Word of Mouth (with a Megaphone)

Word of mouth advertising has always been a great way for companies to attract new customers without spending tons of money on traditional advertisements.  And essentially, social media sites are like word of mouth advertising, but with a megaphone.  The ability of good or interesting content to go viral is more likely on the internet, and the interconnected nature of the web means that it can spread farther and faster than it ever could offline.

One of the greatest difficulties with offline word of mouth advertising is that a business needs to find market leaders to spread the word about the business, those who aren’t well connected aren’t able to share the company’s message as widely.  Unfortunately, authorities in a field, well-connected people in a community and celebrities aren’t always easy to approach or convince.

Linkbait content eliminates this challenge.  While contacting bloggers or those with large social media followings in a specific market can help spread the word about a business, linkbait attracts people on its own and encourages them to pass it on to others, leading to a phenomenon known as “viral marketing.”

The Good Virus

Viral marketing uses different forms of linkbait to start the spread of a message to an exponential number of contacts.  Offline, a person is limited to the people he or she knows.  Online, these same people can tell those they know, who then go on to tell others they know – and the list goes on.  This is why cute kitten videos get a million hits apiece and why Justin Bieber is now a music icon.

The trick with linkbait and viral marketing is to avoid making it look like linkbait.  Most people can see through impure marketing motives, and web surfers may reject the content that a company wants to spread.  When creating linkbait, the intention needs to be focused on creating valuable, marketable content – the rest will take care of itself.

For this reason, a solid linkbait campaign should result in a large number of links back to a website.  This improves search engine rankings, as Google rewards sites with plenty of organic links.  It should also increase the number of targeted visitors to a site – which can, in turn, increase sales and revenue.

Various Forms of Linkbait

If you want to harness the power of linkbait content for your website, know that there are several different types of linkbait that can be used to encourage links and attract visitors.  Some are positive, and are used with the intent of informing, entertaining or flattering web surfers.  Others take the “bait” part of linkbait literally and tend to use controversy, opposition or even insults to drive traffic.  While both forms have their uses, you’ll need to determine what type of results and visitor experience you want to create when using linkbait techniques.

In general, the six most common types of linkbait are:

Attack – “Attack” linkbait pieces can be aimed at a specific target or large group, and are used to incite readers into clicking on the link. As you might expect, if not used carefully, this form of linkbait can backfire on the user.

Humor – Making people laugh is often a positive strategy when it comes to spreading links, which is why joke emails are usually passed along more frequently than political or religious messages. When used properly, this type of hook may reel in the largest catch of visitors online.

Contrary – “Contrary” linkbait is a milder form of the “incite readers” hook.  It uses controversy to drive traffic, but it does it by revealing the other side of a popular opinion or theory.  If backed with information and respect, playing devil’s advocate can also show the business as an industry leader in its field.

Incentive – Baiting a hook with offers such as free items, awards or software is a great way to bring in new visitors.  Few people can pass up on something that’s free – just make sure that the terms of your offer are clear and that there’s no catch to the giveaway.

News – Offering RSS news feeds or the latest information on a specific topic is a fantastic way to drive traffic.  There’s so much information available on the web that it isn’t easy for people to find it all.  For this reason, being a “go to” source for current events should increase your initial traffic and repeat visitors.

Resource – One way to increase the number of new customers visiting your website is to demonstrate your authority as a “thought leader” in your industry.  Creating informative content that resolves important problems for your target market is a great way to create viral links and drive search engine rankings.

17 Types of Linkbait

Now that we’ve established how valuable linkbait content can be and the different types of linkbait you can use to drive visitors to your website, here’s a list of a few specific linkbait styles you can use to improve your site’s online presence:

Video – 90% of web surfers will stop on a website that has a video.  Video links also account for a majority of social media traffic, which is why creating videos is a one of the most common linkbait methods.

Infographics – Like videos, infographcis are informative and visually appealing.  And, with the growing popularity of Pinterest, infographics are rising as one of the most popular forms of linkbait.

Lists – If it works for David Letterman, it can work for your business. “Top 10” style lists have always ranked well on the Internet, as they allow people to absorb a large amount of information in a short period.

Curative Posts – This type of content recaps the important news in a specific industry.  Most people don’t have the time to do this on their own, so they appreciate sites that recount the important information for them either once a week or once a month.

Guides – Both free and paid guides are a great way to attract traffic and links. If the content is written well, it can be included in posts, articles and resource sites for a long time.

Surveys – Whether it’s business-related, political or personal, people love to take surveys.  Use surveys to find out what a target market is interested in and increase traffic to your site.

Interviews – If you’re able to conduct interviews with authorities within your industry, these files can be used as viral-worthy content that’s sure to drive traffic.

Free Software – Shareware represents one of the most downloaded types of content on the web.  Free tools and software that helps solve major problems or make life easier will often spread virally with little effort on your part.

Giveaways – Any form of freebie – whether an e-book, report, shareware or guide – that’s made available on your website is sure to attract attention from interested visitors.

Awards – If you offer awards on your site, contestants and winners will often visit your other pages as well. They’ll also share the links with their friends, family and social media contacts, leading to more traffic and more links for your site.

Contests – Offering contents is another surefire way to create natural links.  As an example, asking people to choose a name for a new product or a new flavor for an existing product line are two popular forms of contest linkbait.

Widgets – As with shareware, helpful widgets tend to spread quickly throughout the web.

News – Keep people informed and prove yourself as an industry leader by posting breaking news in a specific field.  If you’re the first to report on a major subject in your industry, you can expect to receive a major influx of backlinks and traffic!

Industry Discussions – Similar to reporting on breaking news, being the first site to explain new breakthroughs and market news on a consistent basis is a great way to build quality linkbait.

Previews – People generally want to know as much as they can about new products, services, books, movies and more before they buy.  Writing informative previews about hot items in your industry can be a great way to promote your viral marketing campaigns with little effort

Year in Review – “Year in Review” style articles are always a great way to drive traffic.  Recapping the major events that occurred in the past year, as well as how they affected your specific industry, is a great way to create viral-worthy content.

Incite a Response – This type of linkbait creates controversy by attacking a person or company, or playing devil’s advocate on a popular topic.  This can backfire, though, so use this type of linkbait carefully.

Have you had good results with launching linkbait campaigns in the past?  If so, share your tips and tricks in the comments section below!

Image: cab234

Maybe your company is going through a re-branding and redesign process and you’d like your website to reflect your new business name.  Or maybe you’re moving your website to get away from a hosting provider whose actual up-time never quite reflected the guarantee advertised on their sales pages.

But whatever the case, moving a website is a process that should be approached with caution.  Depending on the specifics of your proposed move, it may be necessary to take proactive action to avoid losing the SEO authority your content has built up at its current location.

Here’s what you need to know…

Typically, there are two major types of website moves – hosting provider moves and domain name moves.  The specific actions you’ll want to take to move your site safely will vary based on the type of move you’re completing, so be sure you understand the distinction between the two before you get started.

Scenario #1 – Moving website hosts

As far as website moves go, switching hosting providers while keeping the same domain name isn’t nearly as complicated as moving your site to a new URL.  Because link authority is based on your URL (which isn’t changing in this situation), there’s no risk that you’ll lose the accumulated value of your backlinks when moving your site.

However, when performed incorrectly, a website hosting provider move can result in downtime for your site.  Too much downtime may negatively impact your site’s SEO and rankings, so it’s important to pay attention to the following recommended steps:

• Sign up for your new hosting account at least 1-2 weeks before shutting down your existing plan.  It will take time to migrate your site to its new account, so the last thing you want is for your existing plan to cut off access to your site before the merge is complete.
• Once your new hosting account is set up, move your existing website files to the new account, which you’ll be able to access using an IP address provided by your web host.  Comb through your new site to be sure any issues that cropped up during the move are resolved before your new site goes live.  (Note – if your site runs on WordPress, you’ll need to create a backup database of your existing posts and import this file into your newly created site.)
• After you’re confident that everything on your new site is in good working order, adjust the nameservers on file for your domain name to point at your new hosting account.  Your new hosting account’s support team can provide these addresses to you if you aren’t sure what information to use.

Keep in mind that, when moving your website to a new hosting account, it isn’t necessary to move your domain name registration as well, as your domain name’s nameservers can be adjusted to point at any hosting account.

However, if you do decide to move your domain name (either because you prefer keeping your accounts consolidated or because you got a good deal on renewal registrations by changing hosting providers), you’ll need to release the URL from your previous registrar’s account.  Different registrars have different processes for conducting domain name transfers, but you’ll likely need to supply a code from your old registrar to your new registrar indicating that you do, in fact, want to move your domain name.

Scenario #2 – Changing URLs

As mentioned previously, changing your website’s URL is a little trickier.  If you’ve spent any amount of effort building backlinks to your new site, changing URLs risks losing the value passed by these web addresses, as any links pointing at your old site will no longer be valid.

While it is possible to notify the search engines of these changes in order to diminish the impact of moving your URL, you’ve got to perform the following steps in the right order for this process to run smoothly:

• Start by making a backup copy of your existing website and its sitemap.  You’ll use this old sitemap later on in the process of moving URLs, so take special care to make sure it’s backed up accurately before proceeding.
• Recreate your site on your new URL while your old website is still live (don’t delete your old website until after this entire process has been completed).  Go through the site you’ve created on your new domain in order to correct any internal links that may inadvertently refer visitors to your old site, and then start building new content on your new URL as quickly as possible.
• Add both your old URL and new URL to Google’s Webmaster Tools (if you haven’t done this yet).
• Go back to your old website and add site-wide 301 redirects that tell the search engine spiders that your content has been moved to a new URL.  The easiest ways to do this are with PHP header redirects or WordPress plugins that can add 301 redirects to all pages automatically.
• Now, resubmit your old URL sitemap to both Google and Bing.  This will cause their search engine spiders to reindex your old pages and detect the 301 redirect indicating that your content has been moved.  It’s also a good idea to complete Google’s “Change of Address” form at this point in the process.
• Once you see that the Googlebot and Bing-bot have indexed your old site and taken notice of your redirected content, submit your new URL sitemap to the search engines and wait for them to index the content on your new website.  Pay special attention to your Google Webmaster Tools account – as soon as your new website is indexed, any errors that occurred during the indexing process will appear in your website’s diagnostics section.

Once you’ve addressed any errors that appear in your Webmaster Tools account, you can assume that your transfer has occurred successfully from the point of view of the search engines.  As long as your 301 redirect was set up correctly, the link authority pointing at your old URL should carry through to your new URL, although it may take some time for the search engines to process all of these changes.

But what about your human visitors?  Although you may be tempted to take down your old site in celebration of this lengthy process being completed, consider temporarily putting up a single page explaining to users who enter your old URL directly into their browsers where to find your new content.  Think of it as a “We’ve moved!” courtesy announcement that will prevent visitors who haven’t been on your page in some time from receiving a “Site not found” message that could diminish their trust in your brand.

Alternatively, you could simply create a domain redirect that automatically sends visitors who land on your old URL to your new pages.  If you do decide to take this route, be sure to keep your old URL’s registration up-to-date.  Although this type of redirect won’t offer a personal message to your visitors explaining the reason for your move, it will ensure that they arrive on the correct page after entering your old URL into their browsers.

Image: Daveography.ca

In fact, the reality is that – in many cases – as long as your business website is professional-looking and well-organized, it may not matter if the design and image elements you use are unique to your company.  Here’s how to determine whether you really need to invest in a custom website design for your business website…

Step #1 – Study your competitors’ websites

Before you can determine whether it’s worth investing in a custom website design for your business, it’s important to understand who your competitors are and how they’re using their websites to promote their businesses.

As an example, consider the different website needs of an online ecommerce store selling highly competitive electronics products compared to a local orthodontist’s office.  In order for the ecommerce seller to stand out in a crowded marketplace, his website will need to be unique, visually appealing and engaging – all of which will likely require a custom website design in order to be achieved successfully.

On the other hand, the orthodontists’ office may be competing against – at most – ten different local businesses offering the same services.  For this reason, the orthodontist’s website doesn’t need to feature all of the latest “bells and whistles” the ecommerce seller must pursue.  As long as his website looks good, provides the appropriate information and is visually distinct from his competitors, the orthodontist likely doesn’t need to invest the time and money required to produce a custom website design.

However, the only way to determine where your website falls on this spectrum is to analyze the websites offered by your closest competitors.  Do they appear to be using custom designs to attract and retain visitors?  If so, this could be because having a unique presence is vital to standing out amongst your peers.  On the other hand, if you see a variety of custom sites, template sites and obviously “homemade” websites, you may not need to hire a web developer to build a totally unique website.

Step #2 – Identify industry standards

In addition to taking a closer look at your competitors’ websites, try to get a feel for what standards exist within your industry when it comes to website design.

Beyond what your immediate competitors are doing, what types of websites appear when you Google search for related keywords in your industry?  Do the sites you see incorporate lots of interactive add-ons (for example, pop-up windows, forms, Flash elements and more) or do you see primarily “billboard” style sites that function as virtual print advertisements by displaying primarily text-based information?

If you find highly-customized websites with extensive upgrades or add-on features across your industry, know that it will be harder to find a template-based design that you can adapt to your business in order to compete in this environment.

On the other hand, if the sites you see throughout your industry are largely static and text-based, odds are you’ll be able to build a website that meets your needs and expectations using a template design.

Step #3 – Assess your time and budget constraints

Again, the idea of assessing your unique time and budget constraints when it comes to choosing a website design solution is something we touched upon briefly in our earlier article on hiring a website designer.  However, as cost considerations will likely be the foremost concerns for most small business owners managing their company’s internet presences, this topic deserves a review.

So first, take a second to assess the amount of time you have available to dedicate to your website project.  If you have no time whatsoever to contribute to your new website’s creation, you’ll probably need to hire a professional designer to complete the project.

Alternatively, if you have more time than money to dedicate to your new website, a template website solution might be a perfect compromise.  Keep in mind that most professional web designers charge $1,000 and up for a custom site – and sometimes much, much more if you require any number of interactive features.  If you can’t commit this amount of money to your redesign, look into template website design solutions that are typically much more affordable.

Step #4 – Evaluate website design alternatives

If you do determine that budget constraints will prevent you from hiring a professional website designer, don’t worry – there are a number of different template website solutions you can take advantage of that will allow you to put up a good looking website with a minimal amount of work.

The following are a few of the different template website design alternatives you should consider:

Open source blogging platforms – Choosing to build your website on the WordPress, Drupal or Joomla platforms may be a good choice if you have some experience with web coding.  These three platforms are all free to install on your hosting account and offer an unlimited number of free or paid templates that can be quickly and easily applied to your base content.

In addition, with the library of plugins and add-ons available for these website design platforms, you’ll likely find that it’s easy to include interactive elements on your website, making it more engaging for your site visitors.

Of course, it’s also worth being aware that you’re on your own when it comes to using these website design platforms.  While there are plenty of support resources online, these free-to-download platforms to not come with any kind of customer support team to assist you if your site “breaks” due to incorrect customizations or hacked themes and plugins.

Template web design programs – If you aren’t comfortable with fixing these types of errors that can and do occur on open source web design platforms, consider a paid template web design service.  As a member of these programs, you’ll pay a small monthly fee to build a website based on one of your provider’s stock designs (although customization support may be available for an additional cost).  As part of your monthly cost, you’ll typically also receive the customer support needed to ensure your website remains live and functioning properly.

The two best known template programs are Intuit’s Website Builder and Yahoo’s Small Business Site Solution service programs.  Although both of these website design programs represent an easy way to quickly build and launch a professional-looking website, it’s important to browse through their respective template offerings and read up on their support guarantees before choosing the program that best meets your needs.

Image: kayaker1204

The truth is that every website “sells” something, whether you’re vending physical products, trying to capture leads for an offline business or even just trying to convince people to follow your line of thinking.  And since we all “sell” online, we all need to be concerned about making the sales copy found on our websites as effective as possible.

There’s no doubt that the specific words we use on our websites have a dramatic impact on how effective our online sales processes will be.  So if you have the sneaking suspicion that your site’s copy may not be as effective as it could be, check out the following process for improving your website’s sales process through the use of “words that sell.”

Step #1 – Identify areas of sales copy on your website

If you run a long-form sales letter style website that sells a single product on a single page of text, identifying the specific instances of sales copy on your website should be easy – it’s your entire page!

However, if your site structure is more nuanced than a single page of HTML, determining which areas of your website are functioning as sales copy may be more difficult.  For example, on an informative website, the heading text you use to convince people to stick around and read more of your content could technically be considered “sales copy” – even though the only thing you’re asking people to do is pay attention.

In general, think of any area of your site where you’re asking people to take a specific action as “sales copy.”  Again, this could be the text you use to convince people to make a purchase, or it could be the language used in your headings, your opt-in boxes or your subscription request forms to encourage readers to follow through on some defined activity.

Step #2 – Analyze the impact of your current sales language

Now that you’ve identified these specific areas of sales copy on your website, it’s time to start analyzing how effective they are in terms of achieving your website’s goals.  There are a couple of different ways we can do this…

• The “gut check” – Isolate the sections of sales copy you identified on your website in Step #1 and look at them with a fresh set of eyes.  Do you feel compelled to take action based on this standalone sales copy?  If not, it’s safe to assume that your readers won’t be motivated as well.
• Statistical copywriting software – If you have a little extra money to invest in your sales copy writing process, tools like Glyphius or ScribeJuice provide an automated way to compare the effectiveness of your sales text against algorithms based on past successful advertisements.  Although these tools aren’t cheap, they can be an easy way to quickly analyze and uncover opportunities for strengthening the weak spots in your sales copy.
• Google Analytics goals and funnels – Ideally, if you’ve set up your website correctly, you should have at least a few Google Analytics goals and sales funnels set up to monitor the effectiveness of your website.  Consult your most recent results to determine whether or not your site is performing up to snuff.

Step #3 – Revise your sales copy using proven copywriting principles

Now, unless you’re a Joe Sugarman level copywriter, chances are you’ve uncovered at least a few areas for potential improvement within your website’s sales copy.  With these weak spots in mind, brainstorm a few potential variations according to proven copywriting principles.

Keep the following guidelines in mind as you create these unique versions:

• Good sales copy uses “power” words. Certain words – for example, “achieve,” “discover” and “secrets” – have the power to capture attention and encourage action.  For more examples of these motivational power words, check out this list of “50 Power Words to Juice Up Your Sales Copy.”
• Good sales copy encourages urgency. While you don’t need to resort to artificial scarcity tactics (ie – “This offer good for a limited time only!”), it’s best to encourage your reader to take action right away.  Things that aren’t urgent priorities are rarely accomplished!
• Good sales copy focuses on benefits, not features.  Don’t just tell someone that the TV you’re selling has a 32” screen or 1080i resolution.  Make them viscerally feel how much better their favorite TV shows and movies will appear on their new TV, as well as how jealous their friends will be after viewing content on such advanced technology.
• Good sales copy is easily understood. Leave out the big words and jargon.  Since most people only scan webpages for content that interests them, your sales copy must convey both the action to be taken and the benefits of doing so quickly and clearly.
• Good sales copy focuses on a single priority.  Although your website might have multiple sales goals, each instance of sales copy on your site should focus on a single desired action.  Mixing your priorities can cause confusion in your readers, preventing them from completing any of your established goals.

Step #4 – Test different variations to improve your sales results

At this point, you should have a few different variations for each instance where sales copy appears on your website.  And now – as you might expect – it’s time to test them using A/B split testing!

Split testing refers to the process of serving up two or more different versions of a page randomly to website visitors in order to determine conclusively which variation results in the most conversions.  For example, if your goal is to make more sales on your long form sales letter style website, you might create two different versions of your webpage to test, with each variation featuring a slightly different headline in order to find out which introductory line is more effective at keeping visitors on your site long enough to make a sale.

Once you’ve created your different web page variations, you’ll need to upload them into a split testing program that will serve up each version randomly and return the results of your split test.  Google’s Website Optimizer is a great free program that provides this functionality, although there are plenty of other third-party software programs that offer these features and more.

The one crucial piece of advice to keep in mind when it comes to split testing is that you’ll need to run your split tests long enough to determine that your results are statistically significant.  If you only gather data on a few conversions, it will be difficult to tell if the results you achieved can be attributed to a handful of people, or if they can be applied to the population as a whole.  For this reason, it’s a good idea to run your split tests until you’ve received at least 100 conversions.

It’s also important to be mindful of the exact type of split testing you’re carrying out.  If you’re new to the process of data-driven website optimization, stick to A/B split testing in which you test multiple versions of a single variable against each other.  As you become more advanced in your optimization skill set, you can move on to multivariate testing – in which multiple variables are tested at once – in order to truly beef up your website’s sales copy.

Image: lisbokt

Here’s a step-by-step guide for tackling a successful website redesign:

Step #1 – Determine what you want to get out of your website redesign

Before you even start looking for designers or website design programs, spend a good amount of time brainstorming your expectations for your website.  Having a clear vision for what you’re trying to achieve will make it much easier for whatever web design solution you choose to achieve your goals.

To develop this vision, come up with answers to the following questions:

• What do I like about my current website?
• What is missing from my current site?
• Which of my competitors’ websites do I like?
• Do I need to do a full website redesign or could I make changes to my existing site to save money?
• What do I want my new site to be able to do that my current site isn’t?
• Do my problems with my current site come from its design, its structure, its wording or all of the above?
• What platform do I want my new site to be built on?

Really put some effort into analyzing your goals and objectives at this stage, as doing so will help to keep your project on track and ensure that you’re satisfied with the end result.

Step #2 – Set your price point (and be aware of these limitations)

Now that you have an idea of what you’re trying to achieve, take a look at your budget.

Realistically, if you’re planning to hire a web designer to build your new site for you, you’ll need to set aside at least $1,000 for the simplest of sites.  If you run an ecommerce site or have needs that go beyond the basic “5 pages of content” model, you could be looking at significantly more than this.

As a cheaper alternative to hiring a web developer, take a look at web development programs like Intuit’s Website Builder.  By starting from a standard template, you’re able to cut costs while still retaining the ability to customize your new website as much as you like.  At only $8/month, this option is much more affordable than bringing on a web developer or design agency.

Step #3 – Look for a web developer/program whose work you like

Whether you decide to hire a web developer (either in your geographic area or online through sites like Elance.com) or work with an established website design program like Intuit, the most important thing is that you’re satisfied with the visual appeal of the finished results.

Spend some time looking through the portfolios of each option you’re considering, making sure to look for finished examples of the type of site you want to create (for instance, if you’re planning to have an ecommerce site built, look for a portfolio that features successful ecommerce examples).  If possible, ask your designer or web development program for referrals to past customers so that you can confirm with real customers that the website redesign process went smoothly.

Step #4 – Understand what’s included in your purchase price

So you’ve determined what you’re looking for in a redesign, set your budget and found a solution whose past work you like – you’re ready to sign on the dotted line, right?

Not so fast!  Before you commit to anything, be sure you understand exactly what you’re getting for your money.  A few of the specific items you should investigate include:

• The number of design concepts and rounds of revisions you’ll get
• How much access you’ll have to your designer or the support team of your development program
• What specific website features (for example, email opt-in forms, pop-ups and other add-ons) are included with your purchase price
• Whether or not your purchase includes hosting and domain registration (if necessary)
• If your site will be optimized for SEO (and, if so, what specific actions will be taken)
• Whether your site will be installed on your hosting account or delivered as files

Having a clear idea of what you’re getting for your investment will go a long way towards preventing uncomfortable situations down the road!

Step #5 – Develop a thorough site plan

If you’re working with a designer or design agency, it’s likely that they’ll handle the process of putting together a site plan for you.

But if you’re going it alone, it’s important to put together a concrete site plan before you begin building your new website in order to ensure that key variables are accounted for throughout the design process.

We’ve discussed the importance of building an effective site plan here on the Intuit blog before, but as a reminder, be sure to address the following website variables in your site plan before you begin building your new pages:

• Your overall website navigation structure
• The pages you plan to include and their content
• Any keyword research you plan to integrate into your site
• Proper on-page SEO best practices
• Color scheme and other design elements

Making sure each of these elements is accounted for in the site plan will prevent potentially costly oversights from occurring during the redesign process.

Step #6 – Don’t be afraid to provide feedback

If you’re working with a web designer, one of the worst things you could do would be to avoid speaking up when you feel that something is wrong.  Remember – it’s your money on the table.  If you aren’t totally satisfied with the way the redesign process is going, say so and provide whatever feedback is necessary to get the project back on track.

Keep in mind that the terms of your original contract may limit the number of revision requests you’re able to receive.  However, if you’re unsatisfied with the mockups you’re receiving, it’s usually worth it to pay extra for more rounds of revisions than to sign off on a website design you aren’t totally happy with.

Step #7 – Check your final product thoroughly

Once your redesigned website is up and live, plan to set aside some time to go through everything with a fine-toothed comb.  Whether you built the site yourself through a website development program or are working from a mockup provided by your design agency, it’s always possible that certain elements that worked in the development environment don’t translate well to your live site.

If you encounter any glitches or errors that are causing your site to display incorrectly or not function appropriately, contact your designer or the customer support team of your web development program right away.  Getting these mistakes fixed quickly will ensure that you’re as satisfied as possible with the final product of your website redesign.

Image: justindc

According to MarketingExperiments.com – a leading source of data-driven internet marketing recommendations – testimonials are especially useful in a digital environment that’s often fraught with “over-marketing”:

“Today’s consumers are fed up with exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims. It’s far better to let someone else do your bragging — customers, partners, trade press, etc. Why? Because when the quality of information is debatable, today’s consumers will always resort to the quality of the source.”

But what do these testimonials look like in the real world?  And how can you capture the benefits of these user-generated content features on your own site?  Let’s take a closer look at the practice of using testimonials on your site…

For starters, the Insider Tactics marketing blog defines “testimonials” as:

“Statements made by other people and ideally by your customers that demonstrate satisfaction with your product. “

These statements can be integrated into your website in a number of different ways in order to offer your readers concrete proof that the claims you’re making about your products and services are valid.  Check out the following examples to see a few of the different ways that testimonials can be incorporated into your website:

• The Freshbooks accounting software website integrates client testimonials related to both the company’s products and support directly into its home page:

• The Market Samurai web marketing research program highlights testimonials at key places within its sales letter, making this valuable information standout with boxes and color attributes:

• The Clover website design company makes use of video testimonials to share its positive customer experiences – a technique that may be even more effective than text testimonials alone:

Although the structure of each of the different types of testimonials varies, the intent is the same amongst all of them – to convince readers that real people have purchased and benefited from the site’s products or services.

Now that you have a good idea of what testimonials are and how they can be used effectively on your website, let’s take a look at how you can go about adding these powerful features to your website…

As you might expect, the first step to using testimonials on your website is to collect them in the first place!  Although post-purchase customer follow-up should already be a part of your business model, collecting the information needed to craft good testimonials requires a slightly different process.

To capture the best testimonials, use the results of your post-purchase follow-up to determine which customers are most satisfied with your products or services.  Clearly, obtaining feedback from people who were disappointed with their purchases isn’t going to result in the most persuasive testimonials!

However, when contacting potential testimonial providers, be aware that the specific questions you ask your buyers plays a major role in the quality of the testimonials you’ll receive.  For example, consider the following two testimonial request messages:

“Hi Robert,

I’m so glad to hear that you’re satisfied with your purchase!  I’m always looking to feature feedback from happy customers on my website, so could you please send me a short paragraph describing what you like best about your purchase?

Sincerely,

Jessica the Store Owner”

Versus

“Hi Robert,

I’m so glad to hear that you’re satisfied with your [product name] purchase!  As a service to future buyers, I like to feature feedback from happy customers like you on my website.

If you’re willing to share your experiences, please send back your responses to the following questions (or feel free to write your own message), along with a picture of you and a link to your website (if applicable)?

1. What problem were you facing that (my product) solved?
2. How much has (my product) increased your profits or income?
3. How much time or money has (my product) saved you?
4. Has (my product) made your life easier? How?

Thanks in advance!

Jessica the Store Owner”

The second testimonial request letter benefits from the use of “leading questions” – that is, queries that ensure you receive a more interesting responses by prompting past buyers to share the type of information you’d like to receive.  Giving people a framework to go off of also increases the likelihood that past buyers will follow through on the testimonial process, as answering questions is perceived as less effort than writing a testimonial from scratch.

One final note on obtaining testimonial information…  There’s no arguing that the process of contacting customers, compiling feedback and uploading this information to your website can be time-consuming, even if you do stand to substantially improve your website results through this effort.

Unfortunately, many website owners use this as an excuse to make up testimonials or use “testimonial generator” programs to receive feedback from paid commenters.  However, I strongly encourage you to stay away from these unethical programs!  Not only do these false testimonials do your current customers a disservice, they can be illegal in light of new FTC guidelines that regulate how feedback can be used.

Finally, once you’ve obtained a few responses back to your requests for testimonials, it’s time to start adding these helpful snippets to your website.  There are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind as you do so:

• Include as much identifying information about the person providing the review as possible. Including your reviewer’s name and picture should be considered the “bare minimum” amount of information that constitutes an effective testimonial.  Testimonials that feature a video clip or the reviewer’s city, email address or URL are even better, although you may find that it’s more difficult to get reviewer’s to commit to sharing this personal information online.
• Share testimonials on multiple areas of your site.  Include a few on your home page to encourage new visitors to engage further with your content, but also consider incorporating them into your site’s sidebar, “About” page, “Testimonials” page or on any part of your site that sells your product or service.
• Split test the specific testimonials you use, as well as where you place them.  You’ll likely find that certain customer testimonials are more persuasive than others, and that using testimonials on specific areas of your site results in more sales or conversions.  However, you’ll only find this out for sure if you actively split test these variables to determine which reviews and placements are most effective.
• Solicit testimonials on an ongoing basis.  Testimonials get stale after a while, and any testimonials in place that refer to products or services you no longer offer will make your site appear out of date.  To benefit most from this strategy, make asking for testimonials a regular part of your customer follow-up process and swap out your older reviews as these new testimonials come in.

Are you using testimonials on your website?  If so, have you seen an increase in sales as a result?  Share your experiences in the comments below!

Image: kreg.steppe

According to popular legend, if you post content to your site that too closely resembles articles on other web pages (whether unintentionally or purposefully, through the misuse of PLR content, manufacturer’s product descriptions and other stock text), the Googlebot will tag your site as a scammer, assess a penalty, and downgrade your rankings in the natural search pages.

But with the amount of content on the web today, is this really something you need to worry about?  Let’s take a closer look at what duplicate content is and whether your site could be subject to penalties from including this repetitive text…

First of all, it’s worth pointing out that duplicate content can be caused by a number of different scenarios:

• Copying and pasting content from another person’s site to your own (as described above)
• Having another person copy your unique content and paste it to his own site (called “scraping”)
• Copying manufacturer product descriptions “as is” when reselling products from a third-party merchant
• Repeating product description section headings multiple website pages (for example, “Specifications” or “Sizing Information”)
• Using forums which render multiple versions of your pages on display (particularly in mobile environments)
• Having a “printer friendly” version of your content pages available for users
• Using an ecommerce site structure that allows products to be displayed on multiple pages
• Making use of proxy browsers which store multiple versions of your site

Really, only a few of these examples represent malicious intent (in the case of spamming).  Most of the time, the inclusion of duplicate content on websites is harmless in nature – if the site owner even knows it’s occurring at all!

And given that there’s rarely a negative intent behind instances of duplicate content, would it really be fair to punish webmasters who are doing their best to supply a feature rich environment for their users?

It wouldn’t – and fortunately, it doesn’t happen.  The Google Webmaster Central Blog sums this up nicely, saying:

“Let’s put this to bed once and for all, folks: There’s no such thing as a “duplicate content penalty.”  At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that.”

Essentially, the article confirms that while there is no penalty assessed automatically for the benign instances of duplicate content described above, the search giant does reserve the right to penalize sites that violate its Webmaster Guidelines.  There are three specific instances referenced where this may occur:

• The creation of multiple pages, domains or subdomains with substantially relevant content,
• The use of “cookie cutter” affiliate pages provided by affiliate programs and used by multiple program participants, and
• Sites that do not add value beyond promoting affiliate products.

This makes sense.  Google’s primary goal is to provide its users with the best possible search results, and it stands to reason that a group of several sites all displaying the same content can’t meet this need.  To keep people coming back (and to keep its advertising revenue up), Google must filter out these lower-quality results, and picking up on duplicated content is one of the ways it’s able to do so.

However, the fact that Google doesn’t automatically issue a duplicate content penalty to repetitive articles doesn’t tell us how it does handle these situations.  And indeed, the second half of the Google Webmaster Central blog quote referenced above (“At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that”) seems to leave open the possibility that Google does, in fact, factor content uniqueness into its algorithms somehow.

A post in the Google Webmaster Tools help section regarding duplicate content issues arising from malicious scraper sites does a good job of clarifying how the search engine handles these instances:

“Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don’t follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.”

The key to understanding how duplicate content is processed lies in the final sentence of this quote.  When the Google search engine spiders are confronted with repetitive text, instead of automatically issuing a penalty or decreasing a site’s rankings, they use a separate process to determine which version of the duplicate content should be displayed in the results.  This causes most of the duplicate content instances to be filtered out in favor of one (or more) selected version(s) which will appear in the SERPs.

To determine which instances should be filtered out and which pages should remain, the Googlebot applies a series of filters that mimic its overall ranking algorithms.  For example, this process might look at:

• The number of backlinks pointing at each instance of duplicate content
• The overall authority of each domain hosting instances of duplicate content
• The amount of unique content residing on each site besides the duplicate content

Google claims that these filters do a good job prioritizing content creators over malicious spammers, but mistakes do occur.  Even if your SERPs rankings aren’t suffering as a result of scraper sites, be aware that even benign instances of duplicate content (for example, multiple cached page versions or duplicate links) can lead to increased bandwidth usage, possibly slowing down or crashing your site.

For this reason, it’s important to be aware of any potential duplicate content issues that may exist on your site, as well as to remedy them as quickly as possible to prevent any negative effects from occurring.  Even if you aren’t actively scraping content from other websites, you might be surprised to find that the structure of your website is causing issues in this regard.

To identify any instances of duplicate content that exist on your site, use tools like Google’s Webmaster Central or Blekko.com.  Then, if you do come across any issues, take the following steps to minimize any negative impact these instances could be having on your site’s performance or rankings:

• Re-write any content on your site that’s been tagged as unoriginal.  This is especially important if you’re using manufacturer stock product descriptions – since only a few instances of this content will be allowed in the search results pages, you limit your ability to get ranked by including this text.
• Use appropriate redirection codes.  Moving content on your site can lead to unintended duplicate content filtering, so be sure to implement proper 301 redirects when changing article locations across your pages.
• Be consistent in your linking.  Because link structures play a tremendous role in how users access your content and how the search engines navigate your pages, pay special attention to the way you build your links to be sure they’re consistent across your site.

The Google Webmaster Tools help section offers more tips for managing potential duplicate content filtering, which can be useful if your site is experiencing negative consequences as a result of similar text.  However, for most webmasters, these tips won’t be necessary.  Following website architecture best practices and publishing good, unique content should be enough for most people to avoid any negative impact due to duplicate content penalties.

Image: miguelavg

That said, Google Analytics has one major weakness – its data is reported on a daily basis, not in real-time.  For most of your website analytics needs – including determining your overall bounce rate or top content pages – this isn’t an issue.  However, there are a few key areas where having access to real-time website analytics data can make a big difference in your site’s overall success.

Consider any of the following advantages to see why adding a real-time analytics program to your website data reporting services is a “must do”:

Advantage #1 – Track Visitor Movement Through Your Site

One area where real-time analytics shine is the ability to track the movement of readers throughout your site.  Although Google Analytics can show you common entry and exit pages that visitors use to navigate your site, you aren’t able to track their full paths or see them in real-time.

Why is this important?  Well, think for a second about how much valuable information you’d gain if you were able to follow visitors as they moved through your site.  If you noticed several visitors clicking away from one page after brief visits, but spending much longer on other pages, you could conclude that the content on this page isn’t meeting your visitors’ expectations.

Using real-time visitor paths through your website to understand “average time on page” (versus overall average time on site, as reported by Google Analytics), you could take action to improve under-performing pages and make your website more appealing to your visitors.

Advantage #2 – Evaluate Promotions as They Occur

Another area where real-time analytics can be especially valuable is when monitoring new promotions you’ve released on your website.

For example, say you’ve just launched a new sale that’s only running for a few days.  With this limited window, you may not have time to run A/B split tests in order to determine whether you’re using the most engaging headline or whether you’ve placed your promotional message in the best possible place on your site.

But while you can’t generate split testing data that quickly, you can use real-time analytics programs to monitor user behavior on your website.  By looking at your past sales data, you should have a general idea of your approximate average conversion rates – aka, how many of your visitors participate in your promotions by becoming buyers.

Using real-time analytics, you can determine at a glance whether or not visitors are acting on your sales message at the level you expect.  If you aren’t seeing results that are comparable to your past promotions, you can take action and change different elements of your sales display – without having to wait for Google Analytics’ next-day reports or time-consuming split test results.

Advantage #3 – Maximize Social Media Presence

Finally, consider using real-time analytics to improve the results you get from your social media activities.

As an example, say you’ve just launched a new post on your business blog and have set up your favorite Twitter automation tool to release tweets advertising the article at three specific times later in the day.  If you tracked the traffic generated by each of these messages in Google Analytics, you’d only see the total number of visitors from Twitter for the entire day.

Instead, by monitoring your traffic levels using real-time analytics, you would be able to see which tweets bring in the most traffic, providing valuable data about the times your readers are most active on social networking sites and what types of promotional messages they respond best to.  Capturing this data will help you to better structure social media marketing campaigns in the future in order to achieve the best possible results.

Alternatively, suppose you’ve made it a goal to attract viral traffic to your website by promoting your content on Digg, Stumbleupon and other social sharing sites.  If you’re lucky enough to hit the front page of one of these sites, you’ll want to know it immediately in order to best leverage these new visitors.  For example, if you see a spike from social sharing site traffic on your real-time analytics program, you could quickly throw up a special opt-in form, welcoming visitors from these sites and enabling your email list to grow substantially.

To get started with real-time analytics, you’ll need to install a third-party script like Clicky or Piwik.  Although Google Analytics is reportedly adding real-time data to its services, this rollout hasn’t happened yet and there’s no clear launch date in place for this addition.  Until these features become standard on the default installation of Google Analytics, you’ll need to look elsewhere in order to get the real-time data you need to power website improvements.

Check out each of the following programs for your real-time analytics needs:

Clicky – Clicky is a popular real-time web analytics program that provides a wealth of information to users, including the ability to monitor specific visitor actions across your site, segment these visitors into useful categories and gain insight into detailed elements of social networking promotions.

Clicky offers a free version for sites receiving fewer than 3,000 daily page views, as well as paid plans at a variety of levels that offer premium features.  Installation is simple and involves either adding a program-specific plugin or pasting a piece of tracking code to each page you want to track.

Piwik – Piwik is an open sourced real-time web analytics program, meaning that it’s free to install and use on your website.  But lest you assume that free products must be lacking in features compared to their paid alternatives, be aware that Piwik offers a huge variety of tracking tools that can be used to generate real-time web data.

For example, Piwik doesn’t just track basic stats like visitor counts or time on site.  Instead, it offers advanced goal tracking features, ecommerce integrations and website interaction data that are similar to Google Analytics, but with the added benefit of real-time reporting.  It’s a great alternative to consider if you aren’t getting enough information out of your existing web analytics program.

Whether you decide to use one of these programs or one of the many other real-time analytics programs offered today, the bottom line is this – if you aren’t tracking your website stats in real-time, you’re missing out on a tremendous opportunity to optimize your site.  By understanding how your website visitors are behaving in real-time, you’ll be better able to create successful promotions and marketing strategies tailored to their needs, improving your overall website results.

Image: GrapeCity

But just saying, “You should carry out split tests on your website,” doesn’t give you a lot to go off of.  What specific elements of your website should you test?  And how can you be sure the split tests you’re running are the ones that will result in data that leads to the biggest improvements in your site’s bottom line?

Today, we’re going to break down the “Top 7” split tests you should perform on your website first.  Hopefully, this guide will give you a concrete, actionable strategy for getting started with split testing on your site.

Test #1 – Headings & Sub-headings

There’s an often-cited statistic that claims that the average website visitor spends no more than seven seconds on your website before deciding whether to stay and look through your content or hit the back button and look for a different option (although recent research shows that this “window of opportunity” may be even smaller).

Because of these short attention spans, one of the first split tests you should carry out involves the specific wording of any headings and sub-headings you use on your site, as changes made to these elements can make a big difference in terms of getting visitors over this seven-second hump.  Consider testing your current headline against one of the many headline formulas out there to see how effective and engaging you can make it.

Test #2 – Images

Although most graphics are added as an afterthought based on what “looks best”, the truth is that images can have a dramatic impact on the effectiveness of various areas on your site.

To see how much of a difference images can make, consider the following case study, carried out by Jason Thompson of EmptyMind.org.  Jason was interested in finding out whether a generic icon or a personal photo would lead more people to click through to his “Contact Me” page, and the results of his A/B split test were astonishing.  Swapping out his plain old telephone icon for a closely cropped personal image led to a 48% increase in his clickthrough rate (CTR):

To test how effective the images on your website are, consider split testing images in any of the following places:

• In your graphic header
• Embedded in your page background
• In your “About Me” featured section
• In any buttons or icons that lead to personal connection opportunities

Test #3 – Calls to Action

In addition to the subject and placement of your images, consider split testing your calls to action.  A call to action occurs any time you ask people to complete some behavior, whether that’s clicking through to read your “About Me” page or purchasing a specific product from within your store.

Website readers are surprisingly responsive to different wording in these areas, so you might be surprised to find that changing your opt-in subscription button from reading “Click Now to Subscribe” to “Claim Your Free Reward Today” could result in a significant improvement in the number of opt-ins you receive.  Remember, any time you’re able to increase the percentage of visitors who take action on your promotions or offers, you’ll likely see a corresponding increase in your overall profits!

Test #4 – Offers

Similarly, the way you word and structure your offers can play a big role in how effective these items are – but you won’t know for sure until you split test them!

As an example, consider a case study of mobile phone retailer, Mobal, carried out by the staff at Visual Website Optimizer.  The company wanted to determine whether offering three or four phones on their international cell phone sales page would lead to more sales.  After carrying out the appropriate A/B split testing, the company was able to achieve a 27% increase in sales by including four phones in their product offerings:

Test #5 – Your Opt-in Form

If you aren’t selling products but are instead trying to encourage as many of your website visitors as possible to sign up for your email newsletter, be aware that there are plenty of different elements surrounding your opt-in form that benefit from split testing.

Consider experimenting with any of the following options in order to maximize your opt-in rate:

• The location of your opt-in form on your website
• The style of opt-in form you use (pop-up versus lightbox versus embedded)
• The pages on which you place your opt-in form
• The colors and text you use in your form
• The number of fields required to subscribe to your list

Most email subscription programs operating today include split-testing features built-in to their programs, so consult with the customer service department of your email provider to see what opportunities are available to you.

Test #6 – Linked Text

Any time you use the text within your website to link out to another page (whether within your own website or on another page entirely), you’re inviting your readers to click through and explore this new content.  So why not make these invitations as appealing as possible by split testing the specific anchor text you use within your links?

As an example, suppose you want to filter visitors from your blog posts to your current “Specials” page to increase their likelihood of making purchases.  Obviously, you’ll want the text within your “Click here to view our specials” link to be as effective as possible, making it a good idea to test different variations of your linked text against each other to see which option offers the best results.

Test #7 – Colors

Colors play a powerful role in creating the “mood” of a website, but this effect goes beyond controlling the way visitors feel – it can actually influence how likely they are to buy from you!

To see this effect in action, consider the following case study from professional blogger Glen Allsopp.  During the release of his latest project, he tested two versions of the same checkout box to see which color combination would convert at a higher rate.  Although the changes are fairly minimal, the impact on his conversion rates was surprisingly high:

As you likely incorporate different colors into a variety of different places on your website, the potential number of split tests you could run on your site’s colors alone is quite high.  Consider any of the following as possible staring places for this type of split test:

• Your background color
• The text in your header and headings
• Different colored structural elements throughout your site
• Your opt-in boxes or checkout buttons
• Call out text colors throughout your website

Remember to focus on a single element at a time when you’re first getting started with split testing.  As you build more experience and become more advanced with your split testing skills, you can begin to experiment with multivariate split testing, which will allow you to compare multiple elements at the same time while still understanding the statistical significance of your results.

Image: C. Strife

But interestingly enough, slow loading sites don’t just irritate their readers – they annoy the search engines as well.  Google in particular has made it quite clear that site speed plays a role in their ranking algorithm, even going so far as to issue the following quote on the Google Webmaster Central Blog in April 2010:

“Faster sites create happy users and we’ve seen in our internal studies that when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there.  Like us, our users place a lot of value in speed — that’s why we’ve decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings.”

Of course, while increased site speeds may benefit both readers and the search engines, the thought of modifying site code to enhance load times can sound overwhelming to beginning webmasters.  To combat this, we’ll first break down the process of identifying site speed issues and then show you how to implement recommended fixes to ensure you aren’t missing out on the benefits that come from speeding up your site.

Step #1 – Evaluate your site’s current loading speed

Before you worry too much about needing to invest hours upon hours improving your website’s load times, take a few minutes to evaluate how your site is currently performing.  Depending on the website building platform you’ve used, you might be surprised to find that your site is already performing well enough to meet Google’s strict criteria!

There are a few different ways you can go about testing your site loading speed:

1. Google’s Page Speed Online Tool – This free tool analyzes your site’s load time and reports back both a score that compares your website to other web properties and recommendations on how to improve your overall site speed.  Some of the recommendations can be a bit technical, but otherwise, this tool is a great way to get an inner glimpse into how Google views your site and its load times.
2. Google’s Webmaster Tools – Another feature that Google provides for measuring site load speeds can be found within its Webmaster Tools section.  To use this tool, you’ll first need to register and verify ownership of your site.  Once this is done, log in to your account, click on “Labs” in the left-hand sidebar and then on “Site Performance” to get more information about your site’s existing load times.
3. Third Party Site Speed Tests – Plenty of other websites, including WebPageTest and WebsiteOptimization, offer other free tools that allow you to measure your website’s speed.  Be sure to try a few of these alongside Google’s site speed tools.  Since all of these programs measure different variables, getting your score from different services may help you to uncover even more potential areas for improvement.

Step #2 – Implement recommended changes

The results of your site speed analysis from Step #1 should have given you a few potential places to start with in order to reduce your load times.  However, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the number of highly technical solutions presented, consider starting with the following five “top priority” items:

1. Resize images – Whenever you publish an image to your website, it should be resized in advance to the exact size you want it to display on your pages.  Taking the time to do this in advance will reduce the size of the image file that must be displayed, as well as eliminate the extra work your website platform and browser must undertake in order to resize your graphic on the fly.
2. Minify HTML, Javascript and CSS code – “Minify” sounds complicated, but really, all it means is to remove extra white space from your code files before they’re published.  Although these spaces make it easier for human eyes to read complex computer languages, they only slow down digital processors.  Get rid of them, and see if your site speeds decrease correspondingly.
3. Serve content from a Content Delivery Network (CDN) – If you have an exceptionally large amount of content on your site, serving it from a Content Delivery Network can make a significant difference in your load times versus storing it on your own web hosting account.  For more information on what CDNs are and how to add one to your own site, check out Willie Jackson’s tutorial on how to integrate a CDN.
4. Structure supplemental code separately – When working with CSS and Javascript files, be sure that stylesheets are added to the top of your files and scripts to the end.  This ensures that unstyled content is never served to visitors (which could increase load processing times) and that content features are served before the added functionality of scripts.
5. Gzip your files – When we create .zip files out of documents, we do so in order to compress overall file size and make large files easier to send to our contacts.  You can do the same thing to your website files by adding the following snippet of code to your .htaccess file:

#Begin gzip and deflate
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/css application/x-javascript text/plain text/xml image/x-icon
</IfModule>

Depending on the website platform you’re using, these steps may be done automatically for you.  Or, if you’re using a blogging platform like WordPress, you may be able to take care of these needs all at once using a plugin like the W3 Total Cache add-on.  However, even if you need to hire a web developer to take care of these issues for you, you’ll likely find it worth the extra expense in terms of your site’s user experience and search engine rankings.

Step #3 – Follow up on your site speed efforts

Once you’ve implemented the above recommendations (as well as any others you uncovered during the site speed analysis process), wait a few weeks for your website code changes to be indexed and recognized by the search engines.  Then, run the analysis tools listed in Step #1 to see if you’ve made a significant enough difference in your overall load times.

If you find that your site speed has improved considerably and that the analysis tools listed above rank your site speed as “Good” check your search engine results page rankings for your target keywords as well.  You may be surprised to find that you’ve risen in the rankings by several places!

On the other hand, if you haven’t seen a dramatic enough improvement in your site load times to be satisfied, consider implementing some of the more complicated recommendations uncovered through the Google Page Speed Online tool.  Continue this process until you’re confident you’ve made enough changes to result in a load time that satisfies both your users and the search engines.

Image: wwarby