My site www.USStrings.com is over a year old. I have requested (received?) over 100 backlinks. I have put out 2 articles. I use AdSense. And, I've had over 20,00 'hits' (unique visits?) to my site.

I am going nowhere fast. I thought I had a plan - but, I don't. I am thinking about using a service like this one http://www.link-exchangers.com

What do you think? And how do I bid?

Much thanks,

I'd save my money if i was you. These types of "link exchange" programes are very much frowned upon by google and any participation in it is far more like to damage your ranking than it is improve it.

Hi,

Look! link exchange is not going to help much in the recent times. The algo of google is going to change recently. Here there will be more value in the quality contents which will help the visitors.

And I will strongly protest you not to go with this kind of link exchange program. If you need some link exchange then you can do it manually with some quality and relevant sites.

Hope the suggestion will help you.

Thanks,
Nancy

I agree with both Matt and Nancy. It seems like you're looking for quick results with the link exchange program and this isn't really about looking for quick fixes.

You mention getting 20,000 unique (visitors?) At a 5% conversion rate which is reasonable that would mean 1000 sales. Have you had that many? If not maybe the problem has less to do with the traffic and more to do with how well the site converts.

It could also be the traffic you're getting isn't targeted toward sales.

You're product is one that should lead to repeat sales. Musicians need strings and musicians break strings. Your customers should be repeate customers if you've done well by them.

I obviously don't know how many of those visitors have become customers, but before thinking you need more quick traffic it might be good to try working toward selling the visitors you are currently getting.

I know you've been at this for awhile, but you might try approaching things in a different way. Have you been making sales? And if so do you know where those sales came from? Did they originate through a search? Did they come to your site through a specific link?

Have you advertised offline as well as online. Are music stores in your area aware that you provide strings for guitars? More importantly do the people who frequent those music stores know you sell strings?

It's very easy to think that more traffic will be the savior of a business, but often there are other ways to increase revenue. If the first 20,000 people to visit your site aren't making purcahses there's no reason to think the next 20,000 or 40,000 will either.

If you don't already have a good analytics program to track what's going on with your site I'd highly suggest getting one. Look through your analytics to better understand what's going on when people visit the site. What pages do they come into the site and from where did they come? What do they do once on the site? Where do they leave the site?

Look into improving sales with the traffic you get first and once you've tuned the site to converting those visitors put the effort into getting more traffic.

and I couldn't agree more

conversions are what's vital for success not traffic or the amount of green showing on that stupid bar.

Steve and Chris - I've learned a lot from you both. Steve; you've helped me over the last year immeasurably, and I appreciate it!

I don't know a **** thing about the 30 people who have purchased something from me over the last year. That's right 30! That's it. I don't have a clue how I assemble and then employ the analytics you are referring to -- there's so little data and history to go on.

It might be that my site isn't all that hot! That my pricing / product selection is off. Perhaps the category is just too fractured and competitive. And, I don't have an ad budget to promote the site in media where guitarists are found.

What am I doing with this ... ?

Well for starters some googies on Back Links
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/seo-ta...cklinks-2.html

Moving along... You say 20k..is that HITs or Unique visitors? And is that the entire year?

Kind of important

Understanding some empirical traffic patterns is a good start ... then we can move to conversions V traffic....

Sound like fun?

Good Question

lgc252, In a way you are in quite a fortunate position. With your site you aren't limited to advertising online. What i would do is attempt to advertise in local music shops or guitar shows. Perhaps have some picks made up with your domain on it and hand them out.

In London we have the anual London guitar show which i usuallly try to make it to. And every time i go there i come home with probably 100s of pounds worth of picks, straps, tuners all given out for free.
Maybe something as simple as putting your domain name on some inexpensive things like picks and giving them away would boost sales. All you would have to do is put them in little pots and place them all around the Guitar show and let people help themselves. Then when people make an order throw in another few picks, And make it know on your site "20 FREE picks with EVERY order".

Something i noticed on your site when looking at your products page is that the box for ordering is only half visible. Im using firefox on linux. People are not likely to order if they can't fully see the order box or opperate the drop down box (see attachment)

First off, a hit is not the same as a unique visitor. A hit is something on a page being accessed. It could be text (like this), it could be a graphic, it could be a Flash file, it could be a CSS file, it could even be a Javascript. So on a page like this, for example, there could be 25, 30, maybe even 40 hits.

A unique visitor, on the other hand, is the person behind the computer typing away and clicking on all the stuff on your site.

What you should do is ask whoever is hosting your site to provide you with some form of stats package so you can look these numbers yourself, if you haven't already.

And when you're done that, you should solve what is likely your biggest problem in terms of SEO: your site's design. As st0x touched on, there are a number of rather significant design and coding errors that will turn users off of your site almost instantly. Fix those, and people will be more likely to share it with their friends and you'll receive a greater traffic and more importantly sales benefit than you would with shortcut SEO tricks like link exchanges.

I'd start with a Website Design Review on this forum if I were you. A number of the designers don't read this section of the site that will offer you sound advice if you just ask them. And the price is right (free!)

A few points I've noted in a few minutes as a "secret shopper"

I would expect the "View cart contents/Checkout" to be on every page especially if something has been added to the cart. probably Ok for "impulse" buyers and one offs buy could lead to a high abandon rate if a visitor can't locate where to checkout.

pages are a bit of a mish mash in some cases

Guitar strings have text links in red and underlined across the top BUT you also have a headline in red and underlined that isn't a link.
The Mfrs logos I expected to take me to a page for those products but it doesn't

bass, banjo etc have image links in the page centre so are more obvious where to click for more info / products

These are the small things that can and will have visitors leaving the site. As soon as you make them think, you have lost them.

Your header image is HUUUUGE. at 800x600 it takes up 50% of the page ensuring that most of your products are hidden "below the fold". Having your brand highly visible is one thing, but when it could be at the expense of conversions, it becomes a luxury.

Chris has some good observations. I also went in and added something to my cart and then continued shopping. It took a few clicks to find a button to view my cart again and I at least knew what I was looking for and how to find it. Most of your customers won't.

I think you've had the site designed twice already, but it probably could still stand some improvements like having links to the 'view cart' and 'checkout' on every page.

I also noticed when I went to checkout the form looks as though I've left the site completely, which I guess I have. I know it's still safe and you do too, but your potential customers might not. To them it might seem fishy that now that they're getting ready to hand over their credit card details there's a different look to the site.

I think you should be able to integrate the verisign form into the look of your site and it may help if people are abandoning their cart at this point.

Seemingly minor things can also greatly improve conversion rate. Here's a post I wrote about trusted logos improving conversions. If your visitors have more trust in you and your site they're more likely to buy.

As for the stats you must have something with your hosting account since you're reporting hits to us. See if tells you things like your top exit pages. Most stats programs will give you some data about that.

If you notice that your top exit page most months is somewhere in the shopping cart then it's probably an indication the cart might be the problem.

You can try to get a better analytics package too. Google Analytics is free. I think there are some other freebies out there as well as some pay ones. Google gives some good stats though and it is free.

You can get a better idea of where someone entered your site and what they did on your site and where they left. Maybe you'll find people did put something in their cart and went back to shopping and then left before making it back to the cart. If so then just having the view cart button on every page could lead to a lot more sales.

When you do look at stats forget completely about hits. Look for things like unique visitors, visits, and page views. Those are better indications of how much traffic you're really getting.

Guys I say this cause I care --- U may want to hold off.. this post is cut and paste in more than a few SEO boards... I have already asked him to state whether it is in earnest on another board

Your friendly neighbourhood SEO FOrum reporter

dave - gypsy ... whatever the hell your name is - bug off! I've been a member of this forum quite a bit longer than you. These folks know me and have worked well with me and I appreciate each one of them.

This is the reply I've left for 'GYPSY' at the 2 other forums:
Is there any reason at all while I shouldn't ask people whose opinions I trust and appreciate what their recommendations might be? Exactly what have you contributed, except a paranoid warning? I'm registered at 3 SEO forums. They have all proven responsive and willing to help. Replies to legitimate questions often come slowly or not at all. I'm just trying to get some advice.

Chill, man.

I would work on your design and get some PPC traffic...forget about those link exchange programs and try to submit to directories for links instead.

David, lgc252 has been on the forum here for awhile and it's all good.

lcg252, there are people who do post the same stuff at many different forums and kind of waste people's time and I think he was just trying to be helpful just in case.

We know you're not that kind of person, but in all fairness he didn't know.

Can't we all just get along?