Review of the Sumo Website and Blog App
Need a sign-up form? Get a widget, plug-in or app.
Looking for heat maps or details on your bounce rate? Snag a separate tool.
Hoping to have an easy share widget to allow your visitors to tweet or pin a post? Look for an app.
In all, I think I had between 12 and 15 different widgets, apps, and tools running on my site at once. While I loved the customization, this meant that I had to get into my site html every single time. When an app was no longer supported, I rarely heard about it; the tool would just stop working. (And then I would have to strip the code out of my html, get another tool, and install that tool!)
Review of Sumo App
I don't know about you, but I'm here to create content, not fiddle around with my code all the time. That's why I was one of the early adopters for the Sumo tool. While it's changed quite a bit since it was first released, it's still my favorite all-in-one tool for a variety of website and blog widgets. Here are my favorites:
Smart Bar - This greets visitors at a time you select (or when Sumo says it's most effective) with an offer to subscribe or send to a page or feature of your choice. You can set it to sit at the top of your page, in the middle, or have it scroll along with your reader!
Heat Maps - Not sure where people are most active on any web page? This shows you exactly what ads and links are getting the most clicks, helping you identify trends and put stuff where it will be seen!
Analytics - Yeah, you could log into your Google Analytics account every time you want to get info, but this is just so easy. See from any webpage what the stats are for that page, plus get handy "top pages" reports to help you see where visitors are spending the most time.
Chat - Have you ever wanted to enable a chat feature for your site? Now, you can! This feature is great for store owners or others who want to have a customer-focused presence.
Share - Make it easy for readers to tweet, pin, or share to Facebook using the tool that appears on every page. It's customizable, as well, so that you can get tagged in the tweets correctly!
These are just a handful of the features offered, and the ones that I use the most. All of the contact and sign-up form features can be integrated into your choice of email provider, such as ConvertKit, MailChimp, AWeber, and more!
Currently, I use the tool to capture leads with both the Smart Bar and Contact Form, and when leads are captured, they are sent directly to the list of my choice in ConvertKit. I love how seamless it is!
Are there any disadvantages to the Sumo tools? Nothing is perfect, and while this tool does a lot that I love, it can be cost prohibitive for a smaller site or blog. That's why I always recommend you use the free trial as much as you can before deciding.
And while they offer a BIG discount if you sign up for a year, that's a big commitment for some. You'll pay more for the monthly plan over time, but it's ideal for those who aren't sure how to use Sumo in their daily marketing plan.
Those of you who want to get a better feel for what people are doing on your site, build amazing sales funnels for a product or course, need a single dashboard for your lead-gen efforts, or want share tools that won't break after the developers jump ship should definitely check out Sumo.
I'm also pretty much in love with their notification features. It just feels good to get emails when people join your list! (Although, if you're super popular and this would annoy you, this can be shut off, as well.)
Sign up via my referral link and get a chance to try before you buy! The team at Sumo is amazingly helpful, too, and are willing to troubleshoot your set up or any questions you have along the way!
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