Ways to drive traffic to my new webshop

MoreOn

InsideInsurance wrote: »

People tend to trust a brand slightly more than A-List-Of_KeywordsWith-Odd_spacings.com

Actually there is no empirical evidence to support that, there is evidence to suggest perception of mid-word spacing differs across cultures.


I would add, again it does depend on your web primary and secondary strategy, typical examples would be transactional, brand oriented, service or relationship oriented or media/portal...

MoreOn

steve1980 wrote: »

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

Yep, and it costs a lot to train..

steve1980

MoreOn wrote: »

Yep, and it costs a lot to train..

What sort of answer is that?

The OP is going to run a business selling tools, something that doesn't need a lot of training for.

AliceJenkins

The things you do to the site itself will make very little difference, it's all about links.

You still need some on page stuff, but it's the links that will either make you able to compete with the big boys, or not. Search engine wise.

MoreOn

AliceJenkins wrote: »

The things you do to the site itself will make very little difference, it's all about links.

You still need some on page stuff, but it's the links that will either make you able to compete with the big boys, or not. Search engine wise.

It's more complicated, there are plenty examples where the big boys have millions of lines yet the right DN and a few links win on PR

InsideInsurance

MoreOn wrote: »

Actually there is no empirical evidence to support that, there is evidence to suggest perception of mid-word spacing differs across cultures.

I admit that I have never seen a study from one of the big data companies but I have certainly seen plenty of smaller studies using things like PPC campaigns which showed that the domain name does impact both click through and conversion when all other variables are the same or truly random (ie where Google decided to place the ads).

It is a straightforward experiment to do but requires a fairly substantial PPC budget to get enough impressions to remove the statistical relevance of the random placement.

MoreOn

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I admit that I have never seen a study from one of the big data companies but I have certainly seen plenty of smaller studies using things like PPC campaigns which showed that the domain name does impact both click through and conversion when all other variables are the same or truly random (ie where Google decided to place the ads).

It is a straightforward experiment to do but requires a fairly substantial PPC budget to get enough impressions to remove the statistical relevance of the random placement.

Are the smaller studies in any journals? Or are the results open to the public? If so can you PM details..

One of the problems with PPC campaigns and DNs is the confusion between direct and indirect or natural typins. It is also difficult to transfer results across companies and replicate the same strategy because of the internal and external dynamics and that any study of a DN etc would be consider as not being significant in any TLD.

BlueSD

Hi Micky and anyone else out there looking for info on optimising your SEO and so on for marketing purposes.

There are a lot of pros and cons in the various options open to you and unless you have a good understanding of what you want and what they're offering, you could easily get stung.

I don't know if you've heard of the Donut websites, but they provide lots of free advice and information about what to look at and consider when starting up a business. I know their Marketing Donut, in particular, has a lot of articles about SEO/driving traffic to your website etc, which I found invaluable and explained it to a real novice.

HTH

BlueSD

Micky_d

Thanks to everyone who has contributed. I think that I am going to need some more time on SEO to try and get a more thorough understanding of it.

The electrical work and business I set up was phase one of my business plan and the web shop will keep me in the arena of tools, having been a general manager for B&Q and Focus over the years. I plan to operate the web business as almost a separate concern with the electrical business a bread and butter skillset I can always draw on.

Everyone have given me food for thought and a long list of questions to go aways and look into. Thanks:T

patman99

I got hold of an e-book on Google-whacking (the art of making money out of AdSense). This is the book that people who are gullible-enough, buy from sites that proclaim "Make a living from Google, it's easy".

The book does contain a lot of 'padding' but it also contains some top-class info on SEO. If you search the torrent sites like I did, you should find it available for download.
A few things that work really well include having

1. A Facebook shop linking to your main site and showing some of your stock. Costs nothing, but can generate loads. Even the likes of CocaCola have one.
2. A blog. If your site has a well-written blog, it will bring traffic to your site as people google for info on how to do certain jobs.
3. Twitter. Believe it or not, a good Twitter feed can bring customers flocking to your site. A expert on Twitter for business was on the radio a while back and said that 15 minutes spent tweeting about your business each day is worth £10k in advertising.

I'm in the process of setting-up an online clothes store for a customer, but he thinks it will generate a massive profit without much work. Trouble is, the guy who will be running the web-based side of the business has no idea about how to use Twitter and F/B, so I feel the business will struggle badly.