wtl0715

I'm an accounting student, about to graduate college, and have been selling tactical equipment, hunting supplies, and other related products to police and hobbyists in my area for a short while. I work with three different drop-ship distributors and simply take an order and deliver it to the customer a few days later. My prices make it worth the wait.

I've made a little bit of money the old-fashioned way, but have slowly started getting my feet wet online. I've sold a few things on Ebay, but the fees are so steep that it's hard to compete. I built an Amazon store and have sold a few items, but the margins are ridiculously tight because of the fees (15% final value commission from Amazon, 3% fee from my dropshipper as I don't buy on credit).

I have the knowledge to run the business end, but not the internet marketing knowledge. I am thinking about using either a PPC or PPA program, but worry about wasting my money. Would I do well to start over, build my own website (probably hire someone to help), then worry about marketing?

I'm also considering spending a relatively small amount of money now ($100-$500) on PPC or PPA and just seeing how it goes. If I decide to go that route, can anyone suggest a program that might best fit my needs?

I'm also looking at Yahoo stores. I know the ads are always misleading, but it looks like their commission is 1.5%. How far from reality is that?

My last question is the most important. To make a website selling something like tactical equipment, in a market where there are TONS of choices and most products have innumerable alternatives, is it necessary to have hundreds and thousands of products on your site? Would it make sense to pick a handful of products that seem to sell well and just concentrate on those? The biggest advantage there is that I would be able to start stocking these products once I am sure they'll sell regularly.

And any basic advice that might point me in a better direction would be much appreciated. I understand that this post is the sort of thing that pops up here every day and gets flamed, but I don't really know how else to start than ask some dumb questions.

Thanks in advance for any help.

-WTL

ArtDeco

Get yourself some cheap hosting with an adwords discount for your offline store.
Have your host install wordpress and write a few pages of copy for your Amazon or eBay stuff or your offline store , and a few landing pages for your PPC. Try it out. Keep us posted.

Then add your SEO and Social bookmarking tricks after you know what your visitors are looking for.
No flames for that question.

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stmadeveloper

Let's try this (and I'll do my best to keep you under 500).

Step one: Let's do a little research for keywords (google keyword research or search in here - it's a hefty topic. Bottom line is you should have some mid level keywords in your domain name.

Step two: Buy a domain name. Let's go with namecheap.com (easy to use interface). Go with a .com with no dashes. Save a buck or so if you search for name cheap coupons.

Step three: Get hosting. Something like site5.com should do you fine (5 bucks a month I think).

Step four: Set your nameservers up - namecheap and site5 both have training to show you what to do.

Step five: Inside your site5 control panel you will find something called fantastico. Inside that are several open source shopping carts.

Install one - oscommerce is nice.

Step six: Pay someone about 200 bucks to design a template for that shopping cart. You can find some nice folks at sitepoint if no one here skins for oscommerce.

Step seven: Set up that shopping cart. Put all your products in, etc...

Step eight: Use fantastico again to install a blog at yourdomain.com/keyword. Use a free template available all over the place and make about 10 posts. Make sure you link from your shopping cart to your blog and vice versa.

Step nine: If i've done my math right you have about 285 bucks left to play with. Spend 85 of it on link services here at wickedfire. Save the rest for PPC ads.

That way if you blow it on the ppc end at first (you will) you at least have something -- and age is a great thing for Search Engine Optimization so getting started now instead of later is a good idea.

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acemenace

Step Three: Hosting - You can't beat Zensix - $15/yr

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kimboslice

Well There ya go.

stmadeveloper

Step 10: Build other websites to drive rankings, link juice, and of course customers to your main domain. If you've got lots of different types of products and lots of different keywords the same rules apply. Do your research. Buy the domain. Add content to domain. Link to main domain.

ONE DOMAIN CAN'T POSSIBLY BE OPTIMIZED FOR ALL YOUR PRODUCTS -- IT'S IMPOSSIBLE. SO TO DOMINATE - HAVE DIFFERENT DOMAINS (really that simple).

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Mike90

Don't waste you time ! i know a place you can learn everything . Make Money Online

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Who ever can help me enter any good aff network thanks a lot ! Anyway screw adsense and come one aff marketing !

stack paper

you're an idiot.

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assi9

^^ lol

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Lickity_Split

total douchebaggery!

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writtenstyle

So, would you use one blog for all your content, then SEO each page, plus run campaigns to promote each page, instead of the main site?

OK, I have a niche. I think I can get about 10 sub niches out of it using the long tails. I was thinking of creating 10 testimonial type one page sites. But, can I just create these in a category in my regular blog, then target one of those testimonials in a bum marketing or ppc campaign?
That way the user would have access to all my info, making me look like more of an expert, after they read customer testimonials.

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ArtDeco

Forgot to mention that you should get an autoresponder setup immediately with an opt-in form on your main page - maybe on all pages. You may sell more stuff via your email list than your landing page.

Here is a real resource - the WF treasure chest thread

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I believe in free speech like liberals used to, free markets like conservatives used to, and free software like programmers used to.