Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

SEO is not only about traffic and click-through - it`s about conversion. That`s why I mentioned cross-selling with another product, term, theme....your site and its copy simply doesn`t stand out from all the other generics, and therefore your traffic/click-through`s aren`t the "good" kind, i.e. the kind you actually want to click through and then buy.  I`ll bet your landing page "bounce" stats are pretty high, are they over 50%?  Prove me wrong!

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Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

You`ve gotten lots of great feedback here.  The only thing I wanted to add is that ecommerce sites usually have a conversion rate around 1% or less so it`s not that shocking that 0 of 69 visitors converted.  I am sure some of these suggestions above will help, but you are also dealing with a numbers game to some extent either way.


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I second that... gotta build the brand outside of the www and then use that as a tool for sales.

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Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

I haven`t read the rest of these replies, but ...

When I go there and I look at your featured items, none of them look like coffee to me. I guess one of them is, but it has some weird picture instead of something that actually looks like a bag of coffee beans. Can you imagine going to the store and having to look for some random picture? No, you look for something that look exactly like a bag of coffee beans. As for the others, why feature presses and other items when you are trying to sell coffee? I wouldn`t go to the House of Jerky (hi Janie) and expect their featured items to be napkins or sodas. No, it`s delicious, meaty, savory-looking Jerky! See what I am saying?

(It also doesn`t help you any to not link the site in your post, btw.)

So, you talk about your company and being family owned and blah blah blah.
(Quick disclaimer: I don`t drink coffee but I just called 2 friends who do before writing this part.)
TASTE. You really don`t say anything about taste! ("How coffee should taste" doesn`t count. No one cares about how it should taste, they care about how THEY WANT IT to taste.) The thing about coffee is that it`s like any other drink ... wine, beer, tea, whatever. Everyone has their own taste. So what makes you different? This micro-roasting thing gives you CUSTOM TASTE.
My husband has me buy a bag of Major Dickinson`s from Pete`s every few weeks. (This is his latest thing ... he has had other choices since we`ve been married but this is is his current choice.) He puts it in the freezer to keep it fresh or some sort, and buys whole beans because he likes it better when he fresh-grinds it every morning. If I picked up some other bag by accident, he would know the difference. It`s just like any beverage with people who know the difference ... I can tell you the difference between Coke and Pepsi without looking, and which year a particular wine is from if it`s from one of our regular vineyards. So you need to learn how to talk directly to your audience like that. You are not after people who will drink whatever coffee is on the menu, or Folgers, or whatever ... you are after people like my mom who owns one of those $400 barista machines and uses only one brand of local organic skim milk in her coffee because it "tastes the best".

Wow, was that  Craig story or what? Hold on, let me go back and add another 6 paragraphs to it ..... (just kidding, Craig).

I would also highly recommend some traditional PR, word of mouth marketing, and other such things .... it takes more than your web site to make a company successful. Think outside the box - in this economy, the creative will survive!

Wait.....where are the other 6 paragraphs? I musta spent...like...an HOUR looking all over SuN for them!! 

<heh....>

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Excellence is the result of dreaming more than others think is practical and expecting more than others think is possible.

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Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

Reading so far, I`m seeing a possible trend. I`ve often spoken with people who say something about how they don`t know what they want to do at the moment. I`ll start coming up with ideas, brainstorming, and so forth, and an odd trend beings to emerge. They keep telling me why that won`t work....whatever it is we`re discussing.

A specific problem often refers back to a larger issue of overall perspective. When something isn`t working, you either can hang onto what you`re doing with an emotional investment in it, or you can let it go and try something radically different. That applies to just about anything.

A variation on explaining why something won`t work, regardless of how many different thoughts and ideas, is to explain why what you`re currently doing is the best solution and best idea, and why it will work.....someday. That too is an emotional investment in a process.

So it`s up to you. If you`re happy with the number of visitors, customers, and sales you`re achieving, then definitely you should continue what you`re doing, and build on those same processes. On the other hand, if things aren`t actually working, it`d make sense to take a look at how invested you are in the existing processes and methods. Is that personal investment clouding your judgement.

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Excellence is the result of dreaming more than others think is practical and expecting more than others think is possible.