Hi guys, first of all, what a great community here that I just discovered last week! If only I came here 3 months ago when I started blogging Please review my blog at http://www.michaelaulia.com/blogs Also looking for some feedback regarding: My blog is not under a particular niche. Is it bad for monetising So far I only get around $2-4 a month from AdSense 100-200 views a day, but almost no comments given..wonder why? Do the ads annoy you? (is it too excessive?) + Kontera when reading the posts. Do you think this is the reason for No. 2? I honestly hate my blog's "slogan"/description..sounds lame.. lol..any better ideas? Thanks heaps, guys!
Michael, Some quick answers to your questions: 1) While not having specific topics makes it more difficult to properly monetize, Adsense is a good fit for these types of sites. How are your other advertisements doing? 2) Where are the visitors coming from? This will help determine what the issue could be. 3) The ads are pretty heavy, but they fit with the layout reasonably well. I would dump the Kontera while traffic is relatively low, but that's a personal decision. 4) Poor grammar in the description. I would try something like "News, Reviews, and Opinions" to clean it up a bit. H@H
Hey Michael! Nice blog! I really like it. But there is one thing that I will probably change is the title font. And I have noticed some GUI issues using Internet Explorer: the site header is displayed improperly. Good luck with your blogging!
Michael I like your blog and personally I think you should leave it as it is. I remember when I first started out blogging and making websites and this is what I learnt. Web design is like a a curve which goes up and then becomes stable. Bad web designs are represented in the low curve and Poor web designs are represented in the upper part of the curve. Average to Excellent designs are in the stable part of the curve. What does this mean. This means that whether you have a brilliant design or an average one it will not affect the purpose for which you choose the design - the purpose being making money. People will read anything - save a blog which looks horrific (well some might even read that) - as long as you have what they are looking for. Hence, you should now concentrate on what matters most. And that is content. You need to write content which people are looking for. How do you find that out. Search for keywords in your topic using either wordtracker or overture.inverntory's search tool. Then write posts that center around the keywords and at the same time answer the questions of your readers. This is what will get you more visitors. Why aren't people leaving comments. There could be several reasons for this some which are as follows 1. They cannot relate to what you are saying 2. You have answered there question and have nothing to say If you want comments you need an "engaging" tone. Ask questions in your posts. You can't expect comments unless people have something to reply to or feel incited to say something. If you want to incite them then be slightly judgmental regarding the issue in discussion. Then when someone leaves a comment argue with them and soon you will have a whole mass of people commenting. And remember not to give up. Keep trying. $4 a day for a new blog is VERY good. So good luck
Thanks for the feedback guys! Appreciate if there are more people want to comment It's actually $4 a month (max) not a day hehe About 90% of my visitors come from search engines, I guess once they've got what they are looking for, they'll go away unless if my whole site is focusing on what they're looking for I'll change my header soon I guess it's one of my weakpoint as English is not my first language. I always got bad marks in my English writing..but playing games, reading books/news, and writing blogs are really helping me out to improve it (hopefully my readers can understand what I'm trying to tell them on my posts) Should I take out Kontera who's only giving me 2 cents a click and just focusing on AdSense + other ads? (or maybe use AdBrite in-line ads as I heard they are paying better than Kontera) Coz I thought, if you put more variety of ads, you are driving people away from your best performing ads program since they have more "toys" to click
Spoiler alert: inexpert opinion ahead. Regarding your questions: 1. Yes, I think a general blog is harder to monetize. 2. I'm not surprised; I don't think that's unusual. People don't know you yet, so why would they talk to you? Lots of lurkers out there, too. I think you need to connect more directly with people by linking to them (perhaps undiscovered blogs?) and having something useful for the reader, perhaps with a 'call to comment'? 3. Not me personally, no. 4. Yeah, needs help. lol. Um, something catchy, an angle, something to hook the first time reader. Sorry, that's all I got! Good luck!
Thanks for the comment, Artifexus. "Inexpert" sounds better than those who think that they are THE expert Yea..the problem is because my blog is about .. reviews, opinions, tech news, my personal life blog, tips, jokes & videos (although not much) That'd be too long for a description lol.. what'll be the one sentence that does all hmm
Looks nice. To improve the numbers of your visitors though I think you might want to focus the niche more. It's like starting a forum with 50 categories. When stretched out to far it starts looking like a ghost town. Do you have stats? What percentage are return visitors? I am guessing low.
I use Google Analytics and check it daily (looking at the keyword searches) My traffic sources overview from 1- 16 Jan 2008: # Search Engines 1,558 (75.05%) # Referring Sites 435 (20.95%) # Direct Traffic 82 (3.95%) As you can see, most of my traffic comes from the Search engine. Not focusing on a niche actually helps to bring a variety of visitors, but I guess not the loyalty. The Visitor's loyalty (1-16 Jan): 1 visit: 1,915 (92.24%) lol, meaning I only get around 8% of re-visits
Ok, so I am guessing your search traffic averages 1.25 page views. Wouldn't you want to turn that into 3 or 4 becasue they saw another article they liked? Now wouldn't they like your site more?
Like your blog Michael (playing COD4 myself at the moment!) As has been said before you might want to focus more on a niche (gaming?). Its far easier to write about something your passionate about. Good luck
Hm..point taken. The problem is, I have a few things that I'm passionate about o Gaming: I like gaming, but I can't have new posts regularly (unless I buy a new game every week!) o Computer (Tech related news) o Try out new things and tell the world about them (opinions, reviews) o Tell people if I discover something that will benefit others (tips, guides, free but useful stuffs/sites) Unless if I make 4-5 different sites for each thing that I'm passionate about :| the problem with that will be the frequency of posts..and..."No one can serve two masters. He will hate the first master and love the second, or he will be devoted to the first and despise the second." lol
I've changed my title description..can't think of anything else more creative :'[ How does it look now? also, do you guys think I should separate my posts/niches to a few new sites?
I dont want to sound rude, but seriously man - there are so many free wp themes around try another one and see how it goes....
When I first loaded the page I had trouble telling it was a blog with all the ads and affiliate links everywhere.
Hi papa, I was talking about the site's description and layout (ads, etc) not the themes. Honestly I can't really be bothered if someone says "hey, nice design, colors, etc" simply because it's designed by someone else (the credit goes to the author, not me)
I like the new title better. Perhaps slip 'game' in their somewhere (if you're going to post on that topic often). Game reviews?
1. The blog should grow and you will make more. 2. Maybe you should have a question at the end of each blog for people to comment on. 3. The ads didn't bother me when reading it. 4. I think your slogan sounds great.
Thanks, hmfortune, although I had a different slogan at that time (the thread was dated on January 2008 lol)