Marketing Scented Products

Hi Virginia,

Welcome to Gooberland

Congrats on taking action. Remember to give your efforts TIME, you won't see results overnight.

This is one of the niches I'm in, so I know a little bit about it, not much, but a little...

Here are some thoughts in no particular order, and these are just opinions based on my experience.

About your website:

You want to ditch the intro page and make your index page a sales page. Those doorway pages will kill your traffic and hence your chances of making sales. Make your "Home Page" the index page.

On your home page, use vigorous English focused on your customer (you, your - NOT I, we, our) stressing the BENEFITS of your products so that your visitors can mentally picture the desired results they will get from using your products. Sell the sizzle, and not the steak (I hate that tired cliche :p)

The way you have your contact, register, and sign-in pages are guaranteed to drive customers away. You are selling commodities that can be found everywhere (I know yours' are special) and folks are not going to give you the kind of information you are requesting. (If anybody tells you differently, they are not selling commodities, so be careful when you read about list building that you understand the customers' reason for signing up on a list.)

Your "About Our Products" page comes on a little strong with the negatives. I'd change that, or restructure it so it doesn't read so 'scary' at the beginning.

On the technical side:

Make your individual page links keyword rich.

Example:
www.yourwebsite.com/category.sc?categoryId=3 is not SEO friendly. You could change your file names to something a little more search engine friendly such as: "www.yourwebsite.com/bath_salts".

Notice the file name is in lower case letters. You want to ditch the capital letters as you have some of them now. The sooner you do it, the better.

I would also make the product pictures larger to begin with. I know you can click to see larger pics, but you want the first ones your visitors' see to be adequate.

I hope this gives you some ideas to act on without dampening your spirits. You've made a great start, and most folks don't get that far, so you have reason to be proud. Keep up the good work.

KJ

P.S.

Michael Motley gave you some great advice. Act on it.

For what it's worth, affiliates can be a great source of sales if your price structure allows it. You sell 452 grams of bath salts for $14.00, I sell 1,000 grams for $9.95, so you may have a lot of room if you are the originator of the products.

Instead of concentrating online only, why not take it offline? Get a booth at a local swap meet, bring your "smell" samples (and of course your products), have your web address printed on EVERYTHING and give out flyers to your website with a SPECIAL offer if they order xyz product online, best of luck, Eva

P.s. Maybe even do consignment with some local stores? Should be non-competing stores though. I.e. an antique store displaying your products close to the cash register.