how to advertise your ecommerce site

in the beginning

[someone]

I was wondering when you all got started, why did you get your site out to the public. And I read somewhere that you usually don't make money within 3 years, is that true for you?

[RedWolf]

Well I did things slow for several years on my main site developing a layout that was search engine friendly and word of mouth advertising. On sites I do now for myself and others, I still recommend a good SE Friendly layout, but I also look at doing Overture and Adwords to get the initial influx of people until the search engines start indexing the site. I think the three year figure is a bit too long. In most businesses, the three year mark is a decision point whether you should continue or not. You should be doing well by that point, not hoping for a profit.

[tolachi]

I think that the three year point is way too far out. My company's site has always been at least somewhat profitable, and definitely completely viable after the first year. It's hard to give you specific advice on how to get the word out without knowing what you are selling. One thing I would recommend would be to give away your product to review to people who run respected websites within your target community. Think of community sites like forums, magazines, how-to, etc... To me it seems this might be a little harder to work if you don't have a unique product, but you can always differentiate yourself with quality service etc...

[RedWolf]

Thanks tolachi,

I had forgotten that I needed to get a couple of my new lines of work out to be reviewed by magazines. There are several in both retail and wholesale markets that I need to get stuff to again. This is a great low cost way of getting publicity. Just think of the cost of a 1/6 to 1/4 page magazine ad that you are getting for the cost of an item and shipping. Many of the better magazines will return the itmes if you include a return shipping label.

[MaximusDecimus]

All depends what you're selling. Largey the answers here are true, forget the instant cash promise and build up slowly.

Some of my clients took a year to get eastbalished (gaymeporium.co.uk), others took a couple if months (myluckybid.co.uk), rarely though one client were selling hard after a few days from when I got the site onto google, they must have tapped a market nerve or maybe Christmas timing (silverpeople.co.uk)

[webtress]

I work very closely with a niche market book store that began receiving orders right away. However other sites that have a broader market have taken more time to catch up. If you offer a good product and great service then the saying "Build it and they will come" happens just by word of mouth, that is probably the best marketing tool available. I stress this point with new site owners. The big boys have their customer base so the newbie has to offer something they don't which is usually customer service. It's like the pyramid effect you tell a friend, he/she tells 2 friends and so forth.