Optimize Press Installation and Review

Moving Out of the Dark Ages of Entrepreneurship

I have been planning to do it for years but I have been intimidated and afraid of upgrading the website for my family’s main business, Teaching Your Child.  The result was a subpar WordPress theme with very little functionality, a very basic layout and pitiful graphics.

The day has finally come that I have decided to bite the bullet and install Optimize Press.  I considered getting the lite version of Optimize Press but after I explored the sales page, watched the video and examined some of the example sites created with Optimize Press I was sold.  $97 for a full license that includes the ability to install on an unlimited number of sites and the countless video tutorials offered at Optimize Press was enough to push me over the edge.

For an unsavvy web developer operations like switching themes are always nerve racking.  I had visions of complete system failure and loss of all content.  The switch went off without a hitch and I was quite pleased with being able to dig into the Optimize Press tutorial videos.  Within a couple hours I had my blog set as the homepage and matching templates for all other pages and posts along with a custom header.

 What I like so far:

  • The general appearance is good and I am happy with the out of box look.  I will probably eventually have a custom header created and have some coding done to add a little more customization and branding.
  • The thumbnail images that accompany each blog post give the site a good professional fun look.
  • The cleanliness and simplicity of the layout is a welcome change from the previous layout of the site.
  • The ability to utilize sales and squeeze pages, which I will be doing in the very near future.

What I don’t like so far:

  • There is really only one blog template and while I like it, it does seem to have some limitations.  Such as the lack of different sidebar, header and footer options.  I may eventually find this functionality but with my limited design and coding skills it is proving elusive.
  • I have not quite figured out how to categorize all of the existing pages in my website.  It is easy enough to change the parent page but I am not sure if I am breaking links in the process.  And I do not really like having all of the drop down menus that appear when I hover the mouse over a page.
  • I find the inability to schedule an updated page for release to be a huge hinderance to productivity.  I am experimenting with a couple of different options and hopefully I am able to overcome this issue.

What is to come:

  • I will be adding a squeeze page with a free ebook download to grow my list.  Currently all that is offered is a subscription to our news letter.  The opt in box is less than optimized and we have very few signups.
  • As soon as the ebook and squeeze page are live I will start a marketing campaign to drive more traffic to the site.  Traffic is still pretty low so getting the numbers up is a main priority.  I will focusing on using strategies that do not include trying to rank in the SERPs, high ranking will hopefully be a by product of traffic and value.  I know that Google does not like squeeze pages and I really don’t have any interest in being dependent on Google, so I will pursue non-Google strategies.  As I write this, Google is scheduled to release another algorithm update and I really don’t want to see my income drop to zero again based on Google’s whims.
  • More podcasts, videos, longer posts and daily short posts.
  • More social media integration and social bookmarking.

Wrap up:

I have been feeling a little frustrated lately with my lack of actual creation.  I have felt like I was working in the business instead of on the business.  I am starting to identify more tasks that could be handled by a VA and need to be outlined by standard operating procedures.  The SOPs are for my own benefit as well as the benefit of automation.  I am unfortunately not always able to remember how I did things 6 months ago or even several days ago and I would really like the ability to be able to hand these tasks off to a VA with minimal training.

Getting a little off task here so I will go ahead and close.  I hope you enjoyed this small review of Optimize Press.  If you are an expert and can help with OP I would love to hear from you.