My wife owns/runs her own business (fashion/clothing market) and we're trying to figure out how to boost her web traffic & get more people into her shop (physical & online).

Anyone have some insight/tips on increasing traffic?

She hired a marketing firm for a couple months, but they resulted in no increase, after some not small $$ investment.

Thanks.

My niece is in this business and offers you these tips:

Ohhh and if you want to give this person any advice on the forum, tell them that to start, they should:
-SEO-optimize their website, using keywords that Google rates highly (they may need to do some keyword research for that) so they can show up high on the google results list when people search for whatever they’re selling
-create a weekly SEO blog to boost Google results, too
-set up regular social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (these posts can be created ahead of time and scheduled out for free using Hootsuite, an online app)
-spend 30 mins a day responding to social posts, commenting on tweets relevant to their industry, @ing people in tweets, using hashtags, etc.

Good luck.

Takes time and effort. There are no shortcuts.

In short, the search engines like fresh, unique content. Then you need to ensure you're "writing for the web" to use those keywords, within the posts and pages, headlines and alt tags for images.

If you're using the WordPress platform, you can use a tool like Yoast SEO to "take a score" of the content you're creating based on a keyword, phrase or keywords if you have the premium version.

When it comes to keywords, it's not rocket science. What two to three words would people enter into a search engine to find the businesses website? Those are your keywords. You may have a general business set of key words, plus keywords specific to the products you are selling.

Grammar counts, frequency counts, fresh and unique content counts...

Depending on where your audience is, social media platforms should be utilized.

Need to have a budget in mind for marketing efforts and commit to spending those dollars where it works (social media ads, AdWords, print, website, radio, TV...)

Thanks for the replies, will definitely forward those along.

Her online store is based in Shopify & she has it linked to her FB page.

There are no real short cuts or silver bullets, and run away from anyone who says there is.

Marketing and advertising, of all flavors, is expensive, constant, and often impossible to draw direct and verifiable causal relationships between the expense and any increase, and SEO and web based advertising is all the more that way, and always has been.

For years Google had an entire team whose sole responsibility was to work against SEO work because for them it's an attempt to manipulate their search results which undermines their goals. So for a long time it was like a constant Radar vs Radar Detector battle, month after month after month. I've seen clients spend many thousands just trying to stay on the first page or second of a basic Google Search result.

Source: IT/web based development guy since the first days of all this, having done significant work for fancy Vegas casinos, luxury international Hotels, Barret Jackson auto auctions, and other more local and regional businesses. I managed a team at a boutique firm who did this and more for 4yrs at one point, and we didn't do anything that wasn't several to tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars (though that included big websites too).

IMO, nowadays, there are a few flavors:

* one and done the basics that everyone else does (Adsense, Facebook, Instagram, etc), a simple presence everywhere that's relevant, sometimes including traditional media.

* an actual social media manager sort who works part to full time to make regular posts to all of these places and who cultivates a following and other strategies.

* guerilla marketing campaigns, Astroturfing, on the level cheerleading / representing and community building in various forums like here, etc.

* full solutions, like Mad Men meets Geek Squad.

Check references, require direct contact with prior clients, because too much of it is b.s.

Best of luck. It's tedious, often expensive, but seemingly a necessary evil.

edited

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Timdogg6,

quote:

Originally posted by Timdogg6:
[redacted]
not sure if it fits your business but it has been huge for me in getting google reviews which has boosted traffic big time

I will delete this message in 24 hours as I know my competitors follow me, so please write it down

Thanks, will check it out.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
My wife owns/runs her own business (fashion/clothing market) and we're trying to figure out how to boost her web traffic & get more people into her shop (physical & online).

Anyone have some insight/tips on increasing traffic?

She hired a marketing firm for a couple months, but they resulted in no increase, after some not small $$ investment.

Thanks.

My wife does graphic design and e-mail marketing. E-mail is in my profile.

quote:

Originally posted by SgtGold:
My wife does graphic design and e-mail marketing. E-mail is in my profile.

Not aiming this at SgtGold's wife. For all I know she's a legitimate email marketer. But, since email marketing was mentioned...

Be very, very leery of email marketing. There are many out there that use purchased lists, and purchased lists, even the so-called "opt-in" and "targeted" lists, are nearly always illegitimate.

I have received spam, which I define as "mass-marketing email on behalf of businesses with which I had no existing relationship and which I did not request" from even the most well-known, allegedly "legitimate" bulk-email-for-hire firms.

Every one of those well-known bulk emailers is blacklisted, permanently, on my server.

Businesses that spam me immediately go on my "do not buy" list, regardless of the product or service they sell, and regardless of how otherwise attractive said product or service might appear.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by SgtGold:
My wife does graphic design and e-mail marketing. E-mail is in my profile.

Not aiming this at SgtGold's wife. For all I know she's a legitimate email marketer. But, since email marketing was mentioned...

Be very, very leery of email marketing. There are many out there that use purchased lists, and purchased lists, even the so-called "opt-in" and "targeted" lists, are nearly always illegitimate.

I have received spam, which I define as "mass-marketing email on behalf of businesses with which I had no existing relationship and which I did not request" from even the most well-known, allegedly "legitimate" bulk-email-for-hire firms.

Every one of those well-known bulk emailers is blacklisted, permanently, on my server.

Businesses that spam me immediately go on my "do not buy" list, regardless of the product or service they sell, and regardless of how otherwise attractive said product or service might appear.

It's true, all of it. It also drives up the end user's cost because those lists aren't free.

I'm mearly offering to help out a forum member with possible information and/or advice. No purchase necessary, but batteries are not included.

quote:

Originally posted by SgtGold:

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by SgtGold:
My wife does graphic design and e-mail marketing. E-mail is in my profile.

Not aiming this at SgtGold's wife. For all I know she's a legitimate email marketer. But, since email marketing was mentioned...

Be very, very leery of email marketing. There are many out there that use purchased lists, and purchased lists, even the so-called "opt-in" and "targeted" lists, are nearly always illegitimate.

I have received spam, which I define as "mass-marketing email on behalf of businesses with which I had no existing relationship and which I did not request" from even the most well-known, allegedly "legitimate" bulk-email-for-hire firms.

Every one of those well-known bulk emailers is blacklisted, permanently, on my server.

Businesses that spam me immediately go on my "do not buy" list, regardless of the product or service they sell, and regardless of how otherwise attractive said product or service might appear.

It's true, all of it. It also drives up the end user's cost because those lists aren't free.

I'm mearly offering to help out a forum member with possible information and/or advice. No purchase necessary, but batteries are not included.

Email sent, thanks.