that.

486
00:32:23.870 --> 00:32:33.705
And they're gonna continue searching elsewhere because they have that in their on my in their minds that they need to find that type of business, and they're likely then gonna jump to another website.

487
00:32:35.044 --> 00:32:41.865
Correct. And and one one strategy to overcome that is to simply start with broader category names.

488
00:32:42.929 --> 00:32:45.110
So as as a simple example,

489
00:32:45.490 --> 00:32:47.190
let's say legal services,

490
00:32:48.049 --> 00:32:51.750
are is one of your category. Now, you could name every type of lawyer

491
00:32:52.289 --> 00:32:56.645
that exists in the world as a as the next category to to break down to.

492
00:32:56.705 --> 00:32:59.045
Or you can just have a legal services category,

493
00:33:00.385 --> 00:33:03.365
and you can search for a lawyer, a paralegal,

494
00:33:03.985 --> 00:33:07.745
or, you know, a court reporter, and just and just leave it at that.

495
00:33:07.745 --> 00:33:12.559
Or just stick with legal services, and just keep it keep it, open ended.

496
00:33:13.100 --> 00:33:17.200
I think that that would be a better idea than listing hundreds and thousands of categories.

497
00:33:17.980 --> 00:33:21.500
And and there's another angle that that people don't think about often, Jim.

498
00:33:21.500 --> 00:33:23.360
I think it's critically important

499
00:33:23.660 --> 00:33:27.965
when you when you put yourself in your members shoes. If there are 500

500
00:33:27.965 --> 00:33:28.465
categories,

501
00:33:29.005 --> 00:33:30.144
if I am a restaurant

502
00:33:30.765 --> 00:33:32.945
and one of the options is,

503
00:33:34.284 --> 00:33:37.505
is is a type of cuisine, let's say it's a Greek cuisine,

504
00:33:38.365 --> 00:33:44.120
the the thinking is, well, if I offer Greek cuisine, then this member will be happy because they're a Greek restaurant.

505
00:33:44.740 --> 00:33:45.240
However,

506
00:33:45.700 --> 00:33:51.240
that restaurant is gonna get very few clicks because it's unlikely somebody's gonna click on that restaurant.

507
00:33:51.380 --> 00:33:53.000
But if you just have restaurants

508
00:33:53.524 --> 00:33:59.784
as a top level category and you use, you use perhaps you do tags or in the description, it says it's a Greek restaurant.

509
00:34:00.085 --> 00:34:08.665
If I know that everybody goes and funnels to a main restaurant page and you tell me if I pay more, I can show up at the top of that page

510
00:34:09.080 --> 00:34:12.139
as an owner, as a business owner, the restaurant owner.

511
00:34:12.199 --> 00:34:16.860
I see the value of that because I know you have a primary restaurant section

512
00:34:17.239 --> 00:34:21.739
and that you funnel all your traffic there and it's in my best interest to get more exposure

513
00:34:22.040 --> 00:34:22.455
because

514
00:34:22.935 --> 00:34:25.915
somebody might not be looking for a Greek restaurant. They just want a restaurant.

515
00:34:25.975 --> 00:34:27.675
I wanna attract more customers.

516
00:34:27.895 --> 00:34:32.635
And the way to do that is to highlight my business to people that just wanna go out and eat locally.

517
00:34:33.655 --> 00:34:38.790
That is actually the best reason I can think of because that will help your bottom line,

518
00:34:39.250 --> 00:34:39.650
revenue.

519
00:34:39.650 --> 00:34:47.110
It's gonna encourage when you when you group the members together, granted they're just all restaurants, but you're gonna wanna be at the top of that restaurants list.

520
00:34:47.875 --> 00:34:52.435
And that's gonna incentivize you to wanna upgrade to the level that gets you to the top of that list.

521
00:34:52.435 --> 00:34:54.935
I think that's, that's great, Pat. Thank you.

522
00:34:56.515 --> 00:34:56.915
And then,

523
00:34:57.555 --> 00:35:01.760
Gabe had this suggestion of focus on filling one category at a time.

524
00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:05.780
What does he mean filling it with custard or filling it with stuffing?

525
00:35:06.240 --> 00:35:09.300
What what does Gabe mean by filling one category at a time?

526
00:35:09.520 --> 00:35:15.955
I believe what he means is and I love that tip by Gabe, is just give yourself that challenge.

527
00:35:15.955 --> 00:35:20.935
Say I am not allowed to introduce another category till I've completed at least 10 profiles.

528
00:35:21.075 --> 00:35:24.855
I've uploaded photos. I've uploaded content. I've uploaded their links.

529
00:35:25.075 --> 00:35:28.615
I have and once I have 10 complete profiles on that category,

530
00:35:28.940 --> 00:35:31.840
then I'm granted the ability to add another category.

531
00:35:32.460 --> 00:35:40.800
It's a great measure for for those that have trouble limiting their their the amount of categories they add, and then I think it's a great tip for for those that need help with that.

532
00:35:41.195 --> 00:35:42.075
Yeah. And then,

533
00:35:42.475 --> 00:35:46.015
that I think everything that we talked about this category is actually super important,

534
00:35:46.555 --> 00:35:47.935
and it's and it's overlooked,

535
00:35:48.235 --> 00:35:49.855
because of that that same reason.

536
00:35:49.915 --> 00:35:55.320
You just look at your competitors and you and you get all the categories from all your competitors to create a super list.

537
00:35:55.800 --> 00:35:59.720
But the last thing on this list is, and we can see it in the travel guide theme, is,

538
00:36:00.120 --> 00:36:02.380
link your best categories around your site.

539
00:36:03.320 --> 00:36:04.300
So in this case,

540
00:36:04.760 --> 00:36:05.980
activities and attractions,

541
00:36:06.600 --> 00:36:09.820
these are our top level categories. So accommodation,

542
00:36:10.535 --> 00:36:11.435
food and dining,

543
00:36:12.055 --> 00:36:14.235
professional services, and things to do.

544
00:36:14.855 --> 00:36:21.515
And we're gonna make sure that there's a good number of members in these categories, and we're just gonna link four on the homepage,

545
00:36:22.775 --> 00:36:26.235
so that the user has a good experience. And then in the main menu,

546
00:36:27.060 --> 00:36:32.420
the most popular categories would be things to do or food and dining for a local area.

547
00:36:32.420 --> 00:36:35.800
So those are the two top level categories we've linked,

548
00:36:36.180 --> 00:36:37.240
in the main menu.

549
00:36:37.380 --> 00:36:43.475
And then anything else, you can go to the browse by category page and and look at all the categories available.

550
00:36:44.095 --> 00:36:47.395
Again, on this site, we just kept them very simple just just,

551
00:36:48.415 --> 00:36:50.675
to use some simple examples here.

552
00:36:52.175 --> 00:36:53.715
Alright. Number four,

553
00:36:56.079 --> 00:36:57.540
High quality images.

554
00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:01.940
Important with three exclamation points.

555
00:37:04.160 --> 00:37:05.060
Yes, sir.

556
00:37:05.520 --> 00:37:09.619
You know, between Pat and myself, we see dozens of of site examples,

557
00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:11.145
every day.

558
00:37:11.865 --> 00:37:20.125
You know, whether it's it's things coming in through the support department or or or people asking, you know, for customizations or for help with their sites, and then we see all these sites.

559
00:37:21.065 --> 00:37:23.965
It's it's surprising how many blurry images

560
00:37:24.660 --> 00:37:28.099
that we we come across and we always mention it, you know, to the person.

561
00:37:28.099 --> 00:37:31.160
That's why I wanna I wanna make this a really important point.

562
00:37:31.780 --> 00:37:38.200
You can have a website that, you know, its purpose or whatever it is, it's it's not really that special.

563
00:37:39.684 --> 00:37:45.065
Or you're just starting out and competitors are are definitely more powerful than you are in the industry.

564
00:37:45.605 --> 00:37:49.704
The one thing you can do that you really have control over is using

565
00:37:50.484 --> 00:37:51.704
high quality images.

566
00:37:52.150 --> 00:37:56.570
And and there's a few things to consider with with high quality images besides them

567
00:37:57.510 --> 00:37:58.970
being not not blurry.

568
00:37:59.510 --> 00:38:02.170
So let's go down this list here and and see

569
00:38:02.630 --> 00:38:06.250
what what's important to look out for to make sure you're using

570
00:38:06.895 --> 00:38:08.035
high quality images.

571
00:38:09.135 --> 00:38:14.115
The first one is don't settle for blurry images. So if you're searching Google

572
00:38:15.135 --> 00:38:19.155
for images, maybe you're you want to see how a type of image will look on your site,

573
00:38:20.740 --> 00:38:23.000
you know, you might want to consider finding,

574
00:38:23.780 --> 00:38:33.780
that we put a list of websites here, places where you can, you know, Google images is is not that good and you're not really supposed to use them, but you can go to free stock photo websites.

575
00:38:33.780 --> 00:38:42.955
We have a list of four here that Gabe is going to share in the chat, where you can find high quality, high resolution images so you don't have to settle for blurry images.

576
00:38:44.295 --> 00:38:45.595
The next one is

577
00:38:45.975 --> 00:38:47.035
don't use images

578
00:38:47.655 --> 00:38:48.955
with white backgrounds.

579
00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:52.620
And, Pat, do we have an example

580
00:38:53.800 --> 00:38:55.740
of that by any chance?

581
00:38:56.840 --> 00:38:57.980
Of white backgrounds?

582
00:38:58.440 --> 00:38:59.180
One with

583
00:38:59.720 --> 00:39:05.420
not that not that I can think of. Alright. Imagine if this sky wasn't here. I wish I had an example.

584
00:39:05.480 --> 00:39:06.485
And, you

585
00:39:06.785 --> 00:39:07.285
know,

586
00:39:07.585 --> 00:39:10.865
it was just like people people standing behind a white background.

587
00:39:10.865 --> 00:39:17.525
You want to avoid that because generally the the background of your your site is white and it just creates a lot of empty white,

588
00:39:17.985 --> 00:39:18.485
space.

589
00:39:19.425 --> 00:39:23.130
Now if here's an example where a white background would be okay.

590
00:39:24.070 --> 00:39:30.150
You know, there's a picture of a lady here and around her is white space, but but it's it's done on purpose.

591
00:39:30.150 --> 00:39:32.650
It's not a background image like on on the homepage.

592
00:39:33.670 --> 00:39:35.050
If we had used images

593
00:39:36.135 --> 00:39:36.635
for

594
00:39:37.255 --> 00:39:46.055
if we just put a picture of a steak here for food and dining without the other stuff behind it, it would not look it would not look like a good like a good image.

595
00:39:46.055 --> 00:39:47.595
It would just look like a steak

596
00:39:47.975 --> 00:39:49.915
floating around on a plate,

597
00:39:50.480 --> 00:39:55.220
with nothing behind it. So you wanna make sure you have a background for the subject of your photo.

598
00:39:58.000 --> 00:39:59.859
Proper image image dimensions.

599
00:40:00.960 --> 00:40:06.325
On your website, you probably have areas for where rectangles fit nicely or

600
00:40:06.785 --> 00:40:07.285
shape

601
00:40:07.585 --> 00:40:09.204
images that are more square.

602
00:40:10.385 --> 00:40:11.765
You have to be conscientious

603
00:40:12.145 --> 00:40:14.325
of the proper image

604
00:40:14.704 --> 00:40:15.765
dimensions, and

605
00:40:16.625 --> 00:40:24.790
if you're not familiar with the exact dimensions to use, at least make sure if it's supposed to be a horizontal rectangle or a vertical rectangle,

606
00:40:25.170 --> 00:40:26.869
or if it should be a square,

607
00:40:27.730 --> 00:40:29.510
because what you don't want to happen

608
00:40:30.210 --> 00:40:30.710
is

609
00:40:31.250 --> 00:40:34.069
if you notice the background picture here with all these umbrellas,

610
00:40:34.545 --> 00:40:36.484
if this was a skinny vertical

611
00:40:36.865 --> 00:40:37.365
image,

612
00:40:37.984 --> 00:40:39.845
you know, just a tall rectangle,

613
00:40:40.224 --> 00:40:41.525
it would get stretched,

614
00:40:42.385 --> 00:40:45.925
to fit the space and then that would create a blurry image.

615
00:40:46.625 --> 00:40:48.405
So so be aware of

616
00:40:49.220 --> 00:40:56.680
the type of image you're using on your site, wherever it is, whether it's a background image or an image you're featuring

617
00:40:56.980 --> 00:40:57.880
on your homepage.

618
00:40:58.500 --> 00:41:04.599
Even these images are rectangles, they're not squares because the space that they're going to fill

619
00:41:05.075 --> 00:41:06.615
is rectangular. So,

620
00:41:07.634 --> 00:41:13.095
I'm just trying to make it just just really bring attention to this point because we see it quite often where,

621
00:41:13.474 --> 00:41:22.819
using high quality images is is is overlooked, and it's the one thing that can really add credibility and value to a new start a new site just starting out.

622
00:41:25.359 --> 00:41:30.000
And then the last thing, don't use small images that that need to stretch to fill the space.

623
00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:32.980
Use the proper, again, proper dimensions and size

624
00:41:33.325 --> 00:41:34.145
for your images.

625
00:41:35.005 --> 00:41:39.665
The four sites that that we do we just quickly did a Google search for free stock photos,

626
00:41:40.285 --> 00:41:41.505
pexels.com,

627
00:41:42.285 --> 00:41:42.785
unsplash

628
00:41:43.165 --> 00:41:47.130
Com, free photos Cc, and stocksnap.io.

629
00:41:47.369 --> 00:41:49.770
We checked them out. They're all great places to get,

630
00:41:50.410 --> 00:41:52.829
free high quality photos for your website.

631
00:41:53.450 --> 00:41:56.270
You just have to do a keyword search for what you're looking for.

632
00:41:56.810 --> 00:41:59.385
And Pat, I'll also pass this back to you because this is

633
00:41:59.945 --> 00:42:03.085
one of those great ideas that you had about elevating the value,

634
00:42:03.705 --> 00:42:05.085
of the directory itself.

635
00:42:06.265 --> 00:42:08.445
Alright. Thank you very much, Jason.

636
00:42:08.905 --> 00:42:12.525
So, yes, you definitely wanna make sure that it's not just a directory.

637
00:42:12.585 --> 00:42:14.365
You wanna come up with some creative

638
00:42:15.030 --> 00:42:17.850
concepts that say this is the place where you come

639
00:42:18.310 --> 00:42:23.290
to do this and whatever that might be. You may wanna really, really leverage reviews.

640
00:42:23.590 --> 00:42:25.930
You may wanna really, really leverage the events

641
00:42:26.310 --> 00:42:27.690
or the deals portion.

642
00:42:28.434 --> 00:42:29.494
What what you wanna

643
00:42:29.795 --> 00:42:33.655
do or you wanna make sure that you're you're sending out a message

644
00:42:34.115 --> 00:42:42.375
that you do something, that you're not just a directory, that there's a piece of there's a reason why someone would come with your web to your website.

645
00:42:42.830 --> 00:42:45.490
The preferred guide, I really, really like that.

646
00:42:45.950 --> 00:42:51.170
You can make sure that everything is sorted by best reviews when people come to this site initially.

647
00:42:51.390 --> 00:42:58.414
And we'll know that this is the place where you come to leave reviews and to find out which businesses are the best in the local

648
00:42:58.714 --> 00:42:59.214
area

649
00:42:59.595 --> 00:43:00.815
reviewed by locals.

650
00:43:01.355 --> 00:43:05.295
And and if you can just increase the value and not just make it a listing,

651
00:43:05.994 --> 00:43:08.414
then it's gonna be much easier to convert those members.

652
00:43:09.355 --> 00:43:11.920
Yeah. And and again, this is just choosing

653
00:43:12.220 --> 00:43:12.720
words.

654
00:43:13.099 --> 00:43:14.880
We're not doing heavy customizations

655
00:43:15.339 --> 00:43:16.480
or or workarounds.

656
00:43:17.099 --> 00:43:23.119
We're just using better words that get people excited. And choosing the verbiage around your site,

657
00:43:23.500 --> 00:43:24.720
on from this homepage

658
00:43:25.245 --> 00:43:26.625
to the sign up pages,

659
00:43:27.165 --> 00:43:29.585
to what you call your your directory,

660
00:43:30.125 --> 00:43:30.625
will

661
00:43:31.645 --> 00:43:32.145
increase

662
00:43:32.445 --> 00:43:33.505
and and definitely

663
00:43:33.805 --> 00:43:35.105
it correlates to,

664
00:43:35.485 --> 00:43:38.625
more member sign ups on your site when you use favorable

665
00:43:39.325 --> 00:43:40.545
text and imagery,

666
00:43:41.430 --> 00:43:42.250
simply to

667
00:43:43.030 --> 00:43:48.630
to encourage people to join your site and participate in clicking around your site even if they're just a visitor.

668
00:43:48.630 --> 00:43:51.290
So I'll just read this short list here by adding,

669
00:43:53.235 --> 00:43:57.495
sorry, by by renaming the directory, you'll be adding more perceived value.

670
00:43:58.435 --> 00:44:00.855
More members will want to join your site.

671
00:44:01.235 --> 00:44:08.215
Visitors will care about the results they find because you're making the members, the business listing seem like something very special.

672
00:44:08.700 --> 00:44:13.200
It's it's a curated list. You know, they're hot spots for that local area.

673
00:44:13.339 --> 00:44:17.280
You're making it exciting, and adding value for the visitor.

674
00:44:17.580 --> 00:44:21.920
And then also that adds over to your overall brand, which was what what Pat was explaining.

675
00:44:23.420 --> 00:44:24.320
It it just

676
00:44:24.645 --> 00:44:28.425
makes your website seem more important because it has a purpose,

677
00:44:28.965 --> 00:44:35.385
and that's gonna help, with your credibility when you have a purpose rather than having a website that really has no purpose.

678
00:44:35.525 --> 00:44:37.705
And it's just a simple business registry

679
00:44:39.050 --> 00:44:40.510
with no aim or focus.

680
00:44:41.210 --> 00:44:41.710
So,

681
00:44:42.970 --> 00:44:46.750
those were the five tips that hopefully you can apply to your

682
00:44:47.210 --> 00:44:48.430
local business directory.

683
00:44:49.050 --> 00:44:50.750
We are using those strategies

684
00:44:51.050 --> 00:44:56.275
on the local travel guide theme. So if you need a guide or a template or a format

685
00:44:56.815 --> 00:44:58.434
to rework your existing,

686
00:44:59.855 --> 00:45:01.075
local city directory,

687
00:45:01.535 --> 00:45:04.674
you may wanna take some pieces from the local travel guide,

688
00:45:05.135 --> 00:45:08.194
or this theme now is available to install

689
00:45:09.060 --> 00:45:09.940
on your site.

690
00:45:09.940 --> 00:45:15.480
So you can email the support team and ask them to install the local travel guide theme on your site.

691
00:45:15.700 --> 00:45:19.960
And if you don't have a site, obviously, you could just go to the brilliant directories page,

692
00:45:20.580 --> 00:45:22.840
choose a plan, and get your site started

693
00:45:23.300 --> 00:45:23.800
today,

694
00:45:24.355 --> 00:45:27.975
and you can ask for the local travel guide theme, as well.

695
00:45:28.915 --> 00:45:33.415
Great tip of the week, this week, Pat and Gabe. Really good topic there, I think,

696
00:45:33.715 --> 00:45:36.450
and ties into the to the travel guide theme.

697
00:45:37.010 --> 00:45:39.270
Alright. Now for the fun stuff.

698
00:45:39.890 --> 00:45:42.230
We'd love to take, your questions,

699
00:45:43.170 --> 00:45:48.630
any topics or discussions you have for us. Colette, our good friend Colette, how are you?

700
00:45:49.475 --> 00:45:53.735
Hi, Jason. Good. And you? Very good. Thank you. Where are you calling in from again?

701
00:45:54.355 --> 00:45:56.855
From New Zealand. That's right. That's right.

702
00:45:57.155 --> 00:45:58.695
What's your question for us today?

703
00:46:00.595 --> 00:46:04.055
A couple of questions, but one that was mentioned in the Facebook

704
00:46:04.770 --> 00:46:06.870
discussion today was the join page.

705
00:46:09.010 --> 00:46:14.610
Okay. I I have a lot of people going to my join page, but not many actually signing up. Okay.

706
00:46:14.850 --> 00:46:17.270
Which is your website that we can take a look at?

707
00:46:17.945 --> 00:46:20.845
Selwynconnect.co.nz.

708
00:46:23.705 --> 00:46:25.565
Okay. Let's visit your site.

709
00:46:29.145 --> 00:46:33.930
I remember we we Googled your site. It was ranking quite well for this keyword.

710
00:46:34.470 --> 00:46:34.970
Correct?

711
00:46:35.990 --> 00:46:40.570
Yes. I actually just changed changed the name about six weeks ago. So

712
00:46:40.950 --> 00:46:42.710
started from scratch again, but,

713
00:46:43.510 --> 00:46:45.690
it's still doing well. Okay. Good.

714
00:46:47.714 --> 00:46:49.414
Let's look at your pricing page here.

715
00:46:51.634 --> 00:46:52.134
And

716
00:46:54.515 --> 00:46:58.454
okay. And you said you're not getting as many sign ups as you would want.

717
00:47:00.290 --> 00:47:04.870
No. I get quite a lot of hits on it, and I find I still have to go out personally

718
00:47:05.650 --> 00:47:08.950
to see the businesses before they will sign up. Okay.

719
00:47:09.330 --> 00:47:13.990
Pat, I'll I'll pass this over to you. You are the, again, the pricing page master here.

720
00:47:15.065 --> 00:47:18.904
Thank you, Jason. Yeah. There's a there's a couple of options that you can go.

721
00:47:18.904 --> 00:47:21.484
I'm a big fan of AB testing.

722
00:47:22.025 --> 00:47:25.484
Every industry is different. What does AB testing mean? It means

723
00:47:25.785 --> 00:47:29.580
try something for one month and then try something for the other month

724
00:47:30.060 --> 00:47:30.720
and just

725
00:47:31.180 --> 00:47:33.120
analyze which one performed better.

726
00:47:33.420 --> 00:47:35.360
There's different things that you can do,

727
00:47:36.060 --> 00:47:41.900
to to to test and see if you can do big big improvements with your with your conversions here on this page.

728
00:47:41.900 --> 00:47:44.800
I'll give you a couple of examples to to get started.

729
00:47:45.555 --> 00:47:49.015
It it it may be, a little misleading, but in some cases,

730
00:47:49.555 --> 00:47:55.734
some websites, what they do is they'll have the sign up appear to be free, and they'll make the initial sign up form.

731
00:47:56.355 --> 00:47:58.535
The hey. Just give us your email.

732
00:47:58.880 --> 00:48:03.700
Give us your your give create your password to get started to add your business.

733
00:48:03.920 --> 00:48:05.780
And once you've collected that information,

734
00:48:06.480 --> 00:48:09.060
then they're told the following step is to,

735
00:48:09.360 --> 00:48:12.900
go ahead and and and pay to have their listing live.

736
00:48:13.535 --> 00:48:15.615
That could be one option that you can do.

737
00:48:15.615 --> 00:48:23.075
You can also work on making it a little easier to educate your public in terms of of what the features are included.

738
00:48:23.775 --> 00:48:26.675
I have an example of one I if you wanna show.

739
00:48:27.260 --> 00:48:34.720
Jason, I don't know if you if you wanna show one of the one a custom one I put together as as an example just to give an idea of something that may be

740
00:48:35.020 --> 00:48:35.520
helpful.

741
00:48:36.060 --> 00:48:40.700
Sure. Do you want me to pass I'll pass it over to you? Sure. You can you can go ahead and do that.

742
00:48:40.700 --> 00:48:41.200
Alright.

743
00:48:42.065 --> 00:48:43.765
So this is just for for demonstration

744
00:48:44.065 --> 00:48:44.565
purposes.

745
00:48:45.025 --> 00:48:47.845
But if you have, complex levels, for example,

746
00:48:48.465 --> 00:48:58.970
maybe you have, buyers and you have agents, for example, if it's a real estate website and you wanna have different membership levels depending on the type of member that it is, you can have something like this.

747
00:48:59.270 --> 00:49:03.130
But what I really wanted to show you was more of a dynamic experience.

748
00:49:03.670 --> 00:49:10.650
We we took, the idea behind HubSpot because HubSpot does something similar so that you can highlight what is included

749
00:49:11.135 --> 00:49:11.795
as people,

750
00:49:12.095 --> 00:49:14.035
browse the different levels that are available.

751
00:49:14.494 --> 00:49:19.234
And what what what you do is you make sure that all the different features that you're are included,

752
00:49:19.535 --> 00:49:22.675
that you can have the descriptions. Ideally, they'd be screenshot

753
00:49:23.310 --> 00:49:27.250
showing people what it what it is that they can do on your particular website

754
00:49:27.630 --> 00:49:31.810
rather than just having everything in a simple menu because there's an education

755
00:49:32.110 --> 00:49:35.070
process that comes up when you're highlighting features,

756
00:49:35.390 --> 00:49:38.705
to to your business to to the potential members on your directory.

757
00:49:38.765 --> 00:49:42.765
So, I know that there's a little bit of work in in building something like this,

758
00:49:43.725 --> 00:49:45.905
but I think the most important page

759
00:49:46.365 --> 00:49:51.965
on your website is is the page that you're you're using to to get somebody to actually decide, yes.

760
00:49:51.965 --> 00:49:55.579
I'm going to pay to to have this this account. So,

761
00:49:55.880 --> 00:49:58.460
I I do wanna revert back to my to my original,

762
00:49:59.400 --> 00:49:59.900
recommendation

763
00:50:00.920 --> 00:50:02.859
that you wanna do some a b testing.

764
00:50:03.319 --> 00:50:06.059
And what I've seen convert the best

765
00:50:06.714 --> 00:50:11.214
by far is this layout right here. This is the most best converting

766
00:50:11.595 --> 00:50:14.974
landing page I've seen, but it only works when you're willing

767
00:50:15.355 --> 00:50:20.734
to simplify the sign up process and have them just have one call to action and give a general

768
00:50:21.240 --> 00:50:23.820
highlight. Summarize in three or four,

769
00:50:24.120 --> 00:50:25.500
maximum five points,

770
00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:28.460
why somebody wants to join your directory. What value

771
00:50:28.760 --> 00:50:30.700
are you giving that particular member?

772
00:50:30.920 --> 00:50:37.525
If I click here, it's just a matter of putting in my email and my password and off I go building my directory.

773
00:50:37.745 --> 00:50:39.125
I see that you're charging

774
00:50:39.745 --> 00:50:41.105
for all your membership tiers.

775
00:50:41.105 --> 00:50:46.725
And like I said, you can make this the first step of the sign up process, and you could require them to upgrade.

776
00:50:47.025 --> 00:50:48.565
I know that you can control

777
00:50:49.160 --> 00:50:51.180
in Brilliant Directories, you can control

778
00:50:51.640 --> 00:50:52.540
which email

779
00:50:53.080 --> 00:50:55.100
people get after they signed up.

780
00:50:55.160 --> 00:51:01.020
So you can have a at the the initial application level, everybody comes into there.

781
00:51:01.434 --> 00:51:09.295
And then you can have a specific email that goes out just to them after they sign up with a link to upgrade to make their profile live.

782
00:51:10.635 --> 00:51:13.055
That way you're gonna collect the credit card information.

783
00:51:13.770 --> 00:51:17.310
I know that some people are gonna sign up and not complete that process.

784
00:51:17.610 --> 00:51:21.470
But generally speaking, in marketing, what you want is the email.

785
00:51:21.850 --> 00:51:25.690
You wanna make it as easy as can be to collect that initial email.

786
00:51:25.690 --> 00:51:31.035
You don't have to give them a free profile, but maybe allow them to apply for free or have this first,

787
00:51:31.575 --> 00:51:32.775
specific phase be free.

788
00:51:32.775 --> 00:51:40.055
So I would give something like this a try for for the first month, and then I would try a different model the second month.

789
00:51:40.055 --> 00:51:48.450
And as long as you're continually testing and seeing what does better and continue to test, you're eventually gonna have the the ultimate landing page for your particular industry.

790
00:51:49.230 --> 00:51:51.950
Pat, I think you nailed the something when you mentioned it.

791
00:51:51.950 --> 00:51:55.410
I think the first step should always be the easiest step.

792
00:51:56.755 --> 00:51:59.734
And once you cap once you capture an email address,

793
00:52:00.595 --> 00:52:04.535
you you now can remarket to that person, sending them offers,

794
00:52:05.155 --> 00:52:07.255
sending them more benefits of your website.

795
00:52:07.875 --> 00:52:08.375
And

796
00:52:09.150 --> 00:52:16.849
that way you can you can focus your efforts on groups of people rather than individuals because you'll be collecting emails at such a higher

797
00:52:17.630 --> 00:52:18.609
rapid pace.

798
00:52:19.630 --> 00:52:22.349
That's when email marketing will really come,

799
00:52:22.750 --> 00:52:26.565
come in handy rather than one off emails to individual members.

800
00:52:27.585 --> 00:52:27.825
Yeah.

801
00:52:27.825 --> 00:52:35.285
If if somebody's coming to your website, you you definitely wanna be getting about a if they're on your join page, it's because they're interested in joining.

802
00:52:35.665 --> 00:52:37.905
So you wanna be hitting at least a 25%

803
00:52:37.905 --> 00:52:40.930
conversion rate on that. If you're not hitting 25%

804
00:52:40.930 --> 00:52:43.030
conversion rates on a join page,

805
00:52:43.410 --> 00:52:44.310
then probably,

806
00:52:45.490 --> 00:52:48.130
you need to really simplify things in terms of signing up.

807
00:52:48.130 --> 00:52:56.414
I know what Brilliant Directories does, and and just to give some some inside knowledge, one of the bigger lead gens is a demo and booking a demo, and they're offering something.

808
00:52:56.414 --> 00:52:59.055
They're making it really easy to collect that email.

809
00:52:59.055 --> 00:53:03.795
They're not saying you need to buy a Brilliant Directories license in order to get started with us.

810
00:53:03.855 --> 00:53:09.589
If that's if that's the only way I can get started with a company, I'm I'm probably not gonna start that relationship.

811
00:53:09.730 --> 00:53:12.369
I would like an easier way to get to know you,

812
00:53:13.089 --> 00:53:14.930
before I make that sort of commitment.

813
00:53:14.930 --> 00:53:19.589
I think that goes it's kind of the same across all online platforms when you're looking to charge,

814
00:53:19.970 --> 00:53:20.710
for membership.

815
00:53:22.305 --> 00:53:26.385
Now I do have a free option, and I'm still not getting people on it.

816
00:53:28.385 --> 00:53:33.765
I have done a a landing page like this, but it's only just at the bottom in my footer,

817
00:53:34.704 --> 00:53:37.125
just why what are the benefits of joining.

818
00:53:39.430 --> 00:53:42.090
I'm gonna pat I'm gonna grab the controls back, Pat.

819
00:53:43.910 --> 00:53:48.250
Some some things to maybe encourage more people to sign up, Colette.

820
00:53:49.030 --> 00:53:49.430
Yeah.

821
00:53:49.430 --> 00:53:54.295
If you're interested in in getting people to the to the free sign up, here are just some simple options.

822
00:53:54.755 --> 00:53:58.934
You could move your free sign up to the left as the first thing people read.

823
00:53:59.315 --> 00:54:03.954
So that I've recently changed that to try it the other way. Okay. That's that's fine.

824
00:54:03.954 --> 00:54:07.859
It's been on the left up until about a week ago. That's that's fine.

825
00:54:08.420 --> 00:54:12.119
Another thing is you might wanna change the names of your membership levels,

826
00:54:13.140 --> 00:54:15.640
to to something that actually is

827
00:54:16.020 --> 00:54:16.980
is a little bit more,

828
00:54:17.460 --> 00:54:17.960
tangible.

829
00:54:19.734 --> 00:54:23.755
Phone book, I understand you're basically selling them a listing. Is that right?

830
00:54:24.454 --> 00:54:26.315
Yeah. Yeah. Their phone okay.

831
00:54:27.895 --> 00:54:33.250
Again, I I can't come up with that off the top of my head, but maybe adding more tangible names to them.

832
00:54:33.250 --> 00:54:38.070
I'll give you an example. Instead of a premium listing, just as a simple example here,

833
00:54:38.530 --> 00:54:40.470
you call it something like a

834
00:54:41.090 --> 00:54:42.230
spotlight listing.

835
00:54:42.770 --> 00:54:43.270
Now

836
00:54:44.770 --> 00:54:50.705
immediately if if I look at that, I feel like my business is gonna be showcased in some extra special way,

837
00:54:52.125 --> 00:54:53.905
because there's a spotlight on it.

838
00:54:54.285 --> 00:54:59.265
And again, I just as in what I'm trying to do is a metaphor for creating

839
00:55:00.890 --> 00:55:03.310
names that actually have a tangible meaning

840
00:55:03.690 --> 00:55:08.110
for people. And then they can grasp onto that and say that's the one that I want.

841
00:55:09.770 --> 00:55:11.550
So that's just one suggestion.

842
00:55:12.490 --> 00:55:15.070
Another one I would recommend is

843
00:55:15.575 --> 00:55:17.755
trying your best to limit

844
00:55:18.375 --> 00:55:21.355
the number of features rather than itemizing.

845
00:55:21.974 --> 00:55:22.875
Focus on

846
00:55:23.494 --> 00:55:24.154
on on benefit.

847
00:55:25.174 --> 00:55:27.115
People are joining your site for

848
00:55:27.575 --> 00:55:28.555
two main reasons.

849
00:55:29.150 --> 00:55:29.950
One is,

850
00:55:30.590 --> 00:55:31.810
more online visibility,

851
00:55:32.430 --> 00:55:35.730
and then through that online visibility they're hoping to get

852
00:55:36.030 --> 00:55:36.770
more customers.

853
00:55:37.630 --> 00:55:39.010
So if you can

854
00:55:39.870 --> 00:55:40.370
find,

855
00:55:41.915 --> 00:55:44.255
remove the things that aren't related to

856
00:55:44.635 --> 00:55:48.175
online visibility or making it easier for them to land customers,

857
00:55:49.355 --> 00:55:52.494
I think that would be beneficial. Let me go to our

858
00:55:52.795 --> 00:55:55.055
I know that in our lead gen theme,

859
00:55:56.770 --> 00:56:00.850
we have a short list of sign up features. Let's just check this out. Yeah.

860
00:56:00.850 --> 00:56:02.950
So this is a here's here's the list.

861
00:56:03.970 --> 00:56:06.150
Now obviously you can change what the

862
00:56:06.530 --> 00:56:15.545
the benefits of each package are, but you can see how much easier it might be for someone to sign up to a shorter list as opposed to having to read more.

863
00:56:17.205 --> 00:56:22.105
Mhmm. Right. And and the difficulty is you want to provide I I understand where you're coming from.

864
00:56:22.645 --> 00:56:23.145
The

865
00:56:24.500 --> 00:56:28.920
usually what people want to do is provide as much information as possible.

866
00:56:30.500 --> 00:56:38.260
But sometimes when it comes to membership levels and sign ups, it's not necessarily the itemized list, but it's an emotional reason people will sign up.

867
00:56:38.260 --> 00:56:39.960
And if you can

868
00:56:41.085 --> 00:56:50.385
touch on the emotional reasons for people to join your site, even if it's a shorter list, you'll probably have more success with with free and paid sign ups.

869
00:56:51.725 --> 00:56:54.305
Right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for your help.

870
00:56:54.660 --> 00:56:58.119
And just on that topic, Jason, maybe not necessarily this particular directory,

871
00:56:58.500 --> 00:57:04.579
but I've had some some customers share with us big, big increases in sign ups when they simplify things.

872
00:57:04.579 --> 00:57:08.680
I see, for example, on that website, the events are free for the free listings.

873
00:57:08.945 --> 00:57:12.485
And I gather that that's one of the main contents on that particular website.

874
00:57:12.865 --> 00:57:15.045
So on the top right hand side,

875
00:57:15.665 --> 00:57:19.525
instead of just a join today, it could be a add an event

876
00:57:19.825 --> 00:57:23.365
and saying add a coupon, add a deal, add a property.

877
00:57:23.630 --> 00:57:26.530
When you make the call to action simpler to understand

878
00:57:26.830 --> 00:57:32.510
because perhaps you have a classified website, and if it says join today, it sounds like a complicated process.

879
00:57:32.510 --> 00:57:36.930
Join what? What am I joining? Because I'm just an end user. I just wanna post a classified.

880
00:57:37.275 --> 00:57:46.494
But if you say add a classified, it's a classified site, and I click on it, and if it if it didn't go to the menu and it just went straight to the free sign up form,

881
00:57:47.595 --> 00:57:50.015
then then the conversion rates substantially

882
00:57:50.474 --> 00:57:52.895
increase because it's doing what Jason just said,

883
00:57:53.480 --> 00:57:54.940
simplifying the initial

884
00:57:55.240 --> 00:57:57.400
sign up process and collecting that email.

885
00:57:57.400 --> 00:58:05.579
It really if it's not an easy process and it's complicated and I need to dissect and read plans and compare and understand what features are included,

886
00:58:05.895 --> 00:58:09.355
I I'll I'll likely leave that website in today's day and age.

887
00:58:09.495 --> 00:58:14.395
I I recall when when Matt and I were running the, interior design pro website.

888
00:58:15.335 --> 00:58:17.595
We were signing up designers and decorators,

889
00:58:18.090 --> 00:58:22.990
interior designers and decorators at a very rapid place pace. We we sent out an email

890
00:58:23.530 --> 00:58:24.730
letting them know that,

891
00:58:25.130 --> 00:58:27.070
they can list their business for free.

892
00:58:27.370 --> 00:58:29.950
We're looking for more designers in their area,

893
00:58:30.945 --> 00:58:35.045
and we were gonna show we're gonna, you know, give them more online visibility.

894
00:58:35.105 --> 00:58:37.445
And all there was was a free sign up option.

895
00:58:38.945 --> 00:58:43.125
And then from that, after the free sign up is is when we would send them,

896
00:58:44.340 --> 00:58:49.380
not only deals and offers to upgrade, but we would we would upgrade members for free ourselves.

897
00:58:49.380 --> 00:58:51.400
We'd make a member a premium member,

898
00:58:52.100 --> 00:58:56.040
write a spotlight article on that member, and then share it with the whole community.

899
00:58:56.515 --> 00:59:03.955
And then what happened was all the other members wanted to find out how they could get showcased on the website, and and have a spotlight on them.

900
00:59:03.955 --> 00:59:10.055
And then we told them about the different plans that we offered that we can write, you know, a favorable article about their business.

901
00:59:11.319 --> 00:59:15.420
So these are all good strategies that you guys can, can also utilize

902
00:59:15.960 --> 00:59:16.859
for your directories.

903
00:59:18.040 --> 00:59:21.240
Alright. Thank you, Colette, for that question. Always good to go over the pricing pages.

904
00:59:21.240 --> 00:59:24.780
It's one of the most more important pages of any website.

905
00:59:26.875 --> 00:59:30.875
Alright. I think we have time for a couple more questions here. We got our good friend Ken.

906
00:59:30.875 --> 00:59:32.174
Ken, how you doing today?

907
00:59:33.194 --> 00:59:35.775
Very well. Thanks. Where are you calling in from, Ken?

908
00:59:36.875 --> 00:59:41.099
Vancouver, British Columbia. Alright. Alright. Thank you. How's how's the webinar today?

909
00:59:41.099 --> 00:59:42.320
Do you like it so far?

910
00:59:43.740 --> 00:59:48.619
Very nice. It's always very I've I've, tuned in many times and they're always very helpful. Awesome.

911
00:59:48.619 --> 00:59:51.680
Well, we appreciate you joining. What's your question for us today?

912
00:59:53.335 --> 00:59:54.715
Really simple one, I hope.

913
00:59:55.575 --> 00:59:56.475
On my homepage,

914
00:59:57.015 --> 00:59:59.275
I have the join our site today button.

915
00:59:59.895 --> 01:00:04.935
And, to the right is get listed today. And I'd just like to change that to a button.

916
01:00:04.935 --> 01:00:08.480
And I I've been trying and I can't figure out how to do that. What's the name of your site?

917
01:00:08.480 --> 01:00:09.540
Just plain tech.

918
01:00:10.720 --> 01:00:13.619
Studyabroadlists.com.

919
01:00:14.319 --> 01:00:14.819
Alright.

920
01:00:15.839 --> 01:00:17.300
Alright. Let's go to

921
01:00:18.960 --> 01:00:21.380
your homepage here. Studyabroadlists.

922
01:00:21.520 --> 01:00:22.020
Okay.

923
01:00:22.825 --> 01:00:27.805
Great picture. You have the subjects on the right, and then you have the blurry background,

924
01:00:28.505 --> 01:00:29.325
on the left.

925
01:00:30.505 --> 01:00:34.710
Okay. But you notice on the first slide, Ken Am I sharing my screen here? Yep.

926
01:00:34.950 --> 01:00:37.930
If you notice on the first slide, it's kind of hard to read

927
01:00:38.550 --> 01:00:42.170
this text when it's against the whiter background there.

928
01:00:43.109 --> 01:00:44.950
This this background is fine.

929
01:00:45.270 --> 01:00:51.875
So you want to make sure sometimes white backgrounds could be okay, especially if they're blurry, but you wanna make sure that you have,

930
01:00:52.995 --> 01:00:58.215
a good contrast between text and your background images when you're selecting your images as well.

931
01:00:58.515 --> 01:01:00.295
So just something to consider there.

932
01:01:01.075 --> 01:01:02.135
Good point. So

933
01:01:03.290 --> 01:01:09.609
a quick fix might be to change the color of the text or Well, what's happening is open. Right?

934
01:01:09.609 --> 01:01:13.770
In this image, the background is dark, and then in the next image, the background is white.

935
01:01:13.770 --> 01:01:15.710
So it's gonna be hard to find a font.

936
01:01:15.795 --> 01:01:21.895
So what you wanna do is really make sure your background images are either dark or light in nature in the backgrounds.

937
01:01:22.434 --> 01:01:24.055
So you don't have it going from

938
01:01:24.355 --> 01:01:27.015
Yeah. Consistent. So it's not going from dark to light.

939
01:01:28.530 --> 01:01:29.030
Right.

940
01:01:29.490 --> 01:01:33.750
Alright. Good tip. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. So you want the button here.

941
01:01:35.090 --> 01:01:39.910
Main reason it's like that by default is people respond to different calls to action.

942
01:01:40.450 --> 01:01:43.350
But you want it to go to the same join page?

943
01:01:45.275 --> 01:01:46.894
Yeah. Alright. I gotcha.

944
01:01:47.674 --> 01:01:50.015
I think what I can do is something pretty simple.

945
01:01:53.035 --> 01:01:56.394
So that's in the homepage design settings, about join offer.

946
01:01:56.394 --> 01:02:00.050
I'm gonna go ahead and, by the way, we added these two new fields here.

947
01:02:00.370 --> 01:02:03.090
You can now control where the links are going to.

948
01:02:03.090 --> 01:02:06.850
By default, they're to your join page, and the, the text was always there.

949
01:02:06.850 --> 01:02:10.790
But now you can take people to different pages. I'm just gonna put the code here,

950
01:02:12.565 --> 01:02:14.105
and I'm gonna get rid of this.

951
01:02:15.205 --> 01:02:17.625
You want it to say the same thing, join our site today?

952
01:02:19.045 --> 01:02:22.325
Or do you want it to say some okay. Let's save that. Let's just see what what happens there.

953
01:02:22.325 --> 01:02:24.329
I can always change it later. Of course.

954
01:02:24.630 --> 01:02:28.490
So what I'm doing is I'm just adding it as underneath the the paragraph there.

955
01:02:30.790 --> 01:02:32.490
Okay. Let's refresh the page.

956
01:02:33.510 --> 01:02:36.010
Alright. So it looks like we just need

957
01:02:36.385 --> 01:02:38.965
some spacing, and you'll be all good. So,

958
01:02:40.305 --> 01:02:42.885
just gonna close that paragraph because there's one opening.

959
01:02:44.465 --> 01:02:44.965
Oops.

960
01:02:48.145 --> 01:02:50.880
It's a lot simpler than I thought. That's good.

961
01:02:51.200 --> 01:02:54.740
Good. Good. Good. I'm actually just gonna add a t margin here.

962
01:02:57.119 --> 01:02:57.940
Let me see.

963
01:02:58.799 --> 01:03:00.259
That should be good.

964
01:03:03.615 --> 01:03:07.535
Should get you this one has three lines of text. This only has two lines of text.

965
01:03:07.535 --> 01:03:11.935
So you might wanna add a a little bit more text here to refresh the page. Yeah. Yeah.

966
01:03:11.935 --> 01:03:13.635
And then It actually Yep.

967
01:03:13.775 --> 01:03:17.795
If you add just one more line there, they should be spaced, evenly at that point.

968
01:03:18.540 --> 01:03:19.040
Right.

969
01:03:19.740 --> 01:03:20.240
Alright.

970
01:03:21.340 --> 01:03:24.000
Alright. Good stuff. Thank you, Ken. That's great. Okay.

971
01:03:24.460 --> 01:03:27.360
Thank you very much. Very welcome. Thanks for joining the webinar.

972
01:03:28.940 --> 01:03:29.440
Alright.

973
01:03:31.585 --> 01:03:32.085
Alright.

974
01:03:32.545 --> 01:03:34.565
Michael. Michael, I've unmuted your microphone.

975
01:03:35.825 --> 01:03:38.085
How you going? How are you today, Michael?

976
01:03:39.185 --> 01:03:40.405
Very good. Thank you.

977
01:03:41.185 --> 01:03:43.365
I have a bit of a quest one question.

978
01:03:44.079 --> 01:03:48.500
My website, which is musicteacherdirectory.com.au,

979
01:03:49.760 --> 01:03:50.200
I've

980
01:03:50.640 --> 01:03:51.140
on,

981
01:03:51.760 --> 01:03:52.260
when

982
01:03:52.560 --> 01:03:55.140
someone's creating their listing, their first listing,

983
01:03:55.440 --> 01:03:56.160
I have,

984
01:03:57.075 --> 01:04:03.175
the widgets appearing on the side which says that, you know, prompting them to join up when they're already in this sort of, like,

985
01:04:03.714 --> 01:04:05.015
process of joining up.

986
01:04:05.315 --> 01:04:05.714
So,

987
01:04:06.835 --> 01:04:08.695
the top if you go to the top,

988
01:04:11.170 --> 01:04:12.150
this one here,

989
01:04:12.530 --> 01:04:15.030
see I've got this widget over the side here.

990
01:04:15.330 --> 01:04:16.150
Mhmm. Yeah.

991
01:04:17.090 --> 01:04:23.750
And I thought I'd like it on some you know, like on the article pages and that sort of thing, but not on this page here.

992
01:04:24.915 --> 01:04:27.015
Gotcha. Because they're really process of

993
01:04:27.555 --> 01:04:28.455
So so,

994
01:04:28.915 --> 01:04:33.675
what's a really nice feature with with Brilliant Directories is and by the way,

995
01:04:34.115 --> 01:04:36.615
most of you didn't notice what just happened, but

996
01:04:37.900 --> 01:04:44.060
Michael is taking people to the free sign up page as as Pat was recommending rather than a pricing page.

997
01:04:44.060 --> 01:04:45.920
So this is the free sign up form

998
01:04:46.300 --> 01:04:50.800
for a free music teacher listing. So I I think you'll have good success with that.

999
01:04:51.340 --> 01:04:52.320
So Yeah.

1000
01:04:53.545 --> 01:04:59.065
So the I wanted to build the build the, membership first before we start monetizing. Right.

1001
01:04:59.065 --> 01:05:00.285
That that's a good idea.

1002
01:05:00.745 --> 01:05:05.385
So you'll notice the product ID here is three, for this product Yeah. Name here.

1003
01:05:05.385 --> 01:05:09.900
So what you can do is you can go to your manage products, which is essentially your membership levels,

1004
01:05:10.440 --> 01:05:13.500
and we can look for product ID three.

1005
01:05:14.680 --> 01:05:18.040
And what you can do with any of your products is a couple things.

1006
01:05:18.280 --> 01:05:22.780
You can have a sidebar on the checkout page. You can also have no sidebar.

1007
01:05:23.664 --> 01:05:25.444
In this case, you've chosen to

1008
01:05:25.744 --> 01:05:27.525
have a a sidebar.

1009
01:05:29.984 --> 01:05:31.204
Us at Brilliant Directories,

1010
01:05:31.505 --> 01:05:32.404
we have

1011
01:05:33.265 --> 01:05:33.924
a sidebar

1012
01:05:34.224 --> 01:05:36.980
as well, and we've put, some promotional

1013
01:05:37.520 --> 01:05:38.260
text here,

1014
01:05:38.560 --> 01:05:40.640
that kinda tells people a little bit about

1015
01:05:41.040 --> 01:05:46.180
they're confidence boosters. It tells them how they can pay Yeah. Some of the benefits I like that.

1016
01:05:46.400 --> 01:05:47.360
And things like that. So

1017
01:05:49.025 --> 01:05:52.005
but yes. I yeah. I'd like to be able to create something with that. Yeah.

1018
01:05:52.785 --> 01:05:58.085
Gotcha. So so what we can do is let's let's do this. This will be a fun one actually.

1019
01:05:58.785 --> 01:06:02.460
I'm gonna create none of these all those widgets have the sign up.

1020
01:06:04.220 --> 01:06:08.560
It's all of those widgets have the are you a music teacher, you know, sign up.

1021
01:06:08.940 --> 01:06:13.839
Yeah. So what so what you wanna do is let's create a new sidebar. So I'll go to toolbox, sidebar,

1022
01:06:15.204 --> 01:06:15.704
and

1023
01:06:16.085 --> 01:06:18.345
a new sidebar. I'm just gonna call it,

1024
01:06:19.925 --> 01:06:20.905
checkout page.

1025
01:06:22.085 --> 01:06:23.785
So it's a checkout page sidebar,

1026
01:06:25.045 --> 01:06:26.585
and I'll save the changes.

1027
01:06:29.390 --> 01:06:31.730
Okay. I think I clicked that twice. Let's see.

1028
01:06:33.230 --> 01:06:35.869
Yep. We got it right up here. So now we've created a sidebar.

1029
01:06:35.869 --> 01:06:38.289
Now we can put different things in that sidebar.

1030
01:06:38.829 --> 01:06:43.144
I know we have a a premade widget. It's called, like a guarantee.

1031
01:06:44.644 --> 01:06:49.525
Here, this one. It just it's a guarantee blurb just very quickly for you. And let me,

1032
01:06:50.724 --> 01:06:51.545
save this.

1033
01:06:52.005 --> 01:06:56.309
So now we've created a sidebar. We've put this is some kind of promotional text.

1034
01:06:56.309 --> 01:07:00.230
I don't I don't know if it's gonna work perfectly on a checkout page, but you get the concept here.

1035
01:07:00.230 --> 01:07:03.049
We can go back to the free member sign up,

1036
01:07:03.509 --> 01:07:07.130
and now we can choose the sidebar, which is the checkout page sidebar.

1037
01:07:07.425 --> 01:07:11.445
We can also choose left or right alignment. We'll just keep it on the right. We'll save the changes.

1038
01:07:12.705 --> 01:07:13.205
And

1039
01:07:13.985 --> 01:07:15.445
if we refresh the page

1040
01:07:16.385 --> 01:07:21.770
so again, this is just the hokey pokey widget here, but it's a satisfaction process, you know, whatever.

1041
01:07:21.770 --> 01:07:25.070
You can change all this this stuff here. But now you have a method for,

1042
01:07:25.609 --> 01:07:26.109
adding,

1043
01:07:26.570 --> 01:07:28.990
some promotional modules on the sign up page.

1044
01:07:29.690 --> 01:07:30.010
Okay.

1045
01:07:30.010 --> 01:07:34.890
So, and then I can I can modify that, and then I can also add a bit more there down there as well?

1046
01:07:34.890 --> 01:07:37.635
So, yeah, just say just to build that confidence,

1047
01:07:38.095 --> 01:07:40.655
as the people are entering their email. Yeah.

1048
01:07:40.655 --> 01:07:46.755
And then people One of the cool tools that we have is you can actually a lot of the text, I'd say maybe 80 or 90%,

1049
01:07:46.974 --> 01:07:48.434
are called text labels.

1050
01:07:48.810 --> 01:07:50.030
So, satisfaction

1051
01:07:50.410 --> 01:07:55.690
promise, you already got the image that says % guarantee. So what we can do here is we can just,

1052
01:07:56.410 --> 01:07:59.710
we can keep satisfaction promise. We can change what this says.

1053
01:08:01.425 --> 01:08:02.005
You know,

1054
01:08:03.185 --> 01:08:04.645
signing up is

1055
01:08:05.025 --> 01:08:05.925
quick and easy.

1056
01:08:06.865 --> 01:08:07.845
Join our

1057
01:08:08.465 --> 01:08:08.965
network

1058
01:08:09.265 --> 01:08:09.765
to

1059
01:08:10.145 --> 01:08:10.965
get connected

1060
01:08:11.665 --> 01:08:12.165
with

1061
01:08:12.625 --> 01:08:13.925
more music students,

1062
01:08:15.359 --> 01:08:19.460
and we'll put today. So that's a little bit more appropriate than what it was was there before.

1063
01:08:19.520 --> 01:08:20.739
Let's save the changes,

1064
01:08:22.640 --> 01:08:23.140
and

1065
01:08:24.239 --> 01:08:25.460
we'll get rid of that.

1066
01:08:26.719 --> 01:08:27.219
So

1067
01:08:28.705 --> 01:08:33.585
well Yeah. That's that looks good. Yeah. That didn't change actually. Something went wrong there.

1068
01:08:33.585 --> 01:08:37.024
Okay. That's that's one of the things we don't like to see on the webinars. But, hey, it happens.

1069
01:08:37.024 --> 01:08:40.245
But you can change the text there. Just as a this is more conceptual.

1070
01:08:42.864 --> 01:08:43.364
Okay.

1071
01:08:44.340 --> 01:08:46.359
Thank you, Michael. Thank you.

1072
01:08:47.780 --> 01:08:51.560
That's weird that that didn't change there. I'm wondering maybe because it's a checkout page.

1073
01:08:52.020 --> 01:08:58.840
A good question there from Michael on, yep, making your sign up pages more than just a form, you can,

1074
01:08:59.175 --> 01:09:01.835
let's go back to the Brilliant Directories site here.

1075
01:09:02.615 --> 01:09:04.475
You know, you can add a testimonial,

1076
01:09:05.415 --> 01:09:12.395
to, you know, really help encourage people to get to the finish line of signing up, and again giving you their email address

1077
01:09:13.350 --> 01:09:14.569
or credit card.

1078
01:09:16.229 --> 01:09:19.850
Alright. Let's see who we got left. How we doing on time there, Pat?

1079
01:09:21.029 --> 01:09:23.449
We're doing good here, Jason. Okay. Okay.

1080
01:09:23.989 --> 01:09:26.729
Let's see who's got their hand raised.

1081
01:09:27.375 --> 01:09:29.955
I see a Brian. Brian, how are you today?

1082
01:09:31.135 --> 01:09:35.475
Good, sir. How are you doing? Amazing. Amazing. Is this your first webinar with us?

1083
01:09:36.415 --> 01:09:41.710
It actually is. I'm a newbie to great directory. Okay. Yeah. Your name your name looks new.

1084
01:09:41.710 --> 01:09:44.210
Thanks for thanks for joining us. How'd you like the webinar today?

1085
01:09:45.310 --> 01:09:49.470
I'm loving it so far. I didn't know what to expect, but I'm really impressed. Alright. Thank you.

1086
01:09:49.470 --> 01:09:53.570
Thank you very much. And do you did you start your site yet or you're or you're still exploring?

1087
01:09:54.905 --> 01:10:00.105
I'm in the processes of building it. Okay. I've got a lot of the general stuff down upfront, but,

1088
01:10:00.585 --> 01:10:04.665
you know, it's it's a work in progress. So it's all new to me, and I'm having some fun with it.

1089
01:10:04.665 --> 01:10:07.085
Awesome. Awesome. And and, how can we help you today?

1090
01:10:08.080 --> 01:10:14.340
Is it possible to charge our members to put a for them to put a coupon

1091
01:10:15.120 --> 01:10:17.540
or for them to put an ad for a property

1092
01:10:18.080 --> 01:10:22.755
or an ad for a product? So you're referring to being a member? Yeah. No.

1093
01:10:22.755 --> 01:10:25.975
You're bringing up a good question. You're referring to a pay per post

1094
01:10:26.435 --> 01:10:32.515
where they would pay per coupon post. That I don't have a date on that. That is on our on our list,

1095
01:10:32.915 --> 01:10:35.574
to add as an as an add on for sites that need it.

1096
01:10:36.600 --> 01:10:39.980
So, again, I don't have an exact date on it, but it has been brought up,

1097
01:10:40.760 --> 01:10:42.360
a few times over the last year.

1098
01:10:42.360 --> 01:10:46.620
So we've we've put it on the list, but we haven't set a date for it yet for pay per post.

1099
01:10:47.560 --> 01:10:47.960
Okay.

1100
01:10:47.960 --> 01:10:54.185
I've been wrecking my brain all day long, like, well, actually the last couple of days, and I've been looking for it and looking for it.

1101
01:10:54.245 --> 01:10:57.525
And I'm like, well, maybe that just doesn't exist, and I wouldn't know why it wouldn't.

1102
01:10:57.525 --> 01:11:01.865
It seems like it'd be a great idea. It it no. No. It is, and more with classified

1103
01:11:02.245 --> 01:11:02.940
types of sites.

1104
01:11:03.420 --> 01:11:08.080
It's more requested for for a pay per post rather than paying for for the membership.

1105
01:11:08.540 --> 01:11:11.040
Pat, do you have any workarounds in the meantime,

1106
01:11:11.500 --> 01:11:15.040
to overcome this? I know we've chatted about this specific topic in the past.

1107
01:11:17.035 --> 01:11:18.895
Yeah. There there are a couple of workarounds.

1108
01:11:19.595 --> 01:11:21.615
One of them is to

1109
01:11:22.235 --> 01:11:26.735
as you're getting started and launching it, as Jason said, this functionality is coming out.

1110
01:11:26.955 --> 01:11:30.735
You can always just launch and make the membership levels

1111
01:11:31.460 --> 01:11:35.800
only allowed to post one. So you can restrict how many properties someone can add.

1112
01:11:36.260 --> 01:11:38.600
I'm talking about a that's a quick and dirty solution,

1113
01:11:39.140 --> 01:11:42.920
to get it out of the way. If if you're just getting started out with a directory,

1114
01:11:43.380 --> 01:11:47.795
I know that you're you're thinking, well, what if somebody wants to post five classifieds?

1115
01:11:47.795 --> 01:11:50.215
What if somebody wants to post five properties?

1116
01:11:51.315 --> 01:11:55.415
Waiting for that functionality to be done instead of saying, you know what?

1117
01:11:55.475 --> 01:11:59.040
I can just launch today and basically have paper per post.

1118
01:11:59.280 --> 01:12:08.640
The only downside is if ever somebody wants to post more than one, they may have to create another account or contact us to post another post, and then I could manually charge them.

1119
01:12:08.640 --> 01:12:10.160
That would be a great problem to have.

1120
01:12:10.160 --> 01:12:14.815
The moment you get it that's called what's that's called getting the proof of concept.

1121
01:12:15.035 --> 01:12:18.554
So right now you said I want people that pay for properties. I want people to pay for coupons.

1122
01:12:18.554 --> 01:12:23.295
I wanna what if you find out that nobody's paying for coupons and everybody's paying for properties?

1123
01:12:23.435 --> 01:12:24.635
Maybe you're gonna say, you know what?

1124
01:12:24.635 --> 01:12:29.550
I really wanna invest in this directory side of my directory cause that's what's really gonna generate revenue.

1125
01:12:29.610 --> 01:12:36.170
And I'm gonna look for a more long term solution because I have so many people buying and so many people looking to add multiple property.

1126
01:12:36.170 --> 01:12:40.030
There's a need for me to find that solution. That's usually my tip.

1127
01:12:40.095 --> 01:12:43.395
That'll get you closer to success than then waiting for the final solution.

1128
01:12:44.175 --> 01:12:46.495
And then the the other option, which is,

1129
01:12:47.215 --> 01:12:55.659
if you have a single type of content, let's say it's a classified site, if it's a property site, there are workarounds to make a paper post.

1130
01:12:55.659 --> 01:12:58.639
You just you need to have multiple membership levels.

1131
01:12:59.179 --> 01:13:05.179
And level one allows one, level two allows two, level three allows three, and so forth.

1132
01:13:05.179 --> 01:13:07.600
And with billing directories, you can control

1133
01:13:08.085 --> 01:13:10.105
which membership tiers are allowed

1134
01:13:10.405 --> 01:13:16.325
to upgrade to the next one. So it does create that paper post so people can purchase one ad.

1135
01:13:16.325 --> 01:13:23.010
And then when they've completed it, purchase a second ad just by by clicking an upgrade button in order to buy that that other ad.

1136
01:13:23.730 --> 01:13:27.110
Okay. Well, I appreciate the I know that one's very hard. That's very hard

1137
01:13:27.809 --> 01:13:31.429
very hard to follow without a visual. I understand that, so I apologize for that.

1138
01:13:32.210 --> 01:13:32.449
Yeah.

1139
01:13:32.449 --> 01:13:39.355
I was just looking at, like, for the, like, if we have properties on our site as a as a tab so someone can go in and look.

1140
01:13:39.415 --> 01:13:49.175
Well, if someone's putting up a real estate agent, for instance, if they're putting a property on there and they're selling it for, I don't know, 200 k, well, we're not an agent or anything like that.

1141
01:13:49.175 --> 01:13:53.220
But if they're gonna put an ad on there, well, why not make $20 for giving them that lead?

1142
01:13:53.460 --> 01:13:56.280
You know, why give it to them for free every single time?

1143
01:13:57.860 --> 01:14:01.080
Absolutely. That that's a perfect application for a for a paper post

1144
01:14:02.340 --> 01:14:05.475
situation. Okay. Well, thanks for thanks for having me on today.

1145
01:14:05.875 --> 01:14:09.495
Oh, thank you. And and great topic you brought up, and and good luck with your website as well.

1146
01:14:10.035 --> 01:14:12.435
Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you very much,

1147
01:14:12.915 --> 01:14:13.895
very much, Brian.

1148
01:14:15.075 --> 01:14:16.135
I wanted to,

1149
01:14:16.675 --> 01:14:17.815
do something special,

1150
01:14:18.800 --> 01:14:24.660
to celebrate the the coupon codes, for upgrades. So I think we're we're just about that time.

1151
01:14:25.600 --> 01:14:28.100
What we can do is and we've we've done this before,

1152
01:14:28.560 --> 01:14:29.060
is

1153
01:14:30.480 --> 01:14:32.100
we're gonna create a special promotion,

1154
01:14:32.400 --> 01:14:34.935
just for you guys here on on the webinar,

1155
01:14:35.315 --> 01:14:36.775
Brilliant Directories promotion.

1156
01:14:37.315 --> 01:14:42.215
And what we can do is just give me a moment. Just kinda doing this on a whim.

1157
01:14:43.795 --> 01:14:50.840
Let's create a, a special promo code that you guys can apply to, a purchase on the Brilliant Directories website.

1158
01:14:51.780 --> 01:14:53.640
We'll call it a coupon,

1159
01:14:56.180 --> 01:15:01.000
and, we'll do 55, and we'll do a 55%

1160
01:15:01.300 --> 01:15:04.385
discount, but we're gonna limit it to five

1161
01:15:06.045 --> 01:15:06.545
uses.

1162
01:15:06.925 --> 01:15:12.545
And it'll only be valid for, today, so I'll put the expiration date, for tomorrow.

1163
01:15:15.005 --> 01:15:16.465
What's the date today, Pat?

1164
01:15:16.880 --> 01:15:17.380
The

1165
01:15:18.080 --> 01:15:20.340
second? No. Nine sixteenth? Sixteenth.

1166
01:15:20.960 --> 01:15:22.900
Alright. There we go. It's webinar Wednesday.

1167
01:15:24.000 --> 01:15:28.640
So this is an example. So we we have obviously a lot of products on the Brilliant Directors website.

1168
01:15:28.640 --> 01:15:30.020
You could choose which,

1169
01:15:30.640 --> 01:15:33.065
products you would want a coupon to apply,

1170
01:15:33.445 --> 01:15:33.945
to.

1171
01:15:34.645 --> 01:15:37.465
So what we'll do is I'll go ahead and save this, coupon

1172
01:15:38.165 --> 01:15:38.805
55.

1173
01:15:38.805 --> 01:15:45.150
It'll be, 55% off any purchase on the Brilliant Directories website, and we'll limit it to five uses here.

1174
01:15:45.230 --> 01:15:49.810
And, only you guys here on the webinar know about this right now. I'll go ahead and save that.

1175
01:15:52.030 --> 01:15:52.530
And,

1176
01:15:52.830 --> 01:15:59.085
yeah, I'd like to thank everyone for for joining us on webinar Wednesday, especially, Gabe and Patrick.

1177
01:15:59.085 --> 01:16:03.105
We covered some great topics today. I'm just gonna backtrack here on the,

1178
01:16:03.485 --> 01:16:04.625
five key ingredients

1179
01:16:05.005 --> 01:16:08.385
for local directories. Thanks, Pat, for putting that together, by the way.

1180
01:16:10.605 --> 01:16:11.265
My pleasure.

1181
01:16:12.285 --> 01:16:12.785
And

1182
01:16:14.770 --> 01:16:18.050
if you haven't done so, you can also join our Facebook group.

1183
01:16:18.050 --> 01:16:21.750
You can go to brilliantdirectories.com/

1184
01:16:22.130 --> 01:16:23.490
Facebook and join the group.

1185
01:16:23.490 --> 01:16:27.110
We can continue the conversations here that we're having in webinar Wednesday.

1186
01:16:28.975 --> 01:16:35.075
Next webinar is in two weeks, so we'll see you guys there in two weeks at the same time 4PM

1187
01:16:35.215 --> 01:16:38.255
Pacific. It was great to be with here on the on the webinar.

1188
01:16:38.415 --> 01:16:40.275
Pat or Gabe, do you have any final remarks?

1189
01:16:41.250 --> 01:16:42.630
Have a brilliant day everyone.

1190
01:16:45.570 --> 01:16:46.070
Awesome.

1191
01:16:46.530 --> 01:16:50.210
Alright, guys. Thank you so much. We'll catch you in two weeks in the next webinar.

1192
01:16:50.210 --> 01:16:52.389
It was great to be with you here today. Bye bye.