14 Tips for Online Merchants

The following is a list of marketing techniques that I have read about.  Some of them I have done, some I am about to and others will be done in the future.

1.  Directory Listings.  There are a lot of spammy sites out there which are full of adverts and contain no value to the viewer.  Google works hard to keep spam out of the listings but this means it is much more difficult for a new site like yours to be found as it needs to build up trust.  One way is to get quality inbound links.  Getting a listing in the Yahoo directory, Business.com, http://dmoz.org, www.joeant.com, Uncover The Net and BOTW is like having a character reference from a bishop or doctor. 

Although a lot of the top ranking sites don't have listings in lots of these directories, most of them have been around for several years.  (E.g. hkjewellery.co.uk doesn't have many links but has been around since 2000, so has built up a trust with google)  You want to make money now so you can't afford to wait that long.  Prices vary from directory to directory, some are one-off payments, others are yearly.  Also some will refund your money if your site is rejected whilst others will keep your money and reject you anyway.  I don't know how many directories you need to be in to make a difference.  I do know from some one on a forum that spent $750 getting listed in directories and within only a matter of a couple of months they were getting very good positions in google.  There are other free directories, they are not as powerful as the likes of yahoo directory, but every little helps.  Get a list of these directories here and also try out 118118.com, thomsonlocal.com plus your local councils.  If you want to submit to the free directories, then download a 15 day trial of Directory Site Submitter which will help you do this much quicker.

2. Adwords.  This is Google's advertising system where you pay an amount for every time some one clicks on your ad.  The amount you pay is based on an auction for the top spot.  The more you bid, the higher your listing.  There are other factors involved such as click through rate.  If your site gets more clicks than a competitor, your site will be listed higher even although you have bid less. 

Adwords can be expensive if you don't know what you are doing.  I got my fingers seriously burnt almost 2 years ago as I had no idea what I was doing.  My second attempt recently proved much better but it is not something I do at the moment as I don't need extra web traffic just now.  Two websites that I have found very beneficial are Keyword Elite and Affilorama (lesson 3 and 4 of their 6 part series).  They both give very good info free of charge, with the option of upgrading to their other services.  A new set of videos from The New PPC are also very good.

3.  Keyword research.  There are search terms that are more competitive than others.  Have a look at www.nichebotclassic.com you will see that the term "costume jewellery" is very competitive, whereas "green tourmaline gemstone" isn't.  Also use google's keyword tool for other related terms. 

4.  Social Shopping.  Register with social shopping site www.wists.com and add your own jewellery.  The idea is that other people will see it and either buy or add to their favourites which will push your items further up the list:  Further reading on social shopping

5.  Affiliates.  There are a lot of people with websites who will promote your products to their visitors in return for a commission, normally about 10%.  Becoming a member of sites like cj.com and shareasale can be very expensive but there are a couple of other alternatives which are much cheaper, Jam Jrox and Clash Media.  When you have it set up add your affiliate program to the affilorama affiliate database.  Further reading:  Associated Programs (geared more to affiliates rather than merchants) and A4U Forum

6.  Write articles about jewellery.  One tip when using www.nichebotclassic.com is to put words like "how", "why" and "what" next to your main keyword, e.g.  "how jewellery" comes up with "how to store jewellery".  Write an article around this and then submit it to article directories, the best are ezinearticles, articlecity and goarticles.  In the resource box write about your website, even better, have a link to the page where you sell jewellery boxes (or whatever it is that you wrote your article about). 

A great example of the success of this approach is this – go into google, type in "simulated diamonds".  What comes up?  An article written on ezinearticles.  You see, there are certain sites that google LOVES and ezinearticles is one of them.  So use it to your advantage.  Another idea is to write articles on wedding/bridal flowers/bouquets.  Hopefully someone looking for info on the subject will also be interested in real flower jewellery, if not for themselves, perhaps a bridesmaid.  Either write the articles yourself or get a ghost writer.  Elance.com and rentacoder.com are two popular sites for this.  Exclusive Article sells articles for a fixed price of $8, I do know the quality that is produced with this company and it's pretty good..  There are people abroad (eg India) who will do this for about $5 but if English is not their first language there could be problems.  Further reading:  Articles on writing articles

UPDATE:  An alternative to writing articles is to create lenses on Squidoo.  Target each lens to a specific phrase such as "pearl jewellery" or "gemstone jewellery".  Write a bit about the subject, put in photos and descriptions of products you sell, making sure to link to your own webpage.  When you have created your lens you need to improve the squidoo rank by joining groups on the subject eg shopping or jewellery.  You can also link to your lens from your website, comment on other lenses and put the URL in your signature for any forums you are on.  Have a look at the TOP 100 shopping lenses to see what they do.

7.  Ebooks.  A more advanced technique is to produce an ebook (around 10 pages) and then encourage website owners to distribute it free.  Inside the ebook you will have links to your website.  Again, you can hire someone to write it for you, expect to pay about $100.  Try looking for stock photos of bridal bouquets then write about it in the style you would find in bridal magazines.  You can get photos from stock.exhng or iStockPhoto or you could try asking a website owner to use their photos, even ask them to provide some content in return they will receive exposure for their site. 

Tom Hua created an ebook called "working with clickbank" and seemingly this has made him a packet.  Either people distribute his ebook with his affiliate links in it or they can pay $19.97 to have their own affiliate links in it.  You can promote your ebook by writing about it in the resource box of your articles, sending it directly to website owners, also post a direct link to it in the warrior forum in the free ebook section.  Of course, you don't need to create an ebook on bridal bouquets, this is just an example.  Do a brainstorm and come up with some other ideas.  You can also do what Tom Hua does and put affiliate links to other related products, travel agents, bridal magazine subscriptions etc.

8.  Miss-spelling.  Don't go overboard with these, instead pepper them throughout the site.  Jewellery is often spelt, jewelry, jewellry, jewelery, jewelary.  Also use jewellery related words, like jewels and jeweller.

9.  Business networking evenings.  There are lots of these all around the country and will allow you to meet people who are also running their own businesses.  Even if they can't help you themselves, they may know someone who can.  Or perhaps they will come to you for presents to give friends and family. 

10.  Press Release.  Think about what makes your site different, then let the media know.  You can either do this by yourself or get a PR company to do this.  If you get a PR co. then the idea is that they already have contacts within the media.  The draw-back is the cost and there are no guarantees that your story will be picked up by a journalist.

UPDATE:  Don't go into this lightly.  The company we used let us down, the person who dealt with our account had very little experience and then left not bothering to tell us.  We have since been looking at PR agencies who have a proven track record in fashion but we have been advised that it can take 9 months of promotion (costing approx £6500) to successfully build a brand image and that a single press release is rarely enough.  You also will probably need to give free samples so that has to be worked into the cost too.

Because the local media is easier to be featured in than the glossy mags, we are looking for customers who would like to partner with us.  We will send the press release and any photos.  Just contact us.

11.  Wallpaper and screensavers for computers.  A lot of people search for wallpaper and screensavers on various subjects.  You could provide these free to your customers making sure that your website address is on it.

12.  Forums.  Go onto forums about fashion, celebrities, weddings, flowers and make suggestions, ask questions comment on what people have said.  After a couple of posts on a wedding forum you could say "hi, found this interesting ebook on bridal bouquet ideas.  It's free and you can get it here:…"  An interesting site is $15K challenge by a guy who used this type of technique to market his paid-membership site for craft books.  He also used MySpace, not sure how to use it to promote jewellery, possibly just login as yourself, find people who like the same things as you - music, books, films etc then send a bulletin saying you have a jewellery shop and offer them an exclusive discount voucher.  This can be very time-consuming but you can use AdderRobot or  BadderAdder to help automate it.  Just don't add hundreds of friends in one day.  Keep it realistic. 

A forum I found on fashion: Style Forums

13.  VEO.  Visitor Enhanced Optimisation.  The veo report is written by Colin McDougall.  I haven't read the report but a lot of people say good things about it.  His approach is quite "belt and braces" in that he registers his sites for 10 years to show google he is not a fly-by night, registers with quality directories and has an SSL certificate.  I have also read that he uses PRWeb to distribute his press releases. 

The old style of optimisation is to have a key word phrase and repeat it lots of times throughout the page.  This works for MSN but google doesn't like it and they bought a company who created software that does "latent semantic indexing".  Basically certain words tend to sit next to each other.  To see what I mean, type in ~apple into google.  What comes up is QuickTime, Mac, Windows and G4 highlighted in bold.  But if you type in ~apple pie, those previous terms don't come up.  So if you type in ~jewellery, google highlights words – rings, diamonds, jewellers.  ~fashion jewellery comes up with, accessories and designer.  So if you are selling fashion jewellery, google also expects to see "accessories" and "designer" in your pages.  Further reading:  VEO Report and Seo2020 and Going Natural (Brad Fallon has got on the band wagon, but there is some interesting info about the site My Wedding Favors

14.  Competitions and discount vouchers.  They can help promote your site, promote your product, and attract traffic! More traffic could mean more potential customers! Competitions can also be used to find out about your users, obtain demographics, or simply as a means of ensuring your users return again and again to your website.  Further reading: http://www.loquax.co.uk/webmaster/, also if you have read the 15K challenge site, there is an interesting discussion as to how to keep the site going and expand it through competitions.  To enter the competition, visitors would refer friends, and friends = customers!  This is the discussion

There's a lot of stuff you need to read and your brain will go into overload if you are new to selling on the internet.  The main thing is to decide on a plan, don't try everything at once. 

If I was creating a site from scratch what I would do is:

1. Get the bare bones of the site uploaded

2. Install Link Machine and do some link exchanges with related sites - fashion/jewellery/gift shops.  This will help get search engines to visit your site

3. Finish designing the site, making sure there are no "under construction" pages.

4. Download the 15-day trial of Directory Site Submitter and get into the free directories (don't pay for any of them or link back)

5. Get listed in the quality directories (probably the one-off payment ones to start).  If your site only sells "ethical" products, then maybe get listed with sites like Ethical Junction (costs £50) and Living Ethically (free).

6. Write a few articles and distribute them to the article directories.

7. Choose one of the other 14 tips and give it a go.  As I say, I haven't done everything so it's up to yourself.  If you need any help understanding anything let me know.

Paradise Imports is currently listed with the following directories:

DMOZ, Skaffe, JoeAnt, GoGuides, Uncover The Net, Yahoo, The Wholesaler, Esources, Thomson Local, Living Ethically, plus others.