It’s Black Friday, is Your Website Ready for Cyber Monday? 5 Tips.

I’m probably “one to talk” about this right now, being that I’ve been so wrapped up in projects for the past month that I’ve yet to even clear up the to-do list for this site, but I wanted to help you guys prepare over the weekend for what’s known as the busiest online shopping day of the year.

Now, before you click off, remember that even if you’re writing a blog or aren’t selling products as part of your business, there are still lots of ways you should prepare your site for this Monday.

1. Triple check your navigation. Run reports to check for 404 errors (and don’t forget to update that custom 404 page, just in case) and fix links where applicable.
2. Check your design and layout for problems. Did you insert some code a while back that screwed up your site’s layout but you never got around to fixing it? Is your sidebar too cluttered, distracting visitors from the important stuff?
3. If you’re selling products or services, create a “Cyber Monday” special (a discount, package deal, etc.) and make sure that it’s clearly highlighted on all entry pages to the site. Make a new banner or button, and make it the focus for your visitors.
4. If you’re not selling products or services, develop a shopping list or page using your affiliate links. I’ve got two on my b5media blogs right now, and while they’ve only been up for a couple days, there have already been purchases made. Every little bit helps, of course.
5. Promote special sales promos or pages in social networks like Twitter or FaceBook. If people are shopping online, they’re bound to be chatting up friends about deals and specials they’ve found. Toss yours into the mix and keep the conversations flowing so you’re not looking like a ridiculous spammer. If you’re not on Twitter or FaceBook yet, you’re missing the boat, so move that task above all of these first and foremost.

This list is of course not exhaustive, but it’s 5 major things that you actually might have the time to do over the weekend before Cyber Monday hits, that just might make a world of difference.

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Changes in WordPress 2.7 – Important New Info

My friend Aaron Brazell is extremely involved with WordPress and the development process. Whenever there’s a new update, he writes a really fantastic post, and this time is no different: 10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress 2.7 is not for the faint of heart, but only because of the major changes, which Aaron highlights and explains most thoroughly and thoughtfully.

I’ve grown so fond of Aaron’s “10 Things” posts, I’m going to feature them here so my clients can use them to learn more about their system when they first start blogging, or whenever we make changes to their version by way of an upgrade.

As always, I’m going to recommend holding off on upgrading to 2.7 off the bat. I know that 2.6 has been buggy for some people (the flash image uploader is giving one of my clients a serious migrane) and that the temptation to upgrade straight away is huge, but I almost always wait for an extended release, like 2.7.1 or something to do upgrades. It’s inevitable that there is something that needs more tweaking or changes, and plugins that worked before will stop working, designs, so on. So as far as my clients go, we’ll be holding off a bit, but it’s a great idea to read Aaron’s post and get a good idea of what’s on it’s way when we do.

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