A Guest Post by James Dunworth. First Image by NDevil
On other hand, I have also made changes which took just a few minutes of my time – and lead to huge changes in profits and revenues.
All of the changes here took less than an hour to implement.
Analytics
After linking AdSense to my analytics accounts, I analysed my website to see where adsense payments were coming from.
The results were astounding.
While there were around 800 hundred pages in my website, 70% of the revenue were generated from just 3 pages, relating to jobs in my niche.
I commissioned an advert from a freelancer. As I had another advert done at the same time it cost just $15. I placed the advert in a prominent position on my website.
That month my adsense revenue rose from $533 to $832.
That was last year. Last month revenue was over 2000 dollars. Obviously, now I know which pages are making money I have spent some serious effort in optimising those pages!
Subscriptions
I have never liked pop up forms, and I assumed that most people would react in the same way as I often do when I see a pop up form – leave the website.
However, I decided to test the Aweber popover on my website.
The result? A huge increase in sign up rates, as shown in the graph below.
This hasn’t always been replicated on other websites I own, but it does make the case that you should always tests things, even when you think they won’t work – it might just make a huge difference to your site.
(Intriguingly, the new and much more attractive Aweber forms lead to an immediate and substantial drop in subscription rates!)
Images
I decided to add images of users with electronic cigarettes to the front page of my e-commerce website, E-Cigarette Direct.
One particular image was of a Welsh National Opera singer using our product on stage. I chose this one because it showed the acceptance of the device by a very respected organisation in my country.
The next day orders flooded in.
When things settled down we were left with a 17% improvement in the conversion rate.
That meant thousands of dollars a month to our business!
Your thoughts
What small changes have you made to your blog or website which have made big a difference?
James Dunworth is the IT director of E Cigarette Direct, the UK distributor of the NJOY electronic cigarette (http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk). He is also the co-author of theTobaccoHarmReduction.org’s study Electronic Cigarette (E Cigarettes) As a Potential Harm Reduction Product,