I stumbled upon this question being asked on Fortune Small Business by the owner of Zabeshop.com.
(FORTUNE Small Business) — Dear FSB: I have an online clothing store specializing in bohemian apparel for women. It’s been four months already and I haven’t gotten any sale. What am I doing wrong?
- Belissa Cipreni, Miami, Fl., Zabeshop.com
Now for the worst softball answer on the face of the internet..
Dear Belissa: Opening an online store can be tricky: You have to stand out among thousands of women’s apparel websites. “You need to take advantage of every opportunity to increase traffic,” says Brent Birch, the director of FLEX360 Web Development. “Most importantly, ensure that it’s search-engine friendly.”
When Web surfers search for your company name, your site should be the first to pop up. The blurb describing your site reveals little information to intrigue and draw viewers in. Try rewriting the meta tags (descriptions, keywords, titles – anything that helps define a page), so that the search engine can pick up on them more easily.
Once that’s fixed, you’ll still face the dilemma of attracting customers. Solution? Contact other websites and blogs where your potential customers may already be aggregating. Offer to reciprocate links to drive additional traffic to both your site and theirs. In turn, both websites will receive a higher search engine ranking.
And don’t neglect the appearance of your site. Consider redesigning the homepage with fewer photos and more text. “By using all graphics, there isn’t search engine ’spider food’ for search engines to index the site’s content,” says Birch. Plus, a site with less images will load quicker – a must for impatient shoppers.
One crucial part of the website is making sure the customers can pick out and buy an item with just one click of the mouse. Right now, customers who click products can see enlarged versions of them but don’t have the option of purchasing. Your “Order Now” button should be placed next to each of the product images and descriptions and should lead directly to an order form. Also, to ease navigation through the store, Birch suggests showing store specials on the homepage.
Once the website design is set, market like crazy. Make sure every piece of material, from business cards to flyers to press packets, has the Web address on it.
-Brent Birch
Meta tags and link exchanges? That’s it?
That’s his answer on why she has not made a single sale? Terrible answer.
Look at the site. Meta tags and link exchanges are going to do nothing. The website has no descriptions, no content, nothing to make it sticky and no traffic. The choice of sizes is poor, the pictures are poor, and she has “contact us for availibility” under 1/3 of her items. I guarantee NOBODY is going to contact anyone for availibility. They are just going to move on to the next website that has the item in stock. No need to bother with one that “might” or “might not” these days. It’s almost 2008. People want instant gratification. Either you have it, or you don’t. Even if you don’t, lie and say you do.
She needs to add better pictures, offer more sizes, sell the items on Ebay. Use that info to drive traffic to the website and build a customer list, build a blog, set up a MySpace page, etc. She has no decriptions at all. “Grape Top” is all is says. What the hell does that mean? Does that mean its made of grapes or is that the name? It needs a description on what it’s made of, what it matches with, washing instructions, etc.
The person who’s looking at the site needs to be convinced this is the best hippie clothing ever. The girls need to be convinced if they buy this stuff, it will make their armpits more hairy than ever, and they will stink worse than a Quicky Mart store clerk.
What makes it so great? Is is soft? Is it durable? Is is made of hemp? Does it prevent global warming? Does it save trees? Does it save kittens? What??? Tell me SOMETHING to convince me I should buy! “Grape Top” is not going to cut it.
His worst answer EVER….
“Consider redesigning the homepage with fewer photos and more text”
She’s selling CLOTHING YOU IDIOT!!! Do you think thing that a website with a bunch of text and no pictures on the home page is going to catch someones eye? The homepage is the first impression. It’s going to decide if they stay or if they go.
I’m sure Zapeshop.com could sell tons of this hippie clothing if they were given some help with the site and driving traffic. Too bad for her, she’s getting bad advice for someone who does not know what they are doing and obviously has spent zero time in the trenches.
I also noticed that brilliant Brett’s website is made of FLASH! Anyone who knows anything about SEO and driving organic traffic knows that Flash websites can’t be read by search engine spiders and are the absolute worst choice for driving organic traffic. Taking advice on how to drive traffic from someone who built their site with Flash is like getting investment advice from a homeless man.
Belissa Cipreni, your hippie site will do fine. You just need good advice. Brett’s advice of “market like crazy” does not help you one tiny bit. In fact it’s worthless advice. Build a MySpace page, submit articles, write press releases, exchange links, buy links, try PPC (Adsense), social bookmarking, etc. This should help you some and keep you busy.
- Wealth Store
