Ask me anything about eCommerce (2012)

[biophase]

I still need to catch up on SEO but most of what I read up to now said "put keywords in your domain name".

That is somewhat old news now. Choose a good brand name. You will thank me in 2 years.

 

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[Dan Da Man]

It is. Sadly, Google did give some "boost" to these domains a couple of months/years back as they seem to be more relevant, but thousands of spammy EMD later, they now give less credit to them. I can see why Google would eventually watch them VERY closely in the future and they are probably doing this right now. Not necessarily giving them penalties but you get the point, spammers did get Google's attention on this SEO strategy. Now, there is much more "authority" website ranking and brand website are stronger then ever.

So with that said, I would strongly suggest you, if you want to build up and asset for the LONG TERM to brand yourself. Get your onpage right and you'll eventually enjoy SEO benefits from people typing in your brand name (trust/authority).

So much misinformation about SEO in this thread it is ridiculous. Keyword domains and exact match domains will always work. Why? Because google cannot determine if you are searching for a domain name or or a keyword.

For example... "Cool Dog Collrs". Google doesn't know when people are typing in cool dog collars" if the searcher is searching for "cool dog collars" or the domain cooldogcollars.com: The Leading Cool Dog Collar Site on the Net. When people search for brands, they don't type in www.

I have been reading the information about SEO and I can say that a lot of of the SEO info in this thread is regurgitated info. No offense to those who are contributing but unless you are testing every method possible on dozens of sites, you really don't know what you are talking about.

And if you are trying to get into SEO at this point, my opinion is don't. UNless you want to spend two years and thousands of dollars trying to figure out how it works, you really have no chance. Learn something else. Really, SEO is not what you think and you have to devote your life to it. It is an all or nothing thing. Unless you want to compete with me, you really have no chance. Not to say that you shouldn't spend some money here and there on it, but there are better ways to drive traffic if you don't have time to get sucked into it.

Take this advice or leave it. Just see many people who are going to get burned by SEO.

 

[biophase]

So much misinformation about SEO in this thread it is ridiculous. Keyword domains and exact match domains will always work. Why? Because google cannot determine if you are searching for a domain name or or a keyword.

Dan,

I'm not saying that keyword match domains won't work. I guess for strictly SEO purposes getting an EMD or keywords in the domain may be better in the short term. But as a business, you are better off not choosing your business name just for the short term SEO benefits.

If you have a successful shop in 2 years, with repeat customers, email list, facebook page, newsletter, etc... will you with that instead of Dishwatersoap.com you have Bluesuds.com?

 

[craig1928]

Why not get both and put a 301 on the keyword domain?

 

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[Ambition]

Why not get both and put a 301 on the keyword domain?

For my own learning, do you think Goggle (or other search engines) will give the same SEO rank to the keyword domain as the site that you have nominated as your live domain?

I have looked at the Goggle page on 301 here: 301 redirects - Webmaster Tools Help and it looks as if the actual effect will be to transfer any SEO benefit from the Keyword domain to the canonical domain name?

 

[nzerinto]

I'm not saying that keyword match domains won't work. I guess for strictly SEO purposes getting an EMD or keywords in the domain may be better in the short term. But as a business, you are better off not choosing your business name just for the short term SEO benefits.

Bingo. This is the key point right here. Of all the websites you visit these days, do you visit "bookshop.com" or "mp3playersandcomputers.com" or "searchengine.com" for example? No, you visit "Amazon", "Apple", and "Google". All brands, all with great business models, all making a killing in their own space. When you think about it, it's actually pretty rare to find a famous site that uses a keyword EMD.

Eric Ward recently told me something about Google, when asked about the whole keyword (and anchor text) issue, he said "With hundreds of scientists, mathematicians and phds, do you really think Google needs US to tell it what your website is about...?"

 

[angelique]

Not sure if this has been asked already..

Biophase (or anyone else with a good amount of experience), how do you go about your Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions, if you're just starting out and don't have the money to spend on a professional for advice? Do you eyeball someone else's and tweak it a bit?

 

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[JAJT]

Regarding licenses.

I previously found a niche I wanted to pursue (board games, for this example). The supplier I found wanted a Tax ID and Business name. So I setup a business name and tax ID with the government using all the branding information I was going to use with the niche. So the business name and ID were listed with the government as "JAJT's Board Games" with the description being "online board game sales".

I was then able to pass this onto the supplier who then gave me everything I needed to make the go/no go decision. It ended up being "no go" for a variety of reasons.

Thinking now, would it have made more sense for me to setup the Tax ID and Business name to be more generic? Instead of "JAJT Board Games" should I have used "JAJT Commerce" or some other generic term that I can then use for all future niche's and inquiries?

Is the generic approach possible / preferred or would it be in my best interest to go through the hassle of setting up, paying for, and dissolving business names/licenses for every different niche supplier that requires these things?

(Also, I'm Canadian and need to figure out what's possible in terms of selling from US suppliers to US customers while not residing in the US, but baby steps first...)

 

[Dan Da Man]

Dan,

I'm not saying that keyword match domains won't work. I guess for strictly SEO purposes getting an EMD or keywords in the domain may be better in the short term. But as a business, you are better off not choosing your business name just for the short term SEO benefits.

If you have a successful shop in 2 years, with repeat customers, email list, facebook page, newsletter, etc... will you with that instead of Dishwatersoap.com you have Bluesuds.com?

You are totally right! I guess it depends on what your strategy is. For me, I rely basically on SEO. Why? Because I can rank a site with almost no cost and little time and I can get a lot of traffic doing it. Yes, it is risky but that is why I am creating new stores every month and soon hopefully every week.

If SEO was not my only thing, than yes I can see a brandable name would work better. For me, everyone is finding me through Google therefore brandable names are not really of any concern.

For those doing facebook, PPC and other forms of driving traffic, than yes I can see why you would want a brand able name.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[jilla82]

Bingo. This is the key point right here. Of all the websites you visit these days, do you visit "bookshop.com" or "mp3playersandcomputers.com" or "searchengine.com" for example? No, you visit "Amazon", "Apple", and "Google". All brands, all with great business models, all making a killing in their own space. When you think about it, it's actually pretty rare to find a famous site that uses a keyword EMD.

This may be true...but I also know a ton of people that have bought bicycles from Save Up To 60% Off Road Bikes, Bicycles, Mountain Bikes and Bicycles with Bikesdirect.com, New with full warranties

 

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[biophase]

Not sure if this has been asked already..

Biophase (or anyone else with a good amount of experience), how do you go about your Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions, if you're just starting out and don't have the money to spend on a professional for advice? Do you eyeball someone else's and tweak it a bit?

I just grabbed one from some other site and modified it a little.

 

[biophase]

Regarding licenses.

I previously found a niche I wanted to pursue (board games, for this example). The supplier I found wanted a Tax ID and Business name. So I setup a business name and tax ID with the government using all the branding information I was going to use with the niche. So the business name and ID were listed with the government as "JAJT's Board Games" with the description being "online board game sales".

I was then able to pass this onto the supplier who then gave me everything I needed to make the go/no go decision. It ended up being "no go" for a variety of reasons.

Thinking now, would it have made more sense for me to setup the Tax ID and Business name to be more generic? Instead of "JAJT Board Games" should I have used "JAJT Commerce" or some other generic term that I can then use for all future niche's and inquiries?

Is the generic approach possible / preferred or would it be in my best interest to go through the hassle of setting up, paying for, and dissolving business names/licenses for every different niche supplier that requires these things?

(Also, I'm Canadian and need to figure out what's possible in terms of selling from US suppliers to US customers while not residing in the US, but baby steps first...)

Yes, you're company name should be sort of generic so it can span many different niches. Then you can always add a DBA "doing business as" whatever your website happens to be.

 

[biophase]

You are totally right! I guess it depends on what your strategy is. For me, I rely basically on SEO. Why? Because I can rank a site with almost no cost and little time and I can get a lot of traffic doing it. Yes, it is risky but that is why I am creating new stores every month and soon hopefully every week.

Dan,

I would take a step back and rethink this strategy. If I were doing this plan, I would create generic stores and once I found good profitable ones, immediately create another store in the niche with a brandable name. Then run both stores and eventually leverage the keyword domain store into the branded one.

There's a reason why the big players, hayneedle, wayfair, have gone from a ton of small stores to one giant store. You also see a bunch of people on flippa selling stores saying that they have too many and are focusing on a couple. Multiple tiny stores is much more work than a few good stores.

Trust me on this. I downsized to a few stores and things are much easier. In the beginning I thought, 10 stores making $1k/mo would have been easy. But 2 stores making $5k/mo is waaaay better.

 

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[PatrickP]

Dan,

I would take a step back and rethink this strategy. If I were doing this plan, I would create generic stores and once I found good profitable ones, immediately create another store in the niche with a brandable name. Then run both stores and eventually leverage the keyword domain store into the branded one.

There's a reason why the big players, hayneedle, wayfair, have gone from a ton of small stores to one giant store. You also see a bunch of people on flippa selling stores saying that they have too many and are focusing on a couple. Multiple tiny stores is much more work than a few good stores.

Trust me on this. I downsized to a few stores and things are much easier. In the beginning I thought, 10 stores making $1k/mo would have been easy. But 2 stores making $5k/mo is waaaay better.

THANK YOU!

I am going to just post a link to your post the next time someone claims all they have to do is open 20 stores which can make a couple hundred bucks on each one

 

[JasonR]

This may be true...but I also know a ton of people that have bought bicycles from Save Up To 60% Off Road Bikes, Bicycles, Mountain Bikes and Bicycles with Bikesdirect.com, New with full warranties

That website is awful...

 

[GuestUser8117]

Biophase I have an idea for you. Why don't you become an Ecommerce consultant!? With all your knowledge you could certainly make some money...

 

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[comment]

I'm thinking about buying a world wide brands membership.. Finding suppliers or dropshippers is so difficult sometimes, and WWB apparently has all the products I want to sell in their database.. Anyone want to talk me out of it for some reason?

 

[nzerinto]

This may be true...but I also know a ton of people that have bought bicycles from Save Up To 60% Off Road Bikes, Bicycles, Mountain Bikes and Bicycles with Bikesdirect.com, New with full warranties

I think you missed my point. An EMD would've been "bikes.com" or "buybikes". Although "bikes direct" is perhaps less of a brand name than the ones I mentioned, I think it still comes from a branding perspective, rather than an SEO influenced decision.

Don't get me wrong, I own 30+ sites that are all EMDs. But I bought them for the sole purpose of being "churn and burn" type sites, because I know for a fact they have zero branding potential, and therefore their long term viability is non-existent.

 

[biophase]

Biophase I have an idea for you. Why don't you become an Ecommerce consultant!? With all your knowledge you could certainly make some money...

Nah, that would require a certain level and type of work that I don't really like doing. I always feel like consulting is like making money telling others what you would do. If I'm so good at telling you what to do, why am I not doing it for myself?

 

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[biophase]

I'm thinking about buying a world wide brands membership.. Finding suppliers or dropshippers is so difficult sometimes, and WWB apparently has all the products I want to sell in their database.. Anyone want to talk me out of it for some reason?

I wouldn't do it. But if that's how you get your start then that's fine. It's a small price to pay for knowledge. I would use it to expand your thought process on finding niches. Also, by going through all those niches you will begin to think about different areas that you would have never thought about.

 

[jilla82]

That website is awful...

Ha!
That website is huge in the cycling world.

 

[JAJT]

Anyone want to talk me out of it for some reason?

You shouldn't have to pay for ideas and once you have an idea the manufacturer should be happy to provide you with their wholesale/distributor channels to contact. You then call them all and ask which ones dropship.

It's more work than knowing "for sure" that they dropship right off of a list but the extra work takes minutes to complete.

 

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[comment]

You shouldn't have to pay for ideas and once you have an idea the manufacturer should be happy to provide you with their wholesale/distributor channels to contact. You then call them all and ask which ones dropship.

It's more work than knowing "for sure" that they dropship right off of a list but the extra work takes minutes to complete.

The reason it appeals to me is that, I email manufacturers asking if they offer wholesale or dropshipping, and if they dont, I ask if they can direct me to someone who does. About 50% reply back, but WWB could have 5 or 6 supplies in their database and accessing them would be 3 clicks of a mouse. It just sounds like it cuts down a lot of the 10-page google digging or emailing a manufacturer that couldn't care less. It's a one time fee of 299, so it isnt bank breaking. I'm not sure, I might get it. Biophase has a point, even if their database turns out to be out of date and terrible, it could maybe help me with my niche research in a few ways.

 

[PatrickP]

How much is your time worth?

Do you have time to watch TV and other things which do not produce profit?

When I was starting my business I had VERY little money. So to me my time was only worth $1/hour. So if it cost me $299 it would have to save me 299 hours of my time. I had more time than I did money.

Now I am fortunate that things have changed quite a bit as to how much I can pay for information which may help my business.

 

[TK1]

I would do niche research on eBay based on 'completed listings'.
You can go through the categories and see what is selling already.

If you use something like WWB you get deals that EVERYBODY sees who is a member, but the best deals are the 'invisible' ones - the ones that take more work on your side, but can be much more profitable - because not everybody knows about certain deals just by a click.

It's the same as buying websites on Flippa - you get better deals doing the leg-work and hustle through google in search of deals that only those people get who think out of the box - not the ones that bid on a deal on Flippa that millions other can see..

Instead of spending first money on sites like WWB I would spend this money on a SEOmoz membership. Learning how to get customers is priority #1 IMO...

I'm thinking about buying a world wide brands membership.. Finding suppliers or dropshippers is so difficult sometimes, and WWB apparently has all the products I want to sell in their database.. Anyone want to talk me out of it for some reason?

 

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[JAJT]

I had more time than I did money.

I need to seriously overhaul my time usage per day. I need to REALLY spend it in front of the correct activities.

Right now I spend 6am - 7pm at "work" (shower, transit, work, transit, home...). That's 13 hours of indentured time every single day. Too bad I only get paid for the 8 hours I'm at work during those times for a loss of 5 hours of "worth" per day. Add 6-8 hours of sleep and I'm up to 19-21 hours of 'F*cking the dog' a day.

That gives me 3-5 hours of "me time" assuming that preparing and eating dinner takes up no time, no errands need to be ran and my wife doesn't mind being married to a ghost. On the plus side I get 2 days off a week to remind my kids what their father looks like!

What a waste of life!

Sorry for the rant. For some reason this thread got me thinking about the math of my day and I was not happy with the results...

 

[PatrickP]

Well when I say I had more time than money I was working 80 hours a week.

I cut my sleep back from 9 hours a day to 5. That left me with over 30 hours a week to work on my start up business.

 

[XavierYZ]

I need to seriously overhaul my time usage per day. I need to REALLY spend it in front of the correct activities.

Right now I spend 6am - 7pm at "work" (shower, transit, work, transit, home...). That's 13 hours of indentured time every single day. Too bad I only get paid for the 8 hours I'm at work during those times for a loss of 5 hours of "worth" per day. Add 6-8 hours of sleep and I'm up to 19-21 hours of 'F*cking the dog' a day.

That gives me 3-5 hours of "me time" assuming that preparing and eating dinner takes up no time, no errands need to be ran and my wife doesn't mind being married to a ghost. On the plus side I get 2 days off a week to remind my kids what their father looks like!

What a waste of life!

Sorry for the rant. For some reason this thread got me thinking about the math of my day and I was not happy with the results...

Sounds like you need to make a change. I can handle working 8 hours and getting paid for 8

while working on your fast lane, but the commute is hindering you. Do you take bus or subway? If so. I would use that time to work on a solution to your problem. Or move closer to work or find a new job that allows you more free time to evolve

"If you keep doing what your doing. You will keep getting what your getting"

And my favorite.

"if nothing changes, nothing changes"

 

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[PatrickP]

yikes I didn't do the math.

You are right he is spending 25 hours a week getting ready for work, getting to and from work.

If it is a train maybe use his laptop and work on the train. If driving he must be spending a ton of money driving hundreds of miles per week.

 

[susanyang]

Dan Da Man or other experts: when you set up a new store every month, do you apply license for each and every one of them? I am planning to open two stores (dropship and my own inventory), and the business license people said if the domain names are different then I need to apply for different licences. Is it better to set up some kind of corp? LLC is out, because it's too expensive.