Site Review

Hi everyone,
I'm a relatively new member and after reading a lot of the forums, was wondering if anyone had any tips for my blog to help improve CTR? (link in the sig)

Thanks!

 

I'm not web designer, but I'd use the blue color on the right and left columns. This would designate the actual content from navigation / ads / etc.

Then again, you may more money this way.

Brandon

 

I don't fully understand what you mean, which blue are you referring to? The background blue on the column headers?

 

I don't know. You could probably get away with either the blue in the header or blue in the background (the very dark blue). Again, I'm no web designer, but I think all the white and gets a little confusing. Nothing terrible, but I think you could improve it.

Brandon

 

Personally, I would remove the adsense from the left column altogether and place the code within your actual posts.

Think of it as classified advertising in a newspaper where they throw ads in with the stuff you are reading.

Having the adsense on the left makes it easy to ignore if a user is reading in your central pane... not too mention it looks like you are fishing for money.

Check out CNN.com's articles to see what I mean... they have a square box of google ads in each article ... not in their navigation area.

You don't have to mimic what the big boys do, but the big boys are successful and have team's of people to evaluate the very same question you asked here. They are often a great starting point for getting ideas for your own site.

Also, I would use a "horizontal" version of your amazon ads and place then in content above the footer... then you will have a nice clean navigation area which will bring users back to your site. If you make your site sticky by providing good content and navigation your traffic and ROI will go up as well.

 

any tips on improving traffic?

 

Do you mean you are doing SEO for your site or you are Employed by some company to do SEO on their site? Just wonder if any company has position for SEO

 

If your site is new:

• Directory submissions - seocompany.ca has the best list
• Write Content - if they are articles syndicate them to other sites such as ezinearticles.com
• Start a Blog From your main site - if you use wordpress (wordpress.org) it comes with an automatic ping tool which tells hundreds of blog sites (like technorati) when your site is updated. You will find that these sites are indexed several times a day and if you write about a topic that is fresh in the news you can get top 10-20 rankings pretty easily within a couple of days for terms contained in your post. Also, there are Blog Directories which will accept blogs that are not from TLD domains giving you a second opportunity to get one way links to your site for free.
• Create a directory on your site and link it from the homepage - allows users to see that you trade links and also provides a valuable resource to website visitors... make the directory categories related to your field so you get links and descriptions about the keyword space you would like to be found for.
• Run a topsites in your industry - alter the topsites code to include a link back to your site. In some industries a topsites doesn't make sense so use this one with care

If your site is established:

• Work on a unique tool or service, preferrably free that a visitor can add to their site or would come to your site to use everyday. Free email is a great example but has been done to death now.
• Write articles and only post them on your own website only
• Spend some money on PPC - send them to the appropriate page on your site not necessarily your homepage

 

How did you get that job?

 

Thank you for your tips, I have already started on your suggestions.

Pit