You have everything you need, right?

• Photoshop (or Gimp), check.
• Sources for stock images, check.
• Design elements such as Photoshop brushes and vectors, check.
• WordPress itself, check.

That’s everything, right? Well, maybe not completely. There are a few things that freelance WordPress designers need but never think about until situations crop up, and these problems usually surface over and over again before they are finally dealt with consistently. Here are some of those issues, with suggested ways to handle them.

Problem #1: Client Training and Support

Teaching clients how to use their new WordPress-based site and supporting them every time they have a question about WordPress is at best a time-suck, and at worst, an excruciating grind. Many designers are not prepared for the customer service side of things, and may not have the best “bedside manner” when dealing with client training.

Consider the following scenario. You’ve given your client a once-over of the WordPress dashboard, yet every other day, you get a call from the client that goes something like this.

“Joe, I don’t remember how to stick a picture of my dog on the right side of the stuff I want to say today. How do I do that again?”

You say something like like:

“Nick, remember what I showed you a couple of days ago? How you click on the toolbar icon to upload an image, and …

If you only have one client, that level of support might not be a big issue, but if you have several clients – or hope to find time to market yourself and obtain more – you need to minimize that kind of interaction as much as possible, while still giving your clients everything they need to succeed with their new site. Some questions are ones that only you can answer, but in most situations, many of the questions could be better handled by written or visual documentation. If you have the time and patience, you could create documentation and videos that answer all the most common questions that might arise. Of course, that kind of documentation takes a lot of time (and some talent), and would have to be revised every time WordPress makes major changes, which happens pretty frequently. The better option is to make use of what someone else has already done, especially if it is high quality and always updated to reflect the current WordPress version.

Of course, you could use my Beginner’s Guide to Blogging with WordPress, but that’s only the tip of the training iceberg, so you’ll probably want to use something more comprehensive. You should check out the WordPress User Manual Plugin because it covers pretty much everything needed to train your clients. It has over 35 high quality video tutorials that teach your clients how to use the site you developed for them using WordPress. It is installed just like a normal WordPress plugin, and once installed, the plugin creates a “Manual” menu item in the WordPress dashboard that lets your clients get their questions answered without having to contact you.

It will answer all those questions such as “How do I upload pictures?”, How do I add a page to my site?”, and “What do all those toolbar buttons do?” In addition to the videos, the plugin also includes a Word and PDF manual with screenshots.

One thing that is really cool is that you can brand the plugin and manuals with your own logo, as though you created it yourself. In addition, you can even add your own videos to the plugin! This makes it ideal for those projects that you created custom functionality for, that needs a little more explanation than the average WordPress user needs.

Of course, the plugin videos and manual get updated with each new stable release of WordPress, so you know your clients will always have instructions that match the current version of WordPress. That saves a ton of time and headache because WordPress changes the way the back end works pretty frequently.

Probably the best feature: You get a developer’s license, which lets you install the plugin on as many of your client sites as you want.

Most new freelance designers will never think about how much time and effort is involved in after-design training and support. After the third or fourth client that knows nothing about using WordPress, though, the advantage of something like this becomes blindingly obvious.

Problem #2 – Proposals, Contracts, Forms, Checklists, etc.

A new freelancer quickly realizes that he or she needs to find some sample forms to handle the business side of projects. Contracts, proposals, disclosure agreements, invoices, etc. all become a necessity, and no one generally has those things just lying around when they are just starting out. Finding free ones on the web is a major source of frustration, and while some freebies can be found – eventually – in the end, it’s a lot easier to just pony up a few bucks for a nice set of templates.

There are probably tons of web design business documents available for purchase. A quick search will let you find whatever you’re looking for. I like this particular web design document pack because it’s a set of ready-made templates that enable you to just fill in the blanks and be done with it, but I’m sure there are plenty of other choices available as well. I happen to like the types of documents included in this one, though, so I’ll list them here, and you can compare to others you find, and determine which is best for your situation.

Work Request Order Form – Defines and clarifies each ADDITIONAL task requested of you outside of the original agreement. This lets you handle scope creep in a way that’s fair.

Credit Card Authorization – Lets your client give you the credit card info needed to purchase items on her behalf such as domain name registrations, hosting, etc.

Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement – Gives your client the reassurance needed that the information they give you will not be disclosed to the competition.

Web Design Proposal – The document most requested and most difficult to deal with… It lets you present a proposal to a prospective client showing the project overview, recommendations, benefits, functional specs, technical specs, information architecture, etc. and details the project with regard to both cost and timeframe expectations.

Lite Proposal – Same as above but a lighter version that’s great for smaller projects.

Web Development Contract – Once you land the client thanks to a great proposal, you need a contract that covers code ownership, payment terms and conditions, change requests, scope creep, expenses, liability, cancellations, etc.

Technical Specifications – This is a good place to log all that important information such as site usernames and passwords, domain and hosting account information, etc.

Invoice – This invoice template includes your business details, accepted payment methods, payment terms, due date, itemized list of work accomplished and hours billed, and total of outstanding and paid items.

Project Handover Form – When the project is complete, and it is time to “hand over the site to client”, this document allows the client to sign off on the completion, take ownership of and responsibility for the new design, and gives you proof that you’ve satisfied the project requirements, in case anything is disputed in the future.

Problem #3 – Tracking The Time Spent on Projects

Just like you can find tons of contract documents online, you can also find tons of time tracking apps online as well. No matter what you use, you should use something other than the clock in your taskbar to keep track of the time you spend on client sites, especially if you charge by the hour. I like the free Paymo Time Tracker that lets you create tasks, start/stop time spent on a task, mark tasks when completed, and send out invoices based on the time spent. As I mentioned, it’s free for most freelancer’s needs, and it includes options that allow you to download a Windows or Mac desktop timer widget, use a browser-based web timer, or even use a mobile app timer. It also lets you connect the invoicing to your PayPal account so your clients can just click a Pay via Paypal button on the invoice that will take them right to Paypal to pay, and after paying, the invoice will automatically be marked as paid in Paymo.

Those are three problems most new freelance WordPress designers encounter, that they never considered having to deal with before they started their freelance career. If you’ve been wishing you had a way to train your clients, track your time, or handle the paperwork involved, one of these three tips might solve your problem.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: freelance, resources, web designers, WordPress, WordPress Designer
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I’m Luvvin’ It!!!

Let me tell you why you should be thrilled that I’m using CommentLuv Premium. I’m using this brilliant WordPress plugin so I can help YOU shine, and I hope you’ll soon see just how it can make your blog shine too.

You see, if you’ve known me at all over the last few years, you know my motto is, “You’ll never shine if you don’t glow”. I won’t get into the details right now of why that’s my motto, but I’ll tell you this. My goal over the years has been, and is still, to help you shine.

CommentLuv Premium helps me do that.

Comment Luv Premium gives me tons of control and lots of customization options that enable me to offer you the opportunity to showcase your content. The reason I’ve always been crazy about CommentLuv was that it gave everyone the opportunity to share their content with others in a meaningful way.

When people see the title of one of your posts next to your name when you comment, they see a fuller you. They no longer just see a name. They get a feel for who you are, and they can learn more about you by hovering over your CommentLuv card. Even better, they are very likely to click your link and head on over to your site to read your post.

I know what you’re thinking. CommentLuv did that anyway, so what’s the big deal about the Premium version? There’s tons of “big dealness” about it, but I’ll let you discover most of that yourself. I want to focus on one feature that makes it kick … well you know what I’m about to say.

Social Enticement

Social enticement. Let me repeat that. Roll it around your tongue for a moment. Social enticement.

When you use CommentLuv Premium, you can choose to give extra goodies to those people who give your post some social luv’in. What’s that all about?

If you choose, you can give all commenters the ability to display a post from a list of their last 10 posts. You can also give all commenters dofollow links. Or…

Or… you can give them all a choice of just ONE – their last post with the OPTION of letting them choose from their last 10 posts if they tweet, like, or plusone your post, as is shown in the screenshot below.

Think about that for a moment. You aren’t penalizing anyone. Everyone gets a little CommentLuv goodness. But those people who choose to give your post some extra social love, will get in return, some extra CommentLuv functionality.

Who wins?

• They win.
• You win.
• Everybody wins.

That’s the CommentLuv Premium feature I love the most. Yep, there’s plenty more to luv about CommentLuv Premium, but I’ll let you discover all those things on your own. Watch the video on the CommentLuv page to help you understand all the reasons it rocks.

Lots of reasons it rocks, but for me…social enticement is kick-badonkadonk! Yeah!

Get All The Info

Even if you decide not to get this plugin, I still recommend taking a look at all its features. Why? Because just knowing what is possible can spark some ideas in how you can be making your blog more enticing. So, go check it out and start thinking about how you could be enticing your users too. I bet it will be a light-bulb moment.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: comment luv, Social Media Marketing
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

I once complained on Twitter that I could never read the things, and one of my twitter followers suggested I was simply inept because I was unable to read them. So here are a few of the many recaptchas I failed to be able to read today while trying to register for a site.

You’ll notice in that last screenshot, I thought I’d figured out what that one said. I was wrong. That was the point at which I gave up. (Remember, even though I only show 9 screenshots here, I’d actually refreshed the thing over 70 times before I gave up!)

Seriously, the usability of this is so ridiculous that if you try to shove this down my throat, I’m going to just leave your site immediately. There are many anti-spam technologies you can choose from. Some are even worse than reCAPTCHA (though that’s very hard to do), but there are plenty that don’t make me want to throw my computer out the window. Use one of them instead. Please.

And one final note. This is aimed directly at Google. Google, you ride around on your shiny white horse telling webmasters to make their sites better for users, and you systematically punish those that you believe aren’t doing so. Panda, anyone? I wish I had the power you have, Google, because I’d pandalize your sites in a heartbeat just because you own this piece of crap. Get your own house in order, will you?

If you hate recaptcha as much as I do, join me in my boycott! Feel free to use the Boycott image I created above if you’d like. Help me put an end to this madness!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 52 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anti-spam technologies, boycott, Google, ReCAPTCHA
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

However, if that blog had wowed me with a list of well-organized content, laid out in a way that’s easy to see at a glance, the chances of having me stick around would have been much higher. The easiest way to present your blog posts in an easy-to-see format is to add a sitemap to your site. I’m not talking about the kind that is designed for search engines (XML sitemaps), though that’s useful too. I’m referring instead to the kind made specifically for humans (HTML sitemaps).

While there are a few free plugins designed for this, many are old and out of date, so I’ve highlighted only the two that I have the most confidence in. Each of these, once installed, configured, and running, will automatically add new blog posts to the sitemap without any further effort on your part.

Atlas HTML Sitemap Generator

HTML Sitemap Generator has an options page that lets you specify what to include and what to exclude. Once you’ve set the options, you simply create a new page, and place the [sitemap] shortcode into the page content. It uses your own theme’s default styles to display the sitemap, which is essentially a long list of links, sorted and grouped nicely together by category, pages, etc. Here’s an example of what the output looks like on one of my test blogs.

Table of Contents Creator

Table of Contents Creator, like the plugin above, allows you to include and exclude just about anything, but this plugin is more customizable, and can even include links to articles, downloads, or other sites, if the links are already a part of your site’s navigation. Once options are set, you simply create a new page and place <!– toc-creator –> into the page content, or click the option to let it create a page for you. The output is very nice since it doesn’t just display a list of linked titles; it also includes a summary excerpt for each item, which really helps users understand what a post is about. The plugin comes with various attractive styles to choose from, and of course, any of the styles can be edited as well. You can even give users the option to collapse or expand the list, show or hide summaries, and sort by post date, author, menu order, or alphabetically. Although this plugin hasn’t been updated in over a year, it still works well for me on my personal blog that is running the latest version of WordPress, so I have no qualms about recommending it. Here’s an example of what the output looks like on my personal blog:

Either of the two plugins are good choices, with the first being slightly easier to use, and the second being much more customizable and visitor-friendly. Help your visitors see the wealth of content you provide without forcing them to work for it. If you want to see an example of this in action, click here to check out my own HTML sitemap, which uses the Table of Contents Creator plugin.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Site map, Sitemaps
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

It’s called Sitebeam, and I’ve been using the original version as well as beta testing their new version that’s going to be released sometime very soon. Both rock. The new version is definitely better than the current version, but since the current version is the one that initially impressed the heck out of me, that says a lot about how great both are.

Ok, so I’ve been using this tool to improve one of my sites. I’ve run the tool, made note of things it finds problematic, fixed those things, rerun the tool, etc. – several times over the course of the last few weeks, until I’ve gotten my site in excellent shape. I still need to work on some external factors (backlinks and social shares), but I’ve pretty much nailed the onsite factors.

Without this tool, I’d never have noticed so many things that needed fixing. I’d already been spending a ton of time making that site better, so I thought I’d covered everything really well. Then I ran this tool on the site for the first time, and thought to myself, “Oh how did I miss that? And that? And that!!!”

So, enough of the backstory, let me show you some screenshots. I’ve blurred out some text to avoid giving out too much information about the site I’ve run this on, for competitive reasons.

Let’s start with the screen that shows up immediately after running a test. This amazing summary screen is shown, with links to all the details to the left.

Here’s a look at one of the summary sections, in this case, the marketing summary for my site.

This shows some details about the social interest (or lack thereof) of my site. Yes, I really need to work on this still.

I love the fact that I can compare my site with my competitors. This helps me see what areas I’ve fallen behind in (only trailing my competitor in marketing, in this example).

In the blink of an eye, the tool can create an entire powerpoint type presentation from the test results. If you are looking to get new clients, this is a great way to pitch them. Just show them a presentation that lets them know exactly how much work their site needs, all in beautifully laid out graphics that you didn’t have to create yourself! Have you ever tried to put a powerpoint presentation together? It’s a huge pain in the caboose, if ya know what I mean. To have a tool automagically create this for you is unreal, and highly exciting.

I could wow you with another 20 or so screenshots, but that wouldn’t be nearly as effective as having you see it for yourself by testing your own site, so go do that now, if you want.

The tool is a little pricey for the average solo site owner, though it won’t break the bank, but you can run the test for free to try it out, so I highly recommend you do so. And if you do any design or seo client work, this tool is well worth the cost! You can use the tool to woo clients, by showing them what could be improved, and you can prove your worth afterwards by showing new reports with improved scores.

Is the tool 100% perfect? Nope, probably not. I’d say I probably slightly disagreed with it on a couple of issues, but that’s not unusual. Get any two people in a room and ask them to grade a website. Think they’ll agree 100% on everything? Not likely, so I’m not surprised that I didn’t agree completely with a tool. Nevertheless, my differences with the analysis were pretty minor, so it didn’t diminish the value of the information I got from it at all, in my opinion.

I’m really excited that I found this tool, so let me stress again – go run your site through the free test. You’ll be happy I pushed you to do it!

Still not convinced? Really? Ok, check this out then. Here’s a full list of tests that are run:

• Alt text
• Amount of content
• Analytics
• Broken links
• Contact details
• Content keywords
• Design variations
• Error pages
• Facebook
• Flash
• Freshness
• Headings
• Image usage
• Incoming links
• Internal links
• Internal search
• Languages
• Links
• Link states
• Metadata
• Outgoing links
• Popularity
• Printability
• Readability
• Redirections
• Search engine results
• Search ranking
• Site structure
• Social interest
• Speed
• Spelling
• Spiderability
• Stylesheets
• Twitter
• Typosquatting
• URL chopping
• URL format
• Visual interest
• W3C compliance

The new version lets you create various types of reports, including a Comprehensive report like the one I showed above, a Sales report, which is a complete report but with less detail (perfect for sales pitches), a Staging report to test a site before it goes live (ignores tests for backlinks, social media etc. since the site isn’t live yet), a Marketing report to assess SEO and social media, a Social Media report, a Writing report, a Technical report, a Privacy report, and even a custom report that lets you mix and match any of the tests into one report.

What are you still doing here? Go run a test on your site using the current version, and then get more info about the new version being released soon.. Go!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: SEO, Usability, website grader tools
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

Take a look below at the four latest themes they’ve produced. I’ve personally used Chameleon on my most recent site, and I have to say that it looks fabulous! I’m really excited to be able to create stunning new sites so easily. The features I like the most are the color and background changer panel, and the shortcodes collection. But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at them first.

And here is the color and background panel I mentioned earlier, that lets you easily and instantly try out different color schemes and background patterns.

I Mean, WOW

Those are some very nice looking themes, that can be easily customized so they don’t look like everyone else’s. And that’s just the latest 4! There’s tons more to choose from. Plus, the extra options and features that come with them are great. I mentioned earlier that their shortcodes were one of my favorite features. Here’s the kinds of things you can do with the shortcodes (which means literally clicking a button that’s added to the edit screen toolbar):

Make Buttons

Make Content Boxes

Make Tabbed Content

Make Image Sliders

Make columns of text WITHIN any post, but without having to use the same number of columns on every post.

Make Testimonial Boxes

There’s lots more shortcodes that make cool stuff too. I’ll let you browse through it all at your leisure. It’s just all really, really cool, in my opinion. This is awesomeness made simple.

Other Great Features

• Page templates that let you choose pre-made layouts for each page you create.
• Unlimited color schemes
• Dozens of great fonts
• SEO options
• And the Boutique theme supports third-party ecommerce plugins like wp ecommerce, shopp, eshop, cart66, and simple paypal shopping cart.

So, anyway, the bottom line is that Elegant Themes has really upped its quality over the years, and yet, the best feature of all is this:

The price is still only $39 to get access to ALL of the themes.

It’s not $39 each. That thirty-nine bucks lets you download and use every single theme they have available. And during the year, any new themes they make are yours to download too! For an entire year, you get access to every one of their themes, old and new. And of course, when the year is up, you can keep using the ones you’ve downloaded, you just can’t download any new ones without paying for a new subscription. But you don’t lose the ones you’ve already gotten.

If the themes were plain or ugly, $39 would be just a so-so deal, but the themes look great! They are very professional, and the options and features they include makes life as a blogger or website owner easy peasy. I’m really happy I wandered back over there when I started my new site.

Want a peek at my new site that uses the Chameleon theme?

Check out Elegant Themes again, if you haven’t lately, or never have. You might be amazed.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: themes
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

What DO you enjoy doing more than anything else? How many times have you said to yourself, “If I could just get paid to ______, I’d be so happy!”

I see some of you giggling and filling in the blank with silliness, but once you’re done giggling, come back to the question and consider it seriously. Of course, some people actually do get paid to do what they love most, and if that’s you, then the answer is easy for you. For everyone else, I encourage you to really think about what you really enjoy doing so much, that you would fill in the blank with that activity.

Now…what if you really could get paid to do that?

Think about it. Could you? Is there some way, perhaps through an online business, that you could earn money doing exactly what you love most?

I can’t answer that for you, but if you really consider the question seriously and are willing to get creative, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that you had a lightbulb moment. Let me know if you do. That would make my day.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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The webinar was presented by Kim Krause Berg, Search marketing and UX (User Experience) Manager of LiBeck Integrated Marketing, and founder of my favorite forum (where I am also a moderator), Cre8asite.

Kim began by telling a true story about a job she held 11 years ago. That company developed hundreds of websites for different verticals, and Kim’s job entailed doing exactly what she was told to do on those sites, such as, “put this button here”, “place that color there”, etc. Kim’s instincts told her that the tasks she was carrying out weren’t very user-friendly, both from a design and code standpoint, but she wasn’t allowed to voice her opinion on that. One of the sites contained an application, and after it was built, Kim was asked to do some QA on it to test the app. It didn’t take long to realize that this process should have happened before the app was built, not after! The key takeaway for me in this story is that from the very beginning of the process of creating a new site (or a new page or section of a site), the user experience must be a top priority. “It’s all about your end user”.

Key Takeaways

Kim then discussed three key takeways. I’ll list them here, with my own thoughts injected after each.

1. Everything placed on a web page has a reason for being there, and if not, remove it. (Me: I’m as guilty as the next person for not taking this seriously enough, but it’s probably the best advice anyone can give regarding site design or site content. I should record this sentence and play it at high volume randomly during each day, to remind myself of its importance).

2. Stakeholders and management have different and sometimes conflicting priorities for company websites such as ecommerce, services, corporate information and software application based travel sites. Your goal is to always be the end-user’s advocate. (Me: I assume the “your goal” part is because she is speaking to people who are in primarily user experience job roles, but it can be universally applied as well. No matter what our role in a site’s functionality might be, if we become advocates for the end-user, then we’ll very likely make better decisions and we’ll likely reach our goals faster).

3. Holistic search marketing includes usability, information architecture, search engine optimization, social media marketing, mobile web site design focused on marketing, accessibility and content development. The integration of user centered techniques offers trackable ROI benefits. (Me: While I agree with this statement, I’m not sure specific examples were given in this presentation to really explain it. Or maybe I just missed them. But while I definitely agree that adding user centered techniques offers ROI benefits, I’m less sure how to track that. Maybe I can get Kim to come here and give us some tips on that).

Next, Kim reminded us that online marketers and user experience designers have the same goals. Both want to increase conversion rates, and both want to satisfy their customers and site visitors. By following some of the suggested techniques she discussed next, and applying those techniques to home page, landing pages, product pages, navigation, and apps, those goals can be met. Keep in mind that Kim, like me, believes in testing different techniques. The following are just suggestions to help you get more creative with your own sites, and meet the needs of your particular target audience. You don’t have to follow them exactly; just use them as a guide.

Start With Navigation

Begin by looking at your site’s navigation. The navigation (the menu) should immediately establish a “sense of place” when users arrive at the site. Each link in the navigation should give both users and search engines a clear idea of what that link really leads to. Let’s take the example of “Services”. Many site menus have a link with this text. “Services” on a menu is generic and non-descriptive. It gives no motivation to click. That word is a missed opportunity to communicate what the user or search engine will find when they reach the page it links to. By making this link text more descriptive, you can enhance both the SEO value and UX value of the link. She mentions considering using a drop down menu for that item, which is broken down into subpages, with each devoted to a separate category of service. Each services subpage will be a landing page that is specific and focused, and enables you to have more opportunities to take visitors directly to the tasks they are looking to find.

In addition, she strongly recommends using verbs and adjectives in your links. So instead of just “Services” as the link text, consider some options such as “Explore Our Services”, “Affordable Marketing Services”, “Competitive Internet Marketing Services”, etc. Each of these is not only more descriptive, but these verbs and adjectives are additional motivations for the users to click through.

Another tip is to avoid words in navigational links that merely confuse the user. The example she used was a link on their own site with the text of “Thought Leadership”. She looked at that link and thought, “what the heck is that all about?” I agree. I wouldn’t have a clue where that link would lead me if I clicked on it. As it turns out, it’s actually a very important page on their site that lets users receive free information, newsletters, ebooks, whitepapers, etc. None of that is conveyed by the link text of “Thought Leadership” is it? Instead, they plan to test a few different ideas for that link; perhaps something like “Marketing Resources” or “Keep Up With LibeckIM”, etc. The answer isn’t necessarily cut and dry. Testing is key, but anything that helps users understand what’s behind a link is better than text that only confuses them. By testing, you’ll find out what works best for your site, your industry, and your users.

She then tackled the next ubiquitous navigational link – the “About” link. Everyone has one, but that word “About” is boring and overdone. Jazz it up, and again, use verbs or descriptive text. “Meet the LibeckIM team”, or “Learn about us”, “Read more about history” might work well, for instance. And like the “About” page, we all have other supplemental pages such as Contact, Press, Privacy, etc. You need to determine the priority of each of those pages and place them appropriately within the navigation structure.

The last point she made about navigation is to avoid the popular minimalistic approach. Minimalism often works against SEO and persuasive design, so be more descriptive and give search engines and users a better idea of where each navigational link will lead them.

Content Optimization

After discussing navigation, Kim moved on to optimizing your site’s content. She stressed this point:

“Remember that the goal of your web site visitors is to find the object of their desire.”

She begins with focusing on a site’s tagline. Do add a text tagline to the header of each page that includes keywords and describes the purpose of the site or page. The tagline should be in text and contain a clear description what this page or site is about, or a clear solution that this page or site solves. The tagline should concisely explain and address who the site is targeting. This one short line is an opportunity for your users understand the purpose of the site/page and an opportunity to get your message across in seconds. When crafting your tagline, consider ideas such as:

• What solution do you provide?
• How (using what tactics) do you solve a problem?
• Who benefits from this?

My tagline, for example, is “making a living online … and sharing information so you can do the same”. Hopefully, it gets the message across. If you don’t think it does, please feel free to give me suggestions.

While your tagline is a quick concise message, your site’s content will need to get many more messages across to your users. These messages might be on your home page, your product pages, your landing pages, your contact page, etc. Always be cognizant of the types of messages you should be including within your content. You need to address the:

Who, Where, What, Why, How, and When

You can address these by answering questions similar to the following on the various relevant pages on your site.

• Who are you?
• Who are you addressing?
• Where are you located?
• Where are you selling?
• What are you offering?
• What do your visitors want the most?
• What makes you so special?
• Why are you doing what you do?
• Why should anyone believe you?
• Why is your company so special?
• How do we contact you?
• How old is your company?
• How do we subscribe/order/signup?
• How long is this sale?
• How do you pick your products?
• When can we order / call / signup?

Why is answering these types of questions important? If you address the questions that users typically have, you save them the trouble of having to look for the information. How many times have you wondered if an online store would let you use Paypal as a payment method, for instance? When a site shows me that kind of information right on the product page, or in the footer of every page, I’m a happy user. When I have to search around, clicking here and clicking there, hoping to find the answer to that question, I’m usually frustrated enough to leave the site and never return.

How do you know what questions to answer? Kim focuses on tasks. Think of the tasks your visitors will likely need or want to accomplish on your site. If you can guide them to pages that help them complete a task, such as a filling out a sales lead form, browsing categories, purchasing a product, etc., your users’ experience is made easier, and your conversion rate is likely to go up. Fail at making common user tasks easy, and you’ll fail to meet the goals you’ve set for your site.

Next, Kim showed us a screenshot of a web page that she had marked up with some comments as she did an audit of the page. Some of the nitty gritty details that she pointed out on the page involved moving things around, keeping various elements consistent, and making sure users know what’s clickable and what’s not. More tips included:

• Treat product pages as landing pages by making sure they contain content in addition to cart elements.
• Add text captions to your images.
• Use descriptive link text to guide users to important pages deep within the site.
• Use heading tags (H1, H2, etc.) as signals to search engines that you consider this particular information on the page as most important.
• Play with verbs! Use words such as “go”, “find”, “order”, “buy”, “search”, etc. And When using phrases such as “read more”, expand them so they are more descriptive. Use “read more about [blue widgets]” instead.
• Incorporate trigger words in your content, such as “free”, “new”, “limited time special”, “for sale”, and “lowest price”.

Finally Kim gave a list of resources, which I’ve listed below. I’m really happy I took the time to listen in on Kim’s webinar. It rocked! I recommend you follow Kim on Facebook and on Twitter.

Resources:

Customer Focus Calculator – The WeWe Monitor Tool – This free tool analyzes your web page to see how customer-focused it really is. For example, I ran my eBusiness coaching home page through the tool, and it told me that my customer focus rate is 61.45% and my self focus rate is 38.55%. It also let me know that the page talks about my customers about twice as often as it speaks about myself. It graded the page as Excellent! While that’s great, I can see that I could improve upon that score, and I need to run all my main pages through the tool, so I can enhance each one. Thanks to Kim for sharing this cool resource.

Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become by Peter Morville

When Search Meets Web Usability by Shari Thurow

Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg

Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Success by Greg Nudelman

Audience, Relevance, and Search: Targeting Web Audiences with Relevant Content by James Mathewson, Frank Donatone, and Cynthia Fishel

Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions by Tim Ash

Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? by Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.

Internet Marketing: An Hour a Day by Matt Bailey

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So How Can You Best Check Your Site For Duplicate Content?

There are several ways to check for dupe content, many of which have been discussed here and elsewhere, but I’ve recently found a very good tool to do the job. It’s free, comes with ZERO requirements (in other words, you don’t even have to subscribe or give up your email address), and it works well. It’s called Un.Co.Ver, which stands for Unique Content Verifier, although I tend to think of it as “uncovering” duplicate content issues.

You can download it at http://www.textbroker.com/uncover/. The download is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can use it in several ways. Paste in some text and check it (this is great for checking that a guest post isn’t duplicate content before publishing it on your site). Have it check just one URL (one page that is online). Or have it check an entire website (but they recommend only going 2 levels deep, especially if it’s a large site).

I checked a site that consists of about 150 pages. It took less than half an hour to check all the pages. I didn’t time it, so I don’t know exactly how long it took, but it was somewhere in that time range. It also lets you choose to only do sections of a site at a time, so that would be useful for really large sites.

The results were outstanding. There’s no way I could check all those pages, even given a month’s worth of time, and come up with such detailed results, telling me exactly how much of a page’s content was duplicated and where the dupes were. Here’s a screenshot from their site showing it in action.

After Uncovering Dupe Content, What Next?

Once you know who is scraping and using your content, you can begin the process of getting them to take it down. Here’s an article we’ve published here on this site in the past regarding how to handle this problem. Basically, you’ll end up needing to file a DMCA for the best results.

Hope this helps. I really recommend that everyone check their sites for duplicate content every once in a while. I’m happy to have found such a great tool that is totally free (in fact, it’s freeware that can be used and distributed freely), that I can run on my own computer. Nice….

Note: If you want to know more about the Panda update, check out the storyline I created for it here.

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- Are there clear divisions of content?

- Are all the content areas really essential, useful parts of the site?

- Have any weak content that could be better? Or be even better if removed completely?

It’s so hard to see our sites as others do, so I always recommend getting a third-party to audit it now and then as well, but I do think it’s good to try this on your own at times too. If you can let go of your blinders, you can often see areas that need real improvement, and seeing that for yourself can lead to better content in the future.

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