Please have a look and let me know what I can do to improve my new site: www.workfromhomespot.com I could use more content, obviously. I'll be writing more articles as I have time. I'm thinking of plugging in some RSS feeds. I'd also like to highlight some more relevant threads from newsgroups. I'd eventually (like when I have any sort of traffic) like to start some forums, and see if I can create a community of sorts. I'm also not a web designer, so let me know if you think it's ugly, and if so what I can do to fix it (short of becoming a web designer hopefully). Anyhow any help and suggestions would be much appreciated. Don't feel you have to be nice or anything. Cheers, Gary
Right now it has the feel of an ad farm. If you truly want to build a community, focus more on content and less and splattering ads. Try and keep your ads proportional to your content. Right now you are very ad heavy. You also need to make a decision on what type of business feel you want. For example, you might want to portray yourself as a real business person. If so, you would reduce/eliminate ads and content from places like the rich jerk. Perhaps you want to be one of those get rich type sites. My point is decide who you are, if you don't know already, and build along those lines.
Thanks for the feedback. True there are a lot of ads on the homepage. After poking around here at DP, I noticed a post about how a site about drawing pigs (?) had quadrupled click through by placing ads at the bottom of the page, under some images. I didn't bother with images of pigs, of course, but I think it does look a little better with ads at the bottom of the page. Anyhow thanks again for looking. Cheers, Gary
I use firefox and I have this NoScript extension installed. Everytime I go to a completely new site, all scripts are blocked. When I went to your site with the scripts blocked, I don't see any adsense ads and your site looked quite nice. Then I allowed the scripts... My only suggestion is that if you want to keep your adsense ads, then maybe you should blend the colours to your site. Also, you might want to consider selecting a different format of ad. The leaderboard at the bottom is fine but the skyscraper on the right makes it too busy. Maybe a one-ad format to match the size of your menus on the left could be better.
This is totally personal and I am an old fashioned old bat so don't listen to me if you don't like what I am saying but, I hate the fact there are no pics. I want to see pics of happy WHM's with kids. That is what I am and I would love to know the secret to getting it right. Some cool dude sitting at his keyboard in his jammies or whatever other image you can come up with to represent what you are about. Also look at your SEO. All your pages are using the prime title with the first three words exactly the same. Swap it about a bit. Instead of Work from home, put home working or Mothers working at home or Give up your Day job or whatever you might find suggested by the DP tool Wordtracker or overture. Remember that the wider you cast your net the more people will funnel through your website and that every page can be seo'd for a different term. Every page should also have an intro. Regardless if you have lifted the article from an article site, introduce it in a short paragraph emphasising your own keywords ONCE. I like your site. It looks cool and peaceful - the way I'd like my working from home life to be. Add a couple of pics and you might really catch my attention. Good luck with it. If you can get above all the bullshit that surrounds working from home and present good opportunities and highlight the pitfalls you'll do a great service.
I've had a couple of people suggest that I match the colors on my adsense block to the rest of my site. I just threw that in, and I'm not sure I like it. It does blend, if that's what we're after. Have a look if you have a minute: http://www.workfromhomespot.com http://www.workfromhomespot.com/articles/wfh1.aspx Any thoughts on that vs. the standard google colors I had before? Thanks, Gary
I like the color blending. I think it works. Next up is probably aligning the tables you have with the ads a bit better so that things don't look too broken up. Also, try referring to the Google heat map to place your ads at the recommended locations.
Gary, I don't like the ad deployment on the article page at all. It looks very out of place and could turn off visitors from continuing through your site. Also, at least on my screen, it looks like the article ends prematurely because above the fold I only see about 2 paragraphs and then all ads to the bottom. Just my own taste, but I like ads to appear at the top or along the side of an article. Here is an example to try: Title Author merged horizontal row of ads article Don't get mad at me, but I need to point something out. You say: This really cheapens you. First off, who told you that your website was number one? Second, if your website, with little beef, is number one, we are in big trouble. I know I know. You want to say you are the best. Why not let your website speak for itself? It will add to your credibility. Now, if you do win a real award, and I mean something major and widely recognized, then talk about it. It is your site, I just wanted to give you something to think about. I hate when a company has me do their ad copy and wants to add cheap and counterproductive text like this. One more thought. Your website, on the front page, says: If you truly will be updating almost daily this is fine. However, if you won't be, or stop at some point, remove this text. You are giving your visitors something to expect and count on. If you fail in this task, they will be let down and will most likely go elsewhere.
Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it. Definitely not mad at you, I told people not to try to be nice. Some people are too touchy. Acutally I agree about the #1 thing. I tried to make it a little less silly by saying it was "your #1 source" instead of "THE #1 source". Guess it still sounds silly. Not sure about the ad position. I try to ignore ads as much as possible when surfing, but I find I look at them more if they're in the content rather than next to it. Just my opinion. Good point about the "almost daily" thing. For now I'm spending a lot of time on the site, trying to get it ramped up, so I will be adding more content frequently. I also wanted at some point to at least semi-automate the publishing process, so I could achieve this goal. But good point, I'll remove that if it becomes a lie. On the other hand 95% of my AdSense ads link to lies... Thanks again for the advice. Cheers, Gary
I think this is great advice. I know I am put off as soon as I see exaggerated claims like that. It just makes me go ... oh yeah, you are number one and I am Mary Queen of Scots. Bye pal.
So you're saying you're not Mary Queen of Scots? I always thought if I read it on the internet, it must be true.
Mary Queen of Scots and High Priestess of the Chainsaw at your service. Jack Daniels, I know your cousin Johnnie Walker very well.
Hello again. This site has undergone some surgery since last time I asked for comments. For one thing I replaced inline giant box ads with inline text ads, and removed the (mostly worthless) amazon affiliate links from the left column in favor of a Google skyscraper. Let me know what you think. Also fired up a forums site recently, which is desperately in need of posters. AdSense revenue sharing is in place. Let me know what you think! Thanks, Gary
Yeah, the home page is a little heavy on the adsense, I agree. Maybe need to switch one to text links or something. The detail pages (articles, etc) look at little better. Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.