Hi, so a year ago to this day I opened my first ecommerce store in a niche market. the items are dropshipped and im doing really well. the only thing is my business has stayed stagnent. iv been real aggressive to the point where i've made my competitors react to doing things im doing and following my web marketing techniques.... so below are some of the things iv done. > aggressive social bookmarking > aggressive web 2.0 marketing > aggressive content rich articles and extensive distribution and sophisticated linked together with smart wheel > popular facebook pages and twitter accounts > on first page of google for numerous keywords related to my market > good customer service (live chat, fast responses, good relationships with customers) > (other secret marketing techniques) > google adwords, does not work, i had it running for a month and i spent more money than i got in (the cost for some key keywords cost about $1.50) - though when i did have this running was during the early months of being in business bottom line is my website ranks extremely well, and iv done, am and exceeding everything my competitors are doing. if i were to sell the site today i could probably get 20x profit that how good the site is, in terms of value - and im really proud of that. yet my competitors are making twice as much as I am and I don't know why i cant increase my sales. its been at the same stagnent sales for the last 6 months... and i can't tell whether the increased sales is from growing my market share or the economy improving its most likely the economy improve, which would me I haven't actually grown my sales at all. i need pro advice from people in the biz, what i'm i missing and can i beat my competitors? or what more i can possibly to to increase sales.
When you say you are doing really well, is that on the basis on increased traffic? When increased traffic doesn't result in increased sales, it often means your traffic is not well targeted. This can especially be the case with traffic generated through social networks and other such means. Also, I suggest you try putting up your website for sale to see if it really is worth 20x its original price or that's just your perception. Very often when you see your website develop over time, you get attached to it and can develop an unrealistic sense of value. When you say you are exceeding everything your competitors are doing, what metrics is that based on? How do you know your competitors are making twice as much as you?
I'm saying im doing really based on traffic and revenue that is good. another thing i forgot to mention i have one of the most popular blogs for my market. and my pr is 3 and my alexa rank is 299K my traffic is half that of my competitors and its well targetted as i said i rank really well in longtail keywords in google where 50% of my traffic comes from google. i know my site is worth 20x, based on similar characteristics of sites that have sold on flippa im exceeding what my competitors because they've been in the marketplace for 10yrs and iv been around for 1yr and im on the first page of google just like them, and im making half their revenue (i know this because based on my traffic and their traffic and other factors i was able to digg up) they've also had to react. one redesigned their website to mimick mine, the other is pursueing a facebook strategy like me, copying some of my webmarketing techniques and they're doing other things that i did to increase traffic and increase sales. so i know i have them running for their money and since these techniques are working for me, they're probably noticing and copying.