Websites Freebie site Review - Please

Hi,

So I am new here and pretty much new to building websites and blogs. I had a blog on blogger and decide to venture out into the real online world. I am building several site but this is the one that I have done the most work on.

My site is Best Free Samples by Mail
The url is Free Samples By Mail - Freebies- Free Samples

It is a freebie site and I know that it is difficult market to break into. But it is something that I like. I am looking for some honest reviews of the site and some ideas of things that I could do to make it better.

Thanks so much!
Sandi

 

<title>Free Samples By Mail - Freebies- Free Samples</title>

<meta name="description" content="Free samples by mail and email.
Just real free samples and freebies! Free stuff for you!" />

Checked in Keyword Discovery
Free Search Term Suggestion Tool by KeywordDiscovery.com

Search Term . . . . . . Searches
free samples . . . . . .11574
free samples by mail . .1337
freebies . . . . . . . . . 3638
real freebies . . . . . . . 259
free stuff . . . . . . . 23696
real free samples by mail . 3
real free samples . . . . . . 3
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I think I would change "real free samples" to something else.
Check in the free keyword tool "keyword discovery".
-
hope this helps
falcon

 

Thanks! I figured out where to change the description. I added a few of teh better keywords.

 

<title>Free Samples By Mail - Freebies- Free Samples</title>

You have 44 characters in the title (including spaces)
Google allows 66 (you may want to add some more information using
your best keywords).

<meta name="description" content="Free samples by mail and email.
Just real free samples and freebies! Free stuff for you!" />
You have 88 characters in your description (including spaces)
Google allows 150 (you may want to add some more information using
your best keywords).
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Notice: How they use Categories for freebies
Hey, It's Free!™ | Daily freebies, free stuff, and free samples!

also notice how they use what's hot and categories
Free Stuff, Free Samples, Freebies - GoFreebies.com

They have freebie categories
Freebies Free Stuff Free Samples @ I Crave Freebies.com
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Whatever you do, make it as easy for the visitor as you can
They do not want to think and they do not want to spend time finding
what they want.
- Also you can do well as most do not spend time optimizing (SEO)
for the best response (traffic and position). You use your best
keywords for this. Singular and plural words have different responses
(or popularity). The more you use the keyword tool, normally (there
are exceptions) the better traffic and position (position is page
position on search engines - ie page 1 or page 10). You should use
this for names of categories.
Also page analyzers help. They show how well you optimize the page.
Only use software to assist, your judgement is the best tool.
Also be sure and use analytics (free) to check the response of your
changes.
I use GoStats (free) along with others.
GoStats Free Analytics & Website Hit Counter, Download Now
-
hope this helps
falcon

 

I noticed you use Google analytics, I also use it along with others.
Each analytics have their own advantages. GoStats makes a good
companion for Google analytics. It is not a day behing as Google
analytics is and they give you a weekly report that you should record
on a (free) spreadsheet. Be sure to track visitors (total & new +
return) so you can determine what you need to do SEO wise.

Changing your site's title and description in search results - Webmaster Tools Help
This tells you what Google says about Title and Description.

Search Engine Optimization - FREE SEO Help
This has free meta tag analyzer and free submission
Do not get the paid version as you are not ready yet
I will try and find you a better free submission tool.
Submission you need to keep a record of when you submit and when your
site is active on that search engine.
-
Hope this helps
falcon

 

This is a good free submission tool.
Free Web Submission: Free Search Engine Submission and Site Promotion
-
Verify your site is not listed in the search engine selected before submitting.
Manual submission is better than automatic submission as you can control it better. Also some sites do not accept automatic submission. It may take a week or two for some to list your site, so be patient. If a month passes and you are not listed in that search engine, re submit.
-
hope this helps
falcon

 

Hey, I just took a look at your website and have to say the following:

I think this website is good. I like the header, the design of it reminds me a bit of the twitter bird. Dont know why.

I also like the design in general but i have two minor points which I dont like on your website.

The first one is the picture "best free sampley by mail" which is under the subscription option. I think the background of the pic (which looks like easter eggs/pills or m&ms to me) is not that good. I rather change it to something else which looks more "serious" if you know what I mean?

The second thing I dont like that much is the live traffic feed. To me it looks kind of cheap and I rather have a "most viewed articles" section or what ever.

I dont want to critizise you or your homepage but these are just two ideas.

Hope your okay with it

 

I think you should look at the navigation section under your header.
There are so many of them. How about trying to cut down to 1 row instead of 3?

 

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You may want to consider a menu list down the left or right side.
Or a dropdown menu or a flyout menu. A drop down drops down from the top and a flyout menu comes out (or flies out) from the side then may drop down.
-
CSS3 Menu. Free CSS Menu Maker
CSS Menu Generator - Horizontal, Vertical, Drop Down, DHTML CSS Menu
CSS Menu Generator
-
an example of wonderwebware (CSS Menu Generator) dropdown menu
HTML Editors: a list of WYSIWYG Editors + Text editors, tutorials
scroll over [Menu 1] or [Menu 2]
-
It also has vertical menus
-
hope this helps
falcon

 

Hi. Total novice here so my input is not real technical. First, when I clicked the links on the top row, it took me to the other sites and I started looking at what they had to offer instead of going back to your site to inquire further. Maybe those links should be deeper in the site so a viewer doesn't get side tracked right off the bat. Also, a couple of pages, such as pricing, were too wide which can be bothersome. I liked the testimonials on the front page. They really legitimated the site. Hope this helps.

 

Evening,

First off, liked the site, does what it says.

However what you are asking for are constructive ieas that might help improve your site so here goes:-
- navigation bars in blue - at first glance they blend in with the page as they are the same colour as the frame of the page, Do you think they would be better if they were a differrent colour?

- also maybe the navigation bars could be a bit more symettrical? I think it could make the site generally easier on the eye.

- the main page generally seems a bit busy. I'd probably solve this by having the headlines of your best / biggest / latest offers on the front page as a teaser to get your website visitor to want to explore the rest of the site. Hopefully this could mean more people coming back to check the "headlines" on a regular basis?

- I'd rename "food samples". This section contains Ben & Jerrys and free coffee, but a name like "food samples" doesn't really do what you offer in this section justice (I mean I love Ben & Jerrys).

- an "About Us" page. Yes, I know, the clues in the name, but a bit on your site that says "this is who we are, this is how we make our money so that we can give you all this free stuff" would help more people to trust and therefore use (and hopefully, come back to) your site.

As I say, I think the website is already good, I now know where my local Ben & Jerrys is so I would say it's done it's job!

Hope the ideas help, all the best.

cheers,
moon

 

banner

i liked your site i went to some of the sites and actually got some free items

ithink your banner should be a high resoultion picture

 

I think your site is great, I like how you have the advertising in a colum together rather than scattered all over the page like some sites have. One thing I would say is maybe layout your freesample offers differently if possible or add some animation to brighten up the page and uphold the viewers attention and interest for as long as possible, apart from that, great job!

 

I like the site. Its easy to use and there is alot of cool stuff on there. Its actually pretty fun and entertaining. The only thing that really stood out to me for improvement is there is alot of expired stuff on there. Maybe there some sort of mechanism to have links drop off as they expire? Other than that, great site!!