Hello everyone, Can I get some site advice please? I am really starting to get discouraged but I don't want to give up. I am pretty new to affiliate marketing and trying to get the ball rolling here. Can you give me some tips to help me in the right direction please. Here is some info on my site: site www.bookowl.net blog www.bookowl.net/wordpress - Site launched in May - i have ppc campaigns (6 ads running atm) and trying to get organic traffic too - my site is now listed in the search engine (i am #2 when you search "book owl" on yahoo search) - i have submitted 3 articles to digg so far (is this considered backlinks?) - getting 3-5 clicks per day from my Adwords campaign (set at 10 cents bid due to budget) no sales generated yet - I tried advertising on craigslist but got flagged as spam - I have no PR from google. One sub-page was PR1 last week, but now is back to 0. - I try to "at least" post an article a week on the blog, sometimes more depending on time available - all my pages are titled with keywords, pictures are tagged - I bookmarked 1 article on delicious (not really sure how this works for traffic) Also a few questions I have: 1. Is it hurting my site that my blog is not on the main page of my site? 2. When I look at my site I don't feel that it sucks (maybe it does and I just dont know it lol) but it isn't doing anything to get revenue. Am I expecting too much too soon? 3. I don't have my affiliate links on my website as "no follow", is that hurting my site? 4. About how many clicks per day do i need to get before i see sales from Adwords? Am I doing this all wrong? I feel like it
I think you need to keep up the good work and try to increase you marketing. Not neccesarily paid but posting on forums and hundreds of links from Li*nk Mar*ket and places like that. Success will not come overnight but success will come to those that wait.
I think that it would be beneficial to have at least a link to your site on the main page. And I would also recommend a different banner. I'm sure you could find someone on this forum to make you a new one quite cheaply. Apart from that I think that the site is easy to use, but the advert on the left is for HealthBuy or something, which is nothing to do with books! Maybe you could look into more targetting ads?
Thank you for your replies. Gingerapple, I do have a link to the blog on the main page if that what you are referring to about link on the main page. Which banner are you referring to, the owl pic or the Bookowl.net word text? I do agree not all ads are targeted to books on the site. I was kinda having a hard time getting all related ads. Any suggestions, should i make my own banner ads and a add product link to them? I would like to see it more targeted too.
If the blog isn't on the main page you should try advertising the page that the blog is on. That way people will see your blog right away
I know a lot of people frown on traffic exchanges but I found that it does wonders for your search engine rankings. Running your website through TE's may not bring you a lot of sales but what is does do is give your website a lot of traffic. The traffic you receive from TE's will increase your PR which will then increase your unique visitors.
I was talking about the owl banner. I think that for the sake of under $10 you could have a banner professionally designed to keep up with the ever evolving styles of the web.
Thank you all for your replies! Zurpit, I have started to promote my blog page also by article submissions on delicious and digg. Not sure if that helps or not. I am using the Adwords advertising for my main page and related product pages. Thanks Trioman for the tip! Gingerapple, I would like to have an image with an owl and a book thus the site name. I will see what I can get for a replacement. Thanks for your advice. Can someone please answer this question.....is not having "no follow" for my affiliate links hurting my site?
I'm not saying that you shouldn't have an owl, I'm just saying that you should perhaps have a more professional one. I believe that an owl is a good idea since the name of your site has owls in it
You have way too many keywords in your keywords tags. Do some keyword research and only include about 10 keywords in your keywords tag. I couldn't find a link to your blog from the main page. Is that deliberate? If yes, I don't understand you would not want to place a link to your blog on the main page. Also, try to get listed the site on DMOZ and Yahoo!
szsoomro, Thank you for your post. I didn't know having too many keywords wasn't a good thing. I thought the more the merrier! lol Thank you for letting me know. I will pick 10 keywords then. The blog link is at the top left hand corner under the words Bookowl.net, it says "Visit Owl's Blog here" I didnt realize it was easily overlooked...hmm...might have to move it somewheres else then. I want people to find and use the blog link. Does anyone else have a problem finding the blog link at the main page bookowl.net at a casual glance? Thanks for your input! This is helping me tackle some issues I didn't realize were there. P.S. I am in the process of adding no follow links to my site. I hope this helps with bringing more traffic.
Oops sorry! I must have been sleepy when I looked at your site. Or maybe I overlooked the link to the blog because a) it is too close to Google Ads (my eyes automatically ignores those) and b) It is placed just below the site name, where normally I would expect a site tag line or something and not a link to your blog. But I just looked at your site again and here are some more suggestions: 1. You can add a navigation bar in a prominent color (say, red) with links to your home page, your blog, an about us page, site map, etc. Keep the links text based and try to include keywords in your links. (BTW, studies show that an about us page is a company's most visited page, so you might want to create one.) 2. Add a footer and place links to important pages. Again use keywords in your links. 3. Create an HTML site map for your visitors. 4. Create an XML sitemap for Google and submit it to webmaster tools. 5. You might want to add more keywords to the title for each page. Optimize each page for 2-3 keywords max. 6. You should have a different set of meta data for each page based on your keywords for those pages. 7. Use heading tags. 8. 36 of your images don't have alt tags. Try to include keywords in your alt tags; but only if they make sense. Do not stuff keywords. 9. Set up a permanent redirect (301 redirect) between www.bookowl.net and bookowl.net. 10. Get yourself listen on DMOZ and Yahoo directory. 11. Instead of naming your blog directory "wordpress", you might want to use keywords in the URL; something like www.bookowl.net/discountbooksblog/. 12. Submit your pages to social bookmarking sites. I think these should keep you busy for a while Good luck!
You have to keep at it. You said your site was launched in May. This is a very new site, so it takes time to "make things happen", especially organic traffic. The older a site is, the better it becomes. I've been doing this for over 7 years with my latest site, and I'm still working on it...it never ends, only improves. Keep this in mind when you start to think "it isn't worth it". If you feel you can't continue on this path for a very long time, then maybe it isn't worth it. If you believe in what you are doing, and you are in it for all of the right reasons, you will continue to work at it, and it will begin to pay off. Good luck!
"I have no PR from google. One sub-page was PR1 last week, but now is back to 0. " Do not worry about PR. This comes as you increase your backlinks. Not having PR means nothing in terms of how well your site is doing. "The traffic you receive from TE's will increase your PR which will then increase your unique visitors." I've never heard of traffic affecting PR. "Can someone please answer this question.....is not having "no follow" for my affiliate links hurting my site?" Unless you have dozens of affiliate links, it shouldn't hurt your site. "my site is now listed in the search engine (i am #2 when you search "book owl" on yahoo search)" Being top spot on your own name doesn't amount to much. How many people type in 'book owl' when they're looking to buy a book? "About how many clicks per day do i need to get before i see sales from Adwords?" This relies heavily on the keywords you have chosen and how and how good of a salesman your site is. I agree with everything that szsoomro says except the social bookmarking thing. Careful with the meta keywords tag, this doesn't have as much effect as everyone thinks it does. Notice that blogger.com does not have keywords and blogger is owned by google; this should tell you something. If you do use meta description make sure it is very relevant to the individual pages that it is on. Submit your articles to article directories instead of social networks. You will receive more backlinks from directories. Besides the traffic you get from places like Digg often do not purchase anything. And, don't use the same articles that are on your site; make a different version for submissions only otherwise you may get hit with duplicate content.
Your going in the right direction. In my opinion, I say keep forging ahead. I think if you can put more articles out there, maybe three a day, you will get more exposure. Definitely submit your articles to ezinearticles and associated content, they are pretty big article sites. Other sites you might consider for article submission might be ehow, triond and helium. Not only will you get traffic from these sites, but they also pay you for your article views. Good Luck and I am sure things will soon change in a positive way for you. Your sweat will bring you rewards. Don't give up, you are doing great!
Thanks to everyone who posted feedback for me! I have been working on the site alot and continue to use all the tips you have provided. I really appreciate everyone that left me a post. It really helps me see what I need to change and adjust for the site. Edited to add these questions: 1. Should I remove my site's meta tag keywords? Would that help my site more, and let google select the words from the content instead? 2. What is heading tags? Is that the meta tags? 3. What does "stuff keywords" mean? Thanks for your help for this noobie who is determined to get this right! lol
"Should I remove my site's meta tag keywords? Would that help my site more, and let google select the words from the content instead?" Google does not (currently) use the keywords meta tag although MSN and Yahoo do. I wouldn't say you should remove the keywords meta tag all together but be careful what you put there. For example, I notice that you have the word "book" there a dozen times - google may see this as keyword stuffing which is bad. Once or twice will suffice. "What is heading tags? Is that the meta tags?" No, heading tags are used to define headings on a page; kind of like a title and subtitles. For example, your "POPULAR BOOK SEARCHES" should be like this... <h1>POPULAR BOOK SEARCHES</h1> as oppose to... <p align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#FFFFFF"><b>POPULAR BOOK SEARCHES </b></font> ...H1 represents heading 1 which is the most important heading on the page. "What does "stuff keywords" mean?" Keyword stuffing basically means using the same keyword over and over and over again during the course of the page. Doing so may result in a penalty from the search engines as this is a technique commonly used by 'not so legit' marketers.
Thank you for your feedback John84! I have added heading 1 tags on every page and removed the duplicate stuffing keywords from the meta tags. I am glad you pointed that out as I didn't realize that was considered "stuffing". I have added a better top banner, improved each page with more targeted content. I removed the google ad in the header and added a more visible blog button. I still have to work on a few more things. I appreciate everyones who has left feedback so I know what I need to do, thank you again!