My new site is up... next steps?

Word pro is right, make sure that all yoru family and friends know about site asap. The article marketing takes time, it is more of a long term traffic solution. What is your budget for PPC?

Nice looking site. Keep building links with more articles, social bookmarking, press releases, directories, squidoo lenses, camping/travel forums etc. Also get a Facebook page and join Facebook travel groups.

Have you thought about starting an affiliate program? Maybe join a network like shareasale.com

Do you offer coupon codes? Submit them to all the major coupon sites.

Sponsor a travel blog or buy banner ads on related sites.


Andrew

Currently for the term "sleeping bags" (Which gets 673,000 search per month on Google) the site at number 1 - allsleepingbags.com has only 27 total backlinks. (I checked it using backlink watch) Even the site at the #5 spot only has 10 backlinks - topsleepingbags.com

Currently your title tag reads "Camping Sleeping Bags - Down Sleeping Bags - The Sleeping Bag Shop" - remove the word "camping"

This weekend I would work on link building.

Go around commenting on as many blogs as possible and leaving your link using the comment form where it says "website".

Build a hubpages hub and squidoo lens related to sleeping bags using "sleeping bags" as your anchor text. (This will give you link juice")

Keep writing articles using "sleeping bags" as your anchor text.

Submit your site to all of the social bookmarking sites on this list (It also includes over 100 high pagerank free directories): http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ing-sites.html

I wouldn't worry about the directories for now...

Hope this helps

A nice looking site indeed. Are you sure you want to force a log in to purchase? Shopping cart abandonment is "very" high. When you force them to sign up before purchasing, it's one more thing that could make them get cold feet and leave. I would advise making it optional.

Here's another marketing idea: I did a search for "gifts for campers" in Google and giftsforcampers.com shows up on the first page. If you are on this site, you are essentially on the first page of Google yourself when someone lands there. They sell advertising on that site. There's another site "giftys.com/gifts/camping-gifts-gift-ideas-campers.htm" that comes up under "camper gifts". They sell advertising also. It's the same company that owns both. Might be worth looking in to.

How about creating supporting websites that point to your main site where you host a number of articles etc?

Very nice and attractive design. You have completed your website here are traffic suggestions for you:

Pay per click
Offline advertising
Article marketing
Newsletter
Autoresponders
Word of mouth
Joint ventures / strategic partnerships
Talks to groups
Participation in online forums / discussion groups

Most online stores are extremely competitive (what's not these days?) and they compete on price - one of the worst ways to compete. What you need to do is find a way to take the focus off the money, find your unique value and promote it from there.
So how do you do that? First you have to know who your prospect is so you can speak to them directly.
Hint: Your market is not everyone or anyone. Once you know who your prospect is, you can implement tactics that will convert them into customers.

Here are some ideas that will help your conversion rate:

Bundled products
Free gift with purchase
Regular newsletter
Autoresponder course
Helpful content on your website
Companion blog for your website

These should get you thinking about where you need to go. This is not by any means a complete, comprehensive list -- just a start. Begin by putting all of your ideas together in an action plan. Use your action plan to drive what you do every day. Spend at least one hour on these tasks per day. In no time you'll find you've made a lot of progress.

as a IM newb I must say I'm very jealous at your site. Very nice. I actually felt like buying a sleeping bag but then realized I live in Arizona and it's hotter here at night than it is most places during the day so told myself when it cools down again this winter I'd come back and buy a sleeping bag from you.

I just subscribed to this thread so when and if you ever create social media accounts come back and post up and I'll throw out some shout outs for you on my accounts.

You can also try free social website. try to get visitor from facebook,twitter,myspace and more. It cost you free. If you want resource, you can download my free ebook about Unlimited social traffic on my sig link

Join a forum related to your site and be an active member there. Easy backlinks and possibly sales.

@motiv8td and @subject2com just tweeted mentioning your site.

tag line was, " if you ever end up living under a bridge, make sure you get a sleeping bag first! (inserted your web url)

get some backlinks...

you can own google in that niche quickly...

js

Tell your friends about your site through email, this is the initial step to generate traffic. Submit articles on social sites to increase traffic. Also join any affiliate programme.

That site is very nice! You have some good advice above as far as marketing the site, but I also think you need a marketing plan.

It can be overwhelming to have all these promotion tasks to do and I think a lot of people end up doing nothing because they spend so much time trying to decide what to do next!

I suggest you write out a good daily schedule or use a spreadsheet with a list of tasks to do each day.

And don't forget to get backlinks to the sites you use for backlinks!

Lee

I like the site, and i love sleeping bags, and im telling my friends about it. do you guys ship internationally?

Thats a very nice and clean site.

If I may ask, what site builder or blog platform are you using?

Thanks.

Ryan, those are good first steps and your domain name is perfect, but some research into your main keywords "sleeping bags" shows there's a lot of competition for that term in the search engines. Your main page title and your meta description need some work to target exact keywords.

The biggest mistake people make is choosing the wrong keywords to target. I got one of my clients, a law firm, to #3 on Google by just optimizing his web site for the "long-tail" (non-competitive) keywords. Often, targeting lots of non-competitive keywords can get you ranked higher and get you more traffic than targeting the popular keywords.

The combination of your page title and description should be like a classified ad: Title is the headline, Description is the ad copy. For example, your title might be: "The Sleeping Bag Shop-Chinook|Eureka|Sierra Designs|Slumberjack" (note the brand keywords). Your description meta tag (which the search engines will probably list in the results): "Choosing the proper camping sleeping bags can be important. We'll help you choose the right one for your needs. We carry Chinook, Eureka, Sierra Designs, Slumberjack and other major brands at competitive prices and offer free shipping on orders over $99."

Find related forums, blogs, etc. Post helpful tips and get into the fray. Make sure your forum signature points to your site. Set up separate Twitter and Facebook profiles for your new venture and use the free tools availble for those to generate followers and friends.

Hope this helps, and I'll be happy to help further if you want to contact me directly.