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.
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.
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.
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.
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. ;-)
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?
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.
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.
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