Improve My Site

**clp11479** · 09-12-2007 01:03 AM

one of my sites is Usedshoe.com and the premise of the site is i find deals (mostly online deals, some in-store deals) where things are absolutely dirt cheap, price mistakes, or coupon mistakes and then write a little blog entry about it so other people can take advantage of cheap price/price mistake too.

i think the site could gain a significant amount of subscribers (it is free to subscribe - the entire site is free) because i only usually post 1 or 2 entries a day, and i only post things that are significantly discounted which will save people a ton of money.

so my questions to you are 1. how does the site look? is it appealing to look at? is it easy to read? is it fun? and 2. how can i increase awareness of the site. i think for every 10 people that view the site i can get 1 of them to subscribe, so the potential is there if i get enough eyes on the site.

p.s. if there are any word press pro's out there, how the heck do i get rid of the "archives" and "about" navigation links at the top? for the life of me i can't find them in the template.

**George** · 09-12-2007 02:17 AM

Great start and a clean site.

My suggestion would be to perhaps put your content in a center column or something that will put more emphasis or focus on your content.

There's slightly a little too much white space as I tend to lose focus on the content when I try to read.

Basically, I'm not exactly too sure where to start reading.

In terms of awareness, try doing a little Google search on basic SEO and start from there. There are various ways to get awareness, but just depends on how you want to do it, and if you do have money to spend, how much you are willing to spend.

Good luck!

**Dylan Phelan** · 09-12-2007 09:04 AM

I just had a look at your meta tags...

Why have you got this in there
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">

You won't get indexed by the SE's - delete it.

Also you don't make it obvious what your site is about - this should be immediately apparent....

Join an SEO forum like Submit Express.... You'll learn alot

**Dylan Phelan** · 09-12-2007 09:06 AM

What i meant is that when the reader first opens the page, they realise what your site is about...

Talking About the Deals on the Web and Beyond…

That doesn't tell me very much.

**clp11479** · 09-12-2007 03:48 PM

thanks for the comments, i will definitely edit the site to take your points into consideration!!!

**clp11479** · 09-12-2007 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by Dylan Phelan

I just had a look at your meta tags...

Why have you got this in there
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">

You won't get indexed by the SE's - delete it.

Also you don't make it obvious what your site is about - this should be immediately apparent....

Join an SEO forum like Submit Express.... You'll learn alot

Where are you seeing the line about Content = noindex,nofollow???

When I view the source code of the homepage I see this:
<meta name="description" content="Blog about deals each and every day. Save $$$, don't pay retail!"/>
<meta name="keywords" content="deal blog, online deals, coupons, promotions, coupon codes, codes, promotion codes, coupon blog, promotion blog, sales blog, daily sales, sales coupons"/>

**clp11479** · 09-12-2007 04:04 PM

opps, never mind, i must have gone blind for a second, i see it now.

**zoobie** · 09-12-2007 09:50 PM

Kewl! Good start.

As what they say, some changes for the placement of content will do. Best of luck!

**Dylan Phelan** · 09-13-2007 03:07 AM

Like I've suggested to a few other people... If you want to be found by the search engines then you should join an SEO forum - just learn the basics.
I think i'll probably put a basic intro to SEO up on my site soon...
For now, just google it... Your other meta tags also need some work

**Prophet Industries** · 09-13-2007 08:08 AM

Good content, will definately be bookmarking the site. Thanks!

**clp11479** · 09-18-2007 02:27 PM

welp, the site is generating around 300 visits a day which is very good considering my SEO is nonexistent. adsense is making me nothing, which is fine, i'd rather try to really build up readers and then maybe try to sell some ad space.
i'm not too knowledgable in web design/development so i can't easily change around the site design, it is an out of the box template that i use and so i'm stuck with it for now. hopefully the content overcomes the design.

**clp11479** · 09-25-2007 01:23 PM

what is the best way to have current readers of the blog get other people (i.e. their friends and family) to read the blog or at least mention it to them?

i've written in posts that people should share the site with their friends and family but i dont think that really made any readers do anything.

**paul.b** · 09-25-2007 03:34 PM

i thought it would be an online shopping site. you used wordpress and created a blog instead. well it looks nice but most of the time, those "cool finds" just get burried.

**clp11479** · 09-25-2007 09:44 PM

what do you mean when you say "they get burried"? you mean the cool finds get bought up quickly and sell out, or are you saying the posts get buried on my site?

yeah, i'm not selling anything on my site, i'm just trying to find what i would consider a very good deal and tell other people about it. i think in terms of content it is pretty valuable/useful content and can save people a lot of time since i'm doing the brunt work of locating it, linking to it, etc...

i think more people would read my site (only takes a minute or two out of the reader's day) but i just don't know how to promote it. i've tried posting about it on message boards, but the moderators usually boot me off for "self promoting".