Cannot make $$$ from website , critics please enter

Overall I would say it is a good start that needs some polish to get people to visit, click, and buy.

A few things I noticed ...

I didn't see anything compelling on the home page that would make me want to read a full article.

Clicking on a took me to a bad looking Amazon Astore. A product I checked said it was no longer in stock.

The Shop link to a Shareasale merchant was blocked by the ad blocker in my web browser.

.

How the heck do you have a 0.91% bounce rate? I wasn't aware that was even possible.

And your site needs to place more emphasis on advertisements. You can't just have a link to Shop and some banner ads and expect to make sales.

Create some graphics and put them on your front page pointing to the store, or a really cool products.

Do some reviews about cool events dealing with jiujitsu.

You need to stop expecting people to buy something and instead MAKE them want to buy something.

OK first off I'd say get a optin on there as fast as possible so you can start building a list then hit them with offers in their inbox.

also you mentioned you are offered free stuff from companies looking to get promoted. well here is your opportunity to sell ad space: tell them you get X amount of targeted visotors in their niche and they can buy weekly/monthly ad space for $x dollars.

million dollar companies are built on targeted markets so if you have the eyeballs you can get the dollars.

As for the site design it's nothing special but I've seen way worse.

Hi,

Your site load time should be improved, both for rankings and user experience.

Setup a free guide on Jiu Jitsu and collect email addresses. Send regular tips and advice as well as related product reviews. You can set this up as an automated system and will see far greater long term results.

I'm focusing on jjsweep right now because I don't have time to look at both.

this won't lead to money right away, but every time a company sends you a free product to review, ask them for a 125 x 125 ad button to put on the right hand side of your site for free for a month to three months just as a perk for them letting you do the review. Other companies will be more apt to buy ad space when they see that you have lots of other ads there. The companies may choose to pay to keep the ad that you've put up after the review if they get a lot of traffic from it.
You may also want to expand your niche to sports drinks or health food/weight training in terms of advertising/reviews. I see you have the supplements, but there's no real review there.

His may sound a little harsh - I'm not trying to be - but my company is one of those companies that sends out products that people review and sites like yours I hate sending products to, and it's because sites like your don't dell my product - I will tell you why -

there's no real review. When I want my product reviewed, I want someone to try it out and tell their experience. I want your human story.

example: Creatine - did you actually try this? It looks like you just posted something from their website. In your reviews, I want to hear how you tried it every day for a week, and how you used to have to make these godawful smoothies but this is in pill form and how you can feel that it's really working.

the same goes for every pill on there, and I want to hear how it helped you specifically and your personal experience with the products.

that weight loss management one started out good - if you're like me and you need to lose a few extra pounds.... and then you just copied and pasted something from their website. Did you try it? did you lose some extra pounds? It's okay to post the info from the website but for god's sake put some original content there and tell me how it went when you tried it. Give me a reason why I should buy it and let me know what your experience with it was when you tried it every day for a week to write this review and how you're going to continue to take it.

You can be honest and not write a glowing review of everything, but otherwise it's just a bunch of what other people wrote and no review. For comments, encourage people who visit your page to share their own experience with the product.
try running a product giveaway once in a while to encourage return traffic and commenting.

For the apparel - if I sent you a pair of shorts to review - I want you to review them! how was the fit when you put them on? did you like the fabric? whats your favorite color? did they wick sweat away or did you get swamp-crotch? what do you think of the fabric technology? did they ride into your butt crack? did you get compliments when you wore them to the gym?

If I am the manufacturer and just wanted a copy/paste from my own website I would make a bunch of fake websites and post it there - that's what it looks like you did. your website looks like a fake review site. As botha manufacturer and a customer I can see that. That's also why you're not getting any bites for ad space and no sales. There's nothing personal there.

I know this may sound a little silly but check out some mommy blogs and see how they write reviews. They have their affiliate links in there, as well. Not all of them are great, and many do what you do and not write a review either.

here is a mommy blog that does a particularly good job with the reviews - disclaimer 0 this isn't my website, and not my product - no affiliation with this site whatsoever - I'm just using this as an example:
diaper review site
she does a great video and writes the review as well. Very effective.

I jut found the Gi review where you actually wrote a review - why isn't the rest of your site like that? I want more pictures in your review, too . you write about the packaging. let's see it!

When you put all your ads in one place, that' the last place your surfers will look. I would put some ads in between the postings. When you go into a market, they herd you past the discount bins, the good markets want you to see everything they can get you to see. Why some in-going-doors, you can't get back out of, you
have to walk around.

You didn't say whether or not the sites were getting any traffic. I agree with kindsvater that I didn't notice any compelling content. Great content will bring people to your sites.

Backlinks, social bookmarking also are necessary to help promote the site. You need to be actively promoting and backlinking and increasing your traffic. If they are low traffic sites, don't expect much in sales.

i appreciate the advice ITT! I will have to go back and redo most of my sites and possibly start over , even a little at a time

I have heard this before, but since what i AM doing is not working i will be changing things up to reflect .

I will also be focusing on SEO since that is essential to a websites success or failure , i could have the best website in the world but nobody knows about it, it's pointless .

Thank you for your post

I agree with this and train BJJ so know it's a tight community and I'm on a few lists. People are interested in learning techniques, hearing news on the biggest fighters, getting the most out of their training and the lastest Gi

There are lots of decent blogs with email lists to model in the community and (I don't know your traffic) it won't be hard to build it up by getting involved in the community through blog comments and posts.

Personally I don't think it sounds like the voice of most BJJ blogs which are very personal -- got caught in an armbar, must remember to do this, that and the other next time....

I'm currently working on a martial arts blog and building traffic, if you wanted to do a reciprical guest blog post I'd be up for that -- pm me.

BigAl and JiuJistuSweep -
I have a podcast geared toward serious martial artists where I interview martial arts masters, instructors, authors and anthropologists from around the world to discuss the history, philosophy and lineage of all styles of martial arts.

I'm not sure what your blogs are, or what your experience is, but if it's a good match for my site, I might be able to have you on the show in exchange for some promotion to your audience, either an ad in your newsletter or on your blog.

Please PM me or email me: info(at)maLineage(dot)com
Thanks!