GoDaddy Is Ditching the Sexy Super Bowl Ads

GoDaddy's controversial Super Bowl commercials and the negative reactions that follow them have become a kind of American tradition in their own right, but it looks like the company is finally switching gears.

GoDaddy announced Thursday that it plans to move away from the racy, hyper-sexual Super Bowl ads of recent years in favor a more "mature" approach for the next big game. The company has purchased two 30-second spots, one for each half of the game, which will play up what the brand stands for rather than "risque innuendo."

See also: GoDaddy Hires Former Yahoo Exec Blake Irving As CEO

"We’ve matured. We’ve evolved," Barb Rechterman, the company's chief marketing officer, said in a statement. "Our new brand of Super Bowl commercials will make it crystal clear what we do and who we stand for." Read more...

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Google Chromecast Now Streams Pandora to Your TV

Music-streaming service Pandora is finally offering support for Google's Chromecast device, which plugs into any HDTV to stream online videos and music, controlled from your tablet or smartphone.

Chromecast users can access Pandora starting now via the free Android and iOS mobile app update. The $35 HDMI dongle, which debuted this summer, already supports Vimeo, Redbox Instant, Netflix, YouTube and Hulu Plus. Compatibility with HBO is also reportedly in the works.

See also: iOS 7 Apps: Download These Now

“More than one-third of radio listening takes place in the home and we are continually innovating and investing in new platforms that help us seamlessly deliver access to Pandora across a broad range of connected devices," Pandora CTO and Executive VP of product Tom Conrad said in a statement. "By integrating Google Cast technology into our mobile apps, users now have another easy access point to a better listening experience from the biggest screen in their living room.” Read more...

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Dropbox Sends Invites for 'Special' November Event

Cloud storage powerhouse Dropbox sent out invitations to the media for a "news event" to be held at the company's headquarters in San Francisco on Nov. 13. No details are given, but the invitation says there will be a "special announcement."

The invitation has a drawing of a tabletop with various devices on it as well as photographs, business cards and notebooks. In the center is a piece of paper with the Dropbox logo along with some charts. Accompanying the drawing are the words, "This isn't business as usual," perhaps a reference to the company's Dropbox for Business service.

See also: 10 Things You Didn't Know Dropbox Could Do Read more...

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Startups Flocking to Berlin for Its Relaxed Visa Rules

Germany’s immigration policy isn’t perfect, but hey, at least it’s not the U.S.

Entrepreneurs in Berlin’s budding tech scene say Germany’s relatively relaxed visa-application process gives them an edge in attracting international talent, such as software engineers who don’t want to go through the strained H-1B route in the U.S.

"In Silicon Valley, it’s getting harder and harder to get international visas,” Marco Boerries, a German entrepreneur, said in an interview in Berlin. “The amount of talent that I need for the problem that we're trying to solve, I have an easier time finding here than in Silicon Valley.” Read more...

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Americans Will Spend $6.9 Billion on Halloween This Year

Roughly half of Americans will celebrate Halloween this year. The 158 million revelers will spend slightly less money on Halloween this year than they did two years ago, but spending in 2013 is expected to total $6.9 billion, down from the $8 billion in 2011.

See also: 25 Last-Minute D.I.Y. Halloween Costumes

How are Americans celebrating? Forty-four percent of the country's population will carve pumpkinsStatista's chart reveals more interesting numbers about Americans' Halloween behavior

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Image: Mashable composite. iStock, incomible, chokkicx Read more...

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Today's Tech Hubs Are All About Location, Location, Location

Long before Silicon Valley became the archetypal tech company cluster, 100 years ago and 344 miles south, the city of Los Angeles owned the space.

The emergent film industry of Southern California was the original tech hub, in many ways. A collection of outsourced companies serviced the film industry that assembled and subsequently boomed in Hollywood.

See also: 20 Inspiring Startups Aiming to Improve the World

In the early 1900s it looked as if New York would be the city that defined movies, however. Thomas Edison opened the first film "studio" there in 1893; the advent of electricity was the Internet of its day, attracting innovators to industry trailblazers in the region. Read more...

More about World, Startups, Features, Business, and Silicon Valley



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Increase Your Website Credibility in the Age of Content Marketing

As content marketing increasingly becomes the standard avenue for building trust and gaining credibility with customers, your website is going to have to keep up with the trend. Heavy-handed and ‘salesy’ strategies that may have worked a few years ago in order to get email opt-ins or conversions just aren’t going to cut it anymore.

Consumers are looking for someone they can trust – period. And trust isn’t something you can fake.

So for business owners and marketers looking to succeed in this age of inbound marketing, having a website that conveys trustworthiness, credibility and authenticity is going to be paramount.

So how do you do this? How do you make sure your website stand out among less credible resources online?

5 Ways to Increase Your Website Credibility

1) Show Who’s Behind Your Business

Let’s face it, your business’s biggest asset is you. Don’t hide behind your logo or business name. Let your website visitors know there are real people behind your business and/or brand.

You can do this in a variety of ways, including:

• 
  

  Place your photo on your “About” page.

  
  


• 
  

  Prominently display your contact information (refrain from using general email addresses like info@your-company.com when possible).

  
  


• 
  

  Display photos of your business and location (if you have a brick and mortar storefront, public office space, etc.).

  
  


• 
  

  Profile employees (if you’re more than a “one man band” in business).

  
  

2) Show Who’s Writing Your Content

This is, I believe, going to be a make it or break it proposition for businesses in the content marketing age.

Don’t assume that your audience demands your personal involvement in all areas of your content marketing such as emails, blog posts and social media updates. Most will understand that you simply don’t have time to do it all.

If you have staff to perform these functions for you, be transparent by having them include their names and credentials.

3) Show That Others Like You

Offering social proof on your website is a not-so-subtle way of saying, ‘Hey, others like me, why don’t you?’ Help alleviate fears your website visitors may have about connecting with you by showing that others have done it before.

You can include social proof on your site by using social media counters, showing the number of email subscribers you have or by displaying verifiable testimonials.

4) Show That Your Content is Current

There are obviously some sites and types of content that are, by their very nature, timely and up-to-date (think news sites, travel booking sites, shopping sites, etc.). But if it’s not immediately obvious that your content is fresh and timely, you may be losing credibility without even realizing it.

Make sure your blog posts are dated, and that any ‘newsy’ type content is clearly labeled as current. Of course, if you’re not regularly updating your website, this is going to hurt your credibility, so be aware of this up front.

5) Be Clear About Your Biases

Whether you have an eCommerce site, a content-based site or a site that simply represents your online and/or brick and mortar business, be clear and transparent about the purpose of your site and any potential conflicts of interest that could arise.

For instance, if the ultimate goal of your website is to sell your web design services, don’t masquerade your site as something else. Be up front about what you do, why you’re doing it and if or how your content may be affected.

In a time where content needs to be reliable and authentic in order to stand out from the pack, content marketers are going to need to be diligent about conveying this credibility to their website visitors.

By following the general rule of being clear and transparent about all aspects of your site and business, you’ll be well on your way to gaining the trust and respect of your website visitors both now, and in the future.

What tactics do you use to establish trust and increase your website credibility?

Suspiscious Photo via Shutterstock

The post Increase Your Website Credibility in the Age of Content Marketing appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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How to Analyze the Performance of a WordPress Blog

Summary: The first step of the WordPress Speed Challenge is to analyze the blogs performance before doing optimization and write the results down for later comparison.

WordPress Speed Challenge so far

1. On your marks... (WordPress Speed Challenge introduction)


2. Get set... (Getting the tools every WordPress blogger need)


3. Go! (this post!)

Introduction to Blog Performance Analysis

This is the first step of the WordPress Speed Challenge. In short, and for a quick start (in this challenge, where the speed matters - quick start is what's it's all about!), we are gonna check how fast (or slow) your blog is and write the results down, so we have a baseline we can compare the results against when we've done optimization.

Action 1: Get Firefox with Firebug-, YSlow- and Google Page Speed -addons

First, go back and install the must-have tools for bloggers, if you don't yet have the Firefox -browser with the Firebug, YSlow and Google Page Speed addons.

When optimizing your WordPress blog for speed, you'll be needing all the 10 essential tools for WordPress bloggers on the post, but for the first step of WP Speed Challenge, you just need the Firefox plugins for performance analysis.

Action 2: Prepare a spreadsheet for the statistics

We're gonna use a spreadsheet, or just a text file, Google Docs document, or just pen and paper to store and record the statistics.

You can create your own spreadsheet in Google Docs, Excel or Open Office for example (nothing fancy, just columns for YSlow, Google Page Speed and Pingdom - put the URLs to the left and then data to the rows).

You can also download or make a copy of the public WordPress Speed Challenge spreadsheet I've stored in Google Docs (You don't need Google Account / Google Docs to download a copy, but to make a copy for yourself into the Google Docs, you naturally need an account):

1. Open the public WordPress Speed Challenge spreadsheet


2. (The public copy is view-only. You need to make a copy for yourself)


3. Login to Google Docs (top right when you open the spreadsheet)


4. Click the File-menu and choose to Make a copy...


5. Leave the "copy document collaborators" -option UNCHECKED unless you want to share your document with everyone, including me.


6. Rename the document if you want (defaults to "Copy of...")


7. When you have the spreadsheet copied to your Google Docs:
   
   
   
   • replace the http://example.com with your blogs homepage and http://example.com/postname with the blog post URL you chose
   
   
   
   


8. And you're done!

You now have a spreadsheet ready and you can fill in the data on the next action step...

How to use the spreadsheet: Before doing any optimization, do the next action step (Action 3 below) and write down the results to the BASELINE -sheet. (After doing optimization stuff, you'll write the new results to the After Optimization -sheet and you'll see summary in the Comparison -sheet).

Unsharing the Google Docs spreadsheet: Next to Google Docs logo, you see the document name and next to that, the privacy / sharing settings - change the settings as you want. To avoid accidental sharing, do *not* check the "copy document collaborators" -option when making a copy.

Using other spreadsheet programs: If you don't want to edit the spreadsheet in Google Docs, but just download it: Click the File-menu and choose to download a copy... (instead of making a copy). Export in format of your choosing (e.g. CVS or Excel) and open it in your spreadsheet program.

No spreadsheets? If you for some reason don't feel like using a spreadsheet, you can also store the data in a text file with your favorite text editor.

No matter what method you use to save the data, the important thing is to record the results of the analysis before you do any optimization, repeat the process after optimization and compare the results.

Action 3: Analyze your blog with the YSlow- and Google Page Speed -addons and the Pingdom Tools

• WordPress blog tends to behave differently for an admin, so go to the Dashboard and log out - then proceed into running YSlow and Page Speed.


• Analyze two pages on the blog: the homepage and one individual blog post.


• Choose one blog post, and always use that same blog post on all tests - a popular post with uploaded images and at least some blog comments is a good choice.

You'll want to test a page that is the most popular "landing page", the first page new visitors load when they come to your blog - the loading time of THAT page is what counts the most. Most often, this is the homepage, or one individual blog post, which you can then choose as the other page.

For the two pages (the homepage and the blog post page), get the YSlow Grade/Score, Page Speed Score and the Pingdom Tools Total Loading Time.

1) YSlow works by clicking the Firebug or the YSlow icon on the bottom right of the Firefox browser window. Open the page you want to test, click to the YSlow tab and click "Run Test" (if it didn't run automatically).

2) Google Page Speed works similarly. You'll see the Page Speed -tab in the Firebug. Click on that and then analyze performance to get the score.

3) Pingdom Tools is even simpler. Open the Pingdom Tools and enter the URL of the homepage and run the test, and repeat for the blog post -page.

While doing the tests, you should have the WP Speed Challenge -spreadsheet ready on another tab of Firefox, so you can...

Action 4: Write down the results: YSlow Grade and score, Google Page Speed score and Pingdom Tools Total Loading Time

• Write down the Grades (YSlow, A to F) and the Scores (both YSlow and Google Page Speed) that you get for the homepage and the blog post page.


• Check the two pages with Pingdom Tools and write the Total Loading Time times down.


• You might want to run the Pingdom Tools test again after a while, or even on a another day, to make sure there's not too much variance on the number

These loading times, grades and scores will be the baseline for your WP speed challenge (and for any optimization or other changes you do on your blog).

Don't worry about the reds, yellows and greens on the YSlow and Page Speed results yet - the important thing, for now, is to look at the overall score, and even more simply, the grade in YSlow - and the loading time is our primary metric for speed, the Grades and Scores give us a simple metric to see how well we're following the best practices - which again, result to faster blogs. If you want to learn a bit more about analyzing your blog speed, go back and read the post on how to analyze your blog speed.

Summary

The first step of the WordPress Speed Challenge is to do little preparation: get the tools and have a place to record the stats. Then run the performance analysis tools, like YSlow and Pingdom Tools website speed test and write the results down for later comparison:

1. Get Firefox with Firebug-, YSlow- and Google Page Speed -addons


2. Prepare a spreadsheet or a text-file for the statistics


3. Analyze your blog with the YSlow- and Google Page Speed -addons and Pingdom Tools


4. Write down the results: YSlow Grade and score, Google Page Speed score and Pingdom Tools Total Loading Time

On the next post, we get to the actual optimization, as I'll share the 4 most important steps to speed up WordPress. It's be surprisingly simple, since I'm focusing on actions that really speed up the blog, instead of wasting time on stuff that doesn't really matter that much (until the more fundamental optimizations are done first).

If you want to jump ahead, tweaking the WordPress htaccess and optimizing images you upload to your blog is part of the optimization and the easiest steps to do right now.

How's the challenge going for you?

1. What kind of YSlow Grades / Google Page Speed scores and loading times you got?


2. What kind of loading time you'd be happy with?

Leave your comments below, it'll help me help you better with this stuff.

---

Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

How to Analyze the Performance of a WordPress Blog

Here's more posts like to this:

1. How to Backup and Optimize the WordPress Database


2. WordPress Speed Challenge – Make your WordPress blog faster!


3. WordPress Speed: How fast is your blog?

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10 Best and Most Essential Tools for WordPress Bloggers

Summary: WordPress blogger's must-have tools: 10 Tools for analyzing performance, editing text files and images, optimizing images and transferring files and images

Introduction

I've been working on the WordPress optimization stuff for quite some time now. I've turned the things I've learned into a WordPress Speed Challenge, but before we begin the speed optimization, let's do some prep work and get our bloggers' toolbox in order.

On this post, I show the 10 must-have tools for WordPress bloggers, essential for any web development - website optimization included - and plenty of alternatives and optional tools as well.

I compiled the list based on my personal prerefences, which over the years have been heavily influenced by the info from the choiced on the Lifehacker's "Hive Mind" lists.

This post is part of, and the preparation for the WordPress Speed Challenge, but these tools are essential for any WordPress blogger, let alone developer. And of course, these same tools work even if you don't blog on WordPress, since these tools are not connected to WordPress itself (e.g. the recommended WordPress plugins are listed elsewhere).

Essential tools for bloggers

As a WordPress blogger you need tools for

• analyzing performance


• editing text files and images


• optimizing images


• transferring files and images

So in short, we need

• A FTP program to connect to the web/file server


• A text editor to edit files


• A browser with addons for website performance analyzis


• Image editing and optimization tools


• Optional: Productivity timers, e.g. a stop watch and a egg-timer


• Optional: A frosty beverage (and/or cup of something hot)

As you see, you don't need fancy tools for blogging or to optimize your WordPress blog.

All the tools listed on this post are free, with the most of the tools being open source as well - with the exception of the frosty beverage and other drinks, which probably costs a bit. But the drinks are optional anyway, and not included in the "must-have" category.

Other optional tools, the stop watch and the egg timer, are for productivity and seeing how much time goes into what we're doing. I don't like to waste time, an egg timer lets me to work in dashes (e.g. 10 minutes to finish a post) and a stop watch will help me see where the time goes when I don't set a timer.

Basic set of tools for WordPress optimization

WordPress blogger can do well with what's inside the WordPress blog, but using separate tools for certain tasks is essential in order to staying productive and getting stuff done. I've tried a lot of tools and ended up using the ones I've listed on this post, I have listed some alternatives below on the details, but make sure you have:

• A powerful code- and text-editor (I use Notepad++ on Windows)


• A good browser (I prefer Firefox for the addons)


• A FTP program (FileZilla is my choice)


• An image editor and a viewer (I use GIMP and IfranView)


• Image optimizers (I use Image Magick and RIOT)

If you don't have these tools, or your personal choice of tools to do the same tasks, install the 10 tools listed to this post right now and start using them.

10 Must-Have Tools for WordPress Bloggers

With the above, here's the shortlist of the 10 must-have tools for bloggers:

• (1) FTP / File Transfer: FileZilla


• (2) Text editing:
  
  
  
  • Windows: Notepad++
  
  
  • Linux/Mac: Bluefish Editor
  
  
  
  


• (3) Browsing: Firefox + addons:
  
  
  
  • (4) Firebug -addon
  
  
  • (5) YSlow -addon
  
  
  • (6) Google Page Speed -addon
  
  
  
  


• Image viewer and editing:
  
  
  
  • (7) IfranView
  
  
  • (8) GIMP
  
  
  
  


• Image optimizing:
  
  
  
  • (9) RIOT (Standalone and/or plugin to IfranView and GIMP)
  
  
  • (10) Image Magick
  
  
  
  

The details, alternatives and optional tools are below.

Building the Blogger's Toolbox

Now that you know what the tools are, it's time to get'em.

Get a FTP Program

FileZilla is the BEST and the easiest way to access the files we need to modify and edit. FileZilla is available for all platforms, including Windows, Linux and Mac.

Get FileZilla at http://filezilla-project.org/

Source:

• Lifehacker - Best FTP clients

Get an Awesome Text Editor

Next, we need an awesome text editor (for editing the files and the code). Any text editor will do, but download and install one of these if you don't have a good one yet:

• Windows: Notepad++


• Mac/Linux: Bluefish Editor


• Other popular text editors:
  
  
  
  • jEdit (Windows, Mac, Linux)
  
  
  • Emacs (Windows, Mac, Linux)
  
  
  • gedit (Linux GNOME)
  
  
  
  

You only need one, so choose one based on your preferences. My choice is Notepad++ on Windows.

Source:

• 12 Excellent Free Text Editors for Coders


• Wikipedia - Comparison of Text Editors


• Lifehacker - Best Text Editors

Get Firefox and Addons

In order to make the most out of the challenge and learn stuff, you also need:

• Firefox -browser, with the following addons:
  
  
  
  • Firebug
  
  
  • YSlow
  
  
  • Google Page Speed
  
  
  
  

Install the website performance analyzing addons to Firefox

1. (if you don't have Firefox yet) Go to http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ and install Firefox


2. Open Firefox


3. Go to http://getfirebug.com/ and install Firebug


4. Go to http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/ and install YSlow


5. Go to http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/download.html and install Google's Page Speed


6. Re-start Firefox


7. Look to the bottom right of the browser window (status bar) for the Firebug and YSlow icons


8. (Open your blog and try the tools out)

Source:

• Lifehacker - Five Best Browsers

Get an image editor

Primary purpose (from WordPress speed point of view) for an image editor is resizing and scaling the image. For that simple purpose, and for super-simple processing of images, you can use Shrink O'matic.

For more functionality, and the recommended choice, is IfranView. With IfranView you can get simple image editing done, including resizing the images. With it's small size, and all the extensions and plugins, IfranView is the best image viewer there is.

Not so much related to image optimization, but if you're looking for an advanved image editor, get GIMP to get any image editing task done. It takes a while to get used to, but after you do, GIMP is on par with commercial (read: expensive) editors like PhotoShop.

• Get IfranView


• Get GIMP


• Get Shrink O'matic

Source:

• Lifehacker - Five Best Image Editors


• How to optimize images for the web

Get image optimizer tools

A lossless image optimizer is optional (and Shrink O'matic and the other tools above do optimization too). We can take care of optimization inside WordPress with a plugin, but sometimes you'll want to crunch images to minimum size by compromizing the quality a bit.

For this job, RIOT is the tool for you. The Radical Image Optimization Tool (RIOT) is a free image optimizer that let's you visually adjust compression parameters side by side, while keeping minimum filesize. But what makes RIOT truly exceptional is that it plugs-in to IfranView and GIMP - and also XnView if you have that.

• Get RIOT - The standalone program is Windows only, but the plugins work for on any system you can run IfranView and GIMP on, e.g. Windows, Linux and Mac.

If you're taking the WP Speed Challenge and you want a head start on optimization (do take the baseline metrics first, check the end of the post for details), you can check my detailed post on how to optimize images for the web for all the details on image optimization.

Source:

• How to optimize images for the web

Advanced image optimization, command line tools

This is somewhat optional, but for command line, and more advanced image optimization, you should get Image Magick and possible PNGcrush and jpegtran as well.

Command line tools are not required by the WordPress speed challenge, but with these you can get image optimization tasks done on the command line (instead of using a graphical user interface), if you prefer that. And also, as these tools are run from the command line, with scripting you can automate image processing.

Command line image optimization tools:

• Get Image Magick


• Get pngcrush


• Get jpegtran

Source:

• How to optimize images for the web

Get a stop watch and a egg timer

This is partly for fun, but also for productivity): Get a timer so you can see how much time it takes for you do stuff, and to set yourself a timeframe to work on.

Get a stop watch closeby, or bookmark one of these online timers:

• http://stopwatch.onlineclock.net/


• http://www.online-stopwatch.com/

Use a "egg timer" to set how long you want to work on a task and finish until the timer runs out:

• E.gg Timer

Or even better, as a combination of the above, track where all your time is going with

• RescueTime

(optional) Get a frosty beverage

For enjoyment while doing stuff, or for post-task celebration - your choice. Get a frosty beverage before we you start doing the optimization steps (coming in the upcoming posts), or get cup of coffee/tea if you prefer something hot. Personally, I prefer to save the ice-cold beer after things are done and consume cups of coffee when I'm doing stuff.

Summary

Make sure you have the tools (all free) in order to get stuff done for your blog, and also to follow through the WP Speed Challenge

• FTP: FileZilla


• Editor:
  
  
  
  • Windows: Notepad++
  
  
  • Linux/Mac: Bluefish Editor
  
  
  
  


• Browser: Firefox
  
  
  
  • Firebug
  
  
  • YSlow
  
  
  • Google Page Speed
  
  
  
  


• Image viewer and editing:
  
  
  
  • IfranView
  
  
  • GIMP
  
  
  
  


• Image optimizing:
  
  
  
  • RIOT
  
  
  • Image Magick
  
  
  
  

Good text editor will help you edit the files, so get one and get used to using it. Any editor will do, but editors like Notepad++ and Bluefish Editor have lot of features that will make your file editing a lot more enjoyable process (and lots of poweruser stuff for the editing- and coding-zen).

You probably had a FTP program already, but if you don't have one, or want to switch into using the best, get FileZilla and configure your blog server(s) in it.

The Firefox addons YSlow and Google Page Speed are essential for website performance analysis and for the WordPress Speed Challenge (and you need Firebug too), so make sure you have those.

You need image editor that allows you to resize images with ease. For that, Shrink O'matic gets the job done, but IfranView is probably better option with all the added functionality (and it's an awesome image viewer too).

A "local" image optimizer is optional, but RIOT does a great job reducing the size of the image while keeping you in manual control of the quality, which makes it great for non-lossless optimization (e.g. when lower quality is enough).

Get set...

At the Midsummer 2010, the WordPress Speed Challenge was announced. On this post, you learned about the tools of the trade and you can prepare for the challenge by downloading and installing them. You'll learn how to use these tools while we're doing the optimization steps.

This post was the preparation and on the next post, the challenge begins. We will begin by analyzing the performance of your WordPress blog before we do any optimization.

You'll learn how to spot site-slowing bottlenecks on your blog and what affects WordPress speed in general. As we write down the statistics when analyzing, we'll have data to compare our end-results to - which is important in order to see how well the different optimization steps worked.

---

Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

10 Best and Most Essential Tools for WordPress Bloggers

Here's more posts like to this:

1. Top 4 WordPress Optimization Steps for Speed


2. How to Analyze the Performance of a WordPress Blog


3. How to Backup and Optimize the WordPress Database

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WordPress Speed Challenge – Make your WordPress blog faster!

Summary: The WordPress Speed Challenge is a series of posts & steps that help you speed up your WordPress blog. Say no to slow - Make your WordPress blog faster!

Get ready...

Don't you find it annoying when you run into a blog that loads so slow that you feel like leaving before you get to read anything? - Have you thought that maybe your blog is "one of those" slow blogs?

Are you tired of your blog being so slow? Would you like your blog to be a lot faster, to deliver fast loading pages to keep your readers happy? Would you like to run your blog on cheap shared hosting until you can afford to pay for better hosting options?

Look no further and get ready...

...for the WordPress Speed Challenge!

This thing has been on my mind for quite some time, the thing I've been working on, a guide to help WordPress bloggers to speed up their blogs, making them load faster. I've spilled some details on this already and I've proven (on a video!) that it's possible to speed up WordPress, even on a shared hosting (and beat the big blogs with their fancy hostings and Content Delivery Networks while at it)...

My website speed and WordPress optimization -related posts have already been among the most popular posts of Zemalf.com, but now it's time to take it to the next level. It's time for the WordPress Speed Challenge.

Help me... help you

I'm doing the WP Speed Challenge for two reasons

1. To help WordPress bloggers speed up their slow blogs


2. Get feedback on how this stuff works and how easy/hard it actually is

To help others is the reason why I started blogging in the first place, and getting feedback from you makes sure the stuff works, your questions are answered and I can make the stuff better and easier to follow.

I've spent the last 14 or so months looking for the best ways to speed up WP blog, I've now found them, but the challenge (for me) is to put all that, even that's it's relatively simple, out in a way that anyone can do it. Plus I know the results from my own WordPress blogs, I've gotten my home page to load in 1-2 seconds, but I want to know how the stuff works for other WordPress bloggers...

As some of you know, I've been working on my first product, an eBook about WordPress optimization, or more accurately about speeding up WordPress. The challenge is all about that. I'm giving the best stuff away for free in this challenge, even that many have told me I should sell this stuff.

After all this, I might or might not have anything up for sale, but at least I know I've helped all of you to make your WordPress blogs faster and helped you learn some important WordPress skills.

The WordPress Speed Challenge

The challenge is to

1. check how fast (or SLOW!) your WordPress blog is now,


2. follow the quick and easy steps I'll show you to make the blog faster,


3. check how FAST your WP blog is after you've done the optimization, and finally


4. see how much you managed to improve your blogs speed and send in the "Final Report" to finish the thing.

If you don't want to send in your results at the end, just follow along, speed up your WordPress blog and let your readers enjoy faster loading pages.

However, if you send in the results, you'll get a greater sense of accomplishment, your stats will serve the greater good in improving the optimization stuff I teach you, and help the WordPress community in the Quest for Speed. Plus you'll feel AWESOME afterwards - in addition to having a lightning fast WP blog!

Not sending the results, and only DRASTICALLY improving your blogs speed without helping the community is boring as HELL, but if you want to do this on your own, as said, that's cool too...

The WP Speed Challenge Overview

The challenge is about learning how to improve WordPress performance and making a self-hosted WordPress blog load faster. The challenge is primarily for bloggers with blogs on a shared hosting, even that the same optimization techniques do work on all kinds of hosting.

In short, the WP Speed Challenge will help you optimize your WordPress blog in a way that it will withstand huge amounts of traffic and load fast, even on the cheapest hosting. This way, you don't need to upgrade to more expensive options before you actually afford them.

You might not even know it, but a slow blog makes readers leave your blog even before the tracking system picks them up. Google has started using the speed as one factor for the search engine rankings. All in all, you are losing money with your slow blog.

Take the WP speed challenge and you don't have to worry about any of that.

Following through the WordPress Speed Challenge will save you money and it will make sure your blog will not be penalized by Google for loading too slowly - And your readers will appreciate your fast loading blog.

Here's what the WP Speed Challenge looks like

• Introduction (this post)


• Get the right tools for WordPress performance analysis and optimization


• Analyze WordPress performance & write the pre-optimization results down


• Optimize your WordPress blog for speed (I'll show you how!)


• Check your WordPress performance after optimization, write the post-optimization results down


• Compare the results (improvement!)

The first ever WordPress Speed Challenge spans over the upcoming posts on this blog. There will be worksheets and step-by-step guides to walk you through the optimization steps - and it's gonna be loads of fun.

This is the first time I've done this... heck, it's probably the first time anyone has done this for WordPress bloggers - so join the fun, spread the word and let's make all of our WordPress blogs optimized for speed...

Questions and Answers

Your question here? Leave a comment or send me a message using my contact form!

On your marks...

The challenge has now been announced, and it'll continue on the next post, getting your WordPress blogger's toolbox ready. Check that post out and subscribe to the blog via RSS or get the RSS via email to get more useful posts from this blog.

What do you think? Any comments about the challenge? Questions?

Begin the challenge with the preparation (get the tools every WordPress blogger needs) and move on to the step 1: analyzing the performance of your blog

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Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

WordPress Speed Challenge – Make your WordPress blog faster!

Here's more posts like to this:

1. Top 4 WordPress Optimization Steps for Speed


2. WordPress Speed: How fast is your blog?


3. Speed Up WordPress – Even on a Shared Hosting!

via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Zemalf/~3/kQfMdbn2Qxo/ Best WordPress Hosting

He DOES exist! He DOES exist!

As if to debunk rumors that Clayton Makepeace is a mythological creature – a possible cousin of Big Foot — the big guy has agreed to speak at AWAI’s 2012 Boot Camp, October 24-28!

First, he’ll reveal the techniques he uses to create video sales letters that attract armies of new customers…

And, second, he’ll host a workshop on how to make your benefits sparkle!

This is the first and ONLY time Clayton has spoken ANYWHERE in three long years! He’s been too busy creating winning campaigns for his clients. So I’d suggest you jump on over to AWAI and check this out for yourself.

Here’s the link: http://www.awaionline.com/b12/makepeace

We’re looking forward to seeing YOU in October!

Wendy “The Redhead” Makepeace

via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/blog/he-does-exist-he-does-exist/ Best WordPress Hosting

We’re still here…

Thanks everyone for all the wonderful comments. They are greatly appreciated.

But, don’t worry…we’re still here!

Please feel free to let us know if you have any questions. You can do so by posting right here on the blog…or…email me at our support email box at support@makepeacetotalpackage.com. I try to check it every day to see if there are any customer service questions that need to be answered.

And, don’t forget, all of Clayton’s articles are still available at the top of this page under the masthead. Just click the “Archive” link.

Plus, you’ll find some very valuable information in the “Copywriters Tools” section. In this section you’ll find our extensive Direct Response Glossary, Interviews with some of the top copywriters in the field and recommendations from Clayton on what you should be reading.

I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

Yours for Every Success,

Wendy Makepeace

General Manager

The Total Package

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A little known way to manage your email via sub-addressing

Summary: Learn how to manage your email more efficiently by using email sub-addressing via +tag qualifiers when subscribing to mailing lists or registering to new sites

I like to spend as little time in email as humanly possible. I like efficiency. But I still want to make sure I get to read all the emails that really matter and not waste time on emails I don't need to be acted on immediately.

Because of this, I'm a heavy user of filters in email. I filter emails like newsletters and mailing lists away from my Inbox automatically, so they don't interfere with the important emails, and I can then go and read them when I have the time.

For the longest time I used the senders email or subjects to filter stuff. I still do this, but only a few months ago I found a new way to filter email. I needed to find a better way to filter emails, because over the years I've ended up subscribing to hundreds of newsletters and mailings lists, in addition to the tens of sites and forums I've registered in.

Using sub-addressing to filter and protect your email

The secret trick of mine is using sub-addressing by adding +tag qualifier to the email addresses I use for subscriptions and registrations. By using +tag qualifiers for sub-addressing, I've managed to lower the number of filters in my GMail A LOT and make the whole thing more manageable at the same time.

With sub-addressing and filtering I can make sure my Inbox stays clean of clutter as the emails can be automatically filtered and I'm also protected from spam, as I can immediately see if I start to get spammed from a site based on the +tag I used when I registered or subscribed.

If you just went ??? when I talked about +tag qualifiers and sub-addressing, don't worry - I didn't now this stuff couple of months ago either - and I'll give you the quick intro on the subject right now...

What is email sub-addressing?

With email being used since the 1980's, you'd think that we know everything about it. Well, we probably do, but this is something that I only learned this year - And I've been around computers for 25 years, from which a good portion working in the industry!

I learned only recently that you can effectively sub-address your emails by adding +tag qualifier to your email. Or I might have known it, but never got around into using it. Anyway...

• You can add any tag to your email by injecting +tag after the name before the @-sign, e.g. firstname.lastname+tag@gmail.com (before the @ is the local part of the email address).


• All these emails are still delivered to "firstname.lastname@gmail.com", and you can use the +tag to filter the emails!


• You can use +tag qualifiers to effectively create infinite email sub-addresses.

MAGIC!

One more time: If your email address is firstname.lastname@gmail.com, you can add a tag like firstname.lastname+tag@gmail.com. You can then use the +tag sub-address to filter and monitor that email address.

For me, the main use of sub-addresses is filtering. For spam protection, sub-addressing via +tag qualifiers are not disposable email addresses, but at least I'll know where the spam originated from if I see a +tag on the email.

Source: E-mail address, Wikipedia.

Services that support email sub-addressing

GMail supports sub-addressing with plus (+). GMail is not the only mail service that supports sub-addressing via +tag qualifiers, but GMail is the one I use just because it works do damn well.

Some mail servers violate the RFC 5322, and the recommendations in RFC 3696, by refusing to send mail if the local-part of the address contains the plus sign (+). - Wikipedia

You can test if +tag qualifiers work for you by sending a test email to yourself and add +tag to your email.

Also, some mail systems support sub-addressing via hyphen (-) instead of plus sign, so ask your email provider or their documentation which you should be using. But as said, with GMail it's the plus (+)

How to take advantage of email sub-addressing in GMail

• Use generic +tag to filter mails from mailing lists you subscribe to


• Use +tag for each newsletter you subscribe to


• Use +tag for each site your register on


• Use different +tags in the from-address for the emails you send, e.g. add +tag to your newsletter from-address, so you'll spot the emails send as a reply to your newsletter or mail to a mailing list.

Use the +tags to filter your email, e.g. keep low-priority mails like newsletters out of the Inbox automatically.

For example, if you subscribe to this blog via email, you could add tag like +subscriptions or +newsletters to your email after the name, but before the @-sign.

Or you could use the blogs name or the newsletter owners name, and add tag like +zemalf or +anttislist to the email.

You can also add tags to all sites you've registered in, like Twitter, different forums, etc.

I use combination of these, individual tags for some sites and lists, and generic tags, like "+lowpriority" for bulk newsletters and mailing lists I sign to.

I have then proceeded into build filters around the tags as I like (to either highlight important content or process lower priority mails automatically)

Start using email sub-addressing right now!

• From this moment on, use sub-addressing and the +tags on emails you use for each newsletter and for each site your register in.


• Use the +tags to both filter your email for maximum productivity and also to protect yourself from getting spammed into the email address you used to a certain site (spammers aren't smart enough to remove the +tags)

Also note that for the better mailing list services, like AWeber, you can edit your email address even after you have subscribed, so you can use this trick for existing subscriptions as well.

Just take a look at the links at the bottom of the newsletters that say something other than just "unsubscribe", e.g. "change subscriber options" or "edit your subscription".

And of course, you can go and edit the email address on the services you are already registered in, like forums, social media sites, etc.

Summary

• Sub-addressing with +tag qualifiers is a great way to filter your emails


• You can create an email sub-address by injecting +tag before the @-sign


• The plus (+) works in GMail and some other email services, test it your by sending yourself an email and add +tag qualifier to the email (e.g. firstname.lastname+test@example.com)

What do you think? Did you know about email sub-addressing before your read this post? How have you used it, or how you plan to use it?

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Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

A little known way to manage your email via sub-addressing

Liked this post? You can find more great posts from the blog archive.

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