Is custom design that important to sales?

Hi,

I think you're on the right track, but not exactly. The blog being custom or not does not have as much to do with it as proper layout and positioning based on the way visitors interact with the site. Make your calls to action stand out, but don't clutter the page and confuse visitors. Also, if your graphics are either spammy, unprofessional or both, this makes your site look less credible.

You definitely have a grabbing subject matter that will help keep people reading. If you're saying you generate 500 unique visitors a month you're going to have trouble making much money at all, especially since your site isn't really aimed at buyers.

What I would recommend is paying someone to make you a better header, you have a good idea but it really needs a professional touch. That will help your site be more easily remembered by your visitors. There's a ton of warriors on this forum that would gladly help you out for a decent price.

After that you should just focus on getting visitors, get a newsletter setup, get people on your newsletter list and just keep sending out interesting, free, not trying to sell anything to them content. This will help you get built up. Once you get to 500-1000 visitors per day you can really start monetizing your content.

I would recommend writing really extensive reviews for books and using an amazon affiliate link, you will be able to get on top of long tail keywords for some of those books pretty easily.

As your explanation above, I think you should be change your blog template with attractive design but fast loading. You can choose simple design for that if you want maximize your blog for increase earning.

I took a looked at your site and here is what I think. Overall it's a really nice site for something being hosted on blogger.

A few tips though you can get rid of the blogger search box easily by adding this code into the template designer under add cc in advance.
( #navbar-iframe,#navbar { display: none !important; } )
Also I do agree with "ALicenseToCode" that you should get a better banner, higher quality. If recommend that you feature a adsens ad on the side bar of your blog. To me that seems what your blog will get more revenue for. Again I agree with "ALicenseToCode" if you want to make revenue from books I recommend that you make review post/page on them that you can easily put ad to go buy them.

I hope this helps you.

Hey guys,

Thanks so much for all the great advice. So- I need a better header to begin?
I do review true crime books and have an affiliate link to each of them. Plus I link to amazon if there is a book or movie available for any of the cases I talk about. But still not much money.

I have had this blog up for 7 years and I dont know how to monetize it!

Design has some small impact . What matters most is your content, imporve It

UI - User interface and UX - user experience both are true factors for sales. This both relates to website design and content info part. Both are needed to optimize for sales growth.

I agree - content will be the most important factor on your site.

You are right, If you are changing the templates and making the graphic attractive then I am sure you will get better sales on your blog.

Yeah you Right,Change your template into some unique and attractive look to impress the users.

I am trying to come up with some kind of logo that incorporates my relaxed style with the seriousness of the subject but no one I have worked with so far has shown me anything Ive really liked.

You site looks to simple, you can make it more attractive with changing the theme. it can be good. for logo you may also try to use fiverr. or other logodesing companies if you have money to invest of course for the website. Here is an Example : Logo Design Guru - Unlimited concepts from 30,000 designers.

I thought about adding polls. I am having the logo redesigned now. How can I increase user interface? Im confused.