Gadooney.com

Gots questions? Ask ‘em.

Falstaff has been playing along at home and asked that I take a quick look at the sites he’s working on. Can do. If you’d like reviews of your own sites, holler at me and it shall be so.

Here are the sites we’re looking at today: Full Shill Poker, Boogie Turtle, Lighting for Worship, and Charlotte Theatre News and Gossip.

As a whole, that’s a damn good start, especially since you were starting from scratch just a few weeks ago, with no real knowledge of WordPress, hosting stuff, etc. It’s easy to be overwhelmed at first by all the things you don’t know, but you’re plowing ahead and getting content up. I also like that you have many different types of sites you’re working on, so it’s easy to mix in different types of content, work over here a bit, then over there, and not get burned out writing about the same stuff on the same site.

Full Shill Poker and Boogie Turtle are the most developed, as far as content and theme. It’s pretty easy to tell that both are subjects you’re interested in and knowledgable about, and the content you’re posting on each is right on track, as far as the stuff that’ll get you search engine traffic. Each fits into a niche that you know about and can easily create content for. Each also has existing affiliate programs that meshes well with your content (poker and casino affiliate programs and online retailers that sell CDs), so you don’t have to rely solely on Adsense as far as monetizing the sites.

While I usually don’t worry about the layout of the site all that much in the beginning, I do have to say that I’m not a fan of the dark backgrounds, especially on Full Shill Poker, as the combination of the black background and white text in that font makes my eyes scream for mercy after reading it for a bit. This falls into the personal taste category somewhat, but in general it’s recommended that you stay away from black/dark grey background sites, as a gawdawful number of expensive studies have shown that sites with plain white backgrounds, black text, and blue links/colors perform the best.

My approach to this in my own sites is to generally look at the Yahoos, Googles, and Amazons of the world and do what they do, as it’s obviously working. Boring, yes, but it’s hard to argue with their success.

A by-product of the dark backgrounds you’re using is that the ads (which generally have a white background) are very obviously ads, jumping out from the screen and blaring at the surfer. This is a little counter-intuitive, but that’s actually bad. Your goal is to be sneaky and to blend and incorporate the ads as much as possible into your site design. If it screams out “I’M AN ADVERTISEMENT!”, surfers have become conditioned to almost subconsciously ignore it; if it appears to be part of the navigation of the site, more people tend to read it and/or click on it.

Don’t be afraid to specialize your ads, especially on Full Shill Poker. I like the riff on “Full Tilt Poker” and wonder if you could simply shill for them, as far as the ads and baners you display. Having done the poker/casino affiliate thing, in general there’s not a huge difference from what you’ll make from program to program, barring special circumstances. If all of your advertising is focused on Full Tilt (and tghtly integrated into the site design) it gives it a more weighty, polished look, instead of banners for a bunch of different sites jumping out at you.

As far as Boogie Turtle, I’d work in some direct product links in each review, especially if they’re sold on Amazon, iTunes, or at some other online retailer. You might have to do some poking around to see what music CD programs are out there, which pay the best, etc. The reviews are great but you’ll make more money if you have linked album covers or tracks. You could also list the tracks on each album and have them hyperlinked, so that surfers click on them looking for a sample but end up getting transported to the page at the retailer, where sample tracks actually are and where they can buy it, and you can make some cash.

For affiliate sites that are tied into products, it’s always best to include as many direct product links to specific products as you can. Links and banners to Amazon are fine but your real money is in providing direct links to buy the specific product you’re talking about, as that’s what people are after.

Lighting for Worship and Charlotte Theatre News and Gossip are still in the infant stages, so not much to say there.  Forum sites like the theatre one are hard to monetize sometimes but they’re usually very little work for you, as forum members supply most of the content. They’re also a no-brainer if it’s something you’re already involved in, especially if it provides a useful service that is otherwise lacking. I like the idea behind Lighting for Worship, as I can’t imagine there are too many sites with content about that particular niche, and you can potentially not only get Jebus-related traffic (of which there’s a bunch) but also traffic from people looking for more info on the equipment itself.

All in all, you’re off to a great start, especially considering that you’re starting from square one. Keep cranking out content. The main things I’d consider tweaking are the dark backgrounds on the first two sites and to fiddle with the ads more, trying to incorporate them as seamlessly as possible into the site.