What is the best way to get traffic to my online store? or market my online store?

Question

It's www.dsgmerchandise.com, check it out and tell me what you think. There's more products to be added.

Answer 1

Getting traffic is a combination of a lot of things. The key to success is to create great content that visitors want to use, search engines will love and other websites will naturally link to. Of course, it's easier said than done.

You can use pay per click advertising in the search engines to reach audiences looking for your products. You can use Google Adwords http://www.google.com/adwords or Yahoo http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com

Here are some shoestring marketing ideas that can help you get the visitors you need at the least cost possible:

1. Create the best content you can with the best products you can possibly offer. Your content is your best advertisement - if visitors love your content, then they will go back and spread the word to others.

2. Make it easy for users to recommend your site. Viral marketing is very important -- and easy to tap on the Web. But give your users the tools. Get a Recommend this Site script from websites such as cgiscripts.com and similar directories of scripts. Some even go as far as giving incentives to those who recommend the site to their friends. If only 10 people go to your site, but these 10 people invite 10 more - that's additional traffic that you get for FREE!

Recommend Site Scripts (various) http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Website_Promotion/Recommend_Site/
Big Nose Bird Recommend this Site http://bignosebird.com/carchive/birdcast.shtml
CGI Resource Index http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Website_Promotion/Recommend_Site/
Hostscripts http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Site_Recommendation/index.html

3. Rank well in the search engines (organic search results, not the pay per click). SEs can be a big source of traffic. The key is to create the best content in your niche. If you have good content, other websites will gladly link to you and offer your site as a resource to their audience. Check the on-page factors and be sure to get linked from authority sites in your topic area.

If you are going to read only one piece on search engine optimization, I suggest you read Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld.com's "Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone: 26 steps to 15k a day." http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm


4. Send out press releases. While outfits charge as much as $650 per release, there are free press release submission places on the Web. Press releases allow you to (a) attract media attention; (b) get more back links to your website without sending each website an email request; and (c) get more visibility especially if your press release gets in Google News or Yahoo News.

http://www.prleap.com/sign_up.html
http://i-newswire.com/
http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/
http://www.pressbox.co.uk/cgi-bin/links/add.cgi
http://www.pr.com/press-releases
http://www.prfree.com/
http://www.clickpress.com/releases/index.shtml
http://www.theopenpress.com/
http://www.przoom.com/
http://www.prweb.com
http://www.newswiretoday.com/
http://www.free-press-release.com/

5. Submit articles. Write articles and submit them to websites accepting author submissions. You get exposure for your business; establishes you as an authority in your field, and allows you to get backlinks for your website. If 50 websites publish your article and it contains a link back to your website, then you easily get 50 links from a single article. The more links you have, the greater your chances for increasing your search engine rankings.

Here is a comprehensive list of where to submit your articles http://answers.yahoo.com/question/;_ylt=AhzreGmnCUicOoyedqypscUjzKIX?qid=1006022407481

6. Improve your conversion. Getting visitors is one thing; getting them to buy your products is a whole different story. Read the article " How To Sell More on the Web: 30 Tips To Increase Conversion Rates For An Ecommerce Site " http://www.powerhomebiz.com/092006/ecommerce.htm for tips on how to improve your conversion rates.

7. Post a link to your site for free where it is allowed (always read the Terms of Use). Examples are:

Craigslist http://www.craigslist.com
Google Base http://base.google.com
Classifieds for Free http://www.classifiedsforfree.com/...
Text Link Exchange http://www.txtswap.com/
Recycler.com http://www.recycler.com/
Yahoo Classifieds http://classifieds.yahoo.com/
US Free Ads http://www.usfreeads.com/

Answer 2

Small Business Marketing Strategy: Target the up-and-coming search engines

While Google still rules the roost when it comes to Internet search engines, and Yahoo is firmly entrenched in second spot, a number of new start-ups are hoping to give them a run for their money. And a good small business marketing strategy would be to check them out and see how you can make them work for your site!

Some of the new up-and-comers include:

Powerset : ( www.powerset.com ) A "natural language" search engine

Hakia : ( www.hakia.com ) A "meaning-based" search engine

Wikia : ( www.wikia.com ) A "community-based" search engine

ChaCha : ( www.chacha.com ) A "social networking-based" search engine

Snap : ( www.snap.com ) A search engine that offers visual previews

It's a smart small business marketing strategy to continue optimizing for the Google, Yahoo, and MSN search engines as they are by far and away the most popular -- but niche search engines could provide new opportunities to reach your market. Be sure to check them out!

Answer 3

Hi Danny!

I wasn't able to open your website, but I know some typical issues which prevent online stores from enjoying high traffic volume. So here what I would recommend:

SEO part: technical points of website optimization for the search engines still matter these day

1) Firstly, make sure your website pages are optimized for the search engines. This includes: clear, descriptive titles that contain keywords, which you think might be used by people when they search for your product online. Use the title length possibility to the fullest, that is make it around 70 characters long (check how your page will look like in the search results with the help of this tool (http://seo-website-designer.com/Google-SERP-Emulator)

2) Write great discriptions of all the pages and make sure each of them is unique tells about the benefits the user will get if they click the link, and of course include clear and relevant call to action. Test the description with the same tool mentioned above.

3) Create text for all the pages. Google reads your pages to understand what your site is about, Google won't rely on video or images to extract the infrormation about your site, it will read the text first of all. Make sure all your pages have sufficient amount of text that contains lots of keywords that in natural way descrive your service or product. Avoid duplicates as they will bring your rankings on Google down.

How to search for the best keywords for your site? Firstly, check this infographics - it is very helpful. http://www.promodo.com/blog/keyword-research-process-infographics. Secondly, use special tools to search for the keywords - here is a good list of the most popular http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2303494/21-Best-FREE-SEO-Tools-for-On-Page-Optimization

Smart tips on which keywords would be to choose the best? Check out this article from Moz - a great piece: http://moz.com/blog/keywords-to-concepts

Now very important notes on link building:

Many techniques that webmasters used to use won't work these days, so here are a few ways to build natural links that will go a long way.

Write quality posts that give value to the people and are really aimed to help them. Find great blogs in your niche and suggest your piece of writing - this might really work, Then, look for forum discussions talking about the product you specialize in - give them links to your posts if they are really on point and will help people solve their problems, that might pay off too.

Make use of visual content: infographics is a good way to get people's attention. Quality infographics are readily shared by many and can become a traffic source for you. Here are some sites where you an add infographics: vizualarchive.com, pintrest.com, onlineinfographics.net, infographick.com

Don't forget about Pinterest and Instagram which are also a very visual social networks where brands of particular niche get substantial traffic. At this point, Pinterest becomes a good option for ecommerce stores, women is the biggest audience there.

You Tube video - make presentation of your product entertaining - make a video descriptino of it and upload on You Tube, this may become a source of visits too.

For small businesses and those who would like to be ranked locally - register on Google places and Yelp. Add your city mentions, valid address and telephone to the page/site to comfirm you belong to particular place and start being ranked by Google locally. Here are some posts to help you with local search optimization http://searchenginewatch.com/local and article about how to amplify the Google Plus social network. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2124899/SEO-for-Google-Profiles-Pages-Local-Communities-Updates.

Add your site to some popular product listing sites and directories. For example, shopping.com, http://www.thefind.com/.

It has been lots of talks about social media, but they can work for your store too! Look at some examples of ecommerce stores that are successful on social media. Here is the list of such stores: http://econsultancy.com/blog/9418-10-excellent-examples-of-facebook-brand-timelines.

Finally, there is so much more tips and tricks which are great to implement for your store - make sure to check this presentation http://www.slideshare.net/Promodo_en/shopify-seo-and-ux-expert-session-1 or simply get a free audit of your website specifically - http://lp.promodo.com/guides/free-site-audit/ - no string attached.

Hope it was helpful. Regards, Lena Ruchko

Promodo.com