Troy Dean

Digital marketing entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster.

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Apr 19 2013

Websites for beginners with Pete Kvist

I co-presented a session with Pete Kvist at the Business Blueprint conference in Sydney today about why most websites suck how to get up and running with a website that will capture leads and actually have a positive impact on your business without breaking your bank account.

My section was very short and included a handful of screenshots. I'm posting them up here primarily so Pete can refence them and the attendees can access them.

I hope you get something out of it too.

Here is my methodology.

Follow the KISS principle

Kissmetrics published an outstanding infographic of the Anatomy of the Perfect Landing Page. I think it's where every lead capture webpage should start.

The_Anatomy_Of_A_Perfect_Landing_Page

Let's take a look at how these principles have been applied in real life to two very successful landing pages.

Facebook

facebook sign up

 

Mixergy (one of the most beautiful opt-in pages I've ever seen)

mixergy sign up page

Pick a theme

Once you have the fundamentals in place and your landing page is planned with a very clear SMART goal in mind, then it's time to pick a theme. My favourite theme shop is WooThemes.

Customise

Customise that theme to suit your needs. I customised Whitelight for my own website.

Here's the theme:

the whitelight theme from WooThemes

 

 

And here's my website based on the theme:

troy dean website screenshot

Split Test

I also use Unbounce to split test landing pages. Here's an example that took me 15 minutes to setup and is capturing real leads that I am converting into real customers:

unbounce landing pages

 

Plugins

Get familiar with the WordPress plugin repository as it is the best place to find free, high-quality plugins to extend the functionality of your website.

Here are my must-have plugins:

BackupBuddy – http://ithemes.com/purchase/backupbuddy/
Advanced Custom Fields – http://www.advancedcustomfields.com/
Gravity Forms – http://www.gravityforms.com/
Hybrid Connect – http://hybrid-connect.com/
White Label CMS (my company) – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/white-label-cms/
Duplicate Post – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/duplicate-post/
WP SEO by Yoast – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/
Google Analyticator (my company) – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analyticator/
Video User Manuals (my company) – http://videousermanuals.com/
Facebook for WordPress – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook/
Limit Login Attempts – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/limit-login-attempts/
Scarcity Samurai – http://scarcitysamurai.com/
Add This Social Sharing – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/addthis/
Onlywire Social Bookmarking – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/onlywire-bookmark-share-button/
WooCommerce – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/woocommerce/

Phew!

Now stop making excuses.

Written by Troy Dean · Categorized: Web Design

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