how to get my site/blog working for me better

Hey there, this is really different!

So what platform are you using to publish the site? I couldn't tell. Honestly you might invest in a new theme as this one is kind of glaring. If you are using Wordpress there are tons of great free or low cost ones.

I've used aweber for years and love it. But for a cheaper mailing list I also use one called YourMailingListProvider. Low cost and no ads.

good luck!

definitely go with aweber for exactly the reasons you outlined. Plus, your list is important. when you get your book out these are the people who will buy it. You could also make it a kindle book

Why not recommend actual real products - like things you use and like in real life? My first thought would be holosync might sell to your audience.

sell spells, sagebrush wands, magic potions, et. al.
Monetize SATAN

It probably goes without saying, but if you switch platforms, be careful about losing all of your inbound links. You'll need to setup a redirect for every single page if you do something that's going to change your site's fundamental structure.

For example, if your site current is yoursite.com/page1.html and you're going to change it to yoursite.com/category/coolpage/, make sure to setup something that'll redirect each page that gets changed so your new visitors don't hit a 404 page.

Outside of that, find a product you do believe in. If you have that many visitors, I'd love to have you promote my product for a few days. I'd be more than happy to talk with you on Yahoo Messenger or GMail chat and fill you in on my product. That kind of exposure is definitely worth something. Perhaps we could setup some sort of jv deal? My email address is in my profile if you're interested. If you PM me here, it might be a day or two before I get back to you as I'm just under the threshold for PMs.

-- j

I disagree with changing the template. This is the perfect candidate for adsense, Put it all over your site and you should make a nice chunk if you are getting the amount of visitors you say your're getting.
If your visitors are going 5 pages deep, then consider content-locking some of your information. If you truly believe it's that valuable, then monetize it to the fullest.

if you check the blog, I talk about my site stats regularly and post screenshots of my server stats. I've been pushing everything through a cloudshare proxy server which has cut my stats considerably. The lesson is in two parts, the first is that while there is very little interest in chaos magic explicitly - there's a ton of interest in anything relating to e-commerce that might be a new idea. The second is that if you have a blog and allow backlink credit - you'll draw SEO specialists (and their bots) like flies to comment on your posts for the backlink credit.

I think if you discount the cynic SEO guys, I've got at least of 10k of people that really like my site and read the thing. Cloudshare is blocking the worst spammers, and this is hitting my server stats. I think it's only 11k so far this month. The other think I do with my site is share my experiences with brutal honesty - I talk about the fewer hits I'm getting this month too. I may quit the clouldshare proxy sever service as it's meant to speed up my site and seems to be doing the opposite. And the cynic SEO guys are still and ego boost, lol

The blog is in wordPress, everything else is my own html, well - except for the forum. The wordpress blog is fine in my sincere opinion, the white type on black field in my opinion is easier to read online, less light = less eyestrain.

I think I'll simply rework the green for just the header and let all else be a black field with white type. There's a TON of great information on my blog too, please take some time to appreciate it and let me know what you think. The site is as it is because I like that color of green myself.

I'm fairly certain that when I write the book, even if much of it is information available on my site for free, the fact that it is paid for will allow readers to get value from the book they do not from my site. Also, the site is a bit chaotic and the book will have a progressive structure to it.

Don't misunderstand what chaos magic is, it's a meta-paradigm. That means that Catholicism is chaos magic, Voudon is chaos magic, law of Attraction is Chaos magic - anything can be chaos magic if understood in a chaos magic context. Which is why it is powerful - because it allows you to work with what you ALREADY BELIEVE, and teaches you how to GET RESULTS with it!

As for a product to sell, maybe the Tellman 'send email make money' product, it's not an ins.tant money maker, but is a solid and complete training.

Right now I'm focused on my HostHamsterCrank.com site - it's a work in progress and it's not ready yet, but it will feature a cartoon caffeinated sleep deprived geek hamster (I'm a cartoonist too) that sells web hosting. I'm intending to offer a metered free hosting plan, an 'advanced' plan for $5/month with unlimited drive space and 100g bandwidth and a "professional plan" with unlimited disk space and bandwidth for $20/month. This I'll be promoting on Kitschchaos.com, and also locally. Locally the idea is to give away hosting to the local poor, to local non profits -and this will engender a sense locally that buying a premium hosting package with me is charitable. I also offer web design services and graphic design services, and I do understand the basics of SEO as well. This is my idea of how to supplement my part time job.

(I have my adobe apps again so I can make really slick sites - Kitschchaos will get a makeover [the hamster gets priority now]), when I make more money and have a book to sell -I'll dabble in promoting kitschchaos with facebook and google advertising.

I don't like how expensive aweber is, is it really worth it?

Your have to do some quality link building, forum posting and articles submission.

I want to clarify this, because it's not true, and may be misleading to others...

When someone subscribes to your list, they're shown a page after they confirm their subscription... on this page is a co-registration section that actually helps our members build their lists.

This isn't a page full of affiliate offers, it's an internal system list-builder that is credit based... the more subscribers you generate, the more times your ad will appear, giving you an equal chance to build your own list.

These ads spots can't be paid for, and aren't being sold to anyone else... they're entirely for the benefit of our members, and many of our members are having amazing results using this process. ( amazing being WELL above and beyond what I even imagined possible )

Other paid autoresponder services charge upwards of $1.50 per subscriber to get these kinds of leads... while, at the same time, making you show these co-reg ads with absolutely no benefit to the list owner at all.

After that page, we show one offer, one time, to your subscriber... this our "payment" of sorts for using the service. And, to be clear, we do not imply, in any way, that his offer is being shown by the list owner, or that it has the endorsement of the list owner in any way at all.

That's the ONLY offer we show, period... and we know it's more than a fair trade. We get one ad, and that's it. After that, you can mail to the subscriber as long as they remain on your list, at no cost, and without them seeing any advertising at all.

If that's not cool with you, sure, go to a paid service... we know there are going to be people who dig what we have to offer, and others who won't. That's your call, and something we'll have no problem with either way.

Our goal is to help people who are just starting out, or people who simply can't afford an autoresponder. (don't give me this it's only $1.00 crap, that's a TRIAL, not the actual price )

Anyway, just wanted to clear that up...

-Gary Ambrose
List Wire

When you’re blogging you're looking for numbers, clicks, eyeballs, and obviously generation of traffic from highly-targeted prospects with problems only you’d know how to unravel. Think from a searchers perspective and what they would end up typing while searching for a certain subject. A handful of words that are chosen play a major role in creating and destroying that you write. Always remember the headline you write makes a significant difference in the performance of your post. Your title acts as a mini advertisement for the blog you post.