First attempt at niche site, looking for criticism

Hi,

Firstly, well done for getting this far! I run a service where I analyse niche websites, so I'd be happy to add a few comments...

First impressions: Your logo is good, I like the domain, and the site design is neat and clean, though sorry to say this, arguably a bit dull!

The site looks like it's been designed under the assumption that people will arrive to your homepage, when this probably won't be the case if you're chasing organic search traffic. People could land on any page of your site and you need to plan for this.

Your individual post pages could use some more care and attention. (More images, text formatting, etc, to bring the pages to life - they look flat at the moment. They don't make me want to read them).

Your topic is dogs on a treadmill! That's cute and funny. You could inject so much more personality than this, while still remaining authoritative.

You don't include links in your posts. You should be linking to other relevant articles and related sites. You can't rely on people using a "related posts' widget in your sidebar.

You try to cram too much into one post. And the layout can be a bit odd. For example, on this page:

Dog Treadmill Reviews | Dog Fitness Zone

The messy layout makes me want to stop reading below the first orange sub-heading. Also, I thought your whole review was the specs at first!

You give the specs for all three treadmills, then talk about each in turn. Logically, the specs should go alongside the description of the treadmill. You then go even further and cram in information about the right treadmill for you ("for your dog"!).

I'd split this into:

- an overview post about the "best dog treadmills", linking to...
- three more detailed posts, one about each treadmill, linking to...
- a fourth post about choosing the right treadmill for your dog

Also, you ask what to do next and mention moving on to another project. I think you should stick with this.

If you move on to something else now then you'll almost certainly just create another site with potential but no traffic.

This site has potential. It's going to be hard work, but stick with it.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. But when you checking for high searched keyword terms, you should build your website around the keyword you want to rank for, and not the product you promoting because it pays well or the commission is good.

If the product vendor decides to remove the product from his sales funnel or if they decides they no longer wish to pay affiliates for sales then your website becomes the white elephant it is today.

When the guru's tell you to build a website around your passion, there are good reasons for it. That passion will keep you motivated even when your website is not making money yet. And finding or creating content for your blog/website will be a breeze when you like what you are doing.

If your main goal is to make money online, then you will be like the 99% of online/offline businesses that fail within the first year.

Your main goal when starting out in your business is to add value and bring about a transformation process in your clients.

If dog training is not your passion and you just promoting products in that niche because some wanna be guru told you it pays well and you won't have that much competition, think again.

The reason you base your business on search terms/keywords is because that's a good indicator of the market share you will have in that niche when you rank high in the search engines for those keyword. Often the product creator should have done that market research, but often not. They build websites based on their feeling. Like they feel this niche would pay well because they saw it in a video done by some other online guru two years ago. What worked then won't always work today.

Yes there are evergreen niches like "Make money online", "Weight loss" and "Dating and relationships" that will always make you money when you help someone solve a problem. You get paid for providing solutions.

It's your duty to do your due diligence before investing any money in your business. I always say, "Invest in yourself and in your own financial education first before you invest in web hosting, domain names and auto responders."

You can test your niche for free first, before you put your money in it. I've built an online business just around that fact to prove to online marketers that it can be done.

I just seen your project dogfitness.com and it's great to see a beginner with so good work done.

However, there's lot of room for improvement.

But you said that you wanted to start out on possibly another niche.

My suggestion is to start out on a niche you're passionate about and also one that is profitable. And if you cannot find a combination of both, then go for a niche where the money is.

Don't only go for keywords with high search volume, so look at the search intent of the keywords.

My advice is that you build a site and don't go for the publish and pray approach. Publish 5 to 10 articles a month and actively build links, do some outreach and build a social media followers. Don't try all monetization options at once, try them one by one.

First of all, let me just say your website looks great! You really did a good job.
It's also a good thing that you got right back on track, getting discouraged happens, don't worry.
Now, as for the help you need to get more visitors to your site, you should probably go to the SEO section on the forums and read about how to rank, how to attract visitors, how to use social media to your advantage, there are hundreds of threads on these subjects. Read and apply! And good luck!

Thanks guys for the great advice! As per Adams advice I'm going to work on the layout a lot and try to make it more user friendly. Link between posts, add more pictures, etc. Basically just going to attempt to give the whole website a more polished, professional look, and hopefully everything will flow a little better.

I know there's not a huge traffic potential for this website since all the various longtail keywords I was targeting only have like 30-150 unique searches per month, but if I can at least get a little traffic I will be happy. A few visitors per article could add up eventually I think.

Although I'm not really passionate about dog treadmills haha, this site has become a learning project for me and I've decided to see what I can accomplish with it before moving on since I already have the foundation built.

Not planning on investing any more money in it, but I might as well get what educational benefit I can out of it. If I do by chance end up getting traffic and getting an amazon sale or something, that would just be icing on the cake.

Certainly on my next project I'm going to be more selective about what niche I enter. If I have any hopes of establishing a real authority site, I can see how passion about my niche will be extremely important, as its easy to get bored and just move on to the next best thing.

Hey Crushh, looks like you're back on track but your OP screamed out that you gave up too quickly. If you build a site with SEO in mind it takes time to rank. To get traffic quicker, immerse yourself in the world, get round the forums, get on social media and plug the site. SEO isn't as important as it used to be so don't waste too much energy trying to do it perfectly. MY site has no relevance to any particular niche at this time but has over 1000 views....after a few months....no fireworks here but it is traffic. Go find the customers and pull them in, don't wait for them to find you. Fair play though man, you've put good effort into getting to where you are now and therfore you're doing better than a tump load of other people looking to MMO.
One last thing, I don't subscribe to the view that you have to be passionate about the niche you're in to make money. You have to be passionate about your own self development or passionate about WHY you're trying to MMO but HOW you do it is fair game in my opinion.

Most of us spend a lot of money attempting to make money via internet marketing and the majority are not successful. I think you are starting off ok and in the process gaining a lot of knowledge. Consider all you[ve learned and more to be gained. Once you feel comfortable with your knowledge and in a position to develop a marketing plan. Do so, and stick to it. A major pitfall is to wander away from the plan. This leads to disaster so don't do it.

People love to see images and videos of the product they are looking to buy. Remember that these are people looking to buy dog treadmills, and want more info on it. If they see just plain text, they will naturally just go back and find another site.

You should consider doing video reviews on youtube, you can embed them into your review pages on your site as well. Increase the exposure of each product you review/promote, pin your images on pinterest so you can get some traffic from there as well. I have seen many sites that get traffic from pinterest ONLY, so don't disregard the power sources other than SEO. Try to anticipate the questions your niche audience would ask and ensure that your site answers them appropriately.

I agree with the above post. Try incorporating some video content onto the site and develop a presence on youtube or other video sites.

This will allow you to tap into the traffic you can get form these sites as well as give you some more SEO juice. Ranking videos can be easier than ranking a site too...

Thanks so much everyone, I am getting lots of good ideas from all of you. I have started doing freelance writing on Elance as well so the dream of making it online is becoming a reality. This will be a good source of steady income I think while I continue to learn about IM and niche site building.