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I'm amazed, these 1% tweaks helped me make an extra $1400 this month

by Eric Lancheres
20 replies
I'm amazed...

I never thought I'd say this, but... using math for business is now super-cool in my books.

Why?

Because using math and statistics (something that always seemed to be for "other" people) just increased my profits and made me a ton of money.

My new year's resolution has been to optimize everything I can in my business... because I figured if I increased my conversions by 1% everywhere, I'd be making a LOT more money.

And I was right.

So here's where I started, and exactly what I did:

1. Increasing the newsletter signups

My blog was running well... but I figured I could increase the newsletter sign ups (that's where all the money is after all)

Boy, I was right! I measured my running average 48 subscribers a day for the last 7 days... and then I decided to try a few things on the page. I tried a pop-up... a delayed pop-up... and ultimately, reworded the offer on the page and added a big arrow pointing to it.

Wow, so the pop-up was annoying and even though it increased opt-ins (57), I couldn't handle it (plus I fear eventually Google will penalize pop-up sites). Plus I do double-opt in and the confirmation rate wasn't any better.

Delayed pop-up? Approximately the same amount of sign-ups (55), but once again... do I really want to have something poping up?

Improving the offer and adding a giant arrow pointing to it? Helped! Moved from a 48 average to 54 opt-ins, and the confirmation rate held steady. 0.89% increase means 0.89% more money at the end of the month.

2. Salespage tweaking

My salespage needed work...

My conversion was at a lowly 0.67%.

Not great, but not that bad either. First updating the date (it was still written 2011) definitely helped!

As did increasing the font to 14px.

Those 2 small changes increase conversion to 0.87%... which isn't that much, but I'll take it!

I'm currently split testing a bunch of things with optimizely (awesome stuff) and I'm hoping to be able to break 0.90% conversion soon.

3. Hosting - Trimming The Fat

I was really happy about the improvements, but one thing I didn't realize was how much I was spending on hosting & domain names every month!

Now, I don't have anything against paying for good hosting (hell, they make my business run 100% better) but I don't want to waste!

I had 4 different hosting companies (I have a lot of websites) that were costing me over $350 a month.

I cut one of them and moved all my domains to save $98.50 per month. Not much when you consider the big picture.. but even bit helps.

4. Staff Tweaking - Big One!

Here's the real gold nugget, I was spending close to $2300/month on staff. (And they are essential to my business... SEO employees, designer, writers & support) and I decided to see if there was anything I could do to minimize the expenses.

As you might know, I use Hyperhour (Great software) to track time & manage all my employees (can't recommend it enough), so I looked into the task tabs to see what my employees were spending their time on.

Turns out...

My writers were spending MORE time researching than writing!

My SEO employees were spending MORE time filling out spreadsheets (reporting) than actually building links!

..

And apparently the girl I hired for support was spending most of her time on Facebook instead of answering emails.

Whoa! What a wake up call

So... I told my writers to only use Wikipedia & Youtube for research on common topics (not the most scientific sources, but we're talking about efficiency here)

I told my SEO staff to ONLY copy paste the URL where new links are posted... and nothing else!

And...

I had a serious talk with my support girl.

Now?!

I'm looking at it and writer is spending MORE time writing (Wonderful isn't it?) which means 2-3 extra articles per day.

My link builder is spending almost ALL his time building links now (as opposed to before, when it was like 50-50)

And my support staff has decided to stop billing me for hours when she's not actually working.

If you add up all these changes, I'm making at LEAST an extra $1400 this month. The small 1% tweaks really add up, and that means real money in my pocket at the end of the month.
#$1400 #amazed #extra #helped #make #month #tweaks
  • Profile picture of the author wfhblueprints
    Congrats!

    Some great tips here!

    Little tweaks accumulate over time which is great!

    Thanks for sharing!

    Chris
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      On the plus side, it's good that you accept proper testing and management as tools for increasing profits.

      On the down side, could you send a list of the pen names you use so I can watch out for the articles where efficiency is more important than accuracy?

      Only Wikipedia and YouTube? Really? :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author Andy B
    Nice job!

    Some people don't understand, that even a small 1% increase in conversions can make a big impact on the final profits so it's always best to test and cut your costs as much as possible without affecting quality.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rob Howard
    I would split the tasks of research and writing.

    Hire a researcher to JUST research. They research and compile the info and send it to your writers.

    Then have the writers JUST write.

    You can actually pay the researchers less, because the job doesn't require as much skill as writing.

    Splitting it like this also increases efficiency and I've found, decreases costs. Just using this as a base number:

    Paying 10 dollars an hour for a writer.

    1. Writer does 1 hour of research with one hour of writing = 20 dollars.
    2. Research does 1 hour of research (5 dollars) and writer 1 hour of writing = 15 dollars.

    You get the same quality writing for half the costs of the writer and only add a small amount to the research budget.

    Finally, once you've gathered enough research, it's no longer necessary, so you can cut your research budget down quite a bit or have the researcher take on different tasks.

    Rob
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  • Profile picture of the author maxrezn
    Best thread I've seen all week. Optimizing is heaven.

    Would you mind if I sent you a PM to discuss this more with you?
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  • Profile picture of the author NateRivers
    The font size thing is interesting- I read somewhere that for reading on a screen, the most readable size is 16 pt, and when I changed all my sites to 16 pt I saw in increase in avg time on site and avg number of pages viewed.

    Thanks for taking the time to post- useful stuff.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tech19
    This is awesome.... It's amazing how much money we leave on the table by not optimizing everything, I just wrote a post about this myself. Congrats on the increase in profits
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  • Profile picture of the author Big Al
    As you might know, I use Hyperhour (Great software) to track time & manage all my employees (can't recommend it enough), so I looked into the task tabs to see what my employees were spending their time on.
    Cool post and I might have to use this bad boy for myself!
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  • Profile picture of the author paul_1
    Wow... This is like a WSO in itself... Thanks...
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    • Profile picture of the author ronr
      Keep track of all your changes and the results and WRITE IT DOWN. Otherwise it's too easy to forget what works and what doesn't. Ask me how I know :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author typoo999
    Great post! Congrats and thanks for your tips!
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  • Profile picture of the author celente
    I tell my student and others in here, all the time.

    Test, test, test. You must be a testing nut. Marketing is not marketing at all, it is just testing stuff till you hit it big time.
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  • Profile picture of the author temlawn
    Nice Post Thanks. Good advice..

    I especially loved this part --- lol..


    And apparently the girl I hired for support was spending most of her time on Facebook instead of answering emails.
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  • Profile picture of the author Eric Lancheres
    Glad you enjoyed the post!

    I just had all these things floating in my head and... writing about it just seemed like the right thing.

    Tweaking is key...

    Here's what I use to measure stuff:
    Google Optimizer = A/B testing on big pages
    Google Analytics = Funnels w/conversions are set up
    Optimizely = Split testing for small quick tweaks like headlines and stuff
    Hyperhour = Employee management / tracking
    Aweber Reports = For the subscriber averages for my mailing list

    @JohnMcCabe When it's not academic writing, Wikipedia is pretty accurate. I won't reveal the niche, but let's say you're writing about horseshoes... it's more than sufficient.

    @ccmusicman Not sure that's more efficient. Wouldn't the researchers have to write summaries themselves? Really.. I don't think my way can be faster... and I'll say this in spite of the bad rep it might give me: I'm marketing with the objective to spread the word about the products, not to win awards for best articles/blog posts.

    @NateRivers 16pt is more readable and might work better for you. However, on my page 16pt looked too big in comparison with everything else. I feel that bigger fonts sometimes look less professional, which reduces trust (and therefore conversions). I would definitely test it all, but for me 14pt worked best.

    @temlawn lol yeah, always have to keep an eye on the team! Everyone's great but it's too easy to get side tracked. Sometimes I feel like I'm coaching a sports team
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Fair enough. All I know is that I've come across way too many articles bent on 'spreading the word' in various niches with glaring errors of fact in them. If you're satisfied that Wikipedia is accurate in the niches you work on, you're good to go.

      I just tend to build resource lists beyond that. Once the list is built, going to it takes no more time than Wikipedia, and I know I'm getting my info from bona fide experts.

      But like they say, different strokes for different folks...
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  • Profile picture of the author jonnyq888
    Good stuff! What will be your next set of optimizations?
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    • Profile picture of the author Daniel Evans
      Nice tips!

      I've always been a fan of small text but recently I've had to bite the bullet to realize that size 14 is the way to go.

      It makes for much easier reading even if it doesn't look as neat and tidy and smaller sizes.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Killian
    Great tips Eric! Thank you for sharing

    I just need to get myself more productive! lol
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  • Profile picture of the author Eric Lancheres
    @jonnyq888

    No clue! Any suggestions ?

    I think eventually it's just doing the basics... and repeating them. No need to re-invent the wheel, just do the basics over and over again.
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  • Profile picture of the author YasirYar
    Super post!

    Sometimes the smallest tweaks can have amazing results. It's good you were tracking these changes as you made them so that you can be aware of what is actually causing changes in your income.

    Thanks for sharing this with the rest of us . I am certain we can all take at least something from this post.
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