WebFadds Insider: Actions at Your Website

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Hello -

What actions do you want visitors to take at your website?: Seems like a logical enough question for you to ask during the development process, right?  Strange then, that I was at a Search Engine Marketing seminar this past week where three different companies had put their sites up for review, and one could not answer the question, one wasn’t sure what their prospective customers were searching for, and another had a “buy” button that did not lead to a shopping cart.  That’s why I always insist on identifying key landing pages and conversion routes when you first make your site map (a conversion happens when a visitor “converts” to a lead or a customer).  Begin with the end in mind. Always know what your visitors must do at your site so that you will meet your business goals, and precisely where at your site the action should take place, and how you will persuade them to do it.  The rest is optimization — I’ll chat with you more about that in future issues.

Speaking of chat… did you notice that you can contact me quickly via chat in my sidebar at WebFadds.com?  Stumped, need a quick fix or troubleshoot?  Just jump over here and page me via two different chat systems — Google or Skype.  Your choice.

A forms creation plugin I use on most development projects: CForms for creation of professional contact forms on your site, has been updated and revised to work with WordPress 2.7 (you have upgraded to 2.7, haven’t you?  If not — do so soon for the great new streamlined admin. features, for security, and so the latest plugins will function well). 

Let’s have a closer look at some favorite CForms Features:

• Multi-Part / Multi-Page form chains

• Multiple forms on one or many pages / posts

• Tell-A-Friend functionality, see Help documentation

• File attachments / Upload, fully configurable per form

• Multiple upload fields allowed

• Cloning / duplication of forms

• Drag and drop form management

• Timing of forms (start & end dates)

There are other forms plugins for WordPress — around a dozen — but none I have found offer the features and functionality of cForms including the built in CSS styling of forms:

Above, CformsII admin. links appear on your sidebar (lower left), and the “Styling” link gives you a number of preset (but editable) CSS looks for your forms (red arrow).

Best of luck and success online -

Scott

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