My site is just not converting, what am I doing wrong?

[magnusmora]

Hi Every one, I have been researching this site for some months now. I recently put a plan together and implemented it a month ago. I decided to go down the dog training niche. My site is

www.stopbarkingdogsinfo.com

It currently gets between 10 and 30 hits a day, I have done the following so far.

1. Created page on web 2.0 free sites, such as hubpages,squidoo, wordpress all linking to above site.
2. Booked marked all web 2.0 sites
3. Created 10 articles on EZA with links to main site.
4. So far booked marked 4 of these articles, planing on doing the rest shortly.

In the last 30 days I have had 200 hops to my affiliate product on clickbank with no sales.

Is this fairly normal? Am I missing something? Any coments good or bad would be much appreciated, dont worry I wont be offended, say what you think!

Many thanks
Steve

[InternetMarketingIQ]

It looks like a Made for adsense site to me.

How many people are there that are finding your site that are looking specifically for solutions that require them to spend money on a very tight niche like getting their dog to stop barking?

You have a ton of links going back to pages within your own site? Why?

Your site is not very old.

Your URL just screams "Free Info".

You really need to look at what you have created from a visitors perspective. What's in it for them.

This looks very much like the build it and try to figure out how to make money from it later approach.

Always figure out how to make the money before you build.

You're answer lies in finding if there really is a viable market for people who are willing to pay money for a downloadable/digital product solution to dog barking.

[Jeremy Morgan]

I would suggest adding some more dog-related content. Don't focus so hard on a really tight niche. Instead, try to broaden your focus and convert some of those people to the dog barking product.

For instance, you could write about

other types of dog training
flea collars - reviews
breed info
good companies who sell products (get affiliate links!)
books on dogs, dog training, etc.
a directory of dog parks in your area

or something like that to get more people showing up. And maybe THOSE people may be distracted and directed towards the original idea.

[magnusmora]

internetmarketingIQ
Yeah the site did not originally have adsense. I only switched that on recently.

Your comment as follows

"This looks very much like the build it and try to figure out how to make money from it later approach."

is absolutely right, this is my first proper IM project. It has been a bit of a learning experience and I feel I have a long way to go. I take on board what you say about hte user experience. I will go through again and have a rethink.

Not sure what you mean by the links? Is there something I am doing incorrectly?

With regards to your last point, I decided to go with dog barking as I used to sell dog bark collars which sold really well until the market got saturated.

Thanks for your excellent comments, much appreciated
Steve

[SteveJohnson]

If you want to focus on affiliate sales, get rid of the adsense. Today.

You link 'dog anti-bark collars' and 'anti bark shock' to a clickbank obedience course. Don't you think that people clicking on those links would be looking for those types of products instead of an obedience course?

Get rid of all the stuff in your sidebars. You can link to recent posts, but don't call the widget 'recent posts', call it 'navigation' or 'menu' or something. The site LOOKS like a blog. Make it look like a static site.

Set WP to deliver 1 post to the front page, not 3 or 5. Don't use prev/next post links or 'view earlier posts'.

Clean the whole thing up. Your pages should have the header, such as it is, site navigation, and content. Nothing else. Other stuff distracts from your main purpose.

[magnusmora]

Jeremy Morgan,

Many thanks I will consider writing articles covering other areas. One its good for linking and two may get some incidental sales. I am also running out of ideas to write about on dog barking!!

Thanks

Steve

[cashcow]

I think you are on the right track but need a lot more promotion.

I have several dog sites myself and the info products just don't seem to sell well. I've tried all the clickbank products plus selling my own dog training (PLR) ebook. Hardly any sales even when I send an email to my list and put the book at half price.

I just recently started promoting some amazon products from my dog sites and these seem to sell better. You could write posts on different products and give your affiliate link to amazon.

Also, I don't think 200 hops to the affiliate product is enough to make any judgments. Sometimes you might wait 500 hops and then get 3 or 4 sales in a row. Sometimes you get a sale right away and then nothing for 300 more hops. I think you need more traffic before you can tell.

Lee

[magnusmora]

Stevejohnson,

I think you are right about adsense. I will try taking it off, its not actually making much anyway so probably not worth it. I will run a test over the nexxt 7 days to see if it makes much of a difference to my hops.

With regards to "anti bark Collar" articles linking to dog obedience course is there as an alternative to using a collar.

I will also make the changes you have recommended to make the site cleaner and a little less like a blog. Good idea! Thanks

Steve

[magnusmora]

Cashcow,

Thanks its useful to hear from someone who is in the same niche. Also I see what you are saying about the hops, I suppose some people may sign up for the free course and then later own purchase. I can tell how many people have signed up which is a pitty! I will keep with it for now and I have a few tweeks to make which will hopefully improve the site.

Thanks
Steve

[jakesellers]

You should do some referer and log analysis, depending on how you're determining visitors you could be seeing a lot of your traffic from your competition and ill-behaved bots, and based on where your eza article landed I'd guess vibrating collars via EPN or AA might move a little faster than a clickbank product.

[magnusmora]

Jakesellers,

I think your right, its time to dust off that AA account and maybe see if I can get some sales from other dog products. Think I will take off Adsense and focus on clickbank and AA.

Thanks
Steve

[wealthyplanet]

Site just seems too "busy" to me... too much info "in your face"

[Marhelper]

It just seems way too busy .. I found myself looking for the upper left hand corner within seconds.

[warriortx]

in a nut shell, design is boring not appealing at all and the price is to high
sorry if to blunt pm me if you want help.