Test how fast your pages load.

Use this free test. Page load time can actually impact your Google Quality Score.

Faster is always better.

The most common cause of slow page loading times is bloated graphics. Make sure your graphics serve a purpose for being included in the first place. Then make sure any graphic you do include has been optimized to be as small as possible – in byte size. Use JPEG, PNG, and GIF as appropriate to reduce the file size of all graphic elements.

The page analyzer below will measure load times and provide feedback on how you can reduce the load time of your web and blog pages. Websites that include calls to databases (WordPress) and sites that include PHP programs and run Javascript can have added overhead as a result. Graphic elements are a big thing to check, but not the only thing. Run the analyzer and see where you can make improvements.

Finally, the speed of your hosting service can also have a huge impact. You might be able to get by with shared hosting if you take the time to make sure your pages are “lean and mean”. Slow pages will not please the “Google gods”.

Web Page Analyzer – Free web page analysis tool calculates page size, composition, and download time. Gives speed recommendations based on best practices for usability, HCI, and website optimization.

I confess. I used to read in bed, and occasionally watch TV there as well; but I read an interesting health related report, and have since removed both from the bedroom. And as the report claimed, I honestly sleep much better without the clutter and the dstraction.

And clutter is exactly what Social Media can become if you let it overwhelm you. Be selective in who you follow, and just as important – who you let follow you. It’s amazing how just a little discrimination in how you use Social Media can cut down the noise (just another form of clutter – right?).

My mailbox has been overrun in the last few days with people hawking someone’s latest get rich quick scheme using Social Media. “Make tons of money with Twitter” – “Facebook your way to Fame and Fortune”  – you know the drill.

I do think Social Media should have a place in your marketing plan, but it’s only one of the possible roads to success. I believe your marketing plan should have balance – Social Media is one of your tools, nothing more.

Let me know your take on this. Is Social Media a help, or just a hindrance and distraction to your marketing efforts?

Here’s a list and brief synopsis of the essential WordPress plugins that every WordPress blogger should definitely consider. WordPress 2.9.2 allows you to easily find, then download and install these plugin automatically.

These essential WordPress plugins are made available through the Open Source software community and thankfully cost nothing to use.

How to get these Essential WordPress Plugins

Once you are logged into your WordPress dashboard, just select Plugins>Add New to search for, select, and install these plugins. See the graphic at the right. WordPress will then display a search box that allows you to locate and install our list of essential WordPress plugins.

The Essential WordPress Plugins List

Akismet- keeps the spammers at bay. If you allow comments on your posts, this is an essential WordPress plugin. Akismet comes bundled with every WordPress installation, but you must remember to activate it before it will work for you. Get a complimentary but required API key from WordPress.com, plug it in, and turn it on. Highly recommended.

All in One SEO Pack – unless you use a WordPress theme like Thesis that handles SEO as a function of the theme itself, you need to install this plugin. This essential WordPress plugin allows you to optimize your posts to make them search engine friendly. So unless you really don’t want to be found on the Internet, this plugin is a must have. Take the time to enter description, title, and meta data for each post or page. There is also a professional version of this plugin, but start with the free one – it should be enough for all but the most demanding webmaster.

Google XML Sitemaps – another essential WordPress Plugin if you want to be search engine friendly. This plugin automatically creates and updates an XML map of your site allowing search engines to better crawl and index your site. Fail to do this at your own peril. Seriously – this is one plugin you really need to install. Google loves it.

TinyMCE Advanced – this plugin adds 16 additional options to TinyMCE, the built in editor in WordPress. This plugin gives you complete control over the creation and editing of your post and adds over 40 new functions. I consider this plugin an essential addition for anyone creating content for their site. Once installed, you need to look under Settings, select TinyMCE and pick the features you would like to add. Just drag and drop the functions you need. Don’t add what you don’t need. Too many added functions can affect performance.

Contact Form 7 – unless you don’t want anyone to contact you, Contact Form 7 is an easy way to add a simple contact form to your blog or site. Also, search engines like to see contact methods on a website, so this is an easy way to address that need. Send us a message to see how it works – click on Contact Us.

Broken Link Checker – the essential WordPress plugin list wouldn’t be complete with out a way to make sure all your pages are working. Unless you want to send your site’s visitors to dead ends (very bad mojo), use a tool like the Broken Link Checker to make sure that doesn’t happen. This job is a pain to do manually, so install this plugin and you won’t have to worry about it. This plugin finds broken links and missing images as well.

Twitter Tools – if you’ve been bitten by the Twitter bug, then by all means install this plugin. It automatically provides integration between your WordPress site and your Twitter account. If you don’t use Twitter – don’t bother installing this one.

WP Super Cache – if your site gets a lot of traffic, and let’s hope that it does, this plugin will definitely speed things up for your visitors. It works by creating static HTML files that will be served to your site visitors instead of the usual output created by WordPress PHP scripts. This not only gives your visitors a better experience, it takes considerable load off your server.

Note: not all hosts provide support for cached HTML files – consult with your web hosting service if in doubt.

SexyBookmarks – sounds racy, but it’s really a very useful tool to encourage your visitors to submit your site to a plethora of social bookmarking sites. Great for helping to increase your back links and general site awareness.

Google Analytics for WordPress – if you have a website, especially one with commercial intent, an absolutely essential wordpress plugin is the Google Analytics plugin. This plugin allows you to know what’s going on with your site – who’s visiting, where they are coming from, what pages they are viewing, what keywords bring them to you, and how long they are staying – get a Google Analytics account and use this plugin.

Easy Privacy Policy – this is an another essential WordPress plugin, especially if you display Google AdSence on your website. Google expects to see a privacy policy, so you need to have one. Actually every website should display a privacy policy – it’s just good business and not having one can effect your rankings, and the trust factor your site generates with your visitors. This plugin is basic, but it gets the job done, and can be edited to specifically address the needs of your site (which I strongly recommend you do).

Another policy option is WP Policies which is a bit more complicated to set up, but may better meet your needs. It comes with ten pre-written policies that you can choose from, and then further edit to meet your exact needs.

WordPress Plugin Roundup

This is by no means a complete list of possible candidates for the top essential WordPress plugins, but it does give you a soled starting point. As your website grows, you may find that other plugins will also become essential. Check back to this site from time to time or subscribe to our feed to be kept up to date.

Our Disclaimer: Please note that this site does not dispense legal advice and it does not have attorneys on staff. While we believe the Privacy plugins mentioned in this article are worthwhile, should you chose to use these privacy policies, you do so at your own risk. If in doubt, have these policies reviewed by a competent legal advisor before using.

If you have a favorite plugin – please tell us what it is and why you like it.

XHeader Pro Creates Great Looking Headers

As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a good first impression, and when it comes to your blog or website this might mean the difference between success and failure.

Now you can create a good first impression, and dramatically improve the look of your site using a professionally designed header graphic. What might take a new website builder literally hours, can be done in a matter of just a few minutes using the right header graphic construction system.

An attractive header lends an air of professionalism, and encourages visitors to spend more time on your site. If your site looks amateurish, visitors may be inclined to click away, or bounce as its known. You can track and identify this “bounce” phenomenon using Google Analytics (which we will talk about in an upcoming post). Suffice it to say that “Bounce is Bad”.

For now, the issue is how do you find or create a professional looking header graphic if you’re not a graphics professional?

One tool we use to create header graphics is XHeader from the company that created the XSite Pro web development software. While the XHeader product works great with XSite Pro, it works just as well with WordPress and any other web creation software. Actually, most any job that demands a header graphic can be satisfied using XHeader Pro.

XHeader Pro contains a whopping 5,000 header graphics organized into 46 categories that you can use to create a customized header graphic for your website or blog. This is one tool that will save you loads of time and help you create the professional look that you need to present to your site or blog visitors. And with 5,000 header graphics to choose from, you’ll never run out of great ideas.

If I told you there is a tool that would  cost less than what you would likely pay to have just one header graphic created by a professional graphics artist, you’d certainly want to add it to your bag of tools – right? Well one of the great things about XHeader Pro is just such a product.

XHeader isn’t just a lot of templates either, it also includes a complete graphics editing package that allows you to create and customize your header graphic anyway you want. The results are limited only by your creativity.

As an added benefit, the package can also be used to create banner ads to use in your marketing efforts. See the example below – I added a balloon message to a stock header. You can make them different sizes and shapes to meet your particular needs. Just think a little outside the box and you can come up with more applications that require graphics for which XHeader Pro can help.

You can get your copy of XHeader by clicking here.

Check it out – I think once you try it, along with the accompanying tutorials, you’ll be creating more professional looking websites in no time. This site was created using WordPress, the Thesis theme, and XHeader Pro.

Download your copy of this great software today.

Just click below and “Have some fun!”

XHeader Pro Used to Create a Banner Ad

For a limited time you can get a version of XHeader for free – it’s not the Pro version, however it does have most of the capabilities, but with fewer graphic templates. Click HERE to access your copy of the free version. This is a great way to check out this software that can vastly improve the appearance of your site.

Thesis, a great WordPress Theme, and one we use on all of our WordPress blog sites has just gotten even better. Thesis, from Chris Pearson of DIY Themes, has been dramatically improved in both speed and function.

Here’s a partial list of some of the new features and benefits of Thesis 1.7:

• Improved SEO (search engine optimization) control gives you even more opportunity to tune your posts for maximum search engine targeting. The new improvements allow you to control SEO functions, including robots meta tags,  down to the page level.
• Setup options can be saved and restored so if you have favorite options you like to set on each of your sites, this new option makes it a snap to setup.
• Thesis 1.7 features faster page load time due to improved coding and organization.
• JavaScript libraries included – such as, Add jQuery, Prototype, MooTools, and jQueryUI that makes access to these libraries just a click away.
• Improved Home page controls give you improved SEO options and granularity of control.
• Improved hooks for easier coding.
• Headline filter allows you to control
• A 301 redirect function for affiliates allows easy linking to your offer page.
• Great tutorials and an awesome support group are the icing on the cake.

With Thesis you rarely have to touch the underlying code to modify and fine tune your site since the Thesis control panel puts everything at your fingertips. With the new version of Thesis this benefit is even more powerful.

If you build websites in WordPress, you truly owe it to yourself to take a hard look at what Thesis has to offer. I’ve purchased several premium themes over the years, this is the best one out there for my money.

For more information visit the Thesis 1.7 page.

Time marches on and so does the gang at Automatic. Matt Mullenweg and the rest of the team have released a new version of WordPress. Simply log into your dashboard and choose the automatic update option.

You have to love WordPress, more power and more elegance in its design with each iteration. I love the automatic updates to the core program and the plug-ins. Really cool.

If your new to the whole “Internet Thing” and are looking for a platform to stake your claim, you won’t find a more accessible and fun to use authoring tool than WordPress. You can find out more and download WordPress for free by clicking here. WordPress is a fantastic tool and did I mention it won’t take any of your hard earned money to use it?

Can you make money in affiliate marketing?

The short answer is yes you can.

Is it easy?  – decidedly not.

We just posted an article addressing the pitfalls of Affiliate Marketing on SBOguide.com. If you are considering throwing your proverbial hat in the ring and giving affiliate marketing a go, I think you’ll find the article timely.

Check out this and other articles aimed at giving the small business owner a fighting chance on the Internet at SBOguide.com.

Survive These Tough Times By Embracing Internet Technology.

It has always been important for small business owner’s to manage their budgets, but the current economics situation is beginning to take its toll on the bottom line of even the heartiest of businesses.

So what’s a small business owner to do?

An obvious first step is to look at transportation and travel costs. How many of your business trips could be avoided by using internet technology? With the help of Internet conferencing tools such as those offered by Skype, it’s possible to reduce, if not completely eliminate, the need to travel to accomplish things like product demonstrations, training, sales presentations, and most other reasons for face to face meetings.

Unless the nature of your business requires that you absolutely need to be there in person, acting on one of the many alternatives to travel can bring you a substantial savings. Consider passing some of the savings on to your customer in the form of a discount or some other benefit. Making this a win-win situation for both you and the client. This can make the travel alternative much more acceptable to all the parties involved.

As the small business owner, you will encounter employees that will argue strongly that travel is necessary and that this “Internet stuff” won’t get the job done. For the most part, this will be a smoke screen, or a red herring, call it what you wish; but understand that some people just enjoy the perks of travel. My apologies for stating the obvious, but remember that every dollar saved in travel related costs drops directly to the bottom line.

These are tough times, so if you own a small business, this is where your leadership needs to shine. Set a good example, champion the use of Internet tools, use them yourself, reduce your own travel, and insure that any travel permitted is absolutely necessary (yours included). Once your people get experience with the technology that is available, they will discover that they can get more done in less time. Another win-win situation!

An excellent and cost effective way to embrace technology and reduce travel expense is to get Skype for your business – benefits include free conference calls and video calling, free calls and low rate local calls

Ever since I started the Small Business Internet Guide and the associated website, I’ve been looking for ways to make them more useful, increase readership, and in general provide a better service to small business owners. After all, we’re all looking to use the power of the Internet to improve the performance of our small business or professional service.

So naturally, like most business owners, I frequently search the Internet for new ideas and tools that might help me accomplish that goal. Increasingly, no search is required as these offers magically find their way into my inbox.

What you will find when you start searching the Internet looking for that kind of information is a growing army of gurus, some I suspect real and some self-professed, that are willing to offer you advice – usually free or of little cost to start, then increasingly expensive to continue on for the “good stuff”.

This is how it seems to work. A guru, let’s call him or her Guru A, will purport to have discovered a method to accomplish nothing short of miraculous results by using some “new” tool or discovered secret methodology. There’s usually a sense of urgency associated with this promotion, so you need to act quickly or you might miss out. Of course if you do miss out, as the story goes, you will be ground into the dust under the boot of your competitor’s that do decide to grab the offer.

After conducting Internet searches like this over time, you will discover a cadre of “usual suspects” lovingly known as “super affiliates” that are ready to dispense this advice. The informal organization of gurus is like a wheel with spokes; at the center of the wheel is the guru that has developed the latest product and offer. Each of the spokes leads out to an affiliate guru who beats the bandwagon about what a great opportunity this is – usually with some additional incentive thrown in to buy this offer through them. How can you resist? And bear in mind that some of these offers can create a staggering amount of revenue for the guru and his or her affiliates.

Like an Offer de Jour, the cycle repeats and a new guru with a new offer moves to the center of the wheel; and all the gurus along the spokes (the affiliates) beat the bandwagon anew. With the current recssession, this has reached a fever pitch with several offers being released to appeal to and capture the unfortunately growing number of out-of-work people.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against affiliate marketing, it provides a legitimate income for lots of small business owners; its the “churn” that bothers me. Certainly there are good products and methodologies that could help us grow our businesses; that’s the maddening part. The problem is that it’s very difficult to separate the real products and services that might help us from the hype that will only waste our time and money. Discovering which guru really has the goods is the challenge.

So what to do? One thing that we can do is use a forum like this expose products and membership sites that we have found to be truly helpful in growing our businesses. Please don’t hawk your affiliate products here unless you have actually used them and found them to be truly worthwhile.

I invite your comments. If you’ve discovered a tool or idea that helps your business grow – please let us know.

In closing, I offer the following suggestions:

Resist the temptation to be hooked in by each new offer. They all sound good, and they may even seem like something that might work. Above all, avoid being distracted by the “churn” I spoke of earlier. Pick one method and work it exclusively until you succeed. If you don’t find success after three months of real effort, then, and only then, should you consider something else. Be sure to learn the basics of Internet Marketing before you do any of this. The saying Knowledge is Power is very true in this business. Just a little is dangerous, but don’t think you need to become a master of the process to get started either. Experience is a great teacher.

As a primer I recommend a no cost course offered by an Australian named Ed Dale. He will eventually try to sell you something, but it will most likely be something that can help, and you can always just say no to any offer Ed might make. There is no obligation to take the training.

This no cost training is called the Thirty Day Challenge. Be sure to check this out. You will need to register a domain name and obtain hosting to participate. Get your domain name at GoDaddy – they usually have a sale going on for around $7.50. There is a link on this page. Get a .com name if at all possible. Ed’s course will provide advice on picking a domain name. So wait until you get into the course before you do anything. You need to develop a plan – the training Ed offers will help you think about your options.

This knowledge will allow you to evaluate these “offers” when they inevitably come your way, with deeper understanding as to whether they make any sense or not.

Interested in learning an easy way to add videos from YouTube to your blog? Follow along and I’ll make the process as painless as possible.

Let’s insert a video of Leona Lewis, the winner of the British version of American Idol – the X Factor, singing “Over The Rainbow”. A song, by the way, that really shows off Leona’s impressive vocal chops.

(Note: We’re using Leona’s video in this example, but if you’re running a business and have a message you want to publicize, this could just as easily be a video you’ve uploaded to YouTube.)

First – Locate the video on YouTube that you would like to insert into your WordPress post (the video I’m inserting in this example is located here). When you reach the YouTube page, look to the right of the video. You will notice a box that contains a URL, and below it another that contains an Embed box.

Next to the Embed box is a blue star (the customize button). Select the star to display the customize options. I chose the following options: to not display related videos, to display a grey/blue color scheme, a window size of 480 by 385 pixels, and to not display a border around the video.

YouTube Setup Screen

Once you make these selections, select the code that appears inside the Imbed box. then copy and paste it into your WordPress post using the HTML option. Use “Preview this Post” to view the results prior to publishing. If you’re not happy with the results, you can go back to the YouTube site, change your customization options and repeat the process.

These simple steps will allow you to display a YouTube video on your own blog.

I’ll cover video modifications in a future post, until then practice what you’ve just learned and let me know if you have any questions.