LOL! Friendly web guru? Who's that?
Where to from here (Business)
- Thread starter skater
- Start date
LOL! Friendly web guru? Who's that?
Skater, you really need to get traffic to your website to become a success from selling online ..As has been said, if people dont know where to find you you will not make any sales.
Once they have found it you must educate them and give stuff away for free. ie reports, articles, ezines, audio's, you tube video's etc etc.
This builds credibility which is the bridge for your website salescopy to be read.
If you dont have the time or know how to produce this kind of stuff there are people out there that can produce this kind of stuff very little cost.
You can also up load these freebies onto websites for people to download for free.
All these freebies in them selves will generate traffic for free by having a link to your website in them.
By placing this content out there on the net it will boost your rankings up google as well.
Affiliate programs is another very good source to direct traffic to your site. People have a link on their websites to your website. Anyone who gets directed to your site and a sale comes from it the person who directed them to your site gets a cut of the sale price. Sure it may take a portion of the profit from your sale but its is a sale you would not have made without the redirection. 100% of no sale is $0 profit.
You also need to collect peoples email addresses and build a database of people who have bought products & downloaded these freebies from you so you can create back end sales with sales offers etc.
Lastly you need to be able to accept what ever form of payment the customers choose. There is websites out there that will do all this stuff for you.
Anyway I hope this provides some food for thought.
Once they have found it you must educate them and give stuff away for free. ie reports, articles, ezines, audio's, you tube video's etc etc.
This builds credibility which is the bridge for your website salescopy to be read.
If you dont have the time or know how to produce this kind of stuff there are people out there that can produce this kind of stuff very little cost.
You can also up load these freebies onto websites for people to download for free.
All these freebies in them selves will generate traffic for free by having a link to your website in them.
By placing this content out there on the net it will boost your rankings up google as well.
Affiliate programs is another very good source to direct traffic to your site. People have a link on their websites to your website. Anyone who gets directed to your site and a sale comes from it the person who directed them to your site gets a cut of the sale price. Sure it may take a portion of the profit from your sale but its is a sale you would not have made without the redirection. 100% of no sale is $0 profit.
You also need to collect peoples email addresses and build a database of people who have bought products & downloaded these freebies from you so you can create back end sales with sales offers etc.
Lastly you need to be able to accept what ever form of payment the customers choose. There is websites out there that will do all this stuff for you.
Anyway I hope this provides some food for thought.
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Wasn't your son in law mentioned as being a bit web savvy?
Um.....no! He's an accountant, not a web designer. I'm sure he helps Lil with her stuff, but nothing too hard.
I know he's an accountant- I'm going by a comment from Lil yesterday on this thread
He may therefore have enough knowledge to help you out. It doesn't take too much.
I've had some experience with online businesses and here are my initial thoughts. I don't know anything about the sport so please excuse any non-applicable suggestions:
- Your site developer has already configured Google Analytics so you should speak to them about using it. It's definitely worth investing time into learning the tools and understanding how to interpret the data.
- I'm not convinced that SEO is worthwhile for a niche product like yours. Money spent on Adwords or other PPC marketing might be worthwhile but again, you should have a basic idea of what you're doing (or find someone who does) otherwise you'll waste your money.
- You might get a better ROI by directing some of your marketing spend into offline channels. e.g.: donate prizes for competitions around the country.
- Watermark your ebay images with your website name or at least 'Skatepro'. Your packaging should definitely include labelling which advertises your website.
- Could you direct market to club members? i.e.: email or print mailouts
- Could you sponsor someone who competes at the national level?
- Use discount promotional codes. Wiggle.com and other online stores do this frequently which results in people sharing the codes and generating further word of mouth business
- Getting traffic to your site is one thing but you then need to convert it to a sale. Not meaning to offend, but visually your website is OK and not amazing. I think you may have got better results by using something like Shopify or BigCommerce.
- Consider starting a blog which is featured on your website. But make sure the blog is regularly updated as nothing worse than going to a site and seeing the last blog post was months ago. Executed properly, the blog will increase traffic and increase visitor interaction.
Hope it helps!
PD
- Your site developer has already configured Google Analytics so you should speak to them about using it. It's definitely worth investing time into learning the tools and understanding how to interpret the data.
- I'm not convinced that SEO is worthwhile for a niche product like yours. Money spent on Adwords or other PPC marketing might be worthwhile but again, you should have a basic idea of what you're doing (or find someone who does) otherwise you'll waste your money.
- You might get a better ROI by directing some of your marketing spend into offline channels. e.g.: donate prizes for competitions around the country.
- Watermark your ebay images with your website name or at least 'Skatepro'. Your packaging should definitely include labelling which advertises your website.
- Could you direct market to club members? i.e.: email or print mailouts
- Could you sponsor someone who competes at the national level?
- Use discount promotional codes. Wiggle.com and other online stores do this frequently which results in people sharing the codes and generating further word of mouth business
- Getting traffic to your site is one thing but you then need to convert it to a sale. Not meaning to offend, but visually your website is OK and not amazing. I think you may have got better results by using something like Shopify or BigCommerce.
- Consider starting a blog which is featured on your website. But make sure the blog is regularly updated as nothing worse than going to a site and seeing the last blog post was months ago. Executed properly, the blog will increase traffic and increase visitor interaction.
Hope it helps!
PD
quoted for posterity
PS: Though not active much nowadays, he visited today
He stalks nowadays, I do the talking
You don't *need* to know absolutely everything about skateboarding to sell the products. So long as you can answer small enquiries here and there (ie. are these wheels suitable for tarmac) you'll be fine.
It's about research, as long as you research your products and deal with suppliers that can assist every-so-often when you want to query their products, you'll be right
I think Rixter had some fantastic ideas, don't discount those. You can easily write up a few "helpful hints" and also use your webcam to give informative tutorials (how to ensure blades are correctly done up to avoid sore ankles and knee problems etc) to post on YouTube, I'm sure you'll get some more traffic.
Also, Poordeveloper mentioned things like sponsorships - you have PLENTY of experience sewing leotards and you can offer to make a few of the girls a nice (talking Jayson type bling) state training leotard with your label on the back skirt (like skate trader has done) etc.
He stalks nowadays, I do the talking
You don't *need* to know absolutely everything about skateboarding to sell the products. So long as you can answer small enquiries here and there (ie. are these wheels suitable for tarmac) you'll be fine.
It's about research, as long as you research your products and deal with suppliers that can assist every-so-often when you want to query their products, you'll be right
Yep Lil, I know that, but the only skateboard supplier that I know of, is also the same one that won't supply me with skates.
I think Rixter had some fantastic ideas, don't discount those. You can easily write up a few "helpful hints" and also use your webcam to give informative tutorials (how to ensure blades are correctly done up to avoid sore ankles and knee problems etc) to post on YouTube, I'm sure you'll get some more traffic.
LOL! Your talking to your mother here. The one who got excited because she worked out how to load a photo to Facebook. The same one who can't post photo's on Somersoft because she can't work it out.
Also, Poordeveloper mentioned things like sponsorships - you have PLENTY of experience sewing leotards and you can offer to make a few of the girls a nice (talking Jayson type bling) state training leotard with your label on the back skirt (like skate trader has done) etc.
I'm not really selling much Art stuff, and I'm not concerned either. There's not a lot of profit margin in it. The stuff that gives me the most profit is the el-cheapo kiddie stuff. Sponsorships work with the 'sports' and I have tried to get a foothold in there, with the Derby crew, buy haven't had any luck at all. I've got a ton of discount codes out there but so have all the other 'Derby' stores. My point of difference is the kiddie stuff.
At the moment I get in maybe 8 of each size of several different styles. I think I'd like to explore how I can sell more of these.
bang bang bang ...
When one googles "kids skate gear" "roller skates for kids" etc etc - no matter what combination one puts in - there is basically nothing in Australia ... a couple of ebay stores ... and unexciting page from skatehq ...
If this is your bigger seller - and no one else is concentrating on it - why? Why not?
And lots of little bits and bobs that a kid with $10 can buy ... there are a huge range of laces that they can put in their non-skates too
Like I said, you can outsource all that kind of stuff to be done for you. ... check out http://fiverr.com/ , http://fiverr.com/gigs/australian/#jls_tg=1 & https://www.elance.com/ http://www.guru.com/ http://www.goarticles.com.au/ for starters.
I hope this helps
Haha, yes thankyou. Although I did try to get work done through elance previously & was not at all happy with the result.
Your welcome.... here's a few more.
https://www.odesk.com/
http://www.articlecity.com/
http://www.articlemarketer.com/#
http://www.worldinternetoffice.com/
http://www.bigpixie.com/
I hope this helps.
Totally agree and thats not my attitude to business, its just my personal opinion that people need to get with the times but I understand it has to do with people not understanding change and therefore being scared of it.
I work in banking and we specialise in rural funding, it was very suprising to me how many farmers refuse to use internet banking and still need a local office/branch. Meanwhile in the city, people avoid branches like the plague. They are also heavy users of cheque books.
