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8 Tools to Help Test your Website

I have had the pleasure to advise and mentor a young entrepreneur with her business which has been preparing for a big launch at the start of 2013. Starr has been working hard on marketing the business to companies that have a large database of start ups, small business owners, marketing managers and consultants which will help them get started with Social Media.

Some of these companies have a database of 500,000 people, and with one email going out on one day, we need to make sure every person who visits the website get’s the same user journey and page view time and opportunity to purchase without any delays. To achieve this outcome, you have to put your website through a series of rigorous tests to make sure your website is ready to go. Here are 8 tools to help test your website.

1. FiveSecondTest
This testing tools enables users to quickly build and launch tests and review results in 5 seconds. FiveSecondTest collects responses from a mock-up questionnaire. It will then extract the most frequent keywords so that test administrators can easily review results.

2. Pingdom
Pingdom is a quick and easy tool that allows website owners to test the speed of their website. It will give you a breakdown of what is working slowly, what is working fast and where an aspect of your website is too big. Users of Pingdom can then analyze this information to optimise site speed and performance.

3. Load Impact
Want to know how much traffic your website can handle? Load Impact will provide you with large scale load tests of up to 50,000 simulated users giving you real-time results. You can also generate reports including multiple charts and measurement metrics.

4. UserTesting.com
This tool allows web users to create tests then select participants from either your companies user panel or live users visiting your site. You will receive test feedback within an hour including video’s of participants taking the said test and writing answers on personalised questionnaires. You can also interact with test takes as an administrator and ask follow up questions once the initial test has been taken.

5. SiteSpect
SiteSpect offers testing for both Alpha, Beta and Multivariate websites. It will allow users to build and run tests quickly as well as evaluate metrics during and after testing. You can conduct serial testing to optimise site performance even further.

6. Usabilla
Usabilla provides users with live feedback so that websites can be optimised based on this feedback from real-time customers. A unique solution that measures customer emotions through an interactive tab where site visitors can click on tabs to rate each part of the website. Visitors can also add tags and comments to provide more detail on their experience.

7. WebTrends
WebTrends is a great online testing platform that helps users optimise key performance indicators including conversion rates, form completions, lead captures and time spent on the website. You have access to the platform’s team of experts helping deploy and analyse test results within months so that web workers can adjust their engagement across multiple channels.

8. Google Analytics Content Experiments
Integrated into Google Analytics, this tool allows website owners to set goals and tweak site elements like page design, layout and content.

I hope these 8 tools will help you test your website. I would love to hear your feedback.

Are you a “Professional Speaker”?

As an international speaker, I have had to face a lot of obstacles to get where I am today. I certainly didn’t start off as a professional speaker, six years ago I wouldn’t have believed I would be here today, writing this blog as a professional speaker.

I have spent a lot of time and money perfecting my presence while on stage and it is something that doesn’t happen overnight. There are many things to consider when on stage, the first being your content.

When presenting a seminar at an event, you need to make sure your content isn’t hard selling, and by this I mean that you are teaching your audience something they didn’t already know. Give your audience value for taking the time out of their day to come and see you talk. This is so important as what people say about you and your seminars, will either work for you, or against you.

You must always be engaging in your talks. This is where my two speaking mentors helped me. You will go to a lot of events where people are classed as “professional speakers” when really, they just stand in front of a laptop, reading notes in a dull tone. Ask your audience questions and make sure you start your talk with an anecdote. Your audience will stay engaged if you start out on the right foot.

If you are looking to become a professional speaker, you need to make sure your offline presence matches your online presence. By this, I mean your social media accounts, must reflect everything you do offline. When I speak at events, I will always have my branding in the form of a flyer, brochure, leaflet that I give out, along with various ways to contact me. Some people would like to speak to you via email or phone however, with Social Media playing a huge part in how we communicate, you may also receive a lot of contact via Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

I didn’t get to where I am today without hard work and dedication. It took me over four years to build a relationship with various events so that I could go back for a second, third and even fourth year running. You have to prove to the organisers that you are worth having, and worth keeping.

When taking the leap in becoming a professional speaker, you need to know what you are talking about. Make sure you spend time on your presentations so that you have all the right information and that you are prepared should the audience ask you any difficult questions.

Being a professional speaker is about diversity. You need to be able to speak on different subjects, with a good amount of knowledge on each. My tip for you would be to have a variety of different topics to talk about, before approaching an event to speak there. Know what you are capable of and apply that to your presentations.

One thing for sure is that it doesn’t happen overnight. You need to be prepared for rejection as it is likely to happen. Don’t let this get you down, keep pursuing your dream to become a professional speaker and you will get your break.

Are you ready to become a professional speaker?

Building a Brand is More than an Idea

For many years now I have been helping individuals bring their passion to life and build a business, with a brand than has true meaning.

I will let Dave Fletcher share with you his experience.

Having run a successful personal training business for nearly 10 years, I started to get itchy feet about the next stage in my career. Was I going to be selling my time forever? How could I build on this success? Should I set up another business as well as my PT business ? What would this business be? And how do I find someone who can coach these answers out of me? I knew that I loved being a PT and had taken huge satisfaction in building my profile by breaking into fitness magazines as a writer, becoming London’s best known fat loss specialist, dominating the google rankings and working with celebrities.

For me though, it wasn’t quite enough and I needed help in mapping out the next stage of my journey. I wanted to progress forward with my PT business but needed to satisfy this grumbling which was starting to haunt me.

At a mutual friends barbecue, I got chatting to a chap called Warren. Within a couple of minutes, it became apparent that what he loved to do was to work with small companies and inspire individuals like me to help them develop their business into a brand. Having exchanged business cards and gone away to look him up online, I was amazed to discover just how successful he had been in this field. Not to mention that he was an author of 3 books and a well known professional business speaker! I was impressed to say the least and had a gut feeling that he would be able to help me carve out the next stage of my career.

We started with a 2-hour mind mapping session where I told him all about my personal training business. I showed him what I had built up and how much it meant to me as well as my ambitions to develop my skills and potentially build another business. He asked me about how I had built up my business and whether I was able to put my success into a formula? He then asked me whether this formula could be taught to other aspiring personal trainers?

BOOM! I had my answer and it had only taken him 12 minutes. We spent the remainder of the session outlining how I was going to create a brand out of this formula and the best way to coach this information to other personal trainers. I was ecstatic and my brain was in overdrive mode after that meeting. It was a real life lightbulb moment which has proven to be a major pivotal point in my career.

We met every other week to discuss the strategies involved in making this happen. His knowledge and experience was staggering and made me feel at ease with this new and exciting venture. He told me that if I was to be taken seriously as the expert on the business side of personal training, I needed to write a book about it which would include my journey towards building my own personal training business. I had work to do! I decided on a title for the book and the exact formula to achieve success as a personal trainer.

Under Warren’s guidance, I chipped away at building the brand. I built the new website, I found my target audience and created an outline for the courses I was going to run to teach the formula to other PT’s.

I simply could not have done this without Warrens expert guidance and could not have wished for a more in-tune mentor who understands the way I think and knows how to get the most out of me.

Publishing my own book and building another business has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I urge all ambitious entrepreneurs to do the same.

Thanks for all of your help Warren.

If you would like to connect with Dave further, tweet him at @Dave_FletcherPT.

I would love to help more people realise their potential and help their businesses grow. If this is something you are interested in, please feel free to contact me.

p.s Thank you for you kind words in the book

 

What to do Before, During and After Sending Your Blog #CheatSheet

Writing the blog is only half the battle when it comes to posting on your website. You also need to consider the input before during and after the blog.

Before
When writing your blog, the first thing you must do is your research. The chances are, someone would have already written an article like the one you are writing. See how they have approached the topic and read the comments from other users. Learn what you can from other people and apply it to your writing. If you haven’t written a blog before, I suggest that you have someone who has, help you. You will only get frustrated and impatient when writing if you have no clear guidance.

You may also find yourself making changes every time you read through your blog. My suggestion would be to get a colleague or friend read the blog and give you their honest opinion because we are our own worst enemy and will always find something wrong with our own writing.

Before writing your blog you must also look at your marketing plan. Do you have any events coming up? If yes, then write a blog about it. You must always have a defined marketing plan which can be reflected in your Social Media Campaign. Remember, blogs are to be shared so think about it when you are writing.

During
Now that you have done your research and started writing you blog, you need to have a plan. When I am writing blogs, I always have bullet points written on a piece of paper next to me of things that I need to cover; you should do the same. It may also help to read your writing backwards to spot mistakes that you may have missed.

As you’re writing, its worth going back over each paragraph to check your spelling and grammar. It can be really frustrating to notice small errors once you have posted the article on your website.

It is also important to remember to hyperlink your blog. This means adding links to important words in your blog that can send your readers to other places. You will notice that I hyperlink my blogs with other articles I have written. When doing this, you need to make sure you tick the box which says “open in new tab” otherwise your readers will be taken away from your blog. For my blogs on both Warren Knight and Gloople, I use WordPress. This is the best website for blog writing as it allows you to also tag your posts, insert pictures/videos and select categories.

Before you hit send on your blog, reread your writing and double check your spelling. You should also end with a call to action. Whether it be a question or a thought-provoking sentence, you should always keep your audience on their toes and wanting more.

After
Now that you have posted your blog, the work doesn’t stop there. The article will not promote itself. Share your hard work with all of your followers inside of Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. Include your latest blogs in your newsletter and set up and RSS feed button to give followers the opportunity to read your latest blog in their own time.

Placing your blog on article submission websites, where your target audience hang-out, will drive targeted traffic to your blog. You may even want to look into using platforms that charge to drive traffic to your website based on the content of your blog, like Outbrain.

You may also notice comments appear on your blog – make sure you reply to them ASAP. Leaving them too long will create a negative image on your blog.

Having social share button, like ShareThis is a must for any blog and can easily be set up as a plugin automatically.

I would love to read from you about the ways that you prepare your articles.

The Importance of Having a Mentor

While I was with my mentor on Tuesday, watching the sunset over London Town in Hyde Park and seeing the transformation for the Olympics, it dawned on me. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for my Mentor and his help with my successful journey as a Business Owner. I think the importance of having a Mentor is certainly overlooked.

If you didn’t know, I’m going through Seed investment for my Ecommerce Platform Gloople where I am looking to receive £500,000 worth of investment. Voted as one of the Top 100 Start-ups, I’m taking my business to the next level from three staff, up to nine.

When my mentor mentioned that he saw my two minute investment pitch, he commented on how my presentation skills had grown over the past three years. Looking back, I would have only recorded this pitch once. Now, as I have grown as a person, I was able to stand in front of a camera and use my experience in practice to take at least fifty voice memo’s on my iPhone and 10 videos on my flipcam. This helped me deliver a near perfect pitch in one take when it mattered most.

My mentor then reminded me of the first time he heard me talk and asked me how many times I rehearsed that presentation. My response to him was just once.

Having him as a mentor has now enabled me to do things naturally and break old habits and build new ones, which I have a few of since I’ve had him in my life.

Along with my business mentor, I also have two speaking mentors, who have both shared with me very different skills and styles which I have learnt to use when delivering my seminars. Both without a doubt deserve enormous credit for their help in my growth as a Keynote Speaker.

When choosing your mentor, you must think about these 3 very simple things.

1.  Would you invite him/her round for dinner to meet the family?

2.  Does he/she really know their stuff and have other business owners received great value, financially and emotionally from this person?

3.  It’s OK to say NO and walk away if the said person isn’t right for you. Take your time in finding the right person, if it fits, your intuition will guide you.

Looking at the cost of a mentor, it may seem expensive at first, but with the knowledge and skills you will receive, it will be a priceless investment and stay with you forever. Remember, we’re not just talking professionally, what you can learn from you mentor will help your personal life too.

For me, having a Mentor has been well worth the outlay, so much so as buying a house for a return on an investment.

This is my experience with my mentors; I would love to hear about yours.

PS This is dedicated to my 3 amazing mentors, you know who you are.