Revisit Your Site Carefully

I always find a left hand column, single or double, works better at drawing attention to your offer. Obviously above fold but if a double column one top left and one in the right column on the fold.

Just my 2c just take a look at Best Blue Ray Players for a little pointer

oh ,It might be more effective to push the newsletter (which is remarkable stuff) and capture them here.

Thanks so much for the kind mention of my Landing Page Makeover series at Copyblogger. Chris - if you'd like to be a Landing Page Makeover participant in 2010, just let me know.

I am looking for my site Optimisation and That article had helped me a lot. I had collected many good information regarding the how we can set the Headers in our site and how it helps to the users.

Hi Chris - very inspirational post! Will be re-doing my site over the holidays.

One piece of feedback for you - where can I find what you are selling and how much does it cost? I feel like I have to dig for it. For example, I am not sure - do you do websites with blogs? Would love to refer some of my colleagues your way but not sure you have the services they need.


Sometimes people arrive to your site already fully sold and ready to buy based on what someone else has said - but if they don't have the 'buy here' button, they could get a little lost. It's a problem I experience at my own site, where I figure visitors need to be thoroughly immersed in my product, the information, how it works etc. It's not always the case.

Good luck with your site re-design

Carolyn

When I try to infer the importance or the relationship, i can see the NML logo on your blog is squished and almost unintelligible.I want to some newer concept and site index performances.

batteries

I just launched a redesign this month. (http://www.greeblemonkey.com/) I *hope* I addressed many things that were wrong with my site before. I do know one thing I gained that is a problem with the new site is that it is too wide for some monitors. But - I wanted a large photo changeable Flickr header (that didn't look like a Flickr header) since I feature my photography so often - and the size dictated by that function. But, since my company designs (health education research) web sites, I am constantly rethinking my blog. - Posts like this are good reminders to always be thinking.

Hi Chris,
I love this post - and this is something I do frequently. My bounce rate is 2.72 - and that's common for my site. When people visit, they stay awhile. But I'm working on getting MORE visitors on a consistent basis...always a work in progress.

Last summer, I watched a video from Tim Ferriss at Wordcamp and implemented some of the things he talked about and they impacted by site traffic, bounce rate and subscribers very positively. I wrote a post about it here and I would recommend #1 and #3 for you. :D

Here's the post: http://www.themogulmom.com/2009/07/tim-ferriss-...

I love Copyblogger's popular series "Landing Page Makeovers" with Roberta Rosenberg. Do check it out if you haven't already. http://www.copyblogger.com/landing-page-makeove...

Thanks for letting us take a peek at your site analysis - such a great learning experience for you and us!!

Heather

Hi Chris,

Perfect timing. My partner's and my afternoon meeting is prep for tomorrow's call with our webmaster and we're getting ready for a major overhaul. I appreciate you sharing your warts with us, and that will help us address ours.

PS - Mari Smith was saying great things about you last week!
http://www.DesignSuccessU.com

Ok Chris first, I really like your site because I think you are one of the few people that do social media consulting/strategy that actually do even a decent job of promoting what they do. So many people in this space are scared to death of self-promoting, but you do it well.

If there's one thing that I think you could improve on the site, it's in making it more obvious who you are and what you do. When I did my site, I did it with the mindset that no one knew who I was, or what I did. Because I get a great deal of referrals, and those people that are referred to me often have no clue who I am. So they'll come to my site to check me out.

For example, on your site you have a tab for 'Speaking', I have 'Book Mack to Speak'. You have 'Work With Me', I have one for 'Social Media Consulting'.

And perhaps the biggest I see, there's no way to email you directly above the fold that I can see. There should be a one-click that lets me email you. Notice on my site I have that, plus a one-click to give me a call through Google Voice. If there was ONE change I would suggest you make, it would be to add a small 'Email Me' area right above your signup area on the far right column. As Amy pointed out, you do an exceptional job of asking for email/RSS/newsletter signups.

BTW thanks again Chris for doing this, from reading your post I am now seeing a lot of changes I need to make on my own site ;)

A fellow by the name of Chris Staples (ReThink) once explained his thoughts on effective advertising by stating that for it to be effective you need it to carry one message. He further explained with the analogy of ping pong balls. If you throw one to someone, they'll probably catch it, but when you throw 5 or 6 at the same time they probably won't catch any. I think in this case you can have multiple offerings, but prominence is a factor as well.

http://www.richdixon.net/bouncingback/

Weaknesses: high bounce rate, lack of direction, too few comments.

My site isn't focused enough--a visitor doesn't get a clear picture of what's available, who I am, or what they're supposed to do next. It works well for folks who are accustomed to the blog-type environment, but that's not all of my readers.

And--I'm bad at the "call to action" stuff. Need to improve that, I think.

Chris,
I don't think your call to actions are a problem per se, as much as not having more filters to navigate your content. The Topics cloud is too generic (and has a huge uncategorized), the Recent entries are buried and not prominent (they blend in with the sidebar). You need more ways to market your posts (top posts, most commented, etc...you know 1000 times better than I do).

I'd also try to segment to see if there are groups with higher B-rates (are the new users the culprit because they can't find more content as in my hypothesis, or are ur loyal readers the bouncers, because maybe all they want is to read the latest post and go...cough cough, here I am).

My 2c,
Antonella

Hello Chris,

I just posted 5 tweets on Twitter, you can find me @allanbreports, discussing a retweeting issue I have, that I think may be part of the reason you are seeing the high bounce rate.

I'm kind of a slow reader, but I read a lot. On Twitter I don't follow thousands, I try to find those that I'm really interested in what they have to say to follow, otherwise my Twitter stream would be too much for me to keep up with.

Several people I follow, also follow you, so often whenever you put out a new blog post I will get a bunch of links to your post. But it won't say in the tweet that it is your piece, so I click on it and it takes me to your blog, I've already read the piece, so I leave right away. One guy sometimes even sends a link before you do on Twitter.

This has kind of been annoying me, so thats why I did my mini-rant on Twitter. All these links don't do you any favours because I think I'm going to a blog post from the other person, then I get to your blog and I already read the new blog post. It also does a disservice to them as well because I think they have written an interesting new piece on their own blog.

One guy in particular, who I think is a seriel linker/retweeter, I don't want to mention his name, does this with your pieces and several other high-profile bloggers (who I already follow) and so I'm getting multi-tweets for them as well. It is getting to the point I may have to stop following him and that sucks because I really enjoy reading his own original blog posts.

I think some bloggers read way to much about SEO and how to increase their followers on Twitter, and other social media, and lose site of the fact people are interested in what they have to say.

Just my two cents.

Best of the season.

Allan

Thanks for a very insightful review of your own site. Since I am redesigning my own site (http://thedreamingcafe.com) to give it a more professional, polished look, this helps a lot.

I think all too often blog and website owners are so focused on the content, development, and design that they forget about the most important aspect which is usability. The best feature in the world means nothing if it isn't easy to find and use. Sometimes it's the smallest tweaks that can make the largest impacts.

Look forward to any changes you may make to this site Chris, and it's amazing all of the feedback you've been given by your loyal followers and readers. Fantastic suggestions everyone!

I always wonder why you use the lijit search. Not that it is bad or anything, but it feels like you are making a point - I am just not sure what that is...

I was just linking through on a real-time search post but couldn't help noticing...

The most important valuable link on your site has messed up anchor text

chrisbrogan.com

From your header.

Why not have "Chris Brogan - Social Media Consultant"

First Link Priority - first link on the page to any individual page is what counts

My site looks like any other blogger site. I don't feel techie-smart enough to fix it, and it's certainly lacking a focused topic.

chris... right on the money re: the "purpose" of a site. All too often the very essence of why a site is created in the first place, is lost. also, presenting information WHEN users are ready to view it is highly overlooked.

we too are constantly out to change the paradigms of small business owners trying to embrace the web.
http://local-marketplace.com

thanks for posting this great article!

cheers,
//dave

Chris,

Don't forget the cross platform check. On FireFox (3.5.5, Vista) your name, in white, is cut off in the top banner. Tops of the letters show, but not enough to read what it says.

Paul

We have been wrestling with this as well. We have a combination of text and large buttons (like a GPS). We built the GPS-like buttons to highlight 4 main calls to action. Initially we had text above and below the buttons. Then it occurred to me that on smaller screens than my 22" viewers aren't seeing 2 of the 4 buttons. So, we moved all text below the buttons and are hoping the buttons prompt a visitor to use the site.

If anyone has a chance, let me know what you think about our buttons. My idea was to make the site VERY simple to navigate and use with the metaphor of large automotive style GPS buttons. My hope is that these buttons would accomplish this.
www.GigAlert.com -- please be honest

This is funny. I just registered myself as a dot com - http://ianmrountree.com - for SEO purposes (I had been using wingsofwax.ca, but Google Alerts tell me that isn't really a useful association) and the visual design rebuild is beginning in January.

My design is a relic, sadly. I had no purpose other than "Wow, cool looking" when I built the thing, and now that I'm working on my personal brand, I'm seeing a lot of needs changing. It does nothing for me, other than look cool, which is useless for a blog, in some respects. I'm curious to know what you think. Have to check in after the redesign, perhaps.

Chris;
To all that has already been said, I would only add:
1) High bounce rates are typical for a blog - people arrive on the post, read it and leave. Because the time on page doesn't count in the bounce rate calc, it registers as a bounce because they only looked at one page. So if you bring people to the latest post, many of them will show up as a bounce.
2) It's an almost universal truth involving human perception: less is more. I learned this phrase while learning to write fiction but have since then learned to apply to it just about anything which involves a human interaction. One of the comments suggested focusing attention on just 1 call to action in the visible (above the fold) portion of your site. Sure you may lose people who would respond to one of the other calls you have on the page, but you would win all those who don't take in the call because they are too busy processing all that other information.
As an example of all this in my own field. We're in the business of making sales and inbound marketing automation easy. A complex field and thus to make it easy we were faced with a difficult design challenge for our home page. We could have done what all the Demand Generator companies choose to do, which is to cram their home page with all the buzz words of their feature sets. Good for SEO, bad for the visitors. Instead we tried to focus attention on the benefits and embed the features (and our solution involves Demand Gen and other components, too), in automated pop-ups which can be made to "stick" or pause so you can read them. www.inbound-marketing-automation.ca if you wish to see this in practice.
3) Your site is feature rich, benefit poor. We all want, as another of the comments points out, to know what's in it for me when we visit a site.

Thanks for this post, Chris. Man, this is a great set of questions for anyone who runs their own site. You have to start with the outcome: what do I want to happen? It's more difficult than it sounds!

Anthony

I suspect that most people arrive to your website directly from following you on Twitter (as I do). As such they are interested in what you have to say and not in your calls for action and subscription options. You are perceived as a thought leader and not as an affiliate marketer...

I was just by this site not to long ago and didn't see anything alarming but in listening to your talk I think your site sadly lacks anything near this 12 to 1 thing you speak about. My blog is not about me and has many do follow links and other things that pay back other bloggers. Your site is all about you and I was also thinking about that video where you mention Don't be that Guy/ I hope this year as I become more successful and well known in blogging I do even MORE for bloggers not less.But as we know blogging starts out as a tool to find our place.
Happy Holidays everyone
Make your blog DO FOLLOW LOL :) Peace
Stumbled I guess no one uses that anymore cause I just was the first LOL :)
always 12 to 1 fo sure

*I went two column at my site (thinklikeablackbelt.com) because 3 seem simply too much to digest if a site is about learning and inviting others in. It's hard to invite guests into a cluttered living room filled with signs telling them what to do. It's as if you are sending two messages: Your posts say "let's build something great together;" your site layout says, "Do this (follow/sign up/comment) for me."

*Your "About Chris" blurb in the far right column might better be written by someone else -- perhaps a testimonial? -- because the current words sound devoid of your personality. You are far more than that blurb.

*I would highlight your how-to posts a bit more, encouraging people to dig deeper into your site.

Hi Chris,

It's always good to go back and ask these questions about your design.

One thing I noticed is that you didn't mention who your visitors are and what they want.

You did mention your bounce rate is high, but who are all those people? How many of them are people who should take a call to action? And why would they feel the need to do that?

If you could answer those questions, my guess is you'll have some insight into what changes on your design will get the best results.

Hope that helps,

Jared

Chris, it's comforting to know that a pro can be humble and share insights with the rest of us. I'm fascinated to see that you've visited my site (the fact showed up in some analytics). My project these past few weeks has been making great recordings of myself reading excerpts of my book. I want to post the files on a page where I'd like to boost the time spent on that specific page.

A few recoding efforts went well but I failed, for technological reasons, at downloading the files to my site.

I'm still overcoming my dweebishness with recording technology and compatibility limitations with my site. I'll do it yet ;^ )

Next project: videos. I'm uncomfortable with the process of doing webinars as colleagues suggest. Makes me wistful for human contact. Cyberlife is so limiting...

Best,


Yocheved Golani http://www.linkedin.com/in/yochevedgolaniink
http://twitter.com/yochevedgolani
www.yochevedgolani.com and
http://itsmycrisisandillcryifineedto.blogspot.com/

Chris,

I figure since you gave me some feedback on our design coming out in January, I would return the favor :)

1. First, off I love the simplicity of your site. There is no confusion. That is a good thing.

2. For me, the top bar is very easy to understand.

3. I also like your big head up there :) I'm a fan of personal. Who is this guy/gal? I always ask when I come to a site.

4. If I were to change one thing, I would perhaps go to two columns as opposed to three.

-Your subscription options could stack (and/or narrow down; however, I don't see them as being too many)

-Perhaps the small "About Chris" could go into your about on the top bar so you may not need it twice.

-Your affiliates/partners could also be moved into the middle bar thus eliminating the right bar

Just my thoughts. As usual, love the site.

I feel a bit odd saying this (like I'm telling a Harvard professor how to teach his class), but I realized I rarely look at more than one page on your site. Yes, I'm a bouncer.

I looked at the site more carefully and noticed two things:

1) the recent entries links fade into the background - in fact, though I've visited many times, I don't think I really noticed them before

2) the most prominent topics in the tag cloud are "uncategorized" and "article" - which aren't really topics at all. They don't draw attention, so I'm guessing they don't get many clicks.


Hope this helps.

Interesting that all of the above comments are about redesigning your site structure, but none of them so far has touched on your own first observation "my calls to action are too plentiful."

I remember considering responding to one of your "calls to action" in your newsletter, but it involved keeping track of my actions over a series of steps and a number of days. Plus it did feel as if your newsletters this fall were loaded with these kinds of requests - too many posts in a row asking to cash in on your hard-earned social capital.

I love your work, Chris. But I am relatively new to your website and Twitter (since August.) I think you are phenomenal at acknowledging your followers. I've been both appreciative and amazed to receive responses from you to comments I've made on your site and tweets I've sent your way. You truly "walk the walk."

However, in the end with your "calls to action" I chose to ignore them. They asked for a considerable amount of effort on my part and you wanted the responses back to you in less than a week. I couldn't quite glean my own potential ROI from dropping other things and participating. I didn't get a sense that my participation would result in more than just a tally mark in the statistics that might end up in your next book. I spend thousands of volunteer hours per year building social capital in my own community. I am not adverse to helping out when asked. My problem, if anything, is the opposite - too much time spent giving without valuing that time highly enough.

In my case, if your posts had communicated to me how my participation would result in a true conversation or stronger relationship, I would have complied. By that I mean even if you had written more about why you were collecting the information and what form the results might take, that might have been sufficient. Or for example, would you have published the raw results early on or at least e-mailed a summary to participants? Personally, I just needed a little more incentive. I hope that longer term followers came through for you.

It is wonderful that the FIRST observation you make about your site above is the one that speaks to your life work of that fine line between earning and spending social capital.

By the way, I was just last night wondering about hiring you as a speaker if I can raise the money to bring you to our neck of the woods. I never doubted that I could reach you through links on your site. My reasons for wanting to do so have nothing to do with where the links are located. They have everything to do you with being you.

I inspired my blog design from your website but with my taste :D

http://altaeeblog.com

Hi Chris,

As always another good thought provoking post which I followed.

I've posted a screen shot with notes on my blog.

Your commenters have already given me some good things to think about.
Thanks,
--Steve

In order to get people to view your blog more often check out http://www.sitevacuum.com/

Hi Chris,

Most wonderful blog post. I am working on the exact same thing right now in my College class on web analytics. Like why measure traffic or hits when the site may not be performing the way you would like it to. Big question is the "Why people come to your site" one idea in my class is to survey the readers on an exit survey to see if they are getting what they came for.
When I squinted at my blog, and even before I realized I have too many ads and do not have a clear call to action for the visitors.
I have been working to provide value rather than being sure to stay on a specific topic or to have a clear call to action.
I am thinking of switching to Thesis and to also work to get more clients for Strategic Internet Marketing consulting.
It would be great if you wanted to check out my site at http://clayfranklin.com and leave a comment about your thoughts on how I could change it.
Looking forward to seeing how you change your site look and your results on the metrics you use to measure the sites success.
To our success,
Clay

Ugly or not your Ranking rock and peeps love you... :)

Hi Chris, I have been looking at my site http://NetAdvertisingSuccess.Com and i am fairly new to the whole site making thing so probably can't comment too much on mine, however if i were to take a guess, i would say there are not enough links to other posts of a similar nature. The newsletter subscription gift really should have a page explaining it in more detail. Any tips from people is appreciated since it is a somewhat new site.

Chris, I love your honesty. You really come across as what you are an honest, hard working, and intelligent guy. This is a provocative article and you've already got me thinking about some important things. Among them the lack of detail and focus on the things that matter most on my site www.managedsolutions.com. I fail to provide testimonials in spite of the fact that my average customer has been a customer for 8+ years. I fail to emphasize products that are special and also profitable. Lastly I fail to showcase the best of what we do for our clients. I am curious what your thoughts are. Perhaps we should be discussing some of your services!

A couple take 'em or leave 'em thoughts...

People see things in pictures, not in text. Thesis templates test better than most when it comes to controlled eyepath studies (with vector), however, it's important to note that the double righthand column needs to be used efficiently from a user perspective. In other words, the user needs to be very clear as to what you want them to do. You can have choices, but they work best if there's an embedded hierarchy.

Users see only one screen at a time. They view that screen as a "page." When they scroll, it's a new page. So it's important to know what your site looks like on the first view. (This will make a difference to you because About Chris and Trust Agents get cut off in ways that make what you are showing a bit of a waste. Everything does NOT need to end perfectly but you should try to get a good message in the space you have.)

On a blog, users tend to look to the right when they exit so you'll want the stuff that you put in the righthand column to prevent them from leaving. Because your righthand columns are very socialist (all things are treated equally), the user will not have a clear action directive. (They won't know exactly what you want them to do.) Listing their "orders" in one area may get you more actions. "Here are 5 easy ways to connect with Chris. 1. Sign up for FREE newsletter. 2. Subscribe to RSS feed. 3. Get the blog delivered daily..." You should put those in priority. (This may take some testing.)

Highlighting Speaking and Work with Me, is a great idea. Even if you just put them in a different color. Also, you may want to rearrange the order of the icons. (Remember, navigation on any site accounts for over 50% of the success. Just because something is clear to you, it may not be clear to your user. The more you perfect the navigation, the better your site will be.)

Bounce Rate -- It's an important metric but if you are blogging 5+ times per week, it's going to be higher than average. Speed is also a factor and something you may want to check into. Highlighting Twitter in the righthand column will increase your bounce rate. (This has been repeatedly proven with statistical significance.) Some companies are ok with that, others push it below the fold. Search in the upper righthand corner -- on a blog -- also has been proven to increase bounce rate and limit the user session. You should look at whether or not people are using your search successfully. (Success is determined in the user's brain -- so just because you present something does not mean that it's what they wanted. If they leave on the search page or on the page after that, you may have issues with your search.) As an aside, just by giving the search prominence, you are telling the user you want them to browse, not act.

One of the keys to a site like yours is to know what the percentage of traffic is new versus repeat and more important, to know what your CTA (conversion to action) is based on the type of user. You'll want to know what percentage of the folks sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to your RSS feed versus an e-mail. The more important something is, the more you should ask for it. (This is why the most successful ecommerce sites have Add to Cart and Buy Now buttons all over the place, not just once.) This is different for everyone and a lot of it depends on your users' sophistication level (read: how savvy they are online.) For example, on one of my sites I now get 1,327 newsletter sign-ups for every one RSS subscriber I get from a feed. (That site caters to CMO's and CEO's of internet companies. If I didn't have the newsletter sign-up, my CTA rates would make me want to slit my wrists.)

Needless to say, getting rid of choices isn't always the right thing unless you really know what you're in it for (i.e., Tim Ferris) and have already done a lot of testing. (You have enough traffic to test easily, so if you haven't already, you may want to look at using Google Website Optimizer or the like.) Also, either ClickTale or CrazyEgg would indeed be helpful for you.

Thanks for this post and allowing me to comment.

P.S. Phil Baumann made a great point about using video on your entry page. If you consolidate the actions, you'd have room for it. (I would highly recommend push-to-play, not auto-start.)

Amy, I love your "Listing their "orders" in one area may get you more actions" idea. I'm very frustrated with my blog's design and accessibility issues. Your idea have given me something to consider for the right sidebar. Thank you!

So, what this says to me is that THE best re-design anyone can have for their blog is just to get Amy to make comments!

I can vouch for Amy's suggestions as I took many of them to heart in redesigning my consulting site and Amy was HUGE help to me. Up till the redesign I rarely got business leads from the site, now I get them regularly. Seriously if your company needs website help, definitely contact Amy.

BTW here's what the site looks like now, and you can several of Amy's suggestions above playing into the structure of the site:

http://www.mackcollier.com

Excellent breakdown Amy,

I’d consider removing the Speaking and Work With Me from above the fold.

Why? Because, those who are likely to hire Chris know who he is and will go straight to the contact page. They don’t need to be convinced.

It might be more effective to push the newsletter (which is remarkable stuff) and capture them here.

Finally, I’d remove the RSS feed to the footer. RSS is for IT savvy folks not the mainstream. I’ve worked in IT for 20 years and only now have started to use it. It’s fine, but email is light years ahead.

Two suggestions: look at how Amit at www.Labnol.org does it and how Darren Rowse uses his footer.

I know that I have a problem....and unfortunately no budget to correct it. But, back to you......
"Chris Brogan advises businesses, organizations, and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value. You can reach him at:"
I believe that your home page/landing page should be directed to one audience....is it us (your blog followers?) or the companies that would hire you to speak/consult? Of course, sometimes these are one and the same. But you get the idea....I would focus the landing page for the blog audience and pump up the value that you provide to US -- and then put the consult/speaking on the back tabs. If someone is interested in hiring you-- they'll find their spot - and they're likely a blog follower (or recommended by a blog follower). My 20cents.

P.S. how about adding a book(s) section - or Products section (include your e-books - e.g. learn how human business works, etc..). Testimonials? Or stream in Amazon book reviews?

Chris, I'm a longtime reader, and good design is near and dear to my heart. :)

As great as the Thesis theme is for regular customization right out of the box, I'd encourage you to team up with a stellar designer/wordpress programmer who can really make your Thesis installation sing.

IMO, there's a lot of little things that could be done to tighten up your design and emphasize the calls to action that you mentioned.

For example:

-Standardize all your margins and spacing in your sidebars. When everything's aligned differently, and spaced differently, it's hard to direct the viewer's eyes. If everything's organized, however, then you can emphasize something by breaking the established order.

-Move some of your calls to action (newsletter, rss feed, twitter) underneath your logo in the top left. You're a social media expert. . . in a way, they could BE your logo, or integrated into it.

-Get rid of all buttons and things that look like buttons except for your "subscribe" button (and maybe add the word "Free"?)

-Reduce the pages you display at the top to no more than four, if possible. You want your visitors to click every single one. Put the less important pages high up in your sidebar.

Anyway, those are just a few thoughts. I also agree with a lot of Phil's points, above, and I'd be happy to discuss more ideas if you're ever interested.

That's Called Courage :)

I'm only here because you were mentioned by Peter Shankman. So I know you're legit and enjoyed reading your home page and "Best Of" articles.

I'm no techie, so I signed up for the old fashioned "receive by email" - however a little confusing that there's a newsletter AND a blog.
1) didn't realize there was a difference
2) I already have too much to read. Will signing up for both blog and newsletter be Chris Brogan overload?

That said, I've signed up for both, and plan to unsubscribe if one or the other doesn't have high quality/density ratio.

Chris,

My site's (http://www.lifenotion.com) purpose or niche to to provide many helpful tips relating to several categories or lifestyles.

On the homepage you will find four posts (usually the latest) all from different categories that I want to focus on at the time. Then above that I have links to all the categories where I write: "Your want/need is:" so people visiting easily feel welcomed and begin to find more within my site.

Then above the "categories" I have all my page links which basically are for more information.

What I like about my site is how the sidebar is really hidden since there is that four category section and then my header with links at the top. Additionally, the first sidebar item you see is "subscribe by email" . I feel the sidebar is always the key item to make sure its functionality and design is appropriate because it is surely the easiest part to get messy / cluttered.

I do like what Zachary Cohen says about http://blogussion.com. Seth, the owner there, uses the Thesis theme very well. But, I think you want your site to be more professional than this one.

Best Regards,
Derek

Apart from your site objectives, of which a lot of great things were pointed out in the previous comments, I think you have another dilemma on your hand, and that involves your personal brand vs the New Marketing Labs brand. At this point, some of your readers/followers may be confused as to what your objectives with respect to each brand. I for one, find your personal blog frank, personal and to the point, while the NML website seems to be very business oriented (it obviously appeals to a different audience). However, when I try to infer the importance or the relationship, i can see the NML logo on your blog is squished and almost unintelligible... One may infer that NML is an afterthought... I think that explaining to your readers the connection between chrisbrogan.com and newmarketinglabs.com, and how they complement/support each other is a bit of information that may eliminate some of that confusion. Just my 2 cents.

The people who most need your services (I presume) are people who need to know these things. Make it dumb-easy for them to learn. That may help with subscription. (And it may help with conversion too.)

I've been working on these same issues with now with my tech blog. Keep in mind, Chris, that pretty much ALL blogs suffer from what I call the "Times Square effect". Visual overload - no clear focus. Your site isn't as bad as some I've seen.

It is always a hard thing to balance out with a blog.

On your opt-in, always be tracking your conversion rate. But, sidebar opt-in forms always FAR underperform a squeeze page.

At the end of the day, though, your blog works. Unless you think it is not performing well for you, just leave it as is. :)

Right on the money. Don't even get me started. Have a nice weekend, babe.

Thanks for TrustsAgents Chris, changed our whole co. thinking - My head was exploding with revelation so fast I burnt 15 copies of the audiobook 4 my staff then went and bought them a hard copy to keep (hope you dont mind - Amazon really need to include bulk purchase and multi-recipient one click download functionality). Anyway, we ditched the board room in favour of the local park to sit on the grass and talk about authentic relationships and how they build and translate in an online context & developed some real key honest themes to focus the group message with as loose boundaries as possible. We'd really appreciate your suggestions on which blog/T.A.'s u think deliver the best "real world" B2B and B2C examples and news on companies engaging these techniques. Cheers, Dan Brian @danlinked

Chris, my recommendation is to pick the one action you want visitors to take most and highlight that prominently. Ideally I think it should be some incremental way for them to strengthen their connection with you like newsletter or RSS subscription.

Don't think the book graphic is too big at all. A NYT best seller is a big deal!

I'll be making some adjustments to http://ChrisCree.TV after the holidays to make it easier for people to browse deeper into the site after they watch a video.

I think you can keep your subscription section, but make the items bigger within that upper right zone. See http://www.MedicalRecordShow (I use Thesis, too)...pretty much the same options, minus the newsletter, in a 4-rectangle grid.

Your Trust Agents pic is the largest item on your page, above the fold; my eyes keep going there. Whatever you want to emphasize more, should probably be biggest, and also in the upper right, and always above the fold.

From what I understand about how eyeballs work on a website, the upper left is where folks start; Thesis lets you have a column there...

Always good to take a detailed look at what you may be doing wrong on your website Chris, but as Roy Williams says hard to see the label when you are inside the bottle. With the help of Bryan and Jeff Eisenberg (and their former company Future Now) and of course Google AdWords I have seen almost a hundred fold increase in conversions over the last three years. Stop guessing, ask these guys for help. I bet they are on your RSS list.

Hi Chris, I have been giving my site the critical eye also for a month or so. I bought an update to my theme and am working with a graphic artist to help me. If I were your site designer, I would like your 'about' paragraph right at the top of the column, with the follow options below it and I don't think you have too many. Also, I'd like your book at the top of the other column.

I love the "My Top 10 Posts" widget on sites I visit and want to learn how it works and install it on my own site and would like to see it on yours as well. I like your layout and your colors, and I love your use of video. I agree with the comment about a video introduction and I thank PhilBaumann for it, I am going to do that with my site also.

I would agree that the subscription functions are too many. As someone that often sets up blogs for other people, I know what all the options are. Perhaps to other, more casual users, it can look confusing or even bewildering.

Is it wrong though to do a little bragging on one's own sites? I don't feel it is so, if it's not 'over the top."

Interesting that you revisit your site while you are in Amsterdam.... Did you eat some of those french fries and mayo? (Now what's up with that..)

Also working on redo some of my approach after I recently was in Europe. And I was a little visit downtown Amsterdam. Maybe its the air or.....???

And that you ask for our help.. cool... I think your blog has great profile. Agree that there is to many subscription options here. Beside some of the comments here my comment is actually about your newsletter. I would not mind more updates from you true your newsletter. The info I have got there has been really great.. :)

Hey one request is to post some info on how you build your Social Media/Blog Strategy Plans...

Cheers.. Are

Chris, you might want to take a look at the accordion email, rss and twitter subscribe box on the right hand side of http://www.blogussion.com/

saves space and when you click on any of the three boxes it spills out with a cool, yet professional effect. I agree with most of the other points you've made here and look forward to seeing how you evolve the site

Some off-the-cuff points:

- About Video - You're good with short video clips. Why not offer a video introduction of yourself, what you do and who and why people should follow or otherwise do business?

- Twitter Landing - Yeah, Twitter buzz won't go away, but since it's the new phone, why not offer a Twitter Landing page where you explain more about what you do and why following you on Twitter is a valuable thing to do

- Subscription options (with language for "newbies") at the end of each post [you have this, but maybe offer a link to RSS explained page]

- Know if I've never visited your site before and tell me something you think I should consider doing

- Twitter List Stream. Rather than your main Twitter stream (which may be confusing to new arrivals), offer a Twitter List Stream (I know you're a bit averse to Lists) but offer readers a List stream that's relevant to them (borrow someone else's list, say Scoble) or use the stream of a set of key words or hashtags.

- Column number: I use 3 (but have considered switching to 2). Anymore with online attention obesity, a Zen aesthetic may help with funneling and introduction. 2 columns may be more streamlined.

- Don't offer too many buttons. Decide which 2 or 3 actions are most important to you (and your prospects/readers). Befriend the delete key. ;)

- Ads. Different perspectives on ads, but if you're primary goal is community & prospect relations, maybe ads just add noise and perhaps some confusion to new arrivals.

- Tag Cloud. Your biggest tag is Uncategorized. Do you think your tag cloud is useful? Is there a better way to offer search and/or metadata to readers?

Phil

If Chris Brogan can find room for improvement for his site, we all can. I just visited my own (MaternalInstinct.net) and realize what my home page is screaming for: photography. I use client logos as the hero graphics to quickly build credibility, but the result lacks a sense of who I am, the woman behind the company. What is working is important to note, too; I keep the elements on the page simple. One element to build credibility for the company, one to build credibility for me, one to offer immediate learning, and one call-to-action for blog sign-ups and Twitter follows. Tell 'em what you do, tell 'em how you're different, peak interest in what you could do for them, and give them a mechanism to raise their hand and show interest.

I just checked out click tale and it seems like its worth the investment. Thanks Ken Gaebler for the recommendation

Hey Chris. I didn't have the knowhow to do this for my main website myself , but when @jhaubein from www.websites2grow.com was offering website critiques I jumped on it. The result was awesome feedback and now we are changing the website to wordpress and redoing the blog also. So my point is this. If you don't feel you can give your site the critical eye yourself, call in the experts.

Alycia, thats a good tip and resource thanks

I agree with Ken. Clicktale is awesome when it comes to actually watching what users do on your site. Can't wait to see your new look! ;)

Do you explain RSS? Twitter? It's not apparent to me. And since I already tweet and blog, I may not be who you need to explain that to.

The people who most need your services (I presume) are people who need to know these things. Make it dumb-easy for them to learn. That may help with subscription. (And it may help with conversion too.)

Phil

I had the same thoughts. It might even be less than 20%, maybe 10%, 5%?

Interesting point Phil. This is an area that Chris certainly could add value but the nuts and bolts info doesn't seem to be his niche. I see Chris Brogan as a guy who works hard to inspire people to do more, be more and work harder at what they do.

I think the reason his bounce rate is so high is because far less than 20% of the people who visit his site would ever be customers. They will however multiply his message and image because he's one of those easy to like people in this world.

That's my $0.02 anyway, very interesting article and observations.

You should put something like Click Tale on your site so you can literally watch behavior of site videos via video playback. I just did it for a site for the first time and it's amazing what you learn.

Thanks for letting me know about Click tale! Awesome!

Thanks for the advice Ken, I installed ClickTale yesterday and have already a few items to reconsider...

Great idea Ken,
I just signed up for a free account and installed it on my blog.
Pretty simple, just added code to the header and footer.
Looking forward to the results.
I have been wanting to do this all year, so thank you for getting me to take the action.
Clay