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Website struggles

by Bruich76
4 replies
I have previously ran a small scale website that sold copy documents. It has been around for around 5 or 6 years and usually earned around £6,000 or 7,000 a year after taxes etc. This was perfect because it did everything automatically - I had little or no input in it whatsoever.

Around a year ago, competitors emerged from the woodwork - only they started giving out their version of the documents I was selling for free, the end result is that keywords on Google adwords have become more expensive, and sales have reduced.

At the moment the website is basically a pay via PayPal site that is set up to automatically email you the documents after email has completed.

I wondering if you guys have any ideas how I can turn this around, clearly, I could also go down the free route, but then how would I make money? I know I could have adverts and things, and Amazon sales things - but I don't think the website gets enough traffic to make it worth while.

At the moment, about 90% of the visitors come to the site via, adwords.

Thanks, P.S this website is kind of responsible for a lot of the site's success, i've always used tips and hints from here along the way. More of a lurker then a poster.
#struggles #website
  • Profile picture of the author origin
    Hi Bruich!

    Just quick off the top of my head, you can not offer something in addition maybe that the others are not? Maybe a free ebook or some other service? Maybe document personalisation?

    Offer something exclusive in addition to what your competitors are offering to make yours a compelling offer?
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  • Profile picture of the author Ricky Dawn
    Like origin said, if other sites are offering what you are but for free you need to give them something extra, to justify the cost.

    Personally I would sell the site, because even if you do offer something for free with every order it's not going to convert anywhere near as well as it used to because they are most likely looking for that one product and don't really care about a free eBook, as a guess you'd be spending more on AdWords than you make since your conversion rate will drop.

    The other option is to do some proper SEO, get the traffic organically rather than paid - this way it doesn't matter if your conversion rate drops!
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  • Profile picture of the author Geek3000
    Maybe repacking what you are delivering is the answer instead of adding something new. For instance, how could using the information that you are already giving be made easier for your customers? What your competitors have done is solve a problem by eliminating the price tag. What other problem can you eliminate from what you're offering? Lets say I wrote a book on how to fish and it was selling for $20 and then my competitor ends up selling the same book for free. I may not necessarily need to start writing more fishing books to either sell or give away free. Perhaps making videos or turing my product into an audio book is the answer because I would be addressing the problem of inconvenience and time consummation.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruich76
    Thanks for the replies they are much appreciated.

    I guess the URL is quite valuable to be honest. Although, I'm not sure - it's been around for 5 or 6 years attracting good visitor figures and always used adwords so it will have links with the hot keywords for the sector.

    how would i go about valuing it though? the website does need a re-vamp. it's outdated now. i've built a new one, but that's having similar problems.
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