Are You Losing Money Due to Slow Page Loads?
Look at the image on the left.
That’s what I got to look at for 24 seconds while waiting for a popular blogger’s site to load.
UGGGGGHHHHH!
And no, it’s not a slow connection on my end — almost every other site I visit loads instantly. What’s worse - every page on this blog takes as long or longer to load… every single time.
Now, the only reason that I bother waiting for this site to load is because I know and enjoy this blogger’s work. He shares all manner of valuable tips, interesting anecdotes and personal stories on his blog.
I don’t mind the wait because I know it’s coming. I do some other work on my computer and when I see his favicon come up on the tab in Explorer, I know that page has finally loaded and is available for viewing.
That works for me, but what about first-time visitors to his site? Do you think they bother waiting nearly half a minute for a page to load. Some might, but MOST definitely will NOT… which means that he’s not making nearly as much money from his blog as he could.
So why does his blog load SO painfully slow when others load instantly?
Well, in a nutshell… he’s got too much ’stuff’ (that’s put nicely) going on.
- On a single page you’ll see ads, ads and more ads. He’s got Kontera, Chitika, ReviewMe, Peel away ads, top of page ad bars, one or more 468×60’s banners, at least ten 125 x 125 banner ads — many of which contain Flash.
- His standard top of page navigation is heavily graphic-laden and takes up everything above the fold.
- He obviously runs a ton of Wordpress plugins and there is a TON of javascript code running on each page which is notorious for slowing sites down when scripts from different programs conflict.
- Instead of linking to one primary stylesheet, the CSS code has been built into his header.php, which adds approximately 3000 unecessary characters to each and every page.
UGGGGGHHHH again. Mostly unecessary and a total waste of good traffic.
So, what can you do if your site is loading slower than you would prefer?
The answer is simple — lighten up!! Here are a few easy ways to do that:
- Reduce the number of graphic images that you use on your blog and that includes banner ads.
- Decrease the color depth of your own images to 256 and make them as small as possible.
- Test your site for loading after installing any new plugin or javascript widget.
- Consider whether you really need to put your Flickr album and broadcast all your Twitter tweets in your sidebar or whether having a link to those accounts would accomplish the same goal.
If those simple tweaks don’t solve your page load issues, or you’re not a geek / technically inclined, hire a programmer at RentaCoder to help solve the problem.
Bottom line — when people can’t see your site due to slow page loads, you’re killing your bottom line.
Popularity: 37% [?]
How to Correct Bulleted List Errors with CSS
I’ve been running across more and more bulleted list errors on webpages of late. An unordered bulleted list should be coded as follows:
<UL>
<LI>1st Item</LI>
<LI>2nd Item </LI>
<LI>3rd Item</LI>
</UL>
The resulting bulleted list will appear like this:
- 1st Item
- 2nd Item
- 3rd Item
However, I frequently see this awful looking mess on webpages and blogs:
<p class=”MsoNormal”><!–[if !supportLists]–><!–[endif]–> 1st Item</p>
<p class=”MsoNormal”><!–[if !supportLists]–><!–[endif]–> 2nd Item</p>
<p class=”MsoNormal”><!–[if !supportLists]–><!–[endif]–> 3rd Item</p>
Why is that happening?
Well, in a nutshell, those bloggers are probably using Microsoft Word to create their posts, which they then convert into HTML code and copy and paste into to their blogs.
That method might work but for the fact that none of the CSS (cascading style sheets) on the sites showing the errors specified paramaters for rendering either a <UL> (unordered list) or a <LI> (list item).
At very least, the following code should be placed within their stylesheets:
ul li {
display: inline;
list-style-type: none;
}
To learn more about CSS and coding for bulleted lists, visit the W3Schools site.
Popularity: 6% [?]
More Premium Wordpress Themes
Yesterday I picked up a Premium News Theme designed by Adii. You may already have spotted variations of this news style theme on a number of other blogs. I was actually waiting for Adii to release his ‘Kineda-inspired’ theme, but since putting the mock-up out on November 23rd of last year, the design isn’t yet available for sale… so I went with the Original.
Along with crediting Brian Gardner for inspiration, advice and guidance; Adii notes that “the aim of this theme is to offer the mainstream public the opportunity to implement such a website at a very low cost” and also notes that this “theme is not for the average Joe blogger however - it is a high-end theme and CMS solution that has just been made affordable and accessible to everyone. This theme is perfectly suited for ambitious bloggers looking to earn an income from their blogs / websites”.
These themes are definitely not plug and play and do require some tweaking to get them running right. For example, I installed the theme to RosalindGardner.com yesterday, worked on it for an hour and haven’t yet filled all my ad spots, figured out how to designate a featured post (that big gap at the top of the page) and haven’t written a page for the ‘Advertise Here’ link. All that said, it shouldn’t take me long to sort out.
If you like Adii’s theme but are worried that it may be too advanced for your coding abilities, Adii does provide thorough installation instructions, a Support Forum and a contact form. You may have to wait awhile for a response through the forum, as I notice that a question posted one month ago about issues with the video loading on the homepage still hasn’t been answered.
If you really like the theme, don’t let that dissuade you! There are always designers around at Scriptlance, Elance, etc. who can de-bug and fix those issues. I think it’s worth the cost and a little tweaking to have a theme that looks and acts higher end than the Joe Average themes on the Codex.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Paid Traffic: Is Your Site Ready for Visitors?
New affiliate marketers often fixate on getting “traffic, traffic and yet more traffic” to their sites.
However, in their rush to start earning commissions, some affiliates make costly errors when they launch sites that are not yet ready for visitors.
To learn which (7) conditions MUST be met on all affiliate sites before launch, read Paid Traffic: Is Your Site Ready for Visitors?
Popularity: 12% [?]
Anyone Else Seeing a ‘Gap’?
I just got a report from Jess, an NPT subscriber, that the top portion of the NPT newsletter appears blank until you scroll down the page.
Jess is using Internet Explorer and is displaying a screen resolution of 800 x 600.
Is anyone else having this problem? If so, please do leave a comment and let me know! Thanks!
Popularity: 6% [?]
Categorically Crazy?
OK, I may be ‘nuts’, categorically crazy even.
I spent the better part of a day revising and adding categories to the NPT blog, assigning about one-third of almost 600 posts into 8 ‘parent’ categories and 27 ‘child’ categories.
I placed a “Blog Map” above the category list, which displays only the parent categories.
Why am I being so picky about a category list?
Well, here are 6 primary reasons you too might want to go ‘categorically crazy’.
- Logical organization of site content helps visitors (who have little patience and short attention spans) find what they want faster.
- When visitors find what they want faster, they stay on your site longer (increased ’stickiness’) and will visit again.
- Longer visits increases exposure to products, resulting in higher conversion to sales.
- Sites that are ’sticky’ gethigher search engine rankings and thus still MORE visitors and MORE sales.
- Wordpress will assign a catgory ’slug’ (or you can choose your own) that displays in the address bar. For example, my “Make Money Online” URL is “make-money-online/” and each sub-category also includes that ’slug’. Those keywords are great search engine fodder, especially when the post content relates appropriately to the category.
- Increasing the number of categories also increases the number of feeds. Having more narrow niche-specific feeds may increase the number of feed subscribers, which then encourages repeat site visits and therefore even more sales.
Gee… give your visitors what they want, and they’ll respond in kind.
Crazy, eh? 
Here are a few suggestions to help you go categorically crazy yourself… Read more
Popularity: 32% [?]
How Do You Like NPT’s New Look?
So, what do you think of the new site design for Net Profits Today?
Like it? Hate it? Let me know!
I went to a 100% wide 3-column design because I read at OneStat.com that “the screen resolution 1024 x 768 has reached an all time high and has risen from 48.3 percent in June 2003 to 54.02 percent ” and I wanted to take advantage of the extra width.
The template looks right for those still using 800 x 600, because the header graphic is only 774 pixels wide. The background image just makes it look like it is as wide as the entire screen.
By the way, the header is a composite of a background from a BoxedArt.com template and my pic, morphed in Paint Shop Pro. Pretty easy to do, actually.
I still have work to do - in preparation for a new CMS (content management system) that I’m currently testing for implementation throughout the site. Can’t wait to share the experience with you as it looks like it might be the answer for those HTML-phobic newbie affiliates.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Irritating Advertising
Take a look at the picture to the left and notice how the advertising graphic totally obliterates the text that I was reading.
I had inadvertently cursored over the Nokia ad and when I tried to close it - by clicking “Close” button - the darned thing wouldn’t close. Only by carefully cursoring to a section of the page that wasn’t filled with irritating advertising graphic pop images was I finally able to read the rest of the article.
Really - is this necessary or just another way for advertisers to irritate web users? Your thoughts?
Popularity: 3% [?]
How Does Your Site Appear in Firefox?
Sometime ago, I received several email complaints that links in my newsletter and on the site were triggering DOWNLOADS of the linked pages to a “temporary directory” instead of opening NPT in the Firefox web browser.
This is what it looked like:
Note, this was ONLY happening in Firefox.
The links were all formatted correctly so I spent a number of hours going back and forth with different folks, then on the Firefox support forum. None of the suggested solutions worked.
Finally, I passed it on to Steve Hetrick, the braniac over a DataWebPro who runs my servers, and he had it resolved lickety-split.
Solution - he added the following line of code to my .htaccess file.
Action application/x-httpd-php “/php/php-cgi.exe
I was lucky to get those comments from site visitors about the Firefox issues, otherwise I wouldn’t have known.
Have you checked your site in the Firefox browser lately?
Cheers,
Ros
Popularity: 3% [?]
Are You Using Joomla CMS?
I received an email from Steve Hetrick at DataWebPro that will be of interest to anyone running the JOOMLA content management system on their servers.
Both Joomla and Mambo have come under attack in the past few weeks - a serious issue that can result in site
defacements to more serious account and server security breaches.
Steve recommends that you upgrade to the latest version of Joomla, 1.0.10, which involves only a few mouse clicks when you use Cpanel’s Fantastico.
Apparently most of the hacks are coming through outdated or compromised plugins.
For a list of the plugins and more information about the problem, visit http://www.datawebpro.net/alert.
Cheers,
Ros
Popularity: 4% [?]
