r.e. your book. I bet that if you spent a little time on the design you would get a load more potential sales. I mean this kindly but the current page looks a little like one of the "EARN MONEY ONLINE!!!!" scam pages.
You have to click through to his spammy sales page. In my experience, SEO is a common hideout for snake oil salesmen. Most of them make more money from selling SEO advice than producing any useful good or service.
It alternates between blue, black, green, and red. So you're right, it's quad-color.
I was wrong about the source of his quotes being his ad copy. It's actually an unlinked forum where he probably got his friends to write ad copy for him, presuming he didn't do it himself.
I don't want to sound like an asshole, but what "you think" here doesn't count for diddley-squat.
What you've got is a perfect opportunity for A/B testing-- check out Patio11's blog or comments here for examples and details.
You can (and should) be tweaking your page, and measuring the results of those tweaks. By keeping the tweaks that bring you better results (and rolling back the ones that don't), your conversion rate (and income) will continue to grow.
I remember the parrotsecrets site (that sold an e-book on how to care for parrots, and apparently made tons of money doing so) and it looked a lot like this site. Maybe that kind of design actually does sell better. But as you say - A/B tests will prove or disprove it.
I got only positive feedback from buyers and my total conversion is really not bad. First I want to make a few bucks and then invest to design. Just my rule - first make money then spend it...
If you are selling to a semi-technical audience, it will just turn them off. "Intelligent" people are horribly afraid of falling for a scam, because not only does it mean they get ripped off, but it attacks their self-image directly.
So if you look like a scam, they're going to assume you are.
The whole "good and interesting information" vs "beautiful graphics" division is a false dilemma. You don't have to choose between them.
And, I'm not even saying that you should have "beautiful graphics".
What I am saying is: you are running a business here. The goal is to make money. There are tools (notably A/B testing) which will make you far more effective at reaching your goals than you currently are.
You're getting lots of valuable (but free) advice from the good folks of HN. It would behoove you to take it seriously.
the problem is not that so much; it is more the fact that the page layout matches the sort of layout you get on one of the "make money online" scam type pages :)
I took a look at your book and was interested in the subject, but found the page off-putting as the grandparent suggested. Looked kind of scammy to me, so I assumed it wouldn't be worth the time.
I'm an SEO newbie. Mind explaining how you get the Pagerank for a given site? I tried http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php, but it never seems to have any information about my sites.
My sites (all appspot apps) do appear to be indexed by google, and usually show up on the 1st or 2nd page of Google results (even after clearing my Google web history).
Thanks!
edit: to answer my own question: install the google toolbar.
It is not the odd one and I exactly described how to got similar result. I have not done anything similar to my PR 1 and 2 sites. If you are not interested you don't have to buy the ebook... :)
I was giving you feedback mate. I'm interested and i'm listing the reasons why I didn't buy it.
I checked the PR of both your blog and the ebook page and it was below 4.
And you are flipping the PR 1 and PR 2 sites. As said in your ebook page copy, higher PR means more money when flipping. Why wouldn't you invest the few hours to make it into PR 4.
I'm sorry to say but your attitude is defensive and a turn off. To my comment and the other comments talking about design of the page, you come across as defensive.
I have to say, I remember reading your first post when you decided to do this stuff full time, and I didn't think doing just Adsense and Istockphoto would be enough to keep you afloat. It really seems though that you have the drive to do this, and it seems to be coming along for you, so I'm really happy to see that.
Also, I'd love to see a post with tips about selling photos on istockphoto.
Something I take from this (and it is very valuable) is not to expect to make a living from AdSense (or at least, that it is very hard!). Thanks for keeping us up to date :)
Yes, the number in your headline isn't formatted in a way expected for a USD value. When seeing a figure like "$xxx,xx" it seems, to an American, that the ones digit must be missing ("$xxx,xxx").
Here is a great example that got posted here a little while back: http://createyourproglang.com/