However once your site is live, it’s important to continue to test for usability.

Website usability is a critical component of your success as a web marketer. If your users can’t easily take the actions you want them to, you could be missing out on more than just lost sales. When users find your site easy and perhaps even fun to use they are more likely to tell others about it, and generate more traffic.

So how usable is your website?

How quickly and easily can your website users find what they need?

I’ve put together a list of resources below to help you assess this very important question.

How usable is your website?

9 Website Usability Tips and Resources

1. First it’s vital that you know exactly what you want your “ideal” website user to be doing when they come to your page. It’s a good idea to map this out ie: when a new visitor comes to my webpage I want them to see ___________and do ______.

2. Excellent navigation is key for web usability. Good navigation allows the user to answer 3 questions : Where am I? Where have I been? Where can I go?

“Breadcrumbs” are an excellent way to achieve this. Breadcrumbs are text linked indicators of your journey to pages within your website.  eg: home FAQ   How much is the program? could be the bread crumb trail to a “How much is the program?” page.

3. Your navigation needs to be clear and consistent in its look, feel  and location. You can achieve this by using templates. There are many places you can source quality free templates such as oswd.org and opendesigns.org .

4. A site map is an important feature of a usable website. A site that allows you to quickly generate a free sitemap is: xml-sitemaps.com

5. It’s important to be able to track and assess the actions your users are taking, to determine how useable your website is. This is made possible by software scripts such as those found at crazyegg.com you can access a free 30 day trial of their visual heat maps on you webpage users activities.

6. An opensource (free) alternative for heat maps can be found at labsmedia.com/clickheat/index.html Clickheat allows you to see hot and cold click zones on your pages.

7. wave.webaim.org is a free web accessibility evaluation tool providing an on-page view of accessibility with embedded icons rather than complex technical reports. The entire webaim.org site provides a wealth of information and training in web accessibility.

8. usabilla.com offers a  5 minute, 5 step process that gives feedback at every stage of your design process
a. create a test start
b. select the pages you want to show your users
c. select questions for your pages
d. Invite your users to participate
e. Feedback analysis and statistics

9. No list on how useable is your website would be complete without a reference to the founding father of web usability Jakob Nielsen. Useit.com This is definitely not a site for those who like pretty graphics but for purists and researchers on the background on web usability. Information on one of his books “Homepage Usability 50 websites deconstructed” can be found at useit.com/homepageusability

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OptinPop Advanced
“How To Double or Even Triple The Listbuilding Results You Get With OptinPop Advanced 3.1…”
http://BigsellingOptins.com/OptinPopAdvanced.html

Normally sells for: $67
Your price: $33.50

The Ultimate Listbuilding Machine
“Discover How to Build a Super-Responsive 1,500 Member Opt-In List In 31 Days – Guaranteed!…”
http://BigSellingOptins.com/ULM.html

Normally sells for: $87
Your price: $43.50

To claim your discount here’s all you need to do:

1. Click on the links above
2. Click on the order button
3. Enter this coupon code: HALFPRICE
4. Click the “apply” button
5. Watch the price cut in half
6. Place your order
7. Access everything

Why am I doing this?

Well… I’ve not run a 48 hour special in a long while and I want to see how many people will respond. If all goes well I’ll be running more 48 specials just like this. I want to give you the chance to not only save some money but also get access to some great tools and resources that help you grow your online business. Sound fair?

This special offer will expire on the 21st October… make sure you take full advantage before the discount expires.

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• Become a Listbuilding Genius!

Most websites that win design awards are not great websites. In fact many provide a very poor experience for their users.

Awards are usually given to sites that are different and stand out from the crowd, but this often means they have non-standard navigation, lots of flash animations and unique design elements.

This means that these sites are generally less intuitive. Visitors have to think about what they need to do to get the information or result they want.

The more your visitors have to think the more likely they are to give up and go somewhere else. One click and they’re gone. Not good when you are trying to make money from your website!!

The number one rule of web design is:

“There is no such thing as a dumb web user, there are just dumb websites”.

Always design your site for your audience, not for yourself. Everything within the design should be aimed at making your visitor’s life easier. Don’t make them have to think.

Your top three design priorities should ALWAYS be to make your site:

…simple
…clear and
…intuitive.

In addition to these basic steps, there are many ways you can give your site visitors a better experience, but guiding them to buy from you is probably your biggest challenge.

So what can you do to help yourself to the type of profits generated by the big hitters?

Simple – Grab a copy of my FREE report:

“How To Triple Your Website Sales: Breakthrough Sales Copy Changes That Boost Conversions (and Profits) Instantly.”

My FREE report will show you how to boost your profits like crazy by making a few simple changes to your website

http://bigsellingconversions.com

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The first thing you need to know is you don’t want a website design that’s all singing and all dancing, with lots of animated flash graphics or pretty images.

In fact a web design like that could cost you a lot of money – not only do complex graphics make your webpage to load slowly but as a result people leave before they’ve even seen what you have to offer.

Here are 10 “essential” direct response web design tips that triple your website profits:

1. Use a great headline that grabs people’s attention immediately.

Study successful headlines used in internet marketing, as well as in newspapers, magazines and postal promotions to discover what really works. Use these as models for your own headline.

2. Try changing the color of your headline.

This tip alone can triple your sales! What color is your headline? Have you tried a red headline for example? This is something you’ll need to run split-tests on to know.

3. Make sure your sales letter starts with an offer your readers can’t refuse or a promise they have to know more about to get them hooked and keep them reading.

4. Give them evidence your product or service will produce results.

Add testimonials from people who’ve already had success using what you’re promoting, or even using your services in the past.

5. Make sure you have a clear and direct call to action.

Don’t feel uncomfortable telling your visitors what to do. Every piece of research in marketing on and off line has shown people need and like to be told what to do next.

6. Leverage scarcity to boost sales.

Tell your customers there’s a limited supply or time limit on your offer so they act immediately.

7. Offer a guarantee that makes your offer that removes all risk.

When you remove any risk your prospect might have your sales will sky rocket! The best way to approach this is to answer any objection they might have within your sales copy. Then in your guarantee tell them there is no risk “when” they by from you.

8. Add your personal signature.

Even if you’re using a made up name on your website you’ll get more sales if people feel they know you personally. Your personal signature could even include a photo and a short audio.

9. End all your sales letter websites with a PS.

Your PS should succinctly tell your readers why they should buy and exactly how to do it. Remind them of the reasons why they need your product.

10. Test!

Remember to change only one element at a time and test the difference each change makes to your sales. Don’t just test your headline colors but test entirely different sales letter designs against each other. The more radically different your test subjects are the greater the difference in conversions you’ll see.

For “29 Proven Website Changes That Can Triple The Sales Of Any Under-Performing Website… 100% Guaranteed!” go here now: http://bigsellingconversions.com

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I see it myself every day, you have these “expert” marketers that have become the very best in their field. Everyone looks up to them, admires their skills and amazing rags to riches stories. They get the most traffic, the most subscribers, and the most profits.

But try sending them an email or asking them a simple question and you’ll most likely get the cold shoulder. In many cases the best you might get is an automated email reply directing you to their support desk where one of their “trained” staff can help you.

Have they become a victim of their own success, so busy running their operation that they no longer have time to for a one-to-one conversation with one or two of their subscribers or customers?

The other day I had this superb email arrive the other day from a subscriber I had been helping out with their website for the past couple of months (again they made me wonder how much the gurus really care)…

Of all the email marketing offers I receive on a daily basis, I believe that your offers have more appeal, less hype, and that I’ll get more reliable information for every dollar spent.

I also know from experience that you offer a superior and reliable customer service experience that I’ve never had from Stompernet and Frank Kern–all the frustrating time I’ve had to wait to get a reasonable response from these master gurus really showed me they don’t care about us little guys trying to grow our products and IM skills; I’m talking about weeks to months to never, ever getting a response.

When I had a rough time getting set-up to launch, nearly killed myself staying up night and day to develop my offer, you were there for me, Brian, and I sincerely appreciate how you helped me.

Nathan Daniel

Whilst I’m not running a multi-million dollar operation recently I created a new blog called “BigSellingAnswers” where I’ll answer any questions you have about website design, listbuilding and online marketing.

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Yesterday we received a superb review of these squeeze page video templates from Melanie Langenhan, listen to what she had to say…

Some weeks ago I got my hands on the new BigSellingVideoOptins Template Package by Brian Terry. This is an online product which contains prior-ranking templates and graphics for complete auto responder opt-in form pages. These templates are designed to include video messages to boost your opt-in rates. This sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

I wanted to check this product out because I am relatively new to auto responders and list building, although I am quite a while learning about internet marketing now. Anything that will help me to start and run my business successfully is very welcome …

Actually I have been blogging for about 10 years now, but I am a little shy to ask people to subscribe to my newsletter. So my opt-in form was very small and could be overseen easily. BigSellingVideoOptins changes that on 180 degrees.

To be clear, this product doesn’t just provide small, somehow nicely designed forms. It contains 45 (!) beautiful designed all-inclusive opt-in pages, with graphics and .psd-files plus a bonus template.

It’s up to the user how much one customizes the templates. Changing the video link, headlines/text messages and auto responder codes is mandatory; fonts and colors can be kept as is, if one likes the look.

Furthermore I got an eBook about list building, lots of helpful video tutorials and unadvertised bonuses with BigSellingVideoOptins Template Package that support the handling and tweaking of the templates.

On the download site, all content is placed on one long page with instructions and links to the graphic files (which are delivered in zip-format). The more I check out this page, the more I like the presentation of all materials. The look is clean and structured, with a step by step guide to get the desired outcome. Just read through the text from beginning to end, download the software, templates and fonts, watch the videos, follow the instructions, and you will be done. I wish more internet marketers would use such a friendly “user interface” to support the learning experience.

Brian Terry from BigSellingVideoOptins doesn’t give you only instructions and templates; he also serves you with the tools you need: links to free software and complete screen cast courses on how to use them, i.e. Gimp, FTP programs or screen capture tools. So everything is easy going – if you’re not completely overwhelmed by this offer

After the customization of a template you just need to upload it to your server, link to it and watch your subscriber list growing.

If you already use an auto responder system and want to grow your list, this product is for you! If you are new to Internet Marketing and want to promote products (your own or as an affiliate), it’s for you too! BigSellingVideoOptins teaches you what you need to know about list building and gives you these professional looking templates.

The only downside I have found to this product is a missing instruction about how to finally integrate the customized html file into an existing website or blog. I already mailed Brian Terry about this inconvenience and I am sure he will find a quick solution.

BigSellingVideoOptins costs less than 50 bucks. All in all the nicely designed templates (which I wouldn’t be able to create on my own), the courses about Video Marketing and Gimp, as well as the listbuilding eBook and the courses on HTML and FTP (those are for technical newbies), are without any doubt worth the money. If you are in need for professional opt-in templates, the BigSellingVideoOptins package is made for you. Go and give it a try!

Melanie Langenhan
http://www.mimipedia.de

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• 5 Hot Tips For A Big Selling Squeeze Page

All of those repetitive tasks that normally take hours to do can be done in seconds with my top 10 list of business automation tools. In fact most of these tools are the “exact” same tools I use to help me run my online business.  I stand behind each and every one of them.

Take a look through this “essential” list and put into use as many as you can!

1. 1ShoppingCart

With 1ShoppingCart you get all the tools you need to process online payments, deliver digital and physical products, run an affiliate program, track your sales conversions, contact your customers and affiliates via autoresponder and track orders and payments.

I’ve used 1ShoppingCart on and off over the past 5 years, now I use them exclusively because their system is rock solid and I can set up products for sale in just minutes with no messing around with code. Everything with 1ShoppingCart is point and click easy!

2. DLGuard

The only downside to 1ShoppingCart is there is no membership management available. So for example if you want to sell a digital product and offer your customers a username and password to access the download page you’ll need to use DL Guard as I do.

Unlike 1ShoppingCart DL Guard is a software script you need to install on your own website. It took me about 15 minutes to set up and configure, the support documents are very clear so you’re up and running within an hour.

Even if you don’t have 1ShoppingCart you can still use DL Guard because it has it’s own payment processing system built in. The only thing is this easy to install software script doesn’t have an affiliate management system so you really need to use 1ShoppingCart for that.

3. Aweber

I’m amazed at how many people don’t use a professional email automation system like Aweber! I’ve been using Aweber since November 2003 and I’ve got to say they’re the absolute best there is when it comes to automating email delivery.

With Aweber you can even automatically post a “tweet” to your Twitter account whenever you send out a broadcast email! Or how about every time you write a blog post? Aweber will automatically send out an HTML email to your blog subscribers telling them about it (if you’re on my blog email list that’s probably how you found your way here to my top 10 list).

As you can see Aweber goes way beyond giving you unlimited autoresponders! If you’re not using it yet you really should be.

4. TubeMogul

If you’ve ever created a video and spent 3 hours posting it to many of the social video hosting websites out there then you need to take a look at this service ASAP. It’s totally free to use and is a “big” time saver when it comes to getting your message out there and in front of the most number of people.

More than just automating the distribution of your videos TubeMogul will also give you countless statistics about your videos including how many people have watched them!

5. Ping.fm

What I like about Ping.fm is how much time it saves you. In fact this has got to be one of the biggest time savers out there when it comes to syndicating your content across the very best social networking websites.

The way Ping.fm works is you post your message on their website and that message gets posted to 40 social networking websites like Facebook, Plaxo and LinkedIn.

Of course this does mean you have to post your messages on the Ping.fm website. However there is another way…

Here’s how I use it…

First of all you need to install a copy of Twhirl  (this is another automation tool I’ll get to in a minute, it’s one of the best applications out there for posting tweets on Twitter.com).

Within Twhirl you can enter your Ping.fm account details. Then whenever you post a tweet it’s syndicated to up to 40 other social networking websites through your Ping.fm account.

6. Survey Monkey

Don’t let this name fool you. It’s not a system for surveying monkey’s Although it’s probably easy enough for a monkey to use! What Survey Monkey does is it gives you a “super” easy way of creating surveys.

It’s through these survey’s that you can find out what your subscribers and customers want and need. When you know those kind of answers marketing becomes a whole lot easier!

7. Twhirl

If you post messages to Twitter.com then you need to get this application installed ASAP! If you’re not using Twitter to get your message out there then you’re missing huge opportunity because right now Twitter is a “red hot” marketing tool.

As I mentioned earlier with Ping.fm make sure you tie your Ping.fm account into your Twhirl application and every time you post a Tweet message you can get massive exposure through the power of syndication.

8. SubmitYourArticle

If you’ve been marketing online for even the shortest time you’re probably aware of the power of articles as a way of generating traffic and building your brand. However the problem with articles is getting them into the hands of as many of the “right” people as you can.

Sure there are applications you can download and use them to submit your articles to 1,000’s of directories but there’s a problem called “duplicate content” you need to contend with.

This is a “big” issue because when Google and other search engines see 1,000 of copies of your articles all over the Internet they’ll only consider the 1st one they find unique, rank it accordingly and ignore the other 999.

SubmitYourArticle has a superb solution to this because it provides you with a way of turning 1 unique article into many unique articles all at the press of a button as well as submitting it to the best places online.

One of the things I like about this service is how it’s more about getting your article published by “top tier” websites and even offline publications. It’s not about pumping out as many low value articles as you can then submitting them to every man and his dog in the hop of some traffic.

P.S. By the way… I designed the logo and website templates for the SubmitYourArticle site. Steve Shaw the creator of SubmitYourArticle is a great guy and will look after you.

9. OnlyWire

In some ways this is similar to Ping.fm only this time you can submit your content right from your web browser to all the top social networking sites. They also include some other useful tools that make it possible for your website visitors to submit your content for you. It’s an interesting service I’ll be testing out myself very soon.

10. MindJetManager

This is one of my all-time favorite applications that helps me to shortcut the process of coming up with ideas. I’m sure you’ve heard of mind mapping before, well this software takes it to the next level whenever you need to brainstorm a new idea or develop new systems and procedures for the streamlining your online business.

So there you have it… my top 10 business automation tools.

What’s your favorite business automation tool and why do you like it?

Just post your link in the comments box below…

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• You’re Mailing To Your List Too Often!

I have mine set up to tell me whenever someone leaves one of my subscribers list along with their reason for leaving.

Having this notification is probably a bad thing because people join and leave my lists each and every day so you’re going to get quite a few emails. However… in these removal notices I do sometimes get messages like… “You are mailing to your list too often!”.

This got me thinking…

What’s more important, that they’re being given quality content or how often it’s sent to you?

This kind of comment dumbfounded me!

If it was me and someone was emailing me every day with something useful to my online business I would not unsubscribe just because they were emailing me every day! If I did this I would loose out …so why the heck should I unsubscribe? Makes sense right?

I then checked this out with a few of my online friends who also have subscriber lists and they said if a subscriber doesn’t buy anything from you it doesn’t matter if they leave for reasons like this. The whole purpose of any subscriber list for an online marketer is to make money, period. You want a subscriber list of buyers, not readers, not hangers on, you need buyers! So having this focus is important if you want to stay in business.

The point to consider is this…

You can’t please all of the people all of the time, only  some of the people some of the time. If you’re doing the same as me and reading your unsubscribe comments …don’t pay any attention to them.

The worst case scenario is lets say you listen to those few people on  your list who give you this kind of feedback. So you send fewer emails. 1 month goes by and then another and you’re emailing people less and less. The end result is a decrease in profits and even more unsubscribes from those people who wanted your regular content. And the value of your list you’ve spent so long building and cultivating a good relationship with shrinks.

The takeaway from this is… Email your list as often as you can get away with (you’ll know if it’s too much because your list will shrink quicker than it grows). Mix good content with the promotions of products you believe will help your subscribers. Don’t listen to people leaving your list!

P.S. If you’re looking for a “first class” autoresponder and list management system I highly recommend Aweber (it’s who I use). Go here for more details.

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When he first started out he believed website design was important and spent lots of time and money on creating great looking websites. His sales were nothing to write home about, he was just about getting by. But then he realized something… website design was a complete waste of time and money so decided to remove all the graphics from his websites.

Literally overnight his website conversions and profits doubled as every new website he created used virtually no graphics (except maybe a graphical button or 3D cover here and there).

All his websites were literally a white page with a red headline and black text below it. No extra links and no photos or other images (except sometimes a picture of himself). His websites were not exciting, they were not inspiring to look at and truth be told looked like a 10 year old put them together.

Despite this his sales continued to grow and grow.

When I first witnessed what he was doing I couldn’t believe it because my own background and training had been graphic design. I had been to art school and graduated at the top of my class. How could design not help? It was a real mind bender and paradigm changer for me.

Over the years I watched him create these websites in a matter of days, nothing was slowing him down. He churned out one information marketing after another. And his products followed this same rule of a very basic look with no graphics or visual elements.

He had no visual brand identity (unless you could say his basic style was his visual brand), he had nothing to differentiate his websites from others who also didn’t use graphics that much. All his websites headlines were red Tahoma Bold and his sales copy was in Times.

So what was his secret?

What was it that gave him the edge so few others had that turned him into an overnight success?

Was it good, strong sales copy?

That’s all it seemed to be at first. Then I looked closer and there was much more to this than meets the eye.

You see whilst good sales copy is paramount there’s more that’s needed.

It’s a personal brand… it’s you that makes the difference, it’s you that people know, like and trust. And he did this through the power of his copy and most importantly through his absolute mastery of Teleseminars.

But of course success doesn’t happen by accident or by chance, it has to be carefully considered and above all you need a plan. His plan was simple, just as I mentioned to you above and in executing his plan he made me re-think a lot of what I accepted as fact.

His biggest secret to rapid success in my opinion comes down to these 2 things…

1. Good advice and training from experts who were already where he wanted to be (his mentors where the most successful in the industry).
2. The ability to move fast (he created products, sales letters and host Teleseminars at lightning speed).

As I sit here at my desk creating my own information products and designing my websites I sometimes wish that website design wasn’t so important to me and that I could create products and websites as fast as my millionaire friend.

I still believe that a visual brand identity is important, but the challenge is in creating graphics that not only look good but also sell. When you get the balance right and combine it with other proven direct response strategies the sky really is the limit! Only now after 9 years of trial and error testing can I see the light at the end of my own tunnel and I’ve picked out my dream home in the Swiss Alps

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It’s also something Amazon do all the time.

Here’s how it works…

Someone buys your product and proves they a) are interested in a specific subject b) have money to spend and c) trust you enough to buy from you.

So what you do is right below your product download link you include this text…

Customers who bought (your product name) also bought:

Then you list 2 or 3 similar products to yours (they could even be affiliate links if not your own products).

Right after this you also say…

Since you’re interested in (your product niche category) you may also be interested in:

Then you list 2 or 3 other related products from within your niche.

What  you’ll find is once people start buying products on a subject they can go into a buying frenzy and buy many more other products in your niche. So why not help them by adding these 2 phrases to your thank you page.

Stephen says there are 3 points for maximum effectiveness when taking this approach:

1. Use only directly relevant products
2. Use solid products that are proven to deliver results
3. Use products that YOU yourself have purchased and tested.

The results you can get from this simple strategy have the potential to immediately boost your profits and help you sell more products just seconds after the initial sale.

It’ll most likely take you 30 minutes at the very most to do this so get started now!

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