What Makes A Web Site Successful

[Kyle Boyd-Robertson]

I set up my store Paper Moon in November and have submitted to Google Base and Site Map, I have added Meta Tags to all my pages and have added links and I am still not having much luck. Please share what has worked for you.

[Bernie]

Kyle, I share your disappointment. My wife set up a site purely for pleasure earlier this year on a UK children’s classic TV character called Sooty - a hand puppet of a bear. I followed with an ephemera site and did everything by the book like you. For my wife, the ‘spiders that trawl the web looking for new sites’ (wonderful technical language/knowledge I don’t have) found Sooty before she had time to submit to Google and all search engines just seem to pick up on any phrase in her text. But for mine, if I put in a very specific search it is lost amongst irrelevances and I just don’t know why - its almost as if I have something switched off. There seems little point in doing all the hard work if one doesn’t get the traffic - for you with a commercial site it’s a whole lot worse. So, I await input from others with interest.

[Nancy]

Kyle
I had a web site for over 12 years, paperdoll.com I submitted to every site I could find and paid others big money to submit me and after spending 100's of hrs doing this I still sold 1000's times more on ebay and etsy sites.
I worked hard at shopping carts, listing 100's and 100's of photos, postcards, and other paper items. But after all that time never really sold enough on the web page to pay my house payment. I think it is much better listing on other sites and letting them do all the work with the search engines.

I just closed my paperdoll.com web pages last month. I only have a information page up right now, and link to my etsy listings. NO MORE Selling Web pages for me.

[Frank DeFreitas]

Kyle, a few thoughts . . . but first a little background (to qualify the thoughts):

Type the keyword holography into Google search here in the U.S., and you'll get 1,650,000 results. The #2 result is my own web site holoworld.com (#1 is the WikiPedia entry). It took years and a lot of hard work to get to that spot. I held the #1 spot in the world for years and years until WikiPedia. Today's web is not only more competitive than ever, but also bloated beyond belief. I would not want to try and make a fresh entrance into the online marketplace today (I went online in 1994). It really is a jungle out there. Literally. It's enough to make one shell shocked.

I am hearing more and more people say that they are either leaving the web entirely, or reducing their presence to just specific information and then following up the old fashioned way: via phone, fax, or through the mail (catalog, brochure, etc). I guess the pendulum is now just beginning to make a return swing. As someone who was an early adopter of Internet technology (including audio and video broadcasting back in 1996 -- now known as podcasting), I'm beginning to question the future of the web. Other's have been questioning it for some time now. I don't think that it's going to disappear or anything, but I do think that its best days are now in the past. Sorry that I cannot get more optimistic about it.

To be honest, I am finding that I am now having more success with "offline" correspondence, than any type of online. Offline correspondence is now the method that stands out to potential clients. At least for me. Online now is just lost in space. Sad but true.

My best suggestion: use the majority of your online presence to build your database of prospects (through providing information), rather than trying to sell. There's far too many sellers and far too few buyers online today.

[Ray Kirchmeyer]

Frank replied "To be honest, I am finding that I am now having more success with "offline" correspondence, than any type of online. Offline correspondence is now the method that stands out to potential clients. At least for me. Online now is just lost in space. Sad but true."


They say that everything comes around in a full circle. We are born wrinkled, bald, and helpless. If we are fortunate enough to live to a ripe old age we will die the same way. Maybe we have become too dependent on technology. How many times have you heard someone say "I can't live without my cell phone"? Do any children actually know how to work out math problems on paper or is it all done with calculators? Some people can't even tell time with an analog clock.

I like the idea of offline correspondence. An online ad sent by email could be sent to the spam file by your email provider or deleted without reading. Even if it is saved you still have to turn on the computer, log in, and open the email. A business card is right there in your wallet. A brochure might be laying on the kitchen table as you cook dinner. Much easier to access.

The proliferation of websites has made finding things on the internet not only difficult but also dangerous (viruses, spyware, identity theft, etc). My site is also difficult to find among the millions of sites out there. And I think these companies that advertise prime search engine placement are just more people trying to take your money to do something that with a little work you could do yourself. I have found that Ebay because of it's traffic is probably one of the better places to sell if you can put up with all their constantly rising fees and changing rules. Unfortunately they are very protective about people directing potential customers to their own sites.

My site is actually on hiatus at the moment (too busy) but I have found Craigslist as a viable alternative. I did an advertising blitz on Craiglist for another site I have and did very well. I may do the same later with my ephemera site. Since it is free to advertise there is no problem directing people to your own website. Also a MySpace or Facebook page coupled with joining groups formed by people with similar interests within these sites can link people with your site.

[Alana]

It is a lot of work, your doing just about everything, including learning SEO, online marketing, mechanics of a shopping cart, learning how to make the cart do what you need it to do. ETC....I have been running both my websites for a little over four years. The first year I hardly sold anything. I am now selling every day. These sites are the only place I sell and I pay the bills from them. But...lots and lots of hard work and lots and lots to learn. One reason I opened Creative Shop Talk forum for website owner support is that it really does have to be treated just like any other real business and includes a lot of business management learning and working with all the components that go into building and maintaining an online business. Stuff I did not know four years ago and stuff I did not dream I would need to learn but needed to make my sites profit for me.

I am at a point now where I am slightly cutting back some long work days and trying to minimize it to 8 hour days, it is started to work and I can actually look and feel and see life outside this computer. However, lots of things we don't know about the difference between selling and running a business. A website is a business and it really depends on how much you want to put into it. I don't like to pay for SEOs and marketing and all that Jazz, so my experiences have been hands own learning one step at a time.

I live in the Midwest, I sell all over the world, my biggest sellers are ephemera, postcards, old photos, and back issue magazines on my books site. It does work, but it does pay off to learn the inside and outs of online independent business because it is a whole lot of work.

I am fortunate to have a small community of support website owners who are willing to share with me on my forum and I have certainly gained from all that sharing as well. But honestly it is a lot of work...Did I just say that? LOL


I was here trying to upload some new images to my page, and my laptop has a mind of it's own so I am having to go reboot this thing again and maybe clean out the fan or something, but stopped in got at least 3-4 new postcards but not really the real good ones. Good to be here checking in.

I did recently moved Alana's Blog due to WAY....too many people copying my articles and posting them everywhere. I am building my articles up slowly on my own sites now. These copiers are killing me... I am duplicating everywhere in so many other authors names. LOL

Sometimes this online business is the pits but I can't tell you how many times I have wanted and almost pulled the plug on my sites....yet...I am still kicking selling and half way sane with lots more gray hairs four years later. I am finally totally independent as far as selling on my own sites goes, yet I am totally locked in to commitment and dedication, long hours, tough learning lessons, tweaks like you wouldn't believe and always always daily working those sites.

Always something every day to tend too, got to have your heart and soul in this and it is definitely not for the weak hearted.

Off to shut down this laptop and figure out what it's issues are this evening...