I just started a web-based business. Need to know how to get customers?

Question

I just started a web-based business (Caspian Tea Treasures) selling exotic teas from the Caspian rain forests (www.caspiantea.com). They are wonderful teas and everyone who has tried them has loved them. I just want to know how to get customers directed to my website without paying enormous fees to Google or Yahoo?

Answer 1

First you have to be patient....it takes a while for the main search engine's robots to find you..Actually Goggle and some other search engines will automatically make you wait (the reason is why is to complicated for this forum) 3-6 months before they index your site.

Second you must be sure you site was designed to be compliant with specific norms...do all your images have ALT text included, do your keywords match text on you web page, and on and on..otherwise you will be penalized and never get a good rating which lets you show up (lets say for example within the first 50 after someone does a search).

Once you know your site is compliant you should manually submit it to Goggle, Yahoo, etc...

You do not have to pay enormous fees to Goggle. If you study Goggle Adwords you can bid as little as $.01 for a click.....You must study how Ad words works.....and create a strategy to get clicks without paying through the nose

You must also spend time to get mutual likes (not one way links) from other sites (not competitors) but sites like,,,'Caspian Rain Forest Sites to See' you get it...
Are you using shopping carts and something like pay pal....


I did not go into other marketing suggestions because they were mentioned above..and from experience I know many people (like myself develop web sites because they want to work out of their homes). If this is not your case, then consider hitting the street and wholesaling to tea specialty shops. In this case you packaging will have to be superb...You will be competing with large companies that do great packaging.

I'll go look at you site and check it out.......

Any questions feel free to e-mail me...

There are tons of links to help explain much of what I mentioned above (since they are SEO Search Engine Optimizing sites most want to sell you their services) but many offer tips The Following thetis I got from A SEO:

Things Search Engines Look For
If you understand what the search engine optimization process is, the next step is to understand how many factors the search engines actually do look at. Many search engines suggest in their documentation and discussions that there are numerous factors that various search engines look for, and can affect how a web site ranks in their search engine. There are about 20 factors that are very obvious and others that are less obvious, and much harder if not impossible to prove. Furthermore, each search engine weights each of these factors differently, and places the emphasis in different spots.

The List Of Some Things Search Engines Look For:

1. Title tag - You need a relevant title, not just "Home Page" Use it for 5 key words.
2. Headings - The search engines view < h> tags as being terms of emphasis - they give weight to the words within them. Put key terms in them.
3. Bold - Of lesser importance than < h> tags. the < b> tags still emphasize terms of importance.
4. Alt text - Use descriptive short sentences in your alt tags. If it's a picture of a rose, and you're a florist try "Red Rose - Available at 'name' Flower Shop"
5. Email addresses on page - if you put up an address, make sure the domain name in the address matches the web site domain. The search engines look at it as 'cheesy'if you don't.
6. Keyword metatags - Some engines use them directly, some check them as part of a validation process - "do they match the content" If they don't then is this a spam site?
7. Meta description tag - Most engines look at this tag. Use distinct ones throughout your site, and distinct ones for each page. Make them particular to that page.
8. Key term placement - Terms that are higher up on a page are more heavily weighted.
9. Key term proximity - Terms that are close together are probably related, and thus the site will show up in searches for those terms.
10. Comment tags - Some engines use comment tags for content. Most engines look for them in graphic rich / text poor sites.
11. Page structure validation - proper coding is likely to be of better overall quality, and thus rewarded.
12. Traffic/Visitors - The search engines do keep track of how many people follow their links.
13. Link Popularity (PageRank in Google's case).
* How may other web pages around the Internet point to your web site?
* Do these other pages relate?
* Are they considered valuable resources?
14. Anchor Text of inbound links
* Does the link to your web site have relevant keywords in it?
* Do the keywords used match keywords in your content?
15. Rating of pages linking to this page
* Even if it is not directly relevant, a web page that is important that links to your site will still help your web site.
* Having relevant links helps more with search engines like Teoma.
16. Presence on marked authority pages. (DMOZ)
17. Url quotation - i.e. when a page mentions the site by url but doesn't link to it. This commonly occurs in news articles that mention web sites. While it doesn't count as a link, it does count as a reference.
18. Number of links on pages linking to this page. If the link to your web site is the only one from a page, it's viewed as being more valuable than being one link among 100.
19. Freshness of links on pages linking to your web site. While the engines will count all links, a link from a web site that has not been updated in a year or two will be less valuable than from one that is updated daily. It indicates activity / interest levels.
20. Page Last Modified (Freshness)- just like the last point a page that is updated frequently is favoured.
21. Reciprocal Links- Search engines like to see a closed loop - that a referring site as also used as a reference. So when you are giving away a link, ask for one back. It will help both websites.
22. Keyword frequency across all pages. Does the content really talk to the subject which the page and the web site is supposed to be about?
23. Keywords in the url
* Using keywords in the url does have an effect for the search engine algorithms.
* You can use keywords in the filename. For example if the page is about ford parts, then call it "http://www.sitename.com/ford-auto-parts.html"
* use dashes "-" and not underscores "_" to separate words in filenames.
24. Response Time - If your site is fast, it's favored.
25. Server Downtime - If the search engine robot comes by and frequently can't connect sometimes, they penalize your site.
26. Page Size - The engines tend to weigh content at the start of a document more than content further down. If a page is long, look at breaking it into sections. If a page is over 50k, then it's too long.

Some Factors Which May Affect Search Engine Ranking

1. Domain Extension - New extensions are not always immediately recognized by the search engines. This was a problem for .cc and .biz sites in the early going.
2. Subdomains - If your web site is 'mysite.network.com, and 'network.com' has engaged in any unsavoury search engine spamming, your site will be affected.
* Always get your own domain, even if you use a subdomain for your shopping cart, etc...
3. IP Address/Range - This is a bit like the last point. If the search engines have had problems with many sites from one hosting company, they may degrade all the sites from that comapny's IP range. It makes the hosting companies behave.
4. "Domain in use since" The longer it's live the better it's generally viewed. Kind of a respect thy elders thing...

Negatives That Affect Your Position Within The Search Engines

1. Broken links - Internally and outgoing.
2. Spam - Read our section on search engine spam for details.
3. Metatag Stuffing.
4. Irrelevance - If you use irrelevant keywords, description, etc.
5. Tiny Text. - If you use text that is too small for the eye to see.
6. Invisible Text - Text the same color as the background.
7. Meta Refresh Tag
8. Redirects - Where when you try and get to one page, but the address changes to a different one.
9. Excessive Search Engine Submission - oversubmitting may get your site banned.
10. Frames - Be careful when you use them. You need to embed key terms in them, because generally, the search engines can only see the frame, and not the primary content that you see as visible.
11. Missing Alt Attributes - This is a mandatory code element for img tags and is viewed as bad coding.
12. Compounded Words in the content, or tags will not help the web site for individual terms - i.e - 'hammersandnails' as opposed to 'hammers and nails'.
13. Excessive punctuation in the TITLE and description tags - wastes precious space, and some characters are ignored or may cause a problem with the spider (the pipe "|" is a great one that should be avoided).


You can Google on SEO or keywords etc. (ther eis plenty of research) and be weary of anyone that promises to get you in top 10 ranking for $50 or so..just a scam!
Master Quark

Answer 2

A few free resources – check out the sources box for links:

1) Create a blog pertaining to your field

2) Use Yahoo! Local & Yahoo! Groups – Be sure to read the TOS for each one!

3) Write articles pertaining to your field and/or expertise.

4) Advertise on Craiglist

Also, consider signing up for an affiliate program. These programs enable you to advertise on other's sites (your affiliates) and once a sale is made to you, your affiliates & the program are paid a commission.

I listed a few handy sites & articles relating to marketing, promotion & advertising. Here are some book titles that are relevant:

* 301 Do-It-Yourself Marketing Ideas: From America's Most Innovative Small Companies by Sam Decker
* Off The Wall Marketing Ideas: Jumpstart Your Sales without Busting Your Budget by Nancy Michaels, Debbi J. Karpowicz
* Guerrilla Marketing for Free: Dozens of No-Cost Tactics to Promote Your Business and Energize Your Profits by Jay Conrad Levinson
* Entrepreneur Magazine's Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide: Over 1500 Great Marketing Tricks That Will Drive Your Business Through the Roof by James Stephenson

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!

Answer 3

First, congratulation! Looks like you're onto a good idea.

Comments:

- I couldn't get your page to open... is it down?

- Keep in mind that the internet is a _media_ not a business. So, if you rely entirely on one media for customer acquisition, you are vulnerable to changes - and the internet changes constantly. Sure, it's a great media, low cost, measureable etc. But you should also explore "off-line" ways to market. I suspect a lot more tea is sold in stores than via the internet.

- But, you asked about the internet. One simple way is via an affilliate program. Look into places like 1shoppingcart.com (I use them and am very happy). Since many people have a deep emotional bond with their tea, you can get your customers to link to you on their websites, blogs etc and drive traffic that way - and they get paid for doing it.
You don't pay until a sale happens, so your marketing cost is easily controlled.

- I'm sure you know, there's a whole community of tea lovers out there - are there newsletters? Web hubs? Discussion forums? Contact the owners of those sites, offer to send some free tea, so they can review it. If they're willing, offer them an affiliate link so they get paid for sending traffic.

These are all pretty standard internet marketing tips; and there are plenty of resources on these topics. Check my other answers for more leads.

Good luck!
Scott

p.s. if you make it big because of my advice, will you send me some tea?

Answer 4

For starters, stop lying; there are no rain forests around the Caspian.

More to the point, there is no guarantee that you can survive on Web business alone. Try getting your teas into gourmet stores. Pitch it to Trader Joe's. Offer it to restaurants. Do something to get offline sales started.

Answer 5

get an ebay store, and sell ur items from there. at least the cost is fixed.

targeted advertising: advertise on websites whose visitors are most likely to drink teas ure offering. You have to do some brainstorming here to figure this thing out. What are the age group, class, ethnicity, background of such people, and advertise on those sites.

Answer 6

you use or accept paypal? they have a free marketing scetion that shows you or gives you ideas on how to generate traffic to your website.

Answer 7

please dont hire spammers