Review my Website Design + Income Please

Discussion in 'Websites' started by Dempsey, Jul 9, 2007.

  1. #1
    I have a fairly popular site (Alexa rank: 44,156) at http://www.mpsounds.net, which is a collection of SoundPacks for the custom sound feature of Messenger Plus! Live.

    As it is an offical database is is directly linked from within the software itself, which sends me about 8000 visits a day.

    I know the design is horrible and theres a lot of stuff I need to work on with the site, which I want to do. But just wondering if anyone had any tips for a new design and how much revenue I should expect from Adsense and/or if anyone can recommend any other forms of monetization?

    I have a couple of possible design concepts at http://mpsounds.net/kangaroo/ and http://mpsounds.net/zomgbeta/ which I'm not sure if I'm going to use or not yet

    Stats from Last month:

    264,080 Visits
    211,327 Absolute Unique Visitors
    1,562,371 Page Views
    5.92 Average Page Views
    00:03:36 Time on Site
    46.28% Bounce Rate
    75.31% New Visits

    93.99% Direct Traffic
    3.57% Referring Sites
    2.44% Search Engines

    Adsense 120x240 on homepage: $225.31 (Av $7.27/day)
    Adsense 728x15 Link Unit on all pages: $540.80 (Av $17.45)

    Do you think this adsense income is expected for this traffic levels, or do you think a new design and layout which is easier to navigate etc, will help?

    Does anyone have any ideas for possible designs/colours/layouts or something, as I have no clue.

    Thanks for any feedback :)
     
    Dempsey, Jul 9, 2007 IP
  2. chatterboxwriting

    chatterboxwriting Peon

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    #2
    I would most definitely change the color scheme of the site. The light orange on the gray background makes it very hard to see that there are text links at the top of the page. The only reason I knew they were there was b/c of the "Ads by Google" standing out in a darker color. You haven't got that many ads on your home page. I'm not an AdSense expert (just starting out), but I think that with 8000 unique visitors per day, you should be making more than $7 a day. Experiment with your color scheme, site layout, ad placement, etc. You can try a combination of text links, banners, skyscrapers, or whatever will blend in with your site. Take advantage of all of those visitors!
     
    chatterboxwriting, Jul 9, 2007 IP
  3. mgrohan

    mgrohan Active Member

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    #3
    Looks great to me. Great design, like the colors and the placement and blending of adsense ads looks ok.
    Maybe place adsense inside posts after the first post to increase clicks?
     
    mgrohan, Jul 9, 2007 IP
  4. antman

    antman Well-Known Member

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    #4
    Nice design, just be careful about using the word 'official' on your site. Unless you are running it from Microsoft, you could get in trouble
     
    antman, Jul 9, 2007 IP
  5. Dempsey

    Dempsey Well-Known Member

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    #5
    Thanks for the feedback everyone :)

    It is official, as the downloads are for a feature of Messenger Plus! Live, not Messenger itself. I have the support of the developer of Messenger Plus! Live.
     
    Dempsey, Jul 10, 2007 IP
  6. gpyong

    gpyong Well-Known Member

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    #6
    Great job! You site was attractive in terms of the rounded corner, theme and the icons. But I don't think the orange color will suit your overall color theme...
     
    gpyong, Jul 10, 2007 IP
  7. Marty_

    Marty_ Banned

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    #7
    yes nice design, but maybe make the box title bar a darker orange link your google ads (Ads by Google
    ), also your Dempsey avatar is a little to big for my tastes, but thats just me..

    Over all very good..
     
    Marty_, Jul 10, 2007 IP
  8. Raine1988

    Raine1988 Active Member

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    #8
    actually none of the mare that good..maybe consider some other color combination..and make your site clean as possible...now its top crowded
     
    Raine1988, Jul 10, 2007 IP
  9. dreamz

    dreamz Banned

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    #9
    Yes, I like the design. Colourfull design..
     
    dreamz, Jul 10, 2007 IP
  10. AGrandioseBlog

    AGrandioseBlog Peon

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    #10
    Wow, that's a lot of traffic! Why are you just using Adsense? Plus I would redo your landing page into a much more descriptive page and take advantage of another ad generating program like text link ads. Sign up for Text Link Ads and remember to tell text link ads to cut down the number of keywords they highlight, they usually do anywhere from 13 - 16 a page but you should cut down to around 5 or so.

    Really great idea and good luck!
     
    AGrandioseBlog, Jul 10, 2007 IP
  11. Dempsey

    Dempsey Well-Known Member

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    #11
    I've been meaning to look into other ways of monetization other than just adsense fora while now, but not sure what to try
     
    Dempsey, Jul 10, 2007 IP
  12. AGrandioseBlog

    AGrandioseBlog Peon

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    #12
    Oh and I also like kangaroo design too
     
    AGrandioseBlog, Jul 10, 2007 IP
  13. Dempsey

    Dempsey Well-Known Member

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    #13
    Yea I think I prefer it to the current design, not sure, I'm going to do some work on it and then decide what I'm going to do.

    Thanks for the feedback everyone :)
     
    Dempsey, Jul 13, 2007 IP
  14. indyank

    indyank Peon

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    #14
    Great site and i think you are making good money from your pages...may be the translation ads are doing the trick...probably you can do some adsense optimization for your landing page
     
    indyank, Jul 13, 2007 IP
  15. Dempsey

    Dempsey Well-Known Member

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    #15
    How exactly would you recommend I optimise the landing page?
     
    Dempsey, Jul 13, 2007 IP
  16. wounded1987

    wounded1987 Well-Known Member

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    #16
    i think i would remove the adsense from the main page to make it look REALLY professional and really official you know, and insert the adsense more deeply into forum posts etc... cause if the users can see from his first visit no ads, clean website then he will go deeper into the pages
     
    wounded1987, Jul 13, 2007 IP
  17. mindimage

    mindimage Peon

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    #17
    nice amount of direct type in traffic, looks like advertising and link exchanges are necessary to drive new users
     
    mindimage, Jul 13, 2007 IP
  18. Oompa

    Oompa Banned

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    #18
    I like it, nice colors and style!
     
    Oompa, Jul 13, 2007 IP
  19. stabilo66

    stabilo66 Banned

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    #19
    i love your site too!
     
    stabilo66, Jan 11, 2008 IP