A couple of newbie questions
 

Hi everyone I have just started in the business and have found this board through submitting my first free site to link lists. I have posted questions on other boards before but this one seems to be the place where a lot of the really experienced folk hang out. I managed to get my site listed at several places and as I get further into this process new questions are coming up. Here are some of my latest.

I have tried to make a very clean free site as that seems to be the best thing to do for lots of reasons and I have not been rejected by lists (except one) for blind links etc. I have been rejected from a few for having a private Whois. I didn't realise that would be a problem, I don't think I have any reason not releasing my information could you give me pros and cons on this.

Also now I'm getting traffic to my site I'm trying to make sense of the stats. I have not made any sales yet but I'm not worried as it is still very early days and I don't expect this to be easy. These are the stats as they stand at the moment are they good, bad or what? The site has been getting traffic for about 4 days now, it got 2525 unique hits so far and the stats from my sponsor show that he has received 990 first page hits and 705 second page hits (not sure about the significance of those figures). Am I sending a good proportion of my surfers to the sponsors site or should it be more? as there are no sales does that mean that the quality of hits I'm sending is low should I try to filter them better? The site is in the mature niche if that helps any.

Any help in making sense of this would be very gratefully received. Thanks for being a resource available to us newbies.|waves|

I can't speak about exact numbers and ratios because... well... I don't even look at my own that close. :D

What I can say is that sales from my freesites tend to come later on, when all they're pulling in is tiny trickles of steady traffic.

Ultimately, there's always something more you can do. But stats are really only good for makig comparisons, and critical decisions, IMO. Given that, stats on 4 sites is far too narrow a sample to make any kind of decisions.

For now, I imagine the best course of action is to continue building, maybe try out a few other niches/sponsors, add a few more LL's to your submit list, and see what the market tells you to do. :D

Oh, and if you want suggestions, post a few links. There are more than a few people here who like to critique. ;)

I'll chime in on this...basically the thought is that you wouldn't do business with someone in the 'real' world if they wouldn't tell you their name or where their business was. It's so easy to cheat in this biz that I think people get suspicious if things are hidden.

That's not to say private whois doesn't have a place, just not on a domain you're planning to submit freesites on.

hope that helps explain it a bit :)

That sums it up nicely |thumb

Solid advice from the Hippy too. With free sites it generally takes a while to get a good flow going. Try not to watch stats too much...especially in the beginning. It's pretty unproductive to over-focus on stats at this point.

The best thing you can do for yourself is tweak your free site building skills to get your sites accepted consistently. You'll probably find that as your site building skills improve, your marketing will improve as well.

And it's a fine idea to post a site or two here...asking for review. You'll get quality honest feedback |thumb

Thank you all for your help. Here is the very first site I built, it has been accepted a some lists but I'm sure that as Mr Yum says I could improve the marketing and probably lots of other things. Please let me know what you think and where I need to improve. Thanks again.:D

http://www.everydaywomennaked.com/Na...men1/index.htm

PS I'll open up my Whois info.

You have side scroll at 800 wide which is a nono with most LL's and will get the site declined. You can fix this problem by making your site 760px wide.

Some of your outgoing links are blind which will also get you declined at most LL's

You are allowed to have 3 outgoing links not counting 2257 links but You only use 1 or 2 on each page, might aswell use all 3 since your sponsor is where you want the surfers to go.

I noticed after I posted this that You are using your outgoing links, they just arent very noticeable, I totally missed them on first view, that is not what You waqnt your surfer to do.

other than that the site looks ok, I would personally put some more recips up, I use 12 recips on my index page currently and submit to 72 different LL's

just my 2 cents

Xallow

I rejected this one for 2 reasons - the domains by proxy and the blind links on the index page (the ones just above the recip table are blind in my opinion). The side scroll is there, some may decline for that. If the rest of the site was ok, I'd probably overlook that.

I mostly don't care (within reason) how someone markets, I'm not exactly an expert there myself hehe so I won't give you any advice on that.

Other than that, it's not bad, and you'll get better as you go on. If you fix up the links & resub it I'll take it :)

Here is my 2cents.

As ponygirl stated the domains by proxy are a problem.

The sidescroll I overlook now cause GG takes the wider page and most will mirror that even though I will still build for 800 cause other lists still will deny for it.

I understand where you were going with what looks like blind links. It would be better IMO to take Links to Aunt Judys..., click here for amateur..., click here for big natural tits... and make that all text and one big link. You can go 3 lines of text as linked with no problems. Also change the Links to Aunt Judys to something like At Aunt Judys you will find. See in doing this you now creat just 1 link giving you another outlink possibility.

Since I have added mature to my list I would accept it when fixed. :)

I really appreciate you guys taking time to help me out as I'm learning to build these sites. I have just completed my second one and hopefully I've been able to incorporate the good ideas you've given me. Here it is please give me your comments.
http://www.everydaywomennaked.com/Ma...eurs/index.htm |loony|

"see Cooke spreading her pussy wide click here." this is a blind link I think, it should have some indication that the link will take you to the sponsors page

You only have 2 outgoing links on your main page, you are allowed to have 3 and I would recommend it.

other than that the site looks fine, now all you need to do is put my recip in there too ;)

You still have a small side scroll at 800px wide but I think most LL's will let that small side scroll slide

Same with your main page.

Adding text above or below your banners whether linked or unlinked can only help your site.

That blind link they are talking about is tied into a paragraph but it still comes across kinda blind cause you only linke half the sentence. If you link the whole sentence you should be fine.

The red links off the green on the index page are a bit hard on the eyes change those to the yellow you use on the other pages.

Other than that I like the site and would definitely list it once its tweaked.

Looks like the other boys covered most everything before me. ;)

Although, I notice you have these at the bottom of your warning/gallery pages:

These might count as outgoing links for some lists, and they're really not necessary on a freesite.

Completely agree...no need to have those links...especially on your galleries. I have seen a few free sites with them on entry pages, and personally I don't count them as outbound links. There may be other reviewers that do however.

Also agree...the red text on dark green bg is fairly painful...and those links are blind :(

Here's an excellent thread on blind links...helps a lot of people get a handle on the subject;

Blind links and how to avoid them

Hi Jonno, welcome to the world of freesites and LLs. |waves|

I declined your first site as soon as I saw the protected whois. Now that you've opened it up you should be good to go as soon as you fix the blind links issue. Nice looking sites. |thumb

Thanks again everyone I have changed the things that you have suggested and I think that I'm just about ready to submit this one. I can't tell you how much help you have all been and you have given me the cofidence to continue building sites knowing that I'm on the right track now. Thank you :D

Here is the latest version:

http://www.everydaywomennaked.com/Ma...eurs/index.htm

|thumb

Yup, I am pretty sure that would get accepted at most LL's, some may still decline you for the little side scroll but that would be very very few, I would accept it for sure. Now all You need to do is build build build build build build and build some more free sites

and then submit them :P

I'd list it as is |thumb

But, Xallow is right...that little side scroll will cost you some listings. In the free site game, you're better off doing everything reasonable to not give reviewers a reason to decline your sites. If it were me, I'd fix that side scroll before submitting.

I would list it as well as is :)

Now you can submit your site, and move on to the next one. |thumb