Aquarium Fish Site Review

[fastfish720]

Hello,

I thought I would share one of my AM websites. The website is Saltwater Fish Tank Help and Advice | Saltwater Aquarium Set Up

I currently rank #1 or #2 on yahoo for keyword saltwater fish tank.

Average monthly visits is around 600, 90% through Search Engines with about 350 different Keywords leading to the site.

Site Concept:
1. Index all the products sold by my merchant into a blog format. (Yes extremely time consuming and I need to redirect live fish links to point to the actual product)

2. Collect a mass of saltwater aquarium articles and republish them, I still need to do research and the republishing and credit part. Currently the site is lacking the How to Set Up A Saltwater Aquarium portions of the site.

3. Write a number of articles on various topics and refer them to a product, I am already a published author on saltwater fish aquariums.

4. Drive more targeted traffic through hobby related forums, coupons and Craigslist.

Goal:
Earn $2,000 per month and eventually turn this into a source of passive income, with monthly type updates for new products and articles.

What do you like and what do you not like?

Thanks so much!!

[fastfish720]

Anyone have any comments?

[Linda Buquet]

Sorry you haven't gotten a response fastfish720. We have some people that often do reviews.
I don't usually plus I'm sick.

But I'll just say that if you are one or two on Yahoo, you're doing something right.

After a quick peek I think the site looks nice, the colors are good and the optimization seems to be there.

Sorry I'm not up to more. Hopefully someone else will be by to give you more detailed feedback.

[fastfish720]

Thank you your reply, it's nice to know that I'm doing at least 1 or 2 things right. I have a cold (it seems to be going around) I hope you feel better.

[chicokid]

First, your content is pretty awesome. Id spruce up the design some, its pretty boring. I always like a spashier title banner, and I just hate the font, but thats a preference thing. What kind of bounce rate do you have, if your getting mostly google hits, are they sticking around?

If so, i would add some adsense to the site. Content rich sites can do well with adsense.

Try a petsmart coupon banner on the front page, something to call to action, make them want to click on something earning you $$$.

Since this is newb advice, take it for what its worth, about what you paid for it!

[324Melissa]

Its a great website. I don't have a ton of advice but I thought it would be nice to get some feedback from just your average Jane... Its easy to read, easy to follow, useful information. Thanks for sharing.

[fastfish720]

I don't know if people often provide updates for their sites, I've always found it easier to learn by example. So I thought I would share what I've learned/changed.

LOVES:

1. I love Wordpress (at least for right now), being able to add plug-ins makes life easy, even though I'm fairly good with html and scripts. It is much easier to manage content.

2. Wordpress Link Cloaking Plugin - Greatest tool ever for Affiliate Marketers

NEEDS WORK:

1. Still need to finish adding merchant products to the website.

2. Need to integrate a better internal site search. The one that came with the template is very poor.

NEW CONCEPT:

1. Create a database of expert written articles (50 articles so far written by me)

2. Provide at least weekly posts with new articles, pictures, videos etc.

3. Visitors read articles and click links to the described products.

HOW WELL HAS THIS WORKED?

1. I marketed this site for 1 week, for a total of 4 hours and no marketing since. This was a trial run to see how well the affiliate converted and if the concept worked.

2. Commissions were $580 first month, $660 second month, $250 closing this month.

3. All traffic is Search Engine Based and through Craigslist

HOW MUCH WORK WAS THIS:

1. Creating the Backend and Research - 20 hours

2. Indexing 718 Livegood Products - 40 hours

3. Indexing 130 Drygood Products - 7 hours

3. Developing 50 Unique Articles - 50 hours

4. Editing and Setting Up the Articles for Affiliate Marketing, CL and WP - 300+ hours

So about 417 Total Hours Over 3 Months.

SETUP/ANNUAL COSTS: (exluding personal labor)

1 Year - 11 Domain Names + Hosting + Private Registration = $245

Marketing Agency: $1500

TARGET SITE REVENUE:

This will start it's marketing program Thursday April 30th.

Target Revenue is $1000 - $2000 per month, with less than 15 hours per month involvement.

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks SO much for providing the updates and all the details.
It's almost like a case study and I'm sure it will be very helpful to our members.

Really appreciate your post!

[Blackpool]

Wordpress is very helpful with the plugins that are currently available. One of my hotels blogs never got 10+ visitors a day, even with great content, until i installed the seo plugin.

Now it reaches 500+ visitors a day, and I still haven't placed a link to my main site on it. I must be going mad!

[Shawn Barkley]

Wow, a lot of useful content on your site. I have to admit the Headline and graphics are boring and not very attention grabbing. I'm sure you could do something really clever given your theme. I did not see an "About Us" link so your visitor knows who you are and what makes you an expert at Salt Water Tanks etc. I like the use of the video about the Mantis Shrimp. It is obvious you have put a lot of time and effort into this site. The work has paid off if you are ranking #1 or 2 in Google. Play with the graphics and links to the affiliate products from the site and you should exceed your goal of making $2000/mo easily. Good Luck!