Help, I'm not generating sales from my website!

03 Oct 10 12:13 am

Hi Nelsen,

Could you please tell me, what bothered you the most? I don't think, i have many pop up's installed although, i have been giving real importance, to building my list, which is one of the reasons, my site has a light box which pops up once a day for each unique URL visit; that's it as far as i am aware of, i don't have any other pop up's installed.

Yeah, i know, you meant the right side bar, i am currently experimenting with other market banners, to see which types of click bank product banners generate the most hops, (although it might not directly relate with the website content); this was something i did in the past few days, originally there were only health & fitness related banners on the homepage, although the hops were quite low.

Some experts, say, not to create a supermarket of fitness & health related products, instead try concentrate on promoting one front end product, one middle product and one back end product; giving too many choices to the customer, will only confuse them and will lead to lower conversions. (which is why i have only one health & fitness banner on the sidebar).

Let me know, if you have any further suggestions,

Kind Regards,

Sanih

03 Oct 10 8:57 pm

Hey, thanks a lot for the detailed feedback, i really appreciate it.

I will implement some of your recommendations, the thing, is initially, i started the website as a hobby and only now, have i really taken it seriously for the past 4/5 months, i have been playing around with side bars & website to see what works and what doesn't, maybe you're right, i need to hire a professional to implement some of the changes for the website pages.

And no, i don't do autoblogging or any automated blog posts on my website, everything is done manually by me, after reading each of the articles, i am registered with an article publisher network to get fresh content for the website on a daily basis.

Whenever, i do have time, i write my own articles or hire professionals to write great articles optimized for SEO.

The lightbox popup was something, i recently implemented, but i guess, you're right it might annoy regular visitors, (but it only displays once per day per unique URL, so i though it might not offend people so many people); maybe i need to make it every 7 days per unique URL.

Thanks a lot,

Kind Regards,

Sanih

05 Oct 10 8:40 am

Sanihu,
I've been to your site. Mabybe you've already taken the previous posters' advice and cleaned up your site because I certainly WASN'T BOMBARDED by pop ups. Just the one for your newsletter I think, which is pretty normal for websites. I guess that's done to get people captive and to sign up while you still have their attention within the first few seconds that the page opens. I think I actually like your site. It's very well laid out and attractive and you've put a LOT of work into it. I skimmed over the articles list and you have covered a wide range of topics . Kudos for not leaving out vulnerable diet groups like travellers and diabetics. The love handle challenge is SO relevant and yet so funny too. Have you listed your site on ezine directories since you have newsletter? Might be worth exploring. Hey, try running a competition too. Have a daily recipe and calorie specific menu plans. Include new mothers who need to lose weight and yet balance their calories for breastfeeding. The new mothers niche is a vast untapped that could direct a LOT of traffic your way.
Overally, I'm impressed by the site and touched by your vulnerability at opening up and asking for input. You could learn a lot and go very far in this business. I suggest you get training and assistance -even hand holding on the weight loss niche.
Cheers,
Mogulmama!

30 Oct 10 11:33 am

Hi Sanihu, I don't think anyone else has mentioned this yet, but your title tag shows "How to loose weight fast". It would be best if you could correct that spelling error as soon as possible. If I was a viewer interested in buying your products, I would immediately lose interest if the title tag is showing incorrect grammar....(not that I'm a grammar freak, but it would hurt the credibility of your site). : )

30 Oct 10 7:23 pm

I finally started to generate sales, although it's a trickle it's finally started....hip hip hooray :-)

In relation to the wide range of topics covered on my site, i didn't want to run out of things on what to write, which is why such a wide variety of health, fitness and diet information is covered...

26 Nov 10 2:14 pm

good job! hope you continue doing well!

01 Dec 10 10:04 pm

Congratulations on your sale, Sanihu2020!

I agree with James. You'll be able to monetize your site better if you focus on a specific niche. It would also be easier to rank (and get more traffic) if you have a specific target market.

All the best!

06 Dec 10 6:50 am

Hi Sanih,

A few points worth considering:

1. Work out your primary site purpose. Do you want to collect opt-ins and use email marketing as a primary income strategy. Do you want to promote affiliate products and if so what is your primary one? Do you want to make this an adsense site? Do you want to promote physical products with Amazon?

You really need to focus on one primary monetization strategy or two tops. You can test out all the different methods you are using on your site once you start attracting enough traffic to warrant testing. There is no point throwing all these monetizing strategies up at the same time and hope that one of them sticks.

If you give people too many options they will usually do nothing at all. Focus on one primary monetization strategy.

2. How are you building your Website traffic? Are you using social media (facebook, twitter, blog commenting, blogging, forum participation)? Are you building traffic through SEO (link building)? Are you buying paid traffic (adwords)? Or a combination of both?

If you are going down the social route, then you need to start blogging regularly and if you want to make this site a real money maker authority site, then don't get posts added by other people from services such as AMA or whatever it is that you are getting content from. Start using Twitter to build a following by using the twitter search function and helping people in your market out by offering real value (no selling). Write valuable posts on related blogs and the same with forums. Spend time in the places your market hangs out.

If you do want third party content added, wait a few months, build up unique content and traffic and then offer guest posting. This is far more valuable than getting content from other services which is often poorly spun in the first place and offers no real value apart from getting somebody else a link back to their site. Ditch this quick, it is hurting rather than helping your Website. Unless you just want this to be a feeder site that links to another authority site that you have then you could keep it to make things easier.

If you are going down the SEO route then you will need to first pick up your game with the on page SEO. This is very simple and should not take long to implement. After you have covered this you will need to get your off page SEO in order. Link building must be done if you want to rank highly in the search engines so you really need to have a solid strategy down and implement it. SEO never stops it is an ongoing process.

I would not recommend paid traffic sources until you work out your primary monetization strategies and you are able to optimize conversions.

3. When it comes to your sidebar, you need to do some serious spring cleaning. I would move your opt-in box to the top as it is much more valuable to get people to sign up to your email list rather than get an rss subscriber. The top of the sidebar is primary real estate so you need your best primary monetization method there.

Get rid of the Twitter widget, it is useless. You have set it so each article that is posted gets send to twitter. What is the point getting a visitor to click the widget, and go to twitter, only to get a link back to an article on your Website which they just came from in the first place.

You don't need a widget here it takes up too much room and is unnecessary. The true power of using twitter is in the relationships you have with the people who are following you. I checked out your twitter profile and you are seem to only be adding links to your Website, I see no relationship building or any type of interaction between people.

Don't get me wrong you still can include a link for someone to follow you on Twitter, but you want to keep it small and discreet and Twitter is always best to be used the way it is suppose to be used.

I would also get rid of the "things to do near you" widget. It is untargeted and pretty much just another distraction.

The translation plugin is a good idea but not really needed unless you are tracking your traffic sources and you see a lot of international visitors coming to you site. You could remove it to clean up your sidebar but it can stay as well, up to you.

I would probably get rid of the video in the sidebar as well, there is no point getting people to click of your site and go to Youtube. Your primary purpose is to keep people on your Website.

Overall, I would strip your whole Website back to the basics. Focus on one or two monetizing strategies and get rid of everything else. Clean up the sidebar. Start writing your own content and get rid of the content service you are using to get "unique" content from.

I hope I did not come across as too harsh. You have a nice looking Website and with a few tweaks you should be on your way to getting traffic, rankings, and earning money.

All the best,

Alex

07 Mar 11 8:13 pm

Hi Sanihu, you have received a lot of feedback already, so I'll keep it brief. My first and main impression is one of sensory overload, to many things to look at, and no clear direction. Second thing, related, I don't see your unique angle on weight loss. How does your site stand out among thousands of others? What can I find here that I can't find anywhere else?
You'll be able to answer these questions only, if you focus on a narrow sub niche of the weight loss market.
All the best!

25 Apr 11 9:27 am

It looks good, but the pop-up that comes up and blacks out the whole screen is a no-go. Make the site less busy. You need one goal to focus on in your website. Do you want opt-ins, sales, what? Once you have a goal focus on that.

Take out all the Ads on the side, and only put your opt-in box on the sidebar, leave the content in the middle and that's it. If people want to watch videos put them on a different page...With the title being helpful weight loss videos, give your visitors a choice, instead of making them have to ex out of your blacked out opt in.

The fundamental rule in marketing is "people don't want to be sold", "people want the choice to buy". With the focus on social media these days you should engage your visitors, get updated weight loss news consistently on your site, and ask visitors to comment get involved.

"People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care". Show them that you want to help them lose weight by giving them as a much as possible for "free" to do it, and when it comes time to "Recommend" a product to them they'll buy in droves...

You can't walk up to a person in the street right in their face and bombard them with an arm full of watches, telling them how you mysteriously bought them from a rogue manufacturer, can you? Well, it's the same on the Internet, you have to get to know them, help them, and they'll trust you and buy from you.

That's my 2-cents...Sorry for the rant.

04 Jun 11 7:09 pm

Please Help Me Too !
marketing/my-site-didnt-make-any-sales-there-is-a-reason-t12331.html

03 Mar 12 8:18 pm

I had a quick look over your website and there is one thing I noticed more than banners and pop-ups and that is the use of the English language!

Your written content is detracting from your really good looking site. I don't think anyone has mentioned this before.

Yet, it is the obvious culprit for your lack of sales. People are loath to buy from a site with a low literacy level.
Your content I feel is generic and whoever wrote it was not a native English speaker. It reads like broken English. If you're a native English speaker this would be a definite put off!

I've copied some of the text and corrected the grammar. It would be better to have no content than have such bad content.

Your content;
Are you attempting to drop kilos? If you might be, have you ever actually despite the fact that about becoming a member of a bodyweight reduction center
In circumstances you have by no means been a member of a excess weight reduction coronary heart before then, you may be questioning how one can go about finding a weight reduction center to join.

As you can see the top couple of paragraphs are practically unreadable.
I've rewritten them, below, to show the correct grammar and sentence forming needed.

Re-write;
Are you attempting to drop kilos? If you are, have you ever actually thought about becoming a member of a weight reduction center? You may have been, in other circumstances, a member of a diet club or maybe you're worrying about a health issue. If so, you should think about finding a good weight reduction center to join.

Not only can you see the difference in the grammar but the paragraphs are much shorter.
I hope you don't mind my posting here about your website, I only wish to point out what I think is wrong.
It would be best if you had your content scrubbed for grammar etc. It is the only thing I noticed that waswrong with the site. Everything else is just fine!
ormamoore *Link removed by moderator*

09 Mar 12 10:18 am

Hi Sanih,

How are you and your site doing? It's been a while since you last posted and I am wondering if you are now getting an income from your weight loss site. The site looks great, but as some of the members have mentioned, the content needs a bit of tweaking. Some of your articles could be lengthened so you can optimize your target keywords more as well as give out more information to readers. Some articles do not have CTA (Call to Action) links. You need to make sure those links are present in every article and that they are compelling so that visitors click on them and get to the product you're promoting.

Hope that helps and hope to see an update from you soon.

Have a good weekend!

12 Jun 12 2:25 am

Hello
I'm a french developper and I have a problem in your theme.
I should want to know if your theme is compatible with menu and sub-menu for pages and category.
I created 3 pages menu and 3 of them have sub-menu. But when I put my mouse on them, I never see the sub-menu.
You can see that here : Link removed by moderator
Under Association, there are 3 other pages. But it is not possible to see them.
Have you a solution for me?
Excuse me for my bad english, I hope that you understand me.
Gretaings.

21 Jun 12 8:39 am

Cecille L wrote:Hi Sanih,

How are you and your site doing? It's been a while since you last posted and I am wondering if you are now getting an income from your weight loss site. The site looks great, but as some of the members have mentioned, the content needs a bit of tweaking. Some of your articles could be lengthened so you can optimize your target keywords more as well as give out more information to readers. Some articles do not have CTA (Call to Action) links. You need to make sure those links are present in every article and that they are compelling so that visitors click on them and get to the product you're promoting.

Hope that helps and hope to see an update from you soon.

Have a good weekend!

Yes would be interesting to know if the changes helped?

28 Jul 12 2:27 pm

Well, I won't go much long, but here are quick 4 things you might want to consider.

1. Make sure where you traffice is coming from and what people are looking for on your site - Now, just make sure you put that content only on the landing page instead of creating a confusing stack of all the content. You might just try and keep a small content suggestion widget around a sidebar...but make sure you direct visitors straight to what they are looking for.

2. Your popup has lots of things written up. Instead of reading the whole things and subcribing, your visitors might find it easier to simply click on the close button. So, keep the popup but keep the description short and quick. so that you can make your visitors instantly subscribe.

3. Involve your visitors - Your site is really informative but it requires some social collaborative type of thing. Let your visitors share and express their views. Run a poll etc. You know what, it might look unimportant but when you visitors collaborate with eachother (like affilorama!) through forums, polls and comments, they'll feel that someone on the other side is actually concerned abou them and listening and answering to them. They'll visit more often and actually give you some traffice juice.

4. Make your website look utter beautiful - Well, some people might say "if you've content, you don't need to be attactive". But in my experience of reviewing and selling products, I've found that people actually get distracted when it's not attractive enough. So, go check out some showcase (http://www.stylevault.net/) and you'll find some really good idea of why clean and attractive designs make more sales.

I'll tell you if I've any more ideas...will keep checking :-)
But I've to say, your content is really informative. Worth it!

07 Oct 12 8:02 pm

jakyastik wrote:Well, I won't go much long, but here are quick 4 things you might want to consider.

1. Make sure where you traffice is coming from and what people are looking for on your site - Now, just make sure you put that content only on the landing page instead of creating a confusing stack of all the content. You might just try and keep a small content suggestion widget around a sidebar...but make sure you direct visitors straight to what they are looking for.

2. Your popup has lots of things written up. Instead of reading the whole things and subcribing, your visitors might find it easier to simply click on the close button. So, keep the popup but keep the description short and quick. so that you can make your visitors instantly subscribe.

3. Involve your visitors - Your site is really informative but it requires some social collaborative type of thing. Let your visitors share and express their views. Run a poll etc. You know what, it might look unimportant but when you visitors collaborate with eachother (like affilorama!) through forums, polls and comments, they'll feel that someone on the other side is actually concerned abou them and listening and answering to them. They'll visit more often and actually give you some traffice juice.

4. Make your website look utter beautiful - Well, some people might say "if you've content, you don't need to be attactive". But in my experience of reviewing and selling products, I've found that people actually get distracted when it's not attractive enough. So, go check out some showcase (http://www.stylevault.net/) and you'll find some really good idea of why clean and attractive designs make more sales.

I'll tell you if I've any more ideas...will keep checking :-)
But I've to say, your content is really informative. Worth it!

Great review.i also suggest you to follow.
Your meta description is looking something Odd. If possible you should change it.