Another website or expand??

[flood]

I have a website www.seedspot.co.uk (http://www.seedspot.co.uk) selling mainly low value seeds that I currently stock on eBay. Sales are currently doing very well on eBay, but I cannot seem to get people to use my own website...Sales have not been terrific on my own site(20 -40 visits a day- under £100 sales), but I didn't expect it to do great without any SEO. I have not SEO it yet as Its not the season for seeds really and the low cost of my items.

I have now planned to move into selling imported tropical plants and young trees, so I was wondering whether people think I can add to my existing website or should I start afresh?

thanks

[wood1e2]

It may not be the season for seeds....but it may take you several months or a year to get higher rankings on some highly competitive keywords, so no point putting it off.

You could start by changing the titles of your webpages.

Second website is double the cost...but then would people associate seed with exotic plants, so that could mean a second website, if so look at a really good domain name to match the niche.

[wood1e2]

You might want to put some content in 'Live Plants' as people might be put off by clicking on that menu link and seeing nothing in there. They may think you have no other stock.

People are very impatient on websites, you need to make sure there are little or no reasons for people to visit then bugger off... :)

[flood]

You could start by changing the titles of your webpages.


thanks

I have seen that mentioned before, but I do not know how to do that. The site is powered by cubecart and I cannot see a way of doing it. Does the guy who set my site up have to do that?

[flood]

You might want to put some content in 'Live Plants' as people might be put off by clicking on that menu link and seeing nothing in there. They may think you have no other stock.

People are very impatient on websites, you need to make sure there are little or no reasons for people to visit then bugger off... :)

I have now...too busy getting stuff on eBay!

cheers

[wood1e2]

I would have thought that cubecart has some method of doing that. Although I don't know as I only work with bespoke shopping carts.

Maybe concentrate on one or the other...managaing a ebay shop then a web shop then another for another product range my be too much.

Why not stick with ebay to pay for the seeds website and concentrate on that one, then once you have running and earning profits you want. Start on the next website.

[fisicx]

This is a common problem. ebuyers are not the same people who use a search engine. They use ebay because it does everything they want. If they visit your site they have to set up new accounts and negotiate a different navigation system and the layout is different and, and and...

Can't recall the figure but I read a report which calcultaed that the majority of ebay sellers who then set up their own shop closed it down within a year.

If you want the site to do well you need to invest a lot of time not just doing SEO but tweaking the layout, looking at visitor behaviour, writing descriptions, and generally making the site a nice place to visit. But the 10 hours a week you spend doing this could be better spent making losts of money on ebay.

The other thing to remeber is that ecommerce sites can take 6-12 months to even break even and anther 12 months to show a profit.

However with 20-40 visits a day you should be making 6-8 sales per week. any more than that and you are doing better than average.

[masonuk]

I have a website seedspot selling mainly low value seeds that I currently stock on eBay. Sales are currently doing very well on eBay, but I cannot seem to get people to use my own website...Sales have not been terrific on my own site(20 -40 visits a day- under £100 sales), but I didn't expect it to do great without any SEO. I have not SEO it yet as Its not the season for seeds really and the low cost of my items.

I have now planned to move into selling imported tropical plants and young trees, so I was wondering whether people think I can add to my existing website or should I start afresh?

thanks

That seems normal for your eBay income to be much higher than from your website. However,how are you promoting the website? Are you including details of your website in all your packages? Are you providing incentives (such as cheaper prices as there are no eBay fees in the cost)?

Be careful when beginning an SEO strategy. It is indeed a very long term process. I would guess that keywords such as 'buy seeds' or 'cheap plant seeds' are very competitive, so I would advise that you try and attract some niche markets and more precise keywords, such as 'narcissus pseudonarcissus seeds' or 'UK purple foxglove seeds', which other companies may not be competing for. This way, SEO is likely to be more cost effective.




The argument between starting a new website, or enlarging your previous one depends on a number of factors... including

If you believe that your current website has built up a good customer base, you may want to extend it to the new products, as there is already a guaranteed audience. However, will these people really also be interested also in buying live plants?
If you have two different websites, you can be a seed specialist AND a tropical plants specialist instead of being more broad, which may help you to keep a competitive advantage/edge in two different markets.

[wezza]

Hey Flood,

I think your website looks really nice. There is quite a few things that you could do to your site which have already been mentioned that should help massively with marketing.

1) SEO is definitely a must and things like using 'title' and 'H1' tags should be simple things that you can do yourself on your site. I used cubecart ages ago and I know you can change the title of each page somewhere. Perhaps you need to go to their support forum and ask how to do it. Otherwise do a search on the Internet and there should be loads of stuf online. Just search 'how to change title tag in cubecart' or something similar.

2) Before you do anything, you should really do some keyword research, Google have a free tool so you can see which keywords to aim for that fit your site. For instance, 'plant seeds' gets some 12,000 visitors per month! The google keyword tool is here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

3) Increase customer confidence. Use a SSL certificate or get someone to install it for you, display the logo on the fornt page somewhere prominent. Shoppers want to feel secure if they are paying online. I would also suggest putting the paypal logo up top somewhere so people can see it.

4) As for marketing, also consider putting a blog on your site and post on it a few times per week. Talk about your seeds, plants, business etc. Its a great way to generate traffic and you do see results with it.

5) Use web2.0 stuff like facebook. Setup a facebook account specifically for your business and network with gardners online or start a group on facebook for those interested in gardening. Stuff like that.


So, yes go for it, there is no reason why you should not far exceed your ebay income with your website with a little effort and time.

One last suggestion, do some 'article marketing'. Its very easy, its free and it works. Jsut search online how to do article marketing and you should be able to pick up the basics.

Once you have done as much as you can for your site, then move on to the next project. If you can't get this site right, then it your next one may not be much more successful.