SEO Hosting Blog

“Above the fold” is a term that was originally used to describe the top half of the newspaper, the part you would see first because papers arrived folded. The most important information was always placed “above the fold.”

Today, this term is used in web design to describe the part of the page a visitor sees without having to scroll down in their browser window. Again, this is the part of the page where you want to place your most important information.

But when we usually talk about “above the fold” on websites, we’re discussing static websites built for selling, not blogs. Does “above the fold” even matter in blogging?

Of course it does! As with newspapers and other websites, it’s important that you place your most important elements “above the fold” on your blog. Which elements should earn this coveted space?

• Subscription button—One of the most important things that you need to do to build a successful blog is to attract an audience of loyal readers. That’s why you need to build up your list of subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the bigger and more successful your blog will be. That’s why it’s so important that you place your subscription button “above the fold”. It should be among the first things a visitor sees when landing on your blog, and it should compel them to click and subscribe.
• Your branding—There are millions of blogs crowding the web. Even in your niche, there are likely thousands of other blogs fighting for the attention of your target audience. A key to differentiating your blog is to brand it. You need a unique name, look, and logo for your blog so that it stands out from all the others. You want your blog to become a known brand. So, you should create your branding and place it “above the fold” on your blog.
• Blog content—You can’t have a blog if you don’t have content. When you get down to it, your content is the most important element of your blog. It’s why people come to your blog in the first place, so it only makes sense to make sure your content is featured prominently. When someone arrives at your blog, they shouldn’t have to scroll around to find your content.

Are there any other important elements I missed that should be placed “above the fold” on a blog?

Almost every website uses contact forms for one purpose or another. On my website, I use contact forms on my home page and service pages as a conversion tool. It’s how I generate leads.

But having success using contact forms on your website requires more than just slapping up a form on each page. Here are 5 tips to help you create better contact forms.

1. Make them visible—Visitors shouldn’t have to search your website high and low to figure out how to get in touch with you. Your contact forms should be clearly visible on your home page and product/service pages. Most studies I’ve seen recommend placing the contact form along the right-hand side of the page, above the fold in order to get the most responses.
2. Add an interesting design element to them—Don’t just add lifeless contact fields to your page. Spruce things up and create a contact form that jumps out from the page. After all, you want people to see it and be motivated to fill it out, right?  A creative design for your contact form adds life to your page and can increase response rates. Just make sure you don’t sacrifice usability and simplicity while designing your contact form.
3. Keep them short—The purpose of the contact form is to get only the most essential information from the visitor. You’re just trying to get the ball rolling. All you need is their name, email address, and information about why they’re contacting you. Don’t ask for anything more, or else you’ll kill your conversion rate.
4. Explain the benefits or purpose of completing the form—Why should anyone spend their time completing the form to contact you? People don’t do anything without a good reason. Let people know what the benefits or purpose is of completing the contact form. If it’s to get a free quote, put that on the form. If it’s to subscribe to your email list, give them some benefits of becoming a subscriber. Don’t just say “contact us” and expect people to do it.
5. Avoid CAPTCHAs—Not only are CAPTCHAs on contact forms annoying and frustrating to complete, they can also harm your conversion rates. I hate SPAM as much as the next guy, but I’m not willing to lose quality leads in my battle to reduce SPAM responses.

What’s your best tip for creating more effective contact forms? Share it with us by leaving a comment below.

Scheduling social media updates is a hotly-debated topic. Critics say that social scheduling is unnatural and runs counter to the whole point of social media, which is to interact with others. I disagree. Here’s why I schedule some of my Tweets.

1. It frees me up to interact—When I schedule the bulk of my Tweets ahead of time, I’m then able to spend the few free moments that I do have to actually get on Twitter interacting with my followers. I don’t have to worry about finding interesting content to share or coming up with a good status update. That’s already been taken care of, and now, I can spend time replying to other people’s Tweets, ReTweeting things I like in my feed, and building relationships with my followers.
2. I can’t always find the time to Tweet each day—Running my business all on my own is more than a full-time job. I have clients to manage, projects to complete on tight deadlines, leads to follow up on…the list goes on and on. I just don’t have the time to devote to Twitter every single day. I try, but it’s just not always realistic to pull myself away from all the other work I have to do. Scheduling my Tweets ahead of time ensures that my presence is always felt, even when I can’t be there.
3. It prevents me from clogging followers’ streams—Is there anything more annoying than when someone clogs your stream with 20 updates in the span of a few minutes? Those are the Twitter users who don’t schedule their Tweets and then binge Tweet whenever they’re able to find the time to login to Twitter. Scheduling my Tweets ahead of time let’s me space them out properly.
4. I can reach more followers across the world—I have followers all across the world. And since I have to sleep at some point, I can’t reach all of them in real time. By scheduling my Tweets, I can reach more followers in different time zones, even when I’m snoring in bed.
5. The quality of my Tweets increases—I’ve found that writing my Tweets ahead of time allows me to focus on creating better content than when I quickly create a Tweet on the spot. I’m able to focus on truly creating content my audience will find interesting and useful.

Do you schedule your Tweets? Why or why not?

You already know that one of the keys to publishing a blog post that goes viral is to have high-quality, interesting content that readers respond strongly to and want to share. But having great content is only part of the battle. You can create a truly amazing post and still fail at driving tons of traffic to it. What I’m saying is this: Just because you build (write) it, doesn’t mean they (readers) will come.

Chances are that you’ve probably written some really great blog posts…posts that you were certain would go viral, but just didn’t. Why did that great blog post fail to catch on? Here are some possible reasons.

• Your content is difficult to share—You have to make it as easy as possible for your readers to share your content. Make sure you have all the basic social media sharing buttons on your blog, and be sure they’re in a place where they’re easily visible.
• You aren’t encouraging others to spread the word—You’ve written a great post, so you think everyone will automatically share it all across Twitter, Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, the blogosphere, email, etc. WRONG. Just like anything else, if you want people to do something, you need to ask them to do it. Encourage your blog readers to share the post.
• You don’t have a strong network of promoters—For a blog post to go viral, you need a bunch of people to share it. One of the keys to success is to get the ball rolling quickly by having your network of friends, colleagues, and fellow marketers push it out to their networks. Of course, if you don’t have a strong network in place, you won’t be able to get the ball rolling and your post won’t spread very far.
• You just ran into bad luck—You can’t always manufacture viral marketing success on your blog. Sure, there are many things you can do to put yourself in the best possible position for a post to go viral, but it still takes a pinch of luck for it to actually happen. And Lady Luck isn’t always going to be on your side. Sometimes, you’ll create truly great content that really should have been a smash hit, but it just doesn’t work out. That’s just how it goes sometimes.

What are some other reasons that great blog posts fail to attain viral success?

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been toying around with the idea of redesigning my website. My current website has been up for a few years, and while it ranks well and brings me a lot of business, I can’t help but wonder if it could look and perform even better.

While I’ve spent a good amount of time brainstorming concepts for my new site, I’ve yet to officially move forward and give my designer the go-ahead to start building a new site. Why? Because I’m not yet sure if I really should redesign my website.

Right now, I’m asking myself these questions:

• What are some areas on my current site that could be improved? What’s the point of redesigning a website if you’re not going to improve it on multiple levels? The entire point of a redesign is to create a new website that looks better, performs better, provides a better user experience, and is just all around…better. Right now, I’m making a list of some of the areas of my current website that I think could be better, so that I’ll have a clear direction should I decide to have it redesigned.
• Can I redesign my website without sacrificing my conversion rate and search rankings? The main strengths of my current website are that it ranks really well for some highly competitive keywords and it does a good job of converting visitors into qualified leads. If I redesigned my website, it’s possible that I could lose that. My focus has to be maintaining or even improving my rankings and conversion rate.
• Am I redesigning just for the sake of redesigning? Many times, companies redesign their websites just because they feel that’s the thing they need to do. It’s been a couple of years, so you’re supposed to redesign your site, right? Not necessarily. If your website is still performing well and looks current, maybe you don’t need to redesign it. Maybe, you just need to update the content a little bit to make it more current.
• How can I push my brand forward with a site redesign? Too many companies don’t understand how important a role their website plays in building their brand. Right now, my website doesn’t really do much for my brand. It’s just a pretty plain-jane site that has little actual branding to it. Building a recognizable, consistent brand is something I have to work on, and a site redesign could help achieve that.
• How can I make my new website more user-friendly? At the end of the day, your website is all about your visitors. If your visitors can’t find the information they need easily, your site won’t be effective. It’s that simple. Your goal with your site redesign should be to make the experience better for your visitors.

Are you in the early stages of considering a website redesign? Ask yourself these questions to determine if it’s the best choice for your brand.