Ask me anything about eCommerce (2012)

[MMatt]

Quick newb question to anyone willing to answer. I've determined from my readings that seo will be important for niche sites. I have a domain name and and am starting to learn how seo works. When you guys say "try to rank your site", is there a tool you use or you simply type in the keyword in google and look for your site in the results? I know of the google keyword search tool but am unsure if you guys are using a tool to find what sites rank the best, including your sites, or if you're simply typing the keyword into the search engine and looking for your site.

Thanks,
Matt

 

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[nzerinto]

When you guys say "try to rank your site", is there a tool you use or you simply type in the keyword in google and look for your site in the results? I know of the google keyword search tool but am unsure if you guys are using a tool to find what sites rank the best, including your sites, or if you're simply typing the keyword into the search engine and looking for your site.

Thanks,
Matt

There are a bunch of tools out there that do "rank tracking", some free, most paid. Here are the names of some of the most common, check them out, because some offer free trial periods:

Advanced Web Ranking
Microsite Masters
SE Scout
Authority Labs

They all specifically offer services to track ranking in the search engines. Additionally there are a few "all in one toolsets" that *include* basic rank tracking:

SEOmoz
Raventools

Bear in mind if you check ranks yourself (in a browser search), you'll likely see different results to if I did the same search.
Google personalizes results based on search history, location, platform (PC or mobile) etc, so at the end of the day, rank tracking is actually a pretty flawed metric, only good to get an "overall" view of how your site is doing compared to the competitors.

 

[VenturePacific]

What is the best way to monitor my page rankings on the various serch engines?

 

[VenturePacific]

thanks

 

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[Ambition]

Quick newb question to anyone willing to answer. I've determined from my readings that seo will be important for niche sites. I have a domain name and and am starting to learn how seo works. When you guys say "try to rank your site", is there a tool you use or you simply type in the keyword in google and look for your site in the results? I know of the google keyword search tool but am unsure if you guys are using a tool to find what sites rank the best, including your sites, or if you're simply typing the keyword into the search engine and looking for your site.

Thanks,
Matt

A suitable "first step" would be to install an add-on to Firefox such as SearchStatus | Firefox SEO Toolbar Extension. This shows things like Page Rank, Alexa etc for the currently displayed page.
I guess when it gets more serious a paid option will be best

 

[Nick2169]

Hi biophase,

First of all, thanks for starting this thread and for contributing so much of your time to answering our questions - it's been very helpful.

A couple of questions/clarifications of mine...


1) Way back near the beginning of the thread, you said...

I used to offer free shipping, now I charge for it. I've found it converts better.

Could you elaborate on this a little bit? It just seems very counter-intuitive - or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant?


2) When buying a domain name, do you recommend using registration privacy? And if not, is it best to put your personal or business information (I would assume business)?


3) What sort of impact does it have on your traffic if your site ranks below a site that is non-commercial in nature? For example, if I have a site that sells bicycles and it ranks #2 in Google for the main keyword "bicycles" behind a Wikipedia article on bicycles, will that Wikipedia article take traffic away from my ecommerce site even if a user is searching for "bicycles" with the intent of completing a transaction vs. getting information? In essence, what matters more: rankings or user intent?


4) From my understanding, an online retailer only has to collect sales tax from a customer if the customer resides in a state where the online retailer has a physical presence. Is this correct? And by physical presence, does that mean where I live? Where my business is registered/licensed? Something else?


Thanks in advance,

Nick

 

[21yearaussie]

Hi Biophase, this thread inspired me afew months back. So i took action, found an idea through the inc fastest growing companies list, then started my e-commerce site. So far it's only in designing stages, but i plan on making it a medical supply buisness, offering home care, aged care, emergency care and hospitals ect medical supplies. I'm going to start out mainly relying on SEO and selling online till i gain experiance and knowledge of the industry, then i plan on approaching nursing homes, doctors clinics ect offering supplies. I have some questions, say i live in australia is it still a good idea to rank for big keywords? I notice say if i put Diagnostic supplies into google it will come up with the australian results first, does that mean i should still try rank for those huge competition keywords if i only plan on selling in australia?

With SEO, am i getting the page ranked where i sell my products, or just the whole site itself?

When i want to approach a company asking if they can dropship for me, should i email them or ring them? I plan on stocking lots of products. I don't see myself being able to get a warehouse for awhile. This is the design of my website so far. If you were to add any more tips and tricks i'd appreciate them so much! like i said this thread inspired me to take action, i've got big goals and plans for this and want to make it something long term.

welcome to our site

 

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[Alex89]

Hello Biophase,

thanks for this thread. I have read half way past through it and it has some gold in it.

I would like to ask you if bigcommerce has something significant to offer over carts like prestashop, opencart etc. I think you vote up for bigcommerce, so I thought l could ask you.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Steve37]

Finally took the time to read this thread in it's entirety. Should have done it months ago - great info and very nice of you to try and help shorten peoples learning curve.

I've never done any web design / seo / made a single penny online but this thread has inspired me to try and build a store in my spare time that nets $50 per day by July 1st. That's virtually no money on an annual basis but setting goals helps me keep focused on something until the goal is achieved. Will post a progress thread once a promising niche is chosen.

 

[biophase]

1) Way back near the beginning of the thread, you said... I used to offer free shipping, now I charge for it. I've found it converts better.
Could you elaborate on this a little bit? It just seems very counter-intuitive - or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant?

2) When buying a domain name, do you recommend using registration privacy? And if not, is it best to put your personal or business information (I would assume business)?

3) What sort of impact does it have on your traffic if your site ranks below a site that is non-commercial in nature? For example, if I have a site that sells bicycles and it ranks #2 in Google for the main keyword "bicycles" behind a Wikipedia article on bicycles, will that Wikipedia article take traffic away from my ecommerce site even if a user is searching for "bicycles" with the intent of completing a transaction vs. getting information? In essence, what matters more: rankings or user intent?

4) From my understanding, an online retailer only has to collect sales tax from a customer if the customer resides in a state where the online retailer has a physical presence. Is this correct? And by physical presence, does that mean where I live? Where my business is registered/licensed? Something else?

Thanks in advance,

Nick

Sorry, I didn't realize there were all these posts to this thread from a few weeks ago.

1) I found that my stores with lower prices and paid shipping converted better than stores with higher prices and free shipping. A couple of my friends also found the same results.

2) I use private registration. I have used both my business and personal information on my domain registration. It really depends on if you have a company at the time of registering or not.

3) I don't think wikipedia will take away your traffic if someone is looking for a store. Most people won't click on them if they are looking to buy. If they do, they'd just hit the back button anyway.

4) Yes that is correct. It means where your business is located.

 

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[biophase]

Hi Biophase, this thread inspired me afew months back. So i took action, found an idea through the inc fastest growing companies list, then started my e-commerce site. So far it's only in designing stages, but i plan on making it a medical supply buisness, offering home care, aged care, emergency care and hospitals ect medical supplies. I'm going to start out mainly relying on SEO and selling online till i gain experiance and knowledge of the industry, then i plan on approaching nursing homes, doctors clinics ect offering supplies. I have some questions, say i live in australia is it still a good idea to rank for big keywords? I notice say if i put Diagnostic supplies into google it will come up with the australian results first, does that mean i should still try rank for those huge competition keywords if i only plan on selling in australia?

With SEO, am i getting the page ranked where i sell my products, or just the whole site itself?

When i want to approach a company asking if they can dropship for me, should i email them or ring them? I plan on stocking lots of products. I don't see myself being able to get a warehouse for awhile. This is the design of my website so far. If you were to add any more tips and tricks i'd appreciate them so much! like i said this thread inspired me to take action, i've got big goals and plans for this and want to make it something long term.

welcome to our site

If you are only selling in Australia then only the results and search terms in Australia matter. It doesn't matter what the rest of the world is seeing. You should ideally rank your front page and product pages for many keywords. If your terms are difficult I would start with product pages and product specific keywords.

You should just call them.

I think you site looks pretty good. Personally, I would go with a red color instead of green because of your products.

 

[biophase]

Hello Biophase,

thanks for this thread. I have read half way past through it and it has some gold in it.

I would like to ask you if bigcommerce has something significant to offer over carts like prestashop, opencart etc. I think you vote up for bigcommerce, so I thought l could ask you.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Alex,

I think that bigcommerce has the best backend and it has alot of features you probably didn't know you needed until you look for them. I just think that for the price, you get a solid website that you can modify if you want or just leave with a stock template. I don't see a reason to move to another cart unless there is a specific feature that you absolutely need that one of the other carts has.

 

[biophase]

Finally took the time to read this thread in it's entirety. Should have done it months ago - great info and very nice of you to try and help shorten peoples learning curve.

I've never done any web design / seo / made a single penny online but this thread has inspired me to try and build a store in my spare time that nets $50 per day by July 1st. That's virtually no money on an annual basis but setting goals helps me keep focused on something until the goal is achieved. Will post a progress thread once a promising niche is chosen.

If you have a site that makes $50 a day, it must be getting some good traffic. It's a no brainer to add a store section to that website assuming you can sell a viable product to your targeted traffic.

 

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[Intensity]

Hi Biophase, this thread inspired me afew months back. So i took action, found an idea through the inc fastest growing companies list, then started my e-commerce site. So far it's only in designing stages, but i plan on making it a medical supply buisness, offering home care, aged care, emergency care and hospitals ect medical supplies. I'm going to start out mainly relying on SEO and selling online till i gain experiance and knowledge of the industry, then i plan on approaching nursing homes, doctors clinics ect offering supplies. I have some questions, say i live in australia is it still a good idea to rank for big keywords? I notice say if i put Diagnostic supplies into google it will come up with the australian results first, does that mean i should still try rank for those huge competition keywords if i only plan on selling in australia?

With SEO, am i getting the page ranked where i sell my products, or just the whole site itself?

When i want to approach a company asking if they can dropship for me, should i email them or ring them? I plan on stocking lots of products. I don't see myself being able to get a warehouse for awhile. This is the design of my website so far. If you were to add any more tips and tricks i'd appreciate them so much! like i said this thread inspired me to take action, i've got big goals and plans for this and want to make it something long term.

welcome to our site

Wow! This is ambitious. Good luck on it though. You might want to gain that knowledge and experience with the workings and supplying of the healthcare industry in Australia first mate. Very different from overseas medical industries. And may take more than just SEO. You may want to take a different approach rather than just ecommerce once you understand it all. Take it from an experienced pharma sales rep turned sole trader. I've looked into those avenues prior to resigning

 

[MMatt]

How much should you promote a test website? I know once I have a real tangible business I should diversify traffic sources and promote through social networking, use seo, etc. While it's in the nonexisting, test stages though i am unsure if I should promote the heck out of a "fake website" just to see the interest. I have a niche store setup with somewhere around 10 items and have attached google analytics and am running an adwords campaign and I filled out all of the meta tags and keywords that come with the commerce software on the individual pages as well as the home page. This is it for seo, I have not directed traffic through forums, blogs or anything.

The niche keyword gets about 1800 searches monthly. It's been three days and I have only 13 unique visitors, one including myself I'm assuming. No e-mail requests for backorders, in stock statuses, or newsletter.

I guess I am asking if I should diversify traffic sources much when I am this early in the game, or if i should just learn how to better apply adwords and other basic tools.

Should I give up yet on the niche or should I assume my marketing is flawed? Leaning towards the latter currently.

EDIT: I just tweaked my ad words a little. I added some new relevant keywords and changed all of the text in the ad and title. I'm going to see if this converts any better.

 

[jilla82]

Im in the process of rereading this thread...
...but I have a question.

What separates good carts from bad?
I was going to go w/ Big Commerce, but I sell a good amount of product on eBay (trying to get away from that, but it will take time)...so integration is important. Im currently looking at Highwire as an option, but not sure what I need to look at in order to size up an alternative to Big Commerce.
Any thoughts?

 

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[supermannpc]

Im considering buying an automated ecommerce site from flippa
Whats the best way to generate traffic? I will obviously use social media and anything free I can but marketing wise to generate traffic
Google search/ bing etc...
Im sorry if this has been mentioned in this thread already

 

[Hong King Kong]

Hey Biophase,

Finally finished the thread, Thanks for starting it, and everyone who contributed, it was very informative & motivating. I want to start my first e-commerce store, and I have some questions for you. If anyone else have experience in a similar problem and could answer would be great as well. .

As summarized by wade1mil way earlier, "Buy a domain and start a store, worry about LLC later on. Get a license if a supplier asks you for one. Stay out of saturated markets...."

The problem is, I am a citizen of both Canada and Hong Kong and I'm currently working in Hong Kong. Since I can't read or write Chinese my sites will be in English so I have to sell back to Canada & Hopefully US. so,

1.) If I start a LLC in here will dropshippers in United States work with me? If not what other paper work do I need to do inorder to do business in US? Would I have to go back home to Canada?... even then how are Canadian e-commerce sites working with United States?

2.) When doing Keyword research for niches, we are suppose to search local. So "local" are the states/provinces/countries you wish to target right? For example if I'm selling wakeboards I should target Miami because its always warm there right? But if my niche is not seasonal why not search global, too competitive & hard to rank?

Thanks again!

 

[jilla82]

Im considering buying an automated ecommerce site from flippa
Whats the best way to generate traffic? I will obviously use social media and anything free I can but marketing wise to generate traffic
Google search/ bing etc...
Im sorry if this has been mentioned in this thread already

yea man...this has been covered in this thread...read through it.

 

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[JasonR]

Hey Biophase,

Finally finished the thread, Thanks for starting it, and everyone who contributed, it was very informative & motivating. I want to start my first e-commerce store, and I have some questions for you. If anyone else have experience in a similar problem and could answer would be great as well. .

As summarized by wade1mil way earlier, "Buy a domain and start a store, worry about LLC later on. Get a license if a supplier asks you for one. Stay out of saturated markets...."

The problem is, I am a citizen of both Canada and Hong Kong and I'm currently working in Hong Kong. Since I can't read or write Chinese my sites will be in English so I have to sell back to Canada & Hopefully US. so,

1.) If I start a LLC in here will dropshippers in United States work with me? If not what other paper work do I need to do inorder to do business in US? Would I have to go back home to Canada?... even then how are Canadian e-commerce sites working with United States?

2.) When doing Keyword research for niches, we are suppose to search local. So "local" are the states/provinces/countries you wish to target right? For example if I'm selling wakeboards I should target Miami because its always warm there right? But if my niche is not seasonal why not search global, too competitive & hard to rank?

Thanks again!

Dude! You're in Hong Kong!? Hong Kong/China is ripe for importing products INTO China. Find something that's selling well in the US that the Chinese don't have, get a translator, and start importing! HUGE opportunity for you!

 

[machin576]

Hey biophase, I love the post, only 1/4th of the way through, but I am wondering if it would be smart to buy a flippa site with a good url in my niche and convert it to sell my import products? I found one on flippa that is set up as an amazon affiliate website. Thanks for your help!

 

[bclark85]

Hey Biophase,

I need some of your importing/shipping experience. I just spoke with the manufacture and all is set to go for my first big order. Where I am hung up on is how the shipping by sea part works because I have never dealt with this kind of shipping method before. My products are somewhat large so they will need to be sent via sea because of the size of the overall shipment in bulk. I noticed that you live in AZ as well, so I am curious if you have had to or do have your products shipped by sea. Can you give me a quick run down of what that process looks like for you? My supplier asked me to locate the nearest sea port to have them shipped to. I haven't looked this up yet this morning, but I am assuming it is going to be California for us here in AZ? Where I am really unclear is what is the best method and how do I get the product from the sea port to my house here in AZ? Do I search on u-ship for a driver to pick it up at the dock and bring it to my place? Thank you in advnace, I could greatly used some insight and knowledge on this part of the process because shipping by sea is new for me.

 

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[djax06]

Biophase - awesome thread. Read through it all, lot's of value in here.

I'll be starting this weekend. Both this one and Vigilante's are UNREAL!

I'll update when I get rolling.

 

[5holiday]

hi Biophase

I wanted to add my thanks to this thread. I read all 33 pages, got some ideas and tried on my own.

In summary - it wasn't a blow-away success but I can swear hand-on-heart I learned 300% more by actually trying to put this thread into action. But thanks to your answers I got a fairly decent idea and I was able to start trying on my own.

I thought 'catnip' for cats would be a good starting niche as it had 6,600 broad search in my country (Australia) p/month for the phrase 'where to find catnip'. Unfortunately i didn't catch on about broad and exact phrase searches.

I found that I could buy the products at ~$5 landed and resell at $15. I planned to put in products in the store as out of stock and test the amount of traffic and see if it was worthwhile ordering stock.

I registered catnip information and supply Australia for $10 AUD and used OpenCart. I found out afterwards that Google doesn't rank Exact Match Domains very well anymore if they have a low page rank (or some other unknown metric).

I ended up using $60 of Google's AdWords credit and wasted $50 of it because I had no idea what I was doing. I learned very quickly how to write half-decent ads and I ended up with 44 unique visitors of which 4 unique visitors tried to check out with products in their shopping carts.

Moving on from this attempt (which only cost me $10), I realised that I could at least design a website that could get buying customers for $15 per paying customer.

I am now trying to:

1. learn more about AdWords
2. find a better product (higher margin to give me a decent profit ($20-$100?) after product and customer acquisition costs),
3. improve SEO and website design too.

Thanks again.

 

[andviv]

I wanted to add my thanks to this thread. I read all 33 pages, got some ideas and tried on my own.

Let me take you out of parking. Speed+ to you for trying this and coming back here to let us know.

All in all, it sounds to me like you learned a lot with a really low $$ invested.

Congrats on that.

 

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[CommonCents]

I bought a TPU phone case( a single one, not a container load lol) for my galaxy note2 from overseas. $4 shipped from far east. how the heck do they do that?

 

[Vick]

wow. this thread is epic in terms of knowledge. finally finished reading it. thanks for sharing your info Biophase!

 

[MrPink]

What are you using for your daily book keeping? Quickbooks?

 

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[biophase]

What are you using for your daily book keeping? Quickbooks?

The backend of the shopping cart is pretty decent for bookkeeping and inventory. The issue is if you have more than one cart + Ebay + Amazon and you share inventory. Then you need to use something else. Right now, I'm using Quickbooks + Webgility (to import sales from multiple channels)

 

[Dan Da Man]

Guys,

I don't know if I am allowed to post this but I have a great opportunity for those of you struggling with dropshipping.

I have created an entire video course and ebook course structured with assignments as well as a custom theme with step by step instructions on how to do everything!

I have yet to offer the course as we are redesigning the site. What I need is 4 people who really want to open up their own online store or have already tried and failed miserably. What we will do is help you get your store up free of charge and all we ask from you is feedback on the course and become moderators in the private forum to help out giving advice to other members. Would also like to use you as an example for other members to show that creating and running your own store is very possible.

Things you must have:
1. A business license (LLC etc..)
2. At least a little money to buy a domain. Sorry I am not paying for your domain or hosting.
3. No doubt in your mind that you will not get up and flake on me. I would be very unhappy to devote my time to helping someone and then they get up and leave.
4. Extreme persistence and desire to open their own online store.
5. Must not bail on me after I help you out.

I don't think I am asking for much and the amount of knowledge that you will gain will be insurmountable! I charge hundreds an hour for consulting so think of this as an extreme gift.

My apologies if this comes off as a promotion because that was not my intention. Figured I could help a few people out in the process.

Dan