How To Design Your Site Like a Pro
Think of the websites you visit the most — chances are they are clean, professional, and easy to navigate. This is no coincidence: the human mind takes just a millisecond to make a definitive decision as to a site's credibility, and this initial judgment is based entirely on aesthetics which means a good web design is critical for retaining visitors.
This month we consulted with Netfirms's very own Director of Web and UI, he shared with us the best tips and tricks for designing the most visually appealing website:
1) Plan Your Site
- : Before turning on your computer, consider the layout, page structure and how users will move from one page to another (navigation). Then, sketch out your site on paper.
2) Understand Your Audience
- : Knowing your audience will help set the tone for your content and layout, as you identify what visitors will be looking for on your site. It's also important to consider popular web browsers and your visitor's screen resolution size so that they see your site the way you intended; you can find this data in most site analytics tools. If you're not sure how wide to make your site, 960px is a great place to start.
3) Allow for Easy Navigation
- : Since people often read from left to right and top to bottom, the upper left-hand corner of your site is the first place your visitors will look. Place your navigation buttons here and keep them consistent, along with font and color choices, for easy reading and fluid movement from page to page.
4) Choose a Color Scheme
- : If you're designing your site around an image, try uploading it to a color palette tool, like
- 's, for example, for complementary color suggestions. Be sure to remain consistent with your design patterns, and stick to no more than three font types and colors.
5) Use High Quality Photos
- : In order to give your site a more professional appearance, all images should be clear, focused, and of high resolution. An alternative to taking your own photos is buying them from
- ; at about five-dollars an image it's an inexpensive way to visually take your website to the next level.
6) Test Your Site, Then Test Again
- : When you've created or redesigned your site, ask friends and family to test it for you. They may find things you've missed, or point out areas of confusion.
When paired with quality content, executing these tips appropriately will help retain first-time visitors and transform them into yourdomain.com regulars.
Thanks for netfirms for the great tips
6 Steps to Effective Email Testing – Tip 6
Step 6: Make Changes
Commit to making at least one change in each campaign. How would you finish this sentence? "I need to...":
- Change my from name.
- Change my subject line.
- Change specific words.
- Change the subject line format.
- Add content.
- Decrease content and simplify.
- Increase clickable areas or links.
- Highlight actionable items more.
- Change copy.
- Modify the layout.
The Last Word
Keep it simple. Initially, test only one area at a time to maintain simplicity and establish a testing regimen. Base your prioritization of success factors on the easiest things to test that will result in the best return.
Establishing a test regimen is the key to unlocking higher open, click, and conversion rates. But don't stop with just one test. Far-reaching conclusions based on one test are not predictive.
Repeat tests where possible over a set time period. Aim for at least three controlled tests before drawing a meaningful conclusion. This will keep you on track for continual growth and improvement in your email marketing program.
6 Steps to Effective Email Testing – Tip 5
Step 5: Measure and Analyze Results
Measure and analyze results to gain insight and prove or disprove your theory. Compile stats (to conversions) accurately. Look beyond the numbers to find meaning.
Even small percentage differences can mean large gains in response rates:
- Opens increased __ percent.
- Click-throughs changed __ percent.
- Conversions changed __ percent.
- Traffic to the website increased __ percent.
- Click-throughs were more focused on specific area, topic, or action.
- Click-throughs were spread out across areas, topics, or actions.
- Conversions increased __ percent.
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2144332/steps-effective-email-testing
6 Steps to Effective Email Testing – Tip 4
Step 4: Split the List
Choose the best list or segment to test, and split it (for that specific test). Which statement below matches your situation?
- I'm confident this list is the most appropriate to prove or disprove my theory.
- My list is large enough to do only an A/B split.
- My list is large enough that I can break it into a larger control and several smaller test segments.
- My list is large enough that I can sample a percentage of my list to test.
Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2144332/steps-effective-email-testing
6 Steps to Effective Email Testing – Tip 3
Step 3: Create the Test
Set up your test, following best practices. Remember, you don't need to prove the obvious.
To optimize opens (one per test):
- From name
- Subject line
- Best time to send
To optimize click-throughs (one per test):
- Creative/layout
- Subject lines
- Offer
- Copy
- From name
- Calls to action
To optimize conversions (one per test):
- Landing pages
- Calls to action
- Creative/layout
- Subject lines
- Offer
- Copy
- From name
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2144332/steps-effective-email-testing
Move MySQL database directory
By default mysql installs itself in /var/db in freebsd. If you have a big database then this folder will quickly get filled up. Here are the commands to move mysql from /var/db to /usr/local/mysql cd /var/db mv mysql /usr/local/ ln -s /usr/local/mysql mysql
cd /usr/local chown -R mysql mysql Then start up mysql done.
6 Steps to Effective Email Testing – Tip 2
Step 2: Form a Theory
Use your marketing experience and best-practice knowledge to determine what aspects might make a difference in achieving your objective. "I think...":
- People might be bored with my current subject lines.
- Placement of the specific content might drive more people to action.
- People might not understand this offer/content and therefore will not interact.
- My calls to action need to be stronger.
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2144332/steps-effective-email-testing
Google search exclude domain
Lets say you want to check to see how many SEO links you have from Google BUT don't want to include your own website.
To exclude a domain from a Google search result use a search term like this:
http://mywebsite.com/myproduct/xyz -inurl:mywebsite.com
Google will search for http://mywebsite.com/myproduct/xyz but not include any results from website mywebsite.com
This is great of you want to know if people like your website updates
6 Steps to Effective Email Testing – Tip 1
Email marketers list testing as one of their top priorities year after year. However, most do no testing at all. At the very least, they rely on unscientific tests and their instincts to determine which subject line, offer, or creative will perform the best.
Testing is not a short-term silver bullet that will solve all your problems. You can't run a few tests and expect your program to hum along profitably for years. What worked well last year probably will not work now.
Marketers who test effectively to achieve significantly higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates are disciplined to run A/B split tests in every email campaign and committed to making changes in their program that make a difference.
In this column, I will explore six steps to effectively test your email marketing campaigns.
Step 1: Ask a Question
What are you hoping to achieve? Determine a specific objective to accomplish for each email campaign. Don't attempt to achieve multiple objectives with one blanket approach.
A series of small steps can be easy to test and analyze. Structure your thinking this way: "I'd like to...":
- Have more people open my messages.
- Have more people click through to the engine.
- Reengage with historically inactive people.
- Have people click on a specific area, topic, or action.
- Drive more conversions.
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2144332/steps-effective-email-testing
Mike Hotz | February 8, 2012
Apache freebsd munin not working together
I came across an issue with Apache 2.2 on freebsd 8.2 where munin wasn't graphing the Apache data. (apache_accesses, apache_processes and apache_volume )
When I tailed the munin error log I found this error.
tail /var/log/munin/munin-node.log
munin UserAgent not found at apache_volume line 86.
With some researching on google I found this nice munin command to tell me more about how to setup munin. IE what we can install on freebsd.
/usr/local/sbin/munin-node-configure --suggest
The output gave us "LWP::UserAgent not found". which means, install Perl's libwww.
To fix this error we install p5-libwww
cd /usr/ports/www/p5-libwww/
make install clean
Restart munin and everything should now work.
# ./usr/local/etc/rc.d/munin-node restart
ref: http://articles.slicehost.com/2010/4/9/enabling-munin-node-plug-ins-on-ubuntu