Need Advice on a Site - Renew or Not?

[Monna Ellithorpe]

I have a question...

I have a site that is coming up for renewal (Christmas site) and I am not sure it's worth the time or effort any longer. It's been up 2 years (I believe) and not one sale.

Any advice or suggestions? http://christmasideashop.com/

[angienewton]

What have you done to promote it? I see it could use some keyword research and optimization. I think the side bar is crammed full of stuff. I would like to see the pages maybe have a drop down instead of them all listed. You can remove the archives from the side bar too. No one looks at dated archives.

I would also recommend that you put the more tag in every post so that the whole post doesn't show on the main page.

Usually peeps start to promote holiday stuff much sooner than 3 months but you might get some bites if you really kicked it up a notch and got some fresh content on there, did lots of social media and stuff like that.

Is it something that you have an interest in?

Those are just a few ideas

[Monna Ellithorpe]

I have been promoting it on Twitter and Facebook but going through Lynn's course now, I'm seeing things differently.

I have to admit I am not very good with keyword research. I know the concept but just cannot seem to grasp the right way to go about it, especially on a site with so many items.

I did change the theme and took the stuff out of the sidebar and put the "more" in as you suggested.

I started reworking this site about 2 or 3 months ago and just this month alone, I've sent over 7,000 to Amazon but no sales from this site yet.

I was hoping that it could be a site that I could rework each year and get some extra sales but after this long, not sure it's worth it.

[angienewton]

Takes a lot more work and could be worth it but only you can really decide if you want to move forward with it.

Here is a great post Lynn did on how to write a blog (in this post are links to her keyword research and optimization posts). Good stuff!

Two things....the Chitika pop up personally makes me crazy but also you don't want to take people away from a blog you're trying to sell Christmas products on right? So I might recommend removing that too.

For some reason the posts don't look right to me. It could be that you need to left align images but I can't place it at the moment.

Looks much better with more tags though.

[Lynn Terry]

On keyword research & keyword targeting, see:
The Art of Keyword Targeting (Live Example)

That should really help.

I agree with Angie - if you have an interest in this site being profitable, put all you've got into it! Target buyers by using specific commercial keyword phrases so people can find you while they're shopping (in search). Otherwise, on social media, BE social - ask questions, open discussions on gift giving and holidays, etc. GO ALL IN if you want to make it successful. ;-)

[Monna Ellithorpe]

Thank you both, Lynn and Angie for your advice. I have a couple of more days to decide and will read your suggested posts in the meantime.

Is it still possible to build niche sites and with good SEO and they will still bring in some money each month without adding new content or has Google Zoo changed all of that?

[Monna Ellithorpe]

FYI.

After working with it a couple of days, I decided my heart just wasn't into it any longer and I am letting it go to stay more focused on my writing, Lynn's course and my blog.

Thank you so much for your advice.

[angienewton]

So you have a writing blog? Tell us more, happy to brainstorm that too.

[Monna Ellithorpe]

I do a lot of writing on a site called Bubblews but also have a section on my site http://bizladyjournal.com where I will be adding some of my larger stories and I have 2 more books in progress for Amazon.