How to take the next step in growing my ecommerce business?

I am looking for some advice on how I can take my portfolio of ecommerce sites from getting by to thriving. Currently I either own or manage 5 ecommerce sites. They average 2000 unique visits per month on each site. Some are more profitable than others. We do basic SEO, Meta tags, Content, a few press releases, email campaigns, etc... For the most part we do what we think is the right thing to promote these sites. We do a little PPC and Comparison engines and no affiliate marketing.

I am frustrated when I do competitor research and find some competitors doing 150000 uniques per month. Any ideas on how you take the next steps to exponetially growing this business?

If it was easy everyone would do it :D - however I know we are web ecommerce capable and we can do this. I just wan tot be sure we are on the right path and have not missed the bus.

A url of your sites and of your competitors would be helpful.

Well you can either increase visits or increase conversion (or both). Do you have the proper analytics to study a visitors path, etc through your web site? Perhaps a little research will reveal some ideas for more convdersions.

BTW - meta tags really aren't important other than for info about the site.
What you need to do is get lots of quality links to your site out there. It is the most important aspect of SEO and drives direct traffic as well.

dkrusich
The best way to have a successful site is to have a great site. Content is always king and, if you offer the best shopping experience, you will attract customers. Be an informational resource. See what meta-tags your competitors use and emulate them- reflect them in content on pages as well as links and page titles - all of these are important (although people will always quibble and google goes back and forth on this - better safe than sorry).
You have not missed the bus- Ecommerce is just starting out - this is just the beginning of the gold rush. Work hard - create a great experience and grow rich!

I agree, there are still tons of opportunities out there... keep looking!

It sounds like you have combined some great components: Search engine optimization, Meta tags, Content, press releases, email campaigns, to name some of your examples. I feel that the internet has a high population of people who are looking to participate in opportunities that have a revenue source attached to it. Managing the time spent on the internet isn't always easy, justifying it by participating in some type of affiliate program is. There are quite a few individuals who refer affiliate links to increase awareness. Especially, if the referring individual has found an agreeable aspect or characteristic with that particular website. I would try locating an affiliate program that comes free with your processor and see if word of mouth spreads faster if there is an incentive attached to it. Most information does. Several features in our system can bonus referrers and incur no additional charges. There should be others out there as well.

Keep trieng there are lots of opportunities.

It's difficult to constructively respond to your post for a couple reasons:
1) As someone who does SEO for a living, I'm not sure what you mean by "basic SEO". That could mean just filling in meta-tags and repeating keywords in the site's content, or it could involve a dozen other things.

I don't think you mentioned anything about an external linking campaign--namely, getting a link to your sites posted on other websites that would be considered relevant and well-established. Google views incoming links to your sites as votes of confidence, and factors them into its ranking formula. Regarding search engine optimization, the second thing I'd want to know is if you've chosen keywords to use on your site that your prospective customers are actually searching for. Many ecommerce business owners make assumptions;) about what keywords their prospective customers are typing in the search engines, but if you haven't researched it, chances are you're way off the mark or you're choosing keywords that have so much competition that you'll have to struggle to make it to page two or three of Google search results (which keeps you pretty well hidden from most search engine users.)
2) I looked for your website URLs in your forum post and profile to take a quick look and offer some specific feedback. Unfortunately, I couldn't find your web address(es) listed anywhere, so it's difficult to give you any meaningful suggestions about your ecommerce marketing strategy

That being said, I'd recommend creating and posting as much keyword-rich, original content on your sites, which your site visitors would consider useful, interesting, or entertaining. Here's why: When other webmasters or bloggers like your content and want to share it with their own site visitors, they'll very often post a link to your web pages on their site. That not only results in some direct click-throughs, but, depending on the quality and relevancy of their site, it may also result in improving your "link popularity" and raising your rankings in Google.

So why don't you post links to your site and see if anyone offers some useful ideas or constructive criticism.

Hope that helps!

Mountain Media
Web site Design Ecommerce Hosting

http://www.mountainmedia.com

Edit by admin: one link per domain please, and do not link in posts unless asking for a site review.