A couple of weeks ago Google announced that they were going to start considering site speed as a search engine ranking factor. That’s the second most important reason to have a fast website. The top reason is showing your visitors the information they want fast so they don’t leave your website.

These are 10 things you can do to speed up your site.

1. Use External CSS and Script Files
   Don’t include CSS or JavaScript code in your HTML documents. Create separate files and call out to them when necessary.
2. Use DIVs for Layout
   Avoid using tables.
3. More Is Less
   Remove elements you don’t really need.
4. Optimize Your Images
   Use this software to reduce the size of your images.
5. Don’t Use Images to Display Text
   With CSS styles you can make text look pretty much any way you want.
6. Use Clean Code
   Get rid of unnecessary code.
7. Use Trailing Slashes When Linking to Directories
   If you have your blog in a folder called “blog”, link to www.yoursite.com/blog/ (with a trailing slash at the end) as opposed to www.yoursite.com/blog.
8. Use the Height and Width Tags
   Don’t forget to use these tags for images and other elements.
9. Avoid the Excessive Use of Flash
   Flash animations can really slow your website down; avoid them if possible.
   
10. Speed Up Your WordPress Site
    If you have a WordPress site, use the WP Super Cache plugin.

When it comes to building a website, you want to work with a content management system (CMS) that meets this criteria:

• Content can be easily edited.
• Website is SEO-friendly.
• Design looks good.

So, what’s the best CMS? There are four I really like and I’ll tell you their pros and cons so you can decide which one is right for you.

Thesis Theme

• Price: $87 (one-time).
• Pros: Because it’s WordPress-based, it’s extremely customizable and SEO-friendly.
• Cons: It doesn’t come with good-looking templates. You need to be a good designer to make it look nice.

StudioPress

• Price: $99.95 (one-time).
• Pros: Because it’s WordPress-based, it’s extremely customizable and SEO-friendly.
• Cons: Although it comes with some very nice design templates, customizing them isn’t very easy if you’re not a technical person or a designer.

SquareSpace

• Price: $14/month.
• Pros: It’s very easy to use even if you’re not a techie. It’s easier to make your website look good with SquareSpace than it is with the two alternatives I mentioned above.
• Cons: Not very flexible and not very SEO-friendly.

Flavors.me

• Price: $20/month.
• Pros: It’s very easy to build beautiful websites (even if you don’t know anything about design).
• Cons: It isn’t very flexible. You’ll have a lot of limitations to what you can do with it.

So, Which One Should You Choose?

• If you want a very simple website to show some basic information (such as some pages and links to your social media profiles), go with Flavors.me
• If you want more flexibility as far as what you can do but aren’t a technical person, go with SquareSpace.
• If you like some of the StudioPress themes, go with it.
• If you want full control of your website and aren’t afraid of working with some code, use the Thesis WordPress theme.

If you can afford to have professional web designers build you site, ask them for a WordPress site that you can later edit yourself. It’s vital that you have control over your own site so you can make all the changes you want fast and without having to depend on your designer’s schedule.

WPtouch iPhone Theme
With a single click, WPtouch transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android or BlackBerry touch mobile device.

BuddyPress
Social networking in a box. Build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community all based on the power and flexibility of WordPress.

GD Star Rating
GD Star Rating plugin allows you to set up rating and review system for posts, pages and comments in your blog.

TinyMCE Advanced
This plugin adds 15 plugins to TinyMCE: Advanced HR, Advanced Image, Advanced Link, Context Menu, Emotions (Smilies), Date and Time, IESpell, Layer, Nonbreaking, Print, Search and Replace, Style, Table, Visual Characters and XHTML Extras.

NextGEN Gallery
NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option.

W3 Total Cache
The fastest and most complete WordPress performance optimization plugin.

Global Translator
Global Translator automatically translates your blog in 41 different languages.

From my own swipe file:

Underdog
They Laughed When I Told Them I Was Going to Be a Professional Weightlifter. Nobody Is Laughing Now.

Who Else?
Who Else Wants to Quit their Jobs, Spend More Time with Their Families and Make $87,000 per Year Working 2 Hours a Day from Home?

Are You Ready?
Are You Ready to Discover the Secret Marketing Formula that a Handful of Dentists in the UK Are Using to Get Thousands of Dollars a Month (Without Any Extra Work)?

How I Did It
How I Went From a Complete Rookie to Ski World Champion in Only 3 Years and How YOU Can Do the Same

How To
How to Lose 2 Pounds per Week for 8 Weeks Eating Ice-Cream

Niche Headline
For Busy Doctors Who Want to Cut Back Work Hours (But Don’t Want to Earn Less Money!)

If You Are…, You Can…
If You Are a Doctor Who Makes More than $100,000 per Year, You Can Pay 42% Less in Taxes!

Secrets
Successful Serial Entrepreneur Reveals the 6 Secrets that Helped Her Make Millions Selling Informational Products

Warning
Warning! If You Mess This One Thing Up in Your Mortgage Application, Your Banker Can Take Your Home!

Give Me… and I’ll Show You…
Give me 90 Seconds And I’ll Show You How You Can Have a Flat Tummy in 3 Weeks

Ways
5 Ways to Make More Money With Your Existing Website Without Getting More Traffic. Guaranteed!

Celebrity
What Would Brad Pitt Say if He Saw You Wearing This Dress?

Illegal
A Money-Making System So Easy that Should Be Illegal

Direct Statement
Get 1.25% Cash Back on All Your Purchases!

Question
Are You Sick of Your “Love Handles”? Don’t You Wish They Would Just Go Away? What If I Told You that You Can Make them Disappear with 2 Simple Exercises that Won’t Take You More than 6 Minutes per Day?

Testimonial
Microsoft Has Increased their Online Sales 142% in 2008 Using Our MarketPack. You Can Do the Same. Discover How!

Command
This Is Your Chance to Lower Your Long-Distance Call Costs. Take It!

Guarantee
Natural Cream Guaranteed to Completely Eliminate Your Acne in 13 Days –or 110% Money Back and You Keep the Product!

Problem/Solution
What Would Happen if Your Computer Crashed Right Now? How Much Valuable Data Would You Lose? Here’s How You Can Make Sure This NEVER Happens to You

Discount
5 DVDs. 5 Bucks. No Commitments. No Strings Attached. Act NOW!

Reasons
9 Reasons Why You Need to Stop Complaining About the Economy and Do Something About Your Business Right Now

Story
How a Single Mom with Two Kids Managed to Get Out of Debt and Save $20,000 in 11 Months without Working Extra Hours

News
Doctors Astounded by New Miracle Pill that Increases Chances of Getting Pregnant by 211%

Not This… But This…
No “Get Rich Fast” Scams. No MLM Lies. No “Build It and They’ll Come” BS. Just Down-to-Earth Tips for the Smart Business Owner.

And remember: you can combine two or more of these tactics into one headline!

These are the top 10 deadliest website mistakes:

No Clear Call to Action
Most website just have information. What about the call to action? If you don’t tell people what to do, they won’t do anything.

No Effective Sales Funnel
There is one thing the most effective websites in the world have in common: they capture the contact information of their visitors and they use email to follow up with them. This works because you ask for a small commitment upfront (name and email or just email) and then you work on building a relationship and trust with your list.

No Social Proof
All the companies in the world say they’re the best; people want to see EVIDENCE of it. Show them case studies, testimonials, “as seen on” boxes, list of companies you work with, income proof, celebrity endorsements, expert endorsements, etc.

No Headline
A headline has to grab your readers attention. You need to know your market well enough to be able to push the right hot buttons in the headline so they read the rest of your copy.

Too Much Stuff
My favorite web design quote is “a website is ready not when there’s nothing else to add, but when there’s nothing else to take away”. Enough said.

Copy Doesn’t Follow a Logical Sequence
First you need to grab people’s attention. Then you need to let them know how you can help them and finally you need to invite them to take action. Use clear and simple copy. Don’t just mumble around, go straight to the point. Remember it’s not about you and your company; it’s about what’s in it for THEM.

No Testing
99% of the business owners think they know what their websites should look like in order to increase the response from their visitors. 100% of them are leaving sales and leads on the table by assuming too much and not testing enough. Google Website Optimizer allows you to test headlines, calls to action, graphics, copy, offers, prices, layout and whatever else you can think of. Don’t guess; test.

Information Is Hard to Find And Website is Difficult to Use
Your website should be intuitive. Go visit your gramma and ask her to go to your site and order your product. If she can do it without browsing around for minutes, you have a winning site. Figure out what you want people to do and what information they need in order to complete that action. Make sure they can find that information easily and complete the desired action painlessly.

No Risk-Reversal Tactics
Social proof and professional copy is great to persuade people to take action. But it’s not enough. You have to show people that even if your product doesn’t perform as they expect, they’ll come out on top. Some ideas:

• 100% refund and they keep part of the product or a bonus
• 110% refund and you take care of the return shipping
• You ship your product first and you only charge them if they don’t return it within 30 days

Copy Is Hard to Read
Here you have some tips to make your copy easy to read:

• Use simple words instead of complex ones (write as you speak)
• Use short sentences
• Use short paragraphs
• Use bold subheads to break down big chunks of text into shorter sections
• Use bullets
• Use images
• Take a quick glance at this blog post to see what easy-to-read text looks like

Many web sites are created by graphic designers. They often have fantastic imagery, sexy menus, and lots of graphic flair. However, few sites achieve the goal of converting traffic into buyers and making money online.

Recently, we completed a redesign of JohnHersey.com. John is a award winning public speaker and motivational coach, but his website was having trouble conveying his story. We redesigned the site from a marketing perspective and used a few simple ideas to help him convert traffic into customers. I think this is also a great example of how you can use a small site and simple graphic principles to achieve the specific goal of moving prospects towards a next step.

As you can see, John’s new site is pretty simple. It has a small menu of five choices on the top. Remember, choice is a burden online. The fewer choices you customers have to make, the more likely they are to make the right choice. John’s business is to sell his services as a consultant and a public speaker. The most valuable selling point is John’s winning personality. Therefore, the most prominent portion of the website is a large video of John right at eye level with an offer to receive additional videos. The entire site is designed around the goal of getting people to A) watch the brief video and B) trade their email address for additional (free) videos of John demonstrating his skills. These videos are sent to prospects in a drip campaign allowing for additional marketing over time.

You don’t need a really complicated website to achieve those two goals. In fact, we could further simplify the site to be just a video and a special offer. An ultra simple version like that could serve as a landing page for a pay per click campaign, for example. But we want to accomplish a few other tasks with John’s site without overwhelming the audience and detracting from the main goal of the site.

There are a four other goals we want to tackle on the home page. All four are equally important, but we don’t want any of them to detract from the main goal of downloading free videos. We used icons to help people quickly identify what each item represents and easily scanned language to help prospects make a quick decision about clicking through to the page.

1.    John writes a great blog about leadership, courage, sales and other exciting topics. We want to highlight John’s blog on the home page, and allow people to scan quickly and decide if they want to read more.

2.    John has a few well designed products. We want prospects to identify that A) John has products for sale and B) identify if any of John’s products are of interest.

3.    Speaking programs. We want to highlight that John’s business is about public speaking and allow prospects to scan and decide if they want to learn more about his speaking programs.

4.    John also runs a consulting business and would like prospects to understand quickly what his consulting business does and decide to click through to the page if they are interested.

We use the bottom portion of John’s site to highlight some of his major clients for credibility. Credibility is a huge factor in helping prospects decide to take the next step. If clients aren’t already persuaded by John’s videos, blog, and testimonial page, identifying some of his major clients can help tip prospects into taking the next step.

A home page is always a balance between goals and information. The less information you have, the easier it is for your prospects to take the next step, but too little information may prevent them moving forward. Take some time to think more about the goals of your site and how you can use some minor graphic tweaks or a simple redesign to help your prospects convert to customers.

Don’t Forget to Subscribe by RSS or Email:

How many of you have ever wandered around a department store looking for a simple but elusive item? How many times have you gone from one department to the next wishing someone would tell you exactly where to find what you’re looking for? As a customer this is a frustrating experience, and the store just might lose you as a customer. Here’s a question: When someone clicks on your banner or PPC ad, are they directed to your home page? If your answer is yes, then you may have many customers needlessly wandering around your department store, too.

So, for successful Web marketing, here’s where landing pages come in. A landing page is the page visitors should reach after clicking on your banner or PPC ad. The landing page has two main goals: 1) convince your visitor to stay, and 2) move the visitor toward the action you want them to take.

Great! How do we accomplish these two goals?

1. Use a Headline that Clearly Refers to the Ad They Clicked On
Experts agree this is critical to an effective landing page. Your visitors saw something that caught their eye, peaked their interest, and that’s why they clicked on the ad. What they see next, the place the ad leads them to, should correspond with what got them interested in the first place. This is what will maintain their interest for a while longer and keep them from clicking on the back button.

2. Give Your Visitors a Clear Call to Action
Whether you want them to click on the “add to cart” button, call a toll-free number, or download a free trial of your software, this must be crystal clear, and the copy on the landing page should lead them to take this step.

3. Write Quality Copy
Here, the word “quality” says it all. Write a clear, persuasive message. Present benefits, advantages to your target visitor, why they should consider your offer; this is exactly what they want! Don’t go off on a tangent. Needless to say, there should be no spelling or typographical errors. And use vocabulary that is appropriate to your target audience.

4. Remove Clutter
This goes especially for navigation bars, images, and links to other pages within or outside your web page. Remember, you want to keep the visitor focused on your landing page until you can convince him to take the action you want him to take. You can’t afford to have him wandering around your website or worse yet, leave your website entirely.

5. Test Your Landing Page
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. You might have to test several landing pages until you find the one that gets you the conversions you want.

And this is our ultimate goal: conversions! That is the metric you should really care about, the one that takes the customer from “Just looking!” to “Where do I sign?” If you design your landing pages with this important goal in mind, then you’re in business!

If you liked this post, subscribe by RSS or email to receive our articles:

This is the last part of the series and I want to share with you some amazing tips to convert website visitors into customers and customers into long-term clients.

Why Should I Believe You?
Your visitors don’t know you. Give them a good reason to believe you. The most common way of doing this is with testimonials. They are great because your customers’ word, unlike yours, is unbiased. If you can, get video testimonials. Audio testimonials work great too. If you have written testimonials at least include a photo of your customer and the city they live in, website, and any other relevant information. Testimonials signed by “John M.” are not very credible.

Case studies are awesome. I love them. We are an Internet Marketing agency and our strongest selling argument is case studies showing how we’ve helped dozens of companies make thousands of dollars online. Nothing is more powerful than a case study.

Other great options are photos or videos of people using your products. You can also use reports or surveys done by third parties to help you get your point across.

Empathize With Your Audience
People need to see that you understand their problem. Show them that you know how they feel. Show them that you are talking to them. Get the problem out there, appeal to their feelings, and then suggest a way to alleviate their pain. Remember that people buy on emotions and they justify the purchase with logic.

Don’t Be Everything for Everybody
Find your niche and dominate it. Don’t just take any customer that is willing to give you her money. Remember that people want what they can’t have. That’s why when women and men play hard-to-get they become still more desirable.

This is a funny story. A couple of months ago we were getting more clients then we could handle. We decided to stop taking clients that didn’t match our Ideal Client profile. So we posted this profile on our website and asked the visitors to read it and fill out an application if they fit the profile. We would then review the application and decide whether or not we would be a good match. The whole point was to keep just a few clients so we could give them personalized attention. Guess what happened? We started getting more applications than ever. The fact that we would hand-pick our clients made our service even more desirable.

Call to Action
I am surprised by the number of websites that don’t ask for the sale on each page. People won’t do anything unless you ask them to. Whatever your call to action is, make sure that it is on every single page. It should be the focal point. Some calls to action might be: Add to Shopping Bag, Checkout Now, Buy Now, Fill Out the Form for a FREE Consultation, etc. Whatever you want your visitors to do, ask them!

Use Conversational Style
I always wonder why some companies try to make simple things complicated. You want to impress your visitors with your product, your offer, and your prices, not with fancy, meaningless words. Instead of saying “Our objective is to increase the profitability level of web-based businesses” say “We Help Companies Make Money Online”. In fact, that is our tag line.

The Golden Rule of Copywriting
I left this one for last because I want it to stick in your head. There is one thing that you need to accomplish to make the sale: show your visitors why they will be better off with your product than without it. That’s it. People want to live a better life. If your product can help them do that and you can prove it, you will make the sale.

Have questions? Our Internet Marketing Agency Can Help You! If you liked this post, subscribe by RSS or email to receive our articles:

This is the second part of the series “How to Write for the Web”, the step-by-step blueprint for writing killer copy.

Spend Most of Your Time on the Headline
About 5% of the people will read your copy but 85% will read the headline. Spend as much time as you can coming up with a good headline. Many copywriters recommend writing at least 50 headlines before choosing one.

Anticipate Objections
Prospects often make the same objections. You know your market better than anybody so come up with some common objections that prospects will make and answer them. Every product has flaws. Some companies write their copy hoping that the readers don’t find any objections. Big mistake, they will. So you better include all the objections in your copy and resolve them.

Make Your Copy Credible
Never make anything up and don’t write things that sound too good to be true. If you are showing some case studies from people who have obtained great but uncommon results, make sure you make it very clear. People will think “well, I might not be able to get those same results, but if I could just get half of it…”

Provide All the Information that Your Prospects Need to Make a Decision
It is very common to find websites that feature products with incomplete information. If you are doing it on purpose hoping people will call you to ask you questions, forget it. It doesn’t work like that. You don’t make deals by hiding information.

Minimize Risk
If you sell software, offer a trial period before people have to pay for it. If you sell informational products, offer a 100% Money Back Guarantee and let them keep your product just for trying it (it’s not like you are going to hack their computers and delete the ebook that they bought from you anyway). If you sell shippable goods offer 100% money back and, if possible, free return shipping. If you offer consulting services, offer a free consultation. Your prospects don’t know you, help build trust in you. Give something before you expect to receive.

Make them “Feel” the Product
Let’s say you sell handbags online. People can’t touch them so you should write copy that appeals to the senses. Talk about the smell of fine leather, the texture of the outside, and the softness of the cloth. Make them “feel” it.

Use Social Proof
We live in a community. We care about what others do. If a new restaurant opens in your town, you walk by on Friday night, and it’s empty, chances are you will never give it a try. Now let’s say that the same restaurant opens and every time you drive by you see a huge line of people waiting. You call to make a reservation and they are booked for the next two months. I bet that now you can’t wait to get in. The restaurant is the same but your perception of it is not. Use social proof to show your website visitors that others are buying your product and love it. Use testimonials, case studies, and a list of your clients.

If you liked this post, subscribe by RSS or email to receive our articles:

Do you want to discover how to write web copy that makes your visitors reach out for their wallets and buy your products? These tips will teach you how to write for the web.

Use Short Sentences
Don’t try to use fancy words. Get right to the point and make it simple. If a sentence looks too long, it probably is. Most of the times, long sentences could easily be broken up in two, three, or even four short sentences. Mix sentence lengths to make the text easier to read.

Avoid Text Cluttering
Text cluttering refers to those boring and long paragraphs that seem impossible to read. Some tips that might help you:

- Don’t go over 6-7 lines per paragraph.
- Don’t use the whole screen width, stay within 550-600 pixels wide.
- Use bold, italics, underlined text, and highlighting to make some sentences stand out.
- Use bullets, they are very easy to read.
- Use subheads to break down long text.

Get Your Reader to Say Yes!
Ask questions that your readers will say yes to. By saying yes they are identifying themselves with the problem you are presenting and they are qualifying themselves as people who could benefit from reading your copy. An example: “Do your feet itch? Do you wake up at night scratching them?”

Your Goal is to Get Your Readers to Read the First Sentence
Getting people to read your first sentence is 80% of the battle. Use graphics, captions, and headlines to make them feel like they HAVE to read the first sentence. Do you know what the goal of the first sentence is? To get people to read your second sentence.

Do Your Homework
Before you start writing your copy you need to find out what your prospects buttons are. There is usually one main reason people buy and usually three to five secondary reasons. Find out what are the “reasons behind the reason”. Your prospect might want to make more money, but her ultimate reason might be financial freedom or to spend more time with her family.

Find out what motivates a prospect to buy and write your copy around this concept. I’ve read many copywriting books and almost all of them teach you “the magic words that cause your readers to buy immediately”. I don’t believe in magic words. Your prospects are smarter than that. Don’t manipulate them. Learn what they want and give it to them.

Use Stories
Stories work because people love reading them. Would you read my copy if I started it like this: “On March 16 I received a little box. The mailman delivered it and then ran away. When I opened it, I couldn’t believe what was in there…”?

Use stories to tell your facts. Your copy will be a lot more entertaining and your readers will be glad you did.

If you liked this post, subscribe by RSS or email to receive our articles: