Forum Moderators: buckworks
Over the three years Ive been visiting this forum (under different names before this one) and really my first real project after many trials and errors launched on July 1 this year. Ive learnt a few things and I would like to share them with you all and get feedback on whether or not you guys think im spot on or a mile off course.
-Identify several product/s that you are personally familiar with and use regardless of brand. This means that the product/s must appeal to YOU regardless of brand.
-Research the market.
-A.) This is a bit harder to do but I was guided to the overture search tool, so say cellphones are searched for 50,000 times per month I worked out a ratio at the top I would be clicked 50% of the time and sell only 0.1% conversion.
-B.) Look on how competitive the market is,for your product by searching for it on Google; enter the search term (product name) and see how many sites are returned in the SERPS, in my opinion if its past 50 Million the 10:1 that spells trouble, I like anywhere from 5-10 Million.
-C.) Using the info gathered from A & B make your choice on the highest searched for products and least competitive and create a product bank.
-Asses competitors, yep the gorilla websites at the top with high PR and a gazillion back links at the top of the product/s search terms. Take note of the following:
-A.) Marketing technique – are they content driven or PPC.
-B.) How many backward links do they have
-C.) What is the method of delivery – paid shipping, free shipping, tiered shipping*
-D.) How do they process payments Paypal, 2CO, direct 2 bank
-E.) How do they secure payments they SSL cert they use is it Verizon
-E.) Their affiliations BBB, AMCHAM, etc local state Chamber.
After assessing all this see where the sites fall short of each other, what aspect is it that all lack or what is the least common webtrait that you consider might be important to browsers. Make note because this will be the nucleos for your ecommerce site.
-Choose a delivey method, this depends entirely on start up capital, you might want to hold inventory or you might want to use a drop shipping method if this exists for your products. The choice depends on two issues 1. If the product has a fad life or 2. is an appreciating commodity. A product with a fad life are perishable products and products like the RAZR cellphone, that costs a bundle when it first came out, price fell with the SLIDER release, now another cellphone has the rave and the price has dropped tremendously all within 18 months. An appreciating product is one that is MUCH cheaper to purchase wholesale and is limited in supply which means that the price may indeed increase after purchase. Ive learnt try NOT to keep inventory there are too many risks involved, it MUST be worthwile.
-Choose a shopping cart that has to do with EASY NAVIGATION. Listen if John Brown, does not want to sign up – don’t force him too, don’t make the purcahse process more difficult than it needs to be. Get him in the door out the door as quickly as possible. He’ll remember that it was the easiest purchase he ever had and he will come back.
-Choose a payment method, lets face it our customers don’t know us and probably don’t trust us either, but if they are brave enough to buy on the web with a CC then they will trust and whynot trust THE NAME THEY KNOW, Paypal, 2CO, Verisign these companies process millions each year and have establsihed a reputation in the market, you want to give up some profit for that security as well
-Build Content Pages, yes that’s right, you may not think that it is neccessaery for an ecommerce site but I believe it is, build some content at least 100 pages of content about the products that you carry, say the danger of driving with cell phones or how to download music on the net with your cell phone, ensuring that the article is keyword dense to at least 5% (Not an easy thing to do). Ensure in the body of the content that you have you link back to your products that you sell on the site.
-Design your site, don’t let the masses tell you build a unique site, unique is a relative term, copy all the good things about your competitors site and change all the bad things, then give the site your own look and feel – Ive learnt that’s what unique ACTUALLY MEANS.
-Create site spin-offs, yep create places in your content for Google Adsense or YPN. You are new so you wont get Fast click and those other guys just yet, but create your site that you will be able to take them later down the road. Many webmasters try to integrate advertising after design, when it must be a PART OF DESIGN.
-Create a SITE MAP, as you build create a site map that documents all pages on your site, if its too large create a directory that spiders from the map, with no morte than 100 links on each page.
-Once complete, test, test and test some more make sure there are
A.)no broken links
B.)no unfriendly urls
C.)All images are optimized and use ALT tags
D.)All Titles are optimzed for relevance in body text
E.)Meta tags are optimized
F.)Don’t use ROBOT Files, you want traffic who cares where it comes from
Submit your site to the relevant SE’s and as Bret said wait, then submit again, keep adding content and refreshing your pages.
If anyone else has anythiong to add or subtract I continue to be schooled here every day
i remember reading here that "ecommerce is about making it as easy as possible for people to give you their money" - so get carts and payment systems that don't make it hard for people to pay etc
biggest mistake i see is people "testing the water" - simply means they're doomed to failure before they even begin - they'll build their own first site thinking if sales come in, they'll get a professional site etc - problem is, they test the water with a shoddy website that deters buyers or makes it difficult for people to find things, they have paypal or other system that makes it difficult for shoppers to pay - then they wonder why they don't make sales, and eventually accept that their business idea is a failure
the real solution is do it properly in the first place
I have been thinking along similar lines, and I really hope it works well for you.
We often scan our site to remove the unnecessary
