I ran my first conversion test back in 2007 and was instantly hooked with the idea of it. Since then I’ve gone through plenty of trial & error testing ideas while learning from some of the industries best like Bryan Eisenberg and Tim Ash. Along the way I’ve used a wide range of conversion testing platforms from Vertster, Optimost, SiteSpect, Google WebSite Optimizer with a dash of Test & Target.

It wasn’t until August 2010 I stumbled upon Optimizely thanks to Sacca. I noticed it was a company he had invested in and that was enough to want to give Optimizely a closer look.

High Five #1. This is a testing platform you’ll actually use.

For both first time testers and advanced conversion testers, I can honestly say you’ll use this platform. Especially if you’re not too savvy on the technical side of things. I think the biggest selling point of Optimizely is really anyone can do it.

When you first start your experiment, you can LITERALLY start taking elements from your site and drag and drop them where you want. It’s like you take complete control of your site from a visual standpoint and instead of editing the code, you move elements as you see fit while they take care of the backend styling and coding. Here’s a quick look at the interface you’ll use when setting up a test.

Click to view larger…

Although, if you need more control you can easily edit the code straight up. It’s truly the best of both worlds.

When I setup our first test for MOJO Themes, I literally had my first test setup within 20-30 minutes inside Optimizely, then Willzum added a tiny script to the head tag of our site and we were ready to roll.

High Five #2. Analytics in Real Time.

Unlike other conversion testing platforms, Optimizely has real time analytics tracking the moment you start your tests. I feel like this is a huge feature they offer and shouldn’t be taken for granted.

I must admit though, I am obsessed with analytics and combing through my sites metrics to see how things are being effected by one another. It’s something I do on a daily basis and while others could care less as long as their traffic is growing I spend hours digging through all types of metrics seeing where we can improve.

Again, analytics are important and allow you to make the correct decisions. Optimizely understands that and that’s reason in and of itself to use them for your conversion testing.

High Five #3. Track Multiple Conversion Goals.

In my opinion, 2010 was FINALLY a breakout year for conversion testing among mainstream users and it sucks I didn’t find Optimizely until now. Quite a few tools were being released last year, and more and more people were getting familiar with newer tools like Google Website Optimizer.

With that being said, I think Optimziely really did a good job on a number fronts. Easily one of my most favorite parts of Optimizely, is the ability to add multiple conversion goals. You can start your test and add conversion goals to track sales, multiple conversion funnels, etc.

Let me explain why this is important.

QUICK EXAMPLE: Say you have a test that starts on your homepage but there’s several steps a customer has to take to complete a sale. They follow a number of paths on the way to checking out. Rather than ONLY analyzing the final conversion goal (most likely the Thank You page) you can see how each variation affects the user along the way. From the homepage, how is variation #1, #2 and #3 converting the next step in the conversion funnel? Optimizely makes it’s easy to track this and gives you the best data to make educated decisions with your tests.

High Five #4. Real Results.
(So many high fives your hand should be hurting).

Here’s a quick Optimizely Case Study which is from my very first test. Oh and the results of this test are just unheard of.

If you don’t know by now, I’m the co-founder of MOJO-Themes. In short, it’s a leading buy and sell marketplace for themes and templates. Designers can upload themes for platforms like WordPress and sell them across the marketplace. We’ve been growing like a weed and there’s NO slowing down for us especially since we started using Optimizely.

Seeing that our marketplace has to cater to two audiences (Buyers & Sellers) it’s damn hard to test variations and even harder to choose how we layout clear calls to action. This is what we tested.

Since we launched the marketplace in April 2010, we’ve tried to always focus heavily on conversion testing in an effort to raise our conversion rate and keep our exponential growth rate climbing each month. Thanks to testing with Optimizely we’ve been able to grow even faster than we expected.

20 Minute Setup + 20,000 Visitors = 136% Lift. The results of this test further prove the power of conversion testing.

After setting up our first test and letting it run for quite a long time we found a big ass winner. Yep, our marketplace saw a 136% lift overall. In other words, nearly doubling our revenue for the month.

Final High Five. Good game, now hit the showers Optimizely.

I recommend Optimizely with 100% confidence. You should ABSOLUTELY use Optimizely for your conversion testing. They found a way to cater to beginner and advanced users and they’ve made conversion testing fun and exciting for me.

If your conversion rate is suffering, stop wasting time and go sign up.

You’ll come back and thank me later.

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Now I don’t know if it happens to be a coincidence or not but during the same time the TimThumb hack came around, I had a lot of old sites and old clients having issues. For the most part, the fix was easy. Update the thumb.php file and you’re good to. Only for some, they let it go too long and had serious issues to deal with because of it.

One particular site I had got slapped by Google and I for the life of me couldn’t figure it out. I ran through all the usual checks, updated files, checked for malicious files and then would request a review from Google to remove the block. After quite a few tries with Google requests and not being successful it turned out it was sitting right under my nose, literally.

Like I said, this was after quite a few tries with Google and I finally noticed the issue Google was having when trying to verify the site was because it was being re-directed to some Russian site. If it was re-directing, it had to do with the .htaccess file. I popped open the .htaccess and sure enough, I scrolled down almost 100 lines and there’s a whole list of re-directs and encrypted code.

DELETE that shi.

To be honest dribble is a site I visit often (almost daily). In fact, the site was used to promote the re-design of MOJO by @behoff yet I’ve never really had the desire to get my own work on there. It was a combination of not wanting to beg for an invite and making sure I had the skills to post quality work on the site like everyone… Haha.

Anyway, I’m actually pretty excited I got an invite and just yesterday I posted my debut shot. Check it out here or take a look below. →

Are you on Dribbble? If you’re on Dribbble, let me know so I can follow you and also be sure to follow me as well.

Yep.

Over the past month or so I’ve posted a few screenshots of a WordPress theme I’ve been designing. It’s titled “Modest” as it’s design tends to focus more on the content and typography rather than a design heavy theme.

Since finishing up the designing, I worked with my partner in MOJO Themes, Brady, to develop the theme. Hat tip man.

The final version couldn’t have come at a perfect time actually. After an extremely successful Holiday Cyber bundle on MOJO, we’ve put up a new layout on our homepage which showcases a new FREE theme section.

Anywho, we’ve released our first free theme on MOJO with none other than the Modest WordPress Theme. Booyah! So… I gladly invite to snag this FREE WordPress theme while you can. Oh and don’t forget to visit MOJO themes as well where you browse and buy WordPress themes.

$579 Worth Of Items For ONLY $30!

Yep. It’s a steal.

How Long Does The Bundle Run?

10 Days — It’s starts midnight November 29th and runs until midnight December 9th. (Mountain Standard Time) Buy the Cyber Bundle

What’s Include In The Bundle?

You’ll just have to see for yourself…. View the MOJO Cyber Bundle.

As a boss, as a team, working on a project, playing sports, you get the point, you should apply this. Don’t be afraid to do this. Let’s face it, this is something people fear. You’re initial thought is to worry and feel threatened of losing your job or being replaced.

By utilizing this philosophy with my start-up and ventures, it enables me to build something truly amazing, be innovative and take advantage of new opportunities. When your building something it’s important to not only focus on what it is your building but whose actually building it.

Search for it. Surround yourself with it. Most importantly, provide it.

Big changes are happening in my life right now. After almost 5 years of working full-time for a well respected online ad agency, I’ve decided to spread my wings and take a shot at pushing my own ventures (*cough MOJO Themes) to the next level.

That’s right. I’m taking my MOJO lovin’ ideas to a whole new place.

Why?

Let’s back up a second. For those that know me, I’m sure you’re thinking I’m crazy. I’m sure of it. Like most peeps, I’ve got a family (gorgeous wife + 3 beautiful kids I love to death), I’ve got a house, I’ve got everything to lose. But honestly, as scary as all that sounds I’ve never been more stoked for what lies ahead for me and my family.

Luckily for me, through my experience working for an ad agency I now feel confident with the skill-set that I carry along with me. It’s because of my experience there, I’m fortunate enough to now work on things I’m passionate about and created from scratch. Of course, I owe a big thanks to my mentors that helped me and push me along the way.

What’s Next?

Call it a curse, but the entrepreneur gene runs thick through me. Yes, the steady flow of paychecks, benefits, insurance are amazing with the comfort of job. Plus, who knows, maybe that’s something that fits me later but for right now in this part of my life, I need to continue building my own ventures.

The only way to see my ventures continue to keep their momentum and grow what we’ve already built, I need to be on engaged full-time. Mix that tasty brew with a hint of the best partners/team, do whatever it takes, I don’t care what obstacles are in my way, passion for what I’m doing… I think I’ll be just fine

With all that blah, blah, blah—I say cheers to this new journey and thanks to everyone and their awesome support!

It’s been quite some time since my last post but hey, rather than dwelling on what’s already in the past, it’s time to get back to the grind.

Anyway, I wanted to reflect on the past 6 months of what I’ve been working on non-stop. Aside from the fact that I’m still learning how to handle my 2 1/2 year old son and my twin girls, MOJO Themes has been at the top of my list.  I wanted to share what my experience has been like thus far. On top of that, I want to give you some advice that I used first hand with my marketplace.

My Advice to You:

Launch now!

If you’re reading this right now and you’re working on a project that you just can’t wait to launch until you get it perfect. Then it’s time to stop being a perfectionist and get that bad boy launched.

Rewind MOJO Themes 6 Months Ago…

If ever read the 37 Signals blog or their books, Getting Real & ReWork you’ll know what philosophies they use to build their apps. I love it and used a lot of their ideas for motivation and guidance for this venture. Agile development, boot-strapping, less is more, getting into the trenches and grinding ALL DAY LONG.

Speaking of Agile Development, we took the idea to the next level. No joke, just days before launching out of BETA, we knocked off big parts of what we wanted/intended to launch with.

Let me give one of the reasons why I’m telling you to Launch Now.

You don’t know everything.

6 months ago, there are things I never even thought of nor would I ever have considered if I didn’t launch the MOJO Themes Marketplace when I did. On top of that, there was a huge, long list of items that we’re set to be complete before launch. Scratch those items of the launch list.

2 of the biggest items we DIDN’T launch with:

• Affiliate Program
• Forum

Leaving these out of the launch list was difficult but looking back, I’m glad we waited. It gave us time to really plan out the right way to setup the MOJO affiliate program.

On top of that, we found a gap within this niche that needed to be filled. Instead of finishing out the launch items right away, we put them in the back seat to unveil a new feature within our marketplace. Let me explain why…

All of our sellers have different skill sets. Some are rockstar designers and others are programming ninjas. With that being said, we realized sellers we’re in need of way to collaborate with one another. If we could create a solution for our sellers to focus on their skills the items they upload would be top notch.

From there, we created and launched the very first collaboration program called JOINT FORCES. It finally unites designers and developers. As sellers upload items, they input their team members details and “Join Forces” on the item their uploading. From there, our system takes care of all the logistics for a seamless allocation of their commissions. It’s cool because it gives our sellers a chance to focus on what they do best and leave us to take care of the details.

Quick look at some of my favorite themes

FolioStudio Business & Portfolio WordPress Theme – VIEW DETAILS ($50)

I love this business wordpress theme because it’s one of the very first themes I’ve seen released that utilizes all the features of WordPress 3.0. Everything from the new menus/nav feature to the custom post types. It uses 3 different custom post types that allow you to manage specific types of content. (Slider, Portfolio & Team Members).

Photobox Photography WordPress Theme – VIEW DETAILS ($35)

Easily one of the best sellers on our marketplace so far. I think one of the reasons is because of all the different layouts you can use with this theme. Seeing that it’s geared towards photographers, it seems to suit all their needs.

Altered Perspective Tumblr Theme – VIEW DETAILS ($12)

It’s amazing to me that MOJO Themes is one of the first to enter the “Premium Tumblr Theme” market along side some good company. Altered Perspective, in my opinion, set’s the bar pretty high in terms of innovation. All the content scrolls horizontally and the design couldn’t be sexier.

MOJO Today:

I couldn’t be happier with how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. We only opened our doors to Buyers & Sellers at the first of April. Just shy of 3 months, we’re gaining some serious momentum and I can’t even imagine where we’ll be in another 3 months.

I feel like our success thus far is a combination of having a passion for what you do everyday, not being afraid to shy away from the gameplan and ALWAYS looking for ways to be the leader and innovate on what’s already out there.

There’s still items on our launch list that we’ve yet to complete but I think we’ll continue to keep things agile. We’ll use our experience so far and take the feedback from our users to help guide us on what is higher priority over another.

As I keep working through this venture, I’ll do my best to keep my site updated and start sharing more details about what’s going on behind scenes with MOJO!

This is how I spent my Tuesday evening. As a kid I loved Teen Wolf and somehow I ended up drawing a juiced up teen wolf. Sort of odd but at the same time pretty cool…