Website, from zero to hero

[Pap_sak]

A couple of weeks ago I decided to start a darts equipment specific website. It’s more an experiment than anything else, but would be interested if people in SA were willing to start spending on Internet sales yet. It’s not a full “e-commerce” solution; you still need to login and then transfer/deposit funds before shipping…you can’t just tap in your visa number. And it’s not a bespoke website, just one of the freebee’s, but one that I prefer over some others.

Although this is an “experimental” site, I have all the stock, and when funds clear, I will be posting the stock – and yes, a few thousand bucks was spent on stock.

What I would like from interested parties…guys that are thinking of doing it/ have done it:

Nice, objective criticisms. Please don’t worry about hurting my feelings, the blunter the better. But also please give me a solution, if possible, but not mandatory!

Ideas. There are things I can do, and things I can’t – but all would be appreciated. For instance, my prices are good (with free postage), but not discounted by a huge amount. Would this put you off, or would you just be happy to find decent service at a price slightly cheaper than you local shop – that probably wouldn’t have them in stock anyway?

I will post progress on the project, with updates on site visits and sales, if any! Only if there is interest, of course.

At the moment site is up, has been indexed by google but not showing yet. Has been submited to ananzi and yahoo - will submit to new directories next week, any you sugest? More products to go up next week.

almost forgot website is http://www.dartsdirect.co.za

[Dave A]

Success for a niche site like this is probably going to heavily reliant on search engine traffic. Have you done the keyword research that would bring this traffic your way?

[Pap_sak]

I haven't done any research yet - but would have thought that ones I do use would kind of cover it. I read somewhere that google do not rate meta keywords much these days (if at all) - although still put them in, of course!

But you are right, will be trying to get one of the top three spots for the searches: darts za and darts equipment za. I wouldn't have thought it would be too hard - but we will see.

[Dave A]

That's what had me wondering. The domain name can have quite an impact on search performance. While your domain name is good, you might identify some better ones after you've done the keyword research.

[tonyflanigan]

Hey there. we generally get pretty good results for our sites, well, Terry does, as she does the SEO for us. Same as you we have heard that Google does not rely on meta info much, but we still insert it, and do relevancy checks etc. What we have noticed is that content, good solid relevant content does work.

Another thing, no one (that we have come across yet) uses za in a search term. Target South Africa, and don't assume people will use the 'Pages fron South Africa' option on Google.

As far as Search Engines go, Google is King. We have submitted to the local search engines but have NEVER had traffic from them. Bing is coming up very nicely, and is worth looking at.

That's all right off the top of my head, if you need me to ramble more, give me a shout.

[Pap_sak]

As you say Tony, content is king. Will be working on the site tommorrow, adding a few more products that have arrived plus another page. The vesion of cubecart v3 is not the best for SEO - but then this is a small specific website and I would not have thought it would be too hard to become top in my chosen keywords. Need to get more inbound links and a few going out as well...

[Pap_sak]

Success! 8th from the top (in google) for both darts za and darts equipment za.

[Dave A]

[Pap_sak]

First order today, probably should more call it an inquiry - it is a dart not on our website, but will see if it converts to a sale - unfortunately only be in the country in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, unique visits for the month stand at 57 (last month - the first month, 23) so creeping up nicely. Have also revamped http://www.maxsport.co.za using wordpress, very quick and easy to use - need to get more content up ASAP. I think for a small business that would like to update their own website and not spend a fortune doing it wordpress is the way to go.

[garthu]

Hey Pap Sak

Done nicely with word press!! Like it a lot.

Chuck in my 2 cents. I dont know what darts are??? But soccer boots i do.....

In the landing page "soccer boots" is not mentioned, boots yes but not soccer boots. If content is king then should you not consider soccer boots, or athletic boots, track boots etc. If i was to google then i would google IE "soccer boots" for my son.

Just constructive please, if i a have missed the boat, (which i normally do born in Zim ) then so be it. Good luck with a great site

[Pap_sak]

Hey Pap Sak

Done nicely with word press!! Like it a lot.

Chuck in my 2 cents. I dont know what darts are??? But soccer boots i do.....

In the landing page "soccer boots" is not mentioned, boots yes but not soccer boots. If content is king then should you not consider soccer boots, or athletic boots, track boots etc. If i was to google then i would google IE "soccer boots" for my son.

Just constructive please, if i a have missed the boat, (which i normally do born in Zim ) then so be it. Good luck with a great site

Yup, you are right Garthu - trying to get the "home" page (which uploads the latest content), to my "about page", which is static - and I can load it with keywords - might have to add a contact page if it gets too long.

My wife knows, she has www.321design.co.za, but now I am being "man with map", and not asking for directions...

[Pap_sak]

First sale done!

The grand sum of R87. Good thing I have a few other things in the burner! Will now start playing with a few prices, at the moment they are the same as in store, they might need to be tweaked a wee bit down to start seeing steady sales.

[Dave A]

Where there's one, there's more.

The grand sum of R87. Good thing I have a few other things in the burner!

At least it's the sort of thing you can develop part-time. Aren't you glad you didn't bet the farm and give up your day-job?

[Dave U]

Site looks nice. Some SEO tips:

Is it possible to remove the phrase "Powered by CubeCart" from your page titles? It's a waste of title words. That leads me to a more general problem: shorter titles are better. Here's the title for one of your product pages:

Dartsdirect : : Darts, Flights, Shafts, Dart accessories and equipment from Harrows and Datadart - Harrows Assassin (Powered by CubeCart).

Now, in this case, you may hope to get some long tail traffic from people searching for the actual name of the product, Harrows Assassin. So ensure that's the first word in your title and strip out some of the other words when it comes to products pages. E.g. someone may search for "Harrows Assassin Dart", so definitely keep dart in the title. But can you imagine someone searching for "Harrows Assassin Equipment"? I do realise that there may be limitations in the software you're using, which force you to keep long titles.

Since your site is very niche, you can get very far with some proper on-site optimisation. That, combined with some inbound links, will result in a very good search engine placement.

Please let us know if you tried changing your titles and if it had positive results.

[Dave U]

I had another look. Here's another SEO tip:

The headings on your pages are not actual headings. For example, this is the heading your one of your product pages:

<p class="txtContentTitle"><strong>Harrows Assassin</strong></p>

Now, even though this gives the appearance to users of being a heading, search engines don't know. You need to use proper heading tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc.) before search engines will know that it's a heading and therefore very important.

Once again, some might say that inbound links are more important, but especially for a niche site you can get a lot of mileage out of these kinds of optimisations.