I love doing what I'm doing but...

[myhmwk1976]

To whomever can help,
I was on a roll for this whole past month. Having fun giving my website more & more details, articles, links, pictures & even some music when someone would click onto another page of my site. Sounds nice huh? I'm very proud of all the work I put into my site. I wouldn't mind doing website's for others either. But, something seem's to be wrong. Maybe people aren't liking what I am providing. I'm writing here to ask for pointers, help and what I might be doing wrong. I'm not that clueless about PPC, CTR, search engines etc but I don't want to spend the money. Is that even possible to even find one really good place to get my site out for everyone to see? I just want some help on getting my site out there.

[Linda Buquet]

Hi myhmwk1976,

Welcome to 5 Star. Happy to hear your initial excitement. Sad to hear your current frustration. If you are talking about the site in your sig, what you are going through is very common for people starting out.

1st of all, the make money online - Internet marketing niche is the worst place to start for a wide variety of reasons. You are trying to compete in one of the most competitive niches, filled with sharks and pros - all feeding off newbies like you. Then too, you are a newbie trying to sell other newbies products to help them make money online, when you don't know how to make money online yet. Hate to burst your bubble, and again this is one of the most common mistakes we see.

Stop before going any further and just read all the stickies here in the newbie forum. You'll get tons of great advice on what to do and things to avoid. We don't allow anyone to try to sell anything here in the discussion forums so no one's feeding you a line to try to sell you an ebook. It's all honest advice.

Then start thinking about finding a good niche.

There are several issues with your site. You could ask for a site review down in that forum and we can give you some tips about it. However if you do, I suggest using the feedback we give you on this site review, for developing your next site on a good targeted niche and not putting more energy into this one. You could maybe fix a couple of the issues we tell you about, but you are unlikely to get very far on a free site anyway, so that's one of the big problems.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. You seem to really enjoy building sites, so just need to learn a little more and switch gears. You've gained a lot of experience and some of the most valuable lessons we learn is through mistakes. With persistence you can get where you want to go.

[myhmwk1976]

Linda,
I really am going to take your advice & see what kind of niche I can find that I like. I'll ask for a site review soon. I appreciate the time you took to provide me with all your good advice & information.
Thank you again

[Niche]

Hi, I had a look at your site

I agree with Linda that affiliate marketing is a difficult niche to get into. For a newbie maybe start with a niche you are more comfortable with

On reviewing your site [i'll confess i only looked at your home page] it does not really give me a solid reason to read on. There is a reason why a lot of sites have a clearly written 'mission statement' People want to get to your site and know within 5 seconds what they are going to get from it

Also you should consider hiding your affiliate links. It just leaves you at risk of commission theft

Last thing I would add is advertising three or four products on the same page without giving any one promotion prominence may distract or confuse your visitors.

On some of my sites, i have two or three products but i tell them which group of people each product will cater to so it is an either or situation

Please note that this is only my opinion but it seems to work

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Niche, those were some of the issues I noticed as well.

[myhmwk1976]

I'm so glad I'm starting to get more great tips & info. It keeps me motivated. I'm deeply considering all the advice. It's very helpful. Since I worked so hard on my site I'll keep it for a while longer & just do some changes to it according to the advice I'm gathering here & see how things work out. It's still worth a try but I'll also choose another niche ASAP. So I just want to say thank you again for all the great information.

[ClassifiedToRiches]

i like how you laid out the site, kind of a different idea.

But I see you have your clickbank HOPLINK urls.. those are very long.. and nasty looking....

Go to notlong Free Short URL Redirection: Make a long URL notlong

Their you can make your long hop links into shorter urls that will look a lot better and might help you get more clicks.. Hope this helps ya!

Good luck!

[myhmwk1976]

ClassifiedToRiches,
Thank you so much. I've already done some more changes related to your advice. It does look better with shorter URL's. Thanks for the complement on the layout. I try. I've been feeling better everytime someone writes any advise & don't regret a day that I've signed onto this forum. Thanks again

[missmaster]

Hey there,

Thought I'd add my 2 cents as a copywriter and lead generation specialist.

- Is your content providing solutions for your visitors? If not, there's where to start. Make sure your pages all make it clear what you want visitors to actually do.

- Also make sure you're not just going to forums and spamming your links. If you're trying to get people to your site through forum marketing, make sure you're offering something useful within the forums. Post sensibly, think about others.

- Your website might be lovely to you but maybe you're overloading your visitors with too many bells and whistles. Forget about marketing your website before you've thought about what people are actually gonna want from it.

- Check out your competitors' websites. See what they are doing right, try to improve on what they've done wrong. Research research research!

- Another way to add value to your site is to offer something for free, like a free report, which you can write yourself. People like getting something for nothing, well, nearly nothing: ask for their name and email address first in return for the report and a subscription to your newsletter: also easy to do.

- When it comes to actually marketing your site there are many ways to go if you don't wanna do PPC: forums, blog commenting, article marketing, email marketing, safelist marketing, organic SEO, etc. Do it wisely and you'll see results.

Hope this helps.

[myhmwk1976]

Missmaster,
Thank you for taking the time to put in your good 2 cents . Much appreciated. Thank you again. I consider everything given to me