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Need help working out what is going wrong

by shanesworld
17 replies
Hi People

Would love some help working out what is wrong with my sites.

I am getting some traffic but no sales so something is not working with my sales side of things .

Check out the sites and tell me what you think is wrong with it.

The site is cityville-strategy.com
All advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
Shane
#working #wrong
  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    when you say some traffic, about how much is that. also, its usually pretty hard to get money to spend money to be great at these types of games. i see you have adwords up also, any clicks on that. it seems to be giving fairly untargeted ads. ads for other games will pay less than the financial ads you are showing, but they should get more clicks.
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    • Profile picture of the author shanesworld
      Originally Posted by owslaw123 View Post

      when you say some traffic, about how much is that. also, its usually pretty hard to get money to spend money to be great at these types of games. i see you have adwords up also, any clicks on that. it seems to be giving fairly untargeted ads. ads for other games will pay less than the financial ads you are showing, but they should get more clicks.
      Hi owslaw123

      Have about 1000 uniques to the site but no sales

      i can get building the sites and seo basics to move up in google but so far the sales are not happening.

      Adwords sucks to put it bluntly
      shane
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      • Profile picture of the author David Keith
        Originally Posted by shanesworld View Post

        Hi owslaw123

        Have about 1000 uniques to the site but no sales

        i can get building the sites and seo basics to move up in google but so far the sales are not happening.

        Adwords sucks to put it bluntly
        shane
        is that 1k visitors a month? how are you tracking that? its easy to count yourself and bots which can easily make a big percentage if that is over some time.

        your adwords wont get clicks if they are untargeted. that is one of the quickest ways to make sure adwords does suck.

        the CB product you are promoting seems to have a decent sales letter so i would be a little surprised if its on their end.

        how many clicks are you getting on your outbound links to the CB product you are promoting?
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        • Profile picture of the author Winlin
          All in all the site looks clean and inviting. But here's my bit of a critique:

          1)If possible design and place a header that lends itself to the site design.
          2)Adwords gets in the way and isn't targeted to your offering or even your market I'm guessing.
          3)This is most important in IMHO: The copy reads very wish-washy.

          Most of your text reads similarly to this example:
          Now if you do decide that a cityville guide is the way to go so that you can start beating all your friends on facebook who are playing then you need to decide what guide to buy.

          Try Instead Something More Direct Like: "Are you ready to dominate your Facebook friends? "Cityville Secrets" will not only teach you how to Win, but will also make you an authority on the game.

          It is my belief that the only people’s advice that should be taken are those that actually seriously play the game. With that in mind the best cityville guide on the market is called Cityville Secrets and its by the expert gaming addict Tony Sanders

          And maybe instead Expert Gamer Tony Sanders doesn't just give advice, he's also a top ranked player. You can get your information third hand from a re-hashed article or you can get it straight from Tony Sanders the author of "Cityville Secrets" The top guide for learning how to quickly dominate "Cityville.
          4) Also If it were my site I'd put more in line text links that went directly to the offering (sales page).

          -Just my thoughts
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  • Profile picture of the author shanesworld
    getting no outbound clicks....thats my problem
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    • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
      What keyword phrases are bringing the traffic? I've found that more times than not a low conversion rate it because of the traffic being unfocused or not matching the content of the landing page. If you're getting visitors that search for 'football games' it's hard to get conversions for baseball gear.

      It would help if you gave more details. How many uniques over what time frame? % of visitors came from what search phrase or what referring site?
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      • Profile picture of the author shanesworld
        Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

        What keyword phrases are bringing the traffic? I've found that more times than not a low conversion rate it because of the traffic being unfocused or not matching the content of the landing page. If you're getting visitors that search for 'football games' it's hard to get conversions for baseball gear.

        It would help if you gave more details. How many uniques over what time frame? % of visitors came from what search phrase or what referring site?
        Hi dave

        My keywords are cittyville then with guide or strategy or secrets added in
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  • Profile picture of the author shanesworld
    Hi Winlin

    Thanks for the advice

    This is the kind of help i am looking for
    Really appreciate the tips
    i really want to make this work for me but am not finding it easy.
    Seems a never ending bunch of hurdles to jump but i will keep jumping..haha
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    • Profile picture of the author Winlin
      Originally Posted by shanesworld View Post

      Hi Winlin

      Seems a never ending bunch of hurdles to jump but i will keep jumping..haha
      We call that life !
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  • Profile picture of the author weblink29
    Originally Posted by shanesworld View Post

    Hi People

    Would love some help working out what is wrong with my sites.

    I am getting some traffic but no sales so something is not working with my sales side of things .

    Check out the sites and tell me what you think is wrong with it.

    The site is cityville-strategy.com
    All advice would be appreciated.

    Thanks
    Shane
    I would suggest testing a squeeze page style website. Take a look at these sites to see the difference:

    Zygor Guides
    Dugi Guides

    You can get a decent layout created here very reasonably: Minisite Design | Ecover Design | Minisite Graphics

    I just had him create a graphic layout for a gaming ebook that I will be releasing shortly. I just slapped some basic text on the site. It isn't tweaked yet: www.HowToPlayMinecraft.com

    Good luck!

    PS: After looking at your site again I see a link to a squeeze page. Is that your squeezepage or a product that you are promoting?
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    Nothing to see here folks.....move along.

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  • Profile picture of the author Christi
    Assuming that you DO get targeted traffic to your website but no conversions, that means there is something wrong with your landing page.
    I accessed your site via Firefox. The first thing I saw was a lot of text and no obvious link to click on (it's much further down on the page, but I had to look for it - your visitors won't bother searching, they'll just leave).

    My best suggestion would be to place your link on a more obvious place, as close to the top of the page as possible. If possible, put multiple text links on visible areas on the page. Try to make it concise and explain to the visitor in a sentence or two the main benefits he/she will be getting by choosing your guide and make that a link.
    Get rid of too much text at the top of the page (it tends to confuse people) and go straight to the topic. You can keep the text (it's actually well-written) but instead place it more towards the bottom of the page and keep the top, centralized spots for your affiliate links.

    All that, assuming that you ARE getting targeted traffic. If you aren't, then it's no surprise that your website isn't converting and this is where you need to focus your efforts in the first place.

    I also assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that you mean that you are getting 1k uniques per month (so around 33 a day). It sounds impossible to me that you might be getting 1,000/day and not having at least one conversion every now and then, even out of pure luck.

    So two things to do:
    a) work on getting more targeted traffic
    b) work on your landing page - make it attractive to a busy visitor who just wants to find what they want quickly and get out. Don't put them in the process of thinking because you'll lose the vast majority of them.
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    • Profile picture of the author shanesworld
      Originally Posted by Christi View Post

      Assuming that you DO get targeted traffic to your website but no conversions, that means there is something wrong with your landing page.
      I accessed your site via Firefox. The first thing I saw was a lot of text and no obvious link to click on (it's much further down on the page, but I had to look for it - your visitors won't bother searching, they'll just leave).

      My best suggestion would be to place your link on a more obvious place, as close to the top of the page as possible. If possible, put multiple text links on visible areas on the page. Try to make it concise and explain to the visitor in a sentence or two the main benefits he/she will be getting by choosing your guide and make that a link.
      Get rid of too much text at the top of the page (it tends to confuse people) and go straight to the topic. You can keep the text (it's actually well-written) but instead place it more towards the bottom of the page and keep the top, centralized spots for your affiliate links.

      All that, assuming that you ARE getting targeted traffic. If you aren't, then it's no surprise that your website isn't converting and this is where you need to focus your efforts in the first place.

      I also assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that you mean that you are getting 1k uniques per month (so around 33 a day). It sounds impossible to me that you might be getting 1,000/day and not having at least one conversion every now and then, even out of pure luck.

      So two things to do:
      a) work on getting more targeted traffic
      b) work on your landing page - make it attractive to a busy visitor who just wants to find what they want quickly and get out. Don't put them in the process of thinking because you'll lose the vast majority of them.
      Hi Christi

      The 1000 uniques is more like about 200 a month

      All pictures at top are clickable links but if not obvious to you then i am sure not obvious to ordinary people visiting so i shall put a link higher up...thanks for the tip

      The uniques are for targeted keywords so its my site that is the problem
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      • Profile picture of the author Christi
        Originally Posted by shanesworld View Post

        Hi Christi

        The 1000 uniques is more like about 200 a month

        All pictures at top are clickable links but if not obvious to you then i am sure not obvious to ordinary people visiting so i shall put a link higher up...thanks for the tip

        The uniques are for targeted keywords so its my site that is the problem
        Try putting a few text links at strategic places. See if that works better. I've found that text links often work better than banners because thay are more clear to visitors.

        Now, if you've had 1000 uniques total and about 200/month (that equals between 6 and 7 people per day) it is a really low number to be able to tell what's wrong exactly.
        So I'd make those few tweaks that people here suggested but I'd also focus my efforts on bringing in more targeted traffic.
        Hopefully this should increase your site's performance and you should be able to start seeing some sales.

        All that said, provided that there is enough interest out there for the product you are promoting. I did a quick keywords search. The biggest term seems to be "cityville guide" with 5,400 global searches per month (exact). The other two (cityville secrets and cityville strategy) are much lower at 1,900 and 1,600 monthly searches respectively. The numbers are quite low, especially the latter two. You basically need to rank very high on google (1st or 2nd place) to get a decent amount of visitors. Or you can do a good PPC campaign. Competition for the terms seems to be low, so you shouldn't have to spend loads to get a successful campaign up and running.

        I don't know what type of income you are after (i.e. part-time/side income or full-time type income).
        If you manage to get the traffic in for the biggest search term and have a good conversion rate (I define good at 5% and above), then a decent side income from this website shouldn't be too hard. But because demand seems to be on the low side and it's a very small niche, you will want to have several other websites if you're after a full-time income with affiliate marketing.
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        • Profile picture of the author shanesworld
          Originally Posted by Christi View Post

          Try putting a few text links at strategic places. See if that works better. I've found that text links often work better than banners because thay are more clear to visitors.

          Now, if you've had 1000 uniques total and about 200/month (that equals between 6 and 7 people per day) it is a really low number to be able to tell what's wrong exactly.
          So I'd make those few tweaks that people here suggested but I'd also focus my efforts on bringing in more targeted traffic.
          Hopefully this should increase your site's performance and you should be able to start seeing some sales.

          All that said, provided that there is enough interest out there for the product you are promoting. I did a quick keywords search. The biggest term seems to be "cityville guide" with 5,400 global searches per month (exact). The other two (cityville secrets and cityville strategy) are much lower at 1,900 and 1,600 monthly searches respectively. The numbers are quite low, especially the latter two. You basically need to rank very high on google (1st or 2nd place) to get a decent amount of visitors. Or you can do a good PPC campaign. Competition for the terms seems to be low, so you shouldn't have to spend loads to get a successful campaign up and running.

          I don't know what type of income you are after (i.e. part-time/side income or full-time type income).
          If you manage to get the traffic in for the biggest search term and have a good conversion rate (I define good at 5% and above), then a decent side income from this website shouldn't be too hard. But because demand seems to be on the low side and it's a very small niche, you will want to have several other websites if you're after a full-time income with affiliate marketing.
          Hi Christi

          was just using this site and another similar one as practice sites really..first i have done so more worried about getting the proccess down and actually getting sales than how much i will make.

          gotta walk b4 i run
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  • Profile picture of the author owenlee
    there are 2 possible reasons...

    one is that the traffic is not targeted..and the other one is that there is no buying demand for that products..
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  • Profile picture of the author shanesworld
    or my site suks and is just not doing it 4 them
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  • Profile picture of the author warrich
    See being on the ranking is one thing and getting visitors is another thing. If you want traffic then make sure that you rank for those keywords that are really getting a large number of visitors in the searches. You would want to rank for a high number of traffic attracting keywords.
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