Any Honest Review?

zmonique2007 · #1 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 12:17 AM

Hello everyone!

Please give honest review on my site HOMEBASEDBUSINESSBOOKS.COM.

What else do i need to improve and how to get more traffic?

I highly appreciate any feedback!

Maria Emile · #2 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 12:25 AM

Hi zmonique2007,

I have reviewed your website its an article / information website actually the. There is a need on making it user friendly and the design and layout should also be improved. There are too much tags cloud after the post. The amendment in the layout are necessary the inner pages tabs should be more prominent. If we look over all by information its an updated one. Do some work on the design and layouts it will be more better!

Ileane · #3 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 10:08 AM

Hi zmonique2007,

I have to agree with Maria Emile. The tag cloud is way too huge (I'm not a fan of "clouds" anyway) and there are some other layout issues. For example, the first ad at the top is hiding the "Navigation" links on the right. I think that the font size could be smaller also.
The placement of the ads directly under the title is something I would change also. As I scroll down the page I see articles without ads, but there is a gap that makes the reader think "Is something missing?"
You might have great content, but I never had the chance to read it due to the ad placement.

The good thing is that all of these things can be fixed and I wish you the best with your site.

McKnight · #4 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 03:47 PM

Maybe put smaller Google Ad modules on the top and bottom because it overflows the right column on smaller screens. Nice site though.

meloncholy · #5 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 04:49 PM

Heh. Can't comment on the ads as AdBlock took care of that for me.

You need more whitespace. Your layout feels terribly cramped and busy at the moment.

I had a quick go in Firebug and made a few changes. It's not great by any means, but hopefully it will get you heading in the right direction.

Code:

div.post-bodycopy { line-height:1.5em; }

div.post-footer { font-size:0.9em; line-height:1.5em; margin:0.5em 0 3em 0; padding:10px 15px; }

td#middle { padding:25px 30px; }

.logoarea-title { padding: 15px; }

I also changed your title and tagline to make it a little snappier and (again

) take up less space (and specifically fewer lines).

Title: Learn How To Start Your Own Homebased Business!
Tagline: I've been doing it for over 10 years...and so can YOU!

I'd like to second (third?) the comments above about the tag cloud. I'm not a huge fan either, but definitely reduce the font size if you keep it. I'd also change the colour to something lighter, perhaps #bbb, though after you've reduced the font size #666 may be enough. Same goes for the nav and recent posts column.

I know some of these suggestions are kinda specific (and perhaps picky too

), but they're all aimed at emphasising your most important content.

James · #6 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 06:38 PM

Another issue, one that really needs to be fixed, relates to the layout and the "Start Here" button. If you increase the font size (as many of us do) the button enlarges but also moves to the right far over the text in the right column.

findaguitarteacher · #7 (**permalink**) 10-21-2009, 10:29 PM

Hey, zmonique2007 -

Great and timely idea for a website - speaking to the tenor of the economy and downsizing in general. The fact that many new people are / will be looking to get into self-employment, means that your idea for a website couldn't have come at a better time. That being said just a few random thoughts:

I think the visuals need to be tweaked because it's a bit difficult to focus and unclear what you want your visitors to do. The first thing that comes to mind is that you should scale the font to a more uniform size and style. The large font and lack of flow caused by that is a little hard on the eyes and would be more easily read and followed if it were more cohesively designed.

It's great you have the text ads, however, as currently configured, their placement makes them appear as if the article about scams is somehow referring to the advertisers. You might try placing your ads on the side so that they won't be confused with your content.

The links on the left side could be more cleanly laid out and perhaps sorted into similar categories and groups with defined subject matter. For example: Getting money or Getting Started - each with links that pertain to that particular subject.

One more thing that comes to mind is that I'm not sure why the PayPal link is there. I find myself asking: Why am I going to be clicking on this PayPal image? Am I buying something? Am I going to find out something about PayPal? Am I signing up for PayPal?

Hope that presenting your site for review works to your advantage and I wish you all the best for success.

findaguitarteacher

chimeara27 · #8 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 02:39 AM

looks cool to me.

zmonique2007 · #9 (**permalink**) 11-04-2009, 09:40 PM

I appreciate all your reviews, thank you for your time and feedback. I will consider all your suggestion. Again, thank you.

I wish you all the best guys!

family checkout · #10 (**permalink**) 11-04-2009, 10:40 PM

your site really looks great. it's very easy to navigate from post to post.

designerpk.com · #11 (**permalink**) 11-11-2009, 08:05 PM

clean n good looking site and information is useful

WindowsTalk · #12 (**permalink**) 11-11-2009, 08:32 PM

I don't know...it has a cheesy, unprofessional look about it. A Google ad for World Hunger smack dab at the beginning of the first post doesn't look that great.
The overall text is too large and 'in your face'; its like wall to wall words and it is too unfocused.
Just my thoughts...

chrisinbc · #13 (**permalink**) 11-12-2009, 05:32 AM

Overall, I like your site. As been mentioned before you couldn't have picked a better time to do a website on home based businesses as more people are losing there jobs outside the home. My only suggestion is that I think your site looks a little too crowded and could definately use more white space. Best of luck with your website.

Chris H.

James · #14 (**permalink**) 11-12-2009, 08:38 AM

The site looks OK in general. The type size is definitely too large. I almost always enlarge sites because my eyes are not the best, but yours looks too large to start with. I would decrease the font size a bit.

kenjpet · #15 (**permalink**) 11-16-2009, 05:31 PM

Did you mean to have your image with the laptop and vase in double exposure or is there something wrong with my browser. I really didn't care for all the font sizes. It looks unprofessional to me. I looked at your meta. Your first keyword phrase listed there is legitimate home business. This "keyword" doesn't even appear on the page. Your second keyword phrase was "homebased business". Here is the density
breakdown:
Title: 0: 7: 0%
Body: 8: 1130: 1.4%
H1/H2/H3: 1: 73: 2.7%
Links: 8: 457: 3.5%
Bold: 0: 12: 0%
Meta description: 0: 36: 0%
Meta keywords: 1: 11: 18.2%
Your SEO needs considerable work. You need to decide what to optimize for and it should be in all your tags and have a decent density on the page. You should never have a word in your keyword tag that is not on the page itself. I hope this data helps you make the necessary changes.

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