2 months in - Need a fresh pair of eyes

18 replies
So I'm 2 months into IM. I have 3 sites I've either built or paid to have built. All are performing poorly. A handful of adsense clicks, 1 amazon sale, and 1 cb affiliate sale.

I've put a lot of time and money into this, and I'm getting frustrated at the poor returns.

I'm thinking I need a fresh pair of eyes to look at all my stuff and tell what I'm missing, or what I need to do more/less of.

Anyone interested? I have 3 main sites

badfoodfordogs.com
cheapbabydiapers.org
howtowearcufflinks.org

If someone could check those out and see why they're not ranking so well or why they're not generating any sales I'd appreciate it. I see them everyday, so my judgement is a bit clouded.
#eyes #fresh #months #pair
  • Profile picture of the author hassan007
    Dear I have seen these sites and what I can see is that you are not ranked anywhere good in search engines so the sales volume is poor...

    My recommendation is to put some efforts in SEO....

    Or you can create your own product and promote it through Adwords....

    If you need any guidance about SEO I am available to give it to you.... Just p.m me your plan and we can get started....

    Some duplicate content issues found in last 2 sites....

    cheapbabydiapers.org
    howtowearcufflinks.org
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  • Profile picture of the author walkthatway
    I agree, your sites lack SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author IulianP
    Work on SEO would be a good idea to start with
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  • Profile picture of the author neilward
    You have three sites but honestly I don't think I can think of three more boring subjects. Do you actually enjoy reading and writing about these things? It did make me laugh that you have an email opt in form on a website of how to wear cufflinks, have you had a single sign up?

    My advice to you is to pick something that you really have an interest in. Get involved in the communities, forums and blogs surrounding that subject matter. The SEO will then come naturally as you will get natual signiture links etc. Apologies if this is insulting and you do actually have an interest in cheap diapers or how to wear cufflinks, just don't think many other people do.
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  • Profile picture of the author danfac2012
    You really need to work on more backlinks (Mid-High PR Backlinks) to your websites. I did a quick check and found that:
    9 backlinks for badfoodfordogs.com
    4 backlinks for cheapbabydiapers.org
    0 backlink for howtowearcufflinks.org

    You can check it using SEO SpyGlass SEO SpyGlass Backlink Checker Software: X-Ray Your Competition to check.
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  • Profile picture of the author MasonRamm
    Your sites obviously lack traffic so you need to work more on SEO
    and creating more backlings. I'd also recommend removing featured section
    at top of each site and move each sites posts up into this area so
    visitors will see each sites full of info not full of pictures.
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  • Profile picture of the author itsnaveenreddy
    Well, did you happen to buy these sites?

    Check your competition out on top 10 and try to compete with them on article quality, On site SEO and off site SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author prismkuet
    Sorry to say, in my opinion the topics of your sites are. So, there is no reason to find good feedback. Why you are not targeting for something interesting? If you want to stay with these topics, better you try to promote the site to only your target niche.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dazzling Content
    Your sites look good. But as the others said, they need to have more backlinks pointing to them so that they'll rank higher in the search engines. You can get backlinks by commenting on blogs along with your link (making sure that it doesn't look spammy).
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  • Profile picture of the author retsced
    My heart goes out to you. Looking over your sites reminds me of when I first got into Internet marketing. I created similar sites to your own, put a lot of work in and in the end i almost slit my wrists. I was promoting strollers and bassinetts lil. I can honestly tell you right now that you will never earn enough from any of those sites to justify the work you put into them.

    You are only 2 months in, so i suggest you take a different approach from here on out. Pick a niche where you can build a list. Pick a niche that you can expand upon and scale up. Pick a bloody niche that you can write about without having to force yourself to do it.

    You've been warned. The money you can make from these 3 sites will never be justified by the amount of work you will have to put in.
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  • Profile picture of the author cup243
    You gotta do something that not everybody else could be doing.

    Sorry but everybody can do what you have done. You have to be more innovative.

    It's a very common mistake in the beginning, I went though that 1 year ago, so keep learning!
    There is plenty of info about IM and there are soooo many things to learn!
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    • Profile picture of the author Ralph Moore
      First, take what I say with a light heart. I do not intend to demean or disparage your efforts. (I speak with the experience of having done the same things that you have.)

      I have to agree with some of the comments already stated. All three of the sites look "ok" to good in terms of "looks".

      But that is the least important part of building a profitable niche site.

      I think you need to think about the kind of people who would be searching for the phrases that comprise your domain names.

      How to wear cufflinks = how to DO something, NOT where to buy something.

      Bad food for dogs? Really? Why would anyone want to know about BAD food for dogs? So they can be sure to NOT buy something? Why not GOOD food for dogs? or best food for dogs? At least people searching for those phrases would be more likely to be looking to buy food for dogs.

      The diaper site actually makes sense because it is very expensive to keep buying diapers for a baby and people may actually be searching for ways to save money on diapers.

      But, when I checked the Adwords tool just now, I see that there are only 260 exact global monthly searches for that phrase. Not good.

      BEFORE you buy a domain name or start building a website for a niche is the time to research how many people are searching for your intended niche.

      The exact phrase bad food for dogs has 720 exact global monthly searches, so you could possibly scrape together enough related pages to get people to your site, but again, I question whether those people would be doing research so that they know what foods to avoid when they go food shopping for Fido, rather then their intent to buy something from your site.

      The other thing is you are going to need a very deep site in order to achieve and maintain a first-page ranking on Google, it that is your intent.

      Your goal should be to basically build the most informative, helpful, information packed website in your niche.

      And as others have said, you may want to find a niche that a lot of people are searching for things in, as well as one that you can stand to develop for a long, long time.

      In spite of the the wso's that promise page one rankings in a day or so with very little work, it really does take several months to properly build a deep content website that consistently gets sales and is able to withstand the whims of the search "gods".

      Good luck and keep learning and I hope this was a bit helpful.
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      • Profile picture of the author rhealy29
        In my personal opinion, there is wayyyyy too much advertising cluttering up these sites. I looked at the cheap diapers one and the dog one. The homepage of the dog one is very, very cluttered, although the ad content isn't as high, the layout doesn't really make a visitor want to click into and ready anything.

        On the baby one, there are a ton of ads, and many of the pieces of "content" just seem to be pages with some manufacturer's product info and an Amazon link.

        But the looks and layout aren't what matters. What matters is the content.

        My take on these sites is that they were developed from an approach that I imagine probably many if not most of us started out with, which is the age old quantity over quality.

        The content on these sites is basically put up for the sake of having content up. If it is in fact original content, it reads like mid-quality PLR content that has been churned out essentially for volume rather than the benefit of the reader.

        The reviews don't really review anything per se, they just rehash information. The aforementioned product pages with manufacturers info and an amazon link don't really provide the user with anything. The articles aren't un-useful, but they're far from inspiring.

        My advice, step back and take a whole different approach.

        Scrap the current approach of "I'll get a ton of pages up, which will then give me a better chance of being found in seach, which will then give me a better chance of getting clicks, etc, etc, etc..."

        Instead, imagine these topics from the perspective of a reader and put together content that is designed to actually address problems, concerns, or items of interest for those readers.

        If that isn't something you can do on these particular niches (which as some have mentioned, might be very difficult with the specific topics chosen), then find some niches in which you can.

        An example to sum up what I'm getting at, on the "Cheap Baby Diapers" site, there are some reviews, a whole bunch of product pages for diapers from various brands, some articles like 'changing baby diapers', but nowhere do I see any content on strategies to get more for your dollar when buying baby diapers, reduce your baby diaper expenditure, etc, etc.

        Someone searching on "cheap baby diapers" doesn't want to see a page with manufacturers info and an Amazon link to some Huggies. If they do somehow end up on your site, they're going to navigate away very quickly.
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  • Profile picture of the author isharky
    I agree with the advice from Ralph and retsced. The good part is that you are very new so haven't wasted too much time.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ami.McCain
    A couple of quick comments...
    Bad Food For Dogs

    What are you hoping to have the visitors to your site do? The site "looks" pretty, but once you get there, I can't tell what are ads and what are photos. In other words, no clear call to action. All your content is below the fold as well (meaning you have to scroll down to see/read anything). That's never helpful. And is your primary goal to receive Adsense clicks or sell an affiliate product? I can't really tell.

    cheapbabydiapers.org
    The layout on this homepage on this one isn't as bad, but because of the topic in question, I don't know how well a magazine-style site would convert. When I think of a person who's searching for "cheap baby diapers" online, they are usually looking for a referral to a store that sells cheap baby diapers or some sort of coupon. While all the content is necessary for SEO, I'm still not seeing a clear solution that you're offering your visitor. You may want to create a page or two with store recommendations, coupon codes, FAQs, etc and then build an SEO campaign to those.

    howtowearcufflinks.org
    How are you looking to earn off of this site? Affiliate sales of cufflinks? The "Stylish Man" ad on the sidebar is sort of weird too. I see that it's a link for a Clickbank product, but there's no description as to what that product is or why your visitor should click it.

    Overall, for two months in, you have a decent start, but you will need to tweak a couple of things and drive a little more traffic. Keep up the good work!
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  • Profile picture of the author Nick Lawless
    Hi,

    I understand your situation.

    Try to find a good coach about SEO. Clearly you need some help with SEO. There are tons of people here in the forum who are good at SEO.

    On my own opinion, try to get more backlinks from article directories and other blogs.

    BTW, how's the search volume for the keywords you're using for these sites?
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  • Profile picture of the author TMercT
    Invest in SEO, make sure you get high quality links to have better results.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brendan Carl
    A lot of the above posters are correct (the ones NOT talking about SEO). I was already turned off after reading your URLs. You are targeting unprofitable niches. The dog food niche could maybe work...

    Pick something that you are passionate about. I know this sounds cliche to say, but I can say from experience that it is a lot easier to write solid, original content on topics that you enjoy writing about, rather than about "how to wear cufflinks".

    And, if you do not enjoy writing it, people will not enjoy reading it... which means no sales.
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