Need advice on my site.

Hey guys once again I have come across another free domain that someone gave me. I have started developing it into what I think would be a review site. I'm new to IM so please excuse me if I got that wrong maybe its an authority site? I just assumed since I am reviewing products thats what it would be. Either way I am using it to advertise clickbank products and wanted to know what the professionals on here thought of my progress.
My Questions are as follows

How does it look so far? (I just got it up tonight)

Is it worth pursuing?

What should I do differently?

And any other advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks again guys, I have learned a lot from this forum and hope to give back once I have the knowledge to, but for now I am stuck picking y'alls brains.

The site is clickenough dot com

Took a quick look. Not too bad. No suggestions as of yet

hey thanks NFL. By your name and location im guessing the cowboys are your team?

- Make sure you get rid of that tab up at the top where it says "sample page" and also change the category name from "uncategorized" to something else.

- Get rid of the line about the "cheesy sales pitch" because it might make people think that it's... Well, a sales pitch! It's about PRE-selling, not selling. That's what the sales page is for. Your site's job is to get them in the mood to buy something, then send them to the sales page where they will hopefully buy something.

- The personal paragraph is good. It lets them know you're a real person that they can relate to... Except you forgot to put your name in there. Put a name in, even if it's fake (hell, I create fake personas for all my sites)

- I would use a different photo. I'm assuming that guy in the tux is you? It's a classy picture but you'll probably have better conversions if you use a picture that shows you as just a regular guy; one they can relate to. Maybe a pic of you sitting at the computer desk (in regular clothes) with your hands on the keyboard, looking over and smiling at the camera would be good. With kind of an "oh hi, didn't see you come in!" look on your face. Another popular one seems to be standing outside leaning on your car parked in the driveway.

- If it's a product review style website, get rid of the "recent posts" widget. It will just confuse people.

Other than that, it looks like you're off to a decent start. These are just my opinions; what I would do different if I was running the site. I'm not an expert by any means but I've made 5 websites so far... The first 3 failed, the 4th turned a nice profit then I sold it, the 5th is bringing in regular income for me, and I'm assembling content and designs for a 6th one tonight... So hopefully I've at least learned SOMETHING that I can impart to you

Good luck!

Thanks Pete

The sample page is now gone. I will work on a picture tomorrow, and I will try to take care of the rest of the stuff you said right now. Thanks again! Much appreciated...I think thats how you spell it...

Yeah, get the pictures steady and you should be alright, looks good

Oh and another quick question. If I wanted to set up a newsletter sign up on here what would be the best way to go about it?
Like best plugin to use? and hopefully its free as I am trying to save my money for SEO when the time comes. I plan on giving it 2 weeks just to get a couple reviews, do my onpage SEO and get a baseline of traffic so I can see what my SEO campaigns are going to do.

mitch907 said:

hey thanks nfl. By your name and location im guessing the cowboys are your team?

Click to expand...

yep :d

mitch907 said:

Oh and another quick question. If I wanted to set up a newsletter sign up on here what would be the best way to go about it?
Like best plugin to use? and hopefully its free as I am trying to save my money for SEO when the time comes. I plan on giving it 2 weeks just to get a couple reviews, do my onpage SEO and get a baseline of traffic so I can see what my SEO campaigns are going to do.

Click to expand...

There are a lot of services out there that will allow you to create a newsletter and build an email list (a great idea for monetization, by the way... If you get a big list of interested customers, you'll get massive money from them again and again) AWeber is the one I use on my site. There are many more though; you'll want to shop around and compare features and prices.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend any free ones because I don't know of any. Someone on this forum mentioned one that was free, but it doesn't sound like it was very good and I don't remember the name of it anyway.

I have actually been looking at Aweber, but I thought I would try to get a sale or two under my belt before I purchased it. I was looking for something in the mean time. If there are no free ones then no worries I can wait. After all thats what IM is all about right...Hurry up and wait?

I personally think you should avoid obvious high CTR themes because they are a big fat footprint, I'm sure some people would argue that with me, but....

You have a backlink to the warez website you illegally downloaded the theme from, lol <<---- BAD

So... change the theme you're using asap.

Other than that:

1. high CTR themes are good for adsense, but not great for affiliate sales, especially blog style reviews.
2. You should mask your affiliate links.
3. do you have a plan to get traffic? because this isn't going to rank organically.
4. You are missing all of the legals that establish legitimacy - privacy policy and disclosure at a minimum to keep you out of legal troubles.

Instead of just reviewing random CB products (which has been done to death)
try making a website about some specific niche and review CB and OTHER products, presenting yourself as an explorer in that particular niche, and offering your ocasional advice that's not just about pushing a product.

best of luck!

edit---------------------------------

mailchimp is the best free newsletter manager, in my opinion

lol to be fair I actually got it from bhscene lol but it was just something quick that had good reviews that I could get up until I create my own. Actually the plan was to buy the updated version of this theme but if its going to hinder my results then I am more than willing to create or find another theme. Any suggestions on a good theme? And I will check out mailchimp.

Thanks agente!

sometimes it's best to try to think like a non-marketer -
what sort of theme would you choose if you were trying to build a brand website?

You are branding yourself and your opinions here, trying to convince people that your opinion means something.

Look for a theme that is something that a non-marketer would be impressed by....
something with some personality that stands out
make me care what you think

http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress/blog-magazine/

Most of the other themes I find seem too cluttered. I like this theme because it is simple and straight forward. I know I can change things like widgets and such, but the themes themselves just don't seem to "fit" if ya know what I mean? I can't really explain it. Like I said my plan was to buy the updated version of this theme probably tomorrow as it seemed to "fit" my vision if you will of the site. But once again I'm dubious about this now....
Any other imput? btw its not that I dont value yours agente I just think we all have our own views on themes and such and PERSONALLY I don't believe there is a theme that will make EVERYONE happy ya know?

anything else?

change your permalink structure to a better one. Eg /%postname%/

ok will do. Thanks!

For some reason it wouldn't me edit my last post so Please don't dock me for this mods...Actually if you want you can just add this to my last post on here.

But I think I have done everything listed above except change theme so far. I am still working on that.
I have changed my perm links
Cloaked my Aff Links
Changed my pic
Added legal pages
Even added a contact page
I now have a newsletter opt-in where I will be giving free weekly tips...Some of you guys might actually benefit from some of these as I plan on showing different methods of saving money in here such as tax breaks and deductions and such.

Please keep the info coming guys its helping out a ton. Also I am not trying to be spoon fed info. I have been trying to think outside the box on different things to add.

And finally, you gessed it! Another question...Should I add ads to my site with it just being a review site and not an actual sales page or squeeze page?

You need to fix the legals:
you have "disclaimer", but the text you put in there is actually "terms of use" ...
but what you need is "Disclosure" not disclaimer - as in FTC Disclosure
(because you are being compensated for promoting products)

here is a link to more info:
http://searchengineland.com/ftc-disclosure-and-your-blog-34789

here is one of those generator things (with NO endorsement of how legally valid it may be, but something should be better than nothing): http://disclosurepolicy.org/generator/generate_policy


The captcha in your contact form is broken, and you should turn off comments on your contact and other legal pages.

Should I add ads to my site with it just being a review site and not an actual sales page or squeeze page?

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You shouldn't be worrying about ads until you get some traffic.
Once you have decent traffic, the answer is to A/B test your traffic to see what works best.
For now, leave the ads off (it will be easier to rank your site without the ads, and if you're making no money from them anyway, why make things harder?)

Get Weekly FREE Tips By Signing Up!

Click to expand...

wow, weekly free tips?
that's not an incentive to sign up, it's sounds like "sign up to receive my weekly spam!"
You need to offer something of value to get people to give out their precious email address. And you need more details about what you are offering.


About the theme:
One of the reasons the highCTR themes work so well to convert adsense is because they are on-purpose made to be uncomfortable to read. When you actually WANT people to read your content, this is a bad thing.

Look at your blog - see how the text is very tight? you have a tight huge wall of text... I read everything, but I see your site and I can't bring myself to read what you've written. Text that you want people to read needs to be well spaced out.

The home page - you have the entire article on the home page rather than an excerpt and "read more" - making people click through to read more will improve your bounce rate. (so will adding an image to every story)

I don't believe there is a theme that will make EVERYONE happy

Click to expand...

Who cares about happy? you are trying to improve conversions, and THAT you can measure. You are trying to find a theme that will convert well, and it may not look like what you have in your "vision". If you want to make money, let go of your feelings, and do what works. If this is for fun, do whatever you want.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but honest advice will save you tons of time and money.

No worries, this is actually exactly what I needed to hear. It really pulled me away from what I want to what the site needs. I will try to address these issues tomorrow after class. And once again Agente thanks, I appreciate your honest opinion. I don't think it sounds harsh at all but just like you said its honest, and as a person new to IM that's what I need. Don't get me wrong I am here to have fun, but I do want this to be profitable. Plus making money is always more fun than not right? You have no idea how much time and money you have saved me so far, and I am greatful!