412 - How Web Design has Evolved from 2010 to 2026 (my behind-the-scenes journey) with Amr Selim

To kick off the New Year, I wanted to share this convo I had recently for my email/DNS partner specialist Amr Selim which we recorded for his podcast where we do a recap of my journey from cabinet maker/drummer to designer/agency owner to course creator/community builder.

We also get into how different the industry of web design is today in 2026 compared to when I got started in 2010. But also, how many timeless practices and strategies work today like they did back then.

We also cover where AI is, how it’s affecting (or not affecting) web designers, how to utilize it with clients, where the DIY market is and more!

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/412

Transcript

Cold Open: Clients Butchering Templates

Josh Hall 0:00

The fact is, you can take a template that is designed in a nice way, and within three minutes, a client can butcher the hell out of that thing without even realizing what they've done. So, yes, an AI builder may be a starting point, and a client will ruin it so quickly because they are not a web designer. Nor should they be. DI wires, DI wires, freaking run your own business. Let web designers build your stuff. Yes, AI can be a tool and a part of the tool stack, but um, I think that the pendulum is going to shift. I think web designers are gonna be extremely valued over the next five to ten years in particular. Welcome to the web design business podcast with your host, Josh Hall, helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love. Hello, my friends. Welcome in to the first full episode of 2026. If you listened to my recap episode from a couple days ago, you know that I am uh getting over a post-Christmas cold. It's still hanging with me, but the show must go on. So, this first episode, I'm so excited to share with you. This is a chat I had recently with Amher Salem, who is a longtime colleague of mine. Amher and I actually met, as you'll find out, um, when I was running my Divi web design business, and I hated email, hated DNS stuff, and I met him through my Facebook group and found out that he loves this stuff. And we became instant friends and more importantly, partners with each other. Um, Amher became my go-to guy for all things DNS, email setup, domains, et cetera. So we've been working together for a long time, but it's been a while since we caught up. He's been on the podcast a couple of times before. The links to those episodes will be below and at the show notes for this episode, which can be found at joshhall.co slash 412. But uh Amher and I had a great catch-up chat, which is actually primarily for his podcast, but he was gracious enough to let me um share this with you to kick off the year because we really get into the differences between web design nowadays versus when I got started back in 2010. And then we also get into a little bit more of unpacking my journey from going from cabinet maker to drummer to web designer and then now coaching community builder. So for those of you who are new and may not know the full story, I hope this um sheds a little light on to you know how I've got to this point. Uh and we actually get into stuff that I've never talked about publicly. So even if you're a longtime listener, I hope you enjoy it. Show notes, joshhall.co slash 412 for this one. Big thanks to Amher. You can find him and check him out at humantalents.ca. Without further ado, here is Amher. And let's have some fun talking about web design nowadays versus when I got started all the way back in 2010.

Amr Selim 2:51

So, Josh, it's been some time since we met. It's been like what three years we've been saying that offline.

Josh Hall 2:57

Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think when we got initially connected, it was probably what, like 2018, something like that? 2017, 18?

Amr Selim 3:08

Yeah. Yeah, because you were I thank you for accepting that invitation out of the blue, because I didn't know you back then.

Josh Hall 3:15

Was it the Divi group?

Amr Selim 3:16

Was it Divi Web Designers group that we got connected in? I think I found you on the Facebook group and then I emailed you to have you to interview you. I didn't have a podcast, so it wasn't a podcast. I I, you know, sometimes when I get questions related to web design, and I feel like many people would have the same question, so why not record it and put it on YouTube? Maybe people find it even 10 years later. Who knows?

Josh Hall 3:43

Yeah, and then I, you know, what's what's interesting about that is when you it's a good lesson right off the gate. Like when you reach out to somebody to interview them, even if you have a show with modest numbers or it's just something they can repurpose, I got to know you and then your skill set because I needed help with email and domains, and I found out that you are a very rare person who actually likes that stuff. So I was like, please be my friend, because I do not want to ever do it stuff again. So we hit it off from the get-go, and then here we are, you know. Um, what, seven years later. So yeah, it's great to reconnect, man.

Amr Selim 4:17

Yeah, so lately I I've been thinking a lot about like, you know, as you grow older, I'm I'm gonna be 55 this January. Uh, and it's a it's a good number, five and five, right? So I'm gonna be ten. I like it. And it makes you think about your journey. It's not like that you want it to end, but it's kind of like sometimes you feel, so what's next? I've done this, I've done that, I've done that, and then like, okay, what else can I do? It's kind of you you want to keep reinventing yourself, and you don't feel like it's time to rest or retire yet. And my mind doesn't rest like my brain keeps on going in like 120 miles an hour. Sometimes I find it hard to sleep. So I feel about I think about the reinventions and and some of the stories that I heard in the past kind of strike me, and I want to know more about it. And one of them was your story. So I want to go back to I don't know, you graduating high school. Is that is that when you got your first job?

Josh Hall 5:25

I actually got my first my first job. So you're in Canada, so you probably know Tim Hortons pretty well. Uh, my first job was actually at Tim Hortons in the summer of my eighth grade year. So I think I was 14. I don't even know how the heck I got a job there. But I would just go in like and my whole goal with uh working at Tim Hortons was like once a week on weekends. I just wanted to save enough money so I could buy stuff from my drum set. I wanted to buy cymbals and uh, you know, like that. Remember the first time I got like a $135 check. I thought I was just rolling. And I went right to the to the percussion store in Columbus and got my you know, my Z symbol, my Zildjian symbol, and I just loved it. So um yeah, I yeah, started it, started basically just to make money for my drums. And then uh, and then yeah, I got a job. Well, at a at a tour bus customizing shop, which was local to me as well. It was actually so close that I could just walk there from my house, which is why I got that job, because it was before I got a license. And then before I started building cabinets there, I was actually just a janitor. So I would go in after high school and just clean up the shop and clean up the bathrooms and sweep, and it was a nice little you know, two-hour job after high school.

Amr Selim 6:36

So you were like what, 15 at the time?

Josh Hall 6:37

Yeah, yeah.

Amr Selim 6:40

And yeah, this like I mean, when you say cabinet maker, it's carpentry, right? Yeah, so how did you learn? Like what it was.

Josh’s Early Jobs And Band Life

Josh Hall 6:47

What poked your interest in that? It was completely on the job learning because I was cleaning up after these guys, and then um it so basically what that shop was was it was also electrical, it was like electrician, it was fabrication, and it was all for tour buses and specialty vehicles. It was pretty cool. Like Metallica's bus was in, Johnny Cash's bus was in. We used to get a lot of it was banned tour buses, buses, not like the tour. Oh, yeah. Well, those two, those two. They were they were literally uh related to music. Yeah, there were a lot of musicians that would come through. Um but then there were, yeah, there were like enterprise vehicles and fleets of, you know, sometimes it would be like government contracts. We'd build out stuff. So uh we would do stuff for like NFL, um, like tailgating vehicles. We had a line of those. So we did all sorts of stuff. So basically, like I was went from janitor to once I graduated high school, I didn't know what I wanted to do. The band wasn't able to be like full time, so I was like, yeah, I'll just keep on, you know, I'll learn more here basically. And then I learned cabinetry, um, and then fabrication, carpet work, and I didn't really have an interest in electrical, so I stuck with yeah, like building cabinets and and laminating and stuff like that.

Amr Selim 8:09

Nice. I mean, it's it's it is hard building things. It's like I I like DIYs, but uh in most cases I got like one little thing here or there wrong that bugs the hell out of me. And then I don't want to redo the whole work.

Josh Hall 8:23

Yeah, and that was one where it did help me, because I'm not naturally a detail-oriented person, I struggle with that still today. My wife is the opposite, she she is like extremely detailed, you know, like remembers every little last checklist, every little detail. I am just not wired like that. So that job helped me become more detailed because, like, in a in a tour bus, if you if you are like one millimeter off on the cabinet, you have just screwed everything else up. So, which I guess that's cabinetry in general is like that. But um, there was literally no wiggle room in a tour bus. Like in a house, you may have a leaky could probably push the cabinet a little bit over and it's not gonna go across walls. But in a bus, it's like you're packing everything in there, so yeah. So, in a way, like I and the bus moves as well. It moves, yep.

Amr Selim 9:15

It's um you don't want it to open in the middle of like it's gotta be, it's not just the measurements, it's also the hinges, it's everything.

Josh Hall 9:24

It's uh my manager one time was like, Why the hell did I get into this industry? I should have just done this in houses that don't move. Yeah, exactly.

Amr Selim 9:32

It's hard to do it on a moving thing. So, how long did you spend in there?

Josh Hall 9:37

Let's see, I was there for I would I worked in that job between being the janitor and then being a cabinet maker, I think for six years.

unknown 9:46

Yeah.

Josh Hall 9:47

Wow, that's over time five or six years, so all through high school, and then a few years after high school, as my my band, uh, I was a drummer and then got into a couple bands and then got into a pretty serious band out of high school. We were weekend warriors and then started traveling a lot more. Um, so I was able to be somewhat flexible with that job. They would give me like Fridays off often. Um, so yeah, I so then I I got more into the band stuff and really started taking that seriously. Um, and then with the cabinet making job, I got laid off, as did half of the company in 2009. So um, what happened? Did they not get as many orders as they used to? The recession that hit in 2008, which was completely unknown to me, I just didn't follow uh, you know, I just was not an adult. I wasn't, I had no idea what was going on with real estate markets and everything. So state, I don't know what it was like in Canada at that time, but stateside we had a big recession, and that trickled down to real estate and then to more automotive stuff. So it got really bad in 2009. Um, and then people, yeah, the you know, like large tour bus gas was really expensive then too. I remember that. Gas was like crazy, crazy expensive in those years. So it all trickled down to that industry being hit, and that and then that just triggered me getting laid off along with half half of the company almost in 2009.

Amr Selim 11:14

So, what happened? Like, you you found yourself like all of a sudden out of the job. What what did you think about like here's what I want to do next? How does the idea come?

Layoff And Leap Into Design

Josh Hall 11:26

Well, one of the biggest uh helpers on that was I had just purchased an SUV. I had just purchased a Ford Explorer, and so I that I had like a decent car payment for the first time, and I got laid off like two months after I got that. And uh at the time I was living with my parents and stuff, so it was you know, I was young, I think I was 22 at that point, 23. But I did, so I realized like I gotta make money, and I was doing ob jobs and working for friends and stuff, but because I was in a band, we were doing the weekend wear thing, we weren't making much money from that personally. Um, but I'd always had an interest in graphic design. And I had played around with Photoshop before, and so I I remember vividly, I think it was like the day after I got laid off. I was like, I'm gonna try experiment with graphic design. That was 2009. 2009, yeah. So I dove into Photoshop and started just DIY learning Photoshop, and because that was one of the hardest softwares to learn back then.

Amr Selim 12:28

I mean, it is still hard today, but like it's a little easier. But I remember not just that, the license was exorbitant. Like, what was it, $300? I can't remember. It used to be really expensive.

Josh Hall 12:40

So I got I had also at that time just started doing like night classes at the community college here in Columbus, Ohio. So I was able to get the student discount on it. Yeah, and um yeah, I just learned Photoshop, and then the main reason I learned Photoshop was because I wanted to start doing art for the band. So I was starting to do our t-shirt artwork and then print stuff, and I ended up creating our third album cover with Photoshop. So it was um it was beneficial in that like it helped the band, and I I just enjoyed designing. And then my light bulb moment came when we were playing a festival and somebody asked who designed our merch and our artwork, and I said I did. And they asked, How much would you charge to do ours? And it was like, dang, I could make money doing this. I always do I charge, I always do I charge. Oh, of course. Yeah, I had no business mind whatsoever. But that was the the the kick start of of of my yeah, my trajectory into graphic design, then eventually web design. And then funny enough, right when I started doing freelance graphic design and making money, um, my old manager called me from the shop, from the cabinet shop, and said, Hey, we're ready to have you come back.

Amr Selim 13:58

And that answered getting orders, yeah.

Josh Hall 14:01

Yeah, that was a really, really important point because I wasn't making much in freelance, but I just felt like if I go back to this cabinet job, I feel like I'm just gonna get sucked back into making $11 an hour. And I just don't know if I'm gonna break free from I wasn't married, I didn't have a relationship, I was living with my dad, I didn't have that many bills. So it was like I kind of felt like if I'm gonna go for it with like trying to, you know, doing some night classes and learning design and and getting into graphic design, now was the time. So I just stuck with it. And I mean, as I look back, I'm kind of surprised I had the balls to do that, honestly, because I really even my mom said I remember her saying, like, I'm so worried about you financially and stuff. And I'm like, I get it, but I just something inside you is like, I just don't want to go back to that, you know.

Amr Selim 14:52

You lead it out like nicely now because you said I wasn't spending that much, I was still living with my dad, so you don't have the expenses, you probably just had uh the car paying for the car.

Josh Hall 15:04

That was our insurance, yeah. Yeah, it was like you know, depending on pricing, even even modestly as a design, like a freelancer, I could make a few business cards and a brochure and a couple designs a month, and then you know, have have my bills covered. So it was a very, it was it was a big decision, but it was not a risky decision because I feel I could always go get that cabinet making job back. It's a calculated risk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot different than you know, now I'm coaching people who have families and are thinking about going full-time, and that's a whole different set of risks and things to be prepared for rather than somebody who has yeah, little bills and has that's why it has to be a calculated risk.

Amr Selim 15:45

It's not like you know, I get a crazy idea, I'm gonna dump everything and just focus on it. And it might, I mean, for some it might work, but it's kind of like do I walk a step back or do I walk a step forward? And which one is more beneficial? It's kind of a cost-benefit ratio sort of thing.

Josh Hall 16:06

Totally. Calculated risk. I like that term. That's that really is what it is, and that's a lot easier when you're younger and you don't have as many bills, expenses, and responsibilities.

Amr Selim 16:17

That's what my son is saying right now. He's 22 and he just started his business in March. And uh he only had about a year left to graduate business school, but he he's still graduating, but he's doing it a little bit slower to focus more on the business. And then he keeps on like we keep having the conversation. So, what's up, what's the plan, whatever. And he says, Look, for as long as I'm living with you guys, I'm okay. Like, I'm so I I can take that risk, like it's a calculated risk, which is a good thing to do.

Josh Hall 16:53

Yeah, yeah. Sounds like I mean, sounds like an awesome kid. That's sounds like what I would do. Heck yeah.

Amr Selim 16:59

Yeah, and uh so from graphics to web, I mean, this is the most obvious bridge ever. Like, I'm probably the only one who didn't do that. I I switched from IT to web, not from design to web design. I I switched from servers and and like you know uh administration, like kind of IT administration and and setting up you would at the time they were not called data centers, but whatever resembles the data centers these days, and just moving to web because I realized that the IT is like it's got so many people. Like there was about 40,000 people who could do the job I'm doing at the time I was doing it, and I wanted to do something unique, and when I became like a user of the internet, it was just something unique and I wanted to know how it worked. Like, how does this thing work? It's a network, it's still a network, but like, how does it work? You know, how can I send an email at the other side of the world and it arrives in minutes? What makes it work and what makes it not work? And that's why that's why I still like doing the email stuff today, because I was intrigued by it, like I don't know, 20 years ago, and and I continued.

Dreamweaver Days And First Web Clients

Josh Hall 18:25

But that's what made us great referral. That was that's what made us great partners, by the way, is because yeah, the background differences between like you going IT to web, me going design to web, and then I don't give a crap how email works. I just want it to work. So if I like you have that like intrinsic, like let me figure this out, which made us perfect because that just drained me. I was like, I really have to work to figure out how this works. You love it, let's partner up. Yeah.

Amr Selim 18:51

I love anything back end, the stuff that people don't see, the stuff that makes the world work, but it doesn't look pretty, and people most of the time tend to ignore it or wait till this is the thing as well. This is the funny part. Most web designers they wait till the problem happens, then they scramble trying to find somebody like me to solve it for them. But why don't you include this as a service in every new design you're doing? Just make sure that the emails are going out properly, everything is set up properly. It will save you headache and it will save you face when the client calls and says my emails are not going out, as if you did a mistake. And and sometimes there's no mistake, things change. Like when Google and and Yahoo and other you know email providers changed uh I think it was what a year or a couple of years ago, and they said we're gonna strict and like kind of the rules, and if you don't have the proper DMARC and DKIM records and SPF records, nothing is gonna be delivered. So yeah, so anyway, um let's just go back. So from The bridge from web design, sorry, from graphic design to web design. I remember you said you were volunteering at a church. Is that how it started?

Josh Hall 20:10

Yeah, I was actually um I was like volunteering for a church and I was doing I was drumming for like the praise band in the middle of our like metal drumming days too, um, occasionally. And then they got wind of me doing design. And it was a small church, they didn't have anyone doing the web. It was like an assistant pastor who was trying to build a website, and he was like, Do you want to take the website on? And I was like, Sure, I'll give it a go. And they offered to pay me a little, and they sent me to uh another like night school class to learn back then was Dreamweaver back in 2010. Yeah, yeah.

Amr Selim 20:45

I loved it at the time.

Josh Hall 20:47

Yeah, it was pretty quick. It was a pretty quick transition from Photoshop, a little bit of Illustrator, and then right into Dreamweaver and basic web. Um, I I did a lot more design, like print design and graphic design for the first couple years and like slowly learned web. Um, but those those two, like like I've said many times, all roads lead to the website. What's that?

Amr Selim 21:10

Was that 2010 or or 2010?

Josh Hall 21:13

Yeah, yeah, that would have been like 2010 is when I started doing Dreamweaver. Um, and then by the end of 2010, I had built up enough freelance clients between print design, graphic design, and very, very basic websites that I was like, all right, I'd like I think I can make an official like business out of this. So I did. And my whole goal at that point was to still get a job as a designer. I had no interest at that point in like running my own business and being a true entrepreneur, but I I had made enough to be like, okay, I think I could like do freelance and not have to do you know shitty crap jobs on the side just to make enough rent or make enough for my bills. And then a couple years of doing that, I built up a pretty good network as a freelancer. And then one of the years, I think it was two, yeah, 2012, I had made almost 30 grand on the side. And then I was like in a place, yeah, I was in a place to where like I could have got a job as a junior developer, designer. And I had a good a good friend of mine who was actually on the podcast recently, Chris Webb, who's a corporate web designer. Um, I was really close with him through those years and was kind of wanting to be the next him. And he actually took me into some of his offices and showed me like the agency world. And I was like, it'd be so cool to be a designer and as an agency. But then when I, you know, made that amount, I was like, man, I did that on the side. What if I like went for this? I'm like, I I could probably do like six figures in the next couple years. So that's what I did. That's that gave me enough foundation and confidence to say, like, I'm like gonna make this a real business. And then I called it in Transit Studios.

Amr Selim 22:58

Was that a scary part back then? Because I mean, it it's a little bit similar to when the cabinet when the cabinet making shop called you back and you thought about it, no, I want to move forward and see where it's where it leads me. But this time it's a bigger step because you you're gonna go completely solo. Yeah, that and a company, build the business, yeah.

Josh Hall 23:18

And I had also just in 2012, I had met my now wife. So we had just started dating, so there were a lot more implications at that point. But I think what was different is that I didn't have like a job I passed up on or quit from. It was just like I can try to go as far as I can with freelance. And my mindset then too is like if you can build up your own freelance business, you are very, very, very valuable in the agency world because you show that you can communicate and you can manage projects and you can design and you can stick to deadlines and you can work with people and you can handle a lot of different things in a freelance role that makes you much more valuable. My thought was like in an agency type of setting.

Amr Selim 24:10

Um, do you think playing music in a band also gives you a lot of people skills?

Discovering WordPress And Themes

Josh Hall 24:15

Oh, huge, huge. I'm so glad you mentioned that because I I it's I'm I kick myself talking about this journey and not um thanking the band experience because yeah, so much of being in a band design it's you and a computer, like you're not you're not really out there, but the band, you're on the road, you're out all the time, you go to different states and different cities, and well, and in a band, and it's funny because being in the web design world, I thought I was such a unicorn, I thought I had such a unique story, but I'm just like most web designers out there, like a surprisingly large amount of web designers were in a band, and then they got into either video or photography or design, and then you're gonna be able to do it. You gotta be creative from out.

Amr Selim 25:00

Yeah.

Josh Hall 25:01

And the thing, the thing that translates between music and and freelance business, creative business, is when you're in a band, you are you create a brand. Like you, you, you and you and the the people you're in a band with, you guys create some sort of marketable product. Whether you don't want to use those terms in a band because it's like, oh, that's laying, bro. But you are like you have like a customer base, you have an ideal customer avatar, you are a you know, a brand. And yeah, the the level of like marketing skills and communication skills are are almost immeasurable because what you don't realize when you're young in a band is you're learning how to communicate with people, you're only learning how to compromise, how to stand your ground, um, showing up on time. There's often deadlines. If you're a serious band, it's like, all right, we got to get this album done. It needs to go to the printer, it needs to do this. So, like you're you're dealing with real deadlines, and then you're dealing with marketing pushes, you're dealing with an album launch, you're dealing with travel and logistics and um, yeah, people skills and planning and emails and calls. You're dealing with all these things that are actually what we do in business, just in a different creative outlet.

Amr Selim 26:13

Yeah, the product is different, but the the process is exactly the same.

Josh Hall 26:18

Yeah, and then you get to the thing where it's like the the product itself is gonna change over time. And then it's like, I don't feel like doing this. Like, I'm sick of these songs, I don't want to do this anymore. But sometimes in business, it's the boring, monotonous stuff that is actually you know gonna help you stay foundational and solid through different pivots and different times. So um, there's so much that translates to the world of creative business for sure.

Amr Selim 26:46

And when did you think that WordPress? Because I I did design with Dreamweaver, and it was my go-to thing, until someone asked me uh if I tried um a content management system, and there was something called Joomla or yeah, oh I had a terrible Joomla experience early on, yeah.

Josh Hall 27:10

As did most people who use Joomla, yeah.

Amr Selim 27:13

And then, but like with with Dreamweaver, there was a we used to like lock some areas of the page so the client cannot mess up the design so that they can only you know change some text here and images there, but they cannot change, for example, the menus or or the footer or whatever. But it wasn't easy, like even though it was a great you know um tool and process. Uh, but then I I I found I personally found WordPress in 2010 and I started playing around with it. So when did you when did you learn that there's something called WordPress?

Josh Hall 27:51

I heard about it in 2010, like right when I got started in Dreamweaver, actually. Um, it was just some guy at a party. We were playing beer pong, and he was like, I just found out he was in web design and um he had mentioned WordPress, and then I just it sounded I thought I had heard of it as like a blog style site, so I didn't think too much of it. And honestly, like I didn't think too much of it. I didn't know what a blog was. Yeah, and and and that was I mean, that was still early, even in the blogging days, but I even even with him, I was like, I just didn't think it, I didn't take it seriously until 2011 and 12 when it came up more and more and more and more, and then like WordPress themes started coming out, which this was before page builders like Divi, Elementor, etc. So um back then, I'm trying to think of the actually, I think it was a friend of mine who was in a band, and they hired a web designer who did a WordPress site for them, and he showed it to me, and I was like, wow, and I was like, you can log in and change this, and you could pick your theme. And I was like, this is so much easier than Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver was cool because you could write HTML and somewhat visually put stuff in there and and then see uh use CSS and see it. And I think I was really good from like a basic sense of even today how basic like websites function and work with proper HTML and markup. But yeah, WordPress came along, and then once once Theme Forest and sites where you could you could basically go and purchase a design and put it in with WordPress, that was the game changer. So most everybody, I feel like, even that I knew in web design went that route, unless you were like hard coding sites and going extremely custom. But most freelancers and small businesses at that point went to WordPress. So it was a pretty like it was a no-brainer for me to take WordPress more seriously through 2011 and 12.

Amr Selim 29:46

Yeah, so when you were starting your company, your web design company in transit studios, um, were you when you started, were you WordPress exclusive, or you still did some Dreamweaver and HTML stuff?

Josh Hall 30:00

I did some HTML and Dreamweaver because I I so I technically started it in the fall of 2010, and I called it In Transit Studios because our third album was called In Transit, and it just it was at the same time. So I was like, that's a cool name, it's not registered. I like it, we'll go with that. So I did start with Dreamweaver, and then I I want to say it was 2011-ish, like late 2011, when I was like, okay, I think I can like do a WordPress website. Um I definitely should have taken an official course to guide me through that because I made my life way more painful than it needed to be learning WordPress. Um, I just was like fumbling through tutorials and uh did not do it in an efficient way. And then I was trying to like YouTube wasn't as big as it is right now. Yeah, right. It was it was different. Then also I was stuck in the like you you design up a layout in Photoshop, you slice it up, you bring it in a Dreamweaver, and then you use CSS. And I was trying to do that with WordPress, but I didn't understand how WordPress works. So it was a really messy transition that I wish I would have just taken a WordPress course. I'm sure there were some back then on Linda or Udemy or whatever was available. Um, but WordPress was still new.

Amr Selim 31:15

Of course.

Josh Hall 31:16

I should probably give myself some leeway because back then the learn the learning space was very different too. Like I don't know how much was online in the learning end of things back then. Not much, not much, not much.

Amr Selim 31:28

I used to buy lots of books, so I bought all the Linda books. Did you get WordPress for dummies?

Josh Hall 31:34

Everyone had that, right?

Why Divi Won And Page Builders Evolved

Amr Selim 31:35

No, no. I so here's the thing because I wasn't I didn't have a web design business back then. It was I was teaching web design in in an institute between 2002 and maybe 2004-ish. And then I went and I joined another business as an IT manager. Uh, but I would also teach in the evening, I would teach web design again in the evening, so it was like a dual role. But then somewhere around, like, okay, in 2007, I was working for the government, so I wasn't designing websites. I would sit with the guy in charge of that government department's website to see how he's doing stuff and you know, uh put my nose in his business, but he was a lovely guy, he didn't mind it, and and he was a PHP developer, he was a developer, he wasn't like he was he could build an application on his own, completely on his own, in in PHP at the time. And uh the the website was not WordPress, and I was trying to convince him to separate the two, so have the app somewhere and have the other services and the government services and the interface for the system that we were using somewhere, and then have the site as WordPress so that he can give it to the PR department and they can manage it, and it's less headache for him. Uh, but until I left the government department in 2013, uh, I don't think the website was in WordPress yet. I don't know what it is right now.

Josh Hall 33:07

Gotcha.

Amr Selim 33:08

So I wasn't really designing as per se. I I I started to look at uh I would do things for friends, family, you know, acquaintances on the side. Uh, but I didn't have a business. I just worked for the government from 2006 and 2013. And after this, I worked for a software company. Uh so yeah, we did some interfaces, but it was hard-coded HTML and TSS as well. Uh, but I switched it, their website was in Yumla, and I switched it to WordPress. So that was an accomplishment.

Josh Hall 33:42

That was pretty common too, because there was in those years, uh, fellow web designers who were around back didn't probably remember. There was a bit of a, I don't know if there was like an official race, but you were kind of your your tool stack back then was WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal, if unless you wanted to hard code a website. Whereas now it's like, I do feel for folks getting started now, because it's like, I'd like, do I want WordPress? Do I go to Squarespace? Do I do show it? Do I do Webflow?

Amr Selim 34:11

There's element, or do I use AI or not use the i? Do I do this or not do that?

Josh Hall 34:16

Back then it was pretty like it was pretty, you know, you you're still you're you're either gonna hand code it, Dreamweaver, or there was a couple other similar Dreamweaver ones, or you're gonna do a CMS, a content management system, which was gonna be Joomla, WordPress, or Drupal. And very quickly, WordPress took over. I mean, 2011, 12, and 13. I'd love to see the growth trajectory of WordPress because I think it probably skyrocketed.

Amr Selim 34:42

Yes, it went from probably a couple of million to like maybe 15 and then 20 and then 30 and then 40.

Josh Hall 34:50

30 percent of the internet, I think, is probably about where WordPress was by 2013. So yeah.

Amr Selim 34:57

I remember when I was in the in the software business in probably 2015, uh, the established web designers who used to do hard-coded websites and were very proud about it, would tell you that um if you do a website on WordPress, you're not a real designer. He used to be like kind of used to be called out on it. Ah, he's lazy, he's using WordPress. And it's like, dude, it's not about being lazy, it's about when the project is done. Like, okay, you can design the best thing in the world, you could be the most skilled person in the world in an industry, but you gotta think about the client. Yeah, when they get their stuff, they need to be able to do things in it. Like, this is the main thing. This is the main reason WordPress and like the likes of WordPress exist today.

Josh Hall 35:49

I mean, what's interesting about that time period in web design is I I understand, and it's kind of funny now because like I feel like WordPress developers and designers now feel that way too, like new web designers getting on, you know, using a hosting builder or or yeah, just like an AI builder where it's like real web designers you use WordPress. Don't do that, yeah. So it's like it's just you know, it's kind of like the progression is just kind of you know, it's it's like every every five years, it it just goes back to that what that was.

Amr Selim 36:20

I mean, think of it like if you're gonna put a hole in the wall and you could do a manual drill and keep going, yeah, and then the electric drill comes up, and then people say, Oh, people who use the electric drill are just lazy.

Josh Hall 36:34

Yeah. It's a tool, yes. It is a tool, it's all a tool. Whether you hand code the tool or you use a tool that's already got stuff in there, I mean exactly. The the thing is though, it is it is the client side, and I don't know what the small business world was like in in those years as much. I mean, I just started doing freelancing.

Amr Selim 36:55

From page, Microsoft front page.

Josh Hall 36:57

So was that like the main web builder?

Amr Selim 37:00

It wasn't the main thing, but it was a way for the medium-sized companies would give the web design job to the office manager or or one of the secretaries if it if it's a like a little bit bigger of a company. And then once they do the first iteration that doesn't look as good, then they send them to take a course, like in somewhere in one of the institutes. Uh which these used to be the people I used to teach when I was teaching web design. And and you would teach them front page, Dreamweaver, HTML, and CSS. And uh I don't know, like where I came from, there were not as many web design companies and agencies, like in the Middle East. In each country, you had maybe two or three big ones, very reputable, but it was really hard to find freelancers, or there was no upwork or Fiverr, or maybe they were not famous at the time. Sure.

Blogging For Elegant Themes And Community Building

Josh Hall 37:58

Well, even in and back in like really anywhere in between 2009 and 2012 or 13, small, like a small business to get a website up until really WordPress was a big deal. Like you were just a small business was not gonna pay 1500 bucks and get a hand-coded website, it unless it was and it was so complicated to manage. Yeah, yeah. Managing was a problem. And I remember when I did one of those night classes uh for the Dream Weaver course, actually, the professor showed us one of his sites, and I think he said it was like a $20 or $30,000 bill. This was you know back in 2010. Yeah, and nowadays that would be like a $900 website kind of thing. I mean, it was really it was it was so different on the small business side of things. And funnily enough, I think one little fun piece about musicians getting into web design is MySpace. Because MySpace back in those days allowed the average person, if you were interested at all, to play around with the HTML and you could build a header and you could customize. I mean, I remember doing like very basic MySpace designs, and then yeah, you could slice it up, and it was basically like a little mini website on your MySpace account. So um, that was kind of a factor too to where I think people were getting into web design unintentionally through MySpace. I mean, so many web designers around my age in the 30s or early 40s, yeah, we're in a band, customize our MySpace pages, and the next thing you know, we're building websites for people.

Amr Selim 39:34

There was something similar called JOCities as well. Uh the similar to MySpace. So what made you like how did you find elegant themes? What made you look into it?

Josh Hall 39:51

What's funny is I was very against Divi and page builders initially. Very against it. Me too. Yeah, there you go. I mean, especially. From coming from your world, I can imagine that would have been a much harder sell. But what happened is back in those days, this would have been 1314. Is you would go to a site like Theme Forest, buy a dentist theme, and then build that on a WordPress site for your dentist. And then you get an auto mechanic, you'd search auto mechanic themes, you'd say, which one do you like? They like that one, you'd build that on WordPress. Divi was revolutionary back in 2014 because there was a couple other page builders, but they f they just sucked. It was a clunky, terrible experience. Divi was the first one that was smooth and was pretty dang easy to figure out. And you could use WordPress, but it was visual. It was like you could build the blocks of the page. And nowadays it's like, well, duh, that sounds like what you would want to do anyway. But back then, I mean, I can't believe I already sound like such an old geezer in web design. But back then it was like, holy cow, you can make a header and then move the blocks around and you can save a header section and this and this module. Um, so back then it was revolutionary, but I still had a hard time taking to it. Um, the way I got into it was one of my clients was a CPA, and they their marketing guy worked for like a bigger agency in town. And this marketing guy was like, Hey, I really like your stuff. My agency is actually looking to like just hire out occasional web design help. It's not a full-time role, but it's just, you know, you can work from home, take on projects as you see fit. We use this page builder called Divi, and that's how I got that's how I found out about it. I was like, oh, it was forced on you. I was for yeah, yeah. I I had to use it if I wanted to take on jobs from this company. Um, and it was just a subcontractor role, and I got to make extra money. I didn't have to sell, I didn't have to talk to the client. They just gave me designs and I would build them in Divi. So that's how I got started with it. And then I remember working on like a Theme Forest WordPress website, and I could not get the theme to do what I wanted to do. And then it dawned on me. I'm like, I could do this in Divi. And then Divi just I became the one I used for every site. And then I really learned how to customize it and save sections and make it my own. And then that's what started my foray into Divi.

Amr Selim 42:17

So why did you decide you wanted to write about this experience? Because you were like, I don't know, one of the famous bloggers for Divi.

Josh Hall 42:25

Yeah, so Elegant Themes, which is the company that owns, well, runs what is what is Divi? Divi's their signature product. Which what's funny is Elegant Themes used to do just a bunch of themes for WordPress. Divi just happened to be the one that was page builder friendly, and then it just took off. Um, back in those days, Facebook groups were even bigger than they are now, especially in web design. And I was in a Divi group, and the content manager for the Elegant Themes blog, which was huge at the time, lived in Columbus. And this was back in the day when in Facebook, uh, unless you changed your privacy settings, it would say where you posted from.

Amr Selim 43:04

Yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh, he's in Columbus.

Josh Hall 43:07

He's that's crazy. So I just messaged him on Facebook and it was like, hey man, um, I'm a Divi designer. At this point, I was just knocking on the door of six figures with my business. This would have been circa 16 by now. So a couple years of using Divi and building my freelance business and really, you know, getting to a six-figure level. And then I just asked him if he wanted to go out for coffee. I had no intention, I had no hidden agenda. I just wanted to meet him. And I am a community builder at heart. I do, I'm a I'm a network builder at heart. Um, so I met him and then told him about my business. And then he was like, I it was funny because I was just I did not value my journey at that point and what I had built because I always felt like I should have been in a big agency downtown. And I was like, I'm just the solopreneur.

Courses, Maintenance Plans, And Recurring Revenue

Amr Selim 43:59

We all do this to ourselves, actually. We we all like it's uh I don't know if it's the imposter syndrome or is it something else, but like you will be doing something that is very valuable, but you think, ah, normal, everybody else is doing something valuable, yeah.

Josh Hall 44:14

And then you don't talk about it, and you don't talk about it. And with him, I think because I've always been open with numbers and business stuff, I just told him, like, yeah, we're actually we should be hitting six figures this year. And he was like, Wow, he's like, Would you like to write for the elegant the elegant themes blog and just share your experience on pricing and onboarding and offers? And part of me was like, Yeah, like who's gonna want to learn from me? Like, there's agencies doing you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars. And he's like, Yeah, but you, you know, he if I remember right, I think he said a lot of people would like to do what you do, which is make a hundred thousand dollars, work for yourself, work from home, have 20, 30 clients. And I was like, huh, I guess you're right. I think a lot of people will, I would like that five years, you know, five years ago. I would have loved to have learned from me. So that's how I became a blog author for elegant themes. Yeah.

Amr Selim 45:05

But this is interesting for me because there's there is no money angle here. You did it because you wanted to do it. Like it's not you're not doing it to market your services, you're not doing it to make money. And this is for me, that's a lesson also, because it it's also how I'm wired. Sometimes I do stuff, I don't know why I'm doing it. I just want to do it, I just like doing it. I I don't even think about why I'm doing it. Like, you know, uh, if it helps somebody, great. If it doesn't, then I would have wasted some of my hours, but it doesn't matter. I like doing it.

Josh Hall 45:37

And I I guess a through line through my journey that I should probably say now is I love teaching and I love sharing what I'm doing. Um, I am a big fan of the like C do teach model, which is and and I even with drums, uh, I was giving drum lessons when I was at the height of drumming for the band. I was giving drum lessons to kids locally, and I love doing that. Um, at this point, too, working with elegant themes, I was also involved in a mentor program for my local high school for kids who wanted to learn design and 3D and game design and web. Uh, and I really enjoy a couple of the students who went through that and were fired up about it. I love teaching them. If they were fired up to learn web design and wanted to do what I did, I love teaching them. So there was an element of that of like, it's kind of a fun passion project. I get to blog on a site that gets like hundreds of thousands of readers every week. Um, it was pretty cool. And I just kind of figured again, it was one of those things where it was like nothing to lose in the sense of I was getting paid per article. I wasn't writing for free, it wasn't a lot of money, but it was cool. It was a little bit of extra money, and I enjoyed writing for them. And I figured there's no downside to writing for elegant themes. Like, no matter where I go on my journey, it's gonna be cool to be like I wrote for elegant themes.

Amr Selim 46:57

So I wrote for elegant themes, yeah.

Josh Hall 46:59

Yeah, yeah. Because I went for a while, my first foray into YouTube and building what is my brand now was Josh. They called me the Yoda of Divi, and I was a blog author author for Elegant Themes. That was in my you know tagline for years, and it all started.

Amr Selim 47:17

But I mean, I I so when I I moved out of the Middle East and migrated to Canada in 2015, um, well, 2015, I still had my job in Dubai. So I came and I left my family here, and I went back to Dubai for another nine months, and then I came back and settled completely uh in Canada as a permanent resident in 2016. And so but so I registered my company in 2015 so that when I come to Canada, I'm an entrepreneur, and my company was supposed to be doing something completely different. It was supposed to be selling software of this industry that I was in. Yeah. And it was supposed to be HR software, that's why it's called human talents. Um, but it morphed into like this is the third iteration of my company right now. Uh, but anyway, so I wanted to build the first website uh for my new business, but I didn't have the time because I had to deal with settling in Canada as a newcomer, you know, everything else, and I hadn't seen my family for nine months, and the kids were going to school, and you know, uh I didn't have the time to build it myself. So I hired somebody and they built it in Divi. And when I got it, managing it was a nightmare. So I started watching at that time, like 2016, YouTube was strong enough, you could find stuff there, and the Facebook groups. So I started to read some of your blogs, and I saw a couple of tutorials, some of your tutorials, some somebody else's tutorials, and started to learn Divi bit by bit, and just to be able to manage my own website. And once I knew what I was doing, I realized how much power is in that. And I also, yeah, I mean, I did buy the Divi Lifetime license somewhere in 20 maybe 14 or 13, I can't remember.

Josh Hall 49:17

Oh, wow, so you were early on, and I never used it. Gotcha.

Amr Selim 49:21

I bought it because it was like lifetime, it's a deal, right? It's got like a hundred bucks back then. So I would play with this later. Like, yeah. And um I started to realize also that the guys in elegant themes, they're not stagnant. Because here's the thing in my opinion, the biggest differentiator between them and any other tool that you use for web design is that they're always doing something new, they're always making things better. And even though at the time, I think maybe 2017, everyone was mad at Divi because it was slower in loading. Well, they were saying it's slower, it wasn't for real, but in general, like in most cases, it was their hosting that that was the problem. But anyway, uh, they would there was this kind of reputation that Divi is heavier than other page builders, and and some people were telling others to avoid it. And it was when I got too passionate to try and prove it, so I would I would put uh similar website in the same hosting, one is using Divi, similar looking, one is using Divi, and one is using Elementor, and then I would test, and then I would see if Divi for real like I like doing these hands-on projects, uh, but at the same time, I could see every maybe five or six months, uh, Divi launches new features that nobody else has. And you're thinking, like, okay, so if people are buying stuff from Theme Forest, yeah, you'll get some updates, you'll get a patch here and there, you get security updates, maybe you get some CSS stuff, maybe you get um some update that makes it load a little bit faster, but that's about it. But if you're using Divi, you get a completely different way of getting something done. Like it's a it's a it's amazing. It's kind of amazing how they did now they did Divi5 and they're not charging separately for it. If you had Divi, you get D V5 with it, like now. It's like it's a completely different software, and they're not so I love the ecosystem and I love how they run their business. And I think you echoed this in in your training, which is a good segue now. Uh you're an intransit studio, you're a successful business owner, you have this web design agency. Why did you create courses? I mean, you already had blogs, you had tutorials on YouTube, uh, you had your Facebook group. You there was so much going on. So, what made you think? Let me do my own course.

Moving From Courses To Membership

Josh Hall 52:03

So, in when I started blogging for Elegant Themes, my profile in that world went up skyrocket. It was big time. So then I started my Facebook group, which is called Divi Web Designers. It's the second largest Facebook group for Divi still today. Uh Tim Streifler with Divi Life owns it now. I sold it to him back in 22. But I built that, I built, hey Tim, I built that group, um, which is kind of funny because like what I learned in building that group, I was, you know, technically a community builder back then, and now it's mainly what I do now. So it's like, you know, I started building that. And the main reason I did that is because I thought I would become a like child theme creator and build Divi layouts and plugins and themes and stuff like that. I had no interest or desire to do courses at all, but people kept on asking me how to do certain stuff and asking for courses. So I think back then it probably would have been. I want to say like maybe it would have behooved me to have like a Divi course as the first one I did.

Amr Selim 53:12

This restart in your life came because people demanded it. Yes.

Josh Hall 53:16

Well, yeah, yeah, people demanded it, and then also you would think I would have just done a Divi course. I started my YouTube channel, I was doing Divi tutorials, but at that time my first daughter was born, and uh I've told the story many times, but we spent two months in the NICU, the newborn intensive care unit, and that was a very trying experience. What got us through that and what allowed me to barely work through those couple months was our maintenance plan. And I had built up enough recurring revenue and our maintenance plan to help carry us through that. And when I told that story, and and I just, you know, felt it was such a top of mind like personal thing for me. I was like, you know, I was like, I don't feel like I'm ready to you know do courses and teach people business, but I'm like, I can absolutely share how I do my maintenance plan and you can build recurring revenue. So that was my first course. I just went for it and opened and I and I polled the group and I was like, who would be interested in learning how I run my maintenance plan? And I was like, I'm thinking about doing a course on it. So there was such interest in that and building recurring revenue. This was 2018 at this point, and so I launched that first course, and yeah, I had like 80 some students come through, and I think I I want to say I made like over 10k. And that really got me excited because I was like $10,000 off of one launch, and there's nothing for me to fulfill. I don't have to like, you know, do fulfill it already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um that's what started the foray, and then I just, you know, in typical restart fashion, I was like, all right, I'm a course grader. And then I I had an idea to do like a suite of courses and just went all out over the next couple of years building courses, and those are still the core of my all of my curriculums today.

Amr Selim 55:07

So I wouldn't have built mine until you pushed me to do it.

Josh Hall 55:11

Like you have your email, yep.

Amr Selim 55:13

I taught, like I mean, I I taught for years and years and years. I was a trainer, I was teaching technology, different parts, not necessarily web design. I taught networking, uh, I taught fixing computers, building computers, everything, kind of everything related to the old technology back then that was uh there. And I did it officially as an instructor in an institute, and I did it like in the software company, because you're you we have something called customer success, which is from the company's perspective, you want to make sure that the customer will renew the license. So you got to make sure that they're using the software in their day-to-day work so that you're an integral part of how they do their work. This way, they will always renew the license. It's recurrent revenue, right? So you got to be teaching your customers all the time, and that's something that I keep doing and I kept doing for years and years, and I do today, but I never I don't know. I guess I was procrastinating because I don't like editing videos. I mean, I like editing videos, but they take so much of my time. So I I enjoy it to the point that if I keep doing it, I could probably spend the whole day just doing one video, and that's not a good use of the time.

Josh Hall 56:30

Yeah, that is. I mean, for anyone interested in doing a course of any sort, like editing is is a killer. Um, it's it's interesting is like my first couple courses were just screen share tutorials. So I wasn't even face to camera. Uh maybe a couple lessons if I had like business stuff, but it was mostly like you know, like literally just sharing my screen on stuff, which really helped because it meant that I didn't have a bunch of like editing uh unless I was coughing or doing long pauses or something. So yeah, I did I did unintentionally make it easy to do my courses just because I did not overproduce my videos. And to this day, it's what I struggle with because I look at YouTube videos today and they're so polished, and there's so many cuts and visuals.

Amr Selim 57:20

Don't go down there, Robin.

Josh Hall 57:21

Exactly, exactly. I'm like, you know what? And I think people appreciate just a good old slide deck or um just a simple like I try to cut my videos.

Circle Over Facebook: Better Learning Spaces

Amr Selim 57:31

And a screen share is great in screen share. You're showing people how you would do it, right? Yes, so they can learn it the first way how you could do it yourself, then once they're there, they can switch it up a bit and do it their own way. But the first time you just follow the steps, you follow what you see on the screen, and I feel to this day, I feel that's to me at least as a learner, that's the easiest way to learn. Like somebody showing you exactly how they do it, and you just go and replicate that yourself. It's like I'm well, I'm old, so so in university, the way I would study for the exam was to read the book and summarize it myself. So pen and paper, and you're writing whatever you're reading, and that's the way it gets in there. And it's the same way now using technology, you watch the video, but you have to. So, I mean, I feel it's better when you have two monitors, and then one you're running the course, and then you pause it, and then on the other one, you already have your Divi or your website open, and you just do exactly what you saw right now, because if you leave it for a couple of weeks, A, you could forget, B, you could lose interest, and C, you probably will not finish the course, and unless you start actually implementing this.

Josh Hall 58:55

And it is tricky with courses, depending on the content you're teaching on. Like if it's a website tutorial style course, if it's like a build along with me, that's the way to go. Doesn't need editing, doesn't need anything fancy. Here's my screen, here's what I'm doing, you do it. Pause, you do it. If it's like I'm teaching how to get web design clients, yeah, you know. That's where it's tricky with like literal post-production on courses, because it's like, do I just have a slide and just list out what I recommend, or do I have visuals? Do yeah, sites, do I put myself in it or not put myself in it? That's that's that's where it's tricky. I'm in this right now because um this will be coming out on my podcast at least, for gonna repurpose this. This will come out in January 26th. I'm in the middle of revamping my SEO course, and some of that is visual to where like I could just show screen share, like Google something, here's what it looks like. But if it's like mapping out the different types of SEO and AI SEO and something like that, the question is do I do talking head? Do I do slide? Do I do animations? And I have to tell myself this. So for anyone who's and this is true for anyone doing like a workshop or a training, the distinction I would make is is it educational or is it entertainment? And if you're on social media and you gotta get people interested in you, it's probably gotta lean a little more towards entertainment. I like edutainment. Edutainment, yes, edutainment, perfect. So you may want to teach something. If it's short form, it's gotta be entertainment because I can't just do a horizontal screen share for an hour and post it on Facebook. No one's gonna watch that. But on YouTube is different. But regardless, I think with content now that's educational or entertainment or in the middle, which is edutainment, you do need to like, you just gotta be self-aware and honest about okay, if I'm doing a course that's like screen share, I can I don't need to worry about editing, you know, drastically, no quick cuts, no fancy stuff, just teach. If it is social media content to get people interested in you and build your following, you're probably gonna need to invest time in post-production and keeping it quick and cuts and something engaging. And then in the middle, maybe that's more of like a 30-minute masterclass or a webinar or something that maybe starts off a little more flashy, but then gets into the non-edited kind of stuff. So that's the challenge, especially nowadays, as far as balancing education and entertainment online in both courses and social media.

Amr Selim 1:01:31

And I I feel like you did something that I was talking about a long time ago already, and you were the first person who did it. Um was the time when you went using Circle? Around which year? Uh 2020. 2020 is prior to that, every single course that I've seen online or that I've taken myself, people would create a Facebook group. And I hated it because what happens? It starts all nice and beautiful, then people start fighting for I don't know why, but like they start having differences of opinions about like stupid stuff, right? And then uh you see, like the attention is no longer on the material that we're learning, but it's rather it could be political, it could be, you know, it's a year of uh elections or whatever it is, but but the course. And then, of course, Facebook itself, if you're going with the intention to go to the Facebook group, which is part of the course, there is no way you're gonna isolate yourself from your actual Facebook account where you have your friends and family. So to me, that was like, you know, it's kind of like you know, when we say about SEO, you don't want to send people outside the website. So you don't want to have too many links. I mean, sometimes you do have links to other websites that are useful, uh, or you have partnership with somebody, which is okay, but in general, you're trying to keep the visitor hooked on your website so that they can buy or whatever it is that you want them to do, whatever action. So it's the same thing. Why would I create a course and then send my learners to Facebook where they get lost in Facebook? Yeah, like it made no sense whatsoever to me. And for me, coming from um software industry uh where we had uh learning management systems, we built the social part inside the learning management system so that people can do these interactions. I mean, okay, I don't know if I can say this uh on air. Uh, if you find it um uh not good, just cut it off. But uh, my manager in the software company when we started to do um the so build the social part as part of the learning management system, and we go out to explain it to I wouldn't say clients, but people we knew really, really well they're in our inner circle. He used to tell them this is like social media but with a condom on top of it. That's good. I actually never I've ever heard that.

Josh Hall 1:04:11

That's funny.

Amr Selim 1:04:12

It was like Paul, the hey Paul. Uh, don't say that. People will get scared or maybe get their own idea. But what he meant was you're gonna shield them from every distraction uh-huh so that whatever they're discussing, yes, there's a social aspect, they can share a joke, they can maybe put a video of themselves, uh, they can uh you know share like uh some even learning content that's not from your course, but it's not Facebook.

Josh Hall 1:04:41

I'm gonna pitch to Circle that their tagline should be the condom of communities. That is what I'm going to pitch to circle right after this.

Amr Selim 1:04:50

Put the condom on your learning experience, right? Yeah.

Keeping Courses Simple And Updatable

Josh Hall 1:04:52

No, it really is a good, it truthfully is a good analogy because I had that same problem because I did have Facebook groups. Oh man, when I started doing my courses, people were asking about support. So I was like, I have an idea. I'll create a separate Facebook group for each course. And then when you joined the business course, you had the business Facebook group. And then I had like five Facebook groups to manage and it was a nightmare. So yeah, when I in 2020, when I had the idea of creating like a essentially a community, a premium community for students of mine is how the idea started. Uh, I was looking, I was like, I don't want to do a I thought about doing a Facebook group, but then I'm like, I've already got Divi Web designers, I've got five different course groups. I'm like, I really would like to control the experience more and put a condom on it. And then it was a Paul. Thanks, Paul. Um, and at that time I was really I was outside this podcast. Yeah, heck yeah. Um, I was following Pat Flynn a lot in those years, still am. Great guy. And he he and his community or he had a similar course model. Uh, they talked about this platform called Circle because I looked at member press and a bunch of other WordPress options, but then it was like, man, I gotta piece together all these different plugins. That's one thing to do with courses, but it's a whole nother thing to do with a membership that's gonna be as active as I and I wanted to do calls, I wanted to have different payment tiers eventually. So Circle came out and I just fell in love with the user experience of it. I tried a couple other ones, and then I was like, oh yeah, I'm all in. I'm all in on Circle. And I started what is now Web Designer Pro, which is my main business. It was originally called the Web Design Club, and it was just for my course students. Yeah, it was basically just to say, like, if you want to go further and you want more support and you want coaching with me, join my coaching community. It's called the Web Design Club, it's in Circle. The courses are not there yet because they didn't have course functionality yet. But um, you could have access to my courses and have the community. And I don't run it now, it's basically just fizzled out, but I had a student center that I took all my Facebook groups and consolidated them into a separate circle account. There were pros and cons to that because it was like free support here or join my my web design club premium community. So I was managing both of those for a while, and I've since then condensed everything into Web Designer Pro, um, which is what I rebranded it to back in 2023. So that was kind of my progression into getting into circle and then moving from like one-off courses to the membership model.

Amr Selim 1:07:32

I mean, you call it progression, but it's like a revolution, to be honest. It's not because you're you're kind of you even took your courses from the learning management system on the website and they're now on circle. Is isn't that the case now?

Josh Hall 1:07:46

Yeah, yeah. So um technically, my OG courses are still live on JoshHall.co, which is my Christian website.co, yeah. I don't sell them, I haven't sold them there since 2023. Um, basically, up until this point, everyone who had purchased a lifetime access course there can still access it. But you wouldn't really wouldn't know about it unless you were a student back in those days. So um probably this year in 2026, I'll be completely dropping that system and then giving anyone who has not joined Pro some sort of offer to like go into the courses there for a limited time, and then you know, you can you can stick with us or you can you can just download the course that you purchased. So, but yeah, it was the the big the big, big, big restart for me, which was a big pivot, was going from one off course sales to the membership model because in 2023 I decided I'm going all in on Web Designer Pro courses, community coaching all together, and it was working so well for my top performing students that I was like, this is what I want to do, it's what's getting results. Um, it went from like selling nine different courses randomly to just selling Web Designer Pro. You get all my courses in Web Designer Pro.

Amr Selim 1:09:09

Yeah. So I love the fact because it's I I used to say even to clients and past clients, and I would keep saying this to even future clients that a website, I this is my words, right? I say a website is a living organism, like there's no website that you build it and forget it. It's kind of you gotta keep doing stuff, you gotta keep updating the content, you gotta keep thinking you don't have to update, like if you don't want to spend money on refreshing it every three, four years, that's fine. If you want to pay the your web designer one time and and the website still looks fresh and good and whatever, that's okay, right? Although, I mean, I would advise everyone to refresh every now and then because technology changes, uh, we get like different things, new things, and you want to incorporate these on your website uh that will make it better, faster, more secure. But anyway, you have to maintain like a certain schedule, even if it's once a week, to post stuff, to change your content. So because this is a living organism, learning it, learning this web design and the managing of websites and whatever is also a living organism. You can't have a course that was made, I don't know, four years ago. It's still okay, it's still good. The information, most of the information would still be current, but it wouldn't have the new stuff that's happening right now. Right. So when you do it as a community, even if you don't update the course content, you'll update your coaching, you'll update your message, you'll update the discussion. You it's like, you know, you always get the latest.

Josh Hall 1:10:48

Yeah, that's certainly what I found with Pro. I mean, this is the trickiest part of where I am today, is I have courses that are some of them technically five or six years old now, um, which a lot of those I'm getting ready to revamp. My Divi course, I was waiting until five was further along to make a five version. So that'll be Q126. My SEO course. What's interesting about that is like my SEO course, even though I made that in 2020, it all still holds up today. Uh, there are there are some differences with the way SERPs look, search engine result pages. But and obviously AI is a big component now, which is what I'm gonna be updating that for. But um, I was able to let that go pretty long. Most of my courses are good for three to four years, as are most, unless it's off of a tool. Because if you do a course on a tool and they change the UI, the tool changes that's rough.

Amr Selim 1:11:41

So I gotta update some of my videos now because of my email deliverability. Uh, not just in the course, but my even my videos on YouTube. This also is a tool called Send Grid, and they stopped giving free accounts. Yes, yes.

Josh Hall 1:11:56

So I gotta re-record the video and use a different tool. Side note for anyone doing courses or training video for clients or workshops or any resources that you house videos. This is another reason for courses to do low edit videos because my big goal over the next few years is to be able to go in and change a lesson without needing to be on camera.

Amr Selim 1:12:19

Like, I'm actually like just change one part or one video.

DIY vs Pro: Where AI Fits

Josh Hall 1:12:23

I'm intentionally gonna make my courses okay, cats out of the bag. Here's my big here's my strategy moving forward from 2026 on. My courses are gonna be stupidly simple, very more concise, very little face to camera, because if I ever change my office or if I ever try to grow a beard one day, like I don't want it to feel like, oh, this is old. Like, you know, like one part will look different. Yes, yeah. So I'm actually my what I'm gonna mostly do moving forward is I'll be face to camera in the intro, and that's probably about it. Like everything else is and then the screen share is just the screen share. No, I truthfully I think there's value to have like you in the corner, but personally, I think we're past Avatar.

Amr Selim 1:13:10

Yeah, yeah, I avatar.

Josh Hall 1:13:11

Yeah, yeah, that's fine too. I think we're past the days where like you need to see the person's head moving while talking in the corner. I think now, me personally, like just give me a screen share. Like, I don't need to see you talking little little head. I don't need to see a little hammer head in the corner now. I just yeah, I know just maybe have a photo in a circle at the bottom somewhere. That is absolutely, absolutely. But that's the biggie is is especially with a suite of courses, I want to be able to go in. If I need to change one SEO course lesson, I don't want to have to redo the whole freaking course. I just want to go in and change that lesson. So that's my personal big challenge. Anyone, again, even if you're not a course creator, if you have resources for clients or if you have training that you teach your clients how to use, sort of redoing the whole video. You want to make it easy, easy to up, easy to update. That's that's gonna be my new course. Easy to update.

Amr Selim 1:14:07

I'm going to look up or out for my own interest right now. Are you gonna update your course about making courses? Because I wouldn't have made my course until you gave me your course. I mean, we said the word course so many times, yeah. But so interesting about this is until you pushed me to create it and then gave me the course that helped me create mine.

Josh Hall 1:14:30

So here I wouldn't have created mine. I know. Here's what's tricky about that, man. It that course totally flopped with sales because there were all you and like a handful of others were interested in doing courses, but most of my audience are not. Most of my audience are web designers.

Amr Selim 1:14:47

Yeah, they want to design, they don't want to teach. Not everyone wants to teach.

Josh Hall 1:14:50

Yeah, so um I have a lot of interest in retiring. I I well, so I it's not even available for purchase now, it's not even in pro, it's literally just that it's you know backlogged in my old website. But um I've got to go download it from your website now. Yeah, so the yeah, you still have admin access, I think. So um I I think I do. Yeah, I haven't been there for ages. The course is on me. You can absolutely make I'll make sure you have access to that. But I have a lot of interest in doing a course on courses, a course on community, a course on podcasting, a course on YouTube. I just I would have to make it, and those in particular like are really hard to keep up to date. Like podcasting stuff changes, YouTube stuff. I there's no way I could maintain a YouTube course and it was unless it was like something I can dedicate to revamping all the time. So, in the case of a course on courses, as much interest as I have in that, I would need to make it very evergreen to where like it doesn't need to be updated in like five years. Um, so that's the only two.

Amr Selim 1:15:57

Like the part that was like the most helpful part to me was setting things up and planning for it. Like I'd already I'd already recorded some videos, I know how to edit videos. The the technical part of it was okay for me because I already started. Okay, but the part that I was lacking was the planning part, was the you know, the framework itself and how to put things in a certain order, uh, like the business side of it.

Josh Hall 1:16:27

Oh, okay, so like marketing it.

Amr Selim 1:16:30

That yeah, I mean I didn't, I don't think I did a great job, but anyway, I'm I'm the worst person ever to talk about themselves. Like face to face, if you get me talking, I will not shut up. Is the ADHD like part of me? But uh in general, like I I don't market myself well, sometimes even or at all. Like, you know, I don't know. Even 100% of my business is referrals, which tells me I should be out there more. Um I don't want to call myself lazy, but like how many coaching calls did you see me on on Web Designer Pro?

Josh Hall 1:17:09

One, right, yeah, more active in the forum, especially early on, because you're still in there. I still tag you, you still I still see you pop in here once a while. I love seeing you pop in. Um, but yeah, it's you know, I mean, but it's also uh you could it depends on your goals, you know. Like you could have all the work in the world with DNS and email help if you wanted to, but it just kind of depends on, you know, yeah, how much time do you want to devote in programming?

Amr Selim 1:17:35

I mean, I I like teaching, so I I'm thinking like it's always at the back of my head to create a course actually for business people, for business owners, because I see there's so many business owners there hell bent on building their own website. I don't know why they want to do it, I don't know uh if they have a simplified idea that tells them that they'll do it in 10 or 15 hours because they'll take at least 50, if not 100. Uh so what I want to do is to create a course for them to make it build their website the correct way and avoid the pitfalls and the mistakes and make it build that website, make them build that website on a weekend. So kind of like 10 hours, 15 hours max, right? And it's a I kind of made some videos that are like, you know, how to choose your domain name correctly. These are like free videos, they're like I did a mini-series of my podcast and I called it Web Tips for Entrepreneurs. And I think I did five videos, so it's all the way from registering your domain to choosing Divi as your preferred, to forcing you to choose Divi as your preferred um theme and website builder. Um but it's because there's so much stuff on Divi already. But I'm thinking to kind of formulate this into a step-by-step course just for just for business people, right? Um, but I don't know even if this will have a market.

Josh Hall 1:19:08

Well the market is the DIY crowd, and that's what's really interesting in web design now, is these platforms I've seen have shifted away from the DIY crowd. So then I'm talking like Wix, like Divi used to be the DIY builder. Um, now if you were to give a regular business owner control of Divi now, good luck. Yeah, good luck with them, and then Divi5 comes along and they're like, Well, what's this five? And then they're calling you, and you're like, Well, I'm not your website builder.

Amr Selim 1:19:43

I still create tutorials for my clients because like they wouldn't be able to even just find out what you know what they want to do with the website in the Divi.

Practical AI Wins And Limitations

Josh Hall 1:19:57

I think the DIY crowd can. Is going is already there and is going to continue to move towards AI builders and GoDaddy and host basically hosting builders. Um Divi has like with Divi5, that is not a DIY tool at all. Yeah, no, that's a that is all that's even Elementor is starting to move away from like the small business owner, just figure it out yourself. Like every WordPress builder, etch is a big one right now that's catching fire. Um, and with you know, with the guy in charge of that, Kevin Geary, he is like a full-blown developer. That is not for novices. That's like you you're a professional web designer, this is the tool you use. This is really common with a lot of page builders that I'm seeing. They're moving away from DIY. Or so the cool thing about that is there's a lot more room for professional web designers. So despite everyone's worry about AI taking over, AI may take over some of the DIY crowd, but I foresee, mark my words on this. I think there's going to be so much opportunity for web pros, web designer pros. Uh, there really is, because what small business clients don't realize is I just want to build my site, just want to put something up. There are so many aspects to that that they have no idea. Like domain, like email, like speed, exactly, like optimization, like Skype, like copy messaging. And despite prompts being a decent starting point, there's so much more to that. And the fact is, you can take a template that is designed in a nice way, and within three minutes, a client can butcher the hell out of that thing without even realizing what they've done. So, yes, an AI builder may be a starting point, and a client will ruin it so quickly because they are not a web designer, nor should they be. So, no, clients. So, here's the thing wires. DI wirers freaking run your own business, let web designers build your stuff. Yes, AI can be a tool and a part of the tool stack, but um, I think that the pendulum's gonna shift. I think web designers are gonna be extremely valued over the next five to ten years, in particular.

Amr Selim 1:22:19

Exactly. So it because here's the thing as well like if you let's just go back to the basic example that I gave earlier about drilling, right? So we let's say you want to put your TV bracket on the wall, right?

Josh Hall 1:22:35

So you as a DIYer, the homeowner yourself, you have so many options where you can drill the holes and you know uh I'm sweating just thinking about this because that is not something that is in my wheelhouse.

Amr Selim 1:22:49

Exactly, and then don't tell me that if you did this for the first time ever, you didn't put holes in the wrong places and then ended up covering it with something. Because, or luckily covering it with the TV itself, and you have like a couple of holes behind that nobody sees.

Josh Hall 1:23:06

When we sold our house before we moved into our new house, the poor owner who removes those curtains is gonna see a lot of it's gonna look like I ran a machine gun through there because it's like so.

Amr Selim 1:23:16

Why would you want to do this with your website? Yeah, like literally, it's the same thing. So it's like you can do it yourself and and get it wrong until you learn. And if you're learning to become a web designer yourself, fine, by all means, go do it. But if you're, I don't know, a coach or a CPA or a lawyer or whatever, your time is more valuable than this. Yeah, like you seriously, even with AI, you're gonna spend at least okay. With AI, maybe you spend 30, 40 hours, without AI, maybe you spend 60 to 100. Uh, but if you're hell-bent on doing it for some reason that I don't know, learn from a designer. So the best way to build a website is to hire a designer, a web designer. The next best way is to learn from one. And and that's why I feel like this is my motivation to do the course.

Josh Hall 1:24:07

What's funny is like I see so many designers worried, and and mostly it's people outside of the industry or adjacent who are saying, like, all web designer jobs are going away. All does no, there's gonna be no graphic designers, no, no coders, no developers. I saw a very, very similar thing happen probably circa 2016, which is when Wix in particular came out with their their website builder that was extremely DIY friendly for back then. And I had a client, well, he was a lead. Um, he was somebody who was actually about to sign off on like a $2,000 custom website that I was gonna build for him. And then just like the next week, he was like, Hey Josh, I just want to let you know, I actually went ahead and just built it myself in Wix. And he's like, I'm sorry, I know we were gonna work with you. And um, he was a personal uh uh acquaintance, so like we knew each other and he had a business, and I actually met with him and he showed it to me, and it looked pretty good. It actually looked like I was like, Well, yeah, like that's not too shabby. Now he told me he was like, Are you worried about this taking you know web designer jobs? Because I can you know go build my own website. Here's the thing though he had a background in graphic design and was very tech savvy. Yeah, he is a minority of a business owner. Most people do not have, or from your background, Amher, maybe they know the tech stuff, but they can't design for shit. And that is a problem, and vice versa. If you're a really great designer and you come from print and logo, but you don't know anything about domains and email and deliverability and optimization and DNS. If only somebody had a simple DNS course for people to go through, just go into Web Designer Pro. Um, that's a problem.

Amr Selim 1:26:01

If only do you know somebody? So um I I have used AI. Yeah, I I I like playing around with stuff, so I use different, even not just the AI that comes with Divi now. Uh, and I I did get the subscription because it helps me a lot. Uh, and sometimes it gets things wrong, sometimes it gets things completely wrong. Yeah, it's got no resemblance to what I'm trying to do whatsoever. And sometimes, like you ask it for, I don't know, give me a three-column section that has this and that, and you feel like, oh my god, I wouldn't have gotten this idea on my own. But it's like it's a hit and miss sort of thing. Um, and it's the same thing with AI. I I spent one night, and I don't know why I spent the whole night doing it. Uh, I saw a template that was using Elementor that had an effect up there in the hero section that I really liked, and I wanted to replicate this on Divi. Because I don't like using Elementor much. It it like it gives me a headache.

Josh Hall 1:27:03

Uh that's same, that's same both sides of the table. People who love Elementor hate Divi. People who like Divi generally don't like Elementor. Yeah.

SEO Then And Now, Plus AI SEO

Amr Selim 1:27:10

And then I tried to use AI to give me some CSS code and some JavaScript code so that I can manipulate the item that I was trying to do. And after like maybe six and a half hours, I gave up and I got an idea in my head to do it without AI, and my idea worked. So I got it done with Divi on my own without AI. But everything I tried with AI, and then when I get the error, I would give it back to AI and ask it to correct it, and it will give me new code, and I'll put the new code, still doesn't work. But having said that, uh icons, I like it when AI now generates the icons. I don't have to go outside and look for icons anymore. So small bits and pieces. Uh background sometimes, if you want to have a background of a city or a background of a mountain, a beach, uh, you know, something without people in it, AI will do a wonderful job. So, yes, it will it will save some time, but it will not, in my opinion, at least, it will not replace the designer at all. And it will not have a clue about the back end. So you still like you still need the back end, you still need the email to be delivered, you still need the pay the page to load within you know three to five seconds max, uh, or one to five seconds max. You still need these things, and AI is not gonna do it for you. You still need to choose a good hosting and a good domain name, not a domain name that's a sentence that even you yourself will make a mistake when you type it. Like things like that. I this is has nothing to do with AI.

Josh Hall 1:28:47

Yeah, I'm really not terribly worried about it. I mean, I don't want to diminish AI, it's it's going to be incredible eventually. And but I again there Again, it's a tool. It is a tool. There are just a better tool. I don't think most of the world understands how complex web design is and how many different aspects there are. If it is going to be something that's sustainable and maintainable, trainable, I mean, so many aspects to it. And where AI is going to cause a big dent is the like super simple DIY sites. That's already like, yes, yes. And case in point, my neighbor uh is just got a position on our HOA, and they need a basic website with just like some downloadable PDFs. He asked me, like, what would the best option be? And I was like, God, please don't ask me to build that website. That is not something I want to do. Because I'm gonna have to say no, be nice as possible. But I also didn't want to like, you know, it's not a referable project. I don't want to send that into my members of pro and be like, hey, you know, you don't want to work with this HOA. So what I advise. So he wants something very simple and probably cheap. So, you know, what I advise he do is go to GoDaddy, purchase the domain, they have their AI assistant builder, yeah, IRO, yep, ARO, IRO, whatever. That's probably fine. I'll have to check in with him to see how it went. I don't know how it went, but in that situation, that's totally fine. Now, if he was a serious business and there were SEO implications and conversion implications, and it's a big part of his digital presence, and he's doing marketing, and where is the marketing going? It's going to the website to convert, that's a whole nother ball game. I would not have advised they'd do that. So I think that's where AI is now.

Amr Selim 1:30:31

Is it's basically like there's another thing like with uh you mentioned your your read making, or uh you have a new version coming out of your SEO course, and this is the funny thing because every single SEO course or agency or service out there in the past, they used to tell people to focus on I'm sorry I have to say this, but on stupid stuff like H1 and H2, and and it's like, dude, who cares? Do you think the Google bot cares how many H1s and H2s you have on your page? If your content is relevant, it will be ranked full stop. Yeah, right. It might help you a little bit to get a 10% if you're you know having something bold and whatever, but when AI is now running the search world, these things don't matter at all. AI doesn't give like you know uh a rodent's backside. What's the structure of your page? It's just looking at your content full stop.

Josh Hall 1:31:32

It might if you have the worst-looking so the the only side, but the content I I might push back on that a bit just because yes, yes, these these LLMs are are taking answer-based queries, and that's what they're looking for, but they're pulling from trusted sources, and to be a trusted source, there does have to be, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be like okay, HTML markup. Yeah. Um, yeah, but it has to be readable, yeah. It's gonna be readable. Yeah, like if you had like 18 H1s, it's probably gonna be like, you know, it would be good to have those in H1s, H2s, and H3s. But, you know, as long as it is a well-known article that is truly getting eyes, like human eyes on it, it will likely be sourced.

Amr Selim 1:32:21

But it the I say if it's readable by a human and relevant to your industry and relevant to you as a person and you know what makes you unique in in your industry, it will get picked up anyway, regardless of. I mean, I'm not trying to discourage people from structuring their page. I mean, it's good for the human eye, of course, to structure the page too. Yeah, but the part that bugs me, you know, like how when you finish designing any website and the client takes it, and then in a matter of a couple of months, they send you an email to create an account for the SEO person that they're using. And the first thing that the SEO person is telling them to do uh are things that have absolutely no relevance to you know the real SEO. Like kind of, yeah, they okay. I don't want to say no relevance, but 10-15%.

Josh Hall 1:33:17

Yes, that's fair. That to there's there's basically like there's micro consequences and macro consequences in that. Like a couple H1s on a page, not ideal, would be good to have the perfect SEO markup on that, but it will still it will still rank. It doesn't like Google is not gonna say, like, oh, if there's two H1s, absolutely not displaying it.

Amr Selim 1:33:39

But oh yeah, they don't have an H2 here.

Josh Hall 1:33:41

I'm gonna leave this page and go. But um, but with AI, my my big central point to my new SEO course is gonna be like the old SEO tips and ways are absolutely still relevant. Still content is still king. The basic HTML structure, all that stuff is still the foundation. The difference right now is that we are moving more and more into a quick answer-based online degree. So AI SEO is basically just answer SEO, which means you can still take what you already have and maybe QA. Yeah, yeah. What was formerly snippets that would get featured are now getting featured in AI overviews and cloud and perplexity and in chat GPT.

Amr Selim 1:34:28

So because I'm talking about business owners, not web designers, right? And business owners, when you're paying someone for SEO services, you want to make sure they're actually doing the right thing. You want to make sure they're looking after the that's my opinion. And I could be wrong or maybe half wrong, but in my opinion, if you're gonna pay somebody to do your SEO, you wanna make sure they're making your content kink. You want to make sure they're making your content more relevant, more refined. Uh, they're not spending the hours that you're paying for in doing edge one and edge two and making the picture smaller, bigger, whatever. That like the search engine doesn't care about this. And as long as it can read the page and index its content and know you know what this web page is talking about, you will rank regardless.

Josh Hall 1:35:22

Right. And it's tricky, I feel, for SEOers in some way, because the the metrics of measuring it is a lot tougher now because yeah, they there's they're getting pulled up in AI tools, but that's a lot harder to measure because it's not like a a pay-per-click type of campaign where it's like, yes, all right, we made these changes, we got 200 more clicks.

Amr Selim 1:35:46

Yeah, so many links we got.

Josh Hall 1:35:48

Um, I gotta wrap up here in a couple minutes, Amher. Um, sure. Um, but uh just to a final point on the AI, real quick, is like you have to be more human than ever in an AI world. And yes, the challenge for for small business clients is like doing interviews, doing YouTube, doing different types of content, posting on social media, getting featured in prominent outlets, getting featured on blogs and backlinks. That's all SEO. And that's all AI SEO. Because when somebody's searching for something, it's looking for credibility, it's looking for answers, it's looking for who to choose.

Amr Selim 1:36:28

Or you and what you do.

Local SEO, Measurement, And Expectations

Josh Hall 1:36:29

And then we're getting into local SEO too, with like what you can do now with Google Business Profiles and Map Pack listings. And that's different than my SEO, which is more keyword-based and like long tail keywords and and and authority boosting. So um just jump into my new SEO course when it's ready here to go and early Q1. It's just it's gonna save you some time if you're in web design.

Amr Selim 1:36:50

It's just let me know when you launch it. I'll I'll I'll take a look as well. I mean, I'm not in in in the back of my head as well. There's uh uh a gentleman on your community, Sam star is it stars?

Josh Hall 1:37:04

Sarstin, yeah, yeah. And he is the king of local SEO. Star Sarstin.

Amr Selim 1:37:09

He's an SEO guy, and I would love to interview him because one of the main reasons why I don't do SEO in general, like I don't provide SEO services, is that A, I feel that people have been focused on the wrong stuff, on the wrong things, rather than making their content king. B, that domain has loads and loads of spammers, like I get at least 10 emails a week of people offering me SEO services. Yep. And C, which is my biggest detractor, is like how do I measure the before and after? Right. Like, unless the client stays with me for six to eight months, have you I cannot show what they paid for.

Josh Hall 1:37:52

Have you not connected with Sam yet?

Amr Selim 1:37:55

No, no.

Josh Hall 1:37:56

I'll I'll I'll shoot him a message. I'll let I'll email intro you guys because um I don't know if it's too late, but he's doing an SEO summit in February. Um, okay. Yeah, let me get I'll get you guys connected because he need and he needs your services with DNS and email and everything you're doing. So uh it is interesting because yeah, Sam is really taking the reins on just the one in end of SEO, which is local SEO.

Amr Selim 1:38:24

Yes, because he's he's very passionate. I can tell he's very passionate about it. And uh I haven't seen somebody like kind of pushing so hard for this, and and this is the area that I wasn't interested in because I didn't know you know basically how to measure it and how to differentiate yourself from the spammers.

Josh Hall 1:38:44

Yeah, easier to do, probably I think measuring is easier to do with local SEO than it is with uh we'll just call it like global SEO because yeah, yeah, dealing with search right, you know, search terms and and and keyword phrases that are picked up.

Amr Selim 1:38:59

Yeah, I mean like I I know that you can look at the ranking itself improve, but the the issue is that most of the people who pay for SEO service are expecting quick results, and in my opinion, you need to give it at least four months. That's the minimum.

Josh Hall 1:39:14

Yeah, I yeah, I usually say like 90 days. I feel like you probably you should be able to get some sort of movement within 90 days. Um yeah, that's probably yeah, real results. I mean, technically real results, depending, it may take six months or longer. But then it gets into like, well, if you you know, if you're doing a thousand dollars a month for SEO services and one of your clients pays you three grand, then in three months you just paid that off, and then it's all you're gonna continue to compound to get more value from there. So yeah. So that's where I'm at with AI SEO. Okay. So sorry, Abraham, I gotta go on a few minutes, but yeah, it's kind of where I'm at with AI.

Amr Selim 1:39:50

Very quick one before we go. Quick fire. I'll say a statement, and you tell me you agree, disagree, or change my statement. Uh, AI is not gonna. Replace web designers. Agree. AI is gonna make web designers much, much better.

Josh Hall 1:40:10

Uh oh, I can't answer a quick one just because it it may make them more efficient. Yes. Okay.

Amr Selim 1:40:17

Better could be no. Better at doing their job, I mean, yeah. More efficient, maybe.

Josh Hall 1:40:21

Yeah, yeah. Because you could focus on what you want to. Because if you if you rely on AI to do everything and you don't understand the basics of web design, then no, it would actually make you a worse web designer.

Amr Selim 1:40:32

Um AI is something that I want to learn.

Josh Hall 1:40:39

Regrudgingly, yes. No, out of the gate, no, but I know I need to stay up with it.

Amr Selim 1:40:44

So the thing is, you can't just say AI as an AI. I mean, it has to be the specific thing that you want. Like there's so many of them now. I I even ask AI to like I asked Gemini to compare itself to the Chat GPT.

Josh Hall 1:40:59

Begrudgingly, begrudgingly trying to keep up with it, yeah.

Amr Selim 1:41:04

All right. AI is not gonna make it more fun like we make it more fun. So thank you very much, Josh. I'm really glad we connected. And I think we probably split this into two. I don't know. Some people like the long format. Let's see what we do with it.

Rapid-Fire: AI And The Future Of Web

Josh Hall 1:41:18

I'm just gonna post the whole thing because we covered a wide range and it was it was awesome. So yeah, great to catch up, Amher. I appreciate you, man. Thank you, man. Thank you for all the years of literally saving the hair I have left was thanks to you and those early email and DNS. I can lose mine so that you can keep yours. That's all I can ask. Appreciate it. All right, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this one. Again, happy new year to you. I hope this um gave you some inspiration and excitement and encouragement as we head into 2026. Despite everything that's going on with AI, it is an amazing time. And I'm very, very excited to be a part of the web design industry again into year 16 for myself. And I can't wait to help you, hopefully, in my community, Web Designer Pro, which is where I coach web designers. You can join the community tier or the coaching tier. If you want more access to me, jump into coaching before the new rates in 2026 go up. Um, I'll let you know about that when they do, but I definitely recommend jumping in now, and I can't wait to be a part of your journey and help you grow your business. So notes again for this one are Josh Hall.co slash 4112. Make sure to hit up Amber and tell him you heard about him on my podcast and give his show a listen and let him know uh if you need help with email or DNS, he is the man. So you'll thank me later. Basically, by this this free episode is just a little peek inside inside my network, which can be a part of your network as well. So hit him up. All right, my friends. Happy New Year, and I'll see you on the next episode.