SEO and Traffic Advice Needed ASAP!

Hi tazmania,

You should focus on building high PR backlinks. Find some websites that are related to the one you have made and ask for advertising space (text links or banners). Text links will be your best bet for improving search engine rankings but if you are looking for traffic quickly then banners from high traffic sites might be a good place to start.

Do you have a budget in mind? This will determine what you can and can't do (afford).
Have you done any keyword research for the site? (assuming you have if you've done on-page seo).
You will need to come up with a backlinking strategy that's appropriate for this kind of site and I'd recommend high PR backlinks and article marketing.

Hope that helps

Thanks
Eleanor

With a relatively short time before Christmas I would suggest focusing your SEO efforts on low to mid competitive product terms which you identify are good sellers on your site. Maybe put a small focus on the competitive terms and if it seems like you might be able to get a top 3 position within a short period of time then you can shift more budget/focus to competitive terms.
The reason I would suggest this approach is that ideally you will benefit from ROI from your SEO efforts in the short term and put yourself in a position to prepare for Christmas 2012 with much more time.

PPC is a very useful way of getting quick traffic to your site. It will also provide you with specific data as to which terms convert the best. If you kick off AdWords campaigns now and associate a substantial budget you should be able to feed the conversion data into your SEO campaigns and have a lot more confidence towards the potential ROI of keyword terms you are optimizing for.
Start with exact match keywords with AdWords and you can expand from there without blowing a lot of money on broad match keyword terms which might not perform as well or provide you with accurate data (broad match terms can provide misleading conversion data as the terms which convert might not be the specific term you are targeting).

Facebook ads could be a very useful medium also as I would imagine your business has a particular target market. Facebook ads are definitely a good way to go if you are confident that you know your target market as the FB demographical targeting options are very precise.

Everyone has different suggestions and experience when it comes to linkbuilding. Fiverr.com gigs can really offer a lot of value and there are a lot of WSOs which are well recommended. I don't have direct experience with BMR but have seen a lot of positive experiences listed within WF. Don't build thousands of links in a matter of days if your site only has a couple of dozen pointing to it. The temptation is there to hammer in new inbound links but my advice would be to scale up in a sensible fashion. If you got 10 links last week then get 50 this week, 100 next week, 150 the week after, etc. A lot of people will disagree and say "go for it and get a load" but this is SEO advice and everyone has a different approach and opinion.

Your site does look nice but make sure you have seasonal graphics ready for November to put on throughout your site. Make sure that people who reach your site know that your products make good gifts! Maybe create a "Christmas Gift Ideas" page and link off to it from your homepage/inner pages. Tell people why the gifts you have listed on your site make great Christmas gifts rather than just displaying your products and hoping people will make the link.

Also, vouchers are really good gifts for lazy people and those who are a bit nervous about 'getting it wrong'... men mainly In my case I might know someone who is intersted in healing crystals but don't know enough about which one is right for the person I am choosing a gift for. If it suits your business model then introduce gift vouchers for Christmas. Sorry if you do have them already listed but I couldn't see them on your site easily.

I see you also have a small presence within Facebook and Twitter. Now might be the time to kick into action a few competitions to help get the word out. Something interactive on Facebook whereby you encourage likes to your page. Maybe also create a tab with some promotion based on a specific product which you can change on a week to week basis to always offer your fans something new to benefit from and share with others.

By the way, it would be very interesting and beneficial to members of this forum to hear what you did and how it worked when the Christmas season is over.

Best of luck with your site.

That's no problem. Your motivation is a fantastic one as to why you have set up the online store. I really hope it works out really well for you this Christmas and you can build on the success throughout 2012.

Also, the link that Jacko (above) has shared is definitely worth checking out when it comes to link building ideas too.