by Deloris Mansfield – March 7, 2010

A study by Akamai Technologies found that if a web site takes longer than 4 seconds to load, 75% of visitors will not return to the site.   If you’ve loaded your site with banners, flashing graphics or heaven's forbid, a Flash intro, you're sunk.  Here's a handy tool to test your page load time and see what improvements you can make.WebPageTest is a free tool that lets you plug in your URL and then run a real-time browser test on the load time.  It displays a detailed report on each link and aspect of your page plus provides an Optimization Report with a checklist to help you quickly resolve any load issues.

In Tech Tips 254  we looked at URL shorteners which are simple programs that can cut the length of a URL address by up to 90%. While there are numerous shorteners (not hard to custom make your own shortener tool) out there, one that stands out is bit.ly   Bit.ly doesn't just shorten the URL but also tracks clicks and sources for you. It's a quick and easy, free resource to see how your links are converting.  It also serves to disguise your affiliate links.   Bit.ly automatically integrates into Twitter apps such as Tweetdeck.

One handy tool is something you see on most major blogs and web site pages you visit that allows you to easily share that page with others.  Wonder how it got there?  A nifty little service called AddThis.  With just a snippet of code you have an image that allows people to share your page via email, Digg,  Facebook, Twitter and more than 200 other services. The goal, of course, is to have your web page go viral. One person shares, then another and another and another etc.The cool thing about AddThis is that it custom fits each menu with the services your visitor normally uses. For example, if they usually share via Facebook or Digg, they will see those first. You can customize the widget to match the look and feel of your site plus determine what services you want it to display.  Oh, and did we mention AddThis is FREE.  Sign up at AddThis.com and get your button after 3 easy steps. Place the code between the tags and away you go. You can also choose to have AddThis track the activity of your button using "several different analytics reports to help you understand how your visitors are sharing your content."

Once you feel you've optimized your site the best you can and want to maximize your marketing and traffic building efforts then Google Analytics is for you.  It's the most comprehensive package of analytic tools you'll find for… free!  Sign up, place a snippet of code onto your site and Google will report back with VISITS, AVERAGE TIME ON SITE, BOUNCE RATE, PERCENTAGE OF CHANGE in those three.  You can set goals,  see exactly where your traffic originates from, browsers used and a plethora of other information. Way too much to cover here so the best way to get a more complete picture of all Google Analytics has to offer. Click here to take the Google Analytics Product Tour.One "must do" is to sign up for Google's free Webmaster Tools. You'll be able to see which phrases or keywords you're ranking well for, what pages are causing problems for Google when crawling your site, which pages are getting the most links, rss subscribers, etc.  You can create a Site Map and more.  Google will require you to verify that you do own the site by placing a small bit of code into your page and then have Google crawl your site.  Again, this really is an over-simplification of all that Google has to offer so block out some time and check it out.

So you’ve got that web site or blog up and running and would like to showcase great deals. Let's say you're not proficient in HTML or Dreamweaver but would to have a nice display of products from different merchants on your web site. Look no further than PopShops. PopShops is a datafeed aggregator that allows you to build "storefronts" with products from merchants all across the affiliate spectrum.  You determine the look and feel of your store with how many columns, rows, etc and fill them with products from merchants that you are affiliated with or would like to join.  When you sign up you'll fill in your ID number for the affiliate networks like Commission Junction, Linkshare, GAN, Pepperjam, ShareASale and more.  When you choose a product to promote, PopShops encodes the link with your network ID and away you go.  You don't have to go to each individual network and create a link for each product then post it to your web site individually. PopShops handles all that for you. Another great feature is that PopShops will automatically pull out-of-stock product from your storefront and notify you when datafeeds are down or no longer available. No more broken links on your site.As PopShops says:  "Easy enough for a 3-year-old to use." They offer a FREE basic plan which is a great way for you natural viagra alternative to take it for a test drive.  If you like what you see, and you will, you can always upgrade to their PRO or Enterprise Plan.  There's a 10% off coupon for Geeks.com Tech Tips readers. Just mention GEEKS10 when signing up for PRO or Enterprise.

Feel FREE (pun intended) to try any or all of these tools to inexpensively test different ways to generate more traffic, more sales. This has been just a cursory overview so visit the respective web sites for more details.  You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  Any other tools you find handy that you'd like to comment on? Do share!