General

I haven’t made many posts lately that actually really help out my visitors to my blog (most of my posts are just recaps on what I am up to business and personal wise) so I thought it would be cool to post one of the conversion tests I have recently done.  Over the past 6 months or so I have finally started to testing different things to help with conversions.. something that is vital if you want to grow your business.

One of the things I decided to test was my “Submit” buttons for a newsletter sign up at The Sports Geek.  I started with just one submit button (I think it was a blue one), but when I asked for a review of my new template I had a lot of people saying I should be testing different colours with the button.  I ended up creating a split test at Aweber (very easy to do) for different colors of the button and “submit” vs “sign up”.

After leaving the new buttons up there for a while I ended up seeing  “Sign Up per Unique Display” (S/UD) ranging from 0.1% to 0.4%… on average I was sitting around 0.3% S/UD for these buttons.  Instead of switching to the button that was giving me the 0.4% (Yellow button with navy blue “submit” text) I decided to try out a new kind of button all together to see if I could beat that.

I have been following a couple “make money online” type blogs and I know these guys are pretty awesome internet marketers.  A common theme I see in a lot of their sales pitch pages is a submit or buy now button that is circled to make it stand out (see pic below).  I decided I would give this a try to see if it worked.

Not only did it increase my S/UD to 0.5% it also looks 1000x better with the template too!

You may be thinking an everage of 0.3% to 0.5% isn’t a big difference… but over the long run it really is.

If I get 100,000 visitors to my site this year the 0.2% increase in sign ups would equate to 200 more newsletter sign ups.  If I were to get one million visitors over the course of the year it would get me 2000 more sign ups.

Those extra 200 or 2000 more newsletter sign ups could be $1000′s of dollars that would have been left off the table had I not done this small test on the submit button.

Bottom Line is that if you are not doing small tests like this to increase your conversions you could be leaving a lot of money on the table over the long run.  Even if you are a smaller affiliate – start this kind of testing now and you will thank yourself down the road when you have extra money in your pockets!

If you are not a member at Aweber I suggest you sign up today and start a newsletter on your affiliate site… mess around with different CTA’s and buttons and help yourself build your online business!

I haven’t made a post to my blog in a while, so I thought I would give a quick update with what I’ve been up to.  I have been pretty busy with school stuff as it is the last month of school, and I’ve had some tests and assignments due throughout April.  My last exam is this Wednesday (April 28th) and I can’t wait!

After that I will have 4 full months of just relaxing and doing my affiliate stuff and a bit of vacationing.

I plan on getting a lot done this summer to really take my online business to the next level.  Last summer I had times that I worked hard for a couple of days at a time, but overall looking back at it I don’t think I got close to as much done as I could have.  Working in the summer is really hard, but in order to get where I want to be I’m going to have to buckle down and work hard.  I think one of my plans is going to be to cut down the amount of hours I’m on my computer overall, but make sure I am being productive while sitting here.  A lot of time when I’m on the computer I am wasting time, but if I can make sure I’m only doing work while on the computer it will seem like I’m working a lot less and will give me more free time.

I’ve got some significant news I will write a blog post about pretty soon here when it is all finalized, but it has to do with me focusing more on a couple bigger sites rather then trying to run like 30+ sites.  Also, I am currently getting a new redesign done for The Sports Geek which I am really excited about, and I am going to try and make it more of a site that visitors will remember.

I am kind of all over the place right now, but I will be back with a post at the Start of May with some news, my May goals and April recap.  I will be really busy May 1st  with the Kentucky Derby and then I am getting my wisdom teeth out May 3rd, but I will try to get the next post up by May 5th.

Check ya later.

For my blog followers that didn’t already know from my CAL blog post or Skype name, my March Madness site got put in the google sandbox (or something that affected my rankings).  Just as I was probably going to get thousands of hits I got hit with that which sucks big time. Although I am really pissed off I am putting that aside and still working hard at getting the site some exposure.

I’ve never done any PPC and though this would be a good time to test it out.  I set up a campaign to test it out and I will post some results up in the blog when it’s all finished.  I will also try and send traffic from other related sites to the March Madness site, including TheSportsGeek, where I will be writing a bunch of articles related to the Madness in the upcoming week.

On top of all of the March Madness stuff I have going on I also have a couple other projects that need work.  With the MLB season just around the corner I am working hard getting some articles posted and backlinks pointing to my MLB Predictions domain so I can get some preseason traffic.  I also have 1 pretty nice domain that I am working on getting the content done for because I don’t want to wait until after the tournament to start that.

With all of the work I have to do I also have two stupid tests early in the week which I need to spend some time studying for since I have barely gone to many of the classes this semester haha…

Anyway just wanted to give a quick update on things, time to grind it out like I did for Super Bowl… hopefully it pays off.

Something I have personally came to realize is that I am missing out on a lot of money over the long run when I have a site sitting on a very ugly template or design.  A lot of visitors probably look at some of my sites out there and leave almost immediately because of the unprofessional look to the site.

Although the actual content on the site is most important, giving the visitor a good first impression can gain trust, and in the end convert more visitors for an increase in money in your pockets.

Here is a guest post from Eduardo or Eyenod from the PAL forums about how having a quality design can lead to more money in your pockets. He recently just completed another beautiful design for my March Madness Predictions site that I am blogging about over at CAL.

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Quality graphic design comes hand-in-hand with a solid backbone of intentions and perceptions designed to affect viewers psychologically.  First off we deal with an impression. Imagine that a famous celebrity arrived at a luxurious award gala wearing torn jeans, flip flops and a dirty shirt, and didn’t show any signs of combing their hair whatsoever.

Not so good right?

They may be thinking, “But I wanted to be cool” or “I thought it would be my style.” However, it is too late for that, as the audience has already formed its first impression.

The idea behind quality graphic design is to give viewers not only a fantastic first impression, but also to capture their curiosity to learn more about you and your brand.

Color selection, shapes, and styles are just some of the ingredients involved in a design. A good graphic designer will take these elements and combine them into a proven formula that is guaranteed to work. This formula can mean the difference between a profitable website and an instant disaster.

What about templates? Those are pretty right?

Yes, they are. Templates are pretty but they are limited to a target market.  Also, they weren’t designed specifically for your name and your brand. Some people with a good eye can get away with a premade template that seems to flatter their logo or image, but a well developed website will always deliver much more. Why? Very simply, the fully customized website is made to order. It fits your needs and most importantly it fits exactly what your viewers are after. Your image and your brand have left a template behind and are now connecting with potential clients.

Pre-made templates can make an impression, but the design never really sparks the visitor’s interest. Good design creates a memory. It sticks to your brain like gum to your hair. It will never leave, and each time you associate something with it, it will stick even more.

Affiliate marketing is the industry that benefits the most from high quality design. All the support from an experienced designer takes a huge load off your back. A seasoned designer will understand which layouts, table designs, promotional material, and color selection will increase your sales, your traffic, and your leads.

Of course, you can always try and save money by doing it yourself. You could consult a tutorial or instructional video to learn the basics of graphic design. When you are done, your site will look fantastic to your eyes, but remember that our famous celebrity going to the gala event also thought he was appropriately dressed.

Trust your designer. He will lead you to success. Guide your designer. Share your opinions and preferences and let him interpret them for you. Feedback is the best thing you can give your graphic artist. It not only feeds his hunger for improvement, but it also develops your project.

How do you know if the design is good?

Deciding is rather subjective, but your best guide is your own instincts. Ask yourself these key questions:

Is the concept visually appealing? Is everything clean and properly organized? Does the content flow? Is it easy to read? Do you want to stay on the site and keep reading?

At the end of the day you have choices. You can be the ratty dressed celeb, you can wear a consignment store outfit that kind of fits, or you can don a tuxedo tailored to your needs and become the sensation of the event.

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Thanks for the post Eduardo.

Thought I would give a quick update with what I am up to these days.

In my last post I talked about my Super Bowl site and wanted to give a quick update about that.  Overall I didn’t get as much traffic as I would have liked, but it was a great experiment and I got some sports betting sign ups from it.  Here is my Super Bowl Site Review recap blog post at PAL.

I also talked about how I was getting a mini site up focused on betting on the Winter Olympics.  I fixed it up similar to the Super Bowl site and have gotten only a small amount of visitors so far but have a couple sign ups.  I am actually working on the site with a friend who is trying to get into affiliating, so I had him do the content and I did the website stuff and SEO, and we’re splitting profits 50/50.  The site wasn’t as big as I had hoped when I bought the domain back a couple months ago but oh well I have a ton on my plate right now.

The last couple days I’ve been working hard on a  new site.  I actually started a blog series at CAL where I’m explaining step by step how I go abouts creating a new site.  Here is the first post on Creating a Site – Research and Planning. Since that blog post I have got my template back and have been putting some content on it.  My next post will come within the next few days.  The template I got for the site is probably my nicest template I have ever used, which has motivated me like crazy… I cranked out a bunch of work this weekend and didn’t even get into the alcohol at night so I could work the next day .  I might ask Eduardo from Eyenod to make a guest post here about the importance of a nice looking template, something that I need to focus on more because I have some ugly ass sites out there.

So next week I will basically just be working on my new site, making a couple oylmpic betting posts on my sports news blog, and possibly doing a few touch ups to other small sites that are starting to get traffic.  I have like 2 or 3 more domains that I want to get going soon too because I hate seeing good domains sitting around.  Check back soon.