Hi Jon
Thank you for the in-depth review
I have just turned off the slide-in completely. I am not a fan of them and bought into the hype of "you are giving your reader something they want". I would rather offer a better reader experience and not put people off.
I am planning on making the front page static over the next few weeks. Now I am starting to get posts written for each section I am hoping this will look better. I shall overhaul the "about" section at the same time.
I am yet to touch advertising or affiliate links. I am not sure anyone would want to work with me at the moment, so my focus is building content and hopefully increasing traffic.
Whilst it would be great to make some money, I cringe at the sites that rave about and link to a certain electricity supplier one month then a matter of weeks later rave about another. Hopefully in time I will find a small number of affiliates that are the right fit for me and the site. (Maybe that's newbie ideology?!)
I will certainly look at adding some more images to my existing posts and continue moving forward.
I have jumped straight over to whynopadlock - thank you I had never heard of it......but the results all came back fine (see below) so I am a little unsure why I am losing the padlock? I will manually check each page/post and see if I can work out where my links are insecure.
I shall take a look at the comments plugin you recommend.
Thanks again, it's really useful to get the feedback and understand the areas I need to prioritise working on.
View attachment 537
Ah, that's great news about the padlock! Must have been a glitch at my end, I apologise!
Don't worry about buying into the 'hype'. It's easily done and the reason people selling blogger courses go after a certain demographic (ie, hello I want to make a new blog type people) as they are very easy to get 'on board' and before you know it you've spent £50 on a e-course and make your website look the exact same as everyone elses!
In terms of affiliate marketing. It's not really to do with companies wanting to work with you as such as it's more making the most out of the opportunities that your existing content already provides.
I would recommend signing up to Awin and applying for a few of the programs. You then just drop the links into your existing content and that's it!
How to earn money with AWIN - TotallyBlogging
Awin is an affiliate network with a huge raft of clients. Once you are signed up you can place their ads on your existing content and start earning a huge amount of money per month.
www.totallyblogging.com