Hey Guys, I have hit a stonewall that i can not seem to get past. I have recently started an online store. I spent most of my time doing SEO over the past months and have ranked first page for some decent keywords that get 6-7 thousand searches a month. I also have car magnets on my car and I give out business cards all the time, but somehow I just cannot get any sales. I was talking with some people and they gave me the following: Maybe you are not selling the right things Maybe your site sucks or is hard to use So I was wondering if you guys could help. Any ideas on how to get more traffic and sales is greatly appreciated. If you think it is my website or category/gifts then please visit my site which is located in my sig and give me possible improvements. I look forward to hearing from everyone, Nick
You need to advertise on websites where the audience would be the most interested in what you have offered.
Well I think you are marketing your stuff to the wrong people. for example posting your links on forums might get you some traffic but not going to get any sales
Just went through your website, I have a couple of suggestions: Information Architecture- the shop currently looks less like an online shop and more like a website of a offline store. Here is why Attract visitor Links that tells the user what you have should be more prominent (product catalog). Later on you can talk about credibility. Targeting Would highly recommend to define your target audience. Is your site is for male/female. Design of the site should reflect that too. - The grey text on dark background is hard to read the text - I think you should hire a a good copywriter to write the content of various pages. I see some text on the site which i would never include in any of my sites. For instance... "Neighbor Nick's is usually thought of as just another online gift store. However we would like to enlighten you that this is not entirely true." In the above text you are accepting an allegation that Nick store is just another gift store. USP- AKA the unique selling proposition? I see your store lacks in unique selling proposition too. Selling online is just a bit difficult in starting, it is all about testing and tweaking. Once you get things on right track sales will start rolling in. So you have to work on your site until you make your first sale (or regularly make sales). User experience- This is what i do when i have to take feedback for my websites. I go to a pubic internet center and ask unknown people of my target audience to see my website and ask them what they think about it. (I do not tell them that this is my website). This way they tell me what is good or bad (from a buyer's perspective) and hence you can work on those points. You have a good website, i think you just need to tweak it a little more to get the best results. You may PM me for any further help...
Hi, Your online shop is effectively your 'shop window' and the top half of your homepage doesn't show my anything for sale, or really tell me what I might find in your store. our company name if repeated 3 times, in 3 different fonts in the top half of the page tough - I think you'd be better off using that space to showcase your products with larger images, and a wider range of products. When I scroll down the products I can see are 3 Obama T-shirts, one medium one large but same design, and an Obama dog tag. If you wouldn't walk into a shop selling those 4 things, then it's likely you're not getting enough of your visitors deeper into your site, properly browsing what you have for sale. I agree the grey on black text is hard to read, and I think the text is all a bit too small. I think you might get a bit more repeat business if you featured the web address a bit more prominently than your currently do (nowhere that I could see!). If i bought from you, liked it, and wanted to come back, I'm not sure I'd remember your url very easily. Most importantly (maybe its just me or I'm on your site at a bad time) I've tried your lighting category, household and now holiday, and none of them have loaded. I'm stuck waiting on your home page and nothing is happening!!
The biggest flaw I see is that in your left navigation bar the only things you see are essentialy useless information (your list of "information" links.) But all the important stuff, the categories/list of gifts that you sell is way below that in your navigation bar. I recommend having your site layout person swap those asap - move the gift categories to the top left and throw that information section down to the bottom. Also, remove all that extra space and useless weird stuff in your top part of the page - bump as much as you can up to the top which shows the visitor what you're selling, along with any special sales you have going, and perhaps some nice graphics of samples from your store. I agree with the above posters that right now your site looks like an information site or a holding page for an offline store - it needs to scream "you can buy all this cool stuff here - right now!" to entice buying behavior. Also I recommend actively targeting holidays - mother's day, father's day, easter, back to school, other trends months in advance - start working on those trend times as soon as you can and give yourself at least a six month window. For instance, I targeted Valentine's Day sales for one of my sites and it took me about six months to get any traction, but when I did, I had a huge batch of sales in February exploiting that holiday. So wherever you can tie your items into gift giving, try to get backlinks with anchor text targeting common holidays so that over time you can place for them. Best Dan
Your site It doesn't represent your bisiness properly. It's hard to see what you sell. Marketing Try PPL (pay per lead) advertising
I'm sorry, but the main thing is your site is ugly. You have the two of the least favorite colors: Black and green. And, you have them BOTH together! In additon, you have only one picture / product on the home page, and even the picture looks like shit. Tear that thing down, and build another one. Look at professional sites for examples / insperation. Which keywords are you under that is putting you one page one? Once you have a nicer-looking site, start advertising the most popular, most bought gifts.
Thank You For The Update, What colors do you recommend for a gift shop? I was thinking either red/white or blue/white to make the site more inviting.
I have two suggestions for you, one is that if you are getting 6000 - 7000 searches a month and not selling anything, you are targeting the wrong keywords or there is not a market for what you are selling. Secondly, your site design is lacking. It is not appealing and does not want to make me buy at all. I can only stand to look at it for so long. You have to grab people when they come to your site. If you are selling gift items, you need more graphics and good content. Consider outsourcing to a web developer.
Thanks Keith, I am working on my site design to make it more appealing with different colors. But I cannot find a good market that actually turns sales.
definitely agreed. I was confused at first about what your site was about. Maybe put a headline on your homepage and a paragraph or two about what you're selling. I think the featured products section could go somewhere else like below categories instead of being in the center. And just my opinion, but I don't think the "talk to us" page is really necessary.
The following are the type of colors most appealing to most people, both men and women, which, in turn, makes them feel more at ease, more soothed, which, in turn, inceases your odds in getting them to buy something: Steel Blue; Code #46,82,B4 Teal; Color code #00,80,80 Semi-dark red; Color code #B7,2E,00 (This adds a cetain elegance to the site.) Light gray: Color code #B5,B5,B5 Salmon; Color code # Add all of these colors together, which complimnets one another, and you are well on your way to having a nice and inviting site for gift buyers. Stay away from bright neon colors, black, dark, yello, green, and the typical colors seen all the time. Like the same ol' blue. The colors should be totally different, not seen all that often. You want your site to be elegant, to stand out. Colors will help you sell. Is it safe to assume that women will be your primary customers? Go with that they like, and they especially like earth tones. Examples: http://www.squarework.com/notebook/earth.html But from experience, I would stay away from the dark colors, which are on the bottom of that list.
Nick, If you have something of value to sell and if people are visiting your store then I would bringing in some new stuff, something that will create some buzz and then do a press release about it.