We Discuss The Biggest Trends in Web Design & WordPress For 2024
We are interviewing Imran Siddiq from Websquadron, a leading YouTube influencer in the WordPress and web design space.
Imran is a web design maverick & former NHS Analytics whiz who traded spreadsheets for WordPress style sheets. In 2022, he left the NHS to captain the Web Squadron, navigating the digital cosmos with YouTube content & courses for businesses and fellow designers.
A writer, an artist, a sci-fi nerd with a passion for innovation and a heart for kindness who hates riddles or watching people left on the sidelines.
#1 – Imran, can you give the listers and viewers some background info on how you got into web design and YouTube?
#2 – What are your views connected to WordPress and its community at the beginning of 2024?
#3 – What are some web design freelancers’ biggest mistakes connected to branding and social outreach?
#4 – Correct pricing of web design projects is always problematic. Do you have any tips and insights that you would like to share connected to this subject?
#5 – How will AI change web design in the next 18 months?
#6 – If you return to a time machine at the beginning of your business journey, what advice would you give yourself?
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The Show’s Main Transcript And Links
[00:00:51.150] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back to the WP-Tonic this week in WordPress and SaaS. We’ve got a great guest, we’ve got a great conversation. We’ve got Ingrid with us from Web Squadron. We’re going to be talking about all things web design and WordPress. It should be a feast of knowledge. I’ve also got my great and patient co-host. So, Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the listeners and viewers?
[00:01:19.150] – Kurt von Ahnen
Sure. Yeah, my name is Kurt von Ahnen. I run an agency called Manana Nomas, which focuses largely on membership and learning websites. We also work directly with the great folks at WP-Tonic and Lifter LMS.
[00:01:31.380] – Jonathan Denwood
We will discuss how Ingram got into the world of WordPress and web design. It’s an exciting story in itself. Plus, we’re going to be discussing his thoughts on where WordPress is at the beginning of 2024 web design, and a feast of other topics. But before we go into the meat and potatoes of this great interview, we’ve got a couple of messages from the show’s major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, We’re coming back, folks. We’ve got a curated list of some of the best WordPress plugins and services, plus some great special deals from the major sponsors. You can get all these goodies by going over to Wp-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals. And you find all the goodies She’s there. What more could you ask for? Probably a lot, but that’s all you’re going to get from that page. So let’s go straight into it because I’ve attempted to do this twice, this introduction, and I have miserably failed listeners and viewers. But if you’re a regular part of the tribe, you’d be well aware of my limitations. So, Imran, it’s great to have you on the show.
[00:02:55.290] – Jonathan Denwood
I’ve been watching your YouTube channel for a long time. You’re very entertaining. But you’ve also… So, how did you get into the world of web design and then become a YouTube WordPress celebrity?
[00:03:10.660] – Imran Siddiq
What was the twisted road that got you there?
[00:03:14.180] – Imran Siddiq
I think I have the most twisted road ever possible because most people, when you find out they work with WordPress or something, either were involved in some creative industry or worked in web design for many years, and then it leads to where they are. if you go back 25 years ago, I was actually working or studying for a medical degree with an eye on orthoptics at the University of Sheffield in the UK. Ocular motility movements of the eyes. It was a great course. Let me tell you now when you’re in a class where there are only 25 people, and there are only two boys, and the rest are female, it’s a great time to be at university. Let me tell you that now. It was a great course. However, in 1999, I had a brain tumor, and it was removed. And it actually changed my perspective on life. So at the age of 20, I started thinking about what I really wanted out of life. And I wanted to do what I wanted to do.
[00:04:13.280] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, it’s extremely dangerous, isn’t it?
[00:04:15.320] – Imran Siddiq
It is. I was in that rebel mode. So I left university four months after my operation. I left university, I left home. I literally went off No one knew where I was. I went to live in a bedsit because I was fed up of friends, family, basically everyone that didn’t agree with me, got a job, and I just started working and working with the and eventually I went back to university to do a part-time law degree, got a job in the NHS. It was in the NHS that I started building a name for myself because I began analyzing data and working with SQL databases and, studying information, Excel data mining. And it was at that point, around 2003, I wanted to get involved in I was involved with websites. There was a team next door to us. They were the slowest technical team ever.
[00:05:21.680] – Jonathan Denwood
They would build a website.
[00:05:22.950] – Imran Siddiq
I’m so surprised to hear that.
[00:05:25.340] – Imran Siddiq
They were like, they took their time, and I watched them. And I started learning HTML and designing and styling and all of that. Bit by bit, I began to improve my skill set, and I started designing websites while I was studying for my law degree; because I did it in the evening, I was classed as a mature student. Many people in my class were either around the same age or were professionals in their own areas. And some of them were exploring websites as well. Remember, this is 2003. This is still like, for some people, the early days of the Internet.
[00:06:08.980] – Jonathan Denwood
I was knocking it. I’d done my degree, and I was running one business, and I started doing There’s a freelance. I don’t know if you can forgive me for this, actually. I was one of those who was knocking out flash websites and doing action scripts. Flash was the thing then.
[00:06:27.600] – Imran Siddiq
I was one of those. Flash was the thing then.
[00:06:29.250] – Jonathan Denwood
I was one of those flash tosses.
[00:06:31.790] – Imran Siddiq
No, no, no. Everything was flash then, you see. I mean, come on. The moment we realized we couldn’t open flash websites on our iPhones in 2007, we all were like, what? How dare they? Now we don’t care for flash. But back then we were like, horrified. I can’t open a flash website. So I had my NHS job, but I still tinkered with websites. And then WordPress came on the scene or it was there and I played around with that. But I I always got frustrated because I was an expert in web design. And I always felt like I was spending money. I mean, back then, you remember Theme Forest? Every other week, you went and you bought a theme. I want to do something else. I’ll buy another theme. I want this. I’ll buy another theme, and I want this, or I’ll buy another theme, and- I look back now and I wish I’d be more involved in a community because I always felt that this sickness that you’re describing was It was just me.
[00:07:30.730] – Imran Siddiq
It was. But I now realize that everybody was in the same boat. So there we go.
[00:07:38.620] – Imran Siddiq
You were throwing around 30, $40 left, right, center because you wanted a new theme. And so So, up until about six, seven years ago, I was in and out of the WordPress website design because it was like a bit of a hobby, but I wouldn’t class myself ever as an expert. And then it wasn’t until around 2017, I really put more effort into it. And I started using page builders. I was mainly WordPress. I focused on WordPress. I tried Wix, I tried Squarespace, I tried lots of other solutions.
[00:08:12.980] – Imran Siddiq
Do you have to Do you have to swear on this podcast?
[00:08:18.620] – Imran Siddiq
What’s that? Sorry.
[00:08:19.470] – Jonathan Denwood
Do you have to swear on this podcast?
[00:08:21.370] – Imran Siddiq
Because I said, well, look, I was one of those people in 2011 when Wix came out. I got really excited. Three weeks later.
[00:08:31.520] – Imran Siddiq
I don’t think I could ever link excitement to Wix. I don’t think I could ever do that. I’m sorry.
[00:08:37.230] – Imran Siddiq
I think I got caught into that drag and drop and build that. And then I realized very quickly this is really rubbish. If anyone out there likes Wix, that’s fine.
[00:08:46.450] – Imran Siddiq
Funny enough, a lot of my latest dates have the same response after they go out with me, actually.
[00:08:53.630] – Imran Siddiq
Well, that’s another way of looking at drag and drop, but yeah, it’s the same concept in a way, I suppose. And so by 2017, 2018, I got into Elementor, and I have used other page builders as well. But I found that I was more empowered. And when the lockdown hit in 2020, I had a heart attack. So I’ve got a stent in my heart now. So I had a heart attack very early. And again, I think every time I have something affecting my health, I stop and think, what I really want to do with my life?
[00:09:32.270] – Imran Siddiq
I don’t get this. You look at one of the most healthiest people we’ve heard on the show for quite a lot of time.
[00:09:39.120] – Imran Siddiq
I blame eating lots of samosas when I was a clid, I think. So I blame my parents for my health or whatever had built up in my heart then. But 2020, I thought it was like, I’m working 80 to 90 hours a week with the NHS. I was head of business intelligence. I’m busting a gut. I support my team. I’m always working hard. Am I really, really happy? And I realized, you know what? I’m happier when I’m creating, when I’m writing, when I’m creating digital art, when I’m making websites, when I know I’m doing something that makes a real difference. So I put more effort into the Web Squadron Web Agency. I started the YouTube channel. I could see things getting better in terms of getting referrals, word of mouth, making connections. And then I decided January 2022, I retired from the NHS. And for the first two months, the income went like that, boom. Because now you don’t have a guaranteed income. Your income’s gone. But now I’m earning more now than I was when I was employed. And it’s taken time. I kept looking at it at, what do I need to earn to break even with your lifestyle and your whatever you spend.
[00:11:05.810] – Imran Siddiq
So that I could do. And I just keep working with this smile, do what I love doing. And you know what? I probably work harder now than I think I ever done before. I think I put more hours in now, every moment I have, but I love it. And that’s the big difference. Before you, you might have worked 70 hours, but it was for someone else. You were doing it because they told you to work. They told you to attend a meeting. They told you to create a report. And deep down, you knew they wouldn’t understand it, but you had to create it. But now I decide if I’m going to build a website for you or not. I decide if I’m going to create a video. I decide on the direction I want to go in. And having that control, there’s something they say, don’t they? They say people, when they hit their 40s, they midlife crisis or they suddenly have a change of direction in what they want to do. And I do think that the decision I made nearly two years ago now is probably the best decision I ever made. And I don’t regret it.
[00:12:14.960] – Imran Siddiq
I get to I get to spend time with my family more. I get to take my son to school, which I wasn’t doing before. I pick him up, I take him to school, I pick him up, we go for walks. So I feel like I enjoy life more. There you go. That’s my really long No, it’s fantastic.
[00:12:32.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Let’s hope you feel the same about coming on this podcast.
[00:12:36.410] – Imran Siddiq
No, I regret it already.
[00:12:38.190] – Jonathan Denwood
I know.
[00:12:38.860] – Imran Siddiq
I would. I would. I would. It’s funny enough, there’s been a few guests that have said they’ve been regretting it. It’s amazing that I get more people coming on.
[00:12:48.910] – Jonathan Denwood
I think the great leader, his little interrogation on this show, but I think he dealt with me easily, didn’t he? He dealt with me with the disdain that I should be treated with. So, Kurt, on to the next question.
[00:13:04.360] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, we’ve already talked about Wixom Squarespace, so I was hoping we could jump into some details about Joomla and building something that’s data-driven.
[00:13:16.230] – Imran Siddiq
My experience with Joomla is not good at all.
[00:13:21.970] – Kurt von Ahnen
I used to have a really big Joomla project.
[00:13:26.890] – Jonathan Denwood
It could be worse. It could be worse. It could be work and be I’m very proud of you.
[00:13:31.370] – Kurt von Ahnen
Oh, so first off, thanks so much for the way that you’ve shared there. It almost made me thankful that I survived. I survived cancer before I paid any money for college. So I found out what I wanted to do without going to that secondary education. So I saved myself that one. If we were to think about WordPress and the community and thinking about where it is in 2024, I mean, do you stay in touch, in tune with it? Do you have any opinions about WordPress in its community right now?
[00:14:08.040] – Imran Siddiq
I do. So one of the reasons why I love WordPress is that there is a community. There’s hundreds of thousands of people. There’s always someone who can either help you out or direct you. And there’s so many tutorials. There’s so many groups on Facebook, YouTube, loads of places, loads of forums. But at the same time, the toxicity that is building within the community is getting worse. I keep saying to people, We are WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, there’s all these other communities, they hate WordPress. My neighbor, literally next door to me, when he asked me what I do and I said WordPress, his face dropped because he works with Magenta and he goes to America quite a lot and he works with a company there. The minute I said WordPress, it was almost like he was judging me. And I feel like we are so powerful. We’re over 40 % of it.
[00:15:05.140] – Imran Siddiq
You’ve ever worked on them on tape. You’ve never worked using that, God for sake, a bit of Adobe crack. Have you ever tried to work on that? Because I’ve had this fortune of having to work with it.
[00:15:17.380] – Imran Siddiq
No, I mean, so I, over 40 % of websites still use WordPress. But what I find is that now that we have so many theme builders and page builders, it’s literally like, oh, you use elemental. You use bricks, you use breakdance, you use Gutenberg. You know, there’s all this like hatred. And I keep saying to people, who cares? Like, it’s like saying, yeah, I drive a BMW, you drive a Mercedes, you’ve got a… Who cares? Whatever sandwich you eat, whatever drink you drink, whatever tissue you use to wipe your ass, I don’t care. If you get the job done, you got the job done. And I just feel like What I do like, though, is a lot of the people that I network with, we don’t care what page builder we use. We sometimes mock each other. Oh, you use this. Oh, you use that. We mock each other, but it’s friendly. There’s no animosity. But I do think that there is a danger, I think, within WordPress, and I think it’s growing. And I think the reason it’s getting more toxic is a little bit due to social media, generally. So if you If you look at Twitter, if you look at TikTok, if you look at loads of these groups, it’s empowered keyboard warriors, where if they don’t- Never, never, never.
[00:16:39.990] – Imran Siddiq
It’s empowered the Jonathans and the curts of this world. So if someone doesn’t like your YouTube video, they’ll come on and go, I don’t like the way you look. Well, why are you watching?
[00:16:51.920] – Imran Siddiq
I totally understand it because I don’t like the way I look.
[00:16:56.290] – Imran Siddiq
No, no. I did think twice about it. I was like, damn, do I I really want to be with these two? And I did, but no. But it’s empowered people to be a little bit, I don’t want to say nasty, but they can be a bit nasty. And I always feel- Nasty?
[00:17:11.280] – Jonathan Denwood
Don’t press people. Nasty? Never.
[00:17:13.380] – Imran Siddiq
No, it’s like, I worry that we’re going to get worse.
[00:17:17.570] – Jonathan Denwood
But then- Well, I think this is… Sorry to interrupt, Kerr.
[00:17:21.400] – Imran Siddiq
No, no, go. It’s your live chat.
[00:17:24.470] – Jonathan Denwood
But I think as I We did a roundtable show last week, and we had Matt Madeas, and we had Kate, and it was a good discussion. I’m not sure if my American panelists or my audience, I use a very English term, a witches’ brew. I do agree with you about the synopsis that you were laying out, that it seems to be getting a bit worse. I used to do a weekly roundtable show, and I decided to make it a monthly one because I think, unfortunately, I was contributing to that, but I was trying to do it in a very English, sarcastic, humorous, but I think it came across to some people as not being that funny. But I think in this Witcher Brew, I think There’s two areas to this. I think there’s the area where Gutenberg is going and how the page builders, which are great, but they also means that the market fragments, but in some ways, it’s always been highly fragmented. But then you got the other camp who don’t like the way that WordPress is run, and they’ve got some legitimate, I feel they’ve got some legitimate concerns, but they also, a lot of that crowd have extreme left-wind views, and they slander people, they ban you from Twitter, they’ve got an external political agenda that they want to impose on the general WordPress community.
[00:19:36.520] – Jonathan Denwood
And I think these different factors all interwined into this witches brew of toxicity. Do you think there’s anything to what I’ve just outlined, or do you think I’m losing the plot to some extent?
[00:19:52.850] – Imran Siddiq
No, I think you’re right about that. But I just think that people need to stop attacking one another. And remember that we’re web designers. And I always say that most of the time, if you’re a Shopify person and that’s all you’re going to build websites with, I understand Shopify, I don’t like using it. But if that’s what you want to use, that’s your tool of choice and that’s your business model and you’re earning with it and you’re getting clients and they’re happy as well, then we should be supporting one another. Because to be honest, let’s say Kurt uses Shopify, let’s just say, right? And I don’t, but I need to build an e-commerce website. I can still learn from what Kurt does. I can still learn by how does he present? What has he experienced with e-commerce, whether it’s E or WuCommerce or whatever? And I feel like that’s the thing that’s getting lost with a lot of people with like, well, they look at what you use and then they form a divide or a tribe. I feel like we’re web designers, we’re creative people. It reminds me of digital art. In 2007, I went and got myself one of those wonderful Wackle on digital tablets, and I was creating digital art.
[00:21:18.860] – Imran Siddiq
I got a lot of criticism from people that said, That’s not art. Real art is when you’re using a proper paint brush. I was like, The difference is, though, I’m wasting less resources because I can delete what I get wrong. So I’m probably better for the environment. But it was like, it doesn’t matter what tool you use. And now with AI and all these creative tools out there for us, we shouldn’t be ashamed of saying, I’m a writer, I’m an artist, I’m a web designer, I create videos. If you’re good at it, you should tell the world about it. Be happy with what you do.
[00:22:00.830] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I totally agree. But why… Let’s remove the Gutenberg… Well, the The thing about Matt and the way that WordPress is governed and the recent elements to that. But let’s focus on the page builders in Gutenberg. Now, I had Kevin on the show a few weeks ago, and he upset a few people. I think what he was saying, obviously, he’s been accused of mercilessly pushing his own book of business. There’s some justification to that, but also I don’t see any problem in it because I think we’re all pushing our book of business to some extent. But I think the core of some of his criticisms were justified. But I’d also understand why people got a bit upset, because it’s like two sets were talking two different languages. You had your hard core developer who could knock up a JSON file or knock up a custom block in 10 minutes, and they’re wondering, What the hell? And then you got your more visual individual from web design, the visual graphic design, who started off with divvy, maybe stayed with divvy, moved to using animator, looking at bricks, maybe now, where they don’t want to become a hardcore React developer.
[00:23:54.110] – Jonathan Denwood
They don’t feel they should need to be able to knock up a custom block to do something. And then you got Kevin’s argument that the way that the basic Gutenberg project has gone, it makes it even less accessible and based on class structure that a modern CSS framework like Tellwind promotes. But it looked like the Two groups were almost like talking two different languages, and that’s why they were getting so upset. What’s your take? Do you think there’s anything to what I’ve just said?
[00:24:39.470] – Imran Siddiq
No, no, you’re absolutely right. It just reminds me of the same argument we hear all the time, where basically you have the hard coders who don’t like the page building crowd. The page builders will say, yeah, but it’s easier to build and it’s more efficient than doing the hard coding route. And I often say to both parties that, well, you could almost argue that Why are you even using WordPress? If you want to go down the real hard core coding route, why are you even using WordPress? Why are you not building it in the way it was being built 20, 25 years ago? And I feel like I always come back to the same conclusion that, whether you want to do the hard code route, whether you want to use a framework, whether you want to use a page builder, whatever you’re comfortable with, you do it. And I think there’s always vulnerabilities and flaws and issues with whatever method you use. The trick, though, is how do we counter that floor and how do we work around it to ensure that our websites and our client websites are functional and do what they need to do?
[00:25:47.940] – Imran Siddiq
Because I don’t think any solution out there is perfect at all. So even a hard coded website will have flaws. And that’s what really gets me, I think. Every time when I see this bickering in groups or whatever, I always feel like you’re literally arguing over how to eat an apple, but it’s the same apple at the end of the day, right? And So as long as you’re not doing anything illegal or dangerous, or you’re not breaking any rules or whatever.
[00:26:24.900] – Imran Siddiq
Yeah, but where do you personally feel the Gutenberg editor and the Gutenberg project is. How would you…
[00:26:34.770] – Jonathan Denwood
Can you give one or two strengths, where it is, and then give one or two weaknesses that you feel that are obvious where it is?
[00:26:46.720] – Imran Siddiq
For me, the strengths are that you can build a really good high-performing website in terms of page speed performance and all of that from the get-go. It’s not going to take a lot of effort. You don’t have to use too many plugins. You can build a really good website. And I feel like it’s not that difficult to explain. And I think it’s easier for people if they’re happy to just download a theme and then just use the standard blocks, they can be out the door really quick. They can get it done. The flaw with it, though, is that, and if anyone out here loves Gutenberg, please don’t take this as a criticism. I don’t find it sexy enough, and this is my problem. If I’m deciding to on what clothes I’m going to wear, what phone I’m going to get, what device I’m going to have on my thing, it’s got to be something that I feel like I want to use it. I really want to play with it. And I always find that with Gutenberg, for me, it feels a little bit too much like they’re slow. It’s evolving. Don’t get me wrong, it is evolving, but it’s doing it a bit of a slow rate.
[00:27:52.960] – Imran Siddiq
And I feel like, how much has it moved on in, say, since it first came out? I do believe, and I’ve said this two years ago, it wouldn’t surprise me if in five years time, I switched to all Gutenberg. It wouldn’t surprise me, but I’m not there yet because I was going to move to it a bit more last year. But then I found, oh, but I’m still going to have to use an extra plugin on top, like Generate Press or something. I want to get to that stage where I know I can install WordPress, pure Gutenberg. Boom, away we go. And I’m not paying third party licenses, left, right, center for add-ons.
[00:28:37.150] – Kurt von Ahnen
This is when we need Matt back on the show to say, I told you from the beginning it was going to be 10 years, Imran.
[00:28:42.460] – Jonathan Denwood
I couldn’t believe that when you came out, I don’t know where he said that.
[00:28:48.610] – Imran Siddiq
I never heard that. That was going to take 10 years, but there we go.
[00:28:53.380] – Jonathan Denwood
Never heard that one. Well, we’re going to go for our break. When we come back, we’ve got some other fabulous questions. I’ve enjoyed the discussion so far. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a feast with Igman. We’ve discussed all sorts of WordPress stuff. He’s laughed at my jokes. Before we go on to the other… He’s a sexy beast.
[00:29:26.670] – Imran Siddiq
Before we go on, I just want to out that if you’re looking for a great WordPress partner, especially if you’ve got a learning management system, a membership, or a community-based website project using Buddy Boss, why don’t you look at WP Tonic as your hosting and your project partner.
[00:29:49.820] – Jonathan Denwood
We offer fantastic hosting and a lot more than that. You can find all the details by going over to WP-Tonic. Com. Wp-tonic. Com/partners, wp-tonic. Com/partners. We love to have a chat and help you with your upcoming Learning Management or Buddy Boss project. I think I’m going to throw it over to Kurt again. I think we’re on question three. We better hurry up here. We will.
[00:30:27.950] – Imran Siddiq
I’ll be quick with my answers.
[00:30:29.980] – Jonathan Denwood
No, it’s been my interruptions that have been the problem.
[00:30:34.240] – Kurt von Ahnen
Imran has been cool enough to already answer half the question, I think, here. But when we think about web design freelancers and how they’re trying to grow, get ahead, all the normal challenges of being a freelancer, what do you think are their biggest mistakes connected to branding and social outreach? Because you’ve had some success with it.
[00:30:53.820] – Imran Siddiq
Yeah. So I think, and this is something I talk about a lot, is inconsistent branding. I I don’t think people stop to think about, who am I trying to reach? What do I offer? What can I do for you? And they don’t back it up. So if you are going to work on a dentist website or you’re going to do something that’s going to help dentists out there. You need to be putting it out on social media. You need to be sharing the success stories. You need to be showing what you do. And I feel like people, they call themselves a web designer, but they They don’t focus on the strengths of their brand. And I feel like if you’re not consistent with what you’re putting out there, you’re just like any other web designer. And if you look at the successful people on LinkedIn and whatever, especially the SEO experts. Let me be honest, a lot of the SEO experts on LinkedIn talk garbage. They’re regurgitating what someone else has done, but they’re consistent with the video, whenever they say, Here’s the 10 things you need to do, they keep doing that. If you’re consistent, people notice you more.
[00:32:03.830] – Imran Siddiq
And that leads into the second thing I want to say is a lot of people, they underestimate social media. The amount of people that say, I’m struggling to get clients, how do I get clients? I go, Well, are you on LinkedIn? Yeah, but I don’t really post Twitter. Well, now and again, they’re just not putting themselves out there. And you don’t want to say, hey, use me. I’ll build your website for you. No. 20 % of your tweets can be where you showcase your products or what you do. But the other 80 % need to be about you. Who are you? Why should anyone care? Because strangers, when they connect with you and go, I quite like Jonathan. I like what he’s doing.
[00:32:46.760] – Imran Siddiq
That would never happen.
[00:32:48.530] – Imran Siddiq
I know. I had to stretch the reality a little bit.
[00:32:52.410] – Jonathan Denwood
But if people said- I’m on a certain sub list of WordPress fanatics.
[00:32:56.820] – Imran Siddiq
I’m on their digital deaf list.
[00:33:00.260] – Imran Siddiq
But if people just… Look, a friend of mine, she runs a clinic for the Eyes in London, and she now wants to reach more clients. And I said to her, you’re on LinkedIn, but you never post. The trick, here’s the trick. And if you’re watching this, everyone, this is what you do, and I hope you all do this. Grab your phone and record a 30 second video every day, just a selfie video talking about something you’re doing with a client. Maybe you’ve had an idea, maybe you’ve had a problem. 30 seconds and then stick it on LinkedIn. If that’s the only thing you do every day, you will get noticed because people might stop and watch and there’s a huge high chance that they might want to connect with you. So I’m not asking you to I’m not asking you to create a PDF, or an image, or a carousel. Literally a 30-second video. And it doesn’t have to be perfect or edited. Just really simple. Do it on LinkedIn. People will spot you. We have. We have.
[00:34:01.550] – Jonathan Denwood
We want to work with you. Hope you are aware that we have the LinkedIn expert here, my beloved co-host. He’s written a whole course.
[00:34:10.920] – Imran Siddiq
Kurt is now going to say, Imran, you’re talking rubbish.
[00:34:13.780] – Kurt von Ahnen
No, no. Imran, you’re on the money because people are investing in all these. They’re scattering themselves. I got to do TikTok, I got to do Facebook. I got to do X. I got to do… And I’m like, You’re a person. Pick one that’s going to bring you your best audience, your best interactive And for me, it’s LinkedIn because LinkedIn per capita has the highest spending audience.
[00:34:36.330] – Imran Siddiq
Businesses.
[00:34:37.370] – Kurt von Ahnen
The most business decision-makers are on LinkedIn. And I agree with you completely. You’ve got to be consistent and you’ve got to be in front of people every day. And it doesn’t have to be the best content. It’s just got to be content and you got to be approachable. You have to be approachable in somebody that someone, to your point, looks at it and goes, Emman’s a pretty cool dude. I think I could connect with that guy. And then that That might not be the person that you get the work from. They might refer you to six other people. But it’s that you got to keep that churn going.
[00:35:07.150] – Imran Siddiq
Well, I’ll tell you what I do every Friday morning, and it takes one hour of my time. I already have decided what I’m going to say. I record a video which is about six minutes long, and it’s where I talk about 10 different things. I then edit it into 10 videos, and they’re 30 seconds each. And then I just schedule them And for the next 10 days, they go out at midday every day onto LinkedIn. And that’s it. That’s one hour of my time. So if you can do that, I think you can do that. And I think people, they struggle because they go, I haven’t got the time. And then I go, yeah, but if you’re not putting yourself out there, you can’t complain if people aren’t finding you. And I think you’re absolutely right. You got to be consistent. But yeah, that’s what I would say about the mistakes when it comes to branding and social outreach. Put yourselves out there. Build a persona. And that’s something else you got to do as well. Some people are afraid of talking on camera. And I keep saying to them, we all have to do it.
[00:36:15.100] – Imran Siddiq
We all have to start somewhere. And you might have a video call with a client. If that client has already seen you on a video somewhere, they know what to expect. There’s always a bit a little connection already made. So you can be more at ease.
[00:36:34.670] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. And even if you’re nervous to speak on video, the nervousness to speak on video can become content that establishes your persona. It all just works together. With that, I’m going to pass to Jonathan.
[00:36:48.940] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. I think you’re totally right there, what you’re both trying to point out. But let’s go on to It’s not a fauny subject, which I think is a nightmare, really. Hopefully, you got some insights because I’ve been doing web projects for almost 20 years now, and I still struggle on this. Pricing web design projects and the ever discussion of scope creep and how you deal with it, I feel you can, I call it, project size. You have a set list of things you’re going to do and try and turn it into a digital product. By what you were saying about the dentists focus on a particular industry or individual that you like working with and can help. You can do all of that, but I still, and I think these will help, but I I still think your pricing and the correct pricing and dealing with scope creep to some degree. Got any thoughts and insights about this particular?
[00:38:13.520] – Imran Siddiq
I think we’ve all been there when we first start off and in the early part of our career where we accepted scope creep because we were afraid of letting the client down or losing the client. And we said yes to every job that came through the door, even if you didn’t like the client, you didn’t like the work, you weren’t fully believe it, but you needed the income. And I’ve become very hard now on how I deal with clients and what I will work with in the last two years, where I like to work with what I call is like a pricing ladder. So I will say that, I will give the client options and I will say, here’s what you get as the basic package or whatever for building the website. If you want a bit more, it’s X. If you want more revisions, there’s another price. If there’s a bit more excess you want, other facilities, SEO, whatever, the price goes up. And I always remind them of what I’ve done for them. So whenever I work with a client, every day, I will email them to let them know where we are.
[00:39:19.650] – Imran Siddiq
And if I’ve said that the home page, you’re allowed two revisions or two loads of rounds of revisions. When we get to the contact page, you’re allowed two rounds of revision. I let them know. And I’m letting them know that if you want more, there’s going to be an additional cost. So I try and control the scope creep. And I try and get… Well, look, what I do is, and I started doing this two years ago, and it’s worked, is I now charge for discovery calls. So someone wants to work with me. I will have the initial maybe phone call or exchange of emails to get a feeling for, well, what What are they after and could this work for both parties? And the moment I now feel like now they want to know more about the website and what I’m going to do for them, I then say there’s going to be a discovery call and it’s going to cost X. A load of people say no. And I treat, I don’t mind. I treat every project like it is not a real project. Until they pay a deposit and we are now working together, I treat it like I don’t care.
[00:40:29.830] – Imran Siddiq
And in the old days, even if a really nasty person said, I want to work with you, and they’re only going to pay X, you might have said $1,000 for a website. They go, Oh, I’m only going to pay 300. You were like, All right, then. Yeah, we’ll do it for 300. Kind of thing. This is like a long time ago, which I don’t like doing anymore. But once they knew they had you, they could control you. And scope creep came in and they told you what to do. Now I’m a bit like, no, I’m not going to go lower. And if you want me to go lower, here’s what that $1,000 includes. You now decide what you want to take out. So here’s an itemized proposal, right? That’s what That’s a thousand dollars. You only want to pay 300. Right. You take out what you want to get to $300. If that means I only do your home page and your contact page, and I don’t do any of the other pages and no SEO and nothing like that, fine. But that’s what you get. So that if then later on they go, Oh, could you also do my About page?
[00:41:37.160] – Imran Siddiq
I go, No. You want me to do the About page? There’s the cost for it. So I have found that being… I have found being really blunt has actually worked quite well because I have found that if anyone doesn’t like it when I go, No, I’m not going to offer a discount, they might throw some expletives my way. But I then treat that as like, I saved myself a problem later on because they don’t respect me. I often say to them, What business do you do? They run a shop. I go, Right. Someone comes in, they want to buy a car, but they’re not going to pay the full price. Would you knock it down? They’re not going to pay the full price for an item of clothing. Do you have it for them? Work with a solicitor. They charge $400 per hour. I go, What if someone desperately needed your help, but they could only afford $100? It was like, We wouldn’t work with them. And it’s like going, so why do you think it should be any different for us? And one of the reasons is, and I’ve mentioned this before to people, is I don’t know how you feel about this, but web designers are often seen to be the lowest of the low.
[00:42:47.570] – Imran Siddiq
So if you’re in a room with people, what do you do? Oh, I run a shop. Oh, cool. What do you do? Oh, I run a garage. Oh, cool. What do you do? Oh, I’m a web designer. Oh, that must be really easy. They think we have an easy job. They think we just magically create websites like that. And I think it’s because nowhere, really… I mean, look, when was the last time you saw a program on Netflix about web designers? Whenever was there a documentary about web designers and what we do? So often we are like… People don’t understand us. They think we can… Sorry, I’m going on a tangent here. Because there’s too many adverts out there that say, Hey, you can build a website in 30 minutes. The GoDaddy adverts and stuff. You can do it in 30 minutes. People think it’s really easy. So sometimes we have to turn around and go, no, you want a website that’s going to double your income. You want a website that’s going to help you grow your business. It’s going to cost X to do that. If you want a really cheap website, you can go over there, you can do it yourself.
[00:43:53.640] – Imran Siddiq
You know where I am. I’m not going anywhere, but my price is my price. And that’s something that the moment I made that mindset change to not devalue what I bring to the table or what I do, I started finding I was now getting higher premium clients. And all of the smaller clients, I don’t mean that in a in a good way, but I don’t miss them because I would rather build one website for, say, $5,000 than 10 websites for $500 because I’d rather spend one week than 10 weeks working with people who basically… They don’t care about you. They’ll email you. They’re like, Oh, change this, change that. Oh, increase the size of my logo. Change the wording. A hundred changes. Now I’m very blunt on what I will do for the price. If I don’t like it, I don’t worry. If it means that’s one less website and I’ve lost out on, say, $500 because I never bank on it. In fact, I can tell you now, when I do get paid, I never take the money out of our business account and put it into my own personal account. I leave it there.
[00:45:15.400] – Imran Siddiq
I treat it like virtual money until I know they’re happy, it’s signed off, and now I take it in case they ever want a refund or if there’s ever any issue. So I treat every job, every request, I I get them all the time. Oh, might want to work with you, might want a website. I might send an email, but I treat it like we may never work together. If we do, great, but I’m not going to sit there and go, Ten emails today. If each of them is a thousand dollars, that’s ten thousand dollars. Brilliant. No, I don’t treat it like that. So if they walk away, I’m not upset. I don’t feel like I missed out. I just treat it like, fine, whatever. Carry on with what else you got to do. Carry on with the YouTube video I’ve got to record and edit. Just carry on with whatever else is on your task list and don’t get upset by it. I do get very long answers, don’t I?
[00:46:16.940] – Jonathan Denwood
All right, fair enough. Over to you, Kurt.
[00:46:20.080] – Kurt von Ahnen
I just… That whole approach is so freeing because there’s a ton of things I do all day long, and some of them generate revenue, and a lot of it doesn’t. But it’s interesting the way to hear you say it the way that you do. It’s pretty cool. If we jump to another subject, it would be AI. And you’ve already mentioned AI today with AI for art, AI for web. I mean, everything’s got AI now. We did a whole show on AI. I don’t even know what I’d use today.
[00:46:53.370] – Imran Siddiq
No, I absolutely love it. The minute I jumped onto the ChatGPT train over a year ago, creating social media posts, creating content for websites when your client hasn’t got a clue, just being able… I mean, I could find a video on YouTube, get the transcript, stick it into ChatGPT and say, summarize this for me without even watching the video. I mean, digital art, creating things, it’s so much fun. And I know some people are worried about AI, And I keep saying AI is a tool. It’s no different to when Excel first came about or calculators or PowerPoint. Everything out there is a tool. You still need the human. I do not believe that you’re ever going to get a full blown AI web designing tool because someone still needs to speak to the client or the customer to refine it. What AI will do is make it quicker. So maybe AI will generate a website in five minutes, but you’re still They’re going to need me. And if we ever got to a point where AI did take away web design, well, you can either sit there and cry and complain, or you can find something else to put your time into.
[00:48:14.560] – Imran Siddiq
So you can find another area, another niche, something else to put your skills, transfer your skills. But I think AI is… No, I do have a complaint, actually. I do have a complaint about AI. There’s too much. I struggle to keep up to date with every day there’s a new tool, and I’m going, I’ll tell you what we’re missing. If you know someone who can do this really well, get them to do it. We need a dedicated YouTube channel that actually tells me the best tool to use. So there’s all these image generation tools. There’s all these tools for productivity. Don’t just tell me what you’ve been sponsored tell me. Tell me the goddamn truth. Tell me what is the best tool to use for scheduling social media posts. That’s what’s missing, because I do feel like every day there is something new and I feel flooded.
[00:49:21.590] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I signed up for a lifetime AI tool that would help me generate custom songs.
[00:49:27.190] – Imran Siddiq
Oh, wow.
[00:49:28.240] – Kurt von Ahnen
And I’ll tell you right now, that sucks. Don’t sign up for that one.
[00:49:35.760] – Imran Siddiq
I was looking forward to your tune there.
[00:49:38.960] – Imran Siddiq
I thought you were going to play something. And I think that’s the problem in that. I You can’t get away from TikTok videos and YouTube Shorts and blogs and newsletters. And every single one of them will say this is the best tool to use. And then you’re really like, I’ll tell you what, hey, Jen. So there’s been loads of adverts about AR avatars. And hey, Jen, you do, I think, like a two-minute recording and it takes your face and your voice and it generates an avatar, you, right? I tried it. I can’t, it’s probably the worst AI avatar tool I have ever come across. But everyone out there on TikTok and YouTube is promoting it. But it’s rubbish. And I think that’s what we’re missing.
[00:50:26.100] – Jonathan Denwood
Some of the tools I’ve invested a bit of money in. They’ve made a big difference. But there’s one tool, it’s called Behuman, and it looks fabulous. I bought into it, and it’s never worked from day one. The support, I think at WP Tonic with Kirk and my other team members, we do a fantastic job on support. We really do try and be as supportive as possible with our hosting and WordPress, but it’s some of the worst support I’ve ever come across from this company, and it’s just unbelievable. Their core product doesn’t work, and they keep sending me emails, and it’s just hilarious. I would be ashamed in running a company like that, but it That is what it is, isn’t it? I think I’ve got the last question. And being that you’re from the UK, you probably understand. I think some of our American guests, I think some of them understand Doctor Who, but some of them have no idea what I’m talking about.
[00:51:47.140] – Imran Siddiq
I think they do, yeah.
[00:51:48.960] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. If you had your own time machine, your TARDIS, and you could go back to the beginning. I don’t know where you would go back to because you’ve had interesting path anyway. Is there anything that you wish you were advising yourself, mentoring yourself, that you could just say to yourself that would assist you?
[00:52:15.120] – Imran Siddiq
No, I think that if I could go back, say five years previously to about 2018, to when I was really taking it seriously, I was watching a lot of YouTube videos. I was learning and observing what other people do. And I was on LinkedIn in all these places. I just did not use it. And I now regret that I didn’t start putting myself out there more? Because look, in the last two years, things have really developed. You build a brand, you build a personality. People get to know you. People want to work with you or talk to you, whatever. And I just wish I’d started it five years ago because I could have, but I didn’t because I wasn’t brave enough. I was scared. I thought, Oh, there’s all these experts who are mine. But you know what? Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone. So if anyone out there wants to create a channel about WordPress or web design or how to run a business, go and do it. You want to get yourself onto social media and you’re being lazy, stop being lazy, get on and do it. I should have started scaling upwards. I should have started being more blunt about how I’m going to run the business and what prices I’m going to charge.
[00:53:39.290] – Imran Siddiq
I need to… If I could go back five years, it was literally being more hard and not chasing the pound signs. I was earning a great salary five years ago. Really good salary. I was very happy. But even then, when someone said, I’m only going to pay 50 dollars for a website, I was like, okay, cool. Why? Why was I doing that? Why was I letting myself be take advantage of? And I think one of the things I do a lot now, and I try to release a video every week about business advice, is I keep saying to people, don’t get taken for a ride. Even when you’re struggling, right, don’t accept the worst deal on the table, even when you’re struggling, because that worst deal might help you to go and buy some fish and chips. But if you’re going to go to sleep, worried, panicking, how do I satisfy this client? How do I build this website? I told them I could do Woocommerce, but I don’t know how to do Woocommerce. That stress is going to is going to wreck your mind and your family and everything. And it’s not worth it.
[00:54:50.670] – Imran Siddiq
What’s that $100 really worth all that stress? So I feel like if I could go back in time, I wish someone had just put me in a corner and gone, Don’t say yes to everything, right? Even if you’re going to struggle a bit, I’d rather struggle a bit than… I’ve worked with some really bad people, really nasty- I think everybody has, haven’t he?
[00:55:14.600] – Jonathan Denwood
I used to think it was just me, and I was incompetent. But on the other hand, you do have to have business processes. I think what a lot of people in this space is, if you leave a vacuum, that vacuum will be filled. And if you just let projects just drift, and you allow clients just to provide material, and there’s nothing in the contract about how long a project will be left open, and then you have to rebit it. If there’s nothing there, it’s just a vacuum, that vacuum will be filled, and that vacuum will be filled by the client. And the client will not, even if the project gets finished in the end, months and months after it should be, They will take no responsibility. They will blame you because you took that check. So if there’s a vacuum, be aware that vacuum is going to be filled by the client, and it’s not going to go well.
[00:56:31.780] – Imran Siddiq
There’s one bit of advice I would also say that I wish I could have had five years ago, and I think everyone should take note of this. Throughout social media now, there are so many videos saying overnight, you could change your life and career and make $10,000 in a week.
[00:56:49.150] – Jonathan Denwood
You mean that book from the AppSooner guy that reckons you can build a million dollar business over the weekend? I thought you were talking about that particular book.
[00:56:59.150] – Imran Siddiq
No, it’s just And people are buying it and believing it. And what I keep saying to everyone is patience, right? You will not make $10,000 a week or a month just like that. It will take time. And you may never get there or you may exceed it, but it takes time, okay? So just because someone has said, Hey, I’m a web designer and I’ve got seven-figure salary per year. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know if they use AI to make the pretend they got values. I don’t believe half the social media influencers out there that are saying, Hey, buy my course and do this and whatever. Don’t fall for that. If they’ve done it, great. But you don’t know for sure, take time, right? And you will get to where you need to get to. But don’t rush into things. Don’t panic. Don’t try and do a million things. What you want to do is find two or three things that you know or you think you can do and do them really well. Like, Really put your all into them. If they fail, they fail. Move on to something else. If they succeed, keep building on it.
[00:58:08.500] – Imran Siddiq
Because five years ago, I was like, I’ll do this. I’ll do a bit of that. And I was stretching myself thin. Whereas now, I still stretch myself thin.
[00:58:21.430] – Jonathan Denwood
You waste your time coming on a particular podcast.
[00:58:23.690] – Imran Siddiq
I know. There you go.
[00:58:24.780] – Imran Siddiq
You could have been making another- You enjoy it more, but you enjoy it more.
[00:58:27.600] – Jonathan Denwood
You’ve been a good guest, though. Yeah, thanks. And hopefully, You will agree to come back on the show.
[00:58:32.490] – Imran Siddiq
Yeah, look, whenever you want to, let me know. Yeah.
[00:58:38.130] – Jonathan Denwood
So, Imran, what is the best way to learn more about you and the subjects you’re passionate about?
[00:58:47.440] – Imran Siddiq
I’ll tell you what: go to Google and search for Web Squadron. We have a YouTube channel. We have a Facebook group as well. I think I put out a video every other day at the moment, sometimes two or three But if you ever want to, search for Web Squadron. I got a web design agency as well. I don’t just do videos, but I love connecting with people. And most of all, I love to know I’ve made a difference. And if I’ve done that, I sleep well.
[00:59:18.690] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, we’ve…
[00:59:19.560] – Imran Siddiq
I think Kurt jumped off. Yeah, I think he had another appointment.
[00:59:26.440] – Jonathan Denwood
He did. But I’ve enjoyed the discussion. Discussion. Hopefully, you will come back, I think. Also, join the WP Tonic YouTube channel. We’re posting videos and content that you, the WordPress professional, will find helpful, and it does show your support. I know I regularly say it, but we got, like this interview this week, we got some fabulous guests coming up in April and March, and I’m sure you’ll be delighted by the discussions and the knowledge that our guests are prepared to share. We will be back soon, folks.
[01:00:08.860] – Imran Siddiq
Bye.
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