http://thegoodsleepstore.com

I have had this site going for about a year. Sales have been miniscule, really more a hobby than a business. Since I started, though, interest in the product I'm promoting has increased with competing sites going from 2-3 to dozens. Sales doubled or tripled in April, May and June of the this year (still laughably low - 6 sales in Apr, 6 in May and 6 in the first 12 days of June). I also had 8-10 other sites link to mine (without me asking for them). This encouraged me to go ahead and finish up the new, more professional looking, pages for the site and get them up. They went up 6/12/04 and I haven't had a sale since. With the way sales had been increasing it just seems too coincidental.

I posted the main page for my old look temporarily at http://drdansinfo.com so you can compare to the new page. Other than the main page, most of the content is the same.

Any suggestions as to why sales have evaporated? Page just doesn't generate interest? Incoming Links affected somehow? Traffic is just as high or higher than it was in April, May and the first part of June. My last sale was the morning before I put up the new look.

One question about validating the page. I have little or no HTML expertise and have just used templates to build my site and they don't validate. The site seems to show fine on all the browsers I've checked it on. Why is validation important? I noticed that this page http://forums.seochat.com does not validate either.

Hiya

Validation, whilst tidy and would be better is not the end of the world. If you are still ranking and still getting traffic then don't even bother worrying about it.

Can I ask....Are you able to see the terms that people are searching on to reach your page? I'm wondering whether people are now finding your page accidently by searching for an unrelated subject and therefore when they click on your page it's not what they were looking for.

And what is the keyword/phrase that you want?

Jane

Thanks for the answer about validation, that's about what I thought but needed it confirmed.

The search terms people are using to find me are right on target. There is so much interest in Natural Calm now that about 40% are searching for Natural Calm specifically. The others are searching for insomnia/fibromyalgia/magnesium etc.

There is only one other site with a lower price that I have been able to find and it's only 21.34 to my 21.95. I can't really go much lower and make any money. I did get one answer today to my popunder survey that they would have bought if I accepted credit cards. They also indicated they had found a lower price. I can easily get a merchant account on there but most either want a lot for set up and shopping cart or a commitment of 1-3 years. It's hard to justify $30-50/month for a year "just to see" on a site that where my best months profit was about $30 (if you don't count my time). I feel I need to put my finger on what else is wrong before I commit to that risk.

I have had several sites link to mine, mostly information sites on insomnia and nutrition. I also have quite a few people who have bookmarked my site, especially my detailed instructions page and periodically log on to consult or download it.

Still my sales are dismal and absolutely nothing since I loaded my new pages. I've changed the index page several times in the last few days. I think I may just go back to the old wording on the index page and see how that does and keep the new look.

Okay, I changed my page mostly back to the old wording with the new look and a couple of additions. I think it looks to busy and unfocused now. Does anyone else get that impression?