Ideas on Advertising

Hi all

Just stumbled across this forum, im addicted already!

I have a handbag and jewellery party business, mainly by party plan but attending more events like ladies night, fund raisers etc.

im just wanting to pick peoples brains on free advertising, any ideas etc.
Ive got a website, facebook group, stall finder ad etc but looking for ways to advertise my website for free or low cost.

Any ideas appreciated

 

[bdw]

What you need to do is get your website designed and optimised properly. It looks OK as it is but obviously a DIY job. Virtually no optimisation has been done and page titles like "TOTE-ALLY BAGS - Home" are not going to attract any traffic.

If I were you I would get someone to redesign your website to get found on the search engines and get a proper ecommercer catalogue installed there (as opposed to a Paypal cart.)

Incidentally I am not advising you because I am touting for work. I am too busy at present so my advice is not based on self interest.

 

[ComJan]

Do a charity event for a hospital with sick kids... free PR and you do something good

 

[Esk247]

As bdw says, your website looks nice but all of your contact details are in image format this is not 'seen' by the search engines and is ignored instead of treated as potentially useful for those searching for handbags in whitley bay.

You also don't need the View Cart option on every item..just one link at the top of the page will do. You can get a professional ecommerce solution set up but if you're just starting out then a web designer will be able to integrate paypal in to your website more efficiently so that the customer hardly notices they're using paypal when ordering.

The image at the top is quite large too but it's all just tweaks on the website front.

With advertising, make sure you're on lots of free web directories, try twitter and keep up with the facebooking.

After these freebies you'll probably need to start spending a little on advertising and marketing, just to generate more interest and gain more 'brand awareness' basically, getting your flyers in to peoples hands so they start to recognise your company and what products you're selling.

 

[eshopwiz]

article marketing is a good free option. You can good traffic and SEO back links from that.

 

Thankyou for all your advice.

To be honest, im a bit clueless when its comes to websites, optomising etc and all the technical stuff. The website is thruogh vistaprint as at the minute we can't afford to pay a company a huge amount to design and maintain a website.
At the risk of gettng laughed at, what is an ecommercer catalogue? And how do i optomise the website?
I originally wasnt going to have a website, for the simple reason that i dont know much about the technical aspect but thought i would give it a whirl. I have had some sales through it but would obviously like more.
Does anyone know roughly how much it costs to design etc a website? I did ask one company for a rough idea but they wanted to come and see me at home to go through things which i wasnt keen on.
Thanks again for all your advice.

Good idea about the hospital, i will look in to it xx

 

[Gotum]

To be very honest I like the home grown style of the site; it keeps you real. There is no doubt you could do a fancy site but there is a lot of merit (based on your current business model) in coming across as a genuine home grown cottage industry business.

You can create another site to test another approach as it won't change your supply and demand chain which is one of the hardest things to establish.

There are also many ways to get great inexpensive and even free exposure and if you pm me I can go through that with you. I offer free advice by the way so I won't cost you a penny

SEO is very easy to fix these days and I'll walk you through that and show you how to get top positions on all the search engines. I know that sound blasé to a lot of the SEO guys on here but I will show the proof in the pudding I have a couple of Jewelry businesses and I built them using SEO (white hat) techniques. Along with some very well targeted ROI models, PPC and a few other tricks I've learnt over the years. And by the creating a fully functional e-commerce site (that you can manage yourself) may not cost you as much as you may have been lead to believe. Once again I'll guide you through the mind field in this area.

I love your passion for this business and as many people on here may already know; I feel it's the magic ingredient of all successful start-ups.

Look forward to helping you go big

Thankyou for all your advice.

To be honest, im a bit clueless when its comes to websites, optomising etc and all the technical stuff. The website is thruogh vistaprint as at the minute we can't afford to pay a company a huge amount to design and maintain a website.
At the risk of gettng laughed at, what is an ecommercer catalogue? And how do i optomise the website?
I originally wasnt going to have a website, for the simple reason that i dont know much about the technical aspect but thought i would give it a whirl. I have had some sales through it but would obviously like more.
Does anyone know roughly how much it costs to design etc a website? I did ask one company for a rough idea but they wanted to come and see me at home to go through things which i wasnt keen on.
Thanks again for all your advice.

Good idea about the hospital, i will look in to it xx

 

[Esk247]

As others have said, the image of the website is quite nice. It's clearly a family run business and this makes the website more trustworthy.

Some of the others have just mentioned that to get better results in search engines you could look at some basic optimisation of the site: page titles changed to reflect what is shown on the page, instead of using images for your address and telephone number use text that can be picked up by the search engines, ensure there are no spelling mistakes, a few little changes to the layout to make it easier for people to find items.

Small things that you can do yourself actually at a later date, when you have time

Web design costs vary wildly depending on what you want. Thats why the other company probably wanted to meet you in person, to go through some ideas and designs and get an idea of what you want the website to achieve. Costs can be from £150 up to £3000 for small websites but those prices contain totally different options.

You can always end up throwing money at something and achieving little, you're already making some sales on the website so it must be doing something right

 

As others have said, the image of the website is quite nice. It's clearly a family run business and this makes the website more trustworthy.

Some of the others have just mentioned that to get better results in search engines you could look at some basic optimisation of the site: page titles changed to reflect what is shown on the page, instead of using images for your address and telephone number use text that can be picked up by the search engines, ensure there are no spelling mistakes, a few little changes to the layout to make it easier for people to find items.

Small things that you can do yourself actually at a later date, when you have time

Web design costs vary wildly depending on what you want. Thats why the other company probably wanted to meet you in person, to go through some ideas and designs and get an idea of what you want the website to achieve. Costs can be from £150 up to £3000 for small websites but those prices contain totally different options.

You can always end up throwing money at something and achieving little, you're already making some sales on the website so it must be doing something right

Thank you,
im constantly trying to better the website but i am limited with vistaprint and what they offer which is why i was looking for alternatives but not have a massive outlay for it.
I will look into changing the images to text. When you mention page titles. do you mean the sections down the side with the products on?

Thanks again

 

[Esk247]

Thank you,
im constantly trying to better the website but i am limited with vistaprint and what they offer which is why i was looking for alternatives but not have a massive outlay for it.
I will look into changing the images to text. When you mention page titles. do you mean the sections down the side with the products on?

Thanks again

Page titles run across the top of the browser that you're using. Where at the top of this website it says UK Business Forums and yours says Tote-Ally Bags - Home. A web designer would change this to something like: Handbags and Accessories in Newcastle (or summink) to better reflect what you're selling. Each 'page title' would be changed to reflect what each page was about.

I'm not sure if you can change page titles in Vistaprint. £2.99 a month for the basic site design isn't it?

 

I pay £10 per month for the site then i paid a one off fee of about £15 for advance editing which didnt give a great deal extra but a few good features. How do i change the page titles (told you im not vert technical lol)

thanks

 

[bdw]

If you insist on doing your own website and SEO then be prepared to make mistakes that could be costly.

I generally recommend the use of this document from Google for beginners. It comes straight from the horse's mouth and it should be more than enough to get you going.
http://static.googleusercontent.com.../search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

With regard to website prices, as I said we are not taking on any more work at present. We do however publish our prices so you can have a look at our website price guide for comparison purposes.

 

Great thanks, i will have a look at both links.
Its all a learning curve!! Im sure i will get there one day!

If you insist on doing your own website and SEO then be prepared to make mistakes that could be costly.

I generally recommend the use of this document from Google for beginners. It comes straight from the horse's mouth and it should be more than enough to get you going.

With regard to website prices, as I said we are not taking on any more work at present. We do however publish our prices so you can have a look at our for comparison purposes.

 

[Esk247]

There is a lot to learn but it's worth doing.

Vistaprint websites are ok to get you started but after that you do need to bring in a pro web designer to get the best from your website and your products.

A few people on here offer websites at pay monthly prices (we do the same from £14.99 p/month for 12 months) so it may be worth looking in UKBF Market Place for any designers that have special offers on.

Recommended is (UKBF Member) Faevilangel who builds wordpress websites at competitive prices. I think he has a special offer on at the moment too.

Get some quotes, compare packages, see how it goes.

 

Great thanks, will have a look and see what offers he has at the min and shop about too. Yet more jargon to learn lol.

There is a lot to learn but it's worth doing.

Vistaprint websites are ok to get you started but after that you do need to bring in a pro web designer to get the best from your website and your products.

A few people on here offer websites at pay monthly prices (we do the same from £14.99 p/month for 12 months) so it may be worth looking in UKBF Market Place for any designers that have special offers on.

Recommended is (UKBF Member) Faevilangel who builds wordpress websites at competitive prices. I think he has a special offer on at the moment too.

Get some quotes, compare packages, see how it goes.

 

[TailorMade]

Like others have said - I like the design and feel to your site. But, maybe you need more functionality and control. £10 a month seems quite steep for what VP are offering you..

I will drop you a PM.

 

[zgj512]

You can register some forum which connecting your bussiness and jiont their disccussion. Then, sometimes, you can add your website link in your areticle. I think this is also a way of advertising.