Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.
You may have seen that we announced some special news on the Copyblogger blog earlier this week.
Digital Commerce Academy is open again!
But only for a limited time. (And when we close the doors again, the price will go up.)
So if you want insight from experienced experts that will help you develop and sell profitable digital products, this is the week to take action.
Now on to this week’s links …
Content: What makes a killer call-to-action button?
You may be wondering why a post about CTA buttons is leading us off here in Content. Shouldn’t it be in design?
Two thoughts on this:
- Content is design … haven’t you learned anything from Rafal? 😉
- The most compelling part of the blog post, in my opinion, deals with writing copy for CTA buttons:
“The best Call-to-Action buttons tend to have very few words, but every word is essential to understanding what will happen when the button is clicked.”
Oh, and plus, I found another article that is perfect for the Design section.
However you want to classify it, you’ll learn a lot from the post below.
The Ultimate Guide for High-Converting CTAs
Design: How design decisions can affect analytics
We don’t often think of design and analytics together. But maybe we should.
This post from Content Marketing Institute compiles five lessons from Andy Crestodina that will help you make design decisions that benefit your analytics tracking.
For example:
“From the viewer’s point of view, a thank-you message is a thank-you message. From a content marketer’s perspective, you get more useful analytics when you put thank-you messages on their own pages, separate from your sign-up forms.”
These are useful tips. Are there any you are not following that you should be?
Designing for Better Analytics: 5 Decisions Web Designers Fail to Make
And while we’re on the subject of design, here is another useful article for you, from Search Engine Land.
Google hates obnoxious pop-up ads: Here’s why you need to look at the ads on your site
Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?
Now they can.
Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.
Technology: How do you achieve major growth on a budget?
In this day and age of pay-to-play on sites like Facebook, it can sometimes feel like major audience and customer growth is out of your budget … and out of your reach. But it’s not.
The first key, of course, is to leverage your time in smart ways, by focusing your efforts on the activities that make the biggest difference.
The second key is to leverage your money in smart ways, by focusing your investments in tools and tactics on those that will give you the biggest bang for your buck.
This article from Search Engine Journal provides some guidance on the latter.
Digital Growth Hacking Strategies for Companies on a Tight Budget
Strategy: Do you know who your competitors are?
Knowing who your competitors are is important, even if you don’t view business as a zero-sum game or a win-at-all costs battle.
Because when you know who your competitors are, you know what your prospects are seeing out there in the market. This is what gives you insight on how to position your message and product so it properly stands out and gets the attention it deserves.
This blog post provides a three-step process for identifying your competitors.
Competitive Analysis: How To Find & Analyze Your REAL Competitors
So …
Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?
I’ll be back with a new edition next week.
Keep building.