Kristi:driving traffic to my store

Hi everyone,

I am writing this from a hotel room in Birmingham. I’m here for the Printwear & Promotion exhibition this weekend. Long way from home and after having dinner in the pub by myself, thought I might jot a few thoughts down here…

I mentioned a while ago how I was surprised to start getting orders, before I really thought my store was ready. This was all due to Google Adwords, and I continue to get orders regularly from all parts of Australia. The cool thing is, I can see what the referring sites were and what keywords people have used.

You do have to be careful though – I ended up spending too much money on the Adwords. This was because I was getting high ranking on very general, popular keywords like “cheap tshirts”. I was also targeting people wanting to make shirts for all the music festivals on in summer and this was attracting a lot of traffic too.

I have scaled down my Adwords, and am now focusing on schools, and sports uniforms, since it’s the start of the school year in Oz.

You can see the effects by the stats shown here.

Speaking of site traffic, I also mentioned last time that I was going to experiment with Facebook for drawing traffic and creating awareness of my store.

Firstly, I figure – I want to show my friends and family my exciting new little business, so what better way than putting it on my facebook status.

And yes, it worked! Look at the top referrals for that week:

Now, these are particular online marketing ideas I have used. But there’s still the best and free way to be found – and that’s through plain old Google search results.

The trick with this is, that Google has to find your site, and think it’s relevant enough to show it in search results.

In order to best optimize your site for what’s termed “Organic search results”  – ie natural, not paid, it’s good to think of it from the searcher’s point of view.

I think of it as hiring a private investigator. I really need to find something/someone, and I dont have the resources or time to find them. So I hire my trusting PI – Google. Now, I need to brief Google on what I am looking for, so – I enter the keywords that best describe what I’m looking for. Often, I am only looking for things in a certain geographical location, so that’s why I might choose to search only UK sites, or only Australian sites.

So I might tell it: sports uniforms, and search australian sites only

Now, how does Google find results that are going to be useful to me? Well, again, they’re not experts on the subject matter and they dont know who the best sports uniform suppliers are in Australia so they rely on:

- what websites contain those keywords

- what sites others have recommended (how many times has this site been listed or mentioned on another website or in a blog, forums etc)

- it also looks at how active the site is and how often it’s content it updated. This is a good sign that it’s a useful site.

There are lots of other more technical things it does too, but let’s not get overwhelmed here

So, essentially, I ask my PI for some sports uniforms suppliers in Australia, and Google gives me a whole list of results, ranked in order of relevance.

Back to the site owner: what does this mean for me?

Well, it’s the same:

- make sure the keywords your target market are using in searches, are well covered in the body of your website. This doesn’t mean dodgy lists of hidden keywords, but useful, well written content that describes the products and services you offer. (This is one reason why sites made of just images are not good at returning search results)

- submit your site to local business directories, or any site related to your business. Ie, a sports uniform supplier might be listed on the Sports Assocation websites for example. Also, the more your site is talked about in forums, or blogs, the better. Google is moving towards relying on social media as a source for relevant search rankings.

- make sure your site is updated regularly! Google visits your website to see if there are changes. If there are none, it will visit your site less and less, meaning your search ranking will go down. Basically, it will see your site as not relevant. On the other hand, the more you update, the more Google thinks “this is a happening site, I’ll keep checking back on it for updates”.

So there you go. I don’t profess to be a SEO expert (Anh has a lot better knowledge than me) but just sharing my experiences and th0ughts. Also – I refer exclusively to Google in this post, but just for simplicity sake. You could replace it with Yahoo or Bing or whatever, bearing in mind that each search engine works a little bit differently.

So long for now!

Kristi

Kristi: Having a fresh storefront

ok. It’s been a while.

Well and truly back from Christmas/Summer break (we’re in Australia) and from travelling for work.

Since then, my DecoNetwork store has been updated to version 2. This makes my site look more snazzy, with some cool new ways to create a fresh store front. Things like featured products, most popular and more flexibility for image sizes, etc.

I’ve chosen one of the new themes, and simply updated it with my own colours and banner. What’s cool is I dont have to worry about coding or anything – just click where I want to change and enter the details:

Simply use my browser to customize the look of my page. The red outline appears when I hover over anything that's editable.

I’ve also let my friend and family know on FaceBook about my new site. I’m going to see how much my site traffic goes up from this! I’ll let you know how it goes…

Post again soon…

Kristi: I got my first sale!!!

How exciting.

I haven’t finishing the look and feel of my site yet, so I was reluctant to do too much promoting. However, I did the minimum I thought was necessary to make it live. Think is important I think, as otherwise you may never think it’s ready! You can always add to it later. I try to remember – a website is never finished

So really, my only promotion has been word of mouth and a few Google Adwords I set up last week. You can see how people have found my site, by the stats provided in the DecoNetwork dashboard.

I can see the websites that have referred my site and the search terms people use to find my site.

Now I need to get serious so I can get some more sales!

Kristi: name is decided. Descriptive name versus quirky name

This is just a quick one to say that the name is decided. Custombucket.com it is!

Why? Well, firstly thanks for all those who voted on my poll. The results were 60% for CustomBucket. I also asked lots of my friends what they thought. While not all of them loved the name, some thinking it was wierd, they ALL remembered it.

I was proposing two different naming strategies. Descriptive and quirky.

Descriptive seems more logical and appropriate. However, in the example “Your design here” because it is like you are speaking, people forgot what it was called. They said variations of this “put your design here” “my design here” etc.

On the other hand, custombucket is not a common term and sticks in people’s heads. Partly because they wonder about it – “Why did they call it that?” “Why bucket?” It’s quirky and therefore memorable.

Kristi: committing to a name today…

the result of a Saturday afternoon

Well, thanks for participating in my poll. It’s now 50/50 for yourdesignhere.com or custombucket.com. You can still vote here!

I’ve also decided to go for the .com.au as I am only selling in Australia. It tells Aussies right away that they are dealing with a local company.

SO – now I have to make a decision.

I was talking to my friend about it at a BBQ on Saturday. Before I knew it, the whole group was vigourously debating it! They even went and got some paper (yes, a few of my friends are the marketing type) and came up with these additional names.

Some of the names are already taken, but the ones worth looking at I think are:

wear-is.com.au

yourthreadsinstead.com.au

wearwolf.com.au

onetopshop.com.au

youretops.com

theshirtlist.com

Comments welcome. A decision is being made today!!

Kristi: taking the plunge – what to call it?

Hello again!

Before I choose a name for my online t-shirt store, I need to work out the brand, who it is for and what I want it to represent. Here are my thoughts…

Who is it for?

1. – people wanting custom tees for their events or clubs (mainly  guys but also girls)
2. – creative people who want to make a statement by what they wear

Things they will want to create:

• Hens nights, Bucks nights
• Schoolies, Footy/soccer trips
• Fun runs, charity events, Pub crawls
• School/university clubs & societies
• Baby shirts
• Sports uniforms
• Make a statement

I asked a few friends what they liked/didn’t like about ordering custom t-shirts. Here what they are:

• Good quality shirts that are comfy to wear and don’t shrink
• Give you a cheap price since you’re ordering online and doing the work!
• Good quality prints that wont fade after one wash
• Prices upfront
• Good selection but not too many to overwhelm me
• Tell me what colors and sizes are available
• Give me some inspiration!
• Make it easy to order online
• Let me see what it looks like on the t-shirt
• Tell me how long it will take upfront
• Have a phone and/or email I can contact you on
• Tell me where you are – a physical address

Personality of the brand:

Honest, upfront, open

Refreshingly good service

Sense of humour, don’t take ourselves too seriously

Key point of difference:

Make ordering custom t-shirts enjoyable.

So, next question – what to call it?

I have two ideas. I like one, my husband likes the other. What do you think?

Kristi: choosing an online store provider

Choosing an online store provider is a really relevant point. In my previous job I was a web designer for a Design and Marketing agency. We were asked to create an online store for a custom embroidery and workwear/uniforms company. Man was that a tall order!

Firstly the amount of time and research required to build a suitable solution from scratch is really not justifiable or in the scope of a small -medium size company’s budget. We had to figure out all the logic, understand the garment industry and the complex pricing of light colours, dark colours, embroidery cost per stitch…. Not to mention having to organise a photo shoot of all the garments and creating thumbnails for them all!

I think we did a satisfactory job but it was a hefty sum we charged ($10-15k from memory) and very time-consuming for one web designer and one web developer with a limited time frame.

So when I heard about DecoNetwork.com I was totally sold. The guys have spent years on research and development, optimizing the system specifically for custom goods and apparel. The online designer is a huge factor too, allowing customers to self serve and mix and match designs on different garments. They also include heaps of popular products already built in with different views, color, size and pricing information- gold.

So basically, instead of trying to put something together from scratch you can get started immediately. As we know, Web 2.0 is about being a “platform for platforms” –  if you want to build an online t-shirt store, you should consider as your platform, not the web itself, but a platform built on the web.

Something important to note is the DecoNetwork subscription is for people who actually print or embroider the goods themselves. A feature of DecoNetwork is the Affiliate stores – basically people like me sign up for Affiliate stores under a DecoNetwork Fulfullment center.

Someone asked me – why dont you use Cafe press? Well the benefit of choosing a DecoNetwork Affiliate store is that it’s local and personal – not a US corporation. The DecoNetwork fulfillment guys I have chosen are the same city as me, so my customers wont have to wait to get something shipped from the US. I can call the guys anytime and ask for specific products or to add my own swing tag, whatever.

Because my online store will be driven by my own social networks it makes sense to be local and help support small businesses in Australia. Plus I’m not competing with 1000s of other designers in the same space but instead be niche market focused.

Anyway that was a long one (again). Hopefully it made sense. Let me know if not.

Kristi: who is my online t-shirt store for?

Thanks for following our little experiment. I was thinking over the weekend about what the focus of my online t-shirt store would be.

I was just reading  this presentation by Jonathan Crossfield, Nett Magazine. He mentions this quote:

“You don’t start communities. They already exist. They’re already doing what they want to do. The question you should ask is how you can help them do that better. Bring them “elegant organisation”

Mark Zuckerberg – Creator of Facebook

Or you could say:

“People are already buying t-shirts. T-shirt stores already exist. The question I should ask is how I can I help them to do that better.”

So I’m thinking about people I know, people I’m connected with and what they tell me. When I wear a custom designed t-shirt people love it, they want one too – but they’re not sure where they can get one.

Then I think about the times I’ve wanted custom shirts – when I was at uni everyone got funny shirts for the end of year Uni party.  Stone week at UC, Conception Day at Club Mac, there’s always something. There were always different clubs and societies who had their own shirts. We’ve even made funny shirts for friends’ hen’s days and trips we’ve done. Sometimes, I just hear a really cool quote or do a little sketch and I think: “that would be cool on a t-shirt”. But it all seems too hard to organise.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d like to make this site for my friends, my family and their friends, clubs, teams who want fun custom shirts that are easy to make.

I really want this site to be shaped by lots of different people and their ideas. I’ll be asking lots of questions and throwing up ideas so let me know what you think. I need your help!