Help with my business website

11 years ago

STOP!

Please take this as friendly advice. Stop.

Do not take on the struggle of learning SEO or how to make a web presence highly known and sought after. Please don't do it. You will only be taking on another never ending struggle, just to sell some scissors, that to be honest with you, most likely wont sell online. I don't think I have ever even bought a pair of scissors, and I have three pair. No offense to you, your father, or your guy's business. I commend you for even being the businessman you are.

My suggestion may seem strange but it is a thought.

Why not come up with a way to turn those scissors into something sought after more. Or something that people will just have to have or enjoy.

I know you will most likely still venture into making your website popular, but you must admit scissors are everywhere. What will make your scissors special? Appeal to people and then just spread the word on social media and bookmarks. Tell everyone about your cool new scissors.

Hell buy 10 different kinds of the duck tape with graphics, craftily decorate the handles with it and try to market them to Elementary and Middle School aged kids for their school supply list.

I hope this helps, you seem like a smart man, and respectful too.

Just try to be different.

Thanks
1 reply

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TalkingHead 11 years ago

Thanks for your post! First of all let's clear up that I'm a woman. I'm defiantly in a male oriented field so I get that a lot. LOL.
I don't want to learn SEO. I have tried in the past and I know a little but that's something I'll hire someone to do when the time is right.
Here's the deal. I just got back from a sharpeners convention and a lot of my competitors have websites where they sell scissors and other things. And some of their sites look like junk. I'm not really looking to be #1 in google or anything. My main goal is to have a site that my customers can goto to buy stuff when I'm not around. Eventually I'm going to be offering more than just scissors (like brushes and clipper parts). These are things my customers ask me for on a regular basis and I'm pretty sure if I had a good site they would buy from it.
I already have a Facebook page and I'm starting to get my customers to 'Like' it. That's another reason I need to get started on my email list also because I promote my new products and sales to my existing customers.
Thanks for your advice!
- Thanks
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Dan Curtis

11 years ago

... you guys are super smart.

Truer words were never spoken.

My opinion? Go ahead and build your site. Who knows how it will turn out or where you'll end up. It is fun to do, great experience and worthwhile. What is the worst thing that could happen?

1. It is OK to post your web address.

2. MailChimp would be fine. More people on this forum use AWeber which would be fine too.

3. I don't think you need to have an email template designed. You should be able to use the tools that you get from MailChimp. But if you decide to do it, Fiverr will be fine.

4. There is no magic number on keywords. Use whatever it takes to communicate. You would probably have one keyword for the model #, one for the brand, another one for scissors, and maybe "kitchen" if it is a kitchen scissors. You don't need 10 or more. By the way, Google apparently ignores your meta keywords, but you may be referring to something other than meta keywords.

5. You should be able to have both keyword and description meta tags. But if you can only use one, then use the description. And the description should be just that, a description. "The Elko 322-B is a left handed scissors for trimming rutabagas. It comes in blue or red and is dishwasher proof. Two-for-one sale through the end of July."

[ 1 ] Thanks
2 replies

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TalkingHead

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan Curtis

Truer words were never spoken.

My opinion? Go ahead and build your site. Who knows how it will turn out or where you'll end up. It is fun to do, great experience and worthwhile. What is the worst thing that could happen?

1. It is OK to post your web address.

2. MailChimp would be fine. More people on this forum use AWeber which would be fine too.

3. I don't think you need to have an email template designed. You should be able to use the tools that you get from MailChimp. But if you decide to do it, Fiverr will be fine.

4. There is no magic number on keywords. Use whatever it takes to communicate. You would probably have one keyword for the model #, one for the brand, another one for scissors, and maybe "kitchen" if it is a kitchen scissors. You don't need 10 or more. By the way, Google apparently ignores your meta keywords, but you may be referring to something other than meta keywords.

5. You should be able to have both keyword and description meta tags. But if you can only use one, then use the description. And the description should be just that, a description. "The Elko 322-B is a left handed scissors for trimming rutabagas. It comes in blue or red and is dishwasher proof. Two-for-one sale through the end of July."

My site is A Groomers Wish. As you can tell I've done everything myself (including the logo). I think it looks better than some competitors sites I've seen but not at good as others. I'm not overly concerned about the look. I just want it to be easy to use and pleasing to look at.
The main reason I was asking about the email template is because everytime I sit down to try and create an email I mess around for 3 hours and still it just doesn't look right. I guess once I've made a few I'll get the hang of it.
As far as the keywords, I guess about 20 -30 or is that to many? I have a huge list of keywords that includes misspellings and also people search for 'shears' instead so for every '6 inch scissor' I also include '6 inch shear' ect.
Thanks for your help!

Thanks

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TalkingHead

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan Curtis

Truer words were never spoken.

My opinion? Go ahead and build your site. Who knows how it will turn out or where you'll end up. It is fun to do, great experience and worthwhile. What is the worst thing that could happen?

1. It is OK to post your web address.

2. MailChimp would be fine. More people on this forum use AWeber which would be fine too.

3. I don't think you need to have an email template designed. You should be able to use the tools that you get from MailChimp. But if you decide to do it, Fiverr will be fine.

4. There is no magic number on keywords. Use whatever it takes to communicate. You would probably have one keyword for the model #, one for the brand, another one for scissors, and maybe "kitchen" if it is a kitchen scissors. You don't need 10 or more. By the way, Google apparently ignores your meta keywords, but you may be referring to something other than meta keywords.

5. You should be able to have both keyword and description meta tags. But if you can only use one, then use the description. And the description should be just that, a description. "The Elko 322-B is a left handed scissors for trimming rutabagas. It comes in blue or red and is dishwasher proof. Two-for-one sale through the end of July."

BTW - Love your name. You're not the guy who did Dark Shadows are you? LOL

Thanks
1 reply

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Dan Curtis

11 years ago

Originally Posted by TalkingHead

BTW - Love your name. You're not the guy who did Dark Shadows are you? LOL

No, but that was my favorite show at the time.

So, now back to you and your site. I wonder if you are possibly in the witness protection program? You seem to have gone out of your way to be anonymous.

You are anonymous here, which is acceptable, but you are anonymous on your website. If people don't know you and like you, then you will have a much harder time making sales.

But there are even greater mysteries. For instance, you say you spend 3 hours on an email, but from your first email it doesn't even sound like you have an email marketing program.

And then regarding keywords, you say you have a "huge list" of keywords but you don't have any keywords on any of your pages. I am not sure if you know how to put keywords in your pages or not. If not, they are explained on this page. It looks complicated, but if you read it several times and make sure you look up any unfamiliar terms you should be able to manage it.

In any event, putting a few keywords on each page that are relevant to that page is a good idea, although it is not really of major importance.

Good luck mystery girl.

[ 1 ] Thanks
1 reply

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TalkingHead

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan Curtis

No, but that was my favorite show at the time.

So, now back to you and your site. I wonder if you are possibly in the witness protection program? You seem to have gone out of your way to be anonymous.

You are anonymous here, which is acceptable, but you are anonymous on your website. If people don't know you and like you, then you will have a much harder time making sales.

But there are even greater mysteries. For instance, you say you spend 3 hours on an email, but from your first email it doesn't even sound like you have an email marketing program.

And then regarding keywords, you say you have a "huge list" of keywords but you don't have any keywords on any of your pages. I am not sure if you know how to put keywords in your pages or not. If not, they are explained on this page. It looks complicated, but if you read it several times and make sure you look up any unfamiliar terms you should be able to manage it.

In any event, putting a few keywords on each page that are relevant to that page is a good idea, although it is not really of major importance.

Good luck mystery girl.

Your post made me chuckle. What you're saying is true. As far as the business goes I've been behind my dad up until this last month (he's retiring and giving it to me) and he never wanted his picture or information out there (paranoid). But now that I'm the 'head of the business' there are many things I want to change. As far as being anonymous on here, I'm not an internet marketer per say and I'm not here to get my name out or anything. I'm just a working mom who dabbles in internet marketing on the side and I don't need people google searching me, you know what I mean.
To address being anonymous on my website, this is something I wanted to ask you guys about. I know I need an About Us page but there is no 'us' in my company, it's just lil old me and I didn't know if that would actually hurt my rep or what. Most people in my field do this as a husband/wife or family/friends type thing but that's not possible for me right now. My local customers know who I am and that I do a great job and they have been using my dad and I for years, but as far as people who would come across my site on the internet from a search engine, I don't know if it would look bad for me to say 'Hi my name is Tami and I do all this work all by myself'. I of course wouldn't say exactly that but do you get my drift? I'm kinda perplexed on what to do. I could just lie and say I have a team working for me but if my local customers go to my site they'll know. But maybe that doesn't matter. I tend to over think things. What are your suggestions on this? I know this is probably crazy to some people here but I don't like to lie about myself or make over inflated claims about what I can do (which is probably why I'm not a successful marketer).

About the keywords. Are you talking about I don't have a lot of them visible on the main page or some kind of hidden thing where you can look up what keywords are on the page? Because I know my SEO is bad but there might be some option to input keywords on my builder that I'm missing. I struggle with not knowing which keywords to highlight because my business is kind of three things: hair cutting shears, dog grooming scissors, and clipper blade and scissor sharpening. So I tried to put a small mix on my main page.

And when I say I spend 3 hours on an email I mean I spent about a couple hours the other day on MailChimp putting a few picture pictures and text on an email template in between dealing with my son and dinner and all the other distractions and what I had accomplished in the end was not pretty. LOL But I'll keep trying.

I think I have some good starting points to work with. About me page, more keywords, and getting my list going. I have more questions about integrating some Amazon products but I'll save that for another thread. Thanks for helping.

Thanks

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bizgrower

11 years ago

I see. You are really in a specialty market for professionals.

If Mailchimp does not offer the support you need, I've had clients with email needs
somewhat similar to yours have good luck and support with Constant Contact. It ain't free though. Also, Fiver or the "Warriors for hire section" here would be good help for email design.

To me, the site looks good enough for until you make money- as long as it is functioning properly. Just a quick glance though.

I assume you have directly contacted and left flyers or business cards - with your website address - and tried to build good relations with as many salons and schools and barbers/stylists as possible, or you should if you have not.

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Anton543

11 years ago

Of course you should do SEO because its one of the cheapest (can be pretty much free) and best converting traffic there is. However, whether your product sells well online is another matter.

Sorry, but there is no such thing as 'if you build it, they will come', you need to work on your site promotion. There are various ways to get free traffic that would convert well for the right products. However, I don't think people will buy scissors from a scissors only shop. You may get few sales but not in great number unless they were buying in bulk for a barbers or something.

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Auctiondebteliminator

11 years ago

There is no reason to sell your scissors for cheaper if you're selling them BETTER.

Sell them for the market worth - but sell them for the value you're giving them too.

It's a misnomer that you need to be cheaper to compete.

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katec

11 years ago

Hi TalkingHead,

I can help you with your queries as I've been in the same situation before. Just PM me

P.S I don't recommend submitting your website link everywhere, you might regret in the future.

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512 Designs 11 years ago

Here's an idea that I've always wanted to do but haven't because I have no products to do it with.....so I'll give it to you.

I assume you have all of these scissors physically in stock. If so, why not create a Youtube channel and make it look like a home shopping network. Take each pair of scissors and create a 1 to 3 minute video showing the details, talking about the quality, and whatever else you can do to show them off. Then make a link back to your website in the Youtube description.

This will do a couple of things for you. You'll start getting traffic from Youtube...and you'll get ranked higher on Google with the videos as well.

Just do some regular TV channel surfing for some home shopping networks. We have one that sells watches for 6 hours on Sundays. It's amazing how they can discuss something as simple as a watch for so long....but it works.

Mike
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Julia Russo

11 years ago

You want a pretty website, then find a host that has free templates and a site builder that you can learn (very easily) to add your products---note I said "products". One product, does not a business make, unless you have a high ticket item.
There are tons of things to sell related to scissors. Create a site about (sewing, embroidery, crafting, etc) where these scissors are just one of many.
A blog about the use of scissors, where to get them sharpened, where to buy left handed scissors (which I just purchased) and a forum for those who love to sew would develop interest in your products/site and bring traffic.
The point is, jump in and make this your chance to get your feet wet. My first site was awful but I learned a lot that got me to my next one and my next one. You never fail if you are still trying (and learning).

Thanks

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elCapitan

11 years ago

Why not add it as a free bonus for people who buy other products? It will build customer loyalty, and a nice little present for your customers.

Thanks

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