Getting a few hits - no sales

My website (see my profile for address) sells Christian gifts (statues, angel figures, etc.) as well as home decor (statues, candles, vases, etc.), garden decor (statues, fountains, etc.) and various other gifts, etc. My site is still not listed on Google, or any of the search engines (it has been published for about 5 weeks). I placed an ad on Google's pay per click deal and was getting a little traffic (about 17-20 unique visitors a day). However, out of these visitors, no one was buying (I have yet to see my first online sale). I ran the ads (2 or 3 ads at a time)for about a month.

I have asked for a site review on the site review forum and have had generally positive feedback as far as navigation and ease of use. My visitors seem to look through most of my website but they seem to be "just browsing".

My products sell pretty well from my catalog, but don't seem to be popular online. I add new products often (almost daily) hoping that more choices will mean more sales - but not so far.

Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts on this? Please feel free to look at my site yourself if you care to. I hope that when my site gets indexed with the search engines and I start getting a little more traffic that sales will start happening. Any help would be appreciated.

P.S. I don't anticipate making a million off this site or even making a living (although either would be incredible!), but supplementing my income by about $1500 per month would sure be nice. Is this possible with what I've got?

The site looks like it was done by an novice. It lack the feel and layout of a professional site.

When you run adds, try using google. It is a cheap way to test and find out if the site is working out. In addition, you should not be landing people on your home page. You should be landing them on the page that is relivant to the ad words ad that you are running. People dont want to have to search your site for the iteam they want. They want to click on your add and come to the page that has what they are looking for.

site can use a little more professionalism like goervin states, but I feel it does look good enough to start.

You need to work on getting links to your site from related sites, not so much a competitor, but sites with similar themes. Such as gifts, christian, angels, catholic, etc...

Once you get a link from someone with a PR4 or better you should start being seen by google.

mommajan, I think the website is fine. Believe me, I've seen much worse sites make a lot of money. Don't worry too much about the site design right now.

You say that you tried PPC, and that's great. That's the way to get started getting quality traffic to your site. I know that no one has bought anything, but it could be a result of many factors (not enough traffic, keywords targeted, time of day or days of the week you ran the PPC campaign).

Start from the beginning: try using Wordtracker or the Overture suggestion tool to see what keywords to target for your products. Start with just one or two products at first. When someone clicks a PPC ad take them right to the page with the product on it. Try many different keywords at first and narrow it down once you see which keywords are converting for you.

Work on getting more links to your site. Don't worry about PageRank now, worry about getting listed in the directories and getting links to your site from appropriate places that are on-theme. Try sending out a press release. Try trading links with other Christian-related websites.

These things take time, so far you're on the right track.

Terrible site design, poor optimization, little SEO.

My first impression of this site is that it is another drop shipper site with poor qaulity merchandise at infated prices. The lack in continuity of site design and poor optimization will certainly cause this site to fail. If you paid someone to design this site, you should ask for a refund.

Some notes:
1. Your pages are HUGE. Your thumbnails are not optimized. Your gift ideas page is over 500Kb with images. That would take someone on a modem well over a minute to download that page.

2. You have few products above the fold. Use smaller images to get at least 3-4 products above the fold.

3. On page SEO. I notice that you use the name of the product in the title tag. If this is a dropshipper's store, you should consider that many of the other people using the drop ship company have the same title tags. Take some time of reform your product titles and descriptions to better match what people search for -- not the name of the product. Use www.wordtracker.com to get an idea of good search terms.

4. Consistent layout?? Some pages have qoutes others text etc. Make this consistent in each section. Ditch the font for a sans-serif font that is easy to read. Ditch all of the color changes between sections -- the site is not large enough to require color-coded categories.

5. Get rid of outbound links that do not generate sales. I notice some stats and other links on product pages. Why add a link that simple takes your visitor away from what you are trying to sell?


Not trying to be a jerk, but I cannot see how this site will ever be a success without more attention to detail.

From a merchandising standpoint..there's really no great impact on your main page that would lure a customer into moving further. You need to direct them and to keep their eye in a steady direction.

For starters I would divide that main section into at least 2 columns and remove that large cross figure/text. I'd replace it with a small welcome note as to what your shop is about and then give them some direction. Ex: What's new, What's hot. Your birdhouse section for instance? Show them a picture of one. Get your product images to about 100x100 in size and show them. You only have one product image on this page.

Personally I'd divide that main section up into columns, add your top product from each category, a brief desctription and then the words "more information" linked to that products detal page or category page.

The bottom line is..you need to entice the customer to go beyond your main page..and the current page you have there is not doing the job properly.

Your prices seem too high, comparing:

http://www.genericgifts.com/prod-50159.htm

to

http://mommasthings.com/birdhouses.html

and that was just a 2 second google search for birdhouse, bet i could find them even cheaper.

gp

put your web site's link on other relevent web sites which attracts more web traffic or exchange the link with those web sites.This can be done in the form of banner advertising.

~Pujitha Sendanayake~