Ways to drive traffic to my new webshop

Micky_d · 24 October 2011 at 3:30PM

Hi, Last year I put everything into a new start up business to become an electrician, the contributors to this forum helped me enormously with ways to market the business. I am pleased to say that things have been going well as a small independent an I have decided to open a web shop selling tools and DIY products to compliment the business.

I have put the money from the electrical business into funding this new web shop and have almost everything in place. Can anyone help with cost effective ways or even free ways to drive traffic onto my web shop. I will have a direct link from my website, I am also doing an SEO course with business link however, Pay per click seems very expensive and Yell want £1500 per month.

I know there are many more experienced people out there than myself and I would like to draw on your suggestions and ideas

Thanks Mike

AliceJenkins · 24 October 2011 at 3:34PM

Avoid yell, don't under estimate the offline aspect try and build up via offline and already established market places, eBay, Amazon etc.

Then use those sales and customers to build your own store up.

MoreOn · 24 October 2011 at 3:37PM

Micky_d wrote: »

Hi, Last year I put everything into a new start up business to become an electrician, the contributors to this forum helped me enormously with ways to market the business. I am pleased to say that things have been going well as a small independent an I have decided to open a web shop selling tools and DIY products to compliment the business.

I have put the money from the electrical business into funding this new web shop and have almost everything in place. Can anyone help with cost effective ways or even free ways to drive traffic onto my web shop. I will have a direct link from my website, I am also doing an SEO course with business link however, Pay per click seems very expensive and Yell want £1500 per month.

I know there are many more experienced people out there than myself and I would like to draw on your suggestions and ideas

Thanks Mike

Mike

What domain name have you got? if you don't want to say, try the guys at https://www.acorndomains.co.uk and https://www.dnforum.com there are loads of posts/SEO experts that will help.

How have you strategically aligned /not aligned your web presence ... what alliances do you have or are industry relevant that you could capture value from? How does you presence differ from your competitors and does that align with customer needs?

InsideInsurance · 24 October 2011 at 4:25PM

PPC can look expensive if you are targeting the obvious short tail phrases. Firstly you need to look at both short tail and long tail phrases/ words as almost all other methods are going to take a fair length of time to build up in volume. Once you've got your words you need to look at the customer journey, the tighter the keyword phrase the more targeted the landing page it goes to should be with the least distractions. You should also consider life time value of a customer and not just the sale you do/ do not get on the visitors first time of clicking through to your site.

AliceJenkins · 24 October 2011 at 4:28PM

InsideInsurance wrote: »

PPC can look expensive if you are targeting the obvious short tail phrases. Firstly you need to look at both short tail and long tail phrases/ words as almost all other methods are going to take a fair length of time to build up in volume. Once you've got your words you need to look at the customer journey, the tighter the keyword phrase the more targeted the landing page it goes to should be with the least distractions. You should also consider life time value of a customer and not just the sale you do/ do not get on the visitors first time of clicking through to your site.

Very good advice.

Micky_d · 24 October 2011 at 4:35PM

I am currently looking at a dozen or so domain names and am going through key word search info supplied by google. I will try to include brand names into my optimisation as these are often key search words. Thanks for the links to the domain sites and I appreciate the advice about yell. I have thought about running a small ebay shop in order to drive traffic to my main Web shop. I will persue down the offline route.

Thanks so far to MoreOn and Alice Jenkins for your advice:T

MoreOn · 24 October 2011 at 4:37PM

InsideInsurance wrote: »

PPC can look expensive if you are targeting the obvious short tail phrases. Firstly you need to look at both short tail and long tail phrases/ words as almost all other methods are going to take a fair length of time to build up in volume. Once you've got your words you need to look at the customer journey, the tighter the keyword phrase the more targeted the landing page it goes to should be with the least distractions. You should also consider life time value of a customer and not just the sale you do/ do not get on the visitors first time of clicking through to your site.

It also depends on word order for instance terms such as wedding video, video could be weighted higher than wedding... video wedding as odd as it seems can generate better SEO.. as for longtail vs short tail, that still depends on things like the key phrase(s) you chasing,the domain name you have and whether your using sub-domains

Simply put it's like having a shop in london and expecting people from manchester to visit... only your london and manchester are related to the DN and website, it's tough to be in both locations, even tougher if your area is very competitive..

Definitely manage the reputation issue and use incentives or charm to encourage recommendation and online positive feedback..

MoreOn · 24 October 2011 at 4:41PM

Micky_d wrote: »

I will try to include brand names into my optimisation as these are often key search words.
I have thought about running a small ebay shop in order to drive traffic to my main Web shop.
Thanks so far to MoreOn and Alice Jenkins for your advice:T

I'd steer away from brand and stick to the terms people search, using the same location analogy, since DN as stored in a separate repository at google, your removing location from manchester and london, which means your having to build from nothing... there are of course arguments for and against both but b and q are an example...
Also remember DNs do have reputation/risk differences. .uk is of the highest risk and make sure you manage the DN effectively..

Great idea to link with ebay..

InsideInsurance · 24 October 2011 at 4:55PM

You can have both brand and keyword but use a 301 from the brand to the keyword version. B and Q are a good example of those that have done this as they all redirect to diy.com. You can then split your inbound links as you see fit between things that are keyword rich and more for bots than people and those where people will read them and so building brand can be useful. People tend to trust a brand slightly more than A-List-Of_KeywordsWith-Odd_spacings.com

steve1980 · 24 October 2011 at 7:56PM

How do you compare with the likes of B & Q, Toolstation, Screwfix etc? Is there a market for what you do?

paulwf · 24 October 2011 at 8:10PM

How does selling tools online compliment being an electrician?

Have you thought about offering courses in basic DIY? Show people how to rewire a plug for example and then sell them a set of screwdrivers while they are there. Doing training courses is great, you get the money from the classes and also sell some product.

Ways to drive traffic to my new webshop

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