My father's business is failing. It is up to me to save it. Help!

[allegrity]

Hey everyone,

I'm normally from the offline part of the forums and have been trying to start my own business selling mobile marketing but it has been tough trying to get clients. I am here on the SEO side to ask for your help.

Basically, my family has been struggling for more than a year now trying to making ends meet. The majority of my family's income comes from my father's business. He sells various party and home decor products through his e-commerce website and has been doing it since around 2002. Every year since around 2008, sales have been slowing down and since last year they have declined sharply. He has pretty much laid a big responsibility on my shoulders to try save and regain the income we have been getting from his e-commerce business. Its a pretty grim situation we are in and we are in risk of losing a lot. I know somewhat about SEO and how it works and its major benefits...I just don't know where to start, how to start or what I should even do. So might as well consult with people who have experience doing this here and hopefully I can get some professional opinions.

A few things I know:

1. I have access to his Yahoo store analytics so I know what keywords people are using to search for to get to his website. His website used to be on the first page for many of those keywords that he targeted but have since fallen to pages 2-3-4 and lower.

2. The last time he has had any sort of SEO work done was back in 2004. From then on he did some onsite SEO work of his own. He has never done any sort of off-site SEO such as backlink building, etc.

3. He uses Google Adwords and currently uses around 400 dollars a month on all of his ads. He has around 200 keywords he is paying for.

So, what I wanted to know is what specifically I can do to get his website back on the first pages of Google where he used to be for his keywords. We know for a fact the reason sales have gone down is because his website is no longer visible organically on the first page.

Since his profit margins are diminishing and growing smaller every month and we are barely making ends meet, he currently doesn't have the option to go out and hire some SEO company.

Would Warriors for Hire be a good place to buy some back linking, directory submission, SEO services to get him back on the first page for his keywords? Would these "budget" solutions help him or hurt him in the long run? Is this all that is needed? What would you do if it was your business and you really weren't too far off from being on the first page where you used to be?

I am all ears...

[App Developers]

My heart goes out to you reading this post. There are many here who can help get you on the right track. But also some who have no idea and will give bad advice. My thoughts are to increase his organic foot print with off page SEO. If you want you can PM me and I can take a look at the site for on page seo. But sounds like you need back links with targeted keywords and lots of them. I wouldn't waste my time with Free directories and go for forum back links, blog posts and so on. Also run a search for your dad's keywords are they still the right keywords? or are there better choices? But also please keep in mine it takes time to get back to page 1. I would not go with software or cheap back links like a ton of forum profiles. Read and read some more before you make your decision.

[chasnsx]

The two best ways to gain search engine rank, bar none, are to build quality content, and to hand-build high quality, relevant backlinks.

And your father is blessed to have a child who loves him as much as you do.

[Keen creations]

I hope for the best for your dad/family's buisness...first off, sounds like it won't be difficult to get on the first page of google for those keywords since your not to far behind (2,3,4 etc.) but I wouldn't know how hard it is since I dont know the competition.

Anyways, I would gladly show you some cheap reputable sources for getting to the first page of google but of course the best place to do that would be on this site! I would go to 'Warriors for hire' Sub section.

Check that section out and look for people offering backlinking etc. I would only pick services that have pages (2+ pages) of people using that service, because it shows that they are legit. Backlinking usually is pretty cheap so you should be okay..although I don't know your budget.

Once your dad gets one page one for all keywords then I would stop backlinking for a while and concentrate heavily on advertising. Not only google adwords but facebook and other stuff.

Hoping for the best, Connor.

[davidmeeonline]

I agree with the warriors for hire section, I personally would reccommend a service which you pay less than $100 for a page one ranking. It's up to them to build enough links to get the website back to page one.

The trouble with paying for backlink packages, is that you never know if it will actually move your site or not! A page one service, however, is fairly foolproof....

[paulgl]

SEO just is not the way to go. That's a business that is
ripe for adwords, not SEO.

Concentrate on adwords. 200 keywords is just insane.
That $400 a month account needs to be revamped. Hire
someone to do that the right way, or learn it yourself.

Now that's the truth.

Paul

[Keen creations]

Originally Posted by paulgl

SEO just is not the way to go. That's a business that is
ripe for adwords, not SEO.

Concentrate on adwords. 200 keywords is just insane.
That $400 a month account needs to be revamped. Hire
someone to do that the right way, or learn it yourself.

Now that's the truth.

Paul

Personally I still recommend getting on page one for some popular keywords using SEO still. I don't see why you say not to use SEO...using SEO gets traffic just like adwords but ITS FREE. So...I still recommend using SEO AND adwords and PPC.

[High Horsepower]

Originally Posted by Keen creations

Personally I still recommend getting on page one for some popular keywords using SEO still. I don't see why you say not to use SEO...using SEO gets traffic just like adwords but ITS FREE. So...I still recommend using SEO AND adwords and PPC.

No, SEO is not FREE. Quit saying that. Would you please SEO my 30 clients site, pretty please?

[Keen creations]

Originally Posted by High Horsepower

No, SEO is not FREE. Quit saying that. Would you please SEO my 30 clients site, pretty please?

Yea, I was just trying to prove the point that you indeed do need SEO for all buisnesses..

haha I didn't exactly mean its 100% free...I kinda meant that it was just cheaper than google adwords eventhough he should continue with both. From what I know once you pay for backlinking etc. and get on the first page for keywords you won't need AS MUCH backlinking and SEO work unless the competition is pretty fierce adding new links everyday etc.

Your father shouldn't have stopped working on SEO completly..thats why he went back a few pages (obviosuly) but it's okay...just start getting to work again

[High Horsepower]

Originally Posted by allegrity

Hey everyone,

I'm normally from the offline part of the forums and have been trying to start my own business selling mobile marketing but it has been tough trying to get clients. I am here on the SEO side to ask for your help.

Basically, my family has been struggling for more than a year now trying to making ends meet. The majority of my family's income comes from my father's business. He sells various party and home decor products through his e-commerce website and has been doing it since around 2002. Every year since around 2008, sales have been slowing down and since last year they have declined sharply. He has pretty much laid a big responsibility on my shoulders to try save and regain the income we have been getting from his e-commerce business. Its a pretty grim situation we are in and we are in risk of losing a lot. I know somewhat about SEO and how it works and its major benefits...I just don't know where to start, how to start or what I should even do. So might as well consult with people who have experience doing this here and hopefully I can get some professional opinions.

A few things I know:

1. I have access to his Yahoo store analytics so I know what keywords people are using to search for to get to his website. His website used to be on the first page for many of those keywords that he targeted but have since fallen to pages 2-3-4 and lower.

2. The last time he has had any sort of SEO work done was back in 2004. From then on he did some onsite SEO work of his own. He has never done any sort of off-site SEO such as backlink building, etc.

3. He uses Google Adwords and currently uses around 400 dollars a month on all of his ads. He has around 200 keywords he is paying for.

So, what I wanted to know is what specifically I can do to get his website back on the first pages of Google where he used to be for his keywords. We know for a fact the reason sales have gone down is because his website is no longer visible organically on the first page.

Since his profit margins are diminishing and growing smaller every month and we are barely making ends meet, he currently doesn't have the option to go out and hire some SEO company.

Would Warriors for Hire be a good place to buy some back linking, directory submission, SEO services to get him back on the first page for his keywords? Would these "budget" solutions help him or hurt him in the long run? Is this all that is needed? What would you do if it was your business and you really weren't too far off from being on the first page where you used to be?

I am all ears...

You are fixated on SEO, why? 90% of the members here believe that SEO is the almighty answer, it's not! There a 101 other ways to get more business.

Here's a few ideas:

Joint Ventures
Email marketing (does he have a list?)
Article Marketing
Press Releases
Video Marketing
Publishe E-Book and include links to your site
Contact large corporations and get large orders (one order would go a long way towards marketing cost)
Direct Mail
Social Media, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc...
Start a National Contest, get Free Press

If you want to PM your website I'll take a look at that also. I guarantee that needs work also.

Sorry to be so glib, but it ticks me off to no end that your father has known this for 3 years and done zilch.

I normally charge a billion an hour, but maybe I'll give you some Skype time.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by High Horsepower

You are fixated on SEO, why? 90% of the members here believe that SEO is the almighty answer, it's not! There a 101 other ways to get more business.

Here's a few ideas:

Joint Ventures
Email marketing (does he have a list?)
Article Marketing
Press Releases
Video Marketing
Publishe E-Book and include links to your site
Contact large corporations and get large orders (one order would go a long way towards marketing cost)
Direct Mail
Social Media, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc...
Start a National Contest, get Free Press

If you want to PM your website I'll take a look at that also. I guarantee that needs work also.

Sorry to be so glib, but it ticks me off to no end that your father has known this for 3 years and done zilch.

I normally charge a billion an hour, but maybe I'll give you some Skype time.

Read the site he wants to promote. That stuff is just not going to cut it.
We keep mixing stuff up here.

Repeat: ADWORDS

If adwords is not your game, then you are going to have to do a boat load
of print and other forms of advertising.

Ebooks, videos, contests, JVs?!

Paul

[IM Ash]

It sounds as though your dad's PPC campaigns are not optimized. I bet the 80/20 rule will come into play here... he needs to focus on the 20% of keywords that are actually converting and invest the $400 budget on those keywords.

He can then handpick a few of the best converting keywords and try and rank his site in the top 3 for those keywords as it will be a waste of time focusing on off-page SEO without actually knowing which keywords are going to bring in the money.

Next, he/you will have to broaden your reach and not be completely focused on generating sales online. It will be a good idea to start networking and building relationships with related businesses like party planners and interior decoraters. These sort of contacts can help diversify the businesses income streams and they may even surpass what your dad is making from his online sales.

[allegrity]

Thanks for all the help and responses so far. I'm going to try to get back to everyone.

Originally Posted by chasnsx

The two best ways to gain search engine rank, bar none, are to build quality content, and to hand-build high quality, relevant backlinks.

All of the manual onpage SEO work he has done on his website over the years has really helped him out to stay on the top pages of Google. He has a lot of content on his product pages but I'm going to have to go around the whole website and fix a ton of spelling errors and grammar mistakes as English isn't his first language. To be honest, I'm sure that is something that is turning away a lot of customers.

Originally Posted by Keen creations

Anyways, I would gladly show you some cheap reputable sources for getting to the first page of google but of course the best place to do that would be on this site! I would go to 'Warriors for hire' Sub section.

Check that section out and look for people offering backlinking etc. I would only pick services that have pages (2+ pages) of people using that service, because it shows that they are legit. Backlinking usually is pretty cheap so you should be okay..although I don't know your budget.

Once your dad gets one page one for all keywords then I would stop backlinking for a while and concentrate heavily on advertising. Not only google adwords but facebook and other stuff.

His budget right now for the time being is not high at all...maybe a couple hundred dollars max. I will definitely look at reputable sources in the Warrior For Hire section. Since his budget is very minimal right now, what I was thinking was to try to get him back on page 1 for his keywords that get him sales then after recouping some of the lost income we can go ahead and get into other marketing efforts.

Originally Posted by davidmeeonline

I agree with the warriors for hire section, I personally would reccommend a service which you pay less than $100 for a page one ranking. It's up to them to build enough links to get the website back to page one.

The trouble with paying for backlink packages, is that you never know if it will actually move your site or not! A page one service, however, is fairly foolproof....

I would appreciate it if you could PM me the link. Thanks.

Originally Posted by paulgl

SEO just is not the way to go. That's a business that is
ripe for adwords, not SEO.

Concentrate on adwords. 200 keywords is just insane.
That $400 a month account needs to be revamped. Hire
someone to do that the right way, or learn it yourself.

Before transitioning to selling his products all online, he used to have various stores in small plazas and malls. When he decided to go all online, SEO and getting to the higher pages of search engines was how he started to make his first sales and exploding his profits. I'm not ready to give up on it as I'm sure that falling from the first pages is something that is killing his sales. I agree that Adwords is huge and something that needs to be concentrated on as a bulk of his sales now come from it. I will be going over all his keywords and eliminating the ones that are not bringing in conversions.

Originally Posted by High Horsepower

You are fixated on SEO, why? 90% of the members here believe that SEO is the almighty answer, it's not! There a 101 other ways to get more business.

Here's a few ideas:

Joint Ventures
Email marketing (does he have a list?)
Article Marketing
Press Releases
Video Marketing
Publishe E-Book and include links to your site
Contact large corporations and get large orders (one order would go a long way towards marketing cost)
Direct Mail
Social Media, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc...
Start a National Contest, get Free Press

If you want to PM your website I'll take a look at that also. I guarantee that needs work also.

Sorry to be so glib, but it ticks me off to no end that your father has known this for 3 years and done zilch.

I normally charge a billion an hour, but maybe I'll give you some Skype time.

Because as stated before, SEO and getting to the top of search engines is what got him into selling big time online. I am interested in going ahead and using other marketing efforts like what you have mentioned above but there just isn't the budget to do all of that at this time. That is why we will try to rank higher for now, recoup some of that lost income and we will go from there to promote the business.

I agree that the whole website design, layout and content should be remade and revamped... but it would be a HUGE task which I know would cost a lot of $$$. Not something we can do at this time but something that we want to.

One thing my father is afraid of though about re-doing everything is that he doesn't know if that will hurt his search engine rankings and mess everything up that he has worked on and put countless hours into. It is something he knows has to be done though and is all for it when the budget can match the price of whoever is willing to do the work.

-----

Some more info from what I have gathered going over with him yesterday:

1. He is phasing out almost 90% of his products and sticking to what makes him the most sales and money. I feel this is a step in the right direction as the website has way too many products listed on it and is cluttered. This will help to focus our efforts on what is currently selling and bringing him in the most money as everything else will be eliminated.

2. He has told me that he goes over his adwords analytics from time to time but the conversion rate doesn't reflect on what he is selling or total sales. Even though he sells online, a lot of his customers call in and place orders through the phone.

3. Building on the second point, a majority of the sales has shifted from single person, consumer, small profit transactions to huge orders of multiple items, ordered by event planners for major events, thousand dollar transactions. He is trying to focus on that aspect now and selling to these event planners. Again, most of the time they order through the phone and not online so it is hard to track. Some of his past clientele has been pretty cool such has selling hundreds of beaded curtains to the planners this year's Grammys after party. Unfortunately, even if he asks, most of these major customers never send pictures of his products on display or give testimonials. I know it would help out if they did.

--

I've taken a look at his major keywords and his placements and this is what I have so far:

Keyword that brings him the most traffic so far this year: 492,000 results, top of page 2. No adwords used.

#2 keyword: 550,000 results, middle of page 2. No adwords used.

Keyword of new product he has rolled out that has been getting him a lot of sales with event planners this year: 7,100,000 results, middle of page 3, adwords being used.

--

I feel like everything is all over the place, analytics have not been being looked at and being kept track of. The website is old and cluttered, full of spelling and grammar errors and it just doesn't look nice compared to other e-commerce stores. I don't blame my father though, he has been running everything and doing this as a one man show for a long time. He didn't have the time or tech savvy skills to keep track of everything as he always had a ton of other commitments.

I feel like the business has to have its marketing efforts rebuilt from the ground up as well as the website.

I will be in contact with some of you, thanks for all the advice so far.

[Joseph Then]

After reading all the suggestions, here what I think you need to do.

Short-term solution
Study Adwords. You are spending way too much money on Adwords. I have personally reduce my client's monthly Adwords expenses from $300+ to $100+ because my client's campaign is not optimized. At the same time, my client's visitors are more targeted, which brings in more sales.

I know there is a free book that teaches Adwords, some warriors here, please tell him where to get one.

Long-Term Solution
Study SEO. Like it or not, SEO will take time and you should also devote some time studying it. Once you get the hang of it, you'll know what to do in SEO and what services to get in the forum.

For free ebook on SEO, Brad Callen has a very good book on it. Just Google "brad callen seo made easy" and you can find the book to download.

[allegrity]

Joseph,

Thanks for the advice. I agree that the adwords expense is huge and I will be going over it and seeing what is bringing in sales and conversions and eliminating the rest.

As for on-page SEO, my father has been doing it around his website here and there for years and it has helped tremendously.

[Kay King]

I think what has happened in your niche is increased competition for a smaller pie. The time when the site began failing (2008) coincides with an economic downturn that led many consumers to buy only necessities.

Sales of non-essential products (except for high end luxuries) is down for many businesses online and offline.

Reverse engineer the competing sites to see how they are maintaining their market share. Look for a product or service that could be added to give you an edge.

By all means, if there are grammar/spelling/typos on the site, clean it up. Do that first and make certain the site is as attractive and usable to visitors as competing sites are.

Carefully monitor the return on the money spent on ads. Whether you spend $400 or $4000 a month on adwords is not as relevant as what the return is for the ads you place.

Look at every aspect of the site and the promotion and target weakest areas first. Don't worry about competition - study it in order to compete with it.

kay

[High Horsepower]

Article submission and Press Releases can be done by yourself for FREE.

Email marketing is very low cost, does he have a list? If he has a list, I could make thousands from that in no time.

Video marketing is practically free, buy a WSO here and start uploading.

Social media is practically free (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), again buy a WSO here and get going.

Joint Ventures are free, start looking.

And for immediate results with Adwords, has your father deleted Negative words from his campaign? Example: If selling shampoo for people, you would eliminate "dog shampoo". This alone can save you 30% on Adwords cost.

All the above can be done with sweat equity and a couple hundred bucks.

I know what I'm doing, I make companies millions of dollars with the above advice. With no money you have to put in sweat equity, no way around it.

Just do something every day, in 60 days the business will be much better off. Use additional profits for SEO and website upgrades, get a Pro from the WF for hire section.

Tell your father to start treating this like a business, not a Hobby.

[Jeremy Banks]

Originally Posted by chasnsx

The two best ways to gain search engine rank, bar none, are to build quality content, and to hand-build high quality, relevant backlinks.

And your father is blessed to have a child who loves him as much as you do.

Tell that to JC Penny and overstock.com who used link buying, comment spamming and spammy link schemes to dominate the search engines for YEARS and make a mint, only to receive a small slap by google. The money was good when they were on top!

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by allegrity

Thanks for all the help and responses so far. I'm going to try to get back to everyone.



All of the manual onpage SEO work he has done on his website over the years has really helped him out to stay on the top pages of Google. He has a lot of content on his product pages but I'm going to have to go around the whole website and fix a ton of spelling errors and grammar mistakes as English isn't his first language. To be honest, I'm sure that is something that is turning away a lot of customers.



His budget right now for the time being is not high at all...maybe a couple hundred dollars max. I will definitely look at reputable sources in the Warrior For Hire section. Since his budget is very minimal right now, what I was thinking was to try to get him back on page 1 for his keywords that get him sales then after recouping some of the lost income we can go ahead and get into other marketing efforts.



I would appreciate it if you could PM me the link. Thanks.



Before transitioning to selling his products all online, he used to have various stores in small plazas and malls. When he decided to go all online, SEO and getting to the higher pages of search engines was how he started to make his first sales and exploding his profits. I'm not ready to give up on it as I'm sure that falling from the first pages is something that is killing his sales. I agree that Adwords is huge and something that needs to be concentrated on as a bulk of his sales now come from it. I will be going over all his keywords and eliminating the ones that are not bringing in conversions.




Because as stated before, SEO and getting to the top of search engines is what got him into selling big time online. I am interested in going ahead and using other marketing efforts like what you have mentioned above but there just isn't the budget to do all of that at this time. That is why we will try to rank higher for now, recoup some of that lost income and we will go from there to promote the business.

I agree that the whole website design, layout and content should be remade and revamped... but it would be a HUGE task which I know would cost a lot of $$$. Not something we can do at this time but something that we want to.

One thing my father is afraid of though about re-doing everything is that he doesn't know if that will hurt his search engine rankings and mess everything up that he has worked on and put countless hours into. It is something he knows has to be done though and is all for it when the budget can match the price of whoever is willing to do the work.

-----

Some more info from what I have gathered going over with him yesterday:

1. He is phasing out almost 90% of his products and sticking to what makes him the most sales and money. I feel this is a step in the right direction as the website has way too many products listed on it and is cluttered. This will help to focus our efforts on what is currently selling and bringing him in the most money as everything else will be eliminated.

2. He has told me that he goes over his adwords analytics from time to time but the conversion rate doesn't reflect on what he is selling or total sales. Even though he sells online, a lot of his customers call in and place orders through the phone.

3. Building on the second point, a majority of the sales has shifted from single person, consumer, small profit transactions to huge orders of multiple items, ordered by event planners for major events, thousand dollar transactions. He is trying to focus on that aspect now and selling to these event planners. Again, most of the time they order through the phone and not online so it is hard to track. Some of his past clientele has been pretty cool such has selling hundreds of beaded curtains to the planners this year's Grammys after party. Unfortunately, even if he asks, most of these major customers never send pictures of his products on display or give testimonials. I know it would help out if they did.

--

I've taken a look at his major keywords and his placements and this is what I have so far:

Keyword that brings him the most traffic so far this year: 492,000 results, top of page 2. No adwords used.

#2 keyword: 550,000 results, middle of page 2. No adwords used.

Keyword of new product he has rolled out that has been getting him a lot of sales with event planners this year: 7,100,000 results, middle of page 3, adwords being used.

--

I feel like everything is all over the place, analytics have not been being looked at and being kept track of. The website is old and cluttered, full of spelling and grammar errors and it just doesn't look nice compared to other e-commerce stores. I don't blame my father though, he has been running everything and doing this as a one man show for a long time. He didn't have the time or tech savvy skills to keep track of everything as he always had a ton of other commitments.

I feel like the business has to have its marketing efforts rebuilt from the ground up as well as the website.

I will be in contact with some of you, thanks for all the advice so far.

Here's the bottom line.....he was making decent money with site before, wasn't he? If so, a lot of this other stuff is irrelevant, at least temporarily. The reason he's not making sales now isn't because of bad grammar, or poor design. If it were, he wouldn't have been making sales in the first place. He's not making sales now because his rankings suck. Take care of that, and the problem goes away.

Long term, the other issues should be addressed as well, because fixing those will only increase sales. Short term, he needs to get those rankings back. A beautiful site with perfect grammar that's stuck on page 2-3 isn't going to make him any more than an ugly site stuck on page 2-3 is making him.

[milton11011]

lol @ seo being free

[allegrity]

Thank you everyone for the advice. I am currently working on the on-page SEO aspect of things and have started to cleanup and optimize his adwords campaign. I will be working on something everyday. I have also started contacting some experienced and proven warriors and inquiring about backlinking, directory, article and other offsite SEO work. (If anyone could PM me some of the people they have used for their offsite SEO work and have gotten positive results I would appreciate it.)

He has recently shared with me his current top selling products which we will be focusing all our SEO/adwords efforts on. He has also let me know that single product sales have pretty much all but stopped and almost all of the sales are now coming from huge thousand dollar orders from event planners so this is the market we will be focusing on.

@High_Horsepower : Thank you for the advice you shared. I will definitely start to implement some of these marketing methods. I just don't appreciate the way you speak about my father as if he is lazy or not hard working or something - he is anything but.

[High Horsepower]

Originally Posted by allegrity

Thank you everyone for the advice. I am currently working on the on-page SEO aspect of things and have started to cleanup and optimize his adwords campaign. I will be working on something everyday. I have also started contacting some experienced and proven warriors and inquiring about backlinking, directory, article and other offsite SEO work. (If anyone could PM me some of the people they have used for their offsite SEO work and have gotten positive results I would appreciate it.)

He has recently shared with me his current top selling products which we will be focusing all our SEO/adwords efforts on. He has also let me know that single product sales have pretty much all but stopped and almost all of the sales are now coming from huge thousand dollar orders from event planners so this is the market we will be focusing on.

@High_Horsepower : Thank you for the advice you shared. I will definitely start to implement some of these marketing methods. I just don't appreciate the way you speak about my father as if he is lazy or not hard working or something - he is anything but.

My apologies if you think I was saying your father is lazy or not hard working. I get so frustrated when business owners just sit there and watch their business deteriorate.

Reread my post, my ideas will get you more business than any SEO ever will. Disregard most of what you read here, 99% of these WF members do not work with business owners the way I do. Most members here "think" SEO is magic, the golden child, it's not.

You would be better off doing a direct mail campaign to event planners. You can mail a newsletter, a simple postcard, etc... newsletter is best. Joint Ventures will also make you great money. I was fairly confident that your sales were coming from event planners, not individual sales. You need to get in front of Event Planners whatever way you can.

Good Luck