Breaking through the plateau: Advice needed

Hi Rob,

Just a few things:

1) Change the current facebook social box to a FANBOX which shows you the number of likes and it also shows you faces...looks sexier and makes people move from the site to Facebook and increases the chances of people liking your page....There is one plugin for WP called fanpage fanbox with css support which is excellent (You can see it working on my site) Also try and get that further up the site and give it more exposure.

2) Are you submitting each post to reddit, digg and stumbleupon? If not you should consider doing that.

3) What is your list like? Try and get the optin box further up (Above the fold) and offer something for people to sign up....this can get you repeat visitors if you send regular good quality content.

Hope this helps

Kind regards

Chris

01 Put what your site is about in the header or some where VERY obvious.

I couldn't tell if it was about teaching people how to make money or about football in teh first few seconds.

Remember, we think in pictures. So, the first pictures people see are going to express what your site is all about and I will make a quick decision a to whether I want to STICK.

02 The box on the top right is blank.

03 Maybe a first time POP up explaining what the site is

From what I gathered from the About Bro section - the site is a place to help others procrastinate by focusing on distractions that are fun and interesting?

A simply line of text explaining this in fewer words on or under the header should do the trick.

Also, what are the TOP 1-10 areas of focus that you will be sharing? Maybe photos could be used in the banner.

MOST definetly get some girls involved

Why is Maxim and Stuff magazine popular?

I like the site alright...but where's the social proof that you're getting that many visits? Consider putting a box on the top right that tells me how many visitors you're getting per month. (Or how many sign-ups you have...something to show me that you're "popular")

I would suggest checking out Derek's advice over at SocialTriggers.com for the psychology behind boosting traffic and engagement. He did a podcast with Pat at SmartPassiveIncome.com that was really helpful for me. You could definitely use more opt-ins...check out what they say about the About page...really useful.

We're in a similar boat though...we seem to be leveling out right around 17K visits a month on our site...we'll see if we can pick up the growth again here soon.

great concept but the design doesn't compliment the subject. Redesign the header and add an action photo for the background. If this is a men's site the design need not be so corporate. If you want the users to Brocratinate, keep them engaged with bold vivid design and color or they'll Brocrastinate somewhere else.

I think it is deeper than that.
There are some things with the design like the others say.
You got 3-5 seconds to get peoples attention. In those seconds you have given them the picture of what it is about and shown them how it can benefit them.
But with a 83% bounce rate i believe you need to do some analysis. What kind of traffic is on the website?.
What demographics are you trying to target? are you getting those kind of visitors?.
I personally think you should check what the bounce rate is at the competitions. Use the lowest bounce rate competition with the demographic visitors that you are looking for.
The website should be some what similar to it, since it catches their attention.
And you can use that as the basic platform to build from.
If you get the bounce rate down to 50-60%, and improve the design & social proof + deliver quality content, the traffic should grow.
Just remember Quality over quantity. Get quality visitors. Because if you got 10000 visitors there isn't interested in what you offer a month. It isn't worth more than getting 100 Very interested peoples that spread the word by mouth / social media.
That is where I would start.
Good Luck

I think the idea of social proof mentioned above is probably key for you. Get those facebook 'like' faces up front and center (err, in the sidebar probably.)

I'd also agree that it's hard to tell what the site is about at first glance. Part of that is the header, but part of it I think also comes down to your content : the slider is showing me sports, how to make money, and beer. That's pretty diverse, really, so I would consider tightening up on the content, and/or laying out your categories somehow so that people can see the topics. Your menu isn't helping much there - it feels almost invisible, in fact, and what is there doesn't really say much about what the site is about - so I would say the menu is a problem too. For the categories I would say you need some icons, some thumbnails, something like that to lay out everything that the site is 'about'.

So there are some more rambling ideas for you...good luck!

+1 for @Rick's suggestion about the banner. It's too tall and doesn't immediately express what value your site will provide to the ADD visitor who has his finger on that back button.

Not sure what you monetization strategy is but you could probably find a stronger opt-in incentive like a free report about something Brotastic and definitely place the opt-in above the fold. With 10K visitors a month, this site could be making you a healthy passive income.

You might also consider putting up an "advertise here" option in your footer menu or top nav and sell some ad space.

Good luck!

You can check odesk.com there are some quality peoples around.
I might have some time this evening to design an attractive header for you if you are interested. write to me on facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001882370004 There we can go into details