Still no visitors...Help

[Shades]

All,

I've been running this site for almost 6 months now www.eastcoastshades.com . I've been putting it in free directories, working on keywords etc. I think the site looks pretty good (def could use your input). Were talking 0-20 visitors a day. When i have my google ads running im usually around 10-20. They turned off for a week and i've been at 2 visitors a day, ( probably me for all i know). Just shows me i'm getting absolutly no traffic. I use 3d cart so everything is done through there. All of the meta tags, keywords, etc. all done through 3d cart. Does anyone else use this that is successful with keywords or high traffic. Can anyone check my site cause i can't figure out what's wrong?

Thanks and sorry if these are stupid questions, i'm just at a loss.

Thanks,
Doug

[amxfan]

Doing a Google search for "East Coast Shades" you are on page 1 but have you looked at what else is on page one for that search?

I would have my keyword as sun glasses.
With this I would put it in my title, description, keywords, header tags and URL's .
Right now you do not have header tags nor do you have descriptions on your product pages. The word sunglasses is found in the title but not at the beginning.

Alt text and title text for your images would not be a bad idea as well.

You may want to ask for a site review for additional ideas.
Also back links, back links, back links with the term sunglasses, aviator sunglasses, kids sunglasses, something of this nature.

[grishamist]

Keyword research and keyword analysis is the key factor to consider. If you will know what keyword frequently use by users, that competitive keyword will be your "target". Just focus on keyword targeting on building links.

[Janna122003]

Originally Posted by Shades

All,

I've been running this site for almost 6 months now www.eastcoastshades.com . I've been putting it in free directories, working on keywords etc. I think the site looks pretty good (def could use your input). Were talking 0-20 visitors a day. When i have my google ads running im usually around 10-20. They turned off for a week and i've been at 2 visitors a day, ( probably me for all i know). Just shows me i'm getting absolutly no traffic. I use 3d cart so everything is done through there. All of the meta tags, keywords, etc. all done through 3d cart. Does anyone else use this that is successful with keywords or high traffic. Can anyone check my site cause i can't figure out what's wrong?

Thanks and sorry if these are stupid questions, i'm just at a loss.

Thanks,
Doug

You can optimized the content by using the product name as anchor text and put alt attribute of product images.

[2fk]

As what I found checking your site alt text on the images are really missing..they are really important cause robots can read images..by itself you should work on it and then there is no such content describing your products where in you can use in your keywords on it just don't kw stuff...content relevancy is a factor in SE..also you can use content in promoting your site..you should also do more on link building using your targeted keywords by the way the word itself sunglasses do really have a big average on search so you can concentrate first on targeting long tailed keywords..this way you'll be able to stay in the competition..On page review of the site might help and more strategies on promoting your products..

[jabo]

Your site has a nice position for its SERP from Google, how do you do your off page optimization anyways?

[Shades]

Thanks for all of the responses. Currently i'm using 3d cart, which is also how the site is designed and maintained. All meta tags are entered in a meta tag section for each product/page etc... So everything is in template form for entering titles, inserting pictures of product etc. I'm not sure if anyone here has used 3d cart and know what i'm talking about. I'm not sure if this is limiting me or helping me.

As for my off page op. i've been sending email to other sunglasses sites that i'm not neccessarily in competition with , ex. authentic vs. non authentic eyewear. I just seem to be having trouble getting linked. I've submitted to many directories as well but have not seen an increase at all during this time. I tried updating my page everyday for a couple weeks and that wasn't showing any improvement. Google adwords was really my only way of getting traffic and i don't want that. I want people to be able to find it naturally and not only through an ad.

My content is good why aren't the visitors flanking in. I see a lot of people talking about not having good content. I have plenty to help the users on my webpage. 1st i have a pic they can click on them leads them to a full explanation of what sunglasses are right for you face type, hair color etc.. I also have an "easy button", when you click this it just explains that we want you to email us a pic or description of a pair of sunglasses you want (maybe saw a celeb with them), and we will do our best to find then and get them for you. My product pics are good, prices are cheap and cheaper then a competitior that gets around 25k hits a month www.sunglasswarehouse.com. I have some of the same products at almost half the price.

Is my content just good to people but not google bots?

I understand i need to work on product descriptions, image labels and much more. How do i get my site analized as you guys are speaking of?

Thanks again for the responses, keep them coming this is my first time starting a thread.

Thanks,
Doug

[crankydave]

Doug...

Potential customers have to "see" you in order for them to "flank" in. They don't "see" you.

Good content is simply not enough. Takes far more. As so far as your links, this is what Yahoo "sees"...

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.co...&bwmo=d&bwmf=u

They are all from WPW.

For a site review, ask for one on this board if you like...

Submit Your Site For Review - WebProWorld

Dave

[janeth]

Hi Doug,

Getting traffic to a site is not as easy as submitting to a couple directories and adding some alt tags. It’s a lot of time and work.
If it was me I’d do a couple things.

1. I’d come up with 500 long tail keywords and build 500 landing pages for each of those keywords.

2. I’d also play with the design a little to make sure it would convert every visitor that landed on the site.

3. I’d add a blog and a forum.

4. I’d figure out what made me better that everyone else and I’d make sure everyone knew it the second they landed on the site.

5. I’d start playing with the social media sites and find one or two that could drive interested people to the site and I’d set aside a couple hours a day to spend with those people.

Ignore the search engines. Their like a woman, if you spend too much time trying to impress us we get tired of you but If you ignore us we want to find out more about you. Figure out how to drive traffic without the search engines and in turn you’ll see your rankings start to improve.

[sandis.viksna]

This guy has literally no links whatsoever. He haven't even tried it yet properly.

Are you adding at last 20-30 links/day from various sources?

What? No?

Are you crazy?

But Janeth is right - if you're newbie, you better of thinking of other means of getting traffic.

Versache sunglasses alone will take you 100's and 100's of links, posts, article submissions, blog entries, digs, forums, web 2.0 pages etc to rank your site for that term any at all. Also there is little to no content at all.

[craigmn3]

Sitemaps Sitemaps Sitemaps

Google Yahoo MSN


One other big issue I see is that none of your navigation is keyworded. Your Keywords are all about sunglasess your navigation says "metal frame" "Plastic Frame". Also none of your urls have the word sunglasses in them. If that is your major keyword, you are asking the bots to work beyond their brain.

If I am bot sniffing for relevance, I don't see it.

[flhu]

Not an SEO or traffic issue, but you should really get rid of the "Easy Button"(tm) unless you are affiliated with Staples.

Not like I think you would get in trouble for it, but it looks unprofessional in an otherwise professional looking site.

[ArthurNYC]

A few things, if you have a Yahoo store, I believe that Yahoo feeds some traffic into you from their Stores listing. But if you went through all this trouble to build a site, setup vendors and a shopping cart ... can't you find other ways other than SEO to monetize it? You know ... PPC, Affiliate ... and 8 million other online marketing techniques?

Just a thought, but you now have an asset (the site) and you are letting it sit there until Google lists you high enough to get traffic ... why?

Just a thought.

Arthur

By the way ... I am sure Staples appreciates the free publicity you are giving them by using their Easy Button.

[jackit_chick]

Somthing simple that you could do is add titles to your pages. Like after you click on Celebrity Sunglasses, it's part of the images where it says celebrity, so it's not counted as a keyword. Then you click on it and there's no "Celebrity" anywhere on that page. So add a text title of that, and it will add to your keywords. Plus if a customer came straight to that page off of google, they wouldn't know what it was, they'd just see different kinds of sunglasses.

[wisesolutions]

One good way to get some recognition in search engines in submission to Yahoo Directory. It costs $299 / year. The link is here:

https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/

Also, I would highly recommend using Google, MSN and Yahoo Local listings. They are free (right now) and work well.
Just check each of these for the URL to submit.

Also, you need to check for keywords that people use.

Lastly, when you get that done, spend some time figuring out how to get people to contact you. Using autoresponders, etc work well. We have had good success with this. In fact, one of our sites had a 44% signup rate.

[Hometutor]

My background is in sales

I'd get rid of the word cheap. If I saw that in a title tag on an SE I'd probably avoid it. I want to buy good quality products at a discount price, not cheap products at a discount price

Rick

[datetopia]

You should change your post title from no visitors to... 1 visitor, because I've just visited your website.
You need more back links: Yahoo! Site Explorer

[subsystems]

I read an article a while back about a guy that was trying to buy a baseball bat for his son. He didn't know what bat to get. He searched dozens of sites. The sites that had some information didn't relate that information to the products. The ones with large numbers of products didn't describe the bats well enough to know what he was getting.

Here was a customer that wanted to spend money on the right product. But the sites provided no help in that regard. The guy decided to buy something else from a different site and give up on the baseball bat as a gift.

What he discovered was 3 items that made the difference. What makes one product different than the others? Your site suffers in that regard. Are the only differences price and appearance? That seems to be what you are suggesting with the site. If so I'd just sort the entire catalog by price low to high and find the one that I like the looks of. Even if I might be happier with a more expensive pair. But I don't know that based on the lack of info about the products.

So the article related 3 items that are often overlooked. Features, benefits and results.
Features: describes various attributes of each product. Polycarbonate lens, acrylic lens, metal hinges, ultra light weight, scratch resistant coating etc.
Benefits: What are the advantages of this feature vs other choices? Polycarbonate lenses, polycarbonate is one of the most durable lens materials available. Metal hinges are much stronger than plastic molded hinges. etc.
Results: What are these benefits going to mean to the average user? Polycarbonate lenses tend to last longer than cheaper lens materials. The little extra in initial purchase price can be easily offset by having the sunglasses last much longer.

Since I started adding this type of information to my sites, I constantly get emails of praising the completeness of my sites. Well, the conversion has gone up at bit but over time sales seem to be more steady and repeat business is great. Once you have a believer they will come back and buy more and more. Having detailed product information adds to the trust factor. It tells the customer that you are serious about the product and care that they know what they are buying.

Another suggestion:
You have a very nice page on face shapes, hair and skin. For each product add which face shape, hair and skin attributes the product was designed to work best for. Then have the site filterable by each of the attributes.
Why would I want to waste my time looking at products that wouldn't be the best for me? Let say I have a round face, light complexion and tight curley hair. Maybe there are a dozen or so products that would work well for me. If I can look at only those I can get to a decision faster and buy. I might even want to buy several different pair for different uses.

[SemAdvance]

Hi

You have quite a few issues with your site that are hindering the robots ability to crawl your pages and determine their theme. Your URLs seem to be presenting a conflict and are not the best they could be.

The links you are building are of a very low value if any to Google and would at best drive only minor incremental traffic.

In addition you have design issues which even if you get traffic, will lead to poor conversions to sales (Buy button is the worst to use)

You should look to hire someone who can help with usability & marketing.

[cbosleeds]

Very good advice above. I would also add product descriptions - search engines read words at the end of the day. Getting plenty of words on contextually tight web pages creates a lot more potential, from there getting the onsite work tightened up as advised above is your groundwork and the link building (if you get enough quality relevant links), is your key to bigger success.

[phochief]

In addition to what everyone said....

1) Get more inbound links that are related to your website
2) Alt tags on photos
3) H1 tag on the main keyword phrase of each page. i.e. "<h1>Sunglasses at Discount Prices </h1>
4) Put "Sunglasses after each category on your navigation bar, like:
All Sunglasses
Metal Frame Sunglasses
Fashion Sunglasses
Casual Sunglasses
Sport Sunglasses
etc.

5) Aim you meta tags toward the product (keyword) on each page. For you home page something more like this:

<title>Sunglasses: Discount Sungalsses, Best Sunglasses, Popular Sunglasses</title>
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Sunglasses at East Coast Shades, quality sunglasses at wholesale prices, large selection of replica sunglasses. ">
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="sunglasses,sun glasses,discount sunglasses,polarized sunglasses,coast sunglasses,sunglasses julbo,cheap sunglasses,men's sunglasses,armani replica sunglasses, gucci replica sunglasses">

6) Work on each page's content, using keyword or keyword phrases, but don't overdo it.

Good luck!

[ami_iss]

You have Google Pagerank = 0 and no backlinks at all listed by Google. which means your site cannot be very competitive. If someone told you they are linking to you, evidently they didn't do it or gave you javascript or redirection links or Google didn't find it yet - or they are bad neighborhood Web sites.
You are evidently aiming at the keyword "Sunglasses" and a few others (you don't tell us what keywords you want).
For starters, focus on one keyword phrase.

Keyword Sunglasses has hundreds of millions of pages. You will not be competitive there for a long time if ever.

Keyword Cheap Sunglasses OR Discount sunglasses are good keywords for you because they have a fair amount of traffic and relatively few Web sites. You can check in the usual places.
The page title should have only the keyword phrase in the title tag and in the H1 header.
All these are elementary issues
You can get some links for example by registering in DMOZ.org and by starting your own Web log (in bloglines even) and by listing in RESPECTABLE directories.
Read about SEO at any beginners guide to SEO (EG at the site below)

SEO - Search Engine Optimization

[Shades]

First i want to thank everyone for there response, i never expected to get this much feedback. Awesome Board and none of it was bashing my ignorance !!!

I tried staying away from using the keyword sunglasses due to its competitiveness. I've been targeting "discount sunglasses" and "cheap sunglasses" but maybe due to the point made that no one wants cheap sunglasses i should change this.

sandis.viksna
Are you adding at last 20-30 links/day from various sources?
Do you have any advice on adding that volume of links/day? I've sent out tons of emails to sites that i've seen linking sunglasses sites. I've even added some on my links page before emailing them to add me and that i've already added them etc. Heck I would be happy adding 1 link a day.
Janeth
1. I’d come up with 500 long tail keywords and build 500 landing pages for each of those keywords.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. What would i put on these pages? I will do some research on landing pages in the mean time. Also i am not sure how limited I am by 3d cart.



Should i definitely get rid of the easy button? Is it even catchy or is it worthless? I am trying to tailor to the customer as much as possible since no one can tell what these will look like on each individual. But I definitely agree on adding descriptions. I'm still trying to convince my gf who is a marketing major to help me with those attractive descriptions....

phochief
2) Alt tags on photos
I'm not sure how to do this. With 3d cart i just upload them and can tag a link, but not sure how to do an alt tag on them?

3) H1 tag on the main keyword phrase of each page. i.e. "<h1>Sunglasses at Discount Prices </h1>
Do i just put this in the body?

I have a ton more questions and responses to everyones posts but I should prob touch the site huh? I will post again tomorrow and later in the week you should be seeing some changes to the site. (maybe tonight).

THanks again!!

Doug

[cz]

Shades

You have some great suggestions to implement that will help you get noticed. I thought I'd add that it will take work, work and more work to get the ball rolling. And BTW, you are a brand new site in a heavily saturated niche. GG returning 65+ million results for sunglasses and 60+ million for sun glasses. So be patient and start working on the posted suggestions and the wheel will turn. If you need immediate cash flow - then you might want to investigate PPC but be careful and watch your ROI's.

[rickanderson]

Originally Posted by Shades

All,

I've been running this site for almost 6 months now www.eastcoastshades.com . I've been putting it in free directories, working on keywords etc. I think the site looks pretty good (def could use your input). Were talking 0-20 visitors a day. When i have my google ads running im usually around 10-20. They turned off for a week and i've been at 2 visitors a day, ( probably me for all i know). Just shows me i'm getting absolutly no traffic. I use 3d cart so everything is done through there. All of the meta tags, keywords, etc. all done through 3d cart. Does anyone else use this that is successful with keywords or high traffic. Can anyone check my site cause i can't figure out what's wrong?

Thanks and sorry if these are stupid questions, i'm just at a loss.

Thanks,
Doug

im from canada and when i went to the contact page i noticed that its set up only for delivery in the states..

are you really excluding the whole planet except for the americans??

also...why no real email links?

rick

[jpatriar]

Originally Posted by Shades

First i want to thank everyone for there response, i never expected to get this much feedback. Awesome Board and none of it was bashing my ignorance !!!

I tried staying away from using the keyword sunglasses due to its competitiveness. I've been targeting "discount sunglasses" and "cheap sunglasses" but maybe due to the point made that no one wants cheap sunglasses i should change this.

sandis.viksna
Are you adding at last 20-30 links/day from various sources?
Do you have any advice on adding that volume of links/day? I've sent out tons of emails to sites that i've seen linking sunglasses sites. I've even added some on my links page before emailing them to add me and that i've already added them etc. Heck I would be happy adding 1 link a day.
Janeth
1. I’d come up with 500 long tail keywords and build 500 landing pages for each of those keywords.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. What would i put on these pages? I will do some research on landing pages in the mean time. Also i am not sure how limited I am by 3d cart.



Should i definitely get rid of the easy button? Is it even catchy or is it worthless? I am trying to tailor to the customer as much as possible since no one can tell what these will look like on each individual. But I definitely agree on adding descriptions. I'm still trying to convince my gf who is a marketing major to help me with those attractive descriptions....

phochief
2) Alt tags on photos
I'm not sure how to do this. With 3d cart i just upload them and can tag a link, but not sure how to do an alt tag on them?

3) H1 tag on the main keyword phrase of each page. i.e. "<h1>Sunglasses at Discount Prices </h1>
Do i just put this in the body?

I have a ton more questions and responses to everyones posts but I should prob touch the site huh? I will post again tomorrow and later in the week you should be seeing some changes to the site. (maybe tonight).

THanks again!!

Doug

I didn't read all the posts so maybe I'm just repeating what other have said.

I'd use low cost sunglasses and not cheap

designer before the word fashion, plus it appears visitors type in sun glasses and sunglasses
no one is going to seach on the phrase East Coast Shades - so why is that first in the title?
Seems like you have quite a few brand names to work with.

[avoir des goûts simples]

Hows your keyword? If you got ranked in google you will surely get visitors.

[edhan]

Personally, I would do research on keywords relating to sunglasses. You will need to find out long tail keywords as well as commonly search for keywords.

Next will be building up links daily to increase awareness. Since your site is 6 months old, you can graduallly increase links relating to your site by using site exchanges, PPC, directories, forums, etc with signature. It is quite tedious for a new site to draw traffic unless you have money to create fast traffic. With low budget startup, you have to consider slow starting with gradual increase of traffic from search engines, directories, ppc, forums, etc. You will require a little patience and alot of work on your side.

Your daily input of links is important as it will increase your traffic flow. If you have extra cash, you can try as form of advertisement that will help to draw in targetted visitors. Remember to capture their emails during that period of advertisement as they will be your potential customers.

As said, you will need a little patience for the growth. I took more than 1 year before seeing a smooth amount of traffic.

[confettiguru]

Originally Posted by Shades

First i want to thank everyone for there response, i never expected to get this much feedback. Awesome Board and none of it was bashing my ignorance !!!

I tried staying away from using the keyword sunglasses due to its competitiveness. I've been targeting "discount sunglasses" and "cheap sunglasses" but maybe due to the point made that no one wants cheap sunglasses i should change this.

sandis.viksna
Are you adding at last 20-30 links/day from various sources?
Do you have any advice on adding that volume of links/day? I've sent out tons of emails to sites that i've seen linking sunglasses sites. I've even added some on my links page before emailing them to add me and that i've already added them etc. Heck I would be happy adding 1 link a day.
Janeth
1. I’d come up with 500 long tail keywords and build 500 landing pages for each of those keywords.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. What would i put on these pages? I will do some research on landing pages in the mean time. Also i am not sure how limited I am by 3d cart.



Should i definitely get rid of the easy button? Is it even catchy or is it worthless? I am trying to tailor to the customer as much as possible since no one can tell what these will look like on each individual. But I definitely agree on adding descriptions. I'm still trying to convince my gf who is a marketing major to help me with those attractive descriptions....

phochief
2) Alt tags on photos
I'm not sure how to do this. With 3d cart i just upload them and can tag a link, but not sure how to do an alt tag on them?

3) H1 tag on the main keyword phrase of each page. i.e. "<h1>Sunglasses at Discount Prices </h1>
Do i just put this in the body?

I have a ton more questions and responses to everyones posts but I should prob touch the site huh? I will post again tomorrow and later in the week you should be seeing some changes to the site. (maybe tonight).

THanks again!!

Doug

I don't know anything about 3D cart but they must have tech support. Ask them how to do the above.
Also, Alt tags are important for persons with disabilitiesa as well as for the search world.
I think the easy button looks cheesy (sorry) and looks like you ripped it off from Staples. Cheap sunglasses makes me think cheaply made. Someone suggested High Quality at Discount Prices...much more appealing.
Good luck

[edwincms]

Hi Dough!

I think that almost all of the earlier suggestions hold value.
However, from a practical point of view, many of these are very labor intensive tasks and prob. do NOT pay off immediately.

If you want traffic fast, then I'd suggest you increase your prices and finance adwords campaigns from that extra profit.

Just a suggestion, that might suit you.

Good luck!
Edwin

[Niche]

I have taken a look at your site and have a few recommendations
I hope you don't mind if I am blunt

1. You need to go over your content and make sure that there are no grammatic errors on your pages eg "Don't forget to sign up for our free sunglasses drawing we hold every month"

2.Look at other sunglasses retailing sites and you will see there is a lot of glitz on them.Your site almost looks 'matt' Don't know if that's deliberate

The above two points are just to help increase conversions of people who actually DO visit your site

With regard to traffic

1. you need to optimize for the right keywords. I thought your site was about lamp shades myself till I visited it. I am sure other people can think of other things that fall under 'shades'. Sunshades, sunglasses are a couple of keywords I would consider

Use the google keyword tool and find the keywords that are relevant to your sunglasses business. Think, 'what would someone looking to BUY a pair of sunglasses type into the search engine browser?'

2 Build backlinks to your website using anchor text links relevant to your sunglasses business

Methods to use are
Article marketing
Forum participation. Use an anchor text link to your site as your signature, like mine and many of the other commmentators on this thread
Social bookmarking
Directory submissions


Good luck

[sandis.viksna]

Originally Posted by Shades

[COLOR=Red]sandis.viksna
Are you adding at last 20-30 links/day from various sources?
Do you have any advice on adding that volume of links/day? I've sent out tons of emails to sites that i've seen linking sunglasses sites. I've even added some on my links page before emailing them to add me and that i've already added them etc. Heck I would be happy adding 1 link a day.

I guess first of all you need to rebuild your website a bit, and then you can begin.

- there are 1000+ directories you can submit to - get the list and do 10 of them each day
- there are 100's of very related forums and 1000's of less related - e.g. like this one again gives you some links
- there are dozen good and hundred more blog sites where you can spread the word out about you
- there are bunch of good article directories you can write and submit articles to
- yes, some linke exchanges
- some paid links (be it one way, or reviews in blogs)
- various ideas on creating link bites (like competitions etc)
- web 2.0 properties like squidoo, zimbo, hubpages etc
- social sites / communities that allows profile pages to have details with homepage links
- social bookmarking
- video sites
- etc


p.s. about keyword research - well, go here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Set up so yo target USA and try keyword like: sunglasses
and get whole long list to start with, and yes, it is just scratching the surface.

sunglasses
bargain sunglasses
versace sunglasses
sunglasses online
discount sunglasses
mens sunglasses
prescription sunglasses
police sunglasses
serengeti sunglasses
men's sunglasses
d&g sunglasses
fashion sunglasses
designer sunglasses
buy sunglasses
cool sunglasses
wholesale sunglasses
prada sunglasses
discount designer sunglasses
armani sunglasses
oakley sunglasses
diesel sunglasses
sunglasses sale
...
and many more

Also then from the list keywords to go deeper, e.g.: versace sunglasses

and you will see lots of subkeywords, like:

versace sunglasses
versace sunglasses for men
gianni versace sunglasses
versace sunglasses 2008
discount versace sunglasses
mens versace sunglasses
buy versace sunglasses
...

but ok, this topic is too big, just to show you how much more keywords there possibly are, each of them could have a detailed page.

Imagine a page with 300 words talking about versace sunglasses for 2008! What to buy, what not, whats cool fantastic! form this type of page, people will be more savvy and will be able to make educated purchase from you

[Peter]

When you do get the traffic the content on product pages is insufficent to allow people to make a purchasing decision.

What will help on each product is a detailed product descritpion, this also helps in SEO. You can use a formula based text template as required.

e.g.

These designer sunglasses from Bloggs and Co are bright pink with an intricate detailed motif on the arm. The lenses on these sunglasses are a grey tint. etc

Get 2-3 sentances up and it is going to make a lot of difference.

You should add "sunglasses buyers guides" at the top menu, which tbh is virtually invisible due to white on light blue, the easy button does nothing for me especially as it is next to another generic button. In the guides you can then write out 3-500 words about sunglasses, which are keyword rich.

You also need to keep on target "shades" as far as search engines are concerned are also window shades.

Create a page with heading of sunglasses, the title of sunglasses and in the first few words of text sunglasses, which is repeated in the first paragraph and make sure the page itself is called sunglasses.

[Shades]

Thanks again for more posts....I definately have a lot of work to do, and a lot to go on.

Wow your comments have already made my traffic jump subconciously!!!! Ok i'm just kidding i know its all from this board but i had over 200 views and i thought it was just funny that yesterday's visits were equal to a couple months of visits. (No conversions of course).

I changed a couple things, nothing serious yet. I will be getting rid of the easy button. I will also be making descriptions for all of my products. I understand it's hard to buy a "fashion" product when you are only going by a picture.

When searching for keywords, is it good to choose ones with high searches but low competitive statistics. You know where is has two bars on the google keyword tool? Thats what i've been doing thinking that this means i have a better chance for that keyword since my competitors are not using it etc...???

Sandis,
Really good advice thank you. I will keep up with the directories, maybe what i thought was a lot submitted too was not a lot. I also understand the great importance of backlinks, but i still just seem to have trouble with getting them.




Another question i have is, do i have enough product? Should i increase my product range more, or work on the traffic first. I hold most of these products in stock so that i have a faster shipping rate, only about 10% I don't, but since i buy them bulk it's not as easy as drop shipping. How many products for this type of market should i have? Is there enough there to keep the customer intrested in searching for somthing?

Thanks, i'm getting awesome response from everyone. Keep checking back at changes I have made and let me know what you think. I will work on the page tonight.

Thanks,
Doug

[mawells]

Unless I missed it browsing through all the responses, I did not see a recommendation for you to submit to Froogle. Froogle Google can send you buyers and its free (froogle.google.com). Other sources like BizRate charge a fee, but you might want to check into those types of services, too.

Dynamic sites like shopping carts are always difficult to rank and add that to the Google sandbox of 6-9 months or more for a new site and well... you could be waiting awhile.

[IndustrialWebGuy2]

Regarding links, you need a lot of work in that area. But keep in mind, it will be a lot of work over a lot of time. Somebody above suggested adding 30 links per day. Don't do it! Adding at that rate simply tells the SEs that you're adding crap with no regard to quality. SE's prefer to see sites adding links gradually and naturally; not 10,000 at once or even 30 every day. So you need three things regarding linking strategy.

1) Follow the advice above about adding quality information. If your site becomes a resource of high quality information, not just sales information, other folks will want to link to you.

2) Broaden your horizons on who you want to link with. you mentioned linking to other sunglasses sites that aren't direct competitors. But what about vacation sites? Apparel sites? Bathing suit sites? Swimming pool sites? Beach information sites? Snow skiing sites? Driving and drivers info sites? Hunting, fishing, and outdoors sites? Sports sites? Think about everywhere people wear sunglasses. The answer is everywhere! So those are the folks you need to be trading links with! Those are all complementary product areas.

<snip CD>

If you want us to manage your time consuming task of link building and various other search engine marketing tasks, let me know. Good Luck!

<please add your link to your signature CD>

[Peopleunit]

I like the "Easy" button, although I'd change the name to "Help" - and from that section, provide info on style/face shape matching, your info on helping them find particular brands, upload pictures, why they should buy from you, return policies, privacy policies etc.

Speaking of pictures, in addition to visitors uploading or emailing you pics of themselves, perhaps tell them if they see a celebrity photo somewhere (with them wearing some particular style), have them send you a link to the photo so you can respond with a "best match" from what you have to offer.

Nothing beats real life pictures, especially on your home page. Offer people some sort of reward if they submit a photo after making a purchase that you can display alongside the stock photos. Either that or hire a few models (wifey, yourself, your kids, anyone) and post some real life photos.

I don't like seeing your "Free Shipping" on orders over $25... (Free is rarely free, if you know what I mean) I've done quite a bit of online selling, and what I think may work better is to state a flat shipping rate of $x.xx, no matter how many they buy, whether it be just one pair or ten. That and perhaps give a little something extra to first time shoppers - a lens cleaning cloth, a key chain, something.

As for increasing your traffic, I could recommend a dozen or more good sites (selling channels) that you can use to both sell product and draw additional traffic to your site.

BTW, do you carry "Blue Blockers?"

[Peter]

Regarding number of products, I wouldnt be too concerned yet. One issue that comes with too many products is categorisation, if you have more than 3 pages in a single category then the 4th page will barely get looked at, so you need to have control on product placement order. Also certain products are always going to sell and their is going to be an optimun number of lines to stock

I expect the most popular sunglasses will be those that appear in the press, so look out to promote anything new that appears in the media, if you dont have an exact product you can always says "similar to what Fred Bloggs wore at..."

[mark3738]

There is one other thing Doug that I believe has not been covered amongst all the excellent suggestions above...some of your really important 'added information' is an image and therefore the text won't be indexed by Google, Live, etc.

Your section on choosing the right sunglasses is a graphic. I would look at recreating this as text as the only graphics needed are the photos of the example sunglasses and perhaps a facial shape. The text would at least be searchable, and in the obviously very competitive world of sunglasses, this may be something that makes the difference, and at least with text you will have a 1000 times better chance of being found than if it is a graphic i.e. the robots can at least index your words.

Not being a 'fashion guru' myself I am more likely to ask the question about what type of sun glasses suit best, and after doing a quick search found that there were only about 4 million SERPs, so you would at least have a better chance of being found. As has been mentioned in other posts, you may need to look at 'longtail' solutions, so attacking things from a different angle and building yourself as an authority may begin to have rewards (or visitors anyway). Unfortunately there is no 'quick fix' so you will need to explore all avenues mentioned above in adding 'textual content' to your website, perhaps even a full page on what type of sunglasses are best and utilise the comments of subsystem about 'features, benefits and results.

Good luck.

[KelvinJawn]

use best techniques of SEO and your content should be rich keywords and you submission should be proper and do e-mail marketing after that you will get links

[Shades]

Hey I want to thank everyone again for the help. I'm currently reading a PR 2 and have been doing some work on improving. My traffic is still low and I've been submitting to directories, but it looks like they aren't adding me. Seem's like a lot of work not going anywhere. Let me know what you think of some of the improvements. I have started to add some descriptions, more text to my front page and some tags etc...

I have lots to do and have only been doing a little at a time right now, so bear with me.

Any comments?

Thanks,
Doug

[tmarke]

The free directories will mostly add you when and if someone gets to it. Many will offer a small processing fee that gets you in faster.

[Hometutor]

How's the list building coming along for your newletter? Got one started yet?

People will disagree but any type of backlink will help including the blatent ad section of forums, though long term networking is obviously better

Here's a note I made in my own forum

Does the Blatant Ad Section Help if Nobody Reads It?

Don't worry folks just research

Rick