7 Powerful WordPress Plugins to Turbocharge Your Blogs Performance
A key factor in both visitor satisfaction and keeping the search engines happy right now is making sure that your blog loads quickly. There should be no errors, no waiting – just click and boom the content is ready for your visitors.
If, for whatever reason, your blog is running slowly then it can affect your online business in a number of ways. Firstly people aren’t willing to wait around for pages to load anymore.
They used to say you had 30 seconds to grab a visitors attention and in the days of dial-up internet access that was true but today a guesstimate is that you have at most 10 seconds before the surfer hits the back button and goes looking somewhere else for what they want.
Secondly if your blog is loading slowly it can directly affect your search engine rankings. Slower sites don’t do as well in the search engine results pages (SERPS).
So it’s important that your WordPress blog is hosted with a reliable company that have no real latency issues but it’s equally important that you optimize your WordPress blog with plugins that help reduce the page load time as much as possible.
Before you get carried away just make sure that you test the actual speed of your blog first – you might not need to make any changes. You can run a speed test here -> http://www.iwebtool.com/speed_test
Then if you decide you want to optimize your WordPress blog speed here are 7 of the very best plugins you can use to help achieve this goal:
1. WP Smush.It – This plugin automatically reduces the size of image files on the fly so they will load more quickly. Very neat and very effective.
2. WP HTTP Compression – By outputting your pages in zip format to a compatible browser the WP HTTP Compression plugin can reduce your page size by up to 80% as well as increasing your download speeds by up to 4 times. It shouldn’t be used in conjunction with WP Super Cache however.
3. Hyper Cache – If your blog is hosted by a provider without a whole pile of cutting edge resources then this plugin is ideal for you. It’s very easy to configure and is automatically optimized to reduce disk usage for your blog.
4. WP Optimize – This is a very simple but very effect database clean up tool and allows you to run database maintenance without using PhpMyAdmin as well as clearing out your spam or comment queue with a couple of clicks.
5. WP Super Cache – This very neat plug created HTML files from your WordPress blog data and serves those instead. This reduces the overhead on the server dishing out the files because the SQL database for your WordPress install isn’t constantly involved or being queried. A very neat solution but check its compatibility with other plugins or themes you might be using.
6. WP Minify – This plugin helps you compress JavaScript and CSS files to make sure that pages load more quickly. Most theme developers don’t take the time to optimize their CSS so this plugin can really help with that problem and speed up your blog loading time as a result.
7. Hosting Monitor Plugin – This cool plugin allows you to check host up-time, hardware info, load average and the current users. Basically it allows you to keep tabs on your web host to make sure they are not the cause of your blog suffering from any speed problems. It’s one thing for a web host to claim 99.9% up-time… But it’s another thing to actually do it.
Hopefully you’ll find at least some of these plugins useful for when you’re doing your best to optimize your WordPress blog. Remember that the overall visitor experience is critical to you achieving the kind of massive and loyal online audience that you want.
Don’t let the fans down eh?
This guest post was written by Lior Levin, an internet marketing consultant for a website that lists the top 10 website hosting companies.
Chronic Commissions Review
As I am writing this post a product called “Chronic Commissions” is the #1 most popular product in the e-business & e-marketing (online business and internet marketing) section of Clickbank, which also happens to be one of the most popular affiliate marketplaces on the internet, if you didn’t already know that. I noticed it the other day when I was checking my CB sales stats but I didn’t really look into it until I saw a post on the most popular internet marketing forum in the world. I recognized one of the people posting positive reviews in the thread as a very well-known and respected IM expert. Obviously they are doing something right so I decided it was probably time for me to check out Chronic Commissions for myself.
After going through it I decided to write a review for my blog readers (such as you) to read. So here is my review of Chronic Commissions…
To start I must say the sales letter is full of hype. It’s seriously overboard in that category. I’m not a fan of hypey products in general so that definitely gives this a negative point in my book, even though it is expected on most internet marketing products. However, on the other hand, their video is actually quite entertaining. It kept my attention well enough to watch the whole thing and that is very rare for me. So I will give them a small bonus on that aspect of the sales letter.
Now. let’s get a little more into what the Chronic Commissions product really consists of…
Basically it’s a very cool web based software that automatically builds your email list for you and promotes various products to your list so you can make money from them. I’m sure you’ve heard the popular saying, “the money is in the list” and it’s very true. Chronic Commissions can help with that.
Pretty much all you have to do is to put in your autoresponder and clickbank account information. Then, a few more quick things and you’re done. The system also has pre-loaded email swipes that can be used to send to your subscribers to make it even more effortless for you.
The setup is quite user friendly even for a complete beginner. And there’s a video for each section that is very easy to understand.
It really doesn’t even require you to have your own domain or hosting because the software is web based. All you do is enter in a few pieces of information:
* Clickbank ID – For your affiliate links
* Paypal ID (optional) – In case you want to get paid per lead
* Autoresponder Code – To build your list
After you finish that simple step, you’re ready to set up your campaigns. That part is also pretty self explanatory.
They have several high converting offers displayed for you. All you have to do is simply type in your tracking ID and decide if you want it go to the squeeze page or salesletter. Once you do that it takes you through a few more easy steps of picking and choosing what you want, and showing you what it will look like.
They also give you a great list of solo ads providers. Each of them shows you their testing results, the list size, costs per click, and so on. These people and companies will send emails to their lists for you at a great price. I loved this part because it is information that can be used for my internet marketing in many ways.
Once your list starts building, Chronic Commissions will send out emails to your subscribers about the various products in a way that is proven to generate sales.
That’s pretty much it. There’s a little more to it here and there, but that’s the main part of it and really all you need to know.
Also, there are some really great bonuses, but I won’t get into those since they aren’t the main part of what you are actually paying for.
So, the big question is…
Does the product deliver as promised or is it just one big pile of crap?
Well, the answer is actually somewhere in between if you ask me. It’s not quite as easy as they try to make it out to be and I highly doubt you are ever going to earn the kind of money they are claiming from it. But, it’s not worthless either. You really can make money using the system and it’s not overly difficult by any means. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth giving it a shot.
So, do I recommend Chronic Commissions? Overall the answer is yes, I do. Just don’t expect to get rich in the next month with a few clicks of your mouse as the sales copy would have you believe. But it does have great potential for building a great list and making money, so it’s certainly worth the cost.
That’s all I really have to say about it. So, I guess that concludes my chronic commissions review. If you are still interested in checking it out after reading my opinions about it, I would really appreciate you using my link. Here it is again: Chronic Commissions
Can You Make Big Money on Amazon?
In a word, yes. It’s absolutely, 100% possible to make an extremely comfortable living promoting products through the Amazon Associates program.
Plenty of people dismiss the Amazon affiliate program because of its low commission percentages and short cookie times. But the truth is, Amazon’s program has several things going for it that no other provider on the market can compete with. It is these advantages that make the program so appealing to affiliates around the world.
For example, you can’t beat Amazon’s brand recognition or reputation for superior customer service – both of which are known to convert visitors more effectively than most other affiliate programs.
Think about it – who would you trust more to offer a good product for your hard earned dollars? A seemingly fly-by-night affiliate website with a few pages of content and a bunch of banner ads? Or Amazon – the web’s largest retailer, whose A-to-Z customer satisfaction policy guarantees every transaction? When it comes to reputation and trust factors, you just can’t beat Amazon.
Amazon also has another major advantage over most affiliate programs, and that’s the number and breadth of product lines, which can increase the dollar value of your visitor substantially. Although Amazon’s cookie length is short (you only have 24 hours to convert a visitor into a buyer), most customers who click through your link will wind up buying more than just the product you’re promoting.
As an example, say you run a site that promotes scrapbooking products. If your site visitors click through your affiliate link to purchase scrapbooking die cut machines, they might also add scrapbooking stickers, die cut cartridges and decorative papers to their orders to save on shipping costs, which could easily double or triple the amount of the sale. With absolutely no work on your part, you’ve increased your commission substantially.
Now, there’s no arguing with the fact that Amazon’s affiliate percentages are substantially lower than most other affiliate providers. You’re going to start at a 4.00% commission rate, and you’ll have to sell over 3,131 products to reach the highest payout level – which is still only 8.50% for most product categories. Compared with affiliate products that pay out 50-75% per sale, this can be quite a shock to new affiliates when they first join Amazon’s program.
However, there are two factors that make these low commission rates a non-issue. The first is the tendency of visitors to purchase more than just the item they were referred to, which effectively increases your commission rate, as described above. And the second is a choice that you, the affiliate marketer, can make to only promote products over a certain dollar value.
So again, say you’re promoting scrapbooking machines, as in our earlier example. Instead of promoting entry-level machines, which might retail for $50-$100, why not go after the higher end models, which can sell for $500+ or more? For the same amount of work, you’ll earn more money, which will more than compensate for the lower payout rates.
But don’t take my word for it. Look at example like Chris Guthrie, who earned a substantial monthly payout promoting netbooks on his “NetbookReviews.com” website before selling the site in a five-figure deal.
Top Amazon affiliates take advantage of Amazon’s unique perception as being the lowest cost provider of goods, online and offline. They count on their affiliate site visitors to remember Amazon’s free shipping policies, helpful reviews and extensive buying resources – all of which help them translate these visitors into more sales and more income.
To get signed up with the Amazon affiliate program, simply navigate to https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ and complete the application. Please note that, at this point, affiliates in some states – including Rhode Island, North Carolina, Illinois and, most recently, California – aren’t currently eligible to participate in the program, after these states passed laws that require internet affiliates to collect local sales taxes.
However, if you are eligible for the program, signing up is a breeze and integrating Amazon affiliate ads into your current website is easy to do. So start taking advantage of the unique benefits of partnering with the web’s largest retailer and enjoy what the Amazon affiliate program can do for your bottom line.
Guest post submitted by Pawel Reszka, the creator of Affhelper.com, a blog where he posts killer affiliate marketing tips to help others make money online. Check out his free video course on how to make money with Amazon.
