Parkinson’s Law: Working to Your (Time) Limit

Far and away one of the greatest benefits to living the dot com lifestyle is that you get to set your own schedule. You have the time freedom to work on what you want, when you want, where you want. But as dear old Uncle Ben told us so many years ago, with great power comes great responsibility.

You see, here’s the thing. When you’re employed at a more traditional company and you work a more conventional kind of schedule to earn your regular salary, it’s easy to leave your work at work. I recognize that with the advent of email and remote working apps that this isn’t always the case, but at least in theory, you can “clock in” at 9 in the morning and “clock out” at 5 in the evening. Those are your hours.

Freelancing, blogging, Internet marketing and the dot com lifestyle are different. In theory, while you may work on what you want, when you want, where you want, you could theoretically work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Internet never “shuts down” and the it doesn’t really have “regular business hours.” There is always something to do, so you may feel compelled to do it.

The Write Stuff?

Let’s make this a little more specific. Let’s say that you want to self-publish a book. If this is a side project for you, then you might decide that you’ll just “work on it when I have time.” Without a definitive deadline and without a set plan for how much you plan on doing each day, week or month, this “side project” could get kicked further and further down the road.

That’s precisely what happened with me for both Beyond the Margins and Beyond the Baby Babble. Because I left it open ended, I’d just work on it sometimes and the “estimated” publication date kept moving further and further down the calendar.

More Time, More Problems

This is an example of what is called Parkinson’s law. Named after 20th century British author Cyril Northcote Parkinson, and not to be confused with Parkinson’s disease (named after 19th century English doctor James Parkinson), Parkinson’s law states that “work expands as to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, give yourself more time to do something and you’ll automatically figure out how to fill all that time doing that thing.

Here’s a good visual to help you better understand this principle. When you first moved out of your family home, maybe you moved into a college dorm. You had your own bedroom, but had shared living space with other students. After college, you move into your own apartment and suddenly have your own living room, kitchen and dining room. You buy furnishings to fill that space. After you get married, you move into a starter home with your sweetheart with some more bedrooms and bigger living space, so you buy more things to fill that space.

As you ascend into the echelons of the lavish dot com lifestyle and purchase a 5,000 square foot mansion, you suddenly have way more personal space than you’ve ever had before. So, you fill it up with more furniture and more things. As you acquired more space, you got more things to fill that space. Time works in much the same way. Allow yourself the time and you’ll fill it up without really thinking about it.

Where Are Those TPS Reports?

So, what does this mean from a productivity and effectiveness standpoint? As I’ve said before, there is nothing more motivating than an imminent deadline… even if that deadline is completely arbitrary and utterly self-imposed.

The way to counter the effects of Parkinson’s law is decide in advance exactly how much time you want to dedicate to a given task or project. And then actually stick to that timeline. This will help to minimize the appeal of analysis paralysis. This will force you to take more action instead of simply thinking about taking action. And then things will actually get done. By giving yourself less time to do something, you’re forced to focus and stay on task. You’re forced to concentrate.

And you know the best part of doing it this way? Not only will your work get done, but you’ll also leave yourself with enough “free time” to bask in the glory of the dot com lifestyle too.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2QLijY2
via Daniel

5 Tricks To Improve Your Contact Form Conversion Rate

In the end, I believe it’s all about achieving the highest possible conversion rate. If you can use tricks to increase your opt-in rate, then you’ll have an easier time hitting your bottom line which is to convert readers into loyal followers. However, some people still have trouble implementing the right type of marketing plans, and making sure they give their readers a sure way to contact them. Many people see a contact form as a form of a simple email, however I see it as a way to build long term engagement with my readers. It’s also a great way to capture an email address so you can market to that same person over, and over again. With that said,

What are some ways to increase your contact form conversion rate? I’ll be going over some of the strategies I learned over time, and will be looking at how you can apply the same tricks into your blog. Let’s get started, and we’ll explore the top “5” elements.

The Right Fields

Here’s one massive problem…

We simply ask people for too much information, especially, the information we don’t need to build a relationship with our readers. For example, just like when providing a free eBook, we have an opt-in form which asks for a name, address, and phone number, our contact form asks for way too much information. We are in a time where people don’t feel safe giving out their personal information over the internet so it’s going to be way too hard to get personal information. This becomes even more difficult when we are asking for this information, and we really don’t need it going forward. Here’s the point…

If someone just wants to ask a simple question, then ask for name, email, and the question – that’s all! Think about it…

Why do you need all the other info when it has nothing to do with your bottom-line…right? You’re getting the MOST important piece of information anyway which is their email address right? With that said, here are few things to think about when adding contact forms to your page:

Be simple – Just like Steve Jobs has said numerous amounts of time, people are looking for an easy way to get ahead, and don’t want to do things which are complex. Look at your form, and find ways to make it very simple.

What’s required – Ask yourself what’s required to get from A- B because you’ll notice that all you really need to ask for is name, email, and the question.

Get Feedback – Getting polls and survey’s added to your site is very easy now so why not ask loyal readers for way to improve your site especially the contact form. If they are loyal then they’ll provide you with the MOST genuine information.

Next,

Always look at your form, and find ways to make it easier. Go to your contact for right now, and ask yourself this question while looking at it: What information do I need to make sure this is simple, and they can contact me without any hesitation?

Visible Trust Statement

One main reason why NO really likes sharing information online, even when filling out a contact form is because they don’t trust what will happen with the information they provide. This is why it is important you always have a statement telling people what you plan on doing with the information. For example, here are some strategies you can use right now to build this TRUST element.

• It’s important to go through each piece of information you are asking for and re-evaluate if it’s required. You’ll notice some of it is very personal and sensitive. If you notice some of the information you are asking for is truly sensitive, then maybe wait to ask them at a later time. If it’s mandatory, then make sure you have the right TRUST elements on your site i.e. badges, site security, etc.
• Re-evaluate each field, and make sure it’s easy to fill in WITH very little errors when user has completed the input. The more frustrating for them to complete, the less they will be confident in submitting your form.
• It’s important to be user friendly by insisting the user add symbols which formats the content correctly. For example, emphasize the user should insert dashes when providing their phone number or making irrelevant fields mandatory doesn’t create trust, but it creates friction and unease.
• Clearly state why this information is required. Think about the amount of times you’ve been on a page, and didn’t understand why the owner required this information. Make sure you let the visitor know why it’s important to grab this information, and what you plan on doing with it. This leads to our final point.
• Let them know how you plan on protecting the information they have provided. Some people don’t like providing information because they don’t know it’s safely kept with the owner.

Help Visitor Along the Way

I’m surprised at the amount of blog owners who don’t understand how important it is to help people visiting their blogs. It’s doesn’t matter if they are reading content, or filling out a contact form because the same concept applies. However, many owners fail to understand this, and this pushes visitors away from filling out the form. For example,

Your contact form can be used to attract different types of people to your blog. You’ll have people looking for jobs, providing feedback, etc, and it’s important you know how to pull the right information from all of them. Here’s something else, when all of these people arrive on your page there all considered a very broad audience until you get them providing specific information.

At this point, it’s very important you get the specific information from these people which will help determine how you’ll be helping them out in the end. This means you have to provide them with a clear cut plan on what to do, and what information they need to provide you. By the end, the visitor should have provided you with the information you need to help them no matter if they provide feedback, need a job, require a partnership, etc. Here’s something else you have to remember…

Since the visitor is contacting you for help, it’s important you have the right information to segment your sending later on. By knowing what the visitor needs you should easily be able to put the information together, and deliver it to them in a short period of time. However, having all this information also means, you’ll be able to send follow up information and build something profitable going forward. Think about it this way…

Online marketers use name and email address to provide these very same people with value. Over time this leads to enormous sales which helps increase the bottom line. Head over to your contact form, and look for ways to help your visitors to fill out the form so you can get the information you need to help them out even more.

Get Rid of the Friction

Friction can push people away from completing a form which can translate into enormous traffic down the line. The concept of friction is not new because it involves finding ways to make the flow of the form smooth. For example, you’ll probably noticed one of the best ways to eliminate friction, and improve flow is by adding a “tab” scroll to the form. Here’s how this works…

When the user is filling out the form they can jump from field to field by pressing the “tab” button on their keyword. This can be setup so when the button is pressed it follows a certain sequence which is smooth, and asks for relevant information. For example, you want to ensure the tabs follow this sequence: first name, last name, email, phone number, etc.

From the example above you can see how everything is divided using personal information, then maybe go into feedback, etc. It’s a good idea to split test the way your form will look so you can find the one which converts the highest.

Compatibility

The funny thing is many people forget about the huge changes online in terms of the way we search for information. Online browsing has changed from desktop PC’s to laptops to mobile devices. You’ll notice all of these devices do require different screen resolutions so it’s important our site is designed for all of them too. For example, a form which is fully viewable on desktop PC’s won’t be too good on mobile phones. The mobile platform is completely different compared to others, and you have to create a different form. Here’s the problem when you delay doing this:

You have hundreds or even thousands of people viewing your website from their mobile devices. If they want to send you feedback or even sign up for an update, then they’ll have trouble doing this if your form has NOT been optimized. You want to make sure form is ready to go when they arrive on your page through their mobile phone. Create a mobile version of your phone, and test it to make sure you can completely view it with very little issues.

Here’s a few things you can do going forward…

• Create a whole different version of your form which is strictly for mobile devices
• Eliminate fields only keeping those essential to get the contact form conversion. By doing this you are creating a form more inviting compared to one which has too many fields. We forget how filling out information can be tough on mobile devices, and the last thing we want is for the visitor to fill out irrelevant fields using their mobile devices.
• Split test the call-to-action button because a clear button can will encourage people to fill out form, and convert through form.

Final Thoughts

Here’s the bottom line…

Just like an opt-in form, you’ll be surprised how important a contact form is at getting people to provide opinion or even feedback. This can lead to higher conversions if you know how to use the feedback constructively because you can make changes to your site afterwards which helps with engagement. I’m surprised at the amount of people who fail to pay attention to their contact form thinking it plays NO relevance in the bottom line of your website, product or service. Here’s what you can do right now to help you get started:

• Read over this content and make quick notes on some of the important elements discussed here. This way when it’s time to implement, you’ll have no problem following through.
• Implement the strategies, and track how they have improved your conversion rate. It’s all about split testing until you find a combination that works.
• Rinse and repeat until you have a solid contact form conversion rate which will help you improve the user experience. This will ultimately lead to profits, better user engagement, and an increased experience.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2SOPHz8
via Daniel

Must Use Affiliate Marketing Tools and Resources for 2019

Affiliate marketing in 2019 is alive and well.

Sure, there were be critics out there that complain about the competition, increases in mobile-usage, ad blockers and the many different obstacles in the way that make it tougher than previous years — but at the end of the day, millions of dollars are still being generated through affiliate marketing today.

With all of this in mind, it’s important to take advantage of the best resources, tools, and solutions to further improve your knowledge and earnings in affiliate marketing.

Today we are going to look at some of the best resources out there today to help you achieve the most success possible with affiliate marketing in 2019/

What the Aff Affiliate Newsletter

Paying attention to everything going on in the affiliate marketing industry can be tough. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible!

However, “What the Aff” is doing a great job at weeding out the good stuff and featuring it within their free daily newsletter.

As you can see in each of their newsletter titles below, they pull out the best news, case studies, stories and more, and provide you with a quick and easy 3-5 minute read to keep you in the know.

I’m sure like many of you, I no longer have the time or patience to manually follow blog updates, RSS feeds, and checking social media for what’s making the rounds. Instead, I just stay subscribed to What the Aff and pay attention to what’s going on in my specific niche markets.

It’s a free newsletter to join, and I definitely recommend you check it out!

Attending Affiliate Marketing Conferences

It seems like the affiliate marketing industry goes through vast changes every few years and this can clearly be seen if you’ve attended events like Affiliate Summit, BlogWorld, Social Media Marketing World and more. For a while we saw affiliate networks popping up and exhibiting at these events, then there was a flood of email marketing companies, then mobile, dating, weight loss/white label products, merchant processing and so on… it’s always interesting to watch.

No matter how the industry changes, affiliate/internet marketing events are always a MUST to attend. Just like how the industry keeps changing focus over the years, so are the many different types of conferences and events out there. Some of the most popular ones are Affiliate Summit, Affiliate World Conferences, and many smaller/network-focused events as well.

The good news is, with so many of these happening year-round, it’s very likely they you will be able to find one in your area, and also focused on the same type of business and marketing you are already doing.

In addition to networking at conferences and events, it’s also a good idea to start getting active on any of these top affiliate marketing forums as well. Many of the attendees and sponsors that you see at these events, will also have a solid presence in active online forums as well.

Online networking is great, but nothing beats in-person networking and putting a face to a name.

Affiliate Marketing Podcasts for the Win!

Like them or not, podcasting is still on the rise and they are winning over new audiences daily.

Take a look at any of these recommended affiliate marketing podcasts, and you will see each of them bring something unique to the table. Whether it’s personal stories of success, case studies, industry news, or even just interviews with other industry experts — it’s all about consuming content in a different way than just reading text.

There are several benefits to podcasting, such as having the ability to listen to content while you’re on the go, or just sick of reading text articles. They are also great because they can tell a story and deliver content in a way that written content can’t. From a podcaster perspective, they are also great for syndicating your content into many different platforms as well (audio, video, text, downloads).

It’s also great to hear entrepreneur success stories and failures right from their mouth, and feeling the emotion of their journey. This is a thousand times better than reading a Q&A article online.

Podcasting will continue to deliver value in 2019, so find a good one that matches your interests and keep on listening!

Affiliate Program Directory

New affiliate programs come and go all the time. There are also a ton of ad networks out there swapping offers and providing affiliates with different commissions based on the deals and margins they have in place.

A little side project I’ve been working on, is creating an affiliate marketing directory that will make it easy for affiliates to find the best offers out there (among the BIG 3 networks), and also adding smaller networks in over time. Just across networks like Commission Junction, Shareasale, and Rakuten Linkshare, there are well over 10,000 different brands and affiliate offers to choose from.

It’s not perfect by any means, and is a work-in-progress, but it will provide users with a quick and easy way to come across new offers and products that might not have been able to find otherwise.

Like the majority of content on my blogs, this directory will also be loaded up with useful resources and tools on the best affiliate offers, niche marketing, and different traffic/targeting solutions.

How to Make the Most with Affiliate Marketing in 2019

As always, the concept of affiliate marketing hasn’t changed. What has changed is the way people are using different traffic sources, content, and mobile/social media to target audiences and getting them to convert.

The one consistent over the years, is making money by providing an audience with a solution to their needs. This can be done through a website, blog, landing page, email, or even straight up paid advertising.

No matter what you are currently doing to make money online, just make sure you continue to adapt with the changes around you and always keep the end user’s value ahead of everything. Then, once you find success, you can put some money behind it and scale out in all directions.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2M4zvHc
via Daniel

Applying Three Key Lessons From Elon Musk and Tesla

Some people have said that he is a real life Tony Stark. Maybe, to a certain extent, that’s true. He is a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist. And while we may not all aspire to be Elon Musk, we can learn a lot from his business savvy and his penchant for success.

Hugely successful YouTuber Marques Brownlee (you might know him better simply as MKBHD) had the privileged opportunity to go on a private tour of the Tesla factory with Elon Musk a while back. This was a follow-up to an interview he conducted with the Tesla CEO at the company’s facility in Fremont where they are currently manufacturing the Model 3, the culmination of the so-called “Tesla Master Plan.”

A few subtle (or perhaps not that subtle) lessons can be gleaned from this otherwise conventional factory tour, including lessons that can be applied to your professional life as a blogger, influencer, Internet marketer and small business owner.

1. Share Openly

One of the most common questions that you’ll hear in interviews with successful people, regardless of the profession or industry where they find their success, is, “What’s your secret?”

But here’s the thing. By and large, there is no single, unified “secret” that will guarantee your success in anything. If that were the case, success would be a far simpler and more straightforward thing to attain. If the only reason why your business is thriving is because you’re holding a tightly guarded secret extra close to your chess, then it means that the long-term viability of your business is on especially shaky ground.

Once that secret gets out, your house of cards can crumble. That’s no way to build a business.

Elon Musk is, by and large, an open book. He opened up the doors to the Tesla factory in Fremont to Marques Brownlee and spoke very openly and frankly about how the whole operation works. He shares openly, because he wants everyone to benefit. It’s not about the competition; it’s about how we can create a better world for everyone. And if you just so happen to profit a few billion dollars along the way, that’s a nice side effect.

2. Respect Everyone

With an estimated net worth of over $23 billion, Elon Musk just might have every right to have an ego of gargantuan proportions. But he doesn’t. In every interview that I’ve ever seen him in, he always presents himself as passionate about what he does, but also remarkably down to Earth, humble and honest.

This is reflected in the factory tour he conducted with MKBHD. At one point in the video, he asks one of the workers on the factory floor for permission to temporarily interrupt his work. He asks if it’s okay if he goes on a video that will eventually be published on YouTube.

While the worker may certainly feel a power dynamic at play — I mean, who wouldn’t in that position? — Elon Musk appears genuine in his request. Any other billionaire boss could just as easily demand the worker to get out of the way, but Elon Musk is not like any other billionaire boss. Nobody is better than you, but you’re better than no one too.

As you continue on your journey as a blogger or online business person, treat everyone with equal respect. It doesn’t matter if you’re collaborating with the head of a multinational corporation or you’re outsourcing a small project to someone for a few bucks.

3. Pay Attention to the Details

When asked about how he would improve the manufacturing and assembly process, particularly as it pertains to Model 3 production, Elon Musk could have cited any number of potentially giant improvements. But that’s not his perspective.

Instead, he said it’s really about determining the thousands of little things that could make the process more efficient. All of these tiny, minuscule, incremental changes are what will help move the process along in a very real way. If you can shave a few seconds here, eliminate a wasted movement there, these little alterations add up.

Elon Musk says the best process is no process at all, so the key to improving efficiency (and you might apply to this to personal productivity) is to look for the little things that aren’t necessary and could be eliminated. Look for the little things that can be improved incrementally and keep striving to do better, faster, smarter.

Always keep the big picture in mind, of course, but the devil is in the details.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2RGvpum
via Daniel

Do You Have the Successful Mindset?

It’s pretty safe to say that a desire for “happiness” and “success” is fairly universal. We all want to be happy and successful, however you choose to define those terms. The challenge, of course, is figuring out how to get there. If you’ve been reading John Chow dot Com for a while, then you’ll already know all about the Dot Com Lifestyle and what that entails. You’ll also understand, at some level, that you need to get out of the “employee” or “job” mindset if you want to achieve that level of “happiness” or “success.”

It requires a fundamental shift in perspective. This doesn’t come overnight and everyone’s path is going to be a little bit different. To help direct you on your journey, there’s a comprehensive course called The Successful Mindset. Let’s get started with today’s review and see what it’s all about.

Everything It Takes to Be Successful?

The Successful Mindset challenges you to consider how you can “discover your full potential and turn out to be more successful than you ever imagined possible.”

The course consists of seven modules, each meant to approach a key target area that you’ll want to improve and work on if you want to be successful. These include creating online businesses that produce sustainable wealth, managing your time effectively, optimizing your health, and even “tapping into the powerful connection between faith and success.”

In addition to the seven core modules, you are also provided with a number of bonus materials. All of these also come with master resale and giveaway rights. They include Traffic Rampage (for getting web traffic), Discipline 101 (for breaking the cycle of bad discipline), Complete Concepts (for boosting your creativity), and Bringing The Best Out of the Worst People (for motivating others and getting the best results).

Unlocking Your Potential?

After purchasing the product, you’ll be directed to a page where you can download the full course materials, as well as the bonus products. The main course is offered as a single RAR archive. However, what I found is that after I extracted the archive, all I got were a series of additional archive files.

It would have been much more convenient if extracting from the “master” RAR archive resulted in the actual files I wanted to access. Also, it’s a little curious that the archive files are named MTRPLR1, MTRPLR2, and so on, don’t you think? More on that in a moment.

Each module of this course is effectively an e-book in PDF format. The e-book is generally about 30 to 35 pages each. For each module, you are also provided with an audiobook MP3. The voice reminded me a little of Moviefone, which isn’t the best for an hour-long recording at a time.

But wait a second. I thought this product was called The Successful Mindset. On the first page of each e-book, there is a copyright notice saying that this report belongs to SureFireWealth. It’s possible (and hopefully likely) that The Successful Mindset is a licensee.

A quick Google search yielded a website called SureFireWealth that sells PLR (private label rights) content. My suspicion is that Vincent Tang picked up a series of PLR content and repackaged it to create The Successful Mindset. He appears to have added a short introduction to each module that precedes the actual introduction; the former isn’t even in the table of contents.

How’s the Content?

To be completely fair, we can’t dismiss The Successful Mindset simply because it is a repackaged version of some PLR content. If it’s actually good, then what’s the difference, right?

As mentioned, what you’ll find inside each module is basically a 30 to 35 page e-book. The content contained within these modules reads similarly to blog content; each chapter is roughly the length of a decent blog post. In the first module, for instance, you’ll get sections on deciding on a mission statement, writing a vision statement, and coming up with your unique selling proposition (USP).

The content itself isn’t bad, per se, but it’s not especially unique either. Much of this has been covered by numerous people before, so what you’re getting is the convenience of everything packaged up in one bundle. There are some significant oddities with spacing, punctuation, and formatting, however. It’s a little sloppy, to be honest, and could have been easily corrected.

In addition to the modules themselves, you’re also offered an accompanying workbook. It asks you questions like what tasks are taking the majority of your time, in what areas do you excel, and what areas do you consider your weaknesses. You also get to work through exercises like determining what your hourly rate needs to be if you want to earn a certain annual income.

A Limited Time Offer

On some level, you can never really take these types of extreme pricing schemes all that seriously. This is, after all, some repackaged PLR content. Even the download page had a page title in Chinese characters that translates to “Untitled Document.” Attention to detail and all that.

According to The Successful Mindsets sales page, what you are getting is $778 in total “vaule” [sic], which includes the $479 course, plus $299 in bonus materials. This has an “original price” of $47, but is being offered with “a huge discount for a limited time” for just $9.99. This is a one-time cost with no upsells. Despite my hesitations, based on what I’ve discussed above, this is only ten bucks. You really don’t have much to lose and there is some good stuff to learn here.

Now it’s just a matter of applying all those lessons to your own life. Do you have a mindset for success?

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2VC8FL9
via Daniel

Connecting Design and Perfect SEO Before Going Live

Beautifully designed websites are quickly becoming the norm throughout the online world. To some, this is a luxury but more and more it is becoming a necessity for survival.  Google rankings is even including this component in their ranking criteria; on par with site architecture and high-quality content.

There are several elements to pay attention to and if you have a minute to scroll down you’ll find that your time shall be well spent. Let’s look closely and the essentials of a beautifully designed site!

Important Content Above The Fold

People spend 80% of their time above the fold according to research and so it stands to reason that your important information must lie within this space. Keeping the most relevant topics within the top 768 pixels will allow you to get your point across succinctly and increase the likelihood that browsers will remain on your page.

A good user experience is what you’re after and any tool that you implement must support this ultimate goal. Sliders are another unique design element which is being utilized more and more often throughout sites.

As with anything there are pros and cons to making them a staple throughout your pages. You want to pay attention to placement when you’re using sliders. Position is the most important part of the equation and your sliders need to be extremely obvious to users. Here it is vital to keep confusion to a minimum and browsers must know immediately what to do with the sliders in order to navigate through your website/blog.

Keep Page Links Under 100

The experience of a visitor to your site is fundamental to your overall success. Links can be helpful tools to direct traffic and establish connections but at some point they detract from the actual message.

The question is how many links is appropriate? Google recommends that you keep the number to under 100 but this is primarily because they will only index up to 100 kilobytes per page.  Matt Cutts managed to successfully publish a page that held close to 200 links on it. If the practice is justified and legitimate than large quantities of links can work.

You may find if you exceed the 100 mark, Google may begin to crawl through your site but this will only affect how much you pass on PageRank due to the volume.

Your main focus needs to be on the user experience itself. SEO measures and PageRank are important but ultimately your success or failure lies in the hands of your visitors!

Limited Ad Space

Ads can detract from the overall appeal of your site. Sometimes you just can’t get away from using them so be very selective in their placement.  Choose only your top two or three high performing ads and be careful to keep their size to a minimum. Too many ads will slow down your load times and impact the quantity of traffic to your site. Designing an effective blog will create amazing SEO if you keep this tip in mind throughout the process.

Website Speed Is Huge

Search results that appear quickly satisfy users of all ages. Site speed is a factor you may wish to monitor on a consistent basis. Problems with speed can arise and you’ll want to deal with them immediately to eliminate any future headaches.

If you want to determine your rating in regards to your speed quotient, you can look to Google’s Page Speed Tool for assistance.

You may also wish to consider utilizing Site Performance page inside Webmaster Tools.   Here you can discover what type of response your website garnishes throughout the world. This tool can also highlight current monthly trends and update you on recommendations to improve site speed.

According to Google, the number of searches will be reduced by over half a percent, simply by slowing down search results by 400 milliseconds. This little factoid points to the conclusion that speed is a factor that search engines and site owners alike must take into account. Spend the time and harness the power of speed. You won’t regret it!

Small Internal Images

Images are increasingly becoming necessary components of web content. The power they hold to draw audiences in cannot be understated.  You may want to check out my article Forget Blogging as Usual to get the full picture.

However, graphics can affect loading times so it’s vital that you choose the size of your image carefully. A tactic to circumvent this problem lies in saving images as .jpg and text headers as gifs. Tools exist which can aid you to convert images into more user friendly jpg.

To enhance the user experience, you may want to consider using a Content Delivery Network such as Akamai or Level (3).  to spread your content over multiple servers. Downloading images, stylesheets and the like can account for 80 to 90 percent of the user experience. Stress on a single server will impact the loading speed of your site. Therefore, it’s a good idea to look at CDN as a viable solution to increase sandwich and reduce site latency.

To make a lasting impression you’ll need to make this process as seamless as possible. Your users will thank you!

Validate Website Through Crawl

Crawling through your websites is really a means for you to determine the validity of your content. Regularly reviewing your design can assist you to pinpoint exactly where you need to make adjustments.

This is a testing process that involves taking a good hard look at all the components of your website and their overall effectiveness. However, there is no need to do this on your own. If you are having any difficulty throughout this process you might want to check out these tools to give you some extra assistance: Crawl Tools by SEOmoz or W3C validation tools

Here is a checklist of items that you need to pay attention to:

• HTML/ XHTML
• CSS
• Accessibility (Section 508 and WAI Standards)
• Dead links
• Feeds
• Multiple browsers
• Multiple devices

Seek and eradicate problems once they have been identified. Family and friends can give you a user’s perspective once you have completed the testing and fixing phase of your crawl.

Evergreen Content

Evergreen content simply put is a writing style. You must harness the power of language in order to add relevancy to your content and authority to your website.  This is a style of writing that when employed correctly can help content to remain factually correct and compelling. Take in to account that date specific facts tend to make your writing time specific so if at all possible omit these from your content. Writing for future validity may seem difficult at first but if you do it right the first time than the need to revitalize will not be a concern.

Readers are looking for current information and thus it is your job to consistently update your sources and add new and relevant statistics as well as links to support your work. Regular audits can serve to keep a consistent stream of visitors flowing to your site for valid information.

Simplify Navigation

The above mentioned tactics will assist you in creating a well-designed website. However, the most important factor comes down to the ease of navigation The truth is that your website must be systematically planned and constructed to accommodate the needs of the user. Like a sailboat floating down a narrow channel, you must pay attention to the course you map out in order to guide users through to their final destination.

Anticipating the needs of your user will avert danger and keep visitors aboard your site. Perhaps this will take the form of a drop down menu indicating the resources and pages available. To this end you may want to limit the number of options available through your drop down menu.  Too many choices can lead to confusion and overwhelming.

Important staples of an effective Menu:

• Search Box
• Archives
• About the Page
• Contact Us

Browsers have learned to expect the existence of these components on a website and they will use these headings to guide their searches. To keep the experience seamless, you may wish to make your blog logo clickable and have it lead back to your home page. This will ensure that even new visitors can easily navigate through your site.

Through the planning stage of navigation, it’s advisable to imagine yourself as if you were seeing your website for the first time. There are some questions you might think to ask yourself. If you had a specific topic in mind could you retrieve it easily through the search box?  Will search specific results also bring up associated content? Would users be able to navigate through date specific topics to discover what they’re looking for? These are only a few questions you may think to answer during this process.

What it all boils down to is the ease of navigation and in this case the simpler the better!

Conclusion

Designing your blog should be a fun and exciting experience. The above recommendations can truly assist you to create masterpiece while at the same time increasing your search rankings.

You will run into the odd obstacle here and there. However, if you run A/B tests consistently and measure and test your findings you’ll discover that the necessary adjustments will be easy to implement.

The process of design is an amazing and powerful experience when you really put in the effort. The results will speak for themselves!

If you, yourself, have uncovered new and exciting design elements please don’t hesitate to share in the comments box below

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2CSWbaC
via Daniel

The Best Free Tool for Overcoming Writer’s Block

When I first started blogging professionally in 2006, the publication schedule on my own blog was rather sporadic. While I would write upwards of 20 posts a day for a single tech news site, my own blog might get two posts in one day, followed by three days of nothing. Eventually, I settled on a schedule that has similarly changed and evolved over time.

Not including the work that I’ve done for numerous clients over the years, I’ve written a total of over 3,700 blog posts on Beyond the Rhetoric alone. Some posts are understandably longer or shorter than others. Some required more extensive research and testing, whereas others were simply written off the cuff. Regardless, every post had to start with an idea.

Running out of ideas meant running out of blog posts. Writer’s block is a very real phenomenon, but I’d argue it’s more the rule than the exception. It helps to revisit old content for example, updating it with new information and fresh perspectives. But what if your writing well really is running dry? Where do you turn for more ideas?

A useful (free) tool that I recently encountered is Answer the Public. Well, to be fair, I’d stumbled across this before, but I’ve started using it more in developing potential blog post topics. After all, the first step in the blog writing process is to come up with an idea, right?

When you first arrive at the website, you’re greeted by a bald fellow with glasses and a beard. He’s shown as an animated video, looking a little impatient, until he takes off his glasses and looks at your quizzically. You can pretty much ignore this guy. Look a little lower and you’ll find a box where you can enter your keyword. With the free version of the site, you can choose an alternate language, but you’ll need to upgrade to the pro version to change the region.

In this example, I decided to enter “Facebook” as keyword. The suggested possible topics are then broken down into a few different categories. You’ve got questions, prepositions, comparisons, alphabeticals, and related. All said, there are literally hundreds of potential ideas here. You can choose to view the visualization, as shown, or you can opt for a list-based data view. Whatever works better for you.

In the case of questions, some of the ideas that come up include:

• Who Facebook searched me
• Can Facebook pages join groups
• What Facebook and Google are hiding from the world
• When Facebook suggest friends
• How Facebook charges for ads
• Why Facebook is slow in Chrome

The grammar is understandably imperfect, but that’s easy enough for you to change. The goal is to come up with an idea that people are actually searching for on the Internet. It’s about coming up with an idea that addresses a particular need or query. These questions are organized into groups like who, can, what, which, where, how, when, are, why and will.

The preposition list works in much the same way, organized around a key set of prepositions and the list of potential topics under each one. These include can, for, near, is, with, to and without. These preposition groupings, just like the question groupings, may change depending on the keyword you entered into your search.

• Facebook cancel friend request
• Facebook for WooCommerce
• Facebook is for old people
• Facebook without ads
• Facebook nearby friends map view
• Facebook too many redirects

While Answer the Public can’t write the blog post for you (nor should it), and it can’t point you toward useful resources for your research either, these potential topics provide a terrific jumping off point from where you can develop your own unique ideas and perspectives. Remember that the key is to provide real value to your readers and to do so in a way that’s just a little different than what everyone else is doing.

Do you have a favorite tool that you use when you’ve run out of blog topics?

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2Rg4OVp
via Daniel