Site is too broad... need advice

[RobertBand]

Hi I'm new to internet marketing but I have a degree in business and decent computer skills, this is why a good friend of mine wants me to try and drive traffic to his site. My problem is that his site is far too broad for most niche marketing ideas.

My problems are twofold...
1)He's using the Jeff Paul set-up sites and godaddy hosting. Neither one makes my life any easier.
2)His computer skills are to be honest... poor at best. Leaving me to set up a lot of the code and design functions.

But nonetheless I'm trying to make some money for him so I can make some money to start my own gig. I'm really looking for advice on how to handle this whole mess. Right now I'm using a spectrum of niche areas to boost traffic to his site but I'm not getting conversions because of the lack of specific catagories and the fact that he only has maybe ten items per group if I broke it down. I'm slowly working good SEO into his site but its difficult with the lack of real content. My social networking is getting most of the hits but only ten or twelve per day at best (something is better than nothing... I know and live by this idea).

Basically my question boils down to is there a better way to market a broad site with general items for sale?

The site is TheOnePlaceToShopOnline.com or click my sig to check it out. He only has about half of his items up right now but I plan on getting the rest out by saturday morning. What he has up now though shows the spectrum of wares for sale...

Thank you for reading this and A huge thank you in advance for any ideas you can give me.

[rosetrees]

Yes, I see what you mean. You're up against it there. He isn't actually even selling those things is he? All the links take you off-site to somewhere else.

A hint - maybe take the link out of your sig and just leave it in the post - sig links are (I think) only allowed to be for sites you actually own.

I don't know what others think, but I would strongly advise your friend to start again and focus on one area that he wants to promote - computer stuff, glass angels with heart stuff, etc.

The domain name means nothing, so try using that for an introductory page and then shifting stuff to sub-folders with more meaningful names associated with the category of goods on offer.

Sorry - can't think of anything more helpful to say. I'm sure those who run online shops will come up with better answers.

[greenovni]

Way too broad. I would offer him a lot of smaller niche sites and break the site up so you can concentrate in specific niches.

[JohnMcCabe]

Too broad? That's the least of the problems.

Let's start with the drop down ad from GoDaddy. I haven't seen something that tacky since my days with GeoCities, Tripod, etc. It screams "amateur".

Even if someone does accidentally click on one of the products, they get redirected to a page that looks totally different than the one they were just on. There's a jarring disconnect that arouses suspicion.

The visible stat counter badge is another thing that says, in concert with everything else, "this is not a serious merchant"...

Advice?

Scrap this mess, have your friend try to get his money back, and start over.

Get a real hosting account. You can find suitable starter plans for under $5 month, and you don't have to live with GoDaddy taking the top 10-20% of your real estate.

Use the domain you cited as a front end that openly funnels people to the product niche of interest. Don't expect much from it, though. It's more to provide an appearance of a serious merchant. Link it to...

A series of niche sites, with their own domain names. Think about driving traffic to the individual niches, rather than the front end.

Use a similar theme so that when people do click through they see something that looks like what they expect.

I've never seen the Paul stuff, but I may have to force myself to sit through the infomercial, if only to be able to warn others about it...

[greenovni]

I just looked at it and didn't even click on anything, too messy, broad and I personally contributed to the bounce rate.

[RobertBand]

Thanks a lot. Those are a lot of really good ideas and some good real constructive criticism. I'm really glad I've found a place that people offer real help instead of just bashing and calling it stupid. Now I know I've got some real work ahead of me and he has even more ahead of him. Thanks A lot fellow Warriors!

[AlexR]

All of the above.

1. You shouldn't create a diversified supermarket as this site has unless you're a supermarket.

2. Split the site to a number of "core" products which are related to each other and link the sites together. This helps with SEO and is less confusing to the visitor. You don't go to the butcher to buy tyres or the baker for curtains. I don't know how the range of products was selected, but it doesn't make sense from a business perspective.

3. As mentioned, continuity is essential to show people that they are still on the same site as they move around.

4. There is even a link to a competitor's site.

5. There is no target market because of the diversity. It's not a case of "if I have a great range of products, I can pick up sales on all of them". The products may be there, but the customer's aren't coming in their thousands, nor will they.

I'd burn this to the ground and start again. Do it properly with a targeted product range and a different supplier... so that at least if you must link to the supplier's site, there is at least some continuity there. The supplier's site sucks as much as your friends site. He's really got nothing going for him at the moment.

When viewing a product...there is a minuscule text link that says "Return to TheOnePlaceToShopOnline.c*m". If the customer does not click that or use the return button, but instead clicks on the more obvious menu at the top of the page, he ends up on the supplier's site instead of your friend's and there's a contact form there that collects customer info for the supplier...not your friend.

Seriously...advise your friend to walk away from this and do some more research on good suppliers/dropshippers.

Alex

[hmigroupllc]

Do what John McCabe said!

Quit wasting your time with a site that CAN'T work. Broad based sites like that will never make money.

Stop using GoDaddy. They are the worst. Not only is it not good hosting for business, they will... and have... shut many people down for things like spamming by an affiliate, or your account getting hijacked and used by spammers (which they should be protecting you from), etc.

So, if I were starting a business and needed a proof of concept, I would get rid of the site you are trying to use, because you will only prove what everyone already knows, and have already proven... you have to get focused.

Wayne Sharer

[IM Dude]

Hey man,

The other posts have good points but none of them have tried to help you. If you want to get started the best way to do it on the cheap is with bum marketing. Not only will you learn a lot but you will not waste money on things that will not work. Maybe only some time.

Also i know you are trying to help a friend but sometimes things are too far gone to fix. If his site is costing him a lot of money have him try to get his money back then scrap everything. Then start over using bum marketing techniques.

Remember to tell him he did not fail he just learned another way it will not work.

[RobertBand]

Again, great advice guys. I know this site is way too broad and we need to focus in on core products. I've been tryin to tell him this but he's stuck on the idea from the dang Jeff Paul commercial that he's gonna make a bundle selling their stuff. He jumped into this feet first in april and I've been trying to do something with it for a month now. I'm really glad I can come here for advice from people who actually do this for a living.

I just want to give anyone who reads this a heads up on the Jeff Paul thing since nobody seems to know much about it. Basically what it does is give you ten "Premade Sites" per month with a single product on it. You basically link your hub site to it and people buy it from the premade site. The wholesaler takes their cost off then gives you the markup. Thats why the links to the other pages all look different from the homepage. When I first looked at this it seemed like a good (although half formed) idea. When I really started to work on it I found out that its not so much a scam but a very, very, basic outline of what you need to do to make an online business. I have very little control over the separate sites outside of the basic look of them... and I can't change the Home Buttom to actually point back to the homepage for the site... He doesn't even have a real shopping cart on the site... each product uses its own separate cart that you buy one item at a time.

This is what I've been working with and I'm definately gonna take your advice and take this dog out behind the shed. He's never gonna make anything off of it so neither will I. Thanks for helping me prove my point to him and (hopefully) giving me some ground to stand on to get this going in the right direction...

[JohnMcCabe]

Hey, there's no accounting for people's pets. One person's beloved family member is another man's ugly mutt...

[Fun to Write]

In my opinon, this site isn't going to make any sales.

Why?

Because of the trust factor.

Your friend is competing with big names online that already do this, and do it better. Like Best Buy, Amazon, Shop.com, etc.

Why should anyone trust that they can punch in their credit card info and actually receive the product offered from this no name site?

They won't.

I think your friend got ripped off on this deal. He probably won't believe that, though, and keep posting products. All you can do is help him out as a friend, but don't count on this project to make you any start up cash.

There's lots of great information on this site that you can research to find a niche to get started making money for yourself. You should spend a majority of your time on starting your own online project - less time on this loser.

This will be a learning experience for your friend, and when he doesn't see results, he'll either quit in frustration, or move on and learn about how to do niche marketing, etc.

Just being real.