Since September, the voice on this show has been an AI copy of mine, rented from a company for about two dollars an episode. This week I made a second copy — on my own laptop, for free, from eight seconds of audio. This episode is voiced with the free one.

So the obvious question for a show called Worth the Click: is cloning your voice worth it, and which one should you use? The honest answer depends on how often you make audio, and the real cost was never the subscription.

In this episode:

• What two dollars an episode actually buys, and why it isn't the voice
• Eight seconds of audio and no training step — what the free local one does
• The three things the paid one still does better, including the four takes you get to choose from
• Five gigabytes, forty minutes of laptop fans, and one command: the real price of free
• House rules for cloning a voice, including the one that matters most
• Who should skip all of this and just record a voice memo in the truck

Want your site on the show? I'll review it at no charge, under a made-up name unless you want the shout-out. Send me a message at baypulse.net/contact.

Prefer to keep it private? Run your site through the free Website Checkup.

Mentioned: the last site rescue, The Plumber You Can't Call.

The voice you're hearing is an AI version of my own voice. The stories and the opinions are all mine.

A new format: I pick a real local business, pull their website up on my phone and then my computer, and talk through what a customer actually notices. Kind of like those restaurant rescue shows, but for websites, and with a lot less yelling.

Today it's a family-run plumbing company I'm calling Mort's Plumbing. That's not their real name — these reviews stay anonymous unless the owner asks otherwise. Decades in business, dozens of glowing reviews, and a website that hasn't kept up with them.

In this episode:

• The only phone number on the homepage is painted on the side of their van, in a photo
• Why a missing hero section costs you in the first ten seconds
• Great reviews hidden behind a map widget that barely works on a phone
• A blank page in the menu, a 2022 footer, and pages still named "blank one" and "blank two"
• What happens when your address and phone number don't match from one listing to the next
• The three fixes I'd start with, and the one thing they should absolutely keep

Want your site on the show? I'll review it at no charge, under a made-up name unless you want the shout-out. Send me a message at baypulse.net/contact.

Prefer to keep it private? Run your site through the free Website Checkup.

Mentioned: the review numbers from episode 1, Is a Website Still Worth It?

The voice you're hearing is an AI version of my own voice. The stories and the opinions are all mine.

Let's say it's Saturday morning and there's water all over your kitchen floor. You find two plumbers. One has a real website with photos, reviews, and a button to call. The other has a Facebook page that hasn't posted in a while. Which one are you calling?

In the first episode, I take on the question behind the show's name: is a website still worth it for a local business? For most of you, yes. Just not for the reason you'd think.

Read the full transcript, grab the free 3-check website checklist, and find every link from this episode: baypulse.net/podcast/is-a-website-still-worth-it

In this episode:

• Why your website is where people check you out, not where they find you
• What BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey says about how people vet local businesses, including the jump from 6% to 45% using AI tools
• When a website is NOT the next thing you should spend money on
• How a slow, dated, or broken site can cost you more than having no site at all
• Three free checks you can run on your own business this week

See how your site stacks up with the free Website Checkup, or book a quick call.

Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026.

The voice you're hearing is an AI version of my own voice. The stories and the opinions are all mine.

Every week there's a new thing you're supposedly missing out on. A new ad platform. A new AI tool. A new reason your website needs redoing.

Worth the Click takes one of those things at a time, a website, your Google reviews, paid ads, the AI tool somebody keeps pitching you, and asks whether it's actually worth your time and your money. Real stories from real client work, the numbers behind them, and (almost) no jargon.

Every episode, with transcripts, downloads and show notes: baypulse.net/podcast

I'm Bruce Johnson, and I run Bay Pulse Marketing here in the Bay Area. If you'd rather have someone handle your website, ads, or socials for you, you can find me at baypulse.net.

The voice you're hearing is an AI version of my own voice. The stories and the opinions are all mine.