£500 to spend..

[gemd89]

As a sole trader i have found myself with £500 to spend and want to use it to expand my business.

Im looking for offers of what can be achieved for this amount.

My business is clothingchain.com.

Im ideally looking for sales/marketing/SEO/PR/design/advertising offers!

Thanks

Looking forward to hearing from you
Gemma

 

[sysops]

iPad.

It's unlikely to help your business, but at least you'll enjoy using it. There isn't much you can do with £500 to make a start on the mountain which you need to climb to get your website generating sales.

 

[adam391]

If you don't have any outstanding tasks/features you wanted to get done for the website/business I would keep the money until something comes up. This year could be tough for the economy so any spare cash you can keep hold of to get you through it is maybe the best use. Let it burn a bigger hole in your pocket for a while.

If you really want to spend some of it maybe if you are not already in google products you could setup a monthly feed to include them. This would be free if you are technical minded but if not you can use some of the money to get that done.

 

[emma1985]

Why not gain some 'free' exposure? I find that blogs are a great way to bring visitors and business to your site-you could work out the amount of items you could give away as prizes to the amount of your £500 and contact blogs and magazines to see if they would run a feature about your website with the chance to win an item/money to spend on the site.

Unfortunately £500 doesn't go very far these days, but you may find that you could sponsor 10/20 competitions for the same amount it would cost you for a tiny advert at the back of a glossy mag.

Hope that helps!

 

[Investors-Wanted]

Nice site

 

[Deleted member 69689]

Hi Gemma,

How about having some of the code errors fixed in your website and then a little SEO, possibly targeting a more specific area first, rather than trying to compete on keywords such as 'fancy dress costumes'.

Or, you could even get a blog of your own made for £500.00 where you could post news, updates etc... and link it back to your site. Everyone knows Google loves blogs and fresh content!

Feel free to contact me if you require any website related work doing, or visit our website, ikreativ.com

Cheers.

 

[gemd89]

Already in google feeds!

Would be interested to hear all the jobs to get to the top of the mountain?

Thanks anyway

Gemma

 

[gemd89]

I dont think i have access to change website coding... might be worth looking at. Is there lots of errors?

Gemma

 

[Deleted member 69689]

In Google Feeds? Care to elaborate?

I can't find you in for your search terms anywhere in the top 10 pages?

 

[gemd89]

What words are people searching i could get seo for? Happy to hear ideas, get the inheritance spent!

Gemma

 

[gemd89]

They supposed to go every sunday, will check that

Gemma

 

[Deleted member 69689]

These are your current keywords Gemma:

"Keywords" content="Fancy dress costumes, adult party supplies, halloween fancy dress, fancy dress accesories, secure online payment, christmas fancy dress, pirate fancy dress, wigs, masks, make up, childrens fancy dress, 70's fancy dress, fairytale costumes, hawaiian costumes, historical, western, pimp fancy dress"

 

[Deleted member 69689]

Your best bet would be a blog linking back to your website. That way you could keep updating it as much as possible with good, fresh content which Google loves in order to get more hits to your main site.

 

[gemd89]

Im crap at writing content though. How much do blogs cost?

Gemma

 

[sysops]

Gemma, all these web guys are going to do is try to sell you their services, they won't tell you whether you'll ever see a return on your spend.

Tell me, what are your hopes and aspirations for your business? Over what timescale? And on what budget?

 

[Deleted member 69689]

It all depends on what you prefer. You could get a free one through blogger or wordpress and pay someone to set it up for you. Or you could have a bespoke one built for you.

If we where to build a bespoke blog for you it would pretty much cost the £500 you have to spend. You'd have to either buy another domain name and hosting package for your blog which costs around £50.00 per year, or, if you have access and your current hosting supports it, you get set up a sub-domain on that i.e: blog.clothingline.com.

 

[gemd89]

I hope to make enough to live on and support my family monthly so i dont have to go back to work in december when my maternity leave ends. I want to improve the site by adding blog, forums, where people create an account and design a person of themselves and it puts the clothes on site on them so they can style themselves. I hope to advertise on TV and radio and in magazines like most clothing stores do and my ultimate aims are to import clothing instead of getting wholesale from UK

Gemma

 

[sysops]

Ok, so your aim is to generate say £2k a month in profit by next December, does that sound about right?

What is your budget for achieving this?

 

[Deleted member 69689]

Sysops I'm definately not in the "all web guys" category. I actually try to help my clients as much as possible to do well with their site, most of the time going above and beyond what was asked of us at no extra charge. That said, no-one can influence how Google indexes their website once built.

 

[gemd89]

£1000 a month in profit would do! Yes by december this year, january. I havent got a great budget....it may seem impossible.

I budget and spend what i can when i can

Gemma

 

[sysops]

Sysops I'm definately not in the "all web guys" category. I actually try to help my clients as much as possible to do well with their site, most of the time going above and beyond what was asked of us at no extra charge. That said, no-one can influence how Google indexes their website once built.

I wasn't knocking you or the advice you're offering - I'm sure you're a nice person, a good developer, and that your clients love you.

But all too often we see people who have set up an online shop and have completely unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved, on what budget, over what timescale. It pains me to see this, I've seen far too many people waste months of their lives and thousands of pounds trying to achieve something which is just not within their means.

So It's worth spending a bit of time looking at the business requirements in detail, and figuring out how feasible it is, before launching into additional development and/or marketing work.

 

[sysops]

£1000 a month in profit would do! Yes by december this year, january. I havent got a great budget....it may seem impossible.

I budget and spend what i can when i can

You're going to have to put a ballpark figure on that - how much do you think you can spend on this over the next 9 months? £1000? £10,000? £50,000?

 

[gemd89]

£3000

Gemma

 

[Deleted member 69689]

I wasn't knocking you or the advice you're offering - I'm sure you're a nice person, a good developer, and that your clients love you.

But all too often we see people who have set up an online shop and have completely unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved, on what budget, over what timescale. It pains me to see this, I've seen far too many people waste months of their lives and thousands of pounds trying to achieve something which is just not within their means.

So It's worth spending a bit of time looking at the business requirements in detail, and figuring out how feasible it is, before launching into additional development and/or marketing work.

I totally agree.

 

[Deleted member 69689]

Gemma, £3000.00 in 9mths. I really can't see you getting what you require for that amount.

The section of your website that you want for users to be able to dress themselves digitally will probably cost that alone. Then you have blogs, SEO and marketing on top.

 

[Joe E]

Gemma does it have to be online marketing?

 

[sysops]

Ok, that's useful - it will come in handy in a minute (you'll see)

Ready to crunch some numbers? If you don't want to discuss specific numbers pertaining to your business, you can just make up some hypothetical ones; the calculation stays the same.

First, we need to know what margin we have to work with. For the sake of this calculation, I'll assume 50%. You can substitute your own margin and recalculate if necessary.

Then we need to know the average order value. Looking at your range, shall we take a guess with £30? Again, you can tweak this.

Let's also assume you're running this in your spare time, from home, so you have no overheads at all. You just buy stock, then send it. You have some packaging costs, and Royal Mail costs, and that's about it.

So in order to clear your £1000 profit, based on the above, you're going to have to turn over say £2400 a month. Sound about right?

On a £30 order value, that's 80 orders a month, or just under 3 orders a day.

You should be able to convert around 1%-1.5% of your visitors without too much trouble. So to get your 3 orders a day, you need 200-300 visits a day.

Is this achievable within 9 months? Sure. Can you do it on £3000? Probably, if you make the right decisions and spend wisely.

Do all these numbers look about right?

 

[wevet]

As a sole trader i have found myself with £500 to spend and want to use it to expand my business.

Im looking for offers of what can be achieved for this amount.

My business is clothingchain.com.

Im ideally looking for sales/marketing/SEO/PR/design/advertising offers!

Thanks

Looking forward to hearing from you
Gemma

Here is a simple suggestion. As a fashion site you should keep your site up to daye. At the moment your site is still saying "look hot this WINTER". Instead of "Cool this SPRING".

You are obviously on a very limited budget so looking at the list of where you might spend £500 in most of those areas £500m is a drop in the ocean.

However, with £500 you could for instance run some refer a friend promotions where the referser and their friend stands to win £50 of vouchers each. Just imagine all your existing customers sticking your name onto their facebook sites to encourage friend s to shop at your site.

This would be a very inexpensive way to leverage your budget.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Gemma,I have a much better idea.

Take me to Paris for the weekend.Won't do your business any good,but it will make me feel a whole lot better.

 

[gemd89]

Orders about £25 and margin between 40-50% but all rest correct.

So where do i spend and what on?

Gemma

 

[MikeD08]

Sysops, that was very decent of you to help to OP like that, hence the thanks.

Good show Sir!!!

 

[sysops]

Orders about £25 and margin between 40-50% but all rest correct.

So where do i spend and what on?

Well, you need to generate around 300 visits a day. Over 9 months, that's 300 x 30 x 9 = 81,000. And you have £3000 to do it. Which means you can spend 3.7p per visitor to your site. That's pretty tight for your market, so you're going to have to be very creative.

Before splashing out, it would be worth establishing whether your offering is right. Do you have the right products, at the right price, presented as people want them. A quick £200 adwords campaign will tell you this - if you manage to convert say 2%, you can confidently proceed with your £3000 marketing plan. If you can't, then that £3000 would be wasted.

So if I were you, I'd start with a £200 adwords campaign.

 

[sysops]

Sysops, that was very decent of you to help to OP like that, hence the thanks.

Good show Sir!!!

Aww, I'm touched. Thanks Mike.

 

But all too often we see people who have set up an online shop and have completely unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved, on what budget, over what timescale. It pains me to see this, I've seen far too many people waste months of their lives and thousands of pounds trying to achieve something which is just not within their means.

And everyone chose the wrong products to sell.

To Gemma if you intend to build an online business ,use any money on SEO.

Finding the right one is another story.

Earl

 

[PETTE]

You could use a new professional interface design for that amount. One of the most important features for your website, and for identity reasons. If you would like a strong interface design and identity, contact me via my website to discuss how I could improve the website interface to appeal to the website content and subject. You might catch me online for a live chat as well simon-center.com.

 

[Deleted member 69689]

You could use a new professional interface design for that amount. One of the most important features for your website, and for identity reasons. If you would like a strong interface design and identity, contact me via my website to discuss how I could improve the website interface to appeal to the website content and subject. You might catch me online for a live chat as well simon-center.com

No offence pette, but if you're going to recommend someone to get a "professional design" don't you think the website you refer them to should also be professional?

The site you refer to is aligned center in parts, others not. Some sections are full width, others are not. The footer section is completely splattered, at least in Firefox on a Mac it is.

The site uses random stock images throughout for no apparent reason.

Linked stylesheet and inline styles? Why?

The site has no flow, no consideration for user interaction, is broke in most parts and in my opinion is generally below par for someone who states to have 5 years experience in design.

Sorry, but that's just my thought.

 

[PETTE]

This forum is so very very very predictable. I was actually expecting some random pointless comment like this one.

No offence pette, but if you're going to recommend someone to get a "professional design" don't you think the website you refer them to should also be professional?

I think you're trying to make a point there... You should have made it a bit more clear.

The site you refer to is aligned center in parts, others not. Some sections are full width, others are not. The footer section is completely splattered, at least in Firefox on a Mac it is.

What does that have to do with not being professional? full width, others are not?

The site uses random stock images throughout for no apparent reason.

What's your point again? And ever if I where please locate... throughtout?

Thank you for taking you time to analyse some aspects of my website. However that is my playground. If you would like to take a look at my other websites developed by me you're more than. Now I've spent the all night awake and knowing how this conversation is going to end this will be the last response in any responses to my website...

 

[gemd89]

I was thinking either SEO or PR, but i read SEO is an ongoing thing and i cant afford £500 per month so either branding/marketing or PR would be good - doesnt have to be online

Gemma

 

[Deleted member 69689]

This forum is so very very very predictable. I was actually expecting some random pointless comment like this one.

I think you're trying to make a point there... You should have made it a bit more clear.

What does that have to do with not being professional? full width, others are not?

What's your point again? And ever if I where please locate... throughtout?

Thank you for taking you time to analyse some aspects of my website. However that is my playground. If you would like to take a look at my other websites developed by me you're more than. Now I've spent the all night awake and knowing how this conversation is going to end this will be the last response in any responses to my website...

Pette, I was just stating my opinion. If you cannot see what is wrong with your site then there is a bigger problem than I initially thought.

 

[Deleted member 69689]

Hey Gemma,

If you would like to go down identity/branding SEO I would be more than happy to help.

For your budget we could create a logo/identity for your website and we could make major improvements with regards to SEO.