10 replies to this topic

[snagelcat]

OK GUYS,

I spent MONTHS building my oscommerce site only to have NOONE show up Opening day :oops:

So then I spent TONS of cash trying to get it promoted and not many more showed up!! :roll:

Now that I did alot of READING and by alot of costly mistakes my site has had over a 1000 different computers visit it!!! and I've had over 13,000
page views!!!!!!! and....I"M SELLING!!!!!!!!!!

So I will share the "what to do" and the "what cost me money and did not work for me"

Things that I did that HELPED and cost just about nothing!!!!

1. I listed my site with Google.com, they are the search engine for many sites like yahoo.com, aol, lyco's etc etc you can list it as many times as you want here is the link to do so
http://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html

2. I am running an AD on Goggle it cost me $5 to set up, and I'm spending
$8 a month. (I do the min $1 a day and pause my campain during the week-days) THIS is HIGHLY recommened, as my page comes up 1300
times a day on the First page of a search (I set it up to come up when doing a jewelry search) There are 2 types of ways to run ADS with google
I'm using ADWORDS

15 people found my site that way last week-end and 3 of them bought something, 5 of them emailed questions

here is the link
http://www.google.com/ads/index.html

after submitting my AD I got listed on Google AND Yahoo

(strange but true)

3. I opened an Account on EBAY. Iv'e Auctioned a few things just to let people know I'm here. You cannot link your webpage to your sale on EBAY, but you CAN link your "ABOUTME" page and in that page you can link your shop. I've had TONS of people come from EBAY to look at my site....I've been doing this for 2 weeks now with EBAY and I've had
300 new computers from EBAY look at my site you can see my ABOUT ME page here and go look at my auctions to see how I linked the two together

4. Work on your sites positioning on the search engines.

you can do this by having other sites link to you.
Do a search for your type of store and submit your site to the TOP sites that come up.

5. Most important and this takes time...link link link link link....can I say that enough????
Meaning get your site listed on other sites!!!!

IE: mail to webmaster@thiersite from webmaster@yoursite requesting a link

NOW here are the things that cost me money and forget it!!!!

1. I listed 2 clasified on Yahoo.com cost me $20 and got 5 new computers...
2. I ran an AD in the Seattle Times cost me $160 and got NO-ONE:(
3. I ran an ad in the UK and got NO-ONE cost me 5lbs...still don't know the real cost yet
4. I did a banner exchange and got hit 25 times out of 1500 shows but I think my site looked WAY tacky!!!
5. I ran a pop-under ad that cost $10 and NO-ONE was interested (because they were not looking for Jewelry)

that's $200 down the drain!!!!

Here are links I found very helpful

http://webworkshop.net/pagerank.html
http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/s.../sim_spider.cgi
http://www.searchengineworld.com/tips/index.htm
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd...dview&id=133056
http://www.gems4friends.com/classifieds/index.html

OK IF anyone has any more Good and sure fire ways to get GOOD BUYING PEOPLE to a site please post them here!!!

and good luck on your sites promotion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[loxly]

There are also a lot more free things you can do to list your store, some are labor intensive and some are not.

1. Look for directories that list the kinds of products you sell. Three I have set up that get a ton of TARGETED search engine traffic and send it to sites that are appropriate are:

http://coolcraftsites.com/directory
http://coolfamilysites.com
http://coolpetsites.com/petlinks

Also on those sites are links to hundreds of other directories in the Category: Directories. Some are free for listings, some want a recipricol link (helps both of you), some might charge. Sometimes a small yearly fee is worth it.

2. Set up a links page of your own and only list sites with informational sites about the products on your site.

3. Search engines don't just look for how many sites link to you, they look for how many sites WITH THE SAME TOPIC link to you. So jewelry sites linked to other jewelry, arts, crafts, gem sites. Cat jewelry on cat, pet, animal sites.

4. Build a community, not just a store. How many of you would be using osCommerce if it didn't have such a great forum, lots of people with lots of information, lots of contributions, lots of people to talk to that have the same goals as you do????? I've used other free shopping carts, free affiliate programs. This tops them all, in every way. Yes, it's more work, but there are PEOPLE who care

So look at phpBB, or the other forum software. Look at phpNuke and PostNuke and all the other CMS software and build something in the root directory and keep the store in the catalog directory. And on other sites you may have of your own, LINK TO YOURSELF. Seems silly, but people forget to do it! Create an about you page on your most popular site and link to every site you have ever created, with a nice long description.

5. If you aren't in the search engines yet, go to Overture.com or Google and spend $50 or $100 on a highly targeted, very fast, campaign, the Search engines want to see if anyone else has been to your site. This gets you started.

6. Don't bother with a Search Engine Promotion specialist unless you really don't have any time to spend submitting your site to search engines and directories yourself. I had 2 sites launch at the same time. I paid $150 to have someone promote one for one month. I did targeted emails, submitted myself to search engines and directories and guess what??? The site I promoted myself got as many hits and got listed in the major engines at the exact same time as the one I paid to have promoted. Both sites get 500-800 new visitors a day, 2.5 page views per visit and lots of return visitors. There is both a lot of content (for visitors) and affiliate links (to make money). Content is your most important asset.

OK, I have to go build some more.

Debbie

[deker]

You can also buy advertising on www.overture.com which powers Yahoo, CNET, MSN, Infospace, Altavista, and Lycos. If you are in the top three bids on overture.com, you will be in the top three sponsored listings on all of those other web sites. Whenever I launch a site I'll put a couple hundred dollars into overture, and almost always get an order the first day of launch, then consistent traffic and orders after than. It's a great investment.

[orchard]

The Google AdWords advertising is pretty cool. We've actually had a visitor to our store now that wasn't just us testing it. 680 views of the ad in the first hour and a half.

[QuickEnterprises]

i just advirtize in a worldwide magazine.. that helps...

[loxly]

I think too many people thing that search engine placement is the only way to get traffic. It takes a complete marketing plan that includes online and offline promotion to get people to your site. Search engines are just one piece of the puzzle.

[Met00]

Quote

I think too many people thing that search engine placement is the only way to get traffic. It takes a complete marketing plan that includes online and offline promotion to get people to your site. Search engines are just one piece of the puzzle.

Search engine placement is a key way to get people to the store.

Consider how people "buy" on the net today.

Customer wants to get a pocketbook. First they want to shop around and determine what they want. They go to a search engine and enter "handbag and purses" and what comes up is a list of places that have "handbags". They then start the looky-loo phase of shopping. They look at 10-20 handbags at 3-4 different sites.

These may not be real customers for those sites in most cases as they have just started the shopping experience.

Once they have determined that they want the "Fendi Handbag". The site they found it on sold it for: RETAIL PRICE: $635. Now they go back into the engine and enter: "Fendi Zucca Baguette" and find a place on-line selling that for $239.00 (best price I could find in about 5 minutes of searching).

This is called commodity shopping. That is how more and more people are shopping for items on the Internet. If you are selling a commodity item (a large number of other people may sell the same item) then this is the new reality.

This is why it is imperitive that sites properly use tools like allprods.php to ensure that their database is properly indexed by the engines. It isn't the initial hits that you want (they are the ones that cost you the most bandwidth with the lowest ROI), but the hits from the person who knows what it is that they want to buy.

In the next lesson, why you want to install both the user tracking contrib and the visitors contribution. :-)

[loxly]

Quote

Quote

I think too many people thing that search engine placement is the only way to get traffic. It takes a complete marketing plan that includes online and offline promotion to get people to your site. Search engines are just one piece of the puzzle.

Search engine placement is a key way to get people to the store.

Consider how people "buy" on the net today.

Search engine placement is one key way to get people to the store.

I work in an environment that is using real marketing tools to get members to a website. We get new shoppers/visitors from offline
advertising and once they sign up for our site (free membership) they recieve email updates about once a week with announcements about specials, contests, etc. We have an 800 number in addition to the website. People type in the web address, that they see in the Magazine (National circulation Magazines targeted towards women as well as local news magazines) or that they see in the newspaper. When they run into problems they call me.

When we send out our weekly newsletter via email, visits to the site and corresponding sales and phone calls rise.

Want to know something? MOST of these people, with money to spend, don't know how to use a search engine or get around the web at all. They click on the link in the email, which they know is from us and is not spam. If the link doesn't work, they call me.

I hate to say this in this community of people that are so web savvy that it is hard to imagine that others are not, but your biggest market isn't using Google, certainly doesn't know what Overture is, only use the computer periodically, are still afraid to give you their credit card over the net and even hesitate to give it over the phone.

They are using AOL, on dialup, on thier main phone line, on a Pentium 2 if you are lucky, or they are on WebTV getting used to this new way of doing things.

You can fight over the customers that are already online, or you can give that market that is out there waiting for a reason, a very good reason to turn on a computer and go to your website.

You won't get them with SPAM, you won't get them from Google, you might get them from AOL, you WILL get them with targeted offline advertising, combined with a targeted online strategy that utilizes smaller web directories that now rank high in the search engines. You have to work for your traffic, you can't sit back and let the engines do the work for you.

Sorry to be so long winded, but this is so very valuable for online merchants to understand. Amazon, Yahoo and eBay got where they are by advertising on Television, in newspapers and magazines. They brought people online with a reason for them to come.

d

[/b]

[John W]

Well, I feel like I have to chime in here. The first thing I want to say is that I'm struggling to get more buyers to my site just like most of us. However, a very valuable resource we all have available to us is each other. One thing that works for us and against us is we sell different things. Dollar volume of a car lot can't be compared to a sandwich shop. But, we all can see things that work and do not work and share. Of course if we all sold the same thing these boards would be a ghost town.

I have been running overture ads since I brought my site up and Google adwords for a few months. They both work very well for getting traffic. Now, I'm working on maximizing my budget with them for the words that give me the best return. One thing I'm doing is when I email my customers there tracking number I ask them if they could tell me which search engine they used and what search term. Now, that is very valuable information to anyone selling anything.

Now, one thing is that when someone buys at our sites they were obviously convinced to give us a try or at least willing to gamble. But, what about the ones that just walk out? If we were running brick and mortar stores we would have the chance to talk to them, but we aren't. This is very frustrating to me.

So, by now you all realize that I'm a chatterbox and will talk to anyone. So, I ask every customer that I get a conversation going with why they picked me to buy from. Not that bluntly though. My demographics are mainly women who I would guess are 40-60, but I don't ask that question. I analyze everything I can to the best of my ability. One thing that is interesting is that people who aren't as fascinated with computers as we are buy from the first place that meets their criteria. This could be the first listing on a search engine. That has worked for me with overture.

I actually wanted to come onboard this thread to thank Sean for taking the time to help others and I have gained some great ideas from him.

After reading through the thread I think that Deborah has also brought some ideas that we do not focus on enough. My next advertising dollars are going to trade magazines to start working on branding my name with people from another aspect. I've also just attained a toll free number and I'm going to try and share how I feel that has worked for me in gaining sales. I think it would be great to have a co-op of people sharing ideas with each other. I have to admit that I got tired of sitting at the computer and somewhat frustrated with my inability to make this work better and I started working on new products.

You are probably thinking that Deborah and I are related since we are both so long winded with our threads but I don’t think we are.

Oh, I’d love to hear thoughts, comments, ideas, and constructive criticism on my site. It’s www.driedflowersRus.com.

Thanks for reading,

[loxly]

Hey john, as far as I know I am not related to anyone in Florida

One last thing I need to comment on, then I will go away for ahile....

Quote

Consider how people "buy" on the net today.

Customer wants to get a pocketbook. First they want to shop around and determine what they want. They go to a search engine and enter "handbag and purses" and what comes up is a list of places that have "handbags". They then start the looky-loo phase of shopping. They look at 10-20 handbags at 3-4 different sites.

This is how current computer users may shop. Personally, not me and certainly not the people I talk to on the phone and not many of the people that I know.

I need a handbag, I go to JCPenny.com. I look around. I see something I like, I go to google and look it up and see where else it might be available. I don't see a site that I feel I can trust so I go back to JCPenny.com OR I go to the local store and get it. Why? Name recognition.

I ask the shoppers that call me if they shop online, many of them say NO WAY, they don't even give out their credit card over the TELEPHONE let alone the internet. You can tell them it is safe. They don't believe you unless Aunt Martha said it was ok, or the newspaper says its ok, or the TV says its ok.

I ask my friends if they shop online. No Way! Only if someone they know TELLS them to go to a site and buy something they can't get locally.

Name recognition, referal from a trusted source, something you can't get locally.

Obviously there are many people that DO shop on the internet. Many do find us in search engines. But truthfully, the search engine is where they start and after that they click on links until they find what they are looking for and most of the time they DON'T know how they got there.

The most common response I get to the how did you find me question is "I clicked on a link" Was it a search engine? "Um, it was a site somewhere" Google or Yahoo? Um, I have aol, it was somewhere in there. Most likely an email from a friend.

Food for thought. I don't have all the answers. But I know some of them because I have been selling a variety of things to people via the net from the beginning of the net. Many of my future customers don't know what google is, they know what Yahoo is because of that darn jingle in the TV comercials. And they will find my stores because someone told them that I have the best (put your product here) at a reasonable price and it came in a reasonable amount of time and they felt comfortable shopping at my site.

d

[snagelcat]

You know, I don't know if I have mention this..so I will just in case. Another very important thing to do is to keep in mind the discriptions of your products. If your target search word is "blue jewelry" then be sure to use that string in your discriptions as much as you can, use it over and over. Google bots search your site for the string, the more times you use that string on your site the better off you are. Make yourself a dummy discription with your key strings designed into it. Then you can just change a few words for each Item, so as new Items are put into your site
use your dummy discription the build the products discription. This also well help in your customers searches.

have fun
Sean