WordPress Chef

How to optimize your site for speed

christien — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 08:59:51 +0000

Let’s set a few ground rules. The speed of your website (also known as load time) depends on 4 things.

The server hosting the website
The internet connection of the user downloading the website
The DNS configuration of the domain for the website
The file size and file structure of the website

The first three items of this list we can assume are optimized or perhaps not within your control. That leaves you with optimizing the website which is 9 times out of 10 what needs to be “fixed”. Please also note that each page is unique and must be diagnosed separately. How do we diagnose the page? Head on over to http://tools.pingdom.com and enter the url to any page in your website. At a glance, this tool will calculate the total file size of all the images, scripts and other downloads required to bring up your page. This number should never exceed 2 mb if you expect it to load within 2 seconds on a high-speed internet connection.

I have seen e-commerce pages with dozens of products total 18 MB and take more than 20 seconds to load. Gruesome I know, sadly it’s true. It’s as simple as uploading a couple of high-res photographs that are set to display at 90 px width but the reality is that file is actually 9,000 px and just being squeezed down to 90px for display but you are still downloading the same 3mb of data for that 9,000 px wide photo (the one that looks like it’s only 100px wide on your web page).

Another common issue I see is too many “http requests”… an http request is counted every time a file loads. That could be your css file, your image file, your html file, your cgi file, your htaccess file, your xml file, and the list goes on and on and on. Every single file counts, that’s every image, every script, everything. Even if they are all tiny tiny file sizes, a new connection needs to be made for each one of them… there are ways of merging files so that there are fewer connections required, i.e. http requests

That’s your meat and potatoes on optimizing speed performance for a web page. Each one has it’s own set of http requests (connections) and it’s own set of images, videos, etc. (file size). The recommended limit for a web page (a unique url) is 2 MB and less than 100 http requests in order for it to be “lightning fast”. Otherwise, even the fastest server with the fastest internet connection is going to be slow to load your website. That being said, some of the first few things I would look at are;

Compressing Image Files
Disabling unused plugins
Merging CSS files

If you ever notice your website is dreadfully slow, trace back your steps, more often than not something has been deleted but is still being requested. Perhaps an image that was deleted via FTP but not deleted in the HTML code… so the browser that tries to load the website gets stuck on that missing image that is no longer on the server. A missing file like that could stall the page by a good 2 to 4 seconds. What happens is the browser tries several times to download that file before it gives up and moves on to another one. Once the code is cleaned out and the image properly deleted, then the request for the missing file doesn’t even happen and you’ve just shaved off 4 seconds on your loadtime and are back down to 1.64 seconds

There are only 2 kinds of buyers

christien — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:05:49 +0000

I was invited to attend a webinar with Russell Brunson which was a presentation he had at an e-commerce convention. His presentation was about an hour long most of which outlined his approach to upselling but I found the most valuable insight to be this; there are only 2 kinds of buyers, i.e. people who buy for pleasure and people who buy for pain.

Sounds dramatic but it makes a lot of sense.

On one side you have people who are in a jam, they are sick, they are tired, stressed, annoyed, angry, depressed what have you… they are in pain and they want relief now! These people are not going to take the time to shop around and get the best price… in fact these are likely the kind of people who will not only buy now but pay through the nose depending on how bad the pain is.

Conversely, at the opposite extreme we have people who are very comfortable in life and are looking for thrills and pleasure. These are the people who have all the time in the world and will certainly shop around before buying anything. So in Heinz site, if you’re selling a product that is pleasurable you are force to be even more competitive than if you were selling a remedy to someone’s pain.

Take that into consideration when you are marketing your services/products. Try to identify the type of buyer you are dealing with and conduct yourself accordingly.

Design something compelling not CRAP!

christien — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:26:36 +0000

Truth is, I am going to tell you how to design C.R.A.P. instead of crap. I learned this while in design school at Humber College and it goes like this;

Colour: I learned colour instead of contrast because there are a few “laws” when it comes to colours such as contrasting colours versus complimentary colours. You also have the psychology of colours, i.e. red means stop, green means go, orange means cheap, blue means trust-worthy, etc.

Repetition: nothing brings a sales point home like repetition, although in the context of design this really refers to consistency is your colours, your fonts, your shapes, sizes, etc.

Alignment: I recommend you all text with the same alignment (all left, all centre or all right). The human eye is conditioned to read in blocks of text or paragraphs. A successful ad/poster is quick and easy to read.

Proximity: negative space (empty space) is another term that can be used to describe “proximity”… be sure not to cram too much on the page and clutter things up, you want to have a safe distance between all elements in your design. Contrasting colours may help you cheat proximity in your design.

The first step to seo is…

christien — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:13:53 +0000

I think most of us would say that Google is king and that optimizing your website for Google will likely do well in other search engines such as Yahoo or Bing.

That being said, there are 3 things I will do right off the bat which are all verified by Google. That’s right, Google will literally list what they want from you… all you need to do is sign up for a Google Webmasters account and do 3 simple things;

Create a sitemap.xml file listing all the pages/posts you want to have listed
Create a robots.txt file listing all the directories/pages/posts you do not want to have listed
Create a unique meta description and title tag for every page/post in the site

Once you do that, you will at least have a two way dialogue with Google where you can make requests of them such as listing/removing your pages from their database. The rest is really content optimization (text formatting, choice of words, link building, etc.) based on market research and competitor analysis.

Have more questions? Post a comment or email me, I’d love to hear from you

Good, fast and cheap – pick any two

christien — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 20:45:52 +0000

While surfing around the net I came across an old adage that has helped me negotiate value with my clients.

There are three major sales points to every deal; good, fast and cheap. The rule is that you can only 2 of the three.

If you want good and fast it won’t be cheap. If you want fast and cheap it won’t be good. If you want good and cheap it won’t be fast.

I use this one on clients all the time and when presented with that equation, people tend to understand what they can expect. Managing your client’s expectations is crucial to retaining their loyalty so be sure to make this little anecdote clear up front so there are no disappointments.

My personal motto is this “Under promise and over deliver, never over promise and under deliver”.

6 Step Sales Process

christien — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 03:57:56 +0000

So while studying business in school, one of my professors taught us what he coined “The Six Step Sales Process”. I swear by it, it has worked for me everytime but it’s not the only way. In fact, sometimes I’ve been able to skip steps and make it all happen within the first meeting. Truth is though, taking your time will pay off in the end… by another zero in my case.

“Slowly and wisely” said the Friar

1) Preparation

This refers to researching the prospect before making your first contact. Now this is not always possible but let’s just say that you shouldn’t speak with the client about pricing, turn around or other pertinent deal points before doing your homework. What’s homework? Collect data! Get as much information about the prospect and make a list of items you think are strong and a list of things you can improve upon or help them with. Keep this to yourself for now.

2) Approach

This would be your “first contact”, this is where you introduce yourself and simply ask if you can book a meeting to discover how you may be of help. I find it helps to pitch it as a non-billable consultation where I sit down with the prospect to review their product/service/business and offer my insights.

Be sure to ask a few questions to get them in the right frame of mind. If you’re a web consultant like me, perhaps ask them questions like “When did you last update your website?”, “When was the last time you had an upgrade?”, “Have you considered all your marketing options?, etc. This gets them thinking about the things that need attention if they aren’t already thinking about it.

3) Discovery

So you got them to agree to a meeting and you’re now sitting with the prospect, just remember to shut up and listen. You may need to help them spit it all out by asking questions or offering ideas/examples to get the ball rolling. As they share their thoughts, take notes and re-interate everything they say to confirm that you’re on the same page.

Budget 1 hour for this meeting, if it takes longer than 1 hour you’re being inefficient… or perhaps the prospect is, if you find your prospect likes to talk too much, then try asking closed ended questions (where the answer is yes or no).

Before leaving the meeting, be sure to book your follow up meeting where you will present the “solution” to all their “problems”. I usually book follow-ups within 1 week or sooner so that everything is fresh for both me and the prospect.

4) Solution Design

After having your first meeting with the prospect (the discovery meeting) it’s time to get back to the office and scope out a proposal. Make a concise list of all the things the prospect requested, all the things you’d like to suggest and factor it, X hours @ X dollars = bottom line. Be sure to include the words that were used in your meeting to showcase your consistency and attention to detail. Don’t over complicate it, make your write up for each line item short and concise. Less is always more.

5) Presentation

It’s now show time, this is where you strut your stuff and show them what you’ve got. Power Point presentations go a long way but I myself just surf the net on my laptop showing real client samples for each component that I am pitching for my prospect. They say more than 80% of the world’s communication is visual and that visuals are easier to remember than what you heard or felt.

As you conduct your presentation look for visual cues in the prospects body language, i.e. hand on chin, arms crossed, leaning forward, bitting lip, etc. Keep everything in context and you’ll be able to pick up on the prospect’s interests and then know when and where to cut corners.

Don’t think that everyone wants to hear everything you have to say… focus on what excites them. By the end of your presentation, ask for the sale, i.e. “So without further adieu, let me ask you… would you like to get started?” or something to that effect, be yourself…

6) Implementation

So they said yes and it’s time to start working. Now I don’t think i need to tell you that you need to have a terrific product, backed by terrific service and competitive pricing if you want return business. The question is, what does that really mean? Well, there are 5 Characteristics of Great Products & Services but at a glance, a great product is designed to fulfill the buyer’s needs and does so seamlessly. A terrific service starts with courtesy and respect and ends with a smile.

Each customer will be different, some appreciate a phone call while others prefer an email. I think everyone wants quick and sometimes that’s not easy to do so at the least let your customer know that you are always in their corner and on top of it. As for competitive pricing… that’s really up to you, there are various levels of business in every industry. If you want to compete with the giants, you can’t undercut them too much. From my experience, if you go too low, your credibility is brought into question.

So there you have it, the 6 step sales process. Try it out on your next opportunity and let me know how it panned out. If you have any questions, post a comment below and I’ll be more than happy to respond.

The Four Ds of Email Management

christien — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:31:12 +0000

Are you getting flooded with emails? Do you feel as though you aren’t getting anything done because you just can’t seem to catch up with all those emails? Here’s a word of advice, stop what you’re doing because you can’t stop what they are doing (the people sending you emails). I’ve received some terrific advice from two friends, the first of which can be labeled as “the four d’s of email management”. What are the four d’s?

Do it – some emails required immediate attention
Delegate it - some emails really don’t require your personal attention
Delete it – a lot of emails can often be deleted
Date it – some emails can be dealt with later, so make a deadline for yourself and get to it later

Chances are you can group these emails into the four d’s using mail rules. The easier way of doing this is to have a dedicated email address for each purpose, i.e. billing@yourname.com, support@yourname.com sales@yourname.com etc.

If you’re running a small businesses or are not fond of the idea of having to give out multiple email addresses, then the mail rules route is what you want. Refer to your email-client software’s manual for details on how to set it up. Examples of mail rules would be “if From: client@rogers.com” move to “the date it” folder.

If you have any questions post a comment and I will gladly share more.

The Social Media Marketing Book

christien — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 14:08:39 +0000

Now you may already know that I use social media as a form of generating links for search engine optimization (SEO) but it is by far the most efficient way to establish a rapport and develop loyal “fans” (that means customers). The other weekend I had time to kill while downtown and decided to go to the bookstore to snoop around.

Funnily enough, I wasn’t looking for a book on social media. I mean, I’m still in my twenties and I use social media every day, what could a book possibly have to teach me? Well to my surprise, I came across Dan Zarrella’s “The social media marketing book” and found some intriguing insights.

It’s a really easy read that is broken down into 10 chapters (excluding the introduction). Each chapter starts with a high level overview of its given social media topic and closes with a set of “take away tips”. I thought it would be interesting to see how the book’s take away tips actually line up with what I took from reading it.

This book does pack-in a lot meat, I’d say that in a pound for pound face-off with a book like “The 4 Hour Work Week”, The Social Media Marketing Book is a definite winner.

Below I’m going to give you my 2 cents on each chapter and include the take away tips that were found at the end of each chapter.

1) Blogging

start your social media campaign with a blog, make it the focal point to all your social media efforts
stick to a posting schedule you can deliver on in order to build a following
comment on other blogs to make friends, pingback other blogs to generate comments

2) Microblogging

ask questions and comb the net for conversations you can get in on
include links, user names and other shortcode in your status updates
act as a filter/distributor of other microbloggers

3) Social Networking

find a network that works for you and stick to it, there is no need to be on every network
get quality friends not quantity, be sure you qualify each person before you “spam them”
share the love, i.e. promote your friends, know the politics of your network

4) Media Sharing

host your media on the platform, i.e. photos on flickr, videos on youtube, etc.
use the embed codes for your website, social profiles, etc.
let your fans embed your media into their own websites/profiles

5) Social News and Bookmarking

stick with a news site that is relevant to what you do
don’t submit your own story, find a friend to do it for you
prepare for server crushing traffic

6) Ratings and Reviews

Submit your business to the review sites, i.e. Google Places, Yelp, etc.
Invite customers from offline to submit reviews online
Link to your review profiles from your blog/website

7) Forums

start by visiting other forums, assess what you can contribute
no forum is better than an empty forum
police the forum, moderate the posts and kick out the flame throwers (trouble makers).

Virtual Worlds

See if any video games relate to your product/service, i.e. Second Life, Mafia Wars, etc.
Don’t open an account with a campaign, settle-in slowly and participate
Understand the culture of the Virtual World for maximum results

9) Strategy, Tactics, Practice

Note the difference between campaigns and on-going efforts.
Have clear calls to action (big green button or something easy to spot)
Promote your Brand (be consistent and targeted)

10) Measurement

Focus on quality not quantity metrics (bounce rate, time on site, # of pages view per visitor, etc. these metrics tell you if visitors like what they see)
Track goals such as clicking to a form page, checkout page, etc.
Use Google Analytics

The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris

christien — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 04:55:46 +0000

I hate to say it but this book is a whole lot of fluff. I mean the essence of this book is packaged in one acronym; D.E.A.L. or D.E.L.A. depending on your situation. Don’t get me wrong, Tim Ferris is definitely an inspiration and a all around bright guy, but he says it himself in his book… don’t waste your time with information overload and the truth is, this book has a whole lot of information overload.

So take it from me, if you’re an entrepreneur like me and just want your meat and potatoes without all the salt, the pepper, the garnish, the butter rolls, etc. this is all that really needs to be read;

D is for define. Meaning define yourself, define your market, define the need, define the product.

E is for eliminate. Meaning cut petty tasks and other time wasters in your day.

A is for automate. Meaning find ways of recycling the same product or service.

L is for liberate. Meaning find ways of removing yourself from the equation like subcontracting.

Now earlier I said it’s either D.E.A.L. or D.E.L.A. which all stands for the same thing but applies to different people. If you are already running your business you’ll be going with the D.E.A.L. If you’re an employee who doesn’t want to necessarily launch your own company, the order is slightly different in that you must Liberate yourself from the “office” before you can really automate things. In my case I think I’ve begun to do it all but my weakness would be “Eliminate”… I have a habit of obsessing over superficial stuff that no one really cares for. To put it in context for you, this is how I work.

D – I have defined myself as a web consultant. I have defined my customers as entrepreneurs. I have defined my product to be a website.

E – I have eliminated my old services (those which couldn’t in some way be automated). I have eliminated my low-end clients (those that are not worth the stress). I have eliminated certain hours from my clients (to do what I want to do).

A - I have automated the initial setup (i use the same platform for all clients). I have automated the billing system (this makes a computer the nag and not me… another bonus).

L – I have liberated myself from location (i have clients in 4 countries). I have liberated myself from the 9 to 5 world (it’s all done by email with a 24 hour response).

Now if you want more examples, then I would recommend you buy his book. It is an easy read, there were a number of times where he made me laugh… HARD! But at times I questioned his ethics and code of honor. Nonetheless, a wise man once said “all is fair in love and war”. You can buy it on Amazon for as little as $5 clicking the image above.

WordPress Coaching

christien — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:14:42 +0000

WordPress is an open-source platform and my weapon of choice for building a website. Open-source essentially means that there is no licensing involved… it’s free to the general public. What may shock you more is the list of people that are using it such as NASA, CNN, Perez Hilton and many others.

My philosophy of work is to empower my client with the ability to produce for themselves. Much like the old saying goes “you can feed a man for a day with 1 fish but you can feed a man for life if you teach him to fish”.

Email Support
Take advantage of a monthly support retainer with a 24 hour response time and know that a wordpress ninja is in your corner. Last but not least, this service comes with optimized web hosting for your wordpress website. Starting at only $20/month

Live Training
If you prefer there is a live consulting service provided via skype. This allows us to share screens and share links easily. This service needs to be scheduled with an appointment and is available at a rate of $60/hour

Design & Development
Some projects require extra tweaking which must be done with code such as php, css or html. Themes and plugins are often tagged by their authors and may or may not fit your company brand. This service is available as a flat rate but must be quoted for each project. Please contact me for a free estimate.