What to do?

[Crystal Jewels]

Hi all.

Everyone well?

Not been on here for a while but thought i'd come as for your advice as you're always so helpful.

My web site is not doing any business what so ever!! I've had the site up for many months now and i've had about 4 enquiries and nothing else. This is really starting to get to me now. As i've put money into it and i'm getting zip back.

I was advised to change the home page back in Novemeber. Which I started the ball rolling but seems to have gone no where.

I was made redundant about 3 weeks ago so dont have the money to keep putting into it.

What woud you do?

 

[cycloneuk]

Just had another quick look, you are making it very hard for someone to place an order tbh, i don't want to have to ring or email to order. It should be setup so i can order and pay instantly online, you will continue to struggle until you implement a better system. You will also need to work on seo or you will get little traffic.

 

[Crystal Jewels]

My original site had a PHP basket system. However I was advised that because my designs are bespoke that this is not the best route to follow.

 

[cycloneuk]

My original site had a PHP basket system. However I was advised that because my designs are bespoke that this is not the best route to follow.

I see what you mean, but you have the problem of people who can't be bothered to go to the extra hassle, the more obstacles you put in the way then the less chance of someone buying. Perhaps you could have a fixed price or offer a number of different designs for people to choose from.

 

[Crystal Jewels]

I see what you mean, but you have the problem of people who can't be bothered to go to the extra hassle, the more obstacles you put in the way then the less chance of someone buying. Perhaps you could have a fixed price or offer a number of different designs for people to choose from.

Everything on the site you are able to buy if you wish .... however I find that people always want to make changes to the designs they want.

So i'm not really sure which is the best way to go. I do however know that my old site, which was up about 4/5 years ago was an online store and that did alot better than my current site is doing.

 

[jackchafer]

Hi mate, Just looked at your site, and it looks nice, but as cycloneuk said it's hard for someone to order, because why would someone be arsed if you have to email you, wouldn't they just find somewhere else, where they can pick there size and order

 

[fisicx]

Everything is bespoke - it's handmade wedding jewelery so the bride will want to discuss her needs.

April, are you tracking your visitors? Yu need to be looking at where they land, what they looked at and when they left.

Now you are redundant you can make your contact details much bigger. Make it obvious that you want people to call. spend some time tweaking the descriptions, maybe rewording the main headings.

We never did get the homepage sorted but lots of big images is the key. People want to look at tiaras not words.

But you need to do some analysis to find out which bits of the site aren't working.

 

[kirit1966]

Hi,

I've been in this position and to a point still working at it.

Initially I paid a lot of money for my website, unfortunately no business. I was then told about pay per click, SEO etc. This all added to cost. Then affiliate maketing was mentioned and this added to cost. My company still didnt come up in the rankings. I was then told that I needed links, back links, blog articles this and that. Guess what? This also could add to cost.

I know that my product, personalised crystal, is something that many people, once they see it, buy it. My company Laserpics.co.uk, is one of only a dozen or so companies that offer these items. What I need, and you, is to be ranked in googles top 10 when people search for personalised crystal gifts for me or term relevant to your products. If the price is right people will buy.

Find a way to get your site ranked fairly high, make buying easy and your almost there. How you do that is another matter, for me it has cost a fair bit and i'm still not quite there yet.

 

[cycloneuk]

Everything on the site you are able to buy if you wish .... however I find that people always want to make changes to the designs they want.

So i'm not really sure which is the best way to go. I do however know that my old site, which was up about 4/5 years ago was an online store and that did alot better than my current site is doing.

I'm persuming you want to charge extra for the customizations customers want, you could either have an option and perhaps charge a fixed fee if they require it to be customized or if you don't charge extra then have a order comments box where they can enter requirements, you can then contact them to clarify anything.

 

[Crystal Jewels]

Everything is bespoke - it's handmade wedding jewelery so the bride will want to discuss her needs.

April, are you tracking your visitors? Yu need to be looking at where they land, what they looked at and when they left.

Now you are redundant you can make your contact details much bigger. Make it obvious that you want people to call. spend some time tweaking the descriptions, maybe rewording the main headings.

We never did get the homepage sorted but lots of big images is the key. People want to look at tiaras not words.

But you need to do some analysis to find out which bits of the site aren't working.

Visitors are being tracked. I get a fair few visitors and mostly are from google oraganic. However the average time on the site is 1.20 mins. They look at a couple of pages and leave.

The home page design that Kay and myself came up with I really liked. I prefer it to the home page I have now. It has bigger and better images and better layouts.

 

[Crystal Jewels]

I'm persuming you want to charge extra for the customizations customers want, you could either have an option and perhaps charge a fixed fee if they require it to be customized or if you don't charge extra then have a order comments box where they can enter requirements, you can then contact them to clarify anything.

I don't charge any more for the bespoke service only if the materials used are of higher value than the ones shown in the designed being used as a base to go on.

 

[Foz]

Maybe you could look at PayPal for the sale of your items, they have the facility to easily create payment buttons for each of your items and easily put it into your site so people could click 'Buy Now' goto paypals site and pay for the item then get re-directed back to your site!

I use these on a lot of my sites that i build for customers who dont need a fully blown ecommerce site but just wish to sell a few wares?

Regards,
Simon

 

[fisicx]

Visitors are being tracked. I get a fair few visitors and mostly are from google oraganic. However the average time on the site is 1.20 mins. They look at a couple of pages and leave.

Exactly which pages do they look at? If they are just skimming through then having an online ordering system isn't going to change anything.

And if they are landing on the product pages then changing the homepage isn't going to make them buy either.

If you want an online ordering system then this is easily implemented. But I don't think this is the problem. All the people who seem to have voted so far are men - women shop differently.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

If the prices are set then you don't need to avoid having a basket. You can get people to add them to the basket and pay online as normal, then you phone or E-mail them to continue the process and to find out more info. Not having a basket will seriously damage your sales conversion rate.

You'll also need all the copy re-written (especially the front page) as the readability and sell-ability of the copy isn't strong enough to start converting those visitors into sales.

Then once that's done you need to look at your traffic, work out where it's coming from and whether those sources will provide the most targeted traffic.

 

[silver]

Personally, I don't think you have to have an online buying system at this stage...especially if additional costs would be a factor for you. Your jewellery is very individual bespoke pieces and I would have thought that your customer would be prepared to email or telephone in order to buy say a pair of earrings, which have been made just for them.

Alison