Pimp My Blog Week 13: VinodLive

[Everton Blair]

Well I guess it had to happen eventually.  This week up for a pimping we have VinodLive.com who is one of the 6000 sites using my theme, which should make this week interesting.  Vinod has even implemented some of the features on my site that aren't available in the public theme!

Vinod has asked for help with:

    * Increasing ctr
    * affiliate schemes
    * covering his hosting costs

Please have a look at the site before adding any ideas in the forum.

Remember that the idea behind Pimp My Blog is that all readers help the chosen weekly blog, rather than just the usual suspects. Between us we can make a noticeable difference within a week to Vinod's site.

Ok, let’s get pimping!

If you would like your site to be included in a future Pimp My Blog then please submit your blog here. Don’t forget that the forum contains many other tools & tips that can be utilised whilst you are waiting.

[vinodis]

Thank you Everton!

[vinodis]

Thanks again for the ConnectedInternet community!

Let me explain the scenario once more..


I have had some great traffic to my blog last month. Glad to say that I made >300$ on advts. The CTR is still very low in the range of 0.34 - 1.25%.

The Page rank is still 0!. Considering the fact that my blog is just 2.5 months old, i think its normal and may improve with time.

[Everton Blair]

When you say your CTR is <1% is that on average or for all units?  For at least the unit in the top left of your posts I'd expect the CTR to be >5%.  I think it might be low because Google isn't crawling your site properly yet.

I've spotted a few things that I think will improve your CPM and CTR though:

• on your post pages I would move the datestamp and author link to the bottom of the post, to reduce the noise around your key unit
• I would ditch the banner below your related posts.  It will get such a low CTR that because of google Smart Pricing, you will get lower CPM ads in your other units.
• The social networking links are distracting and it's rare that people use these.  If you really want to encourage bookmarks I'd use the Share This plugin

I think your CTR and CPM will increase if you increase if you work on your keyword density more.  I had a quick flick through some posts and your keyword density looks low.  I had a quick look at your source and I couldn't see meta titles etc.  If you add the Simple Tagging plugin this will take care of most of this as well as adding tags to your site, which will bring in extra traffic.

[vinodis]

There is only one ad unit which worked. The one within the content. Others were really minimal. The CTR for adsense-content itself is around <1%. I think the keyword density may be to blame as you suggested. I searched for some tools to assist with keyword density. Can you suggest some?
I have made the modifications as you suggested - on datestamp, authorlink, sociable etc.
I have disabled the UTW and activated only Simple-Tagging now. I have to import the UTW tags now. Before that I have to update the wp-backup to 2.0 version. I think i need to recode for displaying the tags on individual posts also. The theme template only works with UTW. Is there a online automatic Keyword-suggest option for Simple-Tag?
UTW used to suggest me Yahoo specific keywords. But I don't know why it was not added to the posts automatically.

[vinodis]

after reducing the clutter around adsensecontent, i can see an increase in CTR. Now its around 2.10%.

[Everton Blair]

Goood.  I think another reason why your CTR is low is your site seems very slow and it's been down a few times over the last couple of days.   I really think you will benefit from moving hosts.

An unrelated question - how did you customise your spotback widget?