2 Years of work, still zero ranking

[redonion]

Well I'm sure there's a zillion posts like this, but what am I doing wrong? I tweet, I facebook, I have product listings in Google and Amazon, TheFind, Bing and a couple more. I've advertised using Google Adwords (Way too expensive for me to continue - currently just at $2 per day to stay alive).

I started putting in meta-tags, but now I hear those don't count so much and it's all about content. Well - I have lots of content.

Any, All ideas welcome. I'm getting really discouraged here.
thanks in advance,
~ Kathy

Red Onion Spice & Tea Company, LLC - Put some spice in your life!

[rrw]

Besides listing just your products, do you have any type of articles/information that could be useful to customers? Point being, if they find it useful, they repost or link to it which really helps.

Also, how about videos maybe describing some of your items, or how they might be used in various cooking techniques. Post those on YouTube and you'll get even more bang for your . . . nothing! It's free!

[Toobusy]

I have one question when looking at your website. As someone who knows little about spices, etc. I read about your company and I love it, but then there's the icons to share and one takes me to Amazon. I do alot of shopping at Amazon and I like their A-Z guarantee, no shipping because I'm a prime member, etc. so personally, instead of buying off your website, I'd purchase through Amazon. I'm getting the same product, but I'm "trusting" Amazon more than I'm putting my trust in you, individually?

This probably has nothing to do with rank, but it's just a personal observation. Why send someone/provide someone the link to go off site to make the purchase?

[wcsjohn]

What do you mean by zero ranking? While it's only part of the google algorithm, I see a PR3 for your site.

[elightbox]

Why send someone/provide someone the link to go off site to make the purchase?

Yea, business wise, if you spent on Google to get the customer to your site, why send them to Amazon and pay another 15% to close the sale??? It should be either or. Either they go to Amazon and you pay their commission, or you pay Google Adwords, however it is a loosing proposition to pay both.
And if you get the customer organically then it's gravy :)

[DeanP]

...it's all about content. Well - I have lots of content.

Red Onion - the text on some of your pages - and sometimes entire pages - are identical to content elsewhere on the web.

You may have lots of content, but if it's copied and / or not original, you likely won't rank well, if at all.

In addition to that issue, some of your products might be too expensive.

[NMTEACO]

Being in the same industry I can say the prices are not to high.

I would say the most important thing is to get OTHER people to link to you in blog posts, not your own blog posts. Also be sure your listed EVERYWHERE... there are lots of tea related places like steepster.com

I could not find a link to your facebook on your page. EDIT: I just looked again and did a search for facebook on your home page, which of course showed that you have a link. But its in the middle of your page. Facebook makes a nice widget that you can post on your site... we put ours in the about us section: About Us - NM Tea Co.

When you say you have been working for two years, what do you mean? Did you start out as selling just online? Because it looks like your just opening up your store now.

You have a GREAT opportunity being in Juneau! (I used to work on cruise ships)... get all those cruise people into your physical store, and give them all free vouchers for shipping once they get home. This will get tones of people talking about and using your website.

We have both a physical location and website, and the two work together to make both stronger.

As for the design of the site, you need to clean it up. Do a fixed width design. And take your own pictures! You can tell who your suppliers are by their pictures. (It also makes the site look inconsistant.)

[cbsteven]

This tread was started in 2010. Many of the original issues are likely resolved.

Not sure where you are seeing that. It was started 4 days ago.

[redonion]

Thank you much

Thank you much! That gives me a few things to work on. I'm only one person with a full time job as well so some may take awhile (ie - I need new photos of almost everything and new text = 300 hours). All good points.

Still not many visitors daily and now I have to reduce Google product ads to .50 a day since it's only about one purchase per 500 visits from there. What a waste of $ there. My page rank is 3? hmmm Is that okay for a small business like me?

Regarding cruise ships - we're way out in the valley so no tourists. Shops there start at $2k a month. (At least).

[redonion]

Being in the same industry I can say the prices are not to high.

I would say the most important thing is to get OTHER people to link to you in blog posts, not your own blog posts. Also be sure your listed EVERYWHERE... there are lots of tea related places like steepster.com

I could not find a link to your facebook on your page. EDIT: I just looked again and did a search for facebook on your home page, which of course showed that you have a link. But its in the middle of your page. Facebook makes a nice widget that you can post on your site... we put ours in the about us section: About Us - NM Tea Co.

When you say you have been working for two years, what do you mean? Did you start out as selling just online? Because it looks like your just opening up your store now.

You have a GREAT opportunity being in Juneau! (I used to work on cruise ships)... get all those cruise people into your physical store, and give them all free vouchers for shipping once they get home. This will get tones of people talking about and using your website.

We have both a physical location and website, and the two work together to make both stronger.

As for the design of the site, you need to clean it up. Do a fixed width design. And take your own pictures! You can tell who your suppliers are by their pictures. (It also makes the site look inconsistent.)

Awesome - very nice site, widgets store... just great! Thanks for the tips! I've been online for two years and just opened the store here. Thought about free shipping before - for orders over $40 maybe. Hmmm... Okay - lots to do. Thanks!

[redonion]

Since the purchase off Amazon doesn't cost me anything, I was thinking it would instill confidence in the product that we were listed there. Maybe it's just confusing then? Hmm - And perhaps I'm losing sales sending them there? Good comments.

[concession-supply.com]

We have received good results from the "send us an inquiry about this product" in each of our product listings. Basically, it's the recommend a friend feature that we modified to allow potential customers to ask a question before buying. No need to make a phone call, quick and easy, and lots of people like to not have to talk to someone. :)
Another was the number of products. Since we have a product base approaching 10,000 products, that really gets us coverage in the the search engines across a number of search terms and keywords.
Using manufacturer product IDs also helps, if you resell manufactured items. Many consumers search for products based on the ID or SKU or model number, etc.
Discoverring a niche product (a consumable, not found everywhere, helps drive in customers)
Finally, time. And more time.
We scraped by, essentially not earning much, if any, profit, all the while knowing, time is your friend. If you can stick it out without losing money, time will do the most good.
If you can hang in there 3 or more years, you should get consistent search engine results.

[jbanks6424]

Hi concession-supply I saw you not about modifying the "recommend to a friend" function into "email a question about this item"

I think that's a brilliant idea. So...I took a shot at doing it to my site.

Were you ever able to modify the text that appeared in the emails you receive?

I can't figure out where to change the wording in the messages that I am receiving. I got the rest to work.

---------
UPDATE. I found it - Settings - Design - Emails - "Recommend A Friend"