Is My Website Really As Awful As I've Been Told?

A quote from a comment on your site, that sums up why your website fails:

Oh no, just realized I fell into your trap and visited your site to get your traffic up. Damn.

Your comment doesn't deserve a reply. Bye.

1) The site looks like a scam.

Doesn't come off like a scam -

2) The domain name looks spammy.

Not sure what you mean by spammy?

3) The site design is ugly.

I would make it more responsive, and the design should pop more -

4) The content is incomprehensible.

Content seems fine -

5) The humor is distasteful.

Its a BLOG so humor is fine-


send me a PM I have some more advise for you...

WILL -

FAKE IT TIL YOU MAKE IT!

* Who cares about your dog pooping?

* If you don't know how to make money online, you shouldn't write about it. Do you also write about how to perform cosmetic surgery?

* Most recent post is very negative and instantly gives a real negative vibe to the blog. A post about your readers, calling them losers?

Andrew's remarks about my site were more than welcome. His comment about the purpose of this thread being to drive up traffic definitely ISN'T. If I wanted traffic, I would go to a traffic exchange website and get tons of non targeted traffic in the order of thousands not the 3 or 4 clicks I would get here. No one who goes through my blog from a thread like this would ever buy anything from me with all the negative vibe there is in this thread. I want honest opinions that help me to improve. That's all.

Last year I became visually impaired and had to quit my job as a graphic designer. This site is basically my "last hope" to survive. I could easily claim that I am making $100,000 a month and fool so many idiots, who wouldn't even check Alexa rankings and they would buy my stuff. I can create fake Paypal accounts, fake income tax returns and any other fake proof of income I want. I don't do it, because I am honest. Even as much desperate as I am, jobless and half blind, I would NEVER scam anyone. So I am NOT OK with people telling me that I am a scammer or that I have some sort of "hidden agenda" especially when they use the jargon of a high school bully to make their point.

As far as the others go, THANK YOU so much for your feedback. It is much appreciated.

@WebDevelopmentGroup: "spammy" in the sense that it sounds like the domain of a poor site. You know, it's like when you hear the name Tatyana and you think about some beautiful hot blonde Russian girl. What does "moneyearningsites" make you think of? I am sending a PM.

@Mojojuju I know that would work, but I don't want to deceive anyone. I genuinely want to help out anyone who puts their trust in me not take advantage of them.

@Others The idea behind the blog, which seems to be misunderstood is not to "teach". The first thing I do when I go to a "make money" blog is to go visit the very first posts that were ever made and every single blog I visit has one thing in common: they are started when the blogger in charge is already making money - sometimes tons of money. Either that or they PRETEND to be making a ton of money, so as not to receive critiques like the ones above... The way I am trying to be different here is by taking readers through the journey with me. If I make it they can "learn" by imitating what I did, perhaps even skipping up the wrong choices I do. If I don't they can still "learn" by not going the same route as myself.

As far as I know, there aren't any other blogs that use this approach. That's why I believe that the information I am providing is valuable. Obviously, my intents are being misunderstood and I have a huge communication issue...that I will need to solve.

PS: I did not call my reader "loser". That's how he signed himself: "Another Loser"

Thanks Baxter. That is some great advice!

Yeah this seems like you wanted the link and the traffic since there is pretty much nothing wrong with the site.

Thanks again, Baxter.

Stefan, same non reply as Andrew.

Well, changing the domain name would be problematic. I already have like a hundred backlinks to my site (and I mean links that are a reasonable quality not forum profile links). I am considering doing that too though. I would definitely not get the same domain, if I could restart all over. The other stuff, I will definitely change as you suggested. Actually I like the tag you proposed. It sounds perfect.

As for the negativity, yes, I know it's there. Honestly, I would feel stupid trying to sound positive and happy making $200 a month. It's not something to be neither positive nor happy with and I am trying to be as truthful as I can. So the only way for me to be positive without actually lying is to change my attitude for real. Perhaps get rid of the "Saturday Updates" where I share how I feel about my project until the day I have something more positive to share.

Thanks so much for your input.

Well, thanks then, Stefan. The thing is that many people are seeing an issue and that's why I posted here. I wanted to see if others (besides those who posted on my blog) were also seeing the same issues. And it appears that they do (too much humor/unprofessional logo/purpose of the site not clear). The latter issue seems common to many people. That's why I want feedback. I have a very high bounce rate and I want to work on the site to reduce it.

It looks good but the logo puts me off and possibly the grammar on the articles sometimes from looking at them i see a few errors which makes the site look unprofessional compared to others i have seen.

Thanks ViralMedia, that's very to the point and very helpful. Would you mind if I ask you for an example or two of grammar mistakes? That would be a huge help.

1. Get the logo redone
2. Rebrand the site - as everyone else has said, if its about a journey then make it about it. Not tease people into "make money online for free".
3. Images you use - if you think its "scammy" (which the logo reeks of), try branding the site again with some better images. You don't really associate money with some character from the Simpsons or cartoon drawings.
4. Lots of scrolling - personal preference but you have heaps of stuff in the side navigation, ads which make me think of scams and a newsletter subscription that basically says - "add me to your list and send spammy shit at me"...

Lots more but I think if you fix these up first it'll do heaps for your branding.

Hey mate I replied in my design thread when I realized who you were -- you should check that out -- but I don't want to post the same thing here again.

That's actually where you are wrong.

People (no matter how dumb you are) can smell a scam from 100 miles away.

The same way people get called out all the time for scams, BS, and lying, you would be called out the second your site actually started to gain any relevance.

Lying is not how people make a name for themselves.

One thing you don't get -- is that people share, promote, and basically the entire way you get a site to grow is through credible, REAL, stories/advice about your topic.

The way you get an internet marketing site to grow -- is to tell people how you made money OUTSIDE of your site.

So keep promoting and working on your site -- but do other (non "make money online") marketing on the side, so that you can share your failures and successes with your marketing crowd.

A lot of people don't realize the difference between the internet marketing and the make money online crowds.

You are talking to us like you want to start a marketing blog, but your website is focused around the "make money online" niche.

I think that last point is what everyone is trying to say. You need to figure out your niche and go from there, you could potentially product MMO content and make money that way (but that's the scamming you didn't want), but with marketing... if you don't know it.. it just won't work out.

It doesn't matter if you disagree or not.. that's a fact.

Hey Brandon,

thank you very much for all the input, here and elsewhere that you left. That's a very interesting point you made about the MMO crowd and the marketing people.

About people smelling scams 100 miles away, I got to disagree. Truth is people sign up for the crappiest hosts blindly believing other people's recommendations, they ask for "Paypal Proof" to purchase guru products (when we all know all Paypal proof is 99.9999% of the time fake), they buy magic robots that are supposed to make them free money with binary options. Just go to Clickbank and check the conversion rates for products of this kind. They are very high.

But I don't get why you keep referring to me in regards to these tactics. I don't do any of this stuff and the statement you quoted from me was just a reply to the suggestion "fake it till you make it". I am not up to scamming anyone.

In any case, I greatly appreciate your suggestions!

No I didn't mean you were scamming people.

Anyway -- you're actually right -- people are idiots and do fall for dumb products.

Well anyway, keep it up, and prove me wrong. I want you to be a millionaire someday.

Wow! Things are heated up in here. By the way, I think your site looks good. Nothing wrong with it that is too obvious.