Detective blog

I should have been more specific with the content I meant, the front page is what I would imagine as being a problem. That content seems to be widely available and it doesn’t offer anything, it’s clearly designed to sell the service, that’s it. The links at the bottom are mostly filled with what I would think might be “flag words”, as it seems backgrounds check etc are often part of spam sites.

Offering unique, well written content on your front page will not only give the search engines a reason to visit, it will also work so much better in selling what you sell. Built quality content around what you sell, don’t make what you sell the content. Go deeper into what exactly you want to offer, you have to make people feel they’re not about to give their credit card over to some dodgy service, show them you know what you’re doing.

I think a good, effective salesman never comes off like one, people aren’t stupid, they’ll know something is for sale, but put a little more effort into it – people and search engines hate pop-up ads and spam and your front page looks like it could be either. I’m not trying to be especially critical, but I think I’m a fairly objective third party, so take my suggestions as if they are form someone who knows nothing about any of the stuff your site offers, because I don’t – when I’m ready to leave your site, I should be well versed in the topic! Whether it’s spammy or not is irrelevant, if a visitor thinks it is, then it is, perception is always what matters over the truth.

Cheers,
Michael.

Michael,
I’m glad it’s only my homepage that’s in need of improvement. That should be relatively easy for me to fix. Believe it or not, this homepage is actually a replacement I designed myself, for an earlier homepage that was a re-written mirror copy of an affiliate sales page! As you can guess, I’m an affiliate, so the stuff I’m selling aren’t my own products.

I was unaware keywords like “…background checks” were considered spam words. I was attempting to target “…criminal background checks” etc.. because this is one of my most important keywords. I should probably move my important links to the top of my homepage and bold them, and also edit my links so that they don’t look so spammy. Somebody at seochat forums suggested I use copyscape.com to check for duplicate content. I found it to be a very useful tool.

Since the homepage is my most important page, I do need to put more thought into it and figure out how to improve it. Maybe I should consider making my homepage my main blog page, using a homepage plugin, if this is possible. Search engines do like dynamic content, especially on the homepage.

I can use always use constructive critisism. Some people I know will simply tell me they think my site or homepage looks great, but that doesn’t do me any good other than make me feel good.

Thanks!
Fred