The Surprise Blog Makeover – Part 2
So it took me about 8-10 hours to make Mark’s blog look great (Here’s The Link to Part 1), but that is because it was the first time I have used the SpiderWeb WP Theme Editor. I looked for about an hour to find a good pre-made theme, but none of them had what I was after. I found this editing software from a woman who wanted the same SEO benefits and power of Thesis, but easier to customize. As you will see, Mark’s site looks completely different than before…
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46 Responses to “The Surprise Blog Makeover – Part 2”
I hired out a couple different graphic designers to create a bunch of new affiliate banners.
Here is a preview of one I just had designed. I had this made in a bunch of different sizes...
I'm buying high-end stock images with really attractive men and women. They will all be stylish.
Click here to get all of the codes for the new Women's Banners
And Yavor of "Relative Strength Advantage" created a new men's banner that looks cool and has the same feel as the woman's banner above. Here it is.
Click here to get all of the codes for the Men's Banners -Rusty
Here is a preview of one I just had designed. I had this made in a bunch of different sizes...
I'm buying high-end stock images with really attractive men and women. They will all be stylish.
Click here to get all of the codes for the new Women's Banners
And Yavor of "Relative Strength Advantage" created a new men's banner that looks cool and has the same feel as the woman's banner above. Here it is.
Click here to get all of the codes for the Men's Banners -Rusty
Wow. The new site is much improved.
I especially like the List Magnet and Youtube Channel plugins. I’m going to have to use those on my own site now.
Rusty,
Thank you for doing a live video on upgrading a blog. I know the few tips that you had given me where the exact same as what you told Mark, and they do work!
Thanks
Bryan – Turbo Fitness Secrets
The blog looks great. Congrats Mark and great job Rusty. Just out of curiosity, how is the new setup translating to sales?
My blog is getting 700-800 visitors per day but is only making one sale every 7-10 days? Is that about right or should I be getting more?
Thanks
LoL! Heeheeheee … LOVE the Pimp Pic Rusty, It’s soooo funny!
Ahhh You’re the BEST Rusty!
Make you proud, you BETCHA!
Thanks Dude, You ROCK man, this is just SOO GREAT!!!
Mark
I’m not joking, but this is Day 1 (23.09.2911) and ALREADY people are opting in, and LIKING my FB Page!
Rusty, you’re a GENIUS! (No, he’s not paying me for saying this, LoL!
)
THANKS!!!
Mark
Hey Rusty,
Any reason you didn’t go with Profits Theme?
You also recommended Optimize Press instead of PT for the sales page…
James
Rusty,
The way you pimped it out looks awesome! Mark’s site really pops with the colors and layout.
One thing you pointed out and is very true, Mark is modest. I remember he dropped a comment on my blog once and he mentioned in passing that he was an Olympic coach. I was floored thinking why doesn’t this guy put that front and center on his blog?! Mark has more social proof than he understands. I just figured he wanted to keep a low profile or something.
Well, bad news Mark, you won’t be low profile anymore. I’m sure you won’t mind though.
-Sam
As a guy who has been approaching the end of his rope keeping his fingers crossed for sales, I gotta say this is great stuff.
You make it look so simple!
great job, Rusty. I learn a lot from these practical lessons and look forward to more of this approach.
Mark’s info is top notch. Glad I discovered the blog!
Wow-What an improvement! You’ve totally branded and repositioned him. Great job.
Geee this is so cool!
It’s really GREAT to get this kinda feedback, it’s always good to be confirmed in what you do.
Thanks Everybody, Thanks a Million Rusty!
Mark
P.S.
Together to the TOP!
It also goes to show that you really need help to get to the top. If we all in this group keep sticking together like that and help each other out all the way, we’ll make a huge dent in the fitness industry, in a major way!
Nicely done Rusty.
Question: Shouldn’t the opt in box for his free course be above the fold of the website?
Hey LeanBodyLifestyle, this is Mark:
It actually is above the fold, at least in Chrome?
Where did you view it, IE?
I will check it out …
Mark
Ahh, I see: that’s IE for ya, both chrome and Safari works …
I’m using Safari as a browser. It’s still below the fold. At least on my end.
Strange … not when I checked it on safari just now … is your window fully maximized? I get the same thing when it’s slightly downsized, but in full size it’s definitely above … (not in IE though, small surprise, LOL)
Mark
Okay I found out what it was. When I open a tab on Safari it pushes your opt in box down below the fold.
Alright great!
Mark
Thanks Rusty for taking the time out to review Mark’s site.
The question I have is that I have purchased Premium List Magnet, but can not see the option for configuring an optin box in the side bar.
Any help appreciated.
Keep up the good work.
Peter
Sorry guys just did a bit of R.T.F.M. Now sorted
Killer job Rusty. Gave me a few ideas for my site.
Guys,
Thanks for all the nice words. I’ll do more surprise makeovers for sure. It may be small changes or full-blown makeovers like on Mark’s blog.
I have to be quick because I’m heading out tonight to see Michael Ian Black live standup (I’m a big fan…he’s funny as hell).
Anyway…some answers to a few specific questions.
@Keith,
You are making a few less sales than I would expect. When I have time I’ll take a look at your blog.
@James,
I probably could have gone with PT. I just went with this solution since it was so basic drag and drop. Pretty easy to use.
For the sales funnel…Profits Theme is basically the same as Optimize Press…either of those are incredible for making sales pages. I just said OP, because that is what I used. I bought it before Profits Theme was launched. Can’t go wrong with either.
@Phoenix,
The hardest part is first making sales. Something magical happens once you can get to 1-2 sales per week…you will have the belief and knowledge to make a full-time income from this.
@LeanBodyLifestyle,
It depends on the monitor as well. Ideally it will be above the fold. I still think having Mark’s pic above the fold will make people want to dig into the site.
@pgvonline,
Go to “Widgets” and you will see a little PLM widget that you can drag into the sidebar. Super easy to setup.
@Jason,
I was actually thinking of your blog as one that I could make a big impact with. There is no reason why you shouldn’t be killing it. You might be next in line
-Rusty
Rusty,
Great work. I always appreciate the fact that you are so willing to share free info with everyone. I’m looking forward to seeing others.
Rusty-
What are your recommendations for someone who has multiple products? Last count I have 6 frontline ebooks, 1 t-shirts and a few other smaller digitals products. I can’t give each of them a tab as that look too cluttered. Sales are slow on a few of them because there is only so much room in the widget area for advertisements especially when I’m running adsense which is the main income generator of my blog.
It’s a good problem to have.
On a side note, thanks for the wake up call on “putting your best foot forward”. I’ve had that thought for some time now. I’d ask myself “do you want to seem spammy and like a sales pusher when friends and family visit your blog?”. Does it work? Sure but if you get emails daily pitching products and various types of lead capture pop ups when you hit a site or if the site just doesn’t look clean, what does that say? A joke.
At this point, I’m going with simpler is better. Having to custom crop and reshape every thumbnail and such takes too much time and my blog seems incomplete.
Last question,do you remember the amount of visitors per day when things started to click? I’m averaging about 2,500 per day and they visitors are staying on the site longer.
Excellent stuff Rusty. Thanks for all of your time on this site. I have learned a ton.
Hi Rusty,
I’m glad I found your site. I’m just a newbie. Initially I’m just looking for a niche to start promoting in CB. I’m attracted at fitness programs. I’ve been picking information about affiliate program, promoting.. etc in bits and pieces and only made me confused. I’m overwhelmed at all the informations and don’t know where and how to start this stuff. I’m considering blogging but I don’t know really how to write contents to continuously update my informations. Can you help me get started and realize my first sale. From what I gathered about blogging, my first concern should be to give truthful and useful information before anything else.
Thanks again.
Awesome work Rusty. My website has been facing some difficulty recently. I went from making about $1800 per month to around $900 per month. My traffic is the same, my email optins are increasing. I’m not sure what is going on, and I’ve been following every trick in the book.
@Reny
Go to the “Start Here to Go from 0-500 Vistors Per Day” section on the sidebar.
I have a question to ask for anyone that has had this problem. I was emailed by Calvin Klein Inc saying that one of my .org sites was a trademark infringement. I was told to take the site down and hand over the domain name to them. I had no idea that this was even a problem. I took down any images that had to do with them but I was wondering if there was anything else I could do without having to remove the domain. I’m ranked #1 in google for my keyword. Any thoughts?
Hey Rusty, was just wondering, for our little niche what forums do you use to build back links, comments welcome from anyone experienced at building traffic, thanks in advance
Adam, fist of all – sucks that your hard work is going to waste.
*****************
However, I have to add that there is a MAJOR problem with having their trade mark in your domain:
The way it is right now (I visited your domain) it is worded in a way that may mislead somebody into thinking that there’s an affiliation between you and CK inc.
Scrap this domain – this is not the way to do long term business.
Seriously, you can’t use a trademark in your domain.
“Any company that registers a trademark has the right to protect their trademark and has the right to notify you that your domain name is infringing upon their trademark. Why? If your domain name has the potential of confusing the public into thinking the trademark holder is somehow affiliated with your web site, they may bring infringement claims against you. The courts would have to make the decision based upon the trademark laws and if your domain name, in fact, has the potential of confusing the public. ”
Source: http://www.web-source.net/trademark.htm
@Yavor
Hey thanks for helping me out. It is pretty crappy because I really thought I got around it. I put the keyword into uspto.gov to check and see if I was violating anything…but you are right “calvin klein” is still a trademark no matter what other keywords are with it. It was a bummer that I had to take down pretty much all my pics as well. Anyways, I’m glad I learned the hard way now and not later.
@Adam, give this some reading:
http://internetmarketinglawcenter.com/go/aslaw (my affiliate link, but you can take aslaw off and get through non-affiliate, no biggy)
One of the best products I’ve ever purchased. Info on internet law/ websites is amazing, and he lays out everything you have to do, should do, can’t do. Not trying to sell this to you, just a recommendation because I think it can be of use to you as it was to me.
Thanks for all the widgets / studies Rusty, putting some to use right now.
Adam, one more thing – if your articles on the domain you scrapped domain were CONVERTING in some way, there’s no reason not to use the articles themselves. So you can put em on a squidoo page or on an internal page on your blog. Then build links with 1waylinks and you can still rank for this keyword.
@Adam
Thank you Adam for your concern and advice. I only hope that I can get myself organized with all the informations that I already read. Yes I have aleady started reading that link you gave. I’ll read it more intensely this time. So the trick is first to grow your visitors to your site or blog. Then monetize later. How to exactly monetize is what I only have a vague idea.
Based off of Rusty’s suggestions I totally revamped my blog layout. Lemme know what you guys think.
Funny thing is I was getting good traffic (300+) visitors a day but now I’m hovering around 150-200. Kinda sucks but after I implement Rusty’s strategies he’s laying out I know I’ll get to 1000 a day.
Oh btw my blog is http://www.thefatlossninja.com
Rusty,
Are you still using/recommending Web traffic genuis? Essentially I’m looking for ways to get some automated back link since I blog often. I was thinking a RSS feed submitter and something like auto social poster. I’m not looking for a huge amount of back links daily rather I want to be able to blog and have it sent out to 10-20 social networks and such just to get some back links for my LONNNG tail posts. Thoughts?
@ Jimmy,
2,500 visitors per day. That is AWESOME! With that type of traffic, I’m guessing you are 6-12 months of pushing hard to reach a really stable full-time income. I’ll email you and take a look at your blog. Check out John Barban’s blog: http://johnbarban.com/ He is a good example of someone with a lot of products and he manages to keep it clean and simple.
@ Reny,
You can be a “curator” in the fitness niche and do extremely well, without having to be the fitness expert. A great example of this is Chris from Conditioning Research: http://conditioningresearch.blogspot.com/ He gets a lot of traffic and just posts great news in fitness.
@ mikemc007,
I get more involved with blog commenting than forum posts.
@ LeanBodyLifestyle,
What an awesome setup! Love the banner with the before and after pic…Great overall setup, great about me page. Everything is in place now. Great job Dan!
@ Jimmy,
It didn’t make a huge noticeable difference for me. I am not sure how well Google counts those RSS Directory links.
-Rusty
Hey Rusty
Like the makeover and have applied to tips to my blog. By the way if you or anybody else here has a spare minute please I would appreciate some constructive criticism of my blog at http://www.energiafitness.com. I am hovering between 300-400 visits per day but I haven´t made a sale of anything in nearly 3 months. I know I probably need to add some more of the personal touch but if there is anything else you can see that needs to improve then I would really appreciate the comment. I love working on this and have no intention stopping but at the moment I just feel like I am going no where with it
Cheers
H
Hi Howard,
Not sure if I can help with your blog. It looks really ‘clean’ to me, which is a good thing.
Only based on Rusty’s comments and your’s I would progress the personal touch side of things, with an about/my story page. Also the navigation bar, as Rusty says is prime real estate, so dont have disclaimer, etc here, more it some where else. Put here links to main products, as per blog example.
Like the use of PLM. Might want to try the optin box configured as well at the end of the posts.
Do you know which keywords are driving traffic to your website. I have just hooked up to the Google webmaster tools and they show which keywords are being used to access the site. Not sure what others think about this as an option.
Peter
@ Peter – Thanks mate for taking the time to have a look at my site. I am in the process of changing the navigation bar, writing a new about me page and also putting out a new free report to see if that gets more optins than the other one. RE Webmaster I use this a lot and have found this to be very helpful for rankings and keyword management it really gives you a good understanding of what is actually happening on your site. The thing is I was picking up a handful of sales every month before the summer but to have nothing in 3 months is just strange to me and a killer when I have put so effort in.
Thanks
H
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