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Where do I start?

by healthsphere
16 replies
Hey guys,

I'm a Pharmacologist from Ireland (22) who recently set up a website aiming to provide notes and explanation for a lot of the subjects connected to it; such as Pharmacy, Physiology, Pharmacology, Pathology, Pharmacokinetics etc.

I'm not at all an expert in design of websites or marketing, in fact I'd go as far to say my comprehension of such matters is...well...sub-zero!! I've put up a good deal of stuff so far on a few particular areas but it will take several months before everything is up. I haven't bought a template for my website either, I can't seem to find one which suits the website I have.

Given the marketing & design experts here, I expect to receive some harsh feedback (which is a good thing!), but wondering what advice you could provide, if any, to help myself start improving the look and marketing of the website. I really haven't a clue where to start and hope the experts among you can provide some direction as to where I should start.

[I'm also thinking of making an e-book to flog on Kindle, not sure of the viability of such a project at the moment]

Looks like a great forum by the way too, quite popular!!

So, any help is greatly appreciated!! First post here too, so Hi to all!!!
#start
  • Profile picture of the author willster74
    I would suggest using wordpress for your website - you can easily get a look/design you want by installing a Wordpress theme you like.

    As far as themes go there are many paid themes such as Socrates that I use for my blog, or you can check loads of free ones here: WordPress › Free WordPress Themes

    Hope that helps as a starting point,

    Dave.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
    Hi and welcome to the forum,

    Your site is off to a good start, but be careful about all of the links (categories) to pages without content. When the search engines scan the site and there are links to pages with no content and only advertisements the site will not fare well and the pages may be de-indexed. Overall that would be a poor start.

    Jeffery 100% :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author healthsphere
      Originally Posted by willster74 View Post

      I would suggest using wordpress for your website - you can easily get a look/design you want by installing a Wordpress theme you like.

      As far as themes go there are many paid themes such as Socrates that I use for my blog, or you can check loads of free ones here:

      Hope that helps as a starting point,

      Dave.
      Thanks Dave! Appreciate the comments! Pardon my ignorance, but isn't Wordpress a blog on a website? Maybe there's another aspect I'm unaware of, I'll look into it. :-)

      Originally Posted by Jeffery View Post

      Hi and welcome to the forum,

      Your site is off to a good start, but be careful about all of the links (categories) to pages without content. When the search engines scan the site and there are links to pages with no content and only advertisements the site will not fare well and the pages may be de-indexed. Overall that would be a poor start.

      Jeffery 100% :-)
      Yeah - initially, I set it up by all the content I wanted to have, and then essentially 'greyed' out the bits that weren't as of yet uploaded. Do you think I should get rid of them and add them when I have content later?

      I was never aware of de-indexing...never heard the term before.

      Thanks for the replies!!
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  • Profile picture of the author webapex
    One has to wonder of creating an encyclopedia of medicine, which is probably done more comprehensively elsewhere, will be a winning approach, particularly a smaller staff operation may be better off narrowing the topics covered, just sticking to Pharmacology would seem to be a rich enough vein, with perhaps some of the better revenue potential. Emphasizing the latest news sort of items with up to date coverage of the latest new drug news might earn some ranking points, the search engines like fresh information.
    Perhaps you are planning to stick to the Pharmacology aspects of the 100 or so categories in your menu, applying one common rule of thumb; you might get 80% of the ad revenue from 20% of the subjects, providing first rate coverage of just the most popular drug uses might help the search engines more tightly categorize your site as well.
    It's good to see some of your vacant sections are getting medically related ads.

    I would certainly have done comprehensive search phrase research to learn just what people are looking for, some sites start with a shopping list of 50 or so keywords for which they target specific content to boost ranking for these more popular, more valuable searches. You've probably dome that sort of homework already, if not you should spend some time with the Google Keyword Tool. [exact match] search volume figures are probably more meaningful, competition figures for these keywords are indicators of the payoff for Adsense ads a page featuring that keyword may get.
    (By the way if you sign up for an Adwords account, which may just require a $10 deposit, you can get 800 results at a time instead of 100)
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    • Profile picture of the author healthsphere
      Originally Posted by webapex View Post

      One has to wonder of creating an encyclopedia of medicine, which is probably done more comprehensively elsewhere, will be a winning approach, particularly a smaller staff operation may be better off narrowing the topics covered, just sticking to Pharmacology would seem to be a rich enough vein, with perhaps some of the better revenue potential. Emphasizing the latest news sort of items with up to date coverage of the latest new drug news might earn some ranking points, the search engines like fresh information.
      Perhaps you are planning to stick to the Pharmacology aspects of the 100 or so categories in your menu, applying one common rule of thumb; you might get 80% of the ad revenue from 20% of the subjects, providing first rate coverage of just the most popular drug uses might help the search engines more tightly categorize your site as well.
      It's good to see some of your vacant sections are getting medically related ads.

      I would certainly have done comprehensive search phrase research to learn just what people are looking for, some sites start start with a shopping list of 50 or so keywords for which they target specific content to boost ranking for these more popular, more valuable searches. You've probably dome that sort of homework already, if not you should spend some time with the [exact match] search volume figures are probably more meaningful, competition figures for these keywords are indicators of the amount of Adsense ads a page featuring that keyword may get.
      (By the way if you get an Adwords account, which may just require a $10 deposit, you can get 800 results at a time instead of 100)
      Very informative post, thanks!

      Yeah - I'm starting to come around to the idea that you and Jeffrey have mentioned.

      I haven't found many websites which deal comprehensively with the pharmacological area, and for the ones I have, I found the information to be poor and not well-presented. So I agree with you that I should have some focus at the moment.

      I didn't actually do that research with Google Keywords - I've never even knew it existed to be perfectly honest. I'll have a look at it soon and try to draw some conclusions.

      I've sort of steered away from AdWords, because a lot of people maintain you should know how to use it, and I'd hate to spend money and use it incorrectly. So I'm up in the air regarding that.

      But thanks again for the post, very useful and informative, I'll change the focus later.
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  • Profile picture of the author mark healy
    great effort on the site, i would suggest put an email opt in form for a newsletter, its very white maybe have a different colour.The ads at the top are distracting the main site.Other than that excellent job
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris Silvey
      I build my sites around 3 principles.
      1. Focus - Focus your visitors on a particular spot on the page.
      2. Control - Control the traffic flow. Less links
      3. Conversion - Always present an opt in or a sale.
      4. Virtual Real Estate and Outbound links - Make sure you get high return.
      Your site is very busy. Tons of links. Information overload and a bit confusing. I would personally go with a 2 column design.
      As others stated, I would go with a wordpress theme. With wordpress you will have a static page and category navigational menu bar on the top. So all the categories you have can be put in a drop down menu, thus less confusing to your visitors.


      I would boot the adchoices. As I stated in #4. Why get pennies when you can get dollars or an optin. Get the best ROI with Virtual Real Estate.
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      • Profile picture of the author healthsphere
        Originally Posted by mark healy View Post

        great effort on the site, i would suggest put an email opt in form for a newsletter, its very white maybe have a different colour.The ads at the top are distracting the main site.Other than that excellent job
        I'm unsure about colour schemes, I'm pretty bad at determining that type of stuff. I didn't want it to be dark colours as usually a 'health/clinical' type site would be bright with blues/greens etc. I'll try and re-configure.

        Originally Posted by Chris Silvey View Post

        I build my sites around 3 principles.
        1. Focus - Focus your visitors on a particular spot on the page.
        2. Control - Control the traffic flow. Less links
        3. Conversion - Always present an opt in or a sale.
        4. Virtual Real Estate and Outbound links - Make sure you get high return.
        Your site is very busy. Tons of links. Information overload and a bit confusing. I would personally go with a 2 column design.
        As others stated, I would go with a wordpress theme. With wordpress you will have a static page and category navigational menu bar on the top. So all the categories you have can be put in a drop down menu, thus less confusing to your visitors.


        I would boot the adchoices. As I stated in #4. Why get pennies when you can get dollars or an optin. Get the best ROI with Virtual Real Estate.
        Thanks for the post, I'm not sure what you mean by getting the best ROI with Virtual Real Estate? Sorry for being ignorant about this, but I'm unsure how to monetize websites and things like that...It's the main reason I joined this forum :-)

        I'll definitely choose a suitable wordpress scheme and try and make the website less busy.

        Thanks again for replies, learning a lot already!
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  • Profile picture of the author locke815
    -Work on your site with a good CMS (Content Management System) such as Wordpress for example.
    -Do a thorough research on your field
    -Do some research on what is SEO
    -And for the web design, if you are using wordpress, just go for their free themes.
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    • Profile picture of the author healthsphere
      Originally Posted by locke815 View Post

      -Work on your site with a good CMS (Content Management System) such as Wordpress for example.
      -Do a thorough research on your field
      -Do some research on what is SEO
      -And for the web design, if you are using wordpress, just go for their free themes.
      Apart from Google Analytics recommended above, can you recommend other common methods to get effective research results?

      How do I do research on SEO effectively though and what can I do with it?

      Apologies for the questions, just I'm only learning this :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author hatcheck
    First, congratulations on taking the plunge and building your own site. That takes guts that many people don't have.

    RE: willster's comment...The reason for WordPress is that it can be used to present web pages as well as blog entries (posts). It has evolved and grown up in recent years. You have to be careful about plugins, but WordPress is certainly a viable approach if done right. It also makes it much easier to add large amounts of content over time, and that's a huge benefit.

    There is really only one way to know whether your site needs any kind of reorganization, different looks, etc. A/B split testing and multivariate testing are what you need. Use a service such as visualwebsiteoptimizer.com or convert.com to test what works best and what doesn't work best with your visitors. They both offer free trials.
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    • Profile picture of the author healthsphere
      Originally Posted by hatcheck View Post

      First, congratulations on taking the plunge and building your own site. That takes guts that many people don't have.

      RE: willster's comment...The reason for WordPress is that it can be used to present web pages as well as blog entries (posts). It has evolved and grown up in recent years. You have to be careful about plugins, but WordPress is certainly a viable approach if done right. It also makes it much easier to add large amounts of content over time, and that's a huge benefit.

      There is really only one way to know whether your site needs any kind of reorganization, different looks, etc. A/B split testing and multivariate testing are what you need.
      Thanks for the post. I'll definitely look into visual website optimizer etc., seems like a good idea.

      Would you have any idea how to increase traffic to a website?
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      • Profile picture of the author healthsphere
        Hey,

        I'm searching through some templates on WordPress at the moment but can find very few which meet my needs.

        Can anyone here recommend any template for me? Would appreciate any offers.
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        • Profile picture of the author matt78
          Originally Posted by healthsphere View Post

          Hey,

          I'm searching through some templates on WordPress at the moment but can find very few which meet my needs.

          Can anyone here recommend any template for me? Would appreciate any offers.
          Just type "free wordpress theme" on Google and you'll find a lots of them.

          By the way, I like your domain name..very catchy. Your site also looks like it could be an authority site. Keep on improving it and you'll learn a lot more about website and marketing that way.
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  • Profile picture of the author brianng
    Dear HealthSphere,
    My brother is a medical doctor. I can pm you his website, it looks good and earns good.

    But before that, is your website on? I can't even ping it.
    rgds.
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  • Profile picture of the author MarvyDery
    Wordpress theme would be the best for you if you don't want to outsource your web designing. Read tutorials on wordpress and there are many tutorials about wordpress on youtube. When i started, i never knew wordpress or web designing but now i have fairly learnt a lot.
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