Building Up Traffic and Business - New Website

[Kingdom35]

Hi All

I'm looking for some advice on how to build up traffic/people directly to my new website?

Is it all down to SEO, advertising on social media, great pictures etc?

I run a successful shop on ebay but I want to transition to my website to save costs and allow my orders to run more smoothly (I have a lot of custom made items - car stickers, that I need information to complete)...buyers on ebay seem to not read much of the description and I have to chase for the details to make these stickers = more hassle and culminating on me missing some of the painful targets ebay set top sellers.

Any advice is welcome

[RC1807]

You know about google pay per click, right - how sites become the top items when using google search?

[Kingdom35]

Yes I do, signed up for that over the weekend with a £30 pm budget to start with.

[droopsnoot]

Might be better asking in the "Business" or "Computers and Gadgets" section.

[sc0tt]

Kingdom35 said:

Yes I do, signed up for that over the weekend with a £30 pm budget to start with.

I will estimate that £30 will generate you sod all revenue. Having played with seo about 8 years ago bugets were a lot bigger.

You would be better off speaking to a specialist than frittering away £360 per year

[jonamv8]

sc0tt said:

Kingdom35 said:

Yes I do, signed up for that over the weekend with a £30 pm budget to start with.

I will estimate that £30 will generate you sod all revenue. Having played with seo about 8 years ago bugets were a lot bigger.

You would be better off speaking to a specialist than frittering away £360 per year

£30 pm will get you know where IMO either.

Whats your margin? Work backwards to hit a profitable adwords position, may or not be worth your while

[Frimley111R]

PPC is what you need but you need someone to tell you the cost per click and then you need to work out how many clicks you need to get to make a sale on your site. That's your ROI and it either works or it doesn't.

(God I made that sound simple )

[Si1295]

It will take ~ 6 months for you to get decent organic rankings on a new website, PPC is better in the short term

[Tim2k9]

Alternatively start thinking like a traditional marketer rather than the SEO world we seem to be in.

You say you sell car stickers, go to where your customers are. Car forums, car shows, sponsor a car before it gets a magazine feature, etc.

[DSLiverpool]

What about FB targeted adverts and maybe Instagram? If you are on a budget you will have to learn it yourself or see if you can get a dig marketing student who would want the experience.
As said above SEO will take ages so look at trad marketing also are you harvesting your eBay sales emails?

[anonymous-user]

Traffic is, of course, essential

But you also need a website that makes it easy for people to buy from

Amazon / eBay do this well

Generally, the more steps to the buying process, the less likely a visitor becomes a customer

Work hard to make it easy to buy from your site. For personalised stuff, look at things like moonpig and some of the number plate sites for ideas

Don’t expect sales on a new website to be much cheaper than on eBay / amazon in the early days.

[8IKERDAVE]

I have some experience in this from a Google adwords point of view. £30pm is just literally throwing money, we invest around £1000 a month which generates around £15K of turnover. But you need to do it properly, speaking to Google is pointless I've found as they are very robotic and don't try to understand your business. Speak to a company who specialises in website optimisation, they will know their fair share about setting up Google ads campaigns. We have it to a a point now where we know roughly how much we will get back from certain investment amounts so it works like a tap.

I can only really add my comments from experience though, your business model might be completely different and require a totally different approach.

[jonamv8]

8IKERDAVE said:

I have some experience in this from a Google adwords point of view. £30pm is just literally throwing money, we invest around £1000 a month which generates around £15K of turnover. But you need to do it properly, speaking to Google is pointless I've found as they are very robotic and don't try to understand your business. Speak to a company who specialises in website optimisation, they will know their fair share about setting up Google ads campaigns. We have it to a a point now where we know roughly how much we will get back from certain investment amounts so it works like a tap.

I can only really add my comments from experience though, your business model might be completely different and require a totally different approach.

What sector ???

[akirk]

8IKERDAVE said:

I have some experience in this from a Google adwords point of view. £30pm is just literally throwing money, we invest around £1000 a month which generates around £15K of turnover. But you need to do it properly, speaking to Google is pointless I've found as they are very robotic and don't try to understand your business. Speak to a company who specialises in website optimisation, they will know their fair share about setting up Google ads campaigns. We have it to a a point now where we know roughly how much we will get back from certain investment amounts so it works like a tap.

I can only really add my comments from experience though, your business model might be completely different and require a totally different approach.

Interesting balance of figures - you must have very low overheads if £12k of spend only brings in £15k of turnover - with no other overheads that leaves you £250 a month - so you are spending £1,000 a month to make £250? I would hope / expect adwords to have a better ratio than that if working well...

Tim2k9 said:

Alternatively start thinking like a traditional marketer rather than the SEO world we seem to be in.

You say you sell car stickers, go to where your customers are. Car forums, car shows, sponsor a car before it gets a magazine feature, etc.

Absolutely this - marketing online is no different to marketing offline - if you wouldn't stand in the market place and yell at the crowds 'come and buy xxx' then Google marketing may or may not be for you - if in real life going to a car show is a better use of your time, then think the same way online - if though your product is appropriate for anyone, then shouting out in the market place - 'come and buy my bread' works as anyone hearing it is a potential client - so google advertising may work...

[8IKERDAVE]

akirk said:

8IKERDAVE said:

I have some experience in this from a Google adwords point of view. £30pm is just literally throwing money, we invest around £1000 a month which generates around £15K of turnover. But you need to do it properly, speaking to Google is pointless I've found as they are very robotic and don't try to understand your business. Speak to a company who specialises in website optimisation, they will know their fair share about setting up Google ads campaigns. We have it to a a point now where we know roughly how much we will get back from certain investment amounts so it works like a tap.

I can only really add my comments from experience though, your business model might be completely different and require a totally different approach.

Interesting balance of figures - you must have very low overheads if £12k of spend only brings in £15k of turnover - with no other overheads that leaves you £250 a month - so you are spending £1,000 a month to make £250? I would hope / expect adwords to have a better ratio than that if working well...

Tim2k9 said:

Alternatively start thinking like a traditional marketer rather than the SEO world we seem to be in.

You say you sell car stickers, go to where your customers are. Car forums, car shows, sponsor a car before it gets a magazine feature, etc.

Absolutely this - marketing online is no different to marketing offline - if you wouldn't stand in the market place and yell at the crowds 'come and buy xxx' then Google marketing may or may not be for you - if in real life going to a car show is a better use of your time, then think the same way online - if though your product is appropriate for anyone, then shouting out in the market place - 'come and buy my bread' works as anyone hearing it is a potential client - so google advertising may work...

Apologies, £1000 per month generates around £15K turnover per month not per annum.

[strain]

PPC can and does work for some business.

Used to know a guy who spent £1000 PPC/month as an emergency locksmith, he used to come and pay his PPC bills in cash and had 12k credit with us for advertising.

Ideally look at proper marketing as has been said above, facebook, car clubs, car shows etc all work well. Anything with a club may be interested (car clubs, dog clubs, kid clubs)

Get the website set up and start learning SEO, if you dont understand it yourself you risk the woll being pulled out from underneath you.

I once interviewed for a full time role, guys SEO went wrong overnight (google updates) the UK based guy he paid was actually just forwarding work to china and then disappeared when it went wrong. The guy was up the wall as he needed to source work but didn't have the budget - as far as i know the company folded not long after

[jmcc42uk]

I did £300 per month on Adwords for my website - https://www.sussexwindowtinting.co.uk/

Didn't really have much difference but a professional person might have been able to optimise it more.

Need ideas for SEO that I can do for myself

[Tired_Peter]

In the beginning it's tough.

We did FBA, Google Ads and Bing Ads at the same time to compare the stats, I think there was one more but I can't remember what that was off the top of my head. This was when our domain name was new (www.cctvoutlet.co.uk), we found that Google Ads was the most cost effective for us. Even with the chance that people will share posts on FBA it was still better for us to put that money into google instead.

I'm guessing you have the free vouchers from Bing and Google for your PPC adverts when you first sign up? Throw them all into your first months advertising.

And good luck!

[Lemming Train]

Failed at the first hurdle. No web address in his profile.

[Tired_Peter]

Lemming Train said:

Failed at the first hurdle. No web address in his profile.

Lol, I missed that too.