The Wholesale Forums

[noviseller]

I've been reading some of the information previously posted in articles and other threads about driving traffic to your website, and I wondered if anyone would be so kind as to give me some guidance.

I saw that in general, most everyone thinks it's worth the money to pay for search engine submission. I have had a retail website online for 7 years and there are months (yes, months) that go buy where I have NO orders at all. Yet, at times when I log into the administrator interface, it will show over 20,000 shopping carts!

I don't know if I can post my website here or not... it doesn't have anything to do with wholesaling or anything like that, so if one of the mods could respond to this thread and let me know if I can put up my URL, I would appreciate it.

What I want to know is if there is a specific service that seems to get the job done, with regard to search engine submission? I'm in the DMOZ directory, so I know I'm indexed somewhere on Google, but darned if I can find my site unless I type in the specific URL.

On a separate, but similar note:

I know the ebay topic has been talked to death, but... I know people don't speak very highly of ebay, but I haven't really seen anyone saying they wouldn't sell on there. So, if I don't really want to sell much on ebay, are there any surefire ways to drive alot of GOOD quality traffic to your website very soon after it opens? I saw a few people say they had several thousand hits only a couple of weeks after it went live! Or would that be determined by how good your search engine submitter is? I mean, if I spend $15,000 on getting a few items in stock to sell, I'm going to need to sell it pretty fast, because I simply cannot absorb that kind of debt without a steady return. How do people manage this without going personally bankrupt?

Or is ebay really the best way to go for a beginner to build capital? I'm not looking to make a killing. Truly, slow and steady wins the race, you know? I just want to be able to pay off the credit card, without being socked for huge interest while I sit on the stock I bought because I can't get it sold.

Sorry for the verboseness of my post.

noviseller

[Titchimp]

i dont think the forum has any problems with u posting your URL for us to check out

[BillyA]

Without being a Forum Registered Seller, you may post a link to your site in your signature, but you may not promote your site or products directly in any thread.

[MustHaveMobiles]

Drop the URL so we can take a look, I may be able to offer some advice as I know a little bit about website marketing and traffic driving

Also take a look at my Ebay related site (in sig. link) as there are a few articles on the subject of traffic and seo on there....paid se submission is a waste of space IMO btw.

Wont respond till Sunday as I am away from the PC but others will have a chance to look at the site and offer advice before I stick my oar in

[noviseller]

Okay, here it is:

http://www.thenatureshoppe.com

There's really nothing on there that anyone here would want to buy (it's girly stuff), but certainly, I must be doing something wrong if I don't show up in the search engines after all these years. As I said, I'm happy to pay for SES, but do these companies really produce measurable results?

Also, on the ebay part - does anyone have any suggestions? Or are these lessons I'm just going to have to learn for myself?

I can't thank you all enough for your willingness to help me.

noviseller

[Titchimp]

The first thing i notices was the the loading of some pages was frustratingly slow, not really long but enough to annoy me, im not a huge fan of the design, it looks quite unproffesional imho, maybe a store revamp?

Ive added a product to the cart, and then i couldnt see the checkout button, maybe make it a bit more prominant, most sites have it at the bottom of the items in your cart rather than in the top corner. after that it was pretty smooth sailing, other than i would recommend you pu tthe cheapest postal choice at the top rather than at the bottom.

Nick

[AuctionCUT]

I saw that in general, most everyone thinks it's worth the money to pay for search engine submission

Sorry but that's crap. I've never known anyone pay for search engine submission. At the most basic level you can submit it yourself at www.google.com/addurl or by using the addme.com service.

If your serious about your site, either start a blog so your site has some unique content which search engines will lap up & index, or start writing some articles to promote your site and get submitting them to all the different article directories. This will also get your site indexed within a few days. If you go for the article route, you there is a list of article directories to submit it to at: http://associateprograms.com/discus/ftopic10976.html

[Trick_Nick]

Submitting your site to a search engine doesnt make the slightest bit of difference to your ranking or overall prescence in the engines.

Back Links, Articles, Blogs, Joint Ventures, Free & Paid Advertising, Offline promotion etc does however make a difference.

In 7 years I am suprised you cant find your site in Google - considering how difficult it can be to get into the coveted DMoz directory!

If you read trusted advice and stick to it, the next 7 years could see your profits multiply.

P.S - Site design is irrelevant when people arent visiting you in the first place.

Good Luck!

[noviseller]

Thanks so much for your comments! They are very enlightening and they can only help me, at this point.

I have manually submitted my website to Google before, but have not had any luck with it, as evidenced by the fact that I have no traffic to the site. I am going to explore some of the avenues suggested by Trick_Nick, too, although I had wanted to keep my site free from outside advertising/banner exchanges, if only to keep it uncluttered. But, if it works, then I'm willing to try it!

I think where my big problem lies is that you can only find my site by searching for the specific name. If you do a search on "vanilla candle" or "strawberry shower gel," like most people do, my site does not show up in the listings at all, and what I need is to be in the top 20 results returned after a generic search like that, on at least a few items. This is where I think paid SES might be of a benefit to me, because they may have a better idea as to what key words work and what will get me on that first page of search results.

Does anyone disagree with that, or would this be money well-spent?

I'm sorry to be asking so many questions, but I have spent ALOT of my time and hard-earned money on this, and I just don't understand how I could be failing so miserably.

Thanks so much,

Lisa
noviseller

[BillyA]

Lisa,

See this post, it may help:

Search Engine Listing