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Alright, gang. Let's dive right into it.

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Welcome to another edition of webinar, Wednesday tips to help grow your online directory.

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If this is your first time joining us, welcome.

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I am Jason there on the left, and we're lucky to be joined by David Rocklin, the digital strategist and so much more here at Brilliant Directories.

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David, thanks for taking the time to join us in this webinar.

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Hi, everybody. So glad to be with you for the big webinar Wednesday January.

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I remember when we started doing these, I think it was just over five years ago now.

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So really glad that you all could be with us for this and, looking forward to, the big updates and, great tip of the week that we have to share with you.

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Yeah. And we did promise something big when we reached webinar one fifty.

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This month, in the month of February, we will be doing an iPad giveaway inside of the Facebook group.

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We've done those in the past last year. They're lots of fun.

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We'll share more more about that a little later.

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But also one of the perks of today is we are streaming live on YouTube.

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So hey out there, all the YouTubers, who are watching us there, we do recommend everyone subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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You can go to brilliantdirectories.com/

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youtube and click on the subscribe button there.

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You'll get updated with, all the webinar Wednesdays that we do, tips of the week, and new feature release of videos.

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And one of the key benefits of streaming on YouTube live is that the replay will be immediately available and we will share it inside of the Brilliant Directories Facebook group,

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and we also recommend and invite you to join us there.

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You can head on over to brilliantdirectories.com/Facebook.

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We're just about to pass 10,000 members in that group. Lots of constructive,

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conversations, discussions.

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Really, the community is just helping each other there. It's really nice to see.

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I myself am very active there as well.

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So again, join us at brilliantdirectories.com/Facebook,

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and we will be posting an update in the next few days about the iPad giveaway in that group.

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So make sure that, you join us there, and we'll pin the iPad post to the top of that page.

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And really exciting, we do see a lot of new names, here joining us in the webinar, so welcome to everyone.

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Just a little bit about webinar Wednesday.

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It's a great way for us to show you some of the newer features built into the platform week after week.

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We try to focus on the features that can give you actionable steps and help you grow your online community.

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So we'll we'll cover topics such as generating revenue, increasing website traffic,

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converting visitors,

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into free or paid members, improving your navigation. The tip of the week today,

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will be on identifying revenue opportunities as well as how to publish and promote content on your site.

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But if you have questions about any of these topics or anything else related to your brilliant directories or or membership website, we'll try to get to as many questions as we can in just a little bit.

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Alright.

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And before we move on to that tip of the week, we do have a few BD Lab updates to share with you guys, today.

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The first one at the top of the list, we did a demo of this in the webinar two weeks ago.

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It has been officially released. We also announced it in the Facebook group.

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If you have the VIP add ons club, you already have

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this add on as part of your add on package with your website.

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I don't wanna go over all the details of this, but I will share a link,

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to the add on, from our add ons page and there is a tutorial video that we, went over right here.

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If you go to that, which covers the features and the use cases for this really cool, add on here.

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So I'll just share this in the chat.

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You guys can check that out after the webinar if you wanna learn more about that.

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I know a lot of people have already implemented on their sites and we're excited to see some of the use cases there.

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Alright. This next one here is related to when members purchase leads on your site.

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So when a member,

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accepts or purchases a lead, they then get the lead's name, phone number,

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email address, and any other information such as the, the category they selected, the message they included,

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with the lead.

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What we've done is for the name, email address, and phone number, we've created an easy copy button there so that your members can easily copy this information and follow-up with the with the lead however they they so choose to do.

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Let me show you,

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where that is.

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So we're logged in here as a sample member on our demo site,

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and this person has purchased this lead and we can see for the name, email address and phone number,

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there is now a copy button right here. So if I copy,

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the email address, I'll just drop it here, we can see right there, that it is copied. Alright.

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Next up here is related to the finance tab, the newly released search subscriptions

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page in the admin.

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Super powerful and it can really give you a pulse of

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how subscriptions are doing on your site, the financial health of your site.

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We've recently added a new search field for date ended, meaning when a subscription was closed, canceled, or ended.

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And this could if you wanna search the previous month, you can basically see how many

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individual subscriptions,

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were canceled in the past. So let me just show you where that is.

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On this demo site, we don't have too many test transactions, but under finance,

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search subscriptions,

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and here now we have

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subscriptions. You can search subscriptions based on date created.

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The next due date, if it's a recurring subscription and there's an upcoming,

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due date for for that subscription.

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And the new one we just added is next end date. Excuse me. This should yeah. The date ended here.

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So if you wanted to search, for example,

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all the subscriptions that are ended and they ended last month in January,

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you could then do that search. I don't I don't think this site has any. Oh, it has two.

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So this site has two subscriptions that ended in January. So

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later this year, we're going to start focusing on visual reports and graphs and, charts and things of that nature.

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And having the search for filters in place is basically,

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the foundation for all of that.

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The graphs and charts will basically just provide a visual representation

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of conducting searches like this. So you can,

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with charts and graphs, you can run reports,

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for month over month cancellations

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and things of that nature.

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So a little bit later this year in 2023, we're gonna shift focus after we're done with some of the API stuff, and the Zapier integration stuff, we're gonna shift to charts, reporting, and graphs, and I'm pretty excited about that stuff myself.

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All right, we have a new language available to select as a default text label.

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Last month, we released Spanish, so we had English and Spanish

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and

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French has recently been released.

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German is next up in line.

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So if you wanted to, if you're launching a new BD website and you need all the default text labels, or you want your site to be 90% in French,

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you can do that with just a couple clicks, and then there are a few areas where you'll want to just update some of the text yourself like the main menu,

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some of the homepage text and things like that, places where you would add your own custom content anyways.

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Let me show you where you would do that.

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You can come to your general settings

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and under localization,

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you can go to default website language,

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and in this case we'll select French.

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And

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what you can do is check off this box use same language for the text label, so your default language is French and you want the text labels to be in French as well.

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Let me save the changes.

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There might be one other thing I need to do but let me just quickly check it.

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Let's refresh this page as an example.

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Everything's in English here.

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Okay. There we go. And now we can see that everything is,

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in French here.

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These are the names of the post types. So these didn't change.

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This is an example of some things you'd wanna go change yourself.

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If you're not calling them press releases or classifieds, maybe you're gonna give it its own name, but those are really easy to,

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to edit.

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But all the default text labels more or less should be now translated,

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in French in this example here. You can come and do your main menu,

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even the placeholder text up here.

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So that is how to do that.

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We'll switch this back to English and we'll save those changes and let's magically change it back to English.

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Oops, still saving. Okay. Let's go Dutch,

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English and save changes

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and refresh that.

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There we go back to English.

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So German is up next and then we'll continue adding languages now that we have a system for it,

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based on demand and popularity.

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Overall last month in January, we had about a hundred updates, fixes and feature releases.

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So thank you guys very much in the BD community. A lot of your support tickets,

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questions in the Facebook group and and just feedback and suggestions help us push these updates.

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And coming soon as I mentioned, German translation is coming out next

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and the ability to use the API or Zapier to create posts on your site like events, articles, jobs, photo albums, etcetera, is coming very soon.

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And what's cool about that is you'll be able to include, images with those.

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So if you have access to an RSS feed and you want those articles on your BD website,

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you could just sync up the RSS feed. It'll grab the image, the title, whatever data is available.

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With post comments, the most recent addition to the post comments was the add on for star ratings, for posts.

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However, we're gonna be releasing some default functionality around the comments, being able to allow users to edit

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or delete their comments or both.

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Sometimes you wanna give the members,

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the ability to edit or delete their comments. We're gonna do something interesting with this.

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We're also gonna give you the website owner

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a time time frame that would give the if you wanna allow users to edit or delete their posts, you can give them, like, twenty four hours or one day to edit or delete their posts.

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And then after that, the the feature goes away for them.

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So if you don't want members to delete their comments, you know, six months later, you can set that maximum time period to edit or delete a comment,

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which should be fair for everyone actually, because sometimes you don't want comments removed from your site because they're helping you rank and,

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other benefits if people are replying to comments and things like that.

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This next one is pretty huge.

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We have identified, shout out to the BD dev team, few dozen foreign characters that appear like regular

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letters.

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They're called homoglyphs,

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and we have identified them and we're going to be adding them to the spam block list, and it should help reduce a significant amount of spam,

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that's still coming through any of the forms on your site. Spam is relentless and

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battling it is an ongoing process. So we're just,

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doing our best to keep up with it and, minimize it as much as possible.

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And then of course, tons of speed, security, and quality of life features are always on the way.

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Before we move on to the tip of the week, if anyone wants to raise their hand and ask any questions about these specific updates, if you wanna save questions,

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for other things, we'll save them to the end, but if you want any questions or comments about these new features,

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feel free to raise your hand, and we'll take a question or two. We got Rich here.

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How you doing, Rich? Hey, Jason. Hey, real quick on the on the spam,

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updates.

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Is there any best practices or something we should be doing on our site, or that you guys are doing internally?

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Is there a distinction, in other words, between spam on a like a contact form versus a newsletter

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versus somebody

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trying to join the directory,

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you know, as a bot or a spam?

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That's a great question. So so the the block the spam block keywords is for would,

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would apply to any public forms on your site.

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So that would be the your contact us form, all the forms you just mentioned, the newsletter form, or the sign up form.

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So you'll be blocking those keywords for all those forms.

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Yeah. Okay. So that's good news.

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The yeah. Because we've set filters over the period of time, certain keywords that seem to populate.

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But,

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the final question of thought is we have, a number of companies

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that like moving companies

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or, you know, English translation companies from other countries around the world that have nothing to do with our space.

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And somehow,

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you know, kind of bots, they just they'll fill in the

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registration

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form, and there's

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like, for example, ours is about podcasting.

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They don't even have a podcast or nowhere the name podcast doesn't appear anywhere on their website?

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Yeah. We've come we've covered this before. A lot of these SEO listing companies, they're looking

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for places on the Internet where they can create free profiles

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Yeah. For for their customers.

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There is there are there's one thing you may want to try

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in addition to everything else that that we've mentioned. One thing you may wanna do is

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you may or may not wanna do this, but you can change the URL

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of one of your sign up plans to be something else.

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So maybe they're just targeting a URL where they know there's a free sign up.

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Now another thing that I really like is if you go to your advanced settings, I forgot the name.

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Let me search for it. I think it's called delay

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time.

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Just a second. Yeah.

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I think we did that and that helped out a lot where they weren't able to fill that in like in a nanosecond.

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Right. Right. Yep. Here, spam protection member sign up submission time.

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Yeah. So

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you what you should do is set this to seconds, which which means if the form is filled out too fast, it knows it's not a human.

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So setting this to, like, three seconds

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Okay.

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Is is reasonable for for probably we can say a human to fill out a free sign up form would take them three seconds from the moment the page loads.

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So you might wanna try that.

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You don't wanna do it too high because then it'll it'll block out real people signing up.

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What's crazy, they're able to fill in, like, virtually everything, like name, email,

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their social media accounts,

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their location.

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I mean, tons of, you know, almost a complete sign up, but they're just kind of a bogus company that it's just more irritating, but it doesn't have to.

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Yeah. I'm I'm with you. Yeah.

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We can go into this into this for a while, but, one thing you can do is you might wanna moderate sign ups and make it feel like more of an exclusive application process for them.

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I don't think there's a silver bullet especially if you're offering free profiles on your site.

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I'll just show one more thing before we go any further.

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Fiverr

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business listed.

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So if you search

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Fiverr,

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you know, there's there's business best business listing services.

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Well, I don't know if this is the I searched the right thing, but I mean, the the Internet is littered with people who wanna,

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SEO customers to get their listings on random sites, but I'll just leave it at that for now.

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Alright. Good stuff. I think with that, we can thank you for the question, Rich.

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With that, we can move on to the tip of the week.

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David was kind enough to come up with this really amazing topic. Actually, it's gonna help you guys

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publish more content on your site, engage your members more, and, in a new revenue channel for your directory business.

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How to spell spotlight articles to your members.

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So David, if it's alright with you, I can pass over the reins and we can go through this tip of the week together.

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Yeah you know we've covered this in at least one previous tip of the week but that was

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much more surface level kind of just explaining the benefits

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of spotlight articles

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how you can go about selling them to your members.

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But, in this one, we really go into a lot more depth, giving you some benefits that you can just, you know, hand right on over to your members, letting them know why they should sign up, what to include

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in the spotlight articles, how to make them effective,

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everything like that. All of the, all the important stuff. So, diving right in, benefits.

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We'll just start right on the on the ground floor here of spotlight articles

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for businesses. What we'll be talking about is geared for business members,

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but these same tactics and ideas can be applied to, any members.

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So, first of all, having a spotlight article for one of your business members, obviously, it will increase their online visibility,

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search engine ranking, hopefully get some more eyeballs on the business

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to, attract new customers and generate more revenue for them. This,

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undoubtedly would be the the primary reason why any business would consider buying some sort of spotlight or feature article.

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Would be to to get new customers and generate more revenue.

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But also, it enhances the brand image and reputation

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overall,

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especially when, the company is then able to

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link out to the spotlight article either on their own website or blog or also from their social media accounts.

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It does

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kind of give the appearance that that they're a bigger company than they might be

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if they are a smaller company by showing

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their followers any prospects

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that they do have

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some third party websites

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external resources talking about them, covering them, all that sort of stuff. And then also,

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it would help, these businesses stand out from their competition, especially

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if their competition

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is also listed on your website.

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This would be a huge, selling point that you, could provide to your members.

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If you're going to be reaching out to any individually, you can say, hey, by the way, you know, we have x number of, businesses

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in your same industry also listed on your website.

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And you know, from there, they can continue to link out to the spotlight article from their own online properties.

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They could link to it from their profile on your website within your directory.

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Overall though, the goal of this would be to get some more eyeballs on these companies

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get them in front of new prospects

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get new customers and generate more revenue and we'll dive into some best practices and and ways to make these articles more effective

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And just an aside for this you know I guess in the lingo in the industry is is this is a paid editorial.

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You can Google it and and learn all about it it's a paid editorial and reason companies like this it's a little bit more organic than an explicit paid advertisement or banner ad on on like the sidebar of your site.

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So it has more of an organic feel and obviously it's spotlighting the business, putting them in a in a positive light.

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And, yeah. So it's definitely

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something you can do for free or as a paid service for your members.

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And we'll cover those like David said in just a moment.

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Yeah. And, you know, that's actually a great segue

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into, this slide here. What elements to actually include in these articles.

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Yeah.

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We were looking for some example articles that we could share with you all in this presentation, and we'll get to that in just a few minutes.

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But, as we were looking for some, examples and samples out there,

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a lot of them really stopped

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at the basic info.

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This first point here, information about the business, its history, and what exactly it is that the business offers.

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It really doesn't make for an engaging

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or enjoyable read.

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And, if you're able to include some of these additional elements that we list here,

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not only will it make for a better experience

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from, the reader's perspective, it will have a better shot at getting new customers, new prospects

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through the door of these businesses.

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And it will also make it feel, like Jason said, less as a paid

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editorial

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and more of an organic article written about this company.

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So, you can do those things by including high quality images and videos.

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This will depend

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on what resources you have available to you and what multimedia

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the businesses themselves have available online that you can, that you can pick from.

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But including high quality images and videos,

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maybe even, you know,

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a podcast or an audio interview with the business owner. Things like that. The multimedia element

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really makes these articles

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much more consumable

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and much easier to share on, other forms of online properties like YouTube, Instagram, if you're using TikTok,

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things like that. Also, customer testimonials.

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This is a huge one when it comes to making the, the article feel less,

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like a paid advertisement.

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Yep. When somebody sees

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a featured business or a spotlighted business or anything like that, instinctively they might assume that it is a paid advertisement, a paid placement.

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But if you're able to at least include some customer testimonials, whether those are from the businesses listings on your own website

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or elsewhere online,

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it will provide some additional social proof that the business is worth checking out for those prospective customers.

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Also, linking out to the businesses website and their social media profiles.

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In addition to

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giving readers,

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places to access more information about these businesses,

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That also does help on the SEO side of things for these businesses

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when it comes to,

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helping their online profiles and and properties.

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And also including unique and relevant content

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that appeals to the target audience so this again just goes deeper than just providing the basic business information their history things like that we have some examples that that do a decent job of showing this asking some kind of, obscure or

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maybe abnormal

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questions. But that give a little bit more insight into the business

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itself and the people behind the business as well.

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And trying to to form that emotional or personal connection

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between the business and the readers to try to get those, prospective customers over to them is a really key element, which we'll get to in another slide.

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And just also another side to this one of what to include. Look, nobody has time to write content.

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Nobody wants to write content. It's hard to write content. It's time consuming.

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So when you figure out that you're gonna be offering spotlight articles to your members, whenever you're gonna spotlight someone, maybe you have a template and you send it to the member to fill out.

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So they take care of 80% of all this content for you.

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They provide you with the customer testimonials, links to their website, so you don't have to go hunting for it yourself.

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In the next slide, I think we talk about storytelling, but, you know, having some boilerplate questions that you want the the member to fill out.

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And then all you need to do is pretty much put that into a cohesive article

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format for your site, which probably cuts your time by 80% if you can have the member provide this stuff to you upfront.

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Absolutely

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and so going into the power of storytelling this is an element that we hadn't touched on in any of the previous webinars here but this is the reason why so many effective

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commercials or any other sort of advertisements that we might see this is the reason why those effective

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advertisements

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are as effective

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as they are they're able to grasp the viewer the reader's

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attention,

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and form some sort of emotional connection with them that helps that business kind of stay in the back of of the the person's mind who's seeing that advertisement.

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So, we always want to keep this in mind when crafting these spotlight articles.

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How we can actually tell a story and not just lay out the basic business information

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in an article format that somebody could probably find, you know, just on the business's profile page.

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Including some sort of story or emotional

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appeal will help to engage with those potential customers for the business, help immediately build,

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some sort of relationship

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and connection with them. We'll also help these businesses differentiate themselves from their

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competition, allowing prospective

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customers

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to, kinda get a peek behind the curtain, see what's actually going on within the business, who's behind it, and, shed some light on the business and the people themselves,

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to hopefully

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get some, of those prospective customers, turn them into actual customers.

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It will also help to capture the reader's attention, inspire them to take action.

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Again, not making it just bland and throwing out the basic business information out there.

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Creating that emotional connection

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is really the important thing here.

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Anybody can can write an article just including the general information of a business, its history.

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But at the end of the day,

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our business members are paying for is to get more customers and increase their revenue.

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And also for us, we want to continue to be able to sell these spotlight articles.

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Because it's an additional stream of revenue for us.

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And we're not gonna be able to continue to sell these spotlight articles if it turns out that they're not being effective.

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So we do wanna do everything we can to make these articles effective

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and bring more business over to the businesses and the companies listed within our directories.

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And then also through storytelling, we can more effectively communicate

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the,

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company's message and their values more effectively.

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As time goes on, people do tend to care a little bit more about what value certain companies have.

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And so being able to sprinkle that into the article as well is also, an important element.

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Fantastic. Who wants to have some fun? Use the raise your hand feature.

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We're gonna sideline from, these slides for just a second

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and going to the storytelling. Yeah. Raise your hands, guys.

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Let me know that you're there for a second. We're gonna do something a little bit of fun.

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And like we said in the previous slide, collecting this information upfront, like their images, their social media links.

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And for storytelling,

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if we can have them answer a preset,

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preset number of questions about their business to help tell that story

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then we just have them basically fill out a questionnaire and we turn that into an article.

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Okay we got a lot of hands up let's go and use chat GPT

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real quick and see if they can give us,

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some articles.

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I know everyone's been hearing about this on the news so this would be a great way to show you guys how it works.

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So we can say, I am writing,

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and

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a spotlight

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article

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about a local

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business and want to ask them 10 questions,

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the

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story

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of how they

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started

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their business.

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I want

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to ask

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emotional questions.

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Let's just send that. We could probably write a better input. Let's see if it can give us,

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give me 10 questions

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to ask the business

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for my blog article.

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Alright.

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10 emotional questions you can ask to help the story of a local business.

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What inspired you to start this business and what was driving the force behind it?

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Can you share the moment you realized you wanted to turn your passion into a business?

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How do you overcome

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any challenges or obstacles during the initial stages of starting the business?

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How was your business impacted? How has the business impacted your personal and professional life?

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How do you how do you stay connected with your customers? And, wow, these are great questions.

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So chat GBT is a great way,

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to get ideas

399
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to help you do your work faster and smarter as a website owner,

400
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an online marketer and more. So

401
00:27:21.095 --> 00:27:22.455
these are great questions.

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You can see I put a simple input in here basically based on what this storytelling

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slide is sharing.

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00:27:28.215 --> 00:27:33.995
So if you never saw what chat GPT can do, I've been blown away by it and that was a lot of fun.

405
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All right, let's move on with the slides here.

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Measuring the success of a spotlight

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article.

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00:27:41.150 --> 00:27:44.830
David, I'll pass it back over to you on this one here. Awesome. Thanks.

409
00:27:44.830 --> 00:27:46.770
Love seeing, the stuff that ChatGPT

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can, can generate there.

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So, measuring the success of a spotlight article, as I mentioned, we do want these articles to be successful in bringing new customers and generating more revenue to these businesses.

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So, how can we,

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effectively

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00:28:00.855 --> 00:28:08.340
share that these articles do actually work to, to help sell these to the businesses listed in our directories.

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Well, the first and probably most obvious way is to actually track the article's impact.

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This can be a little difficult to do because ultimately,

417
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we're going to have to rely on the businesses themselves to let us know if they've seen an uptick in customers'

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engagement

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00:28:25.044 --> 00:28:28.264
interest, anything like that. But, on our end,

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we can monitor the engagement and feedback.

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Like, if we have the comments feature turned on on our articles, we can see if anybody's leaving

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comments. We can see if it's been shared at all on social media.

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If we're sharing it, we can see what kind of engagement

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our posts are getting or if the business themselves are sharing it, what kind of engagement they're getting on their, social profiles.

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00:28:53.195 --> 00:28:57.534
We can also, if we're using, you know, any website analytic tools like Google Analytics,

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we can see how many page views and and article views is is a feature itself that's included in BD.

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But we can see how many people are actually viewing the article, where they're coming from, where they're going to

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after viewing our article.

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You know, maybe they're going to, to the business's website or their Instagram profile or whatever other links we may have included in in the spotlight article.

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00:29:21.345 --> 00:29:25.365
We can kind of track what sort of engagement we're getting on these articles.

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00:29:25.700 --> 00:29:27.480
We can share those statistics

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with our members when we're trying to to sell these spotlight articles to them to let them know that, you know, it is effective.

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The increase

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00:29:36.660 --> 00:29:45.545
in revenue or new customers, that'll obviously vary greatly depending on the business, what it is they're offering, their product services, prices, everything like that.

435
00:29:45.845 --> 00:29:48.905
But I think the key here is, what kind of engagement

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00:29:49.445 --> 00:29:52.185
we're, we're getting on these spotlight articles

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00:29:52.730 --> 00:29:54.750
from all the different online properties

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00:29:55.050 --> 00:29:57.710
that the article may be accessible from.

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00:29:58.170 --> 00:30:05.950
Another thing, if you are making some sort of videos or doing an audio interview like a podcast with the business owners, anything like that,

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The

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00:30:07.495 --> 00:30:10.635
views, the likes, the comments, everything like that on those posts

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00:30:10.935 --> 00:30:16.075
would be another statistic to share with, with the businesses. And then also for us,

443
00:30:16.775 --> 00:30:17.275
understanding

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how these articles are being consumed and received by our readers and and everyone else online, that can also help us understand how better to improve these articles.

445
00:30:30.380 --> 00:30:32.320
Maybe certain elements aren't necessary.

446
00:30:32.780 --> 00:30:35.285
Maybe we find out that, you know, embedding

447
00:30:35.745 --> 00:30:38.165
some posts that the businesses have made on

448
00:30:38.625 --> 00:30:42.465
their Instagram account or a video that the businesses put out.

449
00:30:42.465 --> 00:30:45.765
Maybe we find that those embedded multimedia elements

450
00:30:46.145 --> 00:30:49.045
are getting a lot of hits, through our article.

451
00:30:49.460 --> 00:30:53.400
So that would let us know that we want to do a better job of including as much multimedia

452
00:30:54.180 --> 00:30:57.240
elements as possible. So, there's a lot of benefits.

453
00:30:57.380 --> 00:31:04.615
It can be a little tedious to kind of go through the numbers and everything, and dig in and and see how certain things are performing,

454
00:31:05.075 --> 00:31:15.575
but it certainly is a benefit if we do have good numbers to share those numbers with, with our members when trying to sell them on the spotlight articles and letting us know how we can better improve

455
00:31:15.955 --> 00:31:19.450
them, in the future. Yes. This is that's a really good point.

456
00:31:19.450 --> 00:31:21.550
I'll tell you I'll tell you the truth, to be honest.

457
00:31:21.930 --> 00:31:25.309
Half the members are gonna ask you, you know, what can I expect from this article?

458
00:31:25.850 --> 00:31:29.385
Half the members could care less. They don't have any online presence.

459
00:31:29.465 --> 00:31:37.785
And if your site is industry specific, they just want an article where they can look in the shiny mirror and see a handsome article about their business there.

460
00:31:37.785 --> 00:31:44.105
And they can point to that article, you know, on their website or whenever they're trying to sell clients on their end.

461
00:31:44.105 --> 00:31:48.530
So some people might not even care about how many social shares and views and things like that.

462
00:31:48.530 --> 00:31:49.429
They just need

463
00:31:49.730 --> 00:31:56.070
some type of an asset online that that speaks highly of their business and just that in of itself

464
00:31:56.450 --> 00:31:58.049
will be enough for the business.

465
00:31:58.049 --> 00:32:05.825
So you're gonna have two bags of people, those who like want to see the ROI and the numbers and all that, and people who just wanna see a nice article about themselves online.

466
00:32:05.825 --> 00:32:11.605
So don't sweat it too much, about the analytics, but if you're able to and you do have good analytics, then,

467
00:32:12.320 --> 00:32:15.220
that's definitely certainly good to share with with the members.

468
00:32:15.760 --> 00:32:18.500
Absolutely. Especially if we have a local business directory.

469
00:32:18.800 --> 00:32:23.060
Low smaller local especially if they're brick and mortar stores or businesses.

470
00:32:23.360 --> 00:32:26.655
They typically don't have much, if any, of an online presence.

471
00:32:26.655 --> 00:32:31.315
So, at the very least, having just one article written about them would be beneficial.

472
00:32:32.255 --> 00:32:37.395
So, actually selling the spotlight articles to the businesses, how do we convince them to actually

473
00:32:38.030 --> 00:32:41.390
purchase these and pay us to write these articles about them?

474
00:32:41.390 --> 00:32:44.770
First and foremost, we have to help them understand the importance

475
00:32:45.150 --> 00:32:47.330
of investing in their online presence.

476
00:32:47.630 --> 00:32:54.145
That it is, you know, valuable to to have more than just business listing or profile on our website

477
00:32:54.525 --> 00:32:59.265
and maybe one or two social media accounts that they might have. But actually having,

478
00:32:59.725 --> 00:33:00.705
additional articles

479
00:33:01.005 --> 00:33:04.385
written about them, giving some more insight to potential customers

480
00:33:04.789 --> 00:33:06.870
on the business itself, the people behind it.

481
00:33:06.870 --> 00:33:12.070
What kind of impact that can have on their marketing efforts as a whole, as well as,

482
00:33:12.470 --> 00:33:12.970
ultimately

483
00:33:13.270 --> 00:33:14.409
their revenue goals.

484
00:33:14.789 --> 00:33:18.570
Also, we want to provide them with examples of successful spotlight articles.

485
00:33:18.630 --> 00:33:20.250
And if you haven't done this before,

486
00:33:20.685 --> 00:33:27.265
I would recommend, you know, picking maybe two or three business members in your directory and just writing articles

487
00:33:27.565 --> 00:33:29.725
for them, about them for free.

488
00:33:29.725 --> 00:33:36.630
Let them know that either you're going to do it if you need some more information from them or once you've already published it, send it to them.

489
00:33:36.790 --> 00:33:39.530
This way, you already have some examples

490
00:33:39.990 --> 00:33:41.050
that you can share,

491
00:33:41.430 --> 00:33:44.570
when you do actually start selling these to your other members.

492
00:33:44.870 --> 00:33:49.770
You're also going to want to position this as a valuable marketing tool for the businesses.

493
00:33:50.445 --> 00:33:52.465
It's, kind of an evergreen

494
00:33:52.924 --> 00:33:55.325
marketing tool that will last forever on the website.

495
00:33:55.325 --> 00:33:58.125
You know, you can let them know that you're not going to unpublish it.

496
00:33:58.125 --> 00:34:02.065
It's not a limited time thing. Once it's on there, it'll be on there forever.

497
00:34:02.205 --> 00:34:12.000
And they can continue to share it, repurpose it, send it to, to any prospective clients that they might have who are looking for additional information about their business,

498
00:34:12.460 --> 00:34:14.239
things like that. And then

499
00:34:14.540 --> 00:34:25.255
in terms of ways to try to sell more of these or get more members signed on with, with spotlight articles, We can offer them discounts if they purchase this multiple times.

500
00:34:25.395 --> 00:34:30.694
Maybe you wanna have some sort of package where you can either do a spotlight article or a video

501
00:34:31.074 --> 00:34:35.574
or a podcast interview, things like that. Kind of bulk purchase discounts.

502
00:34:36.130 --> 00:34:40.150
And then you can also include these as a kind of free add ons

503
00:34:40.530 --> 00:34:43.830
with your highest tier premium plans. That might help,

504
00:34:44.210 --> 00:34:48.869
get businesses in the door, either at your higher tier plans or eventually upgrade

505
00:34:49.304 --> 00:34:54.925
from either your free or basic plans to one of your premium plans if you're including this for free with those plans.

506
00:34:55.145 --> 00:35:01.325
As you were talking, David, like, two different spotlight plans came in my head, like a simple spotlight and a super spotlight.

507
00:35:01.640 --> 00:35:05.000
And a simple spotlight is exactly that. It's just a shorter article.

508
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.980
So maybe you just send a shorter questionnaire to those businesses at a lower price point,

509
00:35:10.520 --> 00:35:13.480
like a point where more people can, opt for that one.

510
00:35:13.480 --> 00:35:20.055
Then you have a super spotlight at a higher tiered price, which is basically a longer article, and maybe you include it in your newsletter.

511
00:35:20.055 --> 00:35:22.715
You're gonna share that article on your social media

512
00:35:23.015 --> 00:35:28.135
and things like that. A lot of the price for this stuff is gonna depend on your reach as a business.

513
00:35:28.135 --> 00:35:30.010
You know, how many followers your business has,

514
00:35:30.730 --> 00:35:34.430
subscribers and things like that. But if you're just starting out,

515
00:35:34.730 --> 00:35:38.750
make these at entry level prices where you're not pushing people away.

516
00:35:38.970 --> 00:35:45.375
Obviously, having a higher perceived value as David is is mentioning is positioning these articles as a valuable marketing tool.

517
00:35:45.615 --> 00:35:51.375
You create that perceived value, and, yeah, you can, again, you can have different plans for your spotlight articles.

518
00:35:51.375 --> 00:35:57.635
Just send them shorter questionnaires to fill out or or just write shorter articles, based on the tier of the spotlight article.

519
00:35:58.070 --> 00:35:59.930
So great great points here.

520
00:36:00.230 --> 00:36:10.810
You know, with the spotlight articles, just like any other service you're gonna be selling through your website, it is the perceived value that you create that it's gonna motivate and compel people to want to opt for those additional,

521
00:36:11.375 --> 00:36:14.115
services, marketing tools, and things of that nature.

522
00:36:14.575 --> 00:36:24.915
So with that, we found some for, some spotlight articles on the Internet, some examples of them from varying different degrees of a business sizes as far as who's hosting these spotlight articles.

523
00:36:25.619 --> 00:36:30.519
Let's dive right into it. The first one we saw was on Bank of America's website.

524
00:36:30.819 --> 00:36:33.160
Well, they're doing stories on small businesses.

525
00:36:33.700 --> 00:36:37.319
They're trying to appeal to small businesses. So they did a spotlight on

526
00:36:37.785 --> 00:36:38.525
bare bottle.

527
00:36:38.744 --> 00:36:44.025
Let's see brewing success, how tapping a community of beer lovers drives bare bottle forward.

528
00:36:44.025 --> 00:36:49.005
So they did a spotlight article on on these guys. There's some pictures of them, at their,

529
00:36:49.785 --> 00:36:50.924
what do you call brewery?

530
00:36:51.690 --> 00:36:56.010
And, that's it. And that's by Bank of America. Now they probably didn't pay for this.

531
00:36:56.010 --> 00:36:58.510
Bank of America needs this type of content. So,

532
00:36:58.810 --> 00:37:02.329
they probably hand selected them. We have another one here.

533
00:37:02.329 --> 00:37:05.390
It's a really small WordPress blog, Everyday

534
00:37:05.835 --> 00:37:07.195
Dog Magazine that we found.

535
00:37:07.195 --> 00:37:12.075
So it's a dog magazine, and they did a spotlight on a company that creates dog IDs.

536
00:37:12.075 --> 00:37:14.655
It's straight up says right there, business spotlight.

537
00:37:15.275 --> 00:37:18.875
And look here, we see some questions. Why did you decide to start this business?

538
00:37:18.875 --> 00:37:23.400
Kind of the same questions chat g GPT was printing out. What makes your business stand out?

539
00:37:23.400 --> 00:37:32.700
So you can send this questionnaire and then kinda just, edit their answers so to fix any grammatical errors and things like that, and you don't have to do any heavy lifting.

540
00:37:33.275 --> 00:37:39.995
The business is happy, the website gets content, and the visitors get something, new to consume from your website.

541
00:37:39.995 --> 00:37:42.095
So it's a triple win for everyone.

542
00:37:42.395 --> 00:37:46.575
And then we also clicked here to the advertise with us button on this site,

543
00:37:47.035 --> 00:37:47.535
and

544
00:37:47.900 --> 00:37:48.720
let's see here,

545
00:37:49.020 --> 00:37:50.240
advertise with us.

546
00:37:50.540 --> 00:37:53.740
So they do website ads and here's the business spotlight.

547
00:37:53.740 --> 00:37:56.140
Give your readers an in-depth look at your business.

548
00:37:56.140 --> 00:37:58.080
And again, they're just sending over the questionnaire

549
00:37:58.620 --> 00:38:01.760
and they put a price on this. There's some sort of a perceived value,

550
00:38:02.454 --> 00:38:09.595
and you can, you know, have a page simple, simple page like this with just a title and a description, or you can lay it out with as many

551
00:38:09.895 --> 00:38:16.560
icons and images to really make it look special, but you can see, you can just have something just as simple as this on your site.

552
00:38:17.120 --> 00:38:21.920
Another example, well, who doesn't love dining out? So this is lamag.com,

553
00:38:21.920 --> 00:38:24.500
the nine best Chinese restaurants in LA.

554
00:38:25.440 --> 00:38:28.960
Yeah, sometimes people pay to be listed on these best of lists.

555
00:38:29.685 --> 00:38:34.805
So we can see here, they've created a a best of list for Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles.

556
00:38:34.805 --> 00:38:36.345
And here we can see they've embedded,

557
00:38:36.965 --> 00:38:38.905
an Instagram of this business,

558
00:38:39.205 --> 00:38:40.345
Sea Harbor Seafood.

559
00:38:40.565 --> 00:38:48.360
And with the embedly tool, that's part of the the web page builder, the the text editor in Brilliant Directories, you can embed things like Twitter,

560
00:38:48.900 --> 00:38:54.520
Instagram, and Facebook posts, right into the article to enrich them, quite a bit. And,

561
00:38:54.820 --> 00:38:58.645
oh, guess what? Interview with Jason Hallusam from from Brilliant Directories.

562
00:38:58.785 --> 00:39:11.605
We didn't pay to be featured here, but, someone that does podcast features businesses and they invited us to join and they did a spotlight on Brilliant Directories and they basically asked us questions, you know, how did the business start

563
00:39:11.930 --> 00:39:13.310
and and things like that.

564
00:39:13.770 --> 00:39:17.690
And they did it in a podcast format with an accompanying articles.

565
00:39:17.690 --> 00:39:23.150
So they got double media out of this and we were happy to participate and be a part of it.

566
00:39:23.210 --> 00:39:25.125
They have a link called bookings here.

567
00:39:25.445 --> 00:39:31.385
So if you wanna get on their podcast, welcome to my future business show, get in front of your best audience.

568
00:39:31.685 --> 00:39:35.545
So again, they're offering the ability for businesses to get spotlighted

569
00:39:36.245 --> 00:39:37.305
on their website.

570
00:39:37.525 --> 00:39:43.089
This show has a a focus on business owners, software developers, authors, and entrepreneurs.

571
00:39:43.549 --> 00:39:45.890
Your site might have a different different focus,

572
00:39:46.430 --> 00:39:53.089
but you can create simple pages like this that outline the benefits and what they can expect and, the pricing options as well.

573
00:39:53.535 --> 00:39:56.255
So, yeah, those are some examples of spotlight articles.

574
00:39:56.255 --> 00:40:02.755
Lots of different formats and ways that you can, go about this and tackle this, but I would highly recommend doing it on your site.

575
00:40:02.815 --> 00:40:06.415
It creates content for the site. It makes your members feel good.

576
00:40:06.415 --> 00:40:09.320
It makes other members want a spotlight article about them.

577
00:40:09.320 --> 00:40:13.800
It gives you content to share on social media, and it gives your visitors something to read as well.

578
00:40:13.800 --> 00:40:15.580
So again, you get the triple win

579
00:40:15.880 --> 00:40:16.520
for this,

580
00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:18.620
content creation tip here.

581
00:40:18.935 --> 00:40:22.215
And, yeah. Let's recap is basically everything that we just said.

582
00:40:22.535 --> 00:40:26.234
Investing in a spotlight article can help businesses increase their online presence.

583
00:40:26.535 --> 00:40:30.855
And, yeah, make the spotlight articles effective by including relevant information about the businesses.

584
00:40:30.855 --> 00:40:31.994
Just send them questionnaires,

585
00:40:32.535 --> 00:40:33.835
tell a compelling story,

586
00:40:34.160 --> 00:40:35.540
and measure the success,

587
00:40:35.840 --> 00:40:41.140
of the article with some insights, for yourself or for the person who purchased the spotlight article.

588
00:40:41.360 --> 00:40:43.840
And with that, first of all, David, thank you.

589
00:40:43.840 --> 00:40:50.085
I got even more excited about that tip of the week as we got towards the end there, but what we can do now is we can shift gears.

590
00:40:50.485 --> 00:40:51.925
Feel free to raise your hand.

591
00:40:51.925 --> 00:40:57.625
We can take questions about your website, the tip of the week, or anything else you wanna know about membership websites.

592
00:40:58.005 --> 00:41:01.770
We'll take as many questions as we can here. We have a good amount of time left over.

593
00:41:01.930 --> 00:41:06.110
And, Alan, you are at the top of the list. How are you doing, Alan? Alright, Jason.

594
00:41:06.570 --> 00:41:11.470
Where are you calling in from, Alan? I'm from South Wales in The United Kingdom.

595
00:41:11.850 --> 00:41:13.785
Okay. It's morning time there. Yeah?

596
00:41:14.105 --> 00:41:14.605
Yes.

597
00:41:15.224 --> 00:41:16.924
Nearly 01:00 in the morning.

598
00:41:17.305 --> 00:41:21.325
Well, thank you for joining us so, so early there. What's your question for us today?

599
00:41:21.865 --> 00:41:23.724
I've I've only just started,

600
00:41:24.184 --> 00:41:27.085
looking at the the the, the webinars.

601
00:41:27.450 --> 00:41:34.750
I but I was looking on YouTube the other the other day, and I noticed that you would add you had added TikTok

602
00:41:35.050 --> 00:41:37.470
and some of the social channels in

603
00:41:37.849 --> 00:41:40.510
in a few in, I think, the last webinar

604
00:41:40.835 --> 00:41:42.295
you showed on the updates?

605
00:41:42.755 --> 00:41:44.855
Yes. Your members can now,

606
00:41:45.315 --> 00:41:45.974
in addition

607
00:41:46.355 --> 00:41:56.375
to Facebook and Twitter, if they if they chose to, they can add TikTok, Snapchat, and WhatsApp as part of their social links that will that can be displayed on their public profile.

608
00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:00.060
Right. My question is, so if a member

609
00:42:00.760 --> 00:42:02.300
goes to sign up,

610
00:42:02.600 --> 00:42:07.660
that's their forum. Have I got to activate anything? Because I couldn't see anything to activate.

611
00:42:07.720 --> 00:42:09.820
And when I looked on because

612
00:42:10.535 --> 00:42:14.875
when I looked on a test profile that I had that I had created,

613
00:42:15.735 --> 00:42:20.955
I could I couldn't see them on the test profile, and I couldn't see them in any

614
00:42:21.255 --> 00:42:22.235
in any menu

615
00:42:22.615 --> 00:42:23.435
to add them.

616
00:42:23.780 --> 00:42:27.140
Got you. Let me show you where that would be. Do you wanna share your site real quick?

617
00:42:27.140 --> 00:42:28.440
We could take a look for you.

618
00:42:28.820 --> 00:42:30.200
My site is called

619
00:42:30.900 --> 00:42:34.760
npthomeservices.co.uk.

620
00:42:34.980 --> 00:42:37.880
Alright. Give me a second. Let's take a look together. Alright?

621
00:42:38.260 --> 00:42:38.760
Alright.

622
00:42:39.095 --> 00:42:48.635
So here we are at your site we'll go to your members real quick and you have a test profile here handy man let's log in as that member let's check it out together

623
00:42:49.015 --> 00:42:50.635
and we'll go to contact details.

624
00:42:51.240 --> 00:42:52.760
Yep. See it? I don't see it here.

625
00:42:52.760 --> 00:43:00.119
I think you might have, let me see this it could be the case, where you have an older older form this is very rare but let me check it out for you.

626
00:43:00.119 --> 00:43:05.900
Your listing contact details, let me, I don't see anything custom on here just the fact that it's customized.

627
00:43:06.625 --> 00:43:07.685
Let me check here.

628
00:43:08.065 --> 00:43:08.465
Let me,

629
00:43:09.025 --> 00:43:10.405
disable this just temporarily.

630
00:43:10.945 --> 00:43:14.465
Let's see. Yeah. That was edited back in, 02/2021

631
00:43:14.465 --> 00:43:15.745
or in 2023.

632
00:43:15.745 --> 00:43:20.225
Normally, it's not a deal but if you wanted to add these newer ones it's on the default form.

633
00:43:20.225 --> 00:43:22.050
Let me see if it's here now. There we go.

634
00:43:22.050 --> 00:43:27.830
Now you've got TikTok, Snapchat, and WhatsApp, and all the same information is saved here still, the state, the county,

635
00:43:28.450 --> 00:43:33.510
and all that stuff. And you even have the short description now here as well. So it's there for you.

636
00:43:33.825 --> 00:43:40.224
So if I get members to come on, that will be there ready for them to fill it, will it? Yes. It will.

637
00:43:40.224 --> 00:43:40.724
Yes.

638
00:43:41.025 --> 00:43:44.724
Right. Brilliant. Thank you. Alright. Good question there. Thank you, Alan.

639
00:43:44.945 --> 00:43:52.650
We do have a really good question from Nathan over on YouTube asking how much to actually charge to write these featured or spotlight articles.

640
00:43:53.110 --> 00:43:58.250
I'd say it can vary widely depending on, you know, the the industry of the members,

641
00:43:59.045 --> 00:44:06.505
how much engagement the website itself gets the social media profiles all that but I think on average it wouldn't be unreasonable

642
00:44:06.805 --> 00:44:10.425
for a website to charge anywhere between maybe 50 and

643
00:44:10.740 --> 00:44:15.140
a few hundred dollars again depending on how much engagement they actually get? Yeah.

644
00:44:15.140 --> 00:44:16.740
If you go to press release sites,

645
00:44:17.380 --> 00:44:21.700
press release sites will charge about 200 to $500

646
00:44:21.700 --> 00:44:23.000
for an article distribution.

647
00:44:24.020 --> 00:44:26.505
Now that's for any industry. A good thing that,

648
00:44:27.065 --> 00:44:35.085
Nathan might be able to do is you might wanna check out competitor sites or industry related sites and see if there's some type of average that other people,

649
00:44:35.385 --> 00:44:38.765
in your industry are charging for a similar type of service.

650
00:44:39.460 --> 00:44:49.480
Otherwise, you have to decide if the article is more valuable than the membership itself and then base the article price in relation to what the membership price is, whether it should be higher or lower.

651
00:44:49.620 --> 00:44:54.120
Another good thing to do if you're testing out pricing is just start with entry level pricing

652
00:44:54.665 --> 00:45:01.484
and slowly start increasing it until you get some backlash or you're not getting the conversions that you want for those types of sales.

653
00:45:01.705 --> 00:45:07.065
But a good thing to start is do a couple freebies for some members, just so you have examples to share.

654
00:45:07.065 --> 00:45:11.690
So when you wanna go out and sell this type of service, you have some spotlight article examples,

655
00:45:12.010 --> 00:45:15.550
that you can share and show people what they can expect from your spotlight articles.

656
00:45:15.609 --> 00:45:20.810
Great question there. We've got some more hands up here. We've got our friend, Sean here. Sean,

657
00:45:21.290 --> 00:45:25.625
I'm gonna unmute you. Looks like yourself muted. How you doing, Sean? Where are you calling in from?

658
00:45:26.165 --> 00:45:27.145
Anaheim, California.

659
00:45:27.685 --> 00:45:29.925
Oh, we're not far. I'm in Los Angeles here.

660
00:45:29.925 --> 00:45:34.185
I first of all, I appreciate all your what you have doing for brilliant directors.

661
00:45:34.565 --> 00:45:35.305
You're amazing.

662
00:45:35.685 --> 00:45:37.065
You're on three platform

663
00:45:37.365 --> 00:45:39.145
on your, you know, brilliant directors.

664
00:45:39.750 --> 00:45:44.810
The question we have is a little bit about the when you're searching for the members,

665
00:45:45.270 --> 00:45:50.810
if you have a function to be able to sort them based on a number of the leads they receive,

666
00:45:51.270 --> 00:45:54.810
that's a huge value for us because then we can

667
00:45:55.244 --> 00:46:01.184
contact them that they receive lots of leads, but they don't contact or basically respond to the leads.

668
00:46:01.484 --> 00:46:05.025
That's gonna be a huge help for us. So when you go to the search members,

669
00:46:05.325 --> 00:46:14.040
there is a drop down menu so you can sort them based on a ID or based on a who came first or oldest or newest or revenue.

670
00:46:14.580 --> 00:46:17.240
But if there is a option, we can add that

671
00:46:17.540 --> 00:46:21.720
sort based on the number of the leads they receive. That gives us a huge

672
00:46:22.260 --> 00:46:27.855
advantage to contact them and help them to convert from the free member to a a paid member.

673
00:46:28.875 --> 00:46:29.115
The

674
00:46:29.755 --> 00:46:35.455
I think sorry. I'm absorbing what you're saying. I I love the suggestion and actually just today,

675
00:46:35.915 --> 00:46:38.815
we green lighted the ability to add a sort here,

676
00:46:39.675 --> 00:46:42.895
based on profile views. So you can sort by,

677
00:46:43.329 --> 00:46:45.990
who has the most profile views higher and lower,

678
00:46:46.530 --> 00:46:52.450
and also likes so you can see which one of your members have the most likes or least amount of likes.

679
00:46:52.450 --> 00:46:54.869
So you're suggesting and we should have it here,

680
00:46:55.569 --> 00:46:56.470
most or

681
00:46:56.964 --> 00:46:58.984
reviews high to low, number of reviews?

682
00:46:59.765 --> 00:47:01.865
A number of the leads they receive.

683
00:47:02.005 --> 00:47:06.005
Some members that see the leads, they don't contact with it to their leads.

684
00:47:06.005 --> 00:47:09.944
So, basically, we charge them per leads, but they said in their queues

685
00:47:10.610 --> 00:47:15.030
or sometimes their email change and there's no way for us to evaluate.

686
00:47:15.170 --> 00:47:19.190
So So so let me ask you a question, Sean. The first it's good.

687
00:47:19.810 --> 00:47:21.830
Members can be matched with leads.

688
00:47:22.545 --> 00:47:26.484
However, leads can be accepted or they decline them or pending.

689
00:47:26.865 --> 00:47:30.545
It's it would be it would, would be a lot. What would be the most value?

690
00:47:30.545 --> 00:47:32.885
Just how many leads they've been matched with, period?

691
00:47:33.265 --> 00:47:34.565
Because we can manually

692
00:47:34.944 --> 00:47:40.100
contact them, say, if the quality of the lead is not good or maybe you don't receive an email.

693
00:47:40.720 --> 00:47:47.540
So find out what's the problem because there is a lots of lead sitting for attorneys or the not in this directory

694
00:47:48.240 --> 00:47:48.740
that

695
00:47:49.055 --> 00:47:50.255
they don't respond to it.

696
00:47:50.255 --> 00:47:56.595
So we're gonna if they can't respond to it, we will take them, replace them with the attorneys that they, you know, want those.

697
00:47:56.735 --> 00:47:57.235
Okay.

698
00:47:57.535 --> 00:48:02.835
I think that would be helpful. Also, under the revenue tab, we we show some additional metadata.

699
00:48:02.975 --> 00:48:04.915
If we had a small blurb related

700
00:48:05.430 --> 00:48:11.030
to pending, accepted, and declined leads and also total number of matched leads if you are able to see that.

701
00:48:11.030 --> 00:48:11.530
Okay.

702
00:48:12.150 --> 00:48:14.650
This the reviews one would be a little more straightforward.

703
00:48:14.950 --> 00:48:18.975
The leads one because there's different statuses for leads, but I I hear what you're saying.

704
00:48:19.055 --> 00:48:22.915
I'll definitely pass it over to the team and see what we can do there. It's a good suggestion.

705
00:48:24.815 --> 00:48:28.035
Yeah. Sure thing. Alright. Good suggestions there as well.

706
00:48:28.335 --> 00:48:31.875
We got our good friend Rich here. Give me a second, Rich. I'll unmute your microphone,

707
00:48:32.330 --> 00:48:36.590
and then we'll get you Patricia will get you next. Hey, Rich. Hey, Jason. Real quick.

708
00:48:37.530 --> 00:48:49.015
What happens when a when a member, like, say at the highest paid level and then their, you know, credit card declines or their expiration date happens or whatever reason, even if they downgrade, it seems like

709
00:48:49.395 --> 00:48:51.895
they they automatically or they stay at the same

710
00:48:52.355 --> 00:48:53.175
tier level.

711
00:48:54.595 --> 00:48:56.615
Am I wrong about that? Or how do, like

712
00:48:57.235 --> 00:48:59.495
say if they're at a premium level

713
00:48:59.875 --> 00:49:03.220
and they're they're Yeah. They should be they should be,

714
00:49:03.700 --> 00:49:06.119
set on hold status so their public,

715
00:49:06.500 --> 00:49:12.760
their profile won't be public anymore or they won't have any access to any members only areas that they had access to before.

716
00:49:13.464 --> 00:49:18.765
So if someone falls past due, yeah, they they would be set to an on hold status unless they downgraded

717
00:49:19.145 --> 00:49:21.065
to a lower tiered plan,

718
00:49:21.385 --> 00:49:23.145
or paid their past due. Okay.

719
00:49:23.145 --> 00:49:28.270
So as soon as payment is not received for that month, automatically within the system, they get,

720
00:49:28.650 --> 00:49:30.349
their profiles on hold.

721
00:49:30.650 --> 00:49:33.150
Correct. And what I would what I would recommend,

722
00:49:34.490 --> 00:49:39.290
is using, and I think you are using it, is the the billing reminder emails add on.

723
00:49:39.290 --> 00:49:41.710
Are you using that? Okay. Yeah. We're using that.

724
00:49:42.015 --> 00:49:44.275
Okay. Are you sending three past due reminders?

725
00:49:44.815 --> 00:49:49.154
Yeah. I believe so. Yeah. Okay. On the last one, let them know that

726
00:49:49.454 --> 00:49:54.335
your account is now on hold. Please contact our team or or give them steps for actions.

727
00:49:54.335 --> 00:49:57.220
You don't wanna permanently lose them forever, but Great.

728
00:49:57.700 --> 00:50:01.940
Let them know what their what recourse they have to, to continue using the site.

729
00:50:01.940 --> 00:50:04.280
You know, you can downgrade to another plan. And

730
00:50:04.900 --> 00:50:06.200
and what you can do is,

731
00:50:07.380 --> 00:50:08.840
you can put the link,

732
00:50:09.605 --> 00:50:13.704
in the let me let me go there so you can this will be helpful for you.

733
00:50:13.765 --> 00:50:20.345
If you want them to just if you want them to just downgrade to another plan, what you can do is you can link directly

734
00:50:20.645 --> 00:50:21.045
to

735
00:50:21.630 --> 00:50:25.809
here's the free plan. So let me just show you. So I want to change my plan and this,

736
00:50:26.190 --> 00:50:29.950
this is just an example site, but here's the general free user account, right?

737
00:50:29.950 --> 00:50:31.170
Continue with upgrade.

738
00:50:31.630 --> 00:50:34.930
So you can link to this page in, in your site.

739
00:50:35.255 --> 00:50:37.995
This is not showing content because we were playing around in here, but,

740
00:50:38.855 --> 00:50:47.115
link in the email to decide if you simply wanna downgrade to our free account, click this link and click the this just say change my plan, change my plan option.

741
00:50:47.580 --> 00:50:52.560
And, and then they would just change their plan to a free plan at that point, and it would be an active free plan.

742
00:50:52.700 --> 00:50:54.140
So put that link directly in there.

743
00:50:54.140 --> 00:51:02.400
They would have they would be prompted to log in, but they might be logged into your site on their browser and this then they just have to click two buttons and that'll facilitate the downgrade.

744
00:51:02.705 --> 00:51:02.865
Yeah.

745
00:51:02.865 --> 00:51:09.045
That's an awesome takeaway observation because we often use, like, hyperlinks directly to, you know, that call to action.

746
00:51:09.105 --> 00:51:13.685
But even the semantics of our default is, like, on the green button is upgrade,

747
00:51:13.985 --> 00:51:20.910
you know, but I like the semantics of just change my plan because that could be an upgrade or a downgrade or, you know, modify it.

748
00:51:21.210 --> 00:51:22.350
Yeah. I think before

749
00:51:23.050 --> 00:51:26.090
all the default text labels here said, like, upgrade upgrade.

750
00:51:26.090 --> 00:51:29.310
And a while ago, we switched them to change my plan because

751
00:51:29.645 --> 00:51:32.845
we're just letting people upgrade or downgrade in both in either case.

752
00:51:32.845 --> 00:51:37.165
But you can you can chain you know, you can modify that how you how you like it. No.

753
00:51:37.165 --> 00:51:38.045
I like it because the,

754
00:51:39.005 --> 00:51:42.605
often, they're already at the highest tier. So how could they upgrade from the highest tier?

755
00:51:42.605 --> 00:51:45.200
But that's just Well, that was great. Precisely.

756
00:51:45.820 --> 00:51:48.460
I appreciate that. Sure thing good luck with that.

757
00:51:48.460 --> 00:51:53.440
Another good question on YouTube going back to the spotlight articles again from Fetchers wanting to know

758
00:51:53.740 --> 00:51:59.654
what the best way to actually add a spotlight article to the home page would be. Oh, fantastic.

759
00:52:00.115 --> 00:52:01.654
That's actually a great question.

760
00:52:02.434 --> 00:52:04.055
And I'm happy you asked that.

761
00:52:04.515 --> 00:52:06.135
What I would recommend doing

762
00:52:06.835 --> 00:52:07.654
is going

763
00:52:08.035 --> 00:52:08.535
to,

764
00:52:08.914 --> 00:52:10.454
you could do a couple things.

765
00:52:10.755 --> 00:52:12.454
You can go to edit post settings.

766
00:52:12.755 --> 00:52:16.079
Just give me a moment here. Let me, swap this out.

767
00:52:16.079 --> 00:52:20.740
I'm gonna give you two options of things you can do. So go to your, edit post settings

768
00:52:21.359 --> 00:52:22.579
and go to

769
00:52:23.119 --> 00:52:23.940
edit your

770
00:52:24.240 --> 00:52:25.059
blog articles.

771
00:52:25.760 --> 00:52:26.260
And

772
00:52:26.575 --> 00:52:31.215
what you could do is I think you can just add a category called spotlight members.

773
00:52:31.215 --> 00:52:36.595
Let me, I might bite my tongue on this in a second, but you can add a category called, spotlight

774
00:52:37.215 --> 00:52:37.715
members.

775
00:52:38.095 --> 00:52:38.995
And I believe,

776
00:52:39.375 --> 00:52:43.630
this is where I might bite my tongue and I might change that real quick. Just a moment.

777
00:52:44.170 --> 00:52:48.510
I think if you're gonna automatically, if you wanna automatically show them on the home,

778
00:52:48.970 --> 00:52:53.950
you can add it as a streaming widget. Let's go to logs, website, blog articles.

779
00:52:54.330 --> 00:52:56.270
Think if I'm not correct,

780
00:52:56.785 --> 00:52:57.285
include

781
00:52:58.945 --> 00:53:04.065
I'm gonna make a suggestion where you can choose the category based on the post type to display that.

782
00:53:04.065 --> 00:53:09.105
I was gonna say you can choose the category of the post type you wanna stream, so you can't do that.

783
00:53:09.105 --> 00:53:11.205
So let me just make a suggestion here.

784
00:53:11.820 --> 00:53:13.040
Streaming sections,

785
00:53:13.580 --> 00:53:14.080
select

786
00:53:14.620 --> 00:53:15.120
specific

787
00:53:15.500 --> 00:53:16.000
category

788
00:53:16.300 --> 00:53:18.480
of post type to stream.

789
00:53:19.020 --> 00:53:28.535
So in this case, what you can do, because you're gonna have limited spotlight members, and you're not gonna have they're not there's not gonna be as many, it's gonna be a select thing to have a spotlight member.

790
00:53:28.915 --> 00:53:31.815
You can just very easily, what I would recommend is,

791
00:53:32.275 --> 00:53:34.535
is this let's change this

792
00:53:35.235 --> 00:53:35.735
to

793
00:53:36.195 --> 00:53:37.175
custom content

794
00:53:37.635 --> 00:53:39.735
and we'll edit this. What I would recommend

795
00:53:40.400 --> 00:53:47.540
is using custom content and just putting the spotlight like something like this and you could just very easily make something like this yourself

796
00:53:47.920 --> 00:53:50.500
using the pre made blocks. Let's do that together.

797
00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:53.060
Calls to action,

798
00:53:53.495 --> 00:53:54.295
You can do,

799
00:53:54.615 --> 00:53:57.755
let's find a fun one, features. No, we don't want features.

800
00:53:58.375 --> 00:54:03.095
Yeah. You know, you could do something like this. Let's see here. My browser just froze.

801
00:54:03.095 --> 00:54:04.235
That is the Internet.

802
00:54:04.935 --> 00:54:06.775
Obviously, in the webinar, that's what happens.

803
00:54:06.775 --> 00:54:10.720
But anyways, long story short, yeah just create a piece of custom content there.

804
00:54:10.720 --> 00:54:12.260
The other thing you could do

805
00:54:12.720 --> 00:54:14.819
another thing you can do is clone the website

806
00:54:15.200 --> 00:54:19.380
the website blog articles post type and create a unique post type

807
00:54:19.680 --> 00:54:20.180
called

808
00:54:20.480 --> 00:54:24.099
spotlight articles and now you have an entire content channel

809
00:54:24.405 --> 00:54:28.405
dedicated to your spotlight articles. People can search them in a dedicated fashion.

810
00:54:28.405 --> 00:54:33.385
It's not just a category of a blog article, it's its own post type. And then with that, you can

811
00:54:33.765 --> 00:54:39.545
choose that as one of your streaming widgets or streaming, sections on your homepage, so it would fill up dynamically.

812
00:54:40.030 --> 00:54:41.810
Alright. Sorry for that freeze there.

813
00:54:42.510 --> 00:54:47.870
Let's go to Patricia here. Hey. How's it going? Hello. Good. How are you? Good. Good. Thank you.

814
00:54:47.870 --> 00:54:52.530
How do you like the webinar so far? It's great. Thank you. I love when I can join.

815
00:54:53.744 --> 00:54:57.045
My question is so I heard some things about,

816
00:54:58.385 --> 00:55:00.724
social media. I don't know if I understood correctly.

817
00:55:01.105 --> 00:55:04.645
Is there some sort and I don't know if this is through API integration

818
00:55:05.184 --> 00:55:07.190
or I'm just getting confused.

819
00:55:07.650 --> 00:55:09.109
Is there a way for

820
00:55:10.130 --> 00:55:11.330
let me give an example.

821
00:55:11.330 --> 00:55:19.750
Sometimes my users, they don't wanna input the information in the system because they're already they're using Linktree or, right, Instagram

822
00:55:20.050 --> 00:55:22.375
or what's app business and things like that.

823
00:55:22.755 --> 00:55:25.815
Is there a way to already extract the existing

824
00:55:26.115 --> 00:55:28.695
information they have in other platforms

825
00:55:29.075 --> 00:55:32.615
through Zapier integr is there something that Zapier can do

826
00:55:32.915 --> 00:55:34.215
or something else?

827
00:55:34.750 --> 00:55:38.050
Of course, they have to give permission, but would there be,

828
00:55:38.430 --> 00:55:40.450
I don't know, a magical button

829
00:55:40.830 --> 00:55:43.330
that they could say, you know, use the information

830
00:55:44.030 --> 00:55:48.050
that I already have online? I don't know if I understood correctly.

831
00:55:48.635 --> 00:55:53.934
There isn't anything like that right now. I know when people use the sign up with Facebook,

832
00:55:54.635 --> 00:55:55.135
tool,

833
00:55:55.835 --> 00:55:57.595
it get it just gets their name.

834
00:55:57.595 --> 00:56:07.150
It doesn't pull any more information from Facebook because, you're you're signing in with a personal account, your personal Facebook account, even though you might manage Facebook pages.

835
00:56:08.490 --> 00:56:11.150
Yeah. There isn't anything right now that would be a customization.

836
00:56:11.290 --> 00:56:15.230
Is it too I mean, you're talking about their phone number, their address,

837
00:56:15.849 --> 00:56:17.950
and maybe their social links. Right?

838
00:56:19.085 --> 00:56:22.545
Yes. Yes. Is there something that I can do custom building,

839
00:56:23.565 --> 00:56:26.545
on the site? Can I build that with code?

840
00:56:26.924 --> 00:56:27.964
You certainly can.

841
00:56:27.964 --> 00:56:39.950
I would evaluate the risk versus reward on that for your time and the cost and if that's what people are asking for and how much of a hindrance it is for them to just fill in a few data points.

842
00:56:40.250 --> 00:56:45.150
What I would recommend maybe if you're afraid that your members are getting what's called form fatigue,

843
00:56:45.755 --> 00:56:48.815
when filling out their profiles, is to maybe eliminate

844
00:56:49.115 --> 00:56:51.135
anything that you might think is unnecessary

845
00:56:51.515 --> 00:56:53.295
for their basic profile information,

846
00:56:53.995 --> 00:57:00.075
in the first tab, the contact details tab, and save that all for the other tab, the additional details tab.

847
00:57:00.075 --> 00:57:01.230
Let me show you where.

848
00:57:01.630 --> 00:57:04.690
No. That's a great idea. How can I modify

849
00:57:05.310 --> 00:57:08.050
I'm gonna I'm gonna share with you an article? So

850
00:57:08.430 --> 00:57:11.250
because I'd I honestly, if someone's signing up for a site,

851
00:57:12.030 --> 00:57:15.665
you know, putting in first, this is really basic information here.

852
00:57:16.285 --> 00:57:23.805
I know, like, the social links, they might have to go to a few places to go fetch them, and there's a lot available, but maybe you wanna remove some of these.

853
00:57:24.045 --> 00:57:33.430
I know everyone wants everything all the time, but maybe for your audience, I don't know, like, YouTube or in one of these is not important, or maybe it is.

854
00:57:34.450 --> 00:57:34.930
But,

855
00:57:35.330 --> 00:57:36.210
you can remove,

856
00:57:36.610 --> 00:57:40.850
remove things and then add anything extra in what's called the additional details tab.

857
00:57:40.850 --> 00:57:43.855
And here, you know, is unique to yours hours of operation.

858
00:57:44.474 --> 00:57:48.575
People change what these are based on the the, industry of their site.

859
00:57:48.635 --> 00:57:50.175
Let me share with you an article,

860
00:57:50.635 --> 00:57:54.175
and video that shows you how to edit these, profile fields.

861
00:57:54.740 --> 00:57:58.099
Give me a moment. It's in our blog. I think if I search custom

862
00:57:58.500 --> 00:58:01.000
one moment here. Let me find this.

863
00:58:01.700 --> 00:58:05.400
How to customize member profile form fields for your target market.

864
00:58:05.460 --> 00:58:08.359
So this video explains how to do that.

865
00:58:08.625 --> 00:58:15.205
I to be honest, I I wouldn't go about just it's we're not gathering so much information from our members where

866
00:58:15.505 --> 00:58:16.805
creating a fetch tool

867
00:58:17.185 --> 00:58:22.380
would add too much more convenience than than the basic information your site is probably asking for.

868
00:58:22.460 --> 00:58:26.240
Right. In my in my opinion, I don't think that juice is worth the squeeze there.

869
00:58:27.019 --> 00:58:31.519
Yeah. So that video should help you out. I shared it in the chat there. Thank you. Welcome.

870
00:58:31.819 --> 00:58:32.319
Alright.

871
00:58:32.779 --> 00:58:35.920
Let's see here. We got some questions typed in here.

872
00:58:36.695 --> 00:58:40.795
Ask for Nadine wants gonna ask chat GPT for funny questions.

873
00:58:40.855 --> 00:58:45.735
Let's take a quick chat GPT break here and ask it for some funny questions.

874
00:58:45.735 --> 00:58:47.275
Let me hard refresh this.

875
00:58:47.655 --> 00:58:50.075
We'll have it come up with, 10 jokes.

876
00:58:51.470 --> 00:58:52.529
Create 10

877
00:58:52.829 --> 00:58:54.289
jokes for membership

878
00:58:54.829 --> 00:58:55.329
website

879
00:58:55.869 --> 00:58:56.369
owners

880
00:58:56.910 --> 00:58:57.410
who

881
00:58:58.270 --> 00:59:00.049
are creating their sites,

882
00:59:01.950 --> 00:59:02.690
and want

883
00:59:02.990 --> 00:59:04.289
to maximize

884
00:59:05.470 --> 00:59:05.970
signups.

885
00:59:06.270 --> 00:59:06.770
Alright.

886
00:59:07.205 --> 00:59:11.065
Let's see if it makes jokes. Why did the membership website owner cross the road?

887
00:59:11.285 --> 00:59:13.205
To get more subscribers. Very good.

888
00:59:13.205 --> 00:59:17.225
Why did the membership site decide to double its price to filter out the freeloaders?

889
00:59:17.765 --> 00:59:22.665
What do you call a membership website with a % sign up rate? A closed club.

890
00:59:23.120 --> 00:59:26.260
How does a membership website convince its users to sign up?

891
00:59:26.480 --> 00:59:29.060
Just give us your email and we'll take it from here.

892
00:59:29.760 --> 00:59:31.760
Okay. Last one, we'll read the last one here.

893
00:59:31.920 --> 00:59:35.940
Why did the membership website put a put up a sign that says free trial

894
00:59:36.285 --> 00:59:40.204
to see if users will bite and then sign up for the real deal? Okay.

895
00:59:40.204 --> 00:59:44.444
Not the I think the first one was the funniest one across the road, but, there you go, Nadine.

896
00:59:44.444 --> 00:59:49.565
So a little chat GPT humor there. Alright. We got a couple more hands up here.

897
00:59:49.565 --> 00:59:52.730
We got, Michael here, Michael p. How How you doing,

898
00:59:53.190 --> 00:59:57.690
Michael? Good. How are you? Pretty good. Pretty good. Where are you calling in from? New York.

899
00:59:57.990 --> 01:00:01.130
Alright. Alright. Thanks for, being with us here tonight. What's your question?

900
01:00:01.510 --> 01:00:07.530
Sure. We have some members who, were were designing website, but we would like to have members post

901
01:00:08.025 --> 01:00:09.484
blog post or articles

902
01:00:09.865 --> 01:00:13.645
from their existing websites. So, you know, some of the members have,

903
01:00:14.265 --> 01:00:16.525
an RSS feed on their site,

904
01:00:16.825 --> 01:00:21.405
and we we'd like to really just figure out a way to use their RSS feed

905
01:00:21.720 --> 01:00:24.380
and stick it on, you know, a a page

906
01:00:24.760 --> 01:00:29.340
either in their member page or just a separate page for them within the directory.

907
01:00:29.560 --> 01:00:30.859
Is there a way to do that?

908
01:00:31.160 --> 01:00:31.660
Yes.

909
01:00:32.200 --> 01:00:36.619
There will be coming very soon. So last webinar, just two weeks ago,

910
01:00:36.935 --> 01:00:40.875
we created the ability to add post to your website using a CSV

911
01:00:41.175 --> 01:00:42.715
file. Now that's not automatic.

912
01:00:43.095 --> 01:00:52.290
The reason we did that first is we're gonna piggyback off that which is gonna create the infrastructure if you see coming soon here the number two create posts from RSS feeds.

913
01:00:52.690 --> 01:00:53.190
Now

914
01:00:53.490 --> 01:00:57.510
your members will not be able to set this up on their own, so you can either

915
01:00:57.810 --> 01:00:59.650
you'll be able to do it for your members.

916
01:00:59.650 --> 01:01:10.025
If they provide you with their feed, you can then rig it up so that their RSS feed will populate posts on their profile page for blog posts as, for them.

917
01:01:10.325 --> 01:01:17.925
You could do that as an upsell service, but you as the website owner will be able to take their feeds and then add it to their profiles for them.

918
01:01:17.925 --> 01:01:22.210
So that's coming up very soon. Okay. That's good. Do you know what, how long it is?

919
01:01:22.210 --> 01:01:26.289
At thirty days or a couple of months? Do you know? I'd I'd give it sixty days.

920
01:01:26.289 --> 01:01:29.349
The only reason I say so is we just released the CSV,

921
01:01:30.049 --> 01:01:35.270
method, and now we're doing it to support images because you want images with your blog articles and whatnot.

922
01:01:35.625 --> 01:01:45.565
And then after that, immediately after that, we're gonna focus on it's gonna be really downhill actually because we've done it for member reviews and leads, but, let's say forty five days will split the difference.

923
01:01:45.785 --> 01:01:49.385
Sure. Okay. I do and and I just have one other quick question for you.

924
01:01:49.385 --> 01:01:52.130
I I think somewhere earlier, not on this,

925
01:01:53.470 --> 01:01:53.970
session,

926
01:01:54.270 --> 01:01:59.970
but you guys were talking about adding a single sign on through LinkedIn that like, you have for Facebook.

927
01:02:00.510 --> 01:02:03.645
And I I just wanted to know what the the timing was.

928
01:02:03.965 --> 01:02:08.385
Yes. So it was on the coming soon to the LinkedIn sign in. However, it has,

929
01:02:08.925 --> 01:02:13.425
interest in that has been dwindling, and it hasn't become such a priority item,

930
01:02:13.965 --> 01:02:18.170
especially with the Google and the Facebook, login available. So I'll be honest with you.

931
01:02:18.170 --> 01:02:20.170
That one's a little bit on the back burner right now.

932
01:02:20.170 --> 01:02:24.670
And we have some more amazing things that we'll be launching more than a more so than a LinkedIn login

933
01:02:24.970 --> 01:02:25.470
functionality.

934
01:02:26.089 --> 01:02:26.490
Okay.

935
01:02:26.490 --> 01:02:37.205
I would I would I would put cast my vote in favor of you guys pushing that forward because it helps some of, our professional members who are, you know, either accountants or,

936
01:02:38.225 --> 01:02:45.205
those types of individuals use those sites and be it'd be very helpful because that they're they're less users of, let's say, Facebook.

937
01:02:45.660 --> 01:02:49.660
I hear you. I hear you. Okay. Oh, duly noted. Thank you for that. Good stuff there.

938
01:02:49.660 --> 01:02:52.160
Good questions for Michael. Michael, when that's released,

939
01:02:52.460 --> 01:02:56.380
we'll post it in the Facebook group, and I'd like to see, how you set that up for your members.

940
01:02:56.380 --> 01:03:04.464
And, again, I think that's a great upsell boost that you can and service you can offer to your members of premium service to sync up their RSS feed to their profile.

941
01:03:04.925 --> 01:03:09.984
So good stuff there. Alright. Selva. We got Selva here. Let me unmute your microphone.

942
01:03:10.285 --> 01:03:13.680
There we go. Am I good now? Yes. How are you doing? Where are you calling in from?

943
01:03:14.060 --> 01:03:15.280
Toronto, Canada.

944
01:03:15.740 --> 01:03:19.900
Alright. I'm going to Whistler soon myself. So Oh my god. It's minus minus 18 degrees.

945
01:03:19.900 --> 01:03:21.200
It's not a not a good time.

946
01:03:22.220 --> 01:03:25.040
I've never been I've never been that cold before.

947
01:03:25.555 --> 01:03:28.295
But, anyhoo, yeah, what's your question for us today?

948
01:03:28.915 --> 01:03:31.575
I wanna host a photo contest.

949
01:03:31.955 --> 01:03:33.715
The website is swiftpaws.ca.

950
01:03:33.715 --> 01:03:35.335
It's gotta do with dogs and cats.

951
01:03:35.635 --> 01:03:36.135
And,

952
01:03:36.755 --> 01:03:38.935
to get more sign ups for

953
01:03:39.549 --> 01:03:41.390
you either the listing or for,

954
01:03:41.950 --> 01:03:42.450
newsletters.

955
01:03:43.230 --> 01:03:45.630
I I'm thinking that one good way might be,

956
01:03:46.510 --> 01:03:49.569
to host a photo contest of their pets. So

957
01:03:50.270 --> 01:03:55.484
the thing is, how can I have it on the directory itself? I want peep I want traffic.

958
01:03:55.484 --> 01:03:56.944
I want people to come in there

959
01:03:57.244 --> 01:03:57.744
and,

960
01:03:58.684 --> 01:04:00.704
submit their pets, pictures

961
01:04:01.325 --> 01:04:02.785
on the website.

962
01:04:03.484 --> 01:04:05.984
And, also, I want them to put in stuff like

963
01:04:06.285 --> 01:04:08.145
their name and address and their,

964
01:04:09.810 --> 01:04:11.270
whether they're they're from Canada.

965
01:04:11.730 --> 01:04:14.470
I have a picture of them. What's the best way to do that?

966
01:04:15.170 --> 01:04:17.190
I'm really happy you asked that question.

967
01:04:17.970 --> 01:04:18.870
Couple things.

968
01:04:19.170 --> 01:04:21.030
Generally, when we want to do

969
01:04:21.474 --> 01:04:24.775
a contest to rally people to share an image,

970
01:04:25.155 --> 01:04:27.734
normally it's done on social media,

971
01:04:28.115 --> 01:04:29.575
and then with like a hashtag

972
01:04:30.195 --> 01:04:34.214
or to share a post you created so it propagates on social media.

973
01:04:35.410 --> 01:04:42.310
But if you want people to do it on your site, what I would recommend to do is one, create a a page,

974
01:04:42.690 --> 01:04:46.710
a contest page or whatever. It's a contest you said you're doing? Yeah.

975
01:04:47.355 --> 01:04:55.035
And what you can take advantage of because you wanna know who the winner is, who gets the most likes, is that the photo op photo that you're talking about?

976
01:04:55.035 --> 01:04:55.535
Not

977
01:04:56.875 --> 01:04:59.295
necessarily. We'll be pushing it to social media.

978
01:04:59.750 --> 01:05:01.609
The main interest is to get,

979
01:05:02.630 --> 01:05:03.930
awareness of the website

980
01:05:04.550 --> 01:05:05.609
to the social media

981
01:05:06.150 --> 01:05:08.170
and more traffic into the website,

982
01:05:08.950 --> 01:05:12.010
so that people are logging into the website to look at their

983
01:05:12.525 --> 01:05:13.744
entry every day.

984
01:05:14.045 --> 01:05:14.944
Okay. So

985
01:05:15.325 --> 01:05:20.305
you let me let I really wanna help you out here, Libba. So you want people to register

986
01:05:21.005 --> 01:05:23.025
an account on your site

987
01:05:23.405 --> 01:05:25.424
Yes. And then you want them to

988
01:05:25.900 --> 01:05:26.880
post a photo

989
01:05:27.260 --> 01:05:29.440
on the website, on the website. Yes. Okay.

990
01:05:29.740 --> 01:05:33.200
The problem here is how do we get the masses to do this?

991
01:05:34.460 --> 01:05:37.200
So people need a carrot and a incentive

992
01:05:37.500 --> 01:05:41.360
to take those two actions. And also you have to get the word out

993
01:05:41.925 --> 01:05:42.665
about this.

994
01:05:42.885 --> 01:05:49.145
So what is gonna be the carrot for people to register an account and post a photo besides seeing a post that says,

995
01:05:49.685 --> 01:05:53.065
join for free and post a photo? What is the carrot you're gonna be offering?

996
01:05:53.525 --> 01:05:54.505
There are three

997
01:05:55.460 --> 01:05:57.000
pet food product manufacturers

998
01:05:57.619 --> 01:06:00.680
that are giving away their regards for free to the winners.

999
01:06:01.140 --> 01:06:04.039
Okay. So what is it? Food for life? Pet food for life?

1000
01:06:04.420 --> 01:06:07.539
Not for life, but it's it's a box of oh my goodness. No.

1001
01:06:07.700 --> 01:06:10.279
It's it's it's gonna be a large box of treats.

1002
01:06:10.635 --> 01:06:14.095
And one's gonna be, I think two kilos of,

1003
01:06:14.635 --> 01:06:17.455
dried liver or something, and one's gonna be toys.

1004
01:06:17.915 --> 01:06:19.035
Okay. So,

1005
01:06:19.595 --> 01:06:25.320
the next thing is, do you have any social channels set up right now with an audience to promote this contest to?

1006
01:06:26.120 --> 01:06:29.500
Right now the Instagram is only about 300 followers.

1007
01:06:29.880 --> 01:06:33.960
Okay. Strong. But it's growing. It's growing quite fast. Okay. So okay.

1008
01:06:33.960 --> 01:06:36.220
So you're gonna because you don't have an audience,

1009
01:06:36.840 --> 01:06:42.545
you're either gonna have to create something that goes viral or you can run ads targeting pet owners.

1010
01:06:43.244 --> 01:06:45.105
And And also I'm using influencers.

1011
01:06:45.724 --> 01:06:46.545
And influencers.

1012
01:06:47.964 --> 01:06:51.505
Now how are the influencers incentivized? This is a great topic here.

1013
01:06:51.805 --> 01:06:56.450
They're paid. They're paid cash. Okay. So your your your pay per post basically,

1014
01:06:56.990 --> 01:06:58.930
for them pay per post with influencers.

1015
01:07:00.910 --> 01:07:05.730
And then, yeah, you can you can run ads and just make sure you target

1016
01:07:06.545 --> 01:07:10.805
pet owners, but try to get a little bit more granular, like a certain age group.

1017
01:07:11.505 --> 01:07:12.005
Maybe,

1018
01:07:12.385 --> 01:07:17.605
it sounds like you wanna target Canada. Canada. Yeah. Now maybe I would target more metropolitan

1019
01:07:17.985 --> 01:07:18.485
areas,

1020
01:07:18.945 --> 01:07:29.250
perhaps where people are more, I don't know, savvy on social media and things, whatever, you know, whatever the case may maybe I could be wrong about that, but figure out more filters and then run ads.

1021
01:07:29.250 --> 01:07:31.910
And what is what is your ad going to say in it exactly?

1022
01:07:32.290 --> 01:07:34.070
Oh, pet photo contest.

1023
01:07:34.464 --> 01:07:35.684
Pet photo contest,

1024
01:07:36.464 --> 01:07:37.444
grand prize,

1025
01:07:37.984 --> 01:07:39.285
large box of treats,

1026
01:07:39.585 --> 01:07:40.565
how to enter,

1027
01:07:41.585 --> 01:07:42.085
join

1028
01:07:42.625 --> 01:07:44.085
swiftpaws.ca.

1029
01:07:44.545 --> 01:07:49.605
Okay I'd love to focus on Canada here by the way, it's gonna be easier to target Canadians actually

1030
01:07:50.840 --> 01:07:53.820
and just make the registration process super simple.

1031
01:07:54.120 --> 01:07:55.580
You link people to

1032
01:07:56.040 --> 01:07:57.740
not to your plans page.

1033
01:07:58.280 --> 01:08:01.260
Mhmm. Oh, there's no free plan to sign up for this contest?

1034
01:08:01.640 --> 01:08:04.140
Oh, if I put a free plan on this page here.

1035
01:08:04.655 --> 01:08:07.795
Not on this page. Do you No. I was gonna say link

1036
01:08:08.175 --> 01:08:09.075
in your ad

1037
01:08:09.455 --> 01:08:10.755
link to the free plan.

1038
01:08:11.135 --> 01:08:16.094
You know, you're gonna have a checkout page for it because if I'm gonna just share a photo, I don't wanna pay $3.95.

1039
01:08:16.094 --> 01:08:17.614
No. No. Of course not. Right.

1040
01:08:17.614 --> 01:08:23.529
So so in your in your ad, make sure that you're linking directly to that sign up page and call it,

1041
01:08:24.550 --> 01:08:27.210
you know photo contest register free registration.

1042
01:08:27.830 --> 01:08:31.449
Okay. And what I would even do is create a thirty second video

1043
01:08:32.149 --> 01:08:32.649
of

1044
01:08:33.005 --> 01:08:36.145
put some happy music behind it. It doesn't have to be perfect. People,

1045
01:08:36.844 --> 01:08:44.465
the videos are never gonna be perfect, but just make a video explaining like, hey, thanks for your interest in joining the Swift Paws contest with the grand prize of treats.

1046
01:08:44.925 --> 01:08:47.264
The way to register is come to this URL,

1047
01:08:48.260 --> 01:08:53.240
create an account and just upload at least one photo and you'll be automatically entered

1048
01:08:53.620 --> 01:08:58.120
and by whatever date June 1 we'll select a grand prize winner

1049
01:08:58.420 --> 01:08:59.560
of the photo contest.

1050
01:09:00.500 --> 01:09:04.085
We look forward to seeing you on our website. So thirty second video,

1051
01:09:04.944 --> 01:09:08.645
now you have a sign up page you're gonna send them to it's labeled correctly,

1052
01:09:09.505 --> 01:09:18.165
run ads, I guess the box of treats maybe you wanna have a bigger grand prize that you fund yourself beyond what your sponsors are giving just to kind of sweeten the deal.

1053
01:09:18.290 --> 01:09:18.609
Yep.

1054
01:09:19.410 --> 01:09:19.729
But,

1055
01:09:20.370 --> 01:09:24.210
yep. You're you're absolutely correct because you don't have an audience just yet.

1056
01:09:24.210 --> 01:09:25.489
You're still growing.

1057
01:09:25.489 --> 01:09:30.550
Either you need to magically create something that goes viral or pay per post with influencers

1058
01:09:30.850 --> 01:09:33.104
and running ads, but do them efficiently.

1059
01:09:33.165 --> 01:09:39.425
You sound savvy enough that, you're not gonna hemorrhage your funds with the with the influencers or running ads.

1060
01:09:39.564 --> 01:09:43.744
Just make sure the entire workflow is clear so you're not losing perspective,

1061
01:09:44.284 --> 01:09:44.764
contest,

1062
01:09:45.085 --> 01:09:45.585
entrance,

1063
01:09:46.205 --> 01:09:47.665
at any point in that funnel.

1064
01:09:48.020 --> 01:09:53.800
Okay. Okay? Now how do how do I create a sign up page that does not go in the get listed today page?

1065
01:09:54.260 --> 01:09:58.900
Sure. So what you well, you you that this is a page this is just a static web page.

1066
01:09:58.900 --> 01:10:04.125
You choose what's on this page. So all you would do is go to your finance tab membership plans and

1067
01:10:05.145 --> 01:10:10.125
just create a new membership plan that's free. Okay. We can do it together,

1068
01:10:11.465 --> 01:10:12.364
swift pause

1069
01:10:12.985 --> 01:10:15.405
photo. Photo contest. Contest,

1070
01:10:16.190 --> 01:10:17.330
free entry,

1071
01:10:18.830 --> 01:10:24.350
and you can even put a a nicer URL with this, but we'll just do that. Oops, sorry.

1072
01:10:24.350 --> 01:10:26.530
This is set to paid. Let's set it to free.

1073
01:10:27.230 --> 01:10:31.410
Let's give it a URL here. Member sign up URL, we'll just put

1074
01:10:32.805 --> 01:10:33.945
photo photo, I'll

1075
01:10:34.485 --> 01:10:35.385
just put contest

1076
01:10:35.845 --> 01:10:36.345
easy.

1077
01:10:37.845 --> 01:10:40.905
And save and let's just see what this looks like.

1078
01:10:41.045 --> 01:10:45.385
Okay, what I love about BD is like pages are just magically created automatically.

1079
01:10:45.445 --> 01:10:47.705
So we created the membership plan and

1080
01:10:48.079 --> 01:10:49.539
well now we have a

1081
01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:54.800
membership. So you can change this text create account but swift pause photo contest free entry.

1082
01:10:54.800 --> 01:10:56.980
So what I would do here is this.

1083
01:10:57.599 --> 01:10:58.820
I would edit this

1084
01:10:59.280 --> 01:11:03.380
and I would create a video and what I would do is I would put the video

1085
01:11:03.865 --> 01:11:08.265
in a widget and I would create a sidebar just for this sign up page.

1086
01:11:08.265 --> 01:11:11.325
So on this sign up page, right now it's set to no sidebar.

1087
01:11:11.705 --> 01:11:17.005
Mhmm. Why don't we can put a sign up position we'll do on the right side, right wide

1088
01:11:17.659 --> 01:11:21.980
and I'll just choose a sidebar. This is not the correct sidebar you wanna use but Mhmm.

1089
01:11:22.300 --> 01:11:23.599
I'll just choose one.

1090
01:11:23.820 --> 01:11:29.280
You make your own sidebar that has the video of how the whole contest works and, you know, put some,

1091
01:11:29.580 --> 01:11:30.639
confidence boosters.

1092
01:11:31.715 --> 01:11:33.335
And let's just refresh this.

1093
01:11:33.635 --> 01:11:42.215
So here now we have you know we have a page for Swiftpaws photo concept free entry, we have some confidence boosters here obviously put stuff related to the contest.

1094
01:11:43.395 --> 01:11:45.975
And that's it now you have now I would share this page

1095
01:11:46.960 --> 01:11:53.280
in your thing and we can even check out the change the checkout URL because that's more of like it sounds like an e commerce stuff.

1096
01:11:53.280 --> 01:11:53.760
Mhmm.

1097
01:11:53.760 --> 01:12:00.080
If we go to the general settings and I hope everyone watching is having fun with this, I'm going a little quick, but I think,

1098
01:12:00.560 --> 01:12:01.060
under,

1099
01:12:01.725 --> 01:12:05.425
let me remember where to change the checkout URL. Hold

1100
01:12:05.885 --> 01:12:08.784
on. I think it's in advanced settings. Go to advanced settings

1101
01:12:09.324 --> 01:12:11.344
and search for checkout.

1102
01:12:13.565 --> 01:12:18.900
Default here, default member sign up URL. So let's just change this to sign up.

1103
01:12:19.760 --> 01:12:24.980
That will be for all your plans, the Okay. The the slug ones. All the paid plans too. Yeah. Got it.

1104
01:12:25.199 --> 01:12:27.780
Let's do sign up. Just saying something.

1105
01:12:28.159 --> 01:12:33.935
Okay. So if we come here now instead of checkout, it's gonna be sign up and contest.

1106
01:12:34.395 --> 01:12:39.855
That sounds a little softer than checkout. Yes. Or register might be either to be honest. Register.

1107
01:12:40.315 --> 01:12:41.915
Okay. So this is your new

1108
01:12:42.395 --> 01:12:48.300
New page URL. Okay. New page URL. So, okay with what I did right now I don't wanna steer you wrong,

1109
01:12:49.080 --> 01:12:50.780
go to your get listed page

1110
01:12:51.240 --> 01:12:51.740
and

1111
01:12:52.200 --> 01:12:56.940
one of them wasn't this wasn't working to begin with but go and make sure these buttons are working.

1112
01:12:57.000 --> 01:12:59.580
If you need to get the links for these plans

1113
01:13:00.255 --> 01:13:02.355
go to your membership plans page

1114
01:13:03.375 --> 01:13:04.755
and you can right click,

1115
01:13:05.455 --> 01:13:08.175
you can right your basic plan is disabled for sign ups.

1116
01:13:08.175 --> 01:13:14.975
But anyways, right click and you can copy the the link URL and make sure that that you're using that URL on these create listing buttons.

1117
01:13:14.975 --> 01:13:20.550
Oh, yeah. We just we just changed the Okay. I'm gonna change the URL. Okay. But there you go.

1118
01:13:20.550 --> 01:13:23.270
So, I know this took a little longer than than we, but,

1119
01:13:24.070 --> 01:13:27.670
there you go. Now you have register and contest as the URL there.

1120
01:13:27.670 --> 01:13:31.724
Have a sidebar, put the video, make it pretty, make it compelling and exciting.

1121
01:13:32.105 --> 01:13:35.625
Wish you luck. And this is customizable. Right? Yes. Yeah.

1122
01:13:35.625 --> 01:13:39.065
What you can do the the form is you can edit the form if you want.

1123
01:13:39.065 --> 01:13:45.085
I wouldn't recommend it because you want just a freeze you just wanna name email and then it takes them into their dashboard.

1124
01:13:45.150 --> 01:13:48.790
What I would recommend customizing here is the sidebar information here Okay.

1125
01:13:48.909 --> 01:13:50.449
And the title here if you want.

1126
01:13:50.510 --> 01:13:54.909
You can customize this form to gather more information upfront if you want. Let me Yeah.

1127
01:13:54.909 --> 01:13:58.335
Well, I would need the pack's name and the Sure. Sure. You can.

1128
01:13:58.415 --> 01:14:01.295
But that that's gonna be with the photo album they create. Right?

1129
01:14:01.295 --> 01:14:06.035
Not with their this is gonna register a user account for them, and then they're gonna add a photo

1130
01:14:06.575 --> 01:14:08.175
because you you add a photo there.

1131
01:14:08.175 --> 01:14:12.355
So, again, make a video, make it short, and make it simple for everyone.

1132
01:14:12.810 --> 01:14:15.790
Got it. Good luck, Selva. Thank you. Cheers.

1133
01:14:16.010 --> 01:14:20.829
I know we covered a lot there with Selva, but honestly, it was it was really good stuff to to cover here.

1134
01:14:20.889 --> 01:14:25.369
We got Brian b here. How you doing, Brian? Pretty good. And you? Pretty good. Pretty good.

1135
01:14:25.369 --> 01:14:28.025
What's your question for us here? What do you think,

1136
01:14:29.205 --> 01:14:30.265
about, like,

1137
01:14:30.725 --> 01:14:31.225
having

1138
01:14:31.605 --> 01:14:35.864
your front page be more simplistic like Google or

1139
01:14:36.165 --> 01:14:40.725
you know, so that way, you know, you could put, like, an image or something real simple on there.

1140
01:14:40.725 --> 01:14:44.050
So that way, people just go there, and then they can put, like,

1141
01:14:44.510 --> 01:14:45.170
a a search

1142
01:14:45.790 --> 01:14:48.989
on there, and they can search it and maybe have a few links.

1143
01:14:48.989 --> 01:14:51.250
Just something real simple like Google has.

1144
01:14:51.630 --> 01:14:53.409
What are your thoughts on that versus

1145
01:14:53.949 --> 01:14:56.050
having the full header, the menu,

1146
01:14:56.595 --> 01:14:58.135
and the whole nine yards?

1147
01:14:58.915 --> 01:15:02.755
Well, I think it would depend on, like, the type of site that it is.

1148
01:15:02.755 --> 01:15:07.575
Basically, the homepage, you have calls to action. Right? You sign up, log in, contact us.

1149
01:15:07.635 --> 01:15:10.739
So you're gonna have to decide what you want to strip away.

1150
01:15:11.040 --> 01:15:13.920
What's not basically edit out whatever's not valuable.

1151
01:15:13.920 --> 01:15:17.460
And if you can get it down to just the search and and like a title,

1152
01:15:18.080 --> 01:15:20.659
more power to you. It's like a minimum super minimalistic.

1153
01:15:21.280 --> 01:15:24.005
That's assuming that you have that you're gonna have content in there.

1154
01:15:24.005 --> 01:15:26.744
So when people search, they're gonna actually get results.

1155
01:15:27.525 --> 01:15:28.824
I do like that idea.

1156
01:15:28.885 --> 01:15:36.025
I also like having just a couple buttons or creating, like, a portal experience on the homepage so you have more like an app like feel

1157
01:15:36.360 --> 01:15:39.180
rather than like a clunky website sometimes.

1158
01:15:40.120 --> 01:15:50.300
So just to to answer your question in short, yeah, minimalistic, I'm all for creating an app like feel or just reducing the number of calls to action on the homepage, I'm a huge advocate for.

1159
01:15:50.625 --> 01:15:54.144
Cool. That answers a lot. And then I was using that,

1160
01:15:54.625 --> 01:15:56.164
chat GPT, and

1161
01:15:56.465 --> 01:15:57.445
it's great for,

1162
01:15:58.304 --> 01:15:59.684
creating, like, categories.

1163
01:16:01.105 --> 01:16:03.204
So I was using it to

1164
01:16:03.739 --> 01:16:06.320
actually get more categories to put into my website.

1165
01:16:07.500 --> 01:16:10.800
So, yeah, that's let's see. What are the top

1166
01:16:11.340 --> 01:16:11.840
categories

1167
01:16:12.380 --> 01:16:13.280
for a,

1168
01:16:13.820 --> 01:16:15.040
let's say, a,

1169
01:16:15.820 --> 01:16:16.320
restaurant

1170
01:16:17.065 --> 01:16:17.565
business

1171
01:16:18.264 --> 01:16:18.764
directory

1172
01:16:19.304 --> 01:16:19.804
website.

1173
01:16:20.184 --> 01:16:21.885
Just putting random stuff here.

1174
01:16:22.184 --> 01:16:27.244
Cuisine type, American, Italian, Mexican, location, city, neighborhood, street name, okay.

1175
01:16:28.105 --> 01:16:33.309
Well, again, you get based on the input you put so no, it's actually giving good subcategories.

1176
01:16:33.610 --> 01:16:35.150
Right? So these are actually

1177
01:16:35.690 --> 01:16:39.150
like, the cuisine is the subcategory, and these would be the sub subcategory.

1178
01:16:40.489 --> 01:16:43.690
Price rank. Yeah. So these could all be sub and sub subcategories here.

1179
01:16:43.690 --> 01:16:49.495
And if you use the dynamic category filter on the sidebar of a search results page, you could actually take advantage

1180
01:16:50.035 --> 01:16:52.775
of of filtering for all these sub and sub subcategories.

1181
01:16:53.315 --> 01:16:53.815
Yep.

1182
01:16:54.115 --> 01:16:57.235
So actually and this does relate to your site too, some of these things.

1183
01:16:57.235 --> 01:17:02.280
So because you're you're in the the bar the bar site. Right? Yep. That's right. Alright. Cool.

1184
01:17:02.280 --> 01:17:06.600
Good stuff, Brian. Cool. Alright. Thank you. Alright. Always good to chat with you. Alright.

1185
01:17:06.600 --> 01:17:10.280
I don't see any more hands up here. I think that was an amazing webinar.

1186
01:17:10.280 --> 01:17:15.340
David, thank you so much for the tip of the week, how to sell spotlight articles to your members.

1187
01:17:16.055 --> 01:17:19.415
If we didn't get to your questions, please join us in the Facebook group.

1188
01:17:19.415 --> 01:17:22.055
Go to brilliantdirectories.com/Facebook.

1189
01:17:22.055 --> 01:17:24.235
The replay of this webinar will be available,

1190
01:17:24.935 --> 01:17:30.235
shortly after we sign off here, and the next webinar will be in two weeks.

1191
01:17:30.460 --> 01:17:35.679
And don't forget to join the Facebook group because we will be doing the iPad giveaway this month in February.

1192
01:17:36.300 --> 01:17:37.920
And as always, we always recommend,

1193
01:17:38.460 --> 01:17:42.079
subscribing to our YouTube channel. You'll get our latest tutorial videos,

1194
01:17:42.380 --> 01:17:45.705
and more. You can go to brilliantdirectories.com/

1195
01:17:45.705 --> 01:17:48.525
youtube and click on that subscribe button there.

1196
01:17:48.665 --> 01:17:55.244
On behalf of myself, David, and the entire Brilliant Directories family, we're off to a great start here in 2023.

1197
01:17:55.304 --> 01:17:57.654
The next webinar is two is in two weeks.

1198
01:17:58.054 --> 01:18:02.109
We'll see you then. Have a great day and a brilliant week. Take care, guys. Bye bye.