Is It Worth Me Investing With This Blog?

[Elliott Lee]

So I've created a basic free to make blog, could anyone have a look at it and tell me whether it is worth investing in (e.g PPC, domain name, upgraded hosting plan etc.) and could anyone tell me how I could improve. This is my first blog I have created. The link is
Home All help will be appriciated.
Thanks
Elliott

 

[azgold]

Not sure this is the right section, @Elliott Lee but I had a look at your site. These are only my personal thoughts about it, I don't claim any expert status.

There is no About page. Yes, you mention a bit of your 'about' on the homepage but people may not read that to realize it. Top right of sidebar or nav button leading to an inner About page is typical.

You are collecting email addresses, which means you need a privacy policy and link in your nav bar or footer to it. There are free privacy policy generators online.

A TOS page wouldn't hurt, either.

If you are going to incorporate affiliate/CPA marketing, you will also need a disclosure button and page.

Re a domain and hosting - always a good idea! But if you want to stay with Weebly until you get your feet wet, I would definitely...absolutely...move that section much farther down the page. Users will think they're signing up to your site but end up signing up to Weebly's! Put something between your stuff and theirs, even if it's space. Are you able to make their info smaller?

I wouldn't invest in PPC just yet. Wait until you get everything ready. Meanwhile, I'd start with social, which is free and will start getting you some exposure.

 

[Elliott Lee]

Thanks for the advice @azgold I will take it all on board and take action straight away, and I will definitely feel more confident once I have impelled what you have told me.

 

[Elliott Lee]

@azgold just one more question, I have an affiliate offer on the hot right now page, I don't have any other links to it on my blog and just make one reference suggesting that people should use a diet program on one other page, should I have the link on more pages and be a little more 'salesy' but I have been told not to be before so I am not too sure

 

[azgold]

@azgold just one more question, I have an affiliate offer on the hot right now page, I don't have any other links to it on my blog and just make one reference suggesting that people should use a diet program on one other page, should I have the link on more pages and be a little more 'salesy' but I have been told not to be before so I am not too sure

Nope, you should not. Don't forget, your site is still thin, unknown and with no trust built up. It may not even be indexed yet. The old days of that working are long behind us, I'm afraid.

Do not....do not....overdo the sales linking. Google will sandbox you in a heartbeat, plus people will not part with their cc info if they think something is snake oil fishy.

Go ahead and link to other pages of your site but watch those affiliate links, don't overdo it.

 

[Elliott Lee]

Ok cool thanks

Nope, you should not. Don't forget, your site is still thin, unknown and with no trust built up. It may not even be indexed yet. The old days of that working are long behind us, I'm afraid.

Do not....do not....overdo the sales linking. Google will sandbox you in a heartbeat, plus people will not part with their cc info if they think something is snake oil fishy.

Go ahead and link to other pages of your site but watch those affiliate links, don't overdo it.

Ok cool thanks for the help

 

[Segun.dr]

How comfortable will I be on this blog ?

Azgold did some justice on what you should improve on, but my opinion is about trust, a user coming to your website, returning and performing an action us based on trust........ I would feel much more comfortable on a website with top level domain and not hosted freely than what someone with free domain and free hosting.

As for the marketing, social media is still very key, success with that is how much time you can invest on it and you can easily get free traffic for a start. Just my thought......

 

[azgold]

I would feel much more comfortable on a website with top level domain and not hosted freely than what someone with free domain and free hosting.

I agree, if he can afford it. If not, the average Joe may not even know it's a free site. The nice thing about Weebly is, I guess, he can invest in the domain and keep Weebly as his hosting (will cost, though). The ad would be removed.

Personally, I'd like to see a physical address and phone number to really pump up the trust factor but if he's working from home, I completely understand his reluctance to do so. Maybe a P.O. box.

Look at me, talking about the OP like he isn't even here! Sorry, @Elliott Lee - got caught up in responding conversationally to @Segun.dr .

 

[Marc]

I would feel much more comfortable on a website with top level domain and not hosted freely than what someone with free domain and free hosting.

I agree, if he can afford it. If not...

But hosting is nowadays soooo cheap, $1 for 1 month and 1 domain.

The only disadvantage: You have to pre-pay for 1 year

 

[T J Tutor]

Moved to the General Affiliate Marketing Forum.

The site is generic in my opinion.

Also, free sites are NOT the way to go, even the favicon is Weebly's. It isn't a professional move to use any of the free sites or site builders and there are those that will know. Invest and get a VPS ($29 pm), a professional "one off" theme design ($50), and get your disclosures in! You have to have disclosures by law in most every country now.

You contact page is anything but professional. You have to have a company name, address, and phone number. You can get a free 800 number from google that connects to your cell.

Also, there are no true triggers, hooks, calls to action, or any other necessary action taking incentives on the site.

You have sign up buttons on the bottom of the page and nothing to say what someone would sign up for. If you have a newsletter or something, then have a subscribe option pop up or trail on the side of the page with a description of what they get for giving you their email.

I hear everyday from Newbies saying, "Oh, I'll do all of that later. This is good enough for now". Then, a month or two later, they're crying the blues because they don't get results. You need to understand you are competing against others presenting themselves professionally from the beginning and if you do not at least rise up to that level with the basics at the beginning, they'll take all of your business.

1. VPS
2. Custom Theme
3. Professional Contact Page
4. Disclosure Pages
   1. Privacy Statement
   2. Terms of Use
   3. Disclaimers Page
5. Calls to Action, Triggers, Hooks, etc.

 

[azgold]

You have sign up buttons on the bottom of the page

I thought those were for Weebly because they're immediately below their logo but honestly wasn't sure.

 

[tyoussef]

Seems Nice But for diet and healt u need Some investment to buy a template and Hosting as well to make u r website More Pro
and logo and cool pictures u know what am talking about

 

[T J Tutor]

I thought those were for Weebly because they're immediately below their logo but honestly wasn't sure.

You might be right! I didn't think of that. Good catch. Another reason to not use free websites!

 

[Segun.dr]

I think all the contributions settles its @Elliott Lee will be happy he posted this here today. I sincerely hope you can put all of these in place and watch the result. Success

 

[dmhuan]

I jump right into the blog and the visual strikes me as...I'm not sure, empty, I think. It's so colorless and not really lively. There's little to no images, the text is thin and hard to read, the layout is not good either. The only up point is the video.
Like @azgold said, it's best to stick to weebly (or any free site) until you are comfortable. As far as the content go, I'm certain it's not very good for onpage SEO

 

[Dr. Forum]

Hello friend. I will for sure have a look at the blog and give detailed feedback regarding it. However, I will like to point out some few things which I think will be of great help when implemented. When coming up with a blog, make sure that it is a niche that you have done extensive research on and it is highly valuable. Thereafter, be sure that you have the design and mechanism to encourage retention of the visitors. That is how you get constant traffic on you blog and thus think of monetizing it.

 

[Elliott Lee]

Thanks for the advice everyone I am going to start making changes on it now, as for the domain name and hosting I am going to invest once I have seen my first sale. Also the sign up box is for my site and not weekly but I'll definitely add some more content on the home page so that the weekly banner is a lot lower down.