Add-Ons to Make any Theme Sing and Dance

No theme has everything you need. Sometimes you need add-ons apps to do everything you want the site to do.

Some add-ons are available as plugins, but sometimes an external application is the only way to get the functionality you need.

1. Animated Banners

You might be looking for banner ads to promote affiliate products or services you provide yourself.

Animations get around ad-blindness in site visitors.

Everyone sees the same ads on every site they visit, especially with the extensive use of tracking pixels: Is it any wonder we stop seeing those ads?

A GIF banner maker lets you create unique ads that users can’t help but notice. You can use templates to produce GIFs in less than five minutes with a drag-and-drop interface, and you certainly don’t need any Photoshop® expertise.

You will need to check with the affiliate liaison department of any product you are promoting that your animations are acceptable in their eyes, or they could refuse to pay you the commission you are due.

Moderation is necessary, or the animations become annoying. Only animate one in three of your banner ads, but you can still make the rest of your banners unique.

2. Split Testing

Many business owners fail to use split testing to its full potential because they don’t realize the potential impact it could have on their profits.

Yes, there are split-testing plugins for WordPress, but for simplicity, statistical analysis and support, a subscription service is better value: Better value because it saves you time and makes A/B testing simple enough that you can safely delegate the task and set up new tests more often.

Paid split testing services don’t come cheap because the potential benefits are so high.

Check out the calculation below:

You set up one test a week with two alternate landing pages and the winning option converts at 5% rather than 4% (25% higher conversions). Each week you take the better page and test it against a new variant. You get similar test results every week for a year.

1.25⁵² = 109476

This means you make 109,476 times more conversions or sales than if you had not run any split tests.

3. CDN

Your web hosting is limited. Forget all the “unlimited bandwidth” and unlimited disk space. Those are not the limiting factors on your website’s hosting.

The crunch factor is the number of simultaneous processes your site runs, which is the demand it puts on the CPU.

If you use a content delivery network (CDN), the CDN stores your web pages on its servers and your site is served from there instead of your web host. This has two main benefits:

• The CDN’s servers are located all over the globe, so your pages load faster on Australia, Germany, and South Africa than they would if they were being served from one US location
• Your site makes fewer demands on your host’s servers, so you don’t hit any limits. If you don’t run into the limits, the hosting company does not force you to upgrade to a higher-priced package.

You have many CDNs to choose from. Some are free, but as always, you get more from a paid CDN service than from a free one.

4. Email Capture

If your website’s prime purpose is to make money, then you must capture visitors’ emails. Only then can you start learning what your prospect needs, growing your reputation as an expert, and building your relationship with the prospect.

An email marketing theme is one Add-Ons. Alternatively, you can choose from scores of email marketing providers, all with varying costs and levels of service.

Most email capture software uses popups because these have a better conversion rate than static forms. Start with a basic service and switch to a more comprehensive provider as your needs grow.

Every email marketing Add-Ons has a learning curve, so don’t expect to grasp any of them instantly. It is worth persevering because of the power mastering the application gives you.

Most email marketing software lets you segment your subscribers according to whether they have opened previous emails, or whether they have clicked on email links recently.

You can also set up if/then consequential sequences of actions; the sort of thing you would be doing manually if it didn’t take so long.

5. Funnels

Your website represents part of the broad top of your sales funnel.

It’s not enough.

Funnel software helps you to convert browsers into buyers through a multi-step process.

Every one of the different funnel apps each has its strengths and weaknesses. At the most basic level are the free WordPress plugins, and these represent a good starting point, but some are more than landing page builders, and a funnel is much more complicated than a few landing pages.

Look at all the premium funnel options before making your choice. Choose one with the features you need, an interface you can work with and a price point you can live with.

Funnels are more complicated than the word implies. You need to cast your net wide to find the numbers you need at the top of your funnel. You will need multiple offers to appeal to the different sub-groups of subscribers entering your sales funnel.

Similarly, different sections of your funnel population will have their own concerns, so they will react positively to different offers you make.

Your funnel will also enable you to visualize and keep track of upsells, cross-sells and down-sells. Trying to do all that in a spreadsheet is ineffective and time-consuming.

The Executive Summary

A bare-bones website is only the start. It’s like having a store with no salespeople. You need more.

You need all five of these services if your website sales are to reach their full potential. Check out free trials and see which Add-Ons suits your needs the best.

Monthly subscription services like these do have one significant advantage over one-off purchases: You can test them out for a low outlay and discard them if the ROI is not favorable.