06 Aug 12 10:35 pm
OK,
1. Nav bar is overrun such that "Tips" is wrapped to a lower line (and "Grills" on "Charcoal" page). You need to either edit your theme code or make your menu labels shorter.
2. FTC does not want you to hide your "affiliate disclosure" behind a link. Affilorama staff has been recommending a very short statement in each sales page's footer.
3. Pages are slow to load. Try to keep them under 3 seconds for Google quality score and definetly under 5 seconds. Do a search here for my previous posts on how-to.
3. I'd make the product descriptive site links "target="_blank" type, so those pages on "cooking.com" open up on top of your own page and your visitors are less likely to "wander off" onto cooking.com's pages. Without doing that, you've created many holes in your "sales funnel".
4. In home page 2nd paragraph, making your site name in bold red makes it look like a link.
5. No UVP:
The sun is shining, the kids are playing, and the smells of tasty BBQ are beckoning.
This and the next paragraph are not a Unique Value Proposition. While invoking the "smell of the steak" is probably a good idea (for the carnivores at least), I'd move that down.
A UVP quickly and clearly expresses the answer to 2 inevitable questions in every visitor's mind:
A - "Why should I buy your product (what's in it for me - benefits, not features)?"
B - "Why should I buy it from you and not from your competition?"
6. No Authority/Trust symbols. There is nothing that shows you're an authority on the subject and should be trusted. You need things like testimonials, emblems from associations, awards and such.
7. The site is seasonal. I guess that's good, but what's you marketing plan for when it's no longer "grillin time"?
8. Google would rather you call "Notices" "Policies" (and you need a privacy policy) and they like an "About" page, as well as a "Contact" page (which you have). Some other things that make a site look less like what Google wants to get rid of:
A. A physical address and phone number (best in every page's footer). "Real business sites" have these, while affiliate sales sites (which Google dislikes if not meeting their parameters) usually don't. Not saying Google is specifically going after all affiliate sites, but just that they do seem to be looking to ignore any they consider spammy in their search index.
B. More content pages.
9. Sometimes your social network plugin is staying over the sub-pages, rather than collapsing into the left sidebar (when viewed in Internet Explorer 9). Maybe it would work better in the right sidebar? Or just use a different plugin, like the one in the WordPress "Jetpack".
Hope this helps...
_jim coe
