Help ideas for marketing/ advertising needed..

[steveroberts 10]

But would people use these specific terms when searching in Google? If I was looking for a fashion top I would not type in top.

 

I am not a clothes shopper (47 year old bloke!) but I'd have thought your target audience might type in "ladies summer top" (I've just asked my wife what search term she would use).

 

The Google adword tool will help you identify the more popular search term phrases likely to be used by people.

 

Use the adword tool, try 1/2 search terms that you think someone would use to find your site, Google will then generate lots of other phrases similar to the ones you put in and it will tell you their popularity.

 

You can then optimise the pages based on those search terms. Hope this makes sense?

 

Buy "SEO for Dummies"; it will teach you all you will need to know.

 

Good luck.

Edited May 7, 2010 by steveroberts
typo

[anywebsite 10]

I might be biased, but I think you need a new professionally done website, if you want to promote the best image for your company. A free template site isn't going to cut it, if you want to sell your products online. I'd say you need a new website, before you spend any time or money promoting the one that you've got.

 

Especially for a clothes shop, it needs to be a stylish site, with nice professional photos, maybe even with a model or two wearing some of the clothes.

 

Twitter is a two way thing, it's a social platform. You wont get much out of it if you don't use it in that way. You have to follow a few people that you're interested in & that you think might be interested in you or your products. Then engage in conversations with them, use it as a tool for meeting new customers.

Edited May 7, 2010 by anywebsite

[indizine 10]

I have to agree with anywebsite, you would be wasting money and effort on a website that will convert poorly. I don't tend to add to website reviews often because there is so much needs doing to it it's better (cheaper) to start afresh.

 

I've hd 2-3 clients this week convert from wanting me to amend/fix stuff on their site to switching to having a brand new one. Sure, I could stay zipped and make money on a load of amendments for the year ot two ahead, but that is not in the clients best interest and is a false economy not least because the SEO is going to have zero effect on conversion because all SEO does i get people to your website. The site itself has to convert from people landing on it to buying from you (or enquiries if you are not ecommerce).

[image-retail 10]

Thanks anywebsire and indizine, even If I had the money I would possibly not even think about it. I do have sales coming in atm, which are slowly building and I am probably being defensive but this site is something I have put alot of time and effort into, learning all about design, matatags etc and maybe I am wrong, but it seems conveinient that the both of you do webdesign and recommend scrapping it, when others think it looks good.

[indizine 10]

Thats becasue we see different things so we are bound to view it from a professional viewpoint. It's what we do all day every day year in and year out. We dont just look, say how nice they are, and buy off one now and again, we do a lot more than that. Its like a bricky coming to have a look at the wall I built and I totally agree that you are usually happy with all your own handiwork and proud of it, but you also have to remember this is an open forum where you requested constructive criticism to quote your own words. People come on here for an all round viewpoint, and its mixed with general and those of us who do it for a living. If I went on the gardening forum or the knitting forum and showed them my DIY i'd pretty much get the same response! So come on, let's be fair because the comment referring to how 2 web design companies think it should be scraped infers we want your business. I don't post to get work that way. It's cheesy at best and I don't like cheese. Then people wonder why the web designers don't want to contribute. In which case, just ignore the comments rather than infer we are being disingenuous.

Edited May 7, 2010 by indizine

[Cazza21 10]

Good luck with your site. Lots of useful comments here - i am just starting a business too. Your website looks far more complicated than mine. My only comment would be that the font doesn't look right for the site - just personal preference though i suppose.

[JC02 10]

Hi all, I am new to the forum and am hoping to pick as many brains as possible!!!

 

I have just launched my site http:image-retail.co.uk selling ladies high street fashions and cut down prices.

 

I am currently working through my seo, ony about 20 pages left to do, yeah!!!

 

I have a facebook group, twitter account (which I am struggling to get followers with) and myspace group. i also have an ebay shop and link to the site. Any other ideas would be gratefully receved.

 

Also any feedback on the site would be gratefully received! would you buy from me? if not why not etc, constructive critism please!!!

 

I think your site's good, nice and simple like other's have said... I think you could have a better font and different colour... but that's just a personal preference and would'nt stop me buying your products.

 

Also, again, it's just my opinion... but I would look at changing the dotted boxes that go around your products, but it's the same thing really it would'nt stop me from buying. Do you have a telephone number, because from a personally point of view I get quite irrated if there's no number.

 

As far as advertising, I'm not a CEO specialist so I could be wrong, but I would have thought that the keywords your bigger competitors are using are going to get them above you on search engines, there are websites I use to spy on them which I could find out what they are using and how much they spend on keywords to get them near the top... be very careful because the bigger clients spend fortunes as you may know... I guess other guys on here would be able to point you in the right direction with that.

 

The other option is offline marketing which is still very effective, such as viral marketing... have you thought about putting your link on other websites in exchange you do the same for them? I don't mean a rival company I mean a company what's relivent to you products such as a fashion accessories company... does this make sence? Recomendations... this is called referal marketing, it's cheap and effective basically means what it says, everytime you get a customer send them something stateing that if you refer someone to me, you will receive 10% off your next order... for example.

 

 

 

cheers

John

Edited May 9, 2010 by JC02

[image-retail 10]

Thanks jc22, nice to have some constructive feedback!

 

I am learning about linking etc and am under the understanding that doing reciprical link exchanges has no benifit to page ranking, I did a link campaign only to read that only back links from quaility sites add value. I am currently working on this, chatting on fashion blogs/forums etc so this I am working on.

 

I currently offer 10% discount for repeat customers and on certain sites offering the same discount for first purchaces, however the referal is a great idea. Thanks for that.

 

I have just started to read seomoz guide as reccommended by a few people and have learnt alot so far, I wish I had read it first!!

[JC02 10]

Thanks jc22, nice to have some constructive feedback!

 

I am learning about linking etc and am under the understanding that doing reciprical link exchanges has no benifit to page ranking, I did a link campaign only to read that only back links from quaility sites add value. I am currently working on this, chatting on fashion blogs/forums etc so this I am working on.

 

I currently offer 10% discount for repeat customers and on certain sites offering the same discount for first purchaces, however the referal is a great idea. Thanks for that.

 

I have just started to read seomoz guide as reccommended by a few people and have learnt alot so far, I wish I had read it first!!

 

Your welcome!

 

Regarding the referal marketing... you might want to offer a much more effective offer to get people refering, and more importantly buying... the trick is to offer an irristable deal get them sucked into your products once you have the customer you've then get to decide how much that customer is worth to you in a year then decide on a really good deal, you might not make much money in the short term but will gain in the long term.

 

Try not to get too sucked in to the online marketing, you have a product and a business where there's a lot of competiton and larger companies will spend a lot more money than you will, to get to the top of google... Backlinks to your site are good... im not an expert on this I did do this and it worked, but it really depends on where you want your business to go. Stay away from having 500, 1000 leaflets its simply not enough you need at least 10,000.

 

Im going to give you a little secret on how to get a better quality of customer I will PM you it, but don't tell anyone else

[image-retail 10]

jc02, wow thanks for that. I know I have alot of competition with the big names, my edge is that I am selling their stock but at cheaper prices. Its early days yet, only statred in jan, and it is actually going better than expected. I have been told to not expect a sale for first 3 months but have had a fair few so far.

 

Leaflet idea sounds great as does the other! THANKS for your help

[anywebsite 10]

Thanks anywebsire and indizine, even If I had the money I would possibly not even think about it. I do have sales coming in atm, which are slowly building and I am probably being defensive but this site is something I have put alot of time and effort into, learning all about design, matatags etc and maybe I am wrong, but it seems conveinient that the both of you do webdesign and recommend scrapping it, when others think it looks good.

 

Well, I said I might be biased, because I'm a web developer. Half of that job is looking for & correcting every minor imperfection I see on a website, so I'm bound to be more critical than the average person.

 

It was a genuine honest professional opinion about what would be best for your website. I'm not that desperate for work to go round telling people with perfectly good websites that they should get a new one. We also do online marketing & seo, and make just as much money doing that, so I would have suggested that, if I thought that was the best route. I was just giving my professional opinion, it doesn't really matter to me, you could do the work yourself, or get anyone else to do it.

 

I didn't mean to insult you, it was meant as constructive criticism. I could've been more diplomatic about it, but the advice still stands, you should do more work on making your site look more professional before you spend much money or time on marketing it. Otherwise you'll suffer from lower conversion rates, end up spending more than you need to on advertising & possibly put a few potential customers off. Both of the professional website developers on this thread are giving you exactly the same advice, we both offer online marketing services, it's not often that me & indizine agree, and it's not just because we want the work.

 

Look at the websites of the companies you said you want to compete with: http://www.next.co.uk/ - http://www.marksandspencer.com/ - http://www.newlook.com/ They all have really nicely designed websites, that show their products off really well & make their customers want to buy them. All the big online womens clothes retailers have really nicely designed websites. A site like that doesn't need to cost as much as you might think. The internet gives you a chance to compete on more level terms with the big companies.

 

You're selling fashion, so you're selling an image, your website needs to look as smart as your clothes.

 

I know it can be tough starting a new business, our business is new too, there's a hell of a lot to do to just get started, without trying to do everything yourself. Specialise in the areas of your business that you're best at, take help & advice from other specialists for the rest of it.

Edited May 17, 2010 by anywebsite

[YourStore 10]

Hi I've just taken a quick look at your site and have a couple of thoughts for you. Firstly, do you have a particular fashion area you focus on where you can build some points of differentiation and positioning from i.e. fashion for (say) tall or thin people, or a particular type of fashion style. Or do you supply products perhaps from a designer outside the UK who is hard to buy in high street outlets?

 

Once you have started to develop some points of differentiation and a particular positioning for you store, you can think about the search words people might use to find your niche products on the Web. And once you have that you can start to think about adding a lot more content to your site and about SEO.

 

I'm a serial entrepreneur and I know how hard it is to get a business up and running. You've made a great start keep moving forward!