Matt gives two examples of companies that changed their website to better engage readers and customers:

The first is John Deere. Obviously, someone in the market for a tractor wants to know exactly what the tractor is capable of before making a purchase. The John Deere site went from having a boring description of tractors to telling exactly what it does; how many attachments and how much it can lift, and so on. Their headline on the old site started off with, “Underneath their familiar green and yellow exterior isn’t just a redesign of the compact tractor, but a transformation”. This isn’t very exciting to read. The new headline is simple and to the point, “Get More Done.” Which one would stand out to you if you were viewing that site?

The other company is petsafe.net. Matt explains how their site used to be generic and didn’t really draw in visitors. Once again, the first thing you see on old the site is a generic headline, “Deluxe Little Dog Bark Control”. The new site reads, “Safe pets. Happy Owners.” As a pet owner, this new site has more appeal to me. It has an inviting message. This one is also simple and to the point.

It doesn’t take much to take your content to the next level. A few simple changes and you will be on your way to a better site.

Check out Matt’s article where he goes into a more detailed description of these sites and to get some ideas on how to improve your content!

It seems to be a pretty simple process, there are just some precautions to take. Here are just a few of the steps Thomas mentions in his article:

· Backup your blog’s database.

· Backup your blog’s files.

· Update any plugins.

Once you read through all of the steps, you will see they are all pretty easy things but very important to remember.

To read the rest of Thomas’ post on upgrading to Wordpress, click here.

Also, here are a couple more links about upgrading Wordpress:

Should You Upgrade To Wordpress 2.5?

Blogging Simplified With Wordpress 2.5

Good luck upgrading your site!

· Invite users to comment. - At the end of your post, you might want to say, “What do you think?” or “Do you agree?” Encourage readers to comment and make sure to have a link right under your post.

Also don’t make it difficult for readers. If they have to login just to comment they probably aren’t going to spend the time to do so.

·Interact with the comments you do have. – You want to show the readers that you are paying attention to their comments. Thank them for commenting, and reply back to the comments they leave.

· Post regularly. – Obviously, to get more comments you need more readers. People aren’t going to keep coming back to your blog if you don’t post that often.

· You should also moderate comments. – Delete any spammy or off-topic comments. It might make the number of comments go up but people probably aren’t going to continue commenting after the other comments have went slightly off track.

· Leave your post somewhat open-ended. You don’t want to cover everything or answer all questions because then your readers will have nothing to comment on. Give your readers a chance to add something to the conversation.

Hopefully this will give you some ideas to get more comments on your blog. Do you have any to add?

• consider the competition for mindshare
• popularity of the subject
• targeting one idea at a time
• offering content of various levels of depth and quality

To gain any lead-way above your competition, you need to have fresh, unique content. You want your ‘featured’ content, the stuff you want to be known for, at least as good, and if at all possible, better than any other content on that subject. To help you achieve this for your site or blog, I’ve put together a list of articles on content for you to check out:

Fresh Content Pays Off with Search and Visitors
How to become successful Content Writer
Why Republishing Your Content Can Be Useful
Article Writing Guidelines - Creating Quality Content
Content Optimization
Great article about what you publish on your blog

1. Keyword Research & Selection
2. Competition Analysis
3. Site Structure
4. Content Optimization
5. Link Building
6. Social Media
7. PPC
8. Statistics Analysis
9. Conversion Optimization
10. Keeping It Up

The first one from Dave Davies of Beanstalk is currently up here with the next one on competition analysis from Stepforth CEO Ross Dunn due Thursday.  Articles in the series will be able to be found in the Expert Articles section on the WebProNews front page.

Recently, I have run across a couple of other articles further emphasizing my point.

YouTube seems to have made a mobile version of its site a high priority, by making it nearly as big and plentiful as it’s original version. Before there wasn’t much to the mobile incarnation, but they have clearly seen the importance of providing quality mobile content in the growing mobile age.

Karl Long recently pointed out that out of those developing sites for mobile use, many don’t seem to look beyond the iPhone for compatibility.

Sure, the iPhone is quite a popular gadget, but does it end there? Of course not. Karl discusses the importance of using web standards to provide quality content across the mobile board.

Every day, more and more people are using their mobile phones to access the Internet. I imagine the number will be growing exponentially as the iPhone gains popularity.

In fact, Google has just released a horde of new features specifically for the iPhone.

Mobile advertising is expected to reach $1.4 billion over the next few years.

This day and age, people want to be able to access the information they want at any given time. Even shopping carts will soon have Internet capabilities.

If you want your site to be seen by as many people as possible, and if you want the ones that do see it to return, it is best to have your site represented well on as many platforms as possible.

If a visitor finds your site and it is not optimized for mobile devices, they will just turn around and find a competing site that is properly represented. Now multiply that by all of the other potential visitors out there with mobile devices with Internet access and you’re likely missing out on a ton of traffic.

If you are selling a product or service with your site, this can be a huge blow to your potential profits. If you aren’t selling anything, you probably still want people to visit your site. Otherwise, why are you even running it.

There is a plethora of articles on the web about how to optimize your site for mobile devices. I suggest you do some research and get to work if you haven’t already done so. You may be losing money right now!

This article by Thomas McMahon may be a good starting point.

Generally, this traffic is generated by people searching for some sort of information and then being directed to your site from the search engines. If you can manage to get your site listed in the top positions for various common phrases you can drive a large amount of free traffic to your site, a wonderful result for any webmaster. (more…)

Remember this as doing so will set you head and shoulders above most webmasters out there. Traffic consists of real people.

That’s right, real people. (more…)

It is often the case that webmasters are fooled into thinking that by doubling the amount of advertising on their site they can cause a doubling of the amount of revenue generated by the site. If this were the case then a simply site that earns $1 per month could be made into a massively profitable site by simply loading the site with a ton of advertising. Certainly this isn’t the case, so what then is the secret to more profitable websites? (more…)