What Do You Think?

Written by Adam Taha on Dec 17, 2008 3:20 am

Read More: Article Marketing | Blogging | Marketing | Technology | Website Development

Here's the screen shots of my design work for my blog but remember, great planning happened before I got to this stage.

Design is important but I wanted to get my marketing strategy, branding, etc, right. So I had all down on paper before hand, and studying, reflecting, testing, and investing in knowledge etc, until I got to this stage.

I got my content sorted. Everything is nearly ready. Just been finishing off the slicing, uploading and testing things out, for top performance. I even had people on my email list to give me ideas on what help they need, content, because that's what it's for - providing knowledge of value and value, that will help them in their business.

Also, it was about letting them be part of the process and build the relationship and open the communication more.

Have had great feedback. I built the list and had an auto-responder, and used articles on ezines, ads on craiglist, other forums, and people have been great, interested. So that's how I got the traffic to build my list but it took work, consistency.

The Plunge! We Can Learn Anything But Next Time..I Outsource!
I've been using Photoshop and Dreamweaver to build my blog website. I don't know anything about dreamweaver but it took me a few weeks to learn as I am not doing anything spectacular:

I used a tagline too:

"Unravelling the Mysteries Of Social Media."

I believe a tagline is important so when people come into your blog they know what it's about. Here is the home page:

I just got to change the Opt in form on left with a different message because they're getting free video training here anyway. So, I'll use that Opt in form for people to get updates of new video I upload, newsletter etc.

I'll be moving traffic using articles, upload on ezine, directories, forums I know out there and have built relationship with. Notice I have create comment box. I will be adding in future, a module for people to chat with each other and with me, live, so they tell me what products they want and get them to be part of the full process.

What happens when they fill in form on a capture page?
Simple. I made sure, branding stands out and it's not some automated page but my own designed page, with colours etc. They get to have a thank you page, educating the people to check their email BUT they can also go right in to check out the training:

Notice I have Building on a Budget right at bottom, like a freebie, for them to check out. So I get people on the Thank You Page as well. I give them a choice.

What happens When they confirm their email? What Does Page Look Like?
When they check their email and confirm, they recieve an email to come back to blog and they see this page...which I call the WELCOME page:

I added some coffee stains and my sketch kind of style to go with theme of social media. Notice, a video on Thank you page but also a button to go straight in.

The Video - on the Thank you page, tells the story. My story and very brief too.

Auto-responder - I went and got Aweber.

Before I Did All This..
Everything, from planning it out, looking at Building on a Budget, to MS, to other trainings, was done first.

I made sure I planned everything out INCLUDING, unsubscribing from emails of some people with training, secrets etc because I want to get some work done. They will be there. They're not going anywhere.

I have what you call a plan on paper, a blue print, with also my task sheets. I'm not wasting my time. It's serious business.

Experience has been great and I'll also include videos on how I build capture pages, and all the process.

Hope all this helps you or someone in your team. Might spark some ideas etc.

Adam