Feeling Discouraged.....

[Brismom1]

I have been working so hard and so consistently on my websites and I am just not getting the returns that I want.

Can anyone tell me from experience how long it takes to start seeing a profit and a steady stream of sales? I just feel like I am doing all of the right things and nothing is happening.

I don't understand.

Any words of encouragement would be great ......:confused:

[kellymccausey]

Hey there :) How long have you been at it? Are you seeing traffic? Can you share a little glimpse into your stats and traffic sources?

[cjhallock]

I have personally be working on internet marketing for almost 2 years now and have yet to make a dime from any affiliate sites or anything similar! I know that its hard and I understand how you feel but there is a quote that keeps me going...(if I get this wrong, please no one kill me) "People quit without realizing that their next step was success!"

Just keep your head up and Believe in yourself...

Not sure about your standings but this video may help with your situation I seen it about 3 days ago and It changed A LOT!!

http://tonyrobbinstraining.com/328/john-tony/

Hope this helps!!

[Lynn Terry]

2 years - seriously? Wow...

How many affiliate sites do you have, CJ?

[Brismom1]

Hey there How long have you been at it? Are you seeing traffic? Can you share a little glimpse into your stats and traffic sources?



In response to this,

I am seeing traffic , for the kids chair world site I have been working at it for 7 months, I have made a few sales..
The visitors for August were 2129, 1479 unique visitors. I do all of my own marketing for this site.


For the Brianna's Bedding and Beyond site I am also seeing traffic, 2606 visitors about 1700 unique visitors for the month of August and increasing every month. For this site I have made sales roughly 1 sale per 170 unique visitors. This site I have been working on for almost a year. For this site also I have a marketing company working on the marketing and traffic.


I guess my frustration is that possibly I am working really hard is because I am managing two sites rather than 1 at a time...... not sure, just wish that I was really seeing greater returns for the effort.

Thanks.. :o

[Adriana]

Here are a few things you may want to look into to increase sales (looking at the kids chairs site):

- your header is too "tall" and takes up a lot of your precious "real estate". you need to make it narrower, so that you get to your content quicker.

- which page/s do your get your visitors through? If most of them come through your home page, you need to find a way to get them thorough your specific product pages.

- on your product pages, you may want to tweak the design: move your picture to the left instead of right (think how amazon.com lays out their pages), add a buy button higher on the page, as well as leaving the one you have now. Also include pricing on your product pages: you are probably losing potential customers because it's taking too long until they know what they are getting and for how much. Include shipping costs as well: give them a complete picture, and I can almost guarantee you'll increase sales.

- I would also take off the gray outline around your product description/picture: it creates a barrier.

Hope that helps.

[HireMyMum]

Hi Bris

Just for my two basic cents ... I think they look lovely ... on both sites I would move the specials to the top.

On Kids Chairs I would add a call to action (Lynn is sitting on my shoulder atm) to a great offer to get those sign ups.

On the bedding site I know you have a small one on the very top of page but I hardly noticed it and it doesn't tell the average Joe what they need to do (obvious to us but not to everyone).

Also on the bedding site I clicked on your giveaway, which could do to have a nice big graphic, and it went to a blog post with no opt in or entry box, and I wasn't even sure at first if I was on the right page. It also took me a minute to work out what I needed to do to enter. I think these are some simple changes that you could make to make a difference.

I hope this helps a little.

Cheers
Leigh

[lindastacy]

Before you start making changes, you probably need a better understanding of what's working and what isn't. In Kelly's question she also asked about traffic sources.

When you know more about where the paying customers came from, which keyword searches result in sales and which result in quick exits, or how far into your site visitors get before leaving without purchasing, etc. you can then focus on doing more of what works and improving what doesn't.

Also remember that the economy over the past year has hurt sales for many people. Things are supposedly picking up so hopefully your sales will improve too.

[Brismom1]

I appreciate all of your replies, I will work on absorbing it all......

thanks so much..

[Jan Ferrante]

I really like your sites, they are beautifully presented.

I am thinking that you need to focus your efforts on getting in front of parents with a good disposable income. I'm not sure exactly how you would do that but it could be a good place to start brainstorming.

Your products are very nice, but you have to be in front of a market that has the $ to buy it obviously - those are the people who would likely be very excited by your offerings as well because they probably 'decorate' etc.

I wonder if you may even be able to find professional decorators who may use your products if you could give them a discount? Is there anywhere offline that you could advertise, preferably cheaply or for free to your target market of affluent parents (not that other people possibly couldn't afford your things, but you'd make many more sales to those in the upper income bracket I'd think).

For example, you'd do much better if you could somehow get some marketing material to parents dropping their kids at a corporate daycare (which could be a great idea) rather than hanging a pamphlet at the grocery store.

What cart are you using? Was it hard to set up?

[Lynn Terry]

The standard conversion rate is around half a percent, so you may not be doing as bad as you feel you are. I would focus on getting more traffic, and better rankings. Of course - the site suggestions here are great, and easy enough to implement. But after that, put your focus on the marketing.

I'm curious what the marketing company is doing for you exactly, and what the investment is in that?

[Brismom1]

Hey Lynn,

Thanks for the advice....

For the marketing, to be quite honest, I am not very satisfied with it at all. The story goes a bit like this..

I was selling on ebay and then decided that I would start a website, last september so I did, then this marketing company called me and the offer sounded great, and being new to the world on ecommerce it was all great sounding. So what they gauranteed was that they would get me ranked on the first page of google and others for 10 of my top keywords for traffic in 8 months or I would get my money back.. Also they said they would work on backlinks and other methods to bring targeted traffic for my market. So in March, there were no results for my site, and I could not find my site anywhere for any keywords, etc. etc.

To make a long story short, they charged me an obscene amount of money, of which I am still paying for, as well as a monthly fee. So my options were to let them keep marketing the site, or transfer to another hosting company in which we would start over for other reasons about why my site would not rank.

So I transferred my whole site from highpowersites to hostgator.

So basically, my kids chair world site I market myself and I am already seeing the same amount if not more traffic then the site I paid a marketing company for....

So lesson learned there, so at this point I am kind of stuck working on both sites to get them successful because of the investment. Yes I would prefer to focus on one, but that is not how it is right now.

[Lynn Terry]

So it's been the 8 months or no - and did you take them up on the guarantee to get your money back?

[retta719]

That sounds a little fishy about the marketing company. I hope you took them up on or take them up on the money back guarantee soon.

[Brismom1]

Unfortunately, no I did not get my money back , the only thing that they would do at the point when I confronted about it, was 6 months, was transfer my site to the other hosting company as I wrote in the post. They said that the reason that my site was not ranking was because of the way the highpowersites software is set up, it is not search engine friendly.

After doing this the contract renewed for another 8 months as if it was a new site. I have not paid anything else to them.....
I was kind of in a hard place , had to make a hard decision.. I do know now though that I will never pay a marketing company again for the things that I can do just as well for free.

[nar321]

Is the guarantee in writing? If they don't return your money maybe the Consumer Protection Division of your State's Attorney general's office can go to bat for you.

[Brismom1]

Yes it is in writing, but I think that now I am tied in for at least another 4 months since I have gone on to transfer to this other hosting company,

On a more positive note , I have made sales since I transferred the site..

[Lynn Terry]

The new hosting company is not related to or tied in with them in any way, right? Look over your contract and make sure you're stuck in that renewal. You might get a consultation with a local lawyer (usually free) to see if there is anything there worth working with.

What was it about the original host that wasn't "search engine friendly"? Did they actually change your shopping cart, your URL structure, or anything at all in the host move?

[Brismom1]

No they are not tied to them in any way at all. Actually , I never got a second contract written, so actually we are still on the orginal contract. I probably could do something about it..

I guess it was that highpowersites is really not set up for ecommerce and it has been from there experience working with them that the sites never ranked well. It really does not make much sense to me.

However I do prefer the platform that I have now rather than the one I had.

[Lynn Terry]

Did they choose or recommend that host/platform to you originally?

I would not let this one go... Make a call and let a lawyer look over it. You need to take them up on the guarantee and let go of that company altogether so you can move forward on a more positive note.

Even if you paid a lawyer a percentage of the refund, you'd still have money back in your pocket to use on outsourcing or whatever you need to move forward from here.

[Brismom1]

actually the guy that I talked to when I first signed said that they liked working with highpowersites.

I know the whole thing is fishy I just figured that there was nothing that i could do about it at this point.

I think I will take your advice and look into it more..

[Brismom1]

this is what they claim they do as well-

Link Popularity Explained *



*Link Popularity *

Is a process it takes lots of dedication there are several ways we get links to your site and I will make an attempt to explain them below. There are bullets naming the link campaign and below will be a description of each method.





Link Popularity we use:

* /FFA Linking /
* /Directory Linking /
* /Internal Website Linking /
* /Link Exchanging /



Free For All Links Better Known as FFA Link: *

This linking process is when you submit a website to hundreds of free website

That are information sites or classified websites that have a similar product or service they usually have a place on there website were we can submit a link. We go through this

Routine every month in the effort of gaining more links for our clients.







*Directory Linking:*

This technique is basically the same idea as above there are hundreds of shopping directories we use are proprietary software to find these directories so we can submit

A description of your website and domain name so that we can get a link that is active on their site. By gaining more link popularity by adding links to your site this will make it easier for us to get your website search engine ranking because it tells the search engine that people want to link to your website and they link a website that is active.







*Internal website linking:*

This method is a very new method how this works is by using your website we can submit each page from your website each month so that it can get it index into google and yahoo results so your website multiples itself and makes more links to your site by using your website and give your website the momentum to be very strong.







*Link Exchanging:*

Is a way to get other website to link to your website this process takes a little bit of time because we are manually emailing other webmaster asking the to place a link to your website on your page. A lot of people like some kind of money offer to do that but in some cases they just ask for in return you place there link on your webpage as well. That is very important that you ad there link that is another reason you need to accept phone calls from us so we can have you set up a link page on your website.

They never asked me to set up a link page on my website: here is a stipulation right here!

[Lynn Terry]

I know the whole thing is fishy I just figured that there was nothing that i could do about it at this point.

They are banking on you feeling that way - literally.

I'm sure you have enough experience by now to know what their offer is really worth...