Successful Affiliate Marketing website review
Posted by Lindsayanng on February 25th, 2009
First impression is a good one. YOu have hit is spot on with organization and cleanliness. When I view your website, I do not feel overwhelmed with content, images, and ads, yet you do have a LOT of content, images and ads on the page.
I REALLY like the tabbed box at the top for search, categories, and archives, but it’s not very obvious that the function is there. It took me a minute to notice those links, at first I thought it was just a search box. Just being nit picky here, but the box around the SEARCH when clicked does not exactly match up with the box that contains the content for that box. Do you see what I am saying? There is about a 2 px indent on the background/border of the search link. Its something that should not be that way simply because the idea of those sorts of tabs is to make it LOOK like the search is a tabbed extension of the content. Again, i’m being nit picky, but why not right?
Maybe instead of trying to change the color to make it stand out more, you can make it default to the CATEGORIES instead of search. I notice myself repeating myself A LOT regarding categories. The great thing about having categories front and center on your blog is that you can show your new visitors a little outline of all of the topics that you cover in the blog. See, when someone visits your first page, the first 6 or so posts might not indicative of what your entire blog is about. If you default to the categories, people’s eyes will automatically go there and look to see what you have there. Then if they need it, they will probably already had noticed the search because they naturally looked there. I understand that you probably default to search because it’s a smaller box and it moves the advertisements up, but you have to decide what is more important. Giving your visitor a good synopsis of your website in hopes that they see something they like, or hoping that they click on ads. If you give the visitor what they want in content, they will click your ads. MAYBE you can make the list two columns of 7 to make it shorter and make more use of that space? Although you also have the categories listed beneath the ads. I’m not sure that you would need both if you make the changes to the top box. Then you open up more space for other content.
Maybe if you remove the SECOND list of categories, you can move your “deal of the day” up a little bit and maybe put your tag cloud up there. I had an Epiphany today that a tag could can be just as useful as a category list IF you use your tags wisely. See, i use my tags here haphazardly. If you tag your posts using more like category tags instead of a lot of descriptive words, you can ALMOST replace a category tree, and you can DEFINITELY replace your second category tree. So if you set the box at the top to default to categories in a two column format, and then remove the second category list and move the deal of the day up and the tag cloud up, you can have the same effect that you have now and free up some space.
You then have TWITTER and SITES OF INTEREST on top of each other but truthfully, they COULD be side by side. They are long and narrow things that when they are put on top of each other with nothing to fill that empty space next to it, they look awkward. If you put them next to each other, or fill the two spaces up with some tower ads or some other content, it would look better. Then the boxes at the bottom (the large ad box and recent visitor box) will also look better.
You only have two pages! There is no way to contact you through your website unless I want to follow you on twitter. Not everyone has twitter, so you should create a “contact” page with a contact form and you can also give your twitter info and any other social websites that you are active on. Make SURE that you only post things that you are active on, otherwise you can turn people off if you put a facebook page that you check once every three months.
You should also flesh out your “about” page. There is very little information there and not all that exciting reading. The idea of a blog is to get to know the web master. Even with tutorial blogs and stuff thats not technically a personal blog, you should add your own personality to it. Personality is what your site lacks. Adding an About page will help to start create a separation between you and the 10,000 other affiliate marketing blogs. You need to make a reason for visitors to stay at your site, if not, they will read the post that they came to via google, get the information they want, and leave. Make it personal, make it interesting.
You can also benefit from a logo of some sort. You have nothing that would make me remember you. The idea of having a logo and banner is so that when you decide to advertise or promote your blog, people will recognize your blog from the ad, or visa versa. A them that people will remember WILL help. It could be a very simple and streamlined logo that goes along with your simplistic theme, but you should have SOMETHING to make yourself recognizable in the world of affiliate marketing.
Your blog is a blog to make money AND teach people how to make money. Its a great thing, and you are upfront and honest about it. That is a good thing. You content is a very easy read which is refreshing, and you have a clean look that isn’t overwhelming, but start to add some personality to your design.
I hope all this helps and gives you a little push in a new direction. Again, these are my opinions and I am NOT saying anything personal about you or your site. Just some things to think about!!!
Want to know who is offering this awesome content? Here it is! Someone who is relatively new to web design. I am new enough to still remember how absolutely frustrating it was to try and get anything done in this field, but have also been around long enough to be able to help those that are where I was a year ago.
Aside from web design, I run the office of my dad's engineering business, and do book keeping by trade.
I love my pets.. All 6 cats, 1 peg legged dogs, and 1 hedgehog. LOVE THEM!!
Oh yea, and my husband. He lets me chase my dreams and I let him do the same. We are happy people because of it. Read more from this authorTags: design critique, webdesign, website reviews
