by: AskPat 545 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 545 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.
Alright, here's today's question from David.
David: Hey Pat, how are you doing? My name is David Hammel and I'm a huge, huge fan of the work that you do. Thank you so much for it. I have built so far two successful brick and mortar businesses, both in the mental healthcare industries, and I want to move on from there because I'm just trading time for money that way, as you know. So my question that I have for you is about platforms. I have a ton of really, really exciting ideas. I know I can't do them all at once, but it's fantastic to have them. So I want to get started with them, and I really want to get my foundations right. I want to get the platform that I build all this from correct.
With my brick and mortar businesses, I've used Weebly to design and run the websites for them and it's been very, very successful for that. I mean they've got a ton of features and everything that I have needed and everything that I would think I'd possibly need. They've got blogs. They've got feed readers. They've got eCommerce, all that kind of stuff. However, everything I read says that you really need WordPress if you want a long term online business. I'm prepared to do that. I don't know anything about WordPress, so I'll have to teach myself that.
Really, I suppose my question to you is, is that what you would recommend? Would you strongly recommend using WordPress? Or could you use a different builder like Weebly? Or is there something else that you would recommend? I'm hoping I suppose, that you would convince me that one of these options is definitely the way to go. And once I'm convinced then I'll be able to put my full energy into building it that way. So thank you for that, Pat. Hope you get down to the question. If not, no worries. And if you want to connect with me, the best way I think is on Twitter, it's @mindfulmeanings. Thank you.
Pat Flynn: Hey David, what's up? Thank you so much for the question today. This is interesting because as much as I normally recommend WordPress . . . Some of you might be listening to this and might be like, “What's he about to say?” Because of the fact that you have Weebly experience already, and they have what you need in terms of a blog and setting up things it sounds like . . . I don't know much about Weebly, but because you know that platform already, that's what I would recommend for you because . . . And again, there's a lot to this question, right? Like I don't know exactly what it is you're trying to do next, or how it might relate to what you're already doing and that sort of stuff. But the reason I say Weebly is because you have that experience already.
The reason that I would normally recommend WordPress is because it's the easiest one that I feel to get started on, and here's why I say that. Out of all the different platforms out there, by far, WordPress is the one that is talked about the most. There's the most help available. There are companies out there that serve people who are on WordPress specifically, like WP Curve, and many others. Plus, all the support documentation, all the videos on youtube, all those sorts of things, WordPress is at the top when it comes to this sort of platform building situation. Plus, all the plugins that are available and that sort of thing. The customization options are definitely there, and it gives you also, not just a great way to start, but a lot of room to grow too. That's the only thing that I would kind of hesitate with in terms of these other platforms, and again I don't know them very well.
There's Weebly, Wix, Squarespace, and all these other ones. You know, they're great especially for starting out and the drag and drop capabilities. A lot of people who are afraid of technology like these other platforms because of how easy it is to set up, but then you're sort of limited in terms of growth and what it is that you can do with it. That's why a lot of these plugins that are available, you know, LeadPages for example, or the Smart Podcast Player and several others. Well, LeadPages, you don't necessarily need WordPress, but there's a WordPress plugin specifically for it to make it easier to implement and use on your own website and all that sort of stuff. A lot of other email capture tools plugins, you know, AppSumo for example, or SumoMe.com. A lot of builders and developers are building specifically on WordPress not just because there's a load of people using WordPress websites, but because it offers the easiest capability to create custom solutions for, I feel. And this is as opposed to hiring somebody straight out to create a website from scratch. That's why we use these platforms because they're available.
But again, David, for you specifically, my question to you would be, before you make a decision, would be well, what is it that you want to do? What's your ultimate goal here? And can you do that using Weebly? If you can, then it might not be worth trying to relearn another entire platform. So I would just consider, what are the things that you want to get out of the site. Not just what is the purpose of it, but what kind of features would you like to have. And then you might want to do a comparison between Weebly and WordPress in terms of what's possible. And if you have any follow up questions on this, use the hashtag “askpat545” in terms of WordPress versus Weebly versus Wix versus Squarespace. I know there's a number of people in the audience who actually use Squarespace, and you know, they seem to be advertised in a lot of other podcasts and what not. But I still, for the beginner, recommend WordPress. And there's a lot of other themes that make it very easy for people to sort of wrap around their content in terms of the skin. You know the skin, the design of the website can easily be changed with just a few clicks of a button, which they can be done on other platforms too.
Really, again the big major underlying thought here is just know what you want to get out of it, and know what you want to do, and then have the platform. Then you can pick a platform from there. So David, thank you so much for the question. If anybody else out there has any experience with any of these other platforms or perhaps you've migrated from one to another, or you've tried exploring these options before, I'm sure David and everybody else out there who's listening would love your thoughts as well. So use the hashtag “askpat545” on Twitter and we can continue this discussion there. So David, thank you so much for the question. I really do appreciate it, and we're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show, and best of luck to you. For those of you who are listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com.
You can ask right there on that page.
I appreciate you and as always, here's a quote to finish off the day, and this quote is by William Durant. He said, “Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you are going to do now, and do it.”
Great message to start the week. Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you all on the next episode of AskPat. Bye.