Launched my site....but no customers! What am I doing wrong

[poppyseed]

Well last week was very exciting for me because I launched my site for my new business, I have advertised in a natural parenting magizine, but so far not a single customer.

I know it has only been one week, but I thought maybe there would have been at least a couple of sales.

We only currently have a couple of items on sale, is that what is putting people off???

Please give me your advice and opinions.

Poppyseed

www.littleacornstomightyoaks.co.uk

[rabbitmum]

Originally Posted by poppyseed

We only currently have a couple of items on sale, is that what is putting people off???

Yes, maybe! I liked your site, but didn't need any of the products at this time. I'm sure you will get customers when you have more products!

[barose]

How else are you marketing?

[em123]

Originally Posted by poppyseed

We only currently have a couple of items on sale, is that what is putting people off???

That would be my guess.

[eepster]

As far as I could tell you very litterally only have 2 products. When ever I mail order anything I try to hold off till I need several items from a single store, b/c I hate to pay $5 to ship a $10 purchase when I could instead pay $7 to ship $50 worth of stuff.

[tayndrewsmama]

The site looks great, but I agree that only having two items makes it harder to make a sale. For example, I like KK's, but I don't have any need for the sippy one.

[~Megan~]

When I purchase online I like to buy as many things in one place as I can to save on shipping.

[Kristine233]

I'd say that only having a couple products is the biggest factor, people like to see variety.

Also, you'll want to do online advertsing as well. Online businesses will benefit the most from online marketing. Printed advertising works, but may take quite a awhile before you see an return. Isn't it something like a customer has to see an ad 3 times before they notice it?

[kokonutmama]

Also, it seems to take a hundred years to load even on my high speed connection. Do you have lots of high res images for things like buttons, banners, etc that don't really need to be high res? Are the images files optimized for the web? When site takes that long to load, I think customers sometimes just go away. Did anyone else find the page took a while to load? I don't think it's my connection, but anything's possible

otherwise, I agree with previous posters.

[tayndrewsmama]

Originally Posted by kokonutmama

Also, it seems to take a hundred years to load even on my high speed connection. Do you have lots of high res images for things like buttons, banners, etc that don't really need to be high res? Are the images files optimized for the web? When site takes that long to load, I think customers sometimes just go away. Did anyone else find the page took a while to load? I don't think it's my connection, but anything's possible

otherwise, I agree with previous posters.

I don't know about that. I am on a pretty darn slow connection (about equal to dial up) and it doesn't take long for it to load for me.

[barose]

Originally Posted by kokonutmama

Also, it seems to take a hundred years to load even on my high speed connection. Do you have lots of high res images for things like buttons, banners, etc that don't really need to be high res? Are the images files optimized for the web? When site takes that long to load, I think customers sometimes just go away. Did anyone else find the page took a while to load? I don't think it's my connection, but anything's possible

otherwise, I agree with previous posters.

I'm on high speed internet and the home page does load quickly but there is a *slight* delay on the other pages. I'm not sure if its enough to be a problem.

[*Isra*]

Ditto what everyone has said about the products. I shop regularly online, at least 2-3 times a week, including groceries! If a site is only selling 2 products, no matter how bad I wanted either one of them I would look for it elsewhere to get combined shipping.

[poppyseed]

Hi everybody,

Thanks for all your responses, we have some more stock on order, and more products in the pipeline, which we will hopefully bring in soon, so hopefully things should start looking up in terms of our sales... We have started getting a few orders in now, so it looks like I just needed to give it a bit of time.

Poppyseed

[Night Owl]

Other than one ad in a magazine (that probably has lots of ads) what kind of marketing have you done? Have you advertised anywhere?

In order to get people on your site and buying within a week of launch, you will needed to have done extensive marketing and advertising ahead of time.

If you didn't then you need to start now. First, I'd recommend getting your website in your sig here and on other forums. Find blogs where your target market hangs out and contribute to the community.

One of the least expensive methods of online marketing is search engine optimization. I strongly recommend you optimize your site -- and start by getting rid of the splash page.

Not only can the search engines not read photographs, but your visitors aren't going to be persuaded to buy your stuff by the cute photograph on your home page -- largely because they have no idea what you sell.

You need to have actual pictures of your products on the home page and you need to tell me why I should order your products.

Take a look at this site:

http://www.downtoearthtoys.com/

[poppyseed]

Hi Night Owl,

Thanks for all of your advise, those are all great things for us to work on. Obviously we are completely new to all of this, and we are learning as we go along. As you can see I have taken your advice and gotten a business siggy, and have found a few other forums where our target audience hang out and will be becoming a very active part of these communities. Will also work on taking some photos of our products in action and having them on our home page - but thats something I will work on over time.

Thanks Again
Poppy Seed

[fek&fuzz]

Your business sig won't be much good if you don't start posting a lot more frequently in the different forums here.

[poppyseed]

Well have now made numerous changes to the website, and am actively involved in several forums with business siggy's, have committed to 6mths of advertising in a parenting magizine and a large ad in a quarterly eco magazine, also lots of small marketing ploys going on in the local community to raise awarness of our business. Thankyou all so much for your input, some really great advice and direction which is exactly what I needed!!! Watch this space

[janasmama]

You need SEO (search engine optimization) in your title tags. Find what your 'keywords' are and put them in your title tags in a nice, clean fashion. For instance a green living website might have something like "green living tips & ideas" Your business name isn't all that important to have in there. Maybe just have it on the 'Contact us' and 'About us' title tag so if someone actually searches your business name.

You also need content on your homepage. The articles are a good idea b/c it's giving your site more content. Keep writing more articles.

[janasmama]

Are you designing your own site?

It looks good. I just want to say that in my opinion, I would invest in professional seo if you find you can't do it effectively over print advertising b/c I believe that people buy when they are ready to, not when they see an ad. People are bombarded with advertisements.

So therefore you want to come up in the top 10 search, or at least the first page, for Kleen Kanteen, etc.

[nursingmom]

One of my friend who owned a website told me that print ads weren't successful.