Sales are up since switching domain to SOL!

[SherylT]

I just wanted to let you all know of the recent success I have had. Originally my domain of www.cust-m-cartoons.com was being hosted by Ipowerweb.com. I had built it entirely in Dreamweaver, and was only paying $7.95/month for hosting. If lucky, I would get a couple of sales a month.

I had a license to use with SOL, so even though hosting is more, I decided to switch everything over to them. I liked the templates and the StoreBuilder was a lot easier to use.

Now to the good part . . . The site has been with SOL for only a month and is doing great. Just this week I have received 8 orders. :lol:

I know I posted a "review my site" notice on the old forum, but if anyone would care to take a look at this site, and let me know what they think, I'd appreciate it. I know I don't have enough links yet, but I'm working on that. I'm also using PPC from Overture and Google AdWords, until my site is optimized enough to "go it alone".

I can't tell you how much I've learned from this forum, and I'm so glad that it as found a new home online!

Sheryl Tupa
Cust-M-Cartoons
500+ Personalized Cartoon Designs -- Sports, Occupational, Special Occasions and More!
www.cust-m-cartoons.com

[ExcaliburBrothers]

Cheryl,

I didn't look at your store but 8 orders in one week means you have a store that sells. How many visitors did it take to get those 8 orders. What methods did you use to market the site to these people?

Drive that targeted traffic and you'll see your orders just continuing to increase. Great to hear of your success. Doing the happy dance for you.

Lawrence

[SherylT]

Thanks for clicking in so quick, Lawrence. The site averages I would say between 45-55 visitors a day now. I know that will increase once I add more links. (site is pretty new).

Right now I'm using PPC from Overture and just started Google AdWords. I'm hoping that once site is optimized and climbing in the rankings, I will be able to either cut back on PPC or drop it all together.

I do have the Zeus Pro version, but have just started training it. The "personalized gift" category seems to have a lot of competition, and I want to keep it tightly linked. Do you have suggestions as to what categories would be best?

Sheryl Tupa
Cust-M-Cartoons.com www.cust-m-cartoons.com

[Bethers]

Getting orders on 45-55 visitors a day means your PPC campaign is working as it should. Read the tutorial on maintaining a PPC campaign and make sure you follow the guidelines on spending -

It is great news that your sales are up - just goes to prove that you have a worthwhile product, the storebuilder is awesome, and you're store is customer friendly!!!

Congrats and to many more sales.

[ExcaliburBrothers]

I do have the Zeus Pro version, but have just started training it. The "personalized gift" category seems to have a lot of competition, and I want to keep it tightly linked. Do you have suggestions as to what categories would be best?

Well the "gift" area on the internet is extremely vast so I suggest making your categories very specific. Just a few examples

Gifts For Him
Gifts For Her
Gifts For Teens
Gifts For Children
Gifts - Christmas
Gifts - Birthdays
Gifts - Unique
Gifts - Personalized
Gifts For Mothers
Gifts For Fathers
Gifts For Grandparents
Gifts For Sisters From Him
Gifts For Sisters From Her

I say this because of the idea that the search engines prefere categories with no more than 100 per page. Sounds like a lot now but won't be in the future. Also say you do fill up Gifts For Him with 100 links you can then always create a Gifts For Men category.

Lawrence

[AIEntrprses]

Congratulations Sheryl! Much more success to you!

[Janet Ford]

Congratulations, Sheryl - To what do you attribute the increase in sales? You said it happened when you switched to SOL - what about the SOL storefront do you think helped your sales?

How are you deciding what price to bid in your PPC campaign?

As a fledling online merchant, I am eager to learn from the winners.

[SherylT]

Janet -- I think the SOI storefronts look so much more professional than the one I built myself (although I think I did a pretty good job! :D . I like the way you can list products according to categories (something I could not do before).

As my Google and Yahoo rankings continue to climb, I will stay with Overture PPC. I usually don't bid to be the top, because in most cases it is just too expensive. I try to position myself so that I stay on the first page in the sponsored listings, usually 3-4th place, but sometimes when those above my discontinue PPC for a while I even show up first!

The Google AdWords is working very well, almost better than Overture. I like the fact that in both I can set a daily limit which helps with budgeting. My Goodle AdWords is now at $15.00 a day ($300/month). Right now for "personalized cartoon gifts" I am #7 on Yahoo in the "regular listings" (page 1) and #9 on Google "regular listings" (page 1). If I find myself consistently on the first page of the search engines I will probably put my PPC on hold and see how it goes.

Best of luck with your store . . . as the holidays approach, and gas prices go up, I'm sure more and more people will be ordering gifts on line.

[dmuise]

You need to remember something important here.

If you quit your PPC your visitors will GO DOWN dramatically, even if you are on page 1.

I'm on page one for many, many different terms and my clicks are about the same as your PPC and I don't PPC. I'm in spot #3, #4, #6 etc. for a bunch of terms, but still only getting 40-50 clicks per day.

I've been published for two years and have had only 3 sales. Your sales are definately better, but with your PPC you are targeting your visitors, so naturally you'll have the sales. When you go with plain search results and no PPC you are no longer seriously targeting and you may be faced with my dilemma.

Now don't worry, I did say maybe, and we are selling different products, and I do have tremendous competition for what I sell.

I did get a big shock today checking my stats... I clicked on the back link for a keyword phrase someone used to get to my store and I came up #3 out of 40,900,000. Forty million sites (I think that has to be an error on the part of Yahoo!).

Then again, maybe it's time I revamped my store because I should be getting sales. Another project, yipee! :roll: