Podcast Summary: Coffee N° 5 with Lara Schmoisman

Episode: The Heart of Your Business: Why Every Strategy Starts with Your Website

Host: Lara Schmoisman
Date: November 11, 2025

Episode Overview

In this mini episode, Lara Schmoisman delves into why the website is the "heart" of any business and a critical starting point for all business strategies. She emphasizes the interconnected role of a company website in digital performance, from searchability and SEO to paid media and tech infrastructure. Lara also explores the impact of plugins, the benefits of working with agencies, and ways to optimize both spending and website maintenance for lasting business success.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Your Website as the Heart of Your Business

• Lara positions the website as a business’s core operation hub.

• All transactions and brand interactions ultimately route through the website, even if integrated with third-party vendors or platforms like TikTok Shop.

  "Your website is your heart, it's your core, all the transactions, everything that will happen will happen in your website or through your website." — Lara Schmoisman [00:25]

2. The Domino Effect of Website Performance

• Underperformance in your website cascades into poor results in advertising, organic search, and overall visibility.

• Lara underscores the interconnectedness of digital channels: social, SEO, and paid media are all reliant on website health.

  "If your website is not performing well, your ads is not going to perform well, your organic search...it will affect your searchability, your visibility." — Lara Schmoisman [00:50]

• The importance of keywords has overtaken hashtags in discoverability, reflecting evolving search algorithms and social media trends.

  "Social media needs keywords...it's all about searchability. Haven't you noticed that people are not using as many hashtags? Well, it's because everything is a keyword." — Lara Schmoisman [01:15]

3. Balancing Paid and Organic Efforts

• While investing in paid media is not inherently wrong, Lara emphasizes not neglecting organic growth.

• Paid media doesn’t contribute to AI-driven search engine optimization; organic is necessary for lasting visibility.

  "Paid media will not help the AI search engines. So you need to make sure that you really spend money in organic search and it's done correctly." — Lara Schmoisman [01:45]

4. The Tech Stack: Plugins & Performance

• Lara identifies bloated tech stacks—mainly plugins—as a common culprit of poor website speed and performance.

  "Your tech stack can really affect your performance, your website speed loadings. You can have a lot of issues because you put too many plugins." — Lara Schmoisman [02:20]

• Many businesses overspend on unnecessary plugins, sometimes stacking multiple plugins that serve similar purposes.

  "I've seen this too many times that companies use or websites use like 10 plugins that they do the same thing." — Lara Schmoisman [02:50]

• She recommends working with someone who truly understands plugin capabilities and can minimize redundancy.

5. Debunking the Agency Myth

• Lara argues that agencies aren’t always more expensive—in fact, the right agency can save money by "doing the work right."

• Agencies offer strategic coherence across business functions (ads, organic, social, etc.) and may pass along partner discounts.

  "A myth...that working with agencies will be more expensive for you. No, if you work with agencies, first of all agencies can save you a lot of money just for doing the work right..." — Lara Schmoisman [03:30]

  "If you work with the right partners, they're going to give you discounts...and they have benefits that they can pass to you." — Lara Schmoisman [03:58]

6. Invest According to Your Business Stage

• Don’t overload your website with every possible feature or plugin from the start.

• Focus resources on attracting visitors initially.

  "You don't need absolutely all the whistles at the beginning. What you need is people attract people to your website." — Lara Schmoisman [04:25]

• The idea of a "perfect" or "complete" website at launch is a myth: maintenance and updates are continuous.

  "By the time you put it live, it will be outdated already because…websites are evolving and you need to maintain." — Lara Schmoisman [04:55]

7. Website Maintenance and Technical SEO

• Routine maintenance is a crucial (yet often overlooked) part of ongoing success and technical SEO.

• SEO isn’t just about keywords; website functionality, speed, and technical health are also important.

  "Super important. As important as SEO—extremely important—to have website maintenance...everyone believes that SEO is about keywords. SEO is also about technical." — Lara Schmoisman [05:08]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Your website is your heart, it's your core...everything will happen in your website or through your website." [00:25]
• "Social media needs keywords...it's all about searchability." [01:15]
• "Paid media will not help the AI search engines. So you need to make sure that you really spend money in organic search and it's done correctly." [01:45]
• "Your tech stack can really affect your performance...it's so easy to put plugins nowadays and also it's so easy to...pay in plugins sometimes can be a little fortune." [02:20]
• "A myth...that working with agencies will be more expensive for you. No, if you work with agencies, first of all agencies can save you a lot of money just for doing the work right..." [03:30]
• "You don't need absolutely all the whistles at the beginning. What you need is people attract people to your website." [04:25]
• "SEO is also about technical. So we need to make sure that your website is performing right in order for you to be successful." [05:08]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:25 — Why your website is the core of your business
• 01:15 — The rise of keywords vs. hashtags in discoverability
• 01:45 — The pitfalls of focusing only on paid media
• 02:20 — How plugins and your tech stack can affect performance
• 03:30 — The truth about agency costs and value
• 04:25 — Matching website investment to business stage
• 05:08 — Website maintenance and the real scope of SEO

This episode is a concise, actionable guide for business owners who want to strengthen their digital foundations, optimize their resources, and avoid common pitfalls in building and maintaining a successful website. Lara’s engaging, jargon-free explanations make her insights accessible for all entrepreneurs, new and seasoned alike.