Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi there,
I have a bricks and mortar (decorative) bird and garden shop in a tourist area and had a website initially  designed to take advantage of the opportunities from `out-of-towners`. The site has been up for almost a year and I`ve received just a few sales.  I see a great opportunity, though, and would like to have this site be more of an e-commerce site that could eventually replace the retail store.  I`ve purchased google ad words and give the site information to those in the store, but that doesn`t seem to be enough.  That said,  I`m hoping  to get  a review of why there are not more sales.  Is it because there are too few products on the site, too hard for people to find, or possible not an interesting product?  Any advice would be very much appreciated.
Thank you!
www.poppystone.com

Hello,
I think you need to do SEO search engine optimizing. Your website is great! and I see great opportunity for you as well. You will need to build quality one way links and also link exchange with like themed websites. You should research SEO, so that when you hire someone to help you out you won`t get ripped off. And also learn how NOT to get your website to get banned from Google for instance.

Here`s some links to help you out:
http://www.seoradio.com/
http://www.bradfallon.com/
http://www.stompernet.com/

All the best!

Are you tracking you website statistics?  If you have google adwords then you`ll also have google analytics available to you for tracking where people come from and what they do on your site.

Another great site for checking out what people do on your site is CrazyEgg.com -- it shows you exactly where people click when they visit your site and this is valuable information.

I don`t have much experience with an online retail type store but one thing I would definitely suggest is that you start a mailing list.  Even though you are not offering information products you need a strategy to capture as many of the visitors that come to your site as possible because about 90% of them are not going to buy from you at first visit.

With a list you could offer some seasonal specials, gardening tips, backyard decorating or whatever your potential customers would be most interested in hearing about.  Once they`re on your list you`ve now got a place to market to them again.

Hope this helps! 

Thank you for the quick response and encouraging words.  I`ll check out your links and look into SEO.  I have heard you need to be cautious when you hire someone so I`ll do the research.
Thanks for your help!

Thank you for the great suggestions.  I track the hits I get on specific google words but I`ll look into it deeper for more information.  I`ll also check out the site you provided.  That would be really valuable information.
Thanks for your help!

Hi Owl :-)
For more information about SEO (search-engine optimization) and SEM (search-engine marketing) take a look at the particular forum topic here on SuN (startup nation).

I took a look at your site, and what strikes me the most directly is how passive it is. Awhile back, we had someone in marketing make an excellent point. A Web site, just as most sales conditions, should have two basic principles at work:

• The customer journey -- a pathway for people to move through a store or site, offering information and branches according to choice and interest,
• The call to action -- points along the way that ask viewers and shoppers to do something, to take action.

Left on their own, the two terms are simply slogans. But if you begin to examine the slogans, taking them apart, and seeing what knowledge and advice went in to forming the shorthand, they`re very useful.

I clicked on your site, arrived at the home page, and that was the end of the line. There didn`t seem to be anywhere interesting to go, nor was there any sort of reaching-out call to me to do something. Even to click somewhere.

You have a whole lot of images splattered across the page, not the same size, not the same style, and there`s nothing really explaining them at all. Obviously, they`re decorations, but so what? I can go to a hardware store and see lawn decorations stuck on shelves too.

I believe there are two basic philosophies to sales and marketing. The one is to let the product sell itself, where the owner/creator does nothing but sit back and collect money. The other is to get involved with shoppers, explain things, and get them interested then exicted about the product.

For the most part, to have the first method work requires either a monopoly on a crucial and necessary resource, or a product so outstanding and difficult to replicate that people can`t go anywhere else. Yet they must really want the product.

Lawn decorations aren`t crucial and necessary. Nor are they difficult to obtain.

Why are these your passion? How did you wake up one morning and decide you wanted to dedicate your professional life to lawn decorations of this particular type? I`m betting that if you could translate that passion into words and images on your Web site, you would immediately improve your sales.

One thought would be to take a close look at your photographs. The ladybird bird house is an excellent benchmark. ALL your photographs should be along those lines, where you show the product (close up), and ALSO the context.

But look at the frogs in a row---the green frog hooks. I have no context for them. Why aren`t they shown on a pine-panel wall or with a coat hanging from one of the hooks?

The 1-line descriptions are useless, excepting if someone already knows about the product, already knows about you, already knows how to use the product, and has already decided to buy one. They`re simply looking for a convenient store, lowest price, and most reliable shipping. They could care less about you, your site, your products, or anything else. They`ve *already decided* and have no interest in being sold.

For those customers, your 1-line description simply verifies they`ve found the right product. Probably, they already saw it somewhere else and it was out of stock, or your price is lower.

Are those the people you`re trying to attract? Or are you trying to find people who sorta-kinda know about birds, maybe would like to have some humming birds because they`ve heard about them, and have no idea what to do?

Why not have some really useful, interesting, and educational descriptions about your products? Not all of them---coat hooks are self-explanatory. But think about the Roosting House. Why is it "roosting?" Why would I want one? What sort of roosters need a house, and how come it`s not a Hen House? :-D

Suppose I want hummingbirds. How can I search your site to find out about what attracts them, how they feed, what they need, what areas of the country they frequent, and (most of all) what products you have specifically for hummingbirds?

Finally, you could use some humor and fun on the site. If I wanted to shop a site like yours, I`d go to Pet-Smart. There`s no personal interest, nothing I can learn, and nowhere to ask anything. Unless I already know all that I need and don`t need your own involvement.

You can go to McDonald`s or you can go to a fancy french restaurant. Right now your site is McDonald`s. But your mistake, in my opinion, is to believe that your product is so well known---so self-evident---that you don`t need to *sell* it. It just sells itself. I`d suggest that your sales numbers indicate that`s a bad assumption. :-) Y`know?

PS: I used the search box, typed in hummingbirds, and found 1 feeder. With 1 line that tells me nothing. The picture was small, but being the crafty, wiley, and highly-trained Internet shopper that I am, I clicked to get a larger image. I`d think it might help to have a "click for larger image" link, if nothing else. But mostly, a better description.

Thank you for the great advice.  I guess I`m used to a bricks and mortar store where people can pick up products, ask questions, and see all the features.  I`ll take a much closer look at the process your describing and really appreciate your valuable input!
Thanks again!

I think that having a Yahoo! store is limiting you in considerable ways.

I see that you are not even a blip on Google`s radar.

That being noted ... you can`t just put up a site and expect traffic to come pouring in. You have to have an actual marketing plan in place ... a systematic method for attracting, following, retaining, and measuring traffic and customers on your site. Opening your doors does not open a floodgate of purchases ... you need to create a marketing strategy for bringing them in.