New Topic
Post Reply
Follow Topic
Thank you to everyone at SUN who sent words of congrats and good will! Sales are still generating well for this time of year and although I have a long way to go to make a profit, I am confident it will happen and feel I am on my way. Can`t wait for the Christmas rush if this is a taste of what is yet to come!
To answer TJ, the search engines HAVE picked up on BoxerHaus already with my alternative domain that I bought www.boxerhouse.com which redirects to www.boxerhaus.com I bought this domain figuring if two people happened to be talking and one asked the other where they bought that "cool boxer thing" they had and the person just said "I bought it at BoxerHaus.com" upon hearing these words and not seeing, the spelling may be interepreted as House and not Haus. Looks like this paid off, www.boxerhouse.com is registering on Yahoo as #8 out of 1,810,000 hits with a search term for boxer dog products and #18 out of 1,500,000 hits with a search term for boxer gift products!
Seth, you asked about Whisper Campaign and how I generated the traffic so quickly, which by the way remains consistent in the number of hits my site is receiving. Whisper campaign is what generated the traffic. Fortunately, for the last 12 years or so I have been very involved in showing boxers and am a member of the American Boxer Club, Maryland Boxer Club and active with assisting Boxer Rescue. Therefore, I had several outlets at my disposal and took advantage of all of them. Whisper Campaign is merely the act of "whispering" the message of BoxerHaus.com as being an entity and persuading, without being pushy, people to come check out the site. I e-mailed several boxer lists that are composed of close to 1,000 or more members combined as well as all of my friends, boxer and nonboxer. Nonboxer friends are sure to know a friend with a boxer and are just as likely to help spread the word of Boxer Haus. Many friends wrote back saying they loved the concept of BoxerHaus.com and the store and said they forwarded my message to everyone in their address book. And just as simple as that, the word was spread and people started coming to my site.
My next move was to e-mail friends about a week later and ask them to add BoxerHaus.com to their boxer website or any website they may own on their link pages. I additionally added BoxerHaus.com on the front page and the links page of my own boxer website at www.amityhallboxers.com Tracking the activity regarding where referrals are coming from to my Boxer Haus site has proved links from other websites to be an avenue of some of the hits I am receiving.
Now I have a boxer rescue group in Ohio as well as boxer club in Florida asking me to donate something for their respective fundraiser and show. Of course I will donate and put my business card on the product to spread the word even further. I plan to develop a brochure soon that I can also send with donations. I figure the money spent in donations will come back tenfold in advertising this way. My Database also allows me to create Gift Certificates that contain my logo and name so these will also make great donations that will surely bring people to my store.
Another plan I have for generating traffic is through advertising in dog show catalogs and the Boxer Ring which is the #1 boxer magazine in the USA. And I also plan on registering soon, key words with Google and Yahoo to up my rankings on those search engines.
Just standing by with a website for your online store and waiting for people to find you is not going to generate traffic quickly to a new site, you need to go out and "pound the pavement". Marketing your site with what ever avenues you have available to you is imperative as a start up and being creative as to what is possible in getting the word out will give you an even bigger advantage. That is what is working for me and I am constantly thinking of new ideas to market from, the logic being the more people who hear about your store, the faster your store will be successful! 
-------------------------
Beth Downey
BoxerHaus.com
The Ultimate Boxer Shopping Experience!
www.BoxerHaus.com
Thank you for sharing the things that are working for you to drive traffic. I know everyone who has, or is planning, an online store appreciates your insight. 
