Next batch of website reviews

It’s time for the next batch of website reviews.

If you have any questions please post in the comments. To get your site reviewed visit the website reviews page and leave a comment with details of what you want me to focus on.

From now on I will only be reviewing sites that are unique or offer some good content. It is impossible to market low quality sites and even harder to make money from them.

Here are the reviews, if you don’t understand something or want more details please ask.

Review of griptapethumb.com

Love the design,love the images. You probably need to make a page explaining how people can subscribe to your RSS feeds and allow them to subscribe by email as your readers might not be as web savvy as bloggers. Here is a good example of a page about feeds.

Again Auction Ads might work well on this site.

In terms of building traffic I would add a few more social bookmarking buttons and make the Digg & Delicious ones have a white background to stand out.

Link baiting could be quite fun with videos of skate stunts and crashes. If you upload viral videos to YouTube and then refer lots of traffic to them they will give you a link back to your site. People will always want to see cool videos so if you can find them on YouTube go ahead and blog about them. Write things like “Top 10 skate tricks” etc

Maybe allow users to upload photos to your site to encourage interaction?

I suggest moving the Google Analytics code to the footer to avoid it slowing the page down when it’s slow.

Review of funvid.net

Check the bounce rate of your homepage. How many people leave without entering the site? Having “Click to enter” after somebody thinks they have already entered is another barrier that some will not pass.

There isn’t much content so monetization will be hard. Maybe increase the number of videos and make the site more like a blog so your archives will attract search traffic? Also unless you need the money from the popup ad’s I would consider removing them until the site is established.

Review of cliphaven.com

The images are being resized using html which makes the site load slowly. You might be able to resize them to thumbnails using a php script. This would speed up the site a lot and save bandwidth.

Your site would benefit from custom meta description tags for all the pages.

Good use of viral marketing elements on the game pages so that users can post to myspace, digg etc and email their friends. You might need to seed the content yourself on StumbleUpon and even Digg if you get a game or photo that appeals to that demographic.

Maybe burn your RSS feed to feedburner so people can get email updates of the latest games? Have it sent in the afternoon when people have more time.

Not sure what affiliate programs you could use for this. Maybe ring tones on Azoogle would work well. It would depend where the traffic was coming from though.

Review of wood burning stoves website

Netscape users love bollywood stars so start submitting your blog posts over there. Also try to interact with other bloggers in your niche to get links. This is another site that would do better on a Wordpress install with a nice theme.

Also to improve credibility maybe remove all the stuff in the footer such as external links and the iframe.

Try the Amazon and Auction Ads programs to sell DVD’s and other bollywood merchandise.

Some of your images are being resized using html so are being distorted & losing quality.

Review of dietdebate.co.uk

Straight away when I see diet sites I think Auction Ads, Amazon books
etc. The sort of people looking at these are always interested in the
latest diet books. Look for books from popular TV series and promote
those.

Mike wanted marketing tips for this site and I suggest making good use
of StumbleUpon and trying to see what people like via stumbleupon.com/tag/diet/ this page and making more of the
same. Stumblers like well laid out pages and nice pictures.

Take link bait inspiration from
Digg which has quite a lot of diet content for a tech site.

Start the forum going with vBulletin and an automated forum filler and you will
have a thriving community in no time.

Review of zonneke.com

I’m not really sure why a site which appears to sell products would be
running Adsense? Unless the Adsense makes a lot of money I would
remove it and concentrate on selling products.

Online shops can get a lot of long tail traffic so you need to make
sure pages like this have the
name of the product first in the page title such as wooden garage doors.

You should maybe use some IP delivery so that the site redirects UK
visitors like me to the English version when they arrive. Maybe if the
visitor is from somewhere you don’t deliver to you could run Adsense
ads.

I think the site could do with a delivery and shipping information
page to inspire buyer confidence. Also on the product pages the actual
product was quite low down on the page, conversions might be higher if
you could move the product nearer to the top of the page.

Review of parentalfilter.com

My standard advice for forum owners, make sure you follow the forum
SEO tips (this site does well with SEO already) and if you are lacking
members use this forum poster to populate your forums with human
generated content.

To monetize a forum it is often best to install a blog as well. Forums
are great for being used as forums but it is sometimes better to use
another application to publish articles. It’s hard to put ads into
forum posts.

I suggest trying Adsense and Auction Ads as well as selected Amazon
books and products from some of the merchants in Commission Junction
as well.

In terms of marketing just try to connect with the thousands of
bloggers who have kids and you might do well.

Review of zmemusic.com

Great theme, nice site that makes it easy for users to subscribe.
Maybe make a page explaining how to subscribe for people who don’t
understand.

Pages like this need affiliate links so I can buy the CD and merchandise
from Amazon or ebay. Use direct links in Amazon to the CD and then
stick some Auction Ads for the merchandise. Experiment to see which
works.

Go through all your pages and make sure they have unique titles & meta
description tags.

For linkbait you could write about the RIAA or some of these stories that Diggers like. StumbleUpon probably has a lot of
music fans as well who might like to see reviews.

Review of kchut.com

Not much to recommend here, nice layout, lots of ways for it to make
money. The key is to see what does well and keep testing. If some ads
don’t work take them off to make the most of the others. To gain
readers just keep link baiting.

Review of chessmanual.com

I don’t know much about chess but you can probably find stuff on ebay
so Auction Ads would work well. Since you still have the comment from
Mr Wordpress I guess this is a new site so you need to start link
baiting.

Find other chess bloggers (if there are any) and start linking to
their posts and clicking on your links. They will notice the traffic
and then remember you when you email them to introduce yourself.

Maybe submit to a couple of high PR directories to get some trusted
links. For link baiting you would need to focus on the high tech end
of chess and maybe how the computer chess programs work. Again a page
to explain RSS feeds along with an email subscribe option would help.

Review of usmansworld.com

Nice blog. You need a unique meta description on each page but apart
from that I don’t have many tips. It is very hard to monetize a site
like this until you can start ranking for some high value terms so I
suggest reading the stuff that goes on Digg for a month and starting
to write about some of those topics if you want to build your reach
and links.

Review of apob.co.uk

Nice site but you really could do with a way for people to buy online.
A paypal button would only take 10 minutes to install and your
conversions would shoot up. Again a page explaining how people can
subscribe by email and RSS would help.

I would linkbait by adding stunning pictures to the blog and getting
them on stumbleupon and digg maybe. Get an artist to paint an iphone,
that should do well.

Review of homemadehealthypetfood.com

Good use of affiliate links, I would concentrate on building traffic.
Talk to other people who blog about pets, use Yahoo answers to find
out what people are interested in and to become an authority.

Make the homepage title better and use a unique meta description for each page.

Review of dailysoccerblog.net

If you moved over to Wordpress and adapted one of these themes your
site and especially the navigation would be much improved.

Use affiliate links to major sports stores as well as ebay using
Auction Ads. Hide the links in your navigation to make people click on
them.

Create a page for every player and every team with high quality images
so you can catch long tail and Google Images traffic.

Review of pimpmywalk.com

You should make sure your pages all have unique titles and meta description tags. Also read
my guide to forum seo.

The site was down when I tried to look so not much more I can say.

Review of cook-it-all.com

I would use folders rather than subdomains so that your site is
treated as one site by the search engines. Also the site has a lot of links. Where are they all from? If they are sitewide links from
non recipe related sites I would remove them.

Also do you get much traffic from the search engines? If not then you
might be trying to monetize your site too aggressively. I asked
somebody who knows a bit about cooking and nothing about the web to
look and she was frustrated by the lack of content in relation to the
adsense even though she didn’t understand what Adsense was. Maybe get
some older people or web novices to sit down in front of you and use
the site and see what they think.

You have a lot of affiliate links on the site which should be
redirected to get more clicks. Also, is your content unique or is it
from a recipes database? If it is from a database it will be almost
impossible to make your site stand out from the others.

Review of articlebasement.com

In my opinion Google has discounted the value of article directories so much that you would be better off altering
the site to make it stand out.

Ditch the article dashboard system or heavily modify the code so it
doesn’t leave a footprint for Google to see. Start a blog on the site
and start link baiting to attract natural links.

Maybe redirect the site to new url which doesn’t describe what the
site does. Use a made up word. Create a really nice site and people
will pay to list their articles on it and you can earn far more than with Adsense.

Review of flippers.be

Nice domain name. I’m not sure how to monetize this site other than
using Auction Ads and any other affiliate links you can find from pinball retailers.

Try to get some link bait created by recycling these articles from Digg.

Review of dailyfunnypics.com

I think you need to invest in a custom logo, watch for our tutorial next week.

Maybe remove some of the Adsense until the site takes off. You really
need to make the RSS feed and email subscription options the most
prominent items on the page for long term growth.

Review of livelydirectory.com

If a directory is to survive nowadays it really needs to have natural
links so you are doing the right things by offering Wordpress plugins
and themes as well as having a blog.

Maybe ramp up your link baiting and really try to get on sites like
Digg as well as connecting with some other bloggers to try and get
links from them.

Review of LimersHub.com

First of all you need to read this guide to forum seo and remove your
session id’s from the url’s. Then make each of your pages have a
unique title and meta description. Make sure the thread title is the
first part of the page title.

Not sure about monetization. Where does most of your traffic come from?

Review of 124bpms.com

Pass your iTunes affiliate links through redirects to get more clicks. A lot of your pages have the same titles and meta descriptions, this needs changing.

In terms of monetization again try Amazon, Auction Ads as well as an
other programs in Commission Junction you think would work. Keep
testing.

Review of douglaskarr.com

Nice, an easy one to link bait! Try adding some social bookmarking
buttons on the bottom of your posts and some unique meta descriptions
on each page.

Monetizing a blog like this is hard, if you try everything
John Chow has tried then you will be on the right track.

With some imagination and a lot of link baiting you will be able to
get enough links to rank for some really good terms (maybe you do
already). Once you rank for these terms you can stick affiliate links
and Adsense on the pages and reap the profits.

Review of windvis.com

In a market this competitive with a new site you really need to get 10
times as many trusted natural links as all the existing sites. Aim to
release a piece of strong linkbait every week for a year before you
see good rankings in Google.

I would steer clear of trying to over monetize the site for now until
you get some traction.

Review of accufabsolutions.com.au

The first thing I noticed was you didn’t have a favicon. Also maybe
your design could do with sprucing up a bit although the layout is
nice and simple. Could you put a company log on there?
Does the site get much traffic? I suggest doing an Adwords campaign to
see which terms drive traffic and target those terms in the organic
listings. You can’t sell online so you need to find a method of
tracking sales from all your marketing efforts.

Review of onlinesellings.com

I see you are using content from article directories which will do more harm than good for your site in the long term. If you are not offering something unique that gives the reader value it will be hard to promote the site without paying lots.

I suggest removing any content you didn’t write and replacing it with
a blog that you update with unique and remarkable articles.

Review of hostelsamsterdam.com

The best way to grow sites like this is to see what services the
competing sites offer and make yours 10 times better and slicker. Hard
work will win out in the end.

In terms of affiliate earnings you can sell books and guides from
Amazon/Auction Ads. Also allow businesses in Amsterdam to advertise
with you.

I was hoping to see a giant Google map with clickable links to all the
locations.

Review of logicamera.com

Digital cameras are a great affiliate product. You can find loads of
good retailers at places like CJ, Amazon and Auction Ads (eBay). Find
a company you trust and then promote their offers. Make sure you
implement geo targeting as UK users won’t normally buy from US stores.

Link bait is easy if you can connect to other digital camera bloggers.
Maybe review some camera phones as phones = easy link bait.

Review of markjohn.org

Monetizing a personal blog is pretty hard in the early stages. I would
be inclined to target certain search terms and then one you get good
rankings stick some affiliate links on your pages.

You will need to link bait pretty hard but that is sometimes easier
with a personal blog.

Review of Battery Recycling

You might want to think about removing any paid links from the sidebar
of the directory as Google might start clamping down on this. The key
factor for a directory is that it passes link weight so you don’t want
to risk losing this.

Real estate has suffered massive penalties in Google recently and I’m
sure things haven’t settled down yet so I can’t really give much
advice on promotion other than don’t do too many link buys or link
exchanges.

Read some similar posts