12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Care to Tear Apart My Website?

by earthmom22
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've had this website for years - 6 or 8 I believe, so from what I read having an older domain is a plus.

The site was set up to help out a friend who creates websites for booksellers. He pulls in my listings and I decorate around that. He's running an application behind the scene to do this, and I'm working within his environment to customize.

I had three blogs in Blogger.com that I pulled into this site (using frames) - again just for fun. Couple of years ago I added Adsense but haven't gotten much of anything out of it and didn't spend the time to figure out why... until now.

NOW I'm trying to take the site in a new direction and make money with it. But the more I read here the more I see that I seem to have done everything wrong!

So far this is what I see as mistakes:

- Using Blogger, should be using WordPress

- Have a framed site and that won't work for search engines

- Need direct URLs that go to the blog articles (one separate page on the site devoted to one article?)

I'm sure there is more.

I think my niche for the site is the 'Simple Living' blog because my main area of interest is the green living, gardens, raising chickens, raising worms, etc in the city. I am very active on other forums and on Facebook in this area and I now see all of that voluntary content could have been going into my own articles and aiding my own site. (doh)

My website is earthmombooks.com

The sales of books, etc is not my primary interest, as I have shops on many other venues that sell this inventory. My primary interest at the moment is building up the blogs (especially the Simple Living blog) and increasing traffic.

If you do manage to get traffic though, is that alone enough to make money? I don't have a specific service or product that I'm trying to sell through the blog.

I've been reading so much on these forums but I've gone very deep into areas I'm not ready for yet and that is causing confusion. I think I need to step back and restructure what I already have.

If anyone can take a few minutes and check out what I have and make suggestions, I greatly appreciate your help and expertise.

--- Added --- I was an Amazon affiliate and you'll see the site dripping with Amazon ads for that reason. Then the State of CO got into a fight over taxes with Amazon and we lost our affiliate status. So no more Amazon affiliate. I left the ads in place out of depression, as well as a bit of hope it would be reversed soon.
#care #tear #website
  • Profile picture of the author minisite
    - Using Blogger, should be using WordPress
    Blogger is a good blog platform and it ranks well on G00gle probably because they own it. However, Blogger don't offer the flexibility you're looking for that wordpress have such as plug-ins, countles free templates, customization, etc.

    - Have a framed site and that won't work for search engines
    If you migrate your website into wordpress I don't think you will have this type of problem because WP is very dynamic and search engine friendly.

    - Need direct URLs that go to the blog articles (one separate page on the site devoted to one article?)
    Yes, this is important for SEO purposes. Having your targeted keywords on the URL of your webpages can greatly benefit its ranking on the search engine. You can actually set this up very easily. Once you migrated your website into Wordpress platform follow the permalinks tutorial I created to make your web pages more search engine friendly

    If you do manage to get traffic though, is that alone enough to make money? I don't have a specific service or product that I'm trying to sell through the blog.
    It depends what type of traffic that your website is attracting. Keep in mind that anyone can buy artificial traffic nowadays and if these none specific visitors are not interested in your services or products then you will barely make any money from the traffic. What you will need to do is to attract organic traffic to your website. There are different ways to do this such as posting quality and informative articles on your blog over time and using good onpage SEO can help bring relevant visitors to your website.
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6307609].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author earthmom22
    Thank you!

    "If you migrate your website into wordpress I don't think you will have this type of problem because WP is very dynamic and search engine friendly."

    Did you mean to say if I migrate the Wordpress blog into the website?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6307696].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author minisite
      Originally Posted by earthmom22 View Post

      Thank you!

      "If you migrate your website into wordpress I don't think you will have this type of problem because WP is very dynamic and search engine friendly."

      Did you mean to say if I migrate the Wordpress blog into the website?
      Yup. That is exactly what I mean, migrating your website to wordpress. BTW, since your domain is more than 5 years old and its got a page rank of 2 it will be easier to rank it for specific keywords. Your website is also ranking for a few keywords such as "mom books" and "fur real polar bear" but they have low monthly volume searches.
      Signature
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6308461].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author earthmom22
        Here is a 'Still Clinging to the Original Format' question. Since there is a good rank on the domain, if I pull in WordPress just like I have Blogger now (the Blogger blogs are pulled into a frame on the site), will the articles on the WordPress blog be found and crawled?

        In other words, are frames the kiss of death?
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6308726].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author minisite
          Originally Posted by earthmom22 View Post

          Here is a 'Still Clinging to the Original Format' question. Since there is a good rank on the domain, if I pull in WordPress just like I have Blogger now (the Blogger blogs are pulled into a frame on the site), will the articles on the WordPress blog be found and crawled?

          In other words, are frames the kiss of death?
          Frames can hinder the optimization of a website on some search engines but they generally do fine.

          There is a setting on the wordpress that gives an option to allow search engine bot to crawl the contents on it or not. It just a matter adjusting the settings.
          Signature
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6310657].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author pwarde
    Hi Kate
    I went to your website and on review I feel you are not apply any relationship formulas. Things like the order a selling relationship is built upon.
    Which is:

    rapport, authority, trust, sell

    and the sell detail goes like this: Reciprocity, Authority, Scarcity and Urgency, Social Proof, Commitment and Consistency, Groups and Community, Perceived Value, Risk Reversal. You can order the sell detail how best works for your business.

    cheers
    Peter

    PS Can someone go tear apart my website too, below!
    Signature

    Owner at:
    http://www.creationhero.com Graphic Design and More.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6307877].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author earthmom22
      Hi Peter. I'm afraid I understand very little of your post (including my name!) but thank you for taking the time to post it.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6308247].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author the goat
    In the hopes of not sounding too negative I'll try to give you constructive advice. I think your site may be so outdated and badly built that you are probably better off scrapping it and starting over from scratch. It will take a very, very long time to redo it and bring it up to speed.

    You have an aged domain which is a good thing but pretty much every other aspect of the site is just very wrong. I don't want to seem harsh but I would hate to see you wasting time trying to fix it. It's kind of like remodeling a house that has a cracked foundation and termites have eaten the frame. Sometimes it's better to just tear down and rebuild.

    One positive is that blogger can be easily imported to WordPress and it is much easier to build a site with existing content, so you have that going for you.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6308522].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author earthmom22
      *groan* Yes that's what I have feared but didn't want to face Thank you for your blunt advice.

      I also appreciate the tip about Blogger and WordPress.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6308711].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author earthmom22
    I'm converting my Blogger blog to a WordPress blog and am hitting a wall with the ads.

    From what I've learned, I need to add a plugin, however the free version of WordPress does not allow plugins.

    The logical assumption then is that you cannot put ads on a free WordPress blog - correct?

    So it's necessary to pay the $99 to upgrade the blog before you can put an ad on it?

    If this is so, it seems to be better to stay on Blogger, where adsense is integrated with no fee.

    Please tell me if I am misunderstanding. WordPress seems to be the more robust platform and where all serious blogs need to be, but I can't see how to make this work at the moment.

    Help is appreciated. Thanks.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6326734].message }}

Trending Topics