New E-Commerce Site Expectations

[cen28468]

Hi everyone.

We just launched a new e-commerce site Monday. I know it's only been a couple of days, but so far, we have not received a single order. However, traffic is great, as we are utilizing SEO, and pay-per-click pretty heavily to start out.

Should I be concerned? I would think after 1,000 or so hits I would at least have one order, or is this being to *****ious?

Thanks for your help.

[JEccles]

It would help if you included a link to the site or mentioned what it is that you sell. Right now you are probably getting alot of compairison shoppers that are holiday shopping.

In most cases, I think that you are going to need to be prepared to "carry" the site for 3-6 months. If you are in a real "niche" it would probably be less time.

[cen28468]

Sorry, here is the link.

[cen28468]

Sorry, LonniesMeatMarket.com.

Keywords and everything are good. I've been doing SEO and pay-per-click for a long time, so traffic is niche traffic.

[roban]

You've been on line since November 7th. Is that accurate? Give yourself 6 months,

You say your key words are good. You have no keywords. Here's your meta information:

<title>Lonnies Online Meat Market - Online Meat Market - steaks, seafood, beef, pork and lamb shipped to your doorstep.</title>
<meta name="description" content="Lonnie&#39;s Online Meat Market - The online meat market that ships steaks, seafood, beef, pork and lamb right to your doorstep." />
<meta name="keywords" content="" />

[cen28468]

Well, the site has only been live since Monday. It has been testing yeah for around the last month.

The use of Meta Keywords to rank your site has very little weight in search engines today. In fact, come even penalize you for it. I'm sure some will argue with this, but hey, that's SEO.

We are in the top 5 in google for "online meat market" and "online meat store," --two keywords I knew we could win with -- and that is without using meta keywords, so that is solid.

Check out this article if you want to see what I'm talking about. Death of A Meta Tag

Thanks for your help. I guess I just expected a few orders after 1,000 hits. I'm not sure I see the logic in the amount of time it has been online (i.e. 6 months). I thought the weight would be in the amount of traffic, not amount of time site has been up and going? I'm up for being proven wrong, so if somebody can explain.

[roban]

I'm familiar with the key word and meta tag myth and I refer to it on my SEO site in SEO Myths. I was referring to your statement that "Keywords and everything are good". I guess you meant in your content. Sorry my bad.

The weight is not the amount of traffic but in the weight of your targeted traffic. How do you analyze your traffic?

[cen28468]

I should have been more clear. What I meant by "my keywords are good" is that they are not general, and are very specific in pay-per-click. In other words, the traffic is specifically targeted so it should be quality traffic.

Because of this, as of right now, I'm just analyzing the traffic just by watching the pay-per-click campaigns.

[roban]

You might consider Google Analytics. As I am sure you know, it's free and will give you a wealth of information about site navigation and visitor loyalty that I am sure will benefit you.

[cen28468]

Yeah we had Google Analytics employed from the beginning, then all of a sudden it started slowing down the Flash so much we had to take it out. It was pretty disappointing.

I guess I'll wait it out. I just thought maybe I was being unrealistic in expecting orders this quickly. Guess I thought we would at least get one here and there out of that many site visits. Thanks.

[The Old Sarge]

cen28468,

Do you have a brick and mortar store?

Your website looks professional and behaves very well. If I may ask, who designed and coded it?

[JEccles]

One thing you are probably going to want to do is immediately, on the front page, talk about how you ship the products and keep them fresh. Many people (like myself) are leary of ordering perishable food over the internet. Plus you do not have anything really set up for the gift-giver (which is what most people online are right now). Put together some gift packs or ideas for your customers.

[cen28468]

Thanks all.

Originally, I had "Shipping" as one of the main top menu tabs. For some reason, they wanted "corporate accounts" up there instead, so I had to change it, but not with my blessing. However, I just added some quick text about our fresh and safe shipping procedures and linked it to the shipping page (which is now a site document at the very bottom ... that nobody will ever see!!!! ugh.)

[JEccles]

Your headed in the right direction. An attractive site with appealing products. Patience.

[cometmall]

Try adding online support, this way you can speak and ask visitors...