And… life is back to normal after the holidays.
Which means that it’s time for me to start telling you again what I do and don’t like about your blogs and how to fix it.
The point of this Friday series is to identify common problems, find solutions to those problems, and make your blog stronger as a result.
The blog under the magnifying glass this week is:
TommyDiPietro.com
January 7, 2011
From the laptop of: Ana Hoffman
Dear Tommy:
It was such a pleasure to meet you through BetterNetworker back in the day.
You were THE first one I started networking with as I was in the process of launching Traffic Generation Cafe. You are my original tribe member, THE first one.
And yes, you are one of a kind, Tommy - loved by many, respected by all.
Now if we can only fix that blog of yours… 
***
General Stats
URL: http://tommydipietro.com/
Title: MLM Sales Strategies for the Home Business Owner
Description: This blog serves as a self-help tool for home based Internet business owners. I have used real life experiences and examples on how to succeed in network marketing.
Google PageRank: PR2
Alexa Rank: 311,999
Indexed pages in Google: 564
Domain Age: 1 year 2 months (Happy belated blog-day!)
First Impression
The second I came to your blog, Tommy, I wanted to leave. You know why?
PopUp Domination took me off guard in the first 2 seconds of my visit.
I am not against pop-ups. As a matter of fact, I am using one on my blog as well. It’s powered by MaxBlogPress Subscribers Magnet and gives me all kinds of choices as to how often I want the pop-up to show up, how long after the visitor got to my blog, etc.
My current settings are: each new visitor gets a pop-up only once EVER and I give them a minute or two to get acquainted with me - let them see if they like me or not first before I whack them on the head with a pop-up.
I am not saying mine are the rules to follow.
But a pop-up within 2 seconds? With no foreplay? It’s a sure way to turn away a good number of your visitors.
Design changes to consider
To be quite honest with you, Tommy, there are many. I know that you created your blog to brand yourself and to bring more leads to your primary business. The way things look right now, it might actually hurt you more than help you.
Bottom line: your blog needs a entire overhaul, period.
Let me go off topic here for a second and give you a mini-rant on the topic of blog design.
I used to think that design didn’t matter that much, as long as it looked professional. Well, with everything that I know now about blogging, I think design is of extreme importance.
Simply professional is not enough. It needs to be unique, elegant, and hold your readers’ attention.
In other words, don’t go designing your own blog if you have no business designing anything to begin with. All you’ll end up doing is constantly tweaking your amateurish design hoping that the next change just might do the trick, but trust me, it won’t.
I’ve been through it. Many, many times. Wasted many, many hours.
Time I could’ve spend actually making money.
Blogging is a business - for most of my readers anyway. As such it requires initial investment and you shouldn’t be afraid of it.
It’s just a part of doing business. Get used to it. Spending money before you make money is entirely acceptable; that’s what all successful marketers do. Do it right the first time around, so you can focus on the things that matter.
I am not saying to go spend $2K on a custom design.
With everything I know now, these would be my design choices:
1. Get yourself Thesis theme first of all - solid error-free coding, SEO-optimized, designed for bloggers by bloggers. That’s what I use on my site.
2. Next, I would get a semi-custom Thesis skin like these ones (“skin” basically means design, in other words - the first one on that site is the one I would recommend to go for) that will do most of customization for you and leave you with simple choices to make the blog your own.
Getting back to you, Tommy.
Depending on what your goal for your blog is you definitely need to think about investing a little bit into your blog; otherwise, it will never reach its full potential.
Let me go over the most obvious design changes needed:
- blog is too wide - 900 pixels is within the “normal” range (see my note on that below)
- Header is too far down - you are wasting a lot of prime “blog estate”
- Bad picture of you combined with not-so-greatly designed tagline.
- your home page post is a lot of hype that most likely makes your prospects run and not towards you.
- looks like you are trying to make your home page look more like a lead capture page. I have no problem with that. However, REALLY make it a lead capture page without sidebars and other blog-related attributes. It has to be one way or another: blog or lead capture page. Otherwise, you get a bunch of confused folks.
- and what is this “meta” widget all the way at the bottom of your sidebar?
As I said, I haven’t scratched the surface with these suggestions. I know you’ve put a lot of work into this blog in the past; I think it’s time to get it done (or re-done) once and for all.
To keep in mind:
Keeping your blog width under a certain number of pixels is extremely important for traffic conversion and generally improved readership.
You see, our eyes are too lazy to go that far from side to side - believe it or not! The more narrow the reading area, the more likely it will be read.
So 900 pixel or so is a good number for blog width to keep in mind.
Write a winning tagline:
Right now your tagline “MLM Prospecting Hero” is all about YOU, Tommy. Your visitors don’t care about YOU; they care about themselves. Your tagline doesn’t offer them any benefit and that’s a big mistake.
Content/Niche Analysis
Here are some questions to start off the discussion on the topic of niche - this applies to you, my dear reader, so pay attention:
What is the purpose of your blog?
Is it to generate leads for your primary business, if you have one? Is it to brand your name in certain niche circles? Is it to create another income stream through affiliate marketing, etc?
This is an extremely important first step to a successful blog. Knowing what the final destination (goal) is will help you to create the right roadmap of how to get there.
Right now, your blog has no apparent purpose, Tommy.
It seems like you are trying to make it all about collecting leads, judging by your new home page. But leads for what? If I am a first time visitor to your blog, I have no idea why I should give you my email address and what I will get out of it.
If you want to brand yourself as a leader in your business, then make it ALL about your business. Show your readers you know the ins and outs of it. Work on ranking your blog for every possible keyword pertaining to your business.
If you want to be know as an expert in a particular niche, then PICK THE NICHE!
“MLM Sales Strategies” is NOT a niche. As a matter of fact, it’s a terrible keyword to focus on! Can you imagine anyone searching for MLM sales strategies on Google? I don’t even know what it means!
If I were in MLM business, I’d be looking up how to generate leads, how to recruit, how to talk to prospects, how to use video marketing - topics are endless.
THOSE are the niches to look into.
Side note: I know you had a fairly recent audit of your blog by one of the prominent BetterNetworker members - no need to name names, and a lot of your changes are based on that audit. But let me tell you straight up (as if I know any other way of doing it ), he gave you bad advice. Unfortunately, not all people we perceive as leaders are worth their salt.
So either way, you need to find a better direction for your blog and/or pick a good niche within that direction.
Until you do that your readership won’t increase beyond people who like you. I want to change that, because I know you have a lot to offer.
One more thing to remember: a good niche focuses on YOUR READER and their problems, NOT your own experiences.
SEO Analysis
I am not sure much of this information will be helpful to you, Tommy, since you’ve got a lot of work and choices to make before you start thinking of your SEO.
However, there is definitely one SEO-pertaining aspect you need to start thinking about as you are choosing your niche. As a matter of fact, this will help you pick the right niche:
1. Keyword Research
You absolutely can’t start a successful SEO campaign until you get this straight: you have to focus on the right keywords before you can hope for any kind of targeted search engine traffic.
I highly recommend you look up these resources to get your keyword research off to a good start:
- Internet Marketing 101: The Telltale Signs of Profitable Markets
- Internet Marketing 101: Will Your Target Market Bring You Profits?
- Best tool to use for keyword research: Market Samurai
2. Your first SEO steps
After you are done with keyword research, my best advice would be to carefully read and implement my free 7 Steps to Complete Search Engine Domination report.
In that report, you will learn everything you need to on how to do your market and keyword research, study your competition, optimize your meta information, and build quality one way links back to your blog - SEO from A to Z in simple terms.
Link Structure
The main problem with your links, Tommy, is the fact that only 30% of ALL links on your blog are INCOMING vs 70% of them are OUTGOING.
There is no cut-and-dry rule as far as what percentage is the right one and it doesn’t really matter.
Here’s the new rule I’d like you to stick with from now on: link out as little as possible, start building a lot of backlinks TO your blog.
1. Internal Linking
Most of your existing incoming links link to your home page.
Although it’s undoubtedly important to build some links to your home page, the majority of your links should be distributed among your deep pages.
What is a “deep page”?
Any page other than your home page is called a deep or internal page. Any of your posts would be deep pages, for instance.
More on deep internal linking:
2. Incoming Linking
There is very little use in starting to work on your SEO link building before you are settled on your keywords.
Once you complete that step, you can start building your links with your keywords as anchor text - that’s what will help the search engines identify your blog and particular pages within it with your researched keywords.
The better quality links you build, the more likely you will rank and bring more targeted traffic your way.
This and That
Canonicalization Issues
Knowing that this was one of the problems needed to be fixed on your blog, Tommy, plus the fact that I encountered it in my previous blog audits, I wrote an entire post covering the issue.
If you have no idea what it means, please go back and read the post below; there’s a good chance you need to fix it on your blog and you don’t even know it.
Readability Level
According to some of the tests I ran on your blog, your current writing style is very advanced and would require of Doctoral degree to digest - literally.
I’ve mentioned the readability issue in one of my previous audits (Blog Audit Friday: This Is How the Strong Become Stronger) and received a comment asking what tool is best to use to determine that (the proper term for this is Flesch Reading Easy Test).
Since there is no uniformed opinion on how to truly measure it, I say to use the best tool you’ve got: your head. If your head is letting you down in the objectivity area, ask a friend to help you.
Your goal is to write as if your audience is in elementary school. REALLY.
Marketing Takeaway
There are definitely times when a full blog makeover is required, and yours, Tommy, is one of those cases.
I know it might be painful to hear, but consider this: with all the hard work you are putting into your blog as is, wouldn’t you want to see some real results from it?
Of course, you do. However, I strongly believe that until you make some radical changes, your blog will be your dead weight.
Assuming, you are willing to start anew, I am willing to revisit your blog in a couple of months and do another blog audit. Next time I will focus more on the things I usually focus on: different SEO issues, on-page problems, and such.
But until then, you’ve got your work cut out for you, my dear friend.
And now, my dear readers, it’s your turn. Go to http://www.tommydipietro.com/ right now and let Tommy know what you think of his blog in general and point out the things you would change. Tommy and I are listening!
I am a wife to a great husband of 13 years (here ya go, now I have to make changes to this sentence once a year), a mother to a beautiful and, no doubt, genius little girl, and a successful internet entrepreneur. I also devoted my life to Jesus Christ many years ago, and He remains my true priority, focus, and hope.
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
I must disagree with the popup situation, I haven’t even read the rest yet.
I couldn’t describe the irritation I feel being halfway through an interesting article and suddenly BAM! right in the eye with a blacked out screen.
Most of the time, I decide real quick on how interesting the article really is; I just wanna leave.
I see your side, I do. I’ve just learned to close it out real fast, read around, then subscribe if I feel like it.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..Contest Sponsors Linking to Money Making Pages – I Need Your Honest Opinion – FAST!
Hi Ana,
Another great run down on common blog issues. I like reading the article with the blog under review on the site. With my own blog on a second page to verify how many mistakes are valid for my site as well.
I fully agree with you opinion on popup domination. It is really annoying to be presented with it without being able to have a look at the site first. I dismiss it by definition. On your site the popup never bothered me, making me subscribe on the second or third time.
Just one remark, omit the side note about previous bad advice on site changes next time. There is no need for you to point out you are better than someone else.
Cheers,
Paul
Hi Ana,
you are already in good shape, aren’t you ? I’m so glad that Tommy takes it professionally, telling from his comments.
I admire your honesty and courage to put the “finger in the wound” as we say in Germany.
Take care
Oliver
Oliver Tausend´s last blog ..Oliver Tausend’s Blog- Thanks To Top Commentators In December
Yes, and add some salt to it as well, huh?
Tommy is staying pretty cool, although he might be quite busy for a while.
Blessings to you, Oliver.
Excellent blog review Ana.
And Tommy, good for you in being brave enough to accept very good constructive critism.
Peter
P.S. I actually look forard to these blog audits, so much valuable information on them
Peter Fuller @ Home Business Solutions´s last blog ..The 1 Internet Marketing Skill needed for 2011
Thanks so much, Peter - it actually made me feel kindda good to know you care.
Ana
Hi Ana,
This was an interesting one to read. Very different from the others so far.
Tommy is great at networking, making friends and sharing value. When he gets his blog all fixed up it’s going to be fun to see how far he can go.
Tommy, I know it’s painful to get your blog audited by Ana (at least it was for me
) but I have no doubt that you’re thankful for the info, and will see improvements as you apply her suggestions.
Thank you for volunteering your blog for us all to learn from.
Thank you, Ana, for continuing to offer such high value information for us all.
Susanna
Susanna Hess@Video Branding´s last blog ..Your Blog Branding- and My Big Blog Mistake
Yes, this was definitely different for me as well, Susanna.
Of course, Tommy is such a trooper and a good friend and we all support his blog tremendously. However, that won’t bring any income
; he needs to grow his readership way beyond that and he does need to make some serious changes to achieve that.
Have a great weekend, my dear, and thanks for coming by!
Hi Ana.
I certainly learned a lot reading this audit. Reading the entire post then visiting the subject site seems to make things stand out, allowing me to complete understand the points you’ve raised.
Those immediate popups are annoying. I recall Scott Stratten of Unmarketing speaking about them at last year’s Blog World Expo, saying they were like smacking your customer in the face when they walked in the door, before having the opportunity to even look around.
Having enjoyed these audits in the past and finding this one of particular interest (some things I can do as well) I hereby commit to making this a regular stop.
Thanks for this highly informative post, Ana.
Jimi Jones´s last blog ..When Bloggers Unite Creativity Results
Allow me to hold you accountable, Jimi - will definitely see you back next Friday then!
Were you at the Expo or heard a recording?
Ana,
Another great audit.
I recently saw where some one had you look at your blog design with the Google magnifying glass as a quick way to see if your blog design was inviting. (Just Google your name or site) It is a fun test. You can compare successful blogs to your own.
I have made a list of changes I want to make on my blog and this audit was very helpful.
Sheila Atwood@newbielifeline.com´s last blog ..Masters Of The Web
Not sure how to get to that test, Sheila - any more info?
Wow, Ana, I really appreciate someone who has a keen eye for important details. I have attempted a blog or two in the past, but lost them to contractual issues, until this past November, 2010. Before, I had no clue what I was doing. Not saying I am even near knowing now (no, not even close…lol) but I have never had such a clear observation from an outside party give me feedback on my new site. Other than a few people suggesting using a Splash, because of too much info (in TE’s), that is it. ( I just started using a different static page last night)
I am using WP SEO plug-ins on a Theme (E-degree) that is SEO optimized, which is the reason I chose it, besides the fact I thought (in my pure ignorant bliss) it looked unique and different. One of my issues (of probably a few dozen or so) is even getting verified by Google. I tried using the Google Analytics plug-in, but that does not seem to work for some reason and I can’t seem to locate a place in my “home.php” to place their code so it can verify my site as my own instead. OMG, what a little nightmare. (yeah, I dream about it and wake up to it every day) As you can tell, I am quite illiterate when it comes to all of this, just trying to get by, make my way into the cyber-world to claim just a little morsel of the gigantic pie out there. Any feedback would certainly be appreciated.
Dan Reed´s last blog ..Finding Home Business Time
There are some tools that can give you an insight as to what’s wrong with your blog, Dan, but I was never able to find the one that does it all. (maybe I need to create a product?
)
However, it’s always great to get the human prospective - that’s the most valuable part of an one-on-one review like this one. Plus you can ask questions.
Anyway…
Unfortunately, I can’t help you with your .php files. What you need to add is stored in your theme, and of course I am not familiar with it.
With Thesis it’s easy, I don’t even need to go into my blog files…
Sorry, Dan - you know a forum of sorts can help you with that.
Hi Dan:
you should be able to verify your Analytics account by going into your visual stylesheet editor under your theme. Then locate the section, before the first section and plop in your tracking code. Once you do that, save it and then click verify in your Google Analytics account. Hope this help.
Lisa
Lisa´s last blog ..The Fastest Way To Turn Any Blog Post Into An Article
Another comprehensive audit. I always try and take at least one thing away from your reports and apply it to my blog.
What was shouting out at me today was your observation of the Tagline.
“Your Tagline … is all about you … Your visitors don’t care about YOU; they care about themselves.” It’s so obvious, but only when someone points it out to you.
For those of us who are new to blogging, professional reviews like this are invaluable (especially because someone else has to bear the public pain!)
Now all I need is a great tagline . . . and a niche . . . and make it the correct width . . . and sort out the SEO . . .
Simon Mitchinson´s last blog ..Seven newish tips to help with your weight loss
Well, seems like you’ve got your work cut out for you, Simon!
So what are you doing commenting on my blog instead of taking care of your blog?
Kidding… ALWAYS comment on my blog first, then do what you need to do. 
Taglines are always hard. I used to think when I first started that I needed to show my prospects WHO I WAS. Boy, was I wrong… As soon I realized that and started focusing on my readers, my business took off.
Extremely useful audit. And you are so brave Ana, believe me, you just literally speak out your mind. I am not flattering you but I personally like you for this one reason.
And about the audit, yes design aspects need to be taken care of right at the beginning so that you set up, forget it and concentrate on developing the blog. Tweaking too much on design after you have a lot of visitors will make one lose a substantial number of them.
Jane Sheeba´s last blog ..How important is discipline in your day-to-day life
Funny you mention my boldness, Jane…
In the beginning of my blog, I tried to be someone different, someone I THOUGHT my readers would want me to be. It was too difficult to keep up, so I decided to take a chance and just be myself. And THAT’S when my blog took off.
Moral of the story: we are who we are and we are great that way.
I do agree with your last remark: loosing your audience to a poor design is something we should let happen - do it right the first time around.
Ana
PS Such a pleasure to start seeing your name in the comments! Thank you.
Ana:
You are very thorough when you complete an audit. I have all your audits printed out for quick reference and I utilize them to make the necessary changes. The best thing about your audits is that you have a GENUINE desire to help people. Kudos
Lisa
Lisa´s last blog ..The Fastest Way To Turn Any Blog Post Into An Article
I really do try, Lisa - hope my blog audits are taken as seriously by other readers as they are by you.
There’s a lot to learn here even if it’s not your blog I am auditing.
Have a great day, my friend!
Hi Ana,
a great one again. I opened his blog to see it and compare to what you are saying and immediately I saw that he is using Atahualpa theme, the same one I am using now.
This theme is so customizable and even if he didn’t want to spend money now he could still use all that space above his header and make the blog width narrower.
It would literally take him 5 minutes to do all that.
Design is of course very important and I removed a whole sidebar recently because I saw that the best blogs have only one. His theme allows up to 4 sidebars but I think even 2 are too much sometimes.
So when it comes to customizing his design that is not hard. But what I don’t like is the overall look because it looks like one of those old internet websites that sell you something you should never buy.
I think he should add some color so it is not that white and remove all that big bold text and red text.
If Tommy needs a few lines of text how to change the width of his blog I will be more than willing to write that for him.
Thanks for the great audit, I love reading them and see you on Sunday
Brankica @ Live Your Love´s last blog ..Human spammer How to lose reputation as a blogger and get banned the easy way
Great feedback, Brankica - I am so glad you know his theme and can even save him some money to customizing what he already has.
Tommy, are you listening?
Definitely agree with your suggestions.
Listening loud and clear.
Tommy DiPietro | MLM Sales´s last blog ..Get The Best Employment Screening Background Check
Tommy, when ever you have time and want to do it, send me a message through my blog, I am online a lot and we can work on it. It won’t take long. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but I learned a lot in last few weeks (trial and error, lol).
Hope we can make it better so Ana says it looks better. As far as the rest, I am not getting into that, lol!
Ana,
Already started making those changes
I knew something was wrong and I did take some bad advice along the way. The good news is I am getting leads and converting some of them.
A couple of things I have already done from your previous audits, like removing the pop-up domination, fixed my link in Google webmaster tools and recently dropped the ‘Prospecting Hero’ thing.
I am looking into a new theme and will take your suggestion into consideration and maybe it is time to get that professional blog header. Add a niche and I am heading in the right direction.
My traffic has been increasing according Google Analytics.
So…I am going to dive right in and would love a follow-up.
Thanks again Ana.
Tommy D.
Tommy DiPietro | MLM Sales´s last blog ..How To Get Your Work At Home Business Booming In 2011
I am SOOO glad to hear that you are up to making the changes, Tommy!
I truly feel your blog can be great and serve you very well; all the changes will definitely pay off in the long or even short run.
Ana
Cool blog audit. Design is really important in a blog since you need something good on the eyes of your readers so they can focus more on your content and not anything else.
Edwin´s last blog ..7 Cool Sites To Listen To The Radio Online
You are so right, Edwin - poor design only distracts from anything good on the blog. It’s the first thing that needs to be fixed for sure.
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