If you are going to be doing something with the internet, then it is a good idea that you have some working knowledge of web design. You never really know when you will have to make the quick change or edit, and wouldn’t it save you some time and money if you could tweak things yourself?
The following is a list of 8 great sites will make you a web design guru…
1. The Do’s and Don’ts of Modern Web Design
2. Nettuts
When it comes to working with Wordpress and designing in general the ability to quickly preview your changes and edits helps move the process along much faster. While you can easily see regular HTML and CSS files on your computer no problem, when you start to use databases and PHP, you need a server that can interpret these documents…
Unfortunately that means you need to set this up on your computer, but that is where we come in.
Note: Some Mac users seem to have trouble uploading images with the latest WP builds.
A few reasons to consider installing Wordpress locally:
The following tutorial will teach you step-by-step how to install Wordpress locally…
Yes there is other software, but, for ease and cross-platform capability, download the version of XAMPP suitable for your operating system.
The top marketers are using Wordpress these days because its easy and the utility that can be performed with their template tag structure. It seems like everybody is looking to move towards a magazine-style Wordpress theme.
Besides just looking professional and complex, these type of themes allow you to promote more of your content than a traditional blog-style Wordpress theme.
You may also want to take a look at 16 Best Free Recommended Wordpress Themes For Wordpress 2.8. The following is a list of free magazine-style Wordpress themes.
Just because it is free does not mean we should stop perfecting, tweaking, and adding content to it. We have been testing and working on our latest squeeze page template, Attractive Squeezing.
We have already updated the package for new users, and handed out links to already subscribed users. So take a look at it now, and see if you can utilize in your marketing campaign.
Obviously, the ideal Wordpress theme would allow you to do almost all customizing of not just your site’s content, but also the layout directly from your admin panel. While most templates are now being published with some sort of management through the panel such as color scheme or where to put your sidebars, you still really don’t have the option to completely customize where you want each individual piece to go.
Until Thesis came around…
You might not have realized it, but Thesis seems to be used on almost every other site nowadays, but you can’t tell because they have all customized it their own way… and done it straight through the admin panel. Lets take a look at some notable examples…
The beauty of Wordpress is the ability to create such complex websites, with little to no actual coding knowledge. Wordpress plugins allow you to personlize, customize, and enhance the look, feel, and flow of your site. While you do not want to flood your site with every plugin you come across, there are a few plugins that are a must for every Wordpress user.
1. All in One SEO - This plugin allows you customize the head tags and meta tags for each individual post. This will help improve the search engine optimization of your site. [Download]
2. SEO Smart Links – Do you get tired of linking the same keywords everytime? With this plugin, you can specify keywords and what they should link to. You can also choose to link to other articles within you site automatically, which helps your SEO as well. [Download]
Most people already know about Google Analytics and how to track traffic statistics. By the way, if you are not using it on your site, then do it now. Its free and can help you improve your site drastically.
While everybody knows about the typical stat tracking features like traffic sources, bounce rate, and so on, not many know about the “Goals” feature. By inputing your factors, you can ultimately track how your pages are converting and how are they funneling through your sales process.
When you normally create a new site profile with Analytics, you are giving a single code to add to your website, but you need to do a little more to start tracking conversions. It is pretty simple though, all you really need is the URL of your any page that you send the user to after they opt-in or convert on your campaign.
We have covered the difference between a sales page and squeeze page, but why would somebody choose one over the other? You want to sell something, right? So why not slap up a sales page and a direct link to the check out page?
While an effective sales page can definitely work, a squeeze page can actually be more efficient and imperative to lasting revenue.
The theory behind both pages is that you are trying to convince the visitor to buy your product or service. Remember that these type of pages are single long web pages, so there is only one reason for people visiting your site: they have some problem, and they are looking to see if your product can help solve it.
With a sales page, there are really only 2 outcomes: the visitor buys your products or they leave. If you are lucky, they may bookmark the site, but odds are if they weren’t totally persuaded with your sales page the first time, then it won’t really convince them when they come back.
Obviously because the core of this site revolves around using various creatives to enhance our marketing techniques, it is somewhat recommended that we all know a little something about web design. While that does not mean you have to know how to make a site from scratch to finish, it will benefit you drastically to at least get a good idea of whats going on or how to edit somethings here and there.
Interesting fact… most web designers have little to no former training (including myself). Does that make us special (we like to think), but, in all honesty, learning how to create websites and other similar creatives is actually incredibly easy. It really just takes some time to play around with different templates, and see what changes what. Eventually you get a good idea on what works, and the rest just follows.
If you are unfamiliar with what sales and squeeze pages are, then it is time to get familiar. These type of pages are basically a single web page that focuses on getting the visitor to perform one action.
There are obviously advantages and disadvantages to creating each one over the other; however, each one is almost a vital part to launching and selling any product or service. We think they are so important that we have created free templates for these specific pages that you can get for free.
Although these pages seem relatively easy to produce, it is almost an art form. How will you keep somebody’s attention and convince them to perform the action you want? That is why it is imperative that you understand exactly how these pages work and then also study what successful marketers are doing on these pages.
I have created a video that you can watch below to get a better understand of how a sales or squeeze page works, and we will also look at a couple examples.
