posted 01-24- 07:54 PM               

The site will be live I hope by this Friday, Jan 26th and I'd really like to get it into the search engines. We are having a baby girl, she's due in early March and we really need some extra money to cover costs that our insurance won't take care of. Any ideas?

Here's a link to it... www.4thatspecialsomething.com

posted 01-24- 08:44 PM            

Werner

posted 01-24- 08:56 PM               

Thanks. Well, what you could do for me is just make up a simple page (even print out the url from the site in color if you want to) with the Title/URL
that says something like...

www.4thatspecialsomething.com

Gifts for all occasions, specialty merchandise, and novelties. Order
securely online and choose from a multitude of items, or order our full catalog of over 3000 products. We also can do regular snail mail with your check or money order and our order form. Visit our site today!

posted 01-24- 09:19 PM               

It takes time... time and content. The more text you have on the page, the better. There are some people who claim they can get your sire higher up, but I have never seen the proof. What works is quantity of content and time... it seems that your sire will climb up a hidden virtual list- as other sites disppear, yours will move up.

Internet ads are a waste as well...

Direct marketing is the most sure fire tactic- but like the big guys have found out, you can spend more to get a customer than they will spend with you

We had VERY good direct marketing return at Schoolmusic.com, but we have a very easy to target market... it is harder when your customers are diverse.

Give away a free poster if you want tons of traffic... there are free poster sites out there, you can sign up and you will get traffic! But this can cost some money... customer aquisition is very expensive- this is what killed the dot com's...

posted 01-24- 10:57 PM               

You need to go in and add a bunch of meta tags in the heading relating to the different products you carry. There are several books dealing with this, and there are some sites that give advice too.

There use to be a $500 program that would create your meta tags and submit your site to the different search engines.

As far as the text goes, some people put hidden text in their pages to boost the result rating an engine returns.

This is like playing a neverending game.

You also need to check your status on the search engines anytime traffic starts to drop off and at least once a month.

posted 01-24- 11:06 PM               

Concerning search engines/ Internet marketing, here's a few ideas, Pete:

1. Doorway pages! Create several pages (entry1.htm, entry2.htm, etc.) that each target a specific good or service. Tailor each page to concentrate on a particular combination of words you feel are most likely to attract visitors. For instance, a page dedicated to the word 'gift'. Put it in the title, the meta tags, and a good portion of the body, even within the alternative text of the image files. Each of these pages should link or bounce the user to your home page. I think you get the idea. The point is, some pages will work better in some search engines than others. Continually refining these pages should be a never-ending task.

2. Cross-linking! IMO, pound for pound, the most effective way to spend your time marketing on the Internet. Go to the search engines, do some word searches on the types of products that you offer. Even better, _the_ products that you offer. See what comes up. Find links to businesses that either deal directly or otherwise with the product/word you're dealing with. Find those that do not _directly_) compete with you and contact the individuals concerning a link exchange. Most webmasters are flattered, some ask, what's in it for me? Tell them! Between the two of you, you're providing a service to your visitors! This will mean that you must also supply a linking page (categorized probably), but I can attest to how productive this exchange can be. I'm not talking about 'Link Exchange'. Be smarter than that...

3. Find a niche! If you notice a particular product that enjoys a greater interest than others, showcase it! Experiment with it! Make it lead into products with like characteristics.

4. Use your data! If possible, always get information from your customers regarding how they found you and politely ask them if they would be interested in special future offerings of similar products. Figure out where they're coming from. Why did that approach work? Hit it hard!

5. Give them a reason to return often! Do you run specials? Can you offer information that isn't easily found elsewhere? For instance, on one site I worked with, we developed a (useful) tool that no-one else on the Internet had. This provided free advertising in the form of journalism. Many sites showcased the tool and provided a link to it without prior consent (a good problem to have in this case). If you can put together a reason why someone would want to bookmark the site (besides the products themselves) you'll also generate word-of-mouth faster than normal.

Anyway, try subscribing to Internet Day (no url off-hand sorry). The submit a daily email article that deals with some aspect of Internet marketing. Also check out the Guerilla Marketing (gmarketing.com) website for more ideas.

posted 01-25- 12:17 AM               

Gustang, hopefully it will be open in a day or two. I still have tons of content to add but the shipping details should be done hopefully tonight. With that complete I'll be able to sell things ASAP. I'm going to open it while adding new items at the same time. But you can still go ahead and look all around the site. I hope you all like what I've done so far. Check it out

Also, spread the word about my site! The more people that know about it the better. And have your wives and families by some things. It would be so appreciated. On the site I mention somewhere about shipping in the US only. I could probably manage to deal with Canada also. For the UK I'm not sure yet, but I suppose if the word spreads and people are able to pay in US Dollars I could work it out.

It's 4:10AM and the site is officially open now