Need some suggestions 1 sale in 4 months

[Gap30]

Sorry if this is a long post. Officially my web page has been live since July. To date have had only one sale which was a hard to get ornament was priced $30 under ebay. Also had a rare item that was priced half of what it went for on ebay. Doing a search on ixquick (search engine) could not locate that anyone had this item including me. Is it true that the search engines need to crawl and index before they find anything?

 

Unique number of hits

Visitors visits

 

September 126 160 9583

October 107 141 7691

 

Average vist/vistors 1.31 pages 9.12

 

Had friend that was supposed to be a programmer help me out his solution was load up keywords and have robots revisit in 2 days. Since reduced key words and try to stick to ones that are associated with hallmark ornaments. So far on yahoo when I search hallmark ornaments was listed 108 moved up to 56. Web hosting company gave me the pitch about SEO was they did everything only cost me $1,400. I’m cheap and wanted some cash flow coming in before making investment. I’m not a programmer and this is not extremely fun for me.

 

Tried multiple submissions to search engines. Have read that there are only 6-10 major players. I got back all kinds of send money get million back.

 

Marketing strategies:

 

When my wife sells anything on Ebay include a coupon for $5-10 off from purchase off of web page. In August went to 3 national conventions of hallmark Keepsake collectors: passed out coupons with 10% off for September also gave away same coupon with any purchases at the show. Selling at convention did ok. Checked out major competitors priced bellow most.

 

At one time was going to list other collectibles so that 2nd page shows :ornaments, series, miniatures, merry miniatures, event pieces, and other. Thought about brings those up to first page of catalog but was concerned that slow down loading of page.

 

Got a link from hallmark for secondary market dealers but they missed spelled name just sent out a letter to get corrected. Thought about trying to get a redirect from misspelled site to mine but not sure feasibility or cost.

 

Don’t know if site map for goggle would help?

Tried to unsuccessfully use c-dynamic contribe

Scared that with my luck will crash site with ultimate SEO

Also concerned that didn’t remove catalog folder.

 

Open to suggestions and feedback would be appreciated. I’ve been playing with this for over a year. Again thanks for reading a long post and any help given. The web site is www.keepsakecaboose.com waiting for this post to show up when people do searches for keepsake caboose saying low sales a good reason to skip. Reading the previous post SEo than going out to dinner and work.

 

Thanks

Greg

[digilee]

Do not, ever spend any money with anyone that can promise you millions of hits/ seo/ get-you-at-number-1-on-google claims.

No one has any control over listings on google or any other search engine.

 

The only things to do are the same that have been mentioned hundreds of times here, sort out descriptions, meta tags, urls etc.

 

To be honest, your site is ugly but this has nothing to do with why you are getting low hits.

It does, however (to me), have a bit to do with why you are having low sales.

I think you will also find that you are having low sales simply because your stock is very niche.

 

I had no idea what keepsake caboose was and, if I searched for your products, would I have searched using your name?

 

Put yourself in the eyes of your customers. Think about how they would feel looking at and using your site.

[joannemojo]

I think this belongs more in the 'Feedback' forum but I'll answer anyway and let you know what I think about your site. Maybe some of the things I mention are what's keeping people from buying............ Yes it's all from a buyers perspective upon entering the store.

 

1) The site's really slow to load and if I was buying I wouldn't wait. I'd be off to find a faster site.

 

2) The site isn't very inspiring and doesn't catch your eye at all. You need to think about your colour scheme and layout. Also you still have stock graphics which don't match the site.

 

3) You don't have any descriptions with your products which I find extremely irritating. If you know about collectables then you might be ok but for someone like me it's rather offputting. For example: http://keepsakecaboose.com/osCommerce/cata...products_id/559 I don't know anything about it and I thought it wss an ornament but after looking at the picture it looks like a Christmas tree decoration with the gold wire out of the top. A brief description with year of production, size etc etc is needed. I never buy online just by looking at pictures. I want to know about what I'm spending my money on.

[germ]

You're not using SSL coverage for account creation/login.

 

Personally, I DON'T divulge personal info to sites without it.

 

I wouldn't register at and purchase items from any site without SSL.

 

Just my two cents.

[Gap30]

Do not, ever spend any money with anyone that can promise you millions of hits/ seo/ get-you-at-number-1-on-google claims.

No one has any control over listings on google or any other search engine.

 

The only things to do are the same that have been mentioned hundreds of times here, sort out descriptions, meta tags, urls etc.

 

To be honest, your site is ugly but this has nothing to do with why you are getting low hits.

It does, however (to me), have a bit to do with why you are having low sales.

I think you will also find that you are having low sales simply because your stock is very niche.

 

I had no idea what keepsake caboose was and, if I searched for your products, would I have searched using your name?

 

Put yourself in the eyes of your customers. Think about how they would feel looking at and using your site.

 

Thanks for the feed back:

I noticed that I get different colors from my desk top to lap top. My market is very specific niche market. Actually I kind of liked the basic layout of the demo. In marketing they say that you have 30 seconds to capture your audience. Keepsake Caboose is just a dba that we have used for awhile.

 

Thanks

Greg

[lindsayanng]

This is an idea for someone who wants to spend NO MONEY and knows nothing about programming..

 

FORUMS.. There's a forum for EVERYTHING. Find forums for people who are interested in your type of products. Become an active member within the site. Quietly put the url and a little advertisement for your site and just sneak in as just a member. When you are accepted as a part of the community and not just a member/spammer trying to drum up business you can start pushing your site more and more. Look for people who are looking for something YOU HAVE. People are ALWAYS asking how to find rare items on forums, you need to be there to say "I HAVE IT"forums. I know it sounds riduculous and like a kind of generic answer, but really - in your line of business, word of mouth is probably the best way to get started.

 

I have an online petstore, which means that i have to compete with PETCO and PETSMART and Dr. Foster and Smith. Those guys are HUGE players, and control the top spots on the search engines when people search PET SUPPLIES. I did consider the yahoo sponsored ad. It gives me a certain number of keywords and a comprehensive report for which keywords are working and which ones arent and the opportunity to change them as you see fit. I havent gone live with my site yet, so i cant really tell you how much that has helped - but being a member of the online pet community has expanded my business by word of mouth. I offer coupon codes to people who have heard about me through different forums and give each code a name that lets me know which forum the heard about me on.

 

here are some i found just doing a quick google search:

 

GARDEN WEB

 

HGTV Forums

 

COllectible classifieds

 

eclectic collectibles

[Gap30]

I think this belongs more in the 'Feedback' forum but I'll answer anyway and let you know what I think about your site. Maybe some of the things I mention are what's keeping people from buying............ Yes it's all from a buyers perspective upon entering the store.

 

1) The site's really slow to load and if I was buying I wouldn't wait. I'd be off to find a faster site.

 

2) The site isn't very inspiring and doesn't catch your eye at all. You need to think about your colour scheme and layout. Also you still have stock graphics which don't match the site.

 

3) You don't have any descriptions with your products which I find extremely irritating. If you know about collectables then you might be ok but for someone like me it's rather offputting. For example: http://keepsakecaboose.com/osCommerce/cata...products_id/559 I don't know anything about it and I thought it wss an ornament but after looking at the picture it looks like a Christmas tree decoration with the gold wire out of the top. A brief description with year of production, size etc etc is needed. I never buy online just by looking at pictures. I want to know about what I'm spending my money on.

 

 

Thanks for feed back.

 

:blush: Didn't scroll down to see far enough to see feedback category. Will move copy orignal with orther questions to feedback. Any basic ideas how to get site to load faster? Asumme that pictures are slowing down. My wife hates the stock graphics will be researching to change. Just realized that the majority of product doesn't have description which will kill ranking.

 

Thanks

Greg

[-Jeff-]

First, I find the image on the product page too small to see easily. There is a tiny product image surrounded by lots of other loud page elements.

And you need a thumbnail mod as you're loading the full image size for all those thumbs (50+KB instead of 5KB) and yet you're specifying them tiny in the html so they don't sell me and yet will bog down a modem visitor.

 

Got a link from hallmark for secondary market dealers but they missed spelled name just sent out a letter to get corrected. Thought about trying to get a redirect from misspelled site to mine but not sure feasibility or cost.

If the domain is not registered by someone else, all you need to do is register the misspelling and point it at your site. It depends on whether your host allows multiple domains, but should be plenty doable for $20.

[Gap30]

You're not using SSL coverage for account creation/login.

 

Personally, I DON'T divulge personal info to sites without it.

 

I wouldn't register at and purchase items from any site without SSL.

 

Just my two cents.

 

thanks for the observation.

 

greg

[Gap30]

First, I find the image on the product page too small to see easily. There is a tiny product image surrounded by lots of other loud page elements.

And you need a thumbnail mod as you're loading the full image size for all those thumbs (50+KB instead of 5KB) and yet you're specifying them tiny in the html so they don't sell me and yet will bog down a modem visitor.

If the domain is not registered by someone else, all you need to do is register the misspelling and point it at your site. It depends on whether your host allows multiple domains, but should be plenty doable for $20.

 

I'm checking today about the redierct with my host provider don't think anybody has this registered name.

 

:blush: Tired last night didn't back up data (back-up/back-up) lost about a weeks worth of products. Trying to move sub categories up one level to categories. hallmark>ornaments>2000 wanted oramenents>.2000 I quess you should beleive screen when it says that you will loose 2500 links.

 

will be looking at picture mod. Will the thumb nail mod allow some one to enlarge the picture?

 

Thanks

Greg

[Gap30]

This is an idea for someone who wants to spend NO MONEY and knows nothing about programming..

 

FORUMS.. There's a forum for EVERYTHING. Find forums for people who are interested in your type of products. Become an active member within the site. Quietly put the url and a little advertisement for your site and just sneak in as just a member. When you are accepted as a part of the community and not just a member/spammer trying to drum up business you can start pushing your site more and more. Look for people who are looking for something YOU HAVE. People are ALWAYS asking how to find rare items on forums, you need to be there to say "I HAVE IT"forums. I know it sounds riduculous and like a kind of generic answer, but really - in your line of business, word of mouth is probably the best way to get started.

 

I have an online petstore, which means that i have to compete with PETCO and PETSMART and Dr. Foster and Smith. Those guys are HUGE players, and control the top spots on the search engines when people search PET SUPPLIES. I did consider the yahoo sponsored ad. It gives me a certain number of keywords and a comprehensive report for which keywords are working and which ones arent and the opportunity to change them as you see fit. I havent gone live with my site yet, so i cant really tell you how much that has helped - but being a member of the online pet community has expanded my business by word of mouth. I offer coupon codes to people who have heard about me through different forums and give each code a name that lets me know which forum the heard about me on.

 

here are some i found just doing a quick google search:

 

GARDEN WEB

 

HGTV Forums

 

COllectible classifieds

 

eclectic collectibles

 

Great idea! My wife belongs to two on line clubs and has been reluctant to mention web site dosen't want to get rep as spamer she is very well known in this circle. I see the stragey of posting by the way we have this rare ornament at the web site.

[lindsayanng]

There is DEFINITELY a fine line between spamming and being a contributing member of the community. If you spend time on there as a member AND as a seller, people will respect you. Putting you website in your signature will def. drive business to your site though. i am a nosey persona nd i ALWAYS click links in people's profiles amd signatures - i am sure there are others out there.

 

GOOD LUCK!

[dogtails]

That is a great idea. i'm going to check it out too. Especially since I'm new and have had no hits yet myself.