Ecommerce / Dropshipping Business Now What

Once you're to this point you should focus on 2 things:

1. Getting traffic (from any means possible)
2. Converting visitors into customers

Getting traffic - Usually we do this mainly through organic rankings in Google. You can also get a fair amount of traffic through free comparison shopping portals like Google Products, TheFind & FrogIt.com. Getting ranked organically sounds a lot easier than it is.

Since the Google Panda Update there's a huge emphasis on your website's design, layout & content. It's believed that the "user experience" is more important now than ever. If your customers enjoy your website, Google will reward you for that.

Converting visitors - Once you get traffic to your website you need to convert them into buyers. The most important factors are:

a) How 'targeted' your keyword phrases are that are bringing the traffic. A phrase like "insulated dog houses' is going to convert better than 'dog houses' because it's more targeted.

b) How well the landing page matches that keyword phrase. You're going to convert a lot better if the keyword phrase that brought the visitor matches the content of the page they land on.

c) How "trustworthy" your website feels to the visitor. This comes down to the layout of your site, trust graphics, a toll-free number, accepting credit cards, etc.

Hope this helps!!

Strike #1: Your site takes way too long to load. It's been 30 seconds now and it STILL hasn't loaded into my browser.

Strike #2: The lightbox popover. You don't even have a brand yet. And the offer is lame (10% off your NEXT purchase??).

Strike #3: You don't even seem to know what your keywords are and yet you're buying PPC. The text on your home page just repeats your title and adds a few meaningless words.

Strike #4: What's your unique selling proposition? What sets you apart from every other jewelry-merchant-wannabe who's dropshipping? Low prices? Quick delivery? FREE shipping?

Strike #5: No phone number or physical address on site. That's going to turn off a majority of people. You have major trust issues to overcome.

There are a lot more problems with the site -- not surprising since you just got started -- but you need to fix these five items FAST before you waste more money on PPC.

Jewelry merchant for more than a decade (and I ship my stuff: JCEarrings.com, check it out).

fLufF
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You've got work to do (the other two commenters are smart peeps - listen to them!) Make those changes and get yourself a few thousand targeted visitors via PPC and organic. Before long you'll get your first sale. And then your next. E-Commerce/Dropshipping is a marathon, not a sprint.

Awesome everyone! Thanks for your advice!

@fluff - I'm not sure why the site is taking so long to load. It's hosted through Volusion. I'll check into it.

The popover. You're right. It's a desperate attempt at something but I'm not sure what. I was going for being able to target my potential customers a little more and in the future be able to provide info more catered to their interests through newsletters. Too early? Everyone I've read about says they wish they had started getting more opt-ins sooner.

My USP. Yes, I'd like to hone in on that too. Free shipping, I don't want to do that. I do want low prices to be a selling point. My husband said that to me today too. After looking at my site he asked if I was selling diamond engagement rings or mommy jewelry. If my own husband is confused, then I need to rethink this!

For the address, contact info. That's not a problem. I'll add that now.

I'm finding a lot of limitations in building the site that I wasn't expecting. I've built a lot of sites in WordPress getting good content up was so much easier and then be able to do a little bit better on SEO. There are so many ways I could get articles and info up on as posts, but with this site, I am a little lost on how to customize it. I don't want my site to be a sterile, jewelry dropshipper. I want it to be personal but elegant at the same time. And therein lies a problem.

Thanks for giving me a lot to think about and work on!

All great advice about your site and generally what you have to do to drive traffic. But getting traffic to your site is all about marketing and marketing is all about your customers. Do you know who your customers are? Where they get their information? Are they on social media sites? How often do they buy and how much do they spend?
You have to define your targeted market and really understand who they are. Then, you can target the right message to them in the right location to get them to your site. Without knowing who and what your customers are - you are just shooting in the dark. And, if you shots are wide - you are just wasting time and money.
Love the strikes about your site - very helpful advice there.

I'm very new to internet marketing, however I have a few ideas that might help out with achieving more traffic/sales and the general cosmetics of the site. As mentioned above to advertise your site for traffic you have to be marketing towards targeted (potential) customers. Ideas could include writing more descriptive details about each item that you have listed, using specific keywords to draw attention from Google and to get you ranked higher in Google's search engine for those keywords. Do a search of the forums for keyword research/analysis, search engine optimization and organic search results to find free tips from other IM'ers about how to gain traffic.

As also mentioned, Google ranks sites based on appeal, usability/user-friendliness, etc. so here are a couple tips that might help with the layout of the site. The header could use work. I would suggest a larger, more visible text. Think of a resume - you want your name big at the top to stand out to anybody who might be passing over your resume and work experience right? So do the same with your website, you have less than a second or two to really capture somebody's attention who might not otherwise be that interested in staying on your site. Make your title and header stand-out.

Also, I would (and this is just a personal opinion) consider spacing out the text on the right hand column better. Perhaps move your social media buttons onto the same line (and a bit smaller / better colours) and space out the rest of that text / contact info, etc. and also you could think about removing a bit of the white space at the bottom of the site.

Lastly, your navigation needs to be WAY more visible? Does the main page have the only products listed that you sell? As a potential customer I shouldn't have to click on all the links in your bottom nav to find out where the rest of the products/categories, etc. are. You need to display your nav/links to your products way better because if your customers/visitors can't find these links or items then you will never sell anything.

Hopefully these points are somewhat helpful, as I said I'm very new to marketing so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt but these are just a few things that I noticed on a first, quick glance of your site. Oh also, you have two different contact addresses listed. Your Google checkout page has an address in Waco, TX while the rest of your site indicates Houston, TX.

I agree with everything that has been suggested.
Also, most merchants are gearing up for Christmas now. That is the season that will bring in the real cash and the one you want to be ready for. Don't wait until the end of November, you want to start now.

Perhaps putting together some gift packages, etc...
Get your banner ads and holiday design changes ready, now. The time will go faster than you realize.

Trust and Security is a big issue. And the news media educates people on what to look for. Especially at Christmas time.
You are going to want to get an SSL certificate. No one wants to send out their information unencrypted. People look for that little lock in their browsers to let them know they are secure. You want to let people know that you are to be trusted.

A merchant account will help also. I see you only accept Paypal. Your conversions will more than double, even for PayPal users, once you do this.

Some content on the product pages wouldn't hurt.

The best of luck to you.

Ken

PS: I would suggest looking into and learning fraud management. You must check every purchase, at least at first, and verify they are who they say they are. You WILL get taken sooner or later. Don't let the dollar signs make you blind. There are a lot of very smart thieves out there that could care less how nice and honest you are. Also, familiarize yourself with charge-backs, etc... If you start selling some of those higher priced rings and such, there is a good chance PayPal will put a hold on your funds while they investigate. Do you have the funds to cover such an event?

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I'm feeling really depressed about my site today. After reading through the comments, I see that there is hope and some of you say a lot of "whens" instead of "ifs" so that confidence is appreciated.

I am adding content as I have the time. There's just SO much to do!! I'm excited for holiday season and getting the creatives together is my favorite part!

As for security, yes, I'm already working on it. I'm already seeing some suspicious activity out there and it all seems to have started right after I started posting here. Hmmm. Interesting.

Excuse me ... is there a place where one could get a list of dropshippers? I've done affiliate programs .. wasn't a very good experience ... now I am open to dropshipping.

@FreshMedia Great advice! You obviously know what you're doing (As does pretty much everyone who has commented here) My problem I'm running into now is time! I can either A) write product descriptions B) SEO my pages C) Market the site through FB, Twitter, Forums D) Add more products (I probably have 500 more to go but I don't want to add more until I know my niche) or E) Do design work, like change my logo, which I too think is ugly.

I do like SEO and I at least SEO'd the pages I was PPCing. Volusion doesn't make it real simple to SEO. It's available but very time consuming and a little frustrating. I'll try and make that more of a priority. Thanks for chiming in!

I'm really wondering if all this work is worth the effort. I guess it can't be too bad because I do like making the site, the product and the challenge of it all, but I'm wondering if this is more difficult than it's worth. All the investment in time I'm spending eventually has to stop as it's just not sustainable. I have to start making money somehow. I don't see how everyone else does it, I guess that's why so few do.

@dave_hermansen Your site is great! You're cute. For some reason I thought you were an old, grey haired dude! lol

First and foremost, congrats! It's a great start. I think it has good potential

fLufF - Funny how it works out like that! But it seems you've gotten your groove! I hope to get there too someday...soon, very soon

Hi everyone,

I've taken a little break from my website this week because a) I had a Biology test and 2) fLufF indirectly introduced me to Fiverr. So a week ago today I posted a gig on Fiverr which isn't something I would normally do and I got 20 orders within about 48 hours. So I've been busy trying to do those AND study for my Biology test. Anyway, I took my test today and I caught up on my Fiverr orders, so I'm back to my ecommerce site...which is making absolutely no sales. But I have 40 likes on Facebook and 3 newsletter subscribers.

Ugh. I have no idea where to go from here.

40 Likes on Facebook and 3 Newsletter subscribers doesn't translate to sales. Are you running any adWords campaigns for the products your selling? Also have your keyword research and SEO due diligence?

That kind of thing translates to sales and returning customers. At least in my experience with my e-Commerce business.

Hope that helped a little - good luck!

i need to know how to create an online brand store and from where to ship products to my country. Can anyone help me plz. As online stores are taking there first step in my country and i really want to create my own online store. There are many good ons working in india, not a single famous brand store here in PAKISTAN.
Any kind of help would be appreciated.

fLufF indirectly introduced me to Fiverr. So a week ago today I posted a gig on Fiverr which isn't something I would normally do and I got 20 orders within about 48 hours.

That's amazingly impressive!

I'm sure lots of people would love to know just how you did that. :-)

fLufF
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No sales yet my friends. I've been working on backlinks, put my products into the product search engines and changed my site design for Christmas. So frustrated. How do I get people to buy from me!? I have fine jewelry cheaper than pretty much anyone else out there. I know this for a fact. What am I doing wrong?