Interview: Recent Episodes
The Admin Bar
If you've heard the term Custom Post Types (or CPT's) being used, but never fully understood them— then this is the show for you!
Paul from WPTuts joins us to talk about what CPT's are, why they can be useful, how to use them, and some of the best tools to get the job done.
The subject is something much larger than a 1-hour show can cover, but this should get you started in the fantastical world of Custom Post Types! If you want to take it further, Paul has some great tutorials on the subject on his YouTube channel:
- Beginner Guide to Advanced Custom Fields & Elementor Pro
- Pods & Elementor Pro
- Front-End Submission forms
- ACF Pro or Jet Engine
I highly suggest you subscribe— there are hundreds of fantastic tutorials!
In today's episode of The Admin Bar Matt asks a question that he's seen pop up more than a couple times inside the Group. That question is who should by a clients URL. Both Matt and Kyle weigh in with similar thoughts but have bent our own rules a few times in select cases.
Kyle brings up the holiday season and choosing gifts that are thoughtful, unique, and something your clients will appreciate. Giving gifts can be hard sometimes, but a nice gesture at the end of the year to those clients that mean a lot can go a long way!
We're both super interested to hear what gifts you've given to your clients and if you've received any gifts from others (clients or agencies) that you've been particularly fond of! Let us know in the comments!
On today's show Kyle shares a valuable lesson he's learned that he wishes he could go back and tell his past self, and Matt poses the question "how far are you willing to bend your rules for 'good' clients?".
Plus a huge thank you to everyone who has joined and made The Admin Bar community what it is today— 3,000 members strong!
Start a free trial with Docket WP (https://docketwp.com/pricing) Join our 3K celebration on October 22nd (https://www.facebook.com/events/346026526476536) Join The Admin Bar community (https://theadminbar.com/group)
On today's show Matt talks about how live video training with his clients helps build relationships and Kyle talks about the incredible importance of keeping good backups and his recent move to BlogVault.
BlogVault
Video User Manuals
Docket WP
The Admin Bar is back to live recording our show! It's been a while but I've got to say, I do like recording live!
Today Kyle talks about a post he made in TAB's Facebook group about WebP, yay or nay and how much compression can you do to an image before the time taken to do so outweighs the benefits in the end.
Matt talks about two different outcomes from two clients who had ghosted him showing back up to continue (or not) their respective projects - one of which was TWO YEARS ago.
WebP thread in The Admin Bar
Get 20% off Docket WP with the code: LAUNCHSPECIAL
"I'll know it when I see it" thread
Get a real web design contract by Monster Contracts
Nurture Your Clients — Learn more at the Nurture Flow Podcast
Kyle and Matt are back after a brief hiatus to chat about the importance of being creative outside of work and how Kyle's found a way to do just that. Matt brings up how he's been feeling like every day is the same and the massive amount of wanderlust he's been feeling the past few months - so much so it's become a bit more difficult to focus on work.
Kyle Van Deusen (00:11): Hello, and welcome to the admin bar, the community and podcast, connecting people with the products, lessons, and strategies to help push their business forward. My name is Kyle Van Deusen from OGAL web design and docket WP. And with me as always is my good buddy cohost Matt Siebert from Matthew Sebert design. How's it going today, Matt?
Matt Sebert (00:28): It's going well. It's a, it's kind of like a gloomy day out there, but I kind of feel like that's good for productivity. We've been having a lot of like really hot days or really nice days. And on the nice days I want to be outside, I don't want to be sitting at a desk and on really hot days,
Kyle Van Deusen (00:44): It's just tough to work. Cause even with an AC it's, it's rough. Yeah. It's been a, it's been string of hundred degree days here. So I could go for a gloomy day, but we won't have one of those for awhile, but you know, it is what it is. It's been a while since we did this, I don't think we purposefully took a bunch of time off, but with the coma cumulative effects of COVID and busy business and trying to get things in order and I'm launching a product and just everything else we've been on a bit of a hiatus, but I'm excited to get back at this and get going again. I agree. So today again, Matt and I both brought a topic to the table and neither one of us know what each other's topic is, and I believe I'm going first, today.
Kyle Van Deusen (01:29): So mine has to do with actually finding finding some inspiration and kind of freeing your mind a little bit outside of a website design and development. So I don't know about you actually. I do know about you, but I don't know about you as in the audience. It's pretty common to get in a rut and get kind of stuck doing the same. Like I've done the same blog post layout 500 times am like, you know, you tell me to make an about you page and I'm gonna, you know, like I'm going to pull one of the three layouts. I know how to do out of the top of my head. And they're fine. And when I'm getting paid for a job, it's probably good enough. And but you know, sometimes it just doesn't, it doesn't get you motivated and excited to do these things.
Kyle Van Deusen (02:14): So I do the normal things. Most people do you know, look at other websites and I've got a bookmark folder where I where I've bookmarked layouts and color inspirations and all kinds of things alike. So those normal things, every once in a while, I will jump into Photoshop or illustrator here lately, Adobe XD and play with some layouts kind of outside of the browser. I definitely find that I'm more creative if I'm outside of the browser because I'm so used to just developing inside of mentor and like designing inside Elementor because it cuts out a whole step of the process. It seems to be more profitable and quicker that way
Matt Sebert (02:54): To fall into that, like repeat like repetitive nature of things. Yeah. You almost just start
Kyle Van Deusen (03:00): Bringing in all the modules the way they come style, then maybe doing a couple little tweaks to them, but you're like designing, using all the prebuilt like modules in mind. Right? So every once in a while, jump into XD or illustrator and, and play with some layouts and things. But I found it here, something recently that's really helped me a whole lot, and it has nothing to do with web design. And that is I've started picking up my guitar again, and I've gotten a, I go through waves of this where I'll get super fascinated with with music and guitar in particular. But I did some work on my, my other guitar, which I've moved did some work on it recently. Got it. Nice and set up. And I've started watching a lot of like musician, YouTube channels, almost everything I subscribed to on, on YouTube or musicians guitarists in particular.
Kyle Van Deusen (03:49): So I started watching a lot of like tutorial videos on like how to play, you know, cool songs or whatever. And then I started getting into like how certain companies, fender Gibson, whatever, how they build guitars and how they come up with new designs and why things are wired a certain way or whatever. And just getting into like this whole other field that's also creative getting out your guitar or your instrument and playing it. I feel like now when I come back to doing web stuff, like my mind is more open and expanded. Like I've kind of primed myself for being more creative because I've done something else, creative. I'm pretty obsessed with making websites. Like I spend most of my time doing this, but to find, to, to like actually exercise some of those creative muscles outside of sitting in front of the computer has made me feel better about when I'm sitting in front of the computer.
Matt Sebert (04:43): Yeah. That totally makes sense. And like similarly I subscribed to this this YouTube channel called company, man, which if anybody's interested in business it's a, it's a fascinating like micro documentaries where they'll take like the rise and fall of whatever business. The last one that I watched was, was Hertz rent a rental car and like how they began the several different owners of that business and all of that. But like bringing it back to what you, you talked about, that's still a little bit worky. It's still kind of feels like it's work because building businesses and like, you know, marketing and like all of that stuff is, is day to day. And I feel like a lot of my like personal interests blend a little bit too much into work that even when I'm, when I'm doing what I want to do, when it's like my time off, I'm sitting down and watching TV, I'm still watching something about business or about like growing your business or that type of thing.
Matt Sebert (05:50): But like when it comes to to like trying to clear my head, I'll go for a drive. And I've found, especially recently that if I listened to a podcast you know, even if it's not about business, even if it's just like a comedy podcast or like, you know, the Joe Rogan experience or whatever, like there are the, the biggest podcasts that are out there. If I listened to that and then try to go to work, I don't feel as productive as if I just listened to music. Like if I just listen to music, I'll get way more creative. Whereas podcasts, not so much.
Kyle Van Deusen (06:28): It's interesting. I mean, you can you're, you're more artsy than I am for sure. You can pick up a pencil and draw things. In fact, people could people could find a illustrated book you've created online if they dig hard enough. That is true. So, so you have that, that artistic side, another like creative thing you do. How often are you drawing at this point?
Matt Sebert (06:48): Almost never. Actually I sketched something recently a couple of days ago. I was just chatting to a friend and for some reason I drew her head on a squirrel body. So there's that, but I mean, actually sitting down and, and drawing something like purely for pleasure. I've done a couple of illustrations this year for work, but it's just, it's, it's not the same. Like I should be drawing more. I should be, you know, like expressing that a little bit more than I do.
Kyle Van Deusen (07:24): Well, my, my advice to you just based on what I've just playing the guitar more and noodling around, it's not like I'm doing anything good or worthwhile. It's just playing around really. But I feel like it's just expanded my creativity. Some is just like prime me for being creative. So my challenge to you would be this weekend. Why don't you sit down for a little while and just draw for fun and see if it see if it does the same thing for you. Right.
Matt Sebert (07:51): And, you know, it's funny I'm going to go back to that. Like that whole, all of my outside, like extracurricular things are still kind of work based. Like recently my last project, like outside work, like hobby project was building a display for my kitchen. I'm using a raspberry PI that would have like the date and the weather and like, you know, the Google calendar and like all my tasks and all that stuff for stuff to do at work for stuff to do at work. Yes. But like, I mean, even this, like it's a, it's running a, a small like webpage and that's what I'm using to display it. So even my hobby is like pull web stuff into them and like, yeah,
Kyle Van Deusen (08:34): You've, you've started flying your drone more often for work. Not technically for work, it's a, if the FAS poaching or anything, but just for fun, but work related things, but you've gotten out and done some of that just for yourself just to play around with it too. Yeah, for sure. That can be fun, creative, something different to do so. Yeah. That's my, that's my thoughts. I'm trying to get outside of website design and be a little creative. I don't think I'm the most creative person in the world. You can go look at my websites when something looked the same, but it definitely does help just to be thinking creatively.
Matt Sebert (09:11): Yeah. I actually just to continue your conversation a little bit longer for the first time in my entire life I've picked up a like a journal and I've started writing because one, I think it's going to be interesting to look back on when I'm like, you know, in my, my, my, what do they call it like silver years or something. Yeah. But even more so I, I'm not that great at writing. I never really have been. You know, I, I feel like I'm able to get my thoughts across vocally much easier, but writing and writing well enough is, is pretty important for what we do. And so I think that just journaling for a little bit will will help that too. Cause, you know, it's, it's like you're using different processes between speaking and then, you know, our thinking and speaking and then thinking, and then writing it down, it's like two different pathways to your brain
Kyle Van Deusen (10:09): For sure. And it also give the, the authorities a lot more clues as to what happened
Matt Sebert (10:14): When they find your journals. I don't know why it's a running joke, but I mean, it's, it's here, it's in my personal life. Like what is it about, but yeah. So yeah, if anybody's wondering, I have journals,
Kyle Van Deusen (10:31): If anybody can get their hands on them, let me know. I will pay a, a mighty, a fee for those urinals.
Matt Sebert (10:38): Well, they've only got like one entry in them so far, so it's not going to be interesting. I'd hold off for a couple of years. At least
Kyle Van Deusen (10:46): Today was a good day.
Matt Sebert (10:49): Hi journal. It's me again. So yeah, anyhow, my my topic is kind of in the same vein. It's funny how this happens. But mine is more of a I'm I'm finding it and like this isn't, there's no advice attached to this. There's no this is just like maybe somebody else out there is experiencing something similar. But like I'm having since like, since the whole COVID thing started and like, you know, my, my daily routine, which didn't affect me that much, because I'm pretty used to working at home. I'm used to sitting in an office alone all day. And that's always been fine, but like, since this has changed like, you know, society really I've found that even. So like before everything, I I would go out on Thursdays with a group of friends to a, to a local bar and like spend a couple hours there.
Matt Sebert (11:48): And like, that was, that was enough. Like I enjoyed that. And so, you know, every once in a while, I'd go out on weekends and join that same group of friends and do stuff. But like, that's, that's something that's been taken away. Like weekends are a little bit easier, but like midweek stuff, like nobody's going out, nobody's doing anything. So within the last couple of months, like I've really, I've really gotten gotten a lot more like wanderlust. Like I need to travel. I, and I, I think that like, all of this is culminating all at the same time where I feel distracted. I feel like I'm getting older all this time, like to myself and with my own thoughts and not being able to really like, you know, discuss these things. Like I used to with friends and all of that, that I'm like, I feel like I'm getting older.
Matt Sebert (12:37): I feel like I should be doing something more. Like, not necessarily like, you know, ORC is going great. Like I'm not like procrastinating with like client work. I'm procrastinating with my own things. But like, I don't know. Like I just, I feel not burnt out, not in a rut, but just weird, I guess. And like, I'm focusing more on like the end of my life and like what I've accomplished so far versus like what's to come and like, what, what do I really want out of life? And like, this is a super heavy topic.
Kyle Van Deusen (13:13): I was not expecting you to go there. Especially with me. Who's not super heavy.
Matt Sebert (13:18): Right. But like, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. What's like, what's really at the root of all of this, but I'm really I'm, I'm easier to S easily distracted more so now than I ever have been. And I'm not like, like I said, like work, isn't really suffering. Like this is a good year for me. Like all things considered like clients aren't suffering, like, you know, it's, it's not really impacting anything I could be doing better, but anytime there's like a personal thing like, or not personal, but like work-related, but for my own business or for, for something that would benefit me, I'm having a lot harder a time to get started on that stuff. Where instead I've got this free time, I could do something like, go on a hike or I could get out. I could go somewhere. And yeah, like, I don't know. It's, it's, it's getting harder and harder for me to sit still in an office all day, which is troubling because I should be used to that. Like, I've been doing that for 10 years.
Kyle Van Deusen (14:22): Yeah. I think, I mean, what we keep referring to it at our house is just like Groundhog day. Like every day, yeah. Days, weekends. It's just the same shit every day. And like, you know, usually, you know, before all this, on the weekends, we, you know, we live in a tiny little town, so we would drive 30 minutes away to one of the bigger towns to eat something decent for lunch or go shopping or whatever, you know, just take it out and about just for the sake of, yeah. And, and so, you know, we've had a running joke now, which is six months old. It's not even funny anymore, but we continue to do it like wake up on Saturday morning and go, okay, what are we going to do today? And whoever, whoever gets asked that question will come up with all these fun things we wish we could go do, knowing that we're just going to like sit our ass in the living room all weekend, because it's not really a great idea to get out and about too much, you know? And especially earlier during all this, we were going to like the state parks and stuff like that. But now it's a hundred degrees in Texas. It's been miserable all day long. So there's nothing you can do outside right now. That's enjoyable. But I think part of this is just like just Groundhog day and Mike, there's no new stimuli, you know, it's just kinda the same, you know, you're in an office, but you're also used to experiencing some new things every week and we haven't experienced new things in a while.
Matt Sebert (15:44): Yeah, it's true. I mean, I didn't get out that I'm, I'm, I'm a home body and I've always been, and I enjoy that. Like, that's, there's, there's nothing wrong with that, but that, that Thursday get together with with the same group of friends that I've been doing since I turned 21, like literally every Thursday, I think us up, up until this happened, I might have missed five in however many years. Like, what is that? 10, 11 years. That's insane. So to have that taken away and plus the the group of friends that I hang out with one of them, the, like the, the primary, like anchor of this group he works in nursing and not only nursing, like, so he works at a nursing home. But also in the food department or the dietary department there. So even getting together on weekends is tough because he has to like, really make sure that he's he's isolated.
Matt Sebert (16:42): So that just adds that extra complication where like, you know, if, if I had friends that weren't like in nursing and like had to be so separated, like, it wouldn't be as much of an issue because then, you know, weekends it's open to do stuff, but not here. So I don't know. I think that once all of this stuff like starts to normalize or go back to some semblance of what it used to be like I was actually just talking to a friend that I think it's Def, it's, it's probably a good thing in a way that that I'm feeling all of this right now, because when we do go back to that a, that point of like normality when somebody invites me to go somewhere or they're like, Hey, I'm going to Europe for a week. Like, do you want to go, right. I'm going to have a lot harder a time to say no, which is good, because I feel like, like, again, thinking about like growing older and all of these things, like I need to go out and do things. And I think my mind is just wandering to these places while I'm sat here trying to work, and it's just, it's making it, it's making it kind of tough.
Kyle Van Deusen (17:55): Yeah. And it's, it's hard to figure out what to do right now. You know, the, the only thing I can think of that might be helpful is, you know, we, we took a little bit of time away and we just rented an Airbnb in a different town in San Antonio. So it was a little ways away from here. We didn't do anything, but we sat somewhere else, which was nice. We got takeout from some different places we'd never tried before. And I felt a little bit better about the Airbnb situation. There was nobody there for like several days before we showed up and then we had a whole house to ourselves, you know? So it wasn't like hotel where we're like mixing and mingling with a bunch of people, you know? But you could, you could go do something like that. At least that'd be out of routine for a little while.
Matt Sebert (18:37): It's not a bad idea. Or like, even just getting out, like into the woods and go camping for a long weekend or something like that.
Kyle Van Deusen (18:43): Yeah. See, I don't, I don't like going somewhere where there's not electricity, so camping's out for me. That's fine.
Matt Sebert (18:49): I find man, but yeah. I mean, that's, that's something that's like I wanted to bring this up because I can't be the only person that I've worked at. That's having like these types of feelings and this this, like this wonder lost and being stuck with your own thoughts and all of that. So I'm curious to see what other people are doing to kind of like mitigate this. Like what, what, like, people in, in tab are doing on the weekends or what, they're, what they're doing to, to stop all of these days, just blending together.
Kyle Van Deusen (19:20): Yeah. And I think it'd be interesting too, to find out like how it compares different to people who are like married and have kids, like I'm in a house with,
Matt Sebert (19:31): With several other people,
Kyle Van Deusen (19:33): You know what I mean? That all have their, their kids are back in school and home, you know, virtual school. But they all have things going on. So I have a whole like group of people that were like, we have individual interactions and group interactions with our, you know what I mean? So I think that's probably different too and a little bit easier and probably harder in some ways for, for people that are, that have a different family situation they're living with at home.
Matt Sebert (20:01): Yeah. That's true. I mean, I know a lot of people are not used to being together with the people that they're like together with as much as they have been like case in point, my neighbors across the road, when all of this, like before all of this started like nicest people in the world. And then like, as all of this has progressed, like the the loud arguments are getting louder. Like, so I think, I don't know, man. It's like, it's a, it's an insane world out there right now.
Kyle Van Deusen (20:31): Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's weird. Hopefully feels like it might be getting better, but I've watched less news recently. So maybe that's just my perception.
Matt Sebert (20:40): Right? Yeah. So that's, that's my ask for anybody reading or watching would be to drop a comment and just say like, you know, let me know what you guys are doing, like inspire me to get out there and, and try to make all of these days less samey.
Kyle Van Deusen (20:57): Yes. That's a good idea. I like it. Awesome. Well, I think that that covers just about everything I will I will say me and Matt are planning on something pretty cool for the group. That's not going to happen for a couple months now. But it's going to be super exciting. I'm going to start teasing the idea that I'm going to be teasing something soon. So get excited about that preemptive T's yes. The tease to the teas. But we're going to, we're going to be doing something pretty neat in the group. I'm guessing probably sometime in October or early November. So you can definitely check that out. If you don't have a copy of the website, owner's manual the WAM, you can put in the coupon code podcast and get 20% off of that. Right now, I'm going to leave that up for a few weeks. So if you use a coupon, you can go to the admin bar.com, click on the WAM and the main menu and use the coupon code podcast. And that will not 20% off of that for you. And other than that, I think that's all I got. Matt, is there anything I didn't cover that you wanted to make sure we got to? Okay.
Matt Sebert (22:02): Yeah, I don't think so. It's a, it's a different episode than it, than it usually is. We didn't really talk about about web stuff, but yeah,
Kyle Van Deusen (22:09): No, not really at all. That's funny. We haven't been discussing what each other's topics are going to be, but both of us went outside of outside of WordPress for our for our conversation today.
Matt Sebert (22:21): Yeah. And both both kinds of mental health topics.
Kyle Van Deusen (22:24): Yeah. Kind of, yeah. Yours, a little heavier than mine. Mine was playing guitar more years was journaling and no, I'm just kidding with you thinking about death, thinking about death. Awesome. Alright guys. Well, I appreciate everybody listening and hanging out inside the group. If you enjoy this podcast. And the best way to help us is describe subscribe to our channels, like, and share everything you can. And keep hanging out with us inside the group. It's all free. It's easy. It takes very little time and it greatly helps support the show. We will catch you all on the next one. Bye. Bye.
In this episode of The Admin Bar Matt chats about a redeveloped website that launched just prior to the pandemic and how his client was nervous that something may have gone wrong. Kyle brings up how a recent client's mind may have changed when it comes to SEO and how troublesome it can be when clients have a difficult time producing good copy.
As always, we also pick a topic from the TAB Facebook group to chat about! Joe asked: "If you could give someone (like me!) who's just about to launch their web design company two pieces of advice, what would it be?" - GREAT question with a TON of comments from the members of TAB.
Kyle and Matt chat about the two topics we both bring to the table this week along with a post from inside The Admin Bar group.
Kyle's been reading quite a few books this year (on 12 so far) and he chats about the one that's stuck out the most along with what chapter stood out the most. What book? What chapter? It's all inside the episode ;)
Matt chats about the need to start generating more content for his website and how to 'just start' when it comes to not feeling wholly confident when it comes to writing.
The group post comes from Malakai asking about what kind of client gift ideas the TAB community has. (You'll need to be a member of the group to view)
Today we're trying out a slightly different format!
In this show Kyle and I discuss one thing what's been happening in each of our businesses.
Matt had a recent win with a client who brought a project concept to him that most likely would have been an ongoing pain, however once rethought with a different approach had awesome results.
Kyle digs into the Block Editor and how he's been experimenting with it, and how much it's grown since conception.
Today's show also ends with a chat about a recent post inside the Facebook group about taking on projects when a client requests using tools you're either not familiar with or not a fan of.
Shane Rielly joins us on this episode of The Admin Bar to chat about the differences (and similarities) between website design and graphic design.
All three of us began our design careers focusing primarily on some form of flat graphic design, be it branding, t-shirt design, or print design, but found ourselves - for one reason or another - leaning further into web-based design as our individual businesses grew... how come? Listen/watch to find out!
———————————— Links ————————————
Lonely Viking Website: https://lonelyviking.com/
Lonely Viking on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDtdyCHj9lecwbpcUV-P7rQ
Lonely Viking Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LonelyViking/
In this episode of The Admin Bar we're talking about organization and quality of life improvements and what with having a bit more down time than usual, now might be a good time to start building better habits.
From organizing your browser bookmarks, making your desktops looks spiffy (while also adding quick access to common folders), to ways to help get into the 'work' frame of mind.
We're also super interested to hear what methods you guys out there use! Let us know if you have any software or habits that help keep you on track during your work days!
———————————— Links ————————————
Rainmeter: https://www.rainmeter.net/
Droptop for Rainmeter: https://blacksquare88.wixsite.com/droptop4
Today we're joined by Pete Everitt and Jeffery Patch to chat about how they've teamed up to bring you their take on how outsourced search engine optimization services should be done. Their proactive approach to building your clients SEO is like none other. We'll dig into how it all started, what they're offering, how to onboard current and new prospects, and much more... So, without further ado, let's find out what's in store for SEOHive!
———————————— Links ————————————
SEOHive: https://theadminbar.com/seohive