Invented a product. Ready to learn Ecommerce

[seriousleisure]

My partner and I invented a type of hidden gun safe. Part furniture-part safe. It's a unique product in a crowded and competitive field.

We have a company that manufactures them for us. We have a very strong relationship with them and they have been in business over 50 years. They have sales reps that sell them into wholesale accounts. This makes us a small amount of cash flow from commissions.

We have a basic ecommerce website that generates very little traffic but does produce the occasional sale. This is a high ticket item ($4-5K) and has good margins at retail.

I initially built it with a Bigcommerce template and it was nice and clean. However, over time with BC updates, pieces of it just disappeared and it looks terrible now.

Here's a sketch of the plan along with a few requests for input. All help and opinions are appreciated.

1. Rebuild the website with more images and compelling sales copy. I plan to learn basic web development and copywriting skills as I work on this project so that I can create more ecommerce websites in the future. I also plan to use these skills in local lead generation later on.

I have very little experience at this. I plan to use a single product template and use wordpress with woocommerce. I am open to feedback on whether or not this is the best option as a platform.

2. Write new sales copy. I have identified 6 benefits that I can expound upon. I plan to have long form sales copy on the first page of the site.
SEO question-Should I link to separate web pages in a blog section that speak more in depth about each benefit?

3. Make sure everything is optimized and our keywords are correct.
I have done some keyword research and identified trending keywords and 2 highly searched but low competition keywords. This space is very competitive. My hope is that by supplying a few high quality articles in low competition keywords, we can drive some traffic.

4. Optimize our GMB listing.

5. Begin a marketing campaign on FB, Google, IG, etc. to start increasing traffic and sales.
I would love suggestions on the most effective way to deal with this.
If I had to pick the most effective marketing channel, what would it be?

6. Learn SEO as I go. This is a skill set that is overwhelming but really interests me. We tried outsourcing this before and it was a money waste.

7. Add other products in the same niche to my pipeline and earn through dropshipping and affiliate links on our main site or an ancillary site.

Should we tout products from other brands from within our own site or create another site that reviews and recommends products and includes links back to the original site?

Should we create a new site for our product niche that has reviews of our product along with others in our niche or keep everything on one site?

If we create a new site for multiple products, should we create a brand new site or buy one that has expired but has some backlinks and domain authority?
If we revive an expired domain, do we unarchive the content of the old site and use it? Is that a copyright issue?

 

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[Tehcasa]

My partner and I invented a type of hidden gun safe. Part furniture-part safe. It's a unique product in a crowded and competitive field.

We have a company that manufactures them for us. We have a very strong relationship with them and they have been in business over 50 years. They have sales reps that sell them into wholesale accounts. This makes us a small amount of cash flow from commissions.

We have a basic ecommerce website that generates very little traffic but does produce the occasional sale. This is a high ticket item ($4-5K) and has good margins at retail.

I initially built it with a Bigcommerce template and it was nice and clean. However, over time with BC updates, pieces of it just disappeared and it looks terrible now.

Here's a sketch of the plan along with a few requests for input. All help and opinions are appreciated.

1. Rebuild the website with more images and compelling sales copy. I plan to learn basic web development and copywriting skills as I work on this project so that I can create more ecommerce websites in the future. I also plan to use these skills in local lead generation later on.

I have very little experience at this. I plan to use a single product template and use wordpress with woocommerce. I am open to feedback on whether or not this is the best option as a platform.

2. Write new sales copy. I have identified 6 benefits that I can expound upon. I plan to have long form sales copy on the first page of the site.
SEO question-Should I link to separate web pages in a blog section that speak more in depth about each benefit?

3. Make sure everything is optimized and our keywords are correct.
I have done some keyword research and identified trending keywords and 2 highly searched but low competition keywords. This space is very competitive. My hope is that by supplying a few high quality articles in low competition keywords, we can drive some traffic.

4. Optimize our GMB listing.

5. Begin a marketing campaign on FB, Google, IG, etc. to start increasing traffic and sales.
I would love suggestions on the most effective way to deal with this.
If I had to pick the most effective marketing channel, what would it be?

6. Learn SEO as I go. This is a skill set that is overwhelming but really interests me. We tried outsourcing this before and it was a money waste.

7. Add other products in the same niche to my pipeline and earn through dropshipping and affiliate links on our main site or an ancillary site.

Should we tout products from other brands from within our own site or create another site that reviews and recommends products and includes links back to the original site?

Should we create a new site for our product niche that has reviews of our product along with others in our niche or keep everything on one site?

If we create a new site for multiple products, should we create a brand new site or buy one that has expired but has some backlinks and domain authority?
If we revive an expired domain, do we unarchive the content of the old site and use it? Is that a copyright issue?

Hi there,

Here's what I would do:
- Since it sounds like you have some levels of organic traffic, I wouldn't neglect this site and move to a new CMS straight off the bat! It will be important to redirect your legacy URLs to the new CMS. I recommend Shopify - It's one of the easiest and most reliable eCommerce platforms right now.

- In terms of your blog section question, It would beneficial to create 1 big blog post explaining all of the benefits. If you were to silo each benefit into a separate webpage, Google may not find the proper search intent, the content will be thin (not user-friendly and engaging for a visitor who just wants to read it all in one go, and, it's an actual fact that pages will rank more easily if there is longer-tailored content. In terms of internal linking, it would be ideal to add product pages to a few keywords phrases within the article.

- In terms of social media, you should be implementing social coordination on all platforms whether that's Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest. The more eyes the better - you can use tools like Buffer to schedule the same posts at the same time.

- Should we create a new site for our product niche that has reviews of our product along with others in our niche or keep everything on one site - you could potentially do this, but it really depends on your budget. It's not easy to start a new review blog site from ground zero - especially when you have not much SEO experience.

Happy to answer any more q's and to help your journey.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

Should we tout products from other brands from within our own site or create another site that reviews and recommends products and includes links back to the original site?

Should we create a new site for our product niche that has reviews of our product along with others in our niche or keep everything on one site?

If we create a new site for multiple products, should we create a brand new site or buy one that has expired but has some backlinks and domain authority?
If we revive an expired domain, do we unarchive the content of the old site and use it? Is that a copyright issue?

I'd stick to selling your product only.

A review minisite is not a bad idea, if you have the resources to invest in it and your main business at the same time.

Most likely an expired domain has little relevance to what you are selling, unless you can find a great gun related domain with relevant links.

 

[biophase]

I would sell your product only.

I would rebuild it on Shopify. Even though you are selling just one product, Shopify will have alot of apps that you may need in the future.

 

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[amp0193]

If I had to pick the most effective marketing channel, what would it be?

Whichever one you learn intimately and commit to knowing inside or out. There are many ways to get this done. You have a cool, unique, $4000 product. People should be busting your doors down right now... except that you haven't made them aware you exist yet.

@Greg R can chime in with some 2 cents about marketing in this niche. You gotta be careful with the gun stuff, or your ad accounts will get banned.

7. Add other products in the same niche to my pipeline and earn through dropshipping and affiliate links on our main site or an ancillary site.

Should we tout products from other brands from within our own site or create another site that reviews and recommends products and includes links back to the original site?

Waste of time. You need to figure out to sell your product first. Forget upsells or dropshipping (that time will come).

What are you going to sell the shit out of product #1?

When you get to $1M in revenue on this one product, then start thinking about what to sell to existing customers.

Should we create a new site for our product niche that has reviews of our product along with others in our niche or keep everything on one site?

Instead of building a site, how do you get your product on the sites that are already doing this?



You seem obsessed with SEO, and trying to figure out the mechanical techniques that will make your sales blow up.

You sell a $4000 product. My products are high dollar as well. The name of the game is eyeballs and how do you get a lot of them?

With something cool, that no one else is doing, and a huge amount of money you can spend on customer acquisition and still have a nice healthy margin... you have unlimited options for marketing.

 

[seriousleisure]

I'd stick to selling your product only.

A review minisite is not a bad idea, if you have the resources to invest in it and your main business at the same time.

Most likely an expired domain has little relevance to what you are selling, unless you can find a great gun related domain with relevant links.

Thanks for the input. I found a few expired domains in my niche with over 1000 backlinks. I will consider adding this once I get my main site rebuilt and in a good spot.

 

[Greg R]

You are going to be high-touch, high ticket. Pick something where you can communicate the value very easily, where your customers hang out, and make it as easy as possible to understand what you are doing.

DM me about the firearms niche.

 

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