Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello there,Here is my site.  All advice are
welcome.  The site is new, only 20 days old.  I still have no sales yet. 
Fine handmade artwork for home
decor

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Quality Creations by Hand: Artisan Jewelry, Wooden Mask, Handmade Sculpture, Antique Reproduction, Chinese Scroll Paintings and More

http://www.GalleriaPangea.com

Site looks really professional.  Hats off to whoever put it together.  Most businesses take a while to get noticed and web businesses are no exception.  Have you tried adsense?  I would definately put the product in some of the specialty boutique stores (with a card / promo materials of course).  Where I grew up there is a store called Frog Hollow (http://www.froghollow.org/), that my dad used to build wood products for.  You can usually command higher prices and it seems like it would be the right clientèle for your product.  Not sure how your product would sell on ebay but I`ve seen many e-commerce stores use it as as spring board to get their product (and promotional materials) in the right hands.  Good luck!

Great looking site! How are you going to market it?

Good looking site, just a couple of suggestions from a very quick glance:

• Some of the navigation was lost on me, primarily due to the gray on black text; not sure how flexible those choices are, but if it`s important navigation I was probably going to miss it.
• The promotional images on the left nav (10% off, free shipping) look pixelated - also doesn`t look like they`re for your site, they look more like ads.  Not a great fit with the rest of the layout.
• Not crazy about the layout of the login - I know you specified Email/Password, but users will still find it confusing to have those two fields floating together.  I`d split them up in some way to make it clearer.
• The seo-nerd in me can`t help but point out that you`re lacking <title> tags on a number of pages.  And following on that, the amount of pages you have indexed in major search engines is next to zero - probably owing to the short lifespan of the site.  Gotta work on this.

You might want to consider adding your product listings to shopping engines or google base to help increase exposure - there`s no shortage of tactics out there, too many to cover in a quick posting, but hopefully this helps.


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chuck fuller

Thank you all for the comments! 

Hostclick, thank you for the suggestion, I will look into froghollow`s site.

Raisecapital, for now, I am using google adwords, yahoo search marketing and MSN adcenter.  ( I got free signup credit with Yahoo and MSN)  Also I plan to contact museum gift shops for the replicas I carry.  I think they make great museum gift shop merchandise. 

Chuck, your perception is amazing.  A coworker did the internal ads on the site.  Just not as good as the web design company.  heh heh.  I agree with you on the log in part.  I just don`t have good ideas on fixing it.  I guess I could make the text display next to each box. 
Could you let me know which page you see doesnt have titles.  Right now I found about us, help, and other links on the top of the homepage. 
I am working on the indexing part.  :)  also working on integration with price grabber and shopzilla.  Done google base. 

Once again thank you so much for all your advice.  I made a special discount code for your guys as a thank you.  If you see anything interesting to you on my site, type in "chaparro" during check out, you get 15% off on orders over $40.  This offer can also works with the free shipping items. 




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Quality Creations by Hand: Artisan Jewelry, Wooden Mask, Handmade Sculpture, Antique Reproduction, Chinese Scroll Paintings and More

http://www.GalleriaPangea.com

I know this suggestion goes against the Internet mentality of some, but I suggest you try driving some traffic to your site through some Direct Marketing test campaigns. You can purchase lists of people who have shown a track record of purchasing these types of items. DM them. Simple postcard campaign. Something that will get them to visit the site (after you made the corrections suggested by others above - which I agree with). Maybe a special deal, too.

Don`t forget basic marketing methods to drive traffic to your store - whether it is online or brick & mortar. Marketing is everything you do to bring the customer to the point of sale.

Recommended reading: Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind and Bottom Up Marketing by Jack Trout and Al Reis.

Don`t forget the basics. Build it and they will come is long gone.

R@  

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Richard Arnold · Key Concept Writers · Business Communication: The "Key" To Success· Law of Attraction Blog · Life Ain`t Brain Surgery Blog

I think you nailed most of the pages without titles - looks like most of your product pages do, which is great, I`d just address the holes.

As far as the login option, it could be as simple as ordering it this way: "Email" {email text box} "Password" {password text box}


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chuck fuller

Wow, I love the site! You`ve done a great job.

It will take some time for your online marketing efforts to bear fruit so stay focused on that and you will succeed. The site is new and hasn`t been indexed by Google as far as I can tell. And yes you need to consider SEO and exploring online marketplaces where you can show your wares

Also, make sure you have an offline strategy to market the site, as some members have suggested. Often an Old School approach can enhance your online approach.

The only thing that bothers me about the design is the big gap in the banner between your logo and the photography of the pieces on the far right. Maybe you should consider putting a tagline or your Unique Selling Proposition in big attractive letters.

Also, some of the pixelation in the graphics stand out because everything else is presented so beautifully. See what you can do about that.

All in all, you`ve done a tremendous job and I congratulate you.

Godspeed.




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-Danny E-Synthesis: Marketing + Web Design Web Design and E-Marketing Services for Small Business

Thank you keycon and dan1013 for your insights.  Your help has been very helpful. 

As for marketing, I am currently using a free/low cost approach.  I am using PPC with free signup credits and free PR submission, online forums and directories, also Flickr and Youtube as my alternative sources.  I want to test more before I pay my life savings.  I think my top choice of paid marketing will be direct mail and Google adwords. 

I majored in marketing in college.  I wished we have covered more practical topics such as PPC marketing and PPC marketing.  I guess you can never learn enough from school. 


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Quality Creations by Hand: Artisan Jewelry, Wooden Mask, Handmade Sculpture, Antique Reproduction, Chinese Scroll Paintings and More

http://www.GalleriaPangea.com