I see this mistake being made time and time again, and it’s costing you traffic.

However, you’re not making this mistake on purpose. Rather, it’s partly the fault of wordpress, and partly the person who designed your wordpress theme.

Here’s what it is – your site’s header takes up too much space. n.b. by ‘header’, I include any and all stuff above your post’s headline.

3 reasons why the size of your header matters

1. Too many distractions

   The larger your blog’s header, the more stuff there is to distract your visitor’s eyeballs from what they want, which is to read the content you have promised them.

2. If you force a visitor to scroll, you lose them

   The larger your header, the more of your content you push below the fold of your page. Thus you have less space to convince a visitor to continue reading your post. Fact: far more visitor’s choose to click the back button than click to scroll down your page.

3. Site header blindness

   You’ve heard about how the average internet user has instinctively trained themselves to filter out ads on a web page? It’s the same with your site header. Initially, your visitor is not interested about what your blog is called, who you are, and what your blog is about. First and foremost they’ve come to your page to read the info contained in your post. So the moment they land on your site, their eyeballs are seeking out that content, and they are blind to everything else.

Follow these steps to see if your site’s header is optimal

1. Go fetch a ruler from your desk.

2. Measure (on your screen) how far your post’s title is from the top of the page.

• Up to 4cm = Ideal
• 4-6cm = Acceptable
• 6-8cm = Just about acceptable, but can be improved
• 8cm or more = Too big, consider reducing

It’s not your fault

Wordpress itself is most at fault. By default wordpress calls up your site’s name and its tagline before it calls up your post’s content. To make the problem worse, wordpress themes have evolved to make these elements the biggest and the boldest elements on your page. And the vast majority of bloggers spend far too much time tinkering with their site’s header to make it look good. It’s become the norm, but that doesn’t make it right.

Here’s what I did:

The distance of my post’s title to the top of the page is 3.1cm, which is within the ideal header height.

The best space-saving tip I have is to put your navigation menu in line with the title of your blog, and to forget about using a tagline (nobody reads it).

If you use Thesis theme like I do, then you can do this by adding the following lines of code to your custom functions file:

remove_action('thesis_hook_before_header','thesis_nav_menu');
add_action('thesis_hook_header','thesis_nav_menu');

You’ll then need to play around with the CSS to make it look cool.

Note – there is another solution. You can now download the very theme you are seeing right now, to use on your own blog. Go here for more.

It’s simple tweaks like this that can take your blog from good to great. Don’t let your blog design get in the way of your blog’s content.

What follows is a blindingly simple but powerful tactic that will not only quadruple your traffic, but will also substantially boost your site’s income.

The vast majority of sites do not spend time implementing this, and best of all, it takes less than 5 minutes to set up.

Note: for this to work, you will need to already have built a solid base of RSS subscribers.

Here’s the reality…

When you post a new article on your blog, the vast majority of your initial traffic comes from your RSS and email subscribers. Obvious right?

Yet, your traffic is being constrained by the very vehicle that is delivering your content to your subscribers – the RSS feed itself. Your typical RSS subscriber reads all of their subscribed-to content in their RSS reader, and never make it to your site.

In fact, for every 100 of your subscribers that read your article in their RSS reader, only 1 will click through to your website.

So, even though your content is being digested, it’s not being done on your site. And with only a 1% click-through rate, there is a lot of scope for improving this area of your traffic stats.

Here’s the solution…

Change your blog to partial feeds. This means that instead of serving your entire article in your subscriber’s feed, you display the headline plus a snippet/teaser of what the article is about. In order to read the entire article, you have to click through to your site.

Doing this typically increases click-through rates to 4-5%, a quadrupling of your article’s initial traffic. Yes we’d all love click-through rates approaching 100%, but that’s the nature of the beast we’re dealing with.

Here’s how to implement partial feeds…

1. Sign up to FeedBurner and create your RSS feed

Feedburner gives you more control over your RSS than than your standard wordpress feed setup. It also gives you useful stats about how your users are interacting with your site.

2. Click on the “Optimize” tab, followed by “Summary Burner”

Here you can set how much of your post you want to show in your subscriber’s feed, as well as append a ‘teaser’ message to help sell the click.

Does it really matter where my subscribers view my content?

Sure, having your subscribers read your content in their RSS Readers is better than having them not read your content at all. However, there are four key benefits to having subscribers visit your site:

• 1. A more interactive experience for your subscriber – RSS readers don’t include post comments, which can add as much value as the post itself. They are also more likely to post a comment themselves.
• 2. Increased traffic to other parts of your site – you control the environment and can entice click to further articles on your site.
• 3. You will earn more money – if you show ads an a CPM basis, you can command higher ad rates.
• 4. Boosts your credibility – more traffic inflates your Alexa rank, Compete.com rank, so you are perceived as a more authoritative blogger.

To round this off, I want to stress how important the first 24 hours is to your blog post’s life-cycle. It will either gain momentum or it will die, and the more people you can physically get to your site during this time, the more you edge it in favor of the former.

Now go test this out already! It only takes a few minutes.

This is one of the cool things about being a part of the Thesis community.

There is no finished-product as such because it’s a work-in-progress. Other theme developers have to juggle multiple themes and so updates become infrequent once they are shipped.

Consequently, new Thesis releases do generate quite a buzz in our small community, fuelled by Chris Pearson’s relative secrecy about what he’s working on at any one time.

What we know about Thesis 2.0 as of February 12th 2010

• Thesis 2.0 release is imminent (due out any time now
• Rumor has it that its a self-sufficient CMS, not requiring Wordpress..
• There will be a Skins market. Chris will aim to do 5 designs this year.
• New pricing structure $297 floated around. Existing customers = free upgrade.
• Stylesheets will be reduce from 4 down to 2.
• Will be a way to download and share core SEO and design features within community.

February 11th 2010

Chris sends out an email, adding:

• Thesis 1.7 will be released within the next 14 days.
• You’ll be able to save and restore the Thesis Options without having to be woefully inefficent.
• Control the indexing (noindex, nofollow, noarchive) on every page of your site
• New headline filter
• Basically, this simple filter will allow developers to show/hide headlines, and you’ll be able to use this to create more diverse post styles on your site.

February 9th 2010

Chris appears on Webmaster Radio to speak with Joost. Here are the key points:

2 mins 20 secs – this has become Chris’s mantra: ‘To build the ultimate publishing platform for the web’.

9 mins 12 secs – Chris really doesn’t seem to like the wordpress platform.

10 mins 55secs – Aims to reduce the number of stylesheets from 4 down to 3, and eventually 2, to reduce code bloat.

31 mins – LeVar Burton uses Thesis.

33 mins – surprised at lack of diversity in Thesis sites out there. Took a full year for people to understand what people can do with Thesis. Really only in the last 3 months has there been a real increase in skins being used for Thesis.

34 mins – my goal is to lead the creative charge to show people what can be done with it.

38 mins – Unique styling for each post. Thesis can do this, but will definitely do more of that in the future. e.g. getting rid of sidebars, coming in 2.0 post and page templates. On this post do I want to show sidebars? Apply CSS classes that affect all code within body tag. But does require user to be totally savvy.

43 mins – Chris’s background.

46 mins – When Thesis 2.0 comes out, we’re going to redo the pricing structure. Bottom line is anyone who buys now will get the full monty when we upgrade. Floated around idea of $297. Talks about Thesis skins market, how he’d work on doing 5 skins throughout the year plus a host of other designers.

January 29th 2010

Chris lets it slip that a future Thesis won’t require Wordpress.

4th January 2010

Chris interviewed by Art of Blog. He announces three things:

1 – Pearsonified Design

He is going to port the rather lovely Pearsonified design over to Thesis and eventually release that skin to the public.

2 – Version 1.7 vs. Version 2.0

Going to rock out a new version of Thesis, though unsure whether it will be 1.7 or jump to 2.0. He’s got a bunch of 2.0 code written, but is yet to decide whether he’s going to make the leap. If it’s 1.7 it will be out in the next 3 weeks.

3 – Community sharing
Adding a way to download and upload and share your options, so that will make it easier to skin out a site and encourage sharing of core SEO and design settings.

Note: If you’re still in the ‘research’ phase with Thesis, do keep in mind that there is a 30-day guarantee. Take it for a test drive and see how you get on. It’s a much better use of your time than reading review after review.

Here’s the deal. If you are going to buy Thesis theme, you need to buy it through this link.

That way, you will qualify for a bonus kit I’ve specifically put together to help you get the most from Thesis.

What Do I Think About Thesis?

I’m a big fan of Thesis and of its creator Chris Pearson. If you’re in the market for a premium wordpress theme, then Thesis is definitely the right choice. Don’t be tempted to scrimp on a cheaper theme or opt for a free theme – good stuff costs money, that’s a fact of life.

That said, there are a couple of minor shortcomings with Thesis, and that’s what my bonuses are designed to cover. To qualify, buy through this link, and you will get:

Bonus #1: The one SEO plugin you absolutely must use with Thesis

Thesis is absolutely the best theme out there for on-site SEO. It’s actually designed not to need SEO plugins like All-In-One SEO, because you control all your SEO elements from within Thesis.

However, no matter how good Thesis is, it can’t control one important facet of your on-site optimization. I’ll leak the plugin I use for that final piece of the SEO jigsaw.

Bonus #2: A Sexy Thesis Site Header

The Thesis design options are great, but getting your header to look cool can be a real pain. The default options take up too much space, pushing your content further down the page unnecessarily. I’ll take you step by step through how to customize your own site header.

Bonus #3: Three steps you should take to “unThesisify” your site

There are a lot of great Thesis customizations out there, but with the vast majority you can still tell that they use Thesis.

I’ll show you the 3 things you can should on your site to hide any trace that you use Thesis, yet still take advantage of all of Thesis’s power – so that you can express your individuality to the full. I’ll even throw in the actual CSS that you should use to do this.

Bonus #4: Your Thesis SEO Hot-Sheet

Print this out and keep it next to your computer. Think of it as your SEO checklist of the simple but powerful things you need to do inside Thesis to a) set your site up correctly and b) Optimize your individual posts as you write them.

To qualify for these bonuses, buy Thesis through this link then post your transaction number in the comments area of this page.

NEW! If you get the Developer’s License, you’ll also get:

Bonus #5: My Thesis skin

The design you’re looking at right now (yes, this site runs on Thesis). I’ll send you the custom files, and the rights, to use this theme on your site.

Bonus #6: Win back your Thesis investment

Once a month I hold a draw where the winner wins back their $164 investment in Thesis.

Bonus #7: Charity donation

This month the selected charity is the HAITI disaster relief fund. I’ll donate 10% out of my own proceeds of the sale (note this doesn’t cost you a penny more than normal).

To qualify for these bonuses, buy Thesis through this link then post your transaction number in the comments area of this page.

Why Am I Offering These Bonuses?

I use Thesis Theme on 80% of my sites. I’m a big advocate and I’m excited to see the direction Chris Pearson is taking the theme.

Naturally, Thesis Theme has an affiliate program, and I belong to it. When you purchase through my link it costs the same, but I’ll send you all of the above bonuses as a thank you. Offering them is my ethical bribe, but regardless or not of whether you buy through me, you should take Chris up on his 30 day guarantee. Purchase Thesis through this link.

How To Claim Your Bonuses

After you make your purchase here, post your Paypal transaction number in the Comments Section below.

In the email field, be sure to use the email address tied to the Paypal account you used to make your purchase. Once I verify your order, I’ll send through your bonuses.

One last thing…

While the post-sale support for Thesis is out of this world, the DIYThemes team can be a little tricky to get hold of pre-sales. Chris prefers to offer the money-back guarantee so that you can discover things for real, rather than asking lots of hypothetical questions. That said, I have a lot of experience with Thesis, so if you do have any pressing questions, be sure to ask them in the comments below.

Now go and get Thesis already!