Hi guys! I just finished my site, Deal Canine. Check out the link in my sig! Here's the about us page to give you an idea about what my site is geared for: About Deal Canine The site is just about done, except I need to fix the front page slider. Could some of you give me some specific steps on how to grow this site out or if I need to make any changes to it? I really want to prosper this one... because I am really engaged to make a living on the web. It's a passion of mine! I have already gotten the site map on Google and such. Another step I will be taking is trying to advertise my site in the local paper. I appreciate the guidance. http://dealcanine.com
You would get more answer if you did ask in the right place Reviews Section - DP However, since you have posted then I would give you my personal reviews. 1. Layout and overall color combination is too much plain. It should have inspiring color such as orange or light blue. 2. Logo is good. I do like it personally. 3. You may consider to put image attached to the content instead of just a full plain text. It could help your site looking more interactive. The only one image at the bottom left is cute but still not enough. You have done a good job already for the rest.
It's a cute site, but you need to SEO it (so this could be the right forum to ask). My first impression was that I didn't think any dog owner would be searching for "canine deal". The Google keyword tool shows insufficient data for the term. Use that tool to find the highly searched terms if appropriate for your offerings. You can't grow the site without traffic, unless you want to pay for that traffic, i.e. PPC. The niche lends itself to social networking and viral marketing. Encourage customers to send in a funny dog video and give away a prize every month. The Amazon link for a digital camera (what I saw) won't help your organic ranking at all. If you must place affiliate links, nofollow them and keep them for doggy things (since your audience is into dogs).
Sorry, my fault for not checking it for content. It is a deal hunter, i.e. bloodhound - I get it. But still, the words on the pages are biased towards dogs and not just bargains. The language on the pages needs to be unique, which isn't possible when you have affiliate product catalog content. There is no silver bullet for this type of site other than slowly building its own community that helps to add discussions, reviews, ratings etc - enough for Google to see that it has a good deal of non-repeated content.
Agreed, its going to be all about building the content and a community of users. The alternative is huge expenditure, which of course is often not available for new sites, let us know how its going.