Website business question

hoggie · #1 05/31/11, 04:41 PM

Can anyone advise me on thsi please?

I have a "big idea" for an online business. It's never going to make me rich, but it might make me a living

Just for argument's sake, let's say that I have decided that my website/brand will be called "gocrazy.whatever"

I am aware that it takes a while for a website to start generating traffic, let alone enough traffic to start actually making sales, so I would like to get up and running very soon which gives me 5 or 6 months that I might be seeing some traffic in time for Christmas spending?

The business I have in mind could be a stand alone website, or it could end up with a website with a forum and/or a blog attached.

So, it occurred to me that if I set up a blog now, using "gocrazy.whatever" write regular articles for the blog, then the name would be starting to be picked up on, maybe recognised, amongst my target audience. I know that is a big "maybe" but I dont' have all the material written for the website yet.

The problem I can see with this solution to my problem is that, if I call the blog "gocrazy.whatever" then that domain name is taken and I can't use it for the main website - effectively shooting myself in the foot?

I am puzzling my way around this one - can anyone offer any advice/ suggestions please?

TIA

hoggie

cmharris6002 · #2 05/31/11, 05:11 PM

If you own the domain "gocrazy.whatever" you just need to decide what your index page (the first page that comes up) will be. It could be the blog with a page that takes them to where you sell stuff or it could be a welcome page and the click to go to the blog or shopping. If you know what you want your domain to be go buy it!

mypatriotsupply · #3 05/31/11, 05:16 PM

I would say you need to register the domain name now. One of the many things search engines use to calculate your rankings is how long you've been around (also how long your domain registration is good for - don't cheap out on the one year deal, or they think you're here-today gone-tomorrow)

The best way, unfortunately, to start out in my opinion is pay per click advertising. We use Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter (which covers Bing and Yahoo) and we have very good results. There is not a single day the advertising doesn't pay for itself.

But a lot of that has to do with how your PPC ad is written, and your landing page. I'm not professing to be an expert on this - in fact I have a conference call tomorrow morning with a marketing consultant to try to improve our results even more.

But until you're around a while, and gets links to your site (backlinks) and do all the other things that search engines like and start generating free organic search engine traffic, PPC is the best bet.

Also you need to decide how you will have hosting/shopping cart set up. I'm going to give a plug for my guys over at Volusion on this one. They are slightly more expensive than most reputable shopping carts but they have 24/7 tech support and a ton of features. I don't regret my monthly bill with them because anytime I have a question I just pop on their web site and chat with their tech support and get it solved. Plus they have lots of built in search engine optimization tools. I started not knowing anything about this stuff and a couple of my pages made top google rankings without me even trying. (type: bulk golden bantam sweet corn into google and see which favorite forum sponsor pops up)

Also you need a merchant account. Do not be fooled into taking ONLY PayPal or ONLY Google Checkout, although both are great options to have. Just as much as there is a mass of people who love paying with those services there are a percentage of people who HATE them.

If you want to PM me I can refer you to the lady who set up our merchant account. There are a TON of sharks out there selling merchant accounts and you can get overwhelmed just starting to look for one.

Don't ever pay a fee for a merchant account.

Instead of utilizing a blog - and again this is just my own opinion - utilize article pages. People are starting to get blogged out, I believe. It comes from too many people using their blogs the same way they use facebook - to let everyone know what they had for dinner. You need content on your site to help your search engine rankings. Blogs/forums are a good way to introduce that content, but article pages are great as well and you can always write article pages to point to your products.

If you don't want the blog/forum site and the sales site to be the same, register a .com and a .net of your chosen domain name. Use the .com for your sales side - always!

Those are my opinions, and only based on my own experience. If you want some referrals to some good resources - like I said you are welcome to PM me.

hoggie · #4 06/01/11, 09:49 AM

cmharris6002 - Thank you - yes, I am going to be purchasing the domain name I have in mind very soon, I just want to do a little more checking on the name and make sure that no-one else has a similar name

mypatriotsupply - thank you, lots of info there for me to dig through

I hadn't even considered PPC advertising - I iwll have to look into that. Like I say, I am still writing the material for the website and, although I don't actually have to have it ALL done before I put the website up, some of it really must be finalised.

Thank you for the tip for volusion - I have been wondering how to go about a shopping cart.

What is an article page? Is that seperate to the website - or within the main website? Sorry to be dense - I have a lot to learn LOL

Is it possible to have the forum and main pages hosted on the same site? Or would I have to have seperate websites for that?

Thanks again

hoggie

mypatriotsupply · #5 06/01/11, 09:54 AM

It's possible, yes - but its not a standard feature with Volusion. You can do almost anything with your Volusion store if you know how to do custom programming. An article page is a page within the main site.

Embarrassingly I don't have a good one on mine to point to. We switched providers near the beginning of the year and while the transition was supposed to copy everything it didn't (my old providers fault, not Volusions) so we've had to redo our entire site from scratch and I don't have my content up there yet as we've been too busy with sales.

Yeah, I'm nuts for doing this, but check out this page on EE. Perfect example of an article page.

http://beprepared.com/article.asp?ai...o%20Eat%20MREs

hoggie · #6 06/01/11, 10:24 AM

Thank you - I think I see.

So I would set up the website, then post articles just like a blog, but to the website direct ?

So the traffic, google ranking etc would be going direct to the website rather than to a blog and THEN to the website?

hoggie

mypatriotsupply · #7 06/01/11, 10:26 AM

Yes, in my opinion - and anyone else feel free to chime in. But if you're wanting to convert visitors into customers you don't want them to have to take another leap and click into a different site to do so. That's one more chance they have to navigate away. I would consolidate your content on one site.

hoggie · #8 06/01/11, 10:30 AM

Thank you - that gives me something more to work with

cmharris6002 · #9 06/01/11, 10:37 AM

I agree with you mypatriotsupply. I don't like to navigate away from the site I'm on.

This is the same issue I'm having with my blog/website. I could put a blog on my website, but the template is weak in that there is no label or archive. So, for now, when you click on "Blog" it takes you to blogspot. Another downside is that the content of my blog doesn't lead people to my site. So I think you are very wise to work all this out beforehand.

therunbunch · #10 06/01/11, 12:36 PM

If you are interested in ANY domain.. purchase it. One thing I learned in the past few years, is that certain companies and individuals can track domain queries.. like if you're on godaddy.com and plugging in different names for a website.. say you keep going back to check to make sure it's still available.. but still not ready to buy it... they get information on how "popular" that domain search is.. then they just buy it. THEN.. you go back a day later and guess what?? They've bought it and if you go to that domain site now you'll see it's for sale for like $1,000!!!

I've seen this happen SO many times. They figure if it gets lots of queries (maybe a popular keyword in the domain name) that they can grab it at the cheap domain list price (usually less than $12 for a year) then they can sell it for $300 to some joe who wants it really bad. SO.. my advice is that you plan what you want and don't plug it into a domain search box until you're ready to purchase THEN AND THERE the second the search comes back "available".

hoggie · #11 06/02/11, 07:14 AM

Thank you - I will get started on finalising my domain name choice and get it bought before I go any further

The article pages look like just what I need - is there a limit to how many you can have on a site - the idea I am working on will have a sort of weekly tutorial - so the articles are going to add up over time?

cmharris - thank you for that advice - I am trying to really make sure I am getting what I want from the start - of course, I might get set up and it go in a totally different direction from what I envisage now LOL

mypatriotsupply · #12 06/02/11, 10:17 AM

No, there would be virtually no limit on the number of article pages.

Halfway · #13 06/03/11, 06:13 AM

This is a very informative thread!

Thanks to all posting.

Nevada · #14 06/12/11, 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoggie

So, it occurred to me that if I set up a blog now, using "gocrazy.whatever" write regular articles for the blog, then the name would be starting to be picked up on, maybe recognised, amongst my target audience.

I suppose so, but how do you intend to promote your blog? For that strategy to work you need to find a way to drive traffic to your blog and develop an audience. Just creating the blog won't be enough.

davel745 · #15 06/13/11, 10:56 AM

Here is what happened to me. I went to GoDaddy.com and searched for a domain name I wanted and it came back that it was owned by someone. And they would license me to use it for a commission. I then went to network solutions and I asked about the exact same domain name and it was available I bought it from network solutions for $10 a month. It is now my domain name for my website. I think that some of the people offer a search for a domain aren’t very honest and try to rip you off.

mypatriotsupply · #16 06/13/11, 10:57 AM

That is very strange. I've used GoDaddy since I had my very first web site back in...oh, early 2000's? I've never felt they were a scam and I've always been very happy with their service.