how can I get more traffic to my website for free

InsideInsurance

missminx007 wrote: »

thats interesting, I thought that google was google

The "problem" is that Google is Google and no one outside of Google truly knows what goes on inside of Google.

There are a lot of companies that spend millions trying to work out how the algorithm works, how you can use it to your favour and track all the changes that they make to their system.

You very much have to consider SEO an art and not a science. You will read a lot of contradictory information and even 2 experts with a strong track record will not necessarily agree on every point on the best approaches.

patman99

Getting a mention with link in a blog helps. Btw nice looking site. Not to 'busy' on the eyes so loads quickly. Good colour scheme as well.

If you have friends who write blogs, than get them to 'review products' form the site and include links.

I have a domain registered that lends itself very well to a classified site, but have it purely to self-host my Wordpress Blog & email system. You have now got me thinking about getting a site up and running.

whitepaper

missminx007 wrote: »

Hi all, I have recently set up a new business selling eco friendly and fair trade toys. I am starting off small due to lack of funds and doing everything myself. I've managed to set up a website under tread lightly toys incase anyone wants to see if there are any bloopers. I dont come up on google though when you type in "eco friendly toys" how can I increase my ranking? I am there when you type in fair trade toys.
Until I make a bit of money I cant increase my stock to start doing fairs.
Is it worth spending any money on advertising? I need to target quite a specific group of people. I have already set up a facebook page and twitter too.
Any advice would be very greatfully received!

People often ask why re-invent the wheel.

In your case I'll ask why you are trying to attract traffic to your own website. There are websites out there that have loads of traffic already; traffic of those looking to buy products just like those you supply.

Get yourself an ebay account (you may want to see if amazon could help too).
There's more people ready to buy already visiting those sites that you could ever hope to attract.

Fair trade toys? Have you considered selling at arts & crafts type fairs? Or perhaps toy fairs if you are hoping this is more large scale?

Once you have a presence, and and a healthy turnover, you may then find buyers are asking for details of your own website.

You appear to have possibly put the proverbial cart before the horse on this one.
The .com days have long gone (and arguably proved to never really have existed in the first place)

missminx007

thanks to everyone who has replied, I am slowly working through your suggestions...thanks to inside insurance for going into so much detail, I am reworking the pictures and the placing of the "add to cart button" I shall be back in a bit once I have done these to address the other issues

Drifsrw01

Just simple and best guide is to expand your website links and keywords to all those regions within the country which you like to target most and go for social media accounts as much as you can. Get you business page visible on all those high rank social media sites and where possible go for social video site too by posting relevant videos of your business.

googler

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Another aside, you are trading on your site and therefore you MUST disclose somewhere who the person is legally buying from... is it Tread Lightly Toys Ltd or Your Name t/a Tread Lightly Toys and likewise you need to give a physical address - it can be a po box or a forwarding office (though the former isnt recommended) but must be there

Says who, or what law/statute?

oldtoolie

Website traffic means nothing if it does not bring sales.
All of this should be part of a broad marketing plan. Look up 'Guerrilla marketing' for good advice on small business marketing.

InsideInsurance

googler wrote: »

Says who, or what law/statute?

See http://www.bodlelaw.com/e-commerce/websites-legal-requirements-ecommerce-rules

In short Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2005 (as amended) and the E-Commerce Regulations 2002

robrooo

Some site optimisation tips:

You don't have an "h1" tag on your pages - this is an important tag since it carries weight for ranking keywords.

You images don't have proper alt tags, titles or filenames:

Here is an example from your Balance/Trainer Bike page:

<img class="wsite-image galleryImageBorder" src="/uploads/1/5/0/0/15006464/1199898.jpg?1" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; none;" alt="Picture">

Maybe this is not changeable because of the way your site is hosted, but would be better to have the name of the file something like "balance-trainer-bike.jpg" instead of "1199898.jpg", alt="Picture" should be something like alt="Balance Trainer Bike" and if possible add a title like title="Eco Fairtrade Ethical Toy Balance Trainer Bike".

Overall the site is not too bad though - I used the Reaction Engine to check it, it gave you D+ for "eco friendly toys" and C- for "fair trade toys" :

http://www.reactionengine.com/analyse?uri=http://www.treadlightlytoys.co.uk&keyphrase=fair+trade+toys#content

I would agree with using pinterest. Pin images from your site so your pins retain the source page URL, and encourages people to click through. Maybe consider adding a "pin it" link under all of your product images. The majority of Pinterest users are women.

Have you also considered a more traditional approach to advertising? Web traffic is one thing, but advertising in a targetted magazine (there are loads for mothers/babies and a few for ethical issues) might get better results overall. You may even be able to get featured in an editorial, which would not cost anything!

Good luck