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Honest opininion on my site.

by bgreig
16 replies
Hi folks, I'm new to this whole IM business. I recently put up a site and needs some expert advise on what I can do to monetize it, but most importantly, drive lots of traffic to it. I currently have some banners on it though some networks like clickbank and commission junction and a couple others, but we are getting NOTHING, no hits at all...its like it don't exist!

any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Brian
( this site won't let me post link so I will put it in text.)
www . originalguitarist . com
#honest #opininion #seo #site #site traffic
  • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
    Hello,

    Looks good. You could think of what guitar-related info your target market would appreciate, then offer that as an email series (via autoresponder service like awebber) for anyone who joins your list, eg "8 techniques of the greatest heavy jazz guitarists" (or whatever. You would know better than I about what guitarists would appreciate).
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    • Profile picture of the author Lutz80
      I think the site looks pretty good.As stated above you can come up with a valuable email series for your list to grow it . Also you could offer some cross promoted products that your customers could be interested in as well. But the site overall looks very nice. Good job and good luck to you
      Zac
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  • Profile picture of the author BeeJay
    As I'm looking at it you have an issue with a banner ad which extends beyond the limits of your main post window. It's also an ad about laptops...which seems a subject matter disconnect. I've noticed it doesn't extend too far in your posts though.

    Other than that I really like the theme you've used, and your header graphic. Its quite clean. I'd be tempted to put an opt in form in your feature sidebar to start building your list, and maybe put a video up, or some more images in the posts just to jazz up the eye candy. Because its a clean theme, I think some good images would compliment it, rather than make it look busy.

    Adsense placement doesn't seem optimal but if you've tested it and it works, then its all good. You might consider some at the top of each post.

    Well done mate, very nice site, and good luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author bgreig
      Ben, thanks for pointing out the mac ad! I didn't even realize it cause of the ad rotation. It was an offer I found on some network and I thought it would be cool. My idea for the future would be to push products from amazon and Musician's friend.
      As for the adsense, that is actually an adsense type of rotator from clickbank. We tried adsense, but being that we are new to this, didn't realize that clicking your own ads to watch your totals go was a bad thing! I've been begging and pleading to with google to reactivate my account, but keep getting ignored!

      My main focus right now is traffic.

      Thanks again for all your advise. I can see I will be on this forum quite often!
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  • Profile picture of the author Griffon
    Truthfully,

    I think the site presents really well. I like how you have the sections broken down and have some really interesting posts in the "songwriting" section from some very well known artists. As a music lover and guitar player, it strikes me as a genuine enthusiasts site, rather than a mediocre attempt to cash in.

    It shows that you care about your material and your audience.

    In terms of getting traffic, you can try can always try the article marketing route through Isnare(Isnare Free Articles - Free Article Submission And Distribution Directory, Publishers Reprint Free Articles For Your Ezine Or Website) or Ezine(EzineArticles Submission - Submit Your Best Quality Original Articles For Massive Exposure, Ezine Publishers Get 25 Free Article Reprints). My recommendation is commit to at least ten articles apiece(go for 20 if poss), a pain, but at least will generate some backlinks and help your SEO. It only costs your time.

    Also, you will want to check out Onlywire(Login | OnlyWire). Sign up for the service9free), take an hour to fill in all the signup info. This will allow you to post any new content from your site to as many as 30 social networking sites(Digg, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) with the click of one button. Again, may not drive traffic directly, but will help with SEO and ranking. Also open up a Squidoo lens for the same reason. I was able to get first page on Google using these methods. Obviously, your choice of keywords and competiton have a say in this as well.

    Best of luck to you and nice work. Keep it up!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author iVentureBiz
    Hey, nice looking site quite professional...

    1. I'd say drop the email optin for updates and news... No offence but no one really cares about that stuff.

    Instead you should jazz that up and offer a free mini e-course on how to play guitar or something. Maybe 5 free lessons or something... setup a little autoresponder over a period of 5 days that send people some of your best tips/tutorials on playing guitar.

    2. In addition to adding a nice offer for the opt in, think about making that sucker pop off the page more and be a primary focus because right now it kinda fades into the background... Get a nice looking graphic for that sectoin... maybe even consider putting that in a drop-in box as well.. you can get the script here:

    Dynamic Drive DHTML Scripts- Drop-in content box

    3. Obviously... once you start getting more people on the list promote some affiliate offers to make a bit of cash.

    There's a few tips to get your started
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  • Profile picture of the author duncanb
    Your site is less than a month old! Don't worry it takes time to attract traffic to your website. Work hard and strategically and you will see reward i terms of traffic and comission earnings.

    Perhaps it would be advantageous if you used some traditional marketing methods in promoting your site. WOM travels quickly in close nit niche circles such as this.
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    • Profile picture of the author bgreig
      Thank you everyone for taking a look, you have giving me some really good ideas that I plan to use. Your kind words are very inspiring!

      Thank you again!

      Brian
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      • Profile picture of the author Love2Blog
        Get busy writing articles and promoting your site. Do not get too greedy with link building for a new site, it's best to start out gradually or else you may send red flags to the search engines.

        Are you indexed? if not, then submit an inner content page of your site to Mixx, Jumptags and Digg (if there is an appropriate category) guaranteed indexing in a couple of days, as long as your site is well built and optimized.

        Submit your site to Google Webmaster Tools with your XML sitemap so they can see all the pages in your site.

        Then it's all about the link building...and that takes time, a lot of effort, you will not get big traffic overnight, you have to be patient, article marketing is the best way to get some traffic pretty quickly

        1. Submit to the top article sites
        Ezine Articles
        Article Dashboard
        Amazines
        Article Alley
        Article Factory
        or you can use an auto submitter like the other commenter suggested, If you can afford it, then get Unique Article Wizard.

        2. Comment on some do follow blogs

        3. Write a Press Release,         PRweb.com, is the best place to learn more.

        4. Visit Answer sites like Yahoo Answers, Wiki Answers, and especially Yedda (easy to link there ),         answer some stuff related to your site and leave a link for reference.

        5. Hub Pages and Squidoo Lenses         - Write a great article about your topic on these sites and you can link back to your site, and get traffic.

        6. Free Traffic System is good too, but don't get greedy here, go slow with submitting articles and vary your anchors.

        7. Instructables - Make, How To, and DIY - Offers do follow links for How-To articles submitted to their site.

        8. My Blog Guest         - Join them, free and you can possibly write some guest posts for other bloggers and get a link back, all niches over there. These are the best links you can get, as they are within content links.

        9. See if you can get some link exchanges going, there is a section for this on this forum, be careful who you link to, and avoid getting tons of blog sidebar links, in excess, they can be veiwed as paid links by Google.

        10. Also visit Niche Support - Joining Niche Support, great resource for exchanging links with like minded webmasters and bloggers.

        11. Related Niche Forums - Visit forums related to your niche, post valuable content, some provide dofollow links in the sig, but most important the readers may follow you back via your sig link if they like what you offer in the discussion.

        The list can go on and on, but it's all about the links, but as I said, go slow till your site matures a little, not sure how old it is, but if it's younger than 2 months you should take it slow for link building, with articles you can be more liberal, and they do create a nice stream of traffic usually. And, take care to vary your anchor text, this is crucial.
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  • Profile picture of the author lucygary
    Nice site.
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  • Profile picture of the author samar
    Originally Posted by bgreig View Post

    Hi folks, I'm new to this whole IM business. I recently put up a site and needs some expert advise on what I can do to monetize it, but most importantly, drive lots of traffic to it. I currently have some banners on it though some networks like clickbank and commission junction and a couple others, but we are getting NOTHING, no hits at all...its like it don't exist!

    any help would be greatly appreciated!

    Thanks,
    Brian
    ( this site won't let me post link so I will put it in text.)
    Nice site Brian and look like pro site.....good job..still carry on..
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Perez O'Connor
    What you can do to build traffic is said above, but if your looking to really build this site, don't bother filling it with adsense.

    Use banners and text links and place them smartly, banners and text ads look more presentable than the ugly ones google give you.

    When you build traffic to a respectable amount, you can sell ad space to other sites in your niche for a monthly fee and put in rotators.

    The only thing I'd change is your Newsletter isn't really eye catch, do something to get the eyes to wonder over to your opt-in box.

    Increase text size, write something funky and catchy, and something thats going to solve a common problem within the guitar niche.

    Apart from that it seems good.

    Jay.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jonathan Ferraro
    If that's your first site, let me say, you did a great job! It's very professional looking. Sign up for an autoresponder service like Aweber or GetResponse. Put the sign up form on the very top right of the page (where your rss feed is right now).

    As far as traffic, just simply start building backlinks. I personally use Linkvana and Unique Article Wizard.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gary King
    nice overall. first impression - it seemed stuffed with info - too much info. I can't tell if it's the pink-ish color or the spacing around things, but my first thought was that I couldn't focus on any one article headline as I skimmed the page.

    I like it overall, just seemed busy or full of distractions. Not being critical, just my initial reaction as I skimmed it.

    All success,

    Gary
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    • Profile picture of the author global_warrior
      site looks great,you can prepare one e book related to your site and make sure that the e book may help the people well and offer that as free for all the members and you can submit your do follow blog commenting with high pr and yahoo answers posting.there are many members here who offer those services at very low cost.you can also run campaigns from Google ad words and in face book.
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  • Profile picture of the author Igor Kheifets
    Just like most of warriors here I think you should
    add up an opt in form with an incentive for signing up.

    Guitar market isn't as sophisticated as the IM market, so
    the sign up rates should be quite high.

    Igor
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    NEW For 2018! How I Built a 4,331,656 Email List Without Losing Money Out Of Pocket Using a Brand New Traffic Source That's 20X More Profitable Than Facebook Ads and Social Media
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