my new website: http://www.secularhomeschool.net This is actually my wife's website - she's been building it. It's done with a joomla template - and it's got about 15-20 unique articles written on it so far. She's writing a new article every few days. here's what i've done so far - I've done some directory submissions for this targetting various niche keywords (about 150 link directories) The links were put up about 2 weeks ago. I do get some traffic - basically a trickle at this point (about 10-20 uniques per day), but people do seem to be finding it. It's doing quite well in msn (page 1 for about 6 of my target keywords that i know of) and it does seem to be in google/yahoo - although not ranking well in serps yet in those two. We get a little bit of adsense income off of it - not much yet. We've also got a book reviews section with some personally written book reviews and tie-ins with our amazon affiliate, but we haven't seen any sales yet. Basically - i would like to know what you think of the site - and what direction i should go next. I'm considering doing a press release/article about the website, but i'd like to get some feedback (don't hold back - ) from you guys - the greatest web development community on earth! I've learned alot from you guys - and greatly appreciate any insights you may have into the growth of this website. Thanks in advance, VG
I’ll give my two cents but it may not be worth that. (-: First I’ll give my thoughts on the site. When the page first loaded I thought I was looking at a site for some type of desert. While the site is very nice and clean looking the header says nothing about home schooling. Why not add a couple pictures in the header of kids reading books or something like that? I always feel that each part of the site should tell something about the site. You only have 3 seconds to get someone to hang around. Which brings me to a logo. Instead of having the name of the site across the header why not make some type of logo? I like the way your wife writes, I wish I could write that well. My sister in-law home schools in the US, I’ll send her a link to the website. She also has 3 kids. I really don’t see anything else on the design side other than the header. I think you have found a great topic to market, it should be fairly easy to get traffic to the site. Your wife’s writing is perfect, she’s not trying to rank the site for keywords. The more pages you add to the site the more traffic you’ll be able to get. If your wife can get other moms interested a forum would help a lot. Your on the right track for getting traffic just need more content. I have some sites I can send you some links from. I wish I could help but it looks to me that your on the right track.
thank you janeth i agree on the "desert" theme - i don't know how crazy i am about it either but the thing is - it's my wife's website and that's the template she picked I will pass that along to her though - it would probably be a good idea to theme it more appropriately. You're absolutely right about the content - this is a site that she's really trying to develop as a viable resource for homeschooling families - not just an MFA site. i think she really cares about the website and wants to see it make a difference in people's lives. I had thought about a forum - in fact it's on my to-do list i think the interactivity will help alot. I'm considering phpbb - because it's a forum we both like and we know how to administer. I totally agree with you on her writing - i too love the way she writes. She actually does do a bit of article writing for $$, and i think she's a very skilled wordsmith. I'll pass your comments along to her - i'm sure she will appreciate them I've suggested that she check around here at DP to try her hand at developing a reputation as a freelance writer here - i think she could get alot of work that way. Thanks for your comments! anyone else want to pitch in your .02?
update: we've installed the latest build of phpbb2, and my wife is currently building the forums and picking out a good phpbb2 skin. Thanks for the suggestion! We should have it integrated into the main menu by this afternoon. Anyone else have any wisdom to pass on? I more than welcome any feedback!