Building Websites

When you start making websites over and over you always seem to make the new website with lessons taken from the other websites you have built before. It makes total sense but sometimes you have to consider the niche of the new website before applying all the things you think need to be on your new site.

For example you may make sites that have a pop up to capture email addresses. That is fine I have used them and although I hate them as a user in some niches they work great. My latest site it wasn't working as planned so I sat back and wondered why. I emptied my cookies and loaded my site as if I was a first time visitor. When the pop up came up after 30 seconds I found it really annoying since I was in  the middle of reading an article when it popped. I then went on my phone and did the same thing and when the pop up loaded it blocked out my whole screen and I couldn't even exit out of it. Total fail on my end.

Also on my latest site I had an Adsense ad after the post. I have this practically on all my sits as it seems to work great because after the user reads the page they need to do something and having four blue links to click on seems to be a good thing. On this site the Adsense wasn't getting many clicks at all per 10,000 views. I think it got 2 clicks and made me 10 cents, not exactly going as planned. I knew I needed something in that spot and I knew I needed it quickly as I am sure Google looks at your overall conversion. They say they don't but I would bet they do.

I decided that since the site was new I needed to build out the newsletter list. I logged into Aweber and created a 300 x 250 looking newsletter sign up box and placed it after my post. First day I got 15 subscribers within the first hour. Since then I have been getting a new subscriber almost every hour. For a new site this is pretty good. I will probably change a few of my other non performing sites to this method. If I didn't think outside the box this never would of happened. Of course I still have to figure out out to monetize the site better.

Right now the site is using Amazon for its only affiliate program links and since there is no Adsense on the site the users are visiting Amazon more. My conversion rate went up by 1% since the switch. I wasn't really thinking that Amazon sales would be benefited from removing the Adsense but it has.

When you are making new sites try not to rely on what is working on your other sites. It may not be what is best for your site, or your users in the long run.

I was just looking through my stats and this question came up in my server logs. My first thought was if you spent the time to think about it and type that long-assed question in my search box then you probably already know the answer.

YES it will. Buying traffic on Fiverr may be a good short term strategy but Google will eventually see what you are doing and your site will be penalized and found at the bottom of the search results. While Fiverr is a good place for some things I wouldn't be caught dead buying traffic or buying backlinks or link wheels or anything like that.

I use Fiverr to get logos, and maybe get some videos made. You would have to be crazy to use a site like Fiverr to have anything done off page for a website that you care about. Think about it for a second. Say you buy 50 backlinks, all of them are on garbage sites and 50 other sites have the same backlinks as you. Sometimes they are the only backlinks a site has. How easy is it for Google to go in and see these backlinks and realize that they were bought links. It is simple!

Odds are I would be able to see that you bought links or even worse link wheels from Fiverr and I don't have the expansive knowledge that Google has in its arsenal. Unless you don't care about the site you are building and only want a 3 week boost for your site then you can buy traffic from places like Fiverr. I have nothing against them but using it to get traffic to your site is not sensible.

For the last few weeks I have received nothing but mail from my local politicians running for some office. Simple in party run off to see who would get to run in November.

One guy sent me a piece of mail once a week, the other was 1 to 2 pieces every day.

One guy sent me mail with what he was going to do when elected. The other sent me mail with pictures of his family.

One guy sent me mail letting me know what he has done since he is the incumbent. The other sent me mail that looked like it was sent from his relatives in Ireland I guess trying to appeal to my Irish background.

This has been a non stop thing for over a month. One guy sent me about 5 pieces of mail. The other sent me at least 30. I voted for the guy that sent me 5 pieces of mail. The other candidate wasted so much money in mail I would never elect him to any political office.

Add in that fact and the fact that he was annoying to me every time I went to the mailbox to get my mail. The guy that sent the least amount of mail won the election. I wonder how many others felt like me.

The incumbent guy has been doing a great job and he only sent out mail saying what he has done and what he was going to to. That is all I needed to know.

Lets Translate This Online

Do you send emails like crazy? Are you the annoying guy? Do you send relevant information or do you send irrelevant information just to send an email?

Don't be that guy, although I am sending out 30 newsletters for 30 days.