new website for small shop [Archive]

Dawg

19th March 2009, 17:54

A small brochure site to let people know where you are, what you do, when you are open and maybe some news and seasonal specials?
Wordpress blog site, either Wordpress.com, free and easy, or Wordpress.org, nearly free, nearly as easy bit more toys to play with.
It's the easiest and fastest way to a simple, search engine effective attractive site. You won't get all the bells and whistles, but you don't want them...you'll get something 'fit for purpose'.

One (http://dawgblog.co.uk/) of mine is a Wordpress.com, and here is another (http://thenormanroad.co.uk/). This is a Wordpress.org site (http://sba-online.co.uk/).

wood1e2

19th March 2009, 17:55

very confusing...so are you looking for a e-commerce shop? A better brochure site? a better brochure site you can manage? :)

jane p

20th March 2009, 08:35

we have google maps. Sorry if it wasnt clear i thought it was.

We are looking to attract more local people in. We dont sell through the site its information only. How do we get more people to look at the site. We have a banner coming for the outside with the web address on.

Thanks for ideas.

Bri

20th March 2009, 08:43

Put recipies on their that use your products i.e. using Potters Marinated Pork whatever add ............ and serve with a crisp glass of chilled Chardonnay, in store now. You know the form.

jane p

20th March 2009, 09:09

? in store now we dont sell wine:|

Bri

20th March 2009, 09:14

? in store now we dont sell wine:|

Yeah, I meant Potters Marinated Meat in store now, come and buy. You'd need a licence to sell wine wouldnt you, but its just a recommended wine you'd drink with the meal. I was trying to be condensed.:D

wood1e2

20th March 2009, 09:23

Couldn't find your website, so why not get a google webmasters account and add yourself, verify so at least Google picks you up.

I presume that you have not changed your titles of your webpages? try changing to 'town/county marinated meats' where town/county equals your town or county. If you only want to aim at your local area. Or 'town/county deli'

There are possibly other better alternatives, these were only guesses as i don't know your busines.

You could also as mentioned above place receipes on the site, competitions, based around local fayes/farmers market/county show.

Advertise you supply local resturants - or have them include your name on their menus...eg "Local source pan friend chicken in Potter's marinade"

PM me if you don;t want to put your URL on the forum :)

Best of luck

jane p

20th March 2009, 09:35

Yeah, I meant Potters Marinated Meat in store now, come and buy. You'd need a licence to sell wine wouldnt you, but its just a recommended wine you'd drink with the meal. I was trying to be condensed.:D

ok thanks for suggestion.

jane p

9th April 2009, 12:48

any more ideas to increase trade apart from close all the ruddy supermarkets down!

Kev Jaques

9th April 2009, 13:35

Do parades up and down your street with some promotional flyers (with website address on them), sausages or selection of meats all cooked etc.. kind of Gordon Ramsey Style getting people to support their local butcher, give them food out and a voucher/flyer for free.
Get them to support local shops, otherwise there won't be any local shops in a few years.

wood1e2

9th April 2009, 14:15

You don't appear to have looked at any of the ideas suggested here to make your website more attractive to search engines.

By not taking on board the suggestions you are missing out on everyone who searches for you products, or style/rabge of products in your local area. Obviously that may only be 4 people but that is four potential sales.

If by not taking the action you are more interested in generating sales through your shop then advertise locally, county fairs, farmers markets, enter food competitions, at Christmas/Easter/August Bank Holiday have some competitions for people to win x...

Badger foodie magazines with emails about how brilliant you are, they may take you up for an article...

You may think you are local, but act nationally...thats where the website would come into it's own

jane p

9th April 2009, 14:21

ok yes going to run a comp for the barbeque season.

fisicx

9th April 2009, 14:36

What do you want to do, sell marinated meats or get lots of visitors to your website?

Assuming it's the first then you need to market your meats. Stalls in the local farmers markets, promos in the high street, talks at the WI, guest on the local radio, there are loads of ways to get the name out there.

Forget the website, it's not going to sell a single sausage because you are not marketing your products. You need to sell the sizzle and a boring list of products with no images and not prices isn't going to make anyone want to visit the shop.

jane p

9th April 2009, 14:55

stop talking out of your backside:)

Boring we are not you cant get the range that we do anywhere when did you last hear of dragon fire steaks and 3 breast chicken roasts and free marination. We do have images on our site only added one yesterday.:p

i think you run everything down in the hope we will all change our sites and go through you.

fisicx

9th April 2009, 15:41

i think you run everything down in the hope we will all change our sites and go through you.

Not at all. The website has got loads of possiblities it just needs the sizzle. If there is an image of each product with a decent description and the price your chances of getting someone through the door will increase.

Direct marketing is ideal for local trades (hence my suggestions) what the website can do is entice those further afield to visit. But you need to make my mouth water hence the need for product images.

Tried to find the Dragon steaks on the site but couldn't.

Kev Jaques

9th April 2009, 15:54

Not at all. The website has got loads of possiblities it just needs the sizzle. If there is an image of each product with a decent description and the price your chances of getting someone through the door will increase.

Direct marketing is ideal for local trades (hence my suggestions) what the website can do is entice those further afield to visit. But you need to make my mouth water hence the need for product images.

Tried to find the Dragon steaks on the site but couldn't.

Yea food pron innit ;)

jane p

9th April 2009, 16:14

[. But you need to make my mouth water hence the need for product images.

No you just need to know that you cant get what we do anywhere else thats enough.;) I set you a challenge go and find one and report back.

Im sure your local grocers shop or butchers shop wherever you go dosent offer that much pics or not.

PointandStare

9th April 2009, 16:18

We dont sell through the site its information only.
Why not? You're missing out on a huge side of the business.

Matt1959

9th April 2009, 16:26

not being a foody person, I don't really recognise the significance of what you sell (sorry, I'm a philistine really!). Do you think most of the people you're trying to attract, will see the significance of what you're selling on the website? If YES, then the website matters less I think cos they'll undertand the product and won't need selling to as much , if NO, then the products on the website could do with being presented much better ie no amount of getting people like me to visit the site will result in sales.....

jane p

9th April 2009, 16:28

its a massive costly operation doing that its not like selling books or dvd's. Strict regulations with meat you need a van with a fridge in a driver its not worth it.

Dawg

9th April 2009, 16:28

If you are going to excite interest you will need better images. These are the sort of images (http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&lightboxID=6056014) and image quality you should be looking for. As you can see they are from iStock, and that lot would cost about £6.

However, you seem to think this is not the way to go, and that people will default to your product if they can't find it, or similar, elsewhere. Your train set. Good luck.

jane p

9th April 2009, 16:33

i see what you mean on the pics but they arent our pics are they, we want our pics on there.

PrettyPaws

9th April 2009, 16:43

we have a website small shop its info only we dont sell thru the site! Its really for fairly local people i guess show them what we do and tempt them in.

We have a banner on order to go outside the shop with web addy on and will tell customers any other ideas.

Don't you want people to see the site and come to the shop, rather than seeing the shop and going to the site? :| You're not going to get rich sending people to a site you don't sell off!

For internet arketing you're probably looking at writting some good meat/cooking related articles. How to cook your meat, cut yout meat, server your meat, what wine compliments which meat etc etc etc. Google maps is a good one, local targeting adwords campain, submit your articles to digg and other such sites.

fisicx

9th April 2009, 16:51

i see what you mean on the pics but they arent our pics are they, we want our pics on there.

Then all you need to do is take some pictures and upload them to the site so that for each product you have:

picture > product name > description > price > call to action.

One of your products is:

Whole legs of New Zealand lamb boned and rolled and marinated in garden mint.

I can get that from my local supermarket. Where's the sizzle!

Bri

9th April 2009, 17:43

we seem to be going full circle on this thread. Jane everyone is right in their perception of your web site and we are all laymen with regard to your product. Now some people have quietly offered you some keywords to use to attract you, i.e SIZZLE, (I love that), wet my appetite( i like that too), all things to consider and use.

Now, you.... you have already enticed me to your product by your passion for it, look back at one of your replies to one of the posts, you defend yourself and give a good account of why yours is better than anything else or anybody elses and you had to be goaded into that:eek:, in fact you state that you cant get what you sell anywhere else.;).Theres a clue for you:cool:.

The best way to learn is to step out of what you love and look at it from outside,bit surreal, but it works. Strip away the emotional tie and look at how best to sell your product, sexy food, sexy marinated pies, sexy steaks

papverpoppies

9th April 2009, 19:02

Hi Jane

Could I just say that if I was a potential customer your website would not tempt me to enter the shop.

You speak and write with passion about your products - but the website is very static and unappetizing.

If the website is there to attract folks into the shop in needs to be more friendly and make potential customers want to be a part and buy into that product.

Instead of just images of plates of meat - could you not show people either BBQ, entertaining, beach, garden in the home - people having a good time eating your produce.

After all we intiallly taste with our eyes.

Hope you do not mind my comments - but I use the web every day to buy and source products -a good website is worth its weight in gold.

Poppy

Kev Jaques

9th April 2009, 19:12

Instead of just images of plates of meat - could you not show people either BBQ, entertaining, beach, garden in the home - people having a good time eating your produce.

This is far more likely to induce people into buying your products than showing a plate of meat. Although that said I like my protein and a plate of meat is nice too.
As Poppy said though your passion could be used constructively and with a few inducing pictures would help get more people through the door.

Not only that but testimonials from your regular customers and reviews which show your humour, banter with the customers would easily beat a picture of a plate of meat

jane p

9th April 2009, 21:52

Then all you need to do is take some pictures and upload them to the site so that for each product you have:

picture > product name > description > price > call to action.

One of your products is:

I can get that from my local supermarket. Where's the sizzle!

why are you intent on trying to wind me up.

Frankly im not sure i am bothered what you think and you kept doing this with the pm facility a few weeks ago. Your opinion is that just your opinion dosent mean you are right. You dont need loads of pics you dont go into a restaurant and see lots of pics of food you are tempted by what you read arent you then you order! Imagine asking the restaurant owner can we have pics of everything!:cool:

Also when you say stupid things like buying lamb from a supermarket i just roll my eyes supermarkets are grocers not butchers. Anyone who is dumb enough to use a grocer as a butcher well you know.
Say no more!
Please drop it and im not coming back again. I think the person who told me to ignore the negativity and accept that some people are just hoping to sell their services was right.

PointandStare

9th April 2009, 22:14

Outrageous. People offering bloody good advice and she just storms out in a huff.
Looks like you're simply going to stay flogging the same cuts week in week out to the same people while others in the same industry will embrace modern business opportunities and storm ahead of the competition.

Here's a few examples of companies in your industry embracing modern business opportunities:
http://www.broadstripebutchers.co.uk
http://www.wilsonsbutchers.co.uk
http://www.mettricksbutchers.co.uk
http://www.jameswhelanbutchers.com

Dawg

9th April 2009, 22:32

If you post something on a forum you are likely to get things that you might disagree with. To react as 'not bovvered' is to ignore sources of valuable advice, which even if it doesn't fit your present plans, might be of later use, or of use to others reading the thread.

However, to be fair, you didn't ask for advice in the OP:

we have a website small shop its info only we dont sell thru the site! Its really for fairly local people i guess show them what we do and tempt them in.

We have a banner on order to go outside the shop with web addy on and will tell customers any other ideas.

More a proclamation that you had a website, altho' later you did say:

How do we get more people to look at the site.

People replied, and after a while replied with great restraint. If you want people to look at your website with the aim of tempting them into your shop it was pointed out that an attractive, interesting, readable and visually tempting website would be more effective than your present site.

Every time a suggestion was made you brushed it aside. "You are talking out of your backside" was a reply. In every instance it seemed that you didn't want advice after all.

Given that several people made an effort to look and to post I think your idea of "Please drop it and im not coming back again" is a great result. You can carry on as you were, and if people here want to offer advice it might go to someone who at least considers any possible benefits.

So, to mix metaphors: It's your train set, a bit of a car crash, walking wounded even, but your train set...

PrettyPaws

10th April 2009, 08:06

Please drop it and im not coming back again. I think the person who told me to ignore the negativity and accept that some people are just hoping to sell their services was right.

The last thing you should do is ignore the negitivity! How else are you going to improve! I think everybody on the thread has accepted that you know much more about meat than any of us, perhaps you could accept that many of us have owned sucsessful sites for years and perhaps, just maybe know a little about it?

Ignore that above help and advise if you like but you might as well just pull the site down, it's wasting your time/money.

pvcprinting

10th April 2009, 13:03

Have to say I am most confused

Having been online since circa 1995 - I can honestly say i have NEVER searched for 'meat' online

I am baffled as to what you are trying to achieve - If you only sell locally then I would imagine that 'locals' are well aware of where you are and what you sell!

Unless you are in a tourist area whereby visitors may look online to see what is available locally - you are wasting your time, effort & money on pursuing this

Of course - if you have data to prove you have increased your sales through a website, then I will button my lip and go sit in the corner